Read The Wives of Beverly Row 2: Lust Has a New Address for Free Online Page A

an argument like that. If they were officially going out, she might have said something, but as things stood, they were just friends. Friends who made out, but still, just friends.
    She grabbed the aspirin and poured a glass of ice water for her mother and went back upstairs.
    “Thank you, honey,” Ariel said as she downed the pills.
    Becky went back onto the balcony and scanned Trudy’s backyard. She could see the side of the house but she couldn’t see into it. The Medeiros’s house was blocking most of her view. She could see Trudy’s pool but no one was outside.
    “What are you doing?” Ariel said again.
    “Nothing mom. Just trying to spot wild birds.”
    “Wild birds?”
    That was one thing to call Trudy Luxton. “It’s just a biology project, mom.”

VII
    Z OLA HAD BEEN TO THE GYM , she loved starting her Saturday morning with a workout. Afterwards she had breakfast at the juice bar and then did a little shopping. She was glad to see Jake’s car was still in the driveway when she got home. Often on the weekend, she’d get back and his car would be gone. Then she’d fret all day about where he was. She’d fret but she’d stop herself from calling him. Calling never helped. Sometimes he’d be back in an hour. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home for two days. She never asked where he’d been. That never did any good either.
    “Honey, I’m home,” she called as she fumbled through the door with her shopping bags. A little shopping in Zola’s world meant less than five bags. This morning she had three.
    No one answered.
    “Jake?” she called. She started up the stairs.
    “Just a second, honey,” Jake called from his office. “I’ll be right out.”
    She peeked around his door and instantly wished she hadn’t. Jake was sitting at his desk in front of his computer and he was completely naked.
    “Jesus,” he cried out, “give me a second.”
    “So sorry, honey,” she said as she backed out of the room. She was mortified. She hated catching him in the middle of something like that. The problem with Jake was that he was always in the middle of something like that.
    He came out of the office. He was covering his dick with his hands but Zola could see that it was completely erect.
    “What were you doing in there?” she said. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything, she always regretted starting fights like this, but she couldn’t help it, not with him standing in front of her, stark naked and erect as a stallion.
    “Can’t you give me one ounce of privacy?” he said angrily.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “Jake,” she said but he brushed past her into the bedroom. There were so many occasions when she’d caught him watching porn or chatting with women on the Internet that she’d have thought she’d be over it by now, but she wasn’t. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She felt panicky, short of breath. She just couldn’t handle this, she couldn’t live like this. She needed a man who was committed to her, not one who acted like a teenager and started watching porn as soon as she turned her back on him. “Jake, can we talk about this?”
    “I’m taking a shower,” he said.
    She dropped her shopping bags and followed him into the bedroom. “Please talk to me,” she begged. “I can’t go on like this.”
    He stood there, completely naked, and looked at her. He wasn’t bad-looking for forty-four, he had an athletic build and a decent amount of muscle on his upper-body. He worked out frequently. Zola was fifteen years younger than he was and she just wanted to be enough to satisfy him sexually. She knew she should have been enough. She was gorgeous, she’d had her boobs done, she got looks from men every time she left the house. She was a cute little Latina bombshell and she knew it. But for some reason that wasn’t enough for Jake, it never had been. He was a compulsive cheater. He told her he was a sex addict as if that was supposed to