Authors: Claire Adams
“My, my, how hard is it to get a simple
steak right?” She frowned at the dinner table, while I wished, cringing, that
the chef couldn’t hear.
“I think it’s delicious.” I shrugged and
took a huge bite visibly savoring it. “Sean’s the best cook I know.”
That had the desired effect of making her
wince. “How can you say that? When your own mother is sitting right across
you?”
“Fine, if it’s all bothering you so much
you can just take over the kitchen while you’re here and I’ll send Sean on a
paid vacation. He deserves it.”
She gasped. “What is wrong with you, Zay?
Why do you insist of treating the help as though they are equals?”
“Because they are,” I snapped. “I have my
job of running the bank and Sean has his of cooking for us. I don’t see how one
is any less than the other.”
“You know your father used to have the
same attitude and that was his eventual downfall—”
“Right, he got a stroke because he was too
nice.” I rolled my eyes.
“He was careless and trusting of
everybody. It made him weak.”
“He wasn’t very trusting of you now was
he?” I spat.
Her face went completely red. We had never
really discussed what had happened between her and my dad. After I had found
out, I’d simply started distancing myself from her, without any kind of
confrontation. She must have figured it out, in any case, but it was something
neither of us ever brought up. The fact that I had just said that was akin to
slapping her across the face. Her eyes were burning with tears and she was
completely speechless for a long time.
She eventually said, “You don’t know
anything about what was between your father and me.”
“I know enough. I know why you are not in
his will and why you guys were having trouble before he passed away. I know
what you did.”
She began to cry and it gave me an odd
sort of sinister pleasure. “It’s not like that. I made some mistakes, and I am
still paying for it.”
“Hardly,” I scoffed. “I have provided you
with everything you need. You’re still living on dad’s money, and a pretty damn
leisurely life at that, I might add.”
Wiping her eyes with the napkin, she
added, “There are other ways to pay for your mistakes than financially. Not a
day goes by when I don’t regret my actions and wrongdoings to your father. He
was an incredible man and deserved better. I realize this now.”
“Well too bad, it’s about six years too
late. Longer, but god knows by how much. I bet you were never faithful to him.”
Another burst of tears followed. “That
isn’t true, Zay. I cared about your father very deeply, and loved him a lot
more than you’ll ever realize. But I was lonely. His life was completely
devoted to working and I’d barely see him most days. I felt like I had married
an empty bed. That was no excuse at all, but at the time I couldn’t think
clearly. A lonely woman is capable of stuff like this.”
“I’m aware of that,” I snorted.
“Which is why you need to give Gina another
chance.”
“Here we go again.” I rolled my eyes.
“I invited her to come back here and live
with us,” she said without looking me in the eye.
“What the fuck did you do that for? This
is my house and you don’t get to make these calls in my house.”
“Oh alright then, I’ll tell her not to
come if that makes you feel better. You haven’t seen my pills by any chance,
have you?”
Holy shit. Had she just threatened another
suicide attempt? I couldn’t take it anymore, I was trapped. A part of me wanted
to let her do whatever she wanted. But the other part of me just could not bare
the thought of losing another parent, as manipulative and cunning as she was.
She probably would never go through with it anyway, but that was the power this
woman held over me. Logically, I knew she wouldn’t, yet her threats were enough
to raise concern and bend me to her will.
I considered the idea of Gina moving back
here. It couldn’t really be that bad. I had plenty of spare bedrooms in the
house, she could pick the one she liked, farthest away from mine, and it would
have the added benefit of keeping my mother entertained. They could spend all
their time with each other and I could spend all my time at the office, with
Aria.
The thought of Aria made me feel
uncomfortable. She was already upset with me and it would take a lot for me to
get out of this situation alone, I didn’t doubt it. But I didn’t even want to
think of her reaction when she found out about Gina. I wondered what would be
the best way to explain it to her, and whether she would even give me a chance
to explain. From the outside it must look bad: I was technically still married,
and trying to fake an attempt of reconciliation with my wife to keep my mother
from offing herself, yet I had made her sign a contract to be my girlfriend and
then slept with her. And so many women before her that she knew of. She would
think I was a complete asshole, if she didn’t already. Aria could never know
about any of this, under any circumstances.
“Okay, mother, Gina can move back into the
house. But she’ll have to stay out of my bedroom.”
She flashed a smirk of victory. “For now
that sounds like a good idea. She’ll have to eventually move into your room,
you know. But we will wait until you guys have better results from couple’s
therapy. That’s fair enough.”
What part of this was fair? I didn’t love
Gina, I never would. She was wasting my time and her time and quite frankly
setting the woman up for quite a bit of disappointment and hurt feelings. But
until I figured out a better way to stop the suicide threats, I’d just have to
go along with it.
---
The next day, Gina was all moved in. My
mom had already told her to pack and get ready for it before even having that
conversation with me. She was a conniving fox.
There was a knock on my door. “I’m busy,”
I lied. I didn’t want to see either of them.
“I have something for you, it’ll only take
a second,” Gina’s voice said from outside the door. Better her than more
threats from my mom.
“Fine, come in.”
She did, wearing nothing but a robe. “Hi,”
she said in what I imagined to be an attempt at a seductive voice. Then her
robe came off. It wasn’t an utter shock. It wasn’t an unpleasant sight
entirely: Gina had a tall, slender and toned figure, with the right amount of
curves. Her bright blonde hair flowed under her big round breasts. Objectively,
it was quite aesthetically pleasing.
“Put your robe back on,” I said, turning
away from her and looking back at my computer.
“But, but I thought-“
“You thought wrong,” I said, ignoring the
reaction of my penis, which was quite different from my own. “I am not going to
fuck you. Not now, not ever. So quit embarrassing yourself.”
First I heard some sniffles and then I
heard her cry as she ran out of the room. Holy shit, women. Did she really
think that that would work? Just walking in here and stripping? That it would
make me forgive her for all she had done and we would go back to being okay
again? It was sickening, and also showed exactly what she thought of me:
someone who couldn’t keep his dick in place. Little did she know that the only
person I wanted to fuck was a twenty-year-old redhead, whose defiance and
stubbornness was enough to give me a hard on. I closed my eyes and lay in bed,
thinking of Aria’s smooth skin and soft pussy, stroking myself thinking I was
inside it, making her cum. I lasted less than a minute. The mere fantasy of
Aria was enough to make me lose all control.
I would lose it completely if I didn’t
have her back in my bed soon.
---
That evening, my mother somehow convinced
me to take Gina out to dinner. “I’m feeling particularly under the weather,
might need an extra dosage of my pills,” she had casually stated, right after
suggesting that Gina and I needed to have some romantic time outside of the
house if we were ever going to work. If only I could explain to her that I had
no interest in making it work whatsoever.
She could fit in with all the crazy rich
celebrities. We could be great a fucking reality show.
I knocked on Gina’s door and said, “I’ll
be in the car, come whenever you’re ready.”
I walked over to where Ned was parked
right outside my house and made myself a drink of whiskey.
“You don’t seem to be having a
particularly good day, Zay. Want to talk about it?” Ned asked upon seeing me
chug my whiskey.
I sighed. “I don’t know where to start,
Ned. Everything is a fucking mess. You know my mother. She’s decided to extend
her stay indefinitely and invited Gina too. She keeps threatening to off
herself. It’s frustrating. And then there is Aria…”
“So that’s the real issue. You can usually
handle your mother without seeming to collapse with the stress. But your lady
friend seems to have done a number on you.”
“She’s frustrating, yet I can’t stop
thinking about her. I am supposed to be taking my ex-wife out for dinner and
pretending to attempt reconciliation, yet I can’t stop thinking about Aria. How
was she? When you picked her up the other day?” I asked, suddenly remembering
Ned had seen her more recently than I had.
“Very intoxicated,” he said cheerfully.
“She seemed to be having a good time, but definitely a lot of trouble speaking.
She was shocked to see me and kept muttering words of what sounded like
gratitude, but I can’t be sure.”
“Did she—” I cleared my throat. “Did she
say anything about me?”
He looked back and gave me a doleful look.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Is it that bad?” I actually felt fear at
the possibilities of his answer. What if she had said she hated me?
“No, it wasn’t. I couldn’t make out most
of what she was saying but she kept repeating that she wasn’t an object and you
didn’t own her.”
“But I do,” I said, confused. “For now,
anyway.”
“Well, if you want an old man’s advice: don’t
let her feel that way. The best way to win her over is probably to let her feel
her independence. If she feels like she is losing that, it will be much harder
to keep her around.”
“But she doesn’t have a choice. She signed
a contract. She has to be around.”
“Would you rather her just be around or
would you rather she be around and enjoy being with you?”
Before I could answer, Gina showed up,
wearing a long green dress with the neck so low cut, her breasts were almost
popping out.
“Hi Ned,” she said pleasantly.
Ned just nodded curtly. He hated her for
what she had done to me, perhaps more than I hated her for it. So the drive to
the restaurant was particularly quiet. I asked her if she wanted a drink, to
which she politely declined. Probably thought her scheme to win me – and money
– over would fail if she didn’t have her wits about her. I resumed to quietly
sipping my whiskey and only looked at her when she finally spoke again.
“You look very nice,” she said, still
trying to sound annoyingly pleasant.
“Thanks,” I said and looked back out the
window. Gina had interrupted my conversation with Ned about Aria, and that
alone was enough to make me irritated by her.
“I hope you will be a little chattier at
the restaurant. It will make for a lot less uncomfortable of a meal.” She
smiled serenely at me, as though she wasn’t just complaining.
“I just don’t have anything to say.” I
shrugged.
“I’m sure we can find something to talk
about,” she said, putting her hand over mine. “There is a lot of history.”
“Oh, you would like to discuss history,
huh? How did it feel fucking someone else behind my back?”
She went red, all attempts at pleasantness
in her face vanished. “I meant the rest of our history. The good parts. Don’t
you remember any of the good parts, Zay?”
“No,” I spat as Ned parked outside the
restaurant. “Now let’s get this date that my mother forced upon us over with,
so that she can stop threatening to kill herself.”
She raised her eyes wider. “What are you
talking about?”
We hopped out of the car and Ned went off
to park. “Don’t play innocent. I’m sure you put her up to it.”
“I honestly don’t know what you are
talking about. I know your mamma really wants us to get back together, but I
didn’t know she had been pressuring you like that…I thought you wanted to give
us another shot. I thought—”
“Whatever you thought, you thought wrong.
But we are here now and we might as well enjoy the evening, yeah?”
“Zay, I really want us to work,” she said,
reaching out for my hand again but I yanked it away this time. “You’re the love
of my life.”
That made me snort. “I have no idea what
people mean when they use that word, but based on mother’s ‘love’ for my dad
and your ‘love’ for me, I am pretty sure I am not interested in that shallow
fucking emotion.”
She looked away holding back tears as we
stepped into the restaurant. It was a high-end Japanese establishment, with
authentic Japanese decorations, and the chef was famous for winning Japan’s
version of Top Chef last year. He had since moved to the States to open his own
highly exclusive restaurant. It would take a normal person months to find a
reservation here, but I just had to make a phone call. I figured if I was going
to suffer through dinner with Gina, I might as well at the very least enjoy the
meal.
“Sinclair,” I told the Filipino-looking
hostess.
“Come with me, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair,” she
said brightly, escorting us to a private table at the end of the room. I
started to correct her but Gina held my hand again, obviously pleased to be
referred to as Mrs. Sinclair. “Thank you so much for joining us today, your
server will be here any moment.”
As soon as she was off, I told Gina, “We
are not Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair.”
“We technically are, Zay,” she sighed.
“Like it or not, we are still married, as the divorce papers were never fully
processed. You were too busy to make it to any of the court dates, remember? I
am Mrs. Sinclair, for now at least. And I would like to try my best to keep it
that way. You hate me right now and you can’t see past my mistakes, which I
totally understand, but I want this to work. I want you to trust me again.”