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In my dazed state, my heart hammers, and I hope Sophia has come to see me.
That hope is blasted to smithereens, dispatched like a ship’s cannon, when Baron enters my office.
I scowl at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I called him,” Eve answers, earning herself my glare. “I’ve had enough ofthis.” Her gesture encompasses me and my office. Then she faces Baron. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”
The door clicks shut behind Baron, who stands there and stares at me with that ever present bored expression. From experience, I know that’s his sympathetic face.
“What?” I snarl. I see the fucking judgement in his eyes when they drop to the bottle in my hand.
“What indeed,” he drawls. “What the fuck happened to you? You look like you haven’t slept in a week, and you’re clearly wasted at—” he checks his watch “—eleven in the morning. Plus, your assistant called me here to deal with you, and she’s never called me before for anything. In fact, I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“I don’t need dealing with. You can go.” I shoo him away, and swallow another mouthful of fifteen-year-old single malt Scotch. Nice stuff. I wish I could still taste its subtle flavors, but now it just burns going down.
Baron, the asshole, plucks the bottle from my hands with a sneer. “That’s enough of this. Where is your wife?”
My wife?
Sophia’s words echo in my mind.You’re a liar. An adulterer. Everything we have is fake.
I grimace. “My wife is right where I left her, in Rockland Psychiatric Center.”
“Sophia’sin a mental hospital?” He sets the Scotch on my desk, out of reach. “What the fuck happened to her, Roman?”
“What? No, not Sophia. Olivia. Olivia’s my wife.”
“Olivia’s dead,” Baron slowly states, trying to gauge my level of delusion. He must think I’ve gone insane.
I shake my head.
Baron stands over me, studying my face. With a disgusted sneer, an expression I’ve earned from my best friend on multiple occasions, he goes to the windows and starts opening all the blinds. I cringe away from the glaring summer light.
When he’s finished, he claims my desk chair. “Are you saying that Olivia is alive? That she’s been locked up for six years?”
I shield my eyes with my arm. “Yes.”
“I thought she was dead.”
“That’s what everyone’s supposed to think. But she’s very much alive. Alive and ruining my life from inside a padded cell simply by existing.”
Baron mulls over that information. “You never divorced her, did you?”
“No,” I groan, regretting it with every breath I take.
“Why? After everything she did to you, why not end it with her?”
“Because I wanted her locked away, for her own protection as much as a punishment, and since she has no other family, as her husband, I’m her legal guardian. I pay for her care, but I can also keep her locked away for life.” I’m her fucking jailor.
Baron eyes me. “You’re one twisted, self-loathing fuck, aren’t you? How long are you going to drag this out, Roman? Let me guess, Sophia found out about your real wife and dumped your ass.”
“That sums it up.”
“And why, exactly, are you self-destructing in your office?”
I peer at him from beneath my arm. “Isn’t it obvious? I want her back, but I fucked up. Royally fucked up.”
He crosses his arms. “If you want her back, then go get her.”
