Free Message from a Mistress by Niobia Bryant Page B

floor.
    Aria made her way back to the living room and snatched up her drink from the bar. She downed it in one gulp but she hardly felt the fire it burned down her throat and in the pit of her stomach. She was numb.
     
    Jaime accepted the shot of tequila that Renee handed her, but she hardly took a sip. Alcohol was not the solution to the drama unfolding in their lives, but she wasn’t going to stop her friends if they needed it.
    Alcohol did not equal answers. And Jaime needed answers. Reaching in her purse for her cell phone, she slid off the stool and walked away from the bar as she dialed the security desk.
    “Security.”
    Jaime eased her hair behind her ear. “Lucky, this is Mrs. Hall. Listen, did Jessa leave a forwarding address? I misplaced it when she gave it to me and I wanted to send her some flowers to welcome her to her new home,” Jaime lied with ease as she stood by the front window.
    “But I thought you ladies didn’t know she moved?” Lucky asked.
    Jaime’s eyes glinted. Now this buffoon want to get some sense? “Lucky, she asked us not to say anything about moving and I guess we thought you didn’t know, you know,” she said lightly, wanting to strangle his ass.
    “Trust me, Mrs. Hall, I know everything about Richmond Hills,” he said cockily.
    Jaime bit her lips to keep from yelling: “So did you know that bitch was screwing my damn husband?” But she didn’t. She composed herself. “Lucky, the address?”
    “Well, actually she didn’t leave a forwarding, but I do know the moving truck went to Saddle River because they stopped here for directions to the interstate.”
    Jaime’s shoulders dropped in disappointment. “Okay, all right. Okay. Um. Thanks, Lucky. Thank you.”
    She ended the call, taking a moment to compose herself before she turned around. She walked back over to her friends as emotions she fought hard not to expose nearly strangled her. She fought hard to maintain her composure as Aria and Renee gnawed at the drama like a starving dog would a bone.
    “You know, we joked a lot about Jessa, but I never thought she would do something like this,” Aria admitted.
    Jaime nodded. “Jessa definitely should be ashamed of herself. You just don’t do this to friends and marriages and homes. It’s not right.”
    “Who was this woman we let into our lives?” Renee asked in agreement.
    Aria took a sip of her Patrón and winced. “She fooled the hell out of my ass,” she spat.
    “No, baby, she fooled us all,” Renee said in anger.
    Silently, Jaime wondered if both Jessa and her husband had pulled the wool over her eyes….
     
    Jaime loved Eric endlessly. From the moment she said yes to his romantic moonlit proposal, she knew she would be with him forever and a day in marital bliss. Everything about their courtship had been a dream for her. He had been a perfect part of her perfect plan for her life.
    They’d met when he brought his mother to their church for an afternoon worship service. He just happened to sit beside her, and Jaime had found the short and slender man attractive. The attraction was mutual because he returned to their church that following Sunday—without his mother—and asked her out for a date after service.
    Jaime smiled as she recalled how nervous he had seemed on their first date at a soul food restaurant. But even that had drawn her to him. That and the fact that he was a handsome, well-mannered, college-educated, churchgoing, home-owning, business-owning man. When she expressed to him her desire to remain a virgin until she wed, he completely understood and even expressed that he respected her decision. What more could she ask for?
    And for one year they were nearly inseparable as they slid with ease from dating into a relationship. It seemed only right that he propose one year to the day after their first date. They wed in a beautiful church ceremony one year after that with all of their family, sorors, fraternity brothers, and well-wishers in