Hard As Stone (Beautiful Betrayal Book 1) (4 page)

“Babe, show these jackasses the door,” she instructs him, picking up another orange. “Unless you want to go two for two, Spence?”

“Feeling lucky, punk?” I snip.
In a hipster world, I wonder if this act of betrayal warrants a death by fruiting.

X.S.~
Assumpsit

OUT ON THE PORCH, I sit on the swing and pet Chester, not that he acts the least bit appreciative. He gifts me with a slow blink like he’s doing me a favor. As a Sphynx breed, he puts on airs that put Gran’s to shame. Life according to Chester: he couldn’t give a purr unless it involves his feed bowl.

“All right,” I mutter with him in my arms.

I amble back to the kitchen and set out Chester’s organic cat food. Beyond lies the aftermath of my engagement: liberated and damaged fruit. A testimony and my millennium war zone minus the streaming music.

I tell Alexa, “Play
, Somebody That I Used to Know
.”

One-by-one I collect the wayward produce scattered helter-skelter across the living room floor. This is the first time I’ve truly lost it. It feels both cathartic and scary. Picking up a bruised pear, I stall as if a curtain lifts in my mind. From far away, a voice threads into my awareness.

He asks why I haven’t eaten…
He makes me open my mouth. Instead of food…

Shock and blind panic bleed through me. I suck in a gulp of air to offset the pounding in my head and chest. It feels like the walls are closing in. I can’t swallow. I can’t breathe. I claw at my neck but it’s as though my muscles are stuck. Beads of cold sweat erupt at my hairline. Pressing my temples, I tell myself calm down.
I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m not alone… not caged.
That image threads like barb wire between my ribs.

Flashing open my eyes, a scream billows upward but is caught in my throat. As my mind and body wage war, I stagger a step, then two. I see Brooke and Simon on the front porch.
X, calm down
. I focus on them talking and laughing. Simon captures her in his arms and kisses her. His touch is tender… sweet.

Finally that god-awful sensation in my throat lessens. Inhaling, I stumble over to the waste can and throw-out the pear I’ve pulverized in my fist. Washing my hands I scrub and scrub until they’re red, until that choking feeling dissipates and I’m sure it’s gone.

“Hey, looks like your hands are clean,” Brooke says.

I feel her against me, turning off the water, and telling me it’s okay. Both she and Simon pick up the bags of takeout and shuttle me to the porch. She thrusts a glass of wine into my hand an
d sits next to me on the swing.

Gradually, the numbness invading my body erodes as I listen to them talk as they serve the food. They don’t say anything groundbreaking; maybe it’s more in what they don’t say that hits home. They’re intimate in their touch. He’s one of many friends-with-benefits Brooke has in her contacts and they’re connected on a level that is alien in my world.

~

Thank God for Brooke and Simon curtailing my momentary jaunt. It’s been four or five years since I had an irrational bout to the dark side of crazy. It has to be the stress of this catastrophe, yet I can’t explain why and from where those images arose. Only that they accompany the anxiety attacks that once plagued me. I drop my gaze to the inside of my wrist and trace the milky white scar. Another exists on my other wrist.
No way in hell! I can’t go back to living like that!

Brooke and Simon come in from the porch and stop at the breakfast nook. An eternity has passed since the moment we first arrived; but in truth, it’s only been a couple of hours.

“Your laptop is chiming,” I supply, picking up the last of the fruit.

“Thanks for dinner, Phoenix,” Simon says and I nod.

“Anytime,” I reply, forcing a smile to my lips.

He leans down and kisses Brooke on the cheek. “Later, baby.”

“I’ll call you,” she murmurs off-handedly, staring at her laptop screen as it dings.

Simon laughs like he’s heard that one before and I bet he has from Brooke. In mid-stare he catches me and unfazed says, “Don’t sweat that bullshit. Better that you found out before the wedding.”

“Thanks, for everything,” I relay as we hug.

When he trounces out the door, I tell Brooke, “With Spence, I thought if I went for the guy who offered stability and consistency, it would be enough.” I’d bartered away hot sweat-infused passion, believing I’d be saved from constant emotional upheavals and screaming fights.
Or so I imagined
. “I never saw that coming. Did you?”

She shakes her head. “We aren’t the same people. Nobody is from high school.”

“Do you mind if we take this upstairs?” I don’t want to remain at the scene of the crime.

Together we ramble up to the den and Brooke takes a seat at the desk with her laptop. A decade ago, when she was the queen bee in high school, I’d floated amongst cliques, but had always been bracketed by Spence and my other best friend, Jon Richter. We were three misfit-peas in an extreme pod of an elite student body, and she’s right.
We’ve changed
.

“Don’t hold back,” I tell her. “I can’t let Spencer walk away with half.”

“It’s only money,” she reminds me.

“Not this close to the hearing on my trust account. And now it’s in front of a retired judge.”

Her eyes dart to mine. “When was it moved?”

“Last week, I received a certified letter from the clerk’s office. The hearing was reset for November unless I agreed to arbitration. To save time and attorney’s fees, I agreed. But this just bites it.”

She shuts her laptop even though she’s under order to tell me how long Spence has been unfaithful. “It isn’t pretty.” Her gaze doesn’t waver. “My dad’s PI is good. There are photographs and time-stamped video footage.”

“On a scale? Five. Six?” I try to laugh but it feels as if I’m choking on bitter ash aka the remnants of hope charbroiled well-past well-done. As I reach for her laptop, I’m diving headlong from the realm of sneaking suspicions into cold hard facts. The only silver lining is the sludge that previously inhabited the pit of my stomach is gone.

She grabs my wrist. “There’s a saying about not shooting—”

“The messenger is safe.” Meeting her concerned stare, I nod. Unconvinced, she doesn’t relinquish the computer. As my ribcage constricts, I snarl out a hoarse vow, “I promise I won’t lose it. But you stalling is torture. I just want the truth so I can get past it. Okay?”

“X, on your word. Take a look.” Shaking her head, she flips the lid of her laptop and she’s up and out of the chair. It takes a few seconds for the video to begin streaming.

“Don’t go,” I plead, holding out my hand to her.

Huddled together, we both watch from my upstairs office. It’s the only room I can stand to be in, praying I won’t find evidence that Spencer the douche has had sex in it. Both Brooke and my reflection span the laptop screen in slices of shadow. The video begins and I bite the back of my hand. My shallow breathing stops as I force myself to watch my ex-fiancé with a neighbor. The graphic video lasts less than a minute. I cue another and another, each catching Spencer with a different partner thanks to my home security system. The one
I
ordered when he balked, adamantly refusing to consider a system and accused me of being paranoid.

Hah! I’d gone for the upgrade and it included hidden cameras placed in spots that captured a wide expanse of each room since the townhouse layout is an open floorplan. I didn’t have the wherewithal to nimbly extract the video footage, but time being of the essence I didn’t argue with Brooke’s suggestion.

Clear thinking as usual, she dialed up the PI employed by her father and handed me her laptop. On the screen was a digital copy of his CV. He’s ex-CIA and with his buzzed gray hair and self-righteously jutted chin, I pegged him as an ex-Marine. It’s dubious if those traits ever retire. Brooke raised her brows and I nodded, giving my consent.
Obviously, surveillance is part of the PI’s skill set as well as storming a hostile beach. He’s sent back oodles of incriminating segments an hour after I gave my login details.

What I’ve witnessed so far is enough to make me tremble after the adrenaline dump I’ve just withstood. “I can’t believe with all his holier than thou speeches, Spencer is nothing but a fraud.”

Brooke ruffles my hair and says, “No great loss.”

“Don’t know about that. This screws me over in so many ways.” I’m spent after watching my fiancé getting blown by a guy in a hood in our bedroom.

Only outdone when he dropped to his knees and sucked a line of erections with the Super Bowl playing in the background. Vividly, I recall that weekend. I’d spent it in the library studying for my early thesis defense. Spence had acted so impressed that I opted to go full blast into an internship and had submitted my thesis in January.
“Unheard of,” he’d spouted proudly out one side of his mouth, while informing me that he was having a few friends over to watch the game.

Just how many of his friends were lovers? I might never have an answer, but I’m fully enlightened that he sucked off his football friends and let them come all over his face as part of the sports shindig he’d hosted downstairs. I should’ve realized his interest in the NFL was a total crock. It was part of his personality that seemed disingenuous to the so-called pro-environment nonviolent issues he championed. I’d actually found the idea of an irrational macho NFL fanatic sweetly appealing—but no more.

Brooke sighs and walks to the doorway. “Spencer Donovan should be made to pay instead of threaten.”

How?
This is going to undo my plans to disengage from my overzealous grandparents. The boomerang will give them ammunition to forestall relinquishing their rights as trustees to oversee a living will fiasco. I’m allotted a small monthly amount to use on my expenses. But at any point, my grandparents can decide to reduce the amount or withhold my trust account funds altogether.
Yesterday, I recognized the cashier at the pharmacy as a BC graduate. Lots more are working at Starbucks, tending bar, standing on corners and spinning signs.

In case I can’t find a full-time position, my parachute is my trust account. The final hearing is coming up in two months. Eight weeks and newsworthy no doubt—from a media standpoint, I’ll be at the end of this breakup. The timing blows.

Unless I do more than host a pity party. Next week, I’m graduating from BC with a journalism degree. With this debacle, most if not all the job prospects I’ve lined up would gleefully throw me under a bus if they were called as a trustee witness. Even under oath, not many would thwart the Silvers. Finding an employment prospect who isn’t beholden to PanCorp, Gran, or Pop is akin to finding a needle in a crony-hyped haystack.

Brooke’s laptop chimes. She taps the screen. Her dark eyes travel from left to right a couple of times. She looks away hastily and after a beat, I watch her solemnly rise.

As if a primitive fear takes hold of me, a warning spasm jets up my spine. “Where are you going?” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.

“To get some backup. We just received another set of videos,” Brooke whispers.

My mind flounders. “I don’t think I can stomach dessert.”

Her face clouds as she stares back at me. “Besides cake, I brought a bottle of bourbon. It’s time for a couple of shots.”

“Okay,” I exhale and grab at the details that pose no threat. An expensive bottle I bet with Brooke’s propensity to go big or not at all. Only outmatched by the Presidential Rolex that my grandparents sent to Spencer. It was still wrapped and tucked amidst plaid tissue paper in a gift bag downstairs. If Gran hadn’t called to inform me of Spencer’s promotion, I don’t know if I would’ve planned this ‘surprise.’ It was more their style to take us out to dinner on our birthdays at Pop’s stuffy club downtown. Spencer had it scheduled on his Google calendar.

Was the sharp questioning he’d peppered me with yesterday related to his yogic celebration?
Duh.

“The asshat,” I hiss between my gritted teeth, sinking onto the unoccupied chair after my knees buckle.

“More than you know.” Holding a bottle of bourbon, Brooke positions the cursor on another file.

“There’s more?”

“A lot more,” she replies with a squeeze to my shoulder. “Your home security system was busy. You could’ve accessed the files from your tablet.”

Oh crap. I stare at my fiancé with his pants down. Down as in around his ankles as he gets nailed by an older man. From the looks of the hairless pale cheeks and legs, I’m ninety-nine percent certain it’s Nigel Dupree sticking it to him. One of the senior architect partners from the UK. Spencer had just returned from overseas, learning
the ropes
. An irony or is it where he developed a thing for being bound and gagged?

“If he thinks he’s taken it up the backdoor hard, he’s got another thing coming!” Blinded by fury and my injured pride at having been perceived as too foolish to catch him, I ball my fingers into fists. “I will not take being cuckolded lying down!”

“It isn’t cuckolded. If you were doing Simon’s hot brother—as I had advised you—it would be cuckholding. But on Spencer.”

“You’re splitting semantic hairs.”

“Hey, you’re the communications major.” Brooke is in law school and a prodigy, seeking to own any and all debates. A personality quirk of hers since kindergarten and I don’t have the emotional resources to stand my ground given it’s an argument about my fiancé’s zeitgeist. Or lack thereof.

“And counselor, you’re making your case but this isn’t court.”

“Preemptory. You’re going to have to begin to formulate your defense.” She thrusts a tumbler holding an ample serving of amber liquid into my awaiting hand.

“Okay, fine. Alexa?” I rant. “What is the female equivalent of cuckold?” It’s one thing to be outgunned by a pair of boobs and legs. It’s another to be sucker-punched by the fact my not-future-husband is gay.

Alexa spouts out, “Cuckquean.”

It’s so unnerving to hear the smoothly cool robotic voice schooling me in the proper terminology that I snort, “Cuckquean?”