Around the Bend

by Britney King

  GET EXCLUSIVE MATERIAL

  Looking for a bit of dark humor, chilling deception and enough suspense to keep you glued to the page? If so, tap the image to receive your starter library. Easy peasy.

  New Release

  Room 553

  “She felt no remorse for drawing blood. In the context of their lovemaking, it had its place.”

  For Max and Laurel, nothing is off limits when they meet in room 553. Their illicit affair is exhilarating, passionate—and dangerous.

  Driven as much by compulsion as pleasure, Max can't stop. His mistress is Jesus on the streets, and Satan in the sack. But when things take a sharp and sudden turn for the worse, he finds himself ensnared in a trap of his own making.

  Under heavy scrutiny by the police and the media, Max is hailed as a cold and evasive womanizer. He made mistakes, to be sure. But does that make him a killer?

  Unnerving and addictive, Room 553 is a vivid and sensual psychological thriller that weaves a story of cruelty, reckless lust, and blind, bloody justice.

  Details here.

  Around The Bend: A Novel

  Britney King

  WWW.BRITNEYKING.COM

  Copyright

  AROUND THE BEND is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, images, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author's intellectual property. No part of this publication may be used, shared or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact http://britneyking.com/contact/

  Thank you for your support of the author's rights.

  Hot Banana Press

  Cover Design by Britney King LLC

  Cover Image by Mandy Hollis

  Copy Editing by Literary Agent Rogena Mitchell-Jones

  Proofread by Proofreading by the Page

  Copyright © 2014 by Britney King LLC. All Rights Reserved.

  First Edition: 2014

  ISBN: 978-0-9892184-4-3 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-0-9892184-5-0 (All E-Books)

  britneyking.com

  To Jeremy, I miss you every day.

  And to everyone who has ever loved someone through the pain.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  A note from Britney

  Also by Britney King

  Sneak Peek: The Social Affair

  The Social Affair

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Early Spring

  Never assume things can’t get worse. If you were to ask her what she’d learned over the past year, that’s exactly what Jessica Clemens would have said. Well, that and more, but at the very least, this would, first and foremost, be it.

  Things can always, always get worse.

  Take for example the afternoon Jess was lounging in her sitting room pondering the shit-storm that had become her life when he, and by he, I’m referring to her husband Spencer, walked out of his closet, bags in hand.

  This is how it all began. Her coming undone.

  Truth be told, it began long before this. But that’s the funny thing about stories, isn’t it? It’s hard to tell where the beginning and end are.

  Now, had Jess been paying attention or hell, even been sober, she might have seen this coming. Alas, she did not. And so, things did get worse from that moment on. Much, much worse.

  That bright and cool spring afternoon, Spencer stood in front of his wife with a certain somber look on his face. It could have been remorse, she wasn’t sure, for she was too high to tell the difference. The truth was, he had given Jess that look almost daily over the previous six months—so much so, she wasn’t sure if it was her or if it had simply become his natural expression.

  She glanced at him, down at his bags, and then cocked her brow. “I didn’t know you had a trip this week,” she said as she reached for her tumbler of vodka.

  Spencer dropped the luggage and sat down on the footstool opposite her. “I’m fairly certain I told you…” He eyed her with pity, or perhaps anger, she couldn’t gauge which. He started to speak again, but then paused before continuing. “You’re looking a bit better today. And you’re up.” He smiled. “That’s good news, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “At any rate, I’m glad because we need to talk. This trip is going to be a bit of an extended one.”

  Jess eyed his bags again. “I can see that,” she slurred tipping the glass in his direction.

  He lowered his voice and spoke clearly, calmly—as though he were trying to talk her down from a ledge that she wasn’t even aware she was hanging from. Jess knew better. She’d already fallen. “Jessica. Please. I know these past few months have been hard for you with the accident and all… and well, now this. But you need to understand that I’m not leaving for good. It’ll only be a few weeks or so—a month max.”

  Had she been sober, she might have had the right mind to be angry, or to be hurt, or even devastated as she rightfully should’ve been. Instead, she found she was indifferent.

  “Well… sayonara. And here’s to you.” She raised her glass, then threw her head back and laughed. The man she’d loved for the past decade was, for the most part, walking out on her at a time when she clearly, really, really needed him, and she found it funny. That’s how much trouble she was in. And Jess didn’t even have the good sense to know it.

  “Jessica.” He reached for the tumbler, slid it forcefully from her hand, and placed it on the table. He stared at the glass as though he couldn’t stand to look at her. “I need you to listen to what I’m trying to say here.” He spoke, and then waited to ensure he had her attention before he continued. “I spoke to Addison at the agency a few moments ago. She’s going to audit our staff and see what is needed in my absence. To start with, she’s going to send someone over ASAP to help you get around a little more while I’m away...”

  Jess scoffed. “You don’t think we have enough help?”

  “I don’t want you to worry about anything.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “Anyhow, about the children…”

  “The children?” She interrupted defensively, even though the probability was low at that moment that she even had the prudence to consider the fact that they even had children. That she had children. That this would affect them.

  “Yes, Jessica. Our children. Jonathan and Catherine…” He looked at the glass and back at her. “You do remember them, right?”

  Jess sighed, picked up the glass, and finished it off. But she didn’t take her eyes off his. Jess was a
lot of things, but she wasn’t dumb. She wouldn’t admit defeat. “I’m not the one going on an extended vacation.”

  He raised his voice then. “This isn’t a vacation, Jessica. This is business. And… quite frankly, I need to get away for a bit. I can’t just sit around here twiddling my thumbs while my wife deteriorates into nothingness. Once again, you’re not getting it.” He paused, running his hands through his hair. Jess watched as his fingers slid slowly through his dark brown hair, which she’d always thought reminded her of smooth, silky chocolate, and wondered just how long it had been since she’d done the same.

  “We’ve been over and over this… I’m not sure how else to say it. I need to give you some space to handle things on your own... Ever since the accident, well, I think you’ve forgotten who you are. While I’m gone, I want you to focus on getting back to your old self. I figure the only way you’ll do that is if I force your hand.”

  Jess glanced toward the door and back at her husband. “So what are you waiting for then?”

  She watched as he took one last look at her, stood, and walked out, all straight-backed and righteous. But all she could think about at that moment was what the women at the Ladies Who Lunch event would say the following day and every day after that. Because Jess, as drunk and high as she might have been, realized more than her husband did that afternoon. He was never coming back. Not really, anyway.

  Chapter Two

  Six Months Earlier

  Jess had been looking forward to this dinner all week. Mostly because she knew Spencer was excited about it, and these days, he rarely seemed excited about anything. The fact that he had even asked her to accompany him to a business dinner had surely been a good sign, hadn’t it? Her husband had seemed off for the past few months, and while she knew his work had been particularly stressful, she couldn’t help but feel that some part of it was because of her.

  Jess heard him call for her from somewhere downstairs. She checked herself in the mirror, fastened her diamond earring in place, and slipped on her new Jimmy Choos. As she rounded the corner to the children’s wing of the house, she heard them arguing as one of the nannies attempted to shush them. Jess opened the door and braced herself against the doorframe as Catherine came barreling toward her.

  “Mommy?” Her daughter eyed her up and down. “Are you and Daddy going on a date?”

  “I already told you that, genius,” Jonathan piped in.

  “Jonathan,” Jess chided. Her son, at eleven, was growing moodier by the day, and she sensed it was at least equal to his father’s growing unhappiness. How was it kids never missed a thing, she wondered. Not only did they not miss it, but they also soaked it up like the little sponges they were. She knelt down and smoothed her daughter’s bangs back from her eyes, but her gaze was fixed on her son. “We are, sweetheart. But I’ll make sure to tiptoe in and kiss you goodnight just as soon as we get home.” Her daughter, Catherine, or Kit Cat, as they’d taken to calling her, leaped forward into her arms. “I’ll miss you, Mommy.” Jess kissed the tip of her nose then hugged her close, inhaling the scent of her still damp hair. Jess loved those moments when she still got the occasional glimpse of the toddler her now seven-year-old had once been.

  She pulled back and looked at her son who seemed to have already forgotten her presence, his attention now turned back to his iPad. “Jonathan, did you have your shower, too?” She looked to Serena, the children’s nanny, and back at her son, knowing the answer before either of them answered.

  “I don’t like showers,” he stated without looking up.

  Jess walked over and slid the device from his hands. He looked up, none too pleased. “That isn’t what I asked. I asked if you’d had one. Now, run along and then Serena will let you have this back when you’re washed up.”

  He threw up his hands dramatically and let out a loud sigh. “Fine.”

  Jess grabbed his tiny wrist. She pulled him to her, or as close as he would let her, and ran her fingers through his shaggy, light brown hair, the same shade as hers. She took his chin between her fingers and gently turned his face to face her. He feigned annoyance, but Jess sensed that at least a small part of him still needed this, even if he wanted to be too big to admit it. “I love you so, so, so much, you know that, right?” His green eyes flickered with a hint of something she’d remembered seeing all those endless nights when she had held him, rocking him, praying he might sleep. It wasn’t that her son had been a difficult baby—he never cried, but he never slept either. Being that he was her first, she hadn’t yet the good sense, or the confidence to know he might be okay, if she just let him be. ‘He doesn’t need to be held all of the time, Jessica,’ Spencer would say. ‘You don’t have to entertain him, you know,’ he would scold. ‘You’re creating a monster. That’s what we have nannies for. Do you think we pay these people for nothing?’ But Jessica didn’t care. She was his mother. This was what she wanted. She wanted to do things differently than either of their parents had, she’d said. And maybe that defiance was the fracture that started a much larger break in her marriage—the break she was working to fix, and tonight, she was sure Spencer’s insistence that she attend dinner with him was just one small step in the right direction.

  Jess let Jonathan go before she bent down and kissed her kids once more. She stopped in the doorway, turning back. “Serena, please see to it that the children have hair appointments set up.”

  The nanny nodded and Jess smiled just a little.

  Later, she would remember, while it was an insignificant thing to say at the time, it would be the last thing she would say for quite a while that would make her feel like she was actually someone’s mother.

  “You did really good in there,” Spencer said, holding the passenger door of their Range Rover open for her.

  Jess laughed, pausing to gaze up at the stars. They were having an Indian summer and it was still warm, even at nearly midnight. “Yeah, I guess I’ve still got it, huh.” She eyed her husband and noticed the way he looked at her—as though maybe it was the first time he was really seeing her in a very long time. She cocked her head. “Are you sure you’re all right to drive?”

  He pursed his lips and Jess suddenly remembered how her husband hated being questioned. “I’m fine. I just had a few drinks, but that was hours ago.”

  She nodded and climbed in. “Well, I’m still feeling tipsy, and I only had one of Jim’s cocktails,” Jess added for good measure. Things were going so well. She should have known better and chosen her words a little more carefully.

  Jess watched her husband go around and climb into the driver’s seat. He pulled his phone from his suit pocket, stared at the screen, and frowned.

  “Everything okay?”

  He placed the phone on the center console, looked over at her, and sighed as he turned the key in the ignition. “Just work stuff. Nothing that would be of concern to you.” He smiled slightly and put the SUV in reverse.

  Jess shifted in her seat and stared out at the darkness of the night as they pulled out of the winery and onto the two-lane country road. She had always liked it out here. It was so dark, so peaceful. And while she tried to focus on her surroundings versus the sting of her husband’s words, it was ultimately the sting that won out. The familiar knot in her chest tightened. Nothing that would concern her, she thought. Nothing that would concern her. Of course. And why should it? It wasn’t as though the work he had been discussing hadn’t been the business her family had built over three generations. How could it possibly not concern her? This issue had also contributed to the distance between them, Jess had decided. Spencer was trying to do too much. Not only was he managing his family’s international law firm, but he was attempting to take the reins in her family’s affairs, as well. Jessica had tried to talk him out of it. Sure, her father wanted to retire and he’d had Spencer pegged as his replacement long ago, but they could always find someone else, Jess had assured him. She knew her father was impossible to please (for anyone but her) and that it took some
one equally so, someone like her husband, to even remotely fit the bill, but still. There were other ways, she’d urged. And it certainly wasn’t as though they needed the money. But then her father got ill and slowly started losing his memory, and then all at once, the man who had adored her all her life was gone. Well, not totally gone, as in dead, but he was a shell of the man he’d once been. These days, while she still visited as often as she could muster the courage, he barely remembered her at all. Fast acting dementia, they’d called it.

  Spencer had been her rock through it all. He arranged everything and had most of the business assets transferred into her name as her mother wanted nothing whatsoever to do with any of it. Her brother, now living in Spain (or at least had been last she’d heard) and doing God knows what with his time and their family’s money, only wanted his disbursement checks to keep rolling in, and in typical fashion, had signed off on any responsibility to the family business, so long as he could maintain the lifestyle he had always been accustomed to.