AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Struck dumb by the hideous truth in the bitch’s words, Maeve pinched her mouth shut, the backs of her eyes burning with the need to cry until the world flooded. She leaned back, her legs wobbling. She remained standing, though. Just barely.
Denise scoffed. “I didn’t think so. His last email to you indicated that you’d spent your precious time with him, fumbling around in the dark. It was almost too perfect. You made it all too easy for me. A poor little office mouse like you would never have the guts to show a man like AJ what you really look like. If you had, he would have run screaming—or laughed in your face. Either way, you would have ended up the sad story of the chubby wallflower who tried to bat out of her league.”
Maeve drew back, squaring her shoulders. “I can tell him the truth. I don’t care if he hates me or thinks I’m fat and ugly, as long as you can’t manipulate him—”
Denise’s diabolical grin made Maeve shudder. “It seems you forget who you’re talking to, sweetie,” she drawled, her words dripping with honeyed poison. “I am the director of IT. I graduated from Harvard with a cyber security degree. I can hack into your computer and make it look like you are the world’s most wanted cyber terrorist, child predator, or even the plain old sex addict. I can turn your world upside down, find every connection to every person you love, then turn their worlds upside down. I can ruin you, your family, your friends—and even this fledgling company, all because you couldn’t keep one little secret.”
One little secret? Try a monumental, earth shattering secret, one that would break apart everything in her reality.
Her life torn apart or her heart shattered—those were her choices. If Denise were just threatening her, she’d deal with it. There were worse things than ending up in Guantanamo Bay or on the Megan’s Law website. Her life had already been one shit thing after another, what was living the rest of her life as a hated criminal compared to what she’d already endured? But Denise had threatened Maeve’s friends, too.
Anna.
Sally.
Callie.
Callie’s nine-year-old daughter, Lexi.
Those beautiful, amazing women didn’t deserve to have their lives—their worlds—set on fire. Lexi, especially, had already endured a life of hardship, being raised by a single mom who’d struggled through school and work to provide for her, since they’d been abandoned by Lexi’s father ten years ago. Lexi deserved a happy, healthy life—something Maeve never had.
Swallowing against the urge to scream in rage and anguish, Maeve closed her eyes and nodded.
The noise that sounded like claws over glass split the air, making Maeve snap her eyes open.
Laughter. It had been evil laughter, from the evilest person.
Denise grinned, her smile cold and malicious. “You made the smart decision.”
With that, she spun on her designer heels and slipped back to where AJ had left her to wait for his return.
Just as Maeve waited for the sorrow to swallow her.
An hour after “re-meeting” Denise, AJ was sitting across from her at a table on the outside patio of Kofi & Cream, a local coffee house owned and operated by Ghanaian immigrant Kofi Massi, and his Irish-American wife, Nina.
Denise waved off the coffee from the waiter, Jimmy, a kid AJ knew from summers volunteering at the youth center. “No, thanks,” Denise chirped carelessly. “Can’t stand the stuff. It makes me jittery, and then I can’t think.”
“Jimmy,” AJ greeted him. “Coffee, black, and a banana nut muffin.”
Denise curled her lips in distaste, but said nothing.
“And you, ma’am,” Jimmy inquired politely.
Denise huffed, turning a displeased glare on Jimmy. What was her problem?
And why did he feel like getting up from the table and leaving her sitting there?
She was Swan—he should be singing from the rooftops and begging her to get the hell out of there so they could start where they’d left off on Friday night.
But he wasn’t. Truth was, he was barely holding himself together, torn between wanting to ask all the questions of the woman sitting across from him and wanting to rush back to the office and beg Maeve not to hate him. She’d witnessed everything, had watched as AJ introduced Swan to Blaze, had listened as he said she was the woman he’d been waiting for his whole life. He hadn’t lied, though, right? Swan was the woman behind the emails that had saved him from a life of empty one-night stands and heartache. Swan was the woman who’d made him burn and breathe again. Swan was the woman who tasted of cherry vanilla…and kissed like a seductress.
Today, though, Denise tasted of mint, and the press of her lips against his had left him cold.
Why did it feel like he’d just set fire to a stick of dynamite that would blow up his life?
Denise’s sharp answer to Jimmy made AJ cringe. “I’m not a ma’am, boy. And I don’t want anything unless it’s dairy-free, gluten-free, and organic.”
“W-we have an organic strawberry and wheatgrass smoothie, made with soy milk,” Jimmy stammered, obviously uncomfortable under Denise’s displeasure.
