Should’ve tried my luck with Asics.

“So . . . how long are you going to be in town?” I asked.

“Why? Counting the days?”

“You know me so well, Officer. We should play The Newlywed Game.” I began to apply some lip gloss just because I needed to do something with my hands.

“You’d think they’d have a requirement for contestants to at least know each other’s names,” he said dryly.

“You always were a stickler for the rules, weren’t you, Christian?”

The look he gave me reminded of the heat in his eyes as I’d sat spread-eagled on his bathroom counter. I glanced away and tried to calm my racing heart.

He took me home. He never asked for my address, and I wasn’t surprised. Allister seemed to know everything he shouldn’t.

“No ring?” he drawled, glancing at my bare finger. “And here I was, sure this marriage would be the one to last.” He was mocking me.

I wouldn’t be married now if he hadn’t disappeared while I was still naked in his bed. I knew it deep inside. Things would’ve been different if he had stayed. But he didn’t. He didn’t care enough. And over the years, I’d begun to resent him for it. He didn’t want me—he’d made that abundantly clear—yet he had to torment me about my relationship, as nonexistent and embarrassing as it was.

My husband Richard was three times my age. He was the oldest available man I’d had the choice to marry, so, naturally, he was the one I’d picked. Too old to hit me, and, as harsh as it sounded, closer to biting the dust than any of the others.

“I have an idea—why don’t you save us both the trouble and not pretend to care?”

“Someone has to. Can’t say I’m surprised, though, that your husband turns out to be one of Ace’s richest men. Must make the marriage bed easier to stomach.”

A bitter laugh escaped me, and I turned my head to look out the window.

“Go to hell, Allister.”

“HE INSINUATED I WAS A money-hungry whore,” I told Val, pulling a cucumber slice off my eye and taking a bite of it. “Does this cucumber thing even do anything?”’

“Yes, but only if you can manage not to eat it,” Val said dryly, blindly reaching for a bowl of fresh slices beside her lounge chair and handing it to me. “And, seriously, what an asshole! As if you wanted to marry an old geezer.”

“I know.” I sighed and shoved a cucumber slice in my mouth.

“Can you imagine if you’d picked another of Ace’s men? You’d be waddling around pregnant with your third child already.” She shivered. Val had so far escaped the same fate with her husband Ricardo only because she was dealing with infertility. Or, so she claimed, anyway.

“Maybe I should have . . . chosen another.” The words escaped me, disturbing me as much as Valentina. I was married by name only, but I’d still been held in tight chains while being denied a family of my own. Sometimes, I thought I was beginning to desire more in life.

“What?” She sounded incredulous. “You don’t mean that.”

“No, of course not,” I said quickly. Right . . .? “I’m just tired, is all. Magdalena woke me up early vacuuming while spewing complaints about all the dust.”

Valentina laughed. “Magdalena, vacuuming?”

“Apparently, she has a date tonight, and she can’t make dinner for him at her apartment because her lazy daughter is home. Her words, not mine.”

“Lord, is it weird I want to be a fly on the wall for that date?”

“No,” I chuckled.

“If you’re letting her use your place, where are you going to stay?”

“I’ll probably just sleep at the penthouse after the party tonight.” I used to live there the last year Antonio and I were married, when I was avoiding him at all costs. It was Ace’s now, but it was still a second home to me.

Val groaned. “Honestly, I’m tired of all these get-togethers with the Abellis. It’s not like us women need to get used to their presence for the wedding. I say, let’s put all our men and theirs in one room and see what happens.”

I laughed. “Exactly. Us women are most likely the only thing keeping the peace.”

“True,” she sighed. “Women are goddesses.”

Legs crisscrossed on the lounge chair, I brought my gaze to the cloudless sky. Andromeda.

“So . . . how’s he looking these days?”

I ate another cucumber with a crunch. “Who?”

“Christian, of course.”

The vision of him standing in front of me a week and a half ago, his hands in his pockets and his lazy gaze on me, floated through my mind. An annoying warmth spread through my body.

“Good,” I grumbled.

She laughed. “That good, huh?”

Crunch.

“Gosh, maybe you two should just have sex and call it a day.”

A frown pulled on my lips. “I’d rather sleep with Richard.”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

“I have too much pride to ever let Allister touch me again. There’s no better way to tell a woman you’re not interested than leaving her naked in your bed for three years.”

“Touché.”

“Besides, I’m not interested anyway.”

Valentina made a hmm noise.

I glanced at her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, just spit it out.”

“If you don’t want anything to do with him, then what do you think of me trying my hand?”

I laughed in disbelief. “With Christian?”

She nodded.

Oh, my god, she was serious. My amusement dropped with my stomach. “Why on Earth would you want to do that?”

“Please. Have you seen him?”

“Of course, but weren’t we just talking about what an asshole he is?”

“What do they say . . . the bigger the asshole, the better he is in bed?”

“I don’t think they say that, though.”

A sly look flickered in her eyes. “If this is upsetting you—”

“It’s one-hundred percent not upsetting me, but I thought you were seeing Eddie?”

She waved a hand. “He’s stepping out on me, just like my husband. It’s time to move on.”

I chewed my cheek. “If Ricardo finds out you’re seeing other men—”

“Save it. I know, and I’m always careful. So . . . be honest, would it bother you? Because I don’t have to—”

“I told you, I don’t want anything to do with him, and I meant it.”

Gosh, it was hot. The sun seemed to burn hotter and heavier in the last few seconds. I pulled my hair off my neck.

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

I must have had too many margaritas because they were beginning to feel like a lump of lead in my stomach.

My cell phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. I was so distracted I didn’t think to check the caller ID before getting to my feet and answering it near the pool.

“Hello?” I dipped my toes in the cool water.

“Gianna.”