Our Wicked Lies by Gledé Kabongo (story read aloud TXT) 📗

“What are you going to do?” Alicia asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you have to tell Richard to knock it off with the nonchalance. Confront him, make him tell you what’s going on so you guys can fix things. This affects Maxim, too.”

Kat emptied her third glass of wine and placed it on the table. She said, “What’s the point. I don’t think he cares, anymore.”

“Marriage is a bumpy road. You can’t give up because you encounter potholes.” Alicia’s words bounced around her head like ping-pong balls. They mostly shouted at her. Hypocrite. Phony. Here she was dispensing marriage advice when she was keeping a monumental secret from her husband, and then she topped it off with domestic espionage. Then there was the strange note. She had not shared it with Eliot or anyone else. Another secret to add to the list.

“You can talk all you want. You’re married to a gorgeous hunk of a man who still has you on a pedestal after twenty years of marriage, and two kids,” Kat said. “He just whisked you off for a romantic getaway to Paris. Tell me, how are you in a position to feel my pain?”

The words jabbed at Alicia. She had no response to Kat’s anguished yet accurate statement. Helplessness swirled around her like thick black smoke.

Kat had always been there for Alicia, but now her friend needed her, and she had come up short. Alicia had to think of something to help Kat before it was too late.

CHAPTER 13

Eliot walked into the WorkSmart building on Atlantic Avenue. He scuttled up the stairs to the offices of KTM Creative Edge. He wanted to surprise Katalina. Given the disastrous dinner last night, she needed some cheering up. During their morning coffee, Alicia had suggested he drop by to check on Katalina. His office in the financial district was only half a mile from her business, so it made sense.

In the reception area, he inquired whether she was in a meeting, and when the receptionist said she wasn’t, he knocked on her office door and poked his head in. “How are you doing, Katalina?”

“Oh, Eliot! What a surprise. Come in, come in. Sit down.”

He pulled out the chair on the other side of her desk and sat. “You don’t have to pretend with me. I’m sorry about last night’s debacle. Did Richard remember what today is?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter, anymore?”

“Sure, it does. What’s more important than family? No matter how many years it’s been since your brother’s death, he should understand what a terrible loss that was for you.”

“Maybe it’s karma. Life with me isn’t always easy.”

Eliot didn’t want to criticize another man and the way he ran his family, but he had grown protective of Katalina, and he was here as a friend, a shoulder to lean on. Not that Richard DeLuca was Eliot’s enemy. Their relationship was cordial, but they weren’t drinking buddies.

Katalina had lost her brother, Arturo, five years ago, and to this day, it was clear that the guilt still ate away at her. She was on a visit home to Miami and had insisted that he run to a liquor store to pick up a particular brandy for a special family recipe. He’d refused, telling her that he had somewhere else to be and he didn’t want to be late. She’d pressured him until he’d caved.

Arturo had stumbled upon a robbery in progress. The perpetrator had shot him at point-blank range. Eliot knew that every year on the anniversary of his death, Katalina lived the nightmare all over again, blaming herself for the tragedy. How the particular brandy shouldn’t have mattered or that she should have gone herself. If she had allowed her brother to stick to his own plans for the evening, he would still be alive. Or had she asked him earlier in the day, he wouldn’t have come upon a crime in progress. Eliot was used to her going on and on with the what-ifs.

“Hey, we all do and say things we regret,” Eliot said in a soothing voice.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than babysit this hot mess?” she asked with a wry smile.

“Well, if you’re a hot mess, you’re the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen.”

There was a short, awkward pause. Eliot bent down and picked up the gift basket he’d brought with him and placed it on the desk in front of her. “I brought you goodies to cheer you up. A few audiobooks, some business and leadership-type bestsellers, stress balls, a dartboard in case you want to kill somebody—just imagine the face on the dartboard. And a few bottles of wine. Don’t drink them all in one go. Finally, Godiva Chocolates. Alicia told me that chocolate always helps when you’re stressed.”

“Will you think I’m a lush if I started in on the wine now?” she said with a nervous chuckle. “It’s only eleven in the morning, but it’s always Happy Hour somewhere, right?”

“No judgment here,” he said. “Just take it easy.”

Another awkward pause.

“I never got the chance to apologize for the other night,” she declared, filling the silence.

He waved her off. “No apology necessary. You had a tough night.”

“I mean it, Eliot,” she insisted. “When I think of what I did, well, it’s a miracle that you and Alicia still speak to me. I told her if the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t be so forgiving.”

“She’s quick to see the good in everyone. Your actions hurt her, though. She thought you betrayed her. I mean, we.”

“Is that why you took her to Paris, because you felt guilty?”

The comment landed like a slap on the cheek. It stung. Anger churned in his chest. “I don’t need a reason to take my wife anywhere. Alicia and I discussed the situation the morning after it happened. I defended you.”

She shot him a sour look.

He took it down a notch. “Paris had nothing to do with you at all. Alicia deserves to be