The Lion's Den (Faraway Book 2) (25 page)

A quick visit to Google, and I had her LinkedIn profile and the address of her apartment in center city. She was as young as she looked. Give or take a few extra years to finish college, Dharma was twenty-six years old.

I leaned back in the desk chair and tried to recall what it was like to be twenty-six. It was fun. What the hell was she doing with Brad? He was no fun. The last thing I wanted at twenty-six was a married father of two. Unless Dharma was counting on Brad soon being a divorced father of two, but that couldn’t happen. At least not the way it was probably playing out in her head.

I had twenty more minutes before I had to leave to pick up the kids from school. I used it to find and print out his company’s sexual harassment policy. I put it in a folder and filed it next to the dental insurance folder in Brad’s cabinet. I knew he’d never find it, but I didn’t care if he did. It was only a matter of time now.

Jenna walked in my side door as if she lived with me. Her children ran past her and up the stairs to find mine in their rooms. “So what’s so important that you summoned me over here on a weeknight?”

Nights like this, I wished Jenna could still drink. We would have drunk our way through this nightmare. Instead, I poured us each a cup of green tea. I blew into the scorching water, recognizing this was my last chance to turn back. The last moment before I shared a secret that could not be unsaid.

“Brad has a girlfriend, and I’m going to leave him.”

Jenna turned her head to the side and placed her steaming cup on the counter. “Huh?” she asked as she tried to get a better handle on what I’d obviously already come to terms with.

“He’s seeing someone.” I paused to let that sink in. “She’s twenty-six and she works for him.”

Jenna’s mouth fell open, but no words came out. Her silence was a bit daunting.

“As far as I can tell, they’ve been together for a while.”

“Like, how long is a while? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. He’s having a difficult time managing her.” Jenna’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s a bear to live with, and I think it’s because she’s pressuring him to leave me. Knowing my husband, he arrogantly assumed he could fuck this girl with no ramifications, but there are always consequences.”

Jenna’s face twisted in disgust. “What a fucking asshole.”

“I know.”

“How do you know, though?”

“I caught them in a heated argument at his holiday party in January, and I have gone through our phone records. She calls him constantly at all sorts of odd hours. Oh, and when he’s drunk, he gets nasty and tells me he’ll never lose me. Why would he say that unless he knew he should lose me?”

“What are you going to do? Are you going to move out? Do you need a place to stay?” Jenna never loved Brad, but this was beyond both our scopes of understanding.

“I’m not going anywhere. I just need Brad to agree to a few things he’s not going to like. Like a divorce and giving me sole custody of James and Liv.”

“Brad’s going to be a total dick.” She took a sip of her tea.

“I know. That’s why I need your help.”

“Anything. Do you want me to follow him?”

“No. I think his girlfriend will help us. We just need to piss her off enough.”

Jenna observed me as if she were watching a documentary on a deranged killer. She was equally appalled and intrigued. “Who are you?”

“I’m Daniel, and my marriage is the lion’s den.”

I forced the endless thoughts of Vince’s hands touching me from my mind and focused on my husband. My goal was different now. I’d switched from trying to save our marriage to orchestrating the end of it.

“She’s none of your fucking business,” was what Brad had yelled at Dharma at the holiday party. He was talking about me, which meant I intrigued Dharma. Interested her enough to find me on Facebook and anywhere else she could locate information about me.

I did what any good wife would do. I unlocked my Instagram account and started posting frequently on that as well as Facebook. I would make it so I was her business. The very first picture went up on Valentine’s Day. First thing in the morning, I posted our wedding portrait. He’d wanted that wedding. Something told me he wasn’t going to be as excited about it when his girlfriend was faced with it. I knew exactly how she’d feel. I’d felt it myself the year before when I’d been jealous of Vince and his wife.

I made airtight plans with Brad. He promised Liv, James, and me that he’d be home on time. The kids were making us a romantic dinner. I knew he’d try to get out of it and that Dharma would flex her muscles—all of them—to keep him with her that night, but I was prepared.

Around lunchtime, I posted the second picture of us that Liv had taken at the shore when I was professing my love for her. I was leaning back on Brad and his arms were around me. The picture would infuriate Dharma.

“Hey,” Brad answered his work phone in a rush. He didn’t have time for my call. He was busy working.

“I just found a picture of the two of us under Liv’s pillow,” I lied. “I think this dinner means more to her than we could have imagined.”

“Why the hell is that? It’s going to be impossible to get out of here. And then the traffic.” He was pathetic. Every time he opened his mouth, it became clearer that he didn’t deserve any of us.

“I told Liv all of that. And she said she was going to pray to God that you’d be home on time.” I could practically hear the sweat dripping from his brow. “We love you.”

And at precisely four thirty
P.M.
on Valentine’s Day, an exact replica of my wedding bouquet was delivered to Brad’s office. The card read:

You are our everything.

We love you.

LIKE ANY GOOD FRIEND WOULD
do, Jenna suddenly became quite the participant on Facebook. A shutterbug, too. Every other weekend we met up with her and John somewhere, and Jenna would take our picture. She was the perfect partner in crime, always seeming nonchalant but not giving anyone a minute to refuse having their photo taken. Since I was always ready, the pictures came out fantastic and were the perfect representation of our love, which was an enormous feat because Brad was disgusting. I hid my hate for him while lots of people commented about what a beautiful couple we were. Their praise meant absolutely nothing to me.

I, of course, thanked everyone in a comment, knowing each time I did it showed up on more timelines. Jenna or I would post right after she took the picture, and then we’d watch as Brad suddenly had to excuse himself for what we knew was the tongue-lashing he was receiving through texts. In general, he was irritable, but after we started our campaign, he was downright wretched. I knew it was working because if he was miserable then that meant Dharma was, too.

I was banking on the fact that she was more of a gold-digger than just completely selfish and insane. She couldn’t use his career to put pressure on him. That was what I planned to do. In order to force Brad to let me go, I needed leverage. Dharma was the only one who would give it to me. She’d realize I wasn’t going anywhere. She’d come to me when he wouldn’t leave me. I needed Dharma to crack, because I knew Brad never would. With every day that passed, my ability to stand the sight of him diminished, so she needed to snap sooner rather than later.

Brad was aging before my eyes. Drinking more and smoking cigars. He’d played both women wrong, and now, we were putting the screws to him, and he couldn’t manage either of us.

I hoped.

My outfit was a head-turner. It was unnecessary in every way, and yet completely perfect for my trip to my loving husband’s office. It was a leather pencil skirt with a black turtleneck tucked in. The ensemble was actually subtle until your eyes fell to the four-and-a-half-inch spike heels I wore with it.

“Interesting outfit,” Vince said as I dropped the files on the corner of his desk.

“This? It’s nothing.”

He leaned away from his desk and examined me from the top of my head to the stiletto heels I stood upon. “Nothing, huh?” His words were playful, yet his tone was filled with the heavy, unspoken lust that hung between us every day since I’d gone to the cabin.

“I need to leave a little early today.” Vince only stared at me. I braved his silence without blinking. I wasn’t a criminal he could force to speak.

When the silence became more uncomfortable than the flirting, he said, “I think that’s a good idea,” and broke into a smile. “I’m trying to concentrate here.” Vince didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing, but nothing had changed between us.

My sole intention was for everything to change between Brad and me. So, when I parked in the garage under his office building, I left my coat in the car. I was there to be seen. By everyone. It was good to leave a lasting impression. Soon Brad and I would be done, and no one discussing our demise should ever have any excuse for his behavior. I wanted the witnesses to be properly appalled that he would ever cheat on his
beautiful
wife.

“Brad Walsh, please,” I said to the receptionist, and then I added, “Let him know his wife is here.” I turned away from her desk to hide the smile forming on my face. I was enjoying this too much. He deserved it, though. I rolled my eyes as I heard the security door open behind me.

“What are you doing here?” Brad was at ease. He kissed me on the cheek and appraised my outfit.

“I had lunch with Christine in the city and had to stop by and show you something.”

“What?” He was confused. He was an idiot.

“I need to show you in your office.”

“Now? We’re kind of in the middle of something.” The weasel I expected emerged. It was never far from the surface.

I leaned up and pressed my body against the front of him as I whispered in his ear, “It will only take a minute.”

Brad sighed. I wasn’t leaving. He held out his arm for me to lead the way and reached in front of me to press his badge against the security door lock. It opened, and I walked through the door of Brad’s domain.

He was silent, almost sneaking me in, and then karma helped by bringing Amit out of his office at the exact moment we approached it.

“Meredith! What are you doing here?”

“I just stopped by to show Brad something,” I said, making sure to sound as if what I wanted to show him was my nipple in his mouth.