by J. J. Bella
Brittany stuttered slightly, looking aghast. Paul mopped up the awkward silence. “We met at a coffee shop. She was in the corner, reading Faulkner, and you know—I just can’t get enough of southern American literature.” He winked toward Brittany, hoping she would play along.
“And then, it was magic from there?” Elena said, her voice all sharp edges.
“Of course.”
Not willing to give her another moment of digging, Paul and Brittany busied themselves in the kitchen, pouring glasses of wine, without offering one to Elena, and then waved goodbye, each of them giving Lea a kiss on the forehead. With the final clip of the door, Paul reached forth and gripped Brittany’s thin-boned shoulder, sighing heavily.
“Jesus. You’ve done so much for me the past few days.”
“What else was I going to do?” Brittany asked, laughing slightly. Her eyes shone with the pleasure from the compliment.
“Well, I’d like to take you out. Go put on something fancy. Meet me out here in 30 minutes. You deserve it.”
Paul asked Jose to drive them uptown, where his old friend from prep school had recently opened a high-class French restaurant. As Paul was one of the most important people in New York, he was immediately given an intimate room, for him and his new wife. He watched, with a tinge of jealousy, as his friend Pierre kissed Brittany’s hand in greeting, making her blush.
Did Paul want to make her blush? Did he want to make love to her? Was it his right, despite already saying this was a marriage of convenience?
She did look stunning. She’d chosen a dark yellow dress, which dipped far down her breasts, showing immense cleavage. Blinking up at him from over the menu, she asked him a question about wine, which he answered without fully comprehending it. He was lost in the sea of her deep brown eyes.
“Have you missed your old life at all since you came to live with me?” he asked her then, for the first time considering her feelings.
Brittany hesitated, drawing her eyes to the table. “That’s a tricky question. I definitely don’t miss being broke. And I can’t wait to go back to class…”
“But living with me. Has it been—“
“It’s been good,” Brittany said, her voice meek.
He wasn’t certain he truly believed her. But as the night stretched forth, he found himself asking her more intimate questions, drawing closer to her, learning about her family and her past. In return, he showed her a bit of his personal side as well—about how he’d been burned by Elena, all those years before. About how he’d rather spend an entire year on a boat than ever go back into an office again (but that he was committed to showing his parents that he respected their wishes).
By the end of the first course, they were holding hands across the table, gazing half-drunkenly into one another’s eyes.
And by the end of the night, they were kissing upon their terrace at home, their bodies pressed tightly together. Easing his hand down the small of her back, Paul brought it over the perfect crest of her ass, trying to memorize her form. Breaking the kiss, he gazed down at her slim body, then began to remove her dress, working slowly, evenly, so as not to frighten her. Her gorgeous body, with those pert breasts, that slim waist, revealed itself, and he pressed her against the side of the terrace, wrapping his lips around her nipples and gliding the tongue across the hard point. She gasped, drawing her hands over his head.
Parting the perfect, pink pussy lips, he pressed his fingers into the dark wetness between her legs, watching her face as it changed to one of complete and utter pleasure. After a long moment, she reached forth and removed his belt, undoing his pant button and easing his thick staff into the air—gasping at its incredible size. Falling to her knees, she wrapped her tongue around the edge of it, then proceeded to give him a soft, earnest blowjob—coiling her tongue around and around its girth.
Suddenly, Paul wrapped his hands around her waist, lifting her from his cock and raising her into the air. He carried her, like a child, to his bedroom, slipped her against the mattress, and then tugged the rest of his clothes from his body. He made love to her, then: slipping his dick into the softness between her legs, and feeling her pert breasts against his muscled chest. Crying out for him, she eased her nails into his back muscles, closing her eyes, as his rapid motions into the deep caverns of her body caused her to orgasm, over and over again.
13
Brittany sat, half-dazed, at the breakfast table—hours after Paul had left for work. She still smelled his cologne across her skin, could still taste his tongue along hers, and felt her heart hammering in her chest with confusion. The previous night had been gorgeous, making her think, for only a second, that she and Paul might have a romantic future. Perhaps her marriage wouldn’t be a sham, after all.
But when Paul had woken up that morning, he’d been distant, dark, his eyes skirting past her. He hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t touched her. And then, the door had slammed, alerting her that he’d left for the day without saying goodbye.
Perhaps she was stuck in a loveless marriage, void of purpose and meaning. And perhaps she’d have to face it forever.
Seconds later, the doorbell blared. Bursting up to get it, she felt, for the first time, that there’d been tears on her cheeks—drying in the sunshine of the breakfast nook. Tossing them toward her ears, she reached for the door and then opened it, finding that man she’d been speaking to at the wedding. What was his name?
“Hi,” he said, giving her an earnest, welcoming smile. He reached forth and shook her hand. “I’m a business associate of your husband’s. Don’t know if you remember me.”
“Oh. Of course,” Brittany said. She opened the door wider, allowing him to enter. “It’s—“
“Jack. Jack Pritchard.” He sat at the breakfast table, reaching toward the fruit bowl and then taking a large bite of apple, making her shiver. He seemed at ease, able to trample her with his ego. “If you don’t mind, a few of the members of the board wanted me to swing by and confirm a few things about your marriage. Of course, Paul’s confirmed this as well.”
Sitting at the table, Brittany stretched her fingers wide and nodded, thinking she wanted to get this maniacal man out of her house as soon as possible. “Sure. If Paul’s confirmed it.”
“Great. I wanted to ask—you met how long ago, exactly?” He leafed a booklet from his briefcase and began to take notes in bright blue pen.
“Erm. Six months,” Brittany said, scrambling to remember what Paul had told everyone else. “At a coffee shop.”
“Ah. Were you in a business meeting?”
“No. I worked there,” Brittany said.
Paul’s eyes drew toward her, looking sharp. Agile. “I’m sorry? You worked there?”
“At Blue Line,” Brittany said, not realizing fully that she was flubbing up the lie Paul had told.
“The one here on the corner?” Jack asked. “Really close? Why would Paul have been there six months ago? He was still living on the Upper West Side…”
“Oh,” Brittany said, her cheeks growing pink. “It might have been—another time…”
“In fact,” Jack said, beginning to speak with more rapidity. “He didn’t move across from Blue Line until a little over a month ago. Brittany. You didn’t just meet your husband at Blue Line a little over a month ago, did you?” He looked giddy, his eyes flashing.
“Um—“ Brittany stammered, gazing at her hands. Why had Paul sent this man here to grill her? “I mean. I’m in love with Paul. We met six months ago.”
She knew, now, how foolish she sounded. She watched as Jack began to collect his things once more, looking self-satisfied, and then dropped his hand onto her shoulder. “I think we’ve done a good thing together, here, today. We should meet more often. Oh, and I hope you and Paul have the most beautiful marriage.”
With that, he winked and strutted from the apartment, leaving Brittany in a hollow apartment, wondering if she’d just made the worst mistake of her life.
14
That
night, and the night after, Paul gave her almost nothing: no warm hellos, no eager questions, no tidbits regarding his life at the office. When Brittany mentioned, off-handed, that one of his associates had swung by the apartment to “seek information regarding their marriage,” he’d paused, given her a half-alarmed look, and then returned to his magazine. “I’m sure it’s fine. Just for paperwork,” he’d said.
It was making Brittany feel caught in a gilded cage, gazing out at New York City from a tower and unable to join it—to seek real emotion, to feel loved. Despite the growing feelings she had for Paul, she sensed he wouldn’t allow himself to give himself, in total. Especially not after what had happened with his ex-wife. Every new woman had the capacity to be a “new” Elena. At least, that was true in his eyes.
One afternoon, not long after they’d slept in one another’s arms, Brittany heard commotion from the top of the building. A heavy whirring noise met her ears, causing her to burst from her seat and rush to the terrace. An immense helicopter was landing from above, finding its footing against the tile, its great blades flashing through the blue sky. Brittany crept out onto it, incredulous, and then watched as Paul hopped from the back, flashing her a smile. She felt her stomach clench with desire for him. For things to be the way they’d been, if only for a night.
“Get some things together,” Paul said as he approached her, placing his hand on the small of her back. “We’re going to the Hamptons.”
“Why?” Brittany asked, her voice getting lost in the whirr of the machine.
“Because I need to talk to you,” Paul said then. “And I can’t do it here, with all the chaos of my life getting in the way.”
Grabbing a few things back in her room, Brittany felt her heart hammering with promise, with lust. He wanted to talk to her. Finally. After waiting for days for him to even look at her, he’d cultivated a plot to whirl them from the city center, toward a clean slate.
It was a dream.
Up in the air, Paul reached toward her and clung to her hand—pointing at the world outside their window. His voice came through the microphone on his headset. “Have you ever seen New York this way?” he asked. “It’s remarkable, looking at so many tiny lives, running their courses beneath us.”
Brittany smiled, trying to focus on her breathing. Anxiety and surprise had filled her, making her nearly incapable of finding the right words.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” she murmured into the headset, giving him a look of longing.
“I want to talk to you about what I said,” Paul answered, shifting toward her and drawing his hands around her shoulders. “About us being only roommates. That’s bullshit, isn’t it? Ever since my first wife, I’ve been so frightened about growing closer to someone. Opening up myself seemed impossible. But when I saw you at the coffee shop; when I first began to speak with you, I sensed you were different. I sensed you could be someone important to me. And I’m asking you if—if you’d like that, too.”
“To be properly married?” Brittany asked, her heart swelling.
“To give it a damn good shot,” Paul affirmed.
Brittany nodded, ecstatic. She brought her head forward and kissed him, bumping their headsets and causing Paul to cry out with laughter. They yanked their headsets from their skulls and continued to kiss, lost in the chaos of one another’s emotions, finally fulfilling the yearning that Brittany had felt since she’d moved in with him.
His house at the Hamptons was luxurious, with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a hot tub, a large, wood-burning fireplace, a ballroom and a bar for parties, along with a more intimate part of the house, which he liked to stick to. The moment they entered the back door, the couple dropped their things and fell into one another’s arms, making love first in the living room, across the chaise lounge, and then moving toward the pool, where they skinny-dipped, laughing wildly. At the water’s edge, Paul drew himself between Brittany’s knees, allowing his tongue to linger across the soft wetness of her pussy. He found the knob at the top of her clit, sucked on it briefly, causing her to cry out. She brushed her fingers through his dark hair, then cast her spine back, allowing pleasure to pulse through her.
In the final hours of the day, they made love in his giant bed, deep in the softness of the comforter, their bodies linked, with Brittany’s thin legs wrapped tightly around his muscled abdomen. As he thrust himself deeper into her, gliding against her G-spot, she gasped, then cried out, suddenly thrust into a world of orgasm, of pleasure she couldn’t comprehend. Linking her eyes with his, she felt him orgasm within her, as well—making them gasp in each other’s arms until they fell into a deep slumber, one of release and happiness.
They spent the rest of the weekend together, making love and dining at the country club, finding solace in conversation, in giggling, in discovering new things about the other. On their final day, Paul surprised Brittany by flying Lea out to meet them, and the three of them spent an entire afternoon on the beach: building sand castles, sunning, with Brittany and Lea taking an hour or two to doodle in their sketchpads. Their portrait of Paul was particularly hilarious—with Lea making him look a bit more like a caterpillar than a human.
Brittany wished the weekend could last forever. But alas, real life beckoned, and they had to return. She only hoped their love would continue to grow, flourish, even within the bounds of the chaos at home.
15
Paul whistled as he entered the office after the long weekend, lost in his rolling mind. He couldn’t stop playing the images over and over in his mind—sun-drenched afternoons with Brittany, who giggled at his jokes and fed him strawberries by hand before kissing him. Their kisses had been salty, from the sea, and joyous, affirming their true feelings.
He hadn’t been this happy in a long time.
But when he reached the boardroom for the meeting, Paul was shocked to find his father and mother there, along with the rest of the board: Samantha, Otto, and Jack. Several of his father’s lawyers were stretched out in chairs near the back, making notes.
“Hello,” Paul said, raising an eyebrow high. “Papa. Mama. Good to see you.” He reached forward and kissed his mother on the cheek. Her skin was tough.
“How could you do this to us?” she whispered to him, her voice harsh. “Making a mockery of our family.”
Paul looked at her, aghast. “Mama, what are you—“
“Paul. Please don’t stand there looking like you don’t know what we’re talking about,” Jack boomed from the side. Taking a mighty step forward, he slapped a file of papers on the table. The file read: “Brittany Haverford, 1994-2017”.
“What is this file?” Paul demanded, tapping his fist against the table, making it shake. His eyes flashed toward Jack. “Were you investigating my wife?”
“You’re still going to call her that, then?” Jack demanded. “Because I’ve been investigating this so-called wife of yours, and I gotta say. I don’t think your marriage is going to hold-up in court. Doesn’t seem to be anything but a fraud. A way to get your father’s money as soon as you could. How disgusting.”
Paul swept his eyes toward his parents, who looked grey-faced, glum. “Papa—“ he began, wanting to tell some semblance of the truth.
But his father held up his hand, halting him. “Son, if this marriage turns out to indeed be fraud, it will be annulled. You will be written out of the will. You’ll be given a very small pittance of your inheritance, and the rest will go to Lea in a trust fund. Elena will operate that trust fund. And not you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Paul boomed. “You know, for a fact, that Elena is nothing but a gold-digger. She’s been calling me for years trying to get more custody money…”
But he saw he was fighting a losing battle. Tears crept down his mother’s cheeks, as Jack gloated in the corner.
“We just hope this isn’t true,” his mother whispered, tossing her graying hair behind her shoulders. “Because we love you, son. But if you’ve teased us this way—if you’ve made
a mockery of us—then I don’t see how this can go on.”
Paul turned toward the door, slipping his hands through his hair and then tugging at it, feeling frustration brim through him. After he stomped through the door and ducked into the elevator, that’s when he allowed his scream to bolt from between his lips, to echo against the metal walls, to make him feel, in that moment, that if he wasn’t careful, all would be lost.
Brittany would be gone. And so would his daughter.
16
When Paul collapsed in the chair across from Brittany, the sweat was bolting down his forehead. His cheeks were red-hot, showing his passion, his anger. After a long moment of silence, Brittany reached toward him, placing a soft hand atop his. Whispering, she asked: “Paul? Baby? Are you all right?”
Paul didn’t move his hand. Their skin had spent so much time next to one another, attached, over the previous weekend, that Brittany sensed they were growing together. They were united. After a long moment, she drew herself toward the liquor cabinet and poured them both a glass of whiskey, then dropped herself onto Paul’s lap. They clinked glasses, then sipped.
Paul’s head lolled downward, then. His eyes closed, allowing his dark eyelashes to flutter along his cheeks. “They know, Brittany. They know it was a sham. And if they can prove it—if they can prove that we don’t love one another, that we aren’t truly in this, then they’re going to take everything. My money. My position. And my daughter.” He shuddered.
Aghast, Brittany latched onto his chin, bringing his face toward hers. She kissed him, then, inhaling the heat of his mouth, the terror of his near-quivering lips. Then, when the kiss broke, she asked him, in a soft voice:
“Do you want to make this work? Do you want to fall in love with one another?”
Paul paused for a long time. His dark eyes seemed to pierce into hers, making her twist with fear. But when he answered, his words were firm: “I wouldn’t have picked you in the first place if I didn’t think this could become something real. Something whole. And over the past weekend, in the Hamptons, I sensed this could be our forever.”
