Once inside, I set the alarm, ran to the library to get my laptop, and settled in on the couch. I muttered to myself as my email seemed to take longer than usual to load, and then held my breath while I scanned my inbox.
There it was. My only unread message. From StacySBrighton.
I clicked the email open.
There was a short paragraph above the video attachment. Eager as I was, I began the download then returned to read it.
Alayna,
As I said, I’m done with this now. Take or leave this information as you wish. In case you want to know the circumstances of the footage, I’ll tell you this: Hudson had asked me to meet him for coffee. I’d shown up and found him like this. I shot them with my phone before he saw me. Later, I transferred it to my computer and I got a new phone, which was why I couldn’t send it to you that way.
Anyway. Here it is.
Stacy
At least she’d answered one of my questions. But Hudson asking to meet her for coffee? More and more I was sure what I was going to find—Hudson playing a game on his sister’s assistant. It was heartbreaking. For Hudson, for Stacy…and what about Mira? I wondered what she knew about it all.
My computer popped up with a message that my download was complete. My hand paused above my keyboard as, for half a second, I considered not watching. Once I saw it, I could never un-see it. What if it was something that embarrassed him? Was it fair that I see the worst of him? What if Hudson had learned my deepest darkest mistakes? How would that make me feel?
But he already had learned them. He’d gone behind my back before he’d ever really spoken to me, read my police record, done his own research. And in the end, he was still with me. How was this any different?
I wouldn’t know until I saw it.
My finger clicked the file open. I enlarged the picture to full-screen. Then I sat back and watched.
The video swept across a building as it moved to focus on its subjects. Then it settled on the back of a head. It didn’t matter that I only could see hair and shoulders—I knew that hair. Knew the color and the texture by heart. I even knew that suit jacket. A dark blue Ralph Lauren. Not one of my favorites but definitely familiar.
Hudson’s head swiveled slightly one way then the other. He was kissing someone—making out with her. His body completely hid the other person. All I could see of the woman were her small hands wrapped around his neck.
Jealousy wracked my body. I couldn’t help it. Sure, it was before I knew him, but this was my man, my love, kissing someone else. If Stacy had come to meet him, thinking they were about to go on a date—well, that explained why she’d been upset.
Then the kiss ended. And for a moment I was thrilled.
But he moved away, and there she was—her face flushed, her lips plump from the kiss, her blonde hair wrapped tightly into the chignon that was typical of her style.
I felt the blood drain from my face. Hudson and Celia. I’d thought about the possibility before, but seeing it for real was much worse than I could have ever imagined. So much worse.
The video kept on. Celia reached out to straighten Hudson’s tie. He shooed her away, turning more fully to the camera. Now I could focus on his face. His expression made my gut wrench—he was smiling, laughing almost. Something he’d done so rarely before he’d met me. At least, that’s what I’d come to believe about him. It was that happy, carefree expression that made it impossible for me to excuse the kiss as being one-sided. They’d both been into it.
Then, when she started to walk away, he pulled her back into another kiss. Slower, sweeter.
The video ended there.
Thankfully. Because any more and I was going to throw up. Except that didn’t stop me from pushing play again.
I pulled my legs up to my chest as I watched this time. Each second of their kiss, my chest tightened in anguish. It would have been cliché to say my heart was breaking. As if it could actually tear apart from emotional pain and still allow a person to live. How trite.
Besides, it didn’t feel like that. It felt like a vise-grip. Constricting. Like someone had taken the organ from my chest and squeezed.
All the times I’d asked, all the times he’d denied...
But if it had been a scam, a scam on Stacy—my hopes lifted for a moment as I reasoned that scenario. Maybe the kiss wasn’t real. Maybe it had all been Celia and Hudson playing a game together. He’d never said he’d involved Celia in his charades, but knowing that she was also a player, wasn’t it a good possibility?
It was marginally better. They’d still been kissing, but it meant he hadn’t lied to me about their relationship. It meant they’d never truly been together.
It took the third time viewing the video before I realized the flaw in that theory. When I’d seen it enough to be able to catch the details and not just be focused on the kiss. Hudson had said his scheming had been over for some time before he met me. That he’d been in therapy and had been on the wagon, so to say.