ARRANGED

by R. K. Lilley

  Every time I looked at her sideways she seemed to melt under my gaze. Like she wanted to lie on her back and open her legs for any scrap of attention I gave her.

  She couldn’t be as caught up in this ridiculous attraction as I was, I told myself.

  She just has a role to play, I told myself.

  But it was getting harder and harder to lie to myself.

  Harder to vilify her. To deny her charms, her sweet, innocent nature. Her magnetic, constantly trembling lips.

  She’d called me a hypocrite, and the barb had stuck. She wasn’t wrong. Her motivations were no different than my own. They were more innocent, really. She was an eighteen-year-old who came from nothing and wanted a better life. Who the hell was I to look down on that? Spoiled rich boy, indeed.

  When I used to picture my wife, I’d had a very clear impression of who she must have been. I’d known, thought, assumed she was cold and calculating. Unfortunately I was wrong, at least in part. There was nothing cold about her. She’d become a warm, liquid throb in my veins.

  Moreover, she seduces everyone around her. Even me. Especially me.

  In spite of my best intentions, a different picture was being painted for me of my wife. She was not who I had assumed. There was something very straightforward, almost undeniably honest about her. And there was no way I could deny that she was hardworking. Earnest. Just trying her best to get ahead.

  Despite my highest hopes, she wasn’t the bad girl gold digger I’d given her credit for.

  In fact, she wasn’t bad at all.

  She was good. I knew it in my bones. It wasn’t sight or smell or anything tangible, but it was there in the air around her, another sense. A feeling. I was starting to get a lot of those where my wife was concerned. The realization made my skin feel over-warm, like I was getting a fever just under the surface. I tugged restlessly at my collar.

  “You’re in an interesting mood,” she was saying to me.

  I shook myself free of my thoughts. I shrugged. “I suppose.” We’d been around each other enough for her to notice a different mood of mine. It was a sobering thought. I was utterly failing to keep her at a distance, and the more contact we had together, the less I cared about that. Therein lay the problem.

  We ordered drinks. She tried to order wine, and I changed it to water. “You’re too young,” I said at her look.

  A silent spell fell upon us. I stared at her while she stared down at her lap. My hand was heavy on her leg.

  “How have you been?” I found myself asking her. Making small talk like a civilized husband.

  She sent me a brief glance, then looked down again. Something about my question put her on guard. I felt my gut dip. Had I been such a bastard that even such an innocuous inquiry made her wary?

  The short answer? Yes. I hated myself for it even as I braced myself against falling further under her spell.

  “Fine,” she said. That was all.

  “Have you been working a lot?” I followed up with.

  She shrugged, looking around at anything but me. “The usual. I keep busy. I’m supposed to fly to Paris for a YSL fragrance campaign and some other jobs in a few days.”

  I felt myself tense. “How long will that last?” I remembered when the terms for it were being negotiated, but I hadn’t realized it was coming up so soon.

  “I should be there for around two weeks.”

  I processed that and no matter how I unpacked it, it left a bad taste in my mouth. “Is that really necessary? Two weeks seems an excessive amount of time.”

  She finally looked at me directly. “I’m booked solid. You approved all of it.”

  I was sure she wasn’t wrong. That didn’t mean I wasn’t bothered. Two weeks in Paris. Traveling with Chester and working with God knew who. No, I didn’t like it. “It’s not the best timing. I have a lot going on in New York for the next few weeks. Things I can’t step away from without a lot of rescheduling.”

  She bent her head down, brow furrowing in confusion. “Okay,” she said carefully. “I don’t see how that could be a problem. It’s not like my travel plans could affect you.”

  I felt my nostrils flare, a tick starting up in my temple. I knew what I was feeling was unreasonable. Knowing didn’t make the feelings lesson.

  I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want her traveling without me. When it came right down to it, I didn’t want her going anywhere without me. When had this happened? Our lives were completely separate. I had insisted upon it. It was preposterous for me to feel possessive about the very wife I’d spurned. The wife I tried my hardest to stay away from.

  But I felt what I felt regardless of reason. A jealous itch under my skin. An empty ache in my gut. Denying it hadn’t lessened it, in fact it seemed to worsen by the minute.

  “Where are you staying in Paris?” I asked tersely.

  “The family apartments,” she answered, watching me. “Your father insisted,” she added defensively.

  Well, that was something, at least. The family apartments were a very secure, controlled environment. She wouldn’t be able to sneeze without someone in my family hearing about it. Without it getting back to me. Good.

  We ordered our food and a silence captured us again. I was determined for her to speak first, but she seemed much more content to keep her thoughts to herself than I was to let her. For my part, I was trying very hard to hold in a question.

  I drank and watched her downcast face. Her lashes were so thick and long that I was trying to decide if they were fake or not. Usually you could tell, but with hers it was impossible to say.

  “If you wanted my number, why haven’t you contacted me since you got it?” The words I’d wanted to say since exactly one hour after the last time I saw her burst out of me.

  She took a drink of water, seemed to brace herself, and looked at me square on. “Did you want me to contact you?”

  That shut me up. I didn’t even want to analyze that question, but I was afraid I already very much knew the answer. “Why did you want my number?” I countered.

  Her perfectly straight teeth caught her lush lower lip, biting into it thoughtfully.

  I was sitting up straight, elbows on the table, but at that I leaned forward, and the hand that wasn’t holding my drink went to grab her knee again. I wanted her lips closer. I wanted her closer. I set my drink down and gripped her other knee, pulling her deeper beneath the table, my hands slipping higher up her thighs.

  How long would it take to get from this spot to somewhere private enough that I could peel her out of that contraption she was wearing and get my dick wet?

  She spoke, and I had to literally shake my head to get back to the issue at hand.

  “I only wanted it for emergencies,” she said, breathless. My thumbs were rubbing the softest spot up high on her inner thighs. “Not like real emergencies, but if I had a question for you that I wanted answered, for plans or whatever. I just don’t want to communicate through Asha anymore.” I slid one hand higher, into the leg of her torturous little romper. My fingers teased the lace of her panties.

  She gripped the edge of the table, her face flushed.

  Our food arrived and I had to take my hands off her and sit up. I didn’t look at her again for a time, focusing on my food and willing my raging hard-on to go down. Finally when I had myself somewhat under control, I swallowed my mouthful of prime rib and spoke, “You don’t have to have an emergency to call or text me.”

  She finished swallowing a tiny, sad, sad bite of her greens before responding, “You want me to text you?”

  I was uncomfortable with the subject, but not uncomfortable enough to stay quiet on it. I had to clear my throat and swallow before I could choke my next words out. “I’d like that.”

  She just stared at me for a time, food forgotten. I stared steadily back.

  Finally she leaned forward, placing the back of her hand to my forehead, brow furrowed, expression thoughtful. It was adorable and it made me smile. “What are you doing
?” I asked her.

  “Checking for a fever.”

  “A fever?”

  “I’m just trying to find a reasonable excuse for the fact that my husband is suddenly being nice to me.”

  I visibly winced, though her reaction was perfectly understandable. I had no excuse for the way I’d treated her, and no explanation for why I’d had such a sudden change of heart. Certainly nothing I was willing to admit to.

  Instead I played it off. “Such a cynical eighteen-year-old,” I teased her. Attempted to, anyway.

  “Nineteen,” she said and went back to eating.

  I stared, dumbfounded. What did that mean? “Nineteen what?”

  She took her time answering, taking another tiny bite of food and a sip of her water. My jaw was clenched impatiently as I waited.

  “I’m ‘such a cynical’ nineteen-year-old,” she finally said.

  “What? When did you turn nineteen?”

  She looked thoughtful. She seemed to be calculating something in her head. And she took her fucking time doing it. “About seven hours ago.”

  “It’s your birthday?” You could’ve picked my jaw up off the floor. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked her slowly. Perhaps she had a good answer for this.

  Unfortunately, she did.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t even think of it. Why would it concern you?”

  Why did that make me absolutely livid? I couldn’t even understand myself. Who I was I angry with? I wanted to lash out, but who could I blame but myself?

  Ah yes. That was who I was angry with.

  I wanted to shout. I wanted to rage. Instead I answered her with every ounce of civility I could muster. “It concerns me because you’re my wife.”

  Her mouth twisted into an unhappy smile. “Really, Calder. There’s no need for you to pretend when it’s just the two of us. I don’t want you to do anything for me out of obligation. I know your father forced you to take me to dinner tonight, so this is all for him, but you really don’t need to bother to go out of your way on my account. If he asks me, I’ll tell him you did everything you were supposed to. I’m not looking to get you in trouble.”

  Each word was a barb that burrowed under my skin. They’d sting for a while.

  And I deserved every one of them.

  The worst part was that in her mind she wasn’t even being particularly pointed. This wasn’t coming from resentment on her part.

  She was just that resigned to my poor behavior. That stung more.

  We’d been sitting for a time in awkward, stiff silence when something caught my eye. Two tables away, a couple was being seated.

  It was Fatima. She sat in a chair facing me, and her husband took the one opposite, showing me his back. I knew none of it was a coincidence. She’d always had a nerve.

  I tipped my glass at her, eyeing her coldly.

  She tipped hers back, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. She was enjoying herself, enjoying all of this. She liked these sorts of games. I wondered if I’d ever found that appealing about her, or if I’d just been so blind and besotted that I hadn’t even spotted it for what it was—petty and conniving.

  I glanced back at my wife. She was pushing her sad greens around on her plate and hadn’t noticed anything. God, she was beautiful. It wasn’t the type of beauty that needed the right angle or lighting. Face painted heavily or not at all, her extraordinary bone structure shone through. It was distracting, really. It was a struggle to look away, to not stare at her constantly.

  I must have been careless and let my face reveal something of my thoughts, for the next time Fatima caught my eye there was something in hers that made me still, dread creeping up.

  Of course she was jealous of my wife. She had been from the get-go. She was the type of woman who remained possessive of things, even things she’d tossed carelessly aside.

  But seeing us together like this would give her her first real reason to be. Knowing her temper, it was a worrisome development, though I wasn’t sure what I could do about it at this point. I’d done all I could.

  Eventually Noura caught my eye wandering and turned to follow it. Her face went dead of all expression when she spotted my ex-fiancée. “Is she waiting for us to finish, so you two can go on a real date?” she asked me coldly.

  I felt myself flush, though I’d had nothing to do with Fatima’s presence there. Just the opposite. I’d wanted to bolt the moment I caught sight of her. “No,” I said simply.

  “Then why is she here?” my wife asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said defiantly.

  I stared at her. “Excuse me?” I asked, still trying to be polite.

  “Is that why you were being nice to me earlier? To make her jealous?”

  I stared. “She wasn’t even here then. They just sat down. And believe me, the last thing I would ever do is try to make her jealous of you.”

  “Liar.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, less polite.

  She set her napkin on her plate decisively. “I’m leaving. We’ve both honored our obligations here. Our handlers will tell your father we both showed up for the date. Goodnight, Calder.”

  And with that, she left.

  I was so caught off guard that I just watched her go. Watched her wind through the crowd and out the door.

  I told myself I wouldn’t follow her, eyes glued to her parting figure. It was a great view of her perky, perfect two handfuls ass. Mm.

  I called for the check, settled the bill, and rang for my car, all the while telling myself that I was just going home. It was only as I heard the words leave my mouth that I realized it was hopeless. “My wife’s apartment,” I told my driver.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I was at her door when I realized I didn’t even have a key to her apartment.

  I had to ring the doorbell and I hated it.

  Chester answered, and I hated that more.

  He squared his huge frame off in the doorway, not letting me in, and raised one bushy ginger brow at me. “Need something?”

  I had to force my teeth to stop grinding together before I answered. “My wife.”

  He just kept staring. “Why?”

  “Excuse me?” I gritted out.

  “Duchess is busy. It’s her birthday, if you didn’t know. I’d just as soon you leave her in peace. She should get to enjoy her own birthday in peace, don’t you think?”

  I opened my mouth, shut it, then opened it again. I wasn’t sure what I was about to say, or hell, if I was about to haul off and hit him. I’ll never know because that was the moment my wife showed up, quietly telling Chester that she’d handle it.

  He sent me one last glare and left, disappearing into her apartment like he lived there, which he practically did.

  I hated that most of all.

  I’d left the restaurant mere minutes behind her, but Noura had already managed to tie her hair up into a complicated, voluminous topknot and changed out of her torture device romper into an oversized sweatshirt and itty bitty shorts. Spelled across the front of the sweatshirt in large caps was the word DUCHESS.

  I stared at it. “Where’d you get that?” I asked tersely. It wasn’t where I’d meant to begin, but I couldn’t for the life of me ignore it.

  She just stared at me, her face carefully, vehemently apathetic. It was impressive, really, how she could school her beautiful, expressive face into the very epitome of impassivity. “Excuse me?”

  “The sweatshirt. Where’d you get it, Duchess?”

  We had a minor stare down before she answered. “It was a birthday present.”

  “From whom?” I shot back calmly and instantly. But I knew the answer. Oh yes I knew, and I was livid.

  “Why?” she hedged.

  “Answer the question,” I gritted out, calm gone.

  “Chester.”

  I knew it!

  “It’s no big deal. You know he calls me Duchess. I don’t know why
. It’s silly.” She paused. Shrugged. “I guess it’s an inside joke between us.”

  From her face I could tell that she didn’t realize she’d made it ten times worse.

  I made myself take deep breaths. I made myself wait until I could at least appear calm before I spoke again. “Are you having some sort of birthday party in there?” I asked. It was quiet now, but I’d heard some definite sounds of revelry when the door had first opened.

  She shrugged. “Not a party. They just got me gifts and cake.” With the oversized sweatshirt and her sullen attitude, she looked more like teenager than she ever had to me before. It didn’t help.

  “That sounds a lot like a birthday party, Duchess,” I pointed out.

  “Please don’t call me that,” she shot back with automatic speed.

  “He calls you Duchess,” I said quietly.

  She started. “When he says it, he’s being . . . affectionate. You’re just making fun.”

  “Affectionate? You want his affection?”

  “That came out wrong. It’s just a harmless nickname. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “See that it doesn’t,” I gritted out through clenched teeth. “You know, when I assigned a man more than twice your age to be your security, I did so assuming there wouldn’t be a problem. I should have known better. No man could be immune to you.”

  She looked like she wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or horrified, and immediately she went on the defensive. “That’s ridiculous. We’re friends, which is nice since I spend ninety percent of my waking hours with him.”

  I felt a tick start up in my temple.

  “You like him,” I observed.

  She studied me like I was deranged. “Of course I like him.” Her mouth gaped open. “You can’t possibly be jealous!”

  I didn’t bother to deny it. I glared at her, holding up a finger. “If he steps so much as one inch out of line with you, I will know about it, he will be fired, and I’ll make sure that you never see him again.”

  “He would never step out of line,” she defended.

  “See that he doesn’t, or you lose him. Understood?”

  “Understood. It’s just a stupid nickname.”