“Soo.” Cindy drags out the one word. “Do we hate the husband's friend Blank?”
“I don’t know him that well but he’s always nice to me.”
“Then you’ll get me his number.”
“You want his number?” I ask to make sure I heard her right.
“I was sure he was going to ask for mine but he didn't.”
“You were rude to him,” I remind her. She told me every detail of my husband's lunch today because that’s what good friends do.
“Yeah, he was into it.” Okay. Women can be confusing too.
“I don’t have his number but I’m sure I can get it.” I pull my phone out, texting Heath. I barely get the text sent and my phone is ringing.
“Why do you need his number?” There is no missing the jealousy in Heath’s tone. My whole body lights up. Why does that turn me on? Because he doesn't want to share you. He wants you for himself. Might that be why he’s always tracking me? He never answered if he trusted me or not. He’d gotten into his car and left.
I should hate that, but the kiss from yesterday lingers. So does everything else. Heath has been acting so differently these past few days. It’s gone from me thinking he doesn't notice me to thinking he actually notices every breath I take. I’m confused about what that means. I’m starting to think that maybe he is too.
“My friend Cindy wants it. Calm down.” I fake annoyance. I can’t let him know my resolve is slipping. But little by little it is. I’m not ready to admit how much to anyone yet—not even myself.
“I’ll text it to you.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s my pleasure to get you anything you ask for.” His tone drops, sounding a touch playful but I don’t miss the underlying desire in it.
I swallow because this feels like a normal conversation that a loving couple would have. Teasing each other. I lick my traitorous lips that long for another kiss. I’d been irritated that he’d just drove off this afternoon and not kissed me. I would have pretended to hate it but still. Yeah, women are confusing too.
“We’re going out for dinner tonight,” he tells me when I don’t respond to him.
“Going out?” We never go out for dinner. “I don’t want to get dressed up,” I huff into the phone. Is he going to drag me to some fancy place on a business meeting or something?
“I don’t care what you wear. Tell me you’re coming straight home.”
“I’m coming.” I give.
“Soon.” Again he teases me, making me blush. Thankfully he can’t see me.
11
Heath
“This is different,” Orchard says. She taps the bouquet of flowers against her thigh.
Locking her in the house doesn’t have the results I want so I’ve devised a new plan—seduction. As I have zero experience with this, I’ve consulted with an expert. Growing up with wealth and power means you never truly need to ask for anything and the word “no” doesn’t exist because you just buy the things that you want, whether it’s a shipyard or a bride or a one night of seduction package. It wasn’t even expensive.
In addition to the flowers, I have a box of chocolates and the velvet case waiting at home that I had couriered from Harry Winston’s. The manager had called me last week to let me know that the necklace from the same collection as my wife’s engagement ring had surfaced. I had planned on gifting it to her for our six-year anniversary, but the seduction package suggested that I include a sentimental and personal gift along with the flowers and chocolate. Granted, she doesn’t wear the engagement ring and hasn’t since the day after the wedding, but it does have meaning. Isn’t there a phrase that says the thought counts?
“Given that you wanted to buy a grocery store, I thought you should see the competition. That way you would know if it’s the right one.” This grocery store is more upscale than where Orchard works. The fruit costs twice as much and there’s a butcher behind the meat counter. According to the feasibility study, this is her primary competition. It draws a higher income crowd, more willing to spend frivolously. I scoop some olives into a plastic container as she wanders around the produce section.
“It’s fancy,” she admits. “The cases are nice.”
“It’s the lighting. It’s slightly dimmer so it gives a different ambiance.”
She looks up at the light and then at me. “You’re right.”
“I read it in the feasibility study. It’s at home.”
“What will I have to do to get access to that?”
The question gives me pause as all kinds of images pop into my head: her on her knees with her mouth open, her bent over with her wrists tied and resting on her heart-shaped ass, her with her knees rubbing against my ears. I swing the basket in front of my rapidly hardening cock and reply as coolly as possible, “Eat dinner as we do every night.”
“About that dinner, why are you buying groceries?”
“I’m making you our meal.” The seduction kit said that there are two options for a meal—either you take your partner to the nicest place you can afford or you cook for her. Money wasn’t an object in our world but time was, so I figured cooking would be the best way into her pants. The most I’ve ever cooked is a piece of toast, but the instructions for cooking a steak that my assistant printed out seem decently easy to follow.
“Making as in…” Her brows come together as she struggles to process this information.
“Yes. Making dinner. Cooking. I’m cooking for you.”
She seems dumbfounded, so I go and collect the steaks and potatoes from the butcher. She catches up to me.
“In all the years we’ve lived together, you’ve never cooked.”
“I never had to.” I head toward the cashier, dodging a couple that are leaning over a wine display. The man has his arm wrapped around the woman’s waist and she’s leaning into him in a way that Orchard has never done to me. I resist the urge to kick the man in the back of the knee out of jealousy. I don’t think it’d go over well even if I could come up with a plausible excuse like he looked like a guy who tried to cheat me out of a million bucks.
“So why now?”
Because the seduction manual says to do so, I think. To her, though, I give a simpler, less embarrassing answer. “Because I want to.”
She’s silent as we check out and on the short drive home. She follows me into the kitchen as if she doesn’t believe I’m actually going to cook. Marth , our chef, has laid everything out for me, including the cast iron pan, butter, and herbs I’m supposed to use to cook the steak. I get everything ready and then place the meat in the pan.
“I think you’re supposed to heat the pan up first and then put the meat in,” Orchard says.
“Ah, right.” I remove the meat and set the pan on the stove. I twist the bright red knob and wait for the heat to turn on.
“You need to—” she begins to say but then comes over and nudges me aside. “Let me.” She pushes the knob in and twists. After a few clicks, blue flames appear around the edge of the pan.