Page 4 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
“Let me guess…Senator Calhoun assaulted you?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Again, nothing so simple.” I gather my strength to relate the next part. “Landon and I had an argument about getting married. I either wanted a firm wedding date, or to know that he wasn’t interested, and he tried his best to weasel his way out of both options.” I make my voice deep and gruff, quoting Landon. “‘I love you, but it’s not the right time yet. You know I love you, we have a good thing, why fix what’s not broken.’ All that jazz. It got ugly. I was tired of being strung along. I wanted to move in together, or get married, or something, but he didn’t, and I was sick of it. I got mad.”
“Understandable.”
“So we fought, I left, and we ignored each other at work the next day. He left for a working lunch, and I stayed at the office to get some stuff done. And then I spilled coffee all over my top and skirt. My apartment was twice as far from the office as Landon’s, and I had plenty of clothes at his place. We had keys to each other’s places, so me going to his place to change was no big deal.”
Laurel closes her eyes slowly and sighs, seeing what is coming. “Shit.”
“Yeah. So, I’m on my phone with Calhoun’s PA, sorting out the details of a meeting with another senator. Whatever. I’m not really paying attention to what I’m doing as I go up to Landon’s apartment and let myself in. I end the call and head for the bedroom, juggling my phone, purse and shoes while trying to undress. I had a bunch of shit to get done, and I really wanted to get back so I wouldn’t be at the office till midnight.” I pause to breathe a moment, remembering. “I opened the bedroom door, and just stopped in my tracks, my shirt half off, skirt hanging open, shoes, phone, purse all dropping to the ground.”
“He was cheating on you.”
I laugh bitterly. “Yes, he was. When I walked in, he was on his back on his bed, balls-deep in Senator Calhoun’s wife.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Yeah. But that’s not all.” I laugh again, even more bitterly. “It wasn’t just his wife. One of the other aides, an office assistant—a coffee getter and copy maker. Nineteen if she was a day, and she was riding Landon’s face, and he had his hands all over both of them. He was eating out the aide like he was in a porno, and fucking the senator’s wife. The whole deal. I was…to say I was shocked would be an understatement. Given his recent behavior, I was expecting him to dump me, or to keep putting off the wedding, but to be cheating on me? No. Dumb of me, maybe, but I never saw it coming. Especially not with our boss’s wife, let alone a threesome with her and another aide. It was awful.”
Laurel winces. “My god, I can’t even imagine. What did you do?”
I can’t help laughing. It is almost funny in hindsight. Almost. “They didn’t even notice me, at first. I stood there, stunned, watching them fuck for almost two minutes. And let me tell you, Landon never fucked me the way he was fucking Presley Calhoun. It cut me to the bone.”
“I can imagine it would,” Laurel says. “So…what happened?”
I shake my head. “The bastard didn’t notice me until after he finished. I guess I showed up right at the end. So he came, and then looked over and saw me and freaked out. Tossed the Calhoun bitch off him one way, the aide another way, and tried to start with excuses and explanations.”
“Men,” Laurel huffs, laughing. “They think they can apologize and excuse their way out of anything.”
“I ignored him. I packed all my shit into a suitcase and some trash bags and left. I didn’t say a word to him. I tossed my key to his apartment on the counter, fished his keys out his pants pocket and took mine back, and went to work.”
Laurel frowns at me. “So then what?”
I sigh. “This is where it gets a little…ugly. And embarrassing,” I say. “I told my—our—boss what had happened.”
Laurel barks a laugh. “You went in and told your boss, a senator, that his wife was fucking two of his aides?”
I nod. “Yep. What I actually said was, “So, Senator. I just walked in on Presley, your wife, fucking Landon, my fiancée…and Eileen.”
She sputters a disbelieving laugh. “Wow. So what did he say?”
“Not much, initially. He did the whole stressed and disappointed important guy thing, where he leaned back in his desk chair, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a sigh.”
“Sounds cliché.”
“He was kind of cliché in a lot of ways, actually. Tall, slender, perfectly coiffed blond hair, big smarmy blue eyes, Harvard Law School alumni, put on the fast track to politics by his wealthy, influential father, blah blah blah. Partner at a high-powered law firm by the time he was thirty, senator by thirty-five, all that. Handsome, wealthy, with a beautiful trophy wife and two trophy kids, a bunch of plaques and degrees and bullshit on his office wall. And a total horn dog.” I groan, scraping my hands through my hair.
