Mistress, Inc. Page 4

  She jumped to her feet and made sure to walk along the edge of his grave to press another kiss to her fingertips before pressing them to his lips on the picture. She turned and made her way back to her car with just one last look back at his grave over her shoulder before she climbed behind the wheel and drove away.

  Jessa fingered the bruises that had all but disappeared from her neck. They had been bright and bold against her caramel complexion. Her own badge of shame similar to the scarlet letter pinned to the bodice of Hester Prynne.

  Forcing her fingers away from her neck, she steered the vehicle back toward Richmond Hills but passed the entrance to the subdivision to drive three blocks to turn into the gated parking lot of the church. Although Eric had been buried at his family’s Catholic church, something about sitting in the parking lot in her car and watching the people enter the Methodist church reminded her too much of what happened just two days ago at the funeral.

  What if they have seen my face and heard my story and don’t even let me in?

  What if the sermon is on wayward women who covet thy neighbor’s husband?

  Jessa gasped at an image of every woman in the church rising to their feet and pointing to her as they shouted, “Mistress,” “Whore,” “Jezebel!” Especially since a lot of the Richmond Hills community attended the church.

  Jessa hated the fear she felt, and she hated even more when she steered her car out of the church’s parking lot. The old Jessa would have walked in with her head held high and dared a soul to challenge her.

  Not wanting to return to the house and the noise, Jessa steered her Jag toward the Terrace Room. She hadn’t really eaten in the days since the attack. Maybe the smell of food will make me hungry, she thought as she pulled up to the valet station of the chateau-styled 1930s home that had been converted into a restaurant.

  She hadn’t been there since the day she met with Aria and got into the altercation that left her on the floor with a knot on her forehead from the cell phone the bitch threw at her. Climbing from the car with her Birkin, Jessa gave Andre, the valet, a warm smile that he returned before he climbed behind the wheel of the Jag and pulled off.

  She eased her shades up onto the top of her head as she walked up the brick steps into the restaurant. Her steps faltered as the eyes of Kilpatrick, the restaurant’s maître d’, shifted from hers. Or rather he averted them from hers.

  Jessa instantly felt regret for coming here. She was still being judged—and now by the staff that once respected her. Refusing to let him or anyone else see her sweat, she inched her chin higher and stepped up to the wooden podium where he stood.

  “Table for one,” Jessa said, her husky voice cool.

  Kilpatrick nodded his bald head and retrieved a leather-bound menu. “Um, yes, ma’am. Right this way,” he said, his usual cool composure gone as he appeared flustered in her presence. “Ms. Bell?”

  Jessa looked up at him with her eyebrow cocked high. “Yes?”

  Kilpatrick licked his thin lips and stepped closer to her. “There won’t be any repeat altercation like your last visit?”

  Jessa felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. The man was worried about an embarrassing scene and not the scandal called her life—well, not entirely. She just remembered that he had politely asked that both she and Aria refrain from having “a dining experience at the Terrace Room.”

  “I can assure you, Kilpatrick, no drama. Just breakfast,” Jessa replied.

  “No guests?”

  “No, Kilpatrick,” she stressed. “No guests.”

  He smiled at her and turned. “Right this way.”

  Jessa followed the tall and slender white man farther into the beautiful interior filled with the bright light streaming through the many windows and the French country décor that spoke of both comfort and elegance.

  She spotted Councilman Weathers and his wife as she passed. Jessa had volunteered to work during his literacy campaign last year. She opened her mouth to speak, but when the councilman’s wife frowned at her, Jessa almost ate her words.

  “Hello, Councilman Weathers,” Jessa said in a husky voice with a soft smile as she passed their table.

  The tall and distinguished politician with silver-flecked hair nodded his hair at her. “How are you feeling, Ms. Bell? Ow!”

  Jessa watched as his wife glared at him, and she knew from his grunt that the woman probably kicked him under the table. She kept her eyes locked on the back of Kilpatrick’s head, ignoring the stares and whispers of those around her.

  He held her seat for her and Jessa offered him a polite smile over her shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, handing her the menu. “And I’m glad to see you are doing well, ma’am. Truly.”

  “Thank you, Kilpatrick,” she said, hating that even a moment of kindness from a maître d’ mattered so much to her in that moment.

  Jessa lowered her menu and found nearly five sets of eyes on her. They looked away as she met each of their gazes. The waiter came and she ordered an egg-white omelet with chicken sausage and fresh fruit on the side.

  I need a diversion, Jessa thought.

  She noticed a handsome man at the bar eyeing her before he raised his glass to her in a silent salute.

  Not that type of diversion, she thought, giving him a polite smile.

  The smile waned when a beautiful woman soon joined him with a kiss to his cheek before she took her seat. Jessa’s eyes dropped down to take in that they both wore wedding bands. She rolled her eyes as she took a sip of the glass of ice water her waiter sat on the table.

  Especially not that kind of diversion.

  She was not playing the mistress anymore.

  There is nothing about me built for second place.

  Plus, the woman took all of the blame and the heat for the man’s indiscretion. She was left behind to deal with her role in the affair while death had seemed to elevate Eric beyond the fact that he disrespected his vows.

  Bunch of prime-grade, stank-ass bullshit. Oh goodness, Lord, forgive me. It’s a bunch of BS.

  Releasing her desire to use profanity was becoming harder than her promise not to sleep or deal with another married man.

  Sitting back in her chair to cross her legs and lightly fiddle with her utensils, she bit her bottom lip as she got lost in thought. She had a lot of idle time on her hands, and although Marc’s death had left her a widow, she was a very wealthy one. The double indemnity clause on his life insurance had doubled the face value of his policy because of his accidental death and left her with three million dollars—not including all of their other assets.

  Still, she wanted to do more than be the sexy wealthy widow with time and dimes to spare.

  “Ms. Bell, can I get something straight with you?”

  Jessa didn’t move her stance one bit but shifted her eyes to take in Councilman Weathers’s wife standing at her table, sighing and licking her lips slowly. “Mrs. Weathers, I don’t know, so I can’t even began to fathom what you and I have that needs to be straightened out,” Jessa said, tilting her head to look past the woman’s bulky frame at Councilman Weathers sitting at their table shaking his head as if to say, “Don’t blame me for that.”

  “Your services will no longer be needed in any capacity dealing with my husband or his philanthropy efforts,” Mrs. Weathers told her in a cold voice filled with reprimand.

  Lord, see how these people test me?!

  With a tight smile, Jessa tilted her head back and looked up at the woman. “Mrs. Weathers, I’m not sure what services you’re trying to assume I was giving your husband ... but I think it is quite clear looking at you and then looking at me that I am most certainly not his type. I would need thirty more years and forty more pounds to compete with you, darling.”

  The woman gasped as her birdlike eyes hardened.

  Sorry, Lord, but she brought her ass over here for this.

  “Listen here, you little slut, you stay the hell away from my husband,” the olde
r woman snapped.

  Jessa started to toss her glass of water in the woman’s face, but she saw Kilpatrick eyeing them nervously.

  “Well, you listen here, you jealous little porker. Get yourself together so you can love yourself enough not to run around here insecure that your husband has his eyes on better-looking women. Don’t put your insecurity onto me because my shit is together. Understand?” Jessa tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t want your husband and don’t bother to thank me.”

  The woman’s eyes were filled with distaste and venom. “No one wants you here.”

  Jessa smiled at her, taunting her. Mocking her. “If you and the rest of these insecure wives truly believed that no one wanted me, you wouldn’t be over here. Now would you? You all are scared shitless that your husbands want me here. Again, I don’t want them and you all can thank me later.”

  Mrs. Weathers turned and stormed away from the table, even bypassing her husband at their table to leave the restaurant. Again, Jessa felt all eyes on her. She just shook her head. Another piece of scandal to add to the rest, she thought, just as her waiter brought over her food.

  “Someone left this message for you with the concierge, madam.”

  Jessa eyed the tiny white envelope in the waiter’s hand like it was a skunk tooted up to spray her. “Just sit it there. Thank you.”

  As she ate her meal, she occasionally eyed the envelope. Her name was written in a bold and dark slashing that had to be that of a man. She knew that inside was an offer that perhaps they hoped, or thought or prayed, she couldn’t resist. Long before—and after—Marc’s death, men had clamored to be the one to find out just what it took to please a woman like her. She was no fool—especially with the man at the bar casting secretive looks in her direction whenever his wife wasn’t paying attention.

  Long after Jessa finished her meal, the note remained where the waiter sat it, and when she paid her bill and rose to her feet, she eyed the man as she tore the note into a hundred tiny pieces and then dumped the new confetti into the side pocket of her purse before walking out of the restaurant with her head held high.

  Jessa decided to take the twenty-minute drive to treat herself to a mini-shopping excursion at Short Hills Mall. Mostly, she was killing time. Her decorator said the men would be finished for the day in a few hours and then the peace and serenity of her house would return ... until tomorrow.

  She had barely made it out of the parking lot of the Terrace Room before she felt the contents of her stomach rewind. She covered her mouth with her hands as she waited for the nausea to pass. She tried to breathe easy and deep, hoping the moment would pass.

  It didn’t.

  Slamming on her brakes in the middle of traffic, Jessa barely made it out of her car before she emptied the contents of her stomach on the curb in front of a beautiful Victorian. She reached out for the hood of the car as her back arched with each expulsion until her throat hurt and she felt drained.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jessa covered her mouth as she looked up at an older white woman coming down the porch of the house and looking at her with concern. She nodded, hating the taste of her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I just got sick all of a sudden. I’m sorry about this,” she said, waving her hand at the vomit she couldn’t stand to look at. “It must have been something I ate.”

  The older woman smiled at her. “Perhaps,” she said, turning as a tall silver-haired man came from the back of the house with a bucket.

  Jessa looked at the woman oddly. “What do you mean?” she asked, stepping up onto the curve as he rinsed the vomit down the drain.

  “Perhaps it was something you ate or perhaps you’re pregnant, sweetie?”

  Jessa’s knees gave out as she shook her head voraciously. “No, it definitely was the egg whites or some bad chicken in my sausage or—”

  “Or a bun in the oven,” the woman said as the man Jessa assumed to be her husband headed back up the drive toward the back of his house with his empty bucket swinging at his side.

  Pregnant? I can’t be pregnant. I’m not pregnant. No. No. No!

  Jessa stepped down off the sidewalk and made her way back to her car. “Um, sorry about the mess,” she said over her shoulder before climbing into her car and closing the door behind her.

  She pulled off like the driver of a getaway car in a bank robbery and almost drove into a car coming up on her left. “Shit!” she swore, her heart pounding even faster as her hands began to tremble.

  The driver laid on his horn as he swerved to miss her as he passed.

  Jessa pulled forward to the red light and took that moment to rest her head on the steering wheel as she breathed in and out deeply as she counted to ten. I cannot be pregnant. I can’t. Old people always assuming someone wants to be full up with child.

  Jessa looked up just as the traffic light turned green and she pulled forward, forcing herself to steer her Jag. She didn’t want another vomiting incident in the high-end mall. It was obvious to her that she had caught a twenty-four-hour bug or had some bad meat or, God forbid, someone in the kitchen of the Terrace Room had skipped a hand wash and passed her a germ.

  “Because I am not pregnant,” Jessa said out loud with authority, smoothing her still shaky hand over her forehead. “Shee-it. No. Hell no.”

  She released a nervous laugh that ended in a drawn-out sigh.

  After three consistent mornings of singing into the commode, Jessa threw on a pair of sweats and Uggs and drove like a bat out of hell to the local pharmacy. Thirty minutes later, she was sitting on her commode and looking down at the positive pregnancy test in her hand.

  I’m pregnant.

  I am pregnant.

  I. AM. PREGNANT.

  Me?

  She had never considered having children. Years ago, she swore she never would, and not even in the haze of her delusional relationship with Eric did she contemplate children. Her dreams had been filled with a life of traveling and just enjoying the good life.

  And now?

  Jessa rose to her feet and studied her reflection. She looked and felt a mess. A hot mess.

  “I am pregnant by the man who tried to kill me,” she said, her voice sardonic. “Ain’t that some shit.”

  She hadn’t had sex with any other man except Eric ... and the last time had been less than two months ago.

  She dropped the pregnancy test into the sink and covered her face with her hands. “Damn,” she whispered hoarsely.

  Renee Clinton

  My marriage is over and my life will never be the same again. Although that hurts me to my core, the same things that had the power to destroy me have made me stronger, and I am finally able to deal with every blow that fate has thrown at me.

  And the walls of my marriage had begun to weaken and crumble at the edges long before that stupid text message Jessa Bell sent us all that day. My husband knew nothing about that text and he came home that night and admitted to me that not only had he had an affair, but some faceless woman was now pregnant with his child. See, the shit would have hit the fan regardless of Jessa sending the text or not. My husband wasn’t the guilty one for that injustice, but he had a couple of his own to reveal.

  Every day he begs to come home, but I have noticed that every day the plea is given with less and less conviction. Perhaps he is tired of asking for something I am denying him, or maybe he is becoming comfortable in his role in his new family with that white bitch and their bastard child.

  There was no need to lie; I could care less about the bitch or their child. If I had stuck to my original goal that day I climbed behind the wheel of my car drunk with alcohol, jealousy, and mostly rage, she and her baby would be dead.

  But then I would be facing murder charges instead of Driving Under the Influence, Criminal Mischief, and Misdemeanor Assault. When my trial date finally comes up, I could be facing up to three years in jail.

  The goodness in all that?

  Last month nothing but tequila could have gotten me throu
gh accepting the idea of that. But I am over thirty days sober and reconciled to doing the time for my crime.

  I would have needed a shot—or several of them—to finally give my attorney the go-ahead to serve Jackson with the divorce papers in the morning.

  I can’t lie and say the thought of not spending the rest of my life with him doesn’t tear me up, but I will never accept his affair or his child, and so it is time to move on and do what I have to do to rebuild my life ... without him.

  “Ma, you still up?”

  I blinked away any hint of the tears that almost fell as I turned to see my son, Aaron, who is the exact replica of his father nearly thirty years ago, strolling in the kitchen where I sat at the large island under the lone light illuminating from the ornate ceiling fixture. “Yes, why are you roaming so late? It’s after midnight, son.”

  “I wanted a snack,” he said, pulling open the door to the pantry.

  Renee ran her fingers through her soft and short natural curls. “Is your sister still mad I made her move back home from her grandmother’s?” she asked, hating the bridge that had developed between them.

  Kieran just didn’t understand. She was angry at Jackson for his affair and outside child, but she was just as angry at me for not forgiving Jackson and trying to rebuild our family. The embarrassment of my arrests and the details surrounding it wasn’t much help—especially for a teenager still in high school.

  “She’ll get over it, Mom; you have other stuff to worry about,” Aaron said with a simplicity that was aged beyond his eighteen years.

  I honestly didn’t want to talk about my upcoming court case. For now, until the time drew closer, I just wanted to pretend it didn’t exist.

  “How are you doing about Darren moving to Atlanta?” I asked, my eyes intently on my son even as just a twinge of guilt nipped at me.

  In the midst of the storm of Jessa’s text and my husband’s affair, I came home late one night to find my college intern, Darren, fucking the hell out of my son—whom I had no idea was gay. I was still dealing with that because I loved my child and nothing could make me turn my back on him. Nothing.