THE GREAT PRETENDER (8 page)

Wanting to have a little more fun before drifting to sleep, Tracy continued tightening her muscles. She felt Reggie grow hard again. She nibbled on his earlobe and ran her palms up and down the backs of his thighs.

With an incredible kiss, Reggie sank himself deep, nestling inside her for a second time.

D
amn it,
he thought.
I’ve been such a fool.

F
riday night found Olivia Brooks speeding northbound on I-95 toward Miami Gardens Drive. She’d called Sean more than eight times in the last two hours.

Where the hell was he?

She hated when this happened. It meant that he had to be with that bitch!

Sure, as usual, he would have the perfect excuse, such as he’d left his cell phone at home, or the battery had died, or the biggest whopper of all: he simply never heard it ring. He always had excuses, and they were making Olivia suspicious—very suspicious. She suspected that Sean was still seeing his ex-girlfriend Jacquelyn Henderson. Apparently, she had never
really
left the picture…

Sean Johnson was
twenty-eight years old and shared a dilapidated apartment in North Miami with his older brother, Vincent. Olivia first met Sean in an algebra class at Barry University almost two years earlier. He was a charming character who amused everyone, including Olivia. Everyone knew about his live-in girlfriend, Jackie. She shared his car and was usually in the parking lot, waiting for him after class each day. Some days Jackie was late and Sean would be left waiting for over half an hour. Everyone got a kick out of teasing him about it when he groaned and complained.

One day, word spread that Sean and his girlfriend had broken up and she had moved out of the apartment. The effect on Sean was immediately apparent to everyone. The zesty Sean they’d grown accustomed to was gone.

There’d been no initial attraction when Olivia first met Sean. He was tall, but rather lanky and not quite Olivia’s cup of tea. She saw him as the class clown, the thought of a romantic relationship never entering her mind.

Several months after the Algebra course, they met again in economics. Sean seemed to be back to normal by then, and each night they’d converse about this issue or that, until he began flirting with her and asked her out. Lacking interest, Olivia spent weeks feigning fatigue or scheduling conflicts to avoid a coffee date, but still he persisted. She finally agreed. One date turned into two and two became three, and before Olivia knew how it happened, they were officially a couple.

Sean explained that things hadn’t worked out with Jackie because she was pressing for marriage and he wasn’t even ready to propose. Jackie spewed ultimatums and threatened to leave. He helped her pack.

For a few weeks, things were wonderful between them. Olivia had fallen in love. But one Saturday she went by to see Sean, unannounced. She’d been at the library and thought it would be nice to visit him on the way home. She usually called first, but that morning she’d forgotten her cell phone.

When she arrived at his apartment complex,
The Woods,
she saw Jackie’s red Honda in the parking lot. She’d climbed the grimy stairwell with a queasy sensation in the pit of her stomach. When she reached his door, she knocked several times with no response.
What the hell is going on?
she thought.
What is she doing here?

Reluctantly, she turned away from the door and returned to the parking lot. Olivia noticed that while both Jackie and Sean’s cars were there, Vincent’s was not.

They’re alone up there! What the fuck is going on?

Olivia had driven away, enraged.

When she’d gotten home, she had an urgent message from Sean on her cell phone. He had given some excuse about Jackie being over to visit his brother, Vincent. Sean claimed that he’d been asleep in his bedroom and didn’t realize that they’d gone out to the store. That explained why Vincent’s car was gone and Jackie’s was not.

At the time, Olivia believed his story without doubt. However, such peculiar incidents continued: messages ignored for hours, Jackie always “visiting Vincent,” and once, Sean even drove Jackie’s car for over a week while his own was in the repair shop. Olivia ended their relationship on numerous occasions, but Sean always managed to win her back. He sent flowers, showed up on her doorstep, and persuaded others—like her mother and sister—to feel sorry for him.

Now as she
continued to speed along I-95, Olivia prayed it wasn’t happening all over again. They’d had such a remarkable time Wednesday night. Sean had taken her to see a movie starring two of her favorite actors. The film was spectacular…And afterward they’d gone back to his apartment and made love until they were weak. Sean loved it so much that he begged for an encore Thursday night.

And now this,
thought Olivia. Why did he always have to screw everything up?

Exiting at Miami Gardens Drive, she drove east to Dixie Highway. When she reached his street, adrenaline began to shoot through her veins. Olivia braced herself for the worst.
T
his is it. If that nasty whore is there again, Sean can shove his excuses up his ass.

Sure enough, when Olivia made it to his building, there sat the infamous red Honda, yet again, with the all-too-familiar Mardi Gras beads dangling from the rearview mirror.

She haphazardly threw her Camry into the parking space beside it—ignoring the fact that it was reserved for handicapped drivers—and slammed the door in haste.

Reaching Sean’s apartment, Olivia pounded the front door repeatedly with the usual result—there was no answer. But she decided not to give up quite so easily this time. Returning to the parking lot, she crossed her arms and leaned against her car to wait until Vincent got home. It was Friday, and she knew he left work at eight.

At approximately eight twenty-five, Olivia spotted Vincent’s Mercury. When he parked, she jogged over to meet him before he even removed his seat belt.

“Vinnie, what’s going on?” she beseeched, her voice full of anxiety. “What’s Jackie doing here with Sean, and why won’t anyone answer the door?”

Vincent released the seat belt and motioned for Olivia to step back, giving him room to open the door.

“Vincent? Come on…tell me what’s going on! I need the truth. Is he still seeing her?” Despite her will to keep them at bay, tears filled her eyes.

“Olivia, I don’t want to get involved in this confusion with you and Sean,” he said, moving around her.

“I’m coming in with you,” she said, falling in step beside him. “I’m coming in to find out what the
hell
is going on.”

“Look,” he said, coming up short. “I’m going to be honest with you here, okay?” He gave her a rueful look.

“Please, Vinnie, that’s all I want. Is he still seeing her?” Olivia didn’t know how much longer she could keep the floodgates from opening full on. Her twenty-one-year-old heart was pounding like a sledgehammer as she waited for his next words.

“Don’t do this to yourself anymore.” Vincent looked her directly in the eyes. “It’s been my experience that if you suspect something like that, it’s probably true.”

Olivia felt like her insides had been hollowed out.

Damn it!

“How long, Vinnie?” she asked quickly. “How long has Jackie been back in the picture?”

“Olivia, go on home now, okay? There’s nothing here for you but more grief.” He turned and walked away.

Olivia caught up with him just as he started up the stairs. “I’m coming in with you. I want to hear what he’s got to say to me now.”

“Did you hear what I said? Why do you want to continue hurting yourself? I’m telling you in plain English that you’re wasting your time with Sean. Our entire family knows that he’s only loved one woman and one woman only, and that’s Jackie. It’s always been Jackie. You just need to take this as a learning experience and move on, dear.” Vincent shook his head. Pity.

“Vincent, after all he’s put me through these last few months, he owes it to me to look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Now, I’m going in with you!” She climbed up the stairs ahead of him and waited in front of their door.

“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’ll just learn the hard way,” Vincent said, joining her at the doorway. He shuffled with his keys and opened the door. Olivia followed him inside.

There was no questioning that Sean and Vincent were horrible decorators. The living room consisted of a ghastly mahogany-colored sofa and a hideous blue pinstriped loveseat that Olivia assumed were hand-me-downs. No piece of furniture in the room matched or complimented any other. To the right of the doorway was a tiny dining area that barely accommodated the two-chair Formica dining table. On the left was a slightly larger, all wooden kitchen.

As she passed, Olivia noticed two empty wineglasses on the counter. Her adrenaline spiked again. Before she could get any farther, Vincent stepped ahead of her and knocked on Sean’s room door, which was on the left side of the two-bedroom residence.

“Sean, you awake?” he called, trying the knob and finding it locked.

“Yeah, I’m up,” said Sean from the other side. “What’s up?”

“Come on out here and talk to Olivia. She’s here to see you,” Vincent called out before turning back to Olivia, who was right on his heels.

“Now, I’m going to my room and I don’t want to hear the racket, so please take it outside.”

“Thanks for letting me in, Vinnie. You know I respect you very much. I’ll take it outside.” Her eyes never left Sean’s door.

Vincent walked across the living room and closed his bedroom door behind him.

Olivia stood rooted to the spot, waiting for Sean to open the door.

But he never did.

She stood there, listening and waiting. When she came to the hurtful realization that he was not going to come out at all, she began banging rapidly on the door.

“Open the door, you bastard! Open the door and face me!” she screamed, pounding away. “I don’t care if you have your slut in there with you, Sean! Just open the fucking door! Now!” She beat the door for nearly ten minutes, but Sean was ignoring her. He didn’t even acknowledge that she was there. She finally gave up and stormed out of the apartment without even closing the front door.

So much for respecting Vincent.
Fuck Vincent!

Olivia descended the stairs two at a time and ran to her car. She recklessly backed out of the handicapped space and almost hit an approaching Buick. The floodgates gave way as she drove out of the complex. She made her way, dazed, along Dixie Highway. Unable to see the road clearly, she pulled into the parking lot of a deserted Bank of America.

“
Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
she chanted. He’d been making a complete fool of her
all this time
. Lying and cheating!

It began to pour. Olivia was remotely aware of the pellets hitting her car. “Damn you, Sean Johnson! Damn you for making a fool of me! Oh, my God, oh, my God! Damn it!” she sobbed. “How could he do this to me?
Why
did he do this to me?”

Over and over she pounded the steering wheel with her fists, which were already tender from the beating she’d given Sean’s bedroom door. She bawled and screamed in an attempt to release the agony, but there was no stopping the painful onslaught. There was a dagger lodged in the pit of her stomach.

“I trusted you!” she screeched at the top of her lungs. “I believed in you!” The screams reverberated through the car.

Forty-five minutes later
, Olivia raised her head from the steering wheel. She removed tissue from her glove compartment. Once she cleaned her nose and face, she started the car and headed home in the pouring rain. She just wanted to get into bed, and when Sean called—because she knew he would—he would find that she had activated the call-block feature on her private line.

She tried her best to stop the incessant flow of tears as she turned onto Miami Lakes Drive. Although she was no longer wailing, tears poured uncontrollably down her cheeks, and she knew she looked like death.

Pulling into the driveway, she pressed the garage door opener. She was relieved to see that her mother’s Cherokee was not there, but prepared to encounter Valerie as she entered the kitchen from the garage.

As luck would have it, Valerie was in the kitchen, taking a slice of pizza from a Papa John’s box. “Hey, where’d you go? I ordered a fully loaded pizza,” said Valerie, not looking at Olivia long enough to notice her distressed state.