I returned to our hotel room with every intention of apologizing, but Hannah was still asleep. I rummaged through my suitcase. There, among the shirts, was my little surprise for Hannah: a stainless-steel plug with a sapphire on the stopper. Desire rippled through me.
That morning, Hannah had caught me writing in my journal from Mike. Matt’s Black Book, as I had started to think of it.
The entry was rambling, lust-fueled.
I wrote about pain. Her pain, my pleasure. Restraints. A riding crop.
Violent desire …
Sometimes, I could almost convince myself that Hannah might like my “aberrant desires.” She’d let me spank her in the past, after all, with my hand and a belt, and I’d used clamps and other toys with her.
Then, when I was sneaking between the mountains and our condo, we’d indulged in a weekend of rough sex. Struggle and force. Pleading, overpowering. A dark role-play. But I never really knew if Hannah liked those pleasures on the fringes of normalcy, and that fierce sex seemed localized in a riskier time.
Too anxious to rest, too tired to write, I sank into the armchair with my laptop and browsed the Net: Twitter … Facebook … Gmail.
I had one new e-mail from an unfamiliar sender, krazybaby88. I opened it.
Subject: (no subject)
Sender: krazybaby88
Date: Friday, June 20, 2014
Time: 9:20 AM
I know something you don’t know. Your girlfriend knows, too. I wonder why she hasn’t told you. Christine Catalano is pregnant. Who’s the proud daddy?
It’s Seth Sky!
Chapter 11
HANNAH
Matt’s aunt and uncle lived in a townhouse in Moore Estate, a bucolic luxury community minutes from our hotel.
I woke up alone that morning, which didn’t surprise me. Matt was in one of his moods.
We’d spent the rest of yesterday in the hotel, skirting each other. I watched HBO and ordered room service. He hit the exercise machines, showered, and left for half a dozen smokes. I couldn’t get a word out of him.
What the hell was that about? I was the injured party here. He’d called me “a simple girl.” Yeah, a regular country bumpkin compared to the great Matthew Sky.
Unrefined. Uncultured. Untraveled.
Good to know how you really see me, Matt.
And today, I would meet more of the snobby Sky clan. Hooray.
I rolled out of bed and shuffled into the sitting area. A note lay on the couch.
Having coffee downstairs. Meet me in the lobby. Bought these for today. M.
Even his use of the letter—not Matt, my fiancé, but M., the great author—irritated me.
What he’d bought added insult to injury.
It was an outfit. Not just a necklace or shoes, but a complete outfit—suitable, I presumed, for wearing around the elite Aunt Ella and Uncle Rick.
I opened a Neiman Marcus box to find a cream-colored Herve Leger bandage dress—beautiful, of course—with eyelet trim, short sleeves, and a ruffled hem. A pearl necklace pooled in a crease of fabric. There were matching earrings, small, tasteful.
In a shoebox: powder-pink Fendi flats, the leather smooth as satin.
Pleased to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Sky. I’m a cupcake.
I dressed in a huff, pissed at Matt’s elegant taste, pissed at his effort to control my appearance, and finally pissed at how stunning I looked in the mirror. A rosy blush completed the look. I fingered the pearls resting on my collarbone.
Matt had easily dropped three grand on this ensemble … not to make himself more comfortable, I guessed, but to make sure I felt comfortable.
I spent a few minutes unwinding, applying makeup and styling my hair, and I was smiling by the time I stepped into the elevator.
So what if he’d called me a simple girl? He’d obviously meant something else, or said it by accident. I was ready to bury the hatchet.
And Matt … was not.
Somehow, his mood had worsened overnight.
He took one dark look at me in the lobby. I knew that look, and I shrank from it: distrust.
“Very nice,” he said icily. His eyes flickered over me inventory-style: shoes, dress, jewelry, check, check, check.
“Th-thank you. You too…”