Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 25544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
“Please help me.”
Chapter Two
"WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE matter here?"
It's the British accent that clears the haze in my mind, and I realize...oh.
Right.
This man...
He's familiar because he's Chase Everford.
Dark hair, blue eyes, and recently voted as one of the World's Sexiest Men.
But more importantly than that, Mr. Everford is also the 38-year-old London-born billionaire that my husband works for...and is low-key envious of.
I’ve seen his face on the cover of magazines at times. Other times, posts about him pop up on my feed. And of course, there’s not a week that goes by in which Sandy doesn’t talk about how his CEO just got “lucky” by being born rich. That he could do what Mr. Everford does if he had the same advantages to start with.
It’s that man who’s standing in front of me right now.
That man who knows my husband, not me, and when I think about that, I start panicking again because of course Sandy would take advantage of that—
“Mr. Everford, I’m so sorry about this.”
And see, he’s using that tone I’ve heard him use countless times...with me.
“I apologize on my wife’s behalf.”
When something goes wrong, he uses this tone to make me feel guilty about being upset, and somehow, he always ends up painting himself a victim when I’m the one who’s hurting—
"Nicole, will you please come here?"
I can't believe how fast his tone has changed. One moment, he sounds so servile to Mr. Everford, and then now he sounds resentful again, and is that...is that humiliation I hear?
He thinks I humiliated him?
"Nicole, dammit!"
The way he suddenly yells has me flinching and involuntarily turning to him, and that's when I finally see—
Oh.
My husband of almost twenty years, standing in the middle of the hotel hallway, dressed in the flashiest pair of silver boxers.
Silver!
Where did he even get that?
His belly hangs over the elastic waistband, and he just looks so, so ridiculous that it should’ve made me laugh but instead...it’s also the opposite. Just looking at him makes my heart hurt so, so bad because I don’t know...I just don’t know how we came to this. It’s like waking up one day and finding out that I never knew the man I married even though we’ve been sleeping in the same bed for two decades.
"Mr. Big?"
And if that's not bad enough, I think the other shape...the younger shape...
She's about to join the party and come out of the hotel suite that I paid for.
"Mr. Big, is something wrong?"
Is it just because she's young that her voice sounds so sweet? I used to be young, too, but I don't think I ever sounded—
"Mrs. Shrew!"
—that sweet, traitorously so.
"I'm so, so sorry!"
She comes out in a white silk nightgown that barely covers anything, and she’s so...well, my husband’s right about her.
She really is tiny.
I’m not supermodel-tall or anything myself, but right now, she makes me feel like a giant...when in the past, when I thought she was just this nice girl who started working for my husband as an intern—-
I used to feel like I could be her big sister in the city. I even felt motherly towards her. But now I feel nothing at all...as I watch her start to cry, which then has my husband rushing to her side like his world is about to end if she sheds another tear.
"It's okay, my tiny."
"It's not okay,” she sobs. “It's not..."
She sobs in his arms so prettily. I don't think I've ever cried that prettily either, and I think...
I think that's why I shouldn't cry right now.
I shouldn't.
I won't.
Even if I want to, seeing how my own husband has forgotten all about me. He's all about comforting his tiny—
"It seems no explanation is needed."
—until he hears the very British accent of his boss, and just like that, his tiny is also forgotten.
"Mr. Everford, what—"
I find myself unintentionally echoing my husband’s question.
Yes, what.
I want to know what’s happening, too, because Mr. Everford has suddenly placed a hand on the small of my back—
“I’ve seen all there is to see.”
—while saying that.
“Both of you are fired.”
And...what again?
"Mr. Everford!"
Sandy sounds panicky again.
“Mr. Everford, there...there seems to be a misunderstanding!”
And now his boss is looking down at me, and all I can think of is—
What?
My mind is stuck on that.
What in the world is happening?
Only one person can answer my question and Sandy’s, but that same person seems content with letting everyone around him spiral in confusion because now—
"Shall we go?"
His words were phrased like a question. And it sounds like a question, too. But his action belies this, with his hand applying subtle pressure to my back, and it's either go against him and go with the flow, and so of course...
I flow.
Or rather we flow.
Because it’s what I realize I’ve been doing ever since marrying Sandy.
Flowing.
Where my husband wants us to live. Where he wants to work. Where he wants me to stay.