The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue 2)

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Reggie says. “You couldn’t have known it would end this way. Well, actually, you could’ve, if you’d listened to me from the start. But what’s done is done. Go on back to your little life. Amelia’s had her fun.”

Andrew swallows and drops his eyes to me. The sadness is gone, and now they’re just sharp with anger, hurt. “All right. I’ll go if that’s what you want.”

It’s not. It’s not what I want. My heart u

rges me to speak, but my brain knows better.

“But do one last thing for me, Amelia, will you?” Andrew asks. “Before I go . . .”

I can’t even open my mouth or I’ll scream. I want to launch myself into Andrew’s arms, but I’m afraid. For both of us. “What?” I rasp.

Andrew nods. “Move a foot to your left.”

My mind goes blank, confusion coming on fast. I’m sure I’ve misheard. “What?”

“Move.”

I leap aside when Andrew lunges into the apartment, grabbing Reggie by his shirt. He barrels him back into the nearest wall, and Reggie oophs like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. “How fucking dumb do you think I am?” Andrew asks, nearly rattling the walls with the deep rumble of his voice. “Did you honestly think I’d believe this? That she’d choose a scumbag like you?”

Shock freezes my limbs, keeps my mouth from doing anything but hanging open. My instinct is to pull Andrew off, but the way he’s hulking out, a full-grown man wouldn’t be able to separate them.

“Get out of my apartment,” Reggie says through his teeth, wheezing.

“This isn’t your apartment—it’s Amelia’s. You have a real bad habit of showing up places you aren’t wanted, don’t you?”

Reggie straightens, despite his obvious disadvantage. I know him. He feels cornered, and Reggie fights with words and threats, not muscles. “You should’ve taken the money. Amelia might fight and resist me, but eventually she’ll come crawling back when she needs something. Money, sex, companionship—I’m the one she’ll turn to. You’ll be a chump, but you could’ve been a chump with ten grand in your pocket.”

“Amelia’s been trying to get away from you for a year, yet you keep slinking back. Who’s the chump?”

“Fuck you,” Reggie says, spittle flying. “You’re delusional. You should be locked up. You can kiss your daughter goodbye. I’ll have you thrown in jail so fast for this—”

Somehow, Andrew grows even bigger. Toe to toe, with Reggie cowering, Andrew looks almost twice Reggie’s size. The muscles in his back tighten through his t-shirt. “You’re going to bring my daughter into this?”

“Somebody has to. You’re a fucking Neanderthal. Whoever left you in charge of a small child should be ashamed.”

Andrew raises his fist. Reggie looks more amused than afraid. This is what he wants. Once Andrew hits him, Reggie will have what he needs to take him down.

I grasp Andrew’s bicep, pulling it with all my strength. “Bell,” I cry out.

He pauses.

“Think of Bell. Don’t make this mistake.”

After a few tense seconds, he drops his fist but keeps ahold of Reggie’s shirt. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” Andrew says. “You’re going to go home, sign the divorce papers, and hand them over to your lawyer.”

Reggie scowls. “Says who?”

“Me. From this moment forward, you’ll stay away from Amelia. You won’t have a choice, since she’ll be getting a restraining order—”

“She wouldn’t—”

“She would, she will, and if that isn’t enough to keep you away, then I’ll have to do the job myself.”

Reggie eyes him. “Is that a threat?”

“You think I’m a Neanderthal? Just wait. My friends are nearing middle age, and they’re just itching to prove they’re as tough as they used to be. Don’t think they’d have any problem proving it on you.”

Reggie turns to me. “Are you hearing this? This is the kind of man you want to get mixed up with?”

I could never explain to Reggie how Andrew is ten times the man he is. Money and status mean nothing to him compared to family, love, security. The confidence Andrew wants to give me is far more valuable.

Reggie wriggles, and Andrew lets him go. “Get out,” Andrew says.

“You have balls now, but just wait,” Reggie says. “I have what I need to take both of you down. Even you, Amelia.”

I feel Andrew’s eyes on me, but I keep mine on Reggie. Reggie’s been circling this all night, so I face it head on. “What do you have?” I ask quietly.

“It’s me or him. This is your last chance. If you aren’t my wife, you’re my enemy. Decide.”

I start to remind him that this isn’t about either of them—it’s about me. Whether or not I choose Andrew and Andrew chooses me back, I will never return to Reggie.

Reggie holds up a hand. “Before you respond, know this. Avec and I come together. Without me, there’s no avec. That’s how I bring you down.”

THIRTY-ONE

Andrew and I go completely still, as if a vacuum has sucked the air right out of the room. I’ve been white-knuckling avec like a rope in a tug-of-war for a long time, trying to keep the bigger half on my side. I’ve built it from the ground up. It defines me. It’s a piece of me so large, it’s taken over every aspect of my life.

I no longer know if I want it because I love it, or because I’m afraid of who I am without it.

Now, I might be forced to find out.

“We’ll fight it,” Andrew says.

I blink out of my daze. “How? He has money. Power. Attorneys.”

“I don’t care. We’ll find a way.”

“I have more than that,” Reggie says. “I have you on tape, screwing another man in my kitchen while you’re still legally married to me. I have that same man threatening me in a crowded place and then again in front of his daughter.”

My heart drops. “How?” I ask, but I know the answer. I shouldn’t have underestimated Reggie. Nothing is too far if it means getting what he wants. He’d hired a private investigator often enough while we were together to track people who’d wronged him. I wouldn’t be exempt from that just because I’d loved him once.

Andrew’s chest rises and falls as he glares at Reggie. “You’re sick.”

“Maybe, but at least I’m not stupid. Amelia had a whole year to gather evidence against me for the divorce, and what has she got? Nothing.”

“Because I trusted you,” I say, covering my stomach as it drops. Gathering evidence. Reggie has invaded my home—my privacy. And Andrew’s. It didn’t occur to me he’d take it this far. “I never suspected . . .”

“You do anything with those videos,” Andrew says, “and we’ll—”

“What?” Reggie asks. “You can’t touch me. Not physically. Not financially.”

Andrew goes quiet. He can touch Reggie, and do a great deal of bodily damage, but not without serious consequences.

“I know things about you,” I say. “I may not have evidence, but I know things.” His secrets are at least a year old, but he’s been fucking people over all his life. Surely there’s someone with more power than him that he’s pissed off. Reggie opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “Don’t worry—I’m not going to do anything. I’m not going to go to your old clients and tell them they’re knee-deep in an investment scheme or to the FBI to suggest they look a little closer at your taxes. My integrity is more important than revenge. Andrew and I are above your petty threats.”

“You can’t prove any of it,” Reggie says. “But it doesn’t need to come to that anyway, Amelia. You can still fix this. I haven’t done anything permanent. Come back to me, and you can erase the evidence yourself.”

“Fuck off,” Andrew says. “She’d be better off getting wrongfully slandered than entering into another abusive relationship with you.”

“Why don’t you let her answer for herself,” Reggie says, sounding mildly amused. As if he expects me to buckle because of what he’s told me tonight.

“Ignore him,” Andrew says. “He doesn’t have shit.”

I frown at Andrew. “I think he does.”

“Then we’ll fight it, like I said.” He watches me closely, his dark eyebrows gathered, his forehead creased with concern. He truly believes he and I have a chance against Reggie, and he cares enough about me to try. Even if it means putting himself in the middle of it. He’s wrong to think we can take Reggie on, but knowing he’s behin

d me gives me renewed confidence—in us and in myself.

I turn to Reggie. “You win. Although I guess it really depends how you look at it.” My throat is dry as a desert. I wish I knew in my gut if this was the right decision, but I don’t. All I know is that no business is worth this disillusioned, washed-up asshole’s manipulation. And it’s certainly not worth putting Andrew and Bell in the center of it. “You can have avec.”

Andrew steps closer to me. “Amelia.”

I shake my head, still staring at Reggie. “It’s okay. I’ll start again. I’ll do something bigger and better. Or maybe I won’t. But it’s my choice. I don’t know what you want with a fashion and beauty business—maybe you just need to run it into the ground to feel like a man, or to spite me, and that’s very sad. Take the alimony and the apartment too. I’ll give you everything; I’ll let you keep every cent. You’ll need it when you end up alone, having to live with the person you’ve become.”

Both men’s eyes are on me, and for the first time in a long time, at least where work and Reggie are concerned, a sense of calm settles over me. I loosen my grip, physically, uncurling my fists, and figuratively. I accept defeat. Though I love my business, there are more important things in the world, and part of me sees, like a pinprick of light on a dark horizon, that letting go of something leaves me constantly drained, could be a good thing.

“You’re going to choose a man you’ve known for weeks over your husband. Your business?” Reggie asks. “Things you’ve invested years of your life in?”

“I’m choosing myself. You may have every material thing that means anything to me, but I’m richer than you’ll ever be.” Andrew’s presence is strong beside me, and I take his hand. “And yes. I choose him too.”

Reggie raises a red, meaty hand. I don’t know what he intends to do with it, but I don’t find out. Andrew shoves him backward toward the door. “Do what you have to do,” he says. “But get the fuck out. Now.”