into her bag, and retrieving an envelope. “Here’s the paperwork you wanted.” She shoves the envelope at him. “I have to get back to work. The next time you need something so urgently, organise for your assistant to deliver it. I don’t have time to run around for you.”
She gets back in the Range Rover and slams the door while he turns and stalks back into their house.
The fuck was all that?
A couple of minutes pass and then Chelsea exits the vehicle again. She’s on her phone and has a quick conversation while pacing her front lawn. When she ends the call, she crouches down and drops her face into her hands. I can’t be sure, but it looks like she’s crying.
Fuck.
I’ve never coped well when Chelsea cries, and as much as I don’t want to give a fuck right now, I don’t like what I just witnessed, and I don’t like seeing her cry because of it.
I exit the ute and cut across the lawn to her. “What the fuck’s going on with you and Hearst?”
Her head whips up and I’m met by her tearstained face. “Go away, Mason. This has nothing to do with you,” she snaps.
“I don’t give a fuck if it does or not. I don’t like the way he just touched you.”
She stands, squaring her shoulders like she’s about to take me on. “It doesn’t matter what you like anymore; I’m his, not yours. And you know what? I’m sick of dealing with the both of you. You both just take whatever the hell you want and leave me to deal with the consequences.” She glares at me. “I’m not yours to touch or bite or fuck, and I’m sure as hell not yours to worry about anymore.”
Her words fucking slap me in the face.
What the hell am I even doing? I step away from her and nod. “Yeah, you’re right. My fucking mistake. One I won’t make again.”
I don’t wait to hear her response; I stalk back to the ute. Thank fuck Griff exits the house at the same time so I can kick the engine over and get the fuck out of here. What a clusterfuck of a fucking day.
10
Chelsea
I sip my wine and watch as my husband talks with my father. It’s Thursday night, two nights after we did that disastrous interview before dinner with Joe’s friends, and we’re at a small fundraiser for Dad’s campaign. Small is around three hundred people. One would think that’s a good size for me to try and lose Joe’s attention, but he has a fucking sixth sense as to my whereabouts and always has his eye on me.
He glances up now and meets my gaze. I continue sipping wine because it will annoy him. He told me last night I should cut back on my alcohol consumption. I almost cancelled work today so I could drink all day.
We’ve been married just over five weeks, and it’s safe to say things have taken a definite turn for the worse this week. I don’t know what’s caused it, but I’m arguing back with him more. Standing up for myself more. Saying no more. And he’s becoming increasingly demanding, so between the both of us, there’s a whole lot of tension in our relationship.
Some of that tension came to a head yesterday when he demanded I go to his office and collect some paperwork for him while I was supposed to be at work. I’d said no initially, but he’d grown insistent until I finally agreed. Then we’d had an argument on the front lawn, the one Mason witnessed. Not my finest moment, but it’s been a long, hard week that I’ve spent alternating between fearing Joe will discover Mason’s marks on me, and pushing back against his assholey ways.
I was awful to Mason, but I couldn’t stop myself. Not when he’s the cause of a lot of my stress this week. God damn him for biting me. And when he looked at me with legit concern after my argument with Joe, I panicked a little too. Mason’s hate thawing is a slippery slope neither of us should tread. I achieved my goal of pushing him away, and then I came home later and had a screaming match with Joe before putting myself to bed in one of the spare rooms. He didn’t like that, but he didn’t force me back into our bed.
Tonight, he’s treading much more carefully with me. Watching me silently rather than engaging in