The Wolf and His Wife (Wolf 2)

Then I heard someone else. “I bet you could carry both of us up the stairs.”

I heard Maverick’s chuckle. It was deep, masculine, and sexy.

My heart fell into my stomach as my knees went weak. The ring on my left hand suddenly felt too tight, constricting the blood flow to all the body parts that needed it right now. I wanted to turn around and walk away, but I wanted Maverick to see my reaction, to let that look haunt him for the rest of his life.

He made it to the top of the stairs, a beautiful woman on each arm. “Your asses are gonna be a little plumper after this trip.”

Both girls laughed because it was so funny.

My brain didn’t react right away because it was sensory overload. My worst nightmare was looking me right in the face—and I didn’t know it was my worst nightmare until it actually happened. Not once had we confirmed our commitment to each other, but it seemed so obvious that it didn’t need to be said. We were together now…husband and wife. This felt like a betrayal.

It was infidelity.

Maverick turned the corner with the girls, not noticing me standing there.

I knew he wasn’t trying to sneak around. He didn’t care whether he got caught or not.

But I wanted him to know I was there. I wanted him to see the heartbreak in my eyes, to know he’d fucked this up permanently. “Maverick.”

He stopped before the bottom step and barely turned his head to look at me. His arms stayed on the girls, like his allegiance was to him and not me.

Tears were hot in my throat, but I refused to let them rise to my eyes. If Maverick wanted to stoop this low, he wasn’t worth my tears. If love made him do something stupid like this, then maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe what we had wasn’t love.

Maybe it’d never been love.

He held my gaze, his brown eyes like two solid walls. He wasn’t letting anything inside his emotional armor. I could be in tears right now, and he wouldn’t give a damn.

That was why I saved my breath and didn’t say a word. Nothing mattered in that moment.

He didn’t care.

So why should I?

20

Maverick

I sat at the breakfast table with my black coffee in front of me. Bags were under my eyes, and the remnants of sleep wouldn’t leave the crevasses. I was exhausted from the long night, but it was impossible to keep sleeping. The two girls took up all the space in the bed, and they kicked me every few minutes.

I’d been with two women before. It was always a good time.

But I hadn’t enjoyed myself.

I kept thinking about my wife.

She told the whole world she loved me and assumed I felt the same way. She humiliated me in front of a crowd of my peers and expected me to be touched by it. Our relationship suddenly shifted and became something else—something I wasn’t ready for.

I never said I loved her.

If I felt that way, I would tell her.

My entire body shut down, and my walls shot up to the sky.

I didn’t want what she wanted—and I made that abundantly clear.

But now I sat alone at the table, my coffee cold and my breakfast untouched.

The girls came down moments later and helped themselves to the food I would never eat. One was blond and one was brunette. Without trying to be polite, they grabbed whatever they wanted off the table and made a mess. They used the same knife in the butter as the jam, and they had no manners, so they were just obnoxious.

“So, what do you do?” the brunette asked before she bit into her toast and got crumbs all over the table. “Born rich?”

I stared at her and didn’t bother responding. I just wanted the two girls out of my house. They wouldn’t get another invitation to bed. Sleeping alone seemed preferable in hindsight.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Boots echoed against the wood, and the sound became louder as she drew near. Her pace was full of attitude, announcing her anger without the need for words.

I looked up and saw Arwen, a woman more beautiful than the two ordinary girls I’d slept with. She stared at me like I was nothing, a piece of gum on the bottom of her shoe. There was so much malice in her stare, like she hated me more than she’d ever hated Kamikaze. A stack of papers was in her hand, fresh white paper with a clip at the top. She pretended the girls didn’t exist as she tossed the packet at me.

It landed in front of me and almost spilled my coffee.

I didn’t look down to see what it was. I kept my eyes on her, noting the pain that existed underneath the rage. She shed her tears for me when she thought I might die, but they weren’t forthcoming from this. She was too strong for that, way too damn stubborn.