1
Rick
“Stay? Are you out of your goddamn mind? You admit to cheating on me and expect me to let you stay in my house!?”
Is she fucking crazy? She must be, because as I stare at my soon-to-be ex-wife who’s standing there gawking at me like the entitled little princess she is, I don’t see a single ounce of regret or shame on her newly-worked-on face.
“I admitted it to you, Rick!” she protests as though that’s somehow going to change the fact that she’s been taking it from behind from strangers for the last three years of our marriage. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Count?” I roar with laughter. “Let me tell you about counting. Why don’t we count how many strange men you’ve entertained in the last year, shall we? Let’s start with the bartender. He was the first one, right? Oh, and then the barista. And then the skydiving instructor, and the—”
“Okay, stop!” Brandi groans, doing that cutesy arm thing she does where she squishes her cleavage together in an attempt to play on my basic male desires. It’s worked in the past, when she did something like spent too much money shopping or something, but it sure as hell isn’t gonna work on this.
“No, you stop,” I growl. “Because I don’t want to hear it. Not one more word. I want you out tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!?” she shrieks as I turn on my heel and stride away from her. “But my daughter is coming home tomorrow!”
“She can leave too!” I laugh. Then a thought occurs to me. I stop and spin to face her. “Actually, she can stay. You can leave.”
“What!?”
Finally, some expression shows on that plastic face of hers. There was a time when Brandi was a great looking woman, but those times have passed. Too many mini-face lifts, rhinoplasties, eyebrow lifts, chin restructuring, lip injections…fuck, I’ve lost count. And all bought and paid for with my money.
Sometimes I wonder if I should get my head checked for marrying her in the first place. I guess she played her cards right.
I was a stone-cold unreachable asshole when I met Brandi. As a billionaire, you run into more dishonest women than honest ones, but Brandi convinced me that they weren’t all that way. I opened up to her. She roped me in, convinced me she loved me, then went behind my back and got as much strange dick as she could. And I wouldn’t have found out either if a business associate of mine hadn’t caught her out on a late-night romp around town with a man other than me.
I mentioned it to her, and she tried to pretend she was already going to come clean. Her explanation? That she was in long-term relationships throughout her 20s, culminating in her marriage to me, and never got to experience the single life.
Can you believe that? She actually blamed me for marrying her. Talk about gas-lighting.
Now the walls are back up. I won’t be burned again.
“You heard me,” I laugh. “How old is she now? Eighteen? Wouldn’t mind having something hot to look at around the house.”
I’m being harsh. Maybe a little too harsh, but she deserves it. I gave my heart to this woman, and in return, she gave herself to half the town.
“You son of a bitch,” she snips back, glaring at me with death-eyes. “You’ve never even met Taylor.”
“Well if she looks even close to what you used to look like, she’ll be a beauty. Yeah, that’s what I think I’ll do. You can pack your shit, and I’ll give her one of the guest rooms to stay in.”
Seeing red, I turn away and head for the garage. “You son of a bitch!” Brandi shouts after me. “You know what? I’m glad I cheated on you! You never fucked me anyway!”
I’m seething, but I’m also grinning as I step into my shop. She’s right; I haven’t fucked her in a long time. Why? There’s a simple answer; I wasn’t feeling it.
There’s a lot of women out there who won’t believe this, but I actually need to feel a connection with a woman to be turned on. Tits and ass on their own don’t do it for me, and maybe I was subconsciously picking up on the distance between Brandi and me—what with her cheating on me—and that’s why our connection was severed.
I gave it to her a few times here and there, but it was nothing special. She didn’t even try to hide it and would roll her eyes when I wasn’t in the mood. Talk about entitled. What, a guy’s always got to have a raging hard-on, even for a woman who’s betrayed his trust?
Don’t think so.
The hot rod is right where I left it. The shop lights click on, illuminating its fresh red paint job, causing my smile to grow. Nothing is sure in life, but cars are reliable and predictable. If something’s broken, you fix it, and it ain’t broken no more. If something needs tweaking, you tweak it. Cars don’t cheat.
I’ve been a car man all my life. What started as a hobby with my late father turned into a small business doing restorations when I was finishing up high school. I took the money he left me and opened up my own shop. Then I started doing custom performance parts and bodywork fabrication.
That business exploded, I expanded, and within five years I was out of the shop and in the office—CEO of a monster of a company with franchises all over the country. From there, we ramped up production, and by the time I was thirty, I’d made my first billion. Now, at thirty-five, I have no competition. If you want high performance, reliable parts, you buy ‘em from me. End of story.
Grabbing the torque wrench, I slide out of my shirt and toss it aside. My little shouting match with Brandi has me sweating, and I try to shake the anger from my chest as I loosen the lugs on the front right tire. I’m doing a full replacement on the brakes—larger rotors to increase stopping power. After I upped the horsepower on the engine, I’m going to need it.
It was a low blow bringing Brandi’s daughter into the argument. But what kind of courtesy do you really owe a cheater? She’s right; I haven’t met her. She’s been away at boarding school since we got together and did her summer program in Italy. She came here for two days before going back, but I was out of town on business. I guess there’s a chance she’s some ugly heifer, but I doubt it. Brandi, before the surgeries, was model material.
Not that I’d do anything with her anyway; she’s my stepdaughter for fuck’s sake. I may be a horny motherfucker, but even I know where the limits are.
I spend the remainder of the afternoon doing all four brakes on the hot rod. Covered in sweat, grease, and grime, I head upstairs to make myself some dinner. There was a time when Brandi cooked for me, but those days have passed. I almost wonder if she’ll have whipped something up for me as sort of a gesture of peace, but who am I kidding? The kitchen is empty, and by the sounds of it, Brandi is in the back den watching TV.
Headlights flash, and I turn to see the gate open to let a car in. Uber Eats. Typical. But as the car parks, there’s no sound from Brandi, so I head outside to intercept. Maybe she ordered something I’d like to eat. But as I step out the front door, I see the car pull up beside mine and park. The driver’s side door opens, and an absolutely stunning girl steps out.
“Christ…” I mutter under my breath as I take her in.