Chapter Twenty-Nine

Riley

"What did you say?"

I climb back down the steps and turn to Judy. She rises from the couch.

"I said Lena isn't here anymore."

My eyes narrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she left. If you don't believe me, go to her room. See if her suitcase is there."

I do just that. I run up the stairs and check her room. Just as Judy says, her suitcase is missing, along with her toothbrush, her comb and her favorite pair of shoes.

No.

"I told you," Judy says behind me.

I glance at her. "Where is she?"

She approaches me with a sly grin and traces an S on the front of my shirt. "Maybe if you kiss me, I'll tell you."

She looks up at me and licks her glossed lips. Her fingers climb up my arm.

I grab her wrist and twist it. "Where's Lena?"

"Ow!" she yelps.

She pulls her hand away and rubs her wrist with a frown.

"How could you?" she wails.

Maybe if the circumstances were different, I'd feel guilty. But right now, all I can feel are impatience and frustration.

"I'll only ask one more time," I tell her. "Where is--?"

"Lena is with another man," Judy says.

My eyes grow wide. What?

"She asked me not to tell you, but fuck, you're persistent." She rubs her wrist. "I think you might have bruised my skin."

"I don't believe you," I tell her. "Lena would never cheat on me."

"Are you sure?"

I want to say yes. I refuse to think she could cheat on me when she's carrying my child, when she loves me. Then again, she hasn't told me she loves me lately. In fact, she looked like she hated me that last time we spoke.

"But where would she find another man?"

Judy shrugs. "I don't know. Online? At the mall? Lena's beautiful, you know, and you gave her a lot of money, so she's also rich. A lot of men would do anything to get their hands on that."

I suddenly remember the man who tried to get his hands on her in front of the ice cream parlor. Fuck.

"Who is he?" I demand as I step forward.

Judy hides her hands behind her. "I don't know. She didn't tell me, okay? I never saw him."

"But you're sure she left with him?"

"She said she was going to meet him and they were going to run off together. She borrowed one of our cars."

I narrow my eyes at her. "So you helped her?"

"I'm her friend, okay? You would have done the same for Jerry."

I shake my head. "Not if he was trying to cheat on his wife."

"She begged me," Judy says. "She says she was sick and tired of you. She said you didn't care about her anymore. She said she wanted a simple life. She just wanted someone who could love her and take care of her."

I nod. I see. So she really did give up on me.

But I'll be damned if I let her go with another man. Not while she's still married to me and carrying my child.

"All your cars have a tracking unit, right?" I ask Judy.

She nods. "Yes. Why? You're not going to go after her, are you?"

I walk briskly out of the room.

"Riley, she's already left you. Why try to get her back?"

"Because she's mine," I snap at her from the hall. I head to my room and sit in front of my laptop. "Now, what's the license plate number of that car?"

~

I find the car outside a bed and breakfast in a small town in Arizona. It's four in the morning so everything is quiet. There isn't even anyone at the front desk and I have to ring the bell a few times before a man in his fifties appears, glaring at me and yawning. But after I slap a few bills on the counter and give him a glare of my own, he hands me the keys to Lena's room.

Room 105.

I slip the key into the knob and open the door. I find Lena sleeping on the bed in her pale blue pajamas. She's lying on her side with a pillow under her arm. The blanket covers only her legs.

At the sight of her, a lump forms in my throat. I close the door behind me and approach the bed. She doesn't stir. Her eyelids flutter beneath a thin veil of hair.

My hands clench into fists at my sides. How can she look so innocent when she's cheating on me, the father of her child? How can she be at peace when she's on her way to leave me? How can she leave me when she said she loves me?

I bend over her and brush the wisps of her hair away from her face. The corner of her mouth twitches in a smile and my hand freezes. My chest aches.

I still remember the first time I saw her smile, although it seems so long ago. So much has happened since then. Has she truly forgotten all the moments we shared at that house? Can she run away from all the memories we've made together?

My hand hovers over hers. Maybe I can still convince her to stay. She already tried to run away from me before but I was able to win her back. Maybe if I--

My thoughts come to a stop as I notice that she's not wearing her wedding band. I glance at the bedside table and at the other table in the room but I don't see it.

Has she thrown it away? Has she truly made up her mind to throw our marriage away?

Suddenly, she stirs. She lies on her back and stretches her legs, rubbing her eyelids as she yawns. When she opens them, her blue green eyes stare right at me.

She blinks a few times. Then her eyes grow wide as she sits up.

"Riley? What are you doing here?"

I snort. "You look so shocked to see me. Why? Weren't you expecting me?"

"No." Lena's eyebrows crease. "Aren't you busy?"

"Not too busy to go after my wife."

She frowns. "So when I'm not there, you ignore me, but I leave and you come after me?"

"I wasn't--"

"Weren't you too busy to help me? To even care about the suffering I was going through?"

My jaw clenches. "Is that why you're leaving?"

"Yes," she answers.

Anger simmers in my chest.

"I can only take so much shame and suffering. I need to get away from that house, from you. I need to be with someone who cares about what I'm going through."

So Judy was right. Lena was on her way to someone.

Lena glares at me. "I don't know why you're so angry. You're the one who told me to deal with this myself. You practically sent me away."

I give her a glare of my own. "And you're scurrying off obediently? You're really that eager to get away from me?"

She looks away.

I grab her arm. "What about the baby, hmm?"

"This is what's best for the baby," she answers as she wrenches her arm away.

I glance at her tummy. "I'm not going to let you go anywhere with that baby. It's mine."

"Yours?" She snickers. "You just put it in me. That doesn't make it yours."

My temper fumes. I grasp her chin.

"I told you once and I'll say it again. That baby is mine. You are mine."

I crush her lips beneath mine. She grabs my shirt and pushes me away. Her icy gaze pierces me like daggers.

"We are not your property," Lena scoffs.

"Yes, you are," I say through gritted teeth. "And you're not getting away from me."

She snorts. "What are you going to do, huh? Lock me up again?"

My nostrils flare. "If that's what I have to do to make sure you don't leave me."

Lena shakes her head. "You are a monster. A heartless monster."

Venom drips from her words. Defiance gleams in her eyes. A knot forms in my chest.

So she hates me that much now, huh? She thinks I'm a monster?

I'll show her what a monster is.

I grab her wrists and pin them against the wall above the headboard. My eyes gaze into hers.

"You are my wife. And you're coming back with me."

She struggles to free her wrists but I hold them fast. She glares up at me.

"If I go back there and you lock me up, I'll break."

I narrow my eyes at her. "And I'd rather break you than see you in someone else's arms."

Before she can retaliate, I crush her mouth once more. I push my tongue inside her mouth. She whimpers.

I move her arms so I can hold both her wrists with just one hand. I place the other beneath her jaw and feel her pulse beneath my palm. I undo the first three buttons of her pajama top and slip my hand beneath her bra to find her nipple. She trembles.

I rub her nipple and gently twist it before letting my fingers descend. They skirt over her belly and crawl under two layers of cotton, burrowing between her legs.

At first, Lena refuses to part her trembling thighs. But as I continue to stroke her, those give way. She moans into my mouth. Her hips begin to move against my hand.

I smirk against her lips as I continue moving my slick fingers in and out of her. Then I bring them higher to circle her swollen nub.

She pulls her mouth away and gasps. I lick her warm ear and she trembles even more.

As I continue to tease that nub, I kiss her neck. My lips capture a patch of skin between her neck and shoulder and I suck hard.

She yelps. I trace the mark on her bruised skin with the tip of my tongue.

Now everyone will know she's mine.

I suck on one of her breasts next, dampening its cotton barrier.

Lena moans. The sheets rustle beneath her trembling legs.

She lets out a cry as her hips rise off the bed. Her eyes fall shut as the back of her head hits the wall. I stare at the expression of pure pleasure on her face with derision.

So her heart might have turned to stone against me, but her body is still mine, huh?

I grin. But I'm not yet satisfied.

I let her wrists go and push her down on the bed on her hands and knees. I pull her pants and underwear down until they bunch up behind her knees. Then I take my stiff cock out and ram it inside her with one thrust.

She cries out. I grip her hips and hold them up as I pound into her. The room is filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin, the creaking of the bed springs, her moans and my grunts.

When I feel the heat coiling in my balls, I grab Lena by the elbows and pull her up. I manage a few more thrusts before I bury myself deep inside her and empty my cock with a growl.

Afterwards, when my hips are no longer jerking and my body is no longer shaking, I release her arms. She falls forward on the bed. When I pull out, she collapses on her side. Her chest and shoulders heave as she pants. Her hair falls over her face. As I fix my pants, my gaze goes over her limp body and stop at the trail of white trickling down her thigh.

Just like that, I snap out of the spell I'm under. My rage, which was coiling around me like a thorny vine, vanishes. My eyes, now able to see clearly, grow wide. I sink into the chair next to me as I bury my face in my hands.

What have I done?

I stare at my hands, hands that are supposed to protect Lena and take care of her. Now they may as well be stained with blood. I bite down on my trembling lower lip as I clench them into fists on my lap.

It's all over now.

I stand up and walk towards the door.

"You can do whatever you want," I tell her without looking at her. "I'm not going to stop you anymore. If you let me know your address, I'll send a lawyer with the divorce papers. After all, that's what you've always wanted, right?"

She says nothing.

I turn the knob and walk out the door.