Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

DEVIN

Victoria shoved me out of her apartment and slammed the door in my face before I could process anything she’d just said. I didn’t even understand why I went on the defensive and blamed her for everything - again.

Yes, I did. I was angry after seeing her cry outside of the restaurant earlier. I wanted to know what gave her the right to play the victim when she refused to speak to me, see me, answer the phone, or even respond to a text. Granted, even without all that - had it been true - she deserved to feel everything. Despite trying to put some of the blame at her feet in the heat of the moment, I knew better. She hadn’t been alone in her decision making. Hell, I’d gone along with the secret nature of our relationship because I was afraid of losing my best friend - Vic’s little brother. I also hadn’t wanted to rock the boat with my parents.

All of my introspection left me, along with any hope I had, as a pitiful wailing sob tore through the front door and pierced straight into my heart. I banged on the door in response. “Vic, please!” I begged.

The door never opened. I sat on the other side and listened as my love cried so hard and so long that her voice sounded ragged in the end. She hadn’t moved away from the door, and I knew better than to think it was because she wanted me to feel every bit of the grief she expelled. There was no way in hell Vic would want me, or anyone else, to witness her breaking so tragically. That meant shit had really hit her hard and once again, I felt like the proverbial knife stabbing her in the back.

I had done this. Through my actions, through my unwillingness to bend, and with my accusations that she had somehow harmed us more than I had, there was no doubt that I had broken her beyond repair. At least, I’d broken the part of her who had once been in love with me. After a while, the gut wrenching noises of distress from the other side of the door finally subsided. She never opened it for me. I wasn’t even sure if she knew I was still there.

I couldn’t imagine adding to her pain any further, so eventually, I stood and left her house.

Something deep down inside me ached because I knew that after the mess I'd just made of things, there was no coming back. I didn't even understand why I felt so compelled to stick up for Justice when I knew what she had been up to. In some warped sense of responsibility to the woman, I made things worse between Vic and me. The evidence of just how calculating Justice had been should have held my tongue, but once again, I hadn’t properly processed all that just yet. It wasn’t until I had to sit through nearly an hour of Victoria crying herself sick on the other side of her door that I was able to work through some of what had just happened in her apartment.

One thing for sure was that Vic was right. Her biggest crime was that she kept us a secret from everyone. Mine was far bigger, considering I'd married Justice behind Vic's back. I honestly didn't think Justice and I had sex. It felt like a lie the day I woke up with her naked and plastered to my side. Even though I was hung over, seeing her curled up next to me had felt like a lie. The only thing that made me believe I had sex with her had been the fact that there was evidence. My dick had very clearly been somewhere it shouldn’t have. It disgusted me to even remember how I had to go to the shower and wash the traces of what I’d done that night off of my body. I couldn’t tell Vic about that though. She already knew enough to be shattered by everything I put us through.

No matter what else happened to cause a strain in my relationship with Vic, I had cheated when she had always remained faithful. I had also kept the fact that something happened between Justice and me a secret. I was an asshole for ever throwing the secret nature of our relationship in Vic’s face, as if that was the worst problem we had. I was the problem. The shit I did when I was too jealous to handle a situation that Vic had been forced to watch on repeat for more than a year.

I didn’t know how to come back from this latest snafu either. After I couldn’t get ahold of Vic for a couple days, I went and sat my parents down and explained everything to them. Everything aside from who Justice was carrying on an affair with. That part I kept to myself, and not for the reasons Vic thought. It wasn’t about protecting Justice. It was about what I planned to do with that information.

I spent the entire trip home stewing over Vic’s perspective on things. She was right about everything. What she had done in hiding our relationship paled in comparison to the bullshit I had put her through. It also paled in comparison to the crazy shit my wife pulled. The wife who now lived with me because her parents kicked her out when they found out about the surprise marriage and baby on the way. They told her if she was old enough to be married and expecting, she was damn sure adult enough to live with the husband who had knocked her up. She had nowhere else to go. As a result of our idiotic marriage, Justice was, for all intents and purposes, my problem - for now. She turned out to be bigger problem than I could have anticipated though.

Not only had she burned our prenup, stolen money from my safe, but she had blocked and rerouted my calls to and from Victoria. Her crimes had been adding up, and I’m sure she was careful to avoid swiping my phone in range of the cameras, so there was no proof of that shit.

“Hey, where were you?” My fucking fake ass wife called out as I came through the door.

The surprise came when I rounded the corner and noticed that she was wearing next to nothing, having gotten comfortable since we came back from lunch with my parents. My fake girlfriend- turned wife -wore a white, ribbed tank top with no bra and panties that barely covered her anywhere considering they were thongs.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, not in the mood to put up with more bullshit. I hadn’t told her where I was off to when I dropped her off so quickly after our lunch, but there was no doubt she knew I went to go hunt down Victoria.

“What do you mean?” The faux innocence seemed out of pocket since she already knew I saw through her bullshit. While it might have once worked on me, there was no going back to her pretend fake nice and easy flirtatious girl next door persona. She was a fucking snake in the grass and not even one that camouflaged itself well.

The headache that built since I left Vic’s place started to throb even harder. It wasn’t her being deliberately obtuse with me that caused my head to pound. It was the realization that she’d been this way all along and I had failed to see what was right in front of me in the beginning. My priority had always been Vic. That was where I failed her too. I had glossed over everything else about our situation, including Justice’s neediness, while I tried to figure out how to get Vic to bring our relationship into the light. There was no going back with Vic, the secrets, or Justice’s bullshit.

“What the fuck are you wearing? You never dress like that around here.”

She shrugged. “We’ve been married long enough, lover. I figured it was time to spice up our relationship, especially since Vic seems to be done with you - finally.” She huffed out the last word as her eyes rolled. Like Vic had been the problem all along.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Her hands went to her hips, which she jutted out in what was probably supposed to be an enticing gesture. It wasn’t.

“You thought I would bring Vic back and you planned for her to see you like this, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was clipped, but I could hear the annoyance in her denial. “I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to be comfortable. That’s all.”

“Funny, you just said you wanted to spice up our married life. Do you even bother to keep track of your own lies?” She shrugged her shoulders and turned her back on me. I didn’t miss the fact that she tried to emphasize her ass as she popped it out further before she walked away.

I followed, like an idiot. “Do you want to tell me about how comfortable you got with my phone?” I could see in the way her shoulders stiffened momentarily that she was about to try to lie to me again. She turned to speak and must have noticed the change in my stance because she quickly decided to go with the flow.

Again she shrugged in that, “It doesn’t matter,” way that made me want to grab her by the hair and throw her out of my house. Not that I would ever resort to violence with a woman, but damn if it didn’t feel at least a little cathartic to imagine it.

“I thought it would be best if you took a break from dealing with her for a while. We have enough going on here with being newlyweds and our baby on the way.”

“First of all, that baby isn’t mine. The marriage should have never happened. You lied about the baby to trick me into marrying you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you set it up to look like we fucked when we never did.”

“Oh no, I assure you that really happened. In fact, I bet your little cameras caught the whole sordid affair .” She emphasized the word affair, and it put me on edge immediately. Especially since I hadn’t thought to go back and look at the video evidence from that night. I’m not sure why I remembered the cameras were there when she stole from me, but forgot that I could have checked what I’d gotten up to that night with her. In all likelihood, I’d blocked out the possibility because I didn’t want to be guilty of cheating on Vic. If I saw what really happened, it might mean I’d have to face the fact that I had known exactly what I was doing, even if I forgot later.

“Okay, how about the fact that it is NEVER your fucking business to decide who I talk to. I don’t care if we’re married. I can prove fraud, the fact that we haven’t consummated, and get the marriage annulled immediately.” There was something else I could prove, but that was a secret for another day and had nothing to do with a possible sex tape I didn’t even know I made.

“No, you can’t! My parents kicked me out!”

“And how is that my fucking problem?”

“They think this is your baby!”

“I guess you’ll have to come clean about being a home wrecking whore then, huh? Maybe you should tell them who the baby’s dad really is. I’m sure that will put you back in their good graces. Knowing you, you can even spin yourself into a victim roll and royally fuck up Brody’s life.”

“I’ve been your fake girlfriend for more than a year. You owe me!” Her demand came out high pitched and full of desperation.

“I don’t owe you anything, Justice. You needed a beard, too. We were even on that score. I’m finally beginning to see that you were playing a different game all along, though.”

“I wasn’t, but I just…. I just… Dammit, Devin, I started falling for you!” She pouted and moved in closer, as if those words mixed with the seductive way she sauntered toward me would be an enticement I couldn’t resist.

“Fuck off, Justice. You have sixty days to vacate my property. I was told on the drive home that was all it would take to get an annulment done as well.”

“I won’t agree to it. I’ll tell them that we did sleep together,” she rushed the words out in a panic.

“You would be lying in court if you said that.”

“They won’t know that. Who do you think the court will believe? Your poor, pregnant wife, who you’re throwing away for the other woman? You know, since everyone we know is aware that you and I were dating the whole time, but no one knows that it was really Victoria that you were with while I was with Brody. Do you think they’ll believe you when we made everyone in our lives fall for our lies about being together?”

“I think that between the DNA test I’m going to request and the fact that I’ve been recording our conversation,” I pointed to the cameras she apparently forgot all about again. “I have a pretty good case to make for fraud, the annulment, and even getting rid of you sooner than 60-days, since you pose a risk to my mental health.” I didn’t want to slip in the fact that I thought she posed a risk to my life as well, because there was no way I’d give her any ideas.

“You can’t record me. That’s illegal.”

“We’re standing in my house. I can record whatever the fuck I want in my own house. You don’t have to be here.” It was my turn to shrug indifferently. “Besides, welcome to the joys of a one-party state. I don’t have to get your permission to record.”

“I’ll go tell Dallas!” She screamed at me.

“I really hope you do. It will save me time in trying to convince Vic to do just that.” I also wouldn’t admit that Vic would probably never speak to me again after everything I put her through. Justice didn’t get to walk away with that satisfaction.

Justice laughed then. “I know her too well. She might have forgive you for sleeping with me, maybe even marrying me, but she’ll never forgive you for continuing to look so damn happy about playing family with me. I think that was one step too far for little miss perfect.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t hold your breath on that, since she was the one who told me you were playing games and didn’t believe that we’d ever really had sex.”

“She’s just trying to make it seem less awful that you married me and not her.”

“Justice, we’re done here.”

“We’re really not.” She stomped her foot. “I’ll go tell your parents you are trying to kick me out. They like me.”

“They already know the truth. They were being nice because the baby isn’t mine, they know about my plan, and they didn’t want to ruin it before I was able to get you out of my life for good.”

She spluttered and turned on her heels to leave. “Justice!” I called out. She stopped with her shoulders all the way up to the base of her skull. “Don’t think about pulling any bullshit with me or Victoria. You do, and my next move is to go visit your parents with Brody and his wife on the invite list for that conversation.”

She huffed and kept a defiant smirk plastered to her face. “There is no you and Victoria. Considering we both know her old ass so well, there never will be again. So, you can try to threaten me all you want, but it won’t help you to get her back. That will never happen again.” She turned and flounced off to the guest room.

There was no way I could live with the woman, though. Unfortunately, that meant I would have to go through the legal process of getting rid of her - from my house as well as the public perception that we were married.