A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [101]
She snatched his hand from hers. “Like you don’t know. I arrived today to surprise you and I found out about your little tryst. How could you do this to us, Brian? How could you?”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded furiously, not knowing what the hell she was talking about.
“This!” she said, hurling a piece of fabric in his face. “Remember these?”
The item fell to the floor and he reached down and picked them up. Ladies panties? He glanced back at her, confused. “What are you accusing me of, Erica?”
She placed her hands on her hips. Fire was blazing in her eyes. He had never seen her this angry before. “You tell me, Brian. I found them sticking out of your sofa cushions. Do you want to tell me who they belong to?”
He stiffened visibly. “If they were stuffed under my sofa then I would assume they are yours, Erica. The last time you were here we made love on that sofa several times, or have you forgotten?”
“They aren’t mine,” she almost screamed. “I would not wear panties monogrammed with the initial D. So tell me, Brian. Who do they belong to? And as you’re trying to come up with a name, you might as well tell me why a woman’s perfume is all over your room, who slept in the bed with you last night and whose red lipstick is on your shirt collar on the floor in your bedroom.”
He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “No one slept in my bed last night and there is no fragrance in my room other than my aftershave and there is no red lipstick on my shirt in my room.” He hadn’t made his bed this morning, but there definitely hadn’t been any perfume on anything and his white shirt had gotten tossed in the laundry bin as usual. What the hell was she talking about?
“Come on, Erica, let’s go up to my bedroom and you can show me what you think you saw.”
“What I think I saw? Oh, so now you want me to believe I’m crazy and that I’m imagining things?”
“No, that’s not it at all, but if things are like you say then there has to be a reason for it. One I don’t know about, like those panties. If they aren’t yours then I truly don’t know who they belong to.”
“I don’t believe you!”
He stared at her incredulously and then anger seeped into his body. “How in hell can you say that you don’t believe me when I’ve never given you reason to doubt my love or my honesty? What kind of crazy thoughts has your mother been feeding you these past three weeks?”
“My mother has nothing to do with this. She hasn’t mentioned you and she thinks I’m visiting April in L.A. I lied to her to come here.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why would you have to lie to your mother to come see me? You’re a grown woman who doesn’t need permission to come see the man you’re supposed to love.”
She glared thunderously at him. “Please don’t try shifting the blame from you to me. My mother had nothing to do with me finding out the man I’d planned to marry is screwing around on me. I know what I found here today, Brian. And you can have this back because there won’t be a wedding!”
She pulled off her engagement ring and threw it at him, hitting him on the cheek before it fell to the floor. He grabbed her before she could get out of his reach and jerked her to him.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on here, Erica, but don’t end things like this. If things are as you say then something is going on that I know nothing about. I love you, baby,” he whispered gently, close to her ear. “Please believe that I would not destroy our love or cheapen it in any way.”
For a moment he thought he had gotten through to her, but then she twisted out of his arms. “No,” she said, with tears streaming down his face. “You couldn’t love me and hurt me this way. I warned you about that woman who works at your office, but you evidently didn’t heed my warning.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That day I was here and she was jogging by wearing red lipstick and Allure perfume. And the panties had the initial D. Didn’t you tell me her name was Donna?”
He clenched his jaw. “I have not been having an affair