Betrayed: Keeping her in the Dark Vol. 3 (10 page)

She changed the subject and we started talking more about the party. I told her I was thinking of telling Liam I had tickets to the Opera for his birthday so he would get all dressed up in a tuxedo. 

Liam in a tuxedo was a sight to see. Liam in any clothing was usually sexy. But in a tux he made me melt. With his ocean blue eyes, hair that made my hands ache to get my fingers in it, and his accent, he made most women melt in whatever clothes he had on in whatever room he was in. 

“This is a wonderful idea. Liam is going to love it. Ya know, once he gets over hating it,” Jane said as we packed up our bags and started to walk down the street. It seems everyone knew about how grumpy my husband could be. Then she took my arm and pulled me to face her. 

“Listen, this is just a test for our relationship. We’re just trying this as a trial run. Will says if I don’t feel comfortable with having another woman in his bed, then he will end it.” I nodded. 

“You might want to think about a threesome for the two of you as well.” She laughed. “The way Liam was watching Josie and me, and then when Kimberly, the waitress who gave him the lap dance joined in, he couldn’t take his eyes away.” I looked down at the ground. “Shit, I did it again, didn’t I?” 

“No, don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Hey, telling me that my husband is a freak when it comes to sex is nothing new, right? I mean think about how we met?” We both laughed, air kissed and I told her I would call her later. 

I tried to tell myself that what she said didn’t bother me, but it did. It wasn’t like I didn’t know Liam liked seeing two or three women together. I mean what man didn’t, right? 

He had told me that he had been with multiple women before, so I knew that too.

 But now, going back to where he learned how to control his controlling behavior, where he experimented with his sexuality and learned about being a Dominant and wanting a Submissive woman, going back there might bring up old feelings. Not that his Dominant side had changed very much. Liam was still very controlling and had his caveman issues. But what if seeing multiple women together and now hearing that Will was going to have two girlfriends made him want that too?

I shook it off and decided to go by Liam’s office before I went back to mine. I made it to his office but had to stop walking because of a rock in my shoe. I sat down on a bench outside his building and took off my shoe to shake it, just as his car pulled up. 

I stood up, with one shoe and waited for him to get out and he did. He got out turned around and held his hand out to help out a woman. 

She was a little older, maybe in her mid-40’s. Her hair was strawberry blonde and shoulder length and her body was amazing. I knew this because her dress was black, form fitting, and low cut. She held a wrap around her shoulders with one hand and the other out to Liam. 

I sat down quickly and grabbed my shoe off the ground and a magazine out of my bag to cover my face.

 I lowered the magazine so I could watch them. Her arms were toned, her legs were tones and her skin was perfectly tanned. I could her age around her eyes but other than that she was stunning. She looked classy and professional. They stood for a few minutes and chatted, she touched his shoulder and ran her hand down his arm. His body language made it clear that this wasn’t a business meeting. 

Liam did business with many powerful CEO’s of other companies. He was constantly looking for other business’s to buy or help and sometimes he worked the other successful companies as well. The odds that some of these CEO’s were women were good and I knew that. But this conversation wasn’t a business conversation. 

I wanted to get up and say something. He wasn’t trying to hide this conversation because he was standing on a public street with hundreds of passerby’s right in front of his office building. But what was he doing? Who was she? 

He helped her get in a cab and then walked back inside. He didn’t kiss her and he didn’t even hug her when she acted like she wanted to hug him. She looked a little offended when he pulled away and gestured toward the cab.

I grabbed my bag and hightailed it across the street and down two blocks to my office. 

As I approached the front I saw John pacing the street. 

“Do you have any idea how close I was to calling the police and your husband, Mrs. Hastings?” He followed me in the building and Winston jumped up from the mock gazebo in our front store. 

“Please call the police before you ever call my husband. I would much rather deal with them and not him,” I said as I kept walking.

“Mr. Hastings is going to fire us if you keep ducking out on your protection detail.”

Winston’s voice was very stern but he didn’t show much emotion. He touched my arm to stop me from walking past him.

“You have to start taking your protection seriously, Mrs. Hastings.” I shoved his hand off my shoulder. 

“You know what?” I wasn’t in the mood to be told what to do by any man. “I am so tired of the men in my life, trying to run my life.” He started to say something but I didn’t let him.

 “I am not the First Lady of the United States nor am I the Queen of England…and you sir,” I poked him in the chest, “you are not in the secret service! You work for me! You got that!” I kept poking him as my voice got louder. 

“You are my employee and I will run this security detail the way I want to run it! And if you or Mr. Hastings don’t like it, you can take this detail and shove it right up your ass!” I walked past him and the front desk in the bridal shop. Thankfully the only person in the shop was Mindy, my front desk clerk. She said a quiet ‘hello’ as I walked past her too. 

I kept walking down the hall to my office and when I tried to slam the door behind me John was in the doorway. 

“If you have a problem with your job we can talk about it later. I have work to do.” He didn’t let my close the door and he just stood there looking at me. He knew this wasn’t like me. John was the closest thing I had to a friend besides Jane. He had helped me hide from Liam before when I just wasn’t ready to face him. I knew John was on my side.

“I will apologize to Winston. I’m having a bad day. It isn’t his fault, and it isn’t your fault.” I took a deep breath and walked over to my desk. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked still standing at the door. 

“Yes, I do. But I am positive you don’t want to hear about it,” I let out the air in my lungs and sat down in my chair.

John slowly walked over to the chair in front of my desk and sat down. 

“I’ll stop you if you get to a point where I am not interested,” he said.  I smiled at him.

“Seriously, I have known you for a long time, Norah. I drive you everywhere, make sure you have what you need and stay out of your way while keeping you safe. I spend more time with you than I ever did with my ex-wife and maybe that’s the reason I am divorced. You know I can keep a secret. My job is to protect you and I can’t do it if you don’t trust me. I’m here if you need to talk.” He stood up and walked to the door. 

“Thank you, John. Please tell Winston I am very sorry and I will talk to him later.” 

Chapter Eight

Liam

I couldn’t stop my knee from bouncing with nerves on my drive home. Samantha had me on edge by showing up at the office. It was bad enough I hadn’t old Norah about the sex club. It was even worse that I still hadn’t told her about the dancing waitress grabbing my cock. I thought I could take a pass on telling her about running into Samantha, but now I was sure that was something I had to tell her too. 

How do you tell your wife that when she asked you to come clean about something and you told her you had told her everything, you were actually leaving the really important part out? She asked me. She came right out and asked if there was anything else? She was so understanding about the sex club, she would have been understanding about the other things too, right? I mean if I had told her when she directly asked me if there was anything else. 

Now not only had I not told her the complete story, but it was five days later, I had already been caught in one lie and she directly asked me if there was anything else? 

Was I trying to get divorced? Did I want her to hate me? Did I want to lose her forever? Because if that was the case I was doing an exceptional job of doing all of those things.  I was the best man for the job if you needed to purchase a woman, push her away, marry her and then do everything in your power to make her hate you. 

I loosened my collar as I walked in the door and I could smell dinner. She was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes with her back to me. 

“I thought you washed dishes after dinner?” I was trying to break the ice. 

“I cleaned out refrigerator.” She sounded upset. 

“Why?” I asked. Norah only did what I called extreme cleaning when she was upset about something. 

“I had a bad day.”  Oh good news for me.

“When I have a bad day I make myself and few drinks and ask for a foot rub,” I came up behind her and massaged her shoulders.

“Would you like a foot rub?” I whispered in her ear. 

“I came by your office today.” I started nibbling on her ear. “Marcy said you were out for lunch but it was after 2 o’clock.” I leaned back took my hands away. Marcy hadn’t mentioned she came by. 

“Oh, you know what happened?” I gulped and stepped away from her. “What time was it? 2 o’clock? You know what that was?” She turned to face me and grabbed the drying towel off the island between us. 

“Marcy said you had a late lunch with a new client.” She looked like she had been crying. 

“I was getting ready to say, I had a lunch with a new client and it ran late. I mean later…later than the lunch started. Which was late, already.” I don’t know what happened to me. I used to be able to lie very well. For some reason looking at her face, knowing she had been crying made me not able to talk.

“I’m sorry I missed you. Are you alright?” She wiped her face on her apron. 

“I’m fine. I told you I had a bad day.” 

“What happened?” I asked. 

“I yelled at Winston.” She started crying again. 

“Why?” I stepped closer to her and tried to pull her closer to me but she wouldn’t let me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked again. 

“I yelled at him for something that wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do anything to deserve it.” Tears were running down her face. 

“Norah, sweetheart, I am sure he is fine. He probably hasn’t given it another thought. Does it really bother you that bad?” I couldn’t believe she was acting like this. Something had upset her and she didn’t want to tell me and now she was using an argument with Winston as a ruse. 

She pulled the apron from her waist and put it on the island. “I need to go organize my shoes, because the other night when I was getting ready for dinner I messed them all up.” She walked past me and I grabbed her arm. 

“Norah, your shoes are fine. I saw them this morning when I got my shoes…your side of the closet is the most organized part of this house.” She pulled away. 

“No not that closet. The closet in my old bedroom. I keep a lot of stuff over there and it is a mess. I made a pizza and it’s in the oven. It’ll will be done in about 5 minutes.” She walked into the dining room and was making her way through the doorway to the foyer when I stopped her again. 

“You keep clothes in the other closet too? I didn’t know that. Just how many outfits and pairs of shoes do you have, sweetheart?” 

“Yes, as it turns out there are things in my life that you don’t know.” She did her runway turn and walked to the staircase and swayed her hips as she walked up. 

“You aren’t eating dinner with me?” I yelled at the bottom of the stairs as I watched her ass move back and forth. 

“No. I’m not hungry.” She kept on walking to her old room, I assumed. 

I knew her ‘things in my life you don’t know’ comment had something to do with me. She was pissed about the sex club. She acted like she forgave me last night and even sucked me off in the most seductive way she ever had before. I thought we were over this but apparently she was very pissed about it. 

Her being upset threw me off my game. I had a plan to come clean and seeing her in tears made me forget everything else. Norah had that effect on me. Just being near her made me lose all rhyme or reason. 

I took the pizza out of the oven, cut it in to slices, grabbed a couple of beers and went to talk to Winston. 

“Is Winston here?” I asked John who was wiping down the car. 

“No sir. He has gone home already. Do you need him for something, sir?” I stopped and sat on the cement bench on the side of the driveway. 

“No. I can ask him tomorrow. Just out curiosity, John, what time do you go home?” I took another bite of the homemade pizza Norah had made. 

“I usually stay until 8 o’clock and you know I live on the property now. So it isn’t like I have a long drive or anything.” I handed him a beer and held out the pizza. He took a slice. “Thank you sir.” Then he sat next to me on the bench. 

“John, is there any member of my house or security staff that doesn’t live here on the property somewhere?” we both laughed. 

“Winston doesn’t, Trig doesn’t, and I think most of the gardening staff doesn’t either. But you have a very large property and five different guest houses.” I nodded at him. 

“Which house do you live in?” I asked and was embarrassed I didn’t know already. 

“I live in the townhouse past the pool over near the stables. Not the stables directly behind the house, the ones over on the south lawn. Sofia and Nathan live beside me.” 

“Do your daughters come here to visit?” I asked. I knew he had two daughters and he had moved here to be closer to his ex-wife and his children. I thought I remembered him telling me his ex-wife was British and came back to live near her parents after the divorce and because a law firm made her a partner or something.

I had seen him and his ex-wife and their kids together and they were a beautiful family. I wondered why they divorced but had never asked him.