Derailed (20 page)

SCARLETT

I’m in my mother’s white Mitsubishi, binoculars in hand and watching Ritchie’s backyard and patio from a nearby nature reserve. For more than an hour, nothing happens. Just noisy kids running in and out of the house. When it starts to get dark, I wonder if I am wasting my time. Then Ritchie steps out onto his patio, carrying a bottle of wine and glasses. Rival follows. Well, well, well, what have we here? I sit upright in my seat.

My smile dips when I see Ritchie’s butler, who resembles Arnold the terminator in his hey-day, step out onto the patio. Perhaps it’s all innocent after all? But then I remember their feral kisses – nothing innocent about those kisses.

Ritchie’s butler lights up a cigar and they all drink. After his cigar, the butler goes inside and shuts the patio door behind him. Rival gets up from her seat and walks over to Ritchie, and the two silhouettes eventually become one. I’m thrilled. Bradley’s got to see this. I get out of my car and creep up toward Ritchie’s home. They appear too engrossed with each other to notice me recording them. 

Then, to my disappointment, Rival gets up. Damn! I expected more. But smoke and fire – they’re never far apart. Ritchie’s now alone on the patio, so I stay put to prevent him from seeing me. He keeps looking at the house next door. The one Rival rents a room in. A few minutes later, Rival appears on her balcony, waves at Ritchie, and goes back inside. Ritchie gets up, scales the low fence between the houses, climbs up a ladder onto her balcony and disappears inside. Whoa! Rival and Ritchie alone in Rival’s room? What the hell is going on? Thrilled at what I’m seeing, I creep toward Rival’s place, quietly climb the ladder, and sneak toward the patio doors of Rival’s room. I tiptoe around until I find a gap in the blinds that allows me a peek inside. It’s dimly lit, but I can see Rival and Ritchie making out like crazy on the floor. On the
floor
?

With a smile, I start to video them. Wait till I show
this
to Bradley.

I watch Ritchie yank his shirt over his head and throw it behind him.
Throw
it. While he does that, Rival’s hand caresses his crotch. His head leans back as her hand slips inside his jeans. Suddenly, he scuttles back and starts to pull off her clothes. What a wild boy! 

With their lips locked together, they fight off his jeans. I get a great visual of his arse – firm and round. Like two giant, beautiful globes. And his thighs – they’re muscular and sexy! Risking getting caught, I inch around to get a front view of Ritchie. And when I do, I gasp at the sight of his cock – angry, veiny and huge. With absolute envy I watch Rival stroke it, then guide it between her thighs. Seems like all the foreplay was done on his patio, because they have skipped the entree and are going straight for the main course. Ritchie rocks her for a while, then flips her around to take her from the back, doggie style. He’s like a porn star, the way he goes and goes.

My surprise and disbelief soon turns to sheer envy. How the fuck does she get not only Bradley eating out of her hand, but Bradley’s best friend, who scales fences and climb ladders to be with her? What does she have that I don’t? Am I missing something here? Is she dabbling in voodoo or black magic perhaps?

After seeing these two fuck like porn stars, I’m horny as hell. I need a good fuck. Norman? Nope, he’s useless. I need a feral fuck. A Ritchie-style fuck.

An hour later, Ritchie has not left Rival’s place – they’re spooning. I’m cold, with pins and needles in my legs, and my phone battery is running low, but I dare not leave in case they hear me.

Ritchie eventually leaves the way he entered. I wait five minutes then limp out of my hiding space and back to my car.

As I drive home, a few things crystalize before me:

1) Rival does not want Bradley back. She’s merely playing him because of the kids. Thank God I blocked her court appearance. 

2) Ritchie is betraying Bradley, knowing full well that Bradley still has feelings for his nutty ex-wife. So he cannot be trusted. Bradley will die if he knows that the man he thinks is his best friend, the one he confides in, the one he assigned to comb our place for bugs after we were set up, has all along been banging his wife. Ritchie can no longer be trusted, and their friendship has to come to an end, pronto.

3) Most importantly,
I
want to fuck Ritchie. Badly. 

SCARLETT

Bradley’s ex-wife and best friend…I can’t get over it. Who’d have thought?

Bradley’s
best man
and his ex-wife. The friend who Bradley called when he was arrested. The man who declared that Rival wasn’t alert or smart enough to pull such a job.  Now we know why every single surveillance on Rival came up clean. Now he’ll know why Ritchie failed to discover the identity of the thief, the cad who ruined our marriage. That traitor has been protecting her all the time. What deceit. What a staggering betrayal. Don’t you just hate facetious friends like that? Friends who befriend you and then steal from you? I hate them. Just kidding! A hypocrite I am not. I do not have a best friend. Never did. I have friends who want to be friends with me to get something out of me, but I always fuck them over before they fuck me over. It becomes a challenge as to how quickly I can. It’s entertaining to see them stare at me in sheer surprise after I blindside them. (I love that word,
blindside
.) 

And here Bradley was thinking how good a friend Ritchie was. Well, that friendship has been derailed. That
facetious
friendship. Bradley is going to be utterly devastated, and soon there is going to be colossal crash. It has to happen. There is nothing more intense than a betrayal of a friendship with an ex. You never fool around with your best friend’s ex if you value your friendship. Everyone knows that.

How does she do it? I keep asking myself. How does she get Bradley to become besotted with her all over again? I mean, he has someone like me around – stylishly elegant, craftily charismatic, intellectually gifted, and inordinately eloquent, and yet, he hankers after that…pugilistic urchin. I’m confounded by his choice. Truly I am.

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t run off to Bradley and spilled on Ritchie and Rival, right? Well, here’s my reasoning: Ritchie and Bradley are squash competitors. They beat each other by a mere point each time they play. All they ever talk about is how they are going to thrash each other in the next game. Sure, they are friends, close ones at that, but on the squash courts, in a competitive arena, they aren’t friends, they’re opponents.

Should I tell Bradley about Ritchie and Rival, it would go down like this: first, he wouldn’t believe me, then when he did, or if he suspected that Ritchie was indeed porking his ex-wife, Rival would become a game of squash, and Bradley would do everything in his power to beat Ritchie and win over Rival. She’d become an obsession, and things might topple in Bradley’s favor. Where would I be, then? Divorced. And we all know that divorce is not an option for me. When it comes to divorce, I become a staunched Catholic (only when it comes to divorce). And we all know how Catholics feel about divorce – it is
not
an option.

Chapter Fifteen

RIVAL

“Emilio,” I say to the renovator, “I need to do some upgrades to the existing renovations.”

“It’s gonna cost you, Rival,” Emilio says.

I nod. “Can you bill me separately for the extras? I want to
surprise
Ritchie.”

Emilio’s eyes narrow. “Oh, you’re bad, I can tell. What you got in mind?”

“Well, it’s sort of elaborate, so I know I have to expect some delays, but that’s okay.” I spend the next few minutes explaining my changes in plans to him.

“Okay, I can do that,” he finally says and gives me an estimate. Sure, the estimate causes my jaw to drop, but in the end, I’m excited enough to okay the costs.

My excitement rockets as my surprise takes shape. The pool is now twice its size and includes a spray water fountain, a meandering water slide, a beach end with waves, and – mainly for
my
pleasure – an eight-seater hot tub. A shade-cloth covering installed over the shallow half of the pool means that the kids can swim during the day without worrying too much about sunburn.

I have arranged a commercial-grade jungle gym that little Gareth will
not
be able to break, a sandpit, and a giant, enclosed trampoline in the play area.

The outside bathroom that I included is round, has a thatched roof, and is surrounded by shrubs and miniature palms. From the outside it doesn’t look like a bathroom – it looks like a giant shrub.

As for the kitchen – I’ve upgraded the appliances, added a walk-in pantry, a feature wall, and an eat-in area.  

And finally, I double the size of Ritchie’s bar and make all-round improvements to it. 

I expect Ritchie, if he does find out about my upgrades, will try and stop me from spending so much, so I’ve arranged for everything to be installed on the same day while Ritchie is at work. With Bear’s help, we’re going to keep Ritchie at work till 9 p.m. I’m so excited, I forget all about Scarlett and the setbacks she’s caused.  

A couple days later, it’s time for the big reveal. I’m nervous. 

“Emilio,” Ritchie says, a confused look on his face. “Mate, these changes…they’re not –”

Emilio points all his fingers at me and starts backing away. “Take this up with your missus.” 

Ritchie looks at me, eyebrows elevated.

I step forward and look Ritchie in the eye. “I’ve changed the plans, okayed them, and…it’s all paid for, Ritchie, so…chill.” 

For a few moments Ritchie stares at me, blinking rapidly.

“I just wanted to be part of it all,” I say, wrapping my arms around his waist. “That’s all. I hope you don’t mind.” I kiss his chest.

“Rival…” he pushes me away so he can look into my face. “How much did the extras cost you?”

“Um…about twenty grand,” I say, even though it costs seventy-five thousand dollars.

“Honey, you shouldn’t have –”

I quickly stand on my toes and kiss him. “Shh! Don’t ruin it. I needed to do something to cheer me up after all the losses I suffered recently. What do you like most? Tell me, tell me!”

Looking like he’s bumped his head against a wall, Ritchie looks around and finally says, “The water slide – I love that.” That’s Ritchie – the boy in him will never grow up.

As he looks around, he shakes his head. “You sneaky little thing, you.”

I grin.

His eyes shine with excitement. “I gotta show Bear this,” he says, bringing out his phone and dialing away. “He’s gonna burn.”

Phew
!

RIVAL

Ritchie’s house has been sold for more than we bargained for, so it’s with great excitement that we prepare for our big move into our new home. Ritchie takes a week off from work just for the move. It’s exhausting, but being with Ritchie twenty-four-seven is just fantastic.

I’m absolutely thrilled with my new study. As promised, Ritchie’s installed a Jetmaster, a television set, satellite TV, and he’s hung up a beautiful portrait of me and my girls on the wall. I love everything about my study, and it will no doubt be a pleasure working in it, churning out more of Scarlett’s books in my woman cave.

As a housewarming present to Ritchie, I’ve added to Ritchie’s bar, stocked it up with new drinks and bottles of different liqueurs. I know he will get tons of pleasure from mixing different cocktails for everyone. I also add to his CD collection – I’ve bought him Celine Dion’s platinum collection. For someone who insists he’s not a fan of Celine Dion, he sure has a lot of her CDs lying around.

“What the…” He laughs at the CD.

“Now you’re gonna tell me you aren’t really a Celine Dion fan, right?”

He shrugs.

I put on her song, “A New Day
.
”
Taking his hand, I say, “Let’s dance. This will be our mantra – a new day…”

As we slow dance in our new house, Becky and Ally rush up to us. We gather them in and all four of us dance together. Life is just wonderful.

RIVAL

Everybody helps with our move. Including Liefie and Vlad. Liefie takes charge of Ally and Becky’s room and makes drastic changes to them. At first, I am a little peeved, considering that it is my home, not hers. But after a while, I decide to let it lie. There is so much to do that I could really use her help. Besides, I don’t want to upset Ritchie. The purpose of him moving next door to his ex-wife was so that his kids could have access to their mother. I have to remind myself of that when Liefie returns the lilac and pink bedding I had purchased for Ally and Becky’s rooms and replaces them with styles and colors she prefers.

I have to remind myself of that when she repaints her girls’ rooms cream, because the Whispers of Lilac the rooms have just been painted is “too dull.”

I have to remind myself of that when she throws out little Gareth’s bed and buys him a new one, and puts the tab on Ritchie’s credit card without asking him if she can. Ritchie, of course, doesn’t mind. Ritchie
never
minds.

I have to remind myself of that whenever she says to Ritchie, “Can I talk to you?” and then takes him away from me to have muted and seemingly intimate conversations. Mundane things she could very well say to Ritchie in my presence.

I have to remind myself of that whenever she barges into my house without knocking.

I have to remind myself of that when she never addresses me or talks to me about…
anything
. 

I have to remind myself of that when she walks into my house and turns off Celine Dion. For some reason, she gets really angry whenever I play Celine’s music.

I have to remind myself of that when she barges into my home and takes stuff out of my fridge without asking. Granted, it’s always stuff for the kids, but still …