Page 35 of Wife Unwanted
Barry closed the casefile in his hand with dramatic flourish. "You know, I have a knack of telling when people are lying."
"Maybe you should use it on our client."
"You're lying to me. What's bothering you?"
"If I want therapy Barry, I will go to the office therapist, not you."
"Yeah, but she will only tell you what you need to do in order to get back to work. Not actually fix you, like I would.Is it thewife?" He peered at me and his tone went from joking to serious in a flash.
"What are you trying to say Barry?"
Barry shook his head and reopened the file. "Forget I said anything."
"Now I'm curious."
"Seriously. It's nothing. It's all rumors anyway."
"I don't have a knack of knowing a liar, but I'm sure as fuck you're lying to me right now."
Barry sighed and massaged his forehead. "It's gossip, that I am sure is all a pack of bullshit anyways, but…"
"But?" The anticipation of his next words was making me impatient. Barry was avoiding my gaze as he brushed invisible dust off the case file.
"My wife's friend went to New York fashion week. She's a designer and it doesn't matter. Anyway, she saw your wife there."
"Okay?" Thalia has been interested in fashion recently and, from the few snippets I caught whenever she was on the phone with Darcy, she was thinking of starting a line of shoes. She has been doing a lot of fashion related stuff recently.
"She was there with another man."
"And?"
"And." Barry brushed off more invisible dust off the file. "Now this is from a friend of a friend thing. It's technically hearsay, so I would take it with a grain of salt if I were you."
"Barry are going to get to the point or not. "
"Okay fuck it," he muttered under his breath. "The friend saw your wife kissing another man."
The room went cold. As though a giant iceberg had dropped onto the desk. Barry had a guilty look on his face as though he was the one who had been caught cheating. Come to think of it,wasn't fashion week a few weeks ago. "Barry, how long have you known this?"
Barry leaned back into his chair as though withdrawing himself from the conflict. "Listen. I have been looking for a way to tell you. I didn't know if you knew."
"I didn't know until now. Until you told me."
"Hey. It could be all a misunderstanding. She might have been mistaken. I mean that's happened plenty of times. It's all gossip, like I said."
"Who was she kissing?"
"A model, the friend said." "Male," he added, as though that would make it better.
We had agreed to see other people. I shouldn't be mad. I shouldn't even be bothered. But still, she should have known not to get caught. A model. I wondered what he looked like this man she was with. Was she having an affair with him? Or was it a one-time thing. Have they fucked already. An image of Thalia and a faceless, well-built man tangled in bed writhing and thrusting, played on loop in my head. It all made sense if I were to be honest. Thalia was a sexual woman. She was very responsive and active during that blissful period of ours. We had sex so many times during that time, I was sure my dick was going to fall off.It should be me she is having sex with. I felt my chest constrict and my face heat up as jealousy engulfed me. Wild, irrational jealousy.
"Hearsay," Barry repeated. "Don't take my word for it, talk to your wife. I'm sure there's an innocent explanation to all of this."
Chapter 20
Thalia
"TO WHAT DOI owe the pleasure?"
