Chapter One

Giancarla stood up on her toes, wiped the mirror clear with a hand towel, and leaned close, looking for any trace of wrinkles around her dark brown eyes. Even in the steamy warmth of her bathroom the edge of the sink felt cold against her thighs and belly. She turned her head from side to side, contemplating her appearance. She could see no wrinkles, and felt relieved. It was a little foolish, she knew. She was only in her mid-twenties. Any wrinkles should be years and years away yet. But all of the trophy wives in her husband’s circle of friends obsessed over the least sign of a wrinkle, and she supposed she had caught some of that insecurity from them.

She giggled at her reflection in the mirror. Those trophy wives were all a couple of years older than she was and seemed to have been turned out of the same mold: Tall, thin, pale, blonde, blue-eyed and loaded with silicone and collagen. The blonde hair was probably as fake as their tits. It was almost always an off-white color that Giancarla doubted ever appeared in nature. She herself had thick, dark brown hair that showed off reddish highlights whenever the light caught it just right. Her eyes were large, liquid and a brown so dark that they almost seemed black. She had an olive complexion. She was not especially tall. In fact, she considered herself a little on the short side for a woman. She was not especially thin. Her hips and thighs were nicely rounded, but nowhere fat. As for her tits… well, they weren’t really especially large, but on her small frame they looked it. Someone might honestly make the mistake of thinking that they were fake, but they weren’t. She was rather proud of them, even if it meant that time and gravity were not going to be her friends. She had nothing at all in common with all those other trophy wives except for one thing. Like them, she was very high-maintenance. It seemed only fair that her husband should lavish money and presents on her, given how much time and trouble she had to go through in order to keep herself youthful and attractive.

She sighed. For the past several months she’d been wondering just why she was going to all that time and trouble. Nicholas spent so much time traveling on business now that they hardly ever saw each other. He called her every night from wherever he was, and on the rare occasions when they were alone together he still had that same hungry look in his eyes for her. The problem was that she got to look into his eyes so infrequently lately. He kept telling her that his absences were both