Page 2 of Falling for the Wife

My mother was truly a beautiful soul, and I missed her dearly. One of the things she taught me was to follow my dreams and to never stop fighting for what I believed in…and that’s what I was willing to do tonight. So here I was, following my dreams, a dream that led me to Jared St. James.

There was a deep sparkle in my eye, an unfettered burning in my soul, in every single fiber of my being, craving to be unleashed. I was ready to become unbidden and become the sensual woman who’d been longing to break barriers—metaphorically speaking and quite literally—the itsy-bitsy barrier in between my thighs.

“So what’s the plan again?” Vivienne intently glanced at Blair and me. Her delicate features were accentuated with careful application of different highlighters. “What if he shows up with that chick he’s been seeing lately? What’s the protocol on that?”

As much as I loved my friends, sometimes they gave me so little credit. They should know that I wouldn’t even take such a massive risk if there were a possibility of Jared having a woman in his life at the moment. He was quite the lothario in a sense, but he stuck to one woman at a time for however long the relationship might be.

Those women, they mattered not.

“She won’t be there. Jared doesn’t recycle past lovers. Yovanna was out the door the second she made that tabloid interview.”

“How could you be so sure?” Vivienne gave me a sparing look as she scrutinized the inky black wig with condemnation.

“Because I know him. He hates being in the media. He keeps a low profile for a reason, and Yovanna blasted his personal business to the world. If my break-up timeline’s right, he’ll be on the prowl to replace her position. So, in my book, he’s been single for a week now.”

Vivienne’s pale blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “Good God, you studied the poor guy. I hope he’s worth all the trouble, Gi.”

Blair snickered before batting those long sooty lashes of hers. She loved to channel the modern day Audrey Hepburn sans the gentle attitude. My friend was fierce through and through and would never back down on a good verbal spar with anyone.

“He’s far from poor, but yeah, you can’t fault Gisele for plotting this perfectly. I do hope you can tame the beast.”

I was devious and cunning…but only when I needed something accomplished. And tonight, my sights were on the man I had yearned for, for years now.

“All I need is one night…Then I can begin living my life.” One night. In his arms. No strings attached. Purely all-out delicious sex.

One night of a desperate attempt to temporarily possess something that wasn’t mine to hold. But somehow, I felt it was Jared’s sole right to take away my virginity before I began dating men my own age. A sexual passage to womanhood if you will. It was mad, but it was how I felt.

Tonight was Hank Rinaldi’s sixtieth birthday, and the crème de la crème of Silicon Valley was going to be in attendance, including Jared. The second Blair had given me the green light that Jared’s secretary had accepted the invitation, my plan had begun to unfold. My father was invited as well, but ever since my mother’s tragic demise, he didn’t deem it appropriate to attend parties without his dear Edna by his side. I had tried to coax my father out of his mourning, but each time I tried, I ended up getting yelled at, and he’d unnecessarily avoid me for weeks on end, giving me the cold shoulder for what he claimed was disrespecting my mother’s memories by subjecting him to circumstances that he wasn’t ready to partake in.

As a result, whenever I was in his presence, I felt like I was tiptoeing on eggshells, making sure I wasn’t going to keep offending him. It was a tedious dance, but it was the only way I could have a relationship with him. And I’d rather get the scraps of my father’s attention than never having it at all. Even if he had drastically changed, I wasn’t going to abandon him. He was my father, and I loved him through thick and thin.

He had recently offered to purchase my own place, but I felt it was his own way of telling me he wanted more privacy, so I immediately rejected his offer. We barely saw each other living in the same house; if I moved out, I knew I’d never see him for ages. I didn’t want to be one of those rich kids who was required to make an appointment to see their fathers. Vivienne and Blair had done it their entire lives, and I knew how miserable that could be. I still believed, even after three years, that he would eventually get past the grief and become interested in me again. After all, we only had each other in this world. He wouldn’t fully abandon his only daughter. He couldn’t be that heartless.

“Earth to Gisele?” Blair snapped her fingers before my face, breaking me out of my reverie.

I rapidly blinked as I pushed my thoughts aside before blankly staring at her. “Sorry…what?”

Blair’s long nude lacquered fingertips brushed through the wig’s silky hair as she frowned at me. “I said…Do you want to put on the contacts or the wig first?”

“Let’s do the hair.” It seemed it’d be trickiest to apply. Jared preferred dark-haired women. It was a known fact to whoever knew him. He’d dated a few redheads and a string of blondes, but brunettes, he favored the most.

My vivid gray eyes would be blue tonight. My blonde tresses would be hidden under a wavy mass of black hair. I intended to seduce, and I had to make do with whatever arsenal I could enhance.

Vivienne and I had merely arrived here thirty minutes ago. Blair was already made up—hair majestically piled over her delicate head, subtle makeup accented with her favorite Chanel Coco Rouge lipstick. Her mother’s glam squad had to tend to her first before they scuttled to beautify Mrs. Wolf.

While I concentrated on painting my face and with Blair extremely focused on getting the wig to snugly fit around my head, I watched Vivienne from the mirror’s reflection as she slipped into her champagne pink beaded gown. She shimmied her hips as she slid the tight-fitting designer frock over her toned, lithe body.

“Do you want me to zip you up?” I paused in between my contouring application as I blinked at her thoughtfully.

“I’m good. I need to breathe for a moment.” She shrugged before glancing over at me with that massive grin of hers. “My hellish mother got me a size zero even though she knows I’m a two. She’s being her usual vindictive self ’cause I’m not willing to starve to please her. God, she can be so evil.”

Her French mother, Marguerite Wolf, had a strict rule in her household—consuming fat was a sin. If you weren’t a size zero, you were considered obese. She and Vivienne fought constantly. And quite frankly, I couldn’t blame my best friend for her resentment towards her mother’s severe treatment. She even went as far as making sure her little twin daughters were under a strict vegan diet. They were barely three years old. What mother would put a rigorous diet on these babies when they needed nutrition during fundamental years? Marguerite was a hard pill to swallow. She made Blair’s mother’s unfeeling, nonchalant demeanor seemwarm.

“Sorry, doll, but if she were my mother, I’d have disowned her the second I slipped out of that frozen vagina incubator of hers.” Blair wasn’t one to hide her contempt when it came to Marguerite. I tended to keep my disdain lowered down a notch since it was still her mother, after all.

“If my mother had you as her daughter, she would’ve granted you whatever you wished ’cause you’re terrifying as hell.” Vivienne chortled. “I can so totally picture you hauling all of her haute couture from her favorite fashion houses, dousing it with gasoline, and making a bonfire out of it on the lawn to prove a point.”

We all laughed because Blair was one crazy biatch. There was a reason girls in our high school didn’t want to cross her. She’d go above and beyond to make your life hell, and quite frankly, who needed a real, breathing, live experience of Regina George in their lives? They knew better, too, so that was why everyone bowed or cowered to Blair. The woman never went down without a hard fight. Delicate, she might seem to be, but she wouldn’t hold back before launching herself, sharpened claws and all, and give her opponent a free facial reconstruction. She was lethal in all aspects vital to bringing an enemy down.