Wild Billionaire Romance - Chapter 83: Chapter 83

MEREDITH
The next day, I didn’t bother texting my husband. He texted me first.
Josef
Good morning, Little Red. Have a good day.
I stared at the message for the fiftieth time since getting in the SUV. The rain had finally let up and there was a patch of blue sky peeking between the rolling clouds and skyscrapers.
“Mrs. Aziz, are you ready?” Mario asked, and I realized we were already at the shelter.
“It’s Meredith,” I tried again.
“I don’t think so,” Mario replied and exited the vehicle.
Trying to get inside was chaotic, which was usual. There was a front guard, and another on the floor of the shelter.
Weird. He wasn’t there yesterday.
When we finally made it to the interior office, Sr. Elise was openly sobbing. She ran over and hugged Mario enthusiastically, thanking him.
“No worries, Sr., Sigma International is happy to do this,” he said, allowing her to pinch his cheeks.
A crazed sounding laugh escaped my mouth as my gaze flashed from Sr. Elise to Mario and back. It took me a second to get over my initial shock.
“Oh, Meredith, my dear, your husband is such a gem!” she said and hugged me next.
A gem? That wasn’t how I’d describe him, but okay. I was curious.
The petite nun was a hundred pound soaking wet, and seventy if she was a day. But she was a right spitfire, that nun.
A true hero to the women and children who’d come through the shelter’s doors since they opened in 1974.
“I know Jersey City misses you, but Manhattan is so lucky to have you, my dear,” Sr. Elise said hours later as she walked us to the door. “And you, young man, are a godsend!”
“That’s a first. Thank you, Sister,” Mario said, and nodded his head.
“Thank you and have a great night,” I said.
All my paperwork was done. I’d even spent a couple of hours on a conference call with my old boss in Jersey City, where I managed to help her resolve staffing issues my leaving would have otherwise caused in the hours since we’d arrived.
I admit, I was shocked at the donations Josef had sent in my name.
In. My. Name.
He’d sent over two hundred thousand dollars in cash, ear-marked specifically to help those who needed immediate re-housing accommodations.
I didn’t understand. Not one bit. He’d ignored me all week, but then made this grand gesture.
What did it mean?
He’d also sent Mario and a team to install Sigma Security approved locks, doors, and windows on every entryway and exit of St. Elizabeth’s.
And not just the Jersey City location. Sr. Elise let it slip that Josef had done the same for all eight of their shelters.
“Did you need anything while we are out, Mrs. Aziz? Or would you like to go straight to the home?” Mario asked.
“Just home. Please,” I replied, not even questioning why I’d called it that.
I was exhausted. Every revelation I learned about my husband seemed to be from others.
He shared nothing of himself with me. I knew it was early days, but given his attitude, I feared the worst.
This is a mistake. I shouldn’t have married him.
Whatever dreams I’d had about this second chance we’d seemed to be given were crushed. Josef was a good man.
But he wasn’t in love with me.
No matter how sweetly his body had joined with mine. One night was obviously enough.
Sex was just physical for him. Even so, I’d obviously come up short. Hence the whole spending each night since alone.
Oh well. I was done pining for a man who didn’t want me. A week was enough.
There were boxes with my belongings stored for the time being in the hall closet. One of them was marked bathroom.
When Mario drove me home, I was going to march myself right to that closet, and I was going to find that box.
Next, I was going to pour a glass of white wine and put all thoughts of Josef and his lack of desire for me right out of my head.
I was going to go inside the master bathroom, fill the luxurious tub, and me and Walter, my waterproof clitoral suction and thumping vibrator, were going to have ourselves a night.
I
t took an hour of sorting through boxes Josef’s team had packed from my old apartment.
But finally, I found what I was looking for inside a small plastic box, labeled Band-Aids. Only there weren’t bandages inside. There were adult sex toys.
It was a private joke between me and a woman I’d met in England years ago. Peggy was a fun sort of woman, and she’d joked that vibrators were like plasters for relationships.
“They hold together the broken bits by giving the woman a little relief whenever her man runs her down.”
God, I missed her. I should probably write.
After years of moving from place to place around Europe, and living with the bare minimum, I thought I’d learned better than to acquire so much useless crap. But apparently not.
I sighed and put the top back on the final box I’d been looking through.
I hated going through stuff.
Much of what was there could be donated or tossed, but I’d likely wait to see what the residents at St. Elizabeth’s needed before I did that. That reminded me I still had my stepfather’s house to sort through.
Ugh.
That was it. No more. I pushed the thoughts right out of my head.
It was only five thirty, and I knew Josef wouldn’t be home for hours. Not that it mattered.
He wouldn’t touch me when he got here, anyway.
And I was aching.
Emotionally wrung out and physically exhausted. I needed a release, and Walter was my only option.
Yes, I named my vibrators. Why not?
They were my only source of sexual release over the past fifteen years, and they did a damn fine job of it. I’d all but proved I didn’t need a man to get off.
Even though being with Josef was so much better. But he didn’t want me and that was a reality I needed to face sooner rather than later.
Did it suck?
Yes.
Too bad, so sad.
It was this or nothing.
And I was tired of nothing.