The Dangerous Seduction Page 11

  He knows he doesn’t deserve her. She’s a saint, so sweet and hardworking and loving. She supported him and his dreams, but he knows all that. He doesn’t need his mom reminding him of it. He’s well aware that he’s the one in the wrong here, the dirty piece of work who’s cheating on her.

  He sips his coffee, keeping his eyes locked on the door to Joseph’s office. He sees Joseph open the door, come out, and say something to Estelle, who twists around in her chair to answer him. Joseph looks up, his eyes meet Ryan’s and he jerks his head. Ryan allows himself a brief smile, puts down his half-drunk coffee, and crosses the floor to Joseph’s office.

  “What is it?” Joseph asks. He’s leaning against the edge of the conference table, arms folded across his chest and ankles crossed.

  Ryan closes the door behind him and takes a couple of steps toward him. “There’s something I have to tell you. About the case. I might have found us a potential new witness.”

  Joseph is suddenly all business, attention grabbed. He pushes himself off the table, eyes locked on Ryan’s face. “Who?”

  “My dad.”

  “Your dad?” Joseph’s eyebrows shoot up.

  “Only—he’s not willing to testify. He doesn’t want to get involved. I’ve been trying to talk to him, to persuade him, to tell him how important this could be.”

  “Wait a minute, how long have you known about this?” Joseph interrupts.

  He swallows, says, “A while.”

  “How long?” Joseph repeats, his gaze hardening. “Ryan, how long?”

  “About two months,” he says.

  Joseph blows out a breath and turns around, putting his back to him. Ryan gulps and stares at the tight, stiff line of his shoulders, the anger he’s so obviously trying to hold back. He takes a couple of steps forward. “Joseph, this is my dad, this is my family. I couldn’t… he didn’t want to get involved.”

  “You could’ve told me before.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says lamely. He places his hand on Joseph’s shoulder and tries to tug him around. “I’m sorry, but there’s still time; we can still get him to agree. I know we can. I’ve been stupid and arrogant and I should’ve told you before. I see that now. But I just wanted to be the one to persuade him. I wanted to be able to come in here and put his statement down in front of you and just be the big fat hero, you know.”

  Joseph lifts his head, and Ryan dares himself to take a tentative step closer, emboldened when Joseph makes no move to push him away. He gently places his hand on Joseph’s opposite shoulder, leans in close. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs again, breath puffing against the side of Joseph’s face, his cock starting to stir and thicken at the sudden closeness, and the smell and feel of Joseph.

  Joseph blows out a breath and pulls away. “Okay, apology accepted. But don’t touch me like that. Not here.”

  “No one can see,” he says, indicating the opaque glass.

  “That’s not the point,” Joseph says. He takes a couple of steps toward the bar in the corner of the office. He lifts up the decanter of whisky. “You want one?”

  “God, yes.”

  Joseph manages a faint smile and pours a couple of glasses. He holds one out to Ryan and Ryan takes it, deliberately brushing their fingers together. Joseph rolls his eyes at him, but it’s that fond, indulgent kind of look, and Ryan grins back at him, bright and unapologetic and overwhelmingly relieved. They’re okay. Joseph is not too mad at him. Joseph is not going to change anything between them or push him away.

  Joseph takes a sip of his whisky, and Ryan watches the way his throat works as he swallows. He squeezes his fingers tight around his own glass in an effort to not pin Joseph to the floor and suck a bruise on his throat. He doesn’t remember feeling these kinds of urges with other people. He’s always loved sex, with girls at least. With guys—what he used to do with guys was never done for enjoyment, for the love of it, but for a more incessant, insidious need, a dirty kind of tug in the pit of his stomach that he could never completely erase. With Daisy, he thought he’d found the answer—the sweet, surprisingly sensual girl who could satisfy him and make him forget all those other dirty, wrong times. But Joseph has exploded that dirty, hot wrongness into something else entirely. Joseph is turning him into someone he simultaneously despises but secretly believes is the real person under the nice Texas-boy packaging.

  Joseph has completely destroyed any peace of mind he once had about what all those other times and all those other urges really meant.

  Joseph bows his head and peers into his glass. “I don’t want to have to subpoena him. We need to be certain of what he knows and what he’s going to say. Hopefully, it will be enough for the judge to grant us that damn extension, but nothing’s certain yet.” He sighs again and looks up at Ryan. “I need to talk to your father.”

  “Okay, okay, I guess we should do that. But you should know that he just… he can be kinda difficult.” His mouth twists wryly, thinking of all his own attempts at convincing his father.

  “I think you’re forgetting just how persuasive I can be. But I should fly down there and do this in person.”

  “I can come with—”

  “No,” Joseph cuts him off. “No, I should do this myself. If you come with me then it’ll look like I’m using you to get to them. And I guess, in a certain way, they’d be right.”

  “But that’s not how it is.”

  “Ryan, c’mon.” He places his glass down on the desk and leans over to press the intercom on his desk. “Estelle, get me a flight to Houston for as soon as you can. And cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day.” He doesn’t wait for her response, but depresses the button and pins Ryan with his gaze. “You need to prep me. It’s your dad. What have I got to do to make him like me?”

  HE CALLS Daisy after Joseph has left for his flight. He arranges to meet her at a restaurant she’s discovered around the corner from their new place. He hasn’t been there yet; he’s been too busy, but Daisy’s been there a couple of times with friends. She’s been out with friends a lot over the last few weeks. It’s been a relief in a way, knowing that she was out having fun and not sitting at home waiting for him to come home from work, or from Joseph.

  He swallows down the familiar guilt. It will be nice, just the two of them having dinner out together. He can’t remember the last time they did that.

  He gets to the restaurant late, after trying to finish up his part of the brief he has been writing with Fiona. He pauses outside the restaurant and peers inside. Daisy’s sitting at a table on her own, peering intently at the menu. Her dark curls fall across her face, the candlelight from the guttering candle on the table highlighting the rich brown color. Last Wednesday night he met Joseph in the bar of the Tribeca Grand. There were candles on the tables and he kept taking sneaky peeks of Joseph’s face in the candlelight, unable to stop himself from looking and staring and memorizing.

  He steps away from the restaurant window, pushes his hand into his pocket, and takes out the pack of cigarettes he’s been carrying around the last week. He shakes one out and his heart sinks when he sees it’s his last one. He lights it quickly and paces down the street away from the restaurant. He can’t do this. He can’t sit with her and pretend that everything’s okay. He can’t be fake and smiley and lean across the table to kiss her when he’s thinking about Joseph’s lips and Joseph’s mouth and Joseph’s tongue. He can’t keep this up anymore.

  It’s beyond my control. The phrase flashes in his head and he frowns, trying to locate it. It’s beyond my control. The memory comes to him—Daisy watching the TV, riveted, her eyes shining as she turns to look at him to remark, “Best break-up scene ever, but it’s so tragic.”

  He swallows and takes a drag on his cigarette. Dangerous Liaisons, of course, it’s her favorite movie. How could he have forgotten that?

  He smokes the rest of the cigarette and tosses it into the gutter. He takes a breath, sets his shoulders, and enters the restaurant.

  She greets hi
m with a beaming smile, getting up from her chair to throw her arms around him and kiss his cheek. They sit down and she starts to talk about the movie she and Marie saw the night before and the bar they went to afterward. He usually gets more involved in the conversation, but tonight he just listens and watches her talk, drinking in the familiar Daisy expressions as they flit across her face.

  They order drinks and she gets up to go to the bathroom. In his pocket, his phone vibrates with a new message. He slides it out, half-expecting the message to be from Daisy. They used to play this game where they’d text each other when the other was in the bathroom, just random, stupid things. It’s something they haven’t done for a long time; he wonders if she even remembers it.

  The message isn’t from Daisy, though, it’s from Joseph. Your mom just showed me your prom picture. You were such a dork, but I still definitely would.

  He can’t help the breathy, painful laugh that escapes as he reads Joseph’s text. He deletes the message and returns the phone to his pocket. He looks up to see Daisy winding her way back through the closely placed tables. She sits down and starts talking, complaining about the bathroom running out of soap, but it’s all white noise. Everything around him is white noise. His heart is thumping and his pulse is racing and it’s like that scene in The Godfather, right before Michael Corleone shoots Sollozzo and the cop.

  “Ryan? Baby, are you listening to me?”

  He jerks his head up and blinks at her. The candlelight is momentarily blinding, burning against his retinas.

  He has to come clean. He has to tell her. Even if—with Joseph—even if Joseph fires him or dumps him or tells him it’s over tomorrow, he still has to come clean. He can’t carry on like this, with this guilt gnawing and biting at his insides, pushing aside every positive feeling he ever felt for her and replacing it with a dull heavy resentment and this never-ending guilt.

  “Ryan, are you okay?” She sounds concerned, her eyes wide and soft and worried. She leans over the table, hand outstretched to take his own. He jerks his hand back and her expression clouds over, looking hurt. “Ryan, what is going on?”

  “I have to tell you something.” He’s staring into her face, he’s staring so hard he’s not really seeing her, everything is blurring over, his eyes burning.

  She looks really worried now. She raises her hand to her throat. “Don’t,” she whispers.

  “I have to. I can’t… I can’t keep doing this.” It’s beyond my control. The words flutter at the back of his throat, like a trapped insect in a jar, ready to erupt as soon as he pries off the lid. The urge to laugh churns in his belly; a terrible hysteria threatens to overpower him. He tries to grasp for the words, but he’s so completely unprepared. His mind skips and jumps and he keeps thinking about Joseph in his parents’ house, Joseph looking at his high-school pictures, Joseph drinking his momma’s lemonade and discussing the Cowboys with his dad. He thinks about pushing Joseph up against the door of his old childhood bedroom and sucking him off. He thinks about the two of them rolling and tangling in the navy-blue sheets on his old teenage bed and dry humping until they both come in their pants.

  He knows nothing about Joseph except how he sounds when he comes, but he can’t stop thinking about him. He knows everything about Daisy, and he’s still going to break her heart.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and the words are so pathetic, so useless.

  She’s already crying, tears rolling down her cheeks unheeded. “Ryan, I don’t get it. What is happening? What is going on? You’re upsetting me.”

  “I’m sorry, but I just—I can’t.”

  There’s someone else.

  Say it… you have to say it. Coward, craven, pathetic piece of shit.

  He forces the words out. He pushes them out with more force than he’d use to blow up a balloon. “There’s someone else.”

  He can actually see the color drain from her face. Her lipstick and eye shadow stand out like an extra on a Halloween special as she stares back at him, dumbstruck and silent. Her body starts to shake. He stares down at the table, at her hands locked together over her place setting. She’s shaking like she’s having a seizure. She’s shaking like someone’s just died.

  “Excuse me, is everything okay?” The waiter is hovering over them, looking wary.

  He glances up, mutters, “No, we’re uh, we’re leaving. She’s not well; we’re leaving.”

  He reaches into his jacket, takes out his wallet, and throws a handful of bills onto the table, not bothering to count them. He grabs up his coat, her purse lying under the table between their legs, and her coat draped over the back of the chair. He comes around to her side of the table and helps her out of her chair.

  She lets him guide her out of the restaurant. She’s still shaking so hard he can feel it all the way through his own body. He flags down a taxi and ignores the driver’s bitching when he gives the address, only four blocks away. But she can’t walk and he can’t carry her. He shoves a fifty at the guy, which shuts him up, and he helps her out of the taxi and into their building. He props her up against the wall in the hallway outside their apartment as he struggles with the key. Their apartment—the apartment Joseph helped them get, the one she’s been so happy with over the past two months, the one that’s located so conveniently close to Joseph’s own place. He’s going to have to move out now and find a new place; he can’t stay here now. He glances across at her, and watches her slump down the wall, sliding in slow motion, her dress riding up around her thighs.

  He fumbles with the keys and shoves the door open. Then he crouches down. He puts his hand on her cheek to turn her head. “Daisy, c’mon. Daze, please, honey. C’mon, get up. Gotta get inside.”

  She blinks, seeming to focus and see him for the first time since they left the restaurant. “No,” she says, then again: “No, no, no. You… you can fuck off! You can fuck off, Ryan!”

  “I am, I will, I promise. I’ll go, I promise. But please, come inside first. And call someone. Call—”

  He doesn’t get to complete the sentence. Her hand comes out and belts him across the face. It’s her left hand, the one with the diamond engagement ring, and he forgot that she’s left-handed. He stumbles back, raises his hand to his burning, stinging face, and stares back at her, at the fury in her eyes. He can feel blood trickling down his cheek from where the ring caught him. His mouth starts to ache with an even, bone-crunching throb.

  Her eyes narrow in triumph and her hand comes out again. This time he’s ready, jerking his head back so her fingernails scratch against his nose and chin, the damage minimal.

  “You bastard!” she snarls. “You fucking piece-of-shit bastard! Who is she? Who’s this whore you’ve been screwing around with?” She struggles to her knees, reaches out for him, grabbing onto his suit jacket and yanking him in.

  He stares back at her uncomprehendingly. The pain in his face is throbbing so much he’s finding it hard to find words. He doesn’t recognize this Daisy. This isn’t his Daisy, his sweet, kind girl. He struggles and wrestles with her hands, trying to pry her off him.

  “Tell me the truth!” she spits.

  He wrenches out of her grasp and staggers to his feet. “Okay,” he says and he tries to make his voice as calm as possible. “I’ll tell you everything, but inside. Gotta be inside.”

  She refuses his help, pushes her palms against the floor, and forces herself up. She staggers against the wall, reaching out to steady herself on the doorframe. She’s walking like a drunk person, her body still shaking as she staggers inside and collapses onto the couch.

  He sits down on the armchair and pulls out his phone. “I’m going to call Marie. You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “What? ’Cause I might kill myself? Don’t flatter yourself, Ryan. You should be more worried about what I’m gonna do to you.”

  “I told you, I’m going to go. I think it’s best.”

  She laughs, hysterical and high, her body arching off up the couch. “This is a fucking joke! You get
to be all calm and morally superior when you’re the one who’s been cheating on me!”

  “Daisy, I’m not, I’m not being superior. Believe me. I really fucking hate myself right now. But I… I had to tell you. I just… I had to….” He trails off uselessly, thumbing the phone in his hand.

  She stares back at him, disgust and hatred in her eyes. “You told me ’cause it made you feel better. ’Cause you can’t live with the guilt. And now you’re gonna dump me and move on, but that’s okay because at least you were honest with me. Just call Marie, then get the fuck out of here. I don’t want to see your face ever again!”

  He waits until Marie gets there, numbly packing up a couple of bags. He’s got enough suits at work to see him through for a couple of weeks, so he packs casual stuff—work-out gear and jeans, underwear and T-shirts, some books he never has any time to read, his notebook computer, work laptop and work files, and finally, his shaving kit, deodorant, and toothbrush. Everything else can wait. Everything else she can keep. Marie arrives while he’s wrapping the power cable around his notebook. He hears Daisy get up and let her in, then the sound of their voices and loud, unrestrained sobbing.

  His stomach lurches and he raises his hand to his burning cheek. He swallows and quickly zips up his bag.

  Daisy’s lying on the couch with her head in Marie’s lap while Marie pets her hair and glares at him with a stare that could kill at a hundred yards.

  “Leave the keys,” Marie says coldly.

  He hesitates, glances at Daisy’s white-and-red tear-streaked face, and his chest clenches in pain. He nods and drops the keys onto the TV stand by the DVR. He turns his back on them and hurries out of there as quickly as he can.

  On the street, he shoulders his duffle, picks up his laptop bag, and walks. He heads downtown, deliberately thinking of nothing. His cheek burns in pain, the cold not helping at all. He doesn’t even realize where he is until he passes the convenience store on the corner of Joseph’s block. He goes in and buys a can of coke and a pack of cigarettes. He smokes and drinks and stares across the road at Joseph’s building. He takes out his phone, stares down at Joseph’s number, and presses Send.