A short drive later, they pulled into a parking garage in an extremely expensive condo block, and she frowned. This was not the same level of living she engaged in with Kyst. This was clearly a more affluent neighborhood. Did they bring her home with one of them?
“Where are we?” She leaned down to look over Phineas’ arm as he leaned against the front seat.
“Your new place.” Phineas said seriously. “We told you we were taking you to your new place. Are you in so much pain you forgot?”
She rolled her eyes. “You said a comparable place. This is out of my tax bracket. I probably make the same amount of money the doorman makes in a building like his.”
“I pay you better than the doorman.”
“Do you? How would you know considering you didn’t even know my face before today,” she shot back angrily. “This is too much. I can’t live in a condo worth million.”
“I destroyed your view of the world. At least let me give you a better one while you’re healing.”
“You wrote poetry for the girls in college didn’t you,” she shot him an annoyed glance as he stared into her eyes when he spoke.
“Only one and it rhymed from beginning to end.” He smiled as he nudged her with his shoulder, “come on. At least come up and look. You may find once you’re here, you never want to leave again.”
“Considering there is no way I can go home to the place I share with Kyst after what I saw him doing on my sofa, I feel my choices are removed.” The car pulled into a designated spot, and she shook her head. “Designated parking? There is designated underground parking? Is it part of the HOA or is it extra? I needed to park in a crappy lot five minutes from my building and my car got broken into three times and I live in a decent part of the city.”
“You own two spots; one for your vehicle and one in case you have visitors.” Benicio nodded as if this was all normal, “when I was looking for places last week, I wanted to make sure you were given all the luxury you deserve. I still feel terrible we’re ruining your life.”
“You were planning on asking me to do this this for the last week?”
“Two weeks,” Phineas corrected as Adil parked the car. “But Beni voiced strong reservations about our participation in the implosion of your marriage. To quote Benicio; we’re going to shatter her illusions of a perfect marriage, and we can’t take this lightly.”
“He’s not wrong. You shattered everything I believed in but as much as it hurts right now, and it really does, I’m glad I know now.”
“Which is why he was reluctant, but I felt strongly you should be made aware. We’ve been back and forth all week. We finally put it to a poker bet Monday night which he lost, along with fifty grand.”
“You bet fifty grand in a poker game,” she looked at Benicio in awe. “One game?”
“It wasn’t the priciest thing on the table. We were setting up to ruin your life and I feel we’ve accomplished it,” Benicio said sadly. “I can’t believe you’re going through what you’re going through. The marriage was one thing but this,” he looked at her midsection sadly. “I wasn’t expecting this, and I feel terrible. If I could give you two condos, and a sports car I still don’t feel it would be enough.”
“It’s not easy. It really sucks, to be honest. I’m devastated over this,” she put her hand to her belly, “but as much as I would love to blame someone, there isn’t anyone to blame. You didn’t shove me down or punch me in the belly or kick me in the vagina.”
“A kick to the vagina?” Adil looked over his shoulder from the front seat and stared at her. “Who does such a thing?”
“The same people who kick men in the nuts?” she shrugged. “All I know is, this isn’t your fault. None of you are to blame for this.
My husband and your wife, Phineas, took it upon themselves to do something disgusting but,” she felt her heart clenching in her chest as she forced the memory from her brain, “he is the one who made the decision to betray me. She didn’t betray me. She betrayed you but not me. He betrayed me. He was the one who made a conscious effort to put his dick into another woman because I wasn’t enough for him anymore.” Her voice cracked at the words, “I’m not enough for him.”
“No!” Beni turned in the front seat and was up on his knees to look at her where she sat with Phineas. “Don’t you dare take any of this blame onto yourself. He’s complaining you didn’t give him sex every single day. Do you know how many men would be thrilled with a couple times a week, or once a week? No man needs sex every single day. We can get by with our fists and even then a couple times a week at most.”
“Oh.” She frowned, aware once again how these men tended to share way too much information and decided to join in on the fray, “he wasn’t like this at first. It was my fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we were in high school, we were typical horny teenagers. My mother put me on the shot for a reason. She didn’t trust my birth control pills would work. We were pawing at each other all the time but in college things shifted and with courseloads, especially when he was studying for the bar, it changed. It was once or a twice a week if at all. He overheard me drunkenly telling one of my girlfriends from college how I needed my daily orgasm, so I bought a vibrator. He was livid. He went through my nightstand, found the offending device, and declared himself in charge of all my daily orgasms from there on out and threw out my toy.”
“He threw out your vibrator?” Phineas sneered, “he should have used it on you and with you, not tossed it out.”
“A couple of years ago we bought one together.” She was looking at the floor mats and sighed, “Like I said yesterday, we’ve always had a healthy sexy life. We kept things interesting. However, he never used to need it all the time, until five or six years ago. We’ve been together more than fourteen years as a couple, longer if you count our friendship where we simply were two kids who lived in the same apartment building and went to the same schools most of our lives. Even now, he’s not once given me the smallest inclination he’s suffering because he’s not getting laid. In fact,” she looked away her cheeks burning, unsure of why she was revealing of this to these men, “I took care of him in other ways.”
“You blew him, and he cheated?” Adil asked incredulously. “He’s getting blow jobs or hand jobs on the daily and you’re not having sex and he’s the one cheating? Honey, this isn’t on you. This is on him being a piece of shit.”
“Can we go in now? I think I need to lay down,” she was over this conversation. All she wanted now was to go to bed. The cramping in her belly wasn’t letting up.
“Sure.” Adil hopped out of the car and opened her door for her to help her up.
The minute she stood, she felt the horrifying gush. She looked up in humiliation as she knew she’d surpassed the pads they’d given her at the clinic. She looked back to the car seat. “I think I bled on your seat.”
“You’re bleeding everywhere,” Phineas gasped as he rounded the vehicle and saw the mess of her dress pants.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?” Phineas scooped her up by the knees and began briskly walking in the direction of the elevator with both men chasing after him hurriedly, “you’re miscarrying and the nurse which gave us the instructions said you’d probably experience some heavy bleeding. We kept you chatting too long instead of getting you upstairs where you can get the rest your body needs.”
“I can walk.”
“You can, but you won’t,” Phineas stepped into the elevator and Benicio pressed the button.
“The top floor. You got me a condo on the top floor?” she was aghast as she noted the number of the floor he pressed. “I can’t afford the property taxes on this place! Why did you get something so expensive?”
“It’s covered as part of the agreement. Property taxes for life,” Phineas shrugged as he nodded at Benicio to get it done. “If you don’t like it, sell it, find a place you really like.”
When he set her on the floor after Benicio opened one of only two doors in the entire wide hallway, she gasped loudly. As she stepped hesitantly into the wide-open space, which her other unit could fit into twice, she knew she’d never sell it. It was breathtaking and beautiful, and she gravitated to the wall of windows overlooking the city, the CN Tower off in the distance.
She turned around and looked at the furniture and the way everything was set up and her heart squeezed at the thoughtfulness. “How?” she asked curiously as she walked back towards the main living area and saw how similarly it was decorated to the place she shared with Kyst and yet it was fresh and new with none of his touches on it. Whoever did the decorating knew which part was her and which wasn’t.
“Yesterday when Adil was in your place, he snapped some pictures for us with his phone. I had an interior design company working here overnight to get this perfect for you. I wanted you to be in a place where you were able to cry comfortably,” Phineas made a face. “Saying it out loud confirms Beni’s thoughts of how much of a twat I am.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.