Until Cece (Happily Ever Alpha World)

I shake my head at her, my voice dropping low. “You naughty girl.” I dip my head and nip at her plump lower lip before licking away the sting as she sucks in a stuttering breath. “As much as I’d do just about anything to continue this and spend the next several hours seeing just how many times I could make you make your O face—” I grin when she blushes. “—I need to be honest with you about something before we take this any further.”

She instantly gets a wary look on her face, her tight grip on me loosening.

“No, no, don’t go doing that,” I whisper, lifting my hand to brush her dark hair out of her face. “Don’t shut me out when you’re finally letting me in. I just… I want you to trust me. I know all the men in your past have broken your trust, whether it was your dad leaving y’all or it was your ex cheating. It’s gotta be a big deal that you’re even here with me right now, and I cannot be just another asshole who breaks your trust by not being completely honest with you.”

She softens a bit, but she still looks unsure. “What is it?” she asks nervously.

I swallow, looking down at her lips before looking back into her beautiful eyes. “Nick’s mom and I… we’re separated. For three years now.”

She nods. “Okay?” She glances away and then back up at me. “Is… is it weird for you that Mike hasn’t been served yet? Because the only reason I’m okay with… this—” She nudges her chin to indicate my body on top of hers. “—is because it’s now out of my hands. I’ve filed the paperwork. There’s no going back. He’s getting served Monday and we are officially, legally separated.”

I shake my head. “No, naekkeo. It’s not that. I…” I sigh, feeling like a chump. Nut up, man. “I’m not legally separated. Nick’s mom is still technically my wife.”

Her eyes widen. “Your wife?” She blinks rapidly. “I… I didn’t know you were married. I thought… I thought you just had your son together.” She tries to sit up, but I don’t move. I don’t want her to run from me. “Let me up, Winston.”

It’s the use of my first name that makes me immediately lift my weight from her, and she scoots up the bed, her knees coming up to her chest as she sits against my pillows and wraps her arms around her calves.

“Three years, Cece. We’ve been separated for three years. I haven’t touched a woman in all that time,” I confess, not knowing where to start but hoping to at least put her mind at ease about that.

“Why? Why be separated for that long but not get a divorce? Why are you still married?” Her voice is high pitched but spoken softly, like she’s trying to keep her panic at bay.

“The biggest mistake of my life. We have a prenuptial agreement. My father may be a genius, but this idea turned around to bite me in the fucking ass,” I tell her.

“What’s the agreement?” she asks.

I hiss out a sigh. “We signed a mutual agreement. If one of us cheats, the other gets everything. If one of us asks for a divorce before we were married for ten years, the other gets everything.”

She shakes her head. “Why? Why in the world would you make that agreement? I mean, I get the cheating thing, but why the ten-year thing?”

“In my father’s mind, she got pregnant to trap me. He thought she was going to marry me, have the baby, and then divorce me to take half of everything I have, which by then included my trust fund. It was a scare tactic to see if she’d back down. He thought if she knew she’d have to be married for ten years before she’d get anything in a divorce, then maybe she’d say fuck it and try to swindle someone else. But also, I didn’t believe it about her. She was a sweet girl… at the time. She had me fucking fooled, which is why I ended up marrying her, so our kid could grow up with both his parents in the same house. Like you hoped for your girls,” I point out.

She nods, and I relax fractionally, until she asks, “So how much longer until your ten-year mark? You’ve been separated for three years, but how long were you actually together before that?”

“We were together four years before I finally kicked her out,” I reply, and watch her do the quick math in her head.

Her eyes meet mine. “Three years? You’ll have to be married three more years before you can ask for a divorce without her taking everything?”

I nod solemnly. “Unless I catch her cheating, that’s correct.”

She makes a panicked sound in the back of her throat. “And what about you, Win? What if she catches me here? Then it’s going to look like you’re the one cheating, and you’ll lose everything—your money, your restaurant… God, your son?” She swings her legs to the side of the bed and hops up before I can catch her. “You need to take me back to my car.”