Masters for Life

by Ginger Voight

  “Stop being so passive aggressive, Coralie. It doesn’t become you.”

  I watched as he walked, naked, into the bathroom. I was on his heels in an instant. “Fine. I’ll just be aggressive, then. Who were those women?”

  He reached into the shower to turn on the water. “I told you. They’re the neighbors.”

  I crossed my arms in front of me as I watched him step into the stall. “They seem mighty friendly for ‘neighbors,’” I pointed out.

  “It’s a friendly building,” he said before he baptized himself under the steamy spray.

  I scoffed as I openly gaped at him. “Are you really going to make me ask you the question?”

  He peered at me through the shower stall. “Are you really going to ask a question you know I’m not going to answer?”

  “Yes or no, do you have clients that live in this building?”

  He shampooed his hair. “I have all sorts of clients everywhere, Coralie.”

  “You know what I mean,” I snapped. “Did you ever fuck those two girls?”

  He chuckled, which only made me madder. “That wasn’t exactly the question,” he pointed out as he rinsed off.

  I put two and two together. No, I decided with a grim expression. I supposed it wasn’t. “So you fucked them for free? How neighborly. I guess that sure beats a cup of sugar.”

  He turned off the shower and stepped onto the bathmat, grabbing a nearby towel to dry himself. “There was sugar involved,” he smirked before he went into the bedroom.

  I followed him. “Seriously? You’re going to say that to me?”

  He shrugged. “What difference does it make what I say or what I don’t say? You can either see the face of a woman who has fucked your husband in every woman you meet and be miserable. Or you could see a bunch of random strangers who just happen to bump into each other once and a while, and be happy that you’re the one–the only one–that has my ring on her finger. Personally I think the choice is an easy one,” he added. “But if you don’t want to be happy, that’s really kind of on you.” He slid into the bed, naked. “So. Are you going to stand there and pout all night? Or are you going to get into this bed and fuck your husband?”

  I glared at him. I stomped around to my side of the bed, and snuggled down under the covers, turning my back to him defiantly. He chuckled softly before he leaned over me. I prayed for mercy. If he even touched me, I was going to jump that man, anger be damned. His breath was warm against my ear.

  “You’re only punishing yourself, darlin,’” he said before he reached across me to turn out the light on my side of the bed. He lingered only a second, to let me feel every hard contour pressed against me. But the warmth of his body quickly left a chill after he turned his back on me as well, likely to force me to make the next move. I simply curled myself into a tighter ball on the edge of the mattress.

  I replayed the incident in the gym over and over again the rest of the painfully sleepless night. I rewound the tape in my brain endlessly, trying to pick up any cues. I overanalyzed it to death, just like everything else I’d ever done. It was the one thing that had driven Oliver crazy.

  So I worked through each and every second from the time those two women had entered the gym. Had he taken special notice? Had his eyes brightened with their arrival? Had he been glad to see them?

  When they got close to him, had he leaned in towards them, allowing them to touch his arm gently, to lean their bodies close, to brush their perfect breasts against his arm?

  Most importantly… had they noticed the wedding ring that now rested on his finger? Had they noticed mine? Had they noticed me at all?

  I already knew the answer to that question. It was a resounding NO.

  Why had he allowed them to ignore me? If they were merely neighbors, why hadn’t he introduced them to his new bride? Even if they were clients for his image consulting business, whipping them into the best shape of their lives to tackle whatever behemoth industry they wanted to conquer, why couldn’t he bring up that he had recently married?

  The only logical explanation was that he hadn’t wanted to let them know he was out of commission. And why would he do that if he hadn’t slept with them?

  When I had asked him if he had ever brought women to this apartment, he had stated implicitly that he had fucked other women here, but they were not clients.

  So what were they?

  How could Devlin ever suggest that I enjoyed this chaos? It left me stressed out, paranoid and distrustful. I hated the person I was becoming. And a part of me hated Devlin for pushing me that far. I punished him for the rest of the week, refusing to rise to the bait whenever he tried to seduce me.

  Thanks to my new workout regimen, I didn’t have to fake headaches to do that. My aches and pains were real, which left me crankier and more out of sorts than usual. That made it a little easier to rebuff all advances. I pretended to be asleep whenever he came to bed. I didn’t move a muscle if he dared to kiss that forbidden line along the slope of my neck, the one that turned me into a quivering mass of gelatin every single time I felt his warm breath against my skin.

  By Friday I was coiled tight from juggling my jumble of emotions. Everything seemed to be going wrong. Our offer had been rejected for our dream house, which we hadn’t expected. It was the first real roadblock we’d faced in making our dreams come true. “That’s just not our house,” Devlin had said. I hadn’t responded.

  My libido and my pride were locked in a caged death match daily, to the point I felt like I might shatter like an antique vase if someone even breathed a little too close to me. Clearly I was going insane. I was in no mood for a family dinner at Father’s estate, but Devlin had already agreed to the invitation. I was grumpy all the way there.

  “Better let me do all talking,” he advised warily. I could tell that my giving him the shoulder all week was starting to wear on his nerves, too. This was probably the longest he’d gone without sex in a while.

  Good, I thought to myself. That’ll teach him to be a dick. I had no plans to make things any easier for him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  He slid a cool glance my direction. “Nice attitude, Coralie. Let them see their plan is working. I think I’m starting to see why it’s taken you so long to get the things you wanted.” I glared at him, so he expounded. “Maybe that’s why Vegas worked so well. You finally took what you wanted, no matter how many ‘rules’ you had to break to get it. Apply the same principle here. You’d be surprised how far you get and how quickly.”

  A peevish part of me couldn’t help but notice ‘how quickly’ he’d upgraded himself, driving my $100,000 car and wearing a suit he had bought directly from Cabot’s that week, personally altered by Father’s own tailor.

  Way to kiss up, Dev, I thought to myself as I all but snarled his direction.

  We arrived at Father’s around seven o’clock that evening, via the back entrance so I could say hello to one of my favorite people on Planet Earth. Though Gretch wasn’t that big of a hugger, she threw her arms around me with a happy, warm smile. She squeezed me tight.

  “You’re too skinny,” she frowned as she felt my biceps. “You stay on this honeymoon too much longer and you’ll disappear entirely.”

  No shit, I thought.

  “Your father is in the formal living room. Everyone should already be here.”

  My eyebrow arched. “Everyone?”

  “Full house tonight,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She could demonstrate that kind of insubordination because she wasn’t technically a part of Father’s household staff. She probably should have moved out with me when I married, but she had been running everything for Father for near a decade. It would have flummoxed her to do anything else.

  Plus I couldn’t imagine sharing a house with Gretchen when, just a few rooms away, I was doing dirty unmentionable things to my brand new husband. She’d have rightly beaten me with a yard stick.

  “Fine. We’ll join the others,” I said, using air
quotes to make her laugh, which she did. Devlin handed her a bottle of wine. Her eyes widened when she saw the label.

  “How…? Where did you get this?”

  Devlin shrugged, wearing that disarming smile of his. “What can I say? I’m a bit of a collector.”

  She nodded, unable to wrench her eyes away from that vintage label. I followed my husband from the kitchen, down the hall and into the formal living room where, as Gretchen had said, everyone had gathered.

  There was Father, of course, and Audrey and Margot. Oliver was thrown in for good measure, because of course he’d be shoved up under my nose at any given opportunity.

  Standing next to Margot was a lithe, tall man who looked like the epitome of California. His light brown hair had golden streaks from all the exposure to the sun, and the choppy style flopped lazily over his eyes, tousled and windswept with just the right amount of product. His close beard stretched along his strong jaw, meticulously trimmed. His supple skin was a shimmering bronzy color belied by the eight-hundred-dollar designer suit he wore; all I could see were swimming trunks, wet suits, flip flops and sunshine, a playboy at home on the sand or slumming it by the pool.

  It probably didn’t help matters any that he looked my age. Margot was an unapologetic cougar. She liked to catch her boy toys right in their prime. And from how many she’d paraded around in the past umpteen years, it appeared that they loved her too.

  He flashed a brilliant white smile as I approached. “You must be CC,” he said, reaching for my hand. He looked behind me towards Devlin, whose jaw clenched immediately.

  “If another man touches you, I’ll rip his goddamned hands off…”

  I easily disengaged myself and took a step back towards my husband.

  My husband. When was I ever going to get used to saying that?

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” I said, sweet as sugar.

  He smiled wider. “Caz. Caz Bixby. I’m a friend of your Aunt Margot’s.”

  “He’s my personal trainer,” she purred as she stretched out on the chaise lounge.

  Of course he is. Next to Devlin, I had never seen a man more anatomically accurate. His jaw was squared, just like it had been sculpted from marble. From the way his clothes fit, I was pretty sure that everything below the next was just as defined. He looked like he could have stepped out of a magazine.

  He caught how my gaze swept over him, and I could tell by that glint in those bright amber green eyes that he both welcomed and expected the attention.

  Momentarily I wondered how someone far more ordinary like Oliver might feel in comparison. I glanced his direction. He stared into the bottom of his whiskey glass, saying nothing at all. Why draw attention to yourself if you only suffer by comparison?

  I certainly knew how that felt.

  “Yes,” murmured Aubrey, who sat sullenly with arms crossed. “Apparently now we just invite anyone over for family dinner.”

  “That’s enough, Audrey,” Father corrected in a stern voice that left no room for argument. She simply pouted further and let the subject drop. Father made the necessary introductions. “Caz is a friend of your aunt’s. He will be accompanying us to Lucy’s wedding next week.”

  Father didn’t seem very happy about it, but he had never been a fan of Margot’s many torrid affairs. I wondered sometimes if Dad ever got truly angry at God for taking his sweet wife Madeline rather than her saucy sister Margot.

  “This is CC’s husband, Devlin Masters,” Father told Caz.

  Caz reached out to shake Devlin’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Devlin tersely clipped before wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

  “They tell me that you are recent newlyweds. Congratulations,” he said as he raised his glass of champagne.

  I tipped my chin defiantly. “Two weeks today,” I announced, before taking a glass from the tray Gretchen had carried into the room.

  He turned to Margot. “And why wasn’t I invited to that one?” he teased with a smirk all his own.

  “None of us were invited to that one,” Margot said. “They eloped in Las Vegas.”

  Caz approved. “Awesome. I love Vegas. I try to get there every chance I get. Anything can and does happen,” he said, motioning to us.

  “So it would seem,” Father grumbled. He took another glass of champagne for himself. “But we will rectify that particular problem soon enough.”

  I swung around to face him. “What does that mean?”

  Father didn’t even flinch as he looked me in the eye. “You’re going to get married in a church. In front of God and in front of your family. It’s the only way it’s legitimate.”

  Before I could say anything, Devlin squeezed his arm around my shoulders. “I’ll marry your lovely daughter as many times as you like, Charles,” he assured with a smile.

  Father nodded and then waved his hand to dismiss the topic. “One wedding at a time, please,” he said. “Let’s get through next weekend first.”

  It was no secret that Lucy’s wedding had gone off the rails months ago. Most of us knew it was something we would simply have to endure. That included Lucy, which was why stealing away to Vegas and getting married on her own terms was so important to her. Now we were all just waiting for it to be over so we could return to our normal lives. It was going to be a huge deal. Then it was going to be over.

  Life could go on at last.

  As Gretch herded us into the formal dining room, I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly ‘normal life’ would look like now that Devlin Masters had landed in my world. Normal went out the window weeks ago, right around the time I sent an email to a stranger on the Internet, to see if he’d have dirty, dirty sex with me.

  Maybe normal was overrated…

  We all took our seats and Gretchen brought a silver tray to the head of the table where Father sat. She revealed the bottle she had yet to uncork. It was Devlin’s gift. “From Mr. Masters,” Gretch told Father as she handed him the bottle for his approval.

  I watched my father’s eyes widen in disbelief as he read that classic label trimmed in gold filigree.

  It was a Chateau du Cabot Pinot Noir 2002, one of our award-winning wines that had recently sold at auction for more than five figures. The only wine more valuable from our vineyard was the Chateau du Cabot Madeline ’91, a sparkling pink champagne created in honor of my parents’ wedding. Only fifty bottles were made, one to celebrate each anniversary they anticipated that they would share, where he’d pledge his life annually to his young wife.

  Neither one of them thought he’d have to drink thirty-seven of them without her.

  Truth be told, he only drank one without his lovely bride, right after my mother’s funeral, when we scattered her ashes at Chateau du Cabot. He got raging drunk and broke two more.

  He hadn’t touched one drop of the wine since that day. The other thirty-five bottles were in France, safely stored at a cool 50 degrees. What we were saving it for, I didn’t know. Maybe dear old Dad thought if he kept them around, one day she might return to share another bottle.

  Or maybe, just maybe, he was going to bequeath the bottles to me upon my wedding day, to pass their love on to me as I started a new family of my own.

  I felt myself softening towards him too. Dammit.

  He turned to face Devlin in utter disbelief over his gift. “Where did you get this?”

  “I started collecting wines a little over three years ago,” Devlin answered. “That is without a doubt the most expensive bottle I’ve purchased. I was saving it for a special occasion,” he added before stealing a glance at me. “What could be more special than bringing this special wine back home?”

  Father was speechless. He had (correctly) pegged Devlin as a gigolo, so I knew damned well that he never suspected that Devlin could be a man of such class and breeding.

  If there was one way to win over my Father, it was demonstrating class and breeding.

  Father shook his head immediately and gave the
bottle back to Gretchen. “We shall save that for your wedding. Your real one,” he added, glaring at me.

  It looked like the son-in-law was edging out the biological daughter yet again.

  Joy.

  The kitchen staff served the meal, and I was glad for the reprieve. It was short-lived, however. Since Dev was clearly now one of dear ol’ Dad’s favorite people, Father wanted to chit-chat about Devlin’s new project.

  Me.

  “So have you found a designer for your project?” Father asked.

  Dev shook his head and lied through his teeth. “I have a few I’m considering,” he hedged, and I had to wonder why he didn’t just pitch Darcy right then and there. Clearly Devlin didn’t want to show his hand just yet, though I wasn’t sure why.

  And it wasn’t like he’d ever tell me.

  “What new project?” Margot asked, glancing between the two men.

  I held my breath, waiting for the humiliation to commence. Thankfully, both Father and Devlin seemed loath to discuss the dirty details. “Devlin is overhauling the Cabot image, particularly the face of our younger shoppers,” Father answered.

  “About damned time,” Aubrey muttered, and Father glared her direction until she shrank back against her chair. “It’d just be nice to buy something at Cabot’s that doesn’t look like I’m some fluffy debutante. I want something edgier,” she declared. “Cutting edge.”

  “One thing at a time,” Father growled before he finally released her from his gaze.

  Dev was quick to pick it up and run with it. “Actually that plays right into everything I hope to achieve. I think it would benefit us to focus on Millennials who aren’t ready to start dressing like their mothers.”

  “Right?” Audrey agreed at once. She glanced back at Father. “I love you, Uncle Charles, but none of my friends want to shop there. It’s much too old fashioned.”

  I was stunned to hear her say so. I had always assumed because she could fit into all the styles and the clothes that we sold, she could find something she would like. It never dawned on me that my beautiful, perfect niece was dissatisfied, unwilling to dress the way Cabot’s thought she should dress.