“Come pick me up. I feel like having the biggest drink in Africa right now.”
Through the phone, she heard the hush of fabric on fabric, as if Nala was in bed and getting up. “Give me a half hour.”
“Take your time.” She instantly felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that Nala was more than likely still exhausted from her flight.
But an hour later, Nala texted to say she was downstairs and ready to buy all the drinks.
* * *
Wolfe watched Nichelle leave the restaurant, aware of Quraishi’s thoughtful stare. He seated himself back at the table and rearranged the napkin carefully across his lap. Everything in him screamed to follow her and find out what was wrong. But the look she left him with as she said “stay” froze him in his seat.
Quraishi looked concerned. “Why are you letting her go?”
Good question. “She wants to be alone.”
“Or does she want her husband to follow her and show her that these women, no matter how tempting—” He waved a hand toward the chattering Englishwomen. “—are nothing compared to her?”
“She knows that already.” At least he hoped she did.
“But she may need to hear you say it.”
Wolfe’s hand hovered near his tie, twitchy with the urge to yank it off in frustration. They weren’t married, dammit! And this situation was nothing new. Women came on to him all the time. Was she just putting on an act for Quraishi? Had she simply wanted to be alone instead of pretending through another endless public appearance?
“I’ll give her the time she needs,” he said.
Her face had been coolly stoic the entire time the Englishwoman talked to them. Nichelle didn’t seem upset at all, simply bored. Even when she made the comment about certain “rude women.” She’d simply been acting the jealous wife for Quraishi. Right? Wolfe picked up his now cold glass of mint tea and sipped.
“My wife is fine,” he said finally.
But that didn’t stop his mind from lingering on her during the meal. The business part of his brain was fully conscious of the things Quraishi outlined about their pending contract. But the other part of him remembered her face when the woman first approached their table. The flicker of annoyance that she had not bothered to hide. And he remembered the night they spent in the desert together. Waking up next to her. Her scent filling the waking morning and making him hard with need while an unfamiliar softness unfurled inside him, making him want to bring her closer to him on the pallet for nothing more than kisses and intimate whispers.
Quraishi tolerated his divided attention for another hour before asking for the check, his look both amused and understanding. When the car stopped in front of the hotel, Quraishi patted his shoulder. “Go to your wife. Show her there are no others. Tell her. Make her believe it since it’s obvious you already do.”
Wolfe thanked Quraishi for his hospitality once again and slipped from the car. On his way up to the room, he thought about what to say to Nichelle and how. But when he got to the suite, she wasn’t there. He called her phone and, after it rang only once, got her voice mail. Worried, he sent a text. Seconds later, she replied with a brief message. She was out and would see him later.
Wolfe clamped down on his anger. What the hell was going on? Whatever it was, he couldn’t stay in the room. He changed into his swim trunks and left for the pool. He exhausted his body with laps, his chest heaving, stomach and shoulder muscles aching with effort. But no matter how much he pushed himself, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
It was late when he went back to the room. She still wasn’t there. So he packed his suitcase, getting ready for their flight back to Miami the next morning. He fell asleep waiting for her. One moment, he was sitting on the couch with his suitcase at his feet, and the next, he was opening his eyes at the sound of the door clicking open.
It was dark. Definitely past midnight. The smell of clove cigarettes came into the room with Nichelle, scents of a bar, something faintly alcoholic.
“Where have you been?” He choked out the question, not bothering to hide his anger and worry.
She froze in front of the door in surprise. The lamplight from the terrace highlighted her as she stood, looking slightly guilty. She wore the same clothes from earlier that day, but the collar of her high-necked blouse was unbuttoned. She carried her shoes in her hands. Then she seemed to shake herself and realize who he was, who she was. She visibly gathered her shield of coldness around her.
“In case your convenient memory has forgotten, I’m not actually your wife.”
With a pointed glance in his direction, she slid past him for the bedroom then shut the door softly behind her. It wasn’t until he heard the hiss of the shower that he realized she hadn’t been wearing his rings.
Chapter 10
They went back to Miami and to business as usual. The firm settled into having Quraishi as a client. Nichelle and Wolfe stopped traveling as much. Days of sameness passed. If things between them weren’t quite the same as before the Morocco trip, Wolfe blamed it on their differing schedules, on the additional work they had to do now that they were officially a million-dollar-earning firm.
He never stopped yearning for how things had been between them before, the ease they had had with each other, the feeling like it was the two of them against the world. But he also wanted something new.
Wolfe often woke from dreams of having her in his arms again, of filling her body with his love until they were both drunk with it, their voices rising in shared pleasure. But Nichelle seemed the same as ever. If it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t see her as much as he used to, he could fool himself into thinking she was completely unmoved by what happened between them in Morocco.
As it was, she never lingered in the same room with him for long. She didn’t put her feet in his lap anymore to demand a foot rub. She rarely came to his office.
As for Wolfe, he hadn’t had a woman in weeks. Maybe that was his problem. He just needed to get laid. And because he was a problem solver, he immediately decided to do something about it, setting up a Friday evening date with a woman he’d met during a business lunch on Key Biscayne. Chantal.
Something about her had been interesting. It may have been that her cool, tall beauty, severe in a certain light, captivating in others, reminded him of Nichelle. How she seemed as cool as Greenland, but was a steamy and alluring woman of surprising lushness and warmth. Iceland, the woman. Or maybe he just wanted to make Chantal seem interesting. Either way, it was a date. And he needed the distraction.
A sharp and distinctive rap on his office door interrupted his thoughts.
“Come in, Philip.”
His assistant came in with a vase of irises. “It’s time for these to be replaced,” Philip said, going immediately to the bookshelf where a handful of iris blossoms, just a little wilted around the edges, sat in an identical square vase. Wolfe started to tell Philip to cancel the fresh flowers, a standing order he had at the florist every week since he’d found out they were Nichelle’s favorite.
With the sweet scent of the irises in his office, it was as if Nichelle was always there with him. A dangerous impulse, but one that he’d indulged in. The purple flowers lent an air of softness to the otherwise masculine space, he’d told her when she asked him why he kept the irises.
“Thanks, Philip.” He let his assistant carry on without cancelling the flowers. Next week he’d do it.
“Of course, sir.”
Philip took the old vase with him when he left. Wolfe immediately noticed the difference in the office, the hot and sugary smell of the fresh flowers that made him think even more about Nichelle.
He glowered at the vase, breaking his gaze only when his cell phone rang. It was his mother.
“Baby, am I interrupting anything?”
“Never, Mama.”
His mother laughed softly through the phone. “I doubt you’d tell me if I was.”
True. “I always have time for you.”
&nbs
p; “I’m glad you say that. How about lunch this afternoon?”
Just like he often called to check in on his mother, she checked in with him, too. It was something he didn’t think she did with any of his siblings, even though he was sure he wasn’t the only one who had figured out the family secret of her infidelity.
He mentally reviewed his calendar for the day. There was a project update meeting scheduled for one o’clock, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t push back.
“Of course,” he said. “Where do you have in mind?”
“I was thinking we could try out that new place with the fish.”
“Oceana.” He knew immediately which place she was talking about. “The underwater restaurant that feels like you’re eating in an aquarium?”
She chuckled. “Exactly.”
As usual, she seemed to get a kick out of how alike they were. She and Wolfe had similar tastes in nearly everything—food, entertainment, wines. Even their temperament, a leaning toward pleasure simply for pleasure’s sake, was eerily the same. It terrified him.
He opened his email and sent a quick note to the meeting participants to meet a half hour later. “Should I pick you up, or do you want to meet me there?”
“I’ll meet you there, darling. I don’t want to keep you away from work any longer than necessary.”
“I’m the boss, remember? I can do what I like.”
“Don’t let Nichelle hear you say that,” his mother teased. “I don’t want her to blame me for your cavalier attitude toward your office responsibilities.”
“Let me worry about Nichelle, Mama.”
“As if you don’t already?” she said with a laugh.
* * *
They met a few minutes past twelve. The elevator doors that took Wolfe twenty feet below sea level opened into a massive aquarium. The restaurant patrons were literally under glass and under the ocean, dining with sea life swimming languorously over and around them. A beautiful view. All the tables were situated along the transparent wall, leaving a long walkway leading back to the restrooms on one end and the elevator at the other.
The floor underneath his Italian loafers was hardwood and a deep brown, and the sound of his footsteps was absorbed by the low-grade noise of the already heavy lunch crowd.
His mother sat at a table near the middle of the restaurant. She had a glass of red wine, ignoring it in favor of looking around Oceana with a rapt expression.
“Mama.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek.
“Darling.” Her fingers lingered on his jaw before she withdrew it with a smile. “I hope you don’t mind that I started without you.” She indicated her wine. “It didn’t take me as long as I thought to get seated.”
“Good.” Since Oceana had been written up in the Miami Herald and a few other places, he’d called ahead to ensure a reservation. It was very popular for a new spot that wasn’t endorsed by a celebrity or porn star. “I wouldn’t want you to wait for me,” he said.
A waitress appeared at their table and handed him two sleek menus. “Welcome to Oceana, sir. Madam. May I get you something to drink?”
He ordered sparkling water, glanced quickly at the menu and ordered the fish of the day. His mother asked for the same.
“So what’s happening in your life these days, my Wolfe? I never can get a moment alone with you when you come home for family dinner.”
“That’s the struggle of having thirteen children and not as many pairs of ears.” He smiled, leaning back in his chair.
She looked beautiful. Two years away from sixty, but with a deep and dewy mahogany skin that made her look no older than forty. She wore her long, silver hair in a loose bun. Subtle makeup highlighted her mischievous eyes and mobile mouth, the soft curve of her chin.
She wore an indigo dress and black low-heeled shoes, with touches of gold jewelry at her wrists and throat. Her wedding rings winked in the soft, undersea light.
“No struggle, love. Only a pleasure.” The words she spoke were the truth, Wolfe knew, but she hadn’t always felt that way. Hence the reason she had left her family for another man.
“I’m glad, Mama.”
They had never talked openly about her betrayal, only circled the obvious empty space of words between them, what had happened the morning Wolfe, at twenty years old, had come to her with the small wooden box he found in her office after a long and thorough search. The box held a lipstick-stained silk tie, a small book of Neruda’s love poetry and a photograph of her seated in a man’s lap and looking defiantly happy.
His mother’s face had caved in on itself when he gave her the box, the happy spark in her eyes abruptly extinguished. Later that night, he woke to the smell of smoke and looked downstairs from his bedroom window to see her burning the contents of the box in a copper bowl. She held the empty box in her hand, staring off into space while tears tracked down her cheeks.
“Here you are, sir.” The waitress reappeared carrying an empty glass with a slice of lime perched on its edge, along with a bottle of Perrier. “Can I get you anything else while your meal is being prepared?”
Wolfe’s mother met his gaze, a brow raised, a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. “Yes, darling. Are you content? Or would you like something else?”
“I’m good for now.” He nodded at the waitress. “Thank you.”
She disappeared from the table, leaving him and his mother once again alone with their shared secret.
“So, my darling—” His mother leaned forward with the glass of red wine balanced between delicate fingers. “—is there anything in particular you want to talk about today?”
* * *
Wolfe left lunch with his mother feeling almost as on edge as when he’d sat down at the table with her. They’d talked about relationships, forming unhealthy attachments, following that particular seductive path to pleasure. Like his mother, Wolfe was a hedonist. Pleasure was his reason to live. Once something stopped feeling good, he was finished with it. And when there was something within reach that he imagined would both sate and excite him, he wanted it with a desperation that bordered on pain. Nichelle was like that for him.
He had circled around his desire for Nichelle during the conversation with his mother. And she had told him, in her own way, to take what he wanted. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the consequences of that.
So, after work, he reached out for the safer option. Chantal, the woman who wanted him.
He took her to a restaurant Nichelle would never enjoy. “I’m glad you were able to meet me on such short notice,” he said.
She laughed at him. “Even if you’d reached out to me an hour before, I would come. I’m very glad you called.”
Wolfe watched her through the flickering candlelight on their table. She wore a pretty white dress and was beautiful, but she did not look as much like Nichelle as he first thought. There was something almost brittle about her, a desperation that seemed to have nothing to do with him and everything to do with whatever she was going through in her life. And she wasn’t funny. Nichelle had a way of laughing at the world, herself included, that he’d always found irresistible. That amusement had been there as a child but grew even more pointed, more effective, after she came back from college.
“You’re very beautiful,” he said to Chantal. Compliments were his usual way of putting himself back in the game when his attention wandered.
“Thank you. You are too. Beautiful that is.” She blushed, and her skin, paler than Nichelle’s, reddened. “I thought that when I first saw you.”
“Thank you.”
But that was really all the conversation they had for each other. The waitress came and left, dropping off drinks and food and pleasant enough service. It was a gourmet place, one that served small portions on pretty plates and where you left feeling as if you’d just eaten air. He toyed with his glass of whiskey and watched Chantal, carefully keeping a smile on his face.
He was usually better than this. Talking to women until their lingering
unease, if there was any at all, disappeared. But despite Chantal’s beauty, he wanted the date to be over. Wanted to be doing something effortless but filled to the brim with pleasure. He wanted to talk with Nichelle.
Wolfe took a long sip of his whiskey. The drink burned going down and made him think, again, of Nichelle. He wished that it was his business partner, his pretend wife, who sat on the other side of the table with a wicked eyebrow raised, daring him to be himself while heat and expectation shimmered between them like dust after a light spring rain.
The meal came, then a second round of drinks. He found out that Chantal was an only child. That she enjoyed white water rafting, even though she couldn’t swim, that her ideal vacation involved spa treatments and couples massages. Was she fishing for a relationship out of this date?
By the time they’d eaten the food and exhausted their meager small talk, Wolfe was ready to leave. But he stayed longer, drank more whiskey until the date seemed almost like a good idea.
“I like you,” Chantal said, eyeing him over her third glass of champagne.
Wolfe shook his head. “You don’t know me.”
“But I want to.”
He shook his head again, thinking about the best way to get out of Brickell and back home in his slightly drunken state. A cab. He needed to call a cab. Well, two. One for Chantal and one for himself.
“You seem so perfect,” Chantal was saying. She tapped a pink-tipped fingernail against her champagne flute. “The perfect gentleman.”
Wolfe grinned, feeling his teeth flash, sharklike. “You definitely don’t know me.”
He always treated the women he dated well. But if he wanted to sleep with them, wanted more than a date, then a little of the beast came out. He’d be growling desire into her ear by the main course, or at least flirting in a way that made her know he was thinking of taking her to bed. But he felt none of that with Chantal, so it was easy to stay the perfect, sexless gentleman.
Affair of Pleasure Page 12
