“Thanks for coming,” I said.
“I was kind of worried when I heard how you sounded on the phone. What’s going on?”
“Aaliyah and Tiana are the same people.”
Samson blinked at me. “Come again?”
“Joseph Wilde hired a private investigator to follow his wife around to prove that she’s cheating by being an escort.” I pulled out the photo of me and her. “They took that picture of us the night we came back from having dinner at my parents’.”
Samson took the photo from me and studied it, finally shaking his head. “Damn, this is bad. Does he know this is you?”
“I don’t think so. He was just excited to have someone of a different race in the picture with her to prove that she was cheating. The majority of the pictures were her with white men, which he believed could’ve been passed as him.”
He ran a hand over his head. “This is a major conflict of interest,” he said with a shake of his head. “You’ve been dating your client’s wife.”
“She told me she wasn’t married. I even asked her about the picture from your client album and she swore she didn’t know him.” I put my face in my hands, trying to calm myself. “This woman looked me in my eyes and told me she didn’t know him. She never wore a ring from what I could remember.”
“Have you talked to her yet?”
I blew out a breath. “No. And I don’t even know if I want to.”
“Maybe you should give yourself a night to process everything before talking to her—”
“She’s at my house right now. I won’t be able to avoid her tonight unless I don’t go home.”
He raised a brow at me. “You moved her in?”
“No. She just spends the night sometimes,” I mutter. I checked my watch to see that it was almost seven. My phone vibrated in my pocket with probably another message from her.
“What are you feeling right now?”
I frowned. “The main thing I’m feeling right now is stupid and angry. My gut told me something was up with her, but I didn’t think it would be something like this. Now I feel like I have to choose between winning this case and protecting her.”
“I can tell that you love her. You wouldn’t even be thinking about protecting her if you didn’t.”
“I do.” I sighed. “And she told me she felt the same. Now I don’t know what’s true and what was a lie. I jumped into this too fast. I thought I knew her, but…I don’t. Not anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Mason. I know this is probably hard to deal with, but you’ve come too far to—”
I held my hand up to cut him off. “That’s the last thing on my mind right now. Trust me, I thought about it, but I’d still have to deal with this shit when I finished. It doesn’t change anything that she’s done and having sex with a stranger isn’t going to heal a broken heart. I just have to deal with this head on and go from there.”
He nodded in agreement. “That means you’re making great progress. I’m proud of you, man,” he said, reaching across the table to clap me on the shoulder. I looked out the window at the setting sun. Prolonging the conversation wouldn’t do anything but give me more time to wallow in my questions and anger.
“I guess I better go home,” I finally said.
“If you need anything, just call me.”
I nodded and left, my body on autopilot as I made my way home. Everything was quiet when I entered. Aaliyah’s sandals were still by the door, indicating that she was still here. I put the envelope of pictures on the coffee table and flopped down on the couch, trying to get my thoughts together. My heart hammered in my chest at the conversation I’d have to have. I thought about how I’d approach her about the situation, eventually becoming frustrated. Her purse sitting on the coffee table caught my attention. I leaned forward and sifted through it, finding her wallet. The muscle in my jaw ticked when I read her driver’s license, seeing that she’d dropped her first name and was indeed Tiana Wilde. I put her wallet back in her purse just as I heard her bare feet moving across the hardwood floor.
“Mason? Baby, why are you sitting out here by yourself? I didn’t know you were home,” she said, moving around the couch to stand in front of me. She looked as if she were feeling better. Her hair was thrown into a ponytail and she now wore a tank top and a pair of white shorts.
I narrowed my eyes at her and set my jaw. “Feeling better?”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Yeah, finally. Everything okay? You look upset.”
“Joseph Wilde,” I said. “You said you don’t know him, right?”
“Right,” she said without hesitation. I clenched my teeth tonight and took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly.
“You sure?”
“His name doesn’t ring any bells.” The dumbfounded look on her face pissed me off to no end.
“Hmm. That’s funny.”
“Why is it funny?”
“It’s just funny,” I said, my voice tight. “Can you do me a favor and get me something to drink?”
“Um…okay,” she said and turned.
“Oh, and Tiana?”
“Yeah?” she answered, looking over her shoulder. When I didn’t say anything, she slowly turned around and stared at me. “What did you just call me?”
“Your name. It’s Tiana now, isn’t it?” I asked. She didn’t say a word, her eyes widening a bit as she continued to stare at me.
I picked up the envelope of photos and sat it on my lap. “Joseph Wilde came to me a few weeks ago seeking a divorce.” Under normal circumstances, talking about my cases to anyone not working on it was a breach in privacy, but at this point, I didn’t care. It wasn’t like she wasn’t aware that her own husband wanted to divorce her. “He wanted to prove that his wife was cheating by being an escort so that he didn’t have to pay her in alimony since the divorce would technically be her fault.” I opened the envelope. “Mr. Wilde hired a private investigator to follow his wife around to try to get pictures of her infidelity to prove his case. So imagine my surprise when he brings these pictures to me today and I see a photo of myself and a fucking married woman having sex in my car.”
I took the photo out and tossed it onto the coffee table. She slowly made her way over to the table and picked it up, her eyes moving between me and the picture.
“I asked you before if you knew him and asked you if you were the woman in the picture and you told me no. You literally just stood in front of me and lied again about not knowing him,” I ground out. She didn’t say a word, tears filling her eyes. “So you go by Tiana now? That’s the name used on your divorce papers.”
“I…I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.
I scoffed. “That’s the only thing you can say about this situation? That you don’t know what to say? How about a fucking explanation?” I snapped. “You’ve put me in a tough situation because of conflict of interest. Joseph is my client and I’ll win my case by any means necessary. And falling in love with you…” I ran my hand down my face. “Falling in love with you was a fucking mistake.”
“You wouldn’t have understood.”
I held my hand up. “You didn’t give me a chance to understand. Even before we had sex the first night I saw you, I fucking asked you if you were single and you told me yes. You had no reason to lie to me. Hell, you told me you had no plans of getting into a relationship with me back then, so what was the point of keeping that from me? I don’t even want to hear your reasons why anymore. I don’t care.” I stood and dropped the rest of the photos on the coffee table. “I need you to get whatever you have here and leave.”
Hurt flashed across her features. When I didn’t say anything, she wiped away a few stray tears and went back to the bedroom. I didn’t move from my spot, nor did I say anything to her when she exited the bedroom with her duffle bag. She moved over to me, but I stepped away from her, no longer wanting her touching me.
“I’m sorry,” she said as tears slid down her cheeks. “This wasn’t supp
osed—”
“Please,” I interrupted. “Leave.”
A sob escaped her as she backed away, finally turning and rushing to the door, grabbing her sandals on the way and not bothering to put them on before she walked out. Silence enveloped me now that she was gone. Just this morning she was wrapped up in my arms and I was hopeful for our future together. Now I knew everything was a lie. With everything out in the open, her aversion to meeting Samson now made sense. He would’ve blown her cover long before Joseph did. Maybe this is just karma for what you did to her years ago. If this was how she felt when I cheated on her, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. There were so many opportunities for her to tell me the truth. If anything, she could’ve at least told me she was in the process of getting a divorce and I would’ve understood. I would’ve respected her wishes to remain friends, hell, I would’ve even represented her in her case. But she made her bed and now she had to lay in it while putting me in the crossfire.
I called Aaron, pacing my living room floor as I waited for him to answer. A shuffling sound filled the line followed by a whimper.
“Mason,” Mia said. “Aaron’s…busy right now and—oh God, baby, right there…right there!” I pulled the phone away from my ear as Mia climaxed. This is fucking awkward. I contemplated hanging up as she continued with her moans of passion, followed by a groan from Aaron. Their voices were muffled as they spoke to each other and there was more shuffling before the line finally cleared.
“Mason?” Aaron said.
“You know, I would’ve you rather not answered the phone than to subject me to listening to you fuck your wife,” I joked, smiling for the first time in a few hours. He chuckled.
“She was close anyway. What’s up?”
“I know this is probably a bad time, but I kinda need your help right now.”
“Now?” he repeated.
“Yeah. I…need to be taken off a case and I only trust you to handle it.”
“Why?”
I closed my eyes and tilted my face up toward the ceiling. “You were right about Aaliyah.”
“Aaliyah?”
“The woman in the picture.”
“Oh shit, Mase.”
“Where are you going?” Mia asked in the background.
“Gotta help Mason with something,” he said to her.
“Give Mia my apologies, but this is an emergency.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Are you okay though? I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.”
I let out a deep sigh. It wasn’t his fault. He tried to tell me and I didn’t listen, thinking I knew better than he did since I knew her.
“How did you find out?” he asked, sounding a bit out of breath as if he were rushing around.
I sat back down on the couch and rested my head in my hand. “I’ll tell you everything when you get here.”
Chapter 14
Aaron shook his head after I told him the story and showed him the pictures. “That’s fucked up, man,” he finally said. “I’m sorry this happened.”
“Yeah. Nothing good seems to last long in my life it seems.”
“So you want me to take over this case? I mean you’re practically at the end now if you’re saying that these pictures will have the alimony decision go in his favor. All that’ll be left and having them sign the papers and filing them.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be on a case and risk them learning that it’s me in the pictures. Also, I don’t want to have to see her right now.”
“What are you going to tell him when he asks about you removing yourself?”
“Haven’t gotten that far yet. It’s not like I can go to him and say, ‘Hey Joe, I’m going to have to step away from your case because I’ve been unknowingly fucking the shit out of your wife for the past month or so.’”
Aaron snickered. “It’s not a funny situation, but it’s comical to imagine how that conversation would go.”
“Pretty sure my dad would fire me on the spot.”
“Still not talking to you?”
“After he embarrassed me in front of the potential buyer? Nope. And I have no desire to talk to him either, especially not right now.”
“Well…how are you feeling after everything? I mean you’re not going to go on a bender or something, are you?”
“Nah.” I leaned back against the couch. “With everything that’s gone on in the last month from Malcolm leaving because of me, my dad taking the firm from me, and now this…I don’t think I have the capacity to care right now. I’m mentally drained, man. Sure, I’m fucking angry that she lied to me for a month and I could’ve got into some serious shit if it got out that I was sleeping with my client’s wife, but…I don’t care right now. I don’t want to see or hear from her, I won’t be working for my father anymore soon, and Malcolm will be clear across the country so I won’t fuck up his life anymore. I just don’t fucking care about anything right now.”
This situation with Aaliyah was the final thing to break me. I’d gone through a lot through the last month, but Aaliyah was the anchor I held onto to keep me grounded. She was the glimmer of hope that the drama within my family was only temporary and soon it wouldn’t matter. I saw a vivid future with her; I even got used to the idea of coming home to her when she stayed here for a few days. I tightened my jaw as I thought about all the times she had to leave, wondering if she went back home to him after having sex with me. Or if she came to me after having sex with him. Seeing the pictures and the men she’d been with left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t have the right to judge her for that though; I was no different from her. Her being an escort was no different than me paying to have sex with them. As I thought about the fucked up situation I was in, one thing dawned on me. Aaliyah didn’t trust me. I remembered what Samson had said about how Joseph treated her when he worked with them. After listening to how he talked about her, I didn’t doubt that she probably wasn’t happy in her relationship. Regardless of the reasons, it didn’t change the fact that she lied.
*
I spent the next week buried in work to keep my mind off of her. She’d tried texting and calling me, but I didn’t bother to answer her. Each time a new message would appear from her, I’d delete it without reading it and delete voicemails without listening. I didn’t want or need constant reminders of someone I couldn’t have. She was supposed to be coming to the office with her lawyer today for a meeting. With Aaron on the case now, I barricaded myself in my office, trying to stay there to avoid running into her.
“Uh, Mase,” Aaron said from the doorway. I looked up from the papers on my desk.
“What’s up?”
“Joseph wants you in the meeting,” he said slowly.
“For what? I gave you the file and the notes for the case.”
“He said he didn’t want to switch lawyers this far into the case. He refuses to let me represent him in the meeting. He wants you in there, too.”
“Fuck me,” I mumbled under my breath as I pushed away from my desk. I followed Aaron down the hall to the meeting room, my body tensing as soon as I entered the room. Aaliyah’s flowery perfume hit me as soon as I breathed in, my chest aching at the fact that I couldn’t take her into my arms as I’d been able to before.
Joseph’s scowl lightened a bit when I walked into the room. “No offense to this young man here, but I’d rather you finish what you started, Mason. I didn’t pay you for you to abandon me right at the end,” he snapped in a low tone as I sat next to him.
“Sorry, I had some issues going on that I didn’t want to interfere with the case.” I looked to Aaliyah’s lawyer and extended my hand, purposely avoiding eye contact with her. “Mason Carter.”
“Brian Wilcox.” He gave my hand a firm shake.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Wilcox?”
Aaron took a seat next to me, but didn’t say a word. Part of me was grateful that he stayed; it took everything in me to remain professional and keep my emotions off my face. Brian opened his
briefcase and pulled out a document, placing it on the table.
“My client completed the court-ordered physical, but because of the results, she has decided to forfeit her right to any alimony and property that she shares with your client.”
“And what were the results? That she caught something while she was out being a whore?” Joseph asked, folding his arms across his chest. My heart hammered in my chest. I’d been reckless when having sex with her. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d worn a condom when I was with her. The room suddenly felt hot, as if I were suffocating. I didn’t even want to know the results if she had something. I couldn’t take any more bad news.
Brian narrowed his eyes at Joseph and frowned. “There was no evidence of any sexually transmitted diseases, Mr. Wilde,” he drawled.
Joseph snatched the document Brian placed on the table and flipped through it, stopping on the third page before looking to Aaliyah. “You’re pregnant?”
If I thought I was going to pass out before, it was definitely imminent now. I could feel Aaron’s eyes on me as I tried to focus on anything else other than what was going on right now. Was she sick last week because she was pregnant? I finally found the courage to look at her, seeing that she was pale again. She was still beautiful, her usual curly hair straightened and styled into a French braid that hung over her shoulder. She looked sophisticated in her baby pink suit jacket with a white blouse underneath, a diamond necklace and matching earrings. Tears streaked her face as she stared at the table without a word. There was no denying the fact that she was pregnant with my child. It was bound to happen with all the sex we’d had.
“We haven’t had sex in months,” Joseph bellowed. “How dare you fucking embarrass me like this? What will people think of my whore of wife getting pregnant by someone else before we’re even divorced?”
“Joseph,” I said, my voice a bit firmer than I intended. He continued glaring at her, his nostrils flaring in anger. I turned my attention to Brian. “Then she’s willing to sign a stipulation agreeing to his terms?”
Lawfully Screwed (Lawful Affair) Page 18