"That isn't exactly the deal, though, is it?" I asked, folding my arms.
Then she did look up. "What?"
"The deal. For our weekends."
Her face folded into a frown, and she put her phone in her pocket. "We have dinner on Friday, and we have sex at some point during the weekend. That's the deal as I know it. I didn't know it had to be on a specific timeline."
She was right about that. As long as we met up once a week, that was enough to fill the conditions of the contract as it was written. Granted, sometimes we met up more than once a week, and sometimes she stayed over all weekend, letting me fuck her and put her in different positions.
It just usually worked out that we went back to my place together after dinner on Fridays. I wasn't used to her having other things to do.
"It doesn't," I said quickly. "Tomorrow is fine."
"Okay." She said it slowly and kept looking at me like she was waiting for me to start making sense or say something else. When I didn't, she seemed to take it in stride. "Okay," she said again. "I'll come over in the afternoon, then. Is that okay?"
"Sure," I replied. "That's fine."
"Great. See you then."
And then, without so much as a backwards look, she headed for her car.
I was left standing there, blinking in both surprise and displeasure as I watched her get in her car and pull out her phone again.
I didn't know for sure it was Simon, of course. It could have been a friend from work or her mother or anyone else. I wasn't a big enough part of her life to know everyone she talked to or would make plans with on a Friday night.
But I did trust the feeling in my gut, and it was telling me that she was definitely going to see Simon, and I definitely didn't like it.
Chapter 2
Ashlyn
Sometimes I felt very much like I was living a double life. I had school and work, where people knew me as a quiet person who kept her head down and got things done. I had a few friends, and now there was Simon to add to that list, and that was all pretty nice.
And then, there was Killian, and all the things that went along with him. Our marriage, sham that it was, the club and Eve, and the things we did together.
I couldn't imagine looking anyone I knew in the eye and telling them that at least once a week I let a ridiculously rich man tie me up and fuck me or hit me or make me beg for him to do it all more.
They wouldn't understand it, I wouldn't know where to start, and it was just really for the best to keep everything separated.
So when I left the restaurant that Friday and drove to Simon's house, I had to force my brain back into the mode it usually stayed in when I wasn't around Killian.
Back to being a mild-mannered student and barista who could talk about art and normal things.
That was one of things I liked the most about Simon. He was so blissfully normal. He didn't talk about dropping obscene amounts of money like it didn't matter, and he didn't belong to some secret club of kinky perverts as far as I knew.
I always knew how to feel around him, and I never felt like I was out of place. Even though I'd more than gotten used to Killian by then, it was nice to get back to people more like me.
It was almost nine when I pulled up to Simon's house for what he was calling a movie night.
He'd had the idea to make a list of movies we'd liked as teenagers to see if they still held up now, and if they didn’t, we'd heckle the shit out of them.
He promised popcorn and drinks, and had even offered to let me crash on his couch if I needed to, which I wasn't sure I was going to do or not yet.
I liked Simon, really. He was handsome and kind and funny and talented, but there was a Killian shaped elephant in my brain that kept me from really letting myself decide if I liked him as a friend or as more.
I hadn't told Simon anything about Killian, of course. There was no way to explain that particular relationship in a way that wouldn't be weird. So I'd just mentioned I'd had to meet a friend for dinner and then I would be right over.
By the time I was out of the car and walking up to his front door, he had opened it and was standing there, smiling at me. Handsome as ever and dressed down in a T-shirt and some sweatpants.
"There you are," he said. "I thought you'd gotten lost."
"I told you I was on the way," I fired back with a grin. "It's not my fault you can't read."
He laughed and ushered me in, taking my coat and leading me into his living room where he had the couch piled with blankets, a bowl of popcorn on the table already and the TV set up to watch.
"I wasn't sure if you'd be hungry after your dinner, but there's plenty of popcorn to go around," he said.
"I'll probably want it after the first movie," I said. "Dinner was good, but I get hungry late at night."
"Where did you go?" he asked.
"Thompson's Steakhouse," I said.
Simon whistled. "That's a fancy place, isn't it?"
I blinked, considering that. I supposed it was, but dining with Killian so often had sort of desensitized me to that kind of thing. He always paid, and he usually chose the restaurant we met at.
"I guess," I replied. "They have cloth napkins."
He laughed. "So does Olive Garden, and I can actually afford to eat there. I didn't know you had Thompson's money."
Technically, I both did and
