Page 11 of Prey Tell
Dylan Hall is everything a girl like me could want. He’s a PhD psychology student who wants to specialize in marriage and family counseling. We’re currently coauthoring a paper that we’ve submitted to one of the top psychology academic journals, and I love how our disciplines overlap. He’s intelligent, and he’s been a great partner in every single way. Ever since we met during junior year of undergrad, he’s been nothing but wonderful and supportive. It’s rare to meet a guy who can match my intellect.
It’s why I said yes to the extravagant ring, and the engagement party. It’s why I approached him in our Psych 301 class all those years ago.
I turn over and study my sleeping fiancé, my mind moving a mile a minute as I recall the pros and cons list I made before I agreed to marry him over a month ago. I had it written down somewhere on my desk. I’d found the ring a few days before he proposed on the couch, so of course I made a list.
Pros: he’s smart, we both want to work in academia, he’s okay living in this house for now, we both want children someday, we have the same religious and political beliefs, he puts the toilet seat down every time, and he’s independent.
Cons: he wants to buy a bigger house in five years, he can’t make me orgasm, and sometimes I wonder if he’s actually in love with me.
Dylan made sense in almost every way. And even in the ways he didn’t, they weren’t exactly deal breakers for me. Lists and analytics are my thing. The list speaks for itself. Emotions and feelings complicate things. Men and women in arranged marriages were onto something. At the end of the day, it all came down to data—my favorite four-letter word. Who would be the best person for you on paper?That’swhat matters when you’re old and gray. The man who can provide for you and become a conversational companion outmatches anyone who can give you momentary fanny flutters.
Because the romance and the lust all go away. You get old. Your kids move out. You have to hope the man you married is going to make a good companion.
Dylan loves me.
And I love him.
We will be fine, because we make sense together.
My eyelids grow heavy a few minutes later, the same visions of my parents in the kitchen floating behind my eyelids. They weresohappy together, it was almost sickening. You could feel their love. Still could, even now. It’d worked its way through the old house in ways that made me question every rational thought that I had.
They were the opposite of companions.
I still remembered the way my dad looked at my mom. He was the raindrop, and she was the flood. She overtook every single aspect of his life.
But that was rare.
And still, their lives were cut short one night in a car crash, so did it matter in the long run?
I couldn’t hinge my future on waiting for my one great love. I’d realized long ago that life owed me nothing. Fate stole my parents when I was sixteen, and I had to claw my way to where I am today by my own two hands. I was smart and scrappy, and I would be happy, dammit.
I love Dylan.
And he loves me.
A minute later, my eyes drift closed as the hardness in my gut settles into a heavy stone.
CHAPTERTWO
THE CASTLE
Chase
“Chase, come to bed,” the brunette whines, rolling over onto her back. “I could go for round three. Or I guess technically it would be round four?”
I turn from my place at the window, watching as her hands come up to her breasts, squeezing them.
“That’s not the name you’re supposed to call me.”
She smirks. “Are we still playing? Sir?”
The fact that she needs to question it, that she’d think I’d go against every term in our contract… my interest in her disappears completely.
“I have an early meeting. Your clothes are on the floor. You can show yourself out.” Her mouth drops open in protest, so I saunter over to her with a cold smirk. “Don’t misunderstand me. Last night was fun, but you agreed to the terms and signed a contract. I don’t fuck the same woman twice.”
“But—”
“What part of the terms did you not understand?” I ask, my voice low.
