injuries other than their tears. His panic subsided.
“Thank God, you’re okay. I was really worried,” he said. “Why the security chain?”
“Josh, get the hell out.” Kate’s tone was as hard as steel.
The demand was hard enough to stop him in his
tracks. Kate’s hostility made no sense. He was at a loss for words.
Kate unpeeled Abby from her. “Abby, go up to your room. It’s going to be okay, but I need you to do this for me. Can you do this for Mommy? Can you?”
Sobbing, Abby didn’t want to leave, but she relented at Kate’s insistence. Kate pulled Abby to her and hugged her.
“You’d better go. Wiener’s waiting for you in your room. He needs you.” Kate said.
The sight of his wife and daughter in such turmoil tore Josh up inside. What’s happened to cause so much misery? He had no idea for the reason of the heartbreak.
Abby raced past him for the stairs and her room. She took an exaggerated path around him and stared at him like he was a monster. Josh murmured her name and put an arm out to her, but she dodged his touch.
Husband and wife said nothing until they heard the bang of the bedroom door upstairs. The muffled sobs through the ceiling made an unbearable soundtrack for their encounter.
“You bastard, Josh. How could you? How could you
do it to us?” Kate said through bitter tears.
Josh didn’t have an answer. He didn’t know what
she was referring to. He’d done so much to them.
“With the pain and misery you’ve brought to this
family, you aren’t entitled to any of the love you’ve been given.” Kate’s nose had run. She sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “You deserve all you get.”
Shaking his head, Josh was still at a loss to understand.
“What have I done, Kate?”
“You didn’t tell me everything. In the park, you gave me the edited version. Keep the family on a need-to know basis—was that the plan? Keep the really bad stuff to yourself and make sure you don’t get into some real trouble? You coward,” Kate spat. Each word was a shard of glass meant to cut deep. “Any of this ringing any bells, Josh?”
It was. He didn’t understand how she could have
found out. Who would have told her? Josh swallowed the knot in his throat.
“We met Bell in the mall today. She told me all about you two. No, she broadcast it across the store. What a fool I’ve been to believe in you. Moments before, I was defending you to her, when all along she knew the real you and I only knew the fucking fairy tale.” Kate paused to get a grip. Her emotions were taking over.
“Your secretary! Couldn’t you have been more original and fucked a Nobel scientist or something?”
Bell. How she must have enjoyed the moment. He
should have known she’d do this once she’d lost her hold over him. Destroying his reputation wouldn’t have been enough. She needed to crush him under her heel.
Well, she’d done that.
She could destroy everything else, but he’d be
damned if he’d let her destroy his marriage. He rushed toward his wife with arms outstretched.
Kate stiffened. Backed up against the fireplace, she clutched for something to protect herself with, and picked up the poker from the rack. Brandishing the weapon with deadly intent, she jabbed it at Josh. She looked like a cornered animal. “Keep away from me.
God help you, I’ll use it on you.”
Josh stopped abruptly, only inches from the end of the poker. “Oh, Kate. You don’t understand,” Josh pleaded.
“Educate me, Josh. Tell me why. Why did you do it?
Come on now, the spotlight’s on you.” Kate positioned her arms like a magician’s assistant highlighting a master illusionist’s achievement.
Fighting with himself to give a delicate, more softened version, Josh struggled to speak. But knowing lies and deceit were useless currency, he paid with the truth. “I started the affair three months after you lost the baby. We were strangers to each other. We were both unsure what we wanted or even if we wanted each other.”
“That’s it? Because we had a rough patch you ran off to find the first bitch you could fuck?”
“No,” he recoiled. “You didn’t want to know me,
you pushed me away like it was my fault.”
“I’m so sorry. It must be my fault you put your dick in your secretary.” Sarcasm laced the tirade.
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m telling you the truth— something I should have done a long time ago. I had an affair for my own selfish reasons, but I realized it was wrong. I came back for you and I made this family work, did my best to make us happy. I love you, Kate, and I want you.” Josh maintained his distance; Kate still had the poker and he feared what she would do with it in this distraught state.
“How do I know you won’t run off with the next
pair of pretty tits that jiggles by?”
“Because I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.
I’m one hundred percent behind this family, for this family.”
Kate glared. Her face, screwed tight with the fury and pain, suddenly relaxed. She dropped the poker to the floor. It twanged against the fireplace tiles.
The Kate Josh knew came into focus. It was going to be okay. He managed a weak smile.
The house was silent; not even a noise from Abby’s bedroom.
“I want you to go, Josh,” Kate said.
He couldn’t believe it. He had lost. He tried to challenge, but she knocked his pleas down with a raised
hand.
All the emotion had drained from Kate. “I don’t
know what I want, but I do know I don’t want you.”
Kate’s fury, present moments earlier, now possessed Josh. He knew he could do nothing here. He’d lost his family and stormed out of the living room.
He yanked on the door, but the security chain was still attached. The door ripped itself from his grasp and slammed shut. He jerked on the door even harder. With a crack of splintering wood, the fixings tore from the door frame. The chain attached to the door recoiled and swung out, narrowly missing Josh’s face. The
door’s momentum sent him sprawling.
Josh tore over to his car and flung himself behind the wheel. He gunned the engine, yanked the gearshift into reverse and the car roared backward into the street. He jammed the car into drive and floored the gas pedal, trails of black smoke pouring off the screaming tires.
“Fucking bitch,” Josh growled. He would be
damned if Bell would be allowed to get away with this.
She would pay dearly for what she had done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The journey to Bell’s house took mere minutes. The rules of the road didn’t apply to Josh. He bullied his way past every vehicle in his path. The engine screaming in pain, Josh tore along the roads, taking each bend too fast and stopping too late.
The car screeched to a halt outside Belinda Wong’s borrowed house. The car rode up over the rolled curb and positioned itself untidily on the sidewalk, trailing a pair of black, wavy lines on the pale road surface. Josh leapt from the driver’s seat. A Pontiac Grand Am
missed him by inches as it passed him. He ignored the driver’s violent overcorrection and the subsequent insult.
Blinded by rage, he charged up to the house.
Josh yanked on the door. It was unlocked and
opened easily. It wouldn’t have mattered if the door was locked—nothing would have prevented him from getting in.
Bell appeared from the bedroom dressed only in a
white silk teddy and skimpy panties. The silk was opaque, but it clung to her delicate frame. The peaks of her nipples were easily highlighted under the seamless material. When she moved, the material momentarily stuck to her like wet cotton, giving glimpses of the contours beneath.