James Patterson - The Quickie

ON MY WAY HOME, I called Keane and told him I felt dizzy and that I was taking a sick day. As I hung up, I realized it was one of the first times in a while I'd actually told him the truth.

I felt like I was stepping into a crypt when I opened the front door of my empty house. I decided to go for a jog and suited up. I drove to Tibbetts Brook Park five minutes away and did my usual two laps around the lake with its art-deco pool house. Jeez, it was a beautiful afternoon. Bright, yet cool. Perfect for a run. I even spotted a crane standing among the shoreline cattails as I was doing my stretches.

But by the time I sat down afterward, sweating, behind the wheel of my Mini in the parking lot, I felt like crap all over again.

Back home, I checked my empty answering machine, then poured myself a glass of wine to calm my shot nerves. Then I remembered the baby on board. The glass slipped from my shaking hand as I was pouring it back into the bottle and shattered into a thousand pieces.

Nice move, Detective, I thought as I gripped the cold edge of the sink. I was really on top of things lately, wasn't I? Really holding things together nicely.

Looking down at the glass slivers, I wondered exactly how I could have been so horrible to my partner. Flat-out threatening Mike? Who was that cold-hearted bitch at the Piper's Kilt? It sure wasn't me.

And how could I keep on doing this? I'd gone from omitting the truth, to outright lying, to threatening my friends. I didn't even want to think about what could happen next.

To top it all off, I was completely alone in all this. It was insane. I couldn't even share with Paul the stress of trying to save Paul.

This was it, I realized. Everyone has a breaking point, and I'd just arrived at mine. I couldn't keep up the 24/7 deception anymore. Lincoln was right: you couldn't fool all of the people all of the time. Not if you were Catholic, anyway.

I needed to rejoin the human race. I'd been a secret agent in my own life for long enough. This spy had to come in from the cold.

Step one was confessing my sins and unburdening myself. But not to my partner.

I had to tell Paul.

Admitting I had cheated would be excruciating, but in order to have a shot at getting ourselves and our marriage to the other side of this, Paul and I needed to be on the same page. I had to tell him that I knew what he did at the St. Regis, and that I forgave him for it. And that I needed his help to make sure our dangerous secret stayed a secret.

I WAS PULLING MY FAMOUS lime-cumin chicken out of the oven when Paul came in that night. With the possibility that this might be our last meal together, the least I could do was make it Paul's favorite.

My breath caught as he rushed across the kitchen and hugged me right off my feet again.

Now or never, Lauren, I thought. Time to own up.

"Paul," I said. "We have to talk."

"Wait," he said, taking a glossy folder out of his briefcase and slapping it onto the countertop. "Me first."

On its cover was a photograph of some very pretty rolling hills covered with bright autumn trees. Inside were the floor plans of a variety of rather large houses. It was the sales folder for a luxury housing development somewhere in Connecticut.

What the…? Was he drinking again? I didn't smell any scotch on him.

"What's this?" I said.

Paul spread out five different plans on the kitchen island with the solemnity of a fortune-teller laying out Tarot cards.

"Take your pick, Lauren," he said. "Pick out your dream house. Which one do you love? Personally, I love them all."

"Paul, listen," I said. "Now's not the time to fantasy-shop, okay? We -"

Paul put his finger to my lips.

"I'm not kidding, Lauren," he said. He rubbed his hands together briskly. "You don't understand. It's not a joke, not a fantasy. I stepped in it. You ready for this? Another firm, a hedge fund, wants to steal me away for more money. A lot more money."

"What?" I said, looking at him, then glancing at the folder again.

And then it happened. My eyes caught the heading on one of the pieces of paper in the sales folder.

Astor Court , it said. And underneath it, St. Regis Hotel .

The St. Regis? Wasn't that…? That was where I had tailed Paul and his little blonde! What was this all about?

I pulled out the sheet of paper. Numbers were written on it in a neat feminine script.

"What's this, Paul?" I asked. "This isn't your handwriting, is it?" I expected Paul to suddenly turn nervous, but he glanced down at the paper nonchalantly.

"That's the initial offer from the hedge fund, Brennan Brace. Vicky Swanson, their recruiting VP, made it to me over lunch at Astor Court at the St. Regis, like three, four weeks ago," Paul said, smiling at me.

For a while, all I could do was blink.

Lunch at the St. Regis?

"Vicky Swanson?" I said, vividly remembering the woman I'd seen when I went down to surprise Paul. "What does she look like?"

"Blonde," Paul said. "Late twenties, I guess. Kind of tall."

Oh, God, I thought.

No! It couldn't be.

Another twist to this unending nightmare.

Lunch at the St. Regis!

Paul hadn't cheated!

I gasped, struggling not to throw up.

Just me!

I STOOD THERE in stunned silence.

Paul hadn't ruined everything.

It was me. I had.

Just little old me. I was the one.

Talk about putting a hitch in my dinner plans. I'd been preparing to dredge up our affairs in order to get Paul and me past them.

Except I was the only one who'd had an affair!

I stayed standing, dazed, my face frozen like the screen of a computer in safe mode. Paul laughed as he squeezed my hand.

"It's a bombshell, I know," he said. "I just love you, okay? See, I actually thought Vicky was bullshitting me. 'Hey, would you like to come work at twice your salary?' she said. So what your brilliant husband did, as a lark really, was say that if they tripled it, they had themselves a deal.

"Vicky called me this morning with the good news. It's all approved, pending the paperwork! The only problem is, we have to move. To Greenridge, Connecticut! As if moving out of Yonkers to blue-blood horse country is a problem. They're even going to relocate us. Sell our place and give us a low-interest mortgage on our new one. This is it. Imagine! One person working, a baby, a new house with enough room for a nursery. The American Dream on steroids. This is the break we've been waiting for, Lauren."

My head was spinning like a blender on ice crush. I couldn't believe it. Not only was I the only one to have cheated…

But we'd just hit Lotto?

I sank onto my stool like a boxer after a very bad round.

"I love it, Lauren – I've actually robbed you of the power of speech," Paul said with a laugh.

"Wait," he said, taking a Sam Adams out of the fridge. "Didn't you say you wanted to talk to me about something?"

I might have been on the verge of simultaneous heart and brain failure, but I wasn't stupid.

I'd learn to live with the secret of my affair somehow, I decided. Especially since I'd just found out that I was the only one who had actually had one.

"Oh, right," I managed to mumble. "Do you want rice or stuffing?"

PAUL AND I MADE LOVE that night for the first time since I got pregnant. I'd clicked into deep-cleaning survival mode due to his latest revelations and was folding some laundry, when I spotted a black teddie that I'd tried to seduce Paul with one afternoon before everything crazy started.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was taking off my jeans and slipping into the best of Victoria 's Secret. There wasn't even any cringing mental debate when I saw the sexy version of myself in the bathroom mirror. My breasts were already larger – oh, goody!