The Wrong Wife by Maya Alden

Chapter 31

Declan

Mateo and Forest came home when I didn’t respond to their texts. Esme had taken another painkiller; and from recent experience, I knew she would be out for eight to ten hours. Enough time for me to get drunk because I failed to convince the one woman who had me turned inside out about how I felt about her. Viv had believed me blindly when I said I loved her. She’d had no doubts. My feelings for Viv paled in comparison to those for Esme—and she wouldn’t even let me say the words.

What I used to think was a weakness on her part, of smiling through insults and unfairness, was the courage to keep living her best life. I was learning to be a better person with her. To be a happier person. I was learning from her and my obsession with my work had tempered in her presence. How could it not when my wife told me how she helped a child smile after being beaten by his father. The issues she faced at work were more real than mergers and acquisitions and the pursuit of dollars.

“Why are you guys here?” I demanded as they walked in without me inviting them. Security reported to Mateo as Knight Tech owned my building, so they let him up to the penthouse without questioning or alerting me.

“You missed poker night,” Mateo explained. I was drinking in the living room. I was sprawled on the couch, some ballgame playing on the television that I had not been able to get interested in. I was a quarter of the way through a bottle of Ardbeg 10 and was planning to keep at it to have the mother of all hangovers.

“I don’t even play poker with you guys, but I needed a break from the gala craziness my mother has been generating in massive proportions,” was Forest’s explanation.

They got comfortable in my living room and helped themselves to my whiskey.

“How’s she?” Mateo asked.

“Sleeping.” And breaking my fucking heart.

“Then why are you moping around?” Forest wanted to know.

I sighed. “It’s…nothing.”

What was I supposed to say? I fell in love with my wife, and she doesn’t believe me. Or that when we have sex, it feels like a celebration of life, and I wanted to be inside her all the time? Or that I was scared of losing her, and seeing her in that emergency room almost killed me?

“That doesn’t sound like nothing.” Mateo drank some whiskey.

And what the fuck did Mateo know about falling in love? He was going to fuck it up with Raya, but I’d promised her that I’d keep her secret, so I kept my mouth shut.

“You know, for someone who hated getting married to the…I think he referred to her as the ugly sister,” Forest mocked, “you seem fucked up about her injuries.”

“She’s not ugly,” I thundered. “She’s fucking gorgeous.”

“I agree.” Mateo held up his glass.

“Stop looking at my wife, you son of a bitch.”

“And he’s jealous. Raya tells me he was jealous of Mark Caruso.” Mateo was enjoying himself at my expense.

Forest grinned. “And he’s gay.”

“I didn’t know that then, and I wasn’t jealous. I just didn’t want my wife to fuck around on me after my fiancée had done the same.” But I was envious, not about the non-existent sexual feelings between them but the love. She looked at him like he hung the fucking moon. When he told her he loved her, she believed him. When I tried to say it, she went into apoplectic shock.

Forest cleared his throat. “From the evidence I have seen, I determine that you’ve fallen in love with your wife, Dec.”

“Yeah, your honor,” I didn’t bother contradicting him. “And fat lot of good that’s done me. I thought my heart was breaking when Viv left, but compared to what Esme is putting me through, that was a cakewalk.”

“What is she putting through?” Mateo stretched his legs. He was still wearing his suit though he’d discarded the jacket on the back of the armchair he was sitting in.

Forest, who tended to wear jeans even in chambers unless there was a special occasion, was dressed SoCal style in a pair of board shorts, a T-shirt, and leather sandals. Off duty (and sometimes even on), Forest looked like a surfer, not a high court judge.

“She doesn’t believe me. Her family wants me to annul our marriage, and Esme thinks that’s a grand idea. She thinks that if she believes I love her, she’ll get hurt. She’s confident I’m going to walk out on her.” I felt grim as I spoke and laid the truth out. I poured myself a fresh glass and drank it like it wasn’t whiskey but a shot.

“And what have you done to show her you love her?” Mateo asked.

I stared at him. “What?”

“I mean, what have you done to prove to her that you love her?” he reframed.

“Yeah, women are big on this proof thing. Daisy dumped my ass because she didn’t believe that I…that’s ancient history. Let’s talk about you. How do you show Esme you love her?” Now Forest looked as grim as me as he drank some whiskey.

He and Daisy had had a red hot affair for nearly a year, four years before Forest became a judge when he was a District Attorney. All of a sudden and without explanation, Forest stopped showing up for poker because Daisy told him she didn’t want to see him—and since then, he casually asked Mateo and me how Daisy was without admitting he desperately wanted to know everything about her. I had tried to ask Daisy what happened, but she shut down the conversation by saying something on the lines of mind your own fucking business, or I’ll punch you in the face.

“I spend time with her. We have amazing sex, and…what the fuck does it mean to show I love her?” I was doing things with her that I’d never done with women. Going on fucking walks, holding hands, kissing in public, watching movies…what else was I supposed to do?

“Dec, all her life she’s been told she’s not good enough—”

“And I tell her she’s always great,” I interrupted Mateo triumphantly.

“I think you’re going to have to show her what she means to you,” Mateo said sincerely and with sympathy. “She’s been ignored her whole life—and the only time her family has paid attention to her is when they want something from her. She’s probably not good at trusting people, and the fact that you both got married the way you did doesn’t inspire confidence.”

Forest slammed his glass down and stood up. “Let’s go to your game room and play some pool. I can’t do this relationship talk anymore.”

“You having trouble with a new lady?” I asked.

“Same old trouble. Same old fucking lady. But I’ve moved on, and she has moved on and on and on. She’s sleeping with some golf player.”

“Cade Reilly. Four-time PGA champion,” I offered.

“Right. And I see…you know, lots of women,” Forest said lamely.

Mateo stood up. “Yeah, let’s play pool.”

“And how about your love life, Mateo?” I couldn’t help myself.

“I have a sex life, not a love life. The woman I fuck knows that we’re having a good time. She gets an orgasm or two, and I get the same. After that, she goes her way, and I go mine. I won’t give her a disease; I’ll make sure she doesn’t get pregnant, and she needs to go when I say it’s over.” Mateo tucked his hands in his pockets.

“And what happens if she says it’s over?” I asked.

Mateo’s vision wavered. Ah, he hadn’t thought about what would happen if Raya walked away from him.

“Then so be it. No harm, no foul.” We could all see that he didn’t believe what he was saying.

We men were a bunch of morons, I thought.

Here were three of us, all of us lying about our relationships. Well, I wasn’t anymore. I loved my wife, and I’d have to find a way to show her every day so that before this marriage contract ended, she would believe me, and we would build the life I knew we could.