cross loves

Remington

September

"Good night, Mrs. Williams."

The door to the sitting room we're currently hiding in cracks open, and the face of my best friend's grandmotherly housekeeper, Mrs. Jones, pops into view. She gives us a smile, which I can't understand at all. It's almost three in the morning. I'm exhausted, and I'm sure she's been here since before the sun rose. Julia makes quite the sight collapsed on the couch, her legs thrown across my lap and her head in her husband's. But Mrs. Jones adores Julia as if she were one of her own.

Thinking about it, Julia basically is her granddaughter. Mrs. Jones helped raise Julia since she was a little girl. When Julia bought a house of her own, Mrs. Jones packed up her cookbooks and followed her across town.

Jules perks up from the couch, lifting herself onto her elbows.

"Thank you so much, Mrs. Jones, for staying tonight," Julia says. "You are my hero, as always. Go home, get some sleep, and then go shopping, on me. I don't want to see you until Wednesday."

It's only Friday night. Or Saturday morning, depending on how you look at it. I know Mrs. Jones never works the weekends, but five days off is a little much just for helping with a party.

Mrs. Jones tsks, shaking her head at the outlandishness of her employer.

"You were hosting, dear. Which means I needed to be here. No offense, but we both know you can't do it without me."

The three of us on the couch burst into laughter. There's nothing to be offended about. Julia is a master of many things, but Mrs. Jones has always been her right-hand woman. After all, Mrs. Jones trained her.

Mrs. Jones finishes her debriefing.

"The cleaning crew is gone, Mrs. Williams. I sent them home with most of the leftovers. I'll see you on Monday."

"Call me Jules, Jones," Julia moans pitifully, closing her eyes in mock pain and collapsing back onto Justin's lap. "It's too late for formalities."

I swallow back the chuckle begging to escape.

Mrs. Jones did call her Jules, up until the moment Justin and Julia said I do. Julia has been Mrs. Williams ever since. It drives Julia absolutely batty.

Mrs. Jones winks at us, knowing exactly what she's done to her pseudo-granddaughter, and pulls the door closed until there's only a crack of light shining in.

"I expect to see a charge on your credit card, Amelia!" Justin yells after his housekeeper, but she doesn't reply, and we hear the front door open and shut a few moments later. Mrs. Jones hit the light switches as she went, and the vivid shine of fluorescents streaming into our hideaway dims until Julia is lit with little more than the moonlight burnished through the window.

"You know you pay that woman more money than a broker on Wall Street," I tell them, and Julia giggles between us. It's a pointless comment but a conversation we have on a fairly regular basis. I think I'm jealous that my best friends has a demigoddess for a house manager, and I'm stuck with Olga the Grump.

I cast my mind back and try to think when the last time I actually saw my housekeeper. Does she still work for me?

"Worth every penny." Justin grins, and I let the silence fall between us.

It's peaceful, hidden away with the people I love the most. Tranquil, with a layer of static electricity floating over the surface.

I should go home. Or at least to my home away from home, the bedroom saved for me in the family wing of the apartment.

Of course, it's been months since I've slept in either place.

Instead, I sit in the darkness with Julia's legs on my lap, feeling her toes running up my thigh.

Julia sighs, a sound I feel deep in my gut, and slides down the couch several inches, letting her knees come to rest across my thighs as her feet, shoeless and stocking free, land on the armrest. I gather one into my hands and dig my thumb into the ball of her foot. Justin cups her neck in his hand, his fingers moving in a slow rotation up and down her throat.

It's mesmerizing the way his long, slender fingers caress her skin in the dark. I can't look away, even though I know I should.

Julia is Justin's wife. Watching him touch her shouldn't affect me like this. It shouldn't speed my pulse and make my cock twitch in my pants. But it does. Knowing she belongs to him, but spreads her knees for me, twists my gut until I want to worship at their feet.

"What was I thinking, hosting a roaring twenties party for the purpose of absolutely nothing?" Julia asks into the air, her voice tired and rhetorical.

Justin chuckles under his breath, and I smile to myself, already knowing the answer.

"You were thinking that it is, in fact, the roaring twenties," he says succinctly, the adoration for his wife bare in his voice. "If only a century after the first."

Welcome to 2020. See you in another hundred years. Wanting to celebrate a famous moment in history isn't what brought this on, though.

"Justin has been reading the Great Gatsby," I say with a smirk. "Again." It's his favorite book. Julia smiles at me without ever opening her eyes. Justin tilts his face from his wife, meeting my gaze. Even in the near darkness, I see the concupiscence behind his eyes.

"He had one of those rare smiles, with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor."

Justin whispers the quote into the darkness, the words floating over his wife's prone body, and I have to lick my lips to bring the moisture back to my mouth.

This is what I'm talking about. The effect they have on my body. God. If it were only my body, I could handle it. Justin is innocuous in his tone. A favorite quote from a favorite book. But goosebumps break out over my skin, the bow tie around my neck suddenly too tight for me to breathe. When he tilts his head to the side, his eyes wreak havoc on my soul.

It's the effect they have on everything else that's ruined me.

It's dangerous for me to be here with them, like this. I should walk away before anyone else gets in too deep.

Justin never breaks his stare.

He draws me in like oxygen to a flame.

But I can't leave. The building could burn down around me, and I couldn't move from this spot. I knew I shouldn't have come tonight. I should have sent a moving man for my things and been done with it.

My eyes drift towards the feet in my hands and up the legs they belong to.

"It was a good party, Jules."

I didn't intend to whisper, but the stillness in the room has stolen my voice. It emerges deep and gravelly, and Justin's eyes flick to mine, his Adam's apple bobbing when he swallows. Julia sighs again, settling deeper into the couch. Her knees part slightly, her still-gloved hands coming to rest beside her head.

The silk of Julia's dress flows around her body like water, and moisture floods my mouth when the fabric slips up her legs, exposing the pale cream of her thighs. They don't live in the penthouse, but it's a corner apartment in Downtown New York. We're high enough up to see the tops of other buildings and to watch the boats float down the Hudson for miles. This late at night, it feels like we're alone in the world. Action and consequence are a fantasy. One that has no place with us here.

My hands slide from Julia's feet and over her ankles. I dig my thumbs into her calves, and Julia moans, her knees falling open in my lap.

My eyes snap to Justin to find him already searching me out in the darkness. My suit jacket is long gone, but he still wears his, the black lapels lost in the dimness of the room, the white stark against his wife's body supine in his lap. His facial hair, always expertly trimmed and scruffed, is thicker on his cheeks, the result of twenty-four hours without a razor to his chin. His undercut is messy from hours of hosting and dancing in his wife's arms.

She danced in my arms too.

I can't dance in his.

"Harder, please," Julia instructs, her voice husky and soft. Justin burrows his thumbs into the back of Julia's neck, the pressure firm enough to make her arch. Her breasts thrust into the air, and I find myself leaning in, the need to be closer to her overwhelming my sense of self-preservation. Justin's gaze holds me captive when he slips his hand down Julia's back. The sound of her zipper lowering explodes into the darkness like thunder.

If Julia can feel my cock thicken and swell under her legs, she doesn't let on. Though, I'm sure she's used to it by now.

Justin knows. He licks his lips, and I have to drop my eyes. It doesn't make a difference. The sight of Julia displayed like a feast doesn't help my self-control.

She looks so small, lying against me. My hands engulf her legs, and I use the pressure of my fingers to massage muscles and caress her flesh. She's so fucking pale; I swear she's glowing next to my muted darkness.

I never knew what hands were for until I used them against her body.

"Touch her," Justin rumbles, and my eyes flick to him again, watching me as I rub my palms over his wife.

"Please," Julia begs, and I immediately surrender to her will.

I'll pay for this. I know I will. But if I'm going to be punished, I should at least reap my rewards. After all, Justin taught me that. Good boys always get rewarded.

When my hands glide over her knees, I apply pressure with my palms, spreading her farther as I go. Her moan licks over me, goosebumps rising to the surface of my skin. My entire body electrifies at the sound of it, of her.

She's mine.

A set of slender fingers enter my view, and I watch with awe as Justin gathers his wife into his lap, pulling her arms up and around his neck. He angles her against his chest, and I move with them, unable to let my hands leave her flesh. I think a growl slips from my lips when he pulls her from my grasp. Justin's responding laugh is dark and dirty, and I want to lick it from his lips.

She's ours, he seems to remind me. Julia is ours to share.

"Stay," Justin commands in a voice that sends liquid fire through my veins. It sends a shock along my cock, and I freeze with my hands on Julia's thighs, my fingers grazing her panties. His face is tilted down to her, but then his eyes flick to me. I know this shade by now, darker

when he's in the throes of passion. Storm clouds rumbling behind his irises. "I want to watch you taste her pussy. I want to watch her when she's exploding on your tongue."

I'm panting, my heart thundering in my ears. I have a moment to wonder how this got away from me so fast. This isn't the way this should play out. I'm a Lancaster, son of the most powerful black man in New York. I take orders from no man.

Isn't that what I decided? That I couldn't be a part of this anymore?

Then Julia's mewls penetrate my fog, and I focus on more important things.

I'll happily live on my knees if it's Justin and Julia in front of me.

Justin's hands roam over his wife's body. While I was paying attention to her mile-long legs, he pried her arms from her dress. He pushes it down slowly, baring her breasts to my view. She isn't wearing a bra, and he cups the pert mounds in his hands, pushing them together and rubbing his thumb over her nipples until they peak and harden in the cool air.

Julia arches into his touch but never breaks her hold on his neck. She'll stay that way until he tells her to move.

Somehow, my studious best friend, always with a smile and never without a book, ordering his wife to obey in a voice that dares to be denied, is the sexiest thing I've ever seen. It's what did me in that first night, all those months ago. The way he transformed me from predator to prey.

"Remington," Julia whimpers in desperation, and my cock twitches in my pants at the sound of my name falling brokenly from her lips.

Julia has dimples in her knees. It's adorable, and I've lost count of how many times I've dipped my tongue into the soft gouges and sucked the sensitive skin behind her leg.

I slip from the couch and drop to my knees, obeying the siren's call. Julia's eyes are closed, her bare chest heaving like she's running through Central Park. Justin's gaze never breaks from mine, his stare penetrating my soul when I run my palms up Julia's thighs and pull the scrap of lace covering her center down her legs.

Justin stretches a leg on the couch, dropping the other to the floor, and I spread his wife's legs, draping a knee over each of his.

"Fuuuck," Justin groans.

Julia's dress circles around her waist, her breasts bare, her perfectly bald pussy on display. She's so fucking wet she glistens, and I blow gently on her clit, spreading her lips with my hands on her mound. I'm careful not to touch her where she needs it most.

Swollen fat and pink, I can smell her arousal, taste the sweetness in the air. Her hips buck slowly, searching out sweet friction. Her ass wiggles tightly onto Justin's cock.

"Be still," he grunts into her ear, and though she whines like it's hurting her to do so, her body stiffens like a beam before becoming calm and pliable. And still. So very still.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I love it when they do that.

"Remi," Justin prods, his tone conciliatory instead of commanding. Almost as if he knows what all of this is doing to my brain and has decided to take pity on me. "Make my wife come, please."

He's deliberate with his words, slow in their delivery.

I think back to his twenty-first birthday when he talked me into jumping into the Bellagio fountains. I've never been very good at denying Justin anything he asks for. I don't see why I should start now.

My hands take up the entirety of Julia's upper thighs, and I take a moment to burn the image into my memory before I bury my head between her legs and lick her slit to clit. The muscles

in her legs tremble, and she moans into my touch, her body melting like butter, but she doesn't squirm her hips. Doesn't so much as twitch.

I look up from under my eyelashes to see Justin watching the show, a desperate feral look on his face. Then he meets my eye and smirks, leaning down to whisper in Julia's ear. He places an open-mouthed kiss behind her earlobe, and she sighs into his touch, her hips rotating slowly.

"That's our girl," Justin whispers, though it feels like he's said it just for me. "Show him what a good girl you are. Do you want his fingers?"

"Gods, yes," she begs, and Justin latches onto my wrist, pulling my hand from Julia's thigh and bringing it to his mouth.

"Me too," he answers, then sucks two of my fingers between his lips, swirling the digits with his tongue, then hollowing his cheeks before releasing me with a wet squelch.

"Ask him nicely," he prods her.

"Please, Remington. Fuck me with your fingers."

I slide one inside her tight core, moaning at the sensation of feeling her around me. It's even better when my cock is inside her.

"Gods, Justin. His fingers are so big."

My arm jerks in response, and I thrust in another digit, fucking her with my hand as quick as I can. I'm going to die, right here on the floor, with my face between Julia's thighs, and what a way to go.

Justin knows up close and personal how big my fingers are.

"Shhhh, baby," Justin coos in her ear, his hands rubbing and tweaking her breasts.

"No," I tell Justin, my voice dry and rough. I realize it's the first time I've spoken since our interlude started. "I want to hear her. Tell me what you want."

Need flares behind Justin's eyes, but I concentrate on his wife, promising myself I'll finish him after her.

"I want to suck your cock," she pants, and I have to reach for it and squeeze it through my pants. Anything to ease the ache building in my balls. Justin grabs the wrist that's currently pummeling his wife and yanks it to his mouth again, sucking her juices from my digits. "Can I have a taste?" she asks, and Justin brings my hand to her lips. Julia licks her essence from my palm before Justin lets go of my wrist.

I plunge my fingers into her sweet pussy again, redoubling my efforts, and lower my head to her clit, flicking the pink flesh with my tongue.

"Next time, we're going to eat her for hours," Justin says, and I meet his eye from between his wife's legs. Julia has lost her vocabulary, a steady flow of pleading and swearing dripping from her lips. We ignore her, focusing on each other. He pulls her nipples tight, making her body arch, and I push her down with my face, listening to her mewl.

Give and take. Ying and yang.

We've always made a great team.

"We can spread her out on the bed," Justin continues, eyes clouded over with lust. "Use the straps. I want you to watch as I bring her to the brink over and over again before I finally shove her over the edge. With your cock in her mouth."

I'm drunk. But I haven't had a drink in hours. The sweet nectar of Julia's clit is stealing my brain cells by the millions, edged on by the slightly manic tone of Justin's voice.

"I need, I need..." Julia whines, and Justin drops big fat kisses over all the skin he can reach.

"You can move, baby girl," Justin tells her, and while one of her arms stays wrapped around her husband's neck, the other flies to my head, pinning me against her clit. She fucks against

my face while I fuck her with my fingers, and I hold on for the ride, her orgasm crashing over her in waves.

"Jesus Christ, that's so hot, baby girl. You're such a good girl."

I make a split-second decision, and when Julia starts to slow against me, I thrust deep and quick into her pussy. Her startled yip is like catnip to my ears, and I suck her clit into my mouth, rubbing and flicking the bundle of nerves with a wild abandon I've never experienced before. She cries out in painful delight, Justin's arm wrapping around her hips to hold her still, and the second orgasm rips through her in a violent tide.

Justin and I speak without saying a word, and I ease my fingers from her pussy, the strokes of my tongue gentling to butterfly light. He covers her with open-mouthed kisses, and I trail my lips down her thighs, sucking little marks into the pale flesh until her sigh of contentment rattles through me like lightning.

"Fuck, that was amazing. I'm so in love with you, Remi," Julia breathes, her eyes still closed in supplication, her body shutting down to rest. She doesn't even realize she's said it, lost to the waves of her pleasure.

Panic eats at my chest, climbing up my throat to land like a ball at the top of my spine. Justin is whispering in her ear, but he's staring at me, and his eyes say it all.

I can't handle this.

It's ruined everything.

It's ruined me.

"I can't," I spit out harshly, the very words causing my throat to ache and burn. I shove up from the floor, stumbling several steps before I right myself.

"I can't."

Her taste is flooding my mouth, and the look of pain on her face, on both their faces, feels like a spear through my gut.

I do the only thing I can.

Run.

I didn't realize my punishment would come so soon.

Justin

Julia jerks in my arms when the front door slams, and the feel of it reverberating through my chest takes my breath away.

I sense her sniffles before I hear them, and I wrap my body around hers, feeling her twist in my grasp and bury her face into my chest.

"I'm so sorry, Justin. I didn't mean to say it. It was just so perfect," she whispers, and I make shushing noises against her hair, rubbing my hands up and down her bare arms.

"I know," I tell her, dipping my head and using my cheek to wipe away a stray tear. "It's alright. Soon," I soothe her, as much as I assure myself. He's not ready yet, and I understand that. He's not ready to face the truth. That he belongs to us, as much as we belong to him.

But my wife is crying in my arms because the man we both love is breaking our hearts with his determined self-destruction.

I can give him time to get his head on straight, but I can't wait much longer.

"Soon," I whisper into her hair.

***********

BEFORE

Remington

Six months earlier...

"Mother fucker!"

I throw the pillow at the TV, missing it by a mile, and fling myself back on the couch, sulking like a child.

"Stupid assholes just lost me five hundred bucks!" I mumble, and Julia, my best friend since college, coos at me in sympathy.

I pick up the beer by my feet and pout when I find the bottle empty. Julia passes me a tumbler of scotch before plopping onto the couch beside me. I chug it back in one, the sear little more than a sting after all the liquor we've burned through tonight. Julia takes it from my hands then places the glass, along with all the empty bottles, on the living room table.

Between me and Justin, her husband and my best friend in the world, there is quite the collection of empty containers.

Julia is mostly sober, content with the occasional swig from one of our glasses and to play beer wench for us instead. But Justin and I are just shy of shitfaced. She pokes me in the shoulder, gaining my attention.

My head turns in slow motion, pushing through the haze to look at her to my right.

"I'm sorry, Remi. That really sucks. Need me to float you the funds?"

Her mocking smile is incandescent, and I pick up another throw pillow and toss it at her head. Julia bursts into surprised giggles, attempting and failing to dodge my throw. She ends up falling face-first into my lap, laughing. Her jostling makes her rub against my dick, and I do my best to ignore it when she puts her hands on my thigh and flips herself over, so her head is on my legs.

Julia knows I'm not upset about the money. I could lose five million and not make a dent in my trust. I'm heir to one of the wealthiest families in New York. Money means little to me. No, I'm mad because a Lancaster doesn't lose a bet, and it's the third one I've lost this March Madness.

Best not to think about it.

I give her my best smile. The one that makes panties drop and legs spread for miles.

"How you doin', baby?" I ooze at her, drawing my finger down her face, over the slope of her nose, and through the crease of her lips.

Her smile is fucking radiant when she bats those big blue eyes in my direction.

"I'm doin' good, baby. How 'bout you?"

"I could use another drink."

Julia reaches up and pats my cheek, her smile sideways at this angle.

"You're going to be hungover as fuck tomorrow," she singsongs, and I burst into laughter. That's the funniest thing I've heard all night.

It's after midnight, and I've been drinking for hours, but I can handle my liquor. Better than she can, at least. I have fifty pounds on her, easy. All of it muscle.

Without thinking, my hand lifts to her hair, running my fingers through her blonde tangles.

Instead of minding that I'm playing with her hair, Julia leans into my touch, snuggling up into my side.

I lean over as far as I can with her head in my lap.

"Bitchhhhh," I whisper with affection.

"You love me," she sasses right back.

Justin grins at us from the chair, watching our play-by-play with amusement before giving his two cents.

"It was a good game, though; you have to admit. Who would have expected Charlottesville to come back from behind like that?"

"I need-I need-"

I look for something to throw at Justin, uncoordinated as I am, and Julia, anticipating my desire, sits up slightly to grab the pillow I tossed at her from the floor.

"Traitor." Justin laughs at his wife, catching the projectile from the air then shoving it behind his head. He picks up the last two beers from the cooler beside him and, at my head nod, throws the spare to me. I stretch to catch the bottle before it's over Julia's head, then give her husband a dirty look before popping the lid on the beer.

"First off, don't throw glass at your wife's face. It's rude."

"Thank you, Remi," Julia smarts from my lap. I pat her head like a dog.

"Second off, you know what, J? I'm not interested in your opinion. You're like the human equivalent to a puppy dog. Everything makes you happy. Nothing pisses you off. For five years, I've let your puppy dog ass follow me around, and I've never even heard you raise your voice. So, don't placate me with the 'it was a good game' bullshit, okay? When your balls finally drop, and you can put some bass into your voice, then you can talk to me about sports."

Julia laughs in a manic sort of tone, and when I flick my gaze back to J, he's stretched out in the chair, legs crossed at the ankles. His shoulders are thrown back, his chest puffed out, and he has a look that I can only describe as smug coating his face.

"What?" I ask between them, obviously missing part of the joke.

"If you think Justin is like a puppy dog, it's only because you haven't heard his Dom voice yet," Jules teases, and J gives a satisfied smirk.

"Dom voice?" I ask, not believing a word. Justin is the whitest white boy I've ever met. He's good-looking; there's no denying that. But he screams prep school education. Never a hair out of place or stubble too long, the guy goes to a salon every other week instead of a fucking barber like a real man should. There's some ink under his shirt and a body well-earned from our daily visits to the gym, but an alpha, J is not.

"Yeah, okay," I snark, chugging back the rest of my beer.

It's only when I hear the sound of my own swallowing that I realize the laughter has died out between the married couple. I look to Julia in my lap, at the pink flush that's run over her shoulders. At the way she's biting her lower lip. How her breathing has changed, just enough so that her breasts heave in tight little pants.

I'm instantly aroused, my dick twitching underneath her.

I follow her gaze to find Justin staring at us both, a predatory gleam in his eyes I've never seen before. He brings the bottle to his mouth, and the motion is smooth and controlled, his Adam's apple bobbing in a deep sultry rhythm as he drinks the rest of the liquid. He lets the empty container drop to the floor, uncaring if any drips may hit the carpet.

Justin rises from the chair, the muscles in his arms flexing as he moves his weight from his wrists to his feet. The blood is rushing in my ears, the room so hot I'm sweating. It's barely ten feet from the lounger to the couch, but it suddenly feels like a desert, my mouth as dry as the Sahara when Justin stalks towards us like prey.

I feel like I'm floating.

My reliable puppy somehow morphed into a predator. A predator stalking its prey.

Shit.

Does that make me the prey?

Do I want to be caught?

"Ummm," I manage to mumble, but that's as far as I get before Justin straddles his wife, her head still on my lap, and lowers himself to his hands and knees on top of her.

"Wanna play, baby girl?" Justin asks in a voice I've never dreamed could slip from his throat. It's dark and dirty, like chocolate-covered coffee beans. My cock immediately responds, though the rational part of my brain desperately fights my body for control.

But Julia was right.

I'm three sheets to the wind. There's very little logic left in my brain.

All I can think about is how hot it is in this room and how fucking good the couple on top of me feels.

Julia says, "Please," her body withering on my lap, and all attempts at rational thought flee. Justin looks at me and licks his lips before lowering his face to his wife's.

Only he doesn't kiss her. Not like I'm expecting him to. He teases her lips, darting in and pulling back. Nipping at her mouth, flicking her with his tongue. Julia chases him when he drifts away, her arms linked around his neck, little mewls of need unfulfilled dripping from her lips every time he darts away.

He grinds his dick into her crotch, and my eyes bug out, my cock under her head so hard it hurts.

"Stay still," he orders her, voice like velvet over steel. She stills immediately at his command. Her muscles tremble with desire, but she doesn't move more than that.

"Holy. Fucking. Shit." I breathe out, my hands lifted to the air, unsure of where to put them.

Maybe I've imagined this once or twice. What would it be like with her? With them? She's gorgeous, after all. Who doesn't have a fantasy or two about fucking your best friend's wife? But never in a million years did I ever picture this.

"Do you want a taste?" Justin asks, and it takes me longer than it should to realize that Justin is talking to me. I look at him hovering above her, her body pinned between us, and I've never wanted anything more.

But I can't seem to open my mouth.

"Uhhhh."

"Have you ever wondered what Remi tastes like, baby?" Justin faces his wife, and she stares at me, licking her lips, slowly nodding yes.

"Me too," Justin says, and without warning, his hand is in my shirt, and he's yanked me down to meet him, his lips firmly melding with my own. I can taste the liquor on his breath, feel the chapped texture of his lips. His technique is rougher than anyone I've kissed before, and my heart is thudding in my ears. I hear it echo in my head, one beat, two beats, before I thrust my tongue between Justin's lips, exploring the inside of his mouth.

He groans at my intrusion. Tightens his grip on my shirt. I grasp the back of his neck, holding him in place while I claim him on top of his wife.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

I jerk away from Justin with a gasp and see his eyes glazed over with lust.

"My turn," Julia pants and struggles to wiggle from underneath her husband. Justin rolls right off the couch, freeing her to climb into my lap. Julia straddles me, a hand on either side of my face, and when her lips entwine with mine, it couldn't be more different from her husband's.