The Other Man(76)

The way she spoke, how into it she was, had me finally buying it.

The f*cking vice president.  Holy shit.

One thing you could never deny about Iris and Heath— they both had enormous balls.

The first house we stayed in was basically in the middle of nowhere, but there was a college nearby, and both of my boys quickly found their own lives and were gone more often than not, which was for the best.  They were grown men.

That left me spending more time with Iris than anyone else.

Neither of us ever complained about that.

Powerful bonds were made when women were pregnant together.  And we did a hell of a lot of bonding.

Over time, she became like a little sister to me.

With nothing but time on our hands, we got plenty of talking in, and it wasn’t long before we were telling each other everything.

I told her all about my strange courtship with her brother.

And she told me all about her enduring obsession with Alasdair Masters.

“Why couldn’t you ask Dair to come into hiding with you?” I asked her once.

“He has too much of a public profile.  There is simply no way to hide him.  The best we could do was to keep him out of it.  Also, I don’t think he’d want to.  I’m pretty sure he hates me now.”

I doubted that very much.  I didn’t know him well, but I did know that Dair was not a man with hate in his heart.  Not for anyone, but particularly not for one of the sweetest women I’d ever met, who also happened to be pregnant with his child.

And also, who wouldn’t fall for a girl like Iris?   She was young and sweet, funny and joyful, and of course, there was her extraordinary beauty.  Sure, like her brother, she had some fascinating and troublesome quirks, but I was guessing that a man like Dair would find those quirks well worth the payoff.  Hell, with what I knew of him, I thought he’d find most of them endearing.

We had fun together, Iris and I, but always under her bright surface, I could see that something weighed heavy on her, and I knew that it was Dair.

“I wonder if he’s moved on.  It seems likely.  We didn’t part on the best of terms, so I doubt he’d even think of waiting for me,” Iris lamented.

I didn’t know what to say to her.  I wanted to reassure her, but I also knew it would be cruel to give her false hope.

“You know, for a while I thought it’d be you he moved onto,” she added.

I’d gathered that much, but she wasn’t done.

“And then I looked into you.”

“You mean Heath did.”

She cringed just enough to look guilty as hell.  “No, I mean I did, too.  Pretty extensively.  I just wanted to know what kind of a woman you were, if he was going to end up with you.  And everything checked out.  Everything.  You’re just good people.  You make friends everywhere and treat people well as a rule.  Hell, you even give a Christmas bonus to your gardener.”

God, she was scary sometimes.  How could she have possibly found that out?

“Eventually, I was even kind of okay with the option.  I saw you out with your boys—”

“You followed me, too?”  For some reason when Iris said she’d checked me out, I’d thought it was all internet dirt.  The idea of her following us around just struck me as several shades more crazy.

“Only a little.  It didn’t take much.  I saw you having dinner with your boys, and I knew I’d seen enough.  Dair couldn’t do better than you.  I knew I wasn’t better.  I know I’m as f*cked up as Heath, in my own way.”

“He couldn’t do better than you, either,” I told her gently.  “Any man would be lucky to have a woman like you.”

And she had her pick.  Just about every man within ten miles from my sons to her bodyguard were more than a little smitten with her.

But just any man wasn’t an option for Iris.  She was devoted to Dair, whether he was a lost cause or not.  She was a go down with the ship kind of girl.

And it wasn’t all pining and sadness for her.  We had our share of fun.

We both loved to dance.  Whenever we were feeling particularly stir crazy, we’d put on some music, turn it up loud, and have an impromptu dance party.

Her obsession with Beyonce, or as she called her, Bey, was contagious. We drove my boys crazy, randomly singing the lyrics from her latest album.

And we loved to coordinate pranks.

Bubble wrap on the toilet seat, the mayo jar refilled with vanilla yogurt, just to name a few.

The two of us pregnant at the same time was not something anyone would want to mess with.

And we were both obsessed with bad reality television.  The worse the better.  We’d binge watch it together, though I was pretty sure it lowered both of our IQs.

We kept each other busy, which was good.  We both needed to stay busy to stay sane.

My husband was still a mystery to me, one I’d have liked more time to analyze.  He was gone more often than not.

“Where does he go?” I asked Iris.

“Heath is taking care of some things that need taking care of,” Iris told me solemnly.

“Care to elaborate?”

“I’m so sorry that you were dragged into this, but he’s not just doing this for me anymore.  We have made enemies that will never let us live in peace, that will use anything to hurt him.  You’re in as much danger as I am now.  Some key targets need to be eliminated if we’re ever going to have a shot at making it through this.  Long story short:  He’s making it so we can live a normal life again, someday.”