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“How did you miss that?” Ben fumed.
Angelina listened closer, but she could only hear Ben’s footsteps as he paced across the porch.
“I want pictures sent to my phone. I’ll let you know. Yes, I am on my way.”
Straining to hear more over the beating of her heart roaring in her ears, Angelina held her breath and waited. Ben was leaving. She was a quick lay. He lied to her. Lied about everything. She wasn’t his. They could never be a thing. She wouldn’t let herself be paraded around as the other woman, no matter how good the orgasms were. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“First off, you cannot do this without me, you little pussy. You can push and call in whatever favors you think you need to find someone else, but they’ll tell you exactly what I said. You need me. Tell it like it is. You fucked up, and you’re in a jam. You will sit there and look pretty and don’t touch a damn thing until I get there. And for Christ’s sake, take a head count on the rest of the family to make sure you haven’t lost anyone else.”
Angelina cringed. She dodged a bullet if that was how he talked to his family he claimed he didn’t have. There was no way she would let anyone talk to her that way. It didn’t matter how good he was in bed. It wasn’t something she would put up with. Hearing him for herself didn’t lessen the pain radiating in her chest. First-hand knowledge of his other side would be a comfort later. Maybe.
“Go ahead and try it bitch,” Ben growled. “I will see you before dawn.”
She could hear the other person yelling but couldn’t make out what they said before silence filled the night air. Ben hung up on whoever he was talking to. His pacing continued as he muttered to himself.
“That little bastard ruins everything,” he grumbled.
Angelina heard more than she needed to. Pushing away from the wall, she soundlessly returned to her bedroom just as Ben closed the front door. Hurrying to her bed, she ripped his shirt off her body. The comfort she felt when she slipped it on was gone. The only thing she felt was dirty. Settling under the covers, she closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slowly and evenly.
It was a relief when Ben didn’t stop in her room. His footsteps went across the hall to his room. She could hear him shuffling around in there and then nothing. The crazy urge to go to him struck her. She wanted to crawl onto his lap so he could tell her this was all some sort of misunderstanding.
She knew it was real when a bag hit the floor outside her door. There was no misunderstanding. He was leaving. He had a family out there somewhere. A family he cheated on with her. A family who needed him at home. He made her the other woman.
Angelina pretended to be asleep. Ben stood watching her for the longest few minutes of her life. The longer Ben stood there staring, the more she worried he wouldn’t leave. What if he called her bluff? The last thing she wanted to do was have a conversation with him. She didn’t want to hear more of his lies. Later, after a good cry and a stiff drink, she would put him in his place.
Ben studied her, committing her face to memory. He wanted to wake her up. He should have told her about his life. There was no time to do it now. He had to leave. There was nothing he could write in a note to explain. She was going to think things. He didn’t want to think about what Angelina would think of him.
The best he could do was try to explain when he got back and beg her forgiveness. It might help if he licked a few orgasms out of her before he pleaded for her to remember how good they were together. Getting her to forgive him would be hard, but he was confident he would get the job done. Failure was not an option when it came to Angelina being in his life.
It tore his heart in half, but he had to go. He grabbed his discarded shirt off the floor and tucked it in beside her. If he was lucky, she might wear it. Odds were, she would probably burn it. A smile crept across his face. His woman would do something like that. Yeah, he was going to fix this. When it was over, he was coming right back here. After she handed him his ass, he would beg her forgiveness and make her see she was it for him. There was no other way. With a plan in place, Ben bent over to brush his lips against hers.
“Love you, Shorty,” he whispered.
Turning quickly, he strode across the room, grabbed his bag, and quietly closed the door behind him. He switched into work mode as he jogged down the stairs. There was no looking back when he locked the front door behind him. It was time he wouldn’t allow himself to waste. The sooner he was gone, the sooner he would be back. Tossing his bag on the seat beside him, Ben started his truck and drove off into the dark. There was a plane waiting for him.
Angelina watched his taillights disappear into the dark. Hurt like she had never experienced before wracked her body. She had been lied to and used. Then he told her he loved her. If that was what love was to him, he could keep it. Wrapping her arms around herself, she held on tight, trying to squeeze the pieces back together. The ache grew. She was afraid half of her pieces just drove away.
Looking at the bed, Angelina couldn’t make herself get back in. It was too much. She headed to the shower ignoring the bed and his shirt lying on the floor. Maybe a good hot shower would make her feel clean again.
“It isn’t like they make a bath bomb to wash the adultery off. I need to order the entire alphabet for my shirts.”
Angelina debated the tub versus the shower. In the end, she chose the shower. His hands had not touched her shower. She was going to need to disinfect the tub. It was a little overboard to rip it out and get a new one, but it wasn’t out of the question if she found one on sale.
She turned on the water until it was almost too hot. Water and steam surrounded her. Standing under the stream, letting it work its magic, Angelina felt human. Hurt, disgusted, depressed, and mad as hell, but human. She stood under the water until the hot turned cool.
She tried to wipe Ben away as she dried. It was a good thing her father wasn’t home. Ben would not have been able to walk away so easily. She would have to think of something to tell her father. She couldn’t let him kill Ben. No, that privilege was reserved for his wife.
Angelina’s stomach growled as she stood in front of her closet. Ignoring it, she chose a pair of old comfy jeans and a soft cotton tank. Today was all about comfort. The noise her stomach made was closer to alien when it sounded again. Thinking back, the last time she ate was lunch with Jake and Max yesterday. Even though her heart hurt, her stomach still demanded to be fed. Only one thing soothed her when she was feeling this low.
Snatching her keys out of the bowl by the door, she was driving toward town before she could talk herself out of it. It wasn’t like she would eat the lonely jar of Cheez Whiz in the fridge. Fries were the only solution. French fries and a chocolate shake held the magical properties to cure anything that ailed her.
Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the drive-through.
“I want a Mcbeer, Mclarge, and Mcquick,” she muttered as she waited for someone to acknowledge her.
“Um, ma’am, we aren’t allowed to serve beer,” the teenage voice answered her through the little speaker.
“I should have had the Cheez Whiz,” Angelina groaned.
