AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you know what I walked into?” He felt unsteady on his feet and managed to make it over to the railing where he could hold on to something. The last thing he needed was the humiliation of falling on his face. “Did you know the whole time?”
Emil sighed. “Do you want the truth, or will it make you feel better if I lie?”
Victor had always liked Emil’s very faint accent. Now, he hated everything about him. “I want the truth.”
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m not going to tell you. I don’t want you telling anyone where I am. Especially them.” Victor was nothing if not a practical man, and he knew damn well a confrontation would only end ugly. And expensive. “Did Charlie call you?”
“He texted. He’s panicking, and he wants to see you.”
“He was fucking my fiancée”—the words came out flat, matter-of-fact. The pain was there, but he didn’t seem capable of expressing how he was feeling. It was odd, even for him—“in our bed, and he wants to see me? For what? To get knocked out?”
“It might make you feel better to punch him.”
Victor couldn’t help a laugh. “It would makehimfeel better if I punched him. He’d take it as the road to forgiveness.”
“And you’re going to throw away—”
“Don’t,” Victor snapped, interrupting Emil’s attempt at some impassioned plea for history and friendship. “This isn’t the time.”
Emil sighed quietly. “What are you going to do?”
“Take a shower,” Victor said. He could smell the sick on his feet. Luckily, he’d only eaten a light lunch. He’d been coming back to the penthouse to grab a thumb drive he’d left in his office. Alice was supposed to be in Mexico with her bridesmaids. According to his flight tracker, the jet had taken off at nine that morning.
He almost started laughing, which he was pretty sure was the shock settling in.
“I threw up,” he said.
Emil sucked in a breath. “Vic…”
“How long have you known?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
At that, hedidlaugh, covering his face with one hand. His fingers smelled like ink because he’d used a fountain pen earlier that day to sign contracts. It was something his grandfather had always done. It was something he’d dreamed about doing since he was a teenager. Such a weird thing for a teenage boy to fantasize about, but Victor had always been a little…
Weird.
To put it kindly.
He shook himself out of his spiraling thoughts, not sure where the hell his mind was at. “I know this isn’t the first time they’ve been together. They weren’t fucking like what they were doing was a mistake.” For the short ride to the hotel, he’d blocked most of it out, but he’d seen too much. Charlie had been holding her tenderly, rolling his hips against hers, fucking the breath right out of her.
Everything Victor had never done.
With the two of them, it had been quick, and sometimes dirty, but usually like a chore they were both trying to get over with.
God, it was no wonder.
It was no goddamnwonder.
He cleared his throat. “How long have you known?” he repeated.
“A month.” Emil was lying, but it was close enough to the truth that Victor decided to drop it. What did it matter? There was nothing to salvage between him and anyone who’d known.
“Are you going to tell Hannah?”
At the sound of Charlie’s wife’s name, Victor froze. Jesus, it wasn’t just his life that was turned upside down. It was also a young, frankly lovely woman and their two children, who didn’t deserve this bullshit. And Victor was no fool. Their social circle was ripe with wives and children on one side and mistresses on the other.
