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Laila hummed and then reached across the table, tucking her fingers under my stubbly chin and lifting until our eyes met. “I’m glad it’s just us here again,” she purred, dragging her thumb across my bottom lip.
Her glossed lips split in a smirk when I breathed in sharply, mistaking my shock for excitement. She stood and rounded the table, coming to stand behind me and massage my shoulders delicately. Laila’s fingers slipped beneath the collar of the robe as she cooed, “how about we go mess around, Joshie? It’s been so long since I’ve had you inside of me.”
I stiffened when her hands unintentionally brushed over one of Amelia’s bruises and I bolted out of my seat, tugging the robe tighter around me. Laila stared at me like I’d become possessed and I plastered my signature smirk on my face before gently grasping her shoulders, explaining, “I’ve got a lot of work to do today, Lai. Maybe later.”
Her skeptical, icy-blue eyes roved over me and to ease her suspicion, I pressed a kiss to her forehead, something I’d done to calm her down ever since we were first married. “Whatever you say,” Laila sighed, clearly disappointed that she hadn’t been able to seduce me. “I have to get going anyway. There’s this new art exhibit in town that wants me to model for their next series on climate change.”
“That’s great,” I said, turning on my heel and walking toward my office with the intent of calling Anthony as soon as Laila was gone. “See you later, honey.”
That endearment fell falsely from my lips but I doubted Laila cared as she puttered around, gathering her things to leave. Once my office door was shut and I heard Laila scurry out the front door, I immediately dialed Anthony’s number, eager to hear what he had to say on the situation that I thought would be solved by Amelia’s absence.
As it turned out, I was right when I said absence makes the heart grow fonder, only now I had changed my mind and my heart wanted Amelia again. To my surprise, Anthony picked up on the first ring. “Hello, Josh! How’re things?”
“They’ve gotten worse,” I admitted with a grimace, skipping right to the details of my dramatics. “Amelia left this morning.”
“I thought that was what you wanted,” Anthony replied, sounding confused. “The other day you were talking about how difficult it was to remain focused on Laila with Amelia still at the house. You know…that whole pool thing you told me about?”
I removed the robe and paced around my office in only my pajama pants, mumbling, “I remember. But we slept together again last night and now I know I’ve made a mistake.”
“Josh,” Anthony sighed wearily, “what did I tell you to do like two months ago, dude?”
Thumping my hand against my desk, I answered glumly, “Figure out what I wanted and go from there.”
“And were you able to do that?”
“Obviously not.”
“Why?” he asked sincerely. “It sounds like you’re patching things up with Laila again—”
“Look, I know I have a problem when it comes to commitment,” I interrupted, fed up with this new problem that seemingly sprang from me feeling loved again after Laila had denied me for so long.
“Why?” Anthony inquired again, playing the part of a therapist which I clearly needed.
I stood in silence for a while, glaring up at the portrait of Laila and me which hung above the fireplace behind my desk. Finally, I said, “Because I thought Laila loved me and now we’re getting divorced. And then I thought Amelia loved me but the second we started having problems, she started seeing her boss instead and only fucked me when he wouldn’t satisfy her.”
“It sounds like you’re carrying a lot of resentment,” Anthony mused and I could hear the squeak of his desk chair in the background as he leaned back. “Do you want to know what I would do?”
“Yes,” I spat, fed up with making my own choices and being angry when they didn’t turn out.
“Finalize the divorce with Laila. Even if you’ve rekindled some of those old feelings, your attachment to her is clearly what’s keeping you from being happy,” my best friend answered clinically.
My mouth opened and closed several times in a flabbergasted manner. “But you’re the one who was always pressuring me to fix things with her in the first place!”
“I know,” he acknowledged, “and it might have worked out if Amelia hadn’t come along. Face the facts, Josh—it would’ve been incredibly easy not to sleep with her last night, right? I mean, I’m sure it would have been easy to channel that passion into Laila instead…she’s already started flirting with you again, hasn’t she?”
I hadn’t thought I would ever be so gladnotto have had sex with a woman who clearly wanted it, because the more Anthony spoke, the more it made sense. “Even when Laila came home, you were still unintentionally ‘choosing’ Amelia,” Anthony continued bluntly. “And when you and Amelia started having problems, you probably didn’t put as much effort into fixing them as you could have because there was still the possibility of Laila.”
It was a hard pill to swallow—my own romantic inadequacies stemming from my ex-wife who I thought I’d gotten over—but Anthony was right. I’d been acting as immaturely as Amelia because I hadn’t been forced to solve the troubles that arose and instead had kept my thoughts to myself as I shifted my focus, stupidly, to Laila.
“Thanks, Tony,” I breathed, settling onto the makeshift bed which occupied the other half of my office. “I…you’re right. I wasn’t ever pushed to treat Amelia like anything more than my current girl because in the back of my mind, Laila was still there.”
And then there was silence before Anthony spoke again. “Glad to help, dude. Listen, I’ve gotta get some work done but you call me after you do what you’ve gotta do, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, Tony,” I replied and hung up, tossing my phone onto the plush mattress behind me.
Now that I let myself consider this new path, I realized that every jolt of excitement I’d been getting from being around Laila lately had been because there was a chance Amelia was watching. I’d been showing off for her, inadvertently displaying my mating prowess like a brilliantly colored peacock in the hopes that she would leave her boss and be with me again.
Of course, there were other issues I needed to work out privately—for example, my readiness to abandon her the second Amelia put up a temporary, professional boundary—but first I had to deal with Laila.
