Unfinished Seductions Read online

  These past few months without him, I relearned how to breathe on my own. It wasn’t fun—it was downright painful—and while I’m not exactly happy, I’m no longer miserable. I’ve found equilibrium, shaky as it is.

  Or at least I thought I had. “You mean…”

  His smile grows too bitter for him to hold it. “That’s right. Divorce.”

  Chapter 2

  I’ve spent the past few months not understanding.

  Not understanding why Callie would leave, why she’d flee like that, why only Julian could speak to her and I couldn’t…

  Now that I’ve found her, I still don’t understand. I love her, so badly it’s killing me, and she looks like she wishes she’d never seen me. Never married me.

  I’ve always found it difficult to look away from her, from the first moment I saw her. Not only because she’s beautiful but because I recognized something in her. Call it déjà vu, kindred spirits, soul mates, but it was real.

  I don’t recognize her now. Her features are all the same—hazel eyes that refuse to be any one color; soft, wide mouth that always gives away her inner state; and high cheekbones that make her look more somber than she actually is. But her features are arranged in an expression so distant I wonder if we’re even in the same room here.

  The bomb I’ve just thrown between us has blasted us even further apart.

  “Oh.” Callie sinks down onto the sofa built into the wall, only big enough for two. This place she’s holed up in is tiny, too small for more than one person. But maybe that was the point.

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? That’s what you told Julian.” His name can’t come out of my mouth as anything but a snarl. “Can you at least tell me why you left? I’m at least owed that much.”

  “Did you ever think that going on as we had been was making me miserable?” She tucks her hands deeper into her sweater as if she wants to disappear into it. The sweater is oversized, the yarn thick and lumpy. It falls past her hips, the sleeves cover her hands, and the cowl goes up to her chin. It’s more like armor than anything cozy.

  “Miserable?” I can’t even understand the word coming from her. She never wanted for anything. The house, her car, her clothes—she didn’t even have to work anymore. The entire world was at her fingertips, thanks to my wealth. “You could have done anything you wanted. You still can. If you want to work instead of the charity stuff—”

  Her hands curl into fists. I can see the lumps of them in her sleeves. “No, that’s… My mother warned me what would happen, and she was right. I just… I don’t belong in that world. Your world.”

  Her hair, a curtain of shimmering golds and browns, swings forward to hide her face. She’s let it grow long, past her shoulder blades. Her hand, bare of the rings and the watch I gave her, reaches up to tuck it back.

  I can reach out and brush her cheek, take her hand. This house is so small there’s nowhere for her to go where she isn’t within arm’s reach of me. The air between us is buzzing, snapping, coming alive with the awareness that only we share. If I could just touch her, like I’m aching to—

  My gaze cuts away. “Of course you belong. I built that world for you.” Does she think I work like a demon only for myself? I do it for her so that she’ll never have to worry again, not like my mother did.

  I also did it because Callie is the very first woman I’ve ever looked at and thought home. A sensation so bright and pure I would have destroyed anything that threatened her or it. The more money I made, the safer she was.

  Her shoulders slump. “Can you remember the last time we spent time together? Real time together, not just passing each other in the hall?”

  I pull up my memories of the past few months, ready to contradict her… but I can’t. Work has been intense, requiring all my attention.

  Her smile when I don’t answer is sad, which makes me feel stupid and angry all over again.

  “Logan…” She lifts her palms, exhales. “You’re the most focused person I know. And all your focus is for your work.”

  That focus is what makes me an asset to the Bastards—I can buckle down and train a laser eye on a project. For hours. Days. Weeks. When you’re dealing with computer code or multimillion-dollar deals in a lightning-fast industry, that’s a huge plus.

  “You’re focused too,” I say. It’s what attracted me to her—that intensity in her that I recognized in myself. With me, my focus becomes an obsession, but Callie transforms her focus into passion.

  “Not like you. With you, it’s a sickness.”

  Chills run down my back like I’m catching a fever. She always could read me too well. “It’s not. Being distracted, inattentive, unable to do a job—that’s a sickness. A weakness.”

  “Logan, I know how you feel about your dad.”

  Obviously not, or she wouldn’t have said what she did. My jaw clenches back angry words.

  My father died a failure. Never able to hold down a job, always jumping from one get-rich-quick scheme to another, throwing his entire self into one failure after another. He didn’t leave anything behind for my mother except never-ending stress and struggle.

  I’m not going to end up like him. And if anything happens to me, I’m going to make damn sure Callie doesn’t end up like my mom.

  But that isn’t what Callie wants to hear. I know how this script should go: I say, “You’re right. I’m working too much. Let’s take a vacation, take time together. And I promise I’ll cut back on my hours when we get back.”

  And in that script, she believes me, wraps me up in one of her hugs, and I take her back where she belongs.

  Except that role was written for someone else. Not me.

  Just the thought of saying that makes sweat gather under my shirt, cold from the damp air coming in through the windows. Why the hell is she leaving the windows open?

  “Callie. You—” I stop, make my voice obey me. “You know I work hard to provide for you. I don’t do it because I don’t want to be with you. I do it because I want you to have everything.”

  She wets her lower lip. “I don’t want you to change. I know you can’t, and I know why. But I realized I can’t be the kind of wife you need.”

  My scalp tingles when she says wife. There’s something off there, but I can’t understand what.

  “Can you give me a real answer?” I say. “And not any more bullshit.”

  She’s exactly the kind of wife I need, or at least the Callie she’d been before had been. But this stranger isn’t the Callie I fell in love with.

  Her hands are gripping each other tightly. Her hair falls forward again, and this time she doesn’t push it back. “I should have said something.” She shakes her head. “Not that it would have helped. You have trouble admitting you’re wrong.”

  I can definitely admit I’m wrong. It just happens so rarely though. And I wasn’t wrong about us. At least not about how we were in the beginning.

  She doesn’t seem to want an apology or promises of change or anything from me. She seems to only want me to go.

  Anger surges in me, at myself for not being able to stick to the script she wants about working less and changing more and at her for becoming this woman I don’t recognize. Anger that she simply left rather than telling me anything. How could she give up on me? On us?

  Even now, the pull between us is potent, although it’s dark and twisted like it never was.

  “You want me to admit I’m wrong?” I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the thick envelope. I toss it to the table before her. “Here. I was wrong. About you, me, our marriage… Here’s your chance to erase it all.”

  “Did Elliot draw those up?” She’s staring at the envelope as if it’s a scorpion, her knees pulling up toward her belly.

  Elliot is our lawyer, a partner in Bastard Capital, and my brother. I know what she’s thinking—Elliot’s screwed her over here. For some reason she and Elliot never got along.

  Maybe I would have taken that as a warning sign if I hadn’t bee
n so love drunk.

  “He did.”

  “Elliot always hated me.” She barely moves her lips to get that out.

  I shake my head. “Elliot insisted I give you half. I didn’t even have to bring it up.” I look out the window, at the low clouds blotting out the sun. “Which includes half my shares in Bastard Capital.”

  There was a massive brawl about that, with Mark insisting that legally there had to be a way out, Elliot muttering about the prenup I refused to let him draw up, and Paul telling me all the stories of the gold diggers who married into his family.

  Finn just looked sick to his stomach, and Dev… Dev was Dev. Quiet and controlled as ever.

  But I can’t leave Callie with less than half. The thought of her struggling through the world, working at some shit job she hated, when I could give her enough to never worry again…

  The shares of Bastard Capital will only increase in value. They’ll be her insurance against the world, better than cash.

  “And if she sells them?” Mark demanded. “Then we have some asshole from outside in our fucking business.”

  “She won’t,” I said. “Not unless she’s desperate.”

  Mark knew then there was no more point arguing with me. They all did.

  I got Elliot to write everything up, then came here, feeling like I was carrying a grenade with the pin pulled.

  “I can’t take those shares,” she says. Then she catches herself, putting her fingers over her lips.

  “We’re not arguing about this.” I shove my hands in my pockets to give myself something to do other than reaching for her. “It’s all yours.”

  She looks like I’ve yelled at her rather than handing her a several-billion-dollar fortune. “Oh, Logan.” The disappointment there confuses me all over again.

  I can’t do this any longer, or otherwise I’ll grab those divorce papers and burn them. I have to get out of this too-small house, away from this woman who looks exactly like Callie but acts like a stranger. “I’ve gotta go. I’m staying at a place in town tonight if you need to reach me. In the morning I’m heading back to the City.”

  Her gaze flickers as she looks at me. “The Hideaway Inn? But it’s so… poky.”

  I shrug. “I’ve stayed in worse places.”

  “Not lately.”

  She’s right, but the sagging beds and stained walls at the Hideaway suit my mood. “There isn’t much to choose from.”

  One motel, two restaurants, and no grocery store. Not even the tourists wander this far north.

  She lifts a hand to indicate her sofa, then lets it drop.

  I give her a wistful smile. No, my staying here won’t work for a lot of reasons, but it’s so like Callie to offer anyway. The old Callie, that is.

  My chest constricts too tight to breathe for a moment.

  I leave before the image of me and her tangled together in that loft bed embeds any deeper in my mind.

  Chapter 3

  I stare at the envelope on the table as if it’s a viper Logan’s tossed at me.

  When I shouted that stuff about getting a lawyer at Mark, I wasn’t sure if I actually meant it. Julian was going on about how I needed to contact Logan, to start the legal proceedings, to move forward with my life, but I kept insisting I wasn’t ready. I went into the City on that trip to get some stuff out of storage and deal with a few financial loose ends, not file for divorce.

  And then Mark appeared and gotten in my face about Logan, and I said that to get him off my back. I never meant it, not really.

  Elliot must have been gleeful while he drew up those papers. At least as gleeful as he gets, which was probably only a twitch of a smile. I don’t think I’ve ever met two more different brothers. Elliot was just as intense as Logan, but he made it cold. Scary. You never got the feeling with Elliot you were the only person in the room—only that you were a severe annoyance.

  If I touch those papers, all the Bastards’ anger at me would seep into my skin, make me sick. They never liked me before, but they must hate me now.

  Shares in their precious VC firm. I can hardly believe they allowed Logan to offer those. Their bond goes tighter than brothers, and letting me have a piece of that bond when I divorce Logan is going to infuriate all of them.

  I’ve seen how ruthless they are to their enemies. And I’ll be one of those enemies if I take those shares.

  I’m still staring at the envelope when Meowthra pokes his head back in, his expression accusing.

  “Sorry. I didn’t want him here either.”

  Want. It’s the wrong word, because part of me did want him. Even now, my nerves are shimmering and popping, lit up because he was near. My body’s been in hibernation since I left him, but right now it’s very awake.

  I needed that hibernation, the same way you need sleep to heal, but now that I’m awake… God, I hurt all over again.

  Finally I snatch up the envelope. No better way to shut my body right back down than to look over some divorce papers.

  I hold my breath as I leaf through all the legalese. It’s not quite English, but I think I can translate well enough. Enough to see that Logan was telling the truth.

  Half his every worldly good will be mine. Including his shares in Bastard Capital.

  I try to envision myself walking into the Monday-morning partners’ meeting, taking my place at the conference table. All of them would go nuclear, leaving a crater more radioactive than Fukushima.

  Taking those shares… I force my lungs to empty. There’s no way I can. I don’t even want to take half his assets and the insane amount of alimony he’s suggested. My mother would say take away from this marriage what I brought into it. Never be too dependent.

  I used to tell her that emotional dependence was different, that it was intimacy, and that’s what Logan and I had. That I could do the kinds of things all the other wives did but not lose myself in the role. Logan and I were better than that.

  She was never dependent on anyone, not even my father. She’ll say if she could do it twenty-some years ago, I can do it now.

  But if I tell Logan no, that I don’t want anything, he’ll go ballistic. I know why, for the same reason why I know he won’t change.

  Logan’s focused. Insanely so. And that focus includes his responsibilities, which includes me. If he thought I was struggling for money, working too hard and too long for too little, it would kill him.

  His dad was the opposite of that, never focused enough to hold down a job, always wasting money they didn’t have on his next big career move. His dad wasn’t cruel or neglectful—just weak. But that weakness terrifies Logan. It’s why he’ll never slow down on work, not even for me.

  It’s probably why I ran from him. Because I was weak and I didn’t want to see him pity me. Or worse, be repelled by me.

  I carefully fold the divorce papers and put them back in the envelope, then put the envelope in a desk drawer. I don’t even want to accidentally see them, not for a while. We’ve been apart for several months; I can wait to make a decision about a divorce.

  Once that’s done, I pull out my laptop.

  When I was married to Logan, trying to fit in as the perfect Silicon Valley wife—not too well dressed, outdoorsy, very involved in her own personal charity foundation—I found myself slowly going mad. Those women were so smart, so accomplished in their own right… but they all fell into the exact same mold. It was like we were all getting fed into a machine stamping us out, obliterating our individuality. None of us, no matter how rich or determined, could escape it.

  I thought I could try on the role for a while, see if it fit, then toss it aside if it didn’t. But the more distant Logan became, the more I clung to that role, unable to let go.

  My friends from before—arty, bohemian types—couldn’t understand. I had money, which solved all problems, and wasn’t I the one who’d chosen to marry the exact kind of man who was ruining their city? I never had to worry about rent hikes or eviction notices or hustling for freelance jobs unt
il I collapsed with exhaustion. I might have sold out, but I also had it made.

  They never said all those things straight out—they were still my friends—but they shot them in at an angle as I complained, blinking as they tried to understand where I was coming from now that I was so far above them economically.

  Old friends, new friends, my husband—I had no one to talk to, really talk to.

  So I started a blog. An anonymous one, somewhere to put down my observations and vent my feelings, safely concealed by the internet. I called it The Silicon Wife, which I thought was cute. No one read it.

  Until one day someone did. And then another someone, and another. People that I knew. When the first of my acquaintances mentioned the blog, asking who might be behind it, I froze.

  No one was ever supposed to read the thing. It was only for me.

  When the next person brought it up, I was ready with a blank expression and questions of my own. Who could be writing such a thing? How did she know all those inside details?

  She knew because she was me. Suddenly I was writing one of the most popular gossip blogs in the Valley with everyone wondering who the hell I was.

  I never told Logan. At that point he was at work more often than not. And by the time the blog got big, I hardly ever saw him. Besides, I wanted to keep my secret, to have my own tiny space within the marriage I was fighting so hard to fit into. I could be myself in my blog, without anyone watching. Or at least I could pretend no one was watching.

  I’ve kept up with it while I was gone, although I never said that I ran away from Logan or even that I left him. That would have been a dead giveaway. Instead, I wrote vaguely about finding myself again, struggling with being lonely in my marriage, and who I really was. Mostly what I wrote about before, only sharper now that I was away from that world and could think about it without it looming over me.

  Divorce is huge. Against all odds, I still love Logan. I just hated our marriage. I need to write out my thoughts in order to work through them.