She felt for the light at the right side of the door, and when it went on, it illuminated one of the biggest offices Aidan had ever seen.
“This is a bad idea,” he whispered.
She locked the door and cast him a flirtatious smile. He could tell that it wasn't the first time she'd been here after midnight.
Aidan blushed and diverted his gaze back down toward the doorknob. Part of him wanted to get out. Part of him wanted to stay.
“Look at me,” Lorenza ordered sweetly.
He did. She had this way of fixing him with her eyes, a mix between I find you super hot and I can see right through you.
Lorenza removed her striped shirt and unbuttoned her jeans.
“Lorenza,” he whispered. “I can't do this.” He thought of Jess' sweet smile and his daughter. Then he imagined how Lorenza's body would look without the lingerie.
Lorenza took his hand and let him toward the desk. She pulled him toward her and looked at him seductively. She didn't need anything more than her eyes to let him know what she wanted him to do.
He plucked a strand of hair from behind her face and put it tenderly behind her ear. For the first time in his 11-year-old relationship, he was about to kiss a woman other than Jess. He wasn't going to say no. He didn't want to say no. He wanted to know what it felt like to kiss another woman. If they only kissed, it wouldn't be exactly like cheating, would it?
Lorenza put his hand on her neck. She closed the distance between their faces and kissed him on the mouth, her lips slightly open. The fresh vanilla scent of her body wash was intoxicating, and he took another deep breath before he answered the kiss. Carefully, he let his tongue slip around the rim of her mouth, which she opened to welcome him.
His hand was on her neck. His thumb caressed her ear, her temples.
He pushed his lower body against hers. His hand stroked Lorenza's thighs and went slowly upward. He found her way into her bra and kneaded her right breast.
In return, Lorenza's hands caressed his back, his head, his face.
Aidan wanted to feel it. He wanted to be excited. But instead, he saw Jess' face in front of him, the way her eyes sparkled when she said she loved him.
Lorenza's mouth let go of his lips. With her tongue, she licked his cheek, his ear, his neck. She descended and went on her knees. Her hand slid up between his legs.
Aidan opened his eyes and looked around him. How could he do this to Jess? How vile could he be?
Lorenza's fingers reached his zipper. She opened it softly.
Aidan took her face between his hands and pulled her softly back up. She kissed him on the mouth, greedy now, and she let Aidan's hand toward the right spot between her legs.
“No,” Aidan whispered, and he softly pushed her hand away. “You are gorgeous, but I don't want this,” he said.
Lorenza pulled her head away and looked at him interrogatively. “Your wife?” she asked. “Don't worry. She won't find us here.”
“It's not that I don't want to,” Aidan said.
They kissed again, but then he pulled away.
“You sure?” Lorenza asked.
Aidan nodded.
“Maybe you do love her.” She placed a light kiss on his cheek and offered him a radiant smile. “You're sweet. You know that?”
“Now you're making me blush.” Aidan appreciated that Lorenza didn't make a drama out of it. No complicated explanations, no overlong discussions. Only a smile.
Lorenza put on her shirt again and ran with her fingers through her hair. “We'd better call it a night,” she said.
***
Though the nightclub was already less crowded than before, Aidan had a hard time finding Jess. He hoped that at least she'd had fun tonight. After the first search turned out fruitless, he and Lorenza parted company.
Aidan finally found Jess in a corner, half asleep. Her auburn hair hung flat against her face. She was playing with her phone to pass the time. A wave of pity went over him.
David was sitting a few seats away. Fast asleep. Simon and his wife were at the bar, still arguing.
“You want to go home, don't you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jess mumbled.
CHAPTER 9
Jess' legs trembled. She was cold. Her limbs felt heavy and painful, and she was almost too tired to even walk to the car. The only thing she wanted was to be home. Take a shower. Doze off in the warmth of her bed.
How was it possible that she'd agreed to join him tonight when she wanted to stay home? How hard could it be for an adult woman to say no to something she didn't want to do? It's not that he needed her or anything. Aidan had been with Lorenza the entire night anyway. It didn't make any difference if Jess were there or not.
Then she remembered: she didn't want to be a killjoy.
“I think we're all too drunk to drive,” Jess mumbled. “Would it bother you to take a cab?”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Lorenza said. “Of course, we can still drive.”
“I think it's safer if we split a cab.”
“I'm not going to come back here tomorrow to get the car,” Aidan said. “It's too far away.”
I'm doing this four times a day to bring Eleonore to school. Did I ever complain to you? Jess thought. She didn't say it out loud.
“Can you bring us home?” she asked Aidan.
“I drank at least twice as much as you. Believe me, you can still drive.”
Jess didn't respond.
“Come on, Jess,” Lorenza filled in. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
Jess felt guilt kick in once more. Is being responsible such a bad trait?
But maybe they were right. The chance that something would happen was small.
Eventually, Jess gave in with a sigh. “Okay. I'll drive.”
***
Jess sat behind the wheel. David sat beside her in the passenger seat, still blacked out. Aidan and Lorenza were in the backseat. Simon and Claire had taken their own car and were driving right behind them.
Aidan thought back at the excitement of the evening, at Lorenza's hands on his skin, her warm lips on his mouth, the loud music that made his entire body vibrate. Having fun. Being crazy. Being alive. The events of the evening made him feel like a teenager again. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so energetic.
The alcohol made his head feel heavy, and it moved along with every turn and bump on the road. Part of him had partied enough for tonight and wanted to get some sleep. But another part of him didn't want the evening to end.
Around them, the Luxembourg landscape changed from forested plateaus into thick, rolling hills, only occasionally interrupted by a clearing. The road kept getting more winding as they moved forward. Spruces grew lush along meandering river banks and vied for space with the evergreen pines. The sun started to rise and the sky changed color – striking red, orange, and soft purple tones. The only traffic they passed on the road was a single truck that rumbled through the forest.
Aidan had lost all sense of time.
Jess turned up the volume on the radio. It revived him a bit.
Aidan noticed how Jess was struggling to stay awake. She was indeed too tired and drunk to drive. She looked like a corpse.
He immediately regretted having dragged her along. He'd done it with the best of intentions, to urge her to go out and have fun instead of staying inside the entire time, especially now that she didn't have a job. He knew Jess preferred to stay in, that she didn't need much else apart from her family, but he doubted that being so isolated would do her any good. Tonight he realized that he was wrong. Dragging her into parties and adventures only made her unhappy. If only he knew how to return those sparkles to her eyes.
***
Reaching the turn off, Jess steered the car onto the road that would take them home. In the rearview mirror, she noticed how Aidan eyed Lorenza. His gaze went from her face to her breasts and to her legs. The way he shot admiring looks at her, the way his voice went softer when he spoke to this woman
; it made Jess' heart ache. She could see it plainly on Aidan's face: he and Lorenza shared a connection.
And then there was something else. When both Aidan and Lorenza had emerged after a long absence at the end of the evening at the club, his hair had seemed wilder than before, unkempt, as if someone had ruffled through it with her fingers. She didn't want to accuse Aidan of something she wasn't sure he'd done, but she had to admit that it looked suspicious.
Even though Lorenza's words from earlier that evening hadn't been meant for her, they still twirled around in her head like a ghost. Maybe Jess let her life indeed be dictated too much by others, especially Aidan. She always wanted the best for him. But when did he want the best for her? Maybe it was time she learned to speak up for herself instead of attempting to attend to his every whim. If Aidan was interested in that shameless girl, he wasn't worth all the effort she put into him.
About a mile in front of her, Jess could see the red peaks of the Clervaux abbey towering in from above the landscape, and she immediately felt a burden slip off her shoulders. Within less than fifteen minutes, she would be in bed.
Jess tried to concentrate on the narrow road that was darker than pitch because of the surrounding pines, as if someone had reached into the sky and turned off the moon. Their second-hand Renault Laguna's yellowed headlights didn't offer much in the way of illumination.
A pair of animal eyes reflected bright silver and wide in the darkness of the road. Jerking the wheel was an instinct, anything to avoid hitting that poor animal. The Renault slung road and shocked the passengers back and forth. One of the tires caught the embankment. With a shock, the Renault crashed into a tree.
Nobody cried out. For a brief moment, the world had gone soundless.
Lorenza was the first to speak. “What the hell happened?”
For a few seconds, Jess didn't reply. Her heart stuck in her throat. “I think I hit a cat,” she said, almost inaudible.
“Is that a reason to get us killed?” Aidan yelled.
David freaked out. “A cat? Oh my God, we have to get out to help it!” He was definitely awake now and stumbled out of the car and toward the cat as quickly as he could.
Lorenza's face, too, was twisted from emotion. As soon as she got out of the car, Aidan followed.
Jess remained in the car for several more minutes. In the distance, she heard David shout, “Simon, get your equipment. A cat got hurt!” When the shock finally subsided, she joined them outside. Because of the accident, her entire body felt painful and stiff.
She could hardly see in the twilight, but behind the car, in the middle of the road, she could distinguish a small, white cat. Its belly quickly went up and down. Reddish skin was visible on her flank, but apart from, that the cat had no external injuries.
Simon took his veterinary equipment out of the trunk of his car and attended to the cat. David was already performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Claire was crying so loud it seemed they had hit a child instead of a cat, and Jess thought she could hear her hyperventilating from afar.
Lorenza came up to Jess. “What have you done?” she yelled, devastated.
“That cat was right in front of me. I didn't see it coming,” Jess said. “A cat that's sprinting in front of you like that... I couldn't brake. I was already a few meters further before I realized I was about to hit it.”
Lorenza stepped up to her and hit Jess hard in the face, then went back to the group. Jess remained silent, shocked.
“Lorenza, that wasn't necessary,” Aidan said.
“Jess deserved it,” she replied. “She put us all in danger.”
Aidan went to his wife. “Are you okay?”
Jess nodded but didn't say anything. She couldn't think clearly anymore. The cold wind slapped her in the face, punishing her as hard as Lorenza had done. The muscles of her belly and shoulders tensed and felt cramped.
I want to go home, Jess thought. Please, get me away from these people.
“We need you here, Aidan,” David said. “The cat is slipping away.”
“I'll check if I can get the car to work again,” Jess said.
“How can you think about a car now? We ran over a cat!” Claire screamed. She was raging.
“It's only a cat. Not a child,” Jess mumbled. Maybe it was better they didn't hear her, considering how obsessed they were with these animals.
Jess could see the cat had trouble breathing, and she hoped it wouldn't have to suffer too long.
She stepped into the car and tried to turn on the engine. Nothing. The car didn't want to start. No wonder, because the front was entirely crushed.
Jess got back out again and slammed the door shut. She closed her eyes and tried to calm down. The smell of pine trees lingered in the wind. Strange noises came from the forest.
When she opened her eyes again, something shifted behind the dense vegetation. A few feet away from her, a shadow drifted behind the trunk of a tree. Though she couldn't distinguish the form against the black background, something about it made her blood run cold. Maybe it was only the idea that this animal, whatever it was, was so close it could attack her with a single pounce.
Then the shape came from behind the tree and, lurking in what looked to be a crouch, seemed to be observing her husband and his colleagues. Something about this animal didn't sit right. With its humanlike limbs, it didn't quite look like any other creature she knew.
Jess' skin began to sting and she drew in a breath. The animal froze as if listening. Two eyes peered into her direction, glowing yet unspeakably dark. It had detected her.
Jess' eyes went wide and she pressed her hand over her mouth to muffle her breathing.
Aidan came up to her. “Jess, what are you doing?”
Jess jumped. She looked at her husband, then back to the trees. The creature ran farther into the forest, out of their vision.
As her eyes scanned the forest, her heart lurched into her throat. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.
She finally managed to spit out the question, panic slithering into her tone. “What was that? Did you see it?”
“What?” Aidan asked.
“Something was moving around. Over there.” She lifted a hand and pointed a small finger at a tangle of trees.
He looked to where she pointed, his own eyebrows knitting together as he tried to spot movement in the darkness.
“Probably wild boar,” he assured her. “I saw one wandering around before we had the accident.”
“No. I'm not sure it was an animal,” she murmured. “Let's go home.” The fear and urgency in her voice indicated that what she had seen could be a threat to their lives. She turned and walked back toward the group.
“The cat didn't make it,” David said.
Jess looked down. The cat had indeed stopped breathing. If only she'd had had the courage to say no to Aidan when he'd asked her to go clubbing, that cat would still have been alive.
“What are you going to do with the body?” she asked her husband.
“I'll bring it to the clinic, put out a message for its possible owner.”
“No,” Simon ordered. “No one can know about what happened. We'll have to hide the cat.”
Aidan protested. “Hide it? But its owner--”
“No,” Simon said again, this time firmer.
“Simon's right,” David filled in. “People here won't react well to the news. It's better if we stay quiet. It's for your own good.”
“Lorenza, David. Come on in. We'll bring you home,” Simon said. He had already opened his car door and was ready to leave.
Aidan started a sentence: “I don't think we can leave the car here like--”
“Not the two of you,” Simon said. “Fend for yourselves.”
“We have to call the police,” Aidan said. “We have to file a report.”
“No police!” Simon said harshly.
“It's not that we committed a crime or something,” Jess said.
“I'm calling breakdown rec
overy.” Aidan searched for the number on his phone.
“Not while we're here and not someone from Clervaux. Do you understand?” Simon ordered.
“But I don't see what --”
“Do you understand?” Simon repeated.
“Yes, I understand,” Aidan mumbled.
“And don't mention our names,” David said, sounding as harsh as Simon. “This is all your problem.”
“I wanna go to bed, honey. I'm tired,” Claire told her husband.
“Me, too. We're going,” Simon said. He stepped into the car and Claire, David and Lorenza followed suit.
Moments later, the car drove off, leaving Jess and Aidan alone in the middle of the forest.
There was a sudden gust of wind, then, moments later, not a sound was to be heard in the forest; nothing but the quiet whisper of the breeze and the shiver of pine needles.
Everything sounded and looked peaceful around them. Yet Jess couldn't get that weird animal out of her head. What was that thing she'd seen in the forest? Even though she had hardly seen it, it made her feel unsafe. Not knowing what it was made her uncomfortable.
And then there was something about these people's attitudes tonight that alarmed Jess. They had been furious at her because of that cat. They behaved as if she'd run over a child on purpose. And why did they have to keep quiet about it? Something about their behavior didn't ring true.
But she didn't want to think about that anymore. Now she wanted to go home.
CHAPTER 10
Daylight had already set in by the time their Renault Laguna got towed away. Jess refused to think about how much this would all cost. They had used the last bit of money on their savings account for the purchase of this car. And now that was gone, too.
The officer gave them a ride after reports were filed. They did as they had been told – they didn't mention the cat, said they had caused the accident by trying to avoid a fox that had run in front of the car.
Even the forest around Clervaux was teeming with cats. Jess had already spotted a few since they left the site of the accident, but as they got closer to the town, the cats appeared more frequently. They were everywhere: in the trees, under the bushes, on the road. It looked like a plague. Sometimes, a pair of cat eyes lit up from within the bushes. With their ears flat and the hairs on their backs standing upright, each cat appeared hostile. For a brief moment, she assumed they were ferals, but then she noticed they all wore a collar with identification.
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