The Other Man (38 page)

His reverent lips told me that he loved me, his trembling hands told me that he needed me, and his seeking body told me he trusted me.
 

I soothed him, made him feel whole again.
 

He invigorated me, made me feel alive again.

He was mine and I was his, and no matter how long it took him to make it back to me, I’d be there waiting for him.
 

THREE YEARS LATER

It was late spring in Vegas.
 
That brief time of year in Sin City where it was actually nice outside; hot out, a perfect day for the pool, but with the temperature still sitting somewhere reasonable in the double digits.
 

We were enjoying a BBQ at Dair’s friend, Turner’s, house.
 

Since we’d returned home, this had become a weekly thing.
 
Turner loved to entertain.
 

It was good to be home.
 
It had taken years, but at last, here we were.

The running was over, and we were slowly settling back into some semblance of normal a life.

A heavily pregnant Iris sat in the shade on a chaise lounge beside me while our husbands threw the boys around the pool.
 

She was patting her big belly, proud as punch about it, as she always was these days, when she asked me, “Are you and Heath having any more?”
 

I was mid sip of sangria, and I nearly spit it out.
 

I shot her a look, an
are you out of your mind?
look.
 

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked aloud, when I was done choking.

She laughed, and finally I laughed when I saw that unsurprisingly, she was messing with me.
 

Gerard was anything but a regret for me.
 
He was one of my four biggest blessings in life, in fact, but it was no question that I was now done with the child-bearing times of my life.
 

We didn’t speak for a time as we watched our boys in the pool.
 

Heath had a giggling child in each arm and carted them around like they weighed nothing.
 

Neither boys were small.
 
Gerard was bigger, Cameron taller, but they were both large and heavy for their age.
 
When I picked either of them up, my entire body had to brace itself, and my back bowed with the burden, but they both looked like they weighed about as much as a feather when Heath was holding them.
 

I don’t think anyone quite expected it, but Heath was very good with kids.
 
He was a devoted father and uncle, dedicating a great deal of his time to both boys.
 

He said they calmed him, which was surely strange as they were both bundles of nonstop energy.
 

But it was good, because he was retired now from working for the government and taking some time off to stay at home with Gerard while I got back into pursuing my passion for photography.
 

He talked about different jobs he could do with his vast experience and many specialized skills.
 
He’d likely start up a security firm, sometime down the road.
 

But he wasn’t even worried about it now.
 
Now, he was enjoying some much deserved and hard earned time with his family.
 

I was distracted briefly from my musings as Cam made a mad dash out of the pool, running for the grassy lawn, Gerard hot on his heels.
 

Iris and I shared a look.
 
They were at it again.
   

Our sons were close cousins, near inseparable, so this was a fairly regular occurrence.
 
They had near opposite personalities, but they were still best buddies.
 

“Gerard!” Heath barked, and our son stopped what he was doing, which happened to be pinning his cousin down for no good reason that I could tell.

“Help, Uncle, help!” Cam called out between giggling fits.
   

Heath pushed his huge dripping body out of the pool, and my jaw went a little slack with desire.
 

Iris noticed.
 
“Ew,” she said, though she was just giving me shit for fun, because she was surely used to it by now.
 
“You know that’s my brother you’re ogling, right?”
 

I ignored her, watching Heath playing with the boys.
 
He made a show of rescuing Cam, but as soon as he got low enough to the ground, the boys both turned on him, tickling, pushing him down, using every dirty trick in the book to try to pin him.
 

He let them, but only for a moment, straightening when he’d had enough, grabbing a kid in each big arm, striding across the lawn, and throwing them back in the pool, much to their squealing delight.
   

“He needs help,” Iris mused.
 

I looked at her, and it took me a moment.
 
I followed her stare to see that she wasn’t talking about Heath.

She was talking about Dair’s friend, Turner.

He was chatting with Dair and my older boys, the four of them huddled together.
 
I couldn’t catch any of what they were saying from here, but it had apparently gotten her attention.
   

I’d known Turner briefly, on a professional basis years ago, and we’d become friendly again recently due to the weekly barbecues, but my knowledge of him was still superficial at best, and mostly came from what Iris shared with me.

Turner was one of Dair’s closest friends and colleagues, though they couldn’t have been more opposite if it’d been their goal.
 

Turner was sarcastic, snarky, and arrogant.
 
A total and unapologetic womanizer.
 
He was very vocal about the fact that he never intended to settle down.
 

Apparently Iris had a problem with that.
   

“Help with what?” I asked her, just to clarify.
 
Sadly, though, I knew her well enough to guess with some baffled accuracy the strange and gleeful inner workings of her brain.
     

“Finding the right woman.
 
I have a plan.”
 

I sent her a sideways glance.
 
Her smile was positively diabolical.
 

Well hell.
 

I wondered if I should warn Turner, but I quickly decided against it.
 

When Iris made plans, woe betide any poor soul that got in her path.
     

BOOKS
BY R.K. LILLEY

THE WILD SIDE SERIES

THE WILD SIDE
 

IRIS
 

DAIR
 

THE OTHER MAN

TYRANT - COMING SOON

THE UP IN THE AIR SERIES

IN FLIGHT

MILE HIGH

GROUNDED

MR. BEAUTIFUL

LANA (AN UP IN THE AIR COMPANION NOVELLA)

AUTHORITY - COMING SOON

THE TRISTAN & DANIKA SERIES

BAD THINGS

ROCK BOTTOM

LOVELY TRIGGER

THE HERETIC DAUGHTERS SERIES

BREATHING FIRE

CROSSING FIRE - COMING SOON

THE BISHOP BROTHERS SERIES

BOSS - COMING SOON

TEXT LILLEY + YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO 16782493375 TO JOIN MY EMAIL NEWSLETTER.11

TEASER!

Here’s a teaser for my upcoming novel.
 
Title to be announced.

Ours was the kind of love that ended up on the six o’clock news.
 
You know what I’m talking about.
 
The kind with body bags and headlines about murder/suicides.
 

Tragically romantic in its way and highly toxic.
 

I had enough venom inside of me without adding the poison of this relationship back into my bloodstream. ~Scarlett, R.K. Lilley

CHAPTER
 

ONE

“I WAS BORN FOR THE STORM, AND A CALM DOES NOT SUIT ME.”
 
 
~ Andrew Jackson

PRESENT DAY

SCARLETT

He was here.
 
He was actually fucking here.
 

On this plane.
 
My
plane.
 
In
my
cabin.
 

How
dare
he?

This was not allowed, and he fucking knew it.
 

With agitation, I slapped one of the first class menus against my palm, over and over, like I had a twitch.
 

I knew it was telling, but I just couldn’t stop.
 

“Oh my God,” Leona muttered, peeking out of the curtain.
 
“What’s he doing flying commercial?”
 

Humiliating me
was the answer to that, but I didn’t say it aloud.
 

That bastard.
 
I was grinding my teeth.
 
Audibly.
 

Leona straightened, her best friend gaze going sharp as she studied me closely.
 
“I’ll take the cabin this time.
 
You don’t even need to see him.”
 

Leona worked the number two flight attendant position in our crew and had been my closest friend for many years now.
 

She was the good girl to my bad, the sweet to my sour, the nice to my vicious, the peacemaker to my ballbuster.
 

She was all the things I’d never be, and I loved her for it.
 
Adored the ground she walked on.
   

And she knew.
 
About
him
.
 
About our history.
 
She knew everything, though she was the
only
one besides me that did.
 

I shook my head sharply, not letting myself even consider it.
 
He knew I was here, of course he did.
 
For whatever twisted reason, he was on this plane and had bought a first class ticket, just to see me.
   

I would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how hard it was for me to face him.
 

Pride had always been my greatest weapon when it came to Dante.
 

Sometimes my only weapon, so it was honed to killing sharpness.
 

“I can handle him,” I told her.
 
And it was the truth.
 
It would hurt like hell, but it was a pain I was familiar with.
 

She bit her lip and nodded.
 
She was the sweetest thing.
 
So sweet, I wished I could be more like her.
 
I couldn’t.
 
I’d tried, but the results had been laughable.

“Is he alone?” I asked.
 

“I think so.
 
So far.”
 

 
The ‘
so far’
wasn’t without reason.
 
The last time he’d sought me out, he hadn’t been alone.
 

The bastard.
 

In all fairness, I probably shouldn’t have taken it so personal.
 
He was rarely alone.
 

I slipped into the bathroom with my makeup kit and did a quick touchup.
 

I’d been wearing a nude lip gloss for work as I usually did, but I dug out my favorite red lipstick for this little reunion.
 

It was aptly named:
 
Blood
.
 

No other color was appropriate when dealing with my ex.
 
I put it on because I was planning to draw some.
 

It occurred to me then that I was relishing and dreading this confrontation in near equal measures.
 

You see, it wasn’t the first time.
 
It happened every so often.
 
Dante sought me out, confronted me, we each got in our blows and limped away.

I usually spat the last word at his retreating back.
   

A part of me lived for it.
 

My shredded heart had been wrapped up in spite for a very long time, wrapped so long and so tight that it was suffocating, and it was almost a relief sometimes to let it vent.
 

But how much of your life can you devote to spite?
 

I’d spent a lot of time thinking about this.

The answer, in my case, was sad:
 
Too much.

Great, gory chunks of it.
 
Major, necessary pieces.

And all because of him.
 
Dante the Bastard.

I loosened my tie and undid the top three buttons of my blouse, turning my uniform from professional to more than a touch sexy.
 

I had outrageous curves.
 
A tiny waist, voluptuous hips, a great ass, mile high legs, and full breasts.
 

I had the exact body type that drew him like a kamikaze to suicide, so of course I’d use it against him.
 

He’d never been able to resist this body, not
once
in his entire life.
 

I pushed up my breasts, pinching my nipples until they popped perkily through the layers of my blouse and vest.
 

Go get him, tiger.
 

I smiled a bloodthirsty smile at my own reflection and headed back out to the galley.

The curtain was still up, but Leona was out in the cabin.
 
Serving the first pre-board round of champagne, I assumed.