The way Dallas’s brain worked was an absolute crime against humanity.
Upon returning to Potomac, the first thing I did was text Hettie, ordering her to hide the baster somewhere my horny wife couldn’t find.
While I refused to come inside her, I didn’t put it past Shortbread to drive to the nearest sperm bank and order two Ventis to-go.
Turned out, abstinence was best, because I managed to go four days without liaising with my Wife of Chaos.
What I did do, however, was watch her on forty-nine security cameras spread across my estate.
Shortbread was bored.
And a bored Shortbread, I learned, was a destructive one.
I applauded her talent for doing absolutely nothing, yet achieving so much.
The woman spent her days eating, binge-reading books (sometimes finishing an entire series in the span of twenty-four hours), and spending unholy amounts of money.
My natural inclination was to suspect she’d racked up my credit card bill solely for the purpose of pissing me off, as opposed to doing so because she genuinely desired the objects she’d purchased.
Then I logged onto her Visa statement, noting she’d donated a whole orphanage to Chattanooga, top-of-the-line laptops for an entire school district, and seven-figures to SIDS research.
That seemed in line with her inability to keep herself together every time someone in a diaper entered her five-mile radius.
She racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills each day, daring me to step in and put a stop to her spending spree. I’d never been one to blink first.
From my air-conditioned corner office, I periodically checked on my lovely wife, day in and day out, watching her welcome her mother, her sister, her friends, and her newly employed private masseuse, pedicurist, hairstylist, and a woman whose sole purpose seemed to be brushing her eyebrows.
I gathered she knew she was being watched. The signs weren’t exactly hard to miss.
She would sometimes stop in front of a camera and flip me the finger or flash her tits, with little regard to the possibility that my security team might have access to my home feed.
That I ended up marrying such a crude woman was a travesty in itself, but I convinced myself that she would grow out of her rebellious phase.
The truth I refused to consider was that this was not a phase. This was her default setting. A feature, not a bug.
She was who she was, and nothing and no one could change her.
In the four days we’d spent apart, I shuttled in and out of meetings with Senior, Bruce, and the Costa Industries board, trying to convince anyone with a willing ear that I could secure our grandfathered contract with the DOD before Licht Holdings seized it.
It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Then again, it wasn’t exactly a truth, either.
There was valid reason for concern. Senior had decayed Costa Industries to the point where we no longer topped the list of defense companies. And Bruce, being a certified yes-man, let him.
I could’ve gone an entire week without contact with Dallas if it weren’t for the fact that, on the fifth day, something caught my eye on a monitor.
I shoved the market report to the corner of my office desk. A commotion had formed at my estate gate. There was never a commotion at my front gate.
Or on the property, really, beyond the hundred-fifteen-pound volume of space Shortbread took up.
I’d designed my entire life to fit my solitary tendencies. Which could explain why I felt a baffling rash crawl up my skin the minute I spotted seven luxury cars lined up on my street.
The gate pumped open. Slowly, the army of vehicles drove into my driveway. I squinted, trying to see who was inside them.
Cara breezed into my office, carrying a stack of documents. “Mr. Costa, your two-p.m. appointment with Mr. Reynolds from the DOD is here—”
“Not now, Cara.”
I recognized the first person to roll in, tucked inside his Rolls Royce. Barry Lusito. A former college buddy and a man I’d personally excommunicated from the industry almost seven years ago when he hit on Morgan while we were still together.
Right behind him, a Bentley cruised up my thousand-foot driveway, driven by one of Costa Industries’ engineers—or should I say former engineer.
A man I’d fired for sexual harassment shortly before my wedding.
What game was Dallas playing now?
After Barry, a few modest cars pulled up with women in them, some of whom I recognized as my wife’s new staff. (Why someone with no job, no volunteer work, and no physical ailments needed staff was beyond me.)
And following the herd of women was none other than Oliver von Bismarck, who arrived in his flashy Aston Martin DBX—and had the audacity to wave hello to the camera.
Next, Zach emerged in his Lexus LC (he despised overpriced, unreliable cars).
Then, finally, Madison Licht.
I repeat—Madison Fucking Licht.
I couldn’t tell for sure, since he’d angled half of himself away from the camera, but his nose appeared to be covered by some kind of nude bandage.
“Sir…” Cara adjusted her documents. “You’ve been trying to get Mr. Reynolds’s attention for three weeks now. I’m not sure he’ll take well to waiting—”
“My meeting is canceled.” I stormed to my feet, plucking my blazer from my headrest and draping it over myself on my way out. “As are the rest of my obligations for today.”
There was no way I could entertain Thomas Reynolds in our Arlington headquarters while Madison Licht roamed the hallways of my mansion, snooping around.
Cara scurried after me. “Mr. Costa—”
“The answer is no.”
“What should I tell Mr. Reynolds?”
“That something urgent came up. Family-related.”
This wasn’t a fabrication. Something had come up. My blood pressure.
I stormed into the elevator, facing a frantic, frazzled Cara.
“Sir, you have never, in the eleven years I’ve known you, missed an appointment.”
“I have never, in the eleven years you have known me, chained my destiny to that of a beautiful sociopath.”
It was the last thing I said before the elevator doors shut in her face.
