Our Wicked Lies GledĂ© Kabongo (summer reading list .txt) đ
- Author: Gledé Kabongo
Book online «Our Wicked Lies GledĂ© Kabongo (summer reading list .txt) đ». Author GledĂ© Kabongo
Alicia tried to log in to the computer and failed. Sheâd forgotten the password Eliot had given her a while back. She thought about it for a minute and recalled it was his motherâs maiden name, Scott, in combination with the date and year he was accepted into Harvard Law.
She tried it, and it worked. She returned to the University of Massachusetts website, where she had been before her computer glitched. She read the requirements for transfer students and began creating an account but became stumped by some of the formâs requirements. She couldnât find the answers on the website, so it was probably best to email the admissions office first. She didnât want to mess up her chances for a new kind of future before it had even begun.
She clicked on the mail icon. Annoyingly, Eliot had forgotten to log out of his email. Sheâd have to switch accounts. However, as she tried to find the settings icon, she noticed something strange about the inbox. It was almost empty. Eliot valued efficiency and cleaning out his inbox was the kind of thing he would do, but what was weird was the number of emails in his draft folder to the left of the screenâseventeen in all.
Why hadnât he sent those messages? It was unlike Eliot to keep such a tidy inbox but not do the same to his drafts folder.
Alicia swatted away the troublesome thought. It was nothing. Her anxious brain was playing tricks on her. If he had something to hide, he would have come up with some plausible excuse why she couldnât borrow his computer. He hadnât done that. Instead, he had willingly turned over his laptop without a second thought.
She squirmed in her seat, unable to get comfortable. If he had nothing to hide, there would be no harm in looking in the folder. There wouldnât be anything upsetting in it, right?
Alicia dragged the mouse to the drafts folder and hesitated. Her brain issued a silent scream, egging her on.
She clicked. To her surprise, none of the messages had a subject line. Before she lost her nerve, she scrolled to the top of the page, double clicked on the most recent message, and read it.
A vicious chill hit her at the core.
CHAPTER 17
Alicia covered her mouth to suppress the wounded scream threatening to burst out of her. She wanted to run away, erase what she had just seen. But her body wouldnât cooperate. Her muscles froze. Oxygen fled her brain. Her breath caught. She couldnât breathe properly. Air reached her lungs in short, anguished bursts.
It was right there, in black and white. The anonymous notes were correct. Eliot and another woman. A woman who had just exposed a major crack in Aliciaâs marriage. No. Scratch that. A 9.0-type earthquake on the Richter Scale.
To: Eliot Gray
From: Empress Faith
Subject: Our future
Iâm tired of sharing you with her. I love you. I would do anything for you. Doesnât that count for something?
From: Eliot Gray
To: Empress Faith
Re: Our future
This is getting tiresome, Faith. We agreed. No emotional attachments.
From: Empress Faith
To: Eliot Gray
Re: Our future
Oh. I get it. Sheâs too good to do the things you do with me. Your precious Alicia. Itâs not fair. Maybe we should call things off.
From: Eliot Gray
To: Empress Faith
Re: Our future
Youâre a grown woman, not a child. Act like it. Stop calling me on my personal cell phone.
From: Empress Faith
To: Eliot Gray
Re: Our future
Maybe I should tell Alicia all the crazy things we do in bed. What you like, how you like itâŠ
From: Eliot Gray
To: Empress Faith
Re: Our future
Do that, and Iâll make you regret it.
Time ceased to exist. She didnât know how long she had been staring at the screen, absorbing every word of the exchange, or when tears began to flow down her cheeks and soaked her chest. The intimate back and forth was one long draft message that was never sent.
Despite the evidence staring her in the face, a small part of her, deep in the crevices of her mind, hoped that this was a mistake. It just was a misunderstanding. Her interpretation was wrong. This was clearly someone playing a cruel game. This couldnât be the truth. Her loving, brilliant husband wasnât cheating on her.
Katâs warning came roaring back again: People who go looking for trouble usually find it.
Why did she open his email? What was she expecting to find? Not this. Anything but this.
She wiped her tears on the sleeves of her blouse, took a loud, aching breath, and guzzled down the bottle of water she had brought with her. There must be something wrong with her, because any normal woman would have exited the email folder, powered down the laptop, and called it a night. But not Alicia. She wanted to learn more. Prove there was some mistake.
She clicked on the âsentâ folder and found only three emails. She opened the most recent one, and gasped, yet again. It was the itinerary for the trip to Paris, a week ago. Eliotâs administrative assistant, Erica, had emailed the itinerary to his personal email account. But then Eliot had forwarded it to this Faith woman. Alicia clicked the down arrow to see her email address: Empress Faith.
Was she serious? Empress?
Other pieces of the puzzle clicked into place: Nathan Huntâs call in Paris. Eliotâs email telling Faith to stop calling his personal cell phone. Nathan Hunt must be Faith. That was why Eliot had panicked at the phone call during dinner, and that was why heâd said nothing when sheâd complained to him in Paris about
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