Love, Honor, and Betray, Roby, Lawson [i have read the book a hundred times .txt] 📗

the way you snuckher in and out of your hotel rooms whenever you traveled. Then you brought home a baby, Curtis.”

Curtis held up both his hands. “Just stop it, Charlotte. Stop all that fake drama, because it’s not going to work this time.”

“But we’ve both made mistakes. We’ve both done things, and now all we have to do is start over.”

Curtis laughed. “Start over, huh? You think it’s that simple?”

“I do. It’s simple because we love each other and we can fix this.”

“But what about Matthew? What about the fact that he drove to some grungy motel and found you with another man? Is that simple,too? Can you fix that?”

Charlotte’s heart dropped. Tom hadn’t left out much of anything, and she wondered why he’d done this to her. Why he’d chosenher as a target and acted as though he was trying to fulfill some sort of vendetta.

“Yeah, I know all about that,” Curtis said, snatching up his keys. “And you make me sick.”

Charlotte got up. “Curtis, please don’t leave,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Please let me talk to you.”

Curtis yanked his arm away from her. “Talk to me about what? What is it you have to say that you haven’t said already?”

“A lot. So, please, just give me a chance.”

“I gave you a chance when you slept with Aaron, remember?”

“And I gave you one when you slept with Tabitha,” she shot back.

“And I forgave you for lying and trying to pass Marissa off as my daughter when you knew she wasn’t mine. And what about thisMichael person and that trip you took to Florida? Am I supposed to forgive you for all that, too?”

There was just no winning with Curtis, and Charlotte no longer had any fight in her.

Curtis opened the door leading to the garage and looked back at her. “You know it’s over between us, right?”

Charlotte burst into tears all over again, her chest heaving. “Baby, please.”

“It’s over for good,” he said and walked out.

Chapter 43

Curtis drove to the stop sign located at the entrance of the subdivision, put his truck into Park, and cried his eyes out.His heart ached violently, he was totally humiliated, and the only time he could ever remember feeling such dire pain wasfirst when his mother had passed and then when he’d thought Matthew wasn’t his biological son. How could Charlotte do this?How could she look him in his face, day after day, pretending to be so in love with him? How could she stomach the idea ofsleeping with two men almost si­multaneously? Was she really that much of a whore? Was sex with multiple men just that importantto her?

Curtis was so angry with Charlotte he didn’t know what to do, and he could literally kill her for hurting his son the wayshe had. First, she’d treated Curtina like dirt, and Curtis had basically allowed her to get away with it, but now she’d crosseda very treacherous line with Matthew. Curtis could only imagine how that poor child must be feeling after seeing his motherin a motel room with some stranger. He must have been mortified, and now Curtis knew why he’d been so quiet over the lastcouple of days. He’d been carrying around his mother’s dirty little secret and probably dying inside all the time. He’d beencarrying the kind of burden no child should ever have to bear, and Curtis despised Charlotte for it. He hated what she’d doneto all of them, and he wanted her to pay. He wanted her to feel the kind of lingering pain that wouldn’t be forgotten tooeasily.

Curtis watched as the car behind waited for a few seconds and then drove around him. He didn’t even know what to do at thispoint. Or where to go, for that matter. He was so beside himself, so furious, and he wanted revenge. He needed retribution,and with the way he was feeling he didn’t see what would be so wrong with that. What harm would there be in sleeping withSharon when Charlotte had bedded two men? To him, all this meant was that it was time he leveled their playing ground. Timehe showed her how the game was truly supposed to be executed—time he showed her that, compared to him, she was a mere amateur.

But then there was this ugly feeling of guilt that he couldn’t seem to shake. Not about anything that had happened betweenhim and Charlotte, but about the awful thing he’d done to Tom. Curtis dropped his head back onto the headrest and replayedtheir phone conversation from earlier this evening.

“Long time no hear from,” Tom had said, but Curtis hadn’t recognized his voice.

“Who is this?” Curtis had asked.

“Tom Johnson. Remember my wife, Patricia? The woman you had an affair with a number of years ago? You know, when you werepastor of Truth Missionary Baptist Church? And while you were engaged to your second wife?”

Back in the day, Curtis had slept with so many women, there was no telling who this man was talking about. So, he still hadn’t been able to place her.

“Remember how you came to visit her one afternoon and ended up sleeping with her in my bed, and my twelve-year-old son camehome early? Remember how he walked in on the two of you?”

It was then that Curtis had recalled everything and couldn’t have been sorrier for it. “Tom, I don’t know what to say exceptI’m sorry, and I’m a totally different person now.”

“Sorry? What is sorry going to do? My son was so upset, he ran back out of the house, got on his bike, and was hit by a car.It took him over a year to fully recover, and even today, he still has a few aches and pains in his legs. Then, on top ofthat, once my wife had that affair with you, she kept on having affairs with other men and then one of them finally killedher. She tried to end things with him, but their relationship turned into a fatal attraction.”

Curtis hadn’t heard about that, but he’d still