Chapter 5 - Ben #2
“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate or put any emotion into the word. She was simply confirming that my leaving was what she wanted.
“I’ll let you know where I’m staying after I get a room.” I crouched down beside her chair and tried to reach for her hand. She pulled it away with a look of disgust.
“Please don’t.” she murmured and looked away. I swallowed hard but stayed crouched. She had never resisted my attempts to grovel before.
“Don’t tell you where I’m staying or don’t touch you?” I questioned. I had a feeling she meant both.
“Both.” It was barely a whisper, but she said it just loud enough where I could hear her.
I nodded and looked down at the boards of the deck.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you.” I finally said and waited a few seconds before meeting her eyes again, “I know you don’t believe me, but I love you.” Her eyes bore into mine before they drifted over my shoulder to that cursed hot tub.
“Ok.” She sounded exhausted and slowly rose to her feet.
She drifted back into the house, and I followed behind, watching as she set her empty cup in the sink.
“I’m going to lay down. Lock up on your way out.
” She picked a spot on the wall over my shoulder to stare at while she spoke to me.
“I don’t need you to tell me where you wind up. ”
“Melanie, I will give you tonight, but after work tomorrow, I’m coming home to fix this.” My words came out harsher than I had intended, but I was starting to get frustrated by her apathy.
She didn’t reply and disappeared up the stairs without a single glance back at me.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
A hotel close to work had a luxury suite available, and while the plan was to convince my wife to let me come home the next day, I still booked it for the full weekend just in case.
I texted Melanie the hotel and room number for where I was staying— a text she left unread.
Angela hadn’t stopped trying to call me, so once I was settled in the room, I started doing some damage control and called her back.
“Benji, where are you?” she demanded.
“Angela, I’m staying at a hotel for now.” I kept my voice gentle.
All week, I had been handling Angela with extreme care while I tried to figure out how I was going to get rid of her. Even before Melanie had gotten back things had started to unravel.
Peter had been suspicious when my wife couldn’t get ahold of me, the guys didn’t know where I was, but his secretary had been able to hunt me down. He had been watching our interactions all week and even questioned me outright on why I had stayed behind when my family clearly needed me.
It was true that I had an important client who was only going to be in town Monday, but I could’ve followed my wife home afterwards. I wanted to, but I was too worried about leaving Angela behind unsupervised after how angry she had been over me leaving her condo to comfort my wife.
She had hidden her craziness well— until the moment I told her that I had to go. Right before my eyes, she transformed into a massive problem.
“I have to go; my wife needs me.” I mouthed to Angela as I finished buttoning up my pants.
She sat up and scowled at me.
“What do you mean?!” She mouthed back and waved her arms. The sheet she had been holding to her chest fell to her lap, and I was temporarily distracted by the sight.
“Benji!” She hissed. I quickly muted my phone and shot her a pissed off look. “What do you expect me to tell Peter to explain how I got ahold of you so quickly?” She snapped. I stared at her, and panic rose in my chest. The situation was already spiraling out of control.
“Think of something. I have to go; I’ll probably be out of the office this week.” I slipped on my shoes and started towards her door. The words that she threw after me in such a casual, cold tone froze me:
“Don’t expect me to lie to my boss for you Benji. I won’t lose my job for a man who doesn’t respect me.”
I promised to call her after I got my wife to the airport and then got the hell out of there. I had never given the psycho any reason to think I would be hers, but reactions like that were exactly why I had always followed my ‘no coworkers and one night only’ rules.
When I finally called her, I had to convince her that rushing to my wife wasn’t a lack of respect for her but an obligation that couldn’t be avoided. She didn’t buy it until I assured her that I wasn’t joining my wife in North Dakota. I never told her that I was staying for her.
No, unfortunately, she took my staying behind to babysit her crazy ass as a sign that I wanted more. She had even convinced herself that I was going to leave my wife. Even though, until tonight, I hadn’t touched her all week.
“Which one? I’ll come to you.” She purred.
“I need time to figure out what’s going on.” I took a deep breath, “She could have eyes on me and if she had proof of you coming here it would look very bad to a judge.”
There was no way that I would let it get that far, but it sounded convincing.
“I’ll wear a disguise.” She giggled, as if she'd just announced a fun game. I rolled my eyes.
I will never break my ‘no coworkers’ rule again.
“Angela… why did Peter call me?” I needed to know how much she had told him.
“Oh, I—“ she sounded nervous. “When I tried calling you and you didn’t answer I got worried that she had done something…”
“Hmmm…” I hummed through a clenched jaw.
“I just told him that your wife had caught us and was very angry and I was worried about you and might need to take tomorrow off.” She continued.
She had taken my lack of response as a good thing and sounded far less worried.
“I know this isn’t how you would’ve wanted to announce our relationship but I—“
“Angela, we need to be very careful.” I interrupted, “If you are at work telling people that we’ve been having an affair how do you think that’s going to impact a divorce? If I lose my job and enact the infidelity clause in my prenup our future is ruined.” I let the words sink in.
The bitch had already caused enough damage when she lied to Melanie and told her that I had made promises to leave my wife and said that she had been at a spa instead of a funeral. Neither statement was true, but both were so damning it would take weeks of groveling to repair.
“What do you mean ruined?” She squeaked.
“Not only would I be financially ruined, but I don’t know if I could forgive you…
” I trailed off and sighed. “Maybe I could, I mean I’d want to but, Angela.
.. I’m a man and if everything I’ve worked for gets ripped away because of office gossip—because you said too much—I think my pride would get in the way of any future for us.
” I knew that threatening to rip away a future I had only just verbalized was in her reach was a powerful motivator.
She didn't need to know that it had never been, nor would ever be, a possibility.
I could hear her pacing.
“Alright, so damage control… what do we do?”
“You could—no, I couldn’t ask you to do that. We will find another way.”
“I could what?”
“Maybe, if you told Peter that there had been some inappropriate flirting, but nothing physical, until you decided to follow me home tonight…”
“He will fire me…” she sounded appalled.
“Maybe not. You are very good at your job.”
“How does that even help you… we were literally caught in the act tonight?” Angela argued.
“If we make it sound like it was just a one-time error in judgment, after weeks of being pursued, they won’t be able to fire me.
I’ll work on convincing Melanie not to void the prenup over one mistake but if the narrative given by my employer is that we’ve been screwing for weeks she’s definitely going to be laughing all the way to the bank and then Peter will probably have HR fire me and sue me for breach of contract by having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate without the proper documentation.
” I let real panic slip into the last half of my explanation.
This was one of the few times when sincerity was in my best interest.
“I’m not comfortable taking the full blame for this…” Angela sounded scared.
“Hun, if I keep my job and Melanie doesn’t get to bankrupt me, then money won’t be a concern.” I cooed.
For me.
“You’ll take care of me?” She pressed, looking for assurances that if she sacrificed herself, it wouldn’t be for nothing.
“When I’m divorced, I’ll be able to give you the world.”
Technically, nothing I said was a lie. If I planned on getting a divorce and Melanie didn’t take half my stuff, and I didn’t lose my job… I would be able to give Angela the world.
If I wanted to.
I just left out that I had no desire to get a divorce or be with her.