Josh stopped abruptly, only inches from the end of the poker. “Oh, Kate. You don’t understand,” Josh pleaded.
“Educate me, Josh. Tell me why. Why did you do it?
Come on now, the spotlight’s on you.” Kate positioned her arms like a magician’s assistant highlighting a master illusionist’s achievement.
Fighting with himself to give a delicate, more softened version, Josh struggled to speak. But knowing lies and deceit were useless currency, he paid with the truth. “I started the affair three months after you lost the baby. We were strangers to each other. We were both unsure what we wanted or even if we wanted each other.”
“That’s it? Because we had a rough patch you ran off to find the first bitch you could fuck?”
“No,” he recoiled. “You didn’t want to know me,
you pushed me away like it was my fault.”
“I’m so sorry. It must be my fault you put your dick in your secretary.” Sarcasm laced the tirade.
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m telling you the truth— something I should have done a long time ago. I had an affair for my own selfish reasons, but I realized it was wrong. I came back for you and I made this family work, did my best to make us happy. I love you, Kate, and I want you.” Josh maintained his distance; Kate still had the poker and he feared what she would do with it in this distraught state.
“How do I know you won’t run off with the next
pair of pretty tits that jiggles by?”
“Because I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.
I’m one hundred percent behind this family, for this family.”
Kate glared. Her face, screwed tight with the fury and pain, suddenly relaxed. She dropped the poker to the floor. It twanged against the fireplace tiles.
The Kate Josh knew came into focus. It was going to be okay. He managed a weak smile.
The house was silent; not even a noise from Abby’s bedroom.
“I want you to go, Josh,” Kate said.
He couldn’t believe it. He had lost. He tried to challenge, but she knocked his pleas down with a raised
hand.
All the emotion had drained from Kate. “I don’t
know what I want, but I do know I don’t want you.”
Kate’s fury, present moments earlier, now possessed Josh. He knew he could do nothing here. He’d lost his family and stormed out of the living room.
He yanked on the door, but the security chain was still attached. The door ripped itself from his grasp and slammed shut. He jerked on the door even harder. With a crack of splintering wood, the fixings tore from the door frame. The chain attached to the door recoiled and swung out, narrowly missing Josh’s face. The
door’s momentum sent him sprawling.
Josh tore over to his car and flung himself behind the wheel. He gunned the engine, yanked the gearshift into reverse and the car roared backward into the street. He jammed the car into drive and floored the gas pedal, trails of black smoke pouring off the screaming tires.
“Fucking bitch,” Josh growled. He would be
damned if Bell would be allowed to get away with this.
She would pay dearly for what she had done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The journey to Bell’s house took mere minutes. The rules of the road didn’t apply to Josh. He bullied his way past every vehicle in his path. The engine screaming in pain, Josh tore along the roads, taking each bend too fast and stopping too late.
The car screeched to a halt outside Belinda Wong’s borrowed house. The car rode up over the rolled curb and positioned itself untidily on the sidewalk, trailing a pair of black, wavy lines on the pale road surface. Josh leapt from the driver’s seat. A Pontiac Grand Am
missed him by inches as it passed him. He ignored the driver’s violent overcorrection and the subsequent insult.
Blinded by rage, he charged up to the house.
Josh yanked on the door. It was unlocked and
opened easily. It wouldn’t have mattered if the door was locked—nothing would have prevented him from getting in.
Bell appeared from the bedroom dressed only in a
white silk teddy and skimpy panties. The silk was opaque, but it clung to her delicate frame. The peaks of her nipples were easily highlighted under the seamless material. When she moved, the material momentarily stuck to her like wet cotton, giving glimpses of the contours beneath.
“You bitch. You fucking bitch.” His rage was so intense he thought he would puke.
She smiled sweetly, not showing a hint of surprise at his uninvited intrusion. “Josh, so good to see you. You must have gotten the news.”
“You had to tell her. You couldn’t have taken the money. You had to destroy my family.”
Bell cocked her head to one side and flashed a tightlipped smile of regret. “Things not too good at home
then?”
“You knew what Kate’s reaction would be.” Violently, Josh grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers
digging into her supple flesh. He shook her in some vain hope of making her understand the significance of what she’d done. Bell’s raven hair scattered over her face and shoulders.
Still in Josh’s grasp, she shook her head, revealing blazing eyes and an open mouth excited by Josh’s energy.
“God, you have no idea how horny you’re making
me.”
There was no talking to her and he found it hard
to speak. Different emotional states fast-forwarded through his mind—anger, rage, desperation, loss and defeat. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A knotted ball of frustration in his brain prevented him from doing either. Releasing a primal growl of frustration, Josh shoved Bell away from him. Stumbling, she
fell backward, striking the floor unceremoniously. Legs in the air, panties showing, Bell lost all the seductive allure she’d ever inspired. Frustrated, Josh collapsed onto the couch behind him.
Bell got to her feet. She dropped her mocking tone and in all seriousness said, “What did you expect me to do, Josh?”
“Accept what happened. I don’t know.”
Bell glanced out the window. “Nice parking job, by the way.”
She came over to him. She looked at him with a pitying expression.
“Why did you do it?” Without the rage, he sounded tired.
Crouching on her haunches, she placed her hands on his knees. “You gave me no choice. You refused to give me what I wanted. I wasn’t just going to disappear to make it convenient for you.”
“But this way, you’ve destroyed everything you
wanted. You don’t get any more money. You’ve destroyed my family, so you don’t get me. You’ve lost as
much as I have.”
“You still don’t get it, do you? This has never been about money. It was about making you pay for what you did to me.” Pain was evident in Bell’s rising voice.
She pushed herself away from him and stood up. She went into the kitchen, got herself a beer from the refrigerator and popped the top with the bottle opener on
the fridge door.
Josh followed Bell into the kitchen after a moment.
His face was long, stretched by a more powerful gravity than that experienced by anyone else on the planet.
Bell saw the sad expression and moved toward him.
She wrapped her arms around him. The condensation from the bottle soaked Josh’s shirt where it touched
