All Chapters of Married For The Show: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

88 Chapters

071. Almost

RAINAThree days later and Sylvester's words still sat in my head like a stubborn headache.I hadn't deleted those texts, couldn't bring myself to stop staring at them.Like a dam being let loose, he'd said all the things he wanted to do to me.And what was worse? I couldn't tell him to stop.He'd thrown the decision into my lap and walked away.~Tell me you don't want me.~I hadn't answered.Because I couldn't.The realization sat heavy in my chest all day, every day.By Friday night, it was unbearable.We were supposed to meet at the diner at eight.Eight o'clock came and went.I checked the diner door for the fifth time.Nothing.The waitress topped off my coffee and gave me a sympathetic smile."Still waiting on someone?""Apparently."I looked down at my phone. No messages. No missed calls.Sylvester was late.Not five-minutes late. Not traffic late.An hour late.That wasn't like him.I called again.Straight to voicemail.A knot formed in my stomach.This case was dangerous. Th

072. Voice Note

RAINAI made it home a little after ten.The drive back was a blur. Like a haze had settled over me.I remember holding unto the wheel like a lifeline. I remember my thighs still slick under my skirt, my body still thrumming from what he'd done to me against that wall. I could still remember pressing my legs together at a red light and feeling the ache flare all over again.Now I was home. How I got home, I couldn't tell.I let myself in through the kitchen door. The house was dark. I went down the corridor to the south wing on legs that still weren't steady, closed my door, locked it.I undressed in the dark. My skin was too warm. My underwear was soaked through, totally ruined. I slipped out of it and pulled on my nightgown, got into bed, and lay there with my heart still going too fast, replaying the feel of his fingers inside me, the sound he'd made in his throat when he felt how wet I was.I told myself to sleep.I was almost there when the burner phone buzzed.I knew it was him

073. Suspicious Queit

CASTORThe numbers were down again.Felix had them pulled up on his tablet, sliding it across my desk like he was doing me a favor by showing me. Three points. We'd dropped three points in ten days. Every line on the graph pointed the wrong way."It's the debate coverage," Felix said. "Brian came off well. People liked him. The independents are moving." "People liked him." I repeated, leaning back in my chair. "People like a man with no money, no family name, and a dead sister he trots out at every fundraiser. That's who people like now?"Felix shrugged."We should be digging up dirt on him. Trying everything we can to ruin the public's opinion of him.""There's nothing on him," Felix leaned forward. "And that's the problem. The man grew up in the worst part of this city. No father worth naming, a mother working two jobs. He clawed his way through law school on scholarships and made himself into one of the sharpest attorneys in the state before he ever ran for anything. People love

074. I stopped Pretending

RAINAIt had been three long days since Sylvester had me pinned against his wall with his fingers buried inside me.Three days, and I hadn't stopped feeling it.So when I found myself in the car that evening, driving the back roads toward his place with a folder on the passenger seat, I already knew I was lying to myself about why.The folder was the lie. Maria had pulled a few new names off the staff roster that week, and I'd tucked them into my bag before leaving, as if paper could make this respectable. As if it gave me the right to come to his house even though I had no business being here. He hadn't asked me to come. He hadn't texted or called. I just showed up.I parked two blocks away out of habit, walked to his door, knocked.He opened it in a grey henley with the sleeves pushed up. He looked at me a beat too long. He knew I hadn't been summoned. He knew exactly why I was standing on his doorstep at nine at night.He stepped back to let me in.The apartment smelled the way it

075. The Night She Came Apart

SYLVESTERI held her against my chest and kissed her.Then before I made a decision about it, I was backing her against the kitchen wall. My body pressed against her, my hands framing her face. Her back was against the plaster, her mouth open and hungry under mine. She tasted like the brandy she'd barely touched. She made a sound when I pressed into her, small and broken, and it went straight through me.I told myself to slow down. I'd waited weeks for this. I wasn't going to rush it now that I finally had her.I took her from the wall, walking her backward, out of the kitchen, into the living room, toward the couch without breaking the kiss. The backs of her knees hit the cushion and she sat, and I came down over her, one knee on the couch, my hand still in her hair. She pulled me closer by the shirt. Her breathing was already ragged.I made myself stop.I pulled back just enough to see her face. Her lips were swollen. Her eyes were dark and half open. I kept my hands on either side

076. Defiance

RAINA I could still feel him. That was the first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes that morning. Not the room. Not the light through the curtains. Him. The ghost of his mouth on the inside of my thigh. His fingers, the feel of them stretching me open. The rough scrape of his jaw against my skin. My body had kept a record of the whole night and was playing it back to me before I was even fully awake. I got up reluctantly. Then showered. The hot water ran over places that were still tender, and every one of them woke the memory up again. By the time I came down to breakfast I was raw with it, lit up under my skin in a way I had to try to hide it. Castor was already at the table with the morning papers spread beside his plate. I sat across from him and reached for the coffee. My hand was steady. That surprised me. I felt like a different person wearing yesterday's memory like a claok, and yet nothing about me looked any different from the outside. I waited for the guilt to com

077. Tomorrow

RAINAHours passed by and I avoided returning into the house.I was on my knees in the dirt by early afternoon, working the bed along the south wall.Castor had left by ten, off to some meeting with Felix, and the moment his car cleared the gate the tightness in my chest let go. There was something honest about the work. You put a seed in the ground and covered it and watered it, and it either grew or it didn't, but none of it was a lie. No cameras cared what I did out here. No one measured my face. I planted a row of basil and thyme along the edge, then started on the marigolds, pressing each one into the soil with my thumbs.The fight from breakfast was still sitting in me, but it had changed shape. In the morning it had been fear at my boldness. By afternoon it had turned into something steadier. I kept thinking about the way Castor's face twisted when I said Sylvester turned out decent, and instead of shame, I felt that same quiet satisfaction from before. He could rage all he wan

078. The First Time

RAINAI went to him the next night.I didn't let myself think on the drive over. Thinking was the enemy. If I gave my mind even a second to work, it would find every reason to turn the car around, so I kept my eyes on the dark road, my hands steady on the wheel, and let the back roads carry me to him. I'd driven them enough now that my body knew the turns before I did.I glanced down at myself as I stepped out of the car. My red burgundy dress was nicely fitted and flared at my hips. It had a low cut V-neck that dipped to my chest and showed some hint of cleavage.I'd chosen this dress specially, after trying on a hundred others before leaving the house.Now I tried to breathe normally as I walked the short distance to his house.Stay calm, Raina.I said to my heart that was now climbing up my throat.I got to his door and knocked once.He opened the door.My eyes washed over him. He was in a black sleeveless vest with matching joggers. His hair was wet and I could smell the fragrance

079. The PullBack

RAINAI woke in the bed with the morning light coming in from the wrong side of the room.For a few seconds I didn't understand where I was. The mattress sat firmer than mine. The sheets carried a different fragrance than I knew. Cedar.I recognized the scent, it belonged to Syvelster. The low, clean scent of him.I looked around me.Syvelster lay beside me on the bed. His arm lay heavy across my waist, his chest warm against my back, his breath moving slow and even through my hair. He was still asleep, and for one soft, dangerous moment I let myself stay there inside it, wrapped up in a man who slept like he had nothing in the world to be afraid of.Then it all came back, and the fear hit me like cold water thrown in my face."Oh My God!" I exclaimed.I slid out from under his arm and got up too fast. The room tilted. My dress was on the floor near the door, my bra somewhere past it, one shoe kicked under a chair and the other halfway across the room from where he'd taken it off me.

080. The Falling

RAINAI went back the next night.And the night after that, and the one after that. I stopped counting them, the way you stop counting anything you're ashamed of and can't stop doing anyway.Syvelster always made love to me in the most passionate way possible.I became a woman I didn't recognize. A woman who sat across from her husband at breakfast and lied to his face without a flicker of guilt, then slipped out through the kitchen door the moment the house went dark. A woman who had the security team memorized, all their shifts, nap time and breaks.Now the back roads to Sylvester's apartment were like an impulse, I had them implanted unto my brain, from the back gate of my house down to the broken streetlight on Delmar expressway and the crossing where the barriers never came down. I was now a woman who sat at campaign dinners with her husband's hand resting on her knee and typed filthy things to another man. We constantly texted now, all the time, everytime. One time we were in

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