The Guilty Husband

by Stephanie DeCarolis

  Vince soon wrapped me in his jacket, which smelled of luxuriant, expensive cologne, and all I had to do was look at him after that, and his lips were on mine. God, he’s an incredible kisser. Just as I imagined he would be. For a moment, I almost forgot where we were.

  The first kiss is always the most difficult. But I generally find that once that barrier is broken down, men, even the ones who once claimed they were most devoted to their marriage, lose all inhibitions. In for an inch, in for a mile.

  But that’s not how it’s been with Vince. For some reason, after the kiss we shared on that dreadful boat, Vince seemed to go out of his way to avoid me. I couldn’t let the momentum die. I know how men are; out of sight out of mind. And so, I’ve made every effort to make sure he sees me in the office. I will not be forgotten about. I’ve found little ways to touch him, my fingers grazing his as we pass in the halls, finding ways to be alone with him in the copy room or in line at the café, wearing outfits that I knew would catch his eye. I had to dip even further into my savings, but the new wardrobe was essential. I’d made progress with Vince and I didn’t want all of this to have been for nothing.

  It did work to some extent. Vince hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off of me. I see the way he looks at me, desire in his eyes, but I need to take this to the next level. It’s been months and I’m getting tired of waiting for him to do this on his own terms. I don’t need the guy to fall in love with me, though that would be a welcome bonus. I just need him to sleep with me … Enough times for me to fall pregnant with his baby.

  Tonight I’m going to stay late and corner him in his office. Once I have him alone, I’ll make sure he gets the message. I’ll climb right into his lap if I need to. I put on a new pair of black lace panties this morning, and the fabric feels like silk against my skin. It really is worth the extra expense to own nice things. I’ve been tingling with anticipation all day, knowing these panties were hidden beneath my skirt, just waiting for Vince. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure he sees them tonight, because once he does, I know there won’t be any turning back.

  Chapter 42

  Vince

  DAY 10

  My hands are shaking by the time I end the call with Robert Henderson. His words swirl in my head now, like echoes from another world. ‘She wasn’t who you think she was.’ ‘You weren’t the first.’

  I feel as though a curtain has been drawn, a smoke screen cleared, and I am finally seeing Layla clearly for the first time. I can see now how I was drawn to her like a sailor lured by a siren’s song, only to find myself dashed upon the rocks. The sweet lies she whispered in my ear were carefully designed to ensnare me, and I walked right into her meticulously laid trap.

  My breathing becomes shallow, a pain in my chest grows into a crushing heaviness. I’ve never had a panic attack before, but I’m fairly certain that I’m having one now. Despite my awareness, my body’s physiological response is beyond my control. I gasp for air as I lean against a window frame, gripping it with both hands for fear that if I let go, I will be washed away into nothingness.

  The scene outside my window is calm, serene. The natural world unaware of my plight. The late afternoon sun is slowly sinking towards the horizon, a golden haze flooding the forest as the fevered orange sky burns off the last of the day’s scorching heat. Rays of sunlight reach through the trees in long shafts like outstretched arms. It is as if the light itself is trying to reach me, to pull me back from the brink, but I am just beyond its grasp, doomed to fade into the shadows.

  I sink to the floor, my knees pulled up to my chest, and I let my head fall between them. I feel my breathing slowly begin to regulate, my heart slow its hammering pace.

  I need to talk to someone about all I’ve just learned about Layla. I need to tell someone the truth before it buries me alive. I find that the only person I want to talk to in this moment is Jeff. I was wrong about him, and I feel ashamed for ever having doubted him. It wasn’t Jeff who has been lurking around my house, spying on my wife. After so many years of friendship, my loyalty, my trust, should not have been so easily swayed. I owe Jeff an apology, but more than that, I owe him the truth.

  ‘Wait, so this guy, Henderson, just called you out of the blue?’ Jeff asks, shock evident on his face.

  We’re sitting by the pool, each of us perched on a sun lounger, a glass of whiskey in our hands, under a brilliant cotton candy sky. The sun is setting into twilight now. The harsh burning orange of the afternoon sky has faded into soft gradations of pink and blue which melt into an ethereal purple glow overhead. Under different circumstances it would be a beautiful evening. I hear the ice tinkling against my heavy crystal glass as I swirl the dark brown liquid inside and wait for Jeff to process what I’ve just told him. Layla wasn’t who she claimed to be.

  ‘Yup. And the story he told me sounded all too familiar. He met this woman, she was going by Natalie then, but it was definitely Layla. He recognized her from her photo in the papers.’

  ‘It makes sense now why there aren’t any other photos of her floating around on social media or anything. She was probably afraid to be recognized.’

  ‘I think you’re right. But we take photos of all of the interns at the summer barbecue for the KitzTech website. I guess that one was unavoidable.

  ‘Anyway, Natalie got herself a job at Henderson Used Cars. From the sound of things, the company is a pretty big deal out in Ohio. Layla, er, Natalie probably thought she was catching a big fish. Too bad she didn’t know that Henderson’s wife was the one that owned their home, and the car dealership, having come from family money.

  ‘Regardless, Natalie wormed her way into Robert Henderson’s life and then came onto him, making him feel like a million bucks. I haven’t seen the guy, but the way he tells it, Natalie was far out of his league and about half his age. He told her he was married and held his ground at first, but after months of working in close quarters with her one thing turned into another.

  ‘He felt awful for having betrayed his wife and tried to end things, but Natalie wasn’t having it. She blackmailed him with a sex tape that he had no idea existed up until that moment. She threatened to expose the affair to his wife unless he paid her off. Henderson, knowing he would lose his marriage, his home, and his business if his wife found out about his infidelity, gave her as much as he could scrape together without tipping off his wife, about twenty thousand dollars in cash. Natalie was furious that he didn’t have more to give, but he never heard from her again. Apparently he’s been living in fear that she was going to turn up demanding more money when her savings ran dry. But then he saw her picture in the papers after my story made the national news, and he knew he had to warn me.’

  ‘Do you think Layla was even her real name?’ Jeff asks

  ‘It was. We ran a background check when we hired her. Plus, I met her mother.’

  ‘You, what? When?!’ Jeff exclaims.

  I tell him about my meeting with David Mullins, my trip to Philadelphia, to the basement apartment where I met Layla’s mother, and her last words to me: ‘If you’re involved with Layla, you better be careful.’

  ‘At the time I thought she was warning me that Layla was in some kind of trouble, but now I understand that she was warning me that Layla was trouble.’

  ‘Vince, this is insane! You had no idea what Layla was really up to?’

  ‘I didn’t, but I should have. There’s a lot I haven’t told you.’

  I take a sip of my whiskey, the ice melting quickly in my glass. ‘The night that Layla died, I told you that I was working late. But that wasn’t true. I was … I was supposed to be meeting Layla at a hotel.’

  ‘What about the security records you gave to the police? With documentation of your fingerprints scans at KitzTech?’

  ‘They were falsified.’

  ‘Jesus, Vince …’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. World View was already printing all of that garbage exposing the affair before I had a chance to tell the
police my side of the story, and by then I thought that if I told them I was supposed to be meeting her at a hotel, they would have crucified me. I knew how bad it would look, and so I tried to cover my tracks.’

  ‘Did you see Layla that night?’

  ‘No, I swear to you that I didn’t. She never showed up to the hotel. Which was strange, because she was the one that arranged the meeting. About a week before she … died … I tried to end things with her. She followed me out into the employee parking lot and I told her I was never leaving Nicole and that she and I were through. But Layla wasn’t having it. She was irate, screaming at me that I’d regret my decision. At the time I thought that she meant that I’d regret ending our relationship, but now I think it was more than that. I think she was threatening me.’

  ‘How did you end up agreeing to meet her at a hotel?’

  ‘She approached me again two days before she died. She found me in my office this time. I’d been going out of my way to avoid her after the incident in the parking lot. She told me she had something to talk to me about and that it was important, but I wasn’t hearing it. I was absolutely furious that she would approach me at the office like that. Someone could have overheard us; people are always coming in and out of my office. I told Layla that she needed to leave and that she was never to call me again. She begged me to hear her out and promised me that she’d leave KitzTech, and my life, if I’d just meet with her one last time in our usual place, the Heatherly Hotel. She said she had something to show me, something I’d want to see.

  At the time I thought it was just a ploy to get me into a hotel room so she could talk me into continuing our relationship. She’d become rather clingy in the preceding weeks, unpredictable too, and so I agreed to go because I wanted to keep her happy and quiet. I couldn’t risk her exposing my infidelity. But now, I’m thinking that maybe she wanted to meet with me because she was planning to blackmail me, the way she had with Robert Henderson.’

  ‘If the cops ever figure out that you falsified those security records, it’s going to be real bad, Vince. We’re going to need a backup plan. We’ll need to prove that you were at the hotel all night, and not wandering around Central Park killing off your mistress. Did you use a credit card? Order room service?’

  ‘No, I was trying to keep a low profile. I used a fake name, paid cash.’

  Jeff lets out a disappointed sigh. ‘I’ll scope it out and see if they have any CCTV cameras on site that might have picked you up. But a swanky place like that that gets a lot of high profile guests, so I’d doubt it. You should have told me all of this sooner, Vince. Not just as your lawyer, but as your friend. I would have helped you through this. Why didn’t you come to me?’

  This is the part of the conversation that I’ve been dreading the most. It was difficult to tell him the truth about Layla and where I was the night she died, but telling him that I lost my faith in him is going to be even harder.

  ‘I didn’t know if I could trust you. I think I became a little paranoid with everything going on. I was convinced that you had feelings for Nicole and that you may have been working against me.’

  Jeff, the attorney with the quick tongue who always has something to say, grows silent. And I’ve known him long enough to know that this means that there’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.

  ‘I was just being paranoid, wasn’t I?’ I ask.

  ‘I never did anything to come between you and Nicole, Vince. And I never would. You’re my best friend and I’d never do anything to hurt you. But I also can’t truthfully tell you that I’ve never felt anything for Nicole. Since the first time you introduced her to me, I’ve had something of a crush on her. Can you blame me? She … well, she’s incredible … beautiful, smart, kind …

  ‘I think I was a little jealous when you two found each other. It wasn’t just because it was the end of our bachelor days, but because as much as I talk a big talk about loving my no-strings-attached lifestyle, I wish I had someone like Nicole to come home to at the end of a long day.

  ‘I know I’ve told you this before – you’re so lucky to have her, Vince. But what maybe I haven’t told you enough, is that she’s lucky to have you too. You may have made mistakes, I don’t think either of us will deny that, but at the end of the day you’re a good man and the best friend I’ve got. If anyone deserves someone as amazing as Nicole, it’s you. I would never, ever, do anything to jeopardize what you two have together.’

  ‘Thank you for being honest with me.’ Jeff may have just admitted to having feelings for my wife, but I feel closer to him than I ever have. For the first time in a long time, we’ve both laid our cards on the table. We’ve confessed our darkest truths, and I feel as though I can trust him again, the full and complete way I did when we were kids.

  We both take long gulps of our drinks, pulling the last watery remains from our glasses.

  ‘You want another round?’ I ask.

  ‘No, I think I should call it a night,’ Jeff replies as he pushes himself up from his chair. ‘I’m glad you told me the truth. Let’s just hope Henderson was wrong and that Layla doesn’t have any other surprises in store for you.’

  Chapter 43

  Layla

  BEFORE

  I’m losing him. I can feel it. Something changed in Vince after the night we spent together in his penthouse.

  That penthouse … wow, it was amazing. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen. All polished marble and arched windows overlooking Central Park. And that’s only his second home. The moment I passed through the red velvet ropes and stepped into the building, I could almost feel what it would be like when this was all mine. The doorman would greet me every morning, ‘Good morning, Mrs Taylor, shall I have your driver bring the car around?’ as soon as I stepped out of the private elevators which only services the most elite of the residents. I could all but hear my designer stiletto heels clicking on the shining stone floors as I’d make my way through the lobby, onlookers unable to take their eyes off of me, wondering who I was and how I’d gotten so lucky.

  But the fantasy is starting to fade, growing hazy around the edges. Vince has been so distant these last few weeks. The only reason I could imagine for the sudden change of heart was that his damn maid walked into the apartment while I was in the shower. I don’t know why he made such a fuss over it. It wasn’t like she’d seen me or anything. And even if she had, she’s the help. It’s not her place to judge. When I’m in charge, letting Marta, Mary, whatever her name was, go is the first order of business.

  That is, if I’m ever in charge. I have to admit, Vince is not making it easy for me to get back into his good graces. Which is rather unfair considering he’s the one that forgot to cancel the maid. Why should I have to pay for his mistake? I’ve tried everything I could think of. I wore my sexiest outfits into the office (which everyone except Vince seemed to take note of), I sprayed on that sickeningly sweet perfume he’s so fond of, and I’ve been abundantly clear that I’m available for whatever … needs may arise. But hasn’t taken the bait.

  I tried that thing with Adam too. I thought that maybe if Vince saw me with another man it might reignite the fire between us and thaw the growing coldness I’ve been feeling from him. It was rather brilliant. Although at first Vince acted like a child pretending he hadn’t seen me sitting at the bar with that dumb hunk of a man I’d found online, I knew that he had. He seemed distracted during his meeting, unable to take his eyes off of me in my new red dress. He was basically green with envy. And I played it up. Throwing my head back in laughter and touching Adam’s arm, as if that oaf had anything even remotely interesting to say. Vince looked like he might keel over.

  When I saw his client get up from the table, I made my move. I walked straight over to Vince’s table and put on my sweet and innocent act, making it sound like it was some kind of unfortunate, awkward coincidence that I’d run into him on my date. (Which, of course, it wasn’t. I checked Vince’s appointment book when Eric stepped away from his desk.
I knew exactly where he’d be that night.) Vince ate it up, and he couldn’t call me fast enough once his meeting was over.

  I was hoping he’d take me back to the penthouse again, but he did the second best thing and took me to the Heatherly Hotel. I could get used to that kind of five star luxury. The duvet was a fluffy white cloud and the room service, served under shiny silver domes by bellhops in white gloves, was exceptional. And we made love. If you can call it that. It was something more wild, raw. A passion ignited in Vince that I’d never seen before. It was as though all of his inhibitions had finally been lifted. He was a man set free, a beast awakened, and he was ravenously hungry for me.

  After a night like that, I was sure we’d be back on track. But to my surprise, when I saw Vince at work the following day, he acted as though nothing had happened. As if I was something that could be used and tossed aside, the way a child might an old, broken, toy that he’d grown bored of playing with.

  I let it get to me more than I should have. I realize that now. I lashed out, lost control. I wanted to make him feel my pain, to hurt him the way he hurt me. But I think I went too far. I drank too much at the office happy hour. I let my voice grow too loud and Vince freaked out that someone was going to hear us and figure out what we’d been up to. That was really the nail in the coffin. If I’d thought Vince was cold before, after that night, he was pure ice. He wouldn’t so much as glance in my direction.

  I was forced to corner him in the employee parking lot. It wasn’t my proudest moment. I reminded him of how good things had been between us, how good it could be again. I put my hands on his waist, letting my fingers trail towards the zipper of his pants. I envisioned sliding into his sexy black car next to him, and finding another luxury hotel for the night. But Vince wasn’t interested in what I was offering, in fact, when I looked up at his face, he looked horrified. I was humiliated. I could feel my cheeks burning.