What a Fool Believes

by Carmen Green

  “I didn’t know you had dimples,” Tia said.

  Caught unaware, Byron sucked a little too hard on the can and scratched the inside of his upper lip. He waited a few seconds for the pain to subside. “It’s a well-kept secret.”

  “You’d appear more friendly if you let it out sometimes.”

  He ignored the criticism. “You’re welcome.”

  “For what?”

  “Court.”

  She inserted four quarters and pressed the button for her soda. “Thanks. I hope you don’t expect me to fall at your feet.” When he didn’t respond, Tia chuckled. “You’re hilarious.”

  The laughter stung more than the insult. “It was a gift.”

  “Then you need to start over in the first grade and learn what a gift really is.”

  Frustration worked through his nervous system. She was the reason he was here in the first place. “I shouldn’t have expected gratitude from you. You fled custody. The judge should have thrown the book at you.”

  “Who threw the book at you, Byron? What kept you from seeing me behind bars for six months?” Her brown eyes held him hostage. “You’re in trouble because of me, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  Her smile said she didn’t believe him. “You’d have testified against me if you’d made it in time. But you’re here. Coincidence? I don’t think so. We aren’t so different.”

  What a Fool Believes

  Carmen Green

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Copyright Page

  This book is dedicated

  with love to my daughter

  Tina Green

  Chapter One

  Tia Amberson dipped sourdough bread into creamy onion dip, calculated the caloric intake, and thought, what the hell? She didn’t have a man anymore, so she didn’t have to worry if she added a softer curve to her hips.

  After two years, four months, and three days of her being Dante’s woman, he’d chosen her birthday, Valentine’s Day, to give her the “it’s not you; it’s me” speech.

  How could he? She’d given him the best years of her twenties, had sacrificed an on-camera promotion to chief meteorologist in San Antonio for a second-string desk job in Atlanta, all to play wife—without the benefits of the position. Now her evil boss had her on a performance action plan, and Dante had changed the code to the alarm.

  None of this fit into her “happily ever after” dream sequence.

  She and her best friends, Rachel Washington and Megan Lewis, made a depressing group.

  At nine o’clock this morning, Rachel’s boyfriend, Kyle, had packed his clothes and told Rachel he wasn’t attracted to her anymore. Her job as a prison guard for Clayton County was a turnoff, and since she wasn’t going to change careers, he had to go. The fact that he’d just borrowed two hundred dollars the day before didn’t come up until the front door clicked closed behind him. By then, it was too late.

  A frantic call passed between Rachel and Tia when Megan had beeped in, and they all got on a three-way call as Megan cried softly. Sonny had given her the heave-ho, too. It seemed that heartbreak was as free as oxygen.

  Shell-shocked, they sat on the floor, around the mounted Ouija board table, in Megan’s apartment, the store-bought birthday cake in honor of Tia’s birthday a rushed necessity, just like this tired party.

  “If I were hateful,” Megan murmured, half drunk on Asti Spumante, “I’d send an e-mail to everybody at his job, telling them about the microscopic dimensions of his big Johnson.” She hiccupped hard and shivered.

  Rachel nudged home the hot sausage on a stick with a gulp of wine. “You were always bragging about how talented he was. Don’t tell me you couldn’t even see it.”

  “Had to wear my glasses.” Megan wagged her finger. “Shoulda been called pinky Johnson.”

  “I knew it,” Rachel hooted, always in the “I told you so” cheerleading section.

  Megan licked her bottom lip, slow and reminiscent. “I didn’t say he didn’t know how to use what he had. But nobody needs to know that. Shit,” she swore softly, tearing up. “I’m gonna get him for this.”

  “Go for it, sista,” Rachel exclaimed. “Let him know he’s been in a fight with a big dog.”

  Great. A radical drunk.

  “He’s not worth it,” Tia said, proud to be the sane one of the group. It wasn’t like she wasn’t hurting, but an eye for an eye was a waste of time. “Revenge is just wrong.”

  “I’m ready to get my pound for a pound,” Megan argued. “I’ve wasted a perfectly good six months of my life.”

  “Why shouldn’t we have a little fun at their expense?” asked Rachel. The former wild child of the three, Rachel was the most unforgiving. “Revenge is like a box of chocolate. You always come back for more.”

  “What if you wanted to get back together with ... you know?” Tia asked. “You’ve basically ruined your chances.”

  Rachel had switched to Heineken and stopped the bottle at her lips. “How can you even think about taking his cheatin’ ass back?”

  Tia hadn’t wanted to admit that she’d hoped Dante would call and say he’d temporarily lost his mind. “I didn’t say that I would.”

  “He gave you crabs, Tia. And trichomoniasis, and that was before he had the guts to dump you.” Rachel rolled her eyes in that “I’m too disgusted to look at you” way. “He tricked your ass into believing he wasn’t getting busy with a sleazy, STD-carryin’ hoochie, and now all he’d have to do is wiggle his unibrow, and your infested behind would go back? I can’t believe you didn’t use condoms.”

  “We’ve been together over two years,” Tia breathed deeply and wished she hadn’t. Her stomach hurt. “Okay, so I was naïve. I was also lucky, and I’ll be fine. It’s over between Dante and me. Now can we change the subject?”

  “Not until you tell us what you’re going to do to get back at him,” Megan added.

  Tia’s stomach burned from anger and embarrassment, the stress of reliving Dante’s words eating at her. A fiery burp blew out of her mouth, and she cringed at the sensation. The best way to get over Dante was to get on with her life. She reached for a pretzel, and Rachel snatched it. “Now what’s your problem?” Tia demanded.

  “Give me my pretzels and my wine. We’re throwing that stupid cake in the garbage. You don’t deserve to be in our pity party.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Tia told her, trying to maintain her classic calm.

  “What are you going to do to him?” Rachel demanded.

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, you are,” Rachel insisted.

  “No, I’m not. I’m going to devote all my time to getting my career back on track.”

  Rachel and Megan both blinked at her.

  “I knew something was up
when you permed your locks and bought a purse with a name on the outside,” Megan added sadly. “He’s changed you.”

  “I’m going to be the on-air chief meteorologist soon,” Tia insisted.

  “Yeah, if Cruella De Vil doesn’t fire you first,” Rachel added sarcastically.

  Rachel always kept it a little too real. She was getting on Tia’s last nerve.

  “I don’t see why we can’t just burn some pictures and call it a day,” Tia reasoned.

  Rachel gave Tia’s shoulder a sympathetic pat. “Because it doesn’t hurt him. I’m going to send a “please call” postcard from the AIDS testing clinic to Kyle at work.”

  “You need Jesus.” Tia threw up her hands.

  “And apparently you need an alcohol swab the next time somebody comes waving Mr. Ding-a-ling at you,” Rachel quipped.

  Tia didn’t join in their laughter. “Do what you want,” she told them. “But don’t come crawling to me, talking about how sorry you are that Kyle got fired. You’ve broken up before. One day you might forgive him, and then you’ll be sorry.”

  Megan’s head dipped. “Sonny won’t be back. He married his fling tonight in Vegas. They had a live video feed at lunch in the break room.”

  The flatly delivered dose of reality stopped them. Tia took the high road even though she wouldn’t have minded seeing Sonny get eaten alive by crows. “I’m so sorry.”

  She kept telling herself to forget Dante, but like a pendulum, her mind swung back to the parting statement from his unemployed chapped lips. “You got played.”

  Her stomach fired up, like a boiler room full of coal. Uneasiness overtook her, and she moved around, fighting for a comfortable position. She slid up on her knees and stretched, but couldn’t escape the heat his words unleashed. He’d been so cruel that she thought of little else, except to try to forget it all happened.

  But she was Tia, the calm one. The one raised to be a lady, first and last. “Let him go,” Tia said, warning herself to take her own advice.

  “I’m not buying it,” Rachel prodded. “You have to do something, Tia. Say something.”

  “Is that what it’ll take for you to leave me alone?”

  Both nodded.

  “OK, fine. I feel like shit,” she said evenly, raising up on her knees. “When I sat in Dr. Penn’s office two weeks ago, I was mortified that he thought I wasn’t a good girl. After the crab/trich diagnosis, I had to get medicine, so in walks this fine male nurse to give me instructions on how to use the crab remover. Did you know there’s a tiny comb in the box?”

  When her friends didn’t move, Tia gulped, feeling feverish. “And if that wasn’t humiliating enough, Mr. Nurseman leaned down and told me to save myself the trouble and cut it all off. He even offered to help me. Crap!” The word exploded from her mouth, and she burped. Loud and long.

  Megan fell back on her floor pillow, snorting. Rachel’s mouth hung open wide enough to house a fly convention.

  “I promise you, it wasn’t funny.” Tia wiped her forehead. “I stupidly asked him, ‘Who does that?’ Do you know what he said?”

  “No.” Rachel bit her bottom lip and shut her right eye to keep from laughing.

  “He said, ‘Who doesn’t?’”

  A telepathic message slid between Rachel and Megan.

  Not for the first time in her life, Tia felt like she was the only one in the section labeled “last to know.” “You shave it ... all?” she whispered in disbelief.

  “Yep,” Rachel said.

  “It’s cooler in the summer,” Megan reasoned.

  “Well, hell.” Tia wasn’t sure she knew her friends. Sure, she edged up her lawn. Cutting it all off had never occurred to her.

  For this lack of knowledge, Tia placed the blame squarely on her mother’s shoulders. Millicent had once told her bikini panties started the sinful sexual revolution. Although Tia knew now that wasn’t true, her drawer was full of 100 hundred percent cotton thigh huggers. The one thong she owned was stuffed in the back of the drawer, in a Baggie.

  But now that her friends had confessed, she wondered what else she didn’t know.

  “Kyle and I were straight-up freaks,” Rachel offered. “He cut mine and considered it foreplay.”

  Tia slapped her hands over her ears. Too much information. “I’ve got to go. My head is about to burst.” She burped and cringed. She needed antacid the size of a basketball to cool her hyper tummy.

  “Will you call if you want us to send an e-mail about Dante?” Rachel asked.

  “Are you determined to do it?” Tia asked.

  “You bet your sweet ass we are. It’s our civic duty,” Megan proclaimed. “Wait a second.” She weaved up the hall, with her hand out, and wrestled a gift bag from the closet. “Happy birthday.”

  Finally, a bright spot in her otherwise dreadful day. Tia tore off a sliver of paper and saw the knives she’d been wanting forever. “These are just like the ones from TV.”

  “They are from TV. Ginsu,” Megan hiccupped.

  Tia grinned. Now she’d be able to contribute to Thanksgiving in a productive way. Last year’s overdone candied yams were still the joke of family get-togethers. “I’ll be the hit of the holidays. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Megan’s brow lifted. “Last chance to send an e-mail.”

  “No.” Tia fastened her leather jacket and headed to the door. “You two have fun.”

  Tia drove her Honda Accord down the wet streets and acknowledged the irresistible urge to confront Dante. Then she’d tell him off, kick him out of her condo, and have the solid stamp of closure she needed to move on. But she wasn’t confrontational. She wasn’t mean, and she wasn’t going over there.

  Crisscrossing streets for ten minutes, she made a right on Lenox Road, and was outside their condo, the tail end of Dante’s vehicle mooning her.

  By rote, she steered her car toward the second parking space and slammed on the brakes.

  There was a car in her spot.

  Up one floor, flickering candlelight from their bedroom mocked her.

  A woman was under her duvet!

  While she’d temporarily moved into a hotel to give him time to sort out his feelings, he’d moved in her replacement.

  She was played.

  Spotting a vacant space down the next row, she drove over, slid the gearshift into park, and groped for her cell phone. If she couldn’t have him, she at least wanted her five-hundred-dollar blanket back.

  Tia wondered if the woman knew he had trich.

  Reality thumped her on the forehead.

  Maybe he’d gotten it from her, and that’s how Tia’d ended up with it.

  Stomach acid crawled up her esophagus, and she groped for an antacid, then remembered they were in the kitchen drawer, along with the super-large condoms. Who had she been kidding? He’d have to fit his pinky Johnson and his ego into the latex in order for it to even pucker.

  A hysterical laugh burst out.

  This was all the fault of married women, the liars. They’d been shoveling the “we’re so in love; marriage is wonderful” crap at single women since the beginning of time. She and Dante hadn’t even skipped up the aisle before he’d blasted that lie into the stratosphere.

  Well, she wasn’t going to take it like a lady.

  She reached into the backseat, grabbed one of her brand-new knives, and went to Dante’s Lexus convertible.

  The car was his.

  She positioned the knife.

  But the tires were hers.

  She took a long, cleansing breath and plunged.

  Chapter Two

  The fourth tire on the Lexus deflated, and Tia began to shake. Revenge was exhausting.

  She tried not to scratch her bald vagina and wondered how Rachel and Megan could stand not having hair down there.

  They were freaks, and she wasn’t.

  But she was pissed off.

  Tia used the end of the knife and scratched A S S-H O L E into the shiny black finish. Her work here was don
e.

  As she moved toward her car, her adrenaline high evaporated, and sanity moved in. This was crazy.

  At this point in her life, she should have had enough faith that God had a foolproof punishment plan to deal with male infidels. But God was taking His time, and as far as she was concerned, unless Dante broke out in a head-to-foot case of psoriasis, He might not mind her help this one time.

  In the darkness, she tried to appear casual as she looked for her midnight blue Accord as a vehicle crept around the corner and moved up slowly on her left side.

  Tia’s mouth dried. Maybe slashing the tires hadn’t been such a good idea, considering she had the potential of getting mugged, caught, or worse.

  She walked faster as the cruising vehicle veered toward her, and the window went down.

  Her mind screamed, Duck! Drive by! and she dropped everything, preparing for a nosedive, when searing pain shot through her foot.

  It took all of a second for the cop to spot her handiwork.

  “Did you do that?” he asked indignantly.

  Pain made her grunt, and she quickly concluded two things.

  One, she didn’t want to go to jail. And, two, when caught in the act of committing a crime, never abandon the tools of the trade recklessly.

  “Is that your car?”

  “No, but those are my tires.”

  “Tomato. Tomahto. Turn around and put your hands behind your head.”

  “I’m allergic to penicillin.”

  “So?”

  The harsh cruiser lights flickered over the officer’s stern face. He approached with his billy club in the cocked and ready position.

  “After you arrest me, I’ll need stitches.”

  “If you don’t give me any trouble, you won’t have to worry about that. Now turn around. You’re under arrest.”

  Tia lifted her knife-embedded foot and completed a quarter turn before she fainted into the officer’s chest.

  Chapter Three

  Officer Byron Rivers waited outside the ER exam room while his prisoner sat inside, getting her foot stitched.

  His mouth stayed tense with attitude, and he regretted this entire night.