Chapter 3

We sat in silence; Kay had tucked her feet under her and was resting her back against me. I’d moved my hand from her breast and slid it under her dress to rest on her belly. I was amazed that I hadn’t noticed her little bulge. I’d been so wrapped up in what had been going on I’d missed all the clues that had been right under my eyes.

“We are a right pair of idiots, aren’t we?” she murmured. I shrugged slightly; as much as I loved this woman, I still had some reservations over her recent behavior. She said, “The correct response to that is, yes, we are, my love. Then you are supposed to kiss me.”

I grinned and kissed the top of her head. “So, my loving wife became a wanton sex starved hussy in my absence?”

She froze at my words. Then with a degree of forced humor said, “Get it right, old man; that’s drug addled sex fiend to you. All I can say is, thank God for vibrators and dildos.”

She moved back, sliding up onto my lap, turning slightly to face me. “You’re still worried aren’t you?”

“I can’t help it, Kay,” I said. “It’s all well and good to blame it on the drug interaction.” “ I’ve done research on this type of thing for my books, and I know that usually there must be an underlying attraction. Be honest, was there one between the pair of you?”

She sat very still for a long time, I was beginning to think she’d never say anything, but then she said. “As much as I’d love to blame it all on the drugs, I can’t. Yes, I liked him, I never loved him, though; not in the way I love you.”

She carried on, “He was charming, friendly and fun to be with, but that’s all, I don’t love him.”

I interrupted, something I’d realized earlier, was niggling at me.

“If this started several months before I left, how come the first time I remember seeing him was on stage with you at the end of the concert the night I got into town?” I asked.

She gave me a puzzled look, “Was that the first time you saw him? I thought you’d both met at least a few times before that.”

“No, that was the first time I’d seen him.”

“I don’t know then. He just never seemed to be around if you were there. If he was there, it was probably one of those parties, where we were carefully avoiding each other. He would have just been one of the group I was with. You may have met, I just don’t know.”

She paused to think, “It’s odd, though, now that I come to think about it; he always seemed to have an excuse when he knew you were going to be at a party, but he was all over me if I was on my own.”

She paused and thought again, then said, “Do you remember about six weeks before the end of the tour, you were able to change your schedule at the last moment and join me in Los Angeles for a couple of days?”

I nodded. “They called to cancel my appointment when I was about to check in at the airport, so I had a free weekend. I was able to change my ticket and catch a flight to LA with seconds to spare.”

Kayla nodded and said, “The first I knew you were in town, was when you called to say you were at the airport and about to get a cab to the hotel. I told you to drop your bag off and come and join us at the reception in the bar at the Westin. Afterwards, we went on with Stephen and James to that brilliant restaurant for dinner. You were really surprised that they’d been able to get a reservation on such short notice.”

“Yes, I was really impressed that Stephen was able to get us in at such short notice. I’ve been told even VIP’s usually need to book a couple of days in advance.”

“He didn’t get it that evening! It had been on my calendar for at least a week. Nigel had organized the table, and it was for four people. It was supposed to be Nigel, them and me. Afterward, we were all going on to an exclusive club.”

I cursed under my breath, and I felt Kayla tense up. “Nothing was going to happen,” she insisted. “We did that quite often when I was on tour.”

“That’s not making me feel any happier,” I pointed out. “What happened after I called?”

“Stephen was not pleased; he was standing beside me when I took your call,” she replied. “Nigel and James were at the bar. When he asked why I was so happy after your call, I told him you were in town and on your way over. He wanted me to call you back. He proposed you meet us much later at the club, but I wasn’t interested. I just wanted to see you. I told him it was too late, you were on your way and I was going down to the hotel lobby to wait for you.”

“I remember you jumping on me in the lobby. I guess that’s when you were chock full of hormones, because you were very clingy and needy.”

“Christ, wasn’t I. I so wanted to drag you off to a dark corner for a quick fuck. I almost raped you in the taxi back to the suite I was so worked up.” She grinned at me in a happy recollection.

“Anyway,” she continued, “when we got to the bar, Nigel had disappeared. I was going to introduce you to him, but he’d gone. I didn’t think much about it at the time; I just assumed he was going to meet us at the restaurant. He never did, and he’d been going on about how great a place it was for days and how hard it had been to get a reservation.”

“He couldn’t, could he; the reservation was only for four, not five,” I pointed out. “You remember how crowded the place was. There was no possibility he could change the reservation to five.”

Now I thought about it, if he had, I’d have known there was something odd going on. I’d been amazed that we could get a table for four and it had been a good table, a really good one; one I should have realized would never have been available for a last-minute reservation. No wonder Nigel disappeared that evening.

Now my mind was on fire. Something else that had been floating around in the back of my mind coalesced into a solid thought.

“Stephen damn well knew how Nigel felt about you,” I stated. It wasn’t a guess; I was one hundred percent sure. “He was pushing you at him. He wanted you to fall for Nigel!”

Kayla shook her head in disbelief.

I carried on before she could interrupt me. “The drug interaction was just one big bonus because it made his job easier. I’m guessing that he told Nigel that you were unhappy in your marriage, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t actively supporting Nigel’s campaign to win you away from me.”

“He wouldn’t do that: he’s our friend.” She gave me a startled look.

“I think he not only would, but he did. He’s been different ever since we told him that we wanted to take off a couple of years. Hell, he’s always been much more your friend than he ever was mine. I’m not even sure he ever was my friend. If he could put a wedge between us, he would hope that you would carry on touring. That would have benefited both of them. He was pushing the pair of you together and allowing the rumors to start and persist.”

I thought back to that last night; things began to click into place.

“I believe that the whole incident at the night club was staged. Stephen’s idea was for me to get all worked up and leave you. When I finally get inside the place, I was supposed to find you in the arms of another man. I don’t think he knew that Nigel had decided to make such a public display of his love for you; that was just one big bonus.”

“But he wouldn’t.” She repeated.

“Are you sure? If everything went the way we’d planned, you’d have wanted to stop working for a couple of years, maybe even longer. His income would have dropped heavily, and don’t forget, he’s a close friend of your parents and they’ve never liked me. Well, it worked, didn’t it! I walked out.”

“But I didn’t go back to work,” Kay said “I found out I was pregnant, and I was cancelling everything. I even pulled out of the concert for the Queen.”

“He couldn’t have known that you would be pregnant that soon; it was unexpected. If you hadn’t been pregnant, what then?” I asked. We both fell silent as we pondered the implications of those thoughts.

“My publicist, she works for the agency,” Kay said suddenly with a hint of anger. “When I first mentioned that we were going to go public, she was all for it. Then, in those last few weeks, she flipped 180 degrees and was adamant that it was the wrong time. She’s the one that came up with the whole magazine reveal proposal and convinced me that it was the only way to go. I told her you wouldn’t be happy about the decision, and she said something I didn’t understand at the time: that she had her orders, and it had to be this way.”

“Ah.” I was left in no doubt about my suspicions.

“So, you think that Stephen was manipulating both of us.”

“Don’t you? One thing I don’t understand is why he convinced my buyer to sell my shares of the agency back to me. I’d have thought he’d be much happier if I were out of the way.”

She gave me a surprised look at that statement. “He didn’t, it was nothing to do with him; I did all of that. Your buyers contacted me to see if I wanted to sell my share, as well. That was the first I knew about you selling. I let them know you had no rights to sell your shares, since we owned them jointly. Neither of us could sell without the other’s approval. They weren’t happy, but they cancelled the payment. I got my bank to send the same amount to the account you’d given them. I guessed you didn’t want to touch any of our joint accounts, and I didn’t want you to not to have any access to cash.”

I showed her the text from Stephen, where he claimed to have talked the buyers into selling back to me.

“Shit, the bastard.” There were tears in her eyes, and I pulled her into a long tight hug.

It was late, very late: we’d managed to talk our way through the whole evening and into the witching hours. Both of us were trying to stifle our yawns. I’d have picked up my wife and carried her to the bedroom, only the design of the boat precluded such shows of gallantry. I led her to the bedroom, showed her the bathroom and briefly explained the differences between this and a land based one.

She pushed past me and pulling her panties down, and sat on the toilet with a sigh of relief.

“I needed that, the baby is starting to squeeze my poor bladder,” she sighed gratefully. “Can I have a shower please?”

“Sure.” I turned the shower and the drain pump on for her.

She wiped herself and standing up, undid the last of the buttons on her dress and let it slide down her body to pool at her feet. She hadn’t bothered to pull up her panties, and she stepped out of both items to stand naked and vulnerable in front of me. My eyes were drawn to her belly, and there was a sensual curve that had never been there before. We really were going to have a baby!

“I need you to wash me,” she told me, and I knew instinctively it wasn’t just the dirt she wanted me to wash off her.

I stripped off and followed her into the shower, grateful that the previous owners had installed an extra-large shower cubical. Kay stood facing me under the hard stream of water, her arms crossed over her breasts.

“I haven’t felt clean in months,” she whispered, and I could barely hear her over the pounding of the water. I believe she held back another sob.

I took the shampoo and worked it into the strands of her long blonde hair. She moaned softly, turned and rested back against me. The curves of her buttocks provided a natural channel for my semi-turgid cock. I rinsed off her hair and found the bottle of my least manly smelling shower gel and a sponge.

She took the bottle from me, looked at it and shook her head. She found the bottle of my favorite shower gel. “I love this stuff; this is my memory of you, and I’ve missed you so much,” she said as she squirted a generous dollop on the sponge.

I took it from her, and she shuddered in pleasure as I carefully soaped every inch of her. I took my time, knowing I had plenty of hot water, working the suds with the sponge and my fingers. At her insistence, I paid extra attention to her breasts. No dirt, imagined or real, stood a chance against my hands.

She was whimpering as I teased and caressed her long hard nipples, pulling and rolling them between my fingertips. Her whimpering grew louder and her hand slid between her thighs.

“Oh fuck, fuuuck,” she cried out, bracing herself against the wall as she came, surprising both of us with the speed and intensity of her orgasm. She pushed against the shower wall, which forced the luscious curves of her ass into my groin. My cock made a final twitch and stiffened to his full seven fat inches. I may not be as impressive as Tom apparently was, but I’d never had a complaint.

She spun around, sinking to her knees, her hands drawing my throbbing shaft close to her mouth. Her tongue slowly slid over the purple crown, causing me to gasp with the delicious sensations that shot down my cock. Christ, for almost four months the only attention he’d had was from my hand. He was quick to remind me that my hand was no substitute for Kay.

“Fuuuuuck,” I groaned, bracing myself against the wall as she swallowed the head into the warmth of her mouth. She sucked, licked and stroked, and in moments, I was close to the edge. No lover for the last few months meant I was far too worked up to be able to control myself.

“Oh fuck ... I’m gonna cum,” I gasped as the incredible urge centered in my groin burst past my barriers, exploding in my cock.

Kay never paused, her mouth like a limpet on my quivering cock. The dam broke and with a deep growl, I came, pulsing my essence in long streams into her waiting mouth.

She wouldn’t stop until she was sure I had nothing left to give, and then she reluctantly let my softening cock slide from her lips. I helped her to her feet and drew her into a long kiss, our slick wet bodies sliding against each other as the warm water continued to fall on us.

“Take me to bed, please,” Kay said.

I wrapped her in a soft towel as she wrapped her hair up in a second. The bedroom was only a couple of steps away, and I led my tired wife to the bed and tucked her in. I spent a couple of minutes making sure that the Nevermore was safe and locked up before crawling into the bed behind Kay’s naked body.

I thought that she was asleep. She was quick to prove me wrong, pushing her ass against me, wriggling as my cock grew again and found a temporary home in the cleft between her cheeks.

Soon, Kay was holding my turgid throbbing cock against her slit as she languidly rocked her pelvis back and forth. She began to give little sighs of pleasure as my shaft slid across her sensitive, intimate flesh. Her movements slowly sped up and she tightened her grip on my cock.

I kissed and nibbled the soft skin on the back of her neck. My fingers pulled and teased her nipple, and she groaned and then gasped as a little orgasm caught her by surprise.

After a moment, she moved slightly so that the head of my cock was nestled between her plump pussy lips. With a roll and a push of my hips, I slid into her wet and tight heat. Both of us groaned in pleasure. We rocked in unison, my hand moving down the soft skin of her body, over the slight curve of her baby bump until I felt the soft springy curls nestled at the top of her slit. My fingers delved lower and she gasped and shuddered when I pressed on her clit.

“Feels sooo good,” she murmured, and then gave a little cry. “Ohh fuck that feels so good, “ as I rolled the hard nub of her clit under my finger.

“Fuck I’m going to come again,” she whimpered, and she pushed hard against me. Her pussy spasmed and tightened around me. She shuddered and her hand caught mine.

“Oh God, give me a moment,” she gasped, and rode out her orgasm with a series of soft grunts; then, she was pushing back against my rigid throbbing cock, trying to match the increasing vigor of my thrusts as I sought my own happy ending.

That deep primeval urge grew in my belly, and I was squeezing her breasts as I pulled her hard against me with each thrust. My world shrank to the sensation of my cock sliding in and out of her slick silky glove, her cries of pleasure spurring me on.

My orgasm burst, hot fire surging through me to paint the welcoming center of her body. With a final long drawn out cry, Kay came as well, her body shuddering in pleasure.

“No more,” she gasped, and in seconds relaxed in my arms, fast asleep.

She was shifting only slightly to settle against me as I slid out of her and spooned up behind her. Tired as I was, I found it difficult to fall asleep. My mind kept racing with dark thoughts. There was no doubt that Kay was still in love with me, but I kept feeling that far more had happened between them than she was admitting to.

I’d seen Nigel’s face as he’d proposed, and I knew that expression. It was the same one I had on my face when I was with her: total love! That smile she gave him while he offered her the ring ... I couldn’t get it out of my memory. He was certain of her favorable response to his proposal.

I’d listened to all the excuses, but I kept coming back to one salient point. If she loved me as much as she said she did, why didn’t she talk to me when she realized something wasn’t right. One simple phone call and I would have dropped everything and gone to her.

She was adamant that the baby was mine; but if she was telling the truth about the dates, we’d only made love one evening that was in the right time window. I struggled to work out her cycle in my mind, but I drew a blank.

Her need to convince me that she and Nigel hadn’t made love before she’d told me she was pregnant disturbed me; surely the first thing she should have told me was about the baby. Had there been other men as well as Nigel? I loved the woman, shit, I’d just proved that, but was it enough?

I grew cold at the realization that if the baby wasn’t mine, there was no way I’d be able to bring it up. It would be a constant reminder, and I couldn’t live with that.

Fuck, it was no good. I slipped out of bed, tucking the covers back around Kayla. I pulled on a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. In the galley, I made a hot chocolate drink with a splash of Rum, then made my way to the rear deck. I settled down in a comfy reclining chair and let the night sounds embrace me.

I woke when the first glimmers of the dawn touched the eastern horizon and the town began to wake up. A couple of early morning joggers gave me a wave as they passed by. The occasional gusts of wind wafted the aroma of baking bread to my nose. I stretched, trying to ease the kinks.

My watch said it was almost six, which would make it midnight on the east coast of the United States. It was late, but not too late, I hoped, to call probably the only person who would know the truth.

My phone was charging in the salon. Walking back on deck, I called Laine.

After a moment, a sleepy voice said, “Yes.” Then more urgently, “Peter is that you?”

“Yes.”

“So I guess she’s found you then. She called at the crack of dawn yesterday to say she had a hot tip that you were in the south of France.”

In the background, I heard an indistinguishable second voice, then a muffled Laine saying, “Shush, go back to sleep, it’s Kay’s husband.”

Then she said to me, “Hang on a moment, I need to move to the lounge.”

There was a series of rustles and scratches then she said, “I guess this isn’t a social call, what do you want, Peter?”

“I need to know the truth, Laine, not Kay’s rose colored version. She’s insistent that the baby is mine and she never slept with Nigel.”

There was a sigh from Laine, “Pete, she’s not only my boss, but she’s also my best friend. You’re putting me in an impossible position. If, and I’m not saying she did, but if she did tell me anything in confidence, I can’t tell you, can I?”

“Laine, I always thought we were friends, as well. If it helps, remember you work for the agency and not Kay. I co-own it, so you work for me, as well. Also, if you don’t say anything, I’ll assume the worst, and it’ll probably be the end of our marriage.”

“You bastard,” she hissed.

“I know I am, but I’m fighting for the truth about my marriage. I need to know what she was up to in those last few months. If it helps you make your mind up, it’s the, ‘not knowing’ that’s the real big issue here. I can forgive and live with it if I know the truth, and now, she’s only telling me what she thinks I’ll accept.”

“But you’ll divorce her if you don’t find out the truth; is that what you are saying?”

“Possibly, probably, hell, I don’t know; but I do know the uncertainty is chewing me up. We promised each outer that we’d always be honest with each other. It’s the trust issue; she needs to tell me the truth.”

There was a soft sigh and then a harsh, “No.”

That was followed by a quieter, “I honestly don’t know how much she did. All I know is she went out numerous times with Nigel in those last few months. I’ve no fucking idea if she slept with him. She seemed to have a good time, that all I know. She’s the only person who can tell you what went on. I do know that she didn’t understand what was going on with herself. She cried on my shoulder about how much she loved you after every date she had with him.”

“Was Nigel the only one?”

“Fuck Pete, leave it alone.”

“Was he?”

“Christ, there were a couple of others she went out to dinner with, but I don’t think anything went on between them; they were just dinner dates. Is she still with you?”

“Yes, she’s asleep now.”

“That is where I’d like to be. I’m going to call her. If I must suffer, so can she. Peter, I’ll tell her that she needs to tell you the truth, and then I’m done with it.”

With that, she rang off. A few minutes later, I heard Kay’s phone playing Laine’s custom ring tone in the distance.

It was a good half an hour before Kayla appeared in the wheelhouse looking around for me. The sun had risen above the horizon, and the deck was bathed in a golden glow.

She’d obviously had another shower and was wearing a pair of old jean shorts and a t-shirt. The yellow ‘baby on board’ sign you see in car rear windows was emblazoned on the front. Her hair was still damp and pulled back in a ponytail. She came and sat down beside me, giving me a desperate look.

“Are you actually considering divorce?” her voice was scared.

“What did we promise Kay, that we’d always be honest with each other. I know you too well; I don’t think you’ve outright lied to me, but I do believe that you’ve been very economical with the truth, I’m sure a lot more happened than you’ve admitted to.”

Tears began to track down her cheeks and her shoulders shook as she sobbed and bowed her head.

I was aware that she was emotionally exhausted, I realized that I shouldn’t have walked away, but at the time, I wasn’t thinking rationally.

“Kay, look at me,” I said. Her head rose. “I love you, but not knowing the truth is eating me up and destroying what love I have left for you. What did Laine tell you?”

“That if I don’t tell you the truth, you will probably divorce me. Please, Pete, don’t, I’m so sorry I lied; I promise I’ll tell you everything. She said you are sure that I slept with Nigel and he wasn’t the only one. You’re not even sure that the baby’s yours. It is; I promise you. You were the only person I made love to that month, and there’s been nobody since. It can only be yours.”

“That month?” I had noticed the way she’d phrased her statement.

“I went a bit further with him than I told you, but only with Nigel, the others were just dinner dates. At best, I’d give them a goodnight kiss when they dropped me off and then rush off to find George.”

“Okay, so then, just how much further with him?”

Her voice was a soft whisper, “We never fucked...”

I grunted in disbelief, and she hurriedly continued. “Not in the biblical sense of fucking, that is. He gave me what I was craving, going down on me and I would give him blowjobs in return. We 69’d a couple of times, but he only ever came on me, not in me.” Her hands gripped mine as she urged me to believe her.

“Did you love him?”

“No,” she cried out. “If it hadn’t been for my stupidity with the drugs, the best he would have got was a kiss goodnight. He’s a nice person, and under other circumstances, I guess I could have fallen in love with him ... but I already loved you, so he never had a chance.”

I hissed at that, and she hurriedly continued, “I mean if I’d never met you, but because I was so needy he filled that need. George was good, and I used him a lot, but there were times I wanted someone real to hold and touch me and you weren’t there.”

“When was the last time?” Then a sickening thought hit me. “Or are you still seeing him?”

“No, no, no, I’ve only seen him once since, and that’s when I apologized for misleading him and told him I could no longer work with him. The last time we were ... well you know ... together, had been over two weeks before that evening. By that time, the effect of the pills had almost worn off.

“That evening wasn’t good for either of us; at least I didn’t think so. I knew I’d been using him and my guilt at betraying you was overwhelming me. I was able to control my urges by then, but he was expecting me to act the same as usual. It was easier to give him a quick blowjob, then I faked a headache and got him to go. I tried never to be alone, socially, with him after that.

Nigel’s proposal was his way of trying to make me commit to him. He thought I’d been suffering from cold feet, but I still loved him. He’d kept dropping hints about me leaving you and us getting married, but I had been ignoring them. He honestly thought I’d say yes. That’s why there was such a mix up over your invite. He didn’t want you around when he proposed.”

“Fuck, I knew it.”

“I was with the three of them when Gavin appeared to tell Stephen that you were outside and were spitting blood because you couldn’t get in. I don’t think Stephen wanted me to hear, but the music was loud and Gavin had to shout to be heard. I heard him say your name and I insisted he tell me what was going on. I’d been worried because I couldn’t understand why you weren’t there. When I heard what Gavin said, I told them to let you in, or I was leaving.”

Ah, so the lackey’s name was Gavin, nice to finally to know his name. It’s funny how finding out little facts like that can be so satisfying.

Kayla carried on, “Nigel told Stephen to deal with it. It must be a mistake, and if he, Stephen, that is, would wait a few moments, a club official would go with him to sort it out. The next thing I knew Nigel was dragging me onto that stage and starting his speech. Stephen was looking confused, but I was able to tell him to go and get you. I said that if you weren’t there in a couple of minutes, I was leaving. At the time, I had no idea what Nigel was about to do.

“No sooner had I seen you in the crowd, Nigel was making his crazy proposal and then you were gone. Nigel was on his knees holding out a ring, and the audience was applauding. Apparently, I slapped his face while screaming that he was delusional and that I was already married. I couldn’t get through the crowd fast enough. By the time, I got to the front of the club, you’d gone. It took me a few minutes to get a taxi.”

She gave a little sad smile, “He dropped the ring when I slapped him, and it rolled off the stage. Someone must have pocketed it because it hasn’t been found. It was worth over $50,000.”

“It’s no more than he deserved,” I said, with a wry smile.

“Not really, I’m the one at fault. I was the one who sent him all those confusing body messages. He really thought that we were falling in love. The truth was, I just saw him as an easy and safe way to relieve my sexual frustration.”

She looked over at the boat moored behind us. “I was a bit like Cassie, I needed a walking George, a Tom who could give me some affection and make me orgasm when I need to get rid of the pressure that was constantly building up. You don’t know how sorry I am that I didn’t call you and tell you what I’d been doing, but I was so scared that you would hate and reject me when you found out what I’d been doing. The longer it went on, the harder it became to even think about telling you.”

She still didn’t get why I was so upset. “It’s not finding out what you did, that hurts so much. It’s the fact you felt that you needed to keep on lying to me about it. That’s what hurts.”

Her face fell, and she looked down at her hands and the rings on her finger. “I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t control my emotions,” she murmured.

“I didn’t want you ever to find out how foolish and disrespectful I’d been. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I just couldn’t seem to stop myself. Laine could tell that something that wasn’t right, but it took her a long time to convince me to go and see a doctor. He worked out what I’d done and why I was the way I was.”

“Why didn’t Laine call me?”

“Because I begged her not to and threatened her. I hoped that if I could get through those last few weeks without you ever finding I’d betrayed you, I’d be safe. I would have the next couple of years to earn your trust again. I was going to tell you, but I wanted to pick my moment. We’d have been a family, and you would have been much more likely to understand how stupid I’d been.”