"Oh, so now you’re suddenly concerned about my well-being?"
"I’ve always been concerned about your well-being," he says in a hard voice that makes my nerve-endings flare. I push away the desire that coils in my belly.
"You have a funny way of showing it."
"I show you how much I desire you."
"You fucked me. Big deal." I raise a shoulder.
He shoves his hand into his pocket, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him do that. Funny how, in a matter of weeks, I know when his body language gives away his true state of mind.
"I fuck you because that's the only way I can show you what you mean to me," he says in a low voice.
I raise my hand. "Look, you don’t have to try to claim you have feelings for me, because we both know you don’t."
He firms his jaw but doesn’t deny what I said. He. Doesn’t. Deny that he has no feelings for me. I knew it. Of course, I did. But when he confessed to allowing another woman to pretend that she's his wife— It all feels too overwhelming.
"I need to leave." I glance down at my ruined jacket. "Damn it, and everyone outside is going to know what we’ve been up to."
"You’re my wife. Who cares if they speculate what we’ve been up to?"
"I’m also your employee, so I care." I jut out my chin.
"In which case,"—he widens his stance—"you’re fired."
56
Penny’s bucket list
Type at 250 words a minute （done!）
Have 5 O’s in the course of 1 night （I’ll settle for 1 tbh） => Almost made this one last night when he gave me 4 orgasms. OMG 4 freakin’ orgasms!
Learn to cook a gourmet meal. => I wasn’t very good at it, but it’s the spirit that counts, right?
Act in a movie or a play—I’ll take a street act => It didn’t go down that well. :（
See the London Ice Kings play a game.
Swim with dolphins.
See the Northern Lights.
Climb Uluru in Australia.
Eat a chocolate croissant in a sidewalk café in Paris.
Be dominated. （Uh, maybe this should go up to the top?）
Find a man who cares for my mother as much as I do.
Be proposed to by the man I love.
Explore anal. （I’m chicken so this is right at the bottom—pun intended. Hahahaha!）
57
Penny
"He fired you?" Mira asks me with a wide-eyed gaze.
I left the office, pausing only long enough to peek in on Tiny on the first floor of the building where Knight instituted a doggy day care.
I turned down Rudy’s offer of a lift and took public transport to the apartment I’d shared with Mira.
A-n-d you heard that right. The wonders of having money—you wave your hand, and up springs a day care center for pets in the building that houses your office, with qualified staff to take care of the fur babies. That move earned Knight a lot of brownie points with his staff, not that he's aware of it. Not that he did it with the view to garnering good will. He explained that this way, Tiny would be taken care of during the day, and he could peek in on the mutt. Of course, now that I'm not working, I can take care of Tiny. Assuming I'm staying with him. Which I'm not really sure about.
"Yep, gave me some bullshit about my being his wife, so it doesn’t make sense for me to work for him." I peer into the glass of wine Mira poured for me as soon as I walked in the door.
"You are his wife—"
"Fake wife," I burst out. "Also, he has another wife."
"Eh?" She blinks. "What do you mean fake wife? And he can’t have another wife. You’re his wife."
Oh, ugh, I broke the non-disclosure clause in the agreement I signed. Well, too late now.
"He, uh, proposed I marry him—not for real, of course—so he could fulfill the conditions his father laid down and get full control of his company. Also because"—I hunch my shoulders—"uh, we had unprotected sex, so…" I blush a little. Damn, I sound so stupid when I say that aloud. Who, in this day and age, has sex without a condom?
"You’re not on birth-control?" She frowns.
"Never thought about it, to be honest—" She opens her mouth, and I raise my hand. "In retrospect, it was incredibly stupid of me, but I was too focused on taking care of my mum and finding a job to pay my bills. Also, you knew I was a virgin, so I really didn’t feel the need to be on it."
"And he didn’t wear a condom?"
I shake my head. "He said he got too carried away in the moment."
"Hmm."
"What does that mean?"
"The same Knight who’s always so wound up and tightly in control got carried away."
"You don’t think he did it on purpose, do you?" I ask in a small voice.
"Hey, I’m not here to guess at his motives. Maybe it was an honest mistake. Maybe." She raises a shoulder. "Maybe it wasn’t."
"Either way, I’m fucked. Literally. Because I could be pregnant with his child."
She gapes. "Jesus, I need a drink." She takes a sip of the wine from her glass, then glances at mine. "No wonder you aren’t drinking now. In fact," —she knits her eyebrows—"you weren’t drinking at your reception, either."
"I wish I’d been able to. When he left halfway through that lunch, I wanted to sink through the floor and hide myself."
"He’s really making your life interesting, huh?" she murmurs.
I laugh. "Oh, my god, you’ve become so Brit in your reactions."
"Right?" She puffs up her chest. "I’ve been practicing how to be understated. I guess it’s paying off."
"You have a Brooklyn accent," I remind her.
"Doesn’t matter what I do; can’t get rid of that." She takes another sip of her wine. "So, you and he have an arrangement that includes sex, and a possible child on the way."
My stomach lurches. OMG, when she puts it that way. I place the glass on the coffee table. "Don’t forget the other wife."
"I thought you were joking when you mentioned that earlier," she murmurs.
"Sadly, not." My stomach makes grumbling noises, and I press my palm against it. "Turns out, the wife of one of his teammates who was killed while captive had a psychotic episode when she heard the news and now, thinks Knight is her husband."
"And let me guess. Out of a sense of responsibility, he’s been letting her continue the assumption?"
"You guessed it." Bile boils up my throat. "Uh, I think I’m going to be sick." My guts churn. I jump up, head to the bathroom, and am violently sick. I empty my stomach into the commode and manage to flush before I collapse against the wall.
"Here, honey, this should help." Mira places a wet washcloth against my forehead.
I sigh. "That feels good, thank you." I rest my eyes, until my stomach seems to settle down. And when I open them, it’s to find her looking at me with concern.
"What?" I take the glass of water she offers me and sip from it. "What is it, Mira?"
"Um, you puked, so you might be, you know—"