Chapter 25
James
“They have nothing, James.”
The voice of James’s attorney crackled through the speaker of his phone, offering the exact reassurance James needed to hear.
“Olivia and her lawyer are making a lot of noise with this alienation of affection countersuit, but noise isn't evidence. They have suspicions. They have office gossip, travel overlaps, and wild accusations. But so far, they have produced absolutely zero direct, admissible proof of an affair. Just keep your head down, avoid Amanda publicly, and stop creating scenes.”
James murmured an agreement and ended the call. He leaned back in his leather office chair, a deep, ugly smugness settling into his chest.
He had covered his tracks. He and Amanda had been meticulously, flawlessly careful.
There was no obvious hotel trail booked under their own names.
There were no careless public displays of affection.
They had never sent open, explicit text messages that fully spelled out the affair on their primary devices.
There was absolutely no easy, packaged proof that Olivia could hand to a judge.
He smiled to himself, imagining the impending look on his wife’s face.
He envisioned Olivia standing in a deposition, forced to realize she had overplayed her hand.
She would be humiliated when everyone saw she couldn't prove a single thing.
She would look exactly like the unstable, vindictive woman who ran to her best friend, falsely accused her husband, sued her husband's coworker, and destroyed her own life for nothing.
James didn't feel a shred of regret for what he had done to her. He only thought about winning.
***
The ice clinked in James's scotch glass as he surveyed the upscale hotel bar.
He had been staying there for weeks, living out of suitcases since his house had been broken into, and the feeling of having no control over his own life was eating away at his nerves.
He needed a distraction. He needed something to make him feel like the man he used to be: in control, desired, and powerful.
That was when he spotted her.
She was sitting a few stools down, swirling the stem of a martini glass.
She was blonde, wearing a well-tailored red dress, and exuded an elegant boredom that James knew exactly how to shatter.
He smoothed the jacket of his suit, picked up his glass, and walked over to her, sliding onto the empty stool next to her.
"It's a waste for a woman like you to be drinking alone on a Tuesday night," James said, his voice slipping into that smooth, confident tone he had perfected over the years.
The woman turned her head, sizing him up from head to toe. An approving smile spread across her red lips. "Maybe I was just waiting for someone who had the nerve to keep me company."
"Then I got here just in time. I'm James."
"Vanessa," she replied, crossing her legs in a calculated move. "You look like you're running from something, James. Far too tense for someone staying at a five-star hotel."
James chuckled, leaning against the counter to close the distance between them. "Just an exhausting renovation at my place. Had to hole up here for a bit. But I must admit, the view at the bar just made up for any headache."
The flirting flowed seamlessly. James leaned into his successful, mysterious executive charm. His ego began to swell again with every smile she gave him, every time she casually touched his arm while laughing at something he said. It was easy. It was instinctive. He still had it.
After the second round of drinks, James dropped his voice to a whisper, leaning close to her ear. Her perfume was sweet and inviting.
"You know what, Vanessa? This bar is getting way too loud. I have a much better bottle of wine in my suite upstairs. And a view of the city you really ought to see."
Vanessa bit her lower lip, her eyes gleaming with malice. She didn't hesitate. "Lead the way."
They barely waited for the elevator doors to slide shut.
James pressed her against the mirrored wall of the cabin, capturing her mouth in an aggressive, urgent kiss.
Vanessa groaned, her hands sliding inside his jacket, pulling him closer.
Adrenaline ran hot through James's veins. He was the man in control again.
They stumbled out into the tenth-floor hallway, stifling laughs as they kissed, bumping against the walls. James fumbled with the keycard for a second before the green light flashed.
He pushed the door open, and they tumbled into the darkened room. James kicked the door shut behind them. He shed his jacket and tossed it onto a random armchair. Vanessa was breathless, her eyes full of desire as she pushed him back, guiding him to sit on the edge of the king-size bed.
"Let me," Vanessa whispered, her eyes locked onto his.
She knelt on the thick carpet between James's legs. Her deft hands went straight for his belt, undoing the buckle with a metallic click and tugging his zipper down.
James threw his head back, closing his eyes, ready to taste victory and the release of tension from weeks of humiliation. His mind was in it. He wanted this.
But when he opened his eyes and looked down, his triumph evaporated.
He was entirely limp. Vanessa kept working her hands, putting in the effort, but there was no reaction.
A sickening wave of panic washed over him.
His mind was racing, craving the release, demanding it, but his body stubbornly refused to cooperate.
Something was terribly wrong. And then, it finally hit him.
The position. The angle Vanessa was kneeling at. The way she looked up. Everything was an exact, sickening carbon copy of what had happened days ago in Amanda's living room.
Like a blinding flash, James's mind replaced Vanessa's face. He didn't see the woman from the bar. He saw the wig slipping. He saw Amanda's bald, red, patchy, diseased-looking scalp exposed to the light.
James's stomach churned. A cold wave of revulsion washed over him.
Vanessa tried working with her hands. She used her mouth. She put effort into it, but there was no reaction whatsoever. He was dead to it.
The air in the dark room became suffocating and lethal.
Vanessa stopped. She backed away, sitting on her heels on the floor, and looked down before looking up at James's face.
James felt his face burn with a shame so deep it bordered on nausea. He tried to pull himself together. "I... I had too much scotch. I'm exhausted."
Vanessa forced an understanding smile. She reached out to touch his knee, trying to seem sweet and affectionate. "It's okay, James. Don't worry about it, seriously. It's perfectly normal."
But James noticed.
He saw the slight twitch at the corner of her lips.
He saw her catch her breath. Vanessa was fighting like hell not to laugh.
She pitied him, but more than that, she found the situation pathetic and comical.
That arrogant man, who had exuded confidence at the bar, was now sitting on the edge of the bed, useless.
"It happens to everyone," she added, her voice coming out a pitch higher than normal, confirming her attempt to hold back a laugh.
The humiliation swallowed James whole. He had never felt like such a failure, so emasculated, so pathetic in his life. He shoved her hands away roughly, getting up from the bed and turning his back as he adjusted his pants and pulled up his zipper with hands shaking with rage.
He clenched his fists until his fingernails dug into his palms. He didn't blame himself. He didn't blame the stress. The blame belonged to Amanda. Amanda had ruined him. She had destroyed his marriage, his peace of mind, and now, she had destroyed even his ability to be a man in bed.
Breathing unevenly, consumed by a blind, humiliating hatred, James stood in the hotel room and cursed the moment he had let Amanda into his life.
***
Amanda
Amanda sat at her kitchen island, staring at the large arrangement of white orchids that had been delivered that morning.
There was no signature on the heavy cardstock, only a vague, typed promise: Everything will be okay.
Amanda knew it was from James. He had been making these little gestures over the past few months.
A diamond tennis bracelet had arrived the other day.
Her favorite expensive takeout was delivered with a discreet note that said I love you.
They were small offerings. Proof that he was trying to soothe her temper without truly putting himself on the line.
Amanda traced the petal of an orchid, telling herself the gestures mattered.
She told herself his visceral, horrifying reaction to her hair was just natural. Anyone would be deeply shaken if their lover completely changed their appearance overnight. She tried to convince herself she might have reacted just as strangely if it had happened to him.
She reached up, adjusting the silk scarf wrapped around her head.
The doctors had run a battery of tests, but they had never found anything conclusive.
There was no clear answer. No definitive proof of what had caused the shedding.
She was undergoing expensive topical treatments, and the skin was no longer as raw or frightening as it had been that first morning.
It was taking a long time to return to normal, and it was still devastating.
She told herself the hair loss was temporary—now that her skin looked better, it would grow back.
Money could fix a lot of things. James’s money could fix even more, once this entire nightmare was over.
She had been hard on him, she reasoned. He was going through a messy divorce. He was under immense corporate pressure. He was being targeted by Olivia’s lawsuit, and he had to manage his public image.
Amanda thought of Olivia with a surge of hot, bitter contempt.
She was furious that the frumpy, chubby baker had the nerve to sue her for alienation of affection. In Amanda’s mind, Olivia was a useless, pathetic, greedy woman who couldn't keep her husband satisfied. Amanda wanted to see Olivia try to prove a single thing in a courtroom.
Amanda smiled tightly to herself, leaning back in her chair. She had been careful from the very beginning. She hadn't risked her career for amateur mistakes. She hadn't risked James’s career, either.
They had been so smart. Using her sister’s name for reservations when needed.
Prepaid cards when they could get away with them.
Cash whenever a hotel allowed it. Choosing expensive, highly discreet hotels where discretion was part of the price, places that knew better than to ask unnecessary questions, even if cameras, clerks, and records still existed somewhere.
Avoiding any obvious electronic trail that tied them together too neatly.
Amanda believed Olivia had absolutely nothing. No hard proof. No clean paper trail. No way to show a judge the full, undeniable shape of the affair.
Soon, Amanda told herself, all of this chaotic noise would end.
James would survive the divorce with his assets intact.
Olivia would lose the narrative, humiliated in court.
Leo would be successfully painted as the predatory man who pulled a fragile wife away.
And Amanda would finally take the place she firmly believed was hers.
Mrs. James Williams.
She savored the fantasy, finishing her coffee.
***
The next afternoon, the doorman sent up a thick manila envelope.
There was no return address. At first, Amanda assumed it was another piece of jewelry or an apology gift from James. She carried it to the sofa, sliding her manicured finger under the seal.
She pulled out a stack of glossy, high-resolution photographs.
Amanda froze.
The initial image showed James sitting in a dimly lit, expensive restaurant.
He wasn't alone. He was with a woman—a beautiful, blonde woman.
In the next shot, James was leaning in too close across the table, his hand resting intimately over hers.
Then came a photo taken in a carpeted hotel hallway.
James was pressing the blonde woman against the wall, kissing her deeply, his hand tangled in her hair.
Another photo was time-stamped for the next morning. James was walking her out of the hotel room, fixing his tie.
But it didn't stop there. As she flipped through the stack, the blonde woman disappeared, replaced by a brunette in the exact same hallway. Then a redhead at the same restaurant table. There were dozens of them. Different faces, different nights. It was a carousel of women.
Pure, blinding rage hit Amanda so hard she physically staggered back against the sofa.
She screamed. A raw, guttural sound of pure agony.
She tore through the rest of the photos, frantically searching for some logical explanation, some angle that would make them less real. There was none.
None of these women were Olivia. None of them were Amanda.
James had been playing the tragically wounded husband at the office. He had been playing the devoted, apologetic lover to Amanda, sending her expensive orchids and diamond bracelets. And the entire time, he had been taking a string of other women to a hotel.
Amanda began to spiral. The room spun wildly around her. She felt humiliated in the exact, excruciating way she had once so thoroughly enjoyed watching Olivia be humiliated.
She couldn't stop looking at the photos. With shaking hands, Amanda tipped the envelope upside down.
A small, thick piece of cardstock fell out and landed on the coffee table.
There was a phone number written on it in black ink. Underneath the number was a single, typed warning:
He can go down alone, or you can go down with him.
Amanda stared at the words, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps.
The message was crystal clear.
Her mind raced, connecting the terrifying dots.
Amanda realized with sickening clarity that she might not be the woman James ultimately chose. She might just be the next woman he discarded to save himself.
She grabbed her phone with trembling fingers.
Amanda looked at the photos one more time, then at the card. For almost a year, she had helped James make Olivia look like an absolute fool. Now, someone was standing in the shadows, offering her a very simple choice: remain a fool, or make him bleed first.
She dialed the number before she could talk herself out of it.
If James wanted to leave someone buried under his lies, it was not going to be her.