Wicked Game

by Michelle Betham

  Joe glances in my direction. “I’d really like to try some of Noah’s food.”

  Because he’s already tried his wife? I feel my gut twist up again, a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Would that be okay, Kari?”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Jenna gushes, before I’ve even had a chance to say anything. To protest?

  “I’ll get Laura to call the restaurant and get a table booked. Eight-thirty all right with you, Joe?”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  It’s not fine with me. This is deliberate. This is something he’s planned, and I don’t like it. I don’t want this intrusion, it’s cruel of him to show up like this and turn our lives upside down, for what? Because he wanted to see me again? He didn’t have to go through all of this to do that, he could’ve found another way, if that’s what he’d really wanted. I’m just not sure that it is.

  “Kari? Is that okay with you?”

  Jenna’s voice once more cuts through my thoughts. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s okay.”

  It’s not. But what can I do? Right now, at this very second, I can’t do anything.

  “Great. That’s settled then. And I’m sorry I have to rush off like this, but I’ve got another appointment in Jesmond in half an hour, so, I need to be out of here.” She throws me a smile and crosses the room to shake Joe’s hand. “We’re really looking forward to working with you, Joe.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine.” He glances in my direction. “Believe me.”

  “Any problems, Kari, you know where I am. Okay?”

  I nod.

  “I should be back early afternoon. And I’ll see you tonight, Joe.”

  I watch as she closes the door behind her, but I stay rooted to the spot. And when he turns to look at me it’s like another kick to the gut.

  “Why do that? Why Noah’s restaurant?”

  “I simply want to try his food, Kari.”

  I shake my head and back up against the table. “No. I don’t think you simply want to do anything.”

  “I wanted to see you again.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “I don’t know anything. I don’t trust you, and whatever game you’re playing …”

  “You should, trust me. And I’m not in the habit of playing games, I’ve told you why I’m here, and it’s the truth. I needed to see you again. Something happened that night, Kari, and I can’t leave that alone.”

  “You should,” I whisper. “And, these new offices you’re planning on opening – why here? Why open them here, so close to where Noah and I live?”

  “Technology moves forward on an almost constant basis, and I need to make sure I keep up with that. Being left behind isn’t an option. I have a London base that covers the south of England, I just thought it might be wise to cover the north, too.”

  “Just like that?”

  “It’s my company. I can open as many offices as I like.”

  I still don’t believe him. I still don’t trust him. “Those parties you organise …”

  “We all need an escape, Kari.”

  He’s right in front of me now, his hand pressed against my cheek, his touch scorching my skin.

  “My name is Joseph Millar, technology giant and sex party host, because all work and no play makes for one very, very dull life.”

  “What we did, that wasn’t real.” My voice is barely raising a whisper, and it’s shaking, he’s making me nervous, he’s making me everything I don’t want to be, and I need him to go. “This isn’t real, I don’t want it to be real.”

  He leans in to me, his mouth almost touching mine and I breathe in deep. I remember, how much I’d wanted him to kiss me that night. How I’d ached for that, but it never happened. He was brutally intimate in so many ways, but he never kissed me.

  “I didn’t get the chance to kiss you, that night,” he murmurs, his hand firmly cupping my cheek. “And I wanted to, don’t get me wrong, I wanted to kiss you. But Noah, he made sure that was off the table. I wasn’t to kiss you, that was the only thing he was insistent on. Anything else, that was okay, but kissing you? No. But I’ve never stopped wanting to.”

  My breath once more hitches, my body tingling with anticipation and I’m angry with myself for everything I’m feeling, but I make no attempt to push him away. All I can do is close my eyes, feel the heat of his breath on my neck as his lips brush over it, and my stomach twists and pulls again, the pain subsiding only when his mouth finally touches mine. He’s kissing me in a way that makes me hate myself more and more with each second that passes, a kiss that sends a shot of something calming flooding through my veins. Now it’s making me care less; need him more. But, strangely, it also makes me think about Noah. And that’s when the spell is broken; like a curtain’s been yanked back and I can see what’s really going on. He drew me in, pulled me under, and that was wrong. I shouldn’t have let that happen, I should’ve been stronger. I need to find that strength now.

  “What happened that night, it was never meant to leave that room, so this – whatever you’re doing here, it ends. What happened, at that party, you need to forget it.” I pull back from him, gather up my papers and files and make my way to the door. “You need to go home, Joe.”

  “We have to work together, Kari.”

  “No, we don’t have to do anything. All you’re doing here is putting up a front, finding a way to insert yourself into my life, for whatever reason …”

  “I needed to see you again,” he says quietly, reaching for my hand, but I swat his away. “And if you’re being truly honest with yourself, Kari, you wanted to see me, too. That’s why you kept that card. If you’d wanted to forget me, you would’ve thrown it away. You would’ve left it behind.”

  “But you’d still have come looking for me, huh?”

  He nods, the corner of his mouth inching up slightly into a barely-there smile. “Yes. I would.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me, Joe. What you think is going to happen. I’m married, I love my husband …”

  “And yet, you had sex with me.”

  I shake my head again, I’m not doing this. “You know why that happened. You know the circumstances, don’t pretend that night was anything more than it was.”

  I start to walk away from him.

  “You’re running, Kari. And you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who runs from anything.”

  I stop, turning slowly back around to face him. “You have no idea what kind of woman I am.”

  “I know more than you think.”

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. My head’s a mess, I’m confused, and this man, he really does scare me. But he also excites me, and I hate that he’s done this, that he’s turned up like this, out of the blue; that he’s unsettled me. He’s unsettled everything.

  “I’ll see you tonight. At dinner,” I say, before leaving the room.

  I think we may have made a mistake, letting Joe Millar in.

  I think I might have made an even bigger one …

  Thirteen

  I’d hoped the restaurant would be fully booked tonight. That they couldn’t even find space to squeeze in the owner’s wife, but there’d been a cancellation, and Laura had made the call just in time to secure that newly-freed-up table. So, I need to try something else, find another way to make sure Noah doesn’t see Joe. I can deal with this – whatever it is – on my own, there’s no need for Noah to be involved. In my eyes, some secrets need to be kept, this is one of them. Noah and I, we’re already too fragile, I think. Him finding out about Joe, that wouldn’t help us.

  I’ve arrived at the restaurant early, found Noah out back taking a quick break, and I know I’m clutching at straws here, but I’m desperate. I’ll try anything I can to delay this situation from becoming any more confusing. I can deal with it, I can, I just need a little more time.

  “Hey!” He smiles the second he sees me, even if, just a moment earlier, he’d had hi
s head down, his hand constantly rubbing the back of his neck. I notice these things, now. These small changes in his body language.

  “Hey.” I lean back against the wall beside him, stare out at another wall in front of us in the tiny yard at the back of the restaurant. “Another busy night, huh?”

  “For both of us.”

  I turn my head to look at him, smiling slightly. “Yeah. I guess.”

  He stares out ahead of him again, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I’ve got it all under control here, though. As usual.” He looks back at me, that familiar grin on his face that always used to make my heart leap. Now it just makes me nervous, I don’t know what he’s going to do, how he’s going to react, if he sees Joe. And that’s what Joe wants, I know he does, why else would he want to come here tonight? He wants some kind of reaction, I’m almost certain of that. I’m just trying to make sure it doesn’t happen.

  “So why not leave it to Jack to run things tonight?”

  He frowns, like he can’t believe I’ve just said that. “What, you … you think I should walk out on a busy Friday night service? Why?”

  “Because you’re exhausted, Noah. You’re working all the hours God sends, more than you ever used to, and I don’t think it’s good for you. You don’t need to do that.”

  “What if I want to do it?”

  I look at him, stare deep into his eyes, and I love this man so much, but I wish we hadn’t done what we did. I wish we hadn’t gone there, hadn’t made that fantasy real. I wish I could turn back the clock and make it all go away because I feel like we’re drifting apart, somehow, because of it. Does he feel that way, too? Or am I just reading too much into nothing, because of Joe?

  “You should take a break,” I say, not shifting my gaze from his. “You look tired.”

  “I am. Tired, I mean.”

  “Then go home. For one night say fuck it, let someone else take the reins. And I’ll be here, to keep an eye on things. I don’t think this place is going to go to wrack and ruin because you take a couple of hours off.”

  He looks wary. Can he tell I have an ulterior motive for wanting him out of the way? Maybe. I’ll deal with his questions later, right now, I want him to take my advice and go home, leave me here to deal with Joe and his mind games.

  “Kari, I …” He briefly looks away, rubs his neck again, a nervous reaction I’m picking up on more and more. He never used to do that before, he does it a lot now. It’s a quirk I’m not comfortable with. A habit I’d like him to break. He throws his head back and sighs, and there’s a tiny part of me that feels like that’s some kind of reaction to what our relationship is becoming. Or what I feel it’s becoming. Nothing ever felt strained between us before, it does now, and I know it’s because of what we did. He can stand there and tell me a hundred times that it changed nothing; that it didn’t change us, but it did. “Do you know what? You’re right. Give me five minutes …”

  He goes back inside, and I stay where I am, check my watch to see what time it is. Jenna should be here soon. Joe, should be here soon. I’d like Noah gone before either of them arrive.

  “All right. Jack’s taking over, Kenny’s now temporary sous chef, and Billie’s in charge of front-of-house, as usual. She’ll keep an eye on everything but if you could just, you know, make sure it all runs smoothly, and if anything happens, call me. Okay?”

  I smile, relief flooding through me, I can barely believe I’ve pulled this off. He really must be exhausted.

  His arm circles my waist, pulling me against him, and when his mouth touches mine I melt into him. I hold him, and I remember those early days together, when he was here at the restaurant all day every day, making sure this place was everything he wanted it to be, but how he’d always come home, no matter how late it was, excited; overflowing with ideas. How he’d tell me those ideas over wine and a supper he’d create using odds and ends from the pantry and fridge, talking ten to the dozen, like a hyper child, eager to get everything out. How we’d eat, then make love, falling asleep in each other’s arms. And I look at him now, worn out and distracted. Those suppers are a distant memory. We haven’t had sex in days, and that realisation hits me harder than Joe’s sudden appearance.

  “You okay?” Noah asks, and I look up at him; run my fingers lightly across the back of his neck, winding them in his hair. And I smile, because I’m not okay, but I will be. We will be.

  “Yeah. I guess I’m a little tired too. I could’ve done without this dinner tonight.”

  “Must be some important client, huh?”

  “Potential client. We’re all just testing the water right now.”

  He kisses me again, and I wish I was going home with him, just the two of us. I wish we were going home, where he’d make us dinner using leftovers and we’d talk into the small hours, like we’d used to do. When we weren’t both pretending.

  “You know where I am, if you feel like skipping dessert.” He smiles that wonderfully quirky smile of his and I can’t help but laugh. Moments like this, when we’re back to being us, I love them. But it feels like they’re becoming rarer. “I’ll see you at home, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whisper, and I watch as he leaves through the back gate. I wait, until I’m sure he’s gone, before I go back inside.

  Jenna’s at our table now, two Mojitos in front of her, and I’m grateful that she’s ordered drinks. I need one.

  “Are you not looking forward to tonight?” she asks as I take my seat.

  I look at her and frown. “I’m sorry?”

  “We’re being bought dinner, by a handsome, millionaire businessman who wants us, our little north east-based events company, to take over his event planning, and you’re walking round like it’s a punishment.”

  “I’m looking forward to it, all right?”

  “Then you might want to tell that to your face.”

  “You’re such a bitch.”

  “Right back at ya.”

  We look at each other and laugh. I love Jenna, but she has no idea what’s going on here. How Joe Millar could be doing nothing but using our business to get to me, for a reason I’m still not sure of.

  “Seriously though, Kari, you’ve been a bit jumpy all day. You sure nothing’s wrong?”

  “I’m fine, I’m just a bit tired. I’ll relax more once I’ve had a couple of drinks.”

  I’ll relax a lot more now Noah’s out of the way, but I’ll never completely relax in Joe’s company. I can’t fully relax until he disappears, I just don’t know how to make that happen, yet. He’s already too close for comfort, I need to find a way to push him further back.

  “Anyway, I’ve just had a text from Joe. He’s almost here.”

  “What do you know about Millar Readman, Jen? Apart from what he’s told us. What we’ve found out online.”

  She takes a sip of her drink and shrugs. “Nothing much, really, other than they’re a huge, global technology company specialising in networking …” She raises her gaze to the ceiling, her brow furrowing as she tries to remember more details. “… and other stuff, but don’t ask me what. I switch off when things become too complicated, besides, we don’t need to know any of that, do we? We’re only organising his parties, not taking meetings.”

  We’re not organising anything, yet. We may never be organising anything, I don’t know what his game is, his plan, because I’m sure he has one. Men like Joe Millar don’t go into anything blind.

  “You said he was one of Noah’s contacts.”

  I look at Jen, and frown again.

  “When I found his business card, in your desk, you said he was one of Noah’s contacts. That he was in the food industry.”

  “I didn’t say that.” I didn’t. I’m sure I didn’t. “You must’ve just assumed it.”

  It’s her turn to frown, and I could do without this right now. I knew she’d have questions, even if it’s taken her a while to get around to asking them.

  “Why lie?”

  “I didn’t lie, Jenna. Look
, I barely know the man, okay? I met him once, very briefly, when we were in Norway, but I didn’t have time to strike up any kind of conversation. And even Noah only knows him through a friend of a friend, so what I know about Joe Millar is minimal.” I look down at my wedding ring, scrunch my hand up into a fist, and I wonder how, in the space of just a few weeks, my life got so complicated. But I know how. I know why. We let Joe Millar into it, that was our first mistake. And as each day goes by I’m making more of them.

  “It just seems a bit … Oh, hang on, here he is.”

  Jenna’s words cause my head to shoot up and I look towards the entrance, I’m actually grateful for Joe’s arrival. It’s stopped Jenna from asking any more questions, for now. But I doubt she’ll give up. And I don’t want to tell her anything, but depending on how this plays out, there may be things she needs to know. I’m just hoping it doesn’t come to that.

  Joe stops by the entrance to talk to Billie, the restaurant’s front-of-house manager, and she’s – unsurprisingly – captivated by him within seconds. He’s giving her that smile, those eyes, he has her right where he wants her because he can do that. He did it to me. And it looks like she’s offering to take him to our table, but he declines the offer of help, throws her another smile as she points him in our direction, and then makes his way over, striding through the place like he owns it. His demeanour is all-consuming, his presence one which engulfs the entire room, and I feel panic start to rise up inside me, even though Noah isn’t around. I should have tried harder to stop this dinner from happening, here. It’s Joe who’s manipulated this situation, Jesus! How naiive am I? How stupid am I being?

  “No, don’t get up.” He smiles at both Jenna and me, his eyes lingering on mine for just that second or two longer. “I’ve ordered some champagne, if that’s okay with you? After all, this is a celebration. Right?”

  Of what, exactly? What are we really celebrating? His attempt to unsettle me working like a dream? His intrusion into my life? And again, his eyes linger on mine, pulling away at just the right moment, causing my stomach to twist up into a knot of nerves, I feel sick.