followed her to the lounge.
“My affair with her was a mistake. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant.”
“And your affair with the other women?” she drilled, her tone heavy with sarcasm.
Her husband pursed his lips. He had the decency to look away.
“Ah, are you quiet because you have no idea how many women you have screwed behind my back?” She was mad with fury.
His eyes widened at her language. What has speaking to him like a prim and proper woman achieved in her marriage? Nothing. She might as well get down and dirty. “Ah, you seem shocked at my language. Deep rooted hurt can alter a woman’s psyche.”
“Alero! Please, can we talk about you and me?”
“No. No. If you won’t answer the question, get the hell out of my house!” She held the door open.
Kyle nodded and lifted up both hands. “Shut the door, please. I’ll give you an answer.”
Alero’s hands criss-crossed her upper body. Her chest palpitated with fear. Though she wanted an answer, she hoped he hadn’t slept with several other women. “I want the truth, Kyle. Not that it matters. I only seek closure, and to know how naïve I have been.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t naïve, Alero. You love me.”
“Answer the question.” He had no right to play on her intelligence.
“Four. There have been four others.”
A hammer hit her chest, and air gushed out of her nostrils. When she recovered, she bit out. “Make it clear, Kyle. Four apart from your love-child’s mother or four including her?”
“Four in all.”
Alero laughed when what she really wanted to do, was to cry, and hurt him as much as he had hurt her. The laughter was for her years of stupidity in her husband’s home. “While you screwed one woman for every year of our marriage, I sat waiting for you to touch me. I began to think I wasn’t an attractive woman. Did it ever occur to you that you were putting our health at risk?” She swayed round the lounge, touched the curtain, and swiped her fingers over the chairs and fittings. Her husband’s eyes marked her every move.
“I find you attractive, Alero. I always did. I was too selfish to understand what a good woman you were to me.”
He was too late. “As I was saying, Kyle, the moment I drove out of your mansion, I was snatched up by a more caring man. I met him in traffic as I fled from the trap, we called our home. He threw me his business card.”
Kyle ran his fingers through his brownish blond hair, and shifted from one foot to another. “Alero, you’re a gorgeous woman.”
She carried on as if he hadn’t interrupted. “Fate brought him again to my doorstep in Casablanca. And he pursued me, and taught me the true meaning of affection, devotion and love.”
“No!” Kyle screamed, ripping buttons off his expensive shirt. “Please, don’t say that, Alero. Please, I’m begging you. What you have with him isn’t real. You’re my wife.”
She shook her head, a naughty grin on her lips. “A marriage certificate doesn’t equate with love and affection. To you, it was a piece of paper that worked against your freedom. So I decided to set you free. Go ahead and screw all the models in LA, I don’t give a damn!” As she said it, tears welled up in her eyes and her chest heaved.
“Yes, you give a damn who I screw. If you didn’t, I would know.”
Pain gripped her heart.
“Did you sleep with him?” Kyle’s voice was low and unsure as if he was scared to know the truth.
Alero shrugged, her face turned away from him. “What does it matter? Our marriage was dead and buried, anyway.”
Her husband flipped her around with ease. She had forgotten how strong he was. With hours spent in the gym and in playing tennis, he was fit and well-muscled. His hands held her waist and he forced her to look at him. Heat singed her waist and her stomach walls clenched. She swallowed.
“Let me go,” she cried.
“Did you sleep with him? I need to know.”
To her irritation, he had the nerve to
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