SINS UNDER THE TABLE{1}

Genevieve

The air inside Tristan’s penthouse smells of heavy mahogany wood, expensive cigars, and the sharp, undeniable scent of wet sex.

I don't make a sound. I stand right in the dark gap between the heavy velvet drapes and the floor-to-ceiling glass panel, my breath hitched in the back of my throat, my fingers digging into the palm of my hand so hard my nails cut through skin. I brought his favorite dinner. The paper bag from the Italian place down the street is still resting on the marble console table outside in the foyer, but I am in his private study now.

And my fiancé, the man whose ring sits heavy and cold on my left finger, is bending his female best friend over his polished desk.

"Tristan... oh God, Tristan," Chloe gasps. Her hands are planted flat against the smooth, dark wood, her spine arched so far back her spine dips into a deep curve. Her designer skirt is pulled up past her waist, bunched around her hips like trash, her silk panties dangling uselessly off one bare ankle.

Tristan doesn't answer her with words. He answers her with a heavy, wet slap of skin hitting skin as he drives his hips forward, thrusting deep into her from behind. The sound echoes off the high ceilings, a raw, slick, filthy noise that makes my stomach turn into a cold block of ice.

Slap. Wet, squelching thrust. Slap.

Thwack!

Thwack!

Thwack!

"Say it," Tristan grunts, his hands gripping her hips so tightly his knuckles are white, leaving dark red pressure marks on her pale skin. He pulls back almost all the way until just the wet tip of his length is touching her, then shoves back inside her with a brutal, relentless rhythm. "Tell me who this pussy belongs to, Chloe."

"Yours," she whines, her head tossing back, her lips glistening with spit and red lipstick smeared across her chin. She makes a wet, slurping sound as she sucks in a desperate breath, her body shuddering around him. "It’s yours, Tristan... it’s always been yours. Fuck me harder... don't stop..."

I don't cry. A normal woman would scream. A normal woman would throw the door open, shatter the glass decanter on the table, and rip Chloe’s hair out by the roots. But as I stand in the shadows of the velvet drapes, watching my fiancé sink himself into another woman, something inside my chest snaps clean off. The warmth, the love, the soft naivety I carried into this apartment twenty minutes ago vanishes. In its place, a dark, freezing adrenaline floods my veins.

I don't feel pain. I feel power.

Tristan’s mahogany desk is his absolute pride and joy. It’s an antique executive piece made of dense, expensive dark wood, imported from Italy, symbolizing his absolute control over his firm and his life. He always said no one was allowed to touch it without his permission. And right now, he is using that same desk as a brace, his heavy thighs pounding against Chloe’s rear, the loud, friction-heavy squelch-squelch of their joined bodies ringing out in the quiet room.

"Faster, Tristan! Oh fuck, right there!" Chloe moans, her fingers clawing at the polished wood, leaving long streak marks in the light dust.

Tristan leans down over her back, his chest pressed flat against her spine, his mouth finding her ear. "You like taking what belongs to Genevieve, don't you? You like getting fucked on the desk she bought me?"

"Yes... yes!" Chloe cries out, her hips jerking violently back to meet every heavy, unrelenting stroke. "She’s so boring, Tristan... she doesn't satisfy you like this... give it to me..."

Tristan growls, a deep, animalistic sound tearing from his throat as he accelerates his pace. The wet, rhythmic pounding reaches a frantic, desperate peak. His hips slam against her with unbridled force, the sound of liquid slickness filling the space between them. Chloe screams into the empty air of the study, her entire body twitching as her orgasm hits her, clamping down around him hard. Tristan thrusts harder six more times, hard, deep, violent, before burying his face in the crook of her neck, his body going rigid as he comes inside her without a condom.

"Fuck..." Tristan pants, his chest heaving up and down against her bare back.

He pulls out of her with a loud, wet pop that makes my jaw tighten. Slick fluid drips down the inside of Chloe’s thighs, staining the dark polish of the mahogany desk. Chloe collapses onto the wood, breathing heavily, a sloppy, satisfied grin plastered across her face.

"You need to get up before Genevieve gets back from her shift," Tristan mutters, his voice cold and devoid of affection as he pulls up his tailored trousers, zipping them up with a sharp metallic clink. He doesn't hold her. He doesn't kiss her. He treats her like a utility he just finished using.

"She won't know," Chloe giggles, reaching down to pull her silk panties back up her legs, her breath still raspy. "She trusts you like a dog."

I step back into the deeper shadows of the wall. My heart isn't racing anymore. It’s beating in a slow, steady, lethal rhythm. I watch Tristan button his crisp white shirt, completely unaware that the life he built, the money he relies on, and the engagement he thinks secures his future are about to be burned to ashes.

Without making a single sound, I turn on my heel. I slip out from behind the heavy velvet curtain, my bare feet gliding across the plush rug until I reach the hallway. I walk past the marble console table, past the paper bag of Italian food, and step out through the heavy double doors of the penthouse suite.

The private elevator is waiting. I step inside, the mirrored walls reflecting a woman I barely recognize. My face is completely pale, my dark hair falling over my shoulders, my eyes cold and sharp as polished obsidian. My ring glints under the bright elevator light. I slide it off my finger, hold it between two fingers, and toss it into the small brass trash bin in the corner of the elevator cab without looking twice.

The doors slide open at the underground parking level. The cool, damp air sweeps over my skin, but I don't shiver. I reach into my leather handbag, pull out my phone, and open my contacts. I don't call my mother. I don't call my sister.

I dial Julian.

Julian Vance. My best friend since childhood. The ruthless, dark-eyed billionaire real estate tycoon who controls half the city's skyline. The man who has hated Tristan from the very first day I brought him home, the man who warned me three months ago that Tristan was nothing more than a parasite wearing a designer suit. Julian, who has looked at me for years with an intense, possessive hunger that he tried, and failed, to hide behind heavy alcohol, expensive cars, and cold warnings.

The phone doesn't even finish its first ring before he picks up.

"Genevieve," Julian’s voice cuts through the line, low, heavy, and commandingly dark. The sound of his voice alone sends a strange, electric tremor down my spine. "Why aren't you at dinner?"

"He's cheating on me, Julian," I say softly, my voice calm, flat, and completely stripped of tears. "He’s in his study right now with Chloe. On his mahogany desk."

There is a beat of absolute, terrifying silence on the other end of the line. The kind of silence that precedes a storm. I can hear the sudden, heavy shift of leather as Julian stands up from wherever he is, followed by the crisp snap of a lighter closing.

"Where are you right now?" Julian demands, his tone dangerous, thick with a dark, suffocating fury that makes the hair on my arms stand up.

"I’m in the basement garage," I reply, walking slowly toward the exit gates. "I left."

Julian’s dark voice growls through the phone speaker, dropping an octave lower, cold enough to freeze the blood in my veins: "I’m at your front gate. Step outside before I burn his house down."