Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 68688 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68688 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
She looked around the room, taking it in like she’d never seen it before, but she didn’t issue a comment. She seemed to be warm before she took off her coat and purse and set them over one of the armchairs in the sitting room. “You have a beautiful home. I don’t think I said that before.”
“Thank you.” She hadn’t asked me about my wealth or mentioned it at all. She was either too classy or she really didn’t care. “The building used to have several different apartments, but I renovated it into a single home.”
She gave a slight nod. “That’s an ambitious endeavor.”
“I’m an ambitious man.” My butler had left a silver platter on the table, a bottle of wine and two glasses. I uncorked it and filled both glasses before I took a seat in front of the fire. Then I looked at her and patted the spot beside me.
She smiled before she walked over to me in that little skirt with her tight shirt tucked in, showing all the right curves in all the right places, a woman with hips and tits and an ass I could grab on to. She took the spot beside me and crossed her legs, her hand moving to my thigh in my jeans, her face close to my chest.
I moved my arm over her shoulders and scooped her into me, keeping her close, her hair brushing my lips.
She snuggled into me and looked at the fire. “This is nice.”
I’d be all over her right now, but dinner was on the way and I didn’t want her naked on my couch when Gerard came to the door. So I held her, glancing down her top even though I already knew how her tits looked because I’d sucked on her nipples until they were raw. “How was work?”
“Shit,” she said. “Until you walked in. I need to find something else.”
“What kind of experience do you have?”
“Not much. I was at university when I met Adrien, but I never finished,” she said. “Stupid on my part.”
“Why is that stupid?”
“Because I believed him when he said he would take care of me—like a fucking idiot.”
“That’s not stupid.”
She released a sheathed chuckle. “Never trust a man to take care of you.”
“That’s not the lesson,” I said. “Never trust the wrong man to take care of you. And you are entitled to the community assets of your marriage in the divorce.”
“Sure, but I don’t want that.”
“Why?” Most women would want to bleed their husbands dry as punishment for their infidelity. Would want to hurt him where it hurt most—his bank account.
“Because I loved him for him, not his money, and one day when he realizes women only want him because of the fancy dinners and the nice cars and the big house…he’ll realize he threw away a woman who actually gave a damn about him.”
I wanted her to take some kind of compensation, even a small sum to have a decent apartment, but I admired her principles.
“So, he can keep the money—and shove it up his ass.”
A quiet knock sounded on the door. My butler didn’t wait for me to answer it before he opened the door and wheeled in the cart, just like room service at a hotel. He didn’t look at us on the couch before he approached the dining table near the terrace and set up our dinner, putting down the white tablecloth and placing the dishes there along with the butter and the basket of bread. Then he wheeled the cart out again and disappeared.
We sat together at the dining table and ate our dinner, a soup and salad for her and a rare steak with potatoes for me.
She seemed to like it because she was focused on her food the entire time, like she’d been hungry all night but didn’t have time to eat. Last time I saw her at Au Pied de Cochon, she barely touched her burrata. She was either that hungry or in better spirits altogether.
I stared at her across from me, seeing the way she dragged the bottom of her spoon over the edge of her bowl, trying to cut off the cheese from her French onion soup. She dipped a piece of bread into it before she took a bite. That was when she noticed my stare, and she stilled when she realized she had my attention. “What?”
“I like watching you eat.”
“Why?” She dipped the bread into the soup again and soaked it before she finished the second half of the bread slice.
I chose not to give an answer, because I really didn’t have one. “You said you lost your friends and family in the separation. What of your parents?”
“They’re gone.” She continued to eat like the loss didn’t bother her.
As it didn’t seem to cause her pain, I didn’t say I was sorry for her loss. I wanted to know more, but since she didn’t elaborate on her own, I didn’t want to pry. But I could tell there was more to the situation by how closed off she was. “No siblings?”