Men of Fortune 1: Derek (3 page)

How could Carly feel that way still? When
he’d first met her, she projected the aura of a confident woman,
but it was only when he got to know her better that he realized it
was a facade and hid deeper fears and insecurities than he
realized. Her bitches of a mother and sister had really done a
number on her. Instead of being turned off, however, his protective
instincts were roused, and that was when he realized he was in
trouble.

The good thing about Carly was that she
admitted she had a problem, and so, she’d readily agreed to see a
therapist when he’d suggested it. He also thought he’d been making
headway in restoring her self-confidence in the past months. He
never gave her cause to doubt his fidelity or that he enjoyed her
company, even when they did nothing but talk and laugh and hang
around at home. He made sure to compliment her looks and her
talents. She was good at her work and she had a soothing, melodious
singing voice, and he made sure to tell her at every opportunity.
Still, there were times when she made some deprecating comment
about herself, and when those moments came, he had a rebuttal
ready. And he wasn’t just saying them for the sake of saying them.
He truly meant them, like his comment about her breasts. They were
small, yes, but they were delicious and made him hard like no other
woman’s tits had.

And Charlotte—God! That woman was a nest of
vipers he didn’t want to touch. Apparently, her coming over during
most mornings wasn’t as innocent as he’d thought, if he was to
judge by the snippet he’d just heard. Her venomous words seemed to
be tearing down whatever confidence he’d been able to build in his
wife.

What he’d been doing wasn’t enough.
Jealousy, when allowed to fester and coupled with serious
inferiority complex, could weaken a relationship and damage it
permanently. He should be insulted that Carly didn’t believe in him
enough, but he was wise enough to know it wasn’t him Carly didn’t
believe in. It was
herself
.

He and Carly had a good thing going, and
damn if he was going to let her insecurities—and her vile
relatives—destroy it.

For the first time since they started living
together three months ago, he didn’t go home for dinner.

* * *

Carly gazed after her husband’s retreating
back, his sexy back with the tight ass that still made her drool.
However, she couldn’t give it the proper appreciation right now.
She was too busy mulling over what he’d said.

His request was an ordinary one and
understandable, yet something about his demeanor made her uneasy.
If pressed, she wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint it, as it was
just a feeling she got. Women’s intuition, she’d say.

Before she could stop herself, old habits
took over, and her thoughts and doubts ran away with her.

Did he lie to her? Instead of meeting his
cousins as he’d said he would, was he instead meeting with one of
the new models who’d come on board? A model who was so much
prettier than she, sexier, younger, with the full-bodied figure men
admired so much?

Or did Charlotte have the right of it? Was
he even now making a date with her sister? Her hand itched to call,
to find out if she was right. After all, Carly never did hear him
reject Charlotte’s non-too-subtle hints. He’d always either evaded
or avoided giving a direct answer, as though he was leaving himself
room to take her up on her offer later—

No, no, no! NO!

Carly forced her thoughts to turn away from
that self-destructive path. Derek was meeting his cousins, just
like he said. Why shouldn’t he? Before he met her, he used to see
them once a week. But since they started dating, he only got to see
them twice or thrice in four months.

Moreover, she exhausted him so much in bed
he didn’t have the energy to look at another woman. Carly was
lovely and young, as pretty as any of the models he worked with.
She was sexy and attractive, enough to hook one of the most
eligible, renowned photographers in the country. She had a great
sex life. She was insatiable, a tigress in bed!

Every time her thoughts turned negative, she
spoke the mantra of self-affirmation, as her therapist had taught
her. One day, hopefully soon, she wouldn’t need to do so
anymore.

Though she could blame her mother and sister
for her low—maybe non-existent—self-esteem, she refused to do so
anymore. They might have pummeled her with how worthless she was
throughout her growing up years, but she now chose not to believe
them. As a kid, she didn’t know any better, and as she grew up, her
confidence had been so crippled recovering was an uphill
battle.

But everyday, she was improving. Every
little step forward was a victory. Meeting Derek, being loved by
him, was a great boost her ego needed, even though sometimes, she’d
lie awake at night and just look at him, afraid this was all just a
dream.

“What did your gorgeous husband want?”

Carly glanced up at Sue, her boss and
friend, and smiled. “Just to tell me he’s meeting with his cousins
later on and he wouldn’t be home for dinner.”

“Rather impromptu, isn’t it?” Sue perched a
slim thigh on the edge of her desk.

Carly shrugged. “Perhaps he’s had too much
estrogen and needs some testosterone. We’ve been together everyday
for the past few months, and the last time he saw his cousins was
at our wedding. That’s a long time for a man to go without his
friends, and they
are
very close.”

“For women, maybe, but not for men,” Sue
commented, then continued in a lower volume, “We do have a lot of
beauties around here. Just sayin’.”

That was what Carly was just thinking! Even
as relief poured through her that she wasn’t being paranoid, a
niggle of doubt lodged in her mind. Could there be any truth to
Sue’s implication?

No. Carly loved Derek, trusted him. He
wouldn’t, and if she were sexy and lovely enough to catch him,
surely, she was woman enough to keep him, too.

“Sue, Derek wouldn’t,” Carly said with as
much conviction as she could muster.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the other
woman said, straightening. “Men wouldn’t think twice about lying to
their wives when they’ve got eyes on another woman, and not going
home for dinner is the start of a string of heartbreak.” She pulled
a nearby empty chair over and looked to be settling in for a long
chat. Her voice lowered. “My own cheating husband lied to me for
two whole years before I caught on to him. Do you know what he
did?”

Caught up in the fervent urgency of Sue’s
voice, Carly could only shake her head. Sue was twice divorced, so
Carly wasn’t even sure which husband her friend was referring
to.

“He bought an apartment near his office,
saying he needed silence to work, which you couldn’t have with
boisterous twin boys, I own. So even though our funds were tight, I
told him to go ahead. After all, if he could bring in more accounts
for his employer, he’s sure to be due for a promotion, right? He
started staying over during weekends, then weeknights, coming home
only once or twice a week. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it
except that my sister caught him coming out of a restaurant with
another woman, and in her words, they were kissing and hugging as
though they couldn’t be apart for even a minute.” Sue’s eyes shot
sparks, anger in every line of her body. Must be the most recent
divorce then. “I confronted him, then squeezed him out of every
cent he had.”

Carly pressed a sympathetic hand to Sue’s
arm. “Good for you.”

Her friend’s eyes softened. “I don’t want
the same thing to happen to you. Derek’s a player before he met
you, and no matter how good reformed rakes sound, I don’t quite buy
into the idea. Being around so many beautiful women day in and day
out is bound to stretch a man’s resistance.” An expression of
sympathy—pity?—crossed her face. “As your friend, it’s my duty to
warn you. Let’s face it, dear, your looks are certainly not top
tier around here.”

Ouch.

Sue wasn’t telling her something she didn’t
know, yet Carly’s confidence—what little of it she had—was shaken.
If such a horrid thing could happen to Sue, who’d previously been a
runway model before she’d switched careers to events coordination,
what was the likelihood that it wouldn’t happen to her? From the
start, she and Derek were mismatched—the ugly duckling and the
attractive, sexy prince.

Perhaps she was novelty. In his world of
beautiful women, finding someone who wasn’t up to that standard of
loveliness was a curiosity, an exotic object to be examined and
analyzed, and for a time, to be enjoyed. Perhaps he was tiring of
her even now.

No, no. She was attractive, a sex
goddess—

Yes, a sex goddess. They’d had insatiable,
heat-filled nights every night for the past three months, except
for her that-time-of-the-month, when they’d cuddle on the bed and
fall asleep in each other’s arms. So, if they made love tonight, it
would mean—

Argh! She hated this, hated herself, her
insecurities, her doubts, and right now, even Sue.

Derek didn’t deserve this, not when he’d
done nothing to make her think such awful things about him.

Yet
, a small voice whispered from deep inside
her.

“That may be so, but what Derek and I have
is the real deal.” Her voice contained a slight wobbling on the
last words that she hoped the other woman wouldn’t pick up on.

“I hope for your sake that you’re right.”
Sue sighed, stood and put the chair away. “Break’s over, back to
work.”

Instead of looking forward to some quiet
time by herself, as Carly had originally envisioned, the evening
became dismal and bleak, fraught with uncertainties.

“You’re doing the right thing, Derek,”
Matthias commented after he took a swig of beer. “Carly’s
insecurity is the root of everything. Once she becomes confident in
herself, she’ll realize other women mean nothing to you.”

In times of women trouble, a man should have
trusted close friends he could call for help. Derek was fortunate;
he had five of them, men whom he’d grown up with and with whom he’d
shared a lot of things, even women. His cousins.

However, only four of them were in
attendance at the moment. Which was more than enough. He didn’t
believe five intelligent men, including himself, couldn’t pluck out
the little thorn that had entered his and Carly’s rose garden.

Great, now he was using metaphors.

“Confidence is the key.” The lone woman in
the group, Lily Summers, chimed in from where she sat on Adam’s
thigh, her arm around his nape.

Lily grew up with the Fortune boys, as
they’d all lived on the same street and played together. Lusty and
in constant need of sex, she was all the more delighted when her
boys had become men, not that she restricted her sexual favors to
the opposite gender. Truly, Derek had never met a woman who reveled
in her sexual freedom as much as Lily. As far as he knew, she
hadn’t ever been in a serious relationship. The world was her
oyster, and she meant to enjoy all it had to offer.

And she knew what she was talking about. She
was never one to stop from going after something—or someone—she
wanted.

For all of her sexual proclivities, Lily was
right up there among the people he trusted. After all, he’d known
her for the greater part of his life and they’d shared secrets and
confidences, not to mention that she was his first, as he was hers.
Being of the same age, they’d gravitated to each other when the
first sexual stirrings had hit and they’d practiced together for
most of the first year, developing and fine-tuning their
techniques.

“I know that, you know that, but
she
doesn’t
know that.” Derek couldn’t help himself; he glared at Matthias. The
man shouldn’t have said something that didn’t help.

“Such things take time,” Adam, who was a
fellow photographer at De Vitners, remarked, his fingers busy with
the buttons on Lily’s blouse. Having dispensed with those, he
reached beneath the fabric toward the back, where he unclasped her
bra. He pulled down the right cup and released a little moan of
appreciation as Lily’s bare breast popped out, then he lowered his
head and suckled.

Derek could understand Adam’s reaction,
because Lily’s breast was ripe and round and plump, a tender morsel
for a hungry man. Yet, he couldn’t help but thought wistfully of
Carly’s smaller mounds and wished he were now in bed with her.

After dinner, they’d repaired to The Sex
Haunt, a bar that catered to the wild and raunchy, where public sex
was often the norm. The place had become their regular hangout ever
since they’d discovered it five years ago. Sometimes they’d bring
their dates for a round of exhibitionist sex, but most of the time,
they just drank and watched.

Derek had never brought Carly over, not
once, and as he stared at Lily’s half-naked state, he realized it
was because he’d wanted his wife all to himself. He hadn’t wanted
his cousins or other men ogling Carly’s nakedness.

Yet, watching Lily made him realized he
missed this, missed seeing his woman being pleasured by his
cousins. He remembered how he used to get off on the sight. He’d
been so aroused that when it was his turn, he’d fucked his
girlfriends like a lion on a rampage, and they’d loved it. As the
image of Lily sitting on Adam’s lap was replaced by that of Carly,
he found himself growing hard, his heart pounding.

Even as he was becoming aroused, he could
feel a nagging unease at the picture—

“Derek?” Matthias’s voice, questioning.

He scrambled to remember the last comment.
Ah, Adam, saying that building up Carly’s confidence took time.
“It’s been four months since we officially started dating, and I’ve
been doing all I can to bolster her confidence. I would’ve
thought—”