The Other Man (West Coast Hotwifing) (23 page)

He didn’t ask himself what the fuck he was doing. Her husband sent her out to have sex with other men so he could jack off with videos and phone calls. He didn’t deserve her, didn’t appreciate her. She needed a man who would cherish her.

Spence was that man.

* * * * *

Why today, of all days? Zoe’s stomach churned. It wasn’t just morning sickness. It was seeing Spence. It was his scent in that room. She’d read that a woman’s sense of smell went into overdrive with pregnancy. It was all she could do not to lean down and put her face in his hair, nuzzle the skin of his throat, breathe him in.

God, she didn’t need this now. Not with Spence here. Alison was out in the parking lot, and she was
not
leaving. Zoe rounded the building and found her stepdaughter’s Toyota parked under a tree. She was standing outside, her hand on her extended belly, fanning herself with a stiff reusable grocery bag.

She turned on Zoe. “Dad said you were pregnant.” Her voice rose. “
Pregnant
.”

If she was queasy before, she was ready to lose it all now. Damn Keith for doing this without her. “Alison—”

“First, neither of you say a word about splitting up for two weeks.
Two weeks,
” Alison echoed with emphasis. “Then he says you’re
pregnant
”—her voice dropped to a harsh whisper—“and it’s not even his.”

God. She couldn’t do this, not out in the freaking parking lot. But there wasn’t a choice. “Alison, let me explain.”

“And the worst?” Alison said, as if Zoe hadn’t said a word. “He knew all about your affair. He even told you to do it.” Alison threw her hands wide to cover all the sordid details she hadn’t said aloud.

At least Keith hadn’t laid all the blame at Zoe’s feet. “I know it sounds strange.” Exactly how much had Keith told Alison?

“Strange?” Alison’s eyes brimmed with moisture. “I don’t get any of this. What’s happening? Everything was fine when I was there.”

“We didn’t like to air our dirty laundry,” Zoe said. “Especially not with you…” She trailed off, waving a hand at Alison’s belly.

She and Keith should have talked about this, how to tell Alison, strategized, come up with a plan. Of course, they hadn’t really talked about anything at all. She’d left that night with a small bag, come back a couple of times for more clothes. She was staying at a hotel near work. They didn’t talk about divorce or attorneys or anything. They were both on hold. And they’d left Alison on hold, too.

Alison paced by the trunk of the car. “I don’t get it. This is too whacky. First he says you’re pregnant, then he says he encouraged you to have an affair. Because, well”—she put her hands over her ears as if she didn’t want to hear her own words any more than she’d wanted to hear Keith say them—“you and he can’t have sex anymore.”

It was the kind of discussion a father and daughter should never need to have. Zoe didn’t know how to explain the unexplainable any better than Keith had. “It was just something that happened. Your dad, me, we…” Yeah. Totally unexplainable.

Alison turned on her heel, almost tripped herself, and Zoe put out a hand to steady her. “Be careful.”

She jerked back. “Don’t touch me.”

“Sweetie.”

Alison’s chin trembled. Moisture brimmed in her eyes. But she didn’t castigate Zoe for the endearment.

“I can’t give your father what he needs anymore, and he can’t give me what I need.”

“Like sex? Is that all that’s important?”

“No.” They were missing a normal love life. Intimacy. Sensuality. Desire. A child. “We don’t share anything anymore.” Talking dirty about her exploits with other men wasn’t sharing. Even Keith licking her after she’d been with Spence wasn’t.

“Look, you’re upset now. Why don’t we get together, you, me, and your dad. We’ll talk about it.”

Alison shot her a steely glare. “You never said anything to me. Not even a hint. Then you just expect me to accept
that
?” She pointed at Zoe’s belly, flat in comparison to her own.

Zoe had never discussed her relationship with Alison. “It wasn’t appropriate and you know that.” She put a hand on the car to steady herself, just the way she’d tried to steady Alison. She hadn’t eaten, and the queasiness wasn’t just in the mornings. “I can’t say nothing will change between you and me, Alison, but I still love you and care about you.”

“Then how can you do this?” Alison gave a pitiful moan. “You know my mom’s no good about the baby. She’s all flustered and weird. You’re the only sane one I can talk to.” Ah, the narcissism of a pregnant woman. It wasn’t about her dad or her dad’s marriage; it was about her and her baby and what she needed. Zoe understood completely.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You can come over whenever you want.”

“How can I do that if you’re having some other guy’s kid in my dad’s house? And who the hell was he anyway?”

Who was he? Zoe didn’t know how to explain. He was nothing to her, yet he was everything. He was the other man, yet he was the only man.

Alison’s brow furrowed, and fresh moisture pooled in her eyes. She didn’t wait for an answer, as if she didn’t expect one. “I don’t get any of this. It’s just too weird.”

“I didn’t mean to get pregnant. It’s weird for me, too. And for your dad. Ultimately, this”—she put her hand on her stomach—“is my problem, not his. So we split up.”

Alison stared at her. “He said you wouldn’t get an abortion.”

Zoe didn’t know what Alison wanted to hear. “Could you have done it?”

Their gazes locked. Alison’s eyes spoke volumes. She said the words. “No. Never. Not for any reason.”

“So you see, Alison, that
is
my explanation. Nothing else matters.”

Alison tipped her head, looked vacantly at something over Zoe’s shoulder. Then she came back. “You’re right. When you’re going to have a baby, there’s nothing else.” She held Zoe’s gaze. “And you always wanted a baby, didn’t you.” Of course, it wasn’t a question. Alison had known the truth even if Zoe never admitted it to herself.

They’d talked about it only once, when Alison was getting married. Zoe had said simply that her life was good without children.

“Let’s talk about everything later.” Zoe patted her shoulder, and this time, Alison let her. “Why don’t you go home now and rest? I’ll call your dad. We’ll come over when you’re ready and talk. Okay?”

“I hate this,” Alison said, her voice weepy again. “It’s worse than when he left Mom.”

“I know, sweetie. I’m sorry.” Of course, for Alison, it was all about her, and why they were doing this
now
, when she needed them.

She helped an acquiescent Alison into the car, closed the door on her, and waited until she’d rolled down the window. “Now drive carefully, okay? It’s going to be all right. No one’s deserting you, I promise.”

“I just don’t want things to change.”

When she’d married Keith, Alison, even at the age of ten, had been her only supporter. “And I don’t want to lose you.”

Alison backed out, made a sad face at Zoe, then rolled up the window.

Zoe waited a long moment, watching the retreating vehicle. It could have gone much worse. It still could go badly when she and Keith finally talked it out with Alison together. At least today’s confrontation was over. She wiped a hand down her face, turned and headed back around the building, almost colliding with a man standing right there.

Her stomach simply dropped to her knees, everything went blurry, and she clung to the wall.

Spence was so close she could smell the salt on his skin.

Chapter Twenty-One

Without even touching him, Zoe could taste his salty skin. His body heat flowed over her like a warm breeze. She wanted to touch him so badly she ached.

“Who was that?” Not an ounce of emotion leached from Spence’s voice.

“My stepdaughter.”

“You left him?”

The second question didn’t follow the first, but she knew what he wanted. “Yes. I left Keith.”

He was still so long she thought he was done with her, but his voice came again, softly, deadly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’ve barely worked things out myself. I couldn’t just call you up and say, ‘Hey, I’ve left my husband.’”

“I meant the baby.”

God. He’d heard everything. Of course he had. Alison had started out near hysterical. Who else had been out in the parking lot listening as her whole life was stripped bare? “You don’t need to worry about the baby,” she told him. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How?” His voice was glacial, so unlike the sexy, seductive bedroom voice he’d used on her.

“I won’t ask you for anything. This is my problem.”

His hand shot out. He grabbed her wrist, held her. “I asked you how you’ll take care of it.”

She trembled beneath the look in his eye. “I’m not exactly poor. Even without my husband, I can support a child on my salary.”

Something shifted in his green eyes. “So you’re not going to get rid of it?”

The question made her think he hadn’t heard the most important part. “Of course I’m not. But like I said, it’s my problem.” She shrugged. “It was an accident. The pill, I was sick a couple of days, right before you and I”—she hesitated, changed the words on her tongue—“before that night. I couldn’t keep anything down, and I probably lost the birth control pills before they were absorbed. That’s what the doctor thinks.”

His grip on her loosened, but he didn’t let go. “So you weren’t going to tell me at all.”

“I saw no reason to burden you.” She lowered her head, rubbed her eyelid.

“You thought I’d tell you to get rid of it. Maybe I’d even offer to pay for the operation.”

She noticed he didn’t call it what it was: an abortion. The truth was she hadn’t wanted to hear him reject her and reject her child.

He pulled her arm up, tugged her closer. “Is that what you thought?” he asked again.

She let her gaze shift from his left to his right eye. Color changed with emotion, the eyes spoke. They narrowed, they softened. It was why people didn’t look at you when they lied, as if they thought you’d read the lie right there in their eyes. It was why really good liars looked right at you, because they knew how to make their eyes lie, too.

“Yes,” she whispered.

His eyes were shaded with brown now. Deep, soulful, sorrowful brown flecks amid the green. “You don’t know me at all,” he answered with the equal softness.

This time, her heart really did break. Right in two. It broke for him.

* * * * *

“Or maybe you know me too well.” Christ. She thought he’d want her to kill their child. “Your husband always said I was an asshole.” And she’d agreed.

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just such a change in a person’s life. I know that. It wouldn’t be fair for me to force it on you.”

“So you didn’t let me choose.” He wasn’t angry. He couldn’t define what he felt. He was the other man. He was transitory. He’d wanted to be so much more. And now there was a child between them. It was almost too much to take in.

“I wanted to save you the embarrassment.”

“Embarrassment?” The word came out like a bark. He leaned in close. “I fucked you in a car. I fucked you while you talked on the phone with your husband. I fucked you on camera while he watched. I don’t embarrass easily.” He let the anger wash over him. It was better than hopelessness.

“Look, I don’t know how to explain.”

He closed his eyes because the sight of her face hurt. Her gorgeous face, her glorious hair, her pretty eyes. There was so much he’d intended to say.
I love you, I want you, I need you.
But it was meaningless. Now she’d have to take him for the sake of her child. And she would do that.

He knew he would, too. But he’d wanted her to love him as well.

He looked over her head, at the trees, the squirrel on a power line, the clouds drifting in the blue sky. “It’s my child. I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of the baby.”

“I don’t want you to take care of us.”

He looked down again, her face so close, her scent so sweet. “Neither of us has a choice.” For the first time in so many years, he wanted a woman to love him back. But he would take what he could get. “We’ll get married as soon as you’re divorced.”

She stepped back, her eyes widening with shock. “Married?”

What the fuck, why not tell her? Say it. Pour it out. Let her have it.

“I love you. I want this child. So help me God, I will make you love me back. I know I can. I don’t care how long it takes.”

She didn’t say a word, just stared at him, lips slightly parted.

He took advantage, wrapped his hand around her nape, reeled her in, and kissed her hard. Long. Sweet. Until she put her tongue in his mouth. Until she kissed him back, her arms curled around his neck and her body pressed against him. Until her breath filled his heart.

“I already love you back,” she whispered against his mouth.

Something broke open inside him, and her words filled a space that had been empty for thirty years. She was his. He would never let anything bad happen to her or their child.

* * * * *

Keith pulled aside the lacy curtain in Alison’s front window. He didn’t recognize the car across the street, but he recognized the man driving it. Spencer Benedict had brought Zoe to this meeting with her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

“Do you want some wine, Dad?” Alison called from the kitchen.

“Sure, honey.”

Alison was a doer. When she’d figured out Zoe was gone, she’d pestered him for details until he told her everything. Well, the
skeleton
of everything. She’d immediately run to Zoe, and after she’d seen her this morning, Alison arranged this little get-together. To talk everything out.

Yes, his daughter was a doer. She was trying to figure out how she could keep both her father and her soon-to-be-ex-stepmother.

Alison always got what she wanted.

He stared out the front window.

In the two weeks since Zoe had walked out, Keith had been deciding what to do. In hindsight, he could say he’d overreacted to her relationship with Spencer Benedict. He’d freaked out that he would lose her, that he’d be left alone. Given time, he would have relented, let them go on seeing each other. But the pregnancy changed everything. He didn’t want to raise another child. So that meant he couldn’t have Zoe. He was going to miss her. He’d miss all the things they did together, the quiet nights, the friendship. He loved Zoe, but maybe one of his problems was that he didn’t love deeply enough.