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“Excuse me?”

“You’re the only virgin I’ve ever broken in and had to train, and the only woman I’ve ever had to pay to fuck me.”

Shock robbed me of all response. All I could do was stare at him.

“So I guess you could say you’re my first whore, and I’m your first John.”

“John’s don’t buy the cow,” I was angry enough to point out.

His pretty mouth twisted and it was ugly. He parted his lips to say something horrible in response but his phone rang, distracting him, thank God.

“Hello, Father,” he said into the phone with utter contempt. “Yes, I’m here. Yes, I took her out. Oh, we’re getting on famously. I got her off with two fingers in the restaurant, and she clumsily serviced me in the limo. I’m not sure anyone told her she’s supposed to swallow the cum when it shoots down her throat. Enough details for you?” He paused. “If you don’t like hearing that, quit interfering in my life.”

He hung up his phone with angry motions just as we were pulling up to our building.

My husband was back to not looking at me. “I’d see you up,” he told me coldly, “but it’s been a long day, and I can see Chester waiting to do the honors, so I’ll let him.”

“You’re leaving?” I asked him. It was unexpected.

“I have some work to do, and I don’t know if anyone told you, but I prefer to stay at my own place when I’m in the city.”

He had a separate apartment for me. How had I not known that?

How would I know that? Asha loved keeping me in the dark, and who the hell kept multiple apartments in the same city?

Old money did. And they also had strange notions about marriage, apparently. He treated me more like his mistress than his wife.

“Well, thank you for dinner,” I told him stiffly.

“Good night, Noura.” He didn’t spare me a glance.

I didn’t look at anyone as I made my way on shaky legs up to my apartment. I was grateful when Chester didn’t say a word.

I showered and went straight to bed. It had been an enlightening first date. My husband couldn’t stand me, and I needed some better lessons on sucking his dick.

Things could have gone better.

Why then was I still turned on? It was hard to fall asleep with the relentless throbbing in the pit of my belly that would not subside, but eventually I fitfully dozed.

CHAPTER

NINE

I decided the next day that living alone in my apartment was a huge a relief, although the alone part was short-lived, and my husband had nothing to do with that.

A girl named Jovie did.

I was backstage changing into my street clothes after a runway show. My part was over, and I was all set to leave when I was stopped in my tracks by a loud fight between two other models. I was across the room so I didn’t hear everything that was said, but the end result was one of them storming off, a triumphant smile on her face, and the other one bursting into tears.

This wasn’t all that unusual, and I might have minded my own business but for one little thing: the crying girl was young. Painfully young.

She didn’t look a day over fourteen.

It wasn’t unheard of to see a girl that young at this kind of show. It was an immensely high fashion dressmaker, and they loved fresh faces for the really avant-garde stuff.

Hell, I’d been her age when I’d moved to New York to model full-time.

I wasn’t in the best mood. I felt the night before in a sharp pain under my eyes and a constant clench in my gut. I wanted nothing more than to go home and be alone, but her broken sobs swayed me.