Betrayal (4 page)

“Now you’re talking.” Trey wasn’t totally in love with Michele, but he was in love with the pussy.

“Okay, sweetie, I’ll let you know which day will work for me,” she said, before hanging up.

Michele and Trey had the best sex life, but the sheets were beginning to cool off, and now she realized that she wanted more out of life than just a good, hard dick. She wanted status. Something Trey couldn’t care less about.
If only I could convince him that being a part of the in crowd isn’t a bad thing, we’d be the perfect couple
. Michele knew it was a long shot, but it was a comforting thought nonetheless.

ARIEL RENEÉ
Vaughn Hendricks should have been hard at work, but she was hardly working. She was a partner with Yates Gilcrest, one of the country’s premier law firms. During the early years, Ariel worked herself ragged trying to make partner, and once that position was secure, she kept up the pace to maintain her reputation as a workhorse. After generating millions of dollars in billing for the firm, Ariel began to slow down, and felt entitled to a slacker day once in a while, and today was one of those days.

She had relocated to the firm’s Washington office after she and Preston were married, but was finding it difficult to adjust to the slower pace of D.C. Having grown up in upper Manhattan, near the Bronx, she was a New Yorker through and through and thrived on the frenzied tempo of the city. She was not only homesick for the concrete jungle, she also missed her pseudo-family and best friend. Though Ariel wasn’t raised in a traditional two-parent household, she longed for her foster mom Mrs. Grant’s fried chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and warm hugs.

Mrs. Grant wasn’t thrilled that her oldest foster child had moved out of the city, but she was delighted that Ariel had finally married
her longtime boyfriend; maybe now she would find the happiness that had eluded her during childhood. Mrs. Grant had watched Ariel pine away for her birth mother, praying nightly that her mother would come and take her to her real home. But the woman never materialized, leaving the young girl feeling unwanted and insecure. As much as Mrs. Grant showered Ariel with love and affection, she could tell by the way the child would sulk around the house that she still felt a sense of abandonment. Now that she was married, Mrs. Grant hoped that Ariel and Preston would have children, so that Ariel would finally have a family of her own. Something she never had as a child.

Ariel picked up the phone and dialed her foster mother’s number, but the line was busy. She shook her head out of frustration. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why Mrs. Grant never subscribed to call-waiting. Ariel sent her a sizable check every month, so she knew money wasn’t the issue. Knowing how old-fashioned Mrs. Grant was, she assumed that the woman wanted to stay in the dark ages, and not be bothered with clicking over every time another call came through.

Ariel felt like chatting instead of working, so she dialed her best friend Meri. Meri Renick was a wealthy widow in her late forties who spent oodles of money trying to reclaim her youth. She had her face, boobs, and butt lifted. Then there was a tummy tuck, waist sculpturing, and liposuction to suck that stubborn fat from around her kneecaps. Once she was satisfied with her newly enhanced body, she spent another bundle entertaining men nearly half her age. Meri was a highly sexual being, and didn’t mind paying for a firm dick, attached to a fine young stud.

“Daarling, how’s life on the Hill?” Meri asked, greeting Ariel.

“It’s
not
New York.” She sighed. “I miss strolling down Madison Avenue and browsing in those scrumptious designer boutiques, and I miss our girlie lunches at your penthouse,” she whined.

“I’m sure D.C. has some of the same stores. And you can always catch the Acela to New York anytime you want to enjoy Jacqués’s double-whipped garlic mashed potatoes and homemade cheesecake,”
Meri said calmly, referring to her personal chef, who always made Ariel’s favorite dishes. She could hear the disappointment in her friend’s voice and didn’t want to add to her stress by saying how much she missed having Ariel in town. Meri didn’t have many girlfriends and cherished the time that they spent together.

“You’re right. Georgetown does have some great shops, but like I said, it’s not New York. Actually …” She hesitated a second. “I’m thinking about working in the Manhattan office next week. One of the partners has asked me to assist him on a case, and I need a dose of the city.”

“You think that’s wise?” Meri asked knowingly.

Ariel knew exactly what Meri was referring to, and had a ready answer. “It’s been over a year. I think the coast is more than clear,” she said, without skipping a beat.

“Suppose you run into
him
while you’re alone?”

“It’s highly unlikely that I’ll bump into Trey.”

Ariel and her stepson Preston III, aka Trey, had a sketchy past. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Trey was the owner of the Black Door, a private erotic club for women, where members and servers wore identity-concealing masks.

During one of her bouts with insecurity before she and Preston were engaged, Ariel had gone to the club disguised as Meri, a card-carrying member. Ariel’s intention was to relieve some built-up sexual tension by enjoying a little eye candy. Preston had been preoccupied with his impending nomination and had put their love life on the back burner. Meri convinced her that going to the club just to look around was harmless. Ariel planned to watch the handsome studs who worked as servers, and nothing more, but when she spotted the hot muscular man in a black wife beater and tight jeans, she couldn’t help but fantasize about him once she left the club. She wondered how his hands would feel around her waist, and how his tongue would feel inside of her mouth. This wondering prompted her to return to the Black Door and seek him out. When she finally found her intended target on her second trip to the Black Door, they fucked like professionals. During their third tryst, Trey’s mask fell off mid-stride.
Ariel took one look at his handsome face and to her horror, realized that she had been fucking Preston’s only son. After that surreal night, which turned from pleasure to sheer disbelief, she never stepped foot inside of the Black Door again, but their affair didn’t end there.

They fucked one last time at Trey’s apartment, and the morning after, when Ariel was in the shower, the doorbell rang. To Trey’s surprise, it was his father. He naturally assumed that his dad had found out about the affair, but Preston was there for a different reason. Senator Oglesby’s investigator had questions regarding Trey’s livelihood and Preston needed answers to satisfy the senator.

When Ariel stepped out of the bathroom and overheard Preston say that the nomination was
the
most important thing in his life, she was furious and felt totally rejected. She knew fucking Trey was wrong, but she wanted to hurt Preston like he had hurt her by being so neglectful. Trey tried to tell her that morning that they should end the affair, but she didn’t want to hear those words at the time, and feel forsaken twice in the same day.

Trey called her a few days later to talk, and she invited him over to her apartment for dinner. When he got there, Ariel opened the door wearing a sexy, tissue-thin, black negligee. She wanted to start with dessert, but he had other plans. Trey told her that a relationship between them was impossible. She knew he was right but wasn’t ready to let go yet. Preston had chosen his nomination over her, and now Trey was choosing to end their short-lived love affair. His decision made Ariel feel, once again, like the unwanted foster kid, whose mother abandoned her. The rejection was hard to swallow. To soothe her bruised ego, she tried one last attempt at seduction.

As Trey opened the door to leave, Ariel sauntered up to him with her boobs practically hanging out of the negligee, and planted a juicy, wet kiss on his full lips. She pressed her body into his and didn’t stop grinding until she felt his manhood spring to life. Though Trey had no intention of fucking her again, he couldn’t stop himself from tasting her luscious breasts—he was a man, after all. Before their final tryst proceeded any further, Michele, Trey’s girlfriend, burst through the open door and caught him mid-suck. She had cleverly disguised
herself as a delivery guy and snuck past the doorman. Once upstairs she shouted a few choice words before running away in shock. Trey wasted no time rushing after her, leaving Ariel standing in the doorway with nothing but her exposed boobs and wounded ego.

That was the last time Ariel had seen Trey behind closed doors. Of course she saw him
and
Michele at her wedding and reception. Apparently, they had made up and Trey brought her as his date, and all evening they were locked arm in arm, appearing to be the cozy couple.

“Why do you think it’s highly unlikely that you’ll see Trey while you’re in New York?” Meri asked.

“Because I’m not planning on going back to the Black Door, and it’s not like we socialize in the same circles. So, I think it’s safe. And even if I did run into him, we’re definitely not picking up where we left off. Trey made his choice perfectly clear when he chased after Michele that day, and left me standing in the doorway looking and feeling like a complete fool. Anyway, I’ve gotten over what happened between us, and so has Trey. He’s come down to Washington a few times to see Michele, and trust me, there’s no more chemistry between us,” Ariel said, but failed to admit that she did feel a small tug at her heart when she saw his face. She preferred not to verbalize her feelings and give them life. Instead, she hid them deep inside, hoping that they would die once and for all.

“Well,” Meri sighed, “it sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”

“Yes, I have. I need to get out of this town for a while. Besides, I’m married to Trey’s father, and wouldn’t dare cross that line.”

“You mean cross that line
again,”
Meri said.

“Don’t remind me. I prefer to forget about my past with Trey. Had I known he was Preston’s son when we first met at the Black Door, I would have never slept with him. But I can’t change what happened between us. All I can do is move on,” she said, sounding spent.

“And how’s that going?”

“How’s what going?”

“How’s it going with Preston? Has he shown any signs of regaining his memory?” Meri wanted to know.

The day Preston found out that his son owned the Black Door, he
was extremely upset, since Trey’s occupation threatened to ruin his chances of securing the nomination to the Supreme Court. Preston was in need of solace, so he rushed over to Ariel’s apartment. He expected her to be comforting, but she was a drunken mess. Ariel tried to drown the pain of Trey’s rejection in a few bottles of champagne, and when Preston entered her apartment, she was in rare form. The moment he mentioned Trey’s name, she blurted out that she had fucked him at the Black Door. Ariel assumed that Michele had gone running to Preston with the truth about her and Trey and wasn’t in the mood to defend herself, so she blatantly confessed.

Hearing the devastating news of Ariel’s unforgivable betrayal coupled with Trey’s deception was too much for Preston to bear in one day, and he collapsed on her living room floor from a mild stroke.

The stroke short-circuited his short-term memory, and when he recovered, he had no recollection of Ariel and Trey’s affair. Ariel used his condition to her advantage and scheduled the wedding before his memory returned. She realized that marrying Preston was in her best interest. After all, he loved her unconditionally and she’d always been able to count on his love and unwavering support—a trait Trey never exhibited. It was only during the prenomination phase when Preston began to ignore her; before that, he was the perfect, doting boyfriend. Marrying Trey was totally out of the question, so Ariel married the next best thing. It wasn’t like she didn’t love Preston. The love they shared had grown more into a comforting type of love over the years, not the lustful desire that she felt for Trey. Ariel was smart enough to realize that what she and Preston shared would last a lifetime, so she walked down the aisle, said the vows, and committed herself to Preston for the rest of their lives.

“No, he hasn’t shown any signs of regaining his memory, but the doctor said that eventually his memory is bound to return.” She sighed.

“Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do once that day comes?”

“That’s all I’ve been able to think about, and I’ve found the perfect answer.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’m going to have a baby!” she said, with excitement in her voice.

“A baby?” Meri asked alarmingly. “Do you honestly think that Preston would want to have a child at his age?”

“Preston’s only in his fifties and men have children well into their seventies. I mean, look at Larry King, he has two young boys. And Tony Randall had his first child in his seventies,” she said, justifying her choice.

“Okay, point taken. But how is having a baby going to help you when Preston’s memory returns?” Meri said, asking the two-hundred-million-dollar question.

“When that day comes, I think he’ll be hard-pressed to kick me
and
his baby out on the street. I’m hoping he’ll have forgiveness in his heart for the mother of his child, and pretend like my affair with Trey never happened.” Ariel knew this was a long shot, but she was up against the clock, and desperate times called for desperate measures.