Shame on Me

CHAPTER 6

Lorelei was called back into court because a verdict for the case she’s working on came in earlier than expected. Thank God for that. If I had to listen to one more minute of her explaining to me all the ways Kennedy would remove the limbs from my body, I was going to scream.

I convinced her not to tell Kennedy by promising I wouldn’t do anything stupid until she got back so she could finish raking me over the coals. I wonder if Googling Matt’s ex constitutes stupid? It’s not like I ran out the door as soon as Lorelei left and went straight to Matt. I’m being smart. I’m doing research. Research doesn’t compromise anything.

According to her Facebook page, Melanie Gates-Russo is single. I guess they don’t have “whore” as a relationship status. I look through her photo albums and don’t see any pictures of her with the mystery man from the other night. She also doesn’t have any pictures from her time with Matt. Not that I was looking specifically for pictures of Matt. Like ones of him shirtless. Or sunning himself on a beach. Or lifting weights with sweat dripping down his toned chest.

Research. It’s just research.

Melanie certainly has quite a few Internet pictures of kittens in various poses, however. Twenty-two pictures of kittens in sweaters and eighteen of kittens in hats. Seriously? What is she, five?

Clicking out of her photo albums, I notice a status update that wasn’t there a few minutes ago: Hangin’ with my grls 2nite at Blu Nightclub. Hit me up!

Are you kidding me with this? He not only married a chick who likes to post kitten pictures, he married one with poor grammar skills. Good God.

Closing out of her Facebook profile, I quickly look up where this Blu Lounge is.

Crap. It’s in Indianapolis. That’s almost three hours from here.

I glance at the time on my computer. There’s no way I can make it there and back before Lorelei gets out of court. She specifically told me to stay put. Taking another few minutes to contemplate what I’m thinking, I shut down my computer and head for the door.

I haven’t taken orders from anyone since I left Andy. Why should I start now?

According to its website, Blu is a trendy nightclub in the heart of Indianapolis. Since I had a long drive ahead of me, I ran home, grabbed an appropriate dress, shoved it into my backseat, and changed at a McDonald’s right before I got here. As I show my ID to the bouncer, he doesn’t even glance at it as he takes in my red, backless halter dress and matching four-inch red peep-toe Steve Madden stilettos before looking at my face. His eyes widen in recognition when he sees who I am, and I smile flirtatiously at him, flustering him a bit so he’ll let me in without drawing unwanted attention to myself. I’m immediately assaulted by the thumping beats of Top 40 dance music courtesy of the DJ on the other side of the club. I stick close to the wall as I take in my surroundings. The dance floor is packed with sweaty, writhing bodies, and all of the VIP lounges around the outer edge of the floor are filled with partiers. I have no idea how I’m ever going to find Melanie in this place, but I have to try.

The VIP areas are all roped off, and you can’t even go up the three steps to get to them without an invitation, so I decide to head right through the middle of the dance floor in the hopes that I might spot Melanie.

Five minutes of shoving my way through all of the people, I’m thankful that I pulled my long blonde hair up into a high ponytail. I’m already working up a sweat and I’m not even dancing. With one last surge of my body, I finally make it to the other side and squeeze myself in between a crowd of people standing around the bar.

The bartender hands a drink to the person next to me and then nods his head in my direction. “What can I get you?”

“Just an ice water, please,” I shout above the music and loud conversations on either side of me.

While he turns away to grab my drink, I take the time to scan the crowd. This was the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. There is no way I’m going to find her in this place. There’s got to be at least five hundred people here.

“Okay, this is starting to get weird. Are you stalking me?”

My head whips around when I hear the voice close to my ear and I come face-to-face with Matt. I swallow nervously until I see his face light up with a teasing smile. He’s not wearing his glasses tonight. Or a sweater vest. Sweet Jesus, does he look good. He’s wearing a fitted black button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows tucked into a pair of charcoal-gray dress pants. Gone is nerdy-chic Matt. In his place is hot-as-balls Matt. The temperature in this place suddenly went up a thousand degrees.

“I was just kidding about the stalking thing—don’t look so shocked,” Matt says with a laugh, right by my ear.

I’m suddenly okay with the noise level in this place if it means he has to be this close to me to talk.

“But seriously, how do we keep showing up at the same places?” he asks again, placing his hand on my hip and pulling me closer to him to make room for a few people trying to get up to the bar.

I’m pressed up against him and staring at his throat while he reaches over to take my glass of ice water from the bartender. I’ve been around plenty of hot guys before. I’ve done photo shoots with half-naked male models. None of them has caused this kind of reaction from me. I’m never at a loss for words. Is it because, once again, he caught me doing something that I’m going to lie to him about or because I find myself attracted to him?

“I, um, was in the neighborhood and thought I’d check this place out,” I tell him lamely, taking the glass of water from him and sucking down the entire thing.

“You were in the neighborhood? Where exactly do you live? It took me three hours to get here.”

I regretfully take a step away from him and set my empty glass on the bar.

“Why are you here?” I ask, taking the focus off of myself.

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. I suddenly have the urge to do the same with my own hand. I want to clutch his hair and pull his face down to mine so I can feel his lips again.

Holy hell, I need to get this under control. Men suck. They are all pigs, even if they seem nice at first. Andy was really nice at first too. Just because I want to help Matt out and he’s easy to look at, doesn’t mean anything.

“I found out that Melanie was going to be here tonight. This isn’t usually the type of place she goes to, so I was hoping I’d catch her with the guy she’s been seeing. I really wish I had a camera on me the other night when we were at Blake’s,” he says.

I am such a bitch. I could have taken a hundred pictures of Melanie the other night. But in my defense, I didn’t know he was the good guy at the time. I hope to God he never finds out about my role in all this.

“Do you think she’ll drop everything if you catch her with this guy?” I ask.

“I know she will. Her reputation is important to her. She’s all about looking good and making sure everyone thinks she’s a saint. If I can catch her and then threaten to out her to her family and mine, she’ll back down on the lawsuit. The only problem is, I would never do that to her. Even though our marriage sucked, I could never hurt someone like that. I just hope she doesn’t know that.”

Oh, God. Why did he have to say that? Why does he have to be such a good guy?

“So, how do you expect to find her in this mess of a place?” I ask, looking around again at all of the people.

“I’ve already seen her. She’s upstairs in one of the VIP lounges,” he tells me, pointing over his shoulder to the roped-off area. “I haven’t seen any guy with her, though, just a few of her girlfriends.”

I look over his shoulder and sure enough, in the very center of the VIP area, in one of the biggest lounges, I see Melanie sitting on a couch with two of her girlfriends on either side of her. They’re laughing, toasting, and having a great time.

“Jesus. It’s a good thing you’re not legally separated yet or all of your alimony would be going right down the drain. Just to sit in that lounge there’s a fifteen-hundred-dollar cover charge, plus you have to purchase a minimum of two bottles of top-shelf liquor. In a place like this, that’s around nine hundred dollars a bottle,” I tell him.

“Wait, how did you know I’m not legally separated yet?”

Oh, no! Oh, shit! I can’t really tell him I had Lorelei look that information up for me yesterday, can I?

“Uh, I’m just assuming. You know, since you didn’t mention it.”

Please let him believe me, please let him believe me.

Matt accepts my lame attempt at an explanation and glances back to Melanie and her friends. “Are you serious that it costs that much to sit in the VIP section? How do you even know that?”

Because I’ve partied in plenty of those lounges throughout my career. I’ve hosted parties in those lounges. I could probably tell you the cost and liquor requirements for every club in the United States and the UK.

Something stops me from telling him this, though. Maybe this is the real reason why I have a soft spot for him. He still doesn’t know who I am. I’m just a girl he met in a bar. Someone he looks at just like any other normal girl. I want to be normal more than I want to be honest right now and it’s killing me.

“I asked when I first got here. You know, just wondering why they had that section roped off,” I lie.

He looks back over his shoulder, shaking his head.

“That doesn’t make any sense. There is no way in hell she could afford something like that.”

I shrug when he turns back to face me. “Maybe one of her friends paid for it.”

He shakes his head. “Nope. No way. Melanie is a kindergarten teacher. All of those women she’s with? They all teach at the same school she does. They barely make minimum wage.”

Well, the multitude of kitten pictures on her Facebook page makes sense now. But I fear for the children of our future if she’s the one educating them.

“It has to be the guy she was with the other night then. You don’t know anything about him? You didn’t recognize him?” I question as someone jostles me from behind and I slam up against the front of Matt.

I put my hands up against his chest and look up at him so I can apologize. He’s staring down at me. Actually, he’s staring right at my lips and his arms wrap around my waist to steady me, but pull me closer instead.

We stand this way until the noise and all of the people around us fade away like in some cheesy rom-com. All I can focus on is the feel of his body pressed up against mine and the way he can’t stop staring at my mouth, like he wants to kiss me.

“This is weird. Is it weird for you? Tell me it’s not just me. I mean, I just met you,” he explains with frustration.

“It’s not just you,” I reassure him, feeling equally annoyed and turned on all at the same time.

Shame on me for thinking I was going to get out of this with my heart intact.