Capital Wives (5 page)

D
eanna saw Damon Paxton pacing back and forth. “Mr. Paxton?” He stopped pacing, turned and stared at her. “Your wife is feeling better and should be out shortly.”

Damon stopped pacing; his eyes grew wider when he recognized the woman who'd earned the reputation of hosting the best parties in the Capitol District. He extended his hand. “Deanna Tyson?”

Deanna stared at the large, well-groomed hand, then took it. “Yes, it is. Have we met before?”

“Not really. But I have attended some of your functions. The one you planned for Senator Rosenthal's sixtieth birthday was exceptional.”

She smiled. “I'm glad you enjoyed it.”

“What the hell is going on here?”

Deanna snatched her hand from Damon's loose grip when she heard Spencer's accusatory tone. “There's nothing going on except that Damon and I were talking.”

“Dial it down, son. Your wife and I were just talking business.”

Spencer hand went around Deanna's upper arm. “I think you have your bastards mixed up, Paxton. Sorry, but I am not your son.”

“Spencer!” Deanna gasped.

He tightened his grip on her arm. “Let's go, Dee, before I'm cuffed for kicking an old man's ass.”

Spencer literally pulled Deanna across the floor when she rounded on her husband. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Have you?” Spencer countered. “The man was drooling on your breasts.”

“What are you snorting or smoking, Spencer? I work with men all the time and you've never displayed one iota of jealousy. What has Damon Paxton done to you to come at him like a rabid dog?”

Spencer released Deanna's arm and ran a hand over his face. “I'm sorry, Dee. I don't know what got into me.”

“What you're going to do is go over there and apologize or…”

“Or what?”

“Or our marriage is in some serious trouble. I rely on people like Damon Paxton for my business. All I need is for him to put the word out that I'm persona non grata and I won't be able to get a job in any cathouse in the lower forty-eight. In case you've forgotten, I sell hospitality, not intimidation. And I'm dead serious about you apologizing, Spencer.” She and her husband engaged in what had become a stare-down. Deanna loved him, but not enough to jeopardize everything that she'd worked so hard to achieve. “We're done,” she whispered.

“Okay,” Spencer said quickly. “I'll apologize.”

“Do it now,” she said between clenched teeth.

She watched as Spencer approached Damon, extended his
hand before the older man grasped it. She couldn't hear what they were saying but saw Damon reach into the breast pocket of his tuxedo and hand Spencer a business card, who reciprocated giving him his card. The two men shared a few words again before shaking hands.

“Is that better?” Spencer asked when he returned to where Deanna had waited for him. He took her hand, cradling it in the bend of his elbow.

“Much better. Why couldn't you have done that the first time?”

“I guess you could say it was a little male posturing. Paxton said he understood and probably would've reacted the same way if I had been mauling his wife.”

Deanna gave Spencer a sidelong glance. She had to admit he looked incredibly handsome in formal attire. “He wasn't mauling me.”

“He was the one who said
maul,
not me. We're going to meet for drinks one day next week.”

Shaking her head, Deanna didn't want to think about what had just gone down. It was the first time since she'd known Spencer that he had displayed a modicum of possessiveness. In one breath he'd threatened to kick a man's ass, then minutes later they were talking about getting together for cocktails.

If there was one thing she knew about the man she'd married it was that he was an overachiever and had rather predictable behavior. Somehow jealousy was not one of his personality traits. Something was bothering him, and she decided to watch and wait for whatever it was to manifest. Sooner or later he would have to show his hand. They returned to the ballroom and their table. Marisol, who had changed seats with Bryce, pressed her shoulder to Deanna's.

“When Spencer asked why you hadn't come back with me I told him you were coming,” Marisol whispered.

Deanna tapped Spencer's arm to get his attention. “Could you please get me something from the bar?”

“What do you want?”

“A glass of red wine.” She waited until he walked away to get her drink, then leaned closer to Marisol and told her what had transpired with Bethany's husband.

Marisol's mouth formed a perfect O. “That's some crazy shit.”

Deanna made a sucking noise with her tongue and teeth. “It has to be a full moon. Why were you so nasty to Bethany?”

It was Marisol's turn to suck her teeth. “Please don't get me started, Dee. I have very little sympathy for hood ornaments.”

“You may not be a hood ornament, but you're definitely Bryce's
muñeca.
A doll by another name is still a doll, chica.”

“Very funny…” Marisol's eyes narrowed when she noticed a woman sitting at a nearby table, staring at them. “Don't look now, but do you know the woman in red sitting at the table to our left?”

Surreptitiously, Deanna glanced at the table, her gaze lingering briefly on a young woman with highlighted blunt-cut hair covering one eye. The bodice of her dress was so revealing that she should have been arrested for indecency. Each time she exhaled her breasts shimmied like gelatin.

“No. It could be she recognizes me—” Her explanation was preempted when Spencer returned with Deanna's glass of wine. “Thank you,” she said when he sat down beside her and draped his right arm over the back of her chair.

Spencer stared at his wife's profile. His reaction when he saw Damon Paxton holding her hand wasn't generated by jealousy but fear and frustration. He hadn't expected Jenah to attend the gathering, and to have her seated at a table only a few feet from where he sat with his wife was risky and
indefensible. There was no reason why she would attend an event without his knowledge when she knew Deanna would be in attendance. It was as if Jenah wanted to openly flaunt their affair.

She wasn't the first woman he'd slept with during his eight-year marriage, but she was the youngest and most difficult to control. Spencer realized he'd made a serious faux pas. He'd told his mistress he loved her in the throes of passion; the truth was he loved what Jenah was willing to do to please him.

He spent the rest of evening avoiding eye contact with Jenah while interacting with those at his table. Sometime between when the monitors were darkened and instrumental music played while the evening's raffle was announced, Jenah slipped out and didn't return. He must have emitted an audible sigh, because Deanna turned to stare at him.

“Bored?”

“A little.”

Though only four years old, Oscar Night was quickly becoming one of Washington's signature's black-tie charity events. However, Spencer found it hard to distinguish one from the other, because they were supported by the same people.

Deanna rested her hand on his thigh under the tablecloth. “I'm ready to leave whenever you are.”

Spencer rose and pulled back Deanna's chair as she stood up. “We're going to call it a night.”

Deanna hugged and kissed Marisol, waved to the others and walked with Spencer to retrieve their coats. She was still disturbed by his outburst, wondering if perhaps he was experiencing a meltdown because he'd been working too hard. What she didn't want to acknowledge was that he could be undergoing a premature midlife crises.

S
pencer was sitting up, his back supported by a pile of pillows, when Deanna walked into the bedroom and got into bed beside him. She was surprised to find that he'd waited up for her.

The drive home from the museum had been spent in complete silence. Usually that was when she and Spencer talked—about anything. Even after he'd parked his car in the garage and they'd come into the house the silence had continued. Deanna knew instinctively that something was wrong, that their marriage was in trouble and if she and Spencer didn't talk about it then they wouldn't stay together long enough to celebrate their tenth anniversary. Reaching over, she flicked off the lamp on her side of the bed, plunging the bedroom in darkness.

She adjusted the pillows under her shoulders and lay with her back to her husband. “Do you want to talk about it?” Her voice was low, coaxing.

“There's nothing to talk about.”

Deanna held her breath, counting slowly to ten. “Please don't insult my intelligence, Spencer. I've lived with you long enough to know when something is bothering you. Maybe you don't have to give me all the intimate details, but I'm not going to allow you to shut me out.”

“It's work-related.”

“Is it something you can talk about?” she asked.

There came a pregnant silence before Spencer said, “I can't talk about it without mentioning names, and that would breach client-attorney confidentiality.”

“You're representing someone who works at your firm?”

“Yes. I didn't want to accept his case, but I couldn't in good conscience stand by and let him go to jail for something he didn't do.”

“Are you telling me the man is innocent?”

“Of course he's innocent, Dee. I'd never risk my reputation defending a guilty client.”

“That's not true, Spencer. I remember you taking on the case of that woman who'd admitted to murdering her husband because he'd discovered she was sleeping with his chauffeur.”

“I didn't defend her personally. The firm did. And we normally don't handle cases that involve murder, but we did because she was the granddaughter of a prominent judge and one of the partners owed him a favor.”

“She'd confessed to murder, yet the jury found her not guilty of all charges.”

“That's because we could prove that her husband had planned to kill her. It's not often the self-defense theory works, but that time it did.”

“This case you're handling for a coworker, does it involve murder?” Deanna asked.

“No.”

“Have you thought that maybe you should let another attorney handle it?”

“Why would you say that, Dee?”

“Because it's affecting you,” she countered. “I saw a side of you tonight that frightened me. I've never seen you act like a street thug.”

“I'm a street thug because I thought a man was trying to get into my wife's panties? Don't forget I spent the first ten years of my life on the South Side.”

Deanna ignored Spencer's reference to his Chicago roots. “Damon Paxton wasn't trying to get into my panties, so get your mind out of the gutter, Spencer.”

“Don't be so naive, Dee.”

“What does that mean?”

“It's exactly what I said. Don't be naive. Damon is no Boy Scout.”

“I could say the same thing about a lot of the men I do business with, but that doesn't mean I'm going to sleep with them because they may smile at me or hold my hand.”

“Have you ever cheated on me?”

Deanna went completely still, unable to believe what her husband had just asked her. “I can't believe you just asked me that,” she said, voicing her thoughts aloud.

“Just answer the question, Dee.”

Her temper flared. “I'm not on trial, so I'm not going to answer anything.”

“Not answering can be construed as an omission of guilt.”

Deanna popped up like a jack-in-the-box and turned on the lamp. “I'm not your client, so don't try and relate to me like one. We had this conversation before we got married, and I remember telling you that if I met someone I wanted to sleep or be with I'd be forthcoming and tell you, Spencer, because I don't do subterfuge. And the fact that in eight years
I've never told you that I want a divorce or a separation means I've never cheated on you. Or better yet. Do you want me to cheat on you, so it would make it easier for you to cheat?”

“I've never cheated on you,” Spencer lied smoothly.

“So you say.”

He sat up. “You don't believe me?”

“Let's say I believe you until I find out differently. The truth is like cream. It always rises to the top.”

“Maybe it's a good thing we decided to wait ten years before starting a family, because bringing a child into marriage where trust is an issue—”

“Trust is not an issue,” Deanna interrupted. “You're making it an issue. If I didn't trust you, Spencer, then I never would've married you. If I didn't trust you, then I would have hired someone to follow you when you claim you're working late or you're not coming home because you're stuck in some hotel suite preparing for trial. I'm not so insecure that I need you in my face 24/7, so you're going to have to come up with another excuse as to why our marriage may be in trouble.”

“Our marriage isn't in trouble.”

“What is it, Spencer?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, I know,” Deanna countered quickly. “Our marriage is in a rut. When was the last time we went on vacation together? I can't remember the last time you called to tell me to meet you in a hotel where we would act like married lovers and fuck our brains out. I used to get so excited thinking about what I wanted you to do to me that I had to change my panties a couple of times before I left the house. I miss our date nights, the impromptu rendezvous, and just my waking up with you beside me.”

“Aren't you the one who complains if I come in late and wake you because you need your sleep?”

“Why can't you come home earlier?”

“I can't because I'm working.”

“Why do you make it sound as if you're the only one who's working?” Deanna asked. “I usually don't plan daytime events. There are plenty of nights when I don't get home until three or four in the morning, but there are nights when I don't have an event and I'm home alone. You're well aware of my schedule because it's on the board in the kitchen and in the upstairs office. And there is never a time when you ring my phone that I don't answer. Let me assure you that if I did have a man between my legs not only wouldn't I answer the phone, but I'd turn it off.”

“I can't answer my phone when I'm in the middle of—”

“You
don't
answer your phone, Spencer,” she corrected. “Whenever I call your office either the receptionist answers or it goes to your secretary. And I don't call your BlackBerry because you claim you use it exclusively for business.”

“I
do
use it exclusively for business.”

“Who are you trying to convince?”

“What's up with you, Deanna? It's as if you're looking for an excuse to argue.”

“I'm not looking for an excuse. I just need clarification.”

“About what?”

“If our marriage is worth saving.”

“We don't have to save it, because there's nothing wrong with our marriage,” Spencer said confidently. “We have very demanding careers. And don't forget what attracted us to each other is our ambition to be the best. It takes hard work and sacrifice to be the best. What you have to decide, Dee, is what are you willing to sacrifice when it comes time to start a family?”

“Becoming a mother doesn't mean I'll have to give up my business. I'll hire an assistant, or maybe more than one, and
delegate. And once the child is school-aged, then I'll resume a more active role.”

“And I'll rearrange my schedule to come home and eat dinner with my wife and baby, even if I have to bring work home.”

Deanna smiled. “That sounds like a plan.”

Spencer returned her smile. “See, baby. It's not impossible when we talk it out. Maybe we do need a date night.” Shifting slightly, he angled his head and kissed Deanna, pulling her lower lip between his teeth. He gently suckled her. “If my gorgeous, sexy wife doesn't have anything on her schedule for tomorrow I'd like to take her on a mini road trip where we can stop and check into a quaint inn and fuck our brains out.”

Resting a hand on his cheek, Deanna deepened the kiss. “My calendar doesn't have a thing on it but the date. Shall I pencil you in?”

“Yeah. With a permanent marker.” Reaching over her body, Spencer turned off the lamp, then his hand began a slow exploration of his wife's body under the silk nightgown.

Within minutes everything they'd talked about was forgotten when he guided his blood-engorged penis inside Deanna. Making love to her was always a reminder of why he'd married her. She completed him.