I walked to the study slowly, ashamed of myself for believing Maria’s lies. I just need to know that it’s a lie, I told myself as I entered the study and turned on the TV. It took me a few minutes to find the DVD player. it was hidden behind some books. I pressed play and waited.
The screen flashed on and I blinked. It was Brandon’s bedroom in his apartment that I was looking at—the apartment I had shared with him. I stared at the screen and watched as Brandon walked in with two girls. My heart started thudding as I watched him undressing one while the other one undressed him. I felt like I couldn’t breathe when they all fell to the bed together. One girl started kissing him while the other went down on him. I stumbled back until I fell into a chair, but my eyes didn’t move from the screen. I watched as he played with both girls and teased them. Then one of the women left the room and it was just him and a tall blonde. A beautiful, voluptuous blonde. She sat on top of him, teasing him, and he was groaning as he played with her br**sts.
“Fuck me, Denise,” he groaned. “Fuck me now.” She whispered something to him and he groaned again. “You know it’s always been you, Denise. I don’t want anyone else but you. Please, just f**k me.” His hands reached to her hips and I watched as she sank down on him and rode him hard. Brandon’s eyes were closed and he muttered something incomprehensible.
“Katie, where are you?” I heard Brandon’s voice calling out to me from the hallway, but I couldn’t speak. My tears were streaming down my face too quickly. A sob escaped from my mouth and I heard Brandon’s footsteps walking towards the study.
“Katie?” He opened the door slowly. “What’s wrong?”
His eyes widened in concern as he stared at me. I pointed to the TV screen as I couldn’t make eye contact with him, and I heard him gasp.
“What the f**k?” He walked over to the screen and frowned as he turned it off. “How did you find this?”
“Maria told me to come in and watch it,” I gulped.
“Maria was here?” He sighed and walked up to me. “That was an old video, Katie. Please don’t cry. Denise was someone I knew before I met you.”
“She was the love of your life.” I tried not to let him see how much I was breaking inside. “You told her you wanted her and that she was the one.”
“Katie, you have to believe me when I say that Denise was never the one.” He shook his head angry. “I could kill Matt.”
“Matt?” I looked at him and frowned.
“He must have given Maria the video.” He sighed. “He’s the only one with access to it, now that his father is dead.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Katie,” he sighed. “I didn’t want to go into this. But before I met you, I dated a girl called Denise. She was beautiful and sexually adventurous. She liked to have a good time and so did I.”
“You guys had threesomes?” I stared at him with accusing eyes and he nodded.
“I told you when I met you, Katie. I wasn’t a saint. I’m a virile man. I like sex.” He shrugged. “It was all before you.” He sighed and then continued. “Anyways, it turned out that Denise was a high-class escort and she had targeted me with some of her colleagues. They tried to blackmail me for twenty million dollars. They were going to go to a newspaper and write a tell-all about all the kinky prostitute sex I liked.” My eyes widened as he told his story and he looked at me with a sad expression. “I mean, it was true. The only part that would have been omitted was that I knew they were prostitutes. But no one would have believed me.” He crouched down and grabbed my hands. “So I hired a private detective to investigate them. That was how I met Will. When I met you, I really liked you, but I didn’t know if I could trust my gut instincts, so I had Will follow you too. In fact, I had him follow both of us. I wanted to know what you did when you were with me and when you weren’t with me, so I could be sure that you were genuine.”
“I never knew that.” My eyes widened, but my tears had dried up.
“I didn’t want you to know.” He stood up and pulled me up next to him. “You passed with flying colors. Will loved you. He thought you were perfect. His report told me you were the furthest thing from a gold digger he’d seen.” He smiled at me gently. “He had just confirmed what I had already known in my heart, Katie. I’m sorry I did it. But you have to know that you are the only one I’ve truly loved, not Denise. Never Denise. She’s nothing to me.”
“Liar.” We both jumped as Maria walked back into the room with an evil smile. “You’re a liar, Brandon Hastings.”
“Get out of here.” Brandon’s face was red with anger. “After all I’ve done for your family, you try and ruin my life.”
“You’re a liar, Brandon,” Maria hissed as she walked up the TV and turned it on again. She rewound the DVD and pressed play. I cringed as I watched Brandon on the screen moaning in ecstasy with Denise on top of him. “Look carefully, Katie.” She pointed at the screen. “For just one moment, stop thinking about your little girl pain and Brandon f**king another woman. Look at the room, Katie. What do you see?”
I tried to ignore her words, but I couldn’t. I looked at the room more carefully to see what she was talking about. And then I gasped. I stared at Brandon, angry and hurt. He had lied to me. Everything had been a lie. One great big lie.
“You lied,” I whispered, horrified and heartbroken. He stared back at me with an ashen face and I knew then that he knew he had been caught. I turned back to the screen and watched as Brandon made love to another woman with the photograph we’d taken together at the museum staring down at him from the night table next to the bed.
Chapter 6
Brandon
I stared at Katie in dread. She’d caught me in a lie. A big lie. A lie that was more harmful than the lie she’d told me. A lie that meant I’d have to reveal everything if I was to stand a chance of gaining her total trust and love again.
“Nothing to say, Brandon?” Maria’s voice was catty and delighted, and I knew that she had deliberately set this whole thing up to hurt me for ending the fake engagement.
“You need to leave. Now.” I turned toward her with murder in my eyes.
“I think someone needs to protect poor, innocent Katie. Don’t you, Brandon?” She laughed. “We wouldn’t want her thinking this was all her fault, would we?” Her eyes narrowed at me and I grabbed her arm.