Chapter 3

Ashley's pov

  When I woke up the next morning it was to a feeling that had become so foreign and unfamiliar and yet so deeply desired that I buried myself into it; I was wrapped up in a man's strong, reassuring embrace it took a awhile for me to be fully conscious to realize that the arms around my body were larger than usual and his assistant downstairs also carried more bulk than I was used to in the morning.

  That was when memories from last night came crashing like it's tidal wave.

 I’d slept with Archer.

 I really slept with my mate's brother 

And worst of all 

I enjoyed it. 

  Instead of feeling pure guilt and revulsion, the sex starved part of myself was reassuring me that we needed last night to quail the growing frustration that had been piling up for months because my husband would not so much as touch me much less make love to me. 

   Oh, and did we make love last night. 

 I'd here last night with little to no expectations, the only thing I truly desired was to spite my husband to make a fool of him just like how he was making a fool of me with my cousin.

 I had only ever been with Bryce, so I thought it was business as usual him moaning and flopping over me like a dying fish basically using me like a plastic doll to get himself off and the moment he was satisfied which really didn't take long to roll to his back and sigh snoring off to sleep.

   But the ache that ran through my legs the moment my feet made contact with the ground and attempted to support the rest of my body reminded me that last night had been anything but that.

  I had managed to slip out of that man's hands and couldn't even bear to look at him, yes last night's was fun. But it was still wrong. No matter what I was still mated to his brother, did I take it too far? 

  I heard him stirring from behind me, soft grunts escaping his lips and dragging my mind back to last night again. 

 No–no! I have to get out of here before he wakes up. I got dressed quickly picking up my clothes from the floor one at a time then I stared at the full body mirror. There were hickeys all over my neck. 

 I brushed them with a hiss, I needed to hide them so I looked into his wardrobe and grabbed a scarf small enough to wrap around my neck. The smallest one is still felt like it was going to swallow me but it was the best I was going to get. 

  With that I left.

 A fresh feeling of guilt wanted to sprout up in my heart but I immediately squashed it before it could do so. 

 There was no need for me to feel like I had used him, after all he had used me too and I had explicitly stated that he shouldn't expect anything from me after last night so there was no need for me to feel like I owed him anything.

 “Are you still going back to him?” 

 That question hopped unexpectedly back into my mind but I tucked it into the narrow crevice of my thoughts. 

  He didn't have the right to ask me that kind of question anyways. 

 Bryce eventually came back from his ‘business trip’ pushing aside to the guilt and other unnecessary feelings when I saw him I didn't feel as devastated as I had a thought I would be maybe because I knew something that he didn't, now he was no longer the only player in the game. 

   He wrapped his hands around me to pull me into a hug when I went out to welcome him. It was sudden, unexpected and frankly unwelcomed too. To think that those same fingers had been all over my cousin's body doing things that he was only supposed to do to me made me feel revolted but as I tried it to pull away from him my body subconsciously fell towards him.

  Actually it was less subconscious and more physical, my legs suddenly felt unusually burdened by the rest of my body and not only that but my head was spinning with dizziness. 

 “Ashley? Ashley?!” Bryce's voice called me back to reality again, it was like being shaken out of a dream. 

  I forced a smile and straightened up, “sorry I've been feeling a little tired lately,” I said my voice thick me to worry that he would notice just the lightest little change to my person and immediately concluded that I had slept with his brother.

 But I had overestimated my mate's sense of detection or maybe just his general concern for me.

  Even though I nearly fainted in his arms all he needed was me giving him a flimsy excuse that was just enough to make his conscience feel squeaky clean again and he was satisfied. 

 Speaking of making his conscious squeaky clean when we entered the Park House he gave me a gift, a slim box. I opened it and saw a small diamond necklace with a fake silver chain.

 “I got you a souvenir,” he said with the biggest grin while I was fighting within myself not to throw up. 

 I began to recall moments when he had bought me gifts out of the blue flowers laid out on the bed, a new dress that I had been begging for months suddenly appearing in my wardrobe, all of these tiny little things that made me believe that our marriage had hope. 

 Was each and every single one of those gifts simply just meant to ease his conscience? To make his heart a little lighter after sleeping with my cousin Cassie?