Dead to Her(14)

Jason laughed, suddenly aware of how sharp he’d sounded. “Unless you’re as lucky as me.” He wasn’t fooling anyone, and Keisha glanced over at Marcie, her look a blend of humor and victory. Marcie forced her whole body to stay relaxed, as if his words had washed over her into nothing.

“It’d take some spending to max out my credit cards, Jason.”

“True.” Jason gave William a rueful smile. The edge in the atmosphere softened but Marcie had definitely heard some bite there. What was the matter with him?

“But that’s a thought for another day,” William said. “Right now I’m enjoying being home and settling back in with my lovely new wife.”

“We missed you while you were away.” Marcie took another sip of her wine. It was going to her head, the small salad she’d ordered yet to arrive. Elizabeth had been right about the service here. Had anyone truly missed William? she wondered. Unlikely. It had all been so miserable in the months before he left. Eleanor slowly dying, elegantly at first and then getting oddly confused about things when it spread to her brain. Crying about Lyle as if he’d only just died rather than over a decade ago. Then that awful day—my pearls my South Sea pearls where are my pearls—incessant and endless and so upset, hands fluttering, eyelids twitching, until Jason and Elizabeth finally found the necklace out by the pool house.

Iris would wheel her around the club like some reminder of all their mortality while the men played golf, everyone pretending it was going to be fine when it wasn’t. Even William started to shrink away from her toward the end, as if her impending death were contagious, flirting with some waitress at the club to cling to life. Yes, he’d been heartbroken when Eleanor died, but he’d also been relieved, and when he took his grief to Europe for the year, that had been a relief for everyone else. They could get on with living their wonderful lives. Maybe that’s why even Iris and Noah had taken to Keisha. No one wanted miserable William back. Although, for Marcie at least, that would have been preferable to him returning with her.

“Shall we get another bottle?” Keisha asked. “It’s so lovely here.”

“Not for me, I’ve got my car,” Marcie said. She’d had too much already.

“Lucky you. I can’t drive that big thing Eleanor had. I’m used to something smaller. Something zippy.”

“Why don’t we go and choose you a car this afternoon?” William took her hand. Marcie snorted quietly behind her own wineglass. Keisha was so blatant and William ridiculous for not seeing through her. How could a clever man be so stupid? They deserved each other.

“I’ve got a few things I should do back at the office. Or,” Jason said, before looking over at Marcie, no hint of the black cloud of moments ago, “I could play hooky and spend the afternoon with my own gorgeous wife.” He winked at her. “A little siesta?”

She laughed and her heart melted. Even more so when she caught the downturn in Keisha’s mouth. Disgruntled. Heat flushed between her thighs, as much from her small victory as from the idea of an afternoon in bed with her handsome husband.

“We’re lucky men, Jason Maddox,” William said, holding his glass up to toast this moment of male pride.

“Amen to that.” Jason clinked and they both drank. Despite the sudden lift in her mood, Marcie had never felt more like a trophy. Bought and paid for rather than won.



The sex they had that afternoon was wild and urgent. Aggressive and mutually demanding. Nothing was off limits, like in the old days of illicit thrilling meetings in hotel rooms. They were absorbed in each other, the heat and the wine and the late-afternoon decadence bringing out the beasts in their blood as they laughed and panted and bit and wrestled. By the time they had finally finished, she stank of him and he of her, and they were filled with the taste of each other. She ached deep in her muscles, but it was a pleasant pain, a reassurance that her marriage was fine. He wasn’t bored. She wasn’t bored.

Jason rolled onto his side and up on one elbow, gazing at her for a long moment, not studying her body, but looking her right in the eye.

“What?”

“I need you to be her friend.”

Goose bumps prickled across Marcie’s skin. “How do you mean?”

“Keisha.”

“I know who you mean. But why?”

“This business of wanting William to go back to work. Change her mind.”

She was fully alert now, all sense of relaxed joy evaporating like the dregs of a glorious dream. Was this what the afternoon together had been leading up to? Sex was a woman’s tool—had it just been used against her?

“He was supposed to be gone for a year.” His eyes had moved away from her, staring out toward the French windows at the far end of the bedroom, focused on something she couldn’t see. The chess board of his mind moving pieces around.

“So?” She needed more information.

“I started making a few changes already. I don’t want him coming in and trying to keep us as stagnant as we are. When I buy him out—if he doesn’t change his mind on that—I was going to reach out to Bardon and Briggs in Atlanta. See if they still wanted to merge with us. It would be a massive step forward.” He paused. “And make us a lot of money.”

Her heart pounded in her chest so hard it echoed in her ears and throbbed in her hot feet. Was this why he’d been distant? Just work? Was it why he’d been making such a fuss of Keisha too? To get her on his side? Of course, of course, of course. It all made sense now. She had been a fool. It was all Jason, being his ambitious self.