AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“—You scheming, marriage-wrecking little bitch… and you… YOU! I’m going to cut your balls off and ram them down your fucking throat.”
“Don’t you touch him; don’t you dare lay a finger on him.”
“Stop it.” This from Archie. “Miranda, you’ve got it all wrong. Stop. For god’s sake. Lauren, LET GO OF ME.”
By now Aaron had halted outside Archie’s office, his mouth ajar. It wasn’t pretty in there.
Miranda Bendt was wielding a huge leather handbag like a beauty pageant version of Miss Trunchbull. Lauren had plastered herself to Archie’s chest. As for Archie, well, he was trying to prise Lauren off, defend himself and somehow grovel to his wife all in one contorted movement.
Guess his fitness levels helped.
Mid-loop-the-loop with her Gucci missile, Miranda suddenly caught sight of Aaron. The bag clipped Archie’s lip and then fell away as Miranda’s arm went slack. Archie and Lauren followed her gaze.
Now all of them were staring at him.
Blood oozed from a gash on Archie’s lip.
Miranda brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead with shaking, red-tipped fingers.
Lauren crumpled onto the floor, hugged her knees and burst into paroxysms of hysterical weeping.
Fuck. And triple Fuck.
* * *
You know that numb feeling, when you are in a surreal situation and you keep telling yourself it’s a dream and any minute now you’ll wake up and gothank you, god, this didn’t actually happen? Well, thought Aaron, any minute now, his phone would rap out its familiar morning riff and he’d yawn and stretch…
Except it didn’t. And now here he was, grimly waiting for Lauren after escorting her out following a hoarse plea from his boss—he could hardly refuse, could he? He’d helped her find her coat and bag, and she’d promptly grabbed the latter and disappeared sobbing into the ladies’ loos.
So here he stood, helplessly, while the time ticked away. In the background the rise and fall of voices carried on, accusing, placating, accusing, defending…
Pushing open the door of the cloakroom a smidge, Aaron hiss-whispered, “Lauren. You okay?”
Sniff.Of course, she wasn’t… “Can I get you an Uber?”
Sniff,loud hiccup. “I need a drink.”
His heart sank. He could go to the water fountain in the foyer, but somehow he knew she meant something stronger.
Finally, Lauren yanked the door open. Her face was blotchy, eyes red and smudged. She’d reapplied her lipstick but she’d gone up one side of her lip more than the other, making her look like a kid who’d been playing with her older sister’s make-up. Which maybe wasn’t so far from the truth.
Sympathy tugged at his gut. The kind you had for any other human who had got themselves into an irrevocable mess. And… frustration. He could be with Alice, answering questions on the last king of England to be beheaded, or on what, in economic speak, constitutes the triple bottom line. Letting his leg touch hers under the table.
The tug turned into a painful twist. Relationships. This is where they got you: piled in shit up to your freakin’ eyeballs.
“I can’t go home yet,” Lauren whined.
“Why not?”
Her mouth twisted. “My boyfriend—”
“You have a boyfriend!” His face must have spelled his horror, because her features screwed up, a tear jerked out of one eye and slid down her cheek. A trickle of snot ran out of her nose. Aaron dived into his pocket and found a hanky.
“Clean,” he said as he handed it to her. She nodded and scrubbed it around her nostrils.
“Okay. Where do you suggest?” he said lamely.
“Anywhere. Somewhere anonymous.”
