Filthy Vows - Alessandra Torre Page 0,61

a line down the condensation on the outside of my glass. “I think I’ll like real estate more when I start selling more. Right now, it’s very stressful, because each deal feels like it’s crucial.”

“Yeah. I’m right there with you.” He looked away as the waiter set down our plates, then waited for him to leave before continuing. “This is temporary, the struggle. Your business is growing, so is mine. We’ll get through this.”

“I know.” My grin widened. “Even when it sucks, there’s no one I’d rather be beside. I love our life together.”

“Yeah?” He studied me. “Because you deserve so much more.”

I frowned. “I deserve you. I’m exactly where I should be. So are you.”

“God, you’re too good for me.” He said it so sincerely, as if it didn’t matter that the major part of our future list—a family—was missing. And maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe we would find a new list.

And maybe, just like I didn’t need his success—he didn’t need my babies.

He picked up his fork. “Let’s eat. I have somewhere I want to take you after dinner.”

After dinner took us to a dark parking lot in Doral, close enough to MIA that I could feel the planes taking off. I rolled down the window and stared at the neon sign. “A strip club?” I’d been thinking Ben & Jerry’s. Possibly a veer-off at the Redbox at Tropicaire. Maybe, for old time’s sake, a cherry Slushy.

“It’s not a strip club. It’s a couples club.”

I looked back at the building, which sat across from an extended stay hotel and shared a strip mall with a tile store. “A couples club.”

“I created an online profile and everything. It seems legit. You have to pay a membership fee in order to attend. They have rooms that you can have sex in while people watch.”

I stared at my husband who had to have lost his mind. “What? I’m not going in there.”

He tilted his head at me. “I thought you liked that. Like with Aaron.”

“I—” I took a moment to collect myself and tried to work through the complex web of reasons why what had happened in Vegas was completely different than this strip mall with a bunch of random strangers. “This—this does not turn me on.”

“Let me pull up their site and show you the pics.”

“E.” I put my hand over his phone. “Stop. I appreciate you doing this, but please stop. This doesn’t do anything for me.” This would never do anything for me.

There was an audible click as he locked his phone. “Fine. Okay. Sorry.” He reached back and pulled at his seatbelt, then fastened it into the latch.

I looked out the window and watched a plane come in, my BMW’s seat vibrating from the turbulence. “I wish I could explain it to you. It’s just… different.”

He pulled out of the lot and accelerated hard through the turn. For the fourteen minutes it took to get home, we rode in silence and I regretted every single thing I had told him.

23

We undressed in stony silence, each sound magnified. The clunk of his watch as it hit the dresser. The scrape of the hanger against the rod. I pulled off my dress shorts and tossed them toward the hamper, falling short of the basket. He sat on the edge of the bed, toed off his boots and left them where they fell. Wayland slunk under the bed and hid, his tail sticking out.

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“Sure.” He didn’t look at me. I was pulling the bathroom door shut when he spoke. “Wait.”

I waited. I would always, forever, wait if he asked me to.

“Come here.” He reached out his hand. I came, and he gathered me against him, his arms around my thighs, his face buried against my stomach. I ran my fingers through his hair and he looked up at me. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. You were trying to do something for me and I reacted poorly to it.”

“I’m lost, Elle. You won’t tell me what turns you on, so I’m guessing over here. You won’t let me talk to Aaron, and won’t tell me who else turns you on. You don’t want a stranger from a club, so who? Who do you want?”

“You. You turn me on. I don’t need anyone else.”

“Yeah, well. You also say you don’t need a baby. And I can’t give you that. Or…” he threw a hand in the general direction of the rest of our house. “Or