Sex with the Ex by Tyne O’Connell Read Free Book Online

that.”
    â€œYes, but it’s the name of a femme fatale, isn’t it?”
    I would never have admitted that, of course, but deep down, deep, deep down in my darkest Freudian/Jungian self, I think I actually thought she was right. About me never being single, that is, not the femme fatale thing. I’m about as fatalish as Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. At a C-cup and five foot five with hazel eyes, I’m at least six inches and two cup sizes short of being femme fatale material. Also, don’t femme fatales have to have dazzling violet eyes with ink-black foot-long eyelashes, rather than hazel eyes with ordinary-length brown lashes?
    Richard always said he loved my eyes. He said they changed color with my moods.
    Richard.
    I flashed back to last night. To the leggy blonde throwing the coat at him, and Richard hugging her, and the way the action had ripped through me like a blade.
    He was my Richard. I had taken him to be my husband. We had taken one another, as in “Do you, Richard Arbiter Bisque, take this woman, Lola Morton, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
    To which he had replied, “Yes, I do” as he looked lovingly into my eyes—and without the slightest bit of hesitation, I might add.
    Till death do us part had also been mentioned, and not only by the lady presiding over the civil ceremony, but by Richard—repeatedly. “Don’t you love those words,” he had said as we went to bed that first night in our suite at Claridges. “Till death do us part!” I’d told him not to be such a soft idiot. He was completely wankered, admittedly, but as they say, in vino veritas.
    The more I turned our past over in my head the more perfect, the more right, it seemed. And the sex was great, too. I suddenly recalled the day we had gone shopping after our honeymoon and bought our big ebony bed.
    Lola loves Richard.
    Richard loves Lola.
    After it was installed, Richard had carved those words into our bed head. I wonder if he still had that bed? I wonder what Leggy Blonde thought of it if he did. He was the kind of guy that wouldn’t have got around to buying a new bed head, so chances were our declaration of eternal love was still there, carved into the ebony wood for all to see.
    More importantly, for Leggy Blonde to see.
    Since Richard, I hadn’t had a proper someone. For the past couple of years I’d been unquestionably happy about myquirky singleton existence, but I had enjoyed married life. I had enjoyed spooning Richard at night. I had enjoyed staying in and watching DVDs occasionally; snuggled up in our favorite blanket. I always fantasized about having a lovely black Labrador at our feet. Not that Richard and I ever had a Labrador. He was allergic to animal hair—apart from rabbits.
    I genuinely thought my marriage to Richard would be like a Broadway smash and just play on and on and on. Richard agreed. He said that the only thing he could be certain of in life was financial success and our marriage.
    But as it turned out, he was wrong on both counts.
    Â 
    My Caravaggio look-alike stirred. “There’s a Starbucks downstairs, babe, if you want to grab us some coffees,” he murmured as he punched a pillow and settled back down under the covers.
    Quite apart from the fact that Starbucks was a few hours away from opening, I was outraged by the request. “You want me to go get coffee? Should I tidy up a bit while I’m at it? Flick the duster around, wash your socks and do a spot of hoovering?” I asked—well, obviously I didn’t actually ask, not out loud. I just looked at him and my whole fed up–ness with him and all the others like him. All the men I’d slept with since splitting with Richard came tumbling down upon me like the bad hangover that would soon be throbbing in my head.
    I was sick of the Davids, the Edwards, the Jamies, the Freddies and the dozen other forgettable men I had pulled these past couple