“You would have done the same for me.” Vicky’s voice lowered, as though she was speaking from behind her hand. “Cathy, are you going to tell him? Tell Michael about Chloe?”
“No. No, of course not.” Cathy’s response was quick, visceral. She straightened in her chair. “Why would I? He has nothing to do with me and Chloe.”
There was silence for a long moment. Then Vicky’s voice came back on the line. “I just thought… but it’s your business.”
“Yes, it is.” Cathy was bothered. She couldn’t imagine why Vicky would even wonder about such a thing. Then the probable reason burst on her brain, and she mentally smacked herself. As far as Vicky was aware, she and Michael were developing a lasting relationship. Guilt nudged her. She wasn’t used to keeping things from her best friend. She was actually lying by omission, and it wasn’t the first time she had done it since meeting Michael. Also, Vicky’s query had made her see that her arrangement with Michael was suddenly fraught with difficulties. Some of her giddy happiness left her. She felt uncomfortable and strangely upset. “Vicky, I don’t want to talk about Michael, okay?”
“Sure, I understand. Well, I don’t, but it’s okay.” Vicky’s voice rallied. “So, do you want to hit the stores after work? Besides everything else, you’ll need cleaning supplies for this massive cleaning spree.”
Cathy was relieved by the change in subject. She pushed any thought of Michael out of her head, determined to deal first with her primary priorities. There wasn’t time to bend her mind to the large problem of their relationship, such as it was, and what would happen to it now. “I’d appreciate your help, Vicky. Unless you have other plans?”
“Cathy, I’m a single woman with a cat. I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”
After getting off the phone, Cathy took a legal pad and started to make a list of things as they occurred to her. With her daughter home, it would mean a substantial reshuffle of her life in more ways than she had anticipated. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. It would be worth it. But she had to make some plans, build in a safety net for herself. She would have to hire a home nurse to stay with Chloe whenever she needed to do the grocery shopping or run other errands or come in to the office when it became necessary, so she would need to find a professional whose schedule was flexible. Cathy decided to get in touch with the head nurse on Chloe’s floor at the hospital. Surely Barbara Beasely might know of someone, she thought hopefully.
Her work was such that, with some minor adjustments, it would not be a trial to do from home. Much of what she did was on the computer. Spreadsheets and grant proposals lent themselves well to electronic communication. It would just require organization and time management, which she was already good at.
Even as she was making her list, the question she kept asking herself was what she was going to do about Michael. Like it or not, her relationship with him was part of the equation. Cathy frowned abstractedly, tapping her pencil on the tablet. She still couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her to think about the impact of Chloe’s homecoming on her and Michael’s relationship until Vicky brought it up.
She did not know how she was going to fit Michael into her new life. She had not confided in him about Chloe and her need to be with her daughter before. She certainly wasn’t going to change that decision now. With Chloe at home, her time would become doubly impossible to dovetail with Michael’s schedule. She honestly did not see how she was going to be able to continue to see him.
Cathy nibbled on her bottom lip. She supposed it was time to call it quits between them. She had known the day would come, hadn’t she? If she had already recognized the inevitable, then why did she now feel this depression? On the other hand, she thought, there were too many reasons not to end the affair. First and foremost, just as she had feared, the dependable transportation provided by Michael was a powerful factor. She hated the crassness, but she had to be practical. What would she do without the Lexus? She couldn’t very well expect to keep driving it if she was no longer going to be with Michael.
Going to be with Michael
…Her mind flashed back to the last time that they had been together, how they had ended up banging wildly in front of the dresser mirror. Cathy shivered at the memory. She hadn’t heard from him since he had flown out, but she felt it would not be many more days before he returned to town. Her insides involuntarily clenched with anticipation. She drew in her breath and forced herself, muscle by muscle, to relax. “Focus, Cathy. Think about what’s best for Chloe.”
Frowning, Cathy thought about all of the ramifications of severing her arrangement with Michael. No, there was no question about it. She needed the Lexus, now more than ever. She
had
to put Chloe first, and that need demanded she have dependable transportation. The additional income provided by Michael would not come amiss, either. Medical bills didn’t simply stop just because the patient was sent home. The monthly stipend that Michael faithfully deposited to Winter’s account was always useful.
Useful?
Cathy grimaced, knowing that she was being less than honest with herself. Winter’s income was sometimes the only thing that made keeping up with the bills even remotely possible.
Transportation and the money to pay bills, yes.
Two very compelling reasons to continue her liaison with Michael, she thought. She was more reluctant to examine the explanation for her depression at the thought of ending the affair, but she faced it with spare honesty.
The panic attacks.
She was able to defuse the debilitating episodes by submerging herself into the mindlessness and pleasure of sex. Cathy smiled to herself, a little sadly.
God, it felt so good.
When she was with Michael, she was able to forget everything else.
Cathy let her head fall back against the chair cushion, closing her eyes. When had sex become so integral to her? When had it become a necessary crutch? The past two and half years had seared away many self-delusions, so that she was able to examine herself with almost pitiless objectivity, and her reflections became brutally introspective. She gradually realized, with dawning horror, that it
wasn’t
just about sex. When she was with Michael, she was able to actually become something other than who she was. She could be just an ordinary woman who was living an ordinary life. Well, all right, it wasn’t exactly ordinary to be someone’s mistress. Other than that small, tiny detail, though, she was able to pretend that tragedy and overwhelming stress were not part of her life, that they belonged to someone else, because Michael knew nothing about her.
She actually needed—
needed—
Michael.
Coldness seeped under her breastbone. If he ever discovered how much she relied on him, on their times together, he would undoubtedly interpret it as an emotional attachment, one that he didn’t want from her. He would drop her without a qualm. She was certain of that, and she literally couldn’t afford that right now. It wasn’t all because of the financial advantages, either. Cathy bleakly accepted the truth of that.
She had been right, she thought grimly, more right than she had realized at the time. She had refused to give Michael the assurance he wanted from her that she would miss him. She had not surrendered her emotional self to him. She had managed to keep intact the line that he had mandated from the beginning. He must never know that he had become so important and necessary to her.
Important? Necessary?
Cathy’s thoughts sheered away from the ramifications of where the logic of that admission might lead her.
Instead, she returned to the logistics of her affair. Michael would want to see her. Their affair had progressed to the point where they were seeing one another several times a week. How was she to manage that when Chloe was at home? A sense of urgency began to press in on her. She needed to come up with a solution soon, because she knew that he would not be away much longer. Yet, no matter how she looked at it, there was no easy answer. She couldn’t very well justify the expense of a home nurse as a babysitter whenever she was supposed to spend the night with Michael!
I need you to watch my daughter, who happens to be recovering from a life-threatening illness, because I have to go screw the man who is paying your salary.
Cathy shook her head, disgusted with herself. She tightened her lips, stiffening her spine. She would just have to take it one day at a time. That’s the way she had survived Chloe’s illness. That was the only way that she could deal with this.
In the meantime, she was going to do some serious shopping with her best friend.
That night, armed with all of the new cleaning supplies that she and Vicky had bought, Cathy started cleaning the apartment. She threw all of the towels and sheets into the wash with hot water. While the laundry was going, she scrubbed everything down with Comet and Lysol. When the linens could be thrown into the dryer, she took down all of the cheap cotton curtains that had come with the apartment and put those into the wash also. She emptied all of the trash and treated the cans with Lysol. She put liquid antibacterial soap in the bathroom and in the kitchen. Cathy knew from past experience that properly and frequently washing hands was the most important precaution against infection that she or Chloe or anyone else could take. She put a disposable cup dispenser in the bathroom for Chloe’s use. It was simpler than having to wash every glass after every single use. She put a HEPA filter in Chloe’s bedroom and also one in the living room to help purify the air.
It was nearly
when she was finished, and she was exhausted, but Cathy felt good about what she had accomplished. When the day came that she was given permission to bring Chloe home, everything would be ready. That night, for the first time in a long time, she had no difficulty falling asleep or sleeping through the night.
Chapter Sixteen
Michael returned. He had been looking forward to his reunion with Winter. He had not been able to get her out of his mind. He had missed her more than he had expected.
When he had called her and suggested that they go dancing in celebration, he had heard the inflection of pleased surprise in her voice. It had made him aware that he had not taken her out very often, despite what he had outlined to her when they had first begun their affair. The truth was things were generally so hot and heavy between them that he just never gave any thought to squiring her around town. That was going to change, he promised himself. She deserved to be given more than just a view of his bedroom ceiling.
She had told him that when she got off work she would come over.
Michael watched her from the doorway of the bathroom as she finished her toilette. He reflected how easily Winter had slipped into the fabric of his life. Weeks earlier, she had started to leave things at his place. It was more convenient, when she stayed over, for her to have fresh clothes ready to put on. They had not ever discussed it. He had simply remarked that he had cleared out some drawers and closet space for her. Winter had nodded, and the next time she came over, she had left some items. Without making a production of it, he had also given her a key to the house.
Michael had wondered whether it would irritate him to have tangible reminders of her presence, like heels in the closet and feminine products inside the bathroom cabinet, but it had done just the opposite. It had given him a sense of rightness, of satisfaction. Those things were proof of the existence of the beautiful woman who was in his life.
Michael eyed her appreciatively while she was putting the finishing touches to her makeup. She had on a short, black clingy dress, over black hosiery and strappy black heels that made her legs look like they went on forever. With her auburn hair left free to curl to her shoulders, she appeared stunning.
He knit his brows, looking her over again.
That smoking-hot dress needs a necklace, maybe some bracelets.
He recalled suddenly that she had said once that she didn’t have any jewelry. He had since given her a few simple pieces, but nothing that would do justice to that dress. Well, that was something else he could do for her.
She leaned over the sleek granite counter toward the mirror to apply her lipstick, and he drew in a long, slow breath. All rational thought dried up as his gaze froze on the rise of her delectable behind.
Michael stepped inside the bathroom. Just watching her had been mildly arousing, but when she had bent toward the mirror and her firm ass tilted out, he went completely hard. He couldn’t bear it any longer. He had to touch her.
He moved up close behind her and pushed up her dress until he could cup her bare bottom. All she wore underneath was a lacy black thong and a matching garter belt to support her thigh-high black hose. Smoothing his hands round the curves of her pale buttocks, he teased her sex with his thumbs. Their eyes locked in the mirror. She set down the lipstick, and her tongue flickered out to touch her glossy lips. Without a word, just like that, she invited him. She canted her ass even more sharply into his palms.
Michael unzipped and levered himself out of his dress trousers. Briefly, he thought about going into the bedroom for a condom, but dismissed it. She was on the pill. They were in an exclusive relationship. They had done it before without a condom. He pulled her toward him and eased his straining shaft slowly past the strip of black lace into her pussy. He growled at how tight, how hot, she was. It was a delight not to have the thin layer of latex separating his flesh from hers. He began at a slow steady pace, his fingers wrapped round her hips, the bunched dress hiding his hands and cascading over his wrists. The edge of the thong rubbed the length of his rigid cock, rubbing a burn with every gliding stroke.