Paul Le Montagne laid back in his king-sized, white-sheeted bed, watching the slim, still-naked model ease herself from his bedroom and into the side bathroom, where she cranked up the shower. Giving him a sneaky smile, she began to wash herself, in his full view, bringing her hands across her large breasts, her tight waist, her firm thighs.

She was gorgeous. And yet, in that moment of early-morning confusion, Paul wasn’t entirely sure if he remembered her name. Was it Courtney? Maria? Lillian? All of these names bounced around in his mind, reminding him of all the other forms who’d slept beside him in the previous few years. He hadn’t bothered to keep a record. He hadn’t bothered to consider the idea of falling for them. He slept with them only a few times, then tossed them out—ensuring that love wasn’t a part of the equation. Usually, his reputation preceded him.

They knew what they were getting into.

As the model continued to cleanse herself, Paul reached into his side table, drawing out his phone and checking emails, growing bored. With a thrust of her hand, the model stopped the rushing water, drew a towel from the side hook and wrapped it around her body. Taking long, gazelle-like strides, she eased toward Paul, sitting at the edge of his bed as she dressed herself, tousling her hair in the towel. Her back gleamed in the soft, May light from the early morning.

“I had a good time last night,” she offered him, her voice tart and too-bright, making Paul’s ears ring.

“Mmm,” Paul murmured, slipping through his emails with a move of his thumb.

“When will I see you again?” she asked, buttoning the last of her dress buttons, just over the crest of her cleavage. Her face, cleansed of makeup, looked perfectly ordinary now—in complete contrast from the one on the recent sports’ magazine cover. Although, he knew, they were one and the same.

“I have quite a few trips back to Paris lined up,” Paul affirmed, knocking his phone to the side.

“Sure. And when will you be back?” she tried again.

Paul shrugged slightly, his strong, thick muscles pumping up to his ears. “Not sure I can answer that without talking to my secretary first. You want me to call her?”

The model rolled her eyes, giving him a wry smile. “I see,” she murmured, knocking her head toward the door. “I’ll just let myself out, then, shall I?”

Paul’s shark-like white teeth crept into a smile. “That would be wonderful, Cynthia. Thank you.”

“It’s Denise.”

The woman’s heels clattered across the penthouse floor, toward the elevator, where she disappeared from his sight forever. The moment the elevator doors clipped closed, Paul had already forgotten her: the curvature of his thighs, the way she’d cried out when they’d made love against the windowsill. All of it was distant, ghost-memories.

Finally, he was alone.

His phone began to blare, then. The vibration shook through his legs and across the mattress. Reaching toward it, he felt his nostrils flare at the appearance of that villainous name: Elena. His ex-wife.

The affair had been brief. Seven years ago, now, when they’d met eyes at a gala event in Paris—in the seventh arrondissement, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. She’d worn a shimmering, silver gown, which fluttered at her feet; her breasts had crested above the beading, and her eyes had been secretive, dark, as if she could tell him the story of his future. He’d whispered into her ear as he’d walked past, telling her that everyone else in the entire gala event couldn’t hold a candle to her. He’d slipped a card into her thin fingers, telling her “Room 808. The penthouse. You can’t miss it.”

For the next six months, Elena and Paul hadn’t existed without the other: always with Paul’s strong, rippling muscles wrapped around her thin frame. They’d vacationed on yachts and flown to South America and spent an entire three weeks in a French chateau, sipping champagne deep into the night. When she’d informed him she was pregnant, he’d been overjoyed, delivering over 100 bouquets of roses to her modeling shoot, and then asking her to elope with him, “to make things official.”

For some reason, he’d always chosen the “romantic” route with Elena. The stuff he’d seen in the movies. As if theirs was a fictional love, one that could last forever. Ha.

Their marriage hadn’t even lasted past their baby’s first birthday. 24 years old and divorced, Paul had grown bitter and resentful, throwing himself entirely into his career and into raising his child, Lea, who he doted upon. Elena had grown wicked with each passing year, no longer holding any resemblance to that stunning vision at the gala, and ensnaring him in her grasp—ensuring he paid more than enough for her to raise their child, and for her luxurious lifestyle. The champagne and roses hadn’t stopped. They’d just stopped coming directly from Paul, out of love.

“What is it,” Paul boomed into the phone, feeling a sense of foreboding.

“Ah, what a remarkable greeting,” Elena said. He could feel her eyes rolling, even across the city. “It’s always a pleasure, Paul. Really it is.”

Paul sighed, leaning his face into his hands. After a long pause, he softened his voice, trying to work with her. “I’m sorry. All right. What do you need, Elena?”

“Well, namely, your check hasn’t yet arrived for the month,” Elena said, her voice still tart.

“That’s ridiculous. I sent you the amount a week ago,” Paul boomed.

“That was only half. Don’t you remember, I need a bit more this summer? Lea’s been enrolled in something of a musical summer camp, and they expect parents to payloads. And you know I don’t have that kind of money lying around, the way you do.”

“You would if you didn’t live in a penthouse on the Upper West Side,” Paul said, his face growing hot.

“So you want your daughter to grow up in squalor, is that it?”

“Jesus, Elena. If you could just write me an email asking for money, instead of calling, like I keep asking you to.” It was as if she took pleasure from their conversations, continually goading him until his heart hammered in his chest. It took him hours to calm.

“It’s better to have contact. My therapist says so,” Elena responded.

“Well, what does your therapist say about me not being about to see Lea, huh? Because I’ve been delivering all the money you’ve been asking for over the past months, but I haven’t seen her. That’s ridiculous, Elena. When we first started this arrangement…”

“I can’t discuss this now. Not without the lawyers,” Elena said, tossing his comments away like trash. “But on to another thing. I’ll be at my mother’s all net week while mom’s on vacation.”

“Wonderful. Really great to know where my daughter’s going to be, even if I can’t see her. Thanks.” His words were icy, unguarded, now. He couldn’t hold himself back.

“You should have thought about that before you went along with what’s-her-name while we were still married,” she boomed, nailing another rusty nail into the coffin of their relationship. It was long-buried, but she continued to bring this conversation to the surface, pointing at the mold and railing it against him.

“So you’re going to do this, huh?” Paul asked, incredulous. “Because you know I could just as easily bring up the truth, without all the fiction you’ve formed in your pretty little head, Elena. You know as well as I do that I didn’t pick up with Gretchen until after I’d moved out. And that I caught you with your personal trainer when Lea was sleeping in the next room!”

“That’s preposterous. You saw nothing,” Elena blurted.

“I saw your breasts, moments before you pushed them back in your sports bra. I mean, after all these years, Elena, how can you still refute the truth? That you were cheating on me far before I was ever cheating on you. If you could even call what I was doing cheating, since we were properly separated at that point.”

Elena began to sniffle into the phone, showing some semblance of actress skills, which she’d used in exactly three commercials since Paul had known her. Two of them had been for window cleaner.

“Jesus, and now this. When I know, almost for a fact, that you’re sleeping around with Jack,” Paul continued, tossing from his mattress and standing, feet wide apart on the hardwood floor, his toes digging deep. “Listen. Don’t call me again unless you want to discuss me seeing my daughter again. Need I remind you that she’s half mine?”

“I’m not sleeping with Jack—“ Elena protested.

But Paul had already hung up the phone, smashing it against his mattress and watching it bounce against the soft, cloud-like comforter. His blood hammered against his eardrums. Slipping his long, thick fingers through his jet-black hair, he began to mumble in French. “Merde. Elle est une personne terrible…”

Tossing himself into the shower, he began to prepare for his meeting later, at the New York Le Montagne headquarters in Manhattan, far from his gorgeous nook in Williamsburg. He dressed in an immaculate suit, slipping gel across his hair and assessing himself in the mirror, trying not to think back to that fateful day: when he’d discovered his lovely wife, in the arms of another man.

Not since that day had he allowed himself to feel anything like love.

Tossing from the high-rise apartment, he blinked into the bright light of this day in early May, and then darted down the road, passing start-up assholes in horn-rimmed glasses, speaking enthusiastically about their five-year plans and their musician girlfriends. In that moment, he realized he needed a cup of coffee more than he ever had in his life.