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Panic settled in. My eyes blinked over and over from the tension or coffee. My mouth twitched. I was nervous. What had I done to be nervous? Nothing. I just fanaticized about that incredible handsome man who seemed to think we had something in common, which we didn’t. I was married to the most desirable man in the world, and this man, Robert, was an irritating handsome sexy cock hound. There was no way I was going to screw my life up engaging in an affair with him.
OMG why was I entertaining the idea of an affair? I grabbed the basket of long-stem red roses and rushed down the hall. I hid the basket in one of our guest bedrooms and then on my return trip, I bumped into Max.
“You’re all dressed. Where are you going?”
He had a strange look on his face. One I had seen before when he didn’t want to tell me his secrets.
“I’m flying out of town. I’ll be back tomorrow. If I’m not back, then it will be next week.”
“Oh, for Christ sake, Max,” I said, turning away from him. He eased behind me and put his hands around my waist with his nose to my neck, his mouth warm and tempting.
“I explained to you, Alex, that it will take a lot of time from the family to sell all my properties. Then I will be home with you and the boys whenever you need me.”
“Can’t you call Jonas and let him help you.”
“Not this time,” he said. He released me from the warmth of his body and I felt alone once more. “I have to say goodbye to the boys.” He kissed me on the head and walked to the children’s rooms.
I turned, getting a glimpse of this beautiful man as he strode up to the second floor to peek at his boys, dressed in a black suit, with a white shirt, and dark silk tie. I smiled a reminiscent smile, recalling the first time I fell in love with him.
Making up my mind wasn’t easy. I couldn’t go on with this endless waiting and worrying, hoping Max would come home just so I would get a few hours of his time. I was determined to find something with which to occupy my time. I would either get a job or enroll in college. That’s it. I’ll enroll in college and get my law degree.
Max kissed me, and although he gave me several orgasms so I wouldn’t miss him, I still felt empty and misdirected.
I had more than most women my age. I didn’t need anything anymore. I had children, food, shelter, an education, servants, and the most beautiful handsome and desirable man on the planet, and still I was lonely and unfulfilled. I reached for the phone, called the therapist, and made an appointment for Wednesday at four.
***
I dressed casually in black, but not too elegant. It bothered me to wear very expensive clothes. I found a pair of wool, cotton, and silk blend black slacks and a white shirt with cuffed sleeves, black shoes, and an expensive Louis Vuitton purse. The kind that you couldn’t recognize as being one of those. I just felt that I had to splurge on something. Jonas had done well in his business ventures and Max no longer had to wire him money, so with the extra money he put in my account, I bought clothes, and things I didn’t need or want.
I needed my husband’s attention and I wanted him home with me at night. I began to question, what kind of fucked up life have I accepted?
The sex therapist serviced both of us. That was a strange choice of a word—serviced. It wasn’t like we were getting a tune-up or maybe we were. We went separately and then we decided to go once a month as a couple. It had been working out fine until Max started missing his session and our session together when the discussion of our sex lives became the subject.
Max didn’t have sex without anal sex, and I was beginning to crave it as well. I didn’t know whether that was bringing us together or ripping us apart.
I began to question whether he was bisexual.
Dr. Wolff’s office was very discreet. It was located in a building in Manhattan where doctors in different fields cared for wealthy clients. When you entered the building you couldn’t figure out who was going to a gynecologist, oncologist, psychologist, or psychiatrist. His office was situated next to the oncologist.
I preferred people thought I had cancer than mental health issues. I felt there was less stigma in having cancer than sexual problems.
Entering the office of Dr. Wolff, the secretary greeted me with her usual professional closed-mouth smile. She was about fifty, dressed immaculate in a designer suit that may have been left over from the sixties. She appeared to be a pleasant sort and no doubt discreet. She was very proficient and wouldn’t let a patient go over a minute without sending out a bill for an extra hour. Somehow you felt that you had to be there on time, otherwise someone would be sitting in your chair.
His secretary smiled and opened the door to his office. I entered the room and sat in the yellow leather chair. Like clockwork Dr. Wolff sat quietly waiting. He had a look of a listener, always shaking his head in agreement, but never saying a word until you had poured your soul out to him.
I placed my purse next to me on a table. He hadn’t nodded at me yet to indicate that I should begin. I felt comfortable because Dr. Wolff was in his sixties, and he wasn’t at all the type to play games, and he didn’t make me feel like a child because I was in my twenties. I had tried out a few therapists before, and they were more interested in getting a boner listening to what I had been through with Max. So, I made an appointment with Max’s therapist.
“We may begin, Mrs. Blackstone.”
I sat nervously picking at a cuticle on my index finger, gazing at him, and trying to decide whether my secret was safe. Then I thought, What the hell. If I can’t tell him and trust him with my deepest secrets then who can I trust?
“Dr. Wolff, I have a problem.”
“Yes, Alex, I know. That’s why you’re here,” he said, staring at me over his half-moon glasses.
“I met someone in my apartment elevator and I found myself attracted to that person. I have seen many men, and the only man I have ever felt that way about is my husband, Max. I am left wondering whether something is happening to our marriage. Maybe he’s finding another woman attractive as well?”
“Does this new gentleman, he is a man, I assume?” After raising my eyebrow and staring at him, I shook my head yes. “Does he view you in the same light? What I mean is, is he attracted to you?”
“He sent me flowers. I led him to believe that I was an employee of Max and not his wife.”
“Did you do that because you wanted him to think you weren’t married?”
“I don’t think so, but maybe,” I said hunching my shoulders, wondering about my intentions, and reaching for the truth, which existed somewhere in my subconscious. If I lied, then these sessions would be a waste of time.
I stayed the full hour with questions about Max’s sexuality and my love life. Mostly me complaining that Max and I weren’t having vaginal intercourse. In the middle of revealing all the anal stuff, his secretary knocked and walked in, and said it was time for his next client, and he would be there soon. I stood, retrieved my purse, smiled, and exited through another door.
I knew he wouldn’t forget where we left off, and he would have answers for me next time.
Dr. Wolff’s clients came in one door and left out of another door so they wouldn’t meet. I left the office feeling relieved and smiling. Reaching for the button, the elevator door opened. I stepped back to allow people to exit, but to my surprise, the man I feared stood before me. My mouth parted, there stood that smiling gorgeous seductive man who was not my husband, but someone I would consider sleeping with in a minute, if I wasn’t married to the sexiest man alive.
He stood with his hand on the elevator door, preventing it from moving. “After you, beautiful woman of my dreams.” I looked up at him stunned and speechless. I slid under his arm and smelled his sexy just-bathed scent. It had been weeks since I’d smelled a man like him. It had been weeks since I’d smelled Max’s body after a shower.
“Damn, you smell good,” he said to me with words I wanted to say to him. “That perfume is two hundred a bottle. You’re no dog walker, Mrs. Blackstone.”
“How did you know?” I asked, my eyes narrowing and my lips in a hard line, angry that he had found me out and called me on it.
“I didn’t, but when I see someone that makes me feel the way you make me feel, then I have to take notice and I find out everything there is to know about them.”
“Now that you know who I am, and that I’m married, I hope we can just be friends.”
“There is no way we can just be friends. You see, we are alike in so many ways,” he said, smiling and showing all his white predator’s teeth. When he made that remark my eyes narrowed out of curiosity, waiting for him to say more, then I spotted a security guard hurrying in our direction.
“Oh it’s you, Mr. Montgomery. I thought the elevator had gotten stuck again.”
“I’m getting on the elevator,” I said looking at the guard, and throwing a glance in Robert’s direction. “That’s his name. Robert Montgomery,” I murmured. The card on the flowers he sent said Robert. Now I had one piece of the puzzle. My hands trembled as I rode the elevator down to the main floor. I never experienced such nervous and crazy unexplained feelings before, except when I first met Max. I was relieved when the elevator door closed. I could still see his dark-blue eyes following me, as if he and I shared a dirty little secret.
And we probably did. Thank goodness we couldn’t read minds. But I could read his face and he was dangerous. Not in the sense of bodily harm, but dangerous to my marriage.
***
I made it home in time to be disappointed once more. A text message came in from Max: Can’t get home today. Had to fly to Hong Kong.
Love U.
Another night alone. There were only so many books and romantic novels I could read before I began to feel as if the characters were having more fun than me. I tossed my latest romantic novel on the floor. I must get out of here, I thought. I hated to go anywhere alone, but tonight I would risk it. There was a bistro at the corner of Park Avenue just down the street from the Penthouse.
Maybe I should interview my driver there. Max said I could have my own driver. I rushed to the bedroom and located the number. I sent him a text and told him to meet me at 560 Park Avenue at nine o’clock. He responded—Okay.
I ate dinner with the children, put them to bed and showered and dressed in a little black dress with a black leather jacket. I wore my black and white Jimmy Choo’s with the ankle straps. I hurried to the bistro I had passed once on a shopping spree. The waiter saw me standing nervously waiting and sat me at a small table for two.
It was a small upscale stylish quaint restaurant with French themes. Candles lit on the tables covered with what appeared to be handmade tablecloths. Colorful copies and posters of Toulouse Lautrec pictures hung on the wall, a picture of the Moulin Rouge and an assortment of nudes. The French singer Edith Piaf’s singing La Vie En Rose drifted seamlessly in the background giving a mood of times gone by.
I ordered a cognac. That was Max’s drink of choice. I tried getting into his world with the caviar and the wine and now cognac. I discovered that I could sip it without drinking much, but my tolerance for liquor was low.
The smell alone could render me drunk, but it gave an air of sophistication to sip and swirl the brandy snifter. I looked around taking in the quant bar, with its old-fashioned style and European charm. My eyes wandered, then settled on the back of a man sitting, waiting with a drink in his hand. His hair showing an expensive cut, his shoulders wide, his legs long, and I recognized him. Was he following me? Apparently not, because in a few minutes of my gawking at him, in walked a sultry blonde with legs that never stopped. She was taller than he by maybe an inch. Six feet three would not be a stretch to say the least.
I watched as she gave him a kiss on the lips. The kiss lasted a few seconds, then he stood and wrapped his long arms around her waist. He waved to the waiter and the waiter showed them to a table across from mine. I tried to slide down low in my seat, but to no avail. There he was facing me when he pulled out her seat, and the model-slash-hot-chick had her back to me when his deep blue eyes locked on me like a programmed armed missile.
What is going on? I questioned fate or nature. I couldn’t seem to step out of my door without running into that exquisite man. When his eyes caught sight of me staring at him, I saw his hands tremble. I knew I had that effect on my Max, but never had I experienced that with a stranger.
He nodded his head, and Edith Piaf’s rendition of Autumn Leaves set the stage for what happened next. Before he sat, he smiled lightly and winked at me. The young woman thought she had garnered that sexy smile with those incredible white teeth, but it was me he saved that suggestive smile for, I knew it and I would never forget it.
But I needed to forget him.
When he sat down he ordered for both. It was not the same woman I saw in the elevator in my building. Clearly he controlled the situation. Clearly he had no trouble in the romance department. Why was he after me? His eyes would wander to me to the point that the young woman turned to see what had caught his attention. She met my gaze. I gave her a quick smile, lowering my eyes, and hunching my shoulders from embarrassment. I heard her say he was rude for not paying more attention to her.
He never reacted or changed his devouring gaze focused on my mouth.