“What do you do for work?” Sebastian asks. It should be an easy question for me to answer after he bared his soul to me. And yet, it’s one of the hardest. It’s embarrassing for me to say.
But I need to tell him. I lift my wine glass, needing liquid courage to be brave like he was. I open my mouth to speak, when there is a knock at the door.
My eyes shift from Sebastian to the door.
“Are you expecting someone?” I ask.
He sighs and gets up, making it clear he knows who it is. I stay in my seat as he goes to open the door. It doesn’t shock me when a skinny blonde looking model waltzes into the room. It doesn’t take a detective to figure out who this woman is—someone who has shared a bed with Sebastian. Someone who might have shared multiple romps in his bed with him.
The woman stops dead in her high-heeled shoes and skin-tight white dress when she sees me. “Oh, did I interrupt something? I was just coming over to drink my wine and enjoy the sunset with you. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Sure, you didn’t.
I fidget in my seat as Sebastian wordlessly enters the room. We agreed that we wouldn’t cheat while we were married to each other, but that was before we had our one night together. Before we returned to reality. Before hot neighbors showed back up in our lives.
I don’t know how to introduce myself to this woman. If she is someone who Sebastian might want to see again after we get divorced, then I don’t want to insert myself as his wife. So I wait for Sebastian to decide how to handle her.
“Chloe, this is Millie King,” Sebastian says, stepping around the woman and helping me out of my chair.
He used his last name as mine, Chloe and I realize at the same time.
After a long pause, he puts the final nail in the coffin. “My wife.”
Chloe gasps as shock rolls over her red lips, blue eyes, and curled blonde hair. She shifts her weight nervously. “I didn’t realize when we were together that you were seeing someone else.”
Her voice sounds hurt. She must be a recent conquest, and my heart breaks for her a little.
“I didn’t cheat. Millie and I’s relationship started recently, and we fell hard. I just knew I wanted to be with her forever.” His fingers tangle with mine, and I feel like we are one. It’s the first time I’ve ever had that feeling when a man holds my hand.
“I didn’t realize you were looking for a wife. If I’d known, I would have wanted more than one night,” Chloe says.
Sebastian shakes his head. “I wasn’t looking for a wife.” He turns to look at me before he says his next words that capture my heart. “I was looking for Millie.”
Yep, my heart is his.
It’s all an act. He’s just saying this to make our marriage look more believable and get this woman to leave.
I look over at Chloe, and I see tears in her eyes. It’s clear that Chloe had feelings for him, whether or not there was ever a hope of Sebastian returning her feelings.
“I’ll, uh, just go then. It was nice meeting you, Millie.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Sebastian says, putting his hand on the small of her back as he leads her out.
My jealously grows, watching the small gesture. He just told her I’m his wife, that he wanted me and no one else, and yet him touching her is what is pushing me to the edge. I grab the bottle of wine and pour myself more. I look at Sebastian’s still full glass.
He returns as I hold the glass to my lips.
“I met her in the elevator.”
I smile. “Is that how you pick up all your women?”
He ignores me, and I swear he can see down to my anxieties about that woman. “I brought her back here and fucked her.”
I wince.
“I had my one night with her, and then I was done with her.”
“It didn’t look like you were done with her.”