= Amelia =

It was one thing to imagine him with other women, and something else entirely to see them in the flesh, their lust blatantly displayed in front of my face.

One thing was clear: Willem had no shortage of women in his life.

It was a rude awakening, but my mind needed to do the math.

Coming in at the number one spot was I'm-his-mistress Jessie, followed by we-had-an-arrangement Tessa in second place. And now I had the amazing opportunity to meet the illicit I'm-so-glad-you-invited-me-to-Anguilla Xiomara.

Willem didn't seem to have a type, but all the women appeared to have one thing in common. They all believed they had some kind of rights to him and their blatant jealousy could cut through metal like a laser.

Xiomara's statement echoed through my mind.

Wife? You never told me you were married.

A heavy silence descended upon the room like a dark fart — the kind that originated from deep inside one's gut.

I stared at Willem, waiting for a response to Xiomara's question.

"I'm married now," he said as a matter of fact, "and that's all you need to know."

"When did this happen?" Xiomara sat down on one of the tall chairs at the bar and crossed her legs. She eyed me from head to toe, measuring me like she was a seamstress about to register my sizes.

"It's a long story, Xiomara," Willem supplied.

"Okay," she said shaking her finger at him, "but you and I have a lot to talk about."

I raised an eyebrow and stared at Willem some more. His metal grey eyes met mine and he didn't look uncomfortable in the least. Instead, a small smile curved the attractive corners of his mouth.

Why, oh why, did he had to be this handsome?

Focus. Focus!

Good looks be damn if he turned out to be a complete asshole.

He turned to face Xiomara once more. "No, we don't," he said, and for a second I forgot what they were talking about.

I believed Xiomara wanted to talk to him about me?

"Where is Francois?" he continued. "I need him to make arrangements for dinner tonight."

Xiomara fumbled with a pack of cigarettes that she'd taken out from somewhere in her cleavage. "Francois went grocery shopping. He'll be back in a moment."

Her hand shook nervously as she took a single cigarette from the pack. Please tell me she wasn't about to light one up in the kitchen, I pondered.

"Dammit," Xiomara cursed, crushing the unlit cigarette in the middle of her palm.

"Are you okay?" I asked, approaching the counter, but still keeping my distance in case her claws came out to play.

I liked my face a lot and wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. The last time Willem brought one of his women around me, she wanted to fight with me as if we were a couple of high schoolers.

Xiomara forced a smile in my direction, avoiding Willem's gaze as she did so. She wiped at her eyes, drying visible tears. "I'm not supposed to be smoking, trying to quit."

"Congratulations," Willem muttered, the lack of interest in his voice evident. Was he acting uninterested because I was here?

His phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket, a frown marring his features as he stared at the screen.

"I have to take this," he said before answering and then putting the other person on hold so he could speak to me privately. He guided me by the small of my back away from Xiomara and toward the sliding door.

He leaned forward, his voice low and tantalizing. "I would like to continue our date into this evening." It wasn't a question but more of a request.

For a second I dug around in my head looking for an excuse to turn him down, and then I remembered that Hunter and I had unfinished business.

"I have a date."

He raised an eyebrow as if I wasn't capable of landing a date of my own. "You got yourself a date with Hunter?"

"The who with isn't important," I stressed, keeping my voice low so Xiomara couldn't hear us.

"Amelia, we talked about giving this marriage a chance, and that means not going on dates with random strangers."

"I never agreed to that. I told you I would think about it, and in the meantime, I will go on dates with whomever I please."

"If you go on this date, I will consider it cheating."

I narrowed my eyes, annoyed by his comment. "I guess that makes us even then."

He took a firm hold of my chin, his fingers pressing with certainty. "Keep this up and I will have Hunter fired," he threatened.

I lifted my chin, bringing our lips closer as if I was about to kiss him, but then I rolled my eyes instead.

"Keep this up and you won't have a wife to come home to for the next twenty or so days," I retorted.

"I didn't peg you as a petty woman, Amelia."

"Men and their egos. It's amazing how y'all can cheat but can't handle it when it's done back to you." I closed my hands around his wrist as he was still touching my chin. He caught my drift and dropped his hand to his side almost in defeat.

"Am I wrong to want you to myself?" he asked. "That I want a taste of the fire burning so bright in your eyes right now? I'm your husband and I shouldn't have to share you with anyone else if I don't want to."

Pain was evident in his voice, slicing through me, making me feel guilty about the salacious things I had Hunter do to me the night before. Things I wanted more of. . . But with Willem, not Hunter.

But my pride wouldn't let me.

So instead of grabbing his head and eating his face off like I was yearning to do, I deflected and reverted back to brokenhearted seventeen years old me.

"You expect me to stay faithful to you when you never afforded me the same courtesy?" My eyes glided down his fine ass body and it only made me more upset. "You had your chance to share yourself with other women while I was away. Now it's my turn."

Just when I thought I was making progress, I had to go and vomit these unnecessary words. I could lie to myself and say that they merely tumbled out of my mouth, but apparently I didn't get over shit as easily as I thought.

Every time I thought about getting involved with Willem, my anxiety would pop its ugly head up and I would slowly strangle in my fears.

My number one fear was that Willem would leave me again, and this time, maybe for good, and I would be forever alone.

Maybe he'd die by some freak accident just when I started falling in love with him and I would regret the past eleven years that we wasted not getting to know each other better.

At this moment, I didn't have any real regrets, except maybe pining after a man I didn't know, and letting my golden years drift away like plastic in the ocean.

I could have been living my best life with multiple 'somebody's sons', but then again, medical school hadn't allowed me to participate in such liberating activities.

It was a while before Willem spoke again, but when he did, he wasn't gentle. "I fucked one woman. One. I knew it was a mistake, but what you and I had wasn't a marriage. I don't even fucking know if you like tea over coffee."

"Coffee with cream and two sugars," I informed him with attitude. "What about you?"

"Don't do that. Listen to me carefully for a moment. You are going to forget the past eleven years. All those nights you stayed up wondering about me and every day you woke up thinking about me. I'm here now. Right now, with you. Everything that we went through separately, led us to here. And damn me, schatje, if I'm not going to listen to my body, to my heart, when it tells me that there's something more here."

I stepped back to get a better look at his eyes, which were a grey-blue from the sky and ocean reflecting in the background.

"More? As in love?"

"Yes. Don't you feel how charged the air is around us? I notice every move you make, every time you blink. I've studied all the nuances in your voice. Call it infatuation. Call it lust. Doesn't really matter. Love can grow from this."

"This is hard to take in. I still think you're an asshole and a cheater. And those, my friend, are not husband qualities."

"Your friend? So, now I'm your friend?"

"You know what I meant."

"No, I don't. Please enlighten me." He advanced toward me until my back met the frame of the door. Even then he didn't stop coming, forcing me to step down and out into the backyard.

I wanted to head toward the open air, but he was having none of that. He cut me off until I started walking backward in the opposite direction.

My back met the concrete wall on the outside of the kitchen, leaving me with nowhere to go. Both of his hands came down on the wall next to my head, caging me in like a rattled goldfish in a fishbowl.

His breath came out in rapid bursts and I realized that I too was breathing hard. My eyes jumped from his full lips to his eyes, which were now dark with desire.

"I can feel your curiosity, schatje. You want me as bad as I want you. Stop fighting it," he murmured next to my ears.

His words sent a current of emotions cascading through my body like rocks tumbling down a mountain, fast and ferocious.

I whimpered but kept my chin up. I wanted him to touch me. To devour me. I wanted his lips on mine, his tongue intertwined with mine, and I wanted to feel him hard and heavy between my thighs.

Right now, wanting him didn't feel like an option. I needed him. Craved him.

His lips brushed softly against my jawline and my eyelids drifted down as I threw my head back.

A series of tender kisses followed next. My neck, the sensitive area behind my ears, my cheeks, and my forehead had never gotten so much attention.

Each kiss ignited something deep inside of me and as a result, my entire core caught on fire. Desire burned through me and my pulse quickened to meet the high demand of my pounding heart.

I turned my head and our mouths met like lovers who hadn't seen each other in a long time. Like we'd gone to war and came back, emotionally exhausted and craving human connection.

Hungry.

He tasted just like I imagined he would. . . A wild mixture of mint, citrus, and testosterone.

His lips were soft and they glided against mine with a sureness that was meant to weaken me. The kiss deepened and I moaned into his mouth.

He drew closer, the warmth of his hard body adding to the fire already burning wild inside of me. His tongue dipped into my mouth and I responded, rising up on my toes to wrap my arms around his neck.

I welcomed the rush of liquid I felt between my thighs where his leg was now positioned, his knee pressing against the crotch of my shorts. Respectively, my clit reacted, basking in the friction.

I was drifting, floating, drowning in Willem's ocean. Should I leave the past behind and throw myself headfirst into the here and now?

Why was I even fighting this? When it felt so right to be in his arms.

Too many red flags, I reminded myself.

Right.

And just like that, I disengaged from the kiss, pulling away gently. I opened my eyes first and for a second I got to see the physical need on Willem's face.

His lips were slightly parted and when he opened his bedroom eyes, they flared with heat.

"It's weird to know someone as long as I've known you and yet know nothing about them," I said.

"I guess that makes me the stranger you have known forever." He smiled and it brightened his face in a way I hadn't seen before.

Was it normal for a man to be this happy after a kiss?

"I guess you are," I replied, kissing him again briefly on the lips. "I'm married to a stranger, quite literally."

He looked at me and smirked. "If you accept to go on a date with me tonight, we could get to know each other better and this stranger thing would be a thing of the past as well."

"No, can't do. I'm going on a date with Hunter, but we can plan something for tomorrow. Or, better yet, wait for it, there's an opening in my agenda eleven years from now, that should do." I turned and walked away, chuckling at his shocked expression.

"Amelia!"

"I'll write you a letter when the time comes. You know, as a friendly reminder." I laughed some more. I was enjoying myself way too much.

"Schatje!"

I ignored him, and then I heard him yell some more.

"Dammit! I'm going to kill Hunter."

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