Not In My Wildest Dreams (Dream Series) (18 page)

Since I’d returned late Wednesday from my jaunt to New York, Jessica had pumped me for information about all that went on. I kept tight lipped. I couldn’t talk about it. Yes, she was my best friend, but because she was, she saw my struggle and let me have my space.

In short, after leaving Jack’s place Tuesday night, six long days ago, I’ve cried no less than three times a day. I cried that whole Tuesday night, until I passed out at who knows what time. I cried in the cab ride to the airport. I cried half of the flight home. I seriously had no idea I could create so many tears. I started to chant “water my grass,” as Kevin’s
abuela
phrased it.
The grass is always greener where you water it.
I had to keep telling myself that over and over. I had to focus and figure out how I was going to water that damn grass named Greg. I thought my idea of surprising him would be fun, spontaneous, and sexy. But, he seemed rather put out and annoyed.
Keep trying. Don’t give up. Twenty-four years is a long time.

Last night’s dinner I took a risk.

*     *     *

“S
oooo, you’re quiet,” I said to Greg as he pushed bites of his Chicken Parmesan around his plate. Not that he was usually chatty at dinner, but I would think after a few days in a hotel with his wife, a wife who came back after being gone for three weeks, he might try harder.

I “understood” that Greg was quiet the first night. I’d surprised him and he said he’d not slept much the past couple of nights. I “understood” Friday when he said he was still processing my trip away and the “new” woman I had become. I had been gone for three weeks, and our “reunion” in New York was “different.” I “understood” Saturday when we got home that he was “worn out” from the past few days, although he did comment that this was the second Saturday that he’d missed his round of golf with our neighbor Aaron.

“A lot on my mind, I guess. I was just looking over my inbox. Two new clients that I was supposed to meet last week, and now I have both of those meetings scheduled for tomorrow.” He stuck a bite of chicken in his mouth and started chewing, but his eyes darted to his damn cell phone sitting on the sideboard. Since I got back, I’ve not allowed his cell phone to come to the dinner table. It was one of the things that kept us from communicating. Or at least I thought.

We dined just fine in New York when his cell wasn’t sitting on the table with us. We talked, even laughed. I thought that maybe if the phone wasn’t there, we’d be good. But then, when I thought about the rest of that night, talking about the fact that I’d been with Jack and Kevin while I was away, and that I’d been spanked and punished by Jack… And that I liked it. This past weekend, Greg said that when he spanked me back in New York, he didn’t care for it and asked if we could never do that again. I felt my inner light dim, but agreed.

“I think we should see a marriage counselor,” I whispered, then quickly took a sip of wine.

“Are you kidding?” he snickered. “We’re fine. We’re going to be fine,” he said looking at me in earnest. “I’m sorry. I’ll try harder. We don’t need to air our dirty laundry to some quack.”

“I think it might be helpful, that’s all. Maybe they can give us some advice on how to reconnect. We’ve never been very good at that, Greg. I like conversation over dinner. Talk to me,” I pleaded.

“Okay. You mentioned that you’d like to start looking at charities to work for. Where do you think you’ll look?”

I’d already listed for him the four or five places that I was going to talk to, but, hey. It was a start—right?

*     *     *

I
was trying to water the grass, only, it wasn’t going as planned. And now, here was Jack. In California. Seeing him in the parking lot was a wake up call. Instantly, my heart started pounding. Not beating faster—
pounding
. I replayed the words he’d said in his living room when I told him I was coming back to Napa.
“Does he make your heart pound like this?” “Does he make you catch your breath with a mere touch?” “Does he make you quiver with need?”
and
“Do you get this wet for him? I don’t think so. That’s because we were meant to be, Beth.”

I’d replayed that night in his place as much as I’d replayed the earth shattering sex. What was I going to do?
I’m trying to water the grass.
Dinner last night, I made a small step in the right direction. I had to do the “right” thing. I had to keep trying.

I picked up my phone to text Jack his answer, that I couldn’t accept his invitation, but Greg called, interrupting my text. Putting on my cheeriest voice I told Greg that I was just putting together dinner. Coq au vin. His favorite. Then he dumped on me that, as much as he loved our long weekend, having missed the couple of days last week he had to put in more time than he realized to be ready for some presentation on Wednesday. He wouldn’t be home until late. I don’t know why, but I shifted into Old Bets mode and said it was fine.

Then, shocking myself even more, I told him I’d call a friend or two and go out to dinner. Maybe it was spite, maybe it was that my ‘lady days’ started this morning, but I was crabby, and if Greg wasn’t willing to work on us, why should I? I wondered what he would do if I told him that Jack was in town and has asked me to dinner and I was going to take him up on the invitation.

I
hung up the phone and poured a gin and tonic with a fat lime squeeze and silently thanked Morgan tomorrow for restocking my office bar.

I knew it was a shitty thing to do—to cancel on dinner. But we had just spent four solid days together. And after last night’s dinner, when Elizabeth suggested counseling? I couldn’t imagine what I’d come home to tonight.

I’ve enjoyed the day at work—quietly. Everyone keeps to themselves here. I plowed through my two new clients and caught up on files that should have been dealt with while I was off
galavanting
with Bets at the Embassy Suites. And what a nightmare that was! I didn’t think Elizabeth coming back would be awkward, but she didn’t come back as my Bets.

From her showing up in bright pink underwear under a trench coat to her initiating sex whenever we were alone, and sometimes not so alone, she was a whole new person. In the back of the limo, which I successfully put off. I mean, the driver was in the front seat. What would he think? How trashy. Then at the hotel in the elevator. Doesn’t she know that there are cameras in there? And what if the doors opened and someone saw us? She was sex crazed, which was great, but at four in the afternoon? In our room, sure, we had a go at it, but when I looked at her, the new hair, the wild sparkle in her eye… I didn’t really know who she was.

I woke up early that Thursday morning and watched her sleep. Even in her sleep she was different. Now she chose to sleep in the buff. A part of me found that totally hot, but then as my eyes raked over her body, coming to a stop at her butt, all I could see were the markings that I’d seen the week earlier when I chased her down in New York.

*     *     *

“H
oly shit! Elizabeth! What happened to you?” Elizabeth had just seductively dropped her pants, and when she turned there were red marks all over her ass. “Your rear. It has welts on it!”

When she blushed, I was even more confused. She should be alarmed!

“I asked Jack to do that,” she said, her voice sounding odd.

I couldn’t make sense of what she just said. She
“asked Jack”
to do what? “To beat you?” I asked.

“NO! It’s not like that at all. This was punishment for all I had done since I was here. For being with Jack and Kevin. I asked for this,” she said. Her eyes showed that she was dead serious.

“I don’t understand. You’re making no sense whatsoever.” What was she talking about? Punishment? Then I heard the rest of what she had said. “You were with both of them?”

“Not at the same time. And it—the punishment—started with Jack a while back. He corrected me with a slap, and a caress, to teach me respect. He showed me he was in control. He didn’t spank me and let me lick my wounds. He cared for me after. And it didn’t leave a mark – that time. This time I asked for more.”

“In control? He has to hit you to show he was in control?” My blood pounded in my ears. You don’t hit a woman. EVER! Hell! You shouldn’t hit anyone. Ever!

“It told me that he was going to take care of everything. And I could show him that I trusted him to not hurt me. It was – I’m saying this all wrong…” She sat in the chair at the desk. I watched her try and figure out what to say next. Someone better say something because I was speechless. “But, Greg,” she continued. “Somewhere deep inside of me…it lit a fire.”

“A fire? What are you saying? You liked it? You really liked it?” I didn’t even try and disguise my distaste of what she just said.

“No,” she shook shook head, small whisps of hair falling from their place. “I loved it.”

Loved it?
Who in the hell is this woman?

*     *     *

W
hen I tried my hand, literally, to do what she asked—to spank her—as some sort of punishment or sexual play or whatever fucked up thing that guy had stuffed into her pretty little head, I felt sick to my stomach.

I prayed that she wouldn’t ask me to try that again, but at the hotel she did. Killed the moment in an instant.

I wanted to be this man that she had in her mind, some aggressive Neanderthal, but I couldn’t do it. In fact, the more I thought about her and those marks on her ass, and when I spanked her myself, and that she’d been with not one but two other guys in New York, I shut down. I told Elizabeth why I didn’t want to have ‘to do anything’—at least that day. She seemed a little hurt, but she understood.

I knew then that I would forever regret my giving her permission to sow her wild oats. I never imagined she’d actually do it.

She took her time away, tonight, I was taking mine.

I
decided to try and relax in the Napa sunshine with some reading at the hotel’s pool while I waited for Beth’s reply. She said she would
‘text yes or no.’
When my phone vibrated on the table next to me indicating an incoming message, I quickly reached for the device. Spotting Beth’s name on the screen, my heart started to race.
Please say ‘yes,’ I silently prayed.
I opened the text app.

5:49pm

See you at 6:30p?

I nearly fell off of my chair.

“Fuck, yeah!” I shouted, garnering a nasty glance from the couple seated on the other side of the pool.

I quickly shot a text back:

5:49pm

Wild horses couldn’t keep

me away. XO J

I dressed comfortably in Napa Valley chic—“broken-in” jeans from LUCKY, a bright, white linen button-down unbuttoned at the top and the sleeves rolled up, and loafers without socks. As I stood, knocking on her front door, I started second guessing my wardrobe. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by being underdressed. I just wanted to be relaxed with her. Like we always were in Manhattan. She had looked so great in her jeans earlier, I hoped that I’d chosen wisely.

When she opened the door, I realized I’d hit a home run. She was wearing jeans, only, with the rest of her ensemble, I was dumb struck. I couldn’t talk. Her shirt was the same color as the dress I had bought for her to go to the opera. The gorgeous salmon shade really did compliment her coloring perfectly.

My eyes followed every contour of her face and jaw. My gaze dropped to the pendant she wore. It was
the
pendant I’d gotten her in Paris. The chocolate diamond.

*     *     *

“I
did a little shopping in Paris,” I said, presenting her with the black velvet box that had been burning my pocket for the past two days. I flicked the small silver clasp and presented her with the pendant I’d found at the quiet jewelry shop on the Place Vendome after my meeting with JC and his team from Vogue. Her reaction was priceless. I watched her eyes rake over the princess cut chocolate diamond, and a few other white diamonds accenting the corners of the chocolate one. All resting in a swirl of white gold. The pendant reminded me of her eyes.