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“Rich Donahue had nothing to do with it,” she says, leaning forward. When her lips get close to mine, she pauses and adds, “It was all your girl, Carter. She met with Donahue, opened up her weeping little playbook of pity, and paid for it. I just did my job and reported the news, Carter. I can’t help it if the woman doesn’t know any better.”
“Know any better?”
“Yeah. She thinks you and her are nothing, but I would value being with a man like you again. I always knew you were loyal deep down, and you were almost loyal to me before. If you would just let me prove how worthy I am, I could show you how being loyal to me would never result in a mistake like that.”
She leans in, nearly about to kiss me, but I stop her just in time. I shove her into the wall and take a few long steps back, watching the betrayal spit on her face. She looks furious and wounded, and I almost savor the sight of it before shaking my head, grabbing my coat, and heading outside.
She doesn’t follow.
Maybe she isn’t as completely stupid as I think she is.
Ernesto picks me up with a confused look in his eye, but he doesn’t mention it. We drive home in downtown traffic without a word shared between us again. I prefer it that way. I need the time to think, to consider what Lilian said. She has no reason to lie when she thinks she’s getting something out of the truth being told.
Maybe Rich Donahue and Isabella meeting up was just an unfortunate happenstance. It does worry me to think about Lilian following the woman I love around aimlessly, with a camera aimed at the ready to ruin her, but I have to be realistic at the same time.
Isabella wouldn’t be caught dead in a similar predicament like that again, not after the words we threw at each other almost a week ago. Lorenzo has been watching her during the day, sometimes Tristan taking over the task just to make sure she doesn’t sneak out again and stays safe at home. From what I’ve heard, she hasn’t tried to go out on her own lately.
She did promise to do better, but that may have been overkill. She was already perfect, and knowing that it was just supposed to be a harmless coffee date with her best friend that turned into an online frenzy of harsh critiques makes me feel worse and worse as we get closer to home. I laid into her when she was already fresh off the fire, and I shoved her right back into the hot coals.
Earlier, Ernesto mentioned the family waiting for me at Anita’s place for another meeting about the progress at the docks and downtown, but I head home instead. The door opens and shuts, the sound the only thing filling this large, echoing house.
I check the bedroom first, then her office, but I don’t find her anywhere. It makes me a little worried to think she’s tried to leave because of the unease between us lately, but it’s not fucking possible. She knows better now.
I know she does.
I open the door to the basement and hear the hot tub running its bubbly cycle. I shut the door behind me as I descend the stairs, seeing Isabella in the pool, her lightly tanned figure passing under the surface with nothing on but a tiny bikini.
There’s not much I’m thankful for, but I can at least be mighty grateful for the invention of a string bikini on a woman’s body that absolutely wears it right.
She comes up for air, holding onto the edge of the pool opposite from me. Without noticing I’m on the stairs, she gets out of the water and crawls over the barrier into the hot tub. She whines at the sudden shift in temperature, and her face is bright pink by the time her eyes meet mine.
“Carter, when did you—”
I hold up my hand, silencing her without anything but a simple notion. She recedes into herself, guarded and understandably so. I come to the edge of the hot tub and look down at her. The glimmer in her eyes is stunning, and the purse of her perfect lips is everything I need to see today.
They probably feel even better, too.
“Stand up, dove.”
She does so without a moment to waste, and I point at the bikini next, flicking my hand sideways. She reads my movements with her wide eyes and undoes the strap to the top, then the two ties to the bottoms. She tosses them both aside, and I finally get what I want.
She stands in the water, exposed and vulnerable, and tries to hide her assets with her arms and hands coyly enough to be the cute, meek woman I know she is.
Swallowing the sight, my dick is so stiff it fucking hurts, but I don’t care. It doesn’t hinder me from undoing my belt and waving her forward. She looks uneasy at first. I take her hands in mine and wrap the belt around her wrists to make her more comfortable.
We were pretty vicious in our fight last week, and we haven’t really been physical since then. She might be expecting punishment, and she might evendeservea little bit of it, too, but I don’t want to take it to that extreme. Instead, I undo my pants and kick them off with my shoes and socks. She holds out her tied wrists as an offering and melts back into the water, her chin resting on the edge of the hot tub for now.
I undo my shirt, standing naked and stroking myself wildly over her head.
Her eyes never leave mine, and the smile on her lips almost looks familiar.
She’s missed me as much as I have missed her.
“What do you want me to do, Carter?”
I step into the hot water, sit down across from where she’s perched, and wave to the walkway behind the hot tub. “Get out of the water.”
Her brows furrow, but she gets out of the water, dripping wet and naked with her wrists bound. “N-now what?”
