The Wife – Part Three Read online

  ‘With you?’

  The corner of his mouth curls up into a smirk, and I narrow my eyes as I stare at him.

  ‘I love you, Ellie, and I don’t know how many more times I can tell you that before you finally start to believe it. I love you, I’ve loved you for so fucking long, I’ve wanted you, for so fucking long …’

  ‘Give me my phone,’ I hiss, and I reach out with my other hand, which he knocks away, and I’m starting to feel anger rise up inside me now. It isn’t his place to police me. He doesn’t get to say what I can and can’t do.

  ‘Give me my fucking phone, Liam.’

  ‘He’s gone for a reason, Ellie. Do you get that yet?’

  I slap him so hard I feel the vibrations race up my arm, it tingles with the force. And his grip on my wrist tightens as he turns his head back to me. I feel my throat tighten, I can’t get any breath out, and then he pushes me back against the counter, his mouth crashing down onto mine in a kiss that does nothing to help loosen that breath. Until he breathes into me. Until his breath is my breath and I’ve got my fingers wound in his hair, my legs wrapped around his waist. He’s inside me. He’s fucking me, because this isn’t making love, this isn’t even sex, it’s fucking. Hard. Frantic. Fucking. He’s taking his shit out on me, I’m taking mine out on him, we’re hurting each other, but that’s fine. We both need this. And as he thrusts into me I slide my phone from his pocket, slip it into the drawer beside me, and then I pull my legs tighter around him, I make him come, and when he does he cries out, his loud, guttural groans merging with mine as we both climax in a flurry of pent up frustration, confusion, anger. I dig the heels of my stilettos into the small of his back. I want to cause him pain, because I’m angry with him. Because I need him. I scratch at his neck, nip his lip with my teeth as he kisses me, and in turn his fingers dig into my thighs, pressing so hard it hurts. And then, it’s like the storm cloud has passed and a moment of calm descends. Only the sound of our breathing pierces the silence as he slides a hand around the back of my neck, pushing my head down so my forehead touches his. I feel his fingers in my hair, his other hand lightly stroking my thigh. It’s over. Whatever that was, it’s done.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, and I take his face in my hands and I kiss him. ‘I just hate seeing what this is doing to you, and I can stop it, Ellie. I can make it all stop.’

  I look at him. I tilt my head to one side and I stare so deep into his eyes it makes me shiver. ‘How?’

  He cups my cheek in the palm of his hand, and he smiles slightly. He kisses me gently. ‘You just need to trust me. Okay? You need to trust me.’

  He reaches behind him, unhooks my ankles from around his waist and he lifts me down. Even though I’m wearing heels – high heels – I still have to look up at him, this tall and beautiful man. My best friend.

  ‘I don’t trust anyone, Liam.’

  He tugs loosely at the neck of my shirt, his fingertips grazing the curve of my cleavage, his eyes never leaving mine. ‘You should trust me.’

  ‘Why?’

  He smiles, and it’s one that reaches his eyes but that means nothing. ‘You ask too many questions, Ellie.’

  And I get no answers. There are too many secrets still hiding in the shadows, too much I’m still not comfortable with. Too many things I’m still not willing to accept.

  ‘I have to get to work,’ he says, putting an end to that conversation, and I watch as he moves around the kitchen – the kitchen of a house that isn’t his. It belongs to his best friend. To me. He’s here because I want him here. But maybe he shouldn’t be. What if Michael comes home? Finding Liam here wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary, but if he caught us like this, together …

  ‘Liam?’

  He turns around and smiles at me. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What did you mean? You can make it all stop?’

  He comes back over to me, slides a hand onto my hip and leans in to me, his mouth brushing that space just below my ear. ‘I can make it all better, Ellie. I promise. All you have to do is trust me.’

  I breathe in deeply as he pulls back from me; as he walks away, out of the kitchen into the hall and I exhale slowly as I hear the front door close behind him.

  I don’t trust anyone.

  But I do want it to stop.

  I want someone to make it all better.

  But I think that someone has to be me.

  Chapter 13

  Today was a good day at work. The wedding venue project is moving along, and although we may not be ready to make the most of this summer’s wedding season, we hope to be up and running in time for the winter, for those magical Christmas weddings. I want to help create a fairytale for others, even if my own marriage feels like it’s crumbling around me.

  I’m exhausted. It’s been a long day and I’m ready for a bath, a take-away and a night in front of the TV. I don’t want Liam here tonight. I’ve told him I need some time alone, and he wasn’t happy. But he doesn’t get to decide when we spend time together. I do. And tonight, I don’t need him. Tonight, I’m okay with being alone.

  I check the locks on the front door are all secure, and then I go around every window, every door in the rest of the house and I make sure they’re all secure too. It’s something I need to do before I can settle. Before I can feel safe.

  I’ve just finished checking the house and poured myself a glass of wine when the doorbell rings. I told Liam I didn’t want him here tonight, and I sigh heavily as I head out into the hall. But as I glance at the security monitor, I feel my heart skip a beat. It isn’t Liam. It’s Michael.

  I quickly unlock the door, and as soon as it’s open he pushes past me into the hall, he doesn’t even look at me.

  ‘Michael …?’

  I close the door, hurriedly redo all the locks and then I follow him into the kitchen.

  ‘A fucking tracker, Ellie?’

  It’s like my blood’s suddenly turned cold, freezing my veins. I feel sick, dizzy. How did he know? How did he find out?

  ‘I mean, I knew there were things going on in your head, I knew you were acting irrationally …’

  ‘You wouldn’t talk to me, Michael. You wouldn’t tell me anything, wouldn’t …’

  ‘So you fucking tracked me? You listened to my calls? Jesus …!’

  He drags a hand through his hair, turns his back to me and I have to hold onto the counter behind me to steady myself. Fear swamps me, I can’t control this now, I don’t know what to do.

  ‘You’re fucking ill, Ellie. You need help. And I can’t give you that help, not anymore. I can’t do this, anymore. I’m done.’

  He turns away from me, starts to walk towards the door.

  ‘I just needed to know that nothing was going on …’

  He swings back around, his eyes blazing. I’ve never seen him so angry. ‘And my word should have been good enough. You can’t just go around tracking people, invading their privacy …’

  ‘If you have nothing to hide …’

  ‘You really don’t get this, do you? Are so you fucking deluded that you think there’s anything out there that can make this scenario right?’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Your recent behaviour; the way you’ve been acting, the questions – that gave me every reason to think something was wrong.’

  He still shouldn’t have been able to find out so easily. I’m confused …

  ‘Did someone look at your phone?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how I found out, Ellie. What matters is that my own wife put an app on my fucking phone, without my knowledge, to keep track of me. To record my calls. My own wife spied on me.’

  ‘Who is she, Michael? Is that Ava? The girl in the lecture theatre. The same girl you met at the airport hotel …’

  ‘Jesus Christ … You really have been following me, haven’t you?’

  ‘Who is she, Michael?’

  He comes closer, so close he’s up in my face, his voice nothing more than a hiss but I’m staying ca
lm. I have to. I have no other choice.

  ‘She’s none of your fucking business.’

  And then he steps back from me, backs off towards the door, he’s leaving. I can’t let him go, not like this.

  ‘Michael …’

  ‘You need help, Ellie. Seriously. And until you get that help, I don’t even want to talk to you. Just … just get some help. Please.’

  I can’t move, my feet are stuck to the floor. I can’t stop him from leaving. All I can do is listen helplessly as he unlocks the door. As his car drives off. Only then do my feet finally move and I run to the door, swinging it open, I need to stop him. But I’m too late, he’s already out of the driveway. He’s gone.

  I slump back against the wall, take a second to let what’s happened sink in before I go back inside. Relock the door. Before I call Liam. I need him now. I need him, to help make this better …

  *

  ‘How did he find out?’

  I’m sitting by the edge of the pool, looking down into the water, watching as the moonlight hits the surface, casting strange patterns up at the ceiling. I’m remembering that night. Remembering how it changed everything. I’m remembering what happened, in this room.

  ‘I don’t think that matters now, Ellie. Do you?’

  ‘He was so angry.’

  ‘He’d just found out his wife’s been spying on him, how else did you think he’d react?’

  I turn my head to face Liam. He’s sitting with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up, drinking from a bottle of beer, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  ‘I can’t lose him, Liam.’

  He throws back his head, closes his eyes and he sighs, a heavy, frustrated sigh. ‘It might already be too late, Ellie. You’ve killed any trust he might have had left in you. You were listening in to his calls, for Christ’s sake. Tracking his every fucking move, to him you’re this crazy person he doesn’t understand anymore.’

  ‘I’m not crazy.’

  I turn away from him, look back into the water. I reach down and I trail my fingers through it, disturbing the patterns the moonlight’s still casting.

  Another sigh from behind me, but I ignore it. I’m not crazy. I know something’s going on, I know my husband has a secret he isn’t willing to share. I know she’s still around, I just can’t prove it now. And that lack of control is unsettling me. I don’t like it.

  Pulling my hand out of the water I realize I haven’t swam in this pool since that night. Before, we used to swim all the time. Me and Michael. It was a way of relaxing, for us. We loved having our own pool. Loved having sex in our own pool. But she destroyed all that. Our dream. Our fucking lives. She destroyed everything. That night destroyed everything.

  I start to undress. I’m going to swim in my pool again. I’m going to do something I haven’t done since before that night, I think getting back in the water is something I need to do.

  ‘Ellie …?’

  I turn to look at Liam, and I smile. ‘Are you going to join me?’

  He hauls himself to his feet and comes over to me, pulling my naked body against his still-clothed one. ‘I might.’ He smiles back, and I laugh quietly. I let go of him and I back off towards the steps of the pool, lowering myself slowly down into the water. It’s a little colder than I first anticipated, and I shiver slightly as my skin breaks out in goosebumps, but the second I start swimming the only feeling I have is one of freedom. As I glide through the water it feels like everything I don’t want to think about is drifting away. I’m leaving it all behind, even if it’s only a temporary feeling.

  I stop at the far end of the pool and I watch as Liam swims towards me, his strong, toned body cutting through the water far faster than mine. Dr Liam Kennedy. My drug of choice. A bad addiction I should never have gone back to.

  You made me do it, Michael. You made me run to him. You, my father, and all men like you. You all did this …

  ‘I need to know, Liam.’

  He stops in front of me, pushes his wet hair back off his face, his grey eyes staring deep into mine. ‘Don’t you know enough, Ellie?’

  I shake my head and he drops a hand beneath the water, parting my legs, his thumb running gently over my inner thigh.

  ‘Then do what I told you to do in the first place. Hire a private detective.’

  I frown slightly. ‘Won’t he be more aware than ever now? Of being watched?’

  He leans in closer to me, and I gasp as his fingers start playing with me, his mouth dropping warm, damp kisses all over my shoulder. ‘So, hire a good one.’

  ‘Because I have so many in my address book.’

  He pushes his fingers inside me, and I bite down on my lip as his eyes lock on mine. ‘I’ll help you. Find a good one.’

  I think this may be my only choice now. Hiring someone else to watch my husband. Someone who can get me evidence. Proof. Photographs. Someone who’ll be able to follow him everywhere. Yes. I think I need to do this, Liam’s right.

  ‘Okay …’

  His face breaks into a grin, and he thrusts his fingers deeper into me before he yanks them out, swings me around. He pulls me back against him before entering me from behind, his hands on my hips keeping me where he needs me to be.

  With him.

  For now.

  But everything has to come to an end, sometime …

  Chapter 14

  ‘Here.’ Liam slides a slip of paper towards me and I pick it up. I read the name and the number he’s written down. ‘Give him a call. Go talk to him.’

  ‘How did you find one so quickly?’

  ‘I’m good at seeking out the best. Of everything.’ I let a small shiver run down my spine as I remember last night. Sex in the pool. Once. Twice. Wrong but incredible sex. ‘If you’re going to do this, you need to hire someone with a good track record. This guy has one of the best.’

  ‘And you know that, how?’

  ‘I told you to trust me, Ellie. So, just do that. Okay?’

  I look down at the piece of paper in my hand. ‘Do you think I should do this?’ I look back up at him, and he shrugs.

  ‘I’m not going to make that decision for you.’ He stands at the side of the table I’m sitting at outside on the spa’s Garden Room terrace, his hands in his pockets, his hair pushed back off his face. ‘But, if you’re hell bent on finding out the truth …’

  ‘All right. Maybe I will get in touch with him. See what he can do.’

  It feels odd, that’s all. Handing the control over to someone else. But I have no other option now.

  ‘But, you know, if it was up to me …’

  I look at him. ‘It’s not up to you, though. Is it?’

  ‘Just do whatever you have to do, Ellie. I need to get back to work.’

  He starts to walk away. I’m not going after him. Instead, I look back down at the piece of paper in my hand. And then I feel him behind me, leaning over me; he hasn’t gone anywhere.

  ‘I forgot to say,’ he murmurs, his hands on my shoulders, his mouth so close to my ear I can feel his breath on my neck. ‘You look beautiful today.’

  His fingers lightly brush the back of my neck as he pulls away from me and I turn my head to watch him walk away. He’s leaving now. My escape. And I look down at the piece of paper again. I pull out my phone and I tap in the number Liam wrote down for me.

  This is what it’s come to, Michael.

  I need to know, once and for all.

  I can’t do this alone now.

  Not anymore.

  *

  It’s hard, losing the control I once had. I want to call him – Michael. I want to speak to him, but Liam thinks that’s a bad idea. He thinks I should leave him alone, for a while. He thinks that’s best. But I’m struggling. I feel like I’m stumbling through every day, wondering what my husband’s doing. Who he’s with. That’s why I had to get in touch with Karl. The private investigator. I met with him this afternoon, gave him all the information he needed to keep track of Michael. And I’
m not proud, that I’m stooping to levels I never thought I was capable of, but I’ve been pushed too far. I need to finish this now.

  Liam sits down on the chair by the fire. He’s making himself at home, and I haven’t stopped him. I don’t want to be here alone, and Liam, he makes me feel safe.

  ‘What if I’m wrong?’

  Liam looks up and he frowns. ‘Wrong? About what?’

  ‘About Michael.’

  He drops his gaze. ‘You’re not wrong.’

  It’s my turn to frown. ‘How do you know? Liam? How do you know?’

  He doesn’t know. I can tell, the way he nervously drags his hand along the back of his neck, the way he doesn’t look at me. He knows as much as I do.

  ‘Don’t do that.’

  This time he does look up, his eyes hard. Cold. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Lie to me. I’m surrounded by enough lies, I don’t need any more. Not from you.’

  ‘You’re not wrong, Ellie. About Michael.’

  I shake my head, get up from the couch; I walk over to the window, folding my arms as I look outside, although there isn’t a lot to see. It’s dark. The only light out there is coming from the solar lights we have lining the driveway, and even they’re a little dimmer tonight.

  I feel him come up behind me, feel his arms wrap around my waist, pulling me back against him but I keep my eyes fixed on the darkness outside.

  ‘It all adds up. What you’ve seen. The way he’s been acting …’

  ‘Don’t, Liam.’

  He kisses the side of my neck and I shiver. I’m not in the mood for this, yet I don’t push him away.

  ‘He never deserved you, Ellie.’

  I swing around, my eyes locking on his. ‘And you do?’

  ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he made that promise too.’

  I lower my eyes, but he tucks a finger under my chin, tilting my head back up. ‘I won’t break it.’

  I shake my head again, knocking his hand away from my face. ‘Promises always get broken, Liam. Vows always get broken.’