“So, where’s the problem?”
Her sweet little hands gestured into nothing. “I don’t do relationships, and I don’t know on what planet this kind of situation ends well or leads anywhere, but I can’t stay blindfolded forever. We can’t keep doing this forever. I think about you all the time, about this. I don’t know how long I can keep up the blindfold thing before things explode.”
“I don’t know what happens next,” I said. “I try not to think about it.”
“You’re married.”
“On paper.”
“Does your wife have any idea?”
“We can’t stand each other, it makes little odds to her.”
“So, why are you still together?”
I smiled. “You want me to leave my wife?”
“No!” she scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. I just want to know.”
“We’ve got investments together, business ties, always have had. Some of them haven’t done so well. She wants me to give her the house, which is really the only major asset we have left. I won’t sign the papers and she won’t budge. Stalemate.”
“You stay together for the house?”
“She won’t sell up and split fifty-fifty.”
“And that’s it? The reason you stay? Just the house?”
“It’s a big house, Gem.”
“I guess it must mean an awful lot to you.”
Her words stung. “I’m at the end of my career. I wasted a lot of money. Too much money.”
“You seem pretty young to be retiring.”
I reached out for her hand and she flinched when I took it in mine. “I’m not a trucker, Gemma.”
“I gathered that much,” she said. “What do you do, Jason?”
I weighed it up, this way and that, battling the urge to walk away from this shit and never look back, mission abort, but I couldn’t. The words were in my mouth, until she spoke again.
“No, wait. Don’t. I don’t want to know. Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“Maybe not ever. This thing we have works because it’s a fantasy. We change that and the whole thing gets complicated.”
“That’s true.” Despite her words I found myself squeezing her hand.
“I’m not ready to walk away, Jason. We still have things to do.”
“Your roomful of strangers?”
She squeezed my hand in return. “Let’s finish this, complete the fantasy.”
“And then?”
She shrugged. “Well, I’m not planning on getting gang-fucked every weekend for the rest of my life, so I guess eventually we walk away as strangers… or I take the blindfold off.”
So many things I wanted to say. Stupid things. Things about her beautiful laugh, and the way her gorgeous tits felt pressed against my palms. Things about the way she made me smile when I thought of her. How she’d made me feel alive again. How much she excited me.
How much I’d like to know the real Gemma.
I said nothing, just dropped her hand back in her lap.
“I’ll take you home.”
The house was dark when I pulled onto the drive. I let myself in and flicked on the light in the living room, jumping to find April on the sofa. Her eyes were blotchy, a tissue crumpled in her fingers.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.
I ditched my keys on the table, taking a cautious seat opposite. “What’s happened?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like it.” I felt a strange churning in my gut. Rage I could handle, the bitter snipe from her tongue more than par for the course, but tears, not so much.
“I just got thinking,” she said. “About everything. It gets too much sometimes, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” I slouched back, running my fingers through my hair.
“Ten years we’ve put into this. For what?” She gestured around. “This house? It wasn’t quite how I planned it.”
“Can’t say it was my life plan, either.”
“The papers have taken the bait, calling out the dirty little skank on her trashy little lies. They’re running the story tomorrow.”
“It’s not bait. It’s the truth.”
“Whatever it is,” she sighed. “I thought I’d be happy. Another narrow escape. Public persona maintained.” She stared at me through watery eyes. “I don’t know why I’m so fucking sad.”
“Because you want out,” I said. “Part of you hoped this would be it. I did, too.”
“I should be writing that biography, selling you out myself, if only I could be fucking bothered.” She let out a long breath. “You’ve met someone, haven’t you? Not just sex, for real. You’ve got that look about you, like you had when we first met.”