A Fragile Wife: Billionaire Romance (5 page)

Good thing she didn’t have the problem.

With no peace and no distractions, Lana stared at the sky, catching the few clouds that made their way in the big, blue expanse that was the cosmos.
That one looks like a tree.
When she turned her head, she changed her mind and decided it was a mushroom.
That one’s a dick.
Never let be said she wasn’t focused on only one thing.

The incessant splashing stopped in the pool. Lana glanced over, catching the exact moment her husband heaved himself out of the water and onto the edge of the pool. His black swim trunks clung to his muscular thighs – oh, and his butt too. Lana whistled as he walked by, bending over another lounge chair to pick up a towel.

“Nice ass, Mr. Andrews.”

Ken draped the white terrycloth over his head and walked to where his wife lay, sunning herself. Or at least until her husband blocked out the sun. “Nice tits, Mrs. Andrews.”

She gestured to her cleavage sticking out of her bikini top. “These old things? I need to get my husband to buy me a new pair.”

Water droplets landed on Lana’s stomach as he shook his wet hair out. “I’m sure he would if you asked. Although I hear you can buy them for yourself.”

“It’s not the same. I’d feel more special with fake tits from my husband. How about for our anniversary?”

Ken looked at her incredulously. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

“What? No.”

Before Ken could open his mouth again, a young voice pealed through the patio.

“Mr. Andrews!” Chloe scuttled out in her flats, waving a stout package in the air. “The mail came and this was rushed to you!”

Ken tossed his towel aside, bestowing Chloe with the full force of his muscular figure. The girl stopped dead in her tracks, gaping at him, box hanging at her side.

“The package?” Ken asked, holding his hand out.

“Oh, yeah.” Finally, Chloe stepped forward. Ken snatched the package from her as if it were nothing.

He turned away from Lana and inspected his mail. His wife, meanwhile, sat up and kicked her legs over the side of her lounge chair. “That’ll be all, Chloe,” she said curtly. “I’m sure you have other things to be doing.”
And one of those things is not staring at my husband’s body.
That was Lana’s job around those parts.

“No, wait a second, please.” Ken motioned for Chloe to come to him, where they conspired about something over by the bushes.
What the?
Lana jumped up, snatching her husband’s towel from its lounge chair and wrapping it around her body.

Just as she was about to descend upon husband and help, Ken shoved the package in Chloe’s hands and practically shoved her toward the house.

“You know where to leave it,” he hissed.

Lana stopped.
Oh hell no.
She watched Chloe scurry back into the mansion as if her ass were lit in an inferno.

“What was all that about? What was in the package?”

Ken wrapped a wet arm around her shoulders.
Fuck off, this bathing suit isn’t supposed to get
wet. She didn’t dare say that out loud. Her husband would take that as an invitation to toss her into the pool.

“Nothing important, Bunny.” His kiss to her cheek was facetious at best. “Boring shit for work that should’ve been sent to the downtown office.”

Lana narrowed her brows as her husband slipped back into the pool and performed some languid backstrokes in the sunlight.
If it were for work, he wouldn’t have talked about it with Chloe.
That girl was so low on the staff totem pole that neither Ken nor Lana would talk more than five seconds to her. And that would be to give the order. Not… whatever Ken was saying to her in such a low voice that Lana never had a chance of hearing.

There was something funny going on in her house. Before, Lana drank herself into an afternoon stupor out of irrational fears. Now she wondered if those fears were rational after all.

If they were, then Ken could say goodbye to everything. He could get away with a lot of shit, but cheating on his wife – let alone falling in love with some nobody like
Chloe
– would mean his imminent downfall.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Lana mumbled, heading back into the house. First, a mimosa on the balcony upstairs. She could better admire her husband’s athleticism from there. It may very well be the last time she bothered before the messiest divorce of the decade.

Chapter 4

“Show Her No Mercy.”

The windshield wipers squeaked against the glass as the car ascended the next hill. Lana opened her compact, a light glaring against her mirror and preventing her from touching up her lipstick.

Just as well, for Ken hit the same pothole he always hit every time they went into the mountains.

“That was almost a disaster,” Lana said, putting her compact and lipstick back in her purse. “One of these days I’ll learn that you barely know how to drive.”

Ken turned the high beams back on after passing another car. “And yet you let me drive you everywhere. And have yet to divorce me.”

He was being facetious, but Lana didn’t have much patience for it. “Just don’t kill us before we can get laid.”

“I love how you always speak of us as a single unit.”

“Why not? Everyone else does.” Lana wasn’t immune to the comments she heard around the club and other social spheres. Everyone called them “the Andrews” because Lana very conveniently changed her name after getting married.
What woman wouldn’t?
She heard all the feminist reasoning to, ironically, hang on to her father’s last name, but when you were born Lana Losers, you changed your last name when you married whether the man was named Griswold or Habbernacky.

Lana Giselle Andrews.
She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror and patted the top of her bun.
That’s what I look like.
The more she thought about divorce recently, the more she wondered what she would do about her name. Besides keep it, of course. Wouldn’t that get confusing? Sure, it was lazy and convenient to stay Andrews. She could always change it in her next marriage, if there was one.

Funny. She thought about divorce, she even though about her husband remarrying and shrugging over it, but the
thought
of remarrying a brand new man?
I would spend the rest of my life comparing him to Ken.
Lana glanced at her husband. Ken was absorbed in his own world of staying on the road.

They were heading up to Le Château, a regular destination of theirs regardless of the time of year or how they felt deep inside. In fact, Lana would go as far as to say they were the biggest regulars at the local BDSM brothel.
Excuse me. House of pleasure.

How long had it been since Lana first exchanged money for kinky services? A year? It was the natural course of her marriage. When they first heard about the Château opening up not so long ago, they talked at length about what they wanted out of it. A cursory inspection told them that it was tasteful, safe, and discreet. A more thorough exam revealed that the girls working there were professionals of the chameleon variety. They could be any type of woman you paid them to be. Dommes, subs, sweet, sassy, bratty… if a man or discerning woman wanted nothing more than a warm hole to make love to, that could be arranged behind the scenes as well. Of course, on paper, the women there only traded dirty words and smacks of the whip for money and gifts. Intercourse and cock sucking were off the record.

Ken and Lana were
so
off the record by now that their mistress Grace knew exactly what to expect. While not expecting anything at all, because Lana was always thinking up something new to do.

They arrived shortly before eight, when the real parties began at the Château. Indeed, two other guests were there, although Lana did not recognize their cars out front. Nor did she garner anything from the coats hanging up in the front hall, where Grace came to meet them for their appointment.

“Let me take that for you, Madam,” she said sweetly, running her hands across Lana’s shoulders before ripping off her coat. “It’s so good to see you once again.”

My husband’s tastes in action.
Ken picked this girl out for them months ago, and since then he and his wife became her primary patrons, a title bestowed upon only the lucky few. Being Grace’s patrons meant they could monopolize her time, take her out on dates like to the club, and expect certain services to always be available. Like sex. Lots and lots of sex that Grace did not always give freely to other clients who purchased her services.

Grace could not look more different from Lana, however. For one, she had long, coarse dark hair she always kept parted to one side. She was petite, with thin legs propped up by stiletto heels and a waist that made men salivate and women seethe in jealousy. Her breasts were about the same size as Lana’s, but sported tiny brown nipples whereas Lana admired her own thick, pink ones that her husband could never stop sucking when they made love in a position that allowed it.
He rarely sucks her nipples as much.
Lana smiled at the thought as she accepted her usual glass of Chardonnay from Grace’s lithe hands.

Hands that gave amazing,
fantastic
massages.

“The Cigar Lounge is currently open,” Grace said, heading toward the grand staircase. “Unfortunately the other private rooms for socializing are full tonight.”

“Ugh. No.” Lana refused to take the first step. “It’s bad enough my husband puffs on that electronic shit. I don’t need to marinate in the stench of other men’s filthy habits.”

Ken rolled his eyes. “It’s called olfactory fatigue, Lana. You won’t notice it soon enough.”

“That’s what you always say,
Kenneth,
and then the next thing I know I’m gagging until I puke.”

Grace tried one of her easy smiles on them. “All right. No Cigar Lounge. Shall we go straight to my room?” Well,
someone
was antsy to start the threesome.

“The Receiving Room is open, Grace,” came a voice from behind. Monica Graham stood outside the room in question as another woman escorted an elderly gentleman to the front door. “Please, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, have a drink with me.”

Never let it be said that Monica Graham didn’t know how to keep her frequent clients happy. Hardly a visit went by without the madam of the Château bestowing the couple with her company. Not that Lana ever complained. She appreciated a segue into the fuckfest that was their usual visit to the Château.

Grace served them all in the Receiving Room, a quaint corner furnished with Victorian wares reupholstered to look more “sophisticated grandmother” than “dusty ol’ shit from the attic.” At least the place was well insulated, making it a toasty warm haven for those wanting to have quiet conversations.

“Place looks busy tonight,” Ken said to Monica the moment they sat down. “Business must be better than ever.”

“We can hardly keep up.”

Lana settled on the loveseat between her husband and the mistress. Grace poured a glass of ice water and offered it to Lana, but she declined. “The girls must be kept busy.” She glanced at Grace, who didn’t flinch or say a word. She merely served, as she was paid to do right now. “Or have you hired more?”

“Not yet.” Monica leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs and finally letting go of her rigid stance. While nobody in that room would say they were
friends,
they got along well enough. Monica probably felt a kindred spirit in Lana, even though they were on opposite ends of the Dom/sub spectrum. While Lana considered herself a switch with a more Domme-like public persona, Monica was a lifestyle submissive through and through. She was even the fiancée of lifestyle Dom Henry Warren, a man Ken and Lana did frequent business with. In exchange, they were not charged extra for the double-patronage of Miss Grace, even though Monica was well within her right to milk more money out of the rich Andrews.

Lana didn’t chat with lifestyle subs much. Monica was different. She was also a shrewd businesswoman who made her own money independent of her wealthy fiancé. That Lana could respect wholeheartedly.

She also liked her. And after seeing her perform with Henry Warren at the club a few times… well, maybe she had a sexual crush on her as well.
I couldn’t give her what she wants, though.
Neither could Ken. Not even the two of them together could satiate the kind of submissive appetite Monica Graham had.

“How is the wedding coming along?” Lana asked, afraid to let the silence continue. Grace got up, turned the corner of the sofa, and stood behind her patrons. One hand snaked across Lana’s shoulder while the other stroked the back of Ken’s neck.
Good girl.
Lana had to contain a smile of pleasure. “I hear it’s going to be the event of the season.”

“Just what I need. More pressure.” Monica politely looked away as Grace’s hand descended Lana’s chest and stroked her through her red turtleneck. Pretty little fingers played with the pendant hanging around Lana’s neck.
Ken gave me this pendant for my birthday last year.
It was a gold finch, Lana’s favorite bird.