Our Wicked Lies Gledé Kabongo (summer reading list .txt) 📖

right about one thing: Alicia couldn’t allow this woman to steal her husband and break up her family. Alicia owed it to her daughters to put up a fight.

A couple of minutes later, Kat handed her the laptop. “What do you think?”

From: Alicia Gray

Re: Eliot Gray

Women like you are common and cheap, a dime a dozen. The way you responded tells me you have no class. No shame. Eliot will NEVER be serious about you. Why do you think he kept you his dirty little secret? Because that’s all you’ll ever be.

Alicia swallowed hard. The response was harsh and didn’t sound like her at all. But she wasn’t herself. Everything had changed.

“Are you sure, Kat? This woman might be psychotic, capable of much worse than mouthing off in an email.”

“Alicia, the woman is sleeping with your husband, and she insulted you,” Kat said indignantly. “How much worse can it get? She’s in the wrong, and you want to back down? If I were you, I would hunt her down, scratch out her eyeballs, and then jam them down her trampy throat.”

She could always count on Kat to get to the point in her uniquely creative way; she couldn’t allow Faith to think she had won. But this would be the last message. A drawn-out back-and-forth would be childish.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Alicia said. She hit send and stood up from the table.

“Don’t give her any power over you, Alicia,” Kat said. “You’re Eliot’s perfect angel, remember? If he was serious about Faith, he would have packed his bags a long time ago.”

But what was stopping him from doing that any day now? Her husband had looked her dead in the face and lied when confronted. At this juncture, Alicia wasn’t sure what she was fighting for.

CHAPTER 21

“I meant what I said, Eliot. This can’t go on any longer. You have to tell Alicia everything. It’s better to rip the band-aid off. Your daughters are almost grown. What’s the point of waiting?”

Eliot had snuck away from the office and driven the twenty minutes to the apartment in Chestnut Hill. Faith stood in front of the bedroom mirror, teased out her short curls, and then re-applied lipstick. Eliot flawlessly executed a Windsor knot on his Italian silk tie.

He had to end it before his life imploded. He’d completely forgotten he’d left his email account open when he’d let Alicia borrow his computer. He wasn’t sure if she’d read his messages, but he couldn’t take the chance. How could he have been so careless? He’d let his arrogance and complacency get the better of him after getting away with seeing Faith for so long. What a stupid, rookie mistake.

Other than her questions about Nathan Hunt, Alicia had exhibited no signs of a wife who suspected her husband was cheating. Those questions had worried him, but now, he had to be extra careful and break off the relationship with Faith before any further damage occurred.

He would not lose the love of his life and his daughters. He would not give his prick of a father the satisfaction of seeing him fail. Eliot Gray, Sr, would love nothing more than to see his son lose his family.

“You screwed up yet again. You had it all and you couldn’t keep it together. You’re such a disappointment.” Then his father would shake his head in that way Eliot had dreaded as a kid and walk away as though he detested being in the same room as his firstborn.

Eliot put on his jacket and said, “I made myself clear, Faith. What do I need to do to prove to you that I meant what I said? I’m not leaving Alicia. I’m not abandoning my daughters. I can’t put it any simpler than that. Bringing it up every time we meet will not yield a different outcome. My family stays intact.”

She turned around. “Right. Because you need your perfect little family intact for the cameras. Ladies and gentlemen, senatorial candidate Eliot Gray, his mousy homemaker wife, and their lovely daughters. Yay.” She clapped in mock applause.

“Watch yourself, Faith,” he growled. “My patience is wearing thin.”

She edged closer to him so they were eyeball to eyeball. “Ooh, I’m so scared. I’m tired of being your dirty little secret, Eliot. Alicia deserves the truth, that her hero husband is a big, fat, lying zero who has been cheating on her for years. How about that?” She poked him in the chest with an index finger.

Eliot grabbed her face. His fingers dug into her jaw. He applied enough pressure to keep it steady. Her eyes bulged with fright. Eliot was not a violent man, but this time was different. Everything was at stake.

“This is my final warning. Keep Alicia out of your delusions. If you make any attempt to contact her, repeat any of this garbage you’ve been spewing, I will kill you.” He released his grip and wiped his hands on his wool pants, as if touching her made his skin crawl.

Faith stood silent, shaken, unable to move or speak. Tears trailed down her face.

Eliot picked up the last of his things and turned to leave. But as he walked away, he heard two words that stopped him dead in his tracks.

“I’m pregnant.”

CHAPTER 22

Alicia closed her eyes and stretched. She’d finally finished her transfer student application to UMass. She’d taken advantage of rolling admissions, and it felt good to power down the laptop, not to mention pleased to have taken the first step on her new adventure. She picked up her phone from the desk to set the alarm before she went off to bed when her email inbox, the last app she used, popped up before she could punch in her passcode.

Alicia’s stomach dropped.

There was a new email from Faith.

She dreaded reading the response. Should she open it now? Probably not the best idea before bed, but could she sleep, knowing what was lurking in her inbox?

She tapped