A Fragile Wife: Billionaire Romance (12 page)

Lana considered these temporary improvements to her skin, nails, and muscles as a new lease on her attitude.
From now on, I’ll calm down.
She strolled down the chilly city streets sipping a latte and trying to enjoy the moment for what it was.

Her husband loved her.

She loved her husband.

They had everything they could ever want, including each other.

Lots of people may not care much for them, for whatever reason, but those same people were jealous of how strong they were as a couple.

Lana could not let anything come between her and Ken, including her irrational insecurities conjured by her pesky subconscious. Her therapist was right. She was manufacturing these ideas for the sake of drama. No wonder some people found her insufferable.

She detoured to the downtown office where Ken was working that day. In true real estate mogul fashion, the Andrews owned their own renovated building that they used for their business and to sublet to others. Yet the top few floors were all theirs, and within those currently empty halls was her husband’s downtown abode where he spent way too many hours a week dealing with grumpy investors, running numbers, and responding to concerns posted by current tenants and those looking to buy and sell other properties. All in a day’s work for those two.

“Yes, thank you.” Ken’s voice echoed through the inner chambers of the private office the moment Lana entered. She quietly closed the door and tiptoed toward the sound of her husband’s voice, intending to surprise him. “I love how willing you are, Chloe.”

Lana stopped. So did her heart.

Color? What color? She didn’t need any color in her face.

Ken wasn’t talking to the maid back home like an employer. He leaned back in his large leather chair, knee resting against the desk as he spun himself to and fro with the dumbest smile on his even dumber face.
Fuck me. Fuck him!
That voice… that was the voice he used when talking sweet to Lana. To his
wife.

“When I think of you, Bunny, I can’t help but sound like this.”
That’s what he told her years ago, when she first asked him why he spoke so softly like that. She had never heard it from any other man, and she had yet to hear him talk that way to another woman. Until now.

She was going to kill him.

“That’s fine. Go ahead and put it on my desk. I’ll put it all away later.” Laughter. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you about it later.” Ken leaned forward, bending his elbows on his desk. That stupid smirk would not leave his face. “And I’ll see you soon.”

He hung up.

Lana remained in the archway, undetected. She stared at her husband, the man who supposedly loved her above all others. The man she took a vow to always be open and trusting with. The man who was
definitely cheating on her.

The therapist was wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong.

It wasn’t all in Lana’s head.

It was right here in front of her, and its name was a tale as old as time.
My husband is screwing the help.

Maybe not just screwing.

Romancing.

That was one boundary they never crossed: romancing other partners. They would seduce, but they would never make it emotional. That route led to nothing but tears and terror. Like now, as Lana faced her crumbling marriage before her very eyes.

“Kenneth.”

She was going to do it. She was going to confront him.

He turned in his chair, surprised, but not shocked. The man had no shame! Here he was, getting off the phone with the
real
mistress while the wife walked in and caught him practically red-handed. If she didn’t kill him, his lack of shame would.

“Bunny,” he said, using that same voice he used with Chloe over the phone. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

No shit.

“Thought I’d drop by,” she replied, tight-lipped. “Was in the neighborhood.”
Asshole.

Even though Lana stood in front of him like she was about to rip off his balls, Ken remained completely unfazed. How dare he be so composed? Didn’t he realize what his wife had witnessed? “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Wife. Did you drive down? We could go get dinner later. I hear there’s a nice new Italian place a few blocks from here…”

Lana was going to cut straight to the point. “I heard you on the phone with the maid.” She paused for emphasis. “Anything wrong back home?”
Like your dick in the wrong woman?
Lana heard that happened totally on accident sometimes.

“Oh? That?” Here it came. The lies. “Nothing of any concern. Chloe called me to inform me that a package I’ve been anxiously expecting arrived. I told her to leave it in my office to look at later.”

“Hey, baby, let’s check out my package together… in my office.”
Gag.

“You sounded awfully familiar with her, Kenneth.”

She continued to stand like an anxious soldier waiting for her orders.
Kill. Those are my orders.
Hell hath no fury…

“Why shouldn’t I have been familiar with her? She’s been working for us for months now.” Finally, that man frowned. “What is this about? I’m telling you the truth, Bunny.”

Lana lowered her arms, nearly letting her purse fall off her shoulder.
I want to believe him.
Why wouldn’t she? She just came out of therapy, declaring how much she loved her husband and how much she wanted to believe that everything she’d been imagining was a lie. “Kenny...”

“Come here.” Ken patted his lap.

She wanted to go. She wanted to flee – to go back to her therapist’s office with this brand new information.
But I want him.
Lana took one tentative step forward, afraid that she would fall for her husband’s demeanor once again.

This man wouldn’t
really
cheat on her, right? It was all in her head, right? What was Lana to do? Did she trust her gut, which sent up a million red flags? Or did she trust her heart, that didn’t care what her husband did as long as he treated her as he always did?

Your gut, stupid.
What did her heart know? It made her go and sit in his lap, laughing away her worries because
how dare she?
Her heart was stupid. Couldn’t she see that her husband going behind her back and romancing some young, insignificant woman
was
treating her like shit? Even if inadvertently?

It was days like those that not only caused a war within her body, but also proved how sad, stupid, and careless this drama queen really could be.

Chapter 8

“Does Lana Know About It?”

Christmas at the Losers Estate really was just that.

“Low-siers,
” Inid said to her youngest daughter. “It’s not pronounced like that word!”

No matter how much she tried it, Inid would never be able to escape her maiden name. Like Lana, she had changed it the moment she married years ago. Inid Rothberg, however, never anticipated having to explain such a maiden name to her small children years after the fact.

“Still sounds like Loser to me…” said Collette, the youngest Rothberg child. “Why would someone call themselves that so long ago?”

“Times change, dear. It didn’t used to mean that. I think.” Inid patted her daughter’s head and herded her toward the dining room. “We’ve got dinner, Collie. Now be nice for your grandmother.”

“I don’t wanna. She smells like gross.”

Lana tuned them out after that. She didn’t need to agree with her niece any more than she did.
Mother does smell like “gross.”
Which happened to be how Lana felt most of the time now.

At first she blamed her period, which was unusually rough – probably compounded by stress, not that she could do anything about that at this time of year. Except then she worried there was something terribly wrong with her, so she went straight to her doctor two days before they left for the Christmas holidays. When he gave her the okay to travel, insisting that she was only “fretting,” Lana nearly threw the biggest fit she ever threw in the doctor’s office.

Ken was an utter gentleman through the whole ordeal. Including now, as he stood behind her at the dining room table, massaging her shoulders while talking to his older brother. At night he would massage her back, taking extra care of her abdomen until the terrible cramps finally abated long enough for her to sleep. He snuggled her. He kissed her. He never asked for the sexual things he sometimes did when they went without for a few days. He was a model husband, and that worried Lana.

Is he being nice because he’s nice? Or is he being nice because he knows he’s doing something bad?
How deep did Ken’s morality go? Would he feel bad about cheating on his wife? Shit, if he felt
bad,
he wouldn’t be cheating on her! Right?

Or maybe the man misunderstood the boundaries of their relationship.
Maybe
he thought it was okay to fuck the maid because of the way their marriage was set up. Except he would’ve mentioned something by now. Said something stupid, like, “Maid’s got nice tits, right?”

I could also still be making it up.
There was a reason Lana hadn’t confronted her husband… yet. She didn’t have the concrete evidence. Everything was conjecture. Damn good conjecture, but a pleasant conversation on the phone and hearsay from the chef didn’t a confrontation make.

So Lana chose to plow through life as it came. Right now it meant tending to her family’s Christmas celebrations.

Even though Lana and Ken were by far the richest and most successful members of the family by every definition – meaning it was their families forced together – Lana’s parents had the most bedrooms to house everyone. So once a year they packed their bags and headed upstate for a few days, relegated to the nicest guest room, even above Ken’s parents, because they were the golden children.

Everyone was there. Lana’s parents and her sister. Inid brought her children and husband, all a very picturesque family whom everyone agreed took the best holiday photos. Then there was Ken’s family. His parents were there, and his three brothers happily were as well. One older, two younger. All but the youngest had a wife and children. Altogether, nine children of varying ages had the run of the place. Lana was the only woman at these functions who had no children, and her mother never let her forget.

Except for tonight, because Juliet Losers was too fucked up on Xanax and cider to remember to give her daughter grief for not following her biological destiny.
Last time she told me it was my duty to breed because of how rich I was.
Who was that money going to go to? Hilarious, because Ken’s brothers sucked up to him for the sole purpose of sending their youngest kids to apprentice under him one day. There were plenty of nieces and nephews to pick from. Or maybe they would pick a kid off the street and change his or her life.

Lana thought these amusing things while she received her ongoing massage and fielded inane questions from her sister’s husband. When Juliet made her appearance and sat at the head of the table next to her illustrious daughter, Lana decided that her niece was the smartest person in the family. Grandma definitely smelled like
gross.

By the time dinner began, Ken had sat next to his wife and began telling tales from the crazy world of real estate. About half of them included his wife blowing up at some poor, hapless soul and busting his balls until he conceded to her demands.

Ken had an amazing way of making his wife sound like a total harpy, all while keeping a friendly smile on his face. Normally it didn’t bother Lana – especially if it meant her reputation preceded her, and nobody would bother her – but tonight it only served as a reminder that even her husband saw her this way at times. What man wouldn’t cheat on that?

She used to think that Ken wasn’t that kind of man. Who knew…

The unfortunate thing was that she had no one to confide in. Not in her family, anyway. Usually these nights ended with her confiding to her husband about her feelings regarding her parents and sister. Ken was her best friend.
Ken
was her sound board and the man who reassured her that she was beautiful, smart, witty, and a tiger in the sack. Who knew how that would go tonight.

In truth, Lana didn’t remember much about Christmas dinner. There was food. Kids whined. Brothers-in-law laughed and sisters huffed. Mothers popped Xanax. The in-laws insinuated that they wanted to go to Brazil for their upcoming anniversary, something that usually translated to a plea for money. Lana ignored it. If Ken wanted to give his money to his parents, so be it.

“Lana.”

She snapped off auto-pilot sometime after dinner, when her husband leaned in and pointed to a maid carrying platters of pie. “Huh?”

“Pumpkin or blackberry, dear?”

“Oh. Pumpkin, please.”

After dinner, Lana was obligated to spend time with her mother and sister in one of the studies. There she got to hear all about her brother-in-law’s legal troubles at work. Something else she was expected to pitch in funds to help with.