Truly, Sutton had never expected to be able to keep him all to herself forever. But to fuck another woman in their bed, a bed they’d shared while busily making their child, when she was incapacitated? That was beyond heartless. Couldn’t he have just taken his whores to a hotel? Did he have to shove it in Sutton’s face? All because he hadn’t wanted the house?

Stop it, right now. It’s over. The past. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t.

Sutton—Justine—got out of the bed, made a cup of tea. Glanced over her shoulder at the handsome man sleeping facedown, the sheet pulled loosely over his firm, round buttocks, which had a dent in either side, strong muscles pulling taut against his very young, smooth skin.

She filled the kettle quietly. Ethan was behind her now. She had to keep looking forward. She didn’t want to dwell in the past. She didn’t want to be that woman, the one who couldn’t let go, who grew bitter and miserable. It was time to move on, and they both knew it. Time to set him free, to set herself free.

She’d taken several baby steps over the past few weeks, and leaving for another continent had been a line in the sand, of course, but the first giant leap had taken place only an hour before, when she’d allowed another man to put himself inside her. She stared at this stranger in her bed, remembering how his fingers had dipped in and out of her like he was playing piano, how his mouth had roved across her breasts, how she’d traitorously reveled in the largeness of him as he thrusted into her. She’d been pummeled instead of gently, expertly seduced. She’d rather enjoyed it.

Constantine must have sensed her watching him, or the sound of the kettle on full boil roused him. He rolled over, the sheet whispering away to the side. He was lazily unconcerned with his nakedness. Sutton—Justine—pulled her robe a bit closer. He stretched, giving her a full view of his stiff and ready penis, and held out a hand. “Justine. Take off your clothes and come back to bed.”

One breath. Another. His lazy smile. Abandoning the tea, she untied the silken string holding the two triangles of fabric closed, and, leaving her robe on the back of her desk chair to drift and flutter in the soft Parisian breeze like the petals on the cherry branch in the window, she did.

An Affair to Remember

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER