Damn it, Francesca.

I sent the call to voicemail, along with the dozen other calls from Bishop, White, and Arthur Rossi, who were all keen to offer their two pennies about the situation, no doubt. I’d been humiliated beyond my worst nightmares after I’d sworn to never be put in this position again. Not after I got down on my knees to Rossi.

The only person who did not try and reach me—other than my cheating wife, of course—was Sterling, who wasn’t connected to social media and wasn’t privy to what her darling girl had done.

When I got home, I told Sterling to leave for the nearest hotel and gave her ten minutes to pack a bag while I called an Uber for her. I didn’t want her there when I faced Francesca. She did not deserve to see that ugly side of me.

“For how long?” Sterling grinned, flinging dresses and stockings into the open suitcase on her bed. As far as she was concerned, everything was still dandy between me and my wife. She probably thought we were planning a fuck-fest over every surface of the house. I glanced at my Rolex.

Two, maybe three years.

“A couple of days. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

Whenever my lawful wife takes her head out of her ass.

“Wonderful! You have fun, lovebirds.”

“Count on it.”

Calling her when she was with her lover in a hotel room would be redundant. And hysterical. No. I sat on my wife’s bed the remainder of the afternoon, replaying last night in my head. Aunt Flo my ass. She didn’t get her period. She didn’t want my dick inside her body, probably because she was too busy nurturing an affair with her college buddy.

I was consumed by guilt and self-hatred after the night I’d taken her here, on this bed, thinking that she’d spread her legs to Angelo. But really, my only error was chronological. Because she might have been a virgin when I took her that first time, but that public kiss she had shared with him? It was as real as ours, if not more.

She cheated on me with the man she’d loved since she was in diapers.

And I was the idiot who kept on taking her after all their discriminating evidence.

The Bishop’s wedding.

The engagement party.

The kiss.

No more.

I heard the door downstairs open some hours after I arrived. My wife always took off her shoes and arranged them neatly by the door before taking a glass of water from the kitchen and going upstairs. Today was no different. With the exception that when she climbed up the stairs and got into her bedroom, she found me sitting on her bed, holding my phone in my hand, the screen lit and showcasing her kissing Angelo.

Her glass slipped from between her fingers, hitting the floor. She turned around, about to run away. I stood up.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Nemesis.” My voice dripped ice and menace.

She stopped in her tracks, her back to me, her shoulders sagging, but her head was still high.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Turn your back on me when I’m in my current state.”

“And why is that? Are you going to stab me?” She twisted on her heel, her azure eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She was brave, but she was emotional. I mistook all her tears for weakness. No more. Francesca was definitely in the habit of going for what she wanted in life.

I cocked my head to the side. “Why must you Rossis always turn to violence? There are plenty of things I can do to hurt you beyond belief without laying a finger on your beautiful body.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I think I will, Nemesis. Tonight, in fact.”

Her throat bobbed. Her false façade was collapsing inch by inch with each ragged breath and shiver. She scanned her surroundings. Nothing was different about the room. Other than my invisible pride, shattered on her floor, with her footmarks all over it.

“Where is Ms. Sterling?” Her eyes slid to the window, then to the door. She wanted to escape me.

Too late, darling.

“I sent her on a mini vacation for a few days to freshen up. She doesn’t need to be here for this.”

“For what?”

“For when I break you like you broke me. Humiliate you in the way you humiliated me. Punish you the exact same way you punished me.”

“You’ve read the notes.” She pointed at the wooden box on her nightstand. I smiled, sliding my wedding band from my finger with slow precision, watching her eyes drink in my movement. I placed it by the box on her nightstand.

“Why else would I send you chocolate when I couldn’t even stand your face?”

The truth felt like ash in my mouth. But the truth was also a weapon I’d used to wound her little soul. I couldn’t breathe without feeling my chest tightening, and I wanted to slice her open in the same way she cut me. Bone-deep.

“Well”—a bitter smile fluttered across her face—“I suppose you know what the last note said.”

“I do.”

“Angelo sheltered me from the storm.”

This made me grab the box and slam it against the opposite wall, not many inches from where she was. The lid broke off, both pieces rolling on the floor. She cupped her mouth but stayed silent.

“Because he kissed you in the rain? Are you fucking kidding me? I sheltered you.” I stabbed a finger to my chest, advancing toward her and losing the remainder of my self-control. My anger was a red cloud surrounding both of us, and I could hardly see her through it anymore. I grabbed her shoulders, plastering her to the wall, forcing her to look at me. “I sheltered you from your father and Mike Bandini and Kristen Rhys. From every asshole who looked at you the wrong way because of your age or your lineage or your last name. I put my reputation, and career, and fucking sanity on the line to make sure that you were safe, and accomplished, and happy. I broke my rules. All of them. Demolished my own resolutions—for you. I gave you everything I could within reason, and you shit all over it.”

I paced her room, the words burning on the tip of my tongue, pleading to be said.

I want a divorce.

But I didn’t want a fucking divorce.

And that was a problem.

She loved Angelo, much to my disdain and fury, but that didn’t change what I felt for her. I still longed for her warm body next to mine. Her sweet mouth and quirky thoughts and that vegetable garden she talked to and piano sessions, stretched over lazy weekends, where I’d read the papers while she played a mishmash of classics and The Cure.

Besides, wasn’t that far more cruel than letting her go to Angelo? Watching as she stayed and wilted here, her heart blackening and hardening next to mine? She could fake her affection for me, sure, but our desire? That was real. And consensual. Wouldn’t it be far more grueling to have her suck my cock and cream my face while she pined for another?

Wasn’t revenge a good enough reason to keep her?

“I’m going to the Bernard’s gala tonight,” I announced, kicking a part of the wooden box aside on my way to her closet. I picked out a scarlet, skin-tight dress she particularly loved.

“I don’t remember seeing it in our calendar.” She rubbed her face tiredly, fleetingly forgetting that our calendar no longer meant shit because our charade was formally over. I’d hand her one thing—she was a good actress. I was an idiot enough to buy into it.

“I originally turned it down.”

“What made you change your mind?” She took the bait.

“I secured myself a date.”

“Wolfe.” She pushed herself past me, blocking my way. I stopped. “What are you talking about, a date?”

“Her name is Karolina Ivanova. She’s a Russian ballerina. Fuck hot, and damn responsive.” I’d used the same word to describe Francesca when we first started to explore each other’s bodies.

She threw her head back, growling in frustration.

“You’re a cheater now on top of everything else. Nice touch.”

“Not exactly. We’re obviously in an open marriage.” I swiped the touch screen of my phone in her face. Her kiss with Angelo flashed, taunting her back. “Remember our verbal contract, Nem? You said both of us needed to be loyal. Well, that ship has fucking sailed.”

It’s somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, hitting an iceberg that would split the Titanic in half.

“Thanks for the memo. Does that mean I can invite Angelo over?” She smiled sweetly.

I didn’t know what had made her such a bitch overnight. I just knew it wasn’t warranted on my part.

“Not if he wants to make it out of here with his dick intact.”

“Explain the logic behind your words, Senator Keaton.”

“Gladly, Mrs. Keaton: I plan to fuck my way through the better half of Chicago until I’ve had enough of what it has to offer me. Then, and only then, and only if by the time I’m done fucking everything that breathes, you and Angelo will be done with one another, I’d consider letting you suck my cock again. We’ll start small. A couple times a week. Then take it from there. That is, if I’ll ever get bored from the variety,” I added.

“And the dress?” She knotted her arms over her chest, pointing her chin to the dark blue number.

“Would look ravishing on Ivanova’s tight little bod,” I provided.

“Walk out this door tonight, Wolfe, and you won’t have a wife to return to.” she stood at the doorway now, tall and proud.

She took a deep breath. “Whatever happened this evening will need to be discussed between us. But we will never have a chance to do that if you don’t stay. If you leave to spend the night with another woman, I will not be here come morning.”

I smiled sardonically, leaning down, our mouths nearly touching. Her breath hitched, and her eyes glazed over. I dragged my lips across her cheek to her ear.

“Don’t let the door hit your ass on your way out, Nemesis.”

I shivered under my covers, hitting refresh on all the local media Twitter accounts, checking their websites for live updates. It was about as constructive to my mental state as watching videos of puppies drowning, but I couldn’t help it.