The Convenient Wife (A BWWM Steamy Marriage of Convenience Romance) (15 page)

My vision was blurry. My stomach was
tight. I felt like I was going to throw up, and not because of the baby. Every
one of Mrs. Lambert’s words hit home, bringing back all the fears, all the
insecurities I’d entertained myself when I was alone.

What did Dorian see in me, besides a
meal ticket? It wasn’t my family name—like Mrs. Lambert said, I had nothing and
came from nothing. And I wasn’t the only woman in the world who could warm his
bed. He’d been doing just fine on that front before me.
Without
me.

Knowing the vile bitch might be right
didn’t stop it from hurting, though. I looked up at her through teary eyes,
shaking my head. How was she so calm, so poised, while she ripped me to pieces
right in front of her?

“How could you do this?” I
whispered. “I’m your daughter-in-law.”

“And for the first time ever, Gigi,
I am treating you that way,” Mrs. Lambert said, tilting her head to the side.
“This is exactly what I would advise any daughter of mine who had gotten some
silly dream into her head.”

“What about Dorian?” I asked.

“I’ll see to it that he produces an
heir with a proper woman,” she replied with a huff. “If you care about your
father’s future, Dorian is none of your concern.”

I closed my eyes and turned away,
unable to face her anymore.
“Fine,”
I said, my voice strangled and faint. “Okay.” The words were sour in my mouth,
bitter, like blood and shame. “Leave my father out of this. Talk to the judge. I’ll
take the deal.”

“Good girl,” Mrs. Lambert said, her
eyes glinting maliciously. “I’m so glad you could see things my way, for the
sake of
your
family.”

She stepped away, returning a moment
later to hand me a small stack of documents, that horrible smile of hers never
faltering once. “This is a trust in your name, and one to be set up for the
child, and the annulment paperwork to rid us of this travesty of a marriage.
I’m sure even with your meager legal experience you can see everything has been
prepared to your satisfaction.”

I looked down at the documents and
took them from Mrs. Lambert, along with the fountain pen she offered. I went
over to a small table near the door, glancing through the terms of the contract
briefly. It was all there, just like she said. Twenty million dollars, ten in
each trust. Enough for the rest of my life. Enough to save my father’s house…
Enough to give my child the life he deserves…

“I don’t have all day,” Mrs. Lambert
said, her cool tone beginning to gain its screeching quality again, denoting
her rising impatience.

It would have been too easy to say
something, to snap back at her and get in my last word before I took her money
and left, but I stayed silent.

I sighed and pressed the tip of the
fountain pen to the paper and scribbled my signature at the bottom of both sets
of documents, and the annulment, then shoved one of the copies back into Mrs.
Lambert’s hands.

“I hope you choke on it,” I muttered.

 
“You can go now, Ms. Devereaux. Dorian no
longer requires your services.”

I held tightly onto the trust
paperwork, tempted to throw it right in the woman’s face and spit on it… but I
didn’t. Instead, I turned away from her slowly and calmly walked toward the
door.

“Oh, and Ms. Devereaux?”

I spun around one last time to catch
her eye, imagining the flames burning beneath the surface.

“If I ever find you with my son
again, I promise that there is no place dark enough on this Earth for you to
hide. I will ruin you and your entire family. Your father, your brother,
and
your child. Do I make myself
perfectly clear?”

I didn’t give her the pleasure of an
answer. With a slam of the door behind me, I left that evil bitch to her games.

I never much liked drinking, but at
the moment, I couldn’t think of anything better to do. I sat on one of the
couches in my living room, a tumbler of Jack in my hand that had been preceded
by six more before it, each one more eagerly consumed than the last.

To tell the truth, I didn’t know who
I was more angry at: myself for being so stupid, or her for leaving. I’d woken
up three days ago to find her gone, no note of explanation or even a single
voicemail or text message until the little package my mother delivered at my
door.

Annulment paperwork. Signed by Gigi.

It was my own damn fault. Why the
hell hadn’t I tried to apologize? I had my chance. She’d stuck around days
after the goddamned Harmony incident. I could have talked to her… Now she was
gone, and I only had myself to blame. If only I could get her on the damn
phone.

With every drink I became more
certain, more absolutely positive that Gigi had given on us entirely. It only
hurt worse when I thought about the child that was on the way. I couldn’t just
blame my mother for
her
role in this.
I fucked everything up and there wasn’t any good way to make it better.

The thought of losing her made me
sick. I wasn’t sure which was worse—Gigi stabbing me right in the heart, or
knowing that my mother was right. We were doomed from the start. I’m not good
at apologizes, and I’m even worse at long-term relationships.

I threw the last of my seventh drink
back just as I heard the soft
ding
of
the elevator doors opening up. Bile rose in my throat, along with an anger I
don’t think I’d ever experienced before. I tried to swallow both, but the
latter came flooding out of my mouth with just as much ugliness as the former
would have.

“Where the fuck were you?” I asked,
my voice hoarse from the whiskey.

“I didn’t think you would be here…”
she said, hiking her purse up higher on her shoulder. Her gaze fell to my
discarded glass. “Have you been drinking?”

“Answer the damn question, Gigi.”

She frowned. “Listen, Dorian, I—”

I didn’t let her finish. I couldn’t.
I was too goddamn angry. “Why haven’t you answered your phone?”

She blinked. For a long moment she
stared at me, those gorgeous, honey-colored eyes filled with a mix of pain,
anger, and hurt, but I was far too drunk and too angry at the both of us to
even care. In that moment, I hated
myself
for letting any of this happen.

“I’m not going through with this
deal, Dorian.”

“I see that,” I said angrily,
throwing the annulment paperwork onto the floor. “What about our child? What
about us?”

Her eyes were welling up as she put
her purse down. “Your mother…”

“What the hell happened?” I asked,
my eyes going wide with incredulity. “You spoke to my mother without me? What
in the hell were you thinking?”

“I can’t begin to explain Dorian,”
she said softly. “I just need to do what’s best for my family.”

“She paid you. She fucking paid
you!” I said, my chest feeling like it was about to collapse in on itself. I desperately
wanted all of this to be an alcohol-fueled nightmare, something I could wake up
from any minute now and go back to what I had hoped would actually turn into a
happy marriage.

She looked at me, nose scrunched,
completely fucking bewildered. “It’s not like that…”

“Don’t lie to me,” I said, getting
louder. “I tried to make this work—to make you
happy
—and you throw it in my face.”

Gigi frowned at me like I was
speaking in another language. “Dorian, I…”

“All I wanted was
you.
Don’t you see that?
”

She stared at me, lips parted and
her brows knitted together like I’d just sprouted a second head.

“I should have known that my mother
was right about you.”

Gigi’s expression hardened again. “What
did you just say?”

I cupped my hands around my mouth
like she was hard of hearing. “I said that my mother was
right
about you. You betrayed me, just like she said you would.
You’re nothing but a gold-digger looking for some big score!”

“No!” Despite her anger, despite the
shaking of her hands, she shook her head vehemently and her eyes softened
again. “That’s not it. Really, Dorian, I swear. That isn’t true at all!”

“Then why did you take the money,
Gigi?” I asked, tears starting to form in the corners of my eyes. “Why did you
sell out to my mother? Why’d you give up anything we could’ve had for… what, a
few million dollars?”

“I—” she began, then swept her gaze
away from me. “I can’t tell you that, Dorian. Just… trust me, okay?”

“Trust you?!” I shrieked, laughing
like she’d just told the greatest joke in all the world. “How in the world can
I trust you? You say you’re not some gold-digger, but you cut and run from
something I actually thought the two of us could really make work.” I shook my
head.
“You’re the one that sold out. There
isn’t a damn thing you can say to fix this.”

“You won’t even let me talk,
Dorian,” Gigi said, stomping over to the master bedroom and throwing open the
door. She was only in there for a few seconds, and when she came back, she had
her laptop under her arm. “You’re drunk and you won’t even let me speak. I’ve
spent too many years taking care of a fucking alcoholic father. I’m not about
to do it again.”

“Your father?” I replied,
momentarily confused.

“Yes my father. Do you even know his
fucking name? Do you know anything about me, really? You haven’t even taken the
time to ask.”

Without another word, Gigi Devereaux
walked out of view into the entryway, the
ding
of the elevator drifting across the silent room. I sat silently as she stepped
into the elevator, the doors closing and the soft hum of the machinery filling
my thoughts.

Going
down
, I thought, turning my gaze toward
the foyer.
That’s pretty much the only
direction I’ve got left to go anymore
.

I pushed myself up from the couch
and stumbled toward the bedroom, my feet unsteady after all of the whiskey I’d
thrown back over the last two hours. She was gone, and what the hell did I have
left anymore? I couldn’t help be realize just how empty my life was, how
utterly directionless I’d been all these years until Gigi came along. Now it
was all over, and I didn’t think I could ever get her back in my wildest
dreams.

I grabbed my phone from the bedside
table and clumsily thumbed through my contacts until I found Ollie’s phone
number. It only took me one or two tries to actually hit the “call” button on
my screen.

“Dorian? Hey, man, did you get ahold
of her?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I
said, my words almost inaudible.

“Are you okay? You sound… I don’t
know,
drunker
than usual. You talked
to Gigi, didn’t you?”

Why the hell did I have to have a best
friend who was
actually
perceptive?
And why did he have to bring her name up? Couldn’t I have picked some
caveman-level-of-stupid frat boy to hang around? No, I had to pick a lawyer
with some semblance of common sense, someone who cared about my well-being more
than their next fix. Never before had I regretted my wise choice in friends
more than that moment.

Common
sense
, I thought,
the ultimate buzz kill
.

“I
said
I don’t want to talk about it, Ollie. I already showed you the
annulment. She’s fucking gone.”

“All right, fine. What’d you need me
for, then?”

“I need a party. A
big
party, something that will make all
the other shit I’ve thrown look like a pool party for a kindergartener.”

He paused before answering. “Are you
sure that’s the best idea, Dorian? I mean, how about you tell me what happened
and then we can figure out a plan to deal with it like adults?”

I sighed and let out a frustrated
scream of both annoyance and pain—mostly from the headache that still plagued
my existence. Again with the common sense and reason, again with the
rationality that would only lead to me rethinking this choice of obliterating
my brain with alcohol.

“I don’t
want
to be an adult right now, Ollie. I want to black out for the
next couple of months until I can forget all about this
stupid
plan of mine.”

Ollie sighed. I just imagine him
shaking his head—it was what he always did when he went along with one of my
stupid ideas against his better judgment. I did this more than I ever wanted to
admit, and no matter what, Ollie always tried to make me see reason, to talk me
down from doing anything stupid. And in return, I dragged him into all of my
harebrained schemes and wild ideas.

But the truth was if it weren’t for
Ollie, I’d have probably been dead a few years ago from doing something epically
dumb, like the time I drunkenly decided to jump from one of the upper floors of
a hotel we’d been staying at and into their pool. He pulled me away from the
edge, and it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized it was a fifteen story
drop.

I knew Ollie was right about being
an adult, but I didn’t care right then. So far, trying to be an adult had only
gotten me hurt. I wanted to be the old Dorian and shut everything off for just
a little while. The future that I’d been hoping for with the one girl I
actually thought I loved had just crumbled in front of my eyes. Fuck being an
adult.

“No.”

I sat silently for a moment, Ollie’s
voice ringing in my head. “What did you just say to me?”

“I said no, Dorian. I know what
you’re trying to do, and I’m not going to be part of it. You’re hurt, and
things are messed up right now, but you need your head screwed on straight if
you’re going to fix things,” Ollie replied.

“I don’t want to fix things. I don’t
want anything,” I said angrily.

“Yes, you do. You want Gigi.”

“Well what the hell am I suppose to
do about it Ollie? Gigi sold out. My mother offered her money and she fucking
took it,” I replied, my whole body tensing up with every word.

“That doesn’t sound like Gigi,
Dorian…” Ollie said quietly. “You need to talk to your mother. Find out what
happened.”

“My mother isn’t going to tell me a
goddamned thing Ollie. I’ll never know what happened, but what does it matter?
Gigi is a golddigger just like all the others.”

I needed another drink. Ollie kept babbling
in my ear but I ignored him, carrying the cellphone through my penthouse. I was
on a mission. After knocking over a kitchen stool and a standing lamp, I
finally made it to the kitchen and then to the mahogany cabinet that housed all
of my best booze—even the ones that weren’t
technically
legal in the United States.

I fumbled with the antique turn-key
lock and pulled open the glass doors, grabbing the first bottle that caught my
eye—a rare bottle of Legacy rum, made for the celebration of Trinidad and
Tobago’s fifty years of independence. My father would have had a fit that I was
keeping it out of its specially designed case, but I couldn’t have cared less
what my father would have thought—not today. Today, I didn’t want to care about
anything
.