Page 68 of Spooked

Brax stiffened as Carissa walked into shot, an Hermès purse slung over one shoulder as she talked on the phone. She looked around for somewhere to sit, then slid onto a stool vacated by a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt. The lower right quadrant showed her in close-up. Whoever was filming, they were sitting right next to her. And talking. Carissa chatted to her companion, growing more animated as time passed, smiling more and more often as she checked her watch and ordered the bartender around. Brax thought he spotted subtle signs of flirting—hair twirling around a finger, the way she checked her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, a change in posture that accentuated her breasts.

But her companion…was female.

Was he mistaken?

“Okay, this is just blah-blah-blah social engineering…” Alexa skipped the footage along, day turned to dusk, and the bar emptied out. Carissa appeared to have drunk most of a bottle of champagne by herself. Starting the celebrations early? “Ah, here we go.”

Carissa and her new friend speed-walked through the airport, talking, gesturing. Carissa was definitely drunk. At one point, the other woman, an athletic redhead dressed in a skirt suit and carrying a purse not too dissimilar from Carissa’s, had to steady her as she almost fell out of her shoes. What had they done? Bonded over a shared love of designer leather?

The pair headed for an airport hotel, and Alexa added a voiceover.

“Oh dear. There’s only one room left. Or so the booking system thinks. Do you realise how much sleep I haven’t had this week?” She drained the last of her coffee, and Brax pushed his mug toward her. “I gave them a nice view of the parking lot.”

The top half of the screen darkened, and the fourth quadrant flickered to life, showing the inside of a hotel room. Utilitarian furniture, uninspiring art on the walls, and a king-sized bed with a pattern designed to hide stains.

Holy fuck. Brax leaned forward in his seat, waiting for Carissa to protest as the redhead pushed her onto the bed. But instead, his wife pulled the virtual stranger down after her and locked lips. Carissa was drunk, but not so drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing. Not so drunk that she couldn’t unbutton the redhead’s shirt with a reasonable degree of coordination.

“Do you want to see all the gross bits? Don already summarised them for court.”

Court? It barely registered. What the hell was Carissa doing? They’d been married for eight years, dated for over a year before that, and Carissa had never shown the slightest interest in women. Had she? Before Brax, she’d been dating a frat boy, some economics major whose daddy owned a house in the Hamptons.

“Let it play.”

Carissa was really into this. It was clear that she knew her way around the female body, and not just her own. Although she was still content to lie back and let someone else do the hard work. The redhead was down to black lace panties and thigh-high stockings now, her head buried between Carissa’s legs. Brax took a sip of water to moisten his dry mouth, wishing it were Scotch. Who the hell was she? The woman deserved a medal because Carissa was bitter to the core. Had Alexa paid her to—

A tattoo came into focus, small, but the camera was remarkably high resolution. Brax spluttered water as he realised. He knew that ass. He’d been intimately acquainted withthat ass.

He’d also picked out the tattoo—a heart with horns and a devil’s tail. That had been another impulsive idea of Jerry’s.Hey, let’s get tattoos. Bet ya can’t take the pain, Georgetown boy.She’d gotten the heart, and he’d ended up with the Chinese word for “asshole.” Jerry swore the tattoo artist had said it meant “strong,” but he’d never been entirely certain that she was telling the truth.

“Is thatJerry?”

“That’s the view you recognise her from?”

“She’s changed her hair.” Copper curls had replaced a dark-brown ponytail. Was it a wig? “And I didn’t realise she was into women.”

Was every lady in his life bisexual, and he’d just been too blind to see it?

“She isn’t, but she doesn’t mind taking one for the team if the need arises.”

“But…but…” For once in his life, Brax was speechless. “I mean, how did she get involved? Jerry disappeared after we left Blackstone.”

“She might have disappeared from your life, but she never disappeared from mine.”

So many secrets…

“What did you do, call her up and ask her to honeytrap my wife?”

“Pretty much, yeah. She hates Carissa too.”

“I didn’t realise she’d ever met Carissa.”

“She hadn’t, but Carissa finished her shampoo once and failed to replace it.Soinconsiderate. Anyhow, enough chat about the past. Let’s worry about the future. There’s nothing in your prenup that says the adultery has to be with the opposite sex. Don checked.”

How had they even gotten a copy of the prenup? Brax opened his mouth to ask, then closed it again. He kept a scanned copy on his laptop. Alexa rooted through his files at will.

“That’s correct,” Don confirmed. “There are no restrictions on species, gender, or sexual orientation.”

“Your court appearance is at four, and Don’s started revising the settlement to represent the fact that you spent eight years making all the money and she’s just been spending it. But you’ll probably want to get your lawyer on board as well. He’s more familiar with the details.”

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