His Missing Wife by Jaime Hendricks (nice books to read .TXT) 📕

arm. She’s also wearing too much makeup and looks at us disapprovingly. “He’s fucking married.” Back to James. “Were you always married? Was I your whore on the side?”

“That’s enough,” James says, then addresses her friend. “Erica, can you take her out of here? She’s making a spectacle.”

Erica shrugs. “Fine. But she’s right. You’re an asshole.”

They turn and go back to the restaurant’s bar to pay the tab, nasty stares lasering into my forehead. Without a word, two busboys come quickly to our table and mop the water on the floor, then wipe down the table with a rag and refill the water. The waiter comes by with two new napkins. He also leaves without a word.

Then, words.

“I’m going to make you pay for this James, you asshole!” Joanna screams from the door on her way out.

Everyone is embarrassed for us. For me.

Faint chitter-chatter comes back to the room slowly. When the stares die down, I direct my attention to James. “Okay. So what the hell was that?”

His face is forlorn, and he grabs my hand, but instinct pulls it away. Quickly.

“Tessa, I’m sorry.” He rubs his face, unsure of how to proceed.

“You had a girlfriend when we started dating?” The other woman. Now I know why she looks familiar. She was the one in his apartment the night I went back there with Damon. “You told me you broke up when we met. I can’t believe you did this. I trusted you.”

“Please, it’s not like that.” My face immediately tells him that he’s a liar and not to bother with bullshit. “Okay, it was a little bit like that. Look, me and Joanna were having problems. I was being distant, she lived too far away, it was a whole bunch of things. I wasn’t being communicative, and she started following me.”

“Right. She was at your apartment the night we met. Said she was leaving you a note. Probably because she still thought you guys were together.” I’m trying not to cry. I haven’t cried over a man since I met James.

He was never supposed to make me cry.

“Yes. I told her I was going out with friends that night and she texted that she was waiting for me at the house. I told her I’d be out all night and to go home, even though I was almost there. I didn’t want to see her. It was over. And yes, it’s my fault that I didn’t break up with her properly.”

“So, you were still with her?”

“Tessa, you know I’ve been with you every single night, since the first time we went out to Jupiter’s. But I didn’t see her. I swear. I haven’t seen her since before I met you.” His eyes mist. “I’ve only wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better about being the other woman?” My voice elevates and I swear he can see my heart beating through my chest like a cartoon character. “I thought I was done with this. With secrets.”

As soon as the words escape my lips, I berate myself for being a hypocrite. How dare I say that to him? I was a treasure trove of lies and secrets. So I soften.

“Look, James, I know I haven’t told you much about my past. About—my ex.”

He nods. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I—” I what? I’m a fake, a phony, and worse than you. “I lied too.”

He’s taken aback, but he can’t do much at this point. He’s still the one in the doghouse. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks again.

God, he’s going to divorce me. Not that our marriage is a hundred percent legal anyway. I lied about who I am. He has no idea who he’s married to.

“My ex. I ran. I left when he was out with clients one night. He’s looking for me.”

James doesn’t flinch, even if he wants to. “How do you know?”

I can’t even look him in the eyes and I concentrate on my water glass. “I spoke to someone back at home.” Say it, Tessa. “I never really divorced him.”

“Fuck.” James grabs his own glass of water on the table and downs it in one sip, then wipes the sides of his head with his napkin again. “You’re not my wife?”

“I am. But it’s a mess. I got the ID. It’s a real ID. It has the state seal. It’s legit. I just fudged some stuff.”

“Fudged?” His voice broke. “How do you fudge a state ID?”

“I have my ways.” I stop him right before he says Who did you fuck to get it? because I won’t forgive him if he says that. “Not like that. Not like what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not ‘thinking’ anything.” He places his hand on mine. “How bad was it? Who was he?”

I can’t tell him all the details. He already knows too much. He’ll dig.

“He was just an Asshole. One in a line of many. I didn’t really have a male role model growing up. Just the alcoholic wife beaters my mom dated. No matter how much I tried to model my life from the movies, it just didn’t work out. I’d go for the Edward Lewis, who saw the potential in the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. I ended up with the Mickey Knox character from Natural Born Killers. But this last one was a fucking Don Draper. Did everything right, from the outside. On the inside, it was horrendous.”

“This is the guy who tattooed you?”

“No. Someone else.” I rub my hands over my face. “Look, you got mixed up with a real piece of work. I grew up in backwoods small country. My life sucked.”

“Tessa, it’s not like that anymore. I love you.”

I’ve heard those words before. Usually before or after I got a right hook.

My tone is hushed. Thank God we’re not that close to the next table, but still. “I’m afraid. Of so many things. I couldn’t divorce him. He knew everyone and