Every Woman Needs a Wife (24 page)

“I’m not coming home until you’re gone,” he said, eyes locked on hers. “This isn’t right, you living here with my wife and kids.”

“Then it looks like you’re in for a nice long stay at the Rubber Room Hilton. My contract’s up in six months.”

Vernon winced, trailing her into the living room. “A contract?
What
contract?”

“A contract that makes up for lost time and love—to your wife.”

“I knew she was crazy, but damn!” He rubbed a hand through his short-cropped hair as his eyes widened with shock.

Tanya grinned as she sat down on the sofa. “She’s smarter than you are. She’s also paying for me to go back to school.”

“I would’ve done that,” he said, lowering his voice.

“You were too busy keeping me active between the sheets to care about developing my mind.”

“What do you need that for?” he asked, spreading his hands. “I gave you everything you wanted. Everything you needed.”

“And look what I have now…not a damn thing!” Tanya stood, then perched on the sofa again and grinned. “At least I don’t have to stroke her ego, kiss her ass, or deal with a shitty attitude or mood swings.”

Vernon’s face flushed an angry brown. “Damn it! I don’t have mood swings!”

“Then with your bitching and moaning all the time, I should be more worried than I thought. They say those down-low brothers—”

Angry sparks flew from Vernon’s eyes. “Woman, I know you didn’t just imply that I’m gay.”

She drummed her fingers on the end table. “What else would explain the way you act sometimes?”

“I was under a lot of stress!”

“Stress caused by lying all the time. I’d have mood swings, too,” she said with a bitter laugh. “The major difference between you and your wife is that Brandi and I communicate regularly and she doesn’t require me to put my feelings aside for hers.”

“So now you’re sleeping with her, too?” Vernon roared. “I can’t believe this shit!”

Tanya shrugged, enjoying how much that prospect seemed to upset him. “Given how she handles everything else, she probably fucks better than you do, too. But I guess I’ll find that out—later.”

A peal of laughter flowed into the living room as Brandi strolled in, glaring at Vernon, Sierra hot on her heels covering her ears. “Go to your room, Sierra. We’ll talk later.”

The little girl cast an uneasy gaze at her father before scrambling up the stairs without even bothering to get her normal hug from him.

“I should kick your ass for scaring me shitless and sending me on a three-hour search for Sierra!” Brandi slipped off her sneakers and dropped down onto the love seat. “And now you’re trying to steal my wife.”

Vernon tore his gaze from Sierra’s retreating form. “Will you stop with that crap?”

Tanya strolled to the bar, unlocked it, and poured a drink as Brandi said, “Oh, just ’cause I’m getting mine, it’s crap?”

“You’re embarrassing this family,” he replied, going to stand near his wife.

“No, Vernon, I’m embarrassing
you
.” She accepted the drink from Tanya, nodding her thanks. “And that’s the way it should be.”

Vernon’s gaze trailed Tanya’s rear end before she perched on the edge of the sofa next to his wife.

Seeing the lust in his eyes, Brandi could only grin.

His gaze flickered from one woman to the other and back. “So you want the world to know you were so inadequate as a wife that I had to go elsewhere for good sex…”

Tanya felt a slash of pain in her heart for Brandi. God, Vernon reminded her so much of her father. She cringed at his smug expression as he took a seat.

Tanya left her spot and leaned over to fix his tie. “And if you’re so damned good at what you do, what was
my
excuse for getting it elsewhere,
stud
?”

Vernon visibly paled, glowering at Tanya as she walked away and sat within arm’s reach of Brandi.

Brandi nodded at Tanya, thanking her for the save. Then she turned back to Vernon. “What you did with your dick had nothing to do with what happened in our bedroom. You did it because you were greedy, just like your father. And selfish, too. What other reason do you have for picking Sierra up, then telling her she could go to Usher’s concert when
we agreed two weeks ago that she couldn’t?” Brandi looked at him, a tear glistening in the corner of one eye. “Just to flex your muscle and cause us some grief? Grow up, Vernon! She used you, knowing she was wrong. And you used her, thinking what?” She shook her head. “I still can’t call it. I had to have security roll with me into the Chicago Theater to yank her fast tail out of there.”

Vernon looked back, defiance flickering in his eyes. “She was fine. Her friend’s mother was taking them and picking them up. She wasn’t in any danger.”

“That’s not the point. We agreed that until she started turning in her work on a regular basis, her privileges were gone.”

“Do you know what people are saying about you?” Vernon tried to change the subject.

Brandi shrugged as Tanya walked toward the dining room. “Yeah, the women are saying, ‘Damn, why didn’t I think of that? I lost my husband’”—she flipped up the middle finger—“‘my house’”—this time the index finger went up—“‘and life as I know it over a piece of ass, when I could’ve kept him, his money, and had a bonus…my own wife.’”

“Dinner is served, madame,” Tanya said, with a flourish as she pulled back a chair at the head of the dining room table for effect. She smiled at Brandi, hoping to end this painful conversation, especially since the girls were doing their best to stay out of sight at the top of the stairs. They didn’t need to hear this, no matter how close to the truth it might be.

Brandi managed not to laugh as she crossed the room. “Thanks, Tanya. And what are we having tonight?”

“Well, I threw on my coat and broke out the grill,” she said, imitating a Texas twang and winking at Vernon. “The cows saw me coming and it caused a stampede ‘cause they were trying to get away. But I snagged us one.”

Brandi let out a hearty laugh; all signs of her tears were gone.

“We’re having beef barbecued ribs and beef hot links, burgers and turkey dogs for the girls; with iced potato salad, Southern baked beans, spaghetti, fresh squeezed lemonade, and apple pie àla mode.”

“Ahhhhh, summer in the fall,” Brandi said with a little victory shimmy
of her shoulders. Then she gave Tanya’s hand a gentle pat. “My kind of woman.”

Tanya glared at the girls peeking in on the argument from the stairs. She jerked her thumb toward the upstairs bathroom. The girls scrambled back upstairs and she could hear them in the bathroom, pretending that they had been nowhere in hearing distance as they washed their hands.

Tanya cupped a hand over her mouth, yelling, “Howwdeeeeeee. Come on, girls, chow’s on!”

Brandi placed the fork on the edge of the plate and whispered to Tanya. “Did you really sleep with someone else?”

“No,” Tanya whispered back with a grin. “I just said it to score one for our side.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Vernon stormed toward the door, and then turned back to both of them. “You’re gonna pay for this, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Like James Brown said—” Brandi lifted her fork and smacked her lips in unladylike fashion—“don’t start none, won’t be none.”

Tanya’s laughter followed him out the door.

V
ernon had managed to be civil in the office for the rest of the week, but the assistants had the added duty of messenger service between the two camps. Michael dropped by and Brandi reconfirmed his position as the company accountant, but brushed off the strong advances. He left saying that he was “there for her” if she needed anything.

As she sat in her home office, going over the business plan two more times, she thought, relationships that began on what “might have been” didn’t always last. But Lord, Michael was a fine piece of work. If Vernon didn’t get his act together soon, and that delta between her thighs started humming a precision tune, she might have to…

The phone rang. She checked the display. When William Spencer’s cell number came up, she just let it ring. She didn’t need any of his bullshit so early on a Saturday morning. At least give her until noon. Yes, noon was a good time to deal with unsavory things. A person’s had breakfast and dinner’s a long way off.

Tanya had taken the girls to a track meet, giving Brandi uninterrupted time to pull everything together so splitting the company would have minor repercussions for the staff. The court date was only a month away, and Avie had said they needed to be prepared to prove to the judge that it was better for all involved.

The doorbell rang three times before she could push away from the desk. The impatient person on the other side had better not be a salesperson—he would definitely not be on the receiving end of “good morning.”

She froze as her father-in-law’s bald head, beady eyes, and thick mustache
swam into focus. It was eight in the morning on a Saturday and William Spencer had nerve enough to have on a three-piece suit, complete with timepiece and chain.

She ran her fingers through her hair, bracing herself as she opened the door. She knew his presence on her doorstep so early in the morning wasn’t good news.

He brushed past her into the foyer, quickly scanning the first level of the house. “Where are the girls?”

“They’re with Tanya.”

His jowls shook as he grimaced, obviously keeping his first thoughts to himself—the wisest thing she’d seen him do yet. “You’ve taken this thing a little too far, missy.”

She closed the door, sighing wearily. “Nice of you to grace my home with your presence and unwanted opinion.” She leaned against the entrance. “And what’s too far? The fact that I’ve accepted my husband’s mistress into our home?”

“It’s absurd!”

Brandi grinned, enjoying the man’s discomfort. “No more absurd than my husband having an affair. He took vows—vows that said he would keep to me and only me. I’m holding up my end. Why can’t he?”

“It was meaningless,” he said, waving her off with a dismissing swipe of a heavy hand.

“In other words, you knew about it, too,” she said dryly. “All the men knew and not one of you wondered how I would feel. But then, there’s not much I could expect. You probably gave him the rule book on playing the field.”

His beady brown eyes narrowed to slits. “Mistresses are a common thing, little lady. Men have done it for centuries. There are more women than men, so something has to give. Having more than one woman has been a part of our culture for centuries.”

Brandi smoothed out her sweat suit. “Then those men need to stay as far away from marriage as possible.”

His thick lips curled into a sneer. “We would do that, if so many of you
desperate
women didn’t push for marriage or demand to be kept. And this new crop of young women—these gold diggers—are all right with the way
we
like it. There’s too many women out there for any man to stay with just one,” he repeated.

“You really believe that bull?” she asked, watching him rock back and forth on his heels. “Okay, if that’s the new program, then I can get with that. If I’m washing dishes, she’d better be on the back end drying some shit off. If I’m out making the money, she needs to be switchin’ in the kitchen, baby. She’d better get with the program and help out; she’s not getting no easy ride—literally.”

“So give him a divorce,” he said, glowering angrily at her.

“Hell no! She’s not going to roll in and parlay up in my house after all my hard work. She’d better get used to me being all up in the program. I was here first and I’m here to stay!”

“For some reason he still…loves you.” William sputtered over the words as though it hurt to say them. “If you will recall, I was against your marriage to begin with.”

“I don’t have to recall. You did everything but take out a billboard or hire the Good Year blimp.” Then she pointed to his barrel-like form. “Maybe just a twenty-X shirt to fit around your middle would have done the trick.”

“You—you—you—” he stuttered as he tried for a quick comeback. He would have to go the distance to top a Jeffrey Manor girl. The deadly scowl on his face was almost the same as the one he’d worn the first time she’d gone to dinner at the Spencer house.

♥♥♥

Spring Break, her junior year of college. Brandi walked into the Spencers’ Kenwood mansion and looked up into the icy glare of Vernon’s father. He looked like the Black, pudgy version of Mr. Clean—complete with a barrelsized waistline—rather than a high-powered mergers and acquisitions man. He gripped the lapels of his three-piece gray suit, giving her a quick once-over and scowling. “A little
larger
than normal.”

Vernon gasped and grimaced. “Dad, not everybody loves a bone. Even Mama’s got a little size on her. And it looks good.”

“That’s right, baby. You tell him,” Bettye Spencer said, making her way
into the parlor. She wore a classic black A-line dress and a double strand of pearls. “Bones are for dogs and the only barking I’ve heard in this house is this old windbag right here.” She poked at Spencer’s middle. “Welcome to our home,” she said, shaking Brandi’s hand.

“Thank you, Mrs. Spencer.”

“Oh, call me Bettye, dear, Mrs. Spencer is his mother,” she said in a dry tone. “And she won’t let me forget it.”

Brandi trailed behind the graceful older woman, and was thankful that she had worn a simple black column dress, and matching classic pumps. Her father had given her the pearls and matching earrings for her twelfth birthday.

Vernon gave her a quick peck on the cheek as they moved past the Ming vase and strolled over the huge oriental carpet.

The house had intricately carved wooden inlays throughout the foyer, living room, and dining room. The butler’s pantry off the pale green kitchen was as big as a master bedroom. A glass door led to a huge black-and-white solarium with a fourteen-piece wrought iron patio set to match, and a fireplace flickering with a warm glow. Another set of glass doors led to the gardens outside.

“Thank you for having me today,” Brandi said, as Vernon held out her chair. “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Spencer.”