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“Yes.”
“We resumed that conversation.”
“That sounds fun…”
Minutes later, a knock sounded on the door.
“That was fast.”
I left the bed and opened the door buck naked.
My butler gave no reaction as he handed over the tray and walked away.
I kicked the door shut and carried our dinner to the dining table.
“Guess he’s already seen you naked?” she teased.
“More times than he wishes.” I set everything down and took a seat.
This time, she helped herself to my drawer without asking, picking out a gray shirt I used to work out, and took the seat across from me. Her makeup was smeared from fucking and resting, but there was something sexy about it. Her lipstick had rubbed off on my dick, and her eye makeup had smeared across her cheeks from all the tears. I preferred her this way, thoroughly fucked.
We ate in silence, our eyes sometimes on our food and sometimes on each other.
Her mood suddenly dropped. I could see it on her face, see it in the way her body slouched. She hardly looked at me.
“What is it?”
Her eyes immediately lifted to my face, a bit alarmed, like she’d been lost in her thoughts.
“Something’s bothering you.”
“How do you do that…?”
I shrugged. “Years of practice. Learning people’s tells is essential to staying alive.”
“I thought you used to be married or something…”
I drank from the wineglass.
“Have you ever been married?” she asked when I didn’t respond.
“No.”
“Girlfriend or anything?”
We'd broached a subject I wanted to ignore, but she shared her life with me and I should do the same. “I had a relationship for three years.”
“Oh…” She set down her fork and looked at me, like she couldn’t believe that fact. “I didn’t realize that. Why did it end?”
I didn’t want to talk about her. Didn’t want to think about her. “What’s bothering you?”
She took a moment to digest the question before she allowed me to change the subject. “I’m sad this is going to end soon.”
“Do you say that to all your clients?”
She went rigid on the spot, her eyes hardening into savageness.
I’d clearly said the wrong thing.
“No,” she said. “I’ve never said that to anyone.”
The days passed quickly.
She had her nanny stay with the kids every night so she could be with me, and while we never addressed our upcoming end, it was the topic of every stretch of silence. Her mood sank deeper and deeper, and despite her best effort at keeping the conversation light, there was always doom in her eyes.
I took her out to dinner the last night, a fancy place with reservations a year out, but I could walk in whenever the fuck I wanted because I owned the place. I didn’t tell her that, and she didn’t raise any eyebrows when we walked inside without even giving a name. She’d quickly become accustomed to my life, the ease of it all.
We finished our dinner and enjoyed our wine, exchanging long looks across the table. “Why did it end?”
It took me nearly a minute to deduce her meaning. Camille. “She left me.”
Her eyebrows jumped up her face in utter astonishment. There were no follow-up questions.
I hoped that was the end of it.
“Wow, what a stupid girl.”
Our relationship would end in the morning, so I didn’t bother sharing the story, sharing the parts of me I wasn’t proud of.
“Looks like we have something in common.” She drank from her glass. “Did you refuse to marry her?”
“No.”
“Did you refuse to have kids with her?”
“No.”
“Then what the fuck did this girl want?”
It was hard not to smile, to find the situation ironic. “Not me.”
Her eyes started to fall, like she pitied me.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Feel bad for me. I’m over it.”
She continued to study me. “I know what it’s like to watch someone you love just walk away. It gets better…but the scar will always be there.”
I turned my attention to the other people eating in the restaurant, wanting this conversation to die and never return from the dead.
“Are you sad this is over?”
My eyes shifted back to hers.
Her eyes were glued to mine, desperate for the reaction she wanted.
“I knew our time was limited.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m not happy about it, but I’ve been prepared since the beginning.” I enjoyed our time together, but I never got attached. She was just on loan, a temporary solution to a much bigger problem. When I thought about her fucking a new client, it soured my mood, but I didn’t let it anger me. “It is what it is.”
I ordered the car around to take her home, and I walked her out to the sidewalk to say goodbye. It was a cold evening, a cloudless night that let the chill deepen even more. My breath escaped as vapor, and I watched the same release from her nostrils.
She stared at the car for a moment, as if the last thing she wanted to do was get inside and drive away. She turned back to me, sadness heavy in her eyes, her emotions visible on her sleeve.
