The Billionaire's Wife

by Ava Lore

  “You think he'll figure out that you like him?” Sadie asked me as a cop car pulled up by the curb.

  “I don't know,” I said. “He seems a little dumb in the mooshy feelings department.” We watched as the cops got out of the car and began their investigation—namely, asking who was responsible for this. Fingers pointed at me.

  “Maybe you should have made him a mix tape,” Sadie said.

  “Maybe you should shut up,” I told her, and then I got arrested.

  *

  Okay, it didn't happen quite that quickly. First there were lots of questions and lots of pictures snapped by gawking bystanders, but the bottom line is that I ended up in cuffs when I refused to remove the 'illegal installation,' mostly because I really didn't know what to do next and getting arrested seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Sadie promised to keep my sculpture safe for me.

  “You better,” I told her as they shoved me in the back of the car. “That's what I pay you for.”

  She made a face at me as we pulled away.

  I got processed and put in a holding cell. My bail was set at five thousand dollars. I figured I was going to be there for a while and settled in, staring at the crude yet incredibly creative graffiti on the walls left behind by my fellow criminals. Some of them had been very good artists.

  I was in the middle of scratching out my own contribution to the communal artwork—a loving rendition of a butt in a cop hat—when an officer opened my cell.

  “You're free to go. You posted bail.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Really? The only person I could think of who would come get me would be Sadie, or maybe my mom. My mom really wouldn't like the idea of me sitting in jail. It would look bad. Worse than marrying for money or your husband losing all your money. Like, you'd just be formerly rich then. Not a filthy criminal. Having a daughter who was a criminal? Well then you would be a bad mother.

  I got up and followed the officer out of the holding cell. They gave me my shit—not much—and told me my court date, and then they escorted me to the front desk.

  Anton stood there.

  I stopped and stared. I hadn't seen him in almost a month. We'd been apart for longer than we'd known each other.

  He was still beautiful. Still magnetic. But he looked tired. His green eyes were lined, and his face drawn. His fluid dancer's stance was stiff, as though he were in pain.

  He watched me, and I watched him for a long moment.

  “Felicia,” he said. Then he seemed to stop, as though he didn't know what to say next. I'm sorry, or come home, or—anything. He knew he should say something.

  Finally he opened his hands, as though to show me he had no weapons. “Sadie told me you were in jail,” he said.

  God, he was such a dork.

  I ran forward and threw my arms around him, and it felt like waking up.

  Chapter Nine:

  Bartered Surrender

  We drove back home. To Anton's house. It was awkward, the way we sat in silence the whole way there, staring out the windows, but deep inside it was also a huge relief. Whatever happened, the stasis would be over. We could move on.

  Wherever that would be.

  My palms began to sweat.

  When we finally reached the house, I was a ball of nerves. I didn't know if Anton had seen my work, or if Sadie had only told him I had been arrested. Though now that I thought about it, she probably had made sure he knew exactly why I'd been arrested. She's an artist, too. She understands the fundamental Look at me! motivation that underpins all works of art. So I could be ninety-nine percent certain he'd seen it. What he thought about it was another matter entirely.

  The moment the door of the foyer closed behind us, we were alone in the house, and the atmosphere became oppressive. I tried to play it off, reaching up and shaking my hair out of its ponytail. I ignored Anton as he took his coat off and walked into the kitchen. I needed coffee. And something more substantial than goddamn ramen noodles.

  There was a jar of sweet pickles in the fridge. I swiped it, popped it open, and began crunching away as I busied myself with making coffee.

  Anton followed me and installed himself in the breakfast nook, leaning against the back door. He crossed his arms and watched me as I bustled around. I didn't know what he was thinking, but it didn't matter. I'd said what I needed to say. The ball was in his court now.

  Turning the coffee maker on, I took my jar of pickles and sat down at the table. I met Anton's glittering green eyes full on. For the first time, I felt like we were meeting as equals, and I could see it made him uncomfortable. I tried to help him.

  “Pickle?” I asked him, proffering a gherkin.

  He smiled, though it looked pained. “Felicia...” he said.

  I waited, the trick he'd taught me. Waited for him to fill up the silence.

  Finally he sat down at the table and rubbed a hand over his forehead. I thought he'd rub his face right off, he was so forceful. He was working up to something. Something he didn't do much.

  “Felicia,” he said at last, “I am so, so sorry.”

  Those words were sweet, and necessary. But not really what concerned me.

  “I know you are,” I said. “I understand.”

  He looked at me in surprise. “You do? I mean... I am not... not the best at conveying my feelings. You know that.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I know that,” I said. “I know that really well.”

  “This is hard for me.”

  I shrugged. “You gotta learn how to do it some time, right?”

  He took a deep breath and blew it out in a long stream. “Yes,” he said finally. “You are right.”

  Abruptly he stood up, the legs of the chair he sat in scraping over the floor, and held a hand out to me. “Please come with me, Felicia,” he said. “There's something I want to show you.”

  “Is it your cock?” I asked. “Because I've already seen that.”

  To my complete shock, his face broke into a sheepish grin. A grin.

  Anton Waters knew how to grin.

  Well, how about that? I thought.

  I placed my hand in his. Immediately that old familiar fire flared up, and I inhaled sharply. His hand on mine was electric. The very nearness of him made me hum, as though we vibrated along the same frequency. I wanted to fall into him, but getting sidetracked by our mutual desire was what had made it so dangerous for us in the first place. Firmly pushing my sudden breathlessness aside, I rose and we walked hand and hand back into the foyer.

  He stopped in front of the basement door.

  “Oh, wow,” I said. “Is this the part where you show me the dismembered bodies of your other wives?”

  He looked faintly offended. “What are you talking about?”

  I grinned at him. “Sadie and I were wondering what was in the basement.”

  “You told me you were wondering if there was a sex dungeon down there.”

  “Well, yeah, but that was only one theory.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, clearly bemused, then shook his head. “No dead bodies,” he said, pulling his keys from his pocket. “But something very important to me all the same.”

  He slid the key into the lock, and the teeth grated over the pins. With a click, he opened the basement door and turned the light on.

  We descended.

  I gasped.

  It was an art gallery, white walls and blond wooden floors and perfectly ambient temperature. And not just any art gallery—a gallery of pieces I recognized, and not because they were famous. They were from local artists living in New York. I knew some of them. I'd certainly seen some of their work. There was something by Jillian—an intricate sculpture of clock parts and dead wood washed up on the beach—and one of Harry's minimalist paintings—from what we all jokingly called his Man Ass period—and even one of Paulo's cascading rollercoaster pieces from when he was working almost exclusively with roofing shingles. A huge canvas hung on the far wall, glittering and undulat
ing with layers upon layers of shimmering jewel-toned paint and jagged pieces of aluminum cans. One of Sadie's works.

  And on a pedestal—not in the center, thank god—but there all the same, one of my creations lay, sprung from clay I had manipulated myself. A ferret with human hands, covering its face, in a posture of utter despair as it curled on its side beneath an interesting tree branch I'd found in the park on a walk with Sadie. I'd called it waking for some reason. I couldn't even remember now why I'd called it that. But Anton had bought it.

  “What... what is this?” I said. “Did you know me before we met?”

  His hand around mine squeezed tighter. “I wouldn't say that,” he said. “But I had heard your name before.” He wouldn't look at me, only stared at waking as though trying to connect the woman next to him with the piece of art in his little private gallery.

  A bench sat in the middle of the basement, a huge soft cushion on it, and Anton led me to it. We sat, and I stared around me in amazement. “Why didn't you tell me you liked art?”

  “I don't know,” he said. “And it's not... it's not really the art I like, per se. That's not why I started collecting it, anyway.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  This was it. Here's where he told me everything. Whatever it was that kept him from reaching out to me.

  “When I was a baby, my parents died in a car crash,” he said. I already knew that, but now that I knew him better I could hear the little thread of sorrow in his voice, spun from an ache in his chest. “I never knew them. They were young. Still in high school. It fell to my other family to raise me.” He shook his head. “But they were pretty dirt poor and the situation was not... stable.”

  His mouth twisted. “Well, it was chaos, actually. People coming and going, and my grandmother was angry with my dead mother for dying, and for having a kid in the first place, and she took that out on me. Sometimes she would dump me with one of my aunts or uncles—great aunts and uncles, if we are going to be precise—and disappear for a while. She was still young. None of them had a steady job. None of them had been to college. Not that that means anything, but it was terrifying for a little kid who didn't have anyone to count on. Drunks and drug addicts, most of them. The ones who did work were so ground down supporting the rest of them that it was always shouting matches and throwing things. I remember I got slapped when I cried when I was a little kid. I couldn't have been more than four. I bounced through foster homes sometimes, when no one could afford to take care of me, or the cops were called one too many times. They always hated it when CPS took me. They were too proud to lose me, but too selfish to keep me.”

  His hand was still in mine, and I felt him stiffening. Afraid that he would pull away from me, I tightened my grip.

  His body hunched, and then I truly did think he would pull away, but then he squeezed back, hard enough to hurt. I didn't make a sound.

  Taking a deep breath, Anton seemed to steady himself. “So that was my childhood. Nothing special. Lots of people have it worse. And I was lucky enough to be just smart enough to get through school without a lot of studying. I don't know. Maybe I did well because it was the only place where no one was screaming all the time. When I was sixteen I left and stayed with a friend. His house wasn't that much better, but...” He trailed off, a faint, humorless smile on his face. “He did have an older sister.”

  He wouldn't look at me. “You can perhaps infer our relationship. We fucked on the sly, and one day she asked me to spank her, because she'd heard it was hot. She didn't like it. I did.” He shrugged, as if that was all there was to say to that. “I liked having control over things in the bedroom. It was the only thing I felt like I could control. You learned to be whatever someone wanted you to be in my house if you didn't want to get hit, and I could control myself, but controlling other people... it was like a drug. With domination, you control the environment. No screaming. No yelling. No hitting.” He smiled again. “Not unless they want you to, anyway.”

  I squirmed, remembering the spankings Anton had given me. I was glad I enjoyed it. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have this opportunity.

  “Once I was done with school I left those people behind. I changed my name. You don't want to hear the boring details, but being a control freak and a charming man gets you pretty far in the world of business, in case you hadn't figured that out. The problem was that I wasn't really me anymore. Or perhaps I didn't know who I was to begin with. When I came to New York, I told myself I would try to build a new identity. I'd throw myself into the city, and I'd make this place my home. It's about as far from the backwards redneck part of Florida you can get without moving to somewhere like Amsterdam. This...” He gestured around us at the art he had collected. “This is part of that. I wanted New York to be the place where I was most comfortable. I wanted to be a New Yorker. You can lose yourself here and become someone completely new. So after I started making money I started turning myself into a New Yorker, going to clubs and using the subway even when I didn't have to and drinking coffee in local shops and patronizing local artists... I just wanted to become Anton Waters, whoever that was.”

  He heaved a sigh. “I don't think I've done very well. I still feel out of place. But after I started buying up pieces from local artists, I found I liked them. They are exactly what I need to see. Different every time I look at them, because I'm different every time I look at them. Sometimes it's the only way I know that the person I am inside changes. Sometimes it's the only way I know there's someone in there, choosing which mask to wear.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “So that's it. Fairly boring, I think. Love makes people stupid, and loud. Getting emotionally involved... it's not safe. Obligation is a terrible thing when you don't want it. My family taught me that. I was just an obligation they didn't need.”

  My eyes stung. I was the same for my father, but in a different way. And my mother... I was her crutch. Too much need was just as bad as too little, in its own way.

  “That's why you didn't want the hassle of finding someone who would just... be a trophy wife?”

  He shook his head. “I didn't want a trophy wife, I wanted a real wife. But falling in love...” He seemed to shudder. “That's why our contract was so exacting. I didn't want you to feel as though you owed me anything and start resenting me. But I truly did want a wife. It's just hard to get a wife when you don't want to fall in love.” That faint smile crossed his face, and I realized, for the first time, that he was laughing at himself, at what he thought was his own ridiculousness.

  “Didn't... didn't you try therapy?” I said. “That could help.”

  His smile widened. “I'm sure it could, if I could stop fucking my therapists. Whenever the questions get too probing I get desperate and out of control. I hate that. So I fuck them.” He shrugged. “And then they aren't very good therapists any more.”

  My heart hurt. “And why did you want a wife?” I asked him.

  He turned and looked at me. His green eyes were so deep, so intense. Just like the eyes I gave him in my sculpture. I wanted to fall into them.

  “I wanted someone to give a shit about me, I suppose,” he said. I heard the lump in his throat. It was the most raw and honest thing I'd ever heard him say.

  I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. “I give a shit about you,” I said.

  His smile turned wry. “I know you do, Felicia. I give a shit about you, too.”

  We're so romantic. They should make movies about us.

  I laughed. I couldn't help it. Then I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him so fiercely he started to cough. Only when he tapped my shoulder did I back off.

  I pulled back, but not too far. His face hovered in front of me, warm and full-lipped, beautiful and guarded. Reaching up, I wove my fingers through his luxurious hair and pulled him down until our foreheads touched.

  “Anton,” I said, “I don't want a marriage of convenience. I think we're beyond that now, anyway.”

  He swallowed. “Yes. Most likely.�
� He paused. “Your piece... the piece you just made... that was us, wasn't it?”

  I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes. “Yup.”

  “It was amazing. Sadie made sure I saw all the best pictures.” He sighed. “Is that how you truly feel?”

  I nodded against him.

  “It was amazing,” he said again. For a long moment, I felt other words hovering at the edge of his tongue. “I hurt you,” he continued finally. “I didn't mean to. I should have said something when I realized you had agreed to our marriage under false pretenses. But I didn't know how to do it. The drama...” He trailed off, but I knew exactly what he meant.

  “Fuck my parents,” I said. “Fuck that drama. Where's your family?”

  He gave a tiny laugh without humor. “Once I started making a name for myself they recognized me and started coming around for money. I paid them off, made them sign contracts saying they would never contact me again, and sent them to live in Mexico.”

  Smart. Really smart. I should do that, I thought. Put that shit on my to-do list. “Good. Fuck those guys, too. Fuck it all. I don't care about them, and I don't need to know your original name. You're Anton to me. You've never been anyone else. And you weren't the one who told me my mom was dying.”

  “I didn't tell you that I knew she wasn't.” He sounded pained.

  He was so dense. It was adorable. “And why didn't you do that when you found out?” I said.

  He seemed to think about this for a long time. “Because... I suppose because I didn't want you to leave,” he said, and surprise colored his voice. He pulled me close, his arms around me tightening.

  “Felicia,” he said. “Don't leave.”

  “Ugh. Don't get all sentimental on me,” I told him, and kissed him.

  Our lips met, for the first time as equals, and yet the fire that had consumed us was undimmed. Even more, it now had a sharp, sweet edge to it, an edge that sliced right through my heart. Urgently I kissed Anton, and he responded eagerly. His hands, rough and hungry, roamed my body, warming me, filling me up even as my heart spilled out. I parted my lips, and his tongue slipped inside my mouth, tangling with mine. No longer did we fight for dominance, but together we stroked and licked, dancing. The desire I had held for him the entire time we were apart flared up, embers reigniting with his breath.