Page 14 of Savage Obsession

“Why did you move in there? Into my house?” I cast my gaze around the upmarket apartment, the high-end luxury and expensive decor. “A bit of a come down for you, wasn’t it?”

“I wanted to be with Julia,” he splutters. “You and her, you were separated…”

I cut off his babbling “Where did you meet?”

‘Meet? Why?”

“Because I’m fucking asking. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“I can’t remember. At the mall, I think.”

“Which mall?”

He stammers out the name of one of the larger shopping complexes in the city.

“What was she doing there?”

“Duh, shopping!” he sneers.

I land another uppercut, by way of keeping this conversation polite. “I’ll ask you one more time. What was my wife doing at the mall?”

Blood trickles from his lower lip. He spits it out onto the floor before answering. “They were in the food hall. Eating burgers.”

“They?”

“She had Lily with her.”

Ah. Now we’re getting to it. “Which one did you see first?”

“I saw them both.”

“Liar,” I whisper. “You fucking liar. Still, I can’t blame you. She’s a cute kid.” I see no point in reminding him or myself that I haven’t actually seen Lily since she was a baby.

He nods. “Yeah. Real cute.” He gives me a knowing smile as though sharing a confidence. “Nice hair.”

“Lily or Julia?” I snarl

He fails to heed the warning in my tone. “Both, but Lily was sweet. I bought her a milkshake.”

Could he be any sleazier? Any more clichéd? “And Julia?”

“A coffee. We chatted. I asked her out, we had dinner.”

“Yeah? How did that go?”

“Fine. Good. After, we went back to hers.”

“Why? You didn’t really fancy her, did you?” Julia was never his primary target. A means to an end, that’s all.

“She was… okay. Is okay.”

“But the real attraction was always Lily, wasn’t it? She was the one you wanted.”

“I don’t…”

I’m tempted to get the truth out of him with my fists, but I’m doing pretty well without resorting to that. I can always fall back on the good old-fashioned methods later. “It’s okay, you can tell me. One man to another. We’ve all been there. And like you say, Lily’s a cutie. And sweet.”

He nods and manages a dreamy smile. “Yeah, when she plays nice. Can be a bit of a bitch, too. Like her mom.”

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