: Chapter 16

I HELD THE NOTE CLOSE to my chest as I made my way out of the cafeteria, blazing right onto the lush, wet grass at the entrance. The first rain of autumn knocked softly on my face, making me blink as the world shifted in and out of focus.

The first rain of the season. A sign.

Most cities were the most romantic during springtime, but Chicago thrived in the fall. When the leaves were orange and yellow and the sky as gray as my husband’s eyes. The note was wet between my fingers. It was probably ruined, but I still clutched it with a death grip. I stood in the middle of the turf overlooking the road, under the open sky, and let the drops pound over my face and body.

Come rescue me, Wolfe.

I prayed, even despite my bitter knowledge and everything Kristen had told me, that he would fulfill the last note and be my knight in shining armor.

The love of your life will shelter you from the storm.

I inwardly begged, and pleaded, and sobbed.

Please, please, please shelter me.

I wanted a promise that he would not discard me after he was done with my father.

That despite hating my family—and for good reason—he loved me.

This morning, after I read the last note, I tucked it in my bra, just like I did the night of the masquerade. Smithy drove me to school. On our way there, rain started dancing across the windshield.

“Goddammit,” Smithy mumbled, flicking the wipers on.

“Don’t pick me up today.” It was the first and last order I gave Smithy.

“Huh?” He popped his gum, distracted. My EPAs shifted in their seats, exchanging looks.

“Wolfe is going to pick me up.”

“He’ll be in Springfield.”

“Change of plan. He’s staying in town.”

I was only half-lying. If Wolfe was the love of my life, he would be here.

But now I was standing in the rain with no one to turn to.

“Francesca! What the hell!” I heard a voice behind me. I turned around. Angelo was standing on the stairs of the front entrance, shielded by an umbrella, squinting at me. I wanted to shake my head, but I didn’t want to interfere with fate anymore.

Please, Angelo. No. Don’t come here.

“It’s raining!” he yelled.

“I know.” I stared at the cars whizzing by, waiting for my husband to somehow show up, out of the blue, and tell me that he wanted to give me a ride. Waiting for him to come and whisk me away. Praying he would shield me, not only from the storm outside, but the one inside me, too.

“Goddess, come here.”

Dropping my head, I tried to swallow the ball of tears in my throat.

“Francesca, it’s pouring. What the fuck?”

I heard Angelo’s feet slapping the concrete stairs as he made his way across the lawn, wanting to stop him, but knowing that I’d already messed with my destiny too much. Opening the notes when I shouldn’t have. Feeling things I shouldn’t feel for someone who was only after my family’s misery.

I felt Angelo’s embrace from behind me. It was all wrong and right. Comforting and distressing. Beautiful and ugly. And my brain kept screaming, no, no, no. He twisted me around. I was shivering in his arms, and he jerked me close, hugging me before bringing me to shelter within his chest. He somehow knew that my need for human warmth was stronger than the need for a roof over my head.

He cupped my cheeks, and I relented to his touch, knowing, without a shadow of a doubt now, that Wolfe had read the second note, about the chocolate, shortly after I moved into his house. And that he was also privy to the first note, as I’d told him, and ruined it for me, too.

Those notes didn’t count.

They never counted.

This was true. This was real. Angelo and me, under the open sky that was crying for all the time I’d spent trying to make my husband fall in love with me.

Angelo.

Maybe it was always Angelo.

“I’m pregnant,” I yelped into his chest. “And I want a divorce,” I added, not entirely sure that it was really what I wanted.

He shook his head, bringing his lips to my forehead. “I’ll be there for you. No matter what.”

“Your father hates me,” I moaned, the pain inside me cutting deep.

He saved me.

Angelo saved me.

Sheltered me from the storm.

“Who cares about my father? I love you.” He nuzzled his nose against mine. “I’ve loved you since the day you smiled at me—all braces—and I still wanted to kiss you.”

“Angelo…”

“You’re not a toy, Francesca. You’re not my leverage, or my pawn, or my arm candy. You’re the girl from the river. The kid who smiled at me with colorful braces. Just because your story had a few chapters where I wasn’t the main lead doesn’t make me any less the love of your life. And you’re mine. This is it. This is us.”

His lips crushed on mine, soft and firm. So determined I wanted to cry with both relief and heartbreak. Angelo was kissing me in front of the entire school. With Wolfe’s rings on my finger. Both engagement and wedding band. I knew, without even looking, that people took out their phones and recorded the entire thing. I knew, without a doubt, that my life had taken the sharpest turn of all. Yet I gave in to Angelo, knowing somehow that it needed to happen.

I was cheating on my husband.

Who wanted to ruin my family.

Who didn’t want our baby.

Who kept secrets from me.

I was cheating on my husband.

Who offered me everything he owned but his heart.

Who kissed me soft.

And fought me hard.

I was cheating on my husband.

After my father killed his family.

And there was no going back.

Our lips disconnected, and Angelo took my hand in his, tugging me back toward the school.

“Whatever it is, we’ll make it. You know that, right?”

“I know that.”

I turned my head around one last time to see if there was something I’d missed, and sure enough, there was.

While Wolfe wasn’t there, Kristen sure was, tucked inside a parked car, recording the whole thing.

I cheated on my husband, Wolfe Keaton.

The end.

She’s been fucking him the whole time.

They’re in a hotel in Buffalo Grove now, FYI. Might wanna make sure she takes a shower before you dip into it tonight.

I hope you know what it looks like to the media, Senator Keaton. You’re officially the joke of the state.

I’d read Kristen’s text messages until my eyes nearly bled. They were accompanied by pictures. Or rather, evidence. Evidence I couldn’t overlook since Twitter and Instagram burst with the same images from a hundred different angles of my wife, Mrs. Francesca Keaton, kissing her former flame and fellow student, Angelo Bandini, in the rain. It was like a fucked-up scene from The Notebook. The way he held her. The way she submitted to him. Kissed him back. Fiercely.

I couldn’t unglue my eyes even if I wanted to. And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to.

This is what you get for putting your trust in another human being, idiot.

In a fucking Rossi, no less.

I ignored Kristen’s message, knowing damn well that she was not at the school by chance. She wanted me to see those pictures. Wanted me to know that Francesca had an affair with Angelo. Throughout our entire marriage, he’d been a third wheel. A thorn in my side. Now, finally, Francesca made a proactive choice.

She kissed him in front of the world.

She. Chose. Him.

I had to hand it to my young, spitfire wife. She almost managed to crack me completely. It was that sweet pussy and smart mouth. A lethal combination if I ever met one. But this was the wake-up call that I’d needed.

I left the store I was standing in, making my way out of it and toward my car, on my way home. I’d given up my driver for my wife. I’d given up a lot for my wife.

Which reminded me—where on earth was fucking Smithy?

“Hey. Hi. Hey,” Smithy greeted when I called him as I got into my car. My EPAs were at my side. Protocol dictated they couldn’t drive for me. Shame. I was about to hurl all of us off the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

“Where the fuck were you this afternoon?” I demanded. By his way of answering, I knew he’d already seen the pictures on Twitter. Jesus Christ, who the hell hadn’t at this point?

“She said you were going to pick her up. That you didn’t fly out to Springfield today. And I didn’t see your car in the garage in the morning, so I figured it was true.”

It was. I had two meetings downtown today. And, strangely, I was going to surprise Francesca at her school. I ran late because my second appointment—the one in which I purchased a Yamaha C-7 Grand Piano for my unhappy wife—ran late. It was supposed to be a surprise. Of course, my lovely wife beat me to it this round.

My phone buzzed in my hand. For a second, I thought it’d be Francesca, calling to tell me that it wasn’t what it looked like. I glanced at the caller ID. No. It was just Preston Bishop, eager for some blood sport.

Damn it, Francesca.

I sent the call to voicemail, along with the dozen other calls from Bishop, White, and Arthur Rossi, who were all keen to offer their two pennies about the situation, no doubt. I’d been humiliated beyond my worst nightmares after I’d sworn to never be put in this position again. Not after I got down on my knees to Rossi.

The only person who did not try and reach me—other than my cheating wife, of course—was Sterling, who wasn’t connected to social media and wasn’t privy to what her darling girl had done.

When I got home, I told Sterling to leave for the nearest hotel and gave her ten minutes to pack a bag while I called an Uber for her. I didn’t want her there when I faced Francesca. She did not deserve to see that ugly side of me.

“For how long?” Sterling grinned, flinging dresses and stockings into the open suitcase on her bed. As far as she was concerned, everything was still dandy between me and my wife. She probably thought we were planning a fuck-fest over every surface of the house. I glanced at my Rolex.

Two, maybe three years.

“A couple of days. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

Whenever my lawful wife takes her head out of her ass.

“Wonderful! You have fun, lovebirds.”

“Count on it.”

Calling her when she was with her lover in a hotel room would be redundant. And hysterical. No. I sat on my wife’s bed the remainder of the afternoon, replaying last night in my head. Aunt Flo my ass. She didn’t get her period. She didn’t want my dick inside her body, probably because she was too busy nurturing an affair with her college buddy.

I was consumed by guilt and self-hatred after the night I’d taken her here, on this bed, thinking that she’d spread her legs to Angelo. But really, my only error was chronological. Because she might have been a virgin when I took her that first time, but that public kiss she had shared with him? It was as real as ours, if not more.

She cheated on me with the man she’d loved since she was in diapers.

And I was the idiot who kept on taking her after all their discriminating evidence.

The Bishop’s wedding.

The engagement party.

The kiss.

No more.

I heard the door downstairs open some hours after I arrived. My wife always took off her shoes and arranged them neatly by the door before taking a glass of water from the kitchen and going upstairs. Today was no different. With the exception that when she climbed up the stairs and got into her bedroom, she found me sitting on her bed, holding my phone in my hand, the screen lit and showcasing her kissing Angelo.

Her glass slipped from between her fingers, hitting the floor. She turned around, about to run away. I stood up.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Nemesis.” My voice dripped ice and menace.

She stopped in her tracks, her back to me, her shoulders sagging, but her head was still high.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Turn your back on me when I’m in my current state.”

“And why is that? Are you going to stab me?” She twisted on her heel, her azure eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She was brave, but she was emotional. I mistook all her tears for weakness. No more. Francesca was definitely in the habit of going for what she wanted in life.

I cocked my head to the side. “Why must you Rossis always turn to violence? There are plenty of things I can do to hurt you beyond belief without laying a finger on your beautiful body.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I think I will, Nemesis. Tonight, in fact.”

Her throat bobbed. Her false façade was collapsing inch by inch with each ragged breath and shiver. She scanned her surroundings. Nothing was different about the room. Other than my invisible pride, shattered on her floor, with her footmarks all over it.

“Where is Ms. Sterling?” Her eyes slid to the window, then to the door. She wanted to escape me.

Too late, darling.

“I sent her on a mini vacation for a few days to freshen up. She doesn’t need to be here for this.”

“For what?”

“For when I break you like you broke me. Humiliate you in the way you humiliated me. Punish you the exact same way you punished me.”

“You’ve read the notes.” She pointed at the wooden box on her nightstand. I smiled, sliding my wedding band from my finger with slow precision, watching her eyes drink in my movement. I placed it by the box on her nightstand.

“Why else would I send you chocolate when I couldn’t even stand your face?”

The truth felt like ash in my mouth. But the truth was also a weapon I’d used to wound her little soul. I couldn’t breathe without feeling my chest tightening, and I wanted to slice her open in the same way she cut me. Bone-deep.

“Well”—a bitter smile fluttered across her face—“I suppose you know what the last note said.”

“I do.”

“Angelo sheltered me from the storm.”

This made me grab the box and slam it against the opposite wall, not many inches from where she was. The lid broke off, both pieces rolling on the floor. She cupped her mouth but stayed silent.

“Because he kissed you in the rain? Are you fucking kidding me? I sheltered you.” I stabbed a finger to my chest, advancing toward her and losing the remainder of my self-control. My anger was a red cloud surrounding both of us, and I could hardly see her through it anymore. I grabbed her shoulders, plastering her to the wall, forcing her to look at me. “I sheltered you from your father and Mike Bandini and Kristen Rhys. From every asshole who looked at you the wrong way because of your age or your lineage or your last name. I put my reputation, and career, and fucking sanity on the line to make sure that you were safe, and accomplished, and happy. I broke my rules. All of them. Demolished my own resolutions—for you. I gave you everything I could within reason, and you shit all over it.”

I paced her room, the words burning on the tip of my tongue, pleading to be said.

I want a divorce.

But I didn’t want a fucking divorce.

And that was a problem.

She loved Angelo, much to my disdain and fury, but that didn’t change what I felt for her. I still longed for her warm body next to mine. Her sweet mouth and quirky thoughts and that vegetable garden she talked to and piano sessions, stretched over lazy weekends, where I’d read the papers while she played a mishmash of classics and The Cure.

Besides, wasn’t that far more cruel than letting her go to Angelo? Watching as she stayed and wilted here, her heart blackening and hardening next to mine? She could fake her affection for me, sure, but our desire? That was real. And consensual. Wouldn’t it be far more grueling to have her suck my cock and cream my face while she pined for another?

Wasn’t revenge a good enough reason to keep her?

“I’m going to the Bernard’s gala tonight,” I announced, kicking a part of the wooden box aside on my way to her closet. I picked out a scarlet, skin-tight dress she particularly loved.

“I don’t remember seeing it in our calendar.” She rubbed her face tiredly, fleetingly forgetting that our calendar no longer meant shit because our charade was formally over. I’d hand her one thing—she was a good actress. I was an idiot enough to buy into it.

“I originally turned it down.”

“What made you change your mind?” She took the bait.

“I secured myself a date.”

“Wolfe.” She pushed herself past me, blocking my way. I stopped. “What are you talking about, a date?”

“Her name is Karolina Ivanova. She’s a Russian ballerina. Fuck hot, and damn responsive.” I’d used the same word to describe Francesca when we first started to explore each other’s bodies.

She threw her head back, growling in frustration.

“You’re a cheater now on top of everything else. Nice touch.”

“Not exactly. We’re obviously in an open marriage.” I swiped the touch screen of my phone in her face. Her kiss with Angelo flashed, taunting her back. “Remember our verbal contract, Nem? You said both of us needed to be loyal. Well, that ship has fucking sailed.”

It’s somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, hitting an iceberg that would split the Titanic in half.

“Thanks for the memo. Does that mean I can invite Angelo over?” She smiled sweetly.

I didn’t know what had made her such a bitch overnight. I just knew it wasn’t warranted on my part.

“Not if he wants to make it out of here with his dick intact.”

“Explain the logic behind your words, Senator Keaton.”

“Gladly, Mrs. Keaton: I plan to fuck my way through the better half of Chicago until I’ve had enough of what it has to offer me. Then, and only then, and only if by the time I’m done fucking everything that breathes, you and Angelo will be done with one another, I’d consider letting you suck my cock again. We’ll start small. A couple times a week. Then take it from there. That is, if I’ll ever get bored from the variety,” I added.

“And the dress?” She knotted her arms over her chest, pointing her chin to the dark blue number.

“Would look ravishing on Ivanova’s tight little bod,” I provided.

“Walk out this door tonight, Wolfe, and you won’t have a wife to return to.” she stood at the doorway now, tall and proud.

She took a deep breath. “Whatever happened this evening will need to be discussed between us. But we will never have a chance to do that if you don’t stay. If you leave to spend the night with another woman, I will not be here come morning.”

I smiled sardonically, leaning down, our mouths nearly touching. Her breath hitched, and her eyes glazed over. I dragged my lips across her cheek to her ear.

“Don’t let the door hit your ass on your way out, Nemesis.”

I shivered under my covers, hitting refresh on all the local media Twitter accounts, checking their websites for live updates. It was about as constructive to my mental state as watching videos of puppies drowning, but I couldn’t help it.

Three hours after he’d left the house, my husband was seen with a gorgeous brunette on his arm. She was wearing my favorite Valentino dress and a proud smile.

Screw you, Wolfe.

Her eyes were bigger and bluer and deeper. They saw and knew things I could hardly even imagine. She was taller and considerably more beautiful. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder, smiling dreamingly as their photo was taken, staring directly to the camera. Flirting with it. Loving it back. And, as my husband looked down at her, his cold mercury eyes darkening with lust, I knew what I had to do even before I’d read the caption under their image.

Senator Wolfe Keaton (30) and prima ballerina Karolina Ivanova (28) were seen spending time together at a local gala. Keaton, who was married to Francesca Rossi (19) this summer, is currently in the midst of a scandal after his young wife was seen kissing a childhood friend on the grounds of Northwestern University earlier this afternoon.

Frantic, I checked for more pictures. More items. More tweets about my husband and his lady friend. The entire world saw them together now. We were officially over. Only it was never my intention to humiliate him. I understood how bad it looked, but it was just one kiss. A moment of weakness.

Not that it mattered.

It was no longer about me, and I knew it.

Wolfe was a loose cannon. Angry and vindictive and full of hate. And I had my baby to think about. I packed up a suitcase and called my mother, informing Smithy in a text message that he needed to take me back home to Little Italy.

I saw him texting Wolfe frantically in the car as I pushed my bags out the door, braving the drizzle and the chilly, autumn night.

By the way he banged his head against the headrest, his messages were left unanswered.