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“Never mind,” I say in exasperation. “I really need to get going. Seriously, what do you need from me?”
“Don’t you even miss me in the slightest?” she asks in a whining voice. “I was your wife, for Christ’s sake. I bore your son. ”
Yes, the only good thing she ever did for me… she had Gabe. And for that alone, I give her a bit of a pass. I choose to keep my ass**le nature in moderation.
“I’m sorry, Marissa,” I say in a passive voice, which is something she probably hasn’t heard since prior to me finding out she was a lying, cheating, bitch. “But I don’t miss you. Not in the slightest. ”
“I ruined everything,” she wails into the phone. “I had it so good, and I ruined everything. ”
Sitting back down on the couch, I kick my feet up on the coffee table and listen to Marissa purge. This is the first time that she is putting some blame on her shoulders. From the moment I confronted her with the fact that I knew… that I knew everything she had done, she had deflected and refused to accept any responsibility.
She never acknowledged that it was clearly more important to drink and party her ass off while I was away on business trips. She never once apologized for the men she f**ked while drunk and partying her ass off, not even when I shoved the photos under her nose that the private investigator I hired had taken. I’ll admit… she looked slightly sick to her stomach, but in no way remorseful. In fact, I’d say she looked relieved, and she never fought me on the divorce.
Now… to hear her say that she ruined everything? It’s kind of like music to my ears.
Doesn’t change that she’s a lying, cheating bitch. Those stripes will never change. But it’s nice to have some validation, no matter how minor it is.
“You know what the problem was?” she asks, sniffling into the phone.
“No,” I say tiredly but still interested in where this is going.
“You were never around. You traveled all the time. ”
“A couple of times a month, Marissa. Not all the time,” I correct.
“It was a couple of times too many,” she snaps, losing some of the morose slur to her words. “I need attention, and you knew that about me when you married me. ”
True enough. I knew Marissa was high maintenance, but I didn’t mind. I f**king loved her the way the tide loves the moon. I would have given her anything. If she would have asked me to stop traveling, I would have… and she knows that.
“It was more than that,” I tell her softly. “You know that, and I know that. ”
She’s quiet for a moment, either digesting what I’ve said or she passed out. I’m just about ready to say something when she starts talking. “I wasn’t ready to get married. I didn’t want to, but I felt pressured. You were my first, Matty. My first love, my first sex. I didn’t know what else was out there. ”
Her words shred me from the inside out. They sound small and pitiful, and for the first time, I don’t feel unquenchable hate toward her. I feel a small amount of pity actually.
I know our marriage went south because Marissa was sowing her wild oats. She never got to do that. She went into a heavy and deep relationship with me her freshman year of college. We did everything together, and while I liked to party… I was a couple of years older than her so by the time she was a sophomore, I was starting law school and had to buckle down. I got serious about life and dragged Marissa along with me. Truth be told, she never really got to have the fun college experience. We married the summer of her graduation. Three years later, she was a stay-at-home mother.
“I understand, Marissa,” I tell her quietly. And I really do. But then I pull forth my reserve of dark bitterness that sits low in my belly and let it enshroud me. “But you didn’t have to f**k around. You could have just asked for a divorce first. And that’s why I don’t miss you in the slightest. ”
My last words are harsh and raw, filled with venom. I actually hear her gasp on the other line, because I know she thought we were having a nice moment. But that will never happen, because I will never let go of the disdain for her that swims in my veins.
Not even the fact that she is Gabe’s mother will soften me toward her. The most I will give to her is respectful politeness when we are in front of Gabe, because I don’t ever want him to know how much I despise her. That would hurt him, and I’m not going to do that.
But she will never, ever get another thing from me. She’s taken too much already.
“I’m hanging up, Marissa. Don’t come over here. You’re drunk, and it’s my weekend so you’d be trespassing. I’ll call the cops if you show up. ”
I disconnect the phone before she can say a word and set it down beside me on the couch. I don’t feel angry toward her for disrupting my evening. I feel the same I always do… disgusted and annoyed I have to put up with her forever and ever. Because she’s Gabe’s mother, she unfortunately has a spot in my life.
Standing up from the couch, I head into the kitchen and grab a beer from the fridge. I twist the top off and lean against the counter while I take my first pull on it.
Not unsurprisingly, my thoughts drift to Mac. I wonder what she’s doing right now. Is she home, alone? Out with her roommate? Possibly out on a date? It’s within the realm of possibility that she could be out with another man. She’s beautiful and smart… She would have men lined up for blocks just to have the chance to have a drink with her.
I don’t like the surge of jealousy that rises up when I think about that. Surely, she wouldn’t go out with someone. Although we didn’t talk about exclusivity, I just sort of assumed Mac is that type of woman. The type that only wants one man in her life.
For a moment, I think about calling her. Just to casually check in, see how things are going. In fact, I could probably make a pretense of calling about the Jackson case with an idea I have. Of course, I don’t have an idea, but I’m sure I could come up with something pretty quickly.
I walk back into the living room and grab my phone from the couch. Flipping into my contacts, I pull her up. A photo of her face shows up… asleep, head turned to the side. I took it in Chicago after maybe the second or third time we had sex. She drifted off into a light sleep, and I got up to go to the bathroom. When I got back, the peacefulness and delicate beauty of her face caught me off guard. I stared at her for an unreasonably long time, and then grabbed my phone.
She was splendidly na**d on the bed, and I could have taken any number of photos of her for my private viewing later. But I didn’t. Just one photo… a close up of her face, and I’ve studied it a time or two.
My thumb hovers over her number, undecided on whether I should call her.
Then I ask myself… am I really calling because I want to further a connection with her, or am I calling to soothe my own ego?
The answer is clear because I am an ego-driven man, so I throw my phone down and walk back toward my bedroom. I’m just going to have to put Mac out of my mind.
I can’t keep thinking about her because when I do, it’s nothing but the most utterly fantastic thoughts. There’s not one thing that turns me off about her that I can think of, other than she loves reality TV. Outside of that, she is truly what could be considered a fantasy woman, and the more I dwell on that, the more I might be tempted to seek something more with her.
And more than anything… I cannot let that happen. That phone call with Marissa validated my position. Once you’ve been in love… deeply and irrevocably in love, and you have that love obliterated by the one person you thought you could trust above all else? Well, let’s just say that leaves a mark on your soul.
I will never let that happen to me again. I will never go through that pain… that humiliation. I will never be that stupid.
Thus, there can never be anything with Mac more than what we have right at this moment.
Chapter 11
“You didn’t have to be such a prick to my client in there,” Cal Carson seethes at me as we step out of my large conference room and into the marbled lobby of my firm.
Glaring back at him, I say, “From one prick to another, right Carson?”
The animosity between Cal Carson and me is so palpable that the air is thick with tension. It has nothing to do with this case we just settled. No, our tension started a few years before… when he used to be my best friend.
Best friends for fourteen years… through undergrad, law school, best man at my wedding, and so on.
It all fell apart and the “tension” started precisely when he f**ked my wife, and confessed his sins to me. I promptly kicked his ass and let hate fill my soul where he is concerned. It was no consolation that my wife was already f**king around on me and that I knew about it. No consolation that our marriage was over in my mind, and I had already planned on leaving her. If anything, it was a million times more painful that Cal betrayed me with her, because in hindsight, while I could see Marissa doing that… it was just beyond comprehension that someone like Cal would do that to me. He was just so loyal and morally upstanding. I still don’t understand it, but I really don’t want to either.
Needless to say, that whole “best friend” thing doesn’t exist anymore, and I am left to suffer his presence. It kills me that his law practice and mine collide over and over again, since we are on opposite sides of the playing field. We’ve had several cases against each other over the last few years and while we manage to treat each other with cold civility most of the time, every once in a blue moon, my anger will get the best of me and I’ll be a real prick during our dealings.
“Gentlemen,” William McDaniel says soothingly, in an effort to mediate. He is, after all, the mediator for our case today. “The deal is done, so let’s just shake hands and call it a day. ”
Cal sighs and starts to stick his hand out, because of course, he would be the bigger person.
He should be the bigger person after what he did.
Cocksucker.
But then something catches his attention over my shoulder and he exclaims, “McKayla!” with pure delight radiating from his eyes.
Turning around, Mac is walking into the lobby, her satchel slung over her shoulder. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since we parted ways Saturday morning and as expected, my body viscerally reacts to her. Heartbeat accelerated, palms itching, dick twitching.
She looks amazing. She’s more casually dressed today in a pair of wide-legged, gray trousers and a dove-gray silk blouse, complimented with a wide, patent-leather black belt and those f**k-me, mile-high black heels she wears all the time. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail that hangs low on her neck, which only showcases the graceful arch of her neck.
Cal pushes past me, intentionally hitting my shoulder, I’m sure, and walks up to her. My blood pressure spikes when I see her smile at him warmly, the same delight showing in her eyes. They look like two people that have a f**king crush on each other or something.
How in the f**k do they even know each other?
I watch as they speak for a few moments, their words traveling crystal clear over the marble flooring. The f**ker asks her out to lunch and my eyes narrow as she accepts, telling him what a good time she had with him on Saturday.
Motherfucking cocksucker!
I’m going to f**king pound him into the dirt. It’s no less than he deserves, and he’s stepped over a line now that I won’t look past. I did that once with him. Not doing it again.
Not with Mac.
“Excuse me,” I mumble to William as I walk away, and head toward Mac and Cal.
When I reach them, I take her elbow in a firm grasp. “If you’ll excuse us, Carson, I need to talk to McKayla about an urgent matter on a case. ”
Without waiting for a response from him or her assent, I push her through the lobby, back down the main corridor, and straight for my office. I’m not that gentle with my pushing, the anger welling up in me like a hurricane.