Mistress No More Read Free Page B

tongue before she swallowed it with only a slight wince.
    This last month of her life had been the absolute worst. She never dreamed shit could be so damn bad.
    Never.
    And she needed her friends. Although she was confident that Jackson was too busy fucking some other woman to slut around with Jessa Bell, just the fact that the scandalous bitch had sent the text was enough for Renee to cut her ass loose. Plus, if she was dirty enough to fuck either Aria’s or Jaime’s husband then Renee figured the slut could have just as well have stabbed her in the back, too.
    “So fuck you, Jessa Bell,” Renee said aloud, wiping a bit of spittle from the corner of her mouth.
    Since Jaime had walked away from Eric and their marriage, Renee hadn’t seen her and they’d spoken on the phone only briefly. Whatever new life she was carving for herself didn’t seem to include her husband or her friends.
    “C’est la fucking vie, Jaime.”
    And Aria.
    “Hmph.” Renee shook her head, running her trembling free hand through her short, ebony curls.
    She couldn’t believe that Aria had had the nerve to judge her. Yes, her marriage had been so shaky and she had felt so neglected by Jackson that she’d almost given in to a fleeting attraction to her assistant, Darren. Only his homosexuality had kept them from sealing the deal on the most awkward foreplay ever.
    In a moment of weakness she’d admitted her near infidelity to a friend and she’d felt Aria’s cold shoulder ever since. No lunches. No random phone calls throughout the day. No dropping by each other’s house to gossip or catch up. Just bullshit waves or head nods usually shared by strangers.
    “To hell with you, too, Aria.”
    She really needed her friends more than ever. In truth they all had shit to deal with, but it would be a helluva lot easier if they toughed the bullshit out together.
    They hadn’t even discussed the message or Jessa Bell since that day.
    Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child.
    Pain that was becoming as familiar as well-worn slippers clutched at her chest and refused to let go . . . until she swallowed down another drink. And another. And another.
    “Ma! We’re home.”
    Renee lifted her head from the desk, using her hand to wipe the drool connecting the side of her face to the executive desk mat. Her head suddenly pounded and her heart raced like crazy. Sweat matted her short, ebony curls to her head.
    “Ma! Where you at?”
    “When the hell did I fall asleep?” she asked herself, as her eyes shot to the door of the office she used to share with her husband. Her kids were home from their weekend visit to their father’s new bachelorhood.
    Renee grabbed the bottle of Patrón and hid it beneath the papers and discarded bills in her wastepaper basket.
    “Ma! You home?”
    Their voices were getting closer. That innocent teenage chatter about crushes, the newest sneakers, or the hottest videos. Lives that shouldn’t be filled with lies and pain.
    “Shit,” she swore, yanking open the drawer to her desk to frantically push stuff aside to find gum or a breath mint.
    Nothing.
    The office door swung open and Renee looked up with red-rimmed eyes as her seventeen-year-old son and fifteen-year-old daughter came to a stop. The expression on their faces went from happy to completely devoid of emotion.
    Kieran eyed her with clear and present anger. “Is that what you did all weekend, Ma? Drink?”
    So they know , Renee thought, wiping her face with her hands as she struggled to sit up straight in her chair. “Excuse me, but I’m your mother. Not the other way around.”
    “You don’t act like a mother anymore,” Aaron snapped, his broad face a junior replica of his father.
    Inwardly, Renee couldn’t handle it. The truth of their words was just another problem. Another wrong. Another damn stressor. She couldn’t handle it. Not now.