Secretary Number Five Read online

  “Mia…”

  “Sit.”

  She gestured to the other couch, in a deliberate echo of his decision not to sit next to her earlier, and mentally kicked herself for only talking in monosyllables—a giveaway sign of her deep upset. She needed to be strong now, stronger than her voice was telling him she was.

  Simon sat down, squinting with the bright sunlight in his eyes, but she made no move to adjust her position to save him that. She’d been right. He was clearly illuminated and, with the bright sun heading to the horizon behind her, her own face would be all but inscrutable from his perspective. She knew he’d recognize the deliberate technique, one she knew he used at work to put whoever he was negotiating with, or meeting, at a disadvantage.

  He tried again. “Mia…”

  “No.” She paused. “I don’t want an apology, I want an explanation. I want to know why, and I want to know when.”

  “All of it?”

  She could see by the way he shivered that he wasn’t looking forward to this.

  Good, it serves you right!

  “Yes, I want all the details. I want to know how the little bitch got her hooks into you and why you and Jim have decided not to fight it.”

  He almost smiled, but she watched as he checked himself. “The last bit is the easy one.”

  “Well, start there, then. We’ll move onto the harder bits later.”

  He closed his eyes for a second and she could see him taking a deep breath. “The company lawyers are sure they can win, but to do that they’d have to call on a witness.”

  “Oh, who?”

  He leaned forward and looked straight at her. “You.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded. “They’d use you to prove I was a good husband and provider, and that Teresa was nothing but a gold-digger.”

  “Sounds good to me. Why did you veto it?”

  “Because her lawyers would try to dissect our married life, our sex life, and put you through the mincer. You know how lawyers are.”

  “So, to protect me, the wife you cheated on, not just with one woman but—with what, four women—you decided to take the hit?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t fucking believe you.”

  “Mia…”

  She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. The one thing she’d told herself before coming downstairs was not to get carried away, not to lose her temper with him. She wanted to remain on the high moral ground. Hell, she owned it, it was hers by right.

  “No, I don’t believe you. I think you were worried I’d take my revenge from the witness stand.”

  He shook his head. “No, I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “You took me that much for granted?”

  “Not at all… Mia, I know you. You wouldn’t lie on the witness stand even if hell froze over, even if you hated me for what I’d done, which you probably do. The point is, they would dissect our private life and ask for details you might not want to give, and our lawyers would need them to do that.”

  “Why?”

  “So they could field the evidence they had found out—that Teresa has done this before.”

  “Ah…”

  She’d done a minor in law at college so that made some kind of sense to her. If she could believe her husband, and that was a big if, then he’d refused to sacrifice her dignity on the witness stand, persuaded Jim not to let that happen, and cost the company a lot of money to save her feelings.

  “So, let me get this right. You decided not to defend the case because you wanted to protect my feelings and not let me be publicly humiliated in court. Yet you humiliated me by bedding four of your secretaries, one after the other?”

  She could see she’d hit home, as he almost physically rocked back with the blow, but at the same time his professional negotiating skills kicked in.

  “So you think I should heap one wrong on top of another?”

  “You mean another wrong on top of the existing heap?”

  Two could play that game and she needed him off that mode of operation as quickly as possible. He fell silent, probably recognizing the same point.

  She changed the subject. “Simon, do you still want this marriage to continue?”

  He nodded.

  “So you think it’s worth saving?”

  “Yes. I love you, Mia. I never stopped loving you.”

  “I’m not sure of that, Simon, really I’m not.”

  Again she could see him rocking back in his seat, recoiling from her vehemence.

  “I don’t know what I want, Simon. I don’t know if I can work through this.”

  “I’ll do—”

  “Don’t tell me you’ll do anything. I don’t want to hear that.”

  “I mean it though, baby. I’ll—”

  “Don’t baby me either. You forfeited that right.”

  He closed his eyes for a second. “Mia, let me finish.”

  She nodded, surprised, as it was the first time he’d made any attempt to fight back.

  “I’ll do counselling, an addiction course, whatever it takes. Christ, Mia, I’ve been an idiot, an absolute idiot, but the one thing I don’t want to do is to lose you.”

  “You have to accept you might already have.”

  He shuddered. The fact she’d kept her voice level rather than raising it in anger had to be having an effect on him. “Please, Mia, give me a chance.”

  “Do you deserve one?”

  She had to be careful, not back him into a corner so far that he felt he’d lost any chance of winning her back. The vague plan she’d formed might work, even though she wasn’t sure if she could go through with it, but she did want to try.

  “No.”

  His voice had dropped to almost a whisper and she could see she needed to give him some hope, even a slender one.

  “A number of rules, Simon.”

  He lifted his head to peer at her, squinting into the sun streaming through the window behind her.

  “Rule one, you are not coming anywhere near my bed. That bedroom is out of bounds, most especially if I’m in it. I’ve moved some of your clothes into the spare room at the back, as far away from me as possible.”

  His mouth opened to say something in response, then he closed it again and, shoulders slumping, he nodded.

  “You can fetch the rest of your stuff when I’m not in. Understood?”

  His head was down, staring at the floor. “Yes, okay.”

  “Good, now rule two.”

  He looked up at her again.

  “I need to know why, when and how. So over the next few days, however distasteful to both of us, you are going to tell me every detail of what happened. We’ll start with Teresa. What was she—number four? And you are going to tell me how it happened, where it happened, how many times it happened. Hell, you are going to tell me how many times you came, how many times she did—or faked it, or whatever. You’re even going to tell me what color her nipples were. Clear?”

  He shook his head. “No, Mia, I can’t do that.”

  “Do you want to save this marriage or not?”

  “You know I do.” His voice was breaking, that last reply almost a tortured scream.

  “Then you are going to give me the information I need so I can understand.”

  He didn’t reply but she could see it was sinking in.

  “Rule three, probably the most important of them all.”

  He looked up again.

  “Every time you tell me about one of them, I’m going out the next night.”

  “Oh?”

  She could see he wasn’t getting it.

  “What’s good for the gander and all that…”

  She watched the realization dawn and drove the hook all the way in. “That’s right, Si. I’ve been faithful to you for eleven years—hell, thirteen if you include the time we were courting before we got married. I never looked at another guy after our first date. Well, you have been unfaithful to me with four women. I’m going to get payback. After
that, we’re even, and maybe, just maybe, our marriage will survive.”

  He looked at her in shock, his mouth hanging open as she rose to her feet and walked away. At the top of the steps, she turned.

  “If you want a pizza or something, ring for it—I’m not hungry. We’ll talk tomorrow when you tell me all about Teresa.”

  She left him sitting there and walked through the house and upstairs to the bedroom. At least in there, with him expelled, it didn’t seem as cold and lonely as the rest of their home. She knew she was close to tears, and didn’t want to break down. She didn’t want to be the little weak woman in front of him, but needed the solitude to put everything back in perspective. She had no intention of finding herself a string of lovers, but she didn’t want him to know that.

  Once in the bedroom, she realized coming straight upstairs might have been a mistake. She didn’t want anything to eat, but a drink would have been nice. All she had was the tap water and the toothbrush glass. For a couple of minutes she debated going back downstairs and risking another encounter with Simon, and then decided she didn’t need alcohol that much. Mia grabbed the TV remote and tried to find something to watch, which proved fruitless until she channel hopped. After twenty minutes or so she came across an old episode of CSI. She knew it was old because Grissom was still in it. Besides, she’d already seen it and she knew who the killer was within seconds of his appearance on screen.

  About halfway through the show, there was a knock on the door, and she sighed. She hadn’t really expected to get away from Simon for the entire evening, even if that was what she wanted. Pressing the mute button, she called out.

  “What?”

  He pushed the door open a little, and peered around it. “Can I get the rest of my stuff I need?”

  “The rest?”

  “Shower gel, razor, and the like.”

  When she’d taken his stuff through she hadn’t thought about those kinds of things. “Go on, but be quick.”

  She knew he’d want to talk to her when he came back out of the bathroom so, as soon as he went into the en-suite, she was off the bed and out the bedroom door, leaving him to face an empty room when he came back out with his shaver and toiletries. Heading downstairs, she grabbed a bottle of white wine from the chiller, along with a glass and the spare corkscrew, and headed back for the stairs, only to find Simon had been quicker than she expected and was sitting on the third step from bottom waiting for her, blocking her way up.

  “I don’t want to talk to you tonight.”

  He looked up into her face and shook his head. “Okay, I admit it, I fucked up. If you want a divorce I won’t contest it. Is that what you want to hear?”

  She paused then shook her head.

  “Well, until you tell me that’s what you want, don’t expect me to stop fighting to save our marriage, every minute of every day.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Okay, I’ll sleep in the spare room, I’ll give you that, but you are not shutting yourself off from me.”

  “And if that’s what I want?”

  “I’ll take the door off the bedroom and store it in the garage.”

  She looked at him in shock, then saw the look of determination on his face. Earlier he’d been dejected, and cowed. Now, though, he was projecting the more normal Simon look, ‘the can do, and there is no obstacle I can’t overcome’ look. The one he wore to work every minute of every day. Mia had no doubt he would do precisely what he said he would do to the door. In fact, when she thought back, he’d done precisely that in their first home a few months after their marriage when, in a row, she’d slammed the bedroom door in his face and refused to open it the next morning. Despite the fact they’d made up the row, he’d removed the door and refused to replace it for a month.

  “I see from your face your memory’s good.”

  “You’d really do that, despite the fact you’re the one in the wrong?”

  He shrugged. “Possibly, possibly not. I’m just reminding you what I can do, if that’s what I think I need to do in order to save our marriage.”

  “And what do you think we’ve got to talk about?”

  “Well, you said you wanted the gory details. Did you mean that?”

  She nodded.

  “Shall we get started then?”

  “Now?”

  “Why not? I’ll sleep in the spare room tonight, but you’d better believe I want back in your bed, and the sooner the better.”

  She had to suppress a shudder at his words. The way her body reacted to his suddenly low-pitched words took her by surprise. “You might not want to, if I’m soiled goods.”

  “Honey, if you feel the revenge you need is to find a lover, then go ahead. I know you better than that—you won’t do it.”

  His face betrayed the fact that he realized his mistake almost before the words were out, but it was too late—he’d spoken them.

  “You sanctimonious, cock-sure bastard!”

  He shook his head. “No, Mia…that came out wrong. I’m not taking you for granted.”

  “I’ve a good mind to head uptown and find someone right now, come walking through the door at three in the morning with my hair a mess, my makeup streaked and buttons missing from my clothes. God only knows where the underwear would be.”

  “Mia, please, no…”

  She forced herself to calm down. She actually believed he was telling the truth—he hadn’t meant to sound like he was taking her for granted. “You want to tell me about Teresa?”

  “If that means you’ll listen, yes…”

  “And if I decide to go out afterward?”

  “I won’t stop you. I won’t want you to go, but I won’t stop you.”

  She took a deep breath, knowing it was too soon—but still, she’d demanded he tell her in the first place.

  “Right, get yourself a wine glass. I think we’re both going to need a drink.”

  She paused and stared at him. “And I may still decide to go out afterward, or leave it ‘til another night. Understood?”

  He nodded. “All I want is our marriage back together.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  He winced but said nothing else.

  Chapter 3

  “Okay, tell me.”

  They’d sat down in the main living area again, although she’d insisted on them sitting on opposite couches to ensure there was no intimacy in terms of closeness. She didn’t think Simon was stupid enough to try anything physically intimate. The main difference between this and their earlier conversation was the fact she’d collared a bottle of wine and they both had a glass. She knew it would look like an ordinary evening to any onlooker, as long as they couldn’t hear the conversation.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything, and nothing. Believe me, I want to hear nothing, but I am going to hear everything.”

  Simon remained silent.

  “How did she set the hook?”

  He shuddered and then, after taking a mouthful of wine and letting the liquid slide down his throat, he started his confession.

  “I guess it was a power trip—not for the first time, but you already know that. She was a bright young thing when she first started and I spotted her from the beginning. You know the type—short skirt, long legs, flat stomach, and toned. Not exceptionally pretty, but attractive, until you added the way she walked in those short tight skirts. Then she was devastating.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Her smile was her best feature and when Denise left, Teresa was the first name on the applicant list. She’d been a general office assistant before then, but her resume was off the scale in terms of typing speed, experience and the other skill-sets she could put on paper. Her references were exemplary. She’d moved across country for family reasons so there was nothing to flag up an issue with her previous employer. She’d only been with the company for two months but her interview performance was sensational.”

  “She seduced you that quickly?”

&nb
sp; He shook his head. “No. She seduced the company into thinking she was an exceptional find as an executive secretary.” Simon paused again and, reaching for his glass, took a quick drink and put it down again.

  “A week later she was manning the desk in my outer office, and for about two weeks everything was fine—very professional, very above board.”

  Mia nodded. He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t guessed already.

  “Then it was the inevitable, the cliché if you like. I needed her help on a presentation we were late getting the data for so she had to stay late in the office.”

  “And you took your chance?”

  “No, Mia. She did.”

  “She seduced you?”

  “Kind of.”

  She paused for a moment and then, reaching for the bottle, refilled both glasses.

  “This isn’t going to be easy to hear, and I’m damned sure it’s not going to be easy for you to tell, but I don’t care about that. I want you to describe that evening. Don’t leave anything out.”

  He shuddered. “Every detail?”

  “As I said earlier, I want to know how many times you came, how many times she did—every gory little, sickening and uncomfortable detail.”

  She watched as he closed his eyes and she could see he was trying hard to suppress a shudder, but after a second he opened them and looked straight at her. “You sure you want this?”

  His gray eyes seemed to pierce straight through her, the way they had at the frat party where they’d first met. She tried not to let the gasp out, memories flooding in, steeling herself for the ordeal she’d insisted on.

  “It started out professionally enough. She was sitting one side of the desk, I was sitting my side and we had the screen twisted so we could both see it. I guess I couldn’t help it, and I realize now she knew exactly what she was doing. In order to see the figures on the screen she was leaning further and further over, giving me a straight shot down her cleavage. God, how could I have been so stupid?”

  “Because you were a man and your dick took over your thinking.”