Page 32 of The Wrong Husband

I nodded. I opened the email with the PI's report on my phone and gave it to Duncan. He looked through the documents, the images, and even checked out a couple of videos. By the time he set my phone down, he looked as fatigued as I felt.

"Stanton?"

"I know."

"That guy's a wimp. A fucking dilletante. I doubt his dick is big."

"I know," I repeated.

“What's this got to do with…no, Damian, don't tell me you did this to hurt Bianca?"

I raised my glass to him. "I did. I was pissed as hell. Gideon told me Emilia was in Vegas. I took the jet and found her."

"Jesus!"

"Yeah, and the irony of it is that she thinks she manipulated me."

"If I hadn't just met her, I wouldn't have believed anyone can be that naïve. But she is."

I ran a hand over my face. Hating myself for what I'd put innocent Emilia through, what I was still putting her through. The thing was that I never saw her as innocent. The way Bianca, Maeve and Gideon talked about her—not that they mentioned her much—she was a leech, living off a nepo job. She was lazy and not interested in making anything of herself. I didn't know she went to one of the top art schools in the country.

"I had sex with her," I confessed and hated myself some more. "She was a virgin."

"Hell, Damian."

I struggled with getting words out because I had really fucked up. "I…didn't expect it and damn it, Duncan, it gets worse."

"How can it get worse?"

"It was the best sex of my life. The very fucking best."

"The best with a virgin?" Duncan couldn't believe it. Imagine how I feel, brother.

I shook my head. "It gets even worse."

"I'm afraid to ask."

"She thinks I didn't enjoy the sex."

"Why does she think that when you're crowing it was the best you ever had?"

"Cause she's inexperienced and couldn't see that I was completely blissed out…and maybe as soon as we were done, I pulled out of her and ran like the hounds of hell were after me."

Duncan frowned. "Why?"

"She scared me. I…this has never happened before, this kind of sex where my head all but blows off."

Duncan whistled.

I was no monk. I'd had my share of women. By the time Bianca and I got together, I was ready to be a single-pussy man. Bianca and I had sex, not a whole lot of it in the past year, but two-three times a week if we could make our schedules work. Bianca was a good time in bed, enthusiastic and not at all embarrassed of her sexuality. She gave great head, knew how to take what she wanted and understood my need for having my prostate massaged during sex.

But sex with Emilia was…next level. And I had no idea why. She didn't do any of the things that Bianca did and yet…when I now thought about sex, I thought about Em.

"Why does her family dislike her so much?" Duncan wondered. "Cause the picture they painted is nothing like the girl I met today."

"She's different from them," I said as the epiphany struck me, "she's a bit of a dreamer. Doesn't care about makeup and fashion. Is in her own world. Has a quirky sense of humor. She's not ambitious about business like Bianca, Maeve and Gideon."

"Dean's nothing like us but we don't think he's a douche?"