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“Just that, right? Nothing else? Really?” I frown, confused by the needless repetition of the question and the way her body flinched as she asked.It’s only when she looks away from me that I realize what’s being said between the lines.
“I don’t need a wife to fuck, Antonella.I can do this with anyone...” Again, her face shows shock.She opens her mouth, and her chest swells with the deep breath she takes, but she closes it without saying so much as a word. Astonished. Clear as water, I see the astonishment all over her face. “Honesty, remember?” I remember, and she narrows her eyes at me.
“Honesty and rudeness are completely different things.” She spits out the words and crosses her arms over her chest, with a long face.
“You’re a delicate little thing, aren’t you?” I speak more to myself than to her.Her body fidgets around in the chair, squeezing itself even tighter into itself. “It’s just sex, Antonella...There’s no need for all of this.”
“How’s that going to work? Because I’d have to keep up appearances, but you wouldn’t?” She narrows her eyes at me.
“I can be discreet...” I answer, and she mutters under her breath something that sounds a lot like “your father would disagree...”
“What if I want to be discreet?” she asks with a raised eyebrow and a clear challenging posture, making me give her a crooked smile.I bend my body, getting a little closer to her and being struck by the smell of her skin.It’s citric... it’s good... and I shouldn’t be thinking about it...
I clear my throat and rest my elbows on my knees.
“You?”
“Yes, me…” I can’t stop the giggle that comes out of my throat.I purse my bottom lip out and nod my head in agreement.
“As long as you keep up appearances...” I say just to say, because I have no doubt that this will never happen.
However, despite the prospect of having my wife fuck others not being encouraging, the certainty of impossibility is not either. I straighten my posture, putting a necessary distance between us and hoping that the gesture will convey as much or more than the next words I say.
“I need something to be very clear.This is a convenience marriage with an expiration date and it will never be more than that.I need you to really understand, nothing else is going to come out of this...”
It’s her turn to read between the lines.
“You’re afraid I’ll fall in love...”
“It would be tragic, because this” I make a sign between the two of us “isn’t some kind of modern fairy tale.I’m not a fucking prince charming who saves Cinderella.I am a man with interests, which, at this moment, you serve.Nothing besides that. Is that clear?”
“Clearer than water.”
“Great!” I get up from my chair and reach for a black envelope on the table.I extend it to Antonella, who looks at my hand with a frown. “I don’t expect you to answer me now.I’ll give you two days off, when you get back, I hope you return as my fiancée.In the envelope is the contract I’m proposing, if you have any questions, we can discuss it on Wednesday morning. I’ll wait for you for breakfast.”
“What if I don’t accept it? Am I going to be fired?”
“No...Unless my future wife wants to bring her own cleaning staff…” I play with the words she said to me earlier and I get an eye roll.She reaches out, takes the envelope, and then stands up without calculating how close we’ll get with the movement.
With her standing, only a few inches separate us, and, being taller, I am obliged to look down to see her.My eyes search her lips as a natural reaction to closeness, after all, that’s the only purpose of being so close to a woman, or at least until now it had been.
She exhales hard and blows warm air into my chin.
“Good night, Mr. Mar...” She interrupts her own speech and clears his throat. “Good night, Marcos.”
“Good night, Antonella,” I say, however, I don’t take the necessary steps backward for her to pass.A second, maybe two, but I frown at the strange feeling that hits me and squeezes me, telling me that she being so close shouldn’t feel so right as it does.
?
Her scent lingers in the office even hours after she leaves, as do I.I let my head lie on the back of the chair and close my eyes.Desperate situations, desperate measures.And even I am able to recognize that proposing to my maid is a desperate move.
A week ago, marked three months of the six I was given to present to the board a substantial change in my behavior.It was four months without uttering any words that were not essential to my new secretary, being the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave it.It was four months of capturing new clients with the intention of minimizing the effects caused to my image by the loss of the one who caught me in the act.
It’s been four months of being what I promised my father I would be, even if he no longer believes I’m capable of being: the heir to his legacy.And to be honest, it didn’t hurt or cost me anything, other than that the change in the way people see me or treat me, however gradual, wasn’t bad.
Despite having told my father that I would marry to satisfy the board, I really hoped that after four months of impeccable posturing, they had changed their minds about this preposterous idea.
However, seven days ago, I arrived at the office to find Murillo, one of the names my father had told me months ago that was being suggested to replace him, smiling and haughty, flirting with one of the secretaries on my floor and bragging that he would soon be the firm’s new managing partner.
