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Sex was, by the account of some, a basic human need, much like eating and drinking.
He disagreed. He’d done well without it for more years than he cared to recall. Just as he’d never needed alcohol. He valued control over all else, and anything that might distract him had been weeded out as unnecessary. That said, he couldn’t lie. He’d been looking forward to that part of marriage.
The acknowledgment of it nearly made him laugh. He liked to think of himself as being entirely above desire, but that wasn’t the case. He was simply very good at keeping it on a leash. The hours he spent working out late at night were a testament to the fact that he was sublimating desire, rather than absent of it completely.
Leah was his wife. His real wife, per the new plan outlined this morning.
He repeated that, over and over in his mind, trying to make it real. Trying to incorporate it into his vision for the future. Trying to figure out where she fit in with his end goal.
There was a fund-raiser tonight, for one of Ajax’s favored charities and that meant that the personal things would have to go on hold for a moment. He would worry about the physical piece of the marriage later. For tonight, they would simply have to put on a show for the people and press attending the fund-raiser.
He closed his thoughts down, narrowed his focus. He walked through the house, his footsteps loud on the tile. He hadn’t seen Leah since their argument that morning.
He finally found her in the study, her laptop on her lap, dark hair piled on her head. She’d ditched the baggy sweatshirt in favor of a T-shirt and yoga pants. She had a pen in her mouth, four bags of candy in front of her, with the highly recognizable pink-and-green-polka-dot logo associated with Leah’s Lollies, and she was typing furiously.
“I see your things arrived.”
She paused and looked up, golden eyes round. Then she straightened and tugged the pen from between her lips. “Yeah, and I had a few issues to deal with.”
“Chocolate emergency?”
“You’d be surprised. Some quality control stuff. I had to go and grab a few random bags of product to run an unofficial check. I haven’t found any problems, but I guess some deformed butterscotch high heels went through to the boutiques. I’m not very thrilled about it. Actually, Holt is my manufacturer, you know. I pay them, it’s all aboveboard, not a nepotism thing.”
“So you’re a client in addition to the Holt Corporation holding shares.”
“Indeed.”
“But now you’ve married into part ownership of Holt. I would suppose that means the shares are passing back to you in many ways. And now you own more of Leah’s Lollies.”
“One of my wins. One of the very few.”
“Perhaps few in this situation, but in general, it seems you’ve had quite a few. This is what you always said you wanted. You were always telling me about your ideas for a store. Pink, you said. It would be pink. Now they make paint that comes in Leah Pink, don’t they?”
She cocked her head to the side, a line creasing her forehead. “How did you know that?”
“I read about your work.” If there was a news article about her on a website, he clicked it, naturally. And occasionally, he was enticed to do an internet search to see how things were doing. Because it was nice to see how things were going for her. Because she was Rachel’s sister. It was only natural.
“Oh. Huh.” She looked back down at her screen, then back up. “Sorry, did you need something?”
“I forgot to mention that there is a charity event tonight Rachel and I planned on attending. Given the circumstances surrounding our marriage I’m certain the media will be there, and they will be waiting for the story.”
“You mean...we have to go to this?”
“Yes. If we miss it...if we miss it we’re inviting speculation. I will not give that to the public. I’ll not give it to Christofides.”
She put her hand on her forehead. “Oh, jeez.”
“Yes. Have you got a gown?”
“I have several. It’s a bad habit of mine, buying dresses that I don’t really have any reason to wear. Don’t judge. Everyone needs a hobby.”
“Well, in this case it seems it’s served us both well.”
“I suppose.”
He looked at her, and more specifically, at the way she wasn’t looking at him. Not really. Not the way she usually did. Usually when he looked at her, he saw the girl with sparkling eyes.
She looked different now. No glitter. Her face a bit more drawn, sculpted. And she seemed tired. He’d never seen her looking tired before. Leah was a woman of endless energy, at least she’d always seemed so to him. A constant sugar high that never seemed to end.
