The First Taste(82)

“Go to hell,” she says, stepping around me. I gently take her bicep, keeping her closer to me than him. “You’re a sad, lonely man with nothing better to do than swindle people out of their money and make me miserable.”

He laughs loudly. A small crowd has gathered, and a couple teenagers have their cells aimed at us. I wave to get the boys’ attention. They stuff their phones in their pockets before I even say, “Put it away.”

“Sad? Lonely?” Reggie asks. “You don’t know anything about my life. Women smell money, Amelia, and I’ve got lots of it. They’re all over me. But you know something? I haven’t touched a single one. Because I have a good woman at home, one who doesn’t make me want to go find someone else. Virginia is—”

“Virginia?” Amelia asks, her body stiffening against me. “You told me it was over with her.”

“I lied. She’s left Robert. As soon as you and I divorce, I’m proposing to her. She makes me happy, something you never did. She’s there when I leave for work and when I come home. She doesn’t treat me like I’m second place to a job.”

“Is that why you came to my place the other week, begging me to take you back?” she asks.

“You’re right—I must’ve gone temporarily insane,” he says. “You nag, you question every decision I make, you act like I didn’t give you everything. Virginia is grateful and never makes me feel like I’m not enough. She fulfills all my needs—she doesn’t even have to try to be beautiful and sexy, unlike some women.”

“Watch it,” I say, stepping between them. “I’m restraining myself for her sake, but you’re on my last f*cking nerve.”

“If you have all that, then why won’t you let me go?” she pleads.

His eyes go blank, as if she’s just asked him the square root of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I think you should leave,” I tell him.

He doesn’t even look at me. “You first.”

I step closer to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. What I meant was, get the f*ck out of here before I kick your ass all the way to Hoboken.”

Finally, he looks up at me, and for all my rage, the fire in his eyes is a little alarming. Whatever this thing with Amelia is, it runs deep for him.

Before I can figure it out, he sets his jaw and retreats. The haze over his eyes clears, and now, he’s focused on me. “Fine.” He holds up his palms. “I guess she’s allowed a revenge f*ck considering the circumstances. But I know what we have,” he says, “and it doesn’t go away just because I made a mistake.”

He stalks off, roughly pushing his way through the crowd. Once I’m comfortable with his distance, I turn around. “‘A mistake,’” I mock. “He has a seriously f*cked-up perception of reality.”

Amelia’s hunched over with her back to me, pinching the bridge of her nose. I put an arm around her. “Hey,” I say. “He’s gone.”

She ducks away from me too suddenly for me to stop her, especially since it’s the last thing I expect. “I just need a second.”

“That’s fine.” With my arms empty, I cross them over my chest. “What’s going on?”

She shakes her head, looking at the ground. “I can’t believe him. I thought it was over.”

I want to pull her back to me, but I can practically see the emotions working through her. Whatever just caused tears to form at the corners of her eyes is being replaced with anger. As much as I want to do something, I don’t know what will help, so I wait.

“How could he want that home wrecker? I’ve read about adultery, and a lot of the time, infidelity isn’t about romance. Cheaters are selfish, self-indulgent—”

As she talks, I glance at the same spot on the ground she’s staring at. This is why she’s so upset? Because he’s with someone else? I take a deep breath and try not to read into it. As my anger settles, regret replaces it. Regret that I didn’t knock him out cold. Regret that I almost lost my temper. Back in the day, hotheaded reactions were par for the course. But I have too much at stake to fly off the handle now. “Amelia.”

She looks up as if she’d forgotten I was there. “I’m sorry.” She absentmindedly dabs at her eyeliner. “Whenever something is going right for me, he ruins it. It’s like he has a sixth sense.”

“He’s just trying to get under your skin any way he can. He might not even be with her, he’s just using it to get you to react.”

She closes her eyes and nods. “No, I know. You’re right. Still—”

“You should be more upset about the way he spoke to you.”

She puts her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and finally looks up again. “Yeah. He gets like that when he’s hurt or embarrassed. He’s proud.”

“Proud or not, that’s inexcusable.”

“I know. I’m making excuses again.”

“Again?”

She shakes her head. “When I started therapy, I would make excuses for him to Dianne. I thought we’d worked past it, though.”

“Maybe it’s always a work in progress,” I offer, trying to be helpful. I’ve never been much for excuses—making or accepting them. Try as I might, though, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the power he has over her. How he managed to get her into this state within minutes, or how she can’t see through his words. What I do understand, though, is Reggie. Now that Amelia has opened up to me, and now that I’ve met him, I have him pegged. Power. He wielded it over her, and he feels it slipping away. He’s an insecure man who works in one of the most powerful industries in the world in one of the most powerful cities in the world—and it’s a dangerous combination. Power, control, influence. He gets them through sex, money, and love, and he gets those through manipulation, coercion, intimidation. The pieces go together to complete a puzzle. If I can figure him out so quickly, why can’t Amelia?