“Fine, fine,” she said, tossing her hands in the air. “But if you’re going to call him, I’m leaving. You’re already a basket case.”
“Don’t leave,” Lily pleaded, staring at the shadows in the yard. She rushed downstairs and called Gabby. Once the dog ran inside, she quickly closed the door and locked it. She then scooped Gabby up in her arms, clutching her to her body. Taking a seat beside Tessa on the sofa, she said, “If Richard can get them to plead the case down to misdemeanor, it might go away. I don’t even have to see him. I don’t want to hire someone I’ve never met. They’re going to arraign Bryce tomorrow morning. I need someone fast.”
“It’s your life, honey,” Tessa said, brushing a curl off her forehead. “Go take your shower and try to put this stuff out of your mind for right now. I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”
Just then, Tessa’s cell phone rang. When she saw the name on the caller ID, she began waving her hands around, but Lily had already gone upstairs. “Anne, gosh, how are you doing?”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been at the club, Tessa. Do you know how I can reach Lily?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Hold on a minute.” She left her phone on the end table and raced upstairs to get Lily. “She’s on the phone.”
“Who’s on the phone?” Lily had already slipped out of her jeans and was pulling her sweater over her head.
“Anne,” Tessa said, her eyes enormous. “She wants to talk to you. What do you want me to tell her?”
“I thought you didn’t have her number.”
“I didn’t, but I gave her mine. This is the first time she’s ever called me.”
Lily marched downstairs wearing only her bra and panties. Tessa grabbed the phone and handed it to her. “This is Lily.”
“I’m so sorry, Lily. I assume Bryce has called you. I had no idea he was your husband. Did he tell you what happened?”
“Yes.” Lily dropped down on the edge of the sofa. “But I’d like to hear your side of the story.”
“I’m sure you would,” Anne said, sounding anxious. “Look, I don’t want to discuss this over the phone. There’s a Starbucks across the street from the health club. Can you meet me there in thirty minutes?”
Lily rattled off her cell phone number in case something happened, then raced up the stairs again to put her clothes back on. She saw Tessa had followed her.
“What did she say? Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“I’m going to meet her.”
“Why didn’t you have her come here?”
“Think about it, Tessa. I don’t want her to know where I live.”
“Bryce is the one who did something wrong, not Anne.”
“We don’t really know that for sure yet.” Lily put the same clothes back on and grabbed her keys. “You’ll have to move your car.”
“Why?” Tessa frowned. “Aren’t I going with you?”
God, Lily thought, now I have to deal with this. She walked over and placed her hands on her shoulders. “Anne may not talk if you’re there, Tessa. This is something I have to do by myself. You can go home if you want, or you can stay here and watch TV until I get back.”
Tessa sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’ll stay, I guess. I want to hear what she says. Where are you meeting her?”
“Starbucks, the one near the club.”
“Can’t I go with you and wait in the car?”
“No,” Lily shouted, heading back down the stairs. “You can’t go, Tessa. Why can’t you understand that? I’m under tremendous pressure right now. If you’re my friend, you won’t interfere.”
Tessa peered down at her from the top of the stairs. “You don’t have to yell at me. Since you don’t want me around, I’ll go home.”
Lily ignored her and went through the door leading to the garage. She got inside the Volvo, but when she hit the garage door opener, she saw Tessa’s car was blocking her. She took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. She couldn’t face another confrontation, so she decided to wait. It had been a mistake to ask Tessa to stay with her. After ten minutes had passed, she became furious, returning to the house. “Move your car, Tessa!”
The woman bumped Lily as she walked past her. “I was in the bathroom. You know, Lily,” she said, turning around to face her, “you’ve been treating me like shit ever since you became a judge. I’m tired of putting up with it. I left Fred alone to stay with you tonight. You never appreciate the things I do for you. I came over to see if you were okay the other morning, and you acted like I was invading your privacy. You were crouched in the corner like a terrified child. You don’t need a friend, Lily. You need professional help.”
“Move your damn car, Tessa,” Lily said, incredulous. Her friend was only a step away from being a stalker. She had entered her home unannounced and scared her out of her wits, then spent an hour talking about herself.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset about Bryce,” Tessa continued. “You treated him like a doormat. He was just someone to look after you. You were going to toss him aside one day and go back to Richard anyway. Everyone in your life is disposable. All you do is use people.”
Lily’s face was flushed with outrage. “Get out of my house!”
“So what if you were raped?” Tessa shouted. “It’s been over ten years. Isn’t it time you got over it?”
“Get out!”
“Fuck you,” Tessa said, disappearing out the front door.
Lily arrived at Starbucks fifteen minutes later, still livid over the hateful things Tessa had said to her. Through the glass, she saw a man working on a laptop and another person wearing a red sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. When she entered the coffee shop, she realized the person in the hooded sweatshirt was Anne. She looked up at Lily, causing the hood to slip off. Her chin was scraped, and she looked as if she’d been crying. Lily took a seat in the chair across from her.
“Would you like a coffee?” Anne asked, taking a sip out of a paper cup.
“No,” Lily said, craning her neck around when a young woman in jeans and a black leather jacket stepped up to the counter. “Why don’t we talk in my car? It’ll be more private.”
“Sure.”
Once they were situated in Lily’s Volvo, Anne began speaking. “Bryce swore he wasn’t married. Please believe me, Lily.”
There was a strange energy inside the car. Lily could almost feel Anne’s exhaustion and despair. It had taken courage for her to call her, let alone meet her face to face. Under the circumstances, most women would have run in the opposite direction.
“Let me try to explain,” Anne said softly. “Ventura is a bedroom community, something I didn’t give much thought to when I decided to move here. It isn’t that easy to meet people. I got lonely and—”
Something didn’t make sense. Lily interrupted her. “How did you find out Bryce was my husband? We don’t use the same name.”
“I guess that’s part of the problem,” Anne told her, leaning against the passenger window. “You having a different last name. When the police arrested him, Bryce kept telling them they couldn’t put him in jail because he was married to a judge. After he said your name, I put it together.”
The area around Lily’s lips felt numb. Anne moved and Lily noticed that the fabric in her jeans was torn around the knees and her skin was scraped. An odor caught her attention, the distinctive scent of Bryce’s aftershave.
Seeing Lily sniffing, Anne pulled her sweatshirt off, exposing a white tank top. “I didn’t take the time to shower. I’ve been beside myself ever since I found out Bryce was your husband. I came here hoping I could clear things up, maybe make you feel better.”
“Why? You hardly know me.”
“I know,” Anne said. “But I like you. We connected the other day in the gym. I thought I’d finally found a friend. Tessa told me about what you went through, how you and your daughter were raped. I’m so sorry you have to deal with this, Lily. You’ve gone through enough.”
<
br /> Lily was livid. How could Tessa reveal something that personal without her permission? She talked incessantly, and to anyone who would listen. And Tessa had the gall to call her a user. She was the user. The woman was using the nightmare Lily and Shana had suffered as a means to get attention, particularly now that Lily was a public figure. If Shana found out, she would never come to Ventura again. She felt like driving to Tessa’s house and slugging her.
Anne leaned over and touched her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Not really,” she answered, stifling her anger. “Please don’t repeat what Tessa told you.”
“I won’t, Lily. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just thought you should know that she discussed it with people. I heard her talking to someone else about it at the club. I’ve upset you. I’ll go.”
“No,” Lily said, putting her head down on the steering wheel. When she sat up, she asked, “How long have you known Bryce?”
“Five or six weeks. I got an invitation to join the Thousand Oaks Country Club in the mail. I went over to take a look at it, mainly because I didn’t have anything else to do. When I left, I saw this bar outside the back gate and decided to stop for a drink. Are you certain you want to hear this?”
“Probably not, but go ahead.”
“I was sitting at the bar. Bryce came in and sat down beside me. We started talking, and he seemed like a nice guy. He told jokes and made me laugh. When he started hitting on me, I told him I wasn’t interested, that all I needed was some occasional companionship. That probably sounds naïve, but I enjoy hanging out with guys. I had a number of male friends in Manhattan. We’d go out to eat, maybe take in a show. I should have known Bryce was married when he would never go anywhere but the Indigo.”
“Did you invite Bryce to go to Vegas with you?”
“God, no,” Anne told her. “I was bored and decided to take a trip. I thought I’d stay at a nice hotel with a spa, maybe take in a few shows. In New York, I went to Broadway shows all the time. When I mentioned it to Bryce, he said he was going to be in Vegas on business at the same time and suggested we get together. It was only supposed to be for a drink, Lily. I never said anything about sleeping with him. I wasn’t physically attracted to him.”
Anne was a striking and fit woman, so it was understandable that she wouldn’t be attracted to Bryce. He was also at least a decade older. What got Lily the most was that Bryce had demanded sex the night before he left. The bastard must have been fantasizing about Anne the entire time. She thought of all the nights he’d come home drunk. Not once had she suspected that he’d been with another woman. All she’d worried about was his drinking. In retrospect, he was always talking about his bachelor days and boasting how he’d had a different girl every night. Lily felt as if she’d been run over by a train without realizing she was anywhere near a railroad track. “How many times did you see Bryce at this bar?”
“I don’t remember,” Anne told her, fidgeting. “Four, maybe five times. Being alone in a new place isn’t easy. In New York, there’s something to do almost every hour in the day. I was lonely, so I started hanging out at the Indigo. The food wasn’t bad, and I didn’t have to eat alone.”
Through the windows, Lily saw the woman in the black leather jacket sitting at the table with the man she’d seen earlier. Had he met her over the Internet? She wondered if he had a wife at home. She turned back to Anne. “Tell me what happened in Vegas.”
“Bryce called me on my cell phone and asked me to meet him in the bar at the Aladdin. I was running late, and by the time I got there, he was already pretty plastered. I should have left then, but that’s what people do in Vegas. You know, they drink.”
“What about you?”
Anne tugged on an earlobe. “I have a cocktail or a glass of wine now and then, but I don’t have a problem and I certainly wasn’t drinking when I met Bryce. It was in the middle of the day, for Christ’s sake. If all I wanted to do was get wasted, I could have stayed in Ventura.”
“Go on,” Lily said. “I shouldn’t have interrupted you.”
“Bryce wanted to go to the MGM because it’s a nicer hotel. I had a rental car, so I decided to drive him there and then take off.” Anne raised her shoulders and then let them fall. “I don’t know how to sugarcoat this, Lily. Your husband turned into a drunken pig in the car. He ripped my blouse, squeezed my nipples, shoved his finger up my vagina.”
“While you were driving?”
“Some of it,” Anne said, wrapping her arms around her chest. “I kept trying to fight him off. When I realized he wasn’t going to stop, I turned into the first driveway I saw. It wasn’t until the police came that I learned it was the Sands, and that the hotel was closed. I thought someone would be there to help me, but they weren’t.”
Lily remembered how she and Shana had screamed the night of the rape, praying one of the neighbors would hear and call the police. Anne was breathing heavily now, reliving the fear and panic.
Anne began talking faster. “I managed to get out of the car and started running. He came after me . . . jumped right on my back. I tried to get him off me, but he was too heavy. I finally got away and crawled to the trash dumpster, thinking I could hide behind it. Then I saw this board on the ground. I—I swung it at him. I just kept swinging it at him until he stopped.” She locked eyes with Lily, tears streaking down her face. “What else could I do? I wasn’t going to let him rape me. No man should treat a woman like that.”
Lily wanted to comfort her, tell her it would never happen again. The truth was it could, which was one of the reasons she still lived in fear. “It’s over,” she said, reaching into her purse and handing Anne a tissue. “You’re safe now.”
Anne wiped her eyes, then blew her nose. “Maybe if I’d known he was your husband, I wouldn’t have reported it to the police. I’m sorry, Lily.”
She got out of the Volvo and started across the parking lot toward a black Nissan. Lily ran after her. She was so much taller, Anne seemed like a child. “You shouldn’t make decisions at a time like this. I’m the one who owes you an apology. My husband attacked you.”
“No,” Anne shot out, walking around in a circle. “People will find out. You’re the one who will get hurt, not Bryce. Think about your career, Lily. Anyone can get a law degree. You’re a judge. I can’t let something like this tarnish your reputation. I’ll go away, maybe move back to New York. Ventura isn’t the right place for me.”
“Stay here, Anne, don’t move away.”
She stopped and peered up at Lily. “Do you really mean that?”
“Of course I do. I know a lady who’s about to get divorced, and she’s going to need a single friend.”
“Who?”
“Me,” Lily said, impulsively embracing her. “You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. You’ve been through this horrible ordeal and all you’re concerned about is hurting me.”
Anne pulled her car keys from her pocket. “I’m going to call the PD in Vegas tomorrow morning and tell them that I changed my mind about pressing charges. Bryce was scared, Lily. I doubt if he’s ever done anything like this before. Spending a night in jail should be enough of a deterrent. He needs to go into some kind of alcohol rehab, though. If he hadn’t been drunk, this might not have happened.”
“If you insist on not pressing charges, I can’t stop you. But don’t do it right away, Anne. I want Bryce to sweat it out for a few more days. Besides, the state can still prosecute him.”
“You know they’ll kick him loose if I refuse to testify. I’m an attorney, remember? I know how the system works.”
Anne moved closer, until she and Lily were only inches apart. She whispered something, and Lily bent down to hear what she was saying. Anne put her arm around her neck and kissed her on the lips. Lily got lost in the moment, finding the kiss intensely erotic. She tried to pull away, but instead she wrapped her arms around Anne and pulled her closer to her body. She was so soft, so fragile. Her breath was fresh and Lily could smel
l the scent of her shampoo. A car pulled up beside them and parked, the moment fractured.
Lily dropped her head, embarrassed and yet excited. So this was what it was like? When she pictured a lesbian, she conjured up images of unappealing, masculine-looking women who never wore makeup and dressed like truck drivers. She’d never given thought what it would be like to be with another woman.
Anne waited until the man got out of his car and headed for the coffee shop. “In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Lily, I’m gay. I wanted you to know so you’d understand. I didn’t seduce Bryce. I thought he knew.”
Lily’s head was still spinning. She started to say something, then stopped.
“You’re an amazing woman,” Anne continued. “You don’t deserve to be with a man like Bryce.” She glanced back at Lily and winked, then got in her car and sped off.
The Cheater Page 26
