Page 59 of So Close

Please, God, let it have been my husband.

“You shouldn’t drink and take painkillers,” she tells me.

Turning, I look her in the eye as I wash down my pills. Room-temperature gin and tonic should be disgusting, but it tastes like ambrosia to me. “Darius threw out all the alcohol in our apartment.” At least what he could find … “I need a damn drink.”

“You need to eat something, too. Those pills on an empty stomach will make you vomit for hours.”

I shoot her a look, but she’s already turned her back to me and returned to the kitchen. With a quick, practiced toss of my wrist, I polish off my first cocktail, then fix a second one, drinking that one down to the same point in my glass as the previous one so Suzanne won’t know.

Dropping the half-filled glass onto the trunk that serves as her coffee table, I go into the bathroom and take stock of my body. My breath quakes out of me. There is a copious amount of semen in my underwear and faint traces of blood mixed in it. The smell makes me gag. I sniff myself, but I don’t reek like a whore. I must’ve showered at some point, and what I’m drenched in now has leaked from me since. Revulsion crawls over my skin in waves.

My eyes burn from dryness so severe it hurts to blink. I sit on the toilet, and when I’ve finished relieving myself, the water is pink.

“It’s not unusual for Darius to be rough,” I whisper. He’s a passionate and dominant lover. I’ve been sore after sex with him many times before.

I use Suzanne’s flushable wet wipes to clean myself and shove the underwear – one of my new, beautiful lace boy shorts – to the bottom of her trash can, piling the tissues and other waste on top of it.

Washing my hands, I look at my reflection. There are deep grooves framing my mouth. Lines are starting to deepen their tracks across my forehead. I’m overdue for my Botox injections, but I haven’t made the time to go. Still, it’s my eyes that hit me hardest. Rimmed with shadows, the green of my irises has darkened until they look like solid black holes, and through them, I see a soul-deep horror that chills my blood.

I yank the towel off the rack, press it to my mouth and scream into the terry cloth until black spots dot my vision.

When I exit the bathroom a few minutes later, I’ve rolled my shoulders back and lifted my head high. I grab my drink and take another big gulp, trying to dull the throbbing of my jaw, which is worse after my mini-breakdown. I can’t avoid it anymore; it’s time to set up hidden cameras around my apartment. I have a dozen buried beneath clothes in one of my closet drawers, where they’ve been for over a year. I had the nerve to buy them but not to actually use them. I’ve been afraid of what I’ll see.

Now, I’m more afraid of what I’mnotseeing.

Suzanne has set a croissant on the dining table. “Come and put something in your stomach.”

I join her, studying her over the rim of my glass. Her skin is flawless. Unlike my own, there’s no wrinkle or line to be found. Her dark eyes tilt up at the far corners, and a worried frown presently caps them.

“What time did I get here?” I ask.

“A little after five this morning.”

“That’s damn early. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Darius called around seven, looking for you.” Her lips purse. “I told him you’d been here the whole time.”

I release a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”

“He’s on his way. Is everything okay with you two?”

“Sure.” When she just continues to study me with those thickly lashed eyes, I elaborate. “Since Kane’s been out of the office, he’s been working overtime. Kane is on a trip with his wifey now, so Darius is really putting the hours in.”

Otherwise known as taking care of business he doesn’t want Kane – or his hag of a mother – to know about.Andprobably fucking his assistant every day of the week, instead of just Friday. He comes home so late there is no way it’s all work and no play.

“Really?” She perks up. “Where’d they go?”

“No one knows for sure, but Lily called to see how I’m doing, and the number had a Connecticut area code. I looked it up, but it’s unlisted.” I rip off a piece of the croissant and shove it in my mouth. “I’m sure Witte knows exactly where they are,” I go on while chewing, “but he’s gone, too.”

“With them?”

“Maybe. Maybe they’re ménage à trois-ing it right now.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Can’t I?” I take a big bite of the croissant. It’s buttery and delicious, and I realize I’m ravenously hungry. “Witte’s crawled so far up Kane’s ass he’s probably another appendage.”

“Oh, good Lord, girl.” She huffs a laugh, leaning back in her chair. Her kaftan has a beautiful copper and turquoise floral pattern that plays flatteringly off her milk-chocolate-hued skin. There’s something regal about her that I detest with everything in me. It’s a quietly fierce nobility that seems effortless.

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