Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 136915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
“They can accept me or feel my wrath.”
“You won’t divorce me,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You can’t. There are rules, traditions. You took my innocence out of wedlock and there are consequences for such an act.”
I stalked toward her. “Stop playing the victim. You and I had very enjoyable, consensual sex. I never said anything about marrying you, never pretended to even like you. You decided to have sex with me out of wedlock, so you, too, have to accept the consequences. So far only I had to pay the price, now it’s your turn. And if I see it right, you’re still not going to pay the price because nobody will know we had sex before we married.”
“I’ll have to live in shame because you divorced me!”
“You’ll get about fifty million dollars of compensation for less than two years of marriage. That’s a good deal if you ask me, especially when I consider the 10 million dollars you already spent in the meantime.”
I could see her mind working behind her eyes and suddenly the anger dropped from her face and her expression became pitiful, her lower lip trembling. “Amo,” she simpered, running her palms over my chest. She looked up at me through her lashes. “You can’t do this to me. I’m your wife.”
She missed the point but I tried to squeeze any droplet of kindness that I possessed out of my heart and said, “Listen, Cressida, you can’t tell me you’re happy in our marriage. You don’t even like me much. Maybe you thought you did when we married but don’t tell me you still do. We don’t have anything to talk about. Do you want to keep living a miserable life?”
Last Christmas had been the worst of my life. Celebrating with the Antonacis had been awkward and stiff. No warmth, no sense of family. Even Mom’s holiday spirit hadn’t been enough to improve the situation. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to spend another Christmas with Cressida and her parents.
“We don’t even have to see each other anymore. You can stay in your apartment the entire time if that’s what you want. You can keep sleeping with other women, and I’ll look for a constant lover. We’ll live separate lives. One day we can use insemination to get me pregnant.”
“And then what? Once children are there, we can hardly keep living in different households. Children deserve a family and parents that don’t despise each other.”
She let out a laugh. “Why? My parents don’t like each other and it worked.”
And look how it shaped you…
“They can go to boarding schools, then they won’t see us together often.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to send my children away or let them be born into a miserable marriage.”
Cressida huffed and stalked away, grabbing the champagne bottle. She drank straight from it, then hissed. “Don’t act as if you’d care about children or anyone. You’re not kind. And neither am I that’s why we’re a good fit.”
A match made in hell. “I’m not kind, you’re right. But if I have kids, I want them in my life.”
She bared her teeth in condescension. “You think you’d be a good father? They’d hate you for cheating on their mother.”
“I won’t cheat on the mother of my children, but it won’t be you.” I didn’t say anything about her masseur. I was fairly sure she had an affair with him. There was no proof and she’d probably deny it. It was irrelevant anyway. I’d told her to seek a lover and she’d followed my advice.
Realization settled on her face. “There’s someone else.”
“I told you before.”
“There were several women you fucked, do you think I cared or remembered?”
I hadn’t been intimate with anyone but Greta since our first encounter on her farm. “There’s one woman.”
She let out a shrill laugh, her face turning red. “Is she the reason why you haven’t slept with me in forever?”
I didn’t say anything. I had a feeling discussing Greta with Cressida would only make me mad.
She clutched the champagne bottle in front of her chest. “You were faithful to your affair but not your wife?”
I pressed my lips together. Anything I said now would make things worse. I’d said everything I wanted. I wouldn’t waste my breath on more. She regarded me like a scientist a bug he was trying to dissect. “It’s the girl from the wedding, isn’t it? The Falcone girl. The way you looked at her… I thought I’d imagined it. I didn’t, did I?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you think you love her?” She laughed. “You aren’t capable of it.”
“Cressida, there’s nothing to say anymore. We’ll get divorced and both find happiness elsewhere. I won’t add more mistakes to my life because of a single mistake from my past. This ends now.”
She let out an enraged cry and threw the Champagne bottle my way. It exploded against the edge of the marble side table, throwing an expensive Tiffany lamp to the ground, which broke apart, and breaking the edge off the marble table.