Authors: Niobia Bryant

Mistress No More (24 page)

BOOK: Mistress No More

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Jaime smiled. “You can stick these pearls where the sun don’t shine on you.”

Aria made a playful face. “Looks like you pulled the stick out of your dark spot,” she said. “The old Jaime would’ve got offended and made a prune face.”

She shrugged. “Just trying to get my ish together, as you would say.”

“Aren’t we all,” Aria said sadly.

“Kingston is still at his parents’?” Jaime asked.

Aria nodded and leaned her back against the column. “Yup. He is so mad at me.”

“Because the news didn’t come from you,” Jaime said, turning her eyes up the street to lock on Jessa’s home. “It was your business to tell. Not hers.”

“Trust and believe that restraining order is the ONLY thing keeping me from digging in that ass,” Aria said.

Jaime thought back to the day Jessa had sent the message and the hell they all went through waiting and wanting to know which husband had strayed with their friend. Jaime never wanted to feel like that again. Lost in the sauce and mad confused. The waiting game was hell.

And then to find out it was she that had been betrayed.

“All of this is Jessa Bell’s fault,” Jaime said, the anger in her voice barely contained.

“Don’t get me wrong. I hate the bitch. But we created our own secrets. Told our own lies. We gave her the power to destroy us.”

Jaime looked up at Aria, incredulous. “Because she was our friend, Aria. We trusted a friend.”

They both looked back down the street at Jessa’s house.

“I know Mark is spinning in his grave,” Aria said.

“Yeah, I bet,” Jaime agreed softly.

They fell silent for a moment. Jaime knew her thoughts were on the man who passed on way too soon but was a fun, friendly, and loyal presence during his time. A man who didn’t deserve for his legacy to be marred by a whoring widow.

“Think Eric is in there?” Jaime asked.

“Do you care?” Aria countered.

She really didn’t. “That man put me through hell and I helped him by sitting there taking it, pretending that we were fine. Hell, better than fine.”

“We all did some pretending, sugar,” Aria said in a Southern drawl that was completely random.

The two friends looked at each other and then laughed.

But Jaime’s eyes were drawn back to Jessa’s house. “It just doesn’t feel right that she gets to live here and I’m in some second-rate town house,” Jaime admitted, surprised by her own truthfulness. “What nerve does she have—after everything she put us all through—to move back.”

“Man, Jessa Bell is straight crazy,” Aria said, making a fist. “And I have all the psych meds she needs in this left and this right.”

Jaime shook her head. “No, I’m serious. What the hell is she thinking?” she asked, even as she moved down the steps.

“Jaime. Hello, Jaime. Where are you going?” Aria called out behind her.

“To have the conversation Jessa and I should have had a long time ago,” she said over her shoulder with her eyes locked on Jessa’s door.

The appropriate thing to do was to continue to ignore her. Say nothing. Tilt her head up high and walk past her like she never existed.

Fuck that.

Jaime’s steps paused as Jessa’s front door opened before she even reached it.
Still playing games,
she thought, continuing up the walkway to stand before the door.

She looked over her shoulder at Aria standing in the middle of the street, looking like one wrong move and she would say to hell with the restraining order. Jaime closed the door as she stepped inside the foyer.

“I’m in the living room,” Jessa called out.

Jaime headed that way, noticing that Jessa’s home was back to being fully furnished.
The bitch and whoever she hired has been busy.

Jessa was just lounging on the sofa in front of the windows. She was dressed in an all-white strapless jumpsuit, her ebony hair loosely twisted atop her head, a glass of wine in her hand.

Even in such casual attire, with her face free of makeup, the bitch was stunning.

“I was watching you while you both were watching my home,” Jessa said, her slanted ebony eyes locked on Jaime. “Your friend looks ready to pounce . . . again.”

“You used to be our friend but that . . . was that . . . an act?” Jaime asked, leaning against the wall, her head cocked to the side as she looked at this woman who deserved a beatdown to top all beatdowns.

“Listen, Jaime, I regret getting involved with Eric,” she said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

Jaime laughed bitterly. “Bitch, please. An apology cannot erase the miles you put on my husband’s dick.”

Jessa pressed her elbows into the cushions of the chair and then her chin in her hands. “You sound so possessive? If you’re here to let me know that you two have reconciled I’m tickled pink for you.”

Jaime crossed her arms over her chest as she strolled farther into the room. “Is
my
husband here? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Listen, Jaime, Eric is not welcome here so please don’t stalk my house looking for
your
husband,” Jessa drawled, crossing her legs at the ankle.

Jaime arched a brow as she eyed her. Hard. “You’re so fucking carefree about wrecking lives. So blasé about your bullshit. Nothing but a pretty package wrapped around a pile of bullshit and spite.”

Jessa’s eyes flashed. “Don’t judge me. You don’t know me.”

“You’re damn right, I don’t. I never did. We never did and I doubt Mark did either,” Jaime said coldly, coming to stand over Jessa’s sitting figure.

“Low blow, Jaime,” Jessa said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Fucking my husband. Taunting your friends with your affair. Revealing secrets we told you as a friend. Those aren’t low blows?” Jaime asked, ticking each offense off on her manicured fingers.

“What do you want from me? Why are you here?” Jessa asked, moving to rise to her feet in front of Jaime.

Jaime didn’t back down. “To look your pathetic ass in the face and tell you that it is low class of you to move back into Richmond Hills after the stunts you pulled. Low class and ignorant.”

Jessa’s eyes became amused. “Not as upstanding as fucking a stripper, huh?”

Jaime swung.

WHAP.

Her hand landed solidly against Jessa’s cheek, sending her flying back down onto the sofa. She moved to get up and Jaime used both her hands to shove her back down before she picked up the goblet of wine and tossed it in Jessa’s face with a wickedly loud splash.

Jessa cried out dramatically, wiping the liquor from her face with trembling hands. “Get the hell out of my house!” she screeched.

Jaime stepped back to survey her handiwork. She didn’t know she had it in her. Aria would’ve snatched her bald and dotted both her eyes, but Jaime thought she didn’t do half bad considering she’d never gotten into a fight before.

“You’re dead to us, Jessa,” she said.

Jessa laughed. “I’m not dead to Eric, though. Please tell your husband to leave me the hell alone,” she snapped.

Jaime shrugged. “Who cares, bitch,” she said.

Jesse snatched her cell phone up from the chair. “Your husband. That’s who.”

You have thirty saved messages.

Jaime’s eyes dropped to the BlackBerry in Jessa’s hand. “They’re all from your husband just this week.”
Beep.

“Jessa . . . Jessa pick up. I need you. Don’t do this to me. Don’t leave me, baby.”

Jaime stiffened at the sound of his voice. It was the same hushed and urgent tones he’d used when he ordered her to do his sexual bidding. It gave her the creeps.

Message after message after message from just that morning played, each becoming more disturbing than the last.

Beep.

“Jessa, I miss the feel of your mouth on my dick. Come get this dick. Don’t make me jack off . . . unless you want to watch again.”

Jaime’s frown deepened as she played one message where he was crying. No words. Just tears. What the hell?

Beep.

“Uh . . . I just jacked this dick. Come and suck up my cum. ”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Jaime said.

Jessa shrugged as she exited her voice mail box. “I don’t want the pervert. I’m sick of him stalking me. Handle it, please.”

“
You
handle it,” Jaime said, her voice hard. “You started it, now finish it.”

With one last glare and then a shake of her head that was filled with pity, Jaime turned and walked back out of Jessa’s life.

Aria met her in the street. “What did she say? Did she apologize? Did you slap her? You shoulda slapped her ass. Is there a knot on her head from me tossing that phone at her slick ass? Ooh, I want to beat that bitch ass sooooooooo bad! Oooh!”

Jaime actually laughed at the animation in Aria’s voice. “She thinks Eric and I are back together.”

Aria frowned. “She’s dumb.”

“I let her think that.”

“You’re dumb, too.”

Jaime smiled, knowing Aria was just being Aria. “I wanted to know what was going on with them. That perverted bastard wants everything back to the way it was. Degrading me in private and fucking Jessa on the low. Ugh. Ew. She played these voice mails he left on her phone. Just. Done. Just. So. Done.”

“Maybe he gets off like that.”

They turned and walked up the middle of the empty street together. “I just want to be free and he’s making it so hard while he’s crying like a bitch and begging his mistress to take him back.”

“Instead of taking it so hard, why don’t you give it just as hard.”

They came to stand on the sidewalk in front of Aria’s house. Jaime eyed her.

“Life is all about the scales,” Aria said, moving her hands up and down, palms up to the blue skies.

“Tip them in my favor, huh?” Jaime asked, biting the corner of her bottom lip.

Aria arched her brow. “And with nothing but the truth.”

Jaime reached in her Vuitton bag for her cell phone and dialed Eric’s number.

It rang once.

“Have you come to your senses?”

Jaime felt repulsed, thinking of the voice mails. “Yes, the night I left you,” she snapped, turning away slightly as Aria gave her some privacy by walking up onto her porch.

“Listen, let’s meet and talk about getting our marriage back on track.”

Jaime took a deep breath, shaking her head as she paced. “No, Eric, what we need to get straight is our divorce.”

“If you think I’m going to front your lifestyle while you’re lying up with strippers your ass is crazy. It’s simple, Jaime, get a job or get your ass back home. Matter of fact, have your ass home today. It’s enough of this.”

Jaime froze and licked her lips as her eyes squinted like a tiger locking on its prey: the house that used to be her home. “No, motherfucker, your ass is crazy and you’re right this shit ends today. You are forcing my hand.”

She thought about walking over to the house but a flash of their last meeting ending with bruises on her neck kept her locked where she was.

“Tomorrow you will receive another settlement offer from my attorney and you will sign it, Eric.”

He laughed.

Jaime swallowed back her nerves. “If you don’t then I will release the photos I took of my neck after you assaulted me when I confronted you about your mistress. I can imagine what your parents, your business associates, and your church family will have to say.”

He said nothing. Image was everything to him. Everything.

“Now, picture me revealing that weird sex you liked to have, Mr. Whip It Good,” she spat, her eyes blazing. Enough was enough.

BOOK: Mistress No More

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