SILENT DESIRES

The tacit agreement to her fears made Tess’s knees give way and she sank onto the side of the bed. “Are you saying you spent the night with my husband?” she asked. Her voice trembled, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to die.

“Are you sure you want me to answer that question?” Olivia asked.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“No,” Tess whispered, her vocal cords too constricted for normal conversation, “but I need you to.”

Olivia hesitated. When she spoke, her voice had changed, becoming more tentative. “Perhaps you had better discuss this with Dash.”

Tess didn’t answer. She just held the phone to her ear and stared at the far wall of the room she shared with Dash. Was this what death felt like? Your whole body going numb and your emotions imploding until there was nothing left?

Another voice intruded on her blanked out mental state. “Tess? Is that you, honey?”

And she realized she wasn’t numb. “Don’t call me that you bastard!” She’d gone from whispering to screaming so loud she strained her throat. “You lied to me.” A sob snaked out and she covered the mouthpiece so he wouldn’t hear it.

He started to speak, but she plowed over him. “You p-promised. No mistresses. I believed you. What an idiot I am. Look how good you’ve been at keeping your promises. You said you would treasure my love too, but you stomped all over it. I hate you.” And at that moment she meant it.

“Tess, honey, it is not what you are

thinking!” he said.

She would be a fool to believe the desperation that seemed to infuse his voice.

She heard him ask Olivia what she had said. Tess couldn’t hear Olivia’s answer and she didn’t want to. She did hear the curses erupt from her husband’s throat when Olivia stopped speaking.

“Did you sleep with Olivia?” she demanded in a voice raw from pain.

“No!” he answered.

“No, I don’t suppose you did. I’m sure there was very little sleeping involved.”

“Stop this. You are upsetting yourself for nothing.” he said.

He called adultery nothing? “Were your dinners with her in New York nothing too, Dash?”

Silence greeted that.

“Maybe you didn’t think I would find out?” she said.

“How did you find out about them?”

“My father.” She replied.

“Damned interfering old man.”

“Don’t blame him for showing me what a lying swine you are.” She said angrily. How dared he try to foist the culpability for this awful situation onto someone else? “If you hadn’t broken your promise to me, there would have been nothing for him to interfere over.”

“I have not lied to you. I have broken no promises either.” He said.

He didn’t deny being a swine. She’d like to know how he justified that statement to himself. “You were in the shower when I called, Dash.”

“This is proof of nothing.”

“It proves you’re in a hotel room with another woman.” Let him try to deny it.

“I am not,” he said.

Getting ready to blast him, she remembered his preference for not staying at hotels and she choked on a bitter laugh. “You brought her to the company apartment? How brazen, Dash Black, but then I suppose she’s been there before.”

“No, Tess. It is not like that.” He sounded like she felt miserable. She couldn’t trust what she heard in his voice though, not when his actions had already spoken so loudly.

“It is exactly like that. Olivia said as much.”

“What Olivia said, it was a mistake,” he said.

“Our marriage was the real mistake.”

“No! Tess, baby. That was not an error. Our marriage was meant to be. You must listen.”

“Why? So you can tell me more lies?” She was choking on her pain. “Your girlfriend was honest at least.”

He said something to Oliva and then the other woman came on the line. “Tess, I am sorry I implied I slept with your husband. I did not,” she said, sounding distressed, “you must believe me about this.”

“That’s why you’re there when he’s taking a shower.” Tess wasn’t that gullible.

“I am truly sorry I made this sound like an intimacy. It was not. Dash was still asleep when I arrived this morning to discuss some business.”

“Oh, please…” He never slept late.

Oliva made an impatient sound. “He was recovering from a hangover, I think.

He looked terrible.” She paused. “He does not look any better now.”

Dash drinking to excess? Not likely. “You expect me to believe he got drunk, passed out and didn’t wake up until you got there this morning?”

“Yes. Believe, for it is the truth. Your husband cares for you. I am sorry for the part I have played, but it was only a part. Dash wants no woman but you.”

Tess didn’t understand Olivia’s remarks about playing a part, but she no longer believed the fairy tale that Dash wanted only her. “What kind of business do you have with my husband?” she asked.

Why was she bothering to ask? The answer was devastating to her self-awareness. Because she wanted to believe. Idiot, she castigated herself.

“He is investing money for me. A model’s career is not a long one. It is nothing more. I promise you.” Olivia replied.

“You were with him here in New York.”

“No. I had a show. Our meeting was a happenstance, nothing more.”

“That nothing resulted in two dinner dates.”

“Dinner between old friends. That is all. Not dates. Have you never had an evening with a man that consisted of innocent conversation only?” Olivia asked.

All Tess’s dates ended innocently, except those with Dash. “I don’t have your sophistication.” Her voice should have frozen the phone lines, it was so arctic.

Olivia sighed, proving it had not. “Nothing happened between Dash and I. He doesn’t even kiss my cheek in greeting now.”

Tess wanted so desperately to believe the model’s words, but would that be opening herself up for further heartache?

“Tess?” It was Dash.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Are you there, love?” he asked.

Love. He just called her love. She wasn’t loved by him, but she was his wife. Presumably that fact had finally sunk in with some meaning. “I’m here.” She replied.

“I will be home as soon as I can get a takeoff time at the airport for my jet.” he said.

“And?”

“We need to talk. Wait for me at the villa.”

Was she willing to give him this chance?

“Please, Tess.”

The humble plea got to her.

“I’ll be here.” She said,