She couldn’t bring herself to answer her husband.
Once she did, the tide of tears would overwhelm her.
She needed privacy for her breakdown. She rested her head in her hands. How could Jace have let them go so far? He knew who she was! Knew what this would do to her!
Sorrow settled over her, pressing down so hard she felt like passing out. She gathered the towel to her chest. She half-whispered, half-cried, “How could I have let this happen? I loved my life. Now”—she broke into a sob—“I don’t even know who I
am
.”
“Caroline, if you don’t answer me right now, I’m going to kick this door in,” Jace called, his voice pained. “Pete doesn’t have a key. They’ve looked.”
Of course Pete didn’t have a key!
They’d probably never had a guest lock themselves in like this in the history of the Pleasure Paradise. Why would they? It would make it too hard for their orgy participants to find each other. She pulled herself up from the floor. “I’ll be out soon,” she called weakly. “Just give me a minute.”
Her voice sounded dead to her own ears. Her head was still spinning. There was nothing she could do to clear it. It felt like there was an ocean roiling inside her head.
“Okay,” Jace said, relief in his voice. “I’m going to get dressed. I’ll be ready when you get out.”
“Your clothes are in here,” she answered quietly.
“I’m borrowing some sweats from Pete. Don’t worry about it. We’ll leave right when you come out.”
Caroline dropped her towel and found her clothing. She was dressed in less than a minute. She glanced into the mirror and ran a hand through her wet hair. She wasn’t about to open any drawers to see if there was a brush. She knew she’d find things she didn’t want to see. There was probably a dildo in every drawer.
She shivered and covered her mouth. She wanted to vomit again, but there was nothing left in her stomach.
She paused in front of the door and took a deep breath. She wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone. She would simply walk out, go up the stairs, and head straight out the front door.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t care if she was rude to the host and hostess.
Fuck
them.
* * *
Jace kept stealing furtive glances at his wife during the ride home. She’d finally exited the bathroom, looking pale and spent, and as upset as he’d ever seen her the entire time they’d been together. She’d made a beeline for the car, and he’d followed without a word.
He’d made a huge, horrible mistake letting his need for sexual gratification overpower his common sense.
His wife was fragile and carried guilt around her like a straitjacket she could never take off. He’d made her a promise to take it back to the bathroom if they decided to have sex, and he’d failed miserably. How easy would it have been to pick her up and carry her in there? Pete had even asked permission to touch his wife! Jace could’ve easily denied him. He’d known damn well that, even though Caroline was ready in the moment, she wouldn’t want to deal with the implications later.
He’d fucked up.
Now he had to make it right somehow.
Jace tried again. “Care, please forgive me.” Nothing but silence. “I need you to talk to me at the very least. I take full responsibility. You have every right to be angry at me. I’m going to make it up to you. I swear.”
His wife remained steadfast in her refusal to speak, her gaze never even sliding toward him. They were close to home, only about five minutes away. He had to convince her before they got home that it was going to be okay. “We’re going to get through this. I promise you. What happened with the Slaters was not a game changer. You have to believe me. We know our limits now, and it won’t happen again.”
She pressed her hands against her temples and stared out the window.
Caroline had always said that women who used the silent treatment as a punishment were weak and scared to tackle life head on. She’d never used it before. She was an issue-tackler to the core of her being. It worried him because she wasn’t normally weak, or scared to say what she was feeling. This time, it seemed as if she was resigned to something awful.
Jace pulled into the garage and shut off the car, turning to her before she could get out, gripping her wrist lightly. “Care, wait. I know you’ve heard everything I’ve said, but I realize words are not enough. So I’m going to prove it to you, starting right this minute, that we’re going to get through this. Neither of us had sex with someone else. I know we went too far for your comfort, but it’s nothing we can’t recover from. I know you feel like we jeopardized something as a couple, but please know that’s not the case. We never have to see the Slaters again. We never have to participate in anything outside of the two of us again, if that’s what you want. We can make this work. We love each other too much to let this get between us.”
Caroline turned to look at him and simply nodded. Then she got out of the SUV.
He followed her into the house and up the stairs.
She headed into the master bathroom and closed the door behind her, then he heard the shower running. He donned his PJs and got into bed to wait for her. She came out of the bathroom two hours later. Without a word, she slid into bed and turned on her side, ignoring him completely.
He didn’t want to push her. With difficulty, he fell asleep.
When he woke in the morning, she was gone.
20
__________________________
____________
C
aroline blew her nose for the three hundredth time and miserably tossed the wadded-up tissue onto the hotel room floor with a pile of others. Her eyes were swollen shut from crying. She was beginning to feel horrible about leaving Jace without telling him. The only excuse she had was, she hadn’t felt like she’d been in her right mind at the time.
In the wee hours of the morning, after trying to scrub the night off her body, she had to have space. She couldn’t breathe, and she felt that if she didn’t get some kind of distance, she’d go insane.
She’d known Jace would try to talk her out of it, so she’d simply slipped out.
It’d been well after two a.m. before Jace’s breaths had finally evened out, and without much thought, she’d dressed, packed a small bag, and left the house.
She hadn’t had a solid plan and had sat in her car for a good hour before she’d turned it on. She finally decided to head to a hotel. But first, she made a pit stop at a convenience store for supplies, like extra tissues, Visine, and some comfort food—BBQ potato chips, Skittles, and Coke. Soda pop was something she almost never drank, but it was nostalgic, and she needed that comfort more than anything right now.
So, here she was, wallowing and feeling awful—almost worse than she had right after the act itself. But not quite. She needed a quiet place to cry in peace, clear her head, and try to figure out how her marriage was going to work moving forward.
Just thinking about that brought on another crying jag.
She plucked up several more tissues and dabbed at her eyes. They were so raw, light dabbing was all she could do.
How was she going to get through this? How were
they
going to get through this?
She stared at the ceiling, trying to rein in her tears, but they leaked out anyway and trickled down her neck. There were so many things to consider. Her mind raced, and she couldn’t stop it. She wished, for the first time in her life, she had a prescription for a sleeping pill.
Being knocked out of her misery would be a blessing. Sleeping would be divine, even though she knew she’d have to face this mess again when she woke up.
The ceiling was no help.
It was perfectly white and smooth with no cracks.
Nothing to distract her.
She’d been fighting so many feelings over the last three hours, the biggest being guilt, of course. But not only guilt for letting the thing happen with Pete—but guilt about wanting it to happen again! The pleasure had been so intense and so good!
She fisted her hands and pounded them into the covers like a child having a tantrum. “Why did we go over
there
?” she howled to the perfectly white ceiling. “It’s not fair! I don’t want Pete’s hands on me. I want my
husband
. He’s all I need!” The ceiling didn’t answer. “Right? Isn’t that how this all works? You fall in love, you get married, you vow to be true to each other, and then you sit back and enjoy your life. Right? Answer me!”
Almost on cue, her phone chirped.
Then, almost immediately, there was another chirp.
That meant a text. She turned toward the bedside table that held a clock, lamp, and her cell phone.
It was 6:03 a.m. Jace must have woken up and found her gone.
She did not want to pick up the phone. “I’m not ready!” she cried, grabbing another tissue. “Jace, I love you, but I’m not ready to talk about this! My brain is still too scrambled.” She took one of the bed’s many pillows and placed it over her head, hoping to block out the noise
and
the reality.
It didn’t help.
There was another chirp.
And then another.
Then another.
It wasn’t going to end until she let him know she was okay. Resigned, she tossed the pillow aside, likely onto the pile of dirty tissues, and reached for her phone.
Her eyebrows raised when she saw Piper’s name in the window, not Jace’s. She swiped her phone open. There were ten separate texts all in a row:
I’M MAKING YOUR DARLING HUSBAND SOME COFFEE. (COFFEE CUP EMOJI)
HE LOOKS AS MISERABLE AS I’VE EVER SEEN HIM.
HE THOUGHT U WERE HERE AND CAME BANGING ON THE DOOR 15 MINS AGO. HE WANTS TO CALL THE POLICE, BUT I CALMED HIM DOWN.
U THERE? I KNOW THERE’S NO WAY U ARE SLEEPING. (ZZZ’S EMOJI)
I GET IT. HE FILLED ME IN. UR IN PANIC MODE. TEXT ME WHEN U CAN, SO I CAN LET THE POOR MAN KNOW UR ALIVE AND NO ONE HAS MURDERED U AND DUMPED U ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.
THEN I’M COMING TO GET U.
DON’T FIGHT ME.
DUDE, I WILL FIND U. THIS TOWN AIN’T THAT BIG. (THIN-LIPPED EMOJI)
TEXT ME BACK.
RIGHT NOW.
Caroline bit her lip. She knew Piper was dead serious. If she didn’t text her back, Piper would start calling every hotel in town until she found her.
“Dammit,” Caroline swore. Not only was she not ready to talk to her husband, she was definitely not ready to talk to her best friend either. If Caroline wanted to get snarky and technical, she could blame Michael for bringing up his and Piper’s sexcapades to begin with. If they hadn’t so openly shared their intimate details, Caroline would be blissfully ignorant.
Her phone chirped again.
IF U BLAME ME FOR THIS, UR DEAD MEAT.
Followed by another text.
YOU HAVE 7 SECONDS BEFORE I START TRACKING U DOWN. AND WHEN I START CALLING I’M TELLING THEM UR A METH ADDICT WHO NEEDS AN IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION. I’LL HAVE UR ROOM # BEFORE U CAN SAY FUCK A DUCK. (DUCK EMOJI)
Caroline sighed. Piper knew her so well.
“Fine. You win, Piper,” she muttered while she tapped the screen.
I’M FINE. NO NEED TO HAND-HOLD. TELL JACE I’LL CALL HIM LATER.
The bubble came up instantly as Piper began to type.
NO GO, GIRLIE. EITHER U TELL ME WHERE U ARE OR I START METH-CALLING. I CAN BE VERY PERSUASIVE. JACE GIVES YOU HIS LOVE, BTW. (SAD FACE EMOJI)
It was gutting Caroline to think of Jace in pain. She hadn’t really factored in his feelings at all. She’d been out of her right mind. And maybe there was a tiny part of her that wanted him to suffer a little, too, just like she was suffering.
But only a little!
Picturing him slumped over Piper’s kitchen table was horrible, and a small sob escaped her throat. She thought for a minute before typing. Then she wrote:
I’D NEVER DO METH. COCAINE MAYBE. HOTELRED, ON MONROE. #408.
Caroline tossed her phone onto the bed and brought her palms up to her face and scrubbed. She struggled to sit up with all the pillows and the thick comforter she’d been hiding under. She finally wrestled it away and got up, pacing to the glass doors, which led to a small balcony. The only room that had been available in the early morning hours had been a one-bedroom suite in this ultra-modern hotel. She pulled back a piece of the sheer curtains. It was light out, but the sun had just risen.
She let the drapes fall back in place and padded out to a separate sitting area that held a couch, a kitchenette, and two barstools scooted up to a small counter. She pulled open the door of the small fridge and plucked out a water. She twisted off the cap and sat down on the couch, which was hard and unyielding.
She was a mess.
Her hair was unkempt. Her robe was loosely tied over her flannel PJs. In her haste, she’d grabbed the top to one set and the bottoms to another.
She took a gulp of the water. All she could do now was wait for the inevitable.
For Piper to come and tell her how stupid she was being.
* * *
Jace was beside himself. He alternated between feeling like throwing up and ramming his fist into the wall. Instead, he sat on the side of his and Caroline’s empty bed, head in his fists. Piper and Michael had been kind and understanding, but there had been nothing they could say to him that would ease his fears.