The Other Man(51)

I badly wanted to correct that.  The twice his age part.  It was an exaggeration when the actual truth was bad enough.

And that entire train of thought was just a distraction for myself and the way that I felt in that moment, which was awful.

“Why are you here?  What do you want?”  I was done, and I wanted her to leave before she told me another awful thing.

“I want you to know what’s been going on.  How in the dark you’ve been from the moment you met him.”

“Why?  Why are you so worried about me?”  I asked this knowing the answer, but hoping she’d give me another option.

She was involved with him.  It was obvious.  Sleeping with him.  She’d as much as admitted it.  The only question was, how heavily involved?  How deep did his betrayal run?

“Do you know that he’s spied on you?  Extensively.”

My eyes narrowed on her, studying her face as though it would tell me what this new angle of hers was.  It did not.  “He already told me that he did a background check on me,” I explained, begrudgingly.  “He said he had to do that with anyone he was seeing because of his job, and I believed him.”

She laughed.  It was much too bitter for her years.  “Do you want to know just how much he’s spied on you and the real reason for it?”

I didn’t answer, just folded my arms across my chest and watched her.  I figured she was going to tell me, regardless of how I responded.

“He swept this place, top to bottom.  I guarantee it.  Went through everything, from your filing cabinets to your underwear drawer.”

My mind shot immediately to the time we’d cooked a meal together, to how he’d known every inch of my kitchen, every ingredient in my spice cupboard.

Then it shot to the first time I’d had him over.  He’d known exactly where I kept my vibrator, but I’d been too distracted by him to wonder or care at the time.

Considering all of that, I was certain then that she wasn’t lying.

Still, it confused the hell out of me.  “Why?  Why on earth would he do that?”

“It was all for Iris.  All of it.  The reason he spied on you, approached you, seduced you.  It was all done only to protect her.”

And that confused me even more.  “His sister?  You’re saying he seduced me for his sister?”

She laughed, and it gave me the chills.  She was a scary woman, and she was clearly enjoying herself at my expense.

“It all goes back to your friend Alasdair Masters.”

What the f*ck?  Why did it keep coming back to Dair?

I was more lost than ever.  “Dair?”

“Yes, Dair.  Dair and Iris.”

“Dair and Iris?” I repeated back dumbly.

“Yes.  Iris is obsessed with Dair, and she was worried that he was interested in you.  Heath knew she was worried, and Heath would do anything for his sister.  What his sister wants, Heath makes sure she gets.  First, he needed to check you out because that’s what he does.  And then he needed to eliminate you as a threat to his sister.”

“How would I be a threat to his sister?”

“A threat to her not getting what she wanted.”

I just stared at her.

“Dair.  She wanted Dair, so Heath made sure, firsthand, that you wouldn’t be in her way.”

“That’s ridiculous.  I don’t believe you.”

Only that was a lie.  What I meant was, I don’t want to believe you.

But I did.  She had a confidence about her that left so little room for personal insecurity that I just believed her.  Why would this woman come here and lie to me about a man that had already declared himself out of my life?  I couldn’t find a good reason, and so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Because it all made sense somehow.  With what I’d known, and what she’d told me, things started to connect about the way he was, the way he operated.

I saw it so clearly now.  How everything about him was a weapon.

Engineered to get what he wanted.

Calculated to yield the proper results.

And he’d wanted something from me.  Pushed all of my buttons to be sure he’d gotten it.

And he had.  Above and beyond.

“And where do you fit into this?” I asked her, but again, I knew.  She had the scorned lover role down pat.

Only I was wrong.  It was worse even than that.

“That night you went out on a date with Dair, and you came home to find Heath waiting for you.  I was sent to follow Dair, to track him down with orders to interfere if he so much as touched you.

“This is sick.  He had you spying on me?” I asked slowly.

“Yes.  And even now, he’s got me keeping an eye on you, making sure no one traced him to your place.”

“He still has you spying on me?”  I was disgusted and appalled.  At him, at her.

At myself.

“Yes.”

“Let me get this straight,” I began, my rare but memorable temper coming to the surface.  “Your lover tells you to spy on the other woman he’s been sleeping with, and you do it?  What the hell is wrong with you?”