28. Gibson

28

GIBSON

M arianne is waiting for me in clothes that would normally set my imagination on fire—a lacy bralette, satin short shorts, and an open silk robe all in bridal white—but my mind is consumed with Christian in black.

“There you are! Your meeting with Graham was over hours ago.”

“How do you know that?” I ask, peeling off my jacket and laying it over my arm. She rises from the sitting room sofa, swinging her hips as she approaches. Her hair is down, and her lips are glossy.

“Avery,” she says. “The investigator is still following him. Well? What was your sense of things?”

She’s close enough for me to smell her soft scent. She’s never worn perfume, but she’s never needed to. Her sublimely scented bath products are very effective. “I sensed he realized he was fucked.”

She smiles, but I can’t bring myself to share her glee.

“I won’t go any further with this, Marianne,” I say in a tone I hope shows command of the situation .

“Of course not,” she says, brushing a casual hand down my arm. “Just the usual follow up. Making sure he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing.”

“Are you not able to manage that on your own?”

She frowns, but the muscles in her forehead barely move. “What’s wrong, love?”

I should be able to speak freely with her—to share my feelings—but today, I get the sense they might be used against me. Still, old habits. “I understand he hurt Avery—badly. And I don’t mind that you want to help her get a good settlement in the divorce. But in terms of his politics—the ends don’t justify the means. I don’t want to use that video. I don’t want you to, either. It’s beyond appalling that we even have it.”

“How is this any different than the Drexel deal?” she asks.

It takes me a moment to remember what she’s referring to and another to connect the dots. Two years ago, I’d used my knowledge of Marius Drexel’s affair with a Broadway ingenue, which he’d carried on in my club, in order to “negotiate” a better deal on a highly coveted property downtown. I’d wanted it, mentioned to my wife what I thought the potential for it was, and she’d immediately suggested there was no need to barter when I held all the cards.

“That was business. This is personal. Extremely personal.” And political, which takes it up another notch on my scale of immorality.

“It sounds like you’re saying when it’s something you want, there are no rules, but when it’s something I want?—”

I hold up my hand to stop her. “Don’t you dare.”

She stares at me with wide eyes like my hand gesture is some sort of precursor to an assault.

It incenses me. “I bend over backwards for you every day, and you know it. Where’s my reward for a job well done?”

“Excuse me?” she gasps .

I flick my eyes up and down her body before narrowing them. “Why are you dressed like that?”

She looks down at herself like she forgot what she’s wearing. When she looks up, she wraps the robe around her body and ties the knot at her waist tightly, which confirms exactly what I was thinking.

She’s manipulating me again . “It’s called lingerie, Gibson. Surely you’re familiar with it. Your lips are swollen by the way. That lunch must have been very trying for you.”

My mind feels addled with all the different directions she’s trying to point me in. Like she’s waiting to see which bait I’ll swim after. “Meaning?”

“You’re in a foul mood despite the fact that you managed to find your way between someone’s legs on the way back from the restaurant.”

Inhaling and exhaling through my nose feels like blowing steam. “Regardless of how I spent my afternoon after I did your dirty work, what I’m telling you is that threats to the senator end here.”

She snorts derisively, but all she says is, “That’s disappointing.”

“Trust me,” I tell her. “The damage is done. There’s no need for follow-up.”

“You could have opened with that .”

One of Marianne’s better qualities is that she doesn’t like fighting with me. She may manipulate me to within an edge of my sanity, but there’s a part of her that pities me, too, and feels guilty for what became of us—or me in particular. It’s why she so aggressively supports my business success—as if it can replace what I’m missing from her.

I think we both know by now that’s ridiculous, but again…old habits.

I start to walk past her, but she steps in front of me. “What’s going on with you? ”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been moody since Rome. More than usual. Is it only Graham, or is something else not going well?”

“Other than what we discussed at breakfast the other day? Everything’s fine.”

“Palm Beach?”

“Yes, Marianne. Palm Beach. I asked to spend time alone with you, and you said you’d think about it. I assume you either haven’t because it’s not important to you, or you dismissed the idea the second the words left my mouth.”

“What do you expect to happen if I say yes?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I tell her honestly. “But when we’re here, it’s thirty minutes for breakfast and then ‘zip me up—one of my lovers is on the way.’ Other than the money, is there some reason you enjoy having me around?”

Her eyes soften, and it’s genuine. She doesn’t drop her guard often, but it’s obvious to me when she does. In her expression, I see the girl she used to be—loving and wild. Funny and fearless. Vulnerable and sweet. “Gibson, please. Don’t do this. Don’t question us and what we have. I realize it isn’t what you signed on for, but I would never change marrying you. You’ve made me feel safer than you can possibly understand. I cherish this. What we’ve built together. I love you. I will always love you.”

I swallow, emotion catching me in the throat. But when I reach to touch her cheek, she flinches.

I fist my hand and bring it back to my side. “ That ,” I say softly. “Feels like shit.”

“Love, I’m so sorry.”

I shake my head and sidestep her, moving quickly to my room where I lock the door and hurl my jacket onto the bed.

I live with a ghost. She haunts me, and I allow it. I’m like one of those old Victorian men brooding on his estate, mourning his lost love and refusing to move on .

Would I be happier if she weren’t here? Or would I miss her just as much as I do now? At least while she’s here, she includes me. It’s not that she makes me feel irrelevant or unimportant to her. It’s more that she makes me feel alone. Abandoned.

It began with the rape, but I can’t help but think there’s something about me she wishes were different, too. Like if I’d come with her to Ibiza even when she hadn’t pressed the issue. Or if I were stronger or firmer with her, more insistent that she get help, more dominant, that her attraction to me would have returned. But I’d turned into a mess after her attack. I suffered with her. I wasn’t a firm, stabilizing force. I cried with her and hurt for her. I tamed myself and my desires so she would never feel threatened around me. So she would forgive me.

When she first started sleeping with women, I stupidly thought it might be her way back to me, and I stood by in the shadows while she allowed herself to be touched again. But it’s been over a decade now, and she very clearly has a preference she’s not shy about indulging. Whether I disgust her or not, she’s never said, but it certainly feels that way.

It’s made me hyperaware of my body. My scent. My grooming. The way I dress. The volume and tone of my voice. When she’s in the room with me, I no longer recognize myself. Her comment about my lips being swollen made me instantly self-conscious. Her flinch felt like revulsion.

It’s obvious what draws me to Christian. His want is beyond compelling. I’m not entirely certain what it was about him that made me hand over my long held identity as a straight man without a second thought, but I’m grateful to myself that I didn’t let the fact that he has a deep voice and a cock hold me back from pursuing our connection. Whatever he’s got, I need. I could use it right now, in fact, but a nap seems the wiser course.

I startle at a light tap on my door, but I don’t reach to answer it. “What is it? ”

“You won’t let me in?”

I picture what could happen if I did. A wild fantasy with her robe open and desire in her eyes, her arms reaching to pull me to her, and her mouth meeting mine. A tumble backwards to the bed where I spread her legs and taste what she’s denied me for so long—hear her soft cries begging for more.

“Will it change anything if I do?” I ask.

“Gibson, please. Let me at least try to explain.”

“Another time, Marianne. Enjoy your evening.”

I hear her heavy sigh and the faint creak of the hardwoods as she retreats.

Maybe it sounds insane, but this is the most movement we’ve had in our relationship in ages. The tension we’ve been ignoring has thickened the air and finally shifted the unacknowledged wedge between us.

Maybe she thought we could ignore it forever. Maybe I thought the same thing.

While Christian is not a realistic option for me, nor I for him, what he’s helped me realize is that I’m more than lonely and unhappy. I need a partner. A lover—not a pet. I need communication and affection and desire. It was foolish to hold out hope for so long, waiting for Marianne to change her mind. Too much damage has been done between us. Too many new habits to break.

For the first time since she asked to open our marriage, I allow myself to think about what a divorce might look like.

Anxiety comes at me instantly. Does she love me enough to let me go peacefully, or will she do to me what she’s doing to Graham? The fact that I don’t know the answer jars me almost more than the notion of divorcing her does.

When I wake from my nap, a text from Christian is waiting for me. My heart drops as I read it.

Christian

I can’t believe you weren’t even there. Do you know what I had to see? I’ll be scrubbing my brain. See you tomorrow afternoon.

No.

I check the time. It’s just after ten, which isn’t late at all for a Friday.

I fell asleep. Are you in the building? Come back up.

Hey. I’m out with friends. Maybe I’ll try later.

Fuck that. I press the call icon and put the phone to my ear.

“Hi,” he says, sounding surprised. There’s noise in the background. Murmured conversations and a woman’s laughter nearby. “One second.”

I wait. Judging by the changing noise levels, I assume he left the restaurant or bar to step outside. “What’s up?” he asks when his end of the line quiets down.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“You gonna come get me?”

“Answer the question.”

“Hell’s Kitchen. 58 th and 9 th . The place is called, um…Kettle. I think. It’s hard to tell in the neon.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I haven’t not been drinking, though.”

“And if I did come get you?”

“Hmm…” The sound is unfairly sexy. I cup my dick, trying to quell its automatic response. “You could meet my friends.”

“I already know Drew and Olivier,” I remind him.

“But how did you know we were friends? ”

“I know a lot of things, Christian, as I’m sure you do, too. So would you like to find your own ride, or would you rather I come collect you and bring you home?”

He laughs. “Collect me, obviously.”

“Fine.”

I hang up the phone, roll out of bed and try to find something suitable to wear to a place in Hell’s Kitchen called Kettle.