DAHLIA WESTBROOKE
Armed with a box containing all the important moments of my life, we left my apartment. Just as we burst out of the building, we ran into a gorgeous, brown skinned woman armed with a box herself. When she laid eyes on me, she dropped her box, her jaw hitting the floor simultaneously.
"Oh. My. God." She took a step forward. "Dahlia? It is you. I've been trying to get in touch for forever. What the hell happened?"
I opened my mouth, slightly frazzled, but no words came out. Who was she? I cast a glance back at Tarasov for a clue, but just my luck, his face was buried in his phone, tapping away at God-knows-what.
"Sorry. I- do I know you?" I stammered, internally wincing at how that could've come off as rude.
"Oh. My. God." She slapped a hand over her mouth. "Ohmygod. Your sister was right."
"About what?"
"I heard about your injury from her. I'm sorry I didn't come visit sooner, but she wouldn't give me further information. I didn't know what hospital you were at, or your whereabouts at all. You just completely vanished."
"Oh. I guess they wanted to keep it private," I lied, leaving out the part where they hadn't come to see me either.
"So, you really don't remember anything?"
"Not everything," I corrected her. "Just specific events."
"And I happened to be part of those specific events," she pouted, pushing out her bottom lip.
"Sorry, I-"
She burst into laughter, shaking her head at me. "I'm just kidding. I'm Eden." She held her hand out for a handshake. "We hadn't been friends for long before you disappeared. I'd just moved into the building. I stay one floor below you."
I nodded, taking in all the new information. I had a new friend, and her name was Eden.
"If you'd like to hang out sometime, maybe we could catch up a bit?" She offered, her eyes straying behind me like she was just noticing the gigantic man for the first time.
I noticed the exact moment her eyes landed on his scar. She flinched slightly, the excitement in her eyes petering out a little, and for some reason, that left a bitter taste in my mouth. My mother had been an adamant preacher of not judging a book by its cover, and I'd taken her teaching to heart.
Granted, I didn't know the man myself, but he didn't deserve to be judged simply because he had a scar on his face. If anything, his imposing height scared me more than his scar, and I was ashamed that I had been initially put off by it like Eden was.
I cleared my throat to draw her attention back to me. "Definitely. I'd love to reconnect over coffee sometime. I don't have my phone with me right now, but if you could just-"
"Use mine," Tarasov interrupted, holding his phone out with one hand, while he held my box in his other.
"Thank you." I took the phone from him, passing it off to Eden, so she could put her number on it.
"Any time next week is fine by me," she said as she handed the phone back to me. "I'm just swarmed with work at the moment, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to make out time."
"Yeah, I totally understand." I shoved Tarasov's phone into my back pocket, bending to help her pick up her box that had fallen. Thankfully, it was tightly sealed, so the contents didn't spill all over the place. "I hope nothing breakable was inside. That was quite a hard fall."
She giggled, taking the box from my hands. "Thank you so much. And no, I'm good on that front. Don't let me keep you. It was nice running into you again, Dahlia. Really."
My heart warmed watching the way her eyes softened as she aired her sentiments. Maybe we could get back to being good friends, seeing as she was worried enough to ask my family for my whereabouts, when she hadn't seen me.
We exchanged air kisses, and we parted ways after that.
"Why didn't you tell me about Eden?" I asked Tarasov when we were back in the car.
"Because you never told me about her. Actually, that was totally my fault," he murmured under his breath, a tight frown knitting his brows, like the new revelation deeply displeased him. "We should come up with a few rules for our marriage."
"You don't say!" I exclaimed loudly, my tone falsely upbeat.
He arched a brow at my sarcastic response, and that simple action had all the fight leaving my body. It wasn't like I didn't have a couple rules of my own. This was the perfect time to air them all out.
"Let's hear you," I reluctantly conceded, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
"No keeping secrets. Anything that bothers you, we'll discuss it within the same day. Given your sleeping habits, that will have to be during dinner. No going to bed angry either."
His rules baffled me. Did he really see this as a true marriage given the circumstances? We got married in Vegas for crying out loud!
"That doesn't mean we can't try to make things work," he said, making me realized I'd spoken out loud.
I snapped my mouth shut, nodding my head, giving him the go ahead to continue with his rules.
"That's all I have for now."
"Well, I have a few of my own."
It was his turn to get sarcastic. "Of course, you do."
I ignored his jab, going straight to the point. "You can have your mistresses. Just make sure to clean up properly if we're supposed to have dinner together every night. I don't want to smell the sex on you. Oh, and you absolutely have to be discreet. Obviously, we would all have to be in completely different circles, so things don't get awkward. It's a tiny world, but please try. The staff absolutely cannot know." I grimaced at the thought of it. "That'd be so embarrassing."
"Excuse me?"
"I said the staff mustn't know."
"No, the first thing you said." His voice was cold, dropping the temperature in the car to bone-chilling levels. "I'm not sure I heard you right."
I rubbed my arms to ward of the chill of his words, but it was futile, so I settled for bringing my knees up to my chest, disregarding the fact that I was probably ruining his expensive leather seat. "I said you could have your mistresses."
Really, it was pointless telling them, because men usually did what they wanted to. They'd always cheat regardless, and I wasn't naive enough to think that this man sitting next to me would be any different. I just needed the heads-up, so I didn't end up looking like a fool in public, like the last time.
"I heard you right, Dahlia. I'm just not sure why my wife is encouraging me to stick my dick in other women."
That brought a cynical laugh out of me. "Encouraging is a strong word. You'll do it anyway, so it's not like you need my permission. I just need the heads-up, so I can save myself from certain, avoidable embarrassment." Like say, finding out my fiancé was screwing my half-sister, while we were engaged and regularly having sex, too. None of that mattered to men, and I'd seen one too many cases.
"I'll do it anyway," he repeated. "You think I'll cheat on you."
"Know," I corrected. "All men cheat, so you don't have to lie, or pretend to be different."
"And if I say otherwise?"
I scoffed, rolling my eyes so far back in my skull, I could practically see my brain. "They don't get a cookie for not cheating on their partner. They shouldn't be cheating to begin with." But alas, a lot of them didn't get that memo.
"I don't give a shit about other men. I'm talking about us. I knew what I was signing up for when I decided to get married to you. I'm a lot of things, but a hypocrite isn't one of them." He paused, visibly musing over his words before he spoke again. "At least, most of the times."
His last statement caught my attention. "Most of the times? What happened to the other times?"
"We're only humans at the end of the day, are we not? Point is, if I expect you to remain faithful to me, why would I let other women touch me or have access to my body?"
"Oh."
That was new and surprising. My father had had access to my mother's body, and he'd still let another woman touch him. My ex had been no different. Both of these men expected loyalties from us, but they hadn't given it back in return. There were many such cases I'd seen online or in my day-to-day life, enough to shatter any rose-colored glasses I could possibly have on, and make me cynical when it came to matters of the heart.
So, yes, what he just said was new and surprising to me. Perhaps, I just needed to meet better men in real life, so basic human decency didn't sound alien to me in the future.
"Do you have plans to see someone else outside our marriage?"
"No."
"Then, we're settled."
As he started up the car, a new thought crossed my mind, and I immediately straightened in my seat. "Wait. If you're not going to be seeing other people, does that mean you plan to have sex with me?"
A devilish, cunning smirk tilted his lips. "What do you think, Dahlia?"
"Hell no! Hell to the fuck no," I sharply protested, bringing my feet back to the floor as I turned in my seat to face him. "Absolutely not."
"Of course."
"We're not having sex. I am not letting you touch me."
"So, you've said, and I am not disagreeing with you. Why so adamant? Perhaps, that's a fantasy of yours? Fucking me, that is."
I huffed even as my face burned hotly. "Not even if you were the last man on earth."
He barked out a laugh. "Let's see how quickly you'll be eating those words. I'm nothing but patient."
And that was probably one of his qualities I hated the most.