Cold-Blooded Beautiful Read Free

shouldn’t throw away a good marriage just because of a little infidelity .  If only it were that easy.
    Although, I would give you a slow applause for whatever you would choose in your own situation, I was not a person who believed a slew of infidelities could be forgiven.  It couldn’t.  Not in my eyes.  Not in my heart.  My marriage was over.  There were no accidental slips and falls into various different vaginas. There were only distinct planned out choices to have affairs and go through with them.  Repeatedly. 
    Unfortunately, his affairs were the least of my problems.
    One particular file folder glowed on his desktop as if it were radioactive.  SamMatt Pharmaceuticals . 
    SamMatt Pharmaceuticals?  As in Samantha Matthew Pharmaceuticals?  What the hell was in there?
    With steady and precise fingers, I clicked it open. 
    SamMatt Pharmaceuticals was a multi-million dollar company almost as big as Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.  Its labs were outsourced to other countries, and there was a list of top hospitals and doctors who spoke in their favor.  Why was my name at the top of this list?  Why was this company, SamMatt, named after me?
    I had no clue.  I couldn’t think straight.  I had no…I mean…David was cheating on me and I had no idea what to do. For the first time in my life, I was clueless.
    I was damn sure to print out everything I found.
    And copy all his files onto my flash drives. 
    Both of my flash drives.
    It was like signing my own death certificate. 
    Three hours later, I walked out of his office, sick to my stomach, feeling the very first fluttery butterflies of the small life that had been growing inside me for the last four and a half months.  I hid everything in my computer bag, emailed everything to myself, and walked out into the brilliant light of the August summer sun.  Moist heat melted over my body, instantly sticking my clothes to my skin. My stomach rolled and fluttered. Placing a free hand over it, I hummed a small lullaby to the child within.  With trembling legs and a feverish mind, I completed a couple of errands that were on the criminally insane side of the law. I would not let David get away with what I found, not with cheating on me, and not with whatever pharmaceutical hood he was pulling over the hospital’s eyes.  I mean, this was my father’s hospital. My father was the president and those papers were falsified. God only knew what that was all about.   Then I vomited for the rest of the day, hovering over my bathroom sink, wishing I had the physical strength to pack my bags.  Maybe after a little nap .  I had plenty of time to pack a bag and leave.
    But all that wasn’t the bad part.  No, not yet.  That was just the beginning of my nightmares.  I should have left then.  Through the stomach rolling, vomiting, and exhaustion, I should have just gotten up and hailed a cab to a hotel.  I should have just disappeared and never turned back.
    Nobody would have died then.
     

Chapter 1
     

     
    It was a humbling experience to know and love her. She made everything I’d ever thought as my truth, something that I could transform into, and something better that I could live with on the inside.
    Samantha was still asleep.  Loose cinnamon colored hair splayed out across the feathered pillows as she curled herself around my body.  She lay bare, save for the thick gray comforter she’d tangled her body in. I wanted to wake her and talk.  I wanted her to tell me the story of her past, the one she had run from, the one that led her to this desolate town, the one for whom I had the whole bloody Sherriff’s department and hospital fake her death.   It was terror that stopped me from waking her and demanding more answers.  Not my terror, not my fear; hers.  For all the strength and courage she possessed, I knew that whatever had happened between her husband, David and her, was some sort of darkness that had slowly spread inside her, completely