The Wrong Wife by Maya Alden

Chapter 3

Declan

Icame home after ten at night. I had purposefully had dinner with Mateo, one of my closest friends and some others in West Hollywood. My goal had been to come home after my wife had gone to sleep. But I found her sitting in the living room, spread out on the couch, reading. She had a glass of white wine on the coffee table beside her. She looked comfortable, and it grated on my nerves. She'd made herself at home in Vivian's house.

She looked up and smiled. "Hi. How are you? Did you have a nice dinner?"

She was so cheerful and polite that it got my backup.

"That table is a Boca do Lobo. Please use a coaster." I didn't give a shit about coasters or stains on wood, but Viv did, and I was repeating something I'd heard her say to me.

Esme immediately picked up her wine glass. "I'm sorry. I'll be more careful."

She was wearing a pair of jeans and a loose T-shirt. Her feet were bare. She was sitting up sideways on the couch, her feet up, and a book titled "We Want to Do More Than Survive" on her lap. She sipped her wine and set it on the floor next to her.

I walked out of the living room and went into my bedroom. Why wasn't Esme more upset? Why wasn't she demanding anything? Viv was not such a doormat. She was fire and passion. She'd have kicked my ass.

I took a shower and decided to get into bed, but as I hovered by my bed naked, I changed my mind. I had a wife who I needed to talk to. I put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and walked to the living room. The first thing I saw was that she had found a coaster, and her white wine was sitting on top of it now.

She looked up at me and smiled. For some reason it irritated me, her ability to bounce back no matter what I said. I sat down across from her on a red swan armchair.

"Did you get settled in all right?" I asked lamely.

She set her book down and sat up a little. "Yes. Calliope is wonderful."

"You ate?" I was making stupid small talk, but I felt something…anything needed to be said.

"I went to a wine bar on Olive and had something to eat there…would you like a glass of wine? It's a nice Chablis I picked up today."

I shook my head. "No, thanks." I had a wine fridge with some terrific wines, and she’d bought her own? Why? Maybe she didn’t know her wine well.

She looked at me expectantly.

I took a deep breath. "We're married."

She nodded.

I stood up and sighed. "This is no one's fault. Well, maybe Viv's, but… I'm glad you said yes."

She didn't say anything, just waited.

"How are you feeling about this marriage?"

She shrugged. "My mother explained that this is something my father's company needed, and I was asked to step up."

"And you didn't care that you were marrying your sister's fiancé?" I demanded harshly.

She took a deep breath. "I did. I do. But I was told I had no choice. And since the Hartley company bylaws caused this predicament, and…Viv married someone else, I didn't feel like I had much choice. My mother said it was for a year, and the prenup we signed makes it clear that you go your way in twelve months, and I go mine."

The prenup was rigid. I had refused to give anything to Esme out of spite. The Hartley lawyers had not objected. Why hadn't they? Why hadn't Esme?

"You get nothing at the end of the year…well, whatever you already have from your parents but nothing from me."

"Yes, I know. I read the contract."

There was something about the way she looked that stirred me. She seemed at peace with this. Well, why wouldn't she be? She wasn't the one who had her heart broken.

"You don't want anything?"

She looked at me in question. "What would I want?"

"Money."

She smiled and shook her head. "No, thank you."

"You have a trust fund, I assume."

She shook her head. "No."

"Viv has one."

She nodded. "Yes."

"Oh, for god's sake, can you talk in full sentences instead of one-word answers." I was taking my anger out on her, and it was damned unfair, but her attitude, her serenity, made me want her to choke on it and show me some spirit, some hutzpah.

She bit her lower lip, and my heart hammered. No, she wasn't a beauty like Viv, but there was something about her: a calmness that was… desirable. A part of me wanted to shake her out of it, but the other wished I could bask in it and find peace within.

"You're angry about this situation. I understand. I'm not happy about it, either. But there's nothing I can do to fix it or change it. So, I accept and try to make the best of it. If being unhappy or angry would change anything, then I'm all for it, but I’ve learned that bending with the wind helps me survive without breaking." Her eyes were bright now with unshed tears. I felt like an asshole. I was an asshole.

I walked up to her and looked down at her. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head and got rid of her tears and sadness. "You're hurting. What Viv did was…well, she hurt you, and I'm sorry for that. Can I do anything to make you feel better?"

I crouched in front of her to be at eye level with her. She confused me. "I'm being a complete jackass, and you want to make me feel better? Who the fuck are you? Mother Teresa?"

She laughed then. "No. I'm not that good. But I saw you with Viv. I saw how happy you were, and I can't change that you’re hurt, but maybe I can make you feel better. Give you some respite. I know you don’t want a marriage, but we could be friends."

Who the fuck had I married? Who was this woman?

"You can’t make me feel better," I said softly. "We need to talk about how this marriage will work."

"Okay," she nodded like a student waiting to take notes.

"I don't expect sex," I blurted out, and as soon as I did, I knew that I may not expect it, but I did want it with her. The idea was so ludicrous that I jumped up and took a few steps away from her as if stung. I sat back down on the armchair. I was flustered and uncharacteristically allowed her to see how I felt. Very few people were given that privilege. I didn't even let Viv see it because she was always so in control that I felt I also needed to be.

She smiled her serene smile. "I understand."

"Do you?" Because I fucking don't.

She bit her lip again, and all my blood drained to my cock. Fuck! Of all the things I had imagined, this was not one of them.

"I know how Viv looks.” She didn't think she could compete. "I know you have other women who would be happy to…" she was stumbling on her words.

"Are you saying you'd be okay with me fucking other women?" I asked, deliberately and crudely.

She cleared her throat. "If that's what you want. A year is a long time to be celibate."

"And you'll fuck other men?" I asked. No, she will not; I wondered where this possessiveness came from. I was here to tell her that we'd live separate lives and put on a show for the media and then divorce at the end of the year. But here I was, suddenly talking about sex and wanting to have said sex with her…with Esme? I was losing my mind.

"Oh no," she was emphatic. "I don't do that."

I narrowed my eyes. "Do what? Have sex?"

"I have a vibrator." She groaned then. "I don't know why I told you that."

I smiled. I couldn't help it. Esme Hartley Nee Knight was a fucking trainwreck.

She put her feet down on the floor and looked at me. "I know how I look. I can see how you look. I'm not an idiot. I assume you've been loyal to my sister for the time you've been together."

"I don't cheat." No, that's something Viv does, apparently, without me knowing about it.

She ignored me and kept speaking, "…you're probably used to getting sex on the regular. If you find an opportunity, you should go for it."

Should go for it? Did she not understand that I had opportunity all the time? I'd turned down the hostess at the restaurant I had just had dinner at.

"And you'll make do with a vibrator?"

She blushed. "I don't know why I told you that. I have one. It was a gag gift from a friend. They wanted me to lose my virginity."

"You lost your virginity to a battery-operated device?"

"Oh, mine doesn't have a battery. I charge it…." Esme let out a long breath. "What I'm saying is, bang whomever you want to. It's all good."

"And what if I want to bang you?" I asked, and the words jolted me as much as they surprised her. Where the fuck had that come from?

"Excuse me?" her voice was thin.

"What if I want to have sex with you?" I enunciated each word. Shut up, Dec. You don't want to sleep with Viv's little sister.

"You want to have sex with me?" she croaked out.

Did I?

She bit her bottom lip again, and I had to admit I wanted to taste that lip. I wanted to kiss Esme—my wife. Viv's sister, a voice inside my head reminded me and I froze. What was wrong with me?

"I don't want anyone outside this house to know what's happening in our marriage. Not even your parents." I didn't want to talk about sex anymore because if I did, there was a good chance I'd be asking to see her vibrator and finding ways to make her come both with and without it.

"And what is happening in our marriage?" she asked tentatively.

"We sleep in separate rooms. We don't have sex. We're divorcing in a year. I want it to be clear to anyone who sees us that we have a real marriage."

"Why?"

"Because I have my pride," I confessed. I didn't want people to pity me because Viv left me, and I had to marry her sister. The uglier…the lesser sister.

"Okay."

"We have to go to a gallery opening this Friday and after that dinner with some people at Melisse. Be ready by six." That was two days away; it should be enough notice—and was what Viv expected from me.

"Okay."

"Thank you." I left the living room before I could say something else that would make her realize that I was pretty unhinged and wanted very much to fuck her senseless and prove I could do a better job than her vibrator.