Because I contractually promised her I would never have her followed, and even though she enjoys taking long shits all over the contract she signed and break it time and time again, I’ve a feeling I won’t be able to get away with doing the same.

“Why would I waste my precious resources on my wife?” I asked dryly.

“Don’t you want to know if she still visits Mrs. Veitch?”

“She does.”

“And you don’t care?”

“For all I care, Persephone can go back to her loser ex after she’s done having my children.” I stood, collecting my phone and shoving it into my back pocket.

“Remind her you will drop her ass if she breaks your agreement,” he warned, his arms hooked behind the back, his thighs spread.

“Anything else?” I checked the time on my watch.

“Yes.” He stood, pointing at me. “Get your shit together. I’ve never seen you lose a poker game unintentionally. These assholes ripped you a new hole today, and it hasn’t even been an hour. I’ve never seen you at home before nine o’clock in the evening before, either. Guess what? Last week, I dropped by your office at half past six and was told you’d gone home early.”

I wouldn’t call six thirty early, exactly, but Persephone sent me a text with a picture of her wearing nothing but a nightgown the peachy color of her clit, and my dick all but signed Royal Pipelines over to Arrowsmith in a bid to go home early.

It infuriated me that Sam had a point, even if I was sure it was nothing but a phase to get my wife out of my system.

“I said I’ll talk to her. Know where the door is?”

He shot me a confused look. “Of course.”

“Use it.”

With that, I turned around and stomped up to the second floor.

It was time to teach Persephone that in the underworld, everything outside the narrow scope of what I found acceptable was bound to perish.

I fucked her first.

I knew the conversation was going to turn things sour between us and didn’t want anything to hinder my attempts to impregnate my wife.

Since she was senseless enough not to use fertility tests, I had to do it every day.

I tied my wife to the bedrails, ate her out, then ravished her several times until she was sore and tender everywhere.

I’d waited until we were both spent and lying on her bed before I opened the cigar box, which I had moved to her room, seeing as I’d spent most of my time there, and lit one up.

“You’re going to stop tutoring the Arrowsmith kids starting tomorrow morning,” I announced.

Persephone was still wrapped in her blankets, her golden hair fanned over both of us, her skin dewy like a spring morning.

She rolled toward me, her big blue eyes settling on my face.

“Excuse me?”

“I know you’ve been tutoring them. It stops right now.”

“Have you been following me?” Her voice turned from sweet to cold in seconds.

I flung the blanket off me and sat up, jamming my legs into my briefs.

“Sweetheart, let’s not pretend I care enough to have you followed. Sam follows Andrew, and he saw you going in and out of his house.”

“Sam’s an asshole.” She jumped off the bed as though she’d been burned.

I pulled a V-neck shirt over my head, ignoring her hysterics.

“What Sam is and isn’t is not my concern. I’m not married to him. You, however, are currently breaking a contract you signed. The non-compete clause. You went and ran your mouth to my enemy like the little idiot that you are, telling him we have separate accounts. Now Andrew is going to use your employment in court to show that I am an unloving, neglectful husband in order to establish my bad character.”

“You are an unloving husband.” She threw her hands in the air, laughing bitterly.

“Love wasn’t in the contract.”

“Screw your contract!” she screamed, losing her usual, saintly patience.

“Why? Screwing you is so much more enjoyable.” I was already making my way to my room. I was pleased with myself for not allowing us to sleep in the same bed since we’d gotten married. It gave me some semblance of control.

I stopped by the door.

“Quit tomorrow morning. I won’t ask twice. This is non-negotiable.”

“Or else?” She jutted her chin out. “What are you going to do if I decide to continue tutoring these kids—Tinder especially, a boy who needs me, who relies on me, who is attached to me?”

I turned around. Stared her down with the same, cold disdain I’d used with everyone else in my life.

She was just a warm hole.

A distraction.

A means to an end.

Getting attached to someone who’d been bought to save her life was a special kind of stupid. The type of cautionary tale I was supposed to pass on to my own son as my father had done to me.

“Disobey, and I will give you what you’ve been begging for.”

Divorce.

She’d been throwing the word around often enough. Like I was the one at her mercy.

“Say it,” she hissed, her eyes challenging me. “Tell me what you’ll do. Tell me I mean nothing to you.”

I gripped the back of her neck, feeling my dick hardening in my briefs as I did. I couldn’t allow it to turn into makeup sex. The daily dinners were enough. Her constant presence pushed me to my limits.

“If you continue to ignore our contract, I’ll have to break my part of the bargain, too. If you still work for the Arrowsmiths by mid-week, I’m putting Sam on your ass to tail your every movement. Next, I’m taking a flight to Europe, to fuck every abled body in my vicinity. Then—without taking a shower to wash them off—I’ll come back to put a baby in you, with ovulation tests.” My lips touched hers as I spoke, and I felt her trembling against me, both with anger and lust. “Their smell and juices inside you. To remind you that you are nothing but a plaything to me. The sad part is that we both know you’d let me, Flower Girl. You’ve been hot for this dick since the day you saw me. But you’d hate yourself for it, and every time you would look at our child, you would see what I’ve done to you. Know your place, Persephone. You are not here to co-rule the kingdom by my side. Merely to help me continue it.”

She ripped her mouth from mine, pushing my chest as hard as she could, her teeth chattering.