Page 44 of Drowning in Lies
"Look, just tell me what the hell you want from me, man."David demanded with false bravado. The slight tremble in his voice betrayed his fear.
"I want answers for Lila. She deserves to know why. Tell me, what on earth would cause you to do the things you've done? You have a wife who is wickedly smart, sweet as can be and absolutely gorgeous who - for some reason I can't begin to fathom - loved you unconditionally until she stumbled across the first of your secret videos. You have a successful, highly lucrative career and access to more money than you could possibly need. So tell me, why did you do it?"
David heaved a sigh and shook his head."I don't even know where to start. I fucked up, then kept fucking up even more. What the hell do you want me to say?"
"Start at the beginning. Did you ever love her?"
David nodded and looked down at his feet. "Yeah, of course I did. The first few years were great. We were happy."
His phone chimed again, and Liam stopped to read the text."It's Vanessa again. She's demanding diamond earrings, one carat studs. You've really got yourself a winner there, haven't you?"He chuckled then said,"I think I'll ask her to send me a picture first. Let's see if she'll whore herself out for some earrings."
David breathed out an angry sigh."You're a real bastard, you know that?"
"Me? I'm the bastard in your scenario?"Liam asked with a laugh."Really???"
David flipped him off, which Liam ignored.
"When did you cheat for the first time? Why?"
David just stared at him, not saying a word.
"What's wrong, David? Having trouble remembering? There have apparently been so many women, after all, I guess it could be hard to keep them all straight."
David huffed and rolled his eyes."It was right after Lila graduated. Her mom took her to London for a week as a graduation present. I was pissed. I mean, fucking London? I could barely afford a trip to Cincinnati when I graduated. I went to a party and got drunk. Woke up next to some woman."
"And did it not occur to you to confess to Lila? Beg for her forgiveness? Perhaps, oh I don't know, just keep your dick out of other women from then on?"Liam asked snidely.
I snickered and eyed Liam, who shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Sorry, Princess, but the man was a colossal ass. You need better taste in men."
I shoved his shoulder and turned my attention back to the video, in time to hear David's response to Liam's oh-so-helpful suggestions.
"Fuck no, man. I couldn't confess. I didn't want to lose her. I know you don't believe me, but I did love her. I just wanted more. It was so fucking unfair. She got everything handed to her, and she acted like it was no big goddamned deal!It just pissed me off, so the next time I ran into that chick, I slept with her again. It was a rush, you know?"
"You cheated on an incredible woman who you claimed to love, because it was a rush?"Liam asked incredulously.
"Yeah, I did. And you know what? I kept doing it. Lila got every fucking thing she ever wanted, even the perfect man. Only I wasn't so perfect, and she had no fucking clue. It never occurred to her that something might not go her way. She had her perfect little life, and her perfect little romance, and I had the power to ruin it all for her if I wanted to. So yeah, it was a rush."
"I have to say, David, that's a pretty shitty explanation," Liam told him.
"Fuck you, man."David exploded in anger."You have no goddamned idea what it's like to be so poor you don't know if you'll have food the next day. You have no idea what it's like to have to pack up in the middle of the night and sneak out before the landlord catches you. Newsflash...when that happens, you end up leaving half of your stuff behind because you don't have time to move it all. You don't get to say goodbye to your friends. You don't get to go back to the same school. You just disappear and start all over somewhere else."
He stopped to take a ragged breath, before continuing his tirade."Do you have any idea what it's like to watch your mother die because she couldn't afford to go the the doctor? I do, and it just about killed me. Then I met Lila, and it was good for a few years. When I started fucking other women all the time, I figured I should go ahead and do the right thing, so I was going to break up with her."
He fell silent then, and after a moment, Liam prodded him to continue."So why didn't you?"
David sighed and actually looked ashamed for about a half a second."I found out about the trust fund. I heard her mom talking to her about it. I couldn't break up with her then, not after I found out how much money she had coming to her. So, I asked her to marry me instead."
"And that obviously didn't work out the way you'd planned, since we find ourselves in this situation this morning,"Liam pointed out. David just glared at him again.
"So why did you steal from her?"
David blew up again, and he began to rant."She has all the money she could ever need, and she wouldn't fucking spend it without questioning every last dollar. She insists on working her stupid little job because she likes to read. Can you fucking believe that? I told her to quit, and then she'd have all the time in the world to read, and she wouldn't do it. She was raised to work hard, she said. It's bullshit, complete and utter bullshit! So I took it. It's not like she missed it."
"And you gambled with it because...?"
"Because it wasn't enough. I tried to turn it into more, and it worked for a while."David dropped his head back and looked up at the sky, shaking his head as if he couldn't understand why this was happening to him.
"So you gambled and won, then gambled more and lost, then kept on losing? Liam asked, and David nodded.
