The Arrangement Book 3

Angela

I couldn’t help but sulk on the ride back home from The Plaza.

Why did it feel like all anyone wanted to talk about lately was my and Xavier’s sex life?

Dustin jumped at the chance to hear the smallest detail about Xavier’s manhood.

Em gave me sympathetic looks every time the topic of physical relationships came up.

And now Brad was asking about grandchildren?

Was it really so unbelievable that Xavier and I hadn’t slept together yet?

Really so shocking that I wasn’t throwing myself at him every five minutes?

We’d known each other for less than a year.

Liked each other for less than a handful of months.

Would anyone else behave so differently in our predicament?

The answer came quickly: yes.

Hundreds of women threw themselves at Xavier without knowing a thing about him, other than his last name.

He was used to attention...a lot of it.

And was clearly missing it based on what I interrupted the other night.

I had been right when I told him that there was an imbalance in our relationship, but I’d misidentified the cause.

It had nothing to do with me having a job—and everything to do with S-E-X.

When we pulled up outside the building, I thanked Marco and headed into the lobby.

Xavier wouldn’t be home for a while, yet. I still had time to collect my thoughts, to think about what to do.

It wasn’t that I was afraid to have sex or that I was immune to my husband’s Casanova charm. It was something less tangible that kept me from giving myself fully to Xavier.

For me, sex was the most intimate way you could know a person. Something shared between soul mates and the truest of lovers.

Xavier’s past actions had made it clear that he didn’t hold the same beliefs, that making love didn’t mean the same thing to him as it did to me.

I didn’t know where that left us.

I loved him. I told him as much, as often as I could. And I thought he loved me too. But unlike me, Xavier had yet to utter those three little words.

How could I let him love my body when I didn’t know if he loved my soul? When I didn’t know that I wasn’t just sex? That I wasn’t just another girl?

The elevator doors slid open, and I stepped into the penthouse, my wedges thunking on the hardwood floor.

I was passing the kitchen when I heard it.

A rhythmic thumping.

A woman moaning.

Deep masculine grunting.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my stomach turning for a whole new reason.

Following the sounds into the kitchen, I stopped before the pantry. Its sliding door shook in time with the thumping.

Tears suddenly filled my eyes, and my hand flew up to cover my mouth, to silence my sobs.

Xavier was in there with another woman.

The surety of it rang through me, cut into me.

This would be far from the first time I’d caught him having an affair, not the first time he flaunted his conquests in our apartment.

This was the first time he’d done it since we’d agreed to try this though. To try us.

It seemed like he was through with trying, like he’d grown bored of me, just as I somehow always expected him to.

Furious, I wiped the tears from my cheeks.

I’d been right to wait.

Xavier didn’t care about me. He didn’t love me. Not really.

The asshole just loved sex.

I was fuming, my mind racing and my heart breaking, when the elevator doors pinged open again suddenly, making me turn.

My mouth fell open as Xavier stepped out and into the penthouse.

“Hello, angel,” he greeted, and then his face fell as he took in my tear-stained cheeks. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

He dropped his bag by the door and crossed the living room toward me, his eyebrows raising as he became aware of the thump-thump-thump that rang through the living space. “Is that…?”

I nodded.

Xavier brushed past me, reaching for the pantry door.

As the frosted glass panel slid open, I gasped.

Lucille stood in the pantry, her arms—and legs—wrapped around a balding man with a salt-and-pepper mustache.

“Mr. Knight!”

“Holy fuck!”

Xavier jumped to the side, pulling me with him, as Lucille and the man stumbled out of the pantry, fumbling to straighten their clothes.

“I am so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Knight!” Lucille said, running her hands through her tumbled hair. She had flour handprints on the front of her blouse.

“I, ah,” Xavier faltered, rubbing the back of his neck. His cheeks were flushed. It was the first time I think I had ever seen him flustered.

“Is this your husband?” I said, breaking the awkward silence.

Lucille nodded and moved to take the man’s arm. Then she seemed to think better of it and let her arms drop to her sides. “Yes, this is Tony. He is visiting from Italy. He—”

Tony stuck out his hand toward Xavier.

Xavier glanced at Tony’s hand then crossed his arms over his chest.

“Why don’t you and Tony head home for the night, Lucille,” Xavier said, finally finding his voice. “I was thinking of taking Angela out for dinner, anyway.”

“No, no, Mr. Knight. I will cook,” Lucille said, tuning back into the pantry.

“Please,” Xavier called after her. “I insist.”

“Yes, okay. Thank you, Mr. Knight,” Lucille said, shooing her husband toward the elevator. “Good night, Mr. Knight. Mrs. Knight.”

“Good night,” I awkwardly called out.

The second the doors slid shut behind them, Xavier burst into laughter.

“What?” I asked, finding myself laughing as well, his joy contagious. The laughter felt good, cathartic, after the heartbreak I’d felt only minutes ago.

I smoothed the lines of my dress out, trying to regain composure, trying to ignore how guilty I felt for assuming that it had been Xavier in the pantry.

He’d been good lately, but it was hard to forget that things hadn’t always been good. That didn’t mean that I should always expect the worst from him though.

That wouldn’t be fair.

Xavier shook his head. “How about dim sum?”

“You were serious?”

He nodded. “There is no way I can eat in this kitchen after seeing where Lucille’s hands were.”

Forty minutes later, we were uptown at a hole-in-the-wall dumpling place Xavier knew I loved.

We were sitting at a small bar seat at the window.

The only other people in the restaurant were a pair of elderly gentlemen playing mahjong at a table near the cash register.

“Did you see Lucille's face?” I laughed, pinching a piece of broccoli between my chopsticks.

“I was too focused on not looking at other areas.” Xavier laughed, biting into some pak choi. “No wonder you’ve been letting her go early lately.”

I smiled and popped another dumpling into my mouth. “I told her she didn’t have to work while her husband was visiting. She insisted!”

Xavier grimaced. “I hope they haven’t done that anywhere else in the house.”

Everything about the moment was perfectly imperfect, a healing balm after the pain of this afternoon. After the fear that Xavier had fallen into his old habits. The fear that I hadn’t been enough for him. That, after all we had been through, I still wasn’t enough for him.

Xavier frowned, his dark eyes flicking between the food in front of him and me. “You thought it was me in the pantry, didn’t you?”

I took a deep breath, but I didn’t want to lie. “I did,” I admitted.

A jaw in his muscled jumped. Then he turned in his stool and pulled mine closer to him so that I sat between his legs.

I glanced down, unable to hold his intense gaze.

“Look at me, Angela.” He hooked a finger under my chin, lifting my head up.

I took a deep breath in, letting my eyes run over him—took in how ridiculous his Prada suit looked as he perched on the ripped vinyl barstool, how half his face lit up red by the glare of a neon sign outside, and then, the sharp line of his jaw, his full lips.

“I know I’m far from a saint,” Xavier began. “But I would swear on whatever God you asked me to, in order to make you believe me, that I haven’t fucked a single woman since before the Silver Jubilee.”

“Xavier.” I blushed at his words, flushed as the guilt from questioning his fidelity bubbled up again.

I shouldn’t have doubted him.

I had no reason to.

“No, listen. I don’t want anyone else. Only you, Angela. And goddamn, do I want you. I don’t know what else I can do to make you believe me.”

“B-but if you’re”—I snuck a look at our mahjong-playing friends to make sure they weren’t listening—“masturbating, I’m obviously not making you happy.”

Xavier laughed. “I would rather have five more years of jerking off than a new girl in my bed every night. I’ve done that. Believe me when I say this is so much better. You’re better.”

“What if I’m terrible in bed?” I blurted out, as worry after worry shot to the surface now that the cap had been released.

Xavier laughed. “I promise, you won’t be. And if you are, it would be my pleasure to teach you a few lessons.”

I gulped. “I would like that. Is there something I can do? You know. To make it easier until I am ready?”

Xavier groaned, picking up his chopsticks again, and began to pluck at the remnants of his food. “Unfortunately, even the thought of you in sweatpants and a holey T-shirt sounds appealing right now.”

“No sweatpants, got it.” I smiled, already feeling lighter.

Our relationship might not be perfect, but I had to believe that we would find our way, even if it wasn’t the same way as everyone else.

Xavier smiled. “Good, now, you ready to head back? I think the house has had enough time to air out.”