The Affair (The Relationship Quo Series Book 5)

by Nicole Strycharz

  “Uh, no,” Liam pulled up his sleeves.

  “Then why you lookin’ at me?” I asked.

  Liam blinked.

  “Get back in the kitchen,” I growled.

  “No,” Richard interrupted. “I won’t have a man with a reputation such as his, in my establishment. God forbid it was found out by the media.”

  “This is a family operated joint,” I said with as much calm as I could muster. “And Liam is family.”

  Liam’s head swung in my direction. The shock on his face was laugh worthy.

  “But,” I added. “He’s gonna be dead family if he don’t get back in my Goddamn kitchen,” I shifted my gaze from Richard to glare at Liam.

  Liam’s slow smile annoyed the living fuck out of me. “Right, okay, boss,” he left us, returning to the back.

  “You must enjoy provoking me,” Richard lifted his cup.

  “He’s a great cook.”

  “Lorenzo, why don’t you sit?” Ruby coaxed.

  “Nah, I’m working,” I smiled at her and bent to lean my knuckles on the surface. “Can’t.”

  “Where were you before the rush?” Ruby slipped her hand over mine, the other winding up my forearm.

  “Out for a smoke.”

  “Giada didn’t know where you were…” she said it suspiciously. She’s already formulating an affair. Finding a way to thrust her sins on me.

  “Giada’s job is to watch the doors, not me.”

  “I want to know why I’m allowing Liam to remain here,” Richard pressed.

  I lifted my brows. “Semplice, your daughter and I run personnel. Since she is usually too engaged to bother with specifics, I run the candidates through to her, then choose, myself. Unless you would like to be in charge of hiring. I’ll send you the applicants daily.”

  “Don’t try bullying me, you can’t,” Richard allowed for humor to show in his eyes then erased it. “On to other matters. Do what you will with Liam. It’s time for a remodel.”

  I stiffened, and feeling it, Ruby tried caressing my arm. It took all my will power not to pull away. “What remodel?”

  “This place is too small, and the theme is dead. Old Italy. No one cares for ancient Rome and hanging garlic. We need a pristine presentation. Glass, steel, better lighting.”

  I shook my head. “Little Italy is about culture, history, and the preservation of heritage. If you remove the spirit of the place, you will cut our clientele in half.”

  “Ruby, show him your ideas,” Richard prompted.

  Ruby took her hands off me to reach under the table for her satchel, and as soon as I saw the designs, I recognized them from our living room. She went over my head. Went straight to daddy for the okay to do what she wanted to a building she rarely visits, a place she doesn’t even remember the history of.

  She laid them all out, knowing full well that I couldn’t avoid it.

  “I was frustrated to hear that you had blown off Ruby’s thoughts,” Richard explained before sipping his coffee. “She is incredibly business-savvy and you two are supposed to be at least equal partners in this endeavor. That was the intention when I bought from you. Unless working with a woman is too daunting for you. I understand the Italians can still be very old-world about gender norms.”

  I took the slam, how can I not? “Your daughter hasn’t shown interest in Cibo Degli Dei since she worked here, and that was over ten years ago.”

  “Speaking of names, that one has seen it’s day. When we remodel, we will call the place, Taste of Italy. Easier to pronounce, and more commercial.”

  “It’s been Cibo Degli Dei since it was started in the twenties.”

  “It’s not the twenties,” he said sternly.

  I looked down at Ruby. “You’re quiet.”

  She pushed her hair behind her ear. “You know how I feel. I love the restaurant, but it’s not living up to its potential. Your dad would have wanted you to expand and grow.”

  The ugly retorts swirled in my head.

  My father never approved of Ruby. He had told me to love her, but not to marry her, not right away, and I didn’t listen. And her father only tolerated me, because I was something she loved, and he would never deny his daughter anything, not even me.

  “The redesign will begin in the fall,” her father said. “And if that doesn’t suit your preferences, we can shut it all down and you can relive all the history you want. Scraping to start over the way your ancestor did. From nothing.”

  As soon as I could find an excuse, I left and went to the back. Though the kitchen is like a mother to me, even she couldn’t quell the sudden need I had to pull bricks from the walls and smash my father-in-law’s skull in.

  All my culinary staff paused to watch me move through the kitchen toward the back where we all smoked. I banged the door open and found Lydia sitting on crates. She stood when she saw me.

  “I’m gonna drag him outside,” I said. “I’m hoping you stop me because I want to do it. I need to do it. But I also know my life is over if I do.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” she stepped toward me as though I might spook and dart away. “He’s not worth doing that.”

  “I want to.”

  “I know…” she reached out and took my hand. “I get it.”

  “I’m going to lose everything either way.”

  She didn’t correct me. She knows I’m right.

  “Not everything,” she assured. And I don’t know if she means my family, her, or both.

  I just hold her hand and wonder why her touch doesn’t sear my skin, making me feel burned and manipulated? Her touch soothes me. Keeps me grounded.

  “Hey,” she jiggles my hand a little, seeing me go back into that darker place. “Five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two that you can smell, and one that you can taste.”

  My breathing regulates as I bring myself down to contemplate my answers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  NOAH

  In the days that pass, I feel myself drifting further and further from Lydia. I don’t like the person she’s become, this cold and unfeeling woman that used to be so full of light.

  I’ve found myself retreating into Ruby’s arms for comfort. Needing her voice to power through my day. My mind is always filled with her.

  The sun is hanging low while Ruby and I walk the quiet little neighborhood her getaway house is in. I love the way people perceive us as we wander. Both of us wear rings, and so, to the naked eye, hand-in-hand, we are the married couple.

  January passed us by quickly, then February. March came and went, now, as April closes, I want to make strides of change. I feel the unwavering love in me for Ruby and need to act on it.

  “Remember back when Lydia was pregnant, you mentioned going away?” I asked.

  Ruby seemed far away in her head but returned to me. “We talked about a long weekend.”

  “What if we do that, now? You’re between cases, and I could tell Lydia that there’s a Probation Officer meeting or gathering or something. Anything to free me up a few days.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “Anywhere you want.”

  “The Hamptons are nice…”

  So, she’s already thought about it. “Let’s go.”

  “We’ve been together over a year, but now you sound sure and direct.” She leaned into me until I put her under my arm. “What’s going on in your head.”

  “I’m in love with you.” We kept walking, but I know my statement is affecting her. “And I don’t think I’m in love with my wife. Not anymore.”

  “Are you sure? You say I think, a lot.” She bites her lower lip, then releases it. “Are you still sleeping with her?”

  “No,” I answer instantly. “We haven’t had sex since…” I try to remember. “Since she told me she was pregnant. Doesn’t that say enough? We’ve never been this long apart.”

  “And she doesn’t notice or question it?” Ruby’s curves fit well against my body. “I
t weirds me out sometimes, that she doesn’t ask you questions or suspect.”

  “She’s not a mature thinker. Her thought process is different. If I tell her I’m working, she believes I’m working.” I realized that it sounded like I was putting her down, and it hurt me to do it. “She’s got nothing to do all day except things around the house, church socials, her toy restorations, the little scrapbooking thing. She gets up crazy early to go for a run at the same time every day. Her life is predictable, and she finds the predictable safe. That’s why she doesn’t question me or what I’m doing.”

  “Maybe you don’t notice that she’s suspicious,” Ruby took her sunglasses off and put them up on her head as the day darkened. “You didn’t notice she had a job, either.”

  “Scrapbooking isn’t a job.”

  “How much is she making with it? Who is she affiliated with? Depending on who, she could be making quite a lot.”

  “Ruby,” I shook my head. “I’m not reading her checks because it can’t be that much. Spending money for her toys at the least.”

  “She isn’t depositing the checks into your shared account?” Ruby’s questions started to annoy me.

  “Stop overthinking it.”

  “What if she knows and she’s saving to leave you?”

  I laughed. “Lydia isn’t smart enough to devise all that.” I stopped laughing, hearing myself. “I shouldn’t say that. She’s smart, just not that kind of smart. If she knew, she would fall apart,” saying it, took the light feeling from my chest. The one that was filling me up just a moment ago. “And she would go running to her parents for support. She’s never had a job, she’s not like you.”

  “Lydia and I are day and night,” Ruby said in a small voice.

  I nodded. “Since losing the baby, she’s a whole other person. I don’t think she knows I exist. She doesn’t even ask what’s going on in my head, about it. She’s either scrapbooking or working on her toys. We don’t talk. If we do, we fight.”

  Ruby makes a hmm, sound. “Can you handle the shame of coming out as a cheater, should we decide to…”

  “Why does anyone need to know?” I shrugged. “Think about our relationship. No one knows we’re together. If we both get divorced, then date publicly afterward, who could say anything?”

  “As similar as we are, we are also complete opposites,” she reminded. “I can’t do the church thing, Noah. I’m not like Lydia.”

  “We could go to a new church with new people and just be a couple. No involvement in the workings of it.”

  She laughed. “I’m not giving up my Sundays to sit through a lecture about how far from grace I am.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Why can’t you go alone?” she eyed my profile. “Why do I have to be there at all?”

  “I guess you don’t,” she’s right. I’m trying to mold her into Lydia. “I’m talking about leaving Lydia, Ruby. That’s what this conversation is about. This is me, working out what our life would look like if I was single. What about you?”

  She flicked her hair back. “What about me?”

  “If I give up Lydia, will you give up Lorenzo?”

  Silence.

  I smiled bitterly out at the sidewalk. “I’m an idiot.”

  “No, you aren’t. I’m trying to work this out. Lorenzo means the world to me. Granted, my kind of love is… unfair. If he had a lover… I don’t think I could take it. Sometimes I have dreams of him loving someone that isn’t me, or sleeping with someone else… I walk in as quiet as I can when I come home from work because I always expect someone to be there, him laying with a woman. I do things that I would never allow him to do. I’m jealous, insecure, and irrational…” She tightened her hold on me. “And now I’m like that with you too.”

  “You’re not—"

  “I hate Lydia. I hate that you go home to her. I hate that you’ve fucked her. When I was in your pantry last year, I hated hearing her voice, that I was in her house, that she had you, that she touched you when she came in. I’m just sick, Noah. I’m not sure you know how sick.”

  “I know, and I love you anyway.”

  “Only Lorenzo knows, and he loves me anyway.”

  We parted our bodies in mutual aggravation. Why is my knowledge of her, being measured against Lorenzo’s?

  “You think I like knowing he has you?” I ask, exasperation lacing my tone. “Or that he could have sex with you whenever he wants? Hold you, whenever he wants? Owning you like that stupid restaurant he seems to always put first.”

  “That’s different.”

  I scoffed. “How is that different?”

  “See,” she sounded like she was gloating. “I’m sick, I told you that.”

  “I hate Lorenzo the same way you hate Lydia. But for me, it’s ten times worse.” I stopped and stood in front of her. “Lydia never satisfied me the way you do. She never challenged me, never made love to me with the fire that you do,” I held her face. “But you can’t say the same about him, can you? When we make love, I know you’re holding me to a standard. His standard, I can feel it, and I hate it, I hate feeling like I’m in a competition. Why would we want to keep living like this? Let’s decide if we can be one another’s everything and then let’s make it happen.”

  She held my waist and nodded. “But will you regret it, if you leave her?”

  I’ve turned that possibility over in my mind since I first slept with Ruby. “At first, I thought I would,” I said honestly. “But in the end, I think I married her for the wrong reasons. I did it because it was the only way to have her.” I filled my hands with her luscious gold curls. “What about you?”

  She was taking too long to answer, making my hackles rise and a warmth to spread across my chest. “I didn’t marry Lorenzo for the wrong reasons… I was in love with him, and his type of love is fierce. I needed fierce.” She took an uneven breath. “I don’t know if I’ll regret it.”

  I held her hair tight, almost too tight to make her anchor to the moment, to me. “You ever want anyone like this? Any of the men you slept with behind your husband’s back, did they last this long? Did you love them? Was it like this?” I grilled. “Did they know all the skeletons in your closet, and still come back?”

  She shook her head. “No, never.”

  “Lorenzo is not the only man that can take what you put out. I would never hold this over you.”

  She blinked, eyes clearing of emotion to relay fact. “Lorenzo holds nothing over me. Don’t you get it? Cheating isn’t unforgivable, it’s unforgettable. Circumstantial. It can be forgiven; he’s forgiven me countless times. Lydia would probably forgive you too. But it can’t ever be forgotten.”

  LORENZO

  One night, Ruby tiptoed in from work at around eleven. I’m in bed already. I know she was actually at work because I can hear her unloading all her work gear, kicking off her heels.

  I hear her wander the house nervously.

  If she’d been with Noah, she would have gone right to the shower without a sound. Hurrying to get him off her skin before coming near me.

  But there is something else in how she moved this time. A franticness. Something about her job triggered her about the past. Whatever case, whatever victim, likely a little girl, has thrown her into a feeling of helplessness.

  I hear her, with my eyes closed, as she comes into the bedroom, takes off her clothes, and shuts our curtains.

  I feel the bed sink on her end as she quickly gets under the covers. She puts her back against my front since I’m laying on my side. Pressing so close it feels like she’s trying to merge into one being. Then she reaches back, takes my arm, and directs me to hold her.

  So I do, squeezing her against me, adjusting my face against her hair. She doesn’t smell like another man, and she’s only in her bra and panties. Skin on skin, it relaxes us. She holds my arm and begins to breathe slow and evenly.

  She loves me. There was a time I lived for this. She would come home from an affair and ask to be held, a
nd I knew I was the only man in the world that could give her this. But who’s woman is she, now? Mine or Noah’s? If she loves me, why does she want to do this to me? How is she capable of it?

  Somewhere between sleep and awake, she guides my hand down her stomach and into the apex of her thighs. I don’t even remember the last time we had sex.

  I took my hand back and rolled the other way. I could feel her stare long into the night.

  LYDIA

  Lorenzo’s sisters had invited me to Giada’s baby shower a couple of months ago, and I thought going would be hard. But all I feel is joy for her.

  Events held at the DiGregorio home, have become my happy place aside from Cibo Degli Dei. Today, the entire house is decked in pastel colors, from banners to streamers, to balloons. There are fun games, rubber ducks, pacifiers, bottles.

  All the girls are dressed up and of course, tons and tons of amazing food.

  “You got hips now,” Lorenzo’s mother Lavinia said, pinching my left side. “Yeah, I can tell, even under that tent dress you got on.”

  I laughed. “It’s all the food I’m around.”

  “It’s good weight. Womanly weight. Leave it. Looks good.”

  “Her boobs is a little bigger too,” Donna agreed.

  Angela looked up from writing Giada’s name in icing on her enormous cake. “Have you seen Giada’s tits? Three times bigger, I swear.”

  “It’s the milk coming in,” said Mia. “Happened to me, but you know, it don’t stick for long.”

  “If she’s due this month, why wait this long to have the shower?” I asked.

  “Bad luck,” Lavinia answered. “Should always wait until eight or nine months.”

  “Like having men here,” said Angela. “That’s bad luck too. All this new shit where men go. Why? They already showered us with sperm, their part is done.”

  I laughed with the rest of them.

  “Oh, I bought a Moka pot,” I told Lavinia. “I found it on Amazon and I’ve never been more content with a thing in my life.”

  “Molto bene! You get rid of the machine one?” she checked.

  “I did, and Noah yelled at me a good hour for it.”