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“Well, your time is up,” Axel said with a sigh. He rejoined the party. The sky vaulted across the screen for a moment and then righted on his face again. His jaw flexed as he scanned the crowd. A group of entirely naked women flashed on the screen behind him. “Hope you got what you wanted out of this, Cora. Because this is the absolute last time you’ll get what you want out of me.” He sent a tight grin to the phone. “Happy dreaming about my cock.”
The video chat ended abruptly, leaving me in a painful silence. I stared at the ghostly reflection of my face in the screen of my phone, both stunned and sated.
As time ticked by, logic caught up with me.Why on earth did you do that?I couldn’t make sense of it, only that Axel was shaking something inside me loose. I didn’t mind.
Even if he refused to ever speak to me again, he’d gifted me something in his brief reappearance in my life. I just had to continue to unwrap the present.
After I’d spent enough time poring over my actions and staring at the ceiling, I slowly dressed, ready for bed. I snatched up my vibrator at the last second, almost forgetting it in the crease of the couch. Part of me was still irrationally jealous of whoever accompanied Axel at his rooftop party.Giovanna.The man probably had a rotating door of women. How could he not? He was funny, smart as hell, and built like a god. He was my dream man, which meant he could seduce any fucking woman in Manhattan.
I stewed over this fact as I shuffled into the bathroom and washed my face. I had no right to him. I’d broken up with him, forced him out of my life, and married another man. I was the last person who had any bearing on his life.
Except I’d done those things to protect him.
The soft underbelly of my heart didn’t care that I’d taken the wrong path for a higher good. I just wanted to be back in Axel’s arms.
A rustling sound caught my attention and I straightened, listening over the rush of water in the sink. It sounded again, almost like footsteps. I turned the water off and listened harder.
Thud.
Anxiety slithered through me, making my limbs hot and heavy. I hurried out of the bathroom, almost afraid of what I might find.
Eli.
He stood with his palms pressed against the kitchen island, a smarmy smile stuck to his face. He’d always been classically handsome, but tonight in the bright lighting of the kitchen, his features were twisted. Ugly. He watched me with uneven eyes. Drunk as fuck.
“Eli, what are you doing here?”
He hefted with a humorless laugh once and then again. “Can’t a man come home to his wife?”
“Oh, please.” I wanted to add more, but I swallowed the words. “You should head back to the house and go to sleep.”
“Should I?” He took a few uneven steps toward me. “I think you owe me after what you pulled tonight.”
“Eli,” I said, ready to roll my eyes and serve him this grief right back to him. But something behind his words made me tense, told me to tread carefully. Maybe it was the quiet whisper of my intuition, but I made an effort to keep my tone neutral. “I’m sorry for leaving like that.”
“Yeah, fucking right you’re sorry.” He swiped at the decorative vase on the island, and it soared into the backsplash behind the oven. It burst into pieces, the loud smash making me jump. “All you are is sorry anymore. A sorry fucking excuse for a wife. A sorry fucking excuse of a woman.”
Panic clenched me, a crushing grip that rendered me immobile. I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Maybe he was right. I was a sorry excuse for a wife and a woman. Even though we hadn’t married for love, I’d promised to collaborate with him. And I’d spent the entirety of our marriage figuring out ways to escape him. To avoid having his children. All the way down to hiding my birth control and pretending to be confused or upset when I didn’t get pregnant each month.
“Unless you’re ready to prove that you aren’t,” he spat, lurching toward me. “That would be fucking nice, wouldn’t it? A wife that puts out.” Eli was in front of me before I could even consider moving away from him. He grabbed my arms so roughly that I cried out.
“Eli, you’re hurting me.” My voice shook with my attempt to remain neutral.
“Oh, come on. Don’t act like that. How fucking long has it been, Cora?” His breath washed over me in a sickening wave of alcohol. I didn’t even want to imagine how many drinks he’d had after dinner. Where he’d gone. How many hours he’d spent bathing in his resentment. “When’s the last time you let me fuck you?”
I tried to jerk my arms from his grip, but he held tight, his fingertips gouging into my biceps. “Eli, just let me go.” It was impossible to hide the panic in my voice. He’d sense it like a shark after blood.
Because for however new this arrangement was—my living in the condo—his drunken rage wasn’t. This wasn’t the first time he’d asked for more than I was willing to give. His pasttime over the last couple of years was talking down to me and then acting like it had never happened.
But tonight was different. It was worse. No, the worst. My heart hammered as I tried to spot an exit route. Eli was normally adept at keeping the drunken abuse just this side of negotiable. Brazen but still within the bounds of “Oh come on, I just drank a little too much.” But this time, fear flooded every inch of my body. Just how far would he take it tonight?
I’d been playing it too fast and loose with him. The guilt had been slowly accumulating, threatening to swell up and drown me. Now with Eli here, part of me believed I deserved whatever he gave me. Because even though I hated him and had never wanted to marry him, he was still my husband.
“Maybe we just need to get it over with.” He hauled me down the hallway toward the bedrooms. “Break the seal, you know?”
I tripped and stumbled behind him, unable to follow his drunken gait. But even in this state, he could overpower me. Hurt me. Make me wish I’d never fought back.
“Eli, you are way too drunk for this right now.” My voice trembled as he led me into the bedroom. He shoved me toward the bed. I lurched forward, falling face first into the bedspread. My heart pounded against my ribs. Every inch of my body was on high alert now.
