Part 8 (2/2)

Well, that brought her to her third option, which had, up until this point, seemed like the least savory option of them all. She could go back to Ghana with Mr. Kofi k.u.mi. It would break her heart, but either way, she had to be without Jacob, so she might as well keep this situation the least messy that she could.

In spite of his conniving ways, Mr. Kofi k.u.mi had enough money and status that she could raise her child in wealth, and give the kid a good upbringing. It would be a far more privileged one than Almasi would be able to provide on her own.

He was a handsome and charming man, sure, but the idea of being Mr. Kofi k.u.mi's wife terrified her. He made it abundantly clear the previous evening that it was not in his nature to take ”no” for an answer. But she would endure it if it meant giving her child-and Jacob's child, she thought sadly-a chance at a good life.

She couldn't allow her son or daughter to grow up like she had, never knowing whether or not the next day would be a morning without enough food in the cupboard for breakfast, or whether the next night she would be s.h.i.+vering under extra blankets because the landlord had turned the heat off.

That was no way for a child to grow up, and at this point, Almasi would not be able to provide anything better on her own. So maybe... The idea horrified her, but maybe Mr. Kofi k.u.mi's proposal was the best option.

Almasi suddenly felt the waves of nausea rise up to her throat, and she made it to the toilet of the master bathroom just in time. For once, she couldn't tell whether or not her sickness was from the baby growing inside her, or from the thought of living with Mr. Kofi k.u.mi for the rest of her life.

Jacob woke up at eight in the morning to the sound of an unfamiliar alarm. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and for a blissful second or two, he mistook the warm body next to his for Almasi, but then there was a rustling in the sheets, and Melanie the linguistics student was getting up and digging through her purse, which had been discarded on the floor.

”Sorry,” she said, grinning apologetically. ”I have a nine o'clock tutorial seminar to lead. The LING 100 students are not going to teach themselves.” She got up and slid back into her tight leather pants and crop top from the night before. ”This is going to be a h.e.l.l of a walk of shame. Do you think your chauffeur could give me a ride? My apartment is right by the campus.”

”Yeah,” said Jacob blearily. ”Hold on, I can ride with you. I should be leaving soon, too.”

She looked at him curiously as she fixed her hair into something presentable. ”Where are you off to? Let me guess... an off job of some sort? Maybe something high up in the ranks?”

Jacob laughed. ”You could say that. I probably shouldn't be talking about this stuff, though,” he added. He suddenly felt awkward, not knowing what to say. In the past, he'd often left women hanging and not called them back, but Jacob knew better now. He didn't want to be that guy anymore. However, there was a very real reason why he couldn't call this woman back, and that reason was probably waiting to have a serious conversation with him when he got back to the mansion.

Melanie fixed her gaze on him for a second, and then her eyes fell to his left hand, where he hadn't even bothered to take off his wedding ring. ”Ah, I get it,” she said. ”Your wife... she went out of town?” She didn't seem perturbed by the knowledge that she had just spent the night with a married man, but Jacob was in no position to judge. He had certainly turned a blind eye on the relations.h.i.+p statuses of some of the women he had been with in the past.

”Yeah,” Jacob lied. ”She went to visit her sister in Canada.” He figured that would sound better than the real explanation. A fight was messy. Even someone only looking for a casual hook-up didn't want to get into something like that. ”I got lonely. You know how it is.” He shrugged, hoping it would come off as frank and relaxed, instead of uncomfortable and guilty.

Whether Melanie could tell something was up or not, she appeared to take his answer at face value, and she turned back to the mirror without asking any more questions. After having pulled her hair up into a messy bun, she said, ”I do indeed know how it is. Okay, Mr. Seven-Year Itch. Lead the way.” Jacob smiled, relieved, and walked downstairs, texting the limo driver to be there as soon as possible. After a few more minutes of easy small talk, the limo pulled up. When Jacob opened the door to let Melanie in, he didn't expect to see that there was already somebody inside.

”Good morning,” said Jeremy, crisply. He looked up and raised his eyebrows, but quickly feigned nonchalance. ”Ah. I don't think we have met,” he said to Melanie.

”Melanie Buchmayer,” she said, shaking his hand. ”JJack, was it? Your buddy here offered me a ride back to my place.”

Jacob could see that Jeremy was straining not to laugh. How the tables had turned, now a one night stand was foggy on Jacob's name and ident.i.ty, instead of the other way around! Jeremy liked this woman, and since her presence would prevent them from discussing more serious matters, he spent the ten minutes it took to get to her apartment making small talk.

The two seemed to get along, Jacob observed. Jeremy seemed genuinely interested in her strange anecdotes and play on words. Huh, Jacob thought. Maybe I should have gotten her number anyway just so I can give it to Jer later. He's taken more of a liking to this lady than I have seen him with anyone since I first met him. When the limousine finally stopped at her apartment building, Jacob couldn't help but feel a little glad, because he had been beginning to feel like a third wheel in his own vehicle.

”Bye, Jack,” said Melanie, smiling and showing those dimples again. ”And later, Jeremy,” she said with a wink, shaking his hand. She stepped out of the limo with her purse, and didn't turn back as she walked off in her club outfit to go get ready for her morning cla.s.s.

Once she was out of earshot, Jeremy laughed. ”She got my name right and not yours!” he said with a chuckle. He opened a crumpled piece of paper that she had sneaked into his hand. It was her cell phone number.

”Ooh, good trick,” said Jacob. ”I, myself, have used that one a few times, and yeah, shut up about the name thing,” he added. He paused for thought. ”So... you aren't judging me for having s.e.x with a stranger when I am technically married?”

Jeremy shook his head. ”I figured that that was the way the night was going,” he said frankly. ”You're getting it annulled this weekend anyway, so why not blow off some steam? You'll be back to your fancy-free, hook-up lifestyle soon enough as it is.”

That last comment made Jacob's stomach drop. Sure, he had enjoyed himself with that woman, but... it just wasn't the same. n.o.body could be the same as Almasi. Having s.e.x was one thing, but making love was another act entirely. Jacob had taken so long to learn that, to value commitment and love. The idea of going back to being a casual mess... He frowned.

He didn't want s.e.x to be a cure for boredom; a one-stop shop for a temporary fix of companions.h.i.+p. He didn't want to do it because he was lonely anymore. He wanted it to be about intimacy, closeness, not about curbing loneliness. He wanted to be in love when he did it, but he remembered clearly that Almasi didn't feel the same way.

So now he'd finally gotten a taste of the experience of enjoying love-or what he thought was two-way love-only to have it taken away by his wife's cheating heart. All of the fuzzy filler feelings he had experienced the previous night left Jacob, and he slouched, frowning more deeply.

Jeremy studied his face. He frowned, too. ”Wait. Are you still... Are you in love with Almasi?”

Jacob looked at Jeremy incredulously. ”You just don't get it, do you?” he said. ”There's no way for me to switch off my love for her. It's impossible for me to simply abandon my feelings. I didn't mean for them to develop, but they did, and regardless of the way Almasi behaves... I'm still going to have those feelings.”

Jeremy shook his head. ”But if she doesn't reciprocate it, doesn't it just make more sense to let her go and move on? There's no point in dwelling on something that's not going to work.” Jeremy was so smart and so practical, and normally Jacob appreciated him for it, but right now... Right now, Jacob wanted to punch his a.s.sistant in the face.

He knew that Jeremy's intention wasn't to be obtuse. He knew that he was just trying to be helpful, in his own, irritatingly Jeremy sort of way, but there was no way to make him understand how Jacob felt. How all of his anger, his sadness, his pain... It was all because he loved Almasi so much, and the fact that Jeremy was being so flippant about Jacob's relations.h.i.+p to his wife was pretty hurtful. It wasn't something that Jacob could simply brush off and ignore.

”I love her,” Jacob said simply. Jeremy looked at him. ”I know you won't understand, but I'm not able to stop loving her. If I could've kept this relations.h.i.+p purely professional, I would have. You know me, Jer. I normally have no qualms about brus.h.i.+ng a woman off once I'm done with her, but this is different.

Almasi has shown me something new. I know you'll make fun of me for it, and you'll use that stupid, chirpy true love at long last voice to show me how juvenile I am being, but guess what? I don't care one single bit. Because this I how I feel, and this is what I'm dealing with.”

Jacob had never talked to Jeremy without pretense like this before, and the sincerity of his tone and words shocked both of them a little bit, but after a long moment of silence, Jeremy patted him on the shoulder. ”Okay,” he said. ”I'm sorry. We'll find a way to deal with this, all right?” He tried a smile, and Jacob made an attempt to mirror it back.

”Yeah. All right,” said Jacob.

They spent the rest of the limo ride in silence, but it was a comfortable silence, and although Jacob was nervous when he got to the mansion, he knew that he could deal with whatever happened.

Almasi had just gotten dressed when she heard Jacob's voice in the foyer. Although she knew that she would have to face her husband at some point, Almasi's heart began to race, and, panicking, she sneaked down the stairs and quickly made her way down to the garden. She rushed to get to the gate, and then once she was far enough away from the mansion, she breathed a sigh of relief. Walking among the flowers, she found that it was easy to hide herself. If anyone came looking for her, she knew where to conceal herself so she wouldn't be found, and in the meantime, Almasi could decide what she was going to say to Jacob when she finally talked to him.

Jacob walked into the mansion's foyer and was greeted by a maid and Mrs. Nettle. After conferring with the latter quietly for a moment to make sure they had their story straight, he took a deep breath and set off to find Almasi upstairs. He turned to Jeremy plaintively, and Jeremy gave him a rea.s.suring look.

”Good luck,” said Jeremy. ”I'll be in your study, sorting out papers and such. Holler if you need me.” Of course, by ”holler,” Jeremy meant ”send me a text or walk over and talk to me,” but Jacob appreciated the funny word choice on Jeremy's part, so he smiled a little and turned to go upstairs.

As Jacob was climbing up the second flight of stairs, he heard a sound in the guest hallway, and suddenly Mr. Kofi k.u.mi was standing in the stairwell. Jacob was taken aback. ”You,” he said.

Mr. Kofi k.u.mi smiled, looking infuriatingly calm. ”Me,” he said. Jacob wanted to throttle the man right then and there. He would have tried to, too, but Mr. Kofi k.u.mi was bigger and probably stronger than he was, and murdering a business partner's brother would probably be deemed uncouth by most people, including Mr. Arko k.u.mi.

”How does it feel to ruin a marriage?” asked Jacob. He stepped closer to Mr. Kofi k.u.mi.

The other man laughed. ”Ruin a marriage?” he said. ”I wouldn't know. When your beautiful wife came to me, bored and lonely and begging to be had by someone who would pay attention to her... well, I didn't think that conceding to a lady's wishes was an act of ruination so much as a saving grace for the young woman.” He took in the expression on Jacob's face. ”What, Mr. Adamson? Did you think that it was I who had seduced Almasi? Oh, no,” he said, chuckling softly. ”It was she who came to me.”

Jacob was aghast. Was he being played? Every word that came out of Mr. Kofi k.u.mi's mouth sounded so convincing, but what he was describing... That was the opposite of the person he knew Almasi to be. You haven't known her for very long, he reminded himself, and she is a good actress. He thought back to the first day when they had still been very much play-acting at the couple's affection.

He remembered the way in which that perfect stranger had made herself seem so close to him, how she had put on such a perfect show of comfortable domesticity even before they had known each other well enough to be real. So was the rest of it that followed all contrived, too? Had she been faking at everything?

Mr. Kofi k.u.mi didn't wait for Jacob to reply. He continued, relis.h.i.+ng the look of horror on Jacob's face. ”Why yes,” he said. ”It was, if I recall correctly, on the third day of our visit here in your lovely home. She beckoned me up to the hallway near your bedroom-where you're going now, I presume-and approached me while she was wearing only a bath robe!

You can imagine how scandalized I was at the impropriety of it all. Certainly, my brother would have been terribly shocked if he'd heard, but when she spoke to me... Well, I could tell that she was feeling the icy impact of your neglect, and then she kissed me, and well, what is a man to do? I allowed her to start the affair with me.”

Jacob was stunned. This... This couldn't be Almasi. There must be some other explanation. He would be able to understand if she had been seduced away, but to actively seek out another man's attention? She would never take such ridiculous risks. If there was one thing that Jacob knew for sure, it was that she was cautious. Even if she had been conducting this secret affair intentionally, this was not how Almasi would go about it. Something was wrong with this picture, and Jacob wanted to talk to Almasi and find out what was really going on. He didn't want to believe that this well-spun tale that Mr. Kofi k.u.mi was telling him was true.

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