But that didn’t excuse the fact that I’d had sex with him. Sophia and Pierre’s son. And let’s not forget Jacques’s roommate. It wasn’t bad enough that I’d slept with my best friend’s son. I had to go and corrupt him by having a threesome with his roommate.
I needed a shower, a coffee, and a time machine, and not necessarily in that order.
What had I done?
My stomach rolled, and I pressed my hand down low, willing myself not to be sick. I breathed through the queasiness, washed my hands, then downed some paracetamol. I brushed my teeth and cleaned yesterday’s makeup from my face and felt marginally more human. But the temptation to say fuck it and go right back in there and have them repeat everything we’d done last night was still too strong. I needed to cool the hell off.
The knock on the door stopped me in my tracks. I watched as it opened and Jacques slipped in, not waiting for me to speak.
two
Carina – Then
Ipickedthroughthesuitcaseof clothes I’d brought with me when I moved into the pool house of the waterfront home I’d shared with David. All I wanted was some sweats. Or even comfortable pjs. But I’d only packed work clothes.
What had I been thinking? The truth was, I hadn’t. I’d planned on just going back and forth, getting more clothes whenever I needed them.
But I’d misjudged Danielle, my ex-husband-to-be’s mistress. She was basically living there now. It was a kick in the teeth for her to be sleeping in my bed and playing house with the man I’d married in the home my family had lived in for years. She’d shown up on the doorstep the afternoon I’d told David I wanted a divorce, and she hadn’t left.
The doorbell camera had alerted me to her being there. Out of habit, I checked who it was.
I shouldn’t have.
I got an eyeful of my husband opening the door to her while wearing only a towel and her greeting him with a blow job. They didn’t even have the decency to close the front door before they started fucking.
I was bitter, I was angry, and I was hurt. I’d given David everything, and for what? I was a seventeen-year-old girl who’d never even turned the head of a boy when I’d met him. David was older, this sexy, sophisticated man in his late twenties who’d showered me with attention and gifts.
I’d fallen head over heels in lust for him the moment we’d met. In a blind panic, I’d lied about my age, telling him I was legal. Cara was born less than a year later.
I was young and immature, too stupid to know he was taking advantage of my desperate need to hold onto him. When he told me he didn’t like using condoms, I’d gone with it, starting the pill straight away. But the side effects were next level. I was constantly nauseous, vomiting every time I ate or didn’t eat something. Turned out that the pill didn’t work when you couldn’t keep it down. I fell pregnant within a month of us ditching the rubbers.
My parents were furious when they found out about us once I could no longer hide my growing belly under loose hoodies. They kicked me out of home. Once David got over his abject horror at my lie, he took me in. I felt indebted to him after that, and I think he knew it.
But I didn’t have it in me to regret the decisions seventeen-year-old me made. I wouldn’t have my daughter if it had happened any other way.
I did regret a lot of other things, though. I gave up my scholarship to study music at one of the country’s most prestigious universities. I turned down my spot on the Australian Youth Orchestra too. I should have insisted that we move together. Instead, out of some misguided obligation I felt I owed him after falling pregnant—as if he didn’t play a part in it—I supported him signing a lease for a shop. My dreams were sacrificed to realize his.
Now my future was being sacrificed because of the prenup I’d signed, perhaps the only decision in relation to my marriage that I bitterly regretted.
I was barely eighteen, pregnant, and on the outs with my parents. He was the only person who’d stood by me. I was in love, and I thought of him as my savior. He stuck around because his parents insisted that he take responsibility for his actions. But I know he loved me back at one point. Our marriage was genuinely good. We were happy. At least I’d thought we were.
I’d never expected to have to rely on that damn prenup.
But now…
Looking over at it sitting on the coffee table, I growled, barely resisting the urge to set fire to the fucking thing.
It was no wonder I’d signed it without question. He’d promised to love me for eternity. Like the stupid girl with hearts in her eyes instead of a brain in her head that I was, I’d fallen hook, line, and sinker for his promises of forever.
“We’ll never need it, Carina,” he’d promised me. “We’re going to grow old together. We’ll raise our family and watch the grandkids play on the lawn while we sit in rocking chairs. I’ll be the grumpy one, and you’ll still light up the room with your sunshine.”
He’d said it was a formality, more of a protection for me, in fact. The lease exposed him to risks that he didn’t want me burdened with.
I’d known David was ambitious and that the first lease was only the beginning. But he’d needed me as much as I needed him in those early years. He’d be on the floor, helping customers, while I learned how to manage the back end—the books initially, and later on, merchandizing. He had a home-cooked meal every night and quality time with his daughter too. I looked after everything else. We worked countless hours together like a well-oiled machine, turning one store into a multimillion-dollar chain of seventeen sporting goods warehouses across the eastern states.
I hadn’t looked at the prenup in two decades. I’d believed him when he said we’d grow old together—hell, the song we’d danced to at our wedding was “Happy Together.” I’d taken those words about me being the only one for him to heart.
When I signed the prenup, I didn’t look at the details, the specific wording of clauses that would become my ruin. At the time, I thought it was too good to be true. He was offering me a fortune, far more than we had access to. But now, looking back, I was a fucking fool.
