4. Clementine
CHAPTER 4
Clementine
G rayson and I had been married for two years, and our story was the most romantic whirlwind romance.
When I saw this big man in a suit come into the coffee shop where I worked, my jaw almost dropped to the floor. He was older, but he had this air of sophistication to him. The guys my age were still wearing sloppy sweats or trying to get booty calls.
Not Grayson. He was so tall, his well-made blue suit stretched across huge broad shoulders and chest, legs like tree trunks. Piercing blue eyes and a strong, well-made face with a sharp jaw.
He was respectful, too, making polite conversation, and when he asked me out, it was for a real date, to a real restaurant, not some darts tournament that was only an excuse to feel me up.
When we got married, I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world.
I was 23 and he was 37, and now at 39 he was hotter than ever, the kind of man women stared at in the street, blushed when he held a door open, and shot envious glances my way, as if to say,
How the fuck did you pull this absolute unit?
Was Grayson not as immune to all this attention as I thought he was?
After the play, I couldn’t shake the feeling this time. And I couldn’t help noticing things.
It did feel like he’d been pulling away lately.
Even more late nights at the office.
And the way he touched me at night. . .
Sometimes it seemed like he came home late at night just to avoid having to talk to me or kiss me.
I tried asking him if anything was wrong, if he was under stress at work.
When did tax season begin? Surely not in October.
But he always brushed my concerns off.
Grayson was a thoughtful and diligent husband. No matter how late he worked he still did the dishes, thanked me for dinner, made sure the lawn was mowed and my car had gas in it.
So what was it?
I felt ashamed of myself, like I was betraying his trust in me, even to have these suspicions.
It wasn’t like there was lipstick on his collar.
My mind went back to Vivi. She hadn’t flirted with him.
But still. There was something beyond ordinary dislike in her look.
There was something . I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but there was something wrong.
I contemplated life as the wronged wife.
What that what was happening?
Was my husband unable to keep it in his pants, maybe bored by his shy and nervous wife? Did he want some kind of weird sex thing that he couldn’t get from me?
I toyed with the idea of announcing that he could tie me up and spank me with a paddle, if he so wished, but the whole thing seemed so incredibly embarrassing that I could not.
In some ways Grayson and I had a very formal relationship. At first, I had thought nothing of it. It was wonderful having a gentlemanly man who treated me right, asked about my day and my work, listened to the answers. He was even a very good cook!
But, I realized uneasily, he never really talked about himself. I knew very little about his background or his family, just that his parents had died over ten years ago. And we rarely talked about us , like our future goals or where we wanted to be in five years. And, strangely, even though he said he wanted to have kids, he always brushed off any attempt on my part to ask when .
I tried to shove down my nerves and worry, but I wasn’t successful.
Then one day I got a call from my dad Harvey.
He’d been arrested for large-scale governmental fraud.
I listened to the list of charges with bewildered confusion.
It wasn’t that I was surprised my father was getting arrested for fraud. But the scale of the charges shocked me. He wasn’t the mastermind type!
Hanging up the phone, my hands were trembling.
These charges were serious. They could put him away for a long time with this.
And there was only one person in the world who could help me untangle the mess of what to do. I called Grayson, but he didn’t answer.
Then I called his accounting firm, but there was no answer either.
“Leave a message, for Thomas & Thomas Associates,” the voice mail called out, in rumbling, sonorous tones.
Who was the other Thomas? I wondered, not for the first time.
Probably Williams on the call. He had a low melodic voice like that.
I felt frantic with worry, panic coursing through my body.
The first step was to get Dad a lawyer, right?
Then figure out how to post bail for him.
I called his cellphone again. Normally I tried to be cool and not a freak-out disaster, but when my husband didn’t answer again I tried one more time, then left a voicemail.
“Hi, it’s me. Can you please call me back? I think my dad is in some big trouble this time and I need your help to get him out!”
I had no clue where he was!
Pacing up and down the length of our huge, bright kitchen, I wondered what to do. Grayson had always said there was no point in putting the address to his accounting firm in my phone because he was often gone for meetings. I had only been to the vague gray office building downtown a few times and was pretty sure I couldn’t find it again.
In desperation, I went into the garage to look through his work vehicle. Maybe it would give me some clue about how to find him.
I rummaged around in the console. Nothing. This was probably pointless. Grayson was so spotlessly neat and tidy. What did I think I was going to find? A hand-written card from the dentist saying he had an appointment at 2:20 pm?
I yanked at the glove box, and, finally, I did find something.
Tumbling out into my hands was. . . a pair of panties.
A thong, actually.
A lacy, scarlet thong.
I stared at it in incomprehension.
Was this a fucking Lifetime movie?
It wasn’t mine.
Couldn’t possibly be mine.
Then where the fuck. . .
My blood ran cold, and turned and headed directly for his home office.
Normally I rarely went into Grayson’s office. Not because it was forbidden, or anything like that. Just because everything my husband did was so neat and tidy, almost minimalist, that there was nothing interesting in there.
He had showed me his work laptop once—all a bunch of boring-looking accounting programs and various spreadsheets with numbers that all ran together.
When I raced in there, the panties still ridiculously clutched in my first, I forced my fingers to open, the silky garment falling onto the thick cream-colored carpet.
I was way past pretending to be self-confident and assured now, yanking at his desk drawers, spilling their contents on the floor.
Not much in there really.
Then I turned to the file cabinets, and when I pulled them open to rifle through the paperwork, my jaw dropped in astonishment.
What I had assumed were file folders organized with mathematical precision were just. . . stacks of nothing. Stacks and stacks of blank papers, neatly placed between tabs with different years.
Why the fuck would you go to that kind of effort? When even do that at all? What was the point of it? There was nothing incriminating on them. They were literally pages and pages of blank paper.
Unless, of course, you wanted it to look like you had years of tax returns, but didn’t actually have any tax returns, because you knew that shit was boring as fuck and no one would have even the slightest interest in digging through them.
Then something fell out.
A phone.
Maybe it was just an old one. But it didn’t look old.
A second phone.
Oh, fuck.
It looked shiny and new and I picked it up.
Immediately the phone demanded the passcode, and the panic pumping through my veins increased.
Well, this was fucking new, wasn’t it?
I tried the date of our wedding.
Nope.
My birthdate.
Nope.
The date we’d met.
Nope.
Damn! My fingers hovered over the phone. I thought about doing a date for either of his parents, but I didn’t know much about them.
What did I even know about my husband?
He didn’t want to talk about his job. He didn’t want to talk about his past.
I only had one more attempt until I’d be locked out.
Forcing my pounding heart to slow down, I typed in
2008.
The date his NY Giants had won the Super Bowl with that helmet catch.
Click.
I was in.
Maybe that wasn’t the most romantic date, but that didn’t mean anything, right?
There were no text messages and his email was password protected. Desperately, I flipped to Find my Friends.
I was surprised to see a little dot on the screen.
Grayson had said it was work policy not to have tracking on his phone. But he was showing up!
He was at the Greenbriar Luxury Suites.
Now why was he there ?
I felt a prickling uneasiness break out all over my skin, a wave of panic washing over me, my heartbeat pounding in my chest.
My ears felt funny, like I couldn’t hear properly.
What in the world was going on? For a moment I contemplated hiding under my covers and pretending like nothing was wrong.
But I knew I had to find out. Whatever this was, I was getting to the bottom of it.
So I grabbed my car keys and headed over.
As I parked and walked inside, I tried to shake off this feeling of dread.
Come on, did I really think my perfect husband Grayson was doing anything wrong? He was the most straight-arrow person I knew, scrupulous and precise in everything he did.
Maybe there was a meeting here.
That was it.
The Associated Accounting Associates of America meeting or something. And I was going to walk inside, see Grayson delivering a speech on cash flow and depreciation, or whatever the fuck he did, since he wasn’t one who liked to talk about work much.
But when I went inside there was nothing. I checked each of the conference rooms, feeling panic slice through my chest.
Where was he?
Wondering at my own boldness, since normally I was a very shy person, I went up to the desk clerk.
“I lost my room key,” I said. “My husband Grayson Bentley and I are staying here and I don’t want to wake him up in case he’s napping.”
“What’s your room number?” the clerk asked.
“I don’t remember,” I said, holding his eyes and trying to look innocent.
“Sure, honey,” the desk clerk said, winking at me and handing over a key. “Room 302. Just don’t tell anyone I did this.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the key with cold, numb fingers.
So he was here.
My fingers were like ice by the time I reached 302.
The door opened and I slipped inside, taking care not to make any noise.
And I saw Grayson there in bed with her.
With Vivi.
They were facing in my direction, but they were both way too occupied to notice me.
She was on her hands and knees on the bed in front of him, her eyes closed as he pounded into her from the back. Vivi was making breathy moans of pleasure as he sunk his cock deep inside her.
“Yes, baby,” she moaned. “Give it to me, boss man.”
Oh my god .
Grayson was behind her, both big hands on her ass, yanking her hips back to meet his thrusts, their naked flesh connecting in sharp, wet smacks.
My legs seemed frozen in place, and I couldn’t tear my horrified eyes away.
The way there was a sheen of sweat on Grayson’s chest, like they’d been fucking for hours.
The way his thick gold wedding band shone against her pale skin.
The way he was thrusting into her so hard I could see the base of his thick dick every time he pulled out only to slam back in her.
The way there were a few discarded condom wrappers on the pure white sheets.
Fuck. They had been doing it for hours.
The room stank of sex and heat.
“You like taking my fat dick?” my husband growled, and I wanted to vomit.
“Yes, baby!” she squealed. “Oh my god, I’m going to come.”
He grunted in response, his heavy balls slapping her stupid perky ass cheeks.
“I’m going to unload my fat sack in you,” Grayson said, and I felt like I was going to faint on the floor.
I wanted to rage at him, but I was ashamed to feel my eyes fill with tears and all I could muster was one croaked,
“ Grayson .”
His head jerked up to mine, and I thought I’d never forget the way his broad chest was heaving, the way his face was tight with lust, how hungry he was to come in his perfect beautiful blonde coworker’s pussy.
And he didn’t even look embarrassed or ashamed!
“Oh, Clementine.”
Like I didn’t matter at all.
The tears were running down my cheeks now.
“What are you doing?” I cried, biting my lip to stop myself from blubbering.
I thought he’d apologize, say he was sorry.
Isn’t that what cheating husbands did when they were caught?
Make excuses, beg their wives to forgive them.
Promise they’d never do it again.
Something.
But he just pulled himself out of her pussy with a wet sucking sound, the condom slick and wet on his dick.
He didn’t even bother covering his erect cock up.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen it before. Whenever he wanted sex, I was eager to give it to him. But apparently I wasn’t giving it to him the right way or he wouldn’t be here fucking Vivi.
“How—how could you do this to me?” I cried, the tears streaming down my face. “Dad’s—dad’s just been arrested. I’m so stressed right now that I can’t think straight. Please—p-please, we can work through this, but I really need you right now, please come help!”
And my husband stood up then, towering over me with his great height, and pulled on his pants, grabbing his aviator sunglasses.
“if they just arrested Harvey, I better go,” he said, turning to Vivi.
Not me!
“You mean go to help dad?” I asked eagerly.
Grayson turned to fully look at me for the first time, fixing me with those piercing blue eyes. I had always done whatever he wanted, whatever those blue eyes asked me to do.
“No, Clementine. I’m not going to help him. I’ve been working for the last two years to build a case against your father.”
“Two years?” I cried. “But that’s how long we’ve been married.”
Grayson smiled, without humor.
“You might as well know now. I’m not an accountant. I’m an FBI agent, and I’ve been deep undercover as your husband to get enough evidence to take your dad down in court. The department will be in touch with you about some paperwork.”
My jaw dropped, and there was a ringing in my ears.
“B-but, you’re making it sound like our marriage was just a job to you!” I protested.
I heard Vivi’s low mocking laugh on the bed and I couldn’t bear to look at her.
Even though I suspected him of cheating, I never doubted he loved me.
Not my considerate husband. Not the man who remembered anniversaries like clock-work, the man who always planned ahead for dinner dates, split kitchen duties.
“It was,” he said, pulling a shirt on over the thick bands of muscles on his chest, the fabric sticking to his slick skin.
I couldn’t bear the smirk on Vivi’s face, the way she settled back casually against the pillows, as if she had complete confidence that he’d be coming back to her.
“Tell me when you’re done,” she said. “We’ll go out for a drink to celebrate.”
“Please, Grayson!” I begged, grabbing at his waist as he stalked by me. “I’ll do anything! Just don’t divorce me!”
“I’m sorry, Clementine,” he said, his deep voice falling like shards of sharp, unbreakable ice. “It was a job. Nothing personal.”
Then he shook me off and walked out the door.
The room seemed to spin crazily around me, and I clutched the hotel walls, trying to stumble after him.
But Grayson just walked on. Tall, cocky, assured.
No matter what I did, no matter what I said, he peeled me off him with hard hands and walked on. Without a second glance, shattering everything I thought I knew about my life.
I wish I could say I spit at the back of him, but I didn’t.
When he left, I chased that goddamn cop car all the way down the road until he sped up and left me in the dust.