Page 8 of Broken Vows
I click unmute on the phone, telling Lynley, “I need to do one thing before I can leave the office. Are you okay to drive the rest of the way?”
There’s a pause before she says, in a small voice, “I’ll be fine, but Christopher?—”
“I’ll see you soon,” I interrupt, and then hang up. I drop the phone to the ground, gripping Rita’s hips and spinning her around, pressing her up against the window. I rip her skirt up over her lush ass, kicking her legs open. I lean forward, breathing in her ear. “Hard and fast?”
“Yes, please,” she begs, pushing her ass back against me. “Fuck me until I feel nothing but you for the rest of the day.”
“Lucky I didn’t turn the cameras off yet.” I laugh lowly, pulling out a condom and quickly sliding it on my dick. I position myself at her wet entrance, sucking her earlobe into my mouth, enjoying the way her breath hitches. “This is going to be fun to watch later.”
Chapter 4
Lynley
The waiting room is silent, the sounds of the hospital muffled and faraway. Christopher and I are alone, settled into the most uncomfortable hard-backed chairs. It is as if the hospital administration figured that people waiting for news wouldn’t care about having a bad back.
Christopher reaches out, intertwining our fingers, his expression soft as he watches me. “You doing okay?” His voice is as soft as melted butter, filled with concern.
I give him a tight smile—one that feels unnatural on my face. “Yes.” I choke the word out, my eyes not quite meeting his as I clear my throat. “Just worried about Ginny. How long do you think they’ll be?”
They took our seven-year-old down for an X-ray over thirty minutes ago, telling us we couldn’t follow. Instead, an orderly led us to the waiting room, full of reassurances that a nurse would find us when Ginny was back in her room.
I hate the distance, knowing she’s alone with strangers, scared, and probably in pain. It doesn’t matter if they’remedical professionals or if a nurse told us she was given some pain relief. She’s my baby, and I should be with her.
Christopher squeezes my hand. “It won’t be much longer.” His smile is self-assured, and it should be everything I need at this moment. Except I’m resisting the urge to tug out of his grip, my stomach roiling with nausea as I look down at his long fingers, imagining where else he’s had them today—what else he’sdonewith them.
It wasn’t like this in the beginning.
In the early years, I was secure in how he felt about me, even when critical eyes followed my every move, dissecting my outfits, my appearance, mycharacter. It didn’t matter because I knew that Christopher was it for me, and I was it for him.
Ten years later, everything is colored in lines of suspicion and doubt. Something cold and hard settles into the pit of my stomach, forcing me to face a truth I’ve been ignoring.
Somewhere outside the waiting room, an alarm blares. A nurse rushes past the open door to the left, her rubber soles squeaking loudly against the floor.
Christopher shifts in his seat, hand disengaging from mine as he reaches up to push his blond hair off his forehead. His phone buzzes, and he shoots me an apologetic grimace, sliding a hand into his pocket, the expensive fabric of his slacks stretching taut across his thigh.
My eyes track down without my permission, locking on the same spot that caught my attention when he first sat down, even as he whispered words of love and reassurance in my ear.
A smudge.
No bigger than the tip of my thumb, marring the fabricof his pants—right next to his zipper—because apparently, lipstick on the collar is too cliché formyhusband.
I bent down when I first saw it, pretending to adjust the strap of my sandal just to get a better look, even though I already knew what it was—a smear of foundation, like someone had rubbed their cheek against his crotch, marking their territory on something that wasn’t theirs to touch.
I suck in a sharp breath, pain stabbing through my chest. My lungs fill with his familiar cologne—a scent I buy for him for every anniversary. But this time, it mingles with something more feminine. It’s faint enough that I think I must be imagining it, but no. It clings to his clothes, proclaiming his guilt while he sits here unawares.
A faceless woman appears in my head, perfuming herself before strutting over and rubbing herself all over him like a cat in heat. For months, long after we moved to Sterling Creek, my instincts have been firing away, but no one wants to think their husband of a decade is fucking around on them.
No one wants to think how long it’s been going on while they have been oblivious.
It’s laughable, especially when he sits beside me, so coldly confident and sure that he’d never give himself away with something as small as another woman’s makeup on hispants, her scent dripping off him like she owns a part of him I never have.
No, he doesn’t see it, doesn’t smell it.
Instead, he sits here, staring down at his phone, acting like my world isn’t imploding around me with him at the epicenter.
A touch of his finger, and he’s out of his email,the background picture catching my eye. It’s a picture of us, our family, from about a year ago.
Mase and Ginny stand at the front, with Christopher and me behind them. His arm is looped around my neck, our smiles wide and happy.
