Faithless

Mark

“Whitney, are you almost ready?” I call out from the bottom of the staircase.

“Yes!” her musical voice calls back.

Blood pumps through my veins. I can hardly stand still as I wait for her to come down.

I ought to be nervous. I made Lily scour a list of some of our high-end clients to find something to attend, and she couldn’t find even a kid’s birthday party. Almost everyone is on vacation this time of year. Walter Johnson Farms only contracts us for rotary tillers, and they’ll probably be surprised to see us both in attendance.

Who cares if they out me with their surprise? Whitney already knows what I’m doing.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be able to charm her.

My breath catches in my throat when she walks down the stairs. She’s wearing a tight black dress that falls to her ankles, hugging her slender curves. She has a gorgeous body.

She’s going to do well if she divorces me. She’s incredibly beautiful, not just for her age but for the world, and she knows it. I wonder if it was part of her thought process when weighing out her options. I wonder if she looked in the mirror and concluded that not only is she still beautiful, but she aged so well, when many beautiful women fall from a steep cliff after their thirties. She’s going to look that much better by comparison.

It doesn’t matter because she won’t be getting a divorce.

When she makes it down the stairs, I smile at her. “You look gorgeous.” My voice is slightly breathless.

She frowns. “No, Mark.”

“No, what?”

Her lips tighten. “None of that.”

Heat is pulsing through my veins, making my jaw clench. God, why can I never control myself with her? I try to keep my voice light. “None of what?”

She opens her mouth and then closes it again. “You’re not going to flatter me out of a divorce. I know you’re desperate right now, and I feel for you. But your desperation is…” She purses her lips. “Not flattering.”

I raise a hand in the air. “So I can’t tell you that you look beautiful when you do? What should I say then?”

She sighs. “Tell me I took thirty minutes when I said it would be twenty. That’s what you would normally say.” She smiles faintly. “And look exasperated when you do. Far more exasperated than the situation warrants—given we’re going to a charity event for a client we’re probably dropping at the end of the fiscal year.”

Her small smile is smug. Who is this woman?

My jaw clenches, but I continue my way to the door and outside, and she follows close behind. She gives me a look when I open the door for her, but fuck it. That’s what I used to do when I took her out on dates.

Oh God, why couldn’t I have forgiven her years ago? Would she still be giving me this look, or would my chivalry be a given? I’d commit murder to get one of those sweet half-smiles she used to give me over small gestures like this.

“You’ve gotten a lot meaner since you asked for a divorce,” I say after I shut the driver’s side door.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her smile. “I have nothing to lose.”

A chill runs down my spine, but I try to ignore it. She thinks she has nothing to lose?

We’ll see about that.

*****

Whitney

We walk up the long drive in tense silence, a continuation of what started in the car.

What on earth is he doing? Trying to woo me into not divorcing him? I don’t even enjoy these charity events, but he knows I would have refused anything else resembling a date.

He’s ruthless, my husband.

If he thinks this is the right approach to attempt what I know is just a last-ditch effort to keep his fortune and daily habits intact, he’s a fool. Bribing me didn’t work, so he’s trying to manipulate me. Make me believe he can make a real marriage out of this.

If he really understood the deep issues between us, he’d know that nothing short of total honesty could make me even consider reversing this decision.

I’d need him to tell me he hates me, admit that he’s hated me for fifteen years. And before that, he didn’t really love me because it can’t be love when you don’t really know a person. I was an angel to him, and an angel isn’t a person. It’s a vessel to store fantasies about love and warmth and kindness that we’ll never know on this earth. No one is pure love and kindness. Certainly not me.

I disappointed him so drastically because I did something so much more despicable than he could ever imagine. I fell like a meteor from the heavens to the ground. All because I was too insecure to embrace the love of this larger-than-life man and so stupidly loyal, my heart refused to let go of the boy who never truly cared for me.

After walking through a large vine-covered arch, we’re greeted by a server who asks each of us if we would like a glass of champagne. I nod profusely and grab it from the server’s gloved hand before he even gets the chance to extend it in my direction.

“Damn,” Mark says as I guzzle the liquid, enjoying the bubbly burn as it trails down my throat.

“I need a buzz,” I say.

As I lower my glass, I glance at Mark. He’s staring at me wide-eyed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before.”

Not wanting to discuss the awkward nature of our situation, I look away from him. I cross my arms over my chest and twist around to scan the array of people. When I catch sight of the couple walking in our direction, my stomach sinks.

I need more champagne.

“What are you doing here?” Laura asks, her blonde hair shining under the setting sun.

I force a wide, toothy smile, wondering if it looks as fake as it feels. All of our “couple” friends—or rather, business acquaintances—know about Mark’s infidelities. In a small town like Santa Barbara, it can’t be avoided. And while I’ve inured myself to their awkward smiles and somewhat piteous stares after they ask in a low voice, “How are you doing, Whitney?” it doesn’t mean I enjoy these interactions.

After fifteen years of Mark’s infidelity, I’m sick to death of them.

Just as I open my mouth to answer Laura’s question, Mark preempts me. “I wanted to take the wife out to a fancy dinner.” With that, he steps close and sets his hand on my lower back. His musky scent drifts over me.

If I wasn’t momentarily stunned by his unexpected closeness, I would scowl at him. The wife? I don’t think he’s called me that in even our phoniest moments—when we’ve been at family events or company parties trying to seem like an actual husband and wife.

Laura smiles wide as her eyes drift to Mark’s hand on my back, and I sense her surprise. Mark rarely touches me. The only touch I get from him is during our infrequent, fevered sessions of hate-sex. What is he doing?

“I love that,” Laura says, and the lightness in her voice sounds as forced as her smile. “We’re having a Christmas Ball this year. I hope you’re planning to take the wife to that, because I certainly don’t want to be the only mom in my forties there.” She turns to me, giving me a pointed look. “Our event planner is already working on hiring a TikTok comedian as the entertainment. As in, he’s famous only from TikTok.” She grimaces. “I’ve seriously never felt so old. I feel like just yesterday the big thing was Dane Cook, and our kids probably wouldn’t even know who he is, right?”

I smile faintly. “I felt old even back then. I think I was pregnant with Maddy when Dane Cook was the big thing—”

I’m startled into silence when Mark’s hand curls around my waist to my belly.

“We’re going,” he says.

When both Laura and I shoot him wide-eyed stares, he clarifies. “To the Christmas Ball, I mean.”

I jerk back, but he holds me tight. His expression makes heat curl through my insides.

Oh God, that intensity. That determination.

I remember it from when we were first getting to know each other. My heart was frozen after Jason, and yet I always felt this heat in my gut when I saw this look in Mark’s eyes.

I knew he wanted me more than anything. I knew he would do anything to have me.

Even when I couldn’t fully appreciate it, it turned me on like nothing before. What made it that much more intense was that he knew how to make my body sing. Even as a young man, he was still six years older than me, with far more experience. He knew how to please me in ways my boyish ex-fiancé could never.

Oh God, I hope Mark doesn’t pull the sex card. I hope he doesn’t try praising and loving me in bed like he did all those years ago. Like he hasn’t ever since that morning I confessed my affair.

If that happens, I’m in trouble.

******