Chapter 16

It wasn’t entirely clear how they went from a boring conversation on the questionable consistency of the tuna lasagna she had made him for dinner to him tossing her onto his bed and ripping his own shirt off.

But…it happened.

Days of married bliss followed in which they mostly got pretty intimate—in every position and location imaginable—and he dodged her subtle inquiries on his true feelings toward her.

He took her to the most expensive restaurants in town. He flew her on his private jet to his private island in the Caribbean.

He bought her an entirely new designer wardrobe complete with matching diamonds and gold jewelry. And every time he bought her something, they fucked the hell out of each other.

Those were the exact words of the story.

“‘Every time he bought me a new gift, we fucked the hell out of each other,’” Gracie read aloud.

“It’s so romantic!” Sierra swooned.

“Honestly, if he’s a billionaire, none of what he spent is even a fraction of the money he has,” Octavia said.

“Sure, Trixie’s from a different class. She’s the kind of girl who is…how did she describe herself again?”

“Lower-class scum,” Gracie supplied, quoting the story.

Octavia nodded. “Right. Sure, it seems expensive to her ‘lower-class scum’ self, but she does realize that he’s not really doing much, right?

“I mean, in terms of his net worth, he may as well have bought her a T-shirt from Walmart and taken her to the movies.”

“But you can’t fuck the hell out of each other at the movies,” Gracie said. “Doesn’t have quite the same effect as doing it on a yacht.”

“And isn’t it rather inconvenient the way he flies into a rage anytime some other man so much as looks at her?” Octavia said.

“Like that time he body-slammed the waiter when he asked her what she’d like to drink.”

“He’s protective!’ Sierra protested. “He only gets jealous because he’s so in love with her.”

“Unfortunately, she’ll have to get used to dry meals,” Gracie said.

“If anyone has a right to be jealous, it’s not him,” Octavia said.

“Considering how many beautiful women are constantly throwing themselves at him. Why didn’t she body-slam that masseuse who offered to work the kinks out of Raemon’s shaft?”

“That’s different,” Sierra said dismissively.

“Trixie was standing right there!” Octavia almost yelled. “Instead, she just ran off and cried.”

“And then he came and found her and bought her a diamond necklace,” Sierra snapped.

“And then they fucked the hell out of each other,” Gracie added.

“Not before we had to endure five pages of her moaning about how much she loves him and why can’t he just see that and show her how much he loves her too?” Octavia said in disgust.

Sierra slammed a hand down on the table. “Love isn’t simple, okay?”

Octavia sneered. “You know what is simple? If your man’s a ho, he’s a ho.”

“Ho is as ho does,” Gracie quipped.

“Just READ,” Sierra snarled.

They continued.

The dinner, shopping trips, jewelry gifts, and yacht rides continued for the next few chapters.

The cycles were only interrupted by the occasional spat between the two, which usually culminated in Mr. Kennerly breaking something and Mrs. Kennerly crying.

Then the both of them falling over themselves and dissolving into a mass of quivering, shuddering ecstasy. Needless to say, several chapters were skipped.

Then, horrors! Reginald Parker lured Trixie into the woods by herself and kidnapped her. Of course, Raemon Kennerly received her ransom note with equanimity.

He clenched his fist around the sheet of paper with Reginald’s handwriting scribbled over it, confirming his worst fears. A wave of fury washed over him, consumed him, lit a fire inside his bones.

He ripped the sheet in half, then grabbed the edge of the table the note had been left on and flipped it over.

The strength of his toss turned the piece of furniture several feet in the air and brought it crashing down with a resounding thud.

But that wasn’t enough to satisfy his rage. Trixie was gone. She had been taken. His Trixie. By that backstabbing, worthless, fucker Reginald. He would PAY.

He grabbed a chair and flung it across the room, snatched up a ceramic vase and shattered it on the floor.

He went around the whole room, destroying everything he could put a hand on, just thinking of what he would do to Reginald once he got his hands on that bastard.

“Shouldn’t he be more concerned with rescuing his wife?” Octavia spoke up. “’Cause the chances of her getting out of that scrape by herself are pretty slim.”

“Maybe that’s his warm-up exercise,” Gracie suggested. “He needs to get his table-flipping technique right before he confronts Reginald.”

“But does it really make sense for him to waste all that time demolishing his own home while his wife—that he apparently loves so much—is in the clutches of his notorious enemy?

“Here’s a thought: call the police first, rescue your own wife, then trash your mansion.”

“But it’s imperative that she should return to a ransacked home,” Gracie said, looking horrified at Octavia’s ignorance. “How else would she know how much he cared?”

Sierra opened her mouth to shush them, but the two weren’t quite done.

“And isn’t that the room she spent hours decorating in the last chapter?” Octavia said. “Did he seriously just destroy the three weeks of work she put into the place in under an hour?”

“It’s too bad she went with so much crystal,” Gracie said. “If only she’d chosen accents of something more durable. Like steel.”

“Yes,” Octavia said, a wry grin spreading across her face, “steel décor. Durable and long-lasting. Can be hurled across a room without breaking!”

“Or rubber,” Gracie added, adopting Octavia’s smile, “so it would just bounce.”

“There should be a special line of rubber furniture for men like Raemon Kennerly,” Octavia snickered. She adopted a peppy but nasally infomercial tone. “Is your man prone to violent outbursts for no reason?

“Does he destroy all the furniture you painstakingly picked out just because you got kidnapped? Or some other man happened to make eye contact with you?”

Gracie jumped in, also doing an infomercial impression, “Is your fated lover so overcome with his feelings for you but incapable of expressing them using words like an evolved human being?

“Does he instead resort to chaotic destruction to express emotion?”

“Never fear!” Octavia announced. “For you innocent, lower-class scum, non-model-but-curvy-with-a-tiny-waist wives of such men, we have the perfect solution for you. Introducing Rubber Furniture!”

“It bounces off walls, ceilings, and whatever other surface your man will throw it against. Never have to replace your dining set again!” Gracie added, fighting to keep herself from breaking out into laughter.

“Now when you get kidnapped, all YOU have to worry about is getting home—not getting home to a living room that looks like a tornado went through it!” Octavia said between fits of laughter.

That was it. The two of them dissolved into a heap of laughter. Sierra shut the laptop closed with an unamused expression on her face and stood to face the two of them.

It was a good ten minutes or so before their mirthful howls died down.

Sierra crossed her arms. “Are you finished?”

Octavia wiped a tear from her eye. “Yeah. We’re done.”

“Laugh all you want, but thanks to Mildred’s writing, I know exactly what kind of woman Raemon Kentworth wants. When I meet him, he’ll be mine!” Sierra declared.

“I truly admire your ambition,” Gracie said coolly.

Sierra ignored her and looked at Octavia. “I’d be careful about pissing him off if I were you,” she said ominously. “As Mildred clearly showed us, he is NOT the kind of man you mess with.”

“I’ll have my work desk bolted to the floor,” Octavia replied earnestly.

Sierra made a sound of disgust and flipped her hair over her shoulders. “Don’t mess this up for me!” she snarled. “I better get an introduction to him soon, okay?

“I just need to meet him. Just once. And once that’s over, then you can go ahead and be your weird self.” With a final hair flip, Sierra marched to her room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Octavia looked over at Gracie, her mouth twitching. Gracie smiled back at her.

“Rubber furniture,” Octavia said. “Seriously, I’ll remember that.”

“Don’t you go pissing him off now,” Gracie said, resettling herself on her edge of the couch.

Octavia sneered. “Please. I think I’ve already reached the limit. What else could I possibly do to piss him off any more than I have?”