“Mister St. James?” Audrey, my personal assistant, strode in with her electronic calendar as she gave me a pointed look. Her cat-like eyeglasses made it much more severe. “I’m here to remind you it’s Peter’s daughter’s nineteenth birthday tomorrow. Her father’s arranged flowers for all special occasions, but I’m also wondering if you want me to send an arrangement addressed from you since you’re her guardian, after all?”

Tomorrow’s her birthday. “Yes, that’d be lovely. Thanks for reminding me, Audrey.” How had this escaped my mind? I supposed I wasn’t as keen as I had thought I was. Setting my pen down, I glanced towards the determined woman situated across from me, brows furrowing as her fingertips busied with the tapping nonstop on the screen. “Do you think I should give a present as well?”

Without looking up, she shrugged. “She’s a teenager. Teenagers love presents.”

Teenager. Well, there you go. A bloody fucking teenager! I cringed each time the word teenager crossed my mind. If there were any doubts, this surely cleared whatever qualms I’d had for the past month. Setting her free was the right and only choice.

“Do you have any recommendations?”

“Jewelry? A car maybe? A trip somewhere? I imagine she has everything, so it’s tricky. You have to think outside the box.”

A car, but I had no idea what she’d like. What if she preferred her Ranger Rover, anyway, so it’d be wasting a present? More importantly, what made me think she’d even welcome anything from me? We parted on not so friendly terms.

After dismissing Audrey, I sat back and pondered about the woman who hounded my thoughts consistently. Work had been a great distraction, but coming home to an empty house without Gisele’s body to warm me at night had been rather lonely for me. My body had gotten so used to having her close to me that sleep was a rarity these days. I craved her scent, her warmth, even though I knew it was wrong to do so. It was an unending battle, so on the nights that tempted me to drive to Peter’s home, seek her out, and ask for forgiveness, I’d drown myself in liquor until it knocked me out of consciousness.

Rose and I had been in constant communication. Although, I hadn’t seen her since I had moved back into my old home. I had every intention of seeing her again. For me to achieve that, I had to get Gisele’s out of my system first.

It had been a month and three days since I’d seen her last. After she walked out of my room, Gisele had ignored the text message I sent her precisely a week after that fated afternoon. It was merely to inquire how she was doing, but she stubbornly ignored it, shutting me out of her life completely. Although I communicated with the security team in charge of the compound, I hadn’t spoken to any of the household staff. I’d been informed about Gisele’s daily ins and outs. She went out every single night without fail and would come home in the wee hours of the morning. Partied, she did, but she hadn’t missed a class, either. The report also stated she brought people into the house. I didn’t feel the inkling to probe if they were men, too. The idea of her responding to Wyatt the way she did with my touch sent me to a hellish place, and I’d rather not go there, not when I’d made great progress in staying away from her.

It was past midnight when I entered my home. Since Audrey had made sure the caterer sent me dinner in my work suite, I didn’t need to worry about meals and so forth. Had I been in charge of my daily intake of food, I’d most likely skip meals since I didn’t like to be bothered when I was in the middle of breaking ground in projects. Food wasn’t truly high on my priority list. It was a good thing I had hired competent people around me to shove it down my throat, or I’d be starved to death.

Strolling towards the bar, I pulled the phone out of my pocket and answered my mother’s call. “Women your age should be asleep at this hour. What are you doing up and about, mum?” A smile played about my lips. Hearing from my mother always brought one. She’d been a rock, raising me on her own, supporting me through everything.

“Times have changed; have you not noticed? Women in their sixties once upon a time were stuck in their deathbeds or planning out their wills. These days, my lot hunts for men in their late twenties for a quick tumble in bed. Exciting, isn’t it?”

My hand let go of the bottle’s nozzle, carefully setting it back on the counterpane as I let my mother’s words sink in. “Are you bloody shagging someone close to my age, mother?” The very idea of it made me want to laugh and yell at the same time.

“Oh, dear, did I forget to tell you?”

“You well bloody did!” My nose flared as I raked a hand through my hair. “And who is this lucky man? I need information on him!”

She chortled. “Son, if the time ever comes I have a man in my life, I won’t give you his details. Calm down, bossy pants. I’m watching this show online. It’s rather difficult to think of sleep when the next episode calls upon you to keep going.”

I snickered at the thought of her passing out on her couch with an empty bottle of wine in her hand. “If the time ever comes you meet a man worthy enough of you, then I won’t meddle…but until then, mother, count on your son to pry into your business.”

“I’ll bemoan to your wife until she persuades you to stop snooping about.” She delightfully chuckled. “How is Gisele? Have you been treating her well, my son?”

My wife. My mother knew we entered an arranged one, but she saw Gisele as ‘my wife,’ nonetheless. “I believe she’s well…probably mourning Peter still.” Amongst other things. One need not guess she’d inevitably surrounded herself with lapping men in her wake.

“You believe she’s well. Did you two break up, Jared?”

This would’ve been the case if she and I ever were together. But we never were. I made sure of that. “We’re living our lives as we see fit. I see no harm in that.”

“The only harm here is you letting go of someone who only has eyes for you. How could you leave your young wife when she’s so in love with you? You left her so soon after Peter’s death, too. That’s quite heartless of you to punish her like that. It’s too harsh even for you, Jared.” My mum was distraught, almost angry even. “Poor child, she must be so heartbroken.”

“Christ, she’s not in love with me, mother!” I gritted out. “I had to leave because she’s too…too young…too determined and fucking too much of everything I vowed to avoid. Gisele deserves better—she does. Why must she endure my presence when I have nothing to offer her? She’s better off. Someday, she’ll understand.”

“You’re obviously blind! And what do you mean by too much? It’s been ten years since Paige died. Don’t you think it’s high time you moved on and found someone to settle with instead of hopping from one woman to the next? It’s time to forgive yourself. It’s not your fault they died, my love. Stop blaming yourself. I know you still do.”

My mum would never understand the eternal guilt I endured. No one ever did. So, I stayed tight-lipped whenever she brought Paige and Penny into the conversation. Tonight was no exception.

“You’re going to regret letting her go,” my mom continued her spiel after a prolonged silence on my part.

“There’s nothing to regret when there’s nothing between Gisele and me, mum. She and I mean nothing to each other. I beg of you, stop harping on the bloody fucking subject!”

“Don’t you dare curse at me, Jared!”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, detesting how my temper was getting the best of me. “It’s been such a grave week. Forgive me. I didn’t mean to disrespect you.”

I wasn’t a mommy’s boy, but one thing my mother had taught me since the beginning of time was to never dare curse at her. And I never did…up until tonight.

“You have to get yourself sorted, young man, or you’ll end up like your father. Always onto the next best thing, never settling because he deemed himself too good for anybody,” she somberly said, aching for her son’s chaotic life choices.

“That isn’t the case with me at all—”

“So, are you telling me there’s no other woman in your life apart from Gisele?” she pressed on, clearly unconvinced.

Damn. “No, you know me too well to even ask me this.”

“I pray she finds someone else, then. She’s too precious to be alone at a difficult time of her life. And if that day ever comes, I hope you won’t intervene in her affairs. Promise me that you won’t, Jared.”

“I promise,” I half-heartedly said, feeling the full impact of her words hitting me where it hurt most.

My mother and I chatted for a few more minutes before ending our conversation. Though she was displeased with my decision pertaining to Gisele, it couldn’t be denied how she became fond of her as well.

My mother’s words rung into my mind. How could you leave your young wife when she’s so in love with you?

“Bloody hell!” I bellowed into the empty house, loathing this hollowness rutting into my soul as I carelessly poured the liquor into the glass, filling it to the rim.

Gisele loathed my guts now. Love, she surely never felt for me. Lust, yeah, unquestionably. But love? No…How could she when she barely knew me? Throughout the years, I could count how many times we shared a conversation, and there weren’t many. I made it my mission to stay away from her. It successfully lasted until Peter requested I marry his daughter. Things had gone downhill since I had shared her bed. It certainly had gone to the shitters when she had kissed me and I’d responded in the same feverish manner.

My chest heaved as I recalled how it felt to have her in my arms…that day in my bedroom closet…

FUCK.

Am I destined to be hounded by Gisele, too? Did I not have enough to deal with already?

“Bloody fuck!!!”

My throat bobbed before I gulped down the entire whiskey without pause.

I wasn’t truly sure what possessed me, but I somehow found myself weaving towards the office instead of my bedroom, bottle in hand. The lights immediately flickered to life the moment my foot stepped across the threshold. Scurrying towards the computer terminal, I instantly scoured for the compounds’ security cameras. It took forty seconds to access it. Gisele didn’t have cameras in her bedroom, but I somehow wanted to double check that she was safe, if she was home and wasn’t partying elsewhere, that was.

After promptly choosing the first floor, the massive screen filled with twenty-four rectangular squares, each showcasing different locations inside the house. My eyes zeroed in on the first one at the top left, making sure there weren’t any movements. I was about to place a call to Mike, the security in charge out of six men, when something caught my eye.

Box twenty-one and twenty-two, the kitchens.

Zooming in on the particular cameras, the enlarged scene unfolding before me stopped me dead. All brain and body activity halted as my eyes zeroed in on the screen.

Gisele was on the granite counter, dress hiked up all the way to her thighs, legs hanging loosely behind a man’s shoulders while his head latched onto her snatch. There was a seductive smile on her face before she tenderly looked down on him. Wyatt Rinaldi came into view. She murmured something that halted his laborious ministrations before he crawled in between her legs and met her lips, kissing her explicitly, implicitly. After a good minute, they then exited the kitchen, heading straight to the second floor, towards her bedroom.

I didn’t dare blink until her bedroom door shut. Only then did I let out a drawn-out breath. The air hitting my lungs pained my chest. It stung.

The nonsensical riot ensuing my mind made me reckless. My chest ached, and all I could focus on was Gisele on the bed, wanton and magnificently naked with Wyatt Rinaldi…seductively enticing him to satiate her needs as he crawled in between her legs while she offered her luscious breasts for him to suckle on.

My entire body overheated. My imagination didn’t help ease the blistering inferno raging in my body.

I wasn’t a daft man. Of course I knew they were shagging each other blind in her bedroom. Her birthday fuck and I was quite certain she was reveling in his undivided attention. She was a responsive lover who thrived on being touched, stroked in all places.

After I left her in such a dejected state, this pain she unconsciously inflicted upon me was what I truly deserved. My mother made me promise not to intervene when she found someone else. Could I truly keep a promise when all I could see and think about was Gisele?

The unwanted wife no longer.