Authors: Niobia Bryant

Mistress No More (26 page)

BOOK: Mistress No More

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Renee ran her hands through her hair, feeling the dry texture of her natural curls as she paced the short length of her cell. She breathed deeply, trying to beat off the desire to taste alcohol. She craved it and the deep sleep she would slip into because of it.

Renee sighed, turning to look over her shoulder at Basheera’s empty bed. Sometime late last night they’d finally transferred her to a hospital for medication to deal with her withdrawal. Renee actually missed the communication from someone she probably would have never fraternized with on the outside.

“Good Lord, I’m even thinking like a lifelong criminal,” she muttered, pulling her robe tighter around her frame as her admirer across the hall turned in her sleep.

What is going to happen to me?
she wondered as she looked around the cell, hating that it had already become familiar to her in a way.

Renee glanced across the cell and then down at the shiny metal commode in the corner. With the lascivious lesbian always peering into her cell like a Macy’s window display during the Christmas season, Renee had gotten quite good at holding her pee. She hurried to fling up her robe and squat over the commode, hating how the sound of her urine echoed inside the bowl. She rolled her eyes heavenward as she finished.

“I can give you a real golden shower.”

Renee gladly flushed to mask the harassment from across the hall.
Fucking pervert,
Renee thought as she washed her hands. Not because of her sexual orientation but her relentless pursuit.

“Clinton. You have a visitor,” a male jailer said at the door.

Renee looked up at the stained mirror, her curiosity clear in the depths of her eyes. Her eyes took in everything. The puffiness of her face from her tears. The darkness around her eyes from stress and lack of sleep. The wrinkled and disheveled state of her robe. The lopsided lean of her hair from sleeping on that side.

She looked absolutely nothing like Renee Clinton. Nothing at all.

“Let’s go, Clinton,” the jailer said, his voice hard.

She quickly rinsed her face and tightened the belt of her robe as she made her way to a small amount of freedom from her cell.

“One of the jailers called your husband and asked him to bring you a change of clothes,” the jailer said as he signaled up the hall for the cell to be unlocked.

Ka-dang!

The door slid open slowly with an almost rusted-sounding grind.

Jackson. Renee paused momentarily before she stepped out of the cell for the first time in three days.

Physically? Barely washed.

Spiritually? Not cleansed.

Mentally? Totally undone.

She barely listened as the jailer explained the visiting procedure to her and how after a search of the garments they would bring the change of clothing to her cell.

As they waited for the heavy door at the end of the hall to open, Renee spotted Jackson sitting at a small table in a nice-sized room. He looked one the better than she did.

Did he comfort Inga as I lay in a jail cell?

And then she hated that even now jealousy ruled her.

Renee thought about the last time they’d been together.

And as good as it had felt to have Jackson’s dick buried inside of her again, Renee had felt relief when he’d eased every delicious and traitorous inch out.
We weren’t ready for sex. As much as I wanted it. Enjoyed it. Needed it. We weren’t ready,
she admitted to herself.

Renee eyed him as she made her way to his table. Some of the hair on his head was silver. The squareness of his shoulder had rounded just a bit and his middle was softer, but Renee knew that she would have loved this man and stayed with this man until his hair was snow white and his body the epitome of old age. And she would have felt the same way as she did when she’d sworn to be his wife. Until death. Not until an affair.

Renee blinked away tears as he looked up at her as she sat down in the chair opposite him. She made sure to press her knees close together and tried to gather the ends of her robe, aware of the curious eyes of the other visitors and prisoners. She closed her eyes and released a breath filled with all her stress.

“Jackson,” she began, opening her eyes to look at his profile as he sat at some spot beyond her.

He turned and looked at her. “I brought you a change of clothing,” he said, his tone emotionless.

She nodded, forcing herself not to look away from his eyes. “They told me. Thank you . . . I . . . I . . . uh.”

Jackson shook his head and balled his fist on top of the table. “We’re better than this, Renee,” he said, piercing her with eyes now filled with some anger and some sadness. “I fucked up . . . but you’re better than this. What about the kids? What about you? What were you thinking?”

“In that moment?” she asked. “I wanted her dead.”

Jackson dropped his head into his hand as he shook it.

“The alcohol, the jealousy, the hatred . . . all of it fueled one of the dumbest and the most dangerous things I’ve ever done,” Renee admitted. “But I couldn’t do it and I turned the car into the wall instead.”

Jackson looked up. “You could have killed yourself.”

Renee bit her bottom lip as she tilted her head back. “Everything . . .
everything
is all a fucking mess,” she said in a harsh and emotion-filled whisper as one tear raced down her cheek.

“We will get through this,” he insisted.

She swiped away her tears. “How? Through conjugal visits?” she asked bitterly, her eyes brilliantly glassy with unshed tears.

“I have my attorneys already looking at the case and they’ll be here for your bond hearing tomorrow and they’re confident you will get a bond,” he told her, his eyes filled with his desire to reach for her. To touch her. To comfort her.

Renee felt some comfort that Jackson was not ready to turn his back on her, but it wasn’t enough to beat out the truth of the situation. “Jackson,” she said, leaning in close. “I was going to kill your baby mama and she knows it. I am in jail,” she stressed, almost choking on the words. “I’m an alcoholic. Friday was not the first day I’ve been drinking.”

Her final words stunned him. He leaned back in his chair and wiped his mouth with his hands.

“Jackson,” she said again, firmly. Insistent. “Jackson, it’s over.”

“What have I done to you?” he asked heavily.

For a moment, Renee wondered why she, on the side of the table for inmates, was consoling her husband, a visitor free to leave at any time.

“We loved each other . . . just not enough,” she said with sad honesty. With a soft smile, she noticed the scattered gray hairs now filling the soft curls of his hair. “To be honest, Jackson, when I thought you fucked Jessa, I was prepared to forgive you. I was willing to fight for you.”

He shifted his eyes up to hers.

Renee smiled sadly at the familiar wave of chemistry that floated over her body.

Jackson bit his bottom lip as he tilted his head back and looked up to the ceiling. “You never miss your water until your well runs dry,” he said.

She shifted her eyes to look out of the window. Freedom. She missed it like crazy. How long before she felt it again?

They both fell silent. The minutes slipped by. Neither said or did anything. They were in limbo. They were at a crossroads.

“I have to go. Visitation is over,” Jackson said, rising to his feet. He looked down at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow when I pick you up to take you home.”

Renee focused on his eyes, his jeans and T-shirt. Fifteen minutes was especially short in a jail. “I’ll be okay, Jackson,” she assured him, the words sounding hollow even to her own ears.

There’s no turning back now,
Renee thought the next morning as she sat in the holding cell awaiting her arraignment.

She took a deep breath and she rocked back and forth on the bench, trying hard to calm herself, to settle her nerves. “I made the right decision,” she told herself. “I am a mother first and foremost. I am doing what is ultimately right for my children.”

The door to the holding room opened and Renee looked up at the uniformed court officer motioning his finger for her to step out of the room.

Her stomach tightened into a tight knot and she even felt like her bowels might run. “Get it together, Renee,” she told herself as she stepped out of the room at the end of the long hall.

She looked forward as she followed the officer through a large wooden door into the courtroom. As she was led to the defendant’s table next to her attorney she saw Jackson, Aria, and Jaime sitting directly behind him. She gave them a soft smile, trying to reassure them that she was okay. She had survived the weekend in jail and was ready to survive more if necessary. It was completely out of her hands.

“I love you, Renee,” Jackson mouthed.

Renee just looked away from him even as her heart tugged. She couldn’t forget that outside of this courtroom the rest of the world moved on and her husband cheated and his mistress was pregnant.

“Justin Harringer representing the defendant, Your Honor,” her attorney said, looking like he was worth every bit of the huge sum Jackson paid him.

The white-haired judge nodded as he looked through the open file. “Do you waive the reading?” the judge asked, eyeing him over the rim of his spectacles.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Renee stood motionless. That morning he had already explained that this was a formality, waiving the public reading of her charges.

Driving Under the Influence, Criminal Mischief, Misdemeanor Assault. Her charges. Possible jail time? Up to three years.

Shit.

But that was to come later once a trial date was set. For now she was taking Justin’s advice and focusing on getting out of jail.
Quick, fast, and in a hurry,
Renee thought, as the judge asked the prosecution for the specifics of the case.

“Mrs. Clinton drove the vehicle under the influence of alcohol with the initial intent to run into the vehicle of Inga Brantley, the pregnant mistress of her husband—”

BAM.
His words felt like a slap to the face and Renee had to force herself to show no emotion just the way her attorney instructed her.

“Mrs. Clinton lost control of the vehicle before the impact and instead crashed her vehicle into the main gate of the Richmond Hills subdivision where she lives.”

Renee gasped. “I didn’t lose control,” she said, leaning forward to eye the female prosecutor.

The judge tapped his gavel.

Justin lightly touched her arm and leaned over to whisper in her ear. “You can’t speak out in corner unless addressed by the judge.”

“But—”

Justin’s grip tightened just a bit. “But nothing, Renee. Now is not the time.”

She pressed her lips closed. “I apologize, Your Honor,” she said.

The prosecution continued with the details of that day.

“Recommendations for bail?” the judge asked, eyeing the prosecutor.

“The state requests a hundred thousand dollar bond.”

Renee’s knees went weak as her line of supporters behind her gasped.

The judge slammed his gavel again. “Defense,” he said sternly, jotting down notes.

“After discussion with my client this morning I would suggest she be ROR. She has no criminal record, minor children that depend on her, and great ties to her community. She is not a flight risk.”

Renee looked up to the judge.

“Attempting to run over her husband’s mistress in a drunken rage?” the judge shook his head. “I am not inclined for an ROR, counselor.”

Justin cleared his throat. “My client has volunteered to enter a thirty-day rehabilitation program with the ROR.”

The judge briefly shifted his eyes to her. “Does the prosecution accept the conditional ROR?”

BOOK: Mistress No More

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