Page 67 of Dirty Rotten Cheating Husband

She frowned.

“Grayson, this isn’t you. Let’s get out of here,” she said, her hands reaching for me. “Dancing on stage with a bunch of kids? You’re going to look like a fucking pussy. I invited the whole damn department to laugh at you.”

It was a comical insult when I had literally just killed three men last night.

But I didn’t care what Vivi thought of me.

“Bring whoever you want,” I said. “Just make sure they pay at the door. Don’t talk to me again.”

“Come on,” she said, and I could feel the nauseating desperation in her voice, the grasping need to get me back. “I know you can’t stay away from me. You’ll come back.”

But she had never had me. No one ever even had so much as a tiny piece of me until I met Clementine Adler, and then she took my whole heart without me even realizing she had done it.

“What I did with you was the biggest mistake of my life,” I said without emotion. “It meant nothing to me and it was just a way to avoid dealing with the fact that I was in love with the woman I was supposed to surveil.”

I turned aside, the frog eggs bobbing gently over my face.

Vivi’s face was white was rage.

“Fine,” she spat at me. “Don’t think I won’t be there taking video on my phone. You can expect it going out to literally everyone in the fucking FBI.”

“Whatever,” I shrugged. “Enjoy the show.”

As I turned aside, her phone rang and she picked it up. “Yes, Chief? What? What the fuck do you mean I’m being subpoenaed for interfering with an active investigation?”

There was a moment of silence. “Panties?” Vivi shrieked shrilly. “What are you talking about, panties?”

The Chief’s angry voice blasted through the phone and it was a very subdued Vivi who finally said, “Yes, sir. All right, sir. If it’s an official investigation, I understand. And we’ve all been suspended? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

And she left without another word.

I smiled to myself.

My sweet Clementine might look like an angel but she was absolutely ruthless when she needed to be.

Then it was time for Opening Night.

It went off with only twenty or forty hitches, but at least the Enchanted Forest stayed mostly upright. Dennis gave me a thumbs-up.

“We kept that crappy tree up!” he hissed loudly at me.

“Yeah, we did, kid,” I said. “Good job.”

He beamed so brightly that I knew I was going to be a fucking sucker and volunteer for their Boy Scout troop like he had been begging me to.

As for my own role, I suppose it was not bad as far as 44-year-old men portraying magical frogs go.

But I absolutely sung the fuck out of the lyrics.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la

Troll-de-roll-de-pickle-de-pie

I did not fucking skimp on the dance or the curtseys either, going as deep as I fucking could with the knees of a 44-year-old man who was much more comfortable with hand-to-hand combat than doing a full pirouette.

My eyes met Clementine’s as she watched me on the side.

The smile in her eyes was worth it fucking all.

---