Page 75 of Marrying My Ex's Boss

“In the last six months, I’ve left the house twice, and that’s only because Monique broke me out.”

“And almost got her ass fired.”

“Oh, stop it; you know you can’t live without her.”

“That’s what she likes to think anyway. I got a secret.”

“Do tell!” I told her what I saw less than five minutes ago, and she was ready to go find her Mo to get all the details.

“You do, and she’ll make my life a living hell. She’ll tell you when she’s ready. I think she’s a bit embarrassed because she took so long to accept what everyone else already knew.”

“Okay-okay, I won’t say anything.” She pouted and picked up her evening purse off the chaise.

“Let’s go say goodnight to the girls and check in on the boys before we leave.” I held my hand out of her to take and we left the room together.

* * *

I’ve thought long and hard about this night. There were many opportunities since the triplets were born, but I didn’t want this night associated with them or my wife in any way.

In the end, the sperm donor had made the suggestion of having a company party since he was under the impression that I was ready to forgive and forget and let him back in. I didn’t correct his assumption since it played well with what I was working on all this time and was actually the perfect solution.

“Welcome back to the scene of the crime.” Had it really been almost two years since I first saw her in this very hotel ballroom? So much had happened in such a short space of time, yet it felt as if no time had gone by at all.

I approached the DJ first before I forgot and had to deal with Catalina’s disappointment. Somehow, for one so young, she has this way of making her displeasure known that leaves you wanting to bend over backward to make it right.

He was more than happy to enjoy the amenities and get paid to do nothing since the playlist was about four hours long. My security team, the ones that were here and not back at the house with the kids and their nurses, had the room surrounded, and I had an earpiece in my ear to keep track of things that were happening on the outside.

I saw Melanie walk in, looking as if she’d won. I’d let Dad talk me into not calling the cops yet, which he didn’t have to work too hard for because I wanted her here for this as well. Had she gone quietly, I would’ve spared her the embarrassment, but since she’s used every opportunity to talk shit about my wife behind her back, I have no empathy.

* * *

It was half an hour before I got the alert that the guest of honor had arrived. The room was full of business associates and the city’s most elite citizens doing what they do best: networking.

With a sign from me, the DJ switched out his music, and the strains of a concerto filled the air. The din of voices and laughter seemed to dim as the doors opened, and she walked in.

As expected, all eyes turned to the new arrival, and there were hushed whispers of ‘Who is she? Is that….? It can’t be.’ I kept my eyes on the crazed woman who entered the room, talking to herself and looking around wildly.

Her husband, the one who calls himself my father, was the first to recognize her. It’s been more than a year since she went missing, and all of his efforts had come up empty. He’d exhausted every effort to find her with no results and had been ready to declare her dead if he didn’t have to wait another couple of years for the judge to sign off on that.

I’d heard the recordings over the months, heard her ramblings becoming more and more erratic, but hearing and seeing it in person was something entirely different.

The DJ, with another order from me, turned the music down a little so that everyone could hear what was being said. Dad tried to reach her while Melanie stood in shock as her mother clamped her hands over her ears and screamed and yelled about killing my mother.

You could’ve heard a pin drop in that room as she said it all. The affair, Dad’s hesitation months after Mom found out, but there was a surprise even for me. The reason for his hesitation and it made my blood boil over.

Maybe I should’ve kept listening to her ramblings in those reports I received, but they’d been so repetitive that I’d just thrown them in a desk and forgotten about them. “Yes, you wanted to leave me and go back to that insignificant thing that you picked up somewhere, and why? Because she was pregnant with your daughter. I had a daughter, too. A daughter who lost her father too young.”

“So yeah, I killed her, killed them both. But I had to make it look like she’d done it herself. An overdose. Hahaha. Only she didn’t know that I’d ground up those pills and put them in her drink. The stupid bitch, she thought I wanted to bury the hatchet, but I showed her.”

I couldn’t move, and I think I was blinded by rage. I took a step and felt Justine’s hand on my arm. That settled me a bit and brought me back to the here and now. I’d only planned part of what came next.

The cops who were there to arrest Melanie in front of her peers. But Karen took one look at the cops, grabbed her head in pain, and ran around the room searching for something.

That something turned out to be a knife, which she took from the buffet table, and before anyone could reach her, she pulled the knife across her throat. She was dead before she hit the floor. What the fuck did I just see?

The music. There’s a subliminal message in the music. Oh shit, how old is that kid again?

* * *

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