The Neighbor [The Complete Collection] by Abby Weeks

down to the ground to pick them up. While he was down there she’d boldly flashed him a delicious view of her bare vagina. She’d even let him touch it! Had that really been her? She wished she felt that confident and sexy tonight. It had been a crazy moment, one of the moments in her life she would never be able to forget. It had been a risk of everything she cherished, her entire marriage, but now she felt she should have gone farther. She didn’t know that she cherished the same things anymore. She should have slept with the valet the next morning when she came back for her car. If her marriage was going to fall apart anyway, why not have some fun?
    Then she saw Ben. He was over at the bar with a big group of people, all of them drinking and laughing and talking loudly. Janey had to squeeze her way through the crowd with difficulty to get closer to them. It was an L-shaped bar and Ben was right at the corner of it, surrounded by a crowd of colleagues and friends.
    She inched her way in his direction but it was tough going. No one made room for her.
    —Honey, she said as she inched through the throng but he didn’t hear her.
    There were three or four people still between her and Ben and he was so wrapped up in telling them all a story that he didn’t notice her calling his name. She could see now that some of the other partners were there too, the very men Ben had been working his ass off for years to impress. This really was a big day for him. Just a few days ago he would have laughed if she’d told him he’d be getting drunk and telling stories at a bar with two of the firm’s top partners.
    —And that was it, Ben was saying.
    He was talking about the deal.
    —They wanted to know all about the Northrop case, what I’d done on it, what my responsibilities were, who’d been on the opposing side, whether I’d enjoyed the work. I lied, said it was the time of my life.
    There was a round of laughter from the crowd. Ben was bragging like a child. Janey would have been embarrassed if she’d been next to him. But it was his day, after all. That was what everyone was here to celebrate.
    —I knew they were interested but I didn’t know they were ready to commit. I thought they’d want a letter of engagement from a partner. But the guy just took out a check and a pen and said, Fifty enough? I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I said sure. Then he wrote the check, a five followed by four zeroes! I was like, is this for real?
    There was another round of laughter. One of the partners put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. Janey recognized him from the firm Christmas party. His name was John Blake. He’d supervised Ben on numerous cases, including Northrop.
    Then Janey saw another hand on Ben’s shoulder. A woman’s hand. She tried to see through the crowd but there were too many people in the way. The hand was long and slender with red painted nails and a tiny gold watch on the wrist. There was also a wedding ring on the finger. John Blake kept getting in the way and she couldn’t connect the arm to a body but she had the sinking feeling that it belonged to Suzy.
    She was about to call out Ben’s name again when John Blake reached across the bar for a drink and she got a clear view of Ben and the woman whose hand was on his shoulder. Sure enough, it was Suzy. She was leaning on Ben, very cosily, but they weren’t doing anything more than that. It was entirely possible that they were so close together simply because the bar was so crowded. She knew that wasn’t the case, she knew they were having an affair, but she couldn’t tell if the rest of the people around the bar knew that too. She shuddered at the thought that everyone at the firm saw Suzy as Ben’s rightful partner. Was it possible that Ben and Suzy were so open about their relationship at work that people just saw them as a couple? That would make Janey the
other
woman.
    She felt humiliated and embarrassed. There was something very strange about