He had always walked her home even though the trip took him far out of his way. He would never let any danger or hurt befall her. She was the most precious thing in the world to him; she had always been. As he slid the promise ring on her finger that night, he swore he would provide for her every need. She had accepted his promise and sealed it with a kiss.
Everything had seemed a great deal simpler then, when they had less to give and less to lose.
As soon as dinner ended, Valeria excused herself and stood up. She did not even look at him although she bid farewell to everyone else around the table with apparent warmth. When she left, he followed her from grand ballroom of the Ritz Carlton hotel. “Stop,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I want to talk to you.”
She yanked her hand from his. Pain shimmered in her voice. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Val—”
She strode out of the hotel and handed the valet her claim ticket. The young man scurried around the corner. Moments later, Gabriel heard the sound of a car starting. Her car would be here in less than a minute. “Val, please. Tell me what’s going on. Why are you so angry?”
She shook her head as if she could not believe he was asking the question. Her dark blue BMW pulled up in the hotel’s circular driveway, and the valet stepped out and held the door open for her. She walked around the car. Before she stepped into it, she cast a final scathing glance at Gabriel and lifted her chin, her expression combining injured pride and wounded innocence. “You’re having an affair. I can smell her on you.”
Chapter 7
Valeria arrived home before Gabriel did, owing in part to her head start and in part to a heavy foot on the accelerator. She pulled the car into the garage and cut the engine. Tears stung her eyes. A combination of shame and fury clogged her throat.
Gabriel was having an affair.
Why had it taken her by surprise? Just because he had never seemed to have eyes for any other women before? But even a faithful man like Gabriel could stray, couldn’t he, if driven away by his wife’s neglect?
Oh, God. Her cold hands closed into fists to still the trembling. She reached for her smartphone and called Cherish. “He’s having an affair,” Valeria announced the moment Cherish answered the phone.
“What?” Cherish screeched. “No way. Not Gabe.”
“Yes, Gabriel.” The tears swelled up and blocked Valeria’s throat. “I could smell the other woman’s perfume on him. Just like mine.”
“Are you sure you weren’t just smelling yourself?”
“Of course I’m sure. I haven’t been anywhere near him long enough for my perfume to rub off on him.”
“All right. Take a deep breath. Stay calm.”
“Stay calm? He’s having an affair!”
“If you were going to divorce him anyway, does it matter?” Cherish asked, her voice cold as ice. “Maybe it is a good thing. You can use his affair to squeeze him for alimony until blood comes out of his ears.”
“I’m not trying to…” Valeria sighed. She did not bother to complete the sentence. Cherish, made wealthy by her three divorces, wouldn’t understand. I don’t want to hurt Gabriel. But hadn’t he already hurt her, first with his indifference, and then with his affair?
The other garage door started to rise. Gabriel was home too.
“I have to go,” she told Cherish and hung up on her friend. She scurried out of her car and dashed into the house. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with him, not when she was feeling so emotional and frayed. She would never stand a chance against him. He would demolish her with his cold, merciless logic.
She paused in the kitchen long enough to catch her breath. “We’re home!” she called out as she heard his footsteps behind her.
“Mom!” Diego dashed into the kitchen. Marlena scurried in a few steps behind her brother.
“Goodness, you’re not in bed yet?” Valeria faked surprise. “I’ll get them to bed,” she told Cindy, the babysitter who had followed Diego and Marlena into the kitchen. “Gabriel, can you pay Cindy, please?”
“Yes, of course.” The frustration in his tone seeped through his trained equilibrium.
Good, she could put off the confrontation for several more minutes. It struck her as singularly ironic that she was using her children as an excuse to avoid a discussion with her husband.
“Mom, are you all right?” Diego asked as he snuggled down in bed.
She swallowed hard and stroked his dark head of hair. Diego looked so much like Gabriel had at his age. She blinked hard to hold back the tears. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“You’re not mad with Dad, are you?”
“Why should I be?”
“You don’t talk to him even though he’s here so much more.”
“He is?”
“He was at dinner this week, two times, and he put Marlena and me to bed those nights. And on Saturday, we built that castle in the backyard, from all those cardboard boxes, and we played knights and dragons all weekend.”
“It sounds like you had a good time.”
Diego nodded. “You’re not mad because he spent all his time playing with us instead of hanging out with you, are you?”
Valeria was grateful that the darkened room concealed the heated flush of her cheeks. She had been hiding from Gabriel. “No, I’m not mad with your father,” she lied. “Goodnight, Diego.” She leaned down to kiss his cheek and rose to leave the room.
She could hear movement downstairs. Was Gabriel pacing the hallway? Well, she would leave him to his own amusements. She went to her bedroom and shut the door. The crack of wood against the doorframe slapped through her awareness. It was the first time she had physically shut Gabriel out of her life.
If she was right, it was the first time of many such events to come. It was payback for all the times he had shut the study door on her.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. A pale-faced, immaculately made-up woman looked back at her. Poise, she reflected ironically, could cover a multitude of shortcomings. Moving stiffly, Valeria plucked off her jewelry, including her wedding and tenth anniversary ring and set them on her jewelry tray next to her sink.
The bedroom door flung open. Gabriel’s reflection glowered at her in the mirror. “I’m not having an affair.” The words were issued in a low snarl.
She kept her back to him. It was easier to face his reflection than to face him. “What’s her name?”
“I told you—”
“I’m not stupid, Gabriel. Don’t you dare treat me as if I am. I can smell her on you.”
“She kissed me.”
Her heart cracked. “Did you kiss her back?”
“No. Yes.” He shook his head. “I made a mistake. But that was it. It didn’t go beyond the one kiss.”
“What’s her name?” Her voice, thank God, was in better shape than her shattered heart.
“It doesn’t matter what her name is. She’s not responsible for this. I am.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Has it happened before?”
“Never.” He closed the distance to her and clasped her upper arms. “Never, I swear it, Val.”
“You swear it?” She shrugged, a twisting motion that shook his hands off her. “What’s your word worth these days? How many promises have you broken in the past month just on showing up when you promised?”
He gritted his teeth. “I’m trying, Val.”
“Trying’s not good enough. Not anymore. Your word is worth nothing.” She snorted and turned her head away from him and his reflection. “I’m getting ready for bed. Get out of here.”
“This is my bedroom too.”
“Oh?” She shoved sarcasm into that single word to cover the hurt and pain lurking behind it. “Is the sofa bed in your study too cold and empty without whoever she is? You’ve had no trouble sleeping in it every night for the past several months.”
“I had work to do. I didn’t wa
nt to disturb you.”
“Well, I applaud your consideration.” Her mouth twisted. “I’m sure you still have work to do—it’s such a convenient excuse—so take your work and get out of my room.”
“I’m not leaving until we talk—properly—about what the hell is upsetting you.”
She spun on him. “Do you want me to count the ways? Your affair.”
“I’m not—”
She continued as if he had not interrupted. “Your work, and how it trumps your family every single time.”
He looked as though she had struck him. “I… My work doesn’t trump you or the children. I thought we agreed that this was what we both wanted—a life where we didn’t have to worry about the roof over our head or the food on the table. This is what we’ve both worked for, together. Isn’t it what you want anymore?”
She blinked at him.
“Isn’t it?” he demanded. “Plans change; fine, I get that, but I need you to tell me if it’s changed. Don’t let me keep running without telling me I’m running in the wrong direction.”
“It’s not wrong. It’s just—” She gestured vaguely with her hands. Why couldn’t she find the right words? “—not enough.”
“What will make it enough?” He stared at her. His intent expression demanded the truth.
Didn’t he realize she would have been happy to give him the truth if only she knew what it was?
“You want more time?” he asked. “I’m trying. You want more attention?”
She snorted, her stomach churning at the thought of how another woman had kissed him. “I don’t need or want your attention.”
Something dark and dangerous flared in his eyes. “Oh?”
That one word, that single sound, infused with challenge instead of a question, sent a shiver racing down her spine.
He continued, his voice low. “You can’t deny that the sex, at least, has always been good between us.”
“You’d be surprised to find out how little sex means to a woman if everything else is crap.”
“Really?” He stalked toward her. She retreated until her back hit the edge of her counter. He loomed over her—tall, strong, and powerfully masculine in a way that sent her nerves and her senses into overdrive.
She tilted her head up to stare at him. “You don’t frighten me.”
A corner of his mouth tugged into a devilish smile. “I’m not trying to frighten you.” He stroked the side of her cheek with his thumb. That simple touch almost made her quiver in spite of her resolution not to be moved, physically or emotionally, by him. Her lips trembled when he lowered his lips to hers. There was tenderness in their contact. He had always had a gentleness of spirit, an innate kindness that seemed utterly incongruous with the layer of cold logic he slathered over everything he did and said.
His tenderness made him compelling. The fire he had always been able to ignite in her made him irresistible. Moved by something beyond her control, she parted her lips for his kiss and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair as a liquid heat began to rise. Por Dios, she would show him she was not frightened. She would prove that she didn’t care.
Her kiss was demanding, her hands reaching, grasping. She knew how to push him over the edge. She knew how to turn off his kindness and awaken his primal side. She couldn’t abide his gentleness when she knew it could drive her to her knees in defeat.
This was not the tender and clumsy lovemaking of their youth, or the practiced and easy familiarity of their marriage. This was sex driven by anger, hurt, and frustration—two people striving to outdo the other, to prove that sex didn’t have to be about love, that lust was enough.
And it was. His kisses were harder. His grip tighter. The pace was heated, almost frantic as they undressed with haste, popping buttons, ripping seams. She didn’t care that he had done nothing to prepare her body for him, because she was ready. Her traitorous body was more than ready for him. She wanted him to take her—hard, fast, and brutal. She wanted to purge the memories of tenderness, of quiet moments spent cuddling in bed before and after making love to him.
She wanted to burn out the knowledge that she loved him in spite of everything he had done to destroy her and their marriage.
He drove into her, pounding sensation through her body. The waves of pleasure built, one on top of the other, each one stealing her breath, each one drowning her. Valeria dug her fingers into his shoulders and wrapped her long legs around his waist to give him deeper access to her willing body. She panted, her body heaving against him as she edged closer and closer—
Her climax crashed over her, emptying her mind. Her shuddering body clenched around him as a low cry tore from her lips. She would have gone limp, but he continued to hold her up, his hands gripping her buttocks as he pounded into her, striving to reach his own climax.
The expression on his face, however, said otherwise. He looked like a man in pain, as if he were fighting himself, fighting his own release. But why?
She knew the answer with as much certainty as she knew him.
Not like this. He hadn’t wanted to take her like this. No doubt he had wanted to seduce her, to make love to her with all the tenderness in him, to show her and remind her what it was like to love him.
Valeria raised her head and blinked slowly to hold back her tears.
No. She couldn’t let herself be moved by Gabriel’s manipulation and tricks. She couldn’t let him win. She needed to convince herself that he was no longer the man she thought he was, that he was no longer the man she wanted.
Deliberately, almost cruelly, she raked her nails along his back. The burst of pain and pleasure punched through him, sending him over the edge. His grip on her buttocks tightened—no doubt she would find bruises tomorrow—as he spilled his release into her.
He slumped against her, breathing hard. A thin layer of sweat made his skin sheen under the bright spotlights of her dressing room.
Without pulling out of her, he looked at her. “Why?” His tone was harsh, pained.
“Why what?” she asked, the lilt of her tone innocent.
He withdrew from her, but did not step away. “What were you trying to prove?”
“That it’s just sex to you.”
“It’s not. Val, you know I love you.”
“If she—whoever she was—had pushed you far enough, you would have fucked her too, just the same way you fucked me tonight, like a rutting animal.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Oh?” She kicked her toe at her discarded dress. “You practically tore it off me. You didn’t even bother to take off your shirt. You were just so eager to sink into a willing female.”
“Val, that’s not—”
“Fair? I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to prove a point. You’re not the man I thought you were.”
“Damn it, Val. You can’t come on to me, hot and slinky as a siren, and expect me not to lose it. It’s called entrapment.”
“Don’t throw your fancy lawyer terms at me. I want you to get out of here.”
He stared at her. A muscle ticked in his cheek, subtly darkened by a five o’clock shadow. “Val—”
“I said get out. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tomorrow. We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said. His voice was once again calm, coldly rational.
“We don’t have anything more to say to each other. Even this…it’s just sex, and it’s not that good.” Her voice held steady despite the lie. “It’s not enough to hold a marriage together.”
“What we have is love,” Gabriel insisted, his gaze burning into her. “And it’s enough. It’s always enough.”
Chapter 8
The next morning, after she had sent the children to school, Valeria sat at the kitchen table and stared at the two sets of documents Brandon Smith had drawn up for her—one a separation agreement, the other a divorce settlement.
Gabriel was right, of course. If they had love, it should have been enough. If they
had love, they could have worked through their differences.
She knew for a fact though that they didn’t have love.
It didn’t matter what he professed with his mouth when his actions screamed otherwise. He didn’t give a damn about the things she cared about, like granting Peter’s wish. His work always came first, leaving his family—their children—to survive on scraps of his time and attention. Then, the woman…his affair.
The something more I want is love.
She reached for her pen, scrawled her signature on the bottom of the divorce settlement, and waited to feel something, anything, other than the quiet ache of a love long dead. Some part of her wanted to know when it had died, but cold rationality told her it didn’t matter. The marriage hadn’t been worth saving, at least not to Gabriel.
It was time to acknowledge the facts and walk away.
Wasn’t it?
Tears swarmed into her eyes. For a moment, she thought her chest would burst from the swell of emotions, none of which made any sense.
She left the envelope on the dining table and pushed to her feet. Her mind churned to keep from dwelling on the crushing weight of her emotions. She had to pay a visit to the Browns and apologize for the delayed wish. With luck, Brett’s contacts would connect Peter with judges within the next week or two, but she had lost precious time trusting Gabriel to come through for her.
Her car keys jingling in her pocket, she headed to the garage. The house would have to be sold, of course. It was a monstrous expense, and she could hardly expect Gabriel to move out and keep paying for it. They would all have to downgrade. She added house hunting to her to-do list; perhaps she could find an apartment near the children’s school—she hoped Gabriel would at least agree to keep the children in their school. It was wretchedly expensive too, and not likely to get any cheaper.
The drive to the Browns’ apartment provided her with time for a mental tally of the life changes that were likely to result from her divorce. She would need a job, of course. She couldn’t live indefinitely off the alimony. It wouldn’t be fair. She hoped she would still have time to volunteer with the Make A Wish Foundation, although joining their board of directors was out of the question. The directors’ fees were not enough to live on. She simply wouldn’t have the time to indulge herself with doing what she wanted anymore, not if she needed to work.
Desired: A Love Letters Novel Page 8
