Wicked Game

by Michelle Betham

  “No,” I whisper, shaking my head, as though doing that will change what he’s just told me. “You’re lying.”

  “He fucked her, once. Is that what he told you? He lied, Kari. Once wasn’t enough, he took her again, and again, it wasn’t just a one-night stand. It was more than that.”

  I can’t take this in. What Noah told me – it was only snippets. Selected facts. He made me believe it had only happened once, and that was bad enough, but hearing it was more than that …? “How long have you known?” But that’s a question I think I already know the answer to. I just need to hear him say it.

  “I knew, way before that night. By that time, I knew everything.”

  “And you kept it from me?” My voice can barely rise above a whisper, and I don’t want to talk about this, but I know we have to.

  “I had to …”

  “No, you didn’t have to do anything. You should’ve told me.”

  He briefly drops his head again, rubs the back of his neck, he’s nervous. “I hated him, Kari. For what he did.” His voice is calmer now, but that doesn’t make me feel any less scared. Any less confused. “I hated him, this man who’d taken something that wasn’t his, he’d wrecked my world.”

  “And that gave you the right to wreck ours?”

  He looks at me. “Do you know? What happened? How your husband and my wife met?”

  “I know how they met. I know how it started, Noah told me that much.” I squeeze my eyes tight shut, but I know that won’t change anything. It won’t make this go away, make the pain any easier to take; the betrayal this is digging back up, it won’t make that any easier to deal with. “Did he know who she was?”

  “He knew she was married, but he had no idea of my connection to her. Noah was a friend of a friend, a vague acquaintance of mine from the restaurant industry, I didn’t really know him at all. He didn’t really know me. I knew his name, he knew mine, that was as far as our relationship went. But it gave me an in-road. A head-start, when I needed to find out more about him.”

  “You said … you said it wasn’t just the once …?”

  I pray that he’s lying, that he made a mistake; that he was wrong to let me think it was anything more than once.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “How can you be sure? Did she tell you? Did you ask her …?”

  “I knew something was wrong because she changed, after that night. The way she was around me, her behaviour … she changed. She became a different woman.”

  I drop my head again, I don’t want to look at him, I can’t, look at him.

  “You just don’t want to believe, you know? That what you think is happening is true.”

  “You didn’t even tell me you were married.”

  “Because it didn’t matter.”

  “Seriously? You’re sitting here, telling me this shit, and you don’t think the fact you were married matters? You don’t think that my husband sleeping with your wife, matters, that I didn’t need to know that?”

  “You didn’t need to know.”

  His voice remains calm whereas mine is becoming less steady. I’m losing control, I can feel myself spinning. I feel sick. Every inch of me hurts, because he lied to me. He kept something from me I should have been told about long before now.

  “I didn’t need to know?”

  “Not in the beginning.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “To protect you.”

  I shake my head and look away, I can’t deal with this. I can’t.

  “When I first found out, I let it go, for a while, because I’d hoped things would get better. I’d hoped we’d slowly get back to normal, put it all behind us, but that didn’t happen. Nothing got better. Time doesn’t heal shit. She became more distant, started coming home later, making excuses … Two weeks, Kari. That’s all it took for my world to fall apart. Fourteen fucking days.”

  I slowly turn my head back to face him.

  “Two weeks of fucking your husband and that was it. She didn’t want me anymore, she wanted him. But he didn’t want her. All she was to him was a distraction, something to keep him occupied while he was away from home, away from you, but for her – she’d wanted him, Kari. She’d fallen for him. She’d thought there was something there, and I don’t know if that was because he’d promised her shit he’d had no intention of delivering, just to make sure he got what he wanted while he had the chance, or whether she’d just read something into a situation that wasn’t there. He claims he did nothing to encourage her, that she was nothing more than a fling, something to toss aside when he was done, but even if that’s true; even if he never set out to deliberately wreck my marriage, he did. He killed it. After it ended – after he’d taken what he’d wanted and then left her; went back to the UK, back to you, nothing was the same. I tried to get past it, tried to fix it, I persevered because I still loved her. But it was too broken. We were too broken. And I couldn’t save us. She couldn’t have him, but she didn’t want me. She left me, she walked away from us, from our marriage, and I was fucking devastated.”

  I don’t know what to do. What to say. I’m still numb, it’s like I’ve detached myself from all of this, like I’m watching it play out in front of me but I’m choosing to ignore it.

  “I wanted revenge, Kari. I wanted to know who he was, this man who’d killed my marriage, fucked up my world. I wanted to know everything about him.”

  His words yank me out of my trance, and I look at him. “No …” I whisper, shaking my head. “No …”

  “And when I found out it was Noah, this man I was vaguely aware of … I knew what I had to do. He’d played a dangerous game, and I needed payback. I wasn’t going to settle until I got that, so I waited, patiently, until I was told he was back in Bergen. I waited, because the anger never really subsided. The pain of Maria leaving me – yeah, that had lessened, a little, but the anger only grew stronger, so I knew what I had to do. I put myself where I knew he was going to be; I engineered every meeting we had, every conversation …”

  “He said you were at his birthday party. In Bergen. I didn’t see you there. I mean, I’ve only just realised that, but I – I didn’t see you there …”

  “Because the time wasn’t right. You couldn’t see me there, it was too soon. I had it all worked out, you see. I had to reel him in first, find out just how I could make this work, how I could fuck with him the way he’d fucked with me.”

  His words are killing me. It’s like everything I thought he’d become – that was just a mask. A front. Lies? All lies ...

  “That night, in the bar, the night before …”

  “You were meant to see me, then.”

  “You knew I was going to be there?”

  “I knew everything, Kari.”

  “Jesus …”

  I can’t look at him, I can’t do this, it’s breaking my heart.

  “Noah told me everything, at his birthday party. That was the best opportunity I had to introduce myself; get to know him better. Begin with small talk, move onto work, business, make him comfortable enough to feel like he can talk about things that are a little more – personal. By the end of the night, he was telling me shit he was probably never going to tell anyone else, he opened right up to me, and I in turn opened up to him, enough for him to feel like he could trust me. I told him about the parties I organise, and he told me about your fantasies … as a couple you certainly liked to keep it different, huh?”

  I face him again, and I’m trying not to let him see how much this is hurting me, but it’s hard. It’s so fucking hard.

  “He told me he couldn’t live with the guilt, couldn’t cope with what he’d done. He needed to put things right, he couldn’t live with the fact he’d cheated on you, so I put the idea in his head, Kari. I made him believe that watching you with another man would ease that guilt he was feeling. I made him feel like it was the right thing to do, and in the end he took that idea and he ran with it. Asked me to help him make it happen …” He drops
his gaze again and laughs quietly. “It was perfect. Everything came together like a fucking dream.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” I whisper, and when he looks at me I feel sick, how much of a kick did he get out of this? What kind of man goes to those lengths, to avenge someone who wronged them?

  “All I’d known at the time was that I needed to destroy his life the way he’d destroyed mine.”

  “But you destroyed my life, too, Joe.”

  “No, Kari, he did that. Not me.”

  “You could’ve left us alone. You could’ve just tried to put it behind you.”

  “He slept with my wife.”

  “So, I guess you got what you wanted in the end then, huh? You managed to pull me and Noah apart, destroy us bit by bit until we had no choice left but to walk away from each other. You won. Did that make you feel better? Did you get the revenge you were looking for?”

  “Kari, please …”

  “You never intended for it to be quick, did you? Noah’s punishment. You wanted to string it out, make it last …”

  “He didn’t deserve the easy option.”

  “And what was that, Joe? Hmm? What was that easy option?”

  When I look at him now, it’s like he’s flicked a switch. Like he’s just realised how crazy, how twisted he’d sounded just now and he’s trying to pull it back.

  “Baby, believe me, whatever this started out as, it isn’t how it ended.”

  I get up and walk outside, to the edge of the terrace, gripping the glass barrier as I look out over a pitch-black ocean.

  “As soon as she told me who he was – as soon as I knew it was Noah …”

  He stops talking, and I feel him behind me, but I don’t want him to touch me. The second he tries to I shake off his hand, and he gets the message. But I can still feel him, behind me.

  “When you were finding out everything you needed to know about my husband, Joe, did that include who he was married to?”

  He leaves a beat or two before he responds to that, even though I already know the answer. “I needed to know about you, too, Kari. Who you were, what you did; what you looked like.”

  “Were you watching us?” It’s like listening to the plot from some far-fetched Hollywood movie, I’m struggling to take it all in. “What am I saying, huh?” I spin around to face him. “Of course you were watching us. I should’ve known the answer to that, I mean, you watched me, didn’t you? You always knew where I was, where I’d be …”

  “I did what I had to do, Kari.”

  “You didn’t have to do any of that, Joe. You deliberately set out to hurt us.”

  “To hurt him.”

  “But you hurt me, too! Don’t you see?”

  “I never meant for that to happen.”

  “No, Joe, that’s a lie. You set out to destroy our marriage, not just Noah’s … That night, when we … you knew, and you kept that a secret. You let everything that followed happen, and all the time you knew.”

  I can’t do this, it’s too much.

  “Kari, please, just listen to me …”

  I lean back against the barrier, folding my arms against myself, I’m exhausted. I can’t think straight, I can’t process this properly.

  “All the lies, Joe.”

  “I did what I had to do.”

  “You really think you had to do that?”

  I look up at him, and yes, his eyes are telling me he’s sorry, but it’s too late.

  “I didn’t handle this very well, Kari, I know that now. I just wanted him to feel what I was feeling …”

  “So, you thought fucking me – the wife of the man who wrecked your marriage … an eye for an eye, is that what it was? You thought that was okay, huh?” I turn around and look at him. “What was I, Joe? A pawn in some sick game you were determined to play out?”

  “No, baby, please …”

  “That’s exactly what I was. You planned it all. Everything. When you turned up at the club in Newcastle, you knew exactly what was going to happen, you had all that planned out, too. Right?”

  “I didn’t know I was going to feel what I feel for you now. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you, how the hell could I have known that was going to happen? I wanted to hurt him, Kari. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “But you must’ve known that was inevitable? Or were you really that blinded by your own need for revenge that it just never crossed your mind that that could happen? Or, was collateral damage okay with you? As long as you felt better?”

  He drops his head, and I laugh quietly, I’m right.

  “I didn’t think it through.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “But when I told you I was falling in love with you, that was the truth – is the truth. Look at what we have now? This life, our baby …”

  “Don’t you dare bring Hollie into this. Don’t do that. Don’t use her as a reason to keep us together.”

  “Please, Kari, I’m trying to fix this …”

  “You think I’m going to believe a word you say now? Did you listen to yourself back there? Normal people don’t do that kind of shit, Joe. None of that was right. It’s sick.”

  “Your husband slept with my wife, he killed my marriage, I needed to kill his. And you – you didn’t deserve him.”

  “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

  “I know. I know, and I’m sorry, but I love you, Kari. I love you, so fucking much, and you can choose to believe that or not, but it’s the truth. Whatever this started out as, things changed. I changed.”

  “You haven’t changed. Watching you back there, the way you looked when you were telling me all of that … You haven’t changed. You lied to me, Joe. You lied.”

  “Baby, I’m sorry. If I could turn back the clock …”

  “Always the clichéd crap.”

  “I had to go and see him, Kari. Before he got to you.”

  I frown slightly. “Before he got to me? Before he tried to spin his own set of lies, is that what you mean? Before he had the chance to make you out to be the bad guy? He wouldn’t have been wrong. I can’t trust either of you.”

  I start to walk away but he gently grabs my wrist to stop me. He makes me look at him, and I feel everything from anger, fear and confusion to a real, physical pain that cuts across my chest, it fucking hurts.

  “He wants to break us, Kari. He wants to tear my life apart a second time, and he thought that coming here …”

  “He really had no idea? That the woman he slept with was your wife?”

  “I can’t imagine they swapped much personal information, and she never took my name. Always kept her own, said it was better for her that way. She didn’t want her career influenced by me, didn’t want my name to help her in any way.”

  “You’re divorced now?”

  “Have been for a while. It was all pretty quick, once the truth was out there.”

  “That woman with you, in the picture I showed you, back on Solastranden Beach – that was her. That was Maria.”

  I’m not asking a question because I know it was her. I remember the way his expression changed briefly, when I showed him that photograph, and now I know why. That was her.

  He nods, and I look down, and I realise his hand is holding mine, and while part of me wants to yank it away, I didn’t want him to touch me, another part of me needs that connection to remain, for now. For a minute or two. But then he lets me go, his hand slipping from mine, but I don’t walk away. I stay where I am.

  “Noah’s come here with one intention, Kari. To turn you against me. To make you hate me, mis-trust me, and I know I’ve given you every reason to do just that …”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  Don’t I?

  No. I don’t.

  “But trusting you …?”

  He rests a tentative hand on my hip, and this time I don’t flinch, I let him touch me, again. I let him pull me closer because I’m weak. He made me that way, and I should hate him for that
, but I don’t. I can’t.

  God help me …

  “I should’ve told you sooner,” he murmurs into my hair as he holds me against him, and I cling onto his shirt. “But I was scared, that telling you would …”

  He leaves that sentence hanging, and I look up at him. “Would cause this?”

  “I was – am scared of losing you. Everything I’d done – I was blinkered, all I could see was this need for revenge, but now … now I regret the way I went about that …” He trails off again, and again I look up at him.

  “If you hadn’t done what you did, Joe, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be having this conversation, wouldn’t be scared that everything we had – we wouldn’t be scared of losing it. Would we?”

  He shakes his head, and I step back from him.

  “If you hadn’t done what you did, me and Noah might still be together.”

  His expression changes to one of confusion. “You tried giving him another chance, Kari …”

  “After you’d done what you did, Joe. You’d already put the wheels in motion. I mean, if you’d never looked to take that revenge, if you’d just accepted the end of your marriage …”

  “You think I should’ve just accepted the fact my wife left me because she’d fallen in love with a man who’d used her? Led her to believe that there could be more to their relationship than there was ever going to be?”

  “Can you really blame Noah for making her think that? I mean, neither of us were there, were we? How do you know whose side of the story is really the truth, huh? Maybe there were more cracks in your marriage than you were willing to accept?”

  His eyes suddenly darken, there’s an anger in them that I’ve deliberately provoked, but I want to hurt him, the way he’s hurt me.

  “There were no cracks.”

  “Everything was just perfect, right? Because Joe Millar’s world doesn’t turn to shit, does it? You weren’t used to that, because you just didn’t see it.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kari. You don’t know anything about my marriage.”

  “And you knew nothing about mine. You had no right to bring me into your twisted game.”

  He grabs hold of my wrist again, his eyes clouded by a darkness that’s failing to unsettle me. I’m okay. He’s angry, yeah, well so am I.