11. Miranda
11
MIRANDA
S hiloh, my business partner, who isn’t actually my business partner since she refuses to accept the title, slips into my car before fighting past her crazy curls to grab the seat belt latch.
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming. You are usually half an hour early…” She stops talking with the silver part of the belt suspended in midair.
I start to panic that I wear harlot well when she slings her eyes to me so fast that I’m certain she’ll be out of commission for a month with whiplash.
She doesn’t speak. She just stares, her gawk a cross between admiration and disgust.
The cause of her alarm dawns when she murmurs, “It worked.”
Since she isn’t asking a question, more summarizing, I remain quiet.
“The teddy worked.”
She looks like she wants to vomit. Since it is a rare expression for her to wear, I double the urge by waggling my brows.
Shiloh pushes past the carrot I’m dangling in front of her, going straight for the juicy slice of cake our out-of-town meetings usually inspire.
Roy has me on a banned list at all bakeries and cafes within fifteen miles of our home.
“Nope. No. I refuse to believe it.” She finishes latching her belt so I can begin our trip to our latest client’s chosen wedding location. “I’ve known Roy for as long as I’ve known your sexy ass. He doesn’t have this ”—she wiggles her perfectly polished nails in my face—“in him.” I roll my eyes when she says, “Where the hell has my I-haven’t-climaxed-in-my-entire-adult-life boss gone? This hussy ain’t her.”
She sniffs me, doubling the heat of the stare of the person stopped at the traffic light next to us. He looks as desperate to take a bite out of Shiloh’s booty as Nero was mine last night.
“How many times did you orgasm over the weekend? From the sweat slicking your skin, I’d say over half a dozen.” She tsks, her head cracking side to side. “So I stand by my statement. Roy does not have this in him.”
I hold on for as long as I can before breaking the news, and then I try to take the non-adulterous route.
“Roy filed for divorce on day zero of the four-day anniversary-moon vacation I forced him to take so we could spend some quality time together.”
Shiloh scoffs, but that’s the beginning and end of her reply.
“It was couriered to me while he was in a honeymoon suite… with his mistress.”
She’s practically panting, dying for me to continue.
Since I am just as desperate to move through my shock of the past few days, I continue.
“While wearing the teddy you mentioned earlier, I went to the hotel to confront him.”
If she gets up in my business any more, she’ll be sitting on my lap. That’s how close she sits to make sure she doesn’t miss a word I speak.
“Roy wasn’t the only person in the room when I let myself in.”
My silence leaves Shiloh no option but to interrupt. “Someone was there with him?” When I nod, her mouth falls open. “His mistress?”
“No,” I answer a little too loudly. I startle the commuter next to us as much as the person behind him does when they beep, announcing to him the light has switched to green. I shift to first while saying, “It was the husband of his mistress.”
That sounds bad even to me, but Shiloh acts oblivious. “Holy shit cakes. So the people who were being cheated on cheated with each other?”
I hate the way she makes it sound, but there’s no denying the truth.
I nod, and again, Shiloh’s mouth falls open. “What did he look like? Was he hot? Did he have tattoos? Did he do nasty shit to you? Was he everything Roy will never be?”
My nods are endless, and they feel as freeing as Nero’s attention has made me.
“He was…” I bite my bottom lip, and Shiloh goes crazy. She rocks her hips and makes inappropriate noises like I wasn’t married the last time we spoke.
“Miranda!” She looks like she wants to pinch my cheeks like my aunts did in my youth. “I’m so fucking happy for you. This is exactly what you need.”
“It’s not like that,” I say, shifting gears. I bought a stick shift car on purpose. It means Roy can never borrow it. He can’t multitask, so steering and changing gears is above his skill set. “It was just an at the time type of thing.”
Shiloh sinks into her seat, her exhale a harrumph.
She only stays down for half a second. “Then why do you smell like a hot hunk of a man now? Your anniversary was four days ago.” Her tongue slithers like Hannibal. “I can practically taste the testosterone slicking your skin. If this god, who finally showed you what you’re worth, used protection, he must have marked his territory all over you with the remnants left in the bottom of the condom and you refused to shower.”
“You’re disturbing,” I say with a laugh, stupidly nervous.
“And straight up fucking honest. The hotter your cheeks become, the more cum I smell.” An inane amount of jealousy smacks into me when she breathes in deeply and then releases it with a moan. “It is too fresh to act like it was from days ago.”
“Because it isn’t,” I admit, talking slowly. “He came over last night.” She pants like a dog in heat, impatiently waiting. “And should be gone by now since Tempy?—”
“He stayed to watch Tempy?”
“No… he… ah… He said he would wait for her to finish breakfast and then take her outside to go potty before locking up for me.” That couldn’t sound more domestic if I had planned it. “I was running late. We… ran a little over on an activity this morning, so I…” I give in. “So he agreed to watch Tempy for me until it was her naptime.”
Shiloh squeals. “He spent the night and watched your baby! Are you sure you’re not already married?”
I wish divorce litigation worked that fast. “He stayed because he had something important to tell me, and I delayed the process because he likes feeding me as much as he loves eating me.”
Where the hell did that hussy come from? I should be fuming mad that my naked derriere was uploaded to the world wide web. Or at the least, panicked. But Nero’s attention has made my confidence so high unwanted attention a video like that could stir up doesn’t seem as taunting as it once did.
Shiloh stares at me with her mouth hanging open and her eyes bulging. “He likes to… eat …” She lowers her eyes to my crotch hidden by a momma pouch I have no right to have. “Down there?”
I’ve not kept a single thing from her in the five years we’ve worked together, so I won’t now.
I nod, my cheeks turning the color of beets.
“And he loves feeding you?”
The heat turns excruciating as I recall our time in my kitchen. The oven was on, but it wasn’t the reason the cookies were as hard as rocks this morning. They were meant to be cooling, not facing an extensive re-bake.
It takes Shiloh just as long to remember I am married as it did me this morning when I contemplated kissing Nero goodbye.
Rebound fucks don’t kiss each other goodbye, but it took me longer than I care to admit to work that out only thirty minutes ago.
“And where was Roy during this… foray ?”
“Um…” I pause, swallow, then try again. “The first time, he was in the closet.”
She slaps my arm in shock so firmly that I veer into oncoming traffic.
I’ve only just righted the van, saving our lives, when she asks, “The closet of the hotel where you did the nasty with his mistress’s husband?”
I nod, words above me.
“It could have been worse,” I stammer out when her silence has me desperate for noise. “I could have arrived after Nero had finished what he went there to start.”
To shock someone like Shiloh into silence is scary.
I’ve never seen her so quiet.
“Nero?” she says a short time later, her throat working hard to swallow.
The hair I pulled back in a hurry bobs when I nod.
Her brow is as piqued as her interests. “What hotel did you say it was, again?”
“I didn’t.” My voice is rife with suspicion. Shiloh looks like she’s seen a ghost. That only happens when she has.
“It wasn’t on Westward Boulevard, was it?”
Time slows to a snail’s pace when I slowly jerk up my chin. “Have you heard of it before? It is relatively new.”
Her nod is slow. It is as timed as the words she speaks next. “It is owned by the groom-to-be we’re about to cater for, and everyone this side of the country knows his business partner on that particular project, and many others around Vegas, is named Nero.” She sinks low in her seat, her confusion picking up. “So did you mix pleasure with business, or did Nero take the pleasure out of his business?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, too confused to try to work through my bewilderment alone.
Shiloh waits a beat before saying, “That hotel, and numerous others on the strip, cater for a certain clientele.”
I nod, recalling the guest in the elevator who mistakenly believed I was a hooker.
“The hotel is co-owned by a man named Nero.” The pieces are slowly slotting into place, so Shiloh whacks them in with a hammer. “So why would Nero’s wife pick that hotel out of all the hotels in Vegas to get naughty with another man?”
That’s a good question, and one I don’t know how to answer.
Mercifully, Shiloh isn’t quiet when she is confused.
She works through her uncertainty out loud.
“She’d have to have a death wish… or she wanted Nero to find out. Those are the only two plausible explanations.” Her words slow as her brows pull together. “Unless…” Worry crosses her cutesy features, hardening them. “When did you say Roy filed, again? Date and time?”
“Friday afternoon around five. Why?”
She looks like she wants to slice Roy’s balls off, and I’m right there with her when she says, “Close of business for all banks, insurance agencies, and superannuation funds.”
This time, I veer into oncoming traffic on purpose.