Exposed

by Naomi Chase

Tamia was building herself a house of cards, stacking one lie on top of another, doing her best to keep them balanced and secure.

  She knew that one wrong move, one miscalculation, was all it would take to bring her tower of lies tumbling down….

  Chapter 20

  The next afternoon, Tamia sat at a small table in the corner of her favorite gourmet coffee shop. It was after three o’clock, so the place wasn’t as crowded as usual. She’d just had a late lunch and was now leisurely enjoying a chai latte. Every so often she glanced out the window to watch as passersby strolled up and down the busy downtown sidewalk. She was in no hurry to get back to the office, because she legitimately had to work late tonight, which meant no hooking up with Dominic or Brandon.

  “Tamia Luke?”

  She turned from the window. A petite, exotically beautiful woman with cocoa-brown skin and long black hair stood at her table, one hand thrust upon her hip in a confrontational pose.

  Tamia frowned.“Who’s asking?”

  “My name is Isabel Archer.” She spoke with a thick, lilting accent that was unmistakably familiar.“I believe you know my husband, Dominic.”

  Tamia stared at her.“Your what?”

  “My husband.”The woman sneered contemptuously.“Are you gonna sit there and pretend you didn’t know you’ve been fucking a married man?”

  Tamia was floored. Glancing around quickly, she met the scandalized stares of other customers seated at nearby tables before returning her gaze to Isabel Archer.

  “Look,” she said through clenched teeth, “I don’t know what the hell Dominic told you—”

  Before she could finish, Isabel snatched her latte cup from the table, twisted off the lid, and flung the contents at her. Tamia gasped in shock as the lukewarm chai splashed her neck and the front of her expensive silk blouse.

  “That’s for fucking my husband!” Isabel spat furiously.

  “Bitch, no you didn’t!”Tamia screamed.

  She jumped out of her seat and lunged at the woman, who threw a punch that caught her on the jaw, snapping her teeth together. Ignoring a sharp burst of pain, Tamia swung back, her fist connecting solidly with Isabel’s face. The bitch grunted and staggered backward, crashing into an empty table. Tamia barreled into her, grabbing a fistful of her long hair and yanking until Isabel screeched in pain.

  “Hey!” a man shouted in angry protest.“You two knock it off before I call the police!”

  Heedless of the warning, Tamia and Isabel kept clawing and punching at each other, both determined to inflict as much damage as possible. Isabel was maniacal in her fury, but Tamia had the satisfaction of landing more blows.

  Suddenly a pair of strong hands seized her around the waist and hauled her away from her opponent. It was the restaurant manager, who’d personally taken her lunch order less than an hour ago.

  “Enough!” he barked as Tamia struggled wildly in his arms. Another employee had rushed over to restrain Isabel. Her nose was bleeding, her lower lip was split, and her hair was sticking up every which way. Tamia knew she didn’t look much better.

  “Stay the fuck away from my husband!” Isabel shrieked hysterically at Tamia.

  Chest heaving with outrage, Tamia screamed back,“Bitch, you need to tell your lying-ass husband to stay the fuck away from me! I didn’t even know that conniving motherfucker was married!”

  “Liar! You knew damn well he had a wife, you ghetto-ass bitch!”

  Tamia lunged forward.“Who’re you calling—”

  “That’s enough!” the manager interjected sharply, yanking Tamia back like a leash on a pit bull.“It’s time for you to leave. Both of you.”

  “I need to use the restroom and clean my nose,” Isabel hissed.

  “Make it quick,” the man snapped. He glared down at Tamia.“You need to leave. Now.”

  “Fine.”Tamia jerked free of his grasp, then stalked over to her table and grabbed her purse from the chair. She could hear the other customers whispering to one another as they stared at her, ridiculing and judging her. She’d never been so humiliated in her life.

  On her way to the exit, she jabbed a warning finger at Isabel and shouted, “If you ever step to me again, bitch, I will bury your ass six feet under!”

  She stormed out of the coffee shop and marched down to the corner of Franklin and Travis, smoothing her tousled hair as she went. She knew she couldn’t return to work looking like she’d been in a street fight, so she took out her cell phone and called her boss, telling him that she had to do a press check at the printer across town.

  Steve sounded less than pleased. It was the third time in a week that she’d gone missing from the office after lunch, he reminded her, and there were pressing tasks requiring her attention.

  “I shouldn’t be gone more than an hour or so,” she assured him, crossing the busy street.“And I’m staying late tonight.”

  He conceded, but his censorious tone warned Tamia that she, and her promotion, were treading on thin ice.

  She couldn’t worry about that right now.

  The next call she placed was to Dominic. As soon as he answered the phone, she let him have it with both barrels.“You lying motherfucker! You never told me your ass was married!”

  There was a short pause.“You never asked.”

  “What?” Tamia sputtered incredulously. “Nigga, you must be out of your damn mind! What the hell—”

  “Where are you?” Dominic calmly interrupted her tirade.

  “Across the street from my office,” she spat. “I’m walking to the parking garage to get my car. I have to go home and change ’cause your crazy-ass wife threw chai on my two-hundred-dollar blouse!”

  “Meet me at my office.”

  Tamia scowled.“I don’t have time—”

  “I’m right around the corner from where you work. Make time.” He gave her the address, then hung up.

  “Have a seat.”

  “No, thanks. I’m not staying long.” Hands on hips, Tamia glared at Dominic across his enormous glass desk, which was framed against a backdrop of the sun-drenched downtown skyline.“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were married?”

  “Like I said,” he drawled, leaning back in his leather executive chair,“you never asked.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit!” Tamia shouted, trembling with outrage. “You came to me, remember? You should have told me you were married! You don’t even wear a wedding ring! And what kind of lowlife blackmails women for sex when he has a wife at home?”

  “One has nothing to do with the other,” Dominic murmured.

  “Of course it does! Anyway, I didn’t sign up for all this drama! Did you know your crazy-ass wife has been stalking me? She showed up at my favorite coffee shop and provoked me into a fight, and now I can’t ever show my face there again!”

  When Dominic’s eyes glinted with amusement, Tamia stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “You think this shit is funny?”

  “No. I was just thinking how beautiful you are when you’re angry—even with that nasty bruise on your jaw.” He smiled lazily.“I’ll talk to Isabel. And I’ll buy you a new blouse.”

  “Don’t bother! Just leave me the fuck alone!” As Tamia spun on her heel and started toward the door, his voice stopped her cold.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  She whirled around to stare at him.“What the hell are you talking about? Haven’t you been listening to me? Your wife knows you’ve been cheating on her!”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Dominic said mildly. “But it doesn’t change a damn thing between us.”

  “Are you crazy?” Tamia shrieked. “This changes everything!”

  “Why?”

  “Are you serious? It was bad enough that you blackmailed me into having sex with you. Now I find out that you’re married? No, I don’t think so. I don’t fuck married men.”

  “No?” Dominic raised a brow. “So now you’re calling the shots?”

  Tamia glared at him, seething with fur
y and resentment.“I can’t believe you’d force me to continue sleeping with you after what happened today.”

  Dominic got to his feet, rounded the desk, and came toward her in that slow, predatory manner that always made her feel trapped. She backed toward the door, turning away as he reached her and pressed his body against her backside.

  “Come now, love,” he whispered in her ear. “We both know you aren’t going anywhere, and it has nothing to do with me forcing you.”

  Tamia swallowed hard. “You’re wrong. I wouldn’t have gotten involved with you in the first place if you hadn’t blackmailed me.”

  “True, but our involvement stopped being about blackmail the night you came to my penthouse practically naked beneath that trench coat. You’d set out to seduce your man that evening, but it was me you really wanted to fuck. I could see it in your eyes, feel it in your body. You’d been feenin’ for this dick for days, just waiting for me to call and send for you. You couldn’t get to my place fast enough, and it’s been that way ever since.” He chuckled softly, nibbling her earlobe.“Now tell me I’m lying.”

  Tamia shivered, wishing she could refute every word he’d spoken. But she knew better. Even now, as furious as she was, she wanted him to drag her across the room, bend her over his huge desk, and fuck her from behind.

  Tracing the shell of her ear with his tongue, he reached under her skirt, raising the hem up her bare thighs. She moaned as his fingers found her core, spreading her fleshy lips before plunging inside.

  “Just as I thought,” he murmured with wicked satisfaction. “You’re soaking wet.”

  Tamia shut her eyes as he began stroking her, pumping his fingers in and out of her pussy. Her legs turned rubbery. Seconds later she shuddered and cried out.

  She hadn’t even lasted a minute.

  Dominic withdrew his fingers and brought them up to her lips. With her eyes still closed, she opened her mouth and sucked his wet fingers like a hungry newborn latching onto her mother’s engorged breast.

  Dominic laughed softly.“Now what were you saying about being ‘forced’?”

  Her face heated with shame.

  She hated herself for being so damn weak, for being a slave to the erotic desires he unleashed in her. She wished she could break free of the sticky, seductive web he’d spun around her. But she knew that the more she resisted, the more entangled she’d become. Because he’d laid the trap perfectly for her, starting from the very first night she’d gone to his penthouse. He knew how resistant she was to the whole setup, so rather than force himself on her right then and there, he’d let her escape without even touching her. For their next tryst, he’d sent her home after eating her out and giving her one of the most toe-curling, mind-blowing orgasms she’d ever had in her life. He’d lured her into his web slowly and masterfully, heightening her anticipation with each encounter, driving her out of her mind with lust. And to think that she’d practically laughed in his face when he’d told her that she would enjoy sleeping with him.

  He gently caressed her hair. “As much as I’d love to play hooky with you today, love, I have a meeting with a Japanese distributor that I really can’t afford to miss. So we’ll have to continue this another time.”

  “I can’t see you tonight,”Tamia told him as firmly as she could.“I have to work late.”

  “And I have to smooth things over with my wife,” he drawled.“So I’ll be in touch.” He patted her ass, then reached around her and pulled the door open.

  Feeling dismissed and humiliated, Tamia hurried out of the office and marched past his smirking secretary, who’d probably overheard the entire conversation from her desk outside the door. Tamia didn’t think this day could possibly get any worse.

  But she was dead wrong.

  As she stepped off the elevator into the lobby, she ran smack dab into the absolute last person she needed to see.

  “Brandon!” she exclaimed in surprise.

  “Hey, baby.” He greeted her with a warm smile, gently steering her out of the path of others trying to board the elevator.

  “W-what are you doing here?”Tamia stammered.

  “I’m meeting with a client. What about—” His smile faded as his gaze landed on the darkening bruise on her jaw. Gently he cupped her chin in his hand and angled her face toward the overhead lights to get a better look.“What the hell happened to you?”

  Heart thumping, Tamia forced out a laugh.“It’s so embarrassing! I was at the coffee shop this afternoon getting my usual latte fix. I must have been distracted by something on my laptop. When I picked up my cup to take a sip, it slipped out of my hand and fell—hence the big, sloppy stain on my blouse. Anyway, when I bent down to get my cup, I banged my jaw on the edge of the table.”

  Brandon grimaced.“Ouch.”

  “I know. Hurt like hell. But I was more embarrassed than anything. What a klutz,” she added with a self-deprecating shake of her head.

  Brandon gingerly touched the discolored skin.“Looks like it’s starting to swell. You should put some ice on it and take some aspirin.”

  “I will,”Tamia assured him.“As soon as I get home. I’m on my way there now to change my shirt before I go back to work.”

  Brandon nodded, studying the bruise a moment longer before his eyes met hers.“So what’re you doing here?”

  “I had to drop off some paperwork for a client,” she answered.

  “Speaking of your clients, I meant to tell you that I saw Dominic Archer at the mayor’s fund-raiser dinner last weekend. He was there with his wife.”

  “Oh yeah?”Tamia mustered a bright smile that felt constipated. If she’d found out sooner that Dominic was married, today’s altercation with his wife could have been avoided. At the same time, it occurred to her that he’d never intended to take her to the dinner. He’d invited her knowing that she wouldn’t have accepted anyway.

  “How’s his ad campaign coming along?” Brandon asked curiously.

  “Great. We’ve come up with a concept guaranteed to drive plenty of customers to his restaurant.”

  “That’s good. I told him we’d be sure to check it out when it opens.”

  “Most definitely,”Tamia agreed.

  With a quick flick of his wrist, Brandon glanced at his watch.“Well, I’d better head upstairs so I won’t be late to my meeting.”

  “And I’d better hurry home and change so I can get back to the office.”Tamia gave him a peck on the lips.“It was wonderful to see you in the middle of the day.”

  “You, too.” Brandon smiled, his eyes roaming across her face.“Will I see you tonight?”

  “Of course. I have to work late, but I should be at your place by eight.”

  He nodded.“Okay.”

  “See you then.” Tamia turned and briskly strode away. Halfway across the lobby, she hazarded a glance over her shoulder . Brandon was still standing at the bank of elevators. He was watching her, his eyes narrowed speculatively.

  Dread knotted in her stomach.

  She smiled weakly at him.

  His answering smile was slow to come.

  As she headed out of the building, she imagined a strong gust of wind bearing down on the house of cards she’d built.

  She could only pray that the structure remained intact.

  Chapter 21

  Two hours later, Brandon boarded the elevator and pushed the button for the lobby. As the cab lurched into motion he loosened the knot of his tie, wishing he could call it a day and go grab a cold beer. He’d been distracted during his meeting, his mind stuck on an image of Tamia’s bruised jaw. Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he sensed it deep in his gut.

  On the sixty-third floor, the elevator doors opened to admit a new passenger. Brandon blinked, surprised to find himself staring into the face of Dominic Archer.

  The other man looked equally surprised. “Hey … Bran-don. Wassup?”

  Brandon smiled wanly.“Wassup, man.”

  Dominic stepped inside, brie
fcase swinging at his side as he pressed the button to take him to the building’s underground parking garage.

  “I didn’t know your office was located in the Chase Tower,” Brandon remarked conversationally.

  “Yup. We’ve been here about two years now.”

  Brandon nodded, wondering whether Dominic was the client Tamia had come there to see. If so, why hadn’t she mentioned that?

  “Cutting out early, huh?” Brandon teased.

  “You know it.” Dominic grinned.“The wife’s been complaining about my long hours. Gotta make amends.”

  Brandon chuckled.“I hear you, man.”

  Dominic gave him a sidelong glance. “What about you, Counselor? Does Tamia complain about the long hours you work?”

  “Not anymore.” Brandon smiled ironically.“Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on your perspective—she’s as much of a workaholic as I am.”

  Dominic nodded. “Yeah, I can tell. She seems really passionate about what she does, really puts her all into it.”

  “Definitely.”

  In the ensuing silence, Brandon studied their reflections in the polished metal of the elevator doors. Two young, successful, good-looking brothas clad in tailored Italian suits and expensive loafers. He wondered which of them Tamia would have chosen if they’d met her at the same time. Then he gave himself a mental shake, wondering where the random thought had come from.

  As the elevator reached the lobby, Dominic said affably,“It was good to see you again, man.”

  “You, too. Take care.”

  Brandon stepped off the elevator, hesitated, then glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the doors sliding closed on Dominic’s smirking face.

  It was after ten p.m. by the time Tamia let herself into Brandon’s condo. She hadn’t intended to work so late, but she’d had more catching up to do than she’d thought. Days of playing hooky with Dominic had caught up to her.

  As soon as she entered the condo that night, she felt a whisper of foreboding.

  All the lights were off, the glow of the television providing the only illumination. She could make out Brandon reclining in the leather armchair, quietly nursing a glass of scotch. Not beer. Scotch. Which meant he had something heavy on his mind.