Not Husband Material (Billionaire's Contract Duet 1)

25

Chase

Two weeks.

I didn’t know how much longer I could go without seeing my wife. My wife. I smiled, realizing how often that term came into my head when I thought about her.

But the snow was too heavy for planes to be flying, so I was trapped at my penthouse in Chicago while she was back at the Peppertree. Business was doing its best to keep us from talking. Work was a shitstorm this time of year.

Honestly, I wanted to be bothering her every second of every hour, asking how she was, how she felt, and telling her what I was going to do with her when I got back.

In my defense, that would make this look like a more legitimate marriage, but that wasn’t where my motives were. I had to face the facts. Haley was eating up every spare second of my imagination. Her body her personality, the way her mind worked, it was all such a drug to me that I never wanted it to stop running through my mind.

Work on the Peppertree was going better than I could have expected. I made good on my promise to have my best designers handle it, and I was looking over a report from one of them while the sun set in the window of my apartment.

I was halfway through envisioning pinning Haley against the wall in the redesigned master suite when the doorbell rang.

I furrowed my eyebrows. I wasn’t expecting anyone. For a moment, my heart jumped. There was no way Haley could have made it here through the snow, was there…? She was resourceful, and she had my bank account to work with, so anything was possible.

I almost didn’t want to believe it as I made my way to the door, but by the time I touched the handle, I was just about ready to expect her standing there.

Instead, what I saw when I pulled the door open made me want to slam it right back.

“Knock knock, Chase,” came Olivia’s silky voice.

My jaw dropped.

Olivia was standing in the doorway wearing a fabulously luxurious fur coat of chocolatey brown that reached all the way down to her knees. Despite the size, it showed off her tall figure in all the right ways, hugging her chest and her ass. She wore heavy makeup that made her eyes look smokey and seductive, and her lips told me everything I needed to know about her intentions.

“Liv, what are you doing here?” I groaned in a tired voice, grimacing at her ensemble.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember everything I’m about, Chase,” she replied, strutting into the apartment on high heels that clacked on the floors. I shut the door behind her and rubbed my forehead.

“You’re about trying to dig your claws into my business, apparently,” I shot back. “And my marriage.”

“Marriage?” she asked coyly, pursing her lips. “What marriage? We’ve talked about this, Chase. You might be a little stubborn about the farce you’re putting on, but we both know that when you strip that away…”

She let go of her coat to reveal her naked skin underneath, her full breasts spilling out as she pulled the cloak back. She was completely nude, and she presented herself like a gift halfway unwrapped.

“...you’re still a free man,” she finished.

I turned my head away as if she’d just overturned a rotting log. “For God’s sakes, Olivia, put some clothes on!”

“Not a bad idea,” she mused, stepping closer to me. “I seem to remember you liking the way I looked in your oversized clothes after a night full of you coming all over me.”

“I’m married, Liv,” I nearly shouted, my voice firm and unyielding. “What the hell did you think was going to happen here?”

“I miss you, Chase,” she pouted, stalking up to me and putting her hands on my shoulders. I turned my back and took a few steps away, shaking my head. “And I know you miss me, too. I just think we should revisit what we missed out on, that’s all.”

“We couldn’t have been worse for each other, Liv,” I retorted. “You need to accept that.”

“Plenty of people in our kind of lifestyles have rough marriages,” she protested with a sadistic lilt to her tone. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun through it all, though. Isn’t that how this all started with Haley?”

“Haley isn’t your concern.”

“You don’t have to explain your little situation. Or should I say your fake situation,” she chimed in a tone that gave me a very bad feeling. “Your attorney already did all the talking I could possibly want.”

My eyes widened, and I turned to glare at her. “What did you do?”