"So he's taking my money and putting it in an account for her? That asshole."
"I don't know what he's planning based on what happened yesterday, but if I were you, I'd get to the bank and open a new account. Get what you can into a new account with just your name on it."
"How much money is in the offshore account, Preston?"
"Lena, just go to your bank, please?"
"Tell me. I deserve to know what he's giving to his whore."
"Baby," he whispered, sounding like he was in pain. No, that wasn't all of it. He sounded like he was in pain because I was in pain.
"Okay," I whispered back, just wanting to hang up the phone and deal with it. "I'll see you after work."
"Drive straight to my house afterward. I'll be waiting for you there."
"Okay," I said again, not able to find any other words to give to him in that moment. I heard his phone disconnect and sighed as I put my phone back in my purse. I looked up to Sam and instead of feeling sadness or shock at what was going on, I was a little annoyed. "Derrek's stealing all our money and giving it to Jessica."
"Excuse me?" Sam said, coughing on her diet Coke.
"Yeah. I'm living in a real-life movie. Derrek is transferring all our money into – get this – off-shore accounts in the Cayman Islands. Like he's in the mob or something." Annoyance was slowly making room for anger. "Derrek is a trust fund baby who wouldn't know the dangerous side of a gun if it was pointing at his forehead. Who the hell does he think he is, trying to be all James Bond with our money?"
I stabbed at my noodles, taking out my rage on my undeserving lunch. Sam and I finished eating and she walked me to my car.
"Do you want me to go with you?" She looked concerned, her eyebrows raised, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
"No," I say calmly, shaking my head while looking at the ground. This was slightly embarrassing. It was hard for me to imagine the way I must seem to Derrek. He must have thought me the most moronic, gullible, idiotic person alive. He probably laughed at me with Jessica behind my back. Every time he made a transfer from our accounts into hers. I could picture them, sitting on a cozy couch, her snuggled into his side, a fire roaring in the fireplace of their sin shack of a house. They were both holding flutes filled with champagne and a thoroughly trained golden retriever rested at their feet. Perfect.
"I just want this all to be over," I say with a sigh. "I don't want to keep feeling like the last seven years has been one, big, elaborate joke." Sam pulls me into a hug, but I don't move to hug her back. I just lean against her, taking the support she's offering. After a few moments, I pulled away and rubbed the crease I knew appeared between my eyebrows when I was stressed, struggling to keep my composure. "I have to go to the bank."
"You're going to go now?" She twisted her wrist to look at her watch. "Don't you have to go back to work?"
I shrugged. "I honestly feel like work is part of the charade I've been living. Whenever I'm there I feel useless and unhappy." I take in a deep breath. "It's hard for me to feel like I belong anywhere right now."
"I hate to bring up the obvious, even more so as it's bad news, but if you leave Derrek and you have nothing, you're going to need that job, Lena."
Shit. She was right. I exhaled, trying not to let tears escape with my breath. "You're right. I know you're right." I squared my shoulders and stood up straight. "I just need to evaluate what's important right now."
"Keep your eye on the end, okay? There's a light at the end of the tunnel. This won't go on forever. Hopefully Preston will find what you're looking for."
"Here's hoping," I said as I gave her the weakest smile I could manage.
We parted ways and I decided to go back to work, taking Sam's words to heart. She was right: I would need my job when all this was over. I'd be a divorced woman and I'd need to provide for myself.
I managed to make it mostly through the work day, but did leave slightly early to make it to the bank before it closed. A helpful and friendly woman brightly informed me that my husband had, in fact, taken all of our money out of our account – all but twenty thousand dollars. I quickly opened a new account, transferred all the remaining money out of our joint account, and left the previously smiling woman with a pitying and sympathetic smile on her face. I guessed it wasn't every day the sad, forsaken wife came in and asked for the paltry remains of her previous life.
I was a little more than grumpy when I finally arrived at Preston's condo. I was floating around in a swimming pool sized haze of self-pity and aggravation. I parked my car in front of his garage, realizing it was the first time I'd driven myself to his house. I'd walked up to his door, primed to knock, when the door opened just before I made contact with my fist.
"Hey," Preston said to me as he pulled the door open. He had a hesitant smile on his face, as if he was happy to see me but expecting me to be less so.
I walked straight to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my face into his chest, taking in the scent of his aftershave and the feeling of his muscled body against mine. It was soothing to have him pressed to me, gave me a moment of relief, as if for just that one moment I could forget everything else going on. When his hands wove their way around my back and settled, pressed flat against me, just above the swell of my bottom, the calm came over me even more.
"Hi," I mumbled against him and I felt his chest rumble with soft laughter. When one of his hands came to the back of my head and slid all the way down my hair until he cupped my neck, I simply melted against him. He gave my neck a gentle squeeze, a possessive mark, and my arms instinctively wrapped tighter around him.
"I love that you came home to me," he whispered, his breath fluttering through my hair. "It feels good, yeah?"
I nodded, my cheek mashing harder into him. "Yeah."
Chapter Seven
Even though I'd had the day from hell and I didn't feel like going anywhere, Preston convinced me to go with him to dinner. He asked me to wear a dress, something nice, and I had to admit getting dressed up and putting myself back together did lighten my spirit. I felt beautiful and sexy sitting across the table from him at Lux, an up and coming restaurant in downtown Portland.
He'd ordered me a vodka martini and his neat scotch was slowly spinning as he manipulated the tumbler with his fingers. I still shivered when I heard the words, "Scotch, neat" fall from his mouth. Watching the amber liquid wet his lips was equally as arousing and I deduced he knew this fact as his eyes met mine over the rim of his glass as he slowly sipped.
"Was there anything left for you at the bank?" His words caught me off guard and I deflated a little. Pulled down from my climbing high, dragged back to reality. He put his glass back down and resumed spinning it slowly as he looked up at me.
"There was," I sighed. "But not much."
His glass stopped spinning and I watched as his fingers lost their color, white overcoming them as he squeezed the glass, anger apparent on his face.
I reached for him, letting my fingers wrap around his. His grip loosened and then he turned his hand and captured my fingers in his.
"I want you to move in with me. Permanently. I want you to come home to me every day, Lena."
My eyes widened at his words. I tried to take my hand from him, but his grip tightened and his eyes bored into mine.
"Preston," I began, but was cut off by him.
"Don't say no." His voice was insistent, assertive. Even though he was asking for something I couldn't give him, the way he asked – no, demanded – lit a fire inside me to which I was becoming accustomed. It was a persuasive elixir of possession and need, and it was exclusive to Preston. "I know all the reasons you have to turn me down."
I opened my mouth to respond but his free hand came up to stop me and my jaw snapped shut again.
"It's too soon. You're coming out of an extraordinarily bad marriage. We haven't known each other long enough. You need to be on your own for a while." He paused and his eyebrows pulled up. "Have I missed any?"
I shook my head.
"Now listen to the reasons you should give yourself over to me, take me up on my offer, and be a good girl, Lena." His hand left mine and I felt my bottom lip pull into a pout for just an instant before I could rein in my tell. He didn't need any more fuel for the fire he was slowly stoking. He left my hand cold, but his fingers found his mouth, his index finger running over the slight stubble above his lip. I swallowed hard, imagining that stubble running along my upper thigh, and felt my sex start to throb between my legs.