More Than Us

Chapter One

Cord

I don’t know how long I have been sitting in my driveway, dreading walking in meeting the same result I get every day. Looking at my watch, I know I left Dayton’s office at least over an hour ago. I shake my head thinking about how stubborn he is. I have been trying to explain to him that he didn’t need to spend the rest of his life trying to right the wrongs of one of his clients, but then again, I know true love when I see it and that guy is knee deep in it. So was I. Hell, if I am honest with myself, still am. Just wish my wife still felt the same.

Looking back on it, it reminds me of myself. It was only ten years ago that I saw the girl I was destined to spend the rest of my life with. I was a law major in my last year and she was a business major. I was walking across the quad and she stood out like a pearl on a black sand covered beach. Everything inside of me began to beat wildly and out of control. I loosened my collar, my throat swelling, air not possible. The noise that was surrounding me, stopped, and off in the distance, I swore I heard the very breath leave her lungs. I found myself gasping for air as I ran across the quad, determined to trap her inside this bubble my mind had created. When I finally made it to her, I could barely breathe, let alone get her attention.

Like it was destiny, she turned around, her beautiful exotically blue eyes connected with mine and the breath that wasn’t present in my lungs, came back. I inhaled her scent, never blinking, too scared she would disappear and exhaled. “Hi.” she said, her shyness immediately sent protective signals into me, putting me on alert.

“Hello, beautiful. What’s your name?” I asked, extending my hand, needing to feel some part of her. She hesitated. When her bottom lip went between her teeth, it took everything in me not to pull it out and suck on it. I knew in that moment she would be embedded inside of me.

“Phillipa.” she said, her cheeks the color of pink roses.

“What a beautifully unusual name. Where are you from, love?” Her accent was heavy, alerting me to the fact that she hadn’t been here long.

“Greece.”

“Well welcome to Chicago. You should let me show you around this weekend.” I phrased it more as a comment, not really wanting to give her an option.

“Ok.” she nodded, blowing my mind that she agreed so quickly.

From that moment forward, we spent every second we could together. I took her everywhere I could, introducing her to new foods, shows, experiences, in and out of the bed. I found out she had no family. Her mother and father had died a month apart. She had no siblings, so she decided she needed something different and came here. I introduced her to my family and my mom immediately forgot I existed, and it became all about my girl, which made me proud. We would go on long walks and picnics and planned our lives out. We knew that we wanted to be married within two years. Both of us having chosen majors that would provide us with a more than comfortable living.

She was going to school to be a corporate analyst and I, a corporate attorney. Though the truth is, I come from a wealthy family and my inheritance alone would keep us, our kids and their kids in luxury until they all took their last breath. However, I always knew I wanted to make my own way. The one thing I didn’t do was pop that vanilla flavored cherry between her legs. But it certainly didn’t stop me from licking and drinking it every chance I got. I wanted to wait for our wedding night to take the very thing, that would put the final seal on who she belonged to.

For two years we dated. I proposed six months into year one and six months later, exactly two years, from the day I met her, we were married. We figured we would spend four years, as newlyweds enjoying just us, traveling, loving the spontaneity of no responsibility other than work and just...being. Year five of being married, we would start having children. We both wanted a big family and couldn’t wait. That is when the problems started.

Year five, didn’t go as we planned but we had hope that by year six, everything would be back on track. When we hit year six, and no babies, she began to give up. We went to the doctors, and they said there was nothing wrong with either of us. Don’t worry they would say. It will happen. Sometimes things take time. Year seven, we tried IUI, three times. Nothing.