Vivian hung up on me, but I drove straight to the Whitlock house anyway, and walked in just in time to catch the two of them feeding each other lunch.
I didn't have the patience for it. I cut straight to the point. "Cancel the school transfer right now. I will never agree to it."
"Forget the safety issues for a second. That preschool is three hours from the house. Are you going to make Ian wake up at four every morning just to get to school?"
Vivian said nothing.
Rain, though, smiled brightly. "Don't worry about it, big sister. Ian can just live here with us."
She pushed open the door to the storage room beside her, then coughed as the dust hit her.
Still, she went on. "I'll have the housekeeper clean it out. It'll be livable in no time."
"My brother goes to work right past there, so he can take Ian to school. So convenient."
"And Vivian comes over all the time, so Ian will still get to see his daddy."
I looked at the room, barely fifty square feet, with nothing in it but a dust-coated iron-frame bed. I almost laughed.
"Vivian. You actually plan to make your son live in a place like this?"
"Her dog lives better than this."
Vivian's brow knit, and he said with irritation, "Enough. He's got a place to sleep, that's more than fine."
"You grew up in a worse hole than this back in the village, and you didn't lose an arm or a leg over it."
"Ian's too soft anyway. This is perfect for him. It'll toughen him up."
I stared at him, dumbstruck, and was about to speak when I caught the red marks on Rain's neck.
In that instant, another strained wire inside me snapped.
I rushed into the bedroom like a woman gone mad, and the rumpled bed was the first thing I saw.
And the used condoms in the trash can.
Not one. Five of them.
Vivian had followed close behind me, and when he saw I'd discovered everything, his composure cracked for only a heartbeat.
Then he steadied himself. "I drank too much last night. It was just a moment of weakness."
"I already made it clear to Rain this morning. This one time won't affect our relationship."
"Your relationship? Then what about ours?"
I stared at Vivian in disbelief, my stomach so sick I felt like I could throw up everything I'd eaten the night before.
"When you were sleeping with her, did you think about me even once? Did you think about Ian?"
"Filthy. You're disgusting."
"That's enough!"
Vivian shoved me away as I lunged to hit him, ice-cold and without a shred of patience.
"I make one mistake, and you want to nail me to the pillory for it?"
"You really want me to drag out every one of your past stunts and pick them apart one by one?"
"A woman who's been ridden by a thousand men, mounted by ten thousand. What right do you have to call me filthy?"
The words were out, and both of us froze.
After a long moment, he spoke slowly. "That came out too harsh. Don't take it to heart."
"Neither of us is thinking straight today. Go home and think it over."
"Don't ruin all these years we've had together over one small thing."
Every word came out calm, deliberate, as if I were the one who'd done something wrong.
Seeing me frozen there, Rain still smiled brightly. "Katherine, you know, this wasn't our first time."
Vivian moved to stop her, but he couldn't catch her words in time.
"Actually, the first time for me and Vivian was in the car."
"You remember. That day of the hurricane, when he was out looking for a hair tie for me."
"It wasn't until I got in the car that I found out he'd prepared twenty-five gifts for my twenty-fifth birthday."
"I was so moved that I made up an excuse to have him park in the garage, and then we just..."
"Honestly, he didn't want to at first, but once I made him feel good, he stopped holding back."
"We didn't even use anything that time. You know how wild he can get, don't you?"
Rain's smile was wrapped in undisguised malice, and it cut into me until my whole body ached.
