25. Ford

FORD

CHAPTER 25

I ’d always loved spending summers on Martha’s Vineyard when I was a boy. It was an escape from the noisy hustle of the city and the intensity of my family’s busy daily life. When we were here, my parents could avoid each other easily; my father spending all day at the club golfing, my mother by the pool with an ever-present cocktail and a gaggle of lady friends. With each of us off on our own, we could find a sense of peace that was impossible to achieve in Chicago. Left to my own devices, I’d spend all day at the beach, collecting shells and swimming.

The stretch of sand on our property had long ago become my happy place.

Last night, it was my happy place for a completely different reason.

Claudia would have never allowed me to fuck her on the beach. She would have whined about getting sandy or messing up her hair or being too cold or whatever.

Emzee was everything that Claudia wasn’t.

At the moment, Em was sleeping soundly next to me in the bed we would share until the wedding was over and we left for our honeymoon. She’d been fucked hard and good and to the point of sheer exhaustion. Just like she deserved to be.

We’d snuck back to the house later than we intended, having missed dinner with my parents. While Emzee showered off all the sand that had managed to burrow into the various crevices of her body, I apologized for our absence, explaining that Em had a migraine coming on and that I’d put her to bed early. My mother was surprisingly understanding, probably because she herself was a migraine sufferer, and my father—per usual—didn’t seem to care either way.

Our housekeeper, Mrs. Windham, was more than happy to put together a tray of leftovers for me to bring up to the bedroom. She stayed on at the Vineyard property year-round, managing the landscaping and the utility bills and the general upkeep of the house, but she also adored me and had spoiled me rotten since I was a child. The picnic she foisted on me consisted of creamy parmesan polenta, grilled lemon asparagus and shrimp, a green salad with oil and vinegar, and half a bottle of wine. Mrs. Windham had also added a silver pot of hot cocoa with a dish of mini marshmallows on the side. She’d always brought me hot cocoa before bed when I was a child. Apparently, me being twenty-three and a full grown adult hadn’t changed her view of me at all.

Emzee and I had eaten everything out on the balcony, wrapped up in our robes, and then promptly engaged in another round of strenuous intercourse before passing out in bed together.

Now, staring down at her, I felt a jolt in my chest at the thought of our upcoming wedding. At the thought of making this thing with Emzee official. Not just official for the sake of the charade, but actually official.

Because something had changed. I was realizing that this might be real.

Whatever we had going on between us…our relationship felt different than it ever had before. Somewhere along the way, our game of pretend had stopped being pretend.

Emzee stirred, let out a sigh, and then turned over. I looked down at her again, feeling a strange sense of comfort. This whole thing had started so innocently. I’d needed to get my parents off my back about marrying Claudia, and Emzee had conveniently been there for me. The way she’d always been there for me. It had been a no-brainer to rope her into my scheme. Even though she had initially resisted, I’d known that she would eventually agree.

And even though I knew I was being manipulative with her, I’d never had a single doubt about my own feelings—or lack thereof. After all, my dynamic with Emzee had been set years ago, when we were teenagers, when the hero worship had begun. My justification for leaning on her all that time was that we were friends. Sure, it was unfortunate that she had a crush on me, but I’d always figured that she’d eventually get over it. That I wasn’t using her so much as enjoying the advantages of our friendship. Something that I assumed was mutually beneficial.

During the last few months, though, the balance of power had started to shift. It wasn’t just me relying on Emzee to constantly be my yes-person and my enabler, but the two of us relying on each other. I’d found myself craving her company, as well as her body. Her sense of humor was exactly the antidote I needed on my most stressful days, and she became the person I turned to the most, from the moment we woke up in the morning and had coffee together to the last kisses we shared at night. She was my support system, yes, but I had also become hers.

Was it sleeping with her that had done it? The power that came from being the first person to introduce her to sex, slowly but surely figuring out exactly what she liked, and showing her—training her—to give me exactly what I liked in return?

Was it getting to know her more intimately as a person, in all the ways a man would know his fiancée, rather than simply carrying on as I always had in the past by treating her as an audience for my own performances?

Maybe it was the memories we’d built, made up of inside jokes, private and professional and family dinners, enjoying—or sometimes suffering through—social engagements, the sleepless nights fueled by sex and snuggles, followed by pancake breakfasts the next morning.

Maybe it was all of it.

Maybe this was what a relationship really was .

My parents had never been much of a positive example of what a relationship should look like, and I had to admit that in retrospect, the relationship I’d had with Claudia for all those years had felt more fake, more like an arrangement of mutual convenience, than the agreement I now had with Emzee. The thought was jarring, but not unwelcome.

With the wedding right on our doorstep, it seemed like a good idea to go into the union with full disclosure. Well, almost full, anyway. I might leave a few details out—not to cover my ass, but to protect Emzee’s feelings. She didn’t need to know what an asshole I’d been about the whole thing in the beginning. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her in any way. She deserved better. No, that wasn’t right—she deserved the best.

I looked over at her again, tangled in the sheets, her bare skin like a pearl in the light of the moon. It was hard not to reach out and touch her, rouse her into another quick fuck. Just looking at her made me hard. I imagined those lips against mine, trailing down my torso, wrapping around my cock. There was still so much to teach her, so much she could learn about pleasure—both giving and receiving. I couldn’t wait to continue our lessons, especially since she was such an eager pupil. Eager and enthusiastic. Like on the beach, the way those filthy words came out of her innocent little mouth, making me so hot I almost came then and there.

What would it be like, to actually be in love with the woman I married? Was I falling in love with Emzee?

When I woke up the next morning, Emzee’s side of the bed was already cold. I listened for the sound of the shower, but all was quiet. She must have gone out. I knew that she liked to start her days early.

Getting up, I pulled on a T-shirt, determined to find her and tell her the truth.

That this thing between us? It wasn’t what I’d thought it was at all.