A knot formed in my stomach as I watched him shrug off his suit jacket and remove his tie and watch.
I walked over to his side of the bed and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for a wonderful birthday. And for the diamond bracelet.”
“Why did you do that?” he said, his voice just below a whisper.
“What?” I unzipped my dress. Was he angry because I spilled the water or because I helped the waiter clean up. “I spilled the water, Jude. I—”
He shot me a glance that froze me in place. “I’m not talking about that. Why,” he stretched out the word, “did you touch him?”
I frowned. “Touch him? I didn’t…oh, you mean when I touched his hand?” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on, Jude?”
He shrugged off my hand. “Not only that.” His voice was ice. “I saw the way you looked at him.”
I slid out of my dress, shaking my head with confusion. “Why this sudden jealousy, Jude? In one year of marriage, have I ever given you a reason to be jealous? I just helped the guy. What’s the big deal?” I picked up my dress from the floor and turned to walk away, but an iron grip on my wrist halted me. He spun me back to face him. Before I could react, I heard a sharp slap and felt my cheek burn.
“You are my wife. You don’t look at other men.” He said the words through clenched teeth. “You certainly don’t touch other men.” He released my wrist and walked away.
I touched my pulsating cheek and watched my husband disappear into the bathroom. I sank down onto the bed with shock. Had he really done that?
When he reappeared from the bathroom, he rushed to my side and pulled me into his arms.
“I’m sorry, baby. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just that I love you so much. Please forgive me.” He kissed my aching cheek and moved on to my neck.
I still didn’t move, not even when he laid me back against the Chinese silk sheets and made love to me. I didn’t return his kisses, didn’t respond to his lovemaking. I just stared at the ceiling.
Had I just caught a glimpse of the price tag on the life I was living without paying for?
***
To make up for what he had done two months ago, Jude did everything to prove to me just how much he loved me. He told me several times a day, calling me every hour from work just to remind me. Until somewhere along the way, those three little words, valued by so many, lost their meaning and became just words in a dictionary.
Maybe too much of a good thing really is a bad thing.
His slap had caused something to shift inside me, and I struggled to recover. To make matters worse, his jealousy was getting out of control. Every time there was a man around, he never took his eyes off me. The stress of making sure I didn’t do anything to make him feel insecure was unbearable. His jealousy was smothering me. And his love was starting to do the same.
Last night after we made love, he whispered into my ear that we should make a baby.
I had looked at him with a small smile and didn’t say anything. But hot panic erupted inside of me.
After everything he’d done for me, how could I refuse him something he wanted so desperately?
At first I went along with it. I went off the pill. Giving him a baby was a small price to pay for the life he had given me.
I wanted to be a mom, a better mother than my own had been. But what if, like my own mother, I failed at being a parent? What if life got in the way, and I ended up destroying my child? I couldn’t go through with it.
Last night, I did what I had to do, the right thing for me. I started taking the pill again in secret.
A baby would be yet another reason for Jude to love me, and right now I was already finding it hard to breathe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lying on a four-poster bed in Jude’s newest exclusive resort in Las Vegas, tears burned my eyes.
Jude trailed his fingertips along the length of my curvy body, from the hollow of my neck to the mound between my legs. My skin prickled, but not from unleashed passion.
Swallowing hard, I harnessed the urge to recoil from his touch, to gag from the musk in his cologne.
He brought his hand back up and I let out a silent breath. “I wish we had more time.” He kissed my neck. “I’d rather be in here all day making love to you.”
“I know,” I lied. I wanted to be anywhere but in bed next to my husband. “We should get ready.” I slipped out of bed and walked to the bathroom, my waist-length honey blond hair swaying like a curtain along my bare back.
“How about I join you? We can catch a quickie.” I heard Jude ask a moment before the bathroom door closed.
“Need to wash my hair,” I called back. He knew that washing my hair took forever.