Midnight Temptation

Chapter Three: The Other Woman

Mia got to The Bean Bar at twenty to ten and chose the table in the back corner, facing the door.

Daniel had wanted to come. He'd argued about it until midnight, standing in her kitchen with sugar still crunching under his shoes.

"She's sleeping with your husband and she has photos of you. You don't know what she wants."

"She said come alone."

"Mia..."

"I need to hear it from her, Daniel. Not from you. Not from Johan. From her."

In the end he'd agreed to wait in his car across the road. She could see it now through the window, the black Ranger parked under a jacaranda, purple flowers drifting onto the bonnet. Knowing he was there made it easier to breathe.

At 9:58, the door opened and Carla Pretorius walked in.

She looked younger than Mia remembered. White sneakers, faded jeans, blonde hair scraped back in a ponytail, no make-up except a swipe of mascara. She looked like a student. She looked like someone's kid sister.

Basically a kid sister. Mia's stomach turned.

Carla spotted her, hesitated, then crossed the room and sat down. Up close, Mia could see the shadows under her eyes. She hadn't slept either.

"Thank you for coming," Carla said quietly. "I wasn't sure you would."

"You didn't give me much choice."

"I know." Carla wrapped both hands around the menu without opening it. "I'm sorry about the first photo. That was cruel. I was angry and I wanted..." She stopped. "I wanted someone else to feel the way I felt."

"And how did you feel?"

Carla looked up. Her eyes were wet. "Like an idiot."

The waiter came. Mia ordered a flat white she knew she wouldn't drink. Carla ordered nothing.

When he'd gone, Carla took a breath. "He told me you were separated. That you'd been sleeping in different rooms for two years and you were only staying together until the business deal went through. He said once it was signed, he'd leave, and we'd..." Her voice cracked. "God, I sound so stupid saying it out loud."

Mia said nothing. Two years ago, Johan had started falling asleep on the couch.

"I believed him for eight months," Carla said. "Then on Monday night, I saw you in the corridor. In that coat, going into the room two doors down. And I thought, she's here because she knows. She's here to catch us. So I followed you and took the photo."

"And then you saw who opened the door."

Carla nodded slowly. "Daniel Botha." A strange, shaky laugh escaped her. "I almost felt better. At least I wasn't the only liar on that floor."

Mia's cheeks burned. She didn't look away.

"How did you get the camera footage?" she asked.

"My cousin works security at the Marlowe." Carla shrugged. "I needed proof. For me, not for you. I needed to see him walking in with me on a night he'd told his wife he was in Cape Town. I needed to know I wasn't crazy."

She reached into her bag and slid a brown envelope across the table.

"But that's not why I asked you here."

Mia didn't touch it. "What is it?"

"The business deal he keeps talking about. The one he said he was waiting on before he left you." Carla's jaw tightened. "I'm his PA. I see everything that comes through his email. Mia, he's not leaving you after the deal. He's leaving everyone."

Mia opened the envelope.

Bank statements. Transfer confirmations. A sale agreement with a company name she'd never heard of, and on the last page, a signature she knew as well as her own.

"He's been moving money out of the business for a year," Carla said. "Small amounts at first. Then bigger. Into an account in Mauritius. And this," she tapped the agreement, "is him selling his half of the dealership to a buyer in Durban without telling Daniel. It's dated for the end of the month. Once it goes through, the money disappears, and so does Johan."

The café noise faded away.

Eleven years. The house. The kitchen tiles. Daniel, who'd stood next to Johan at the altar and built that business with him from one rented lot in Randburg.

"Why are you telling me this?" Mia whispered.

"Because he lied to both of us." Carla's eyes were hard now, the tears gone. "And because I can't stop him alone. But a wife and a business partner can."

Mia stared at the girl across the table. Twenty-six. Ponytail. Sneakers. Two days ago, she would have hated her. She would have thrown the flat white in her face and walked out with her head high, the wronged wife, the good one.

But she wasn't the good one anymore. She'd taken her ring off in a hotel lift. She'd begged another man to touch her while her husband's calls went unanswered on the bedside table.

And all that time, Johan had been forty feet away, doing the same thing. Laughing. Lying. Planning to leave her with a mortgage and an empty bank account.

Something cold and steady settled in Mia's chest. It didn't feel like heartbreak. It felt like waking up.

She slid the papers back into the envelope and tucked it into her bag.

"Okay," she said. "Tell me everything."

---

Daniel didn't say a word while Mia told him.

He sat behind the wheel of the Ranger with the envelope open on his lap, turning pages slowly. A muscle jumped in his jaw. When he reached the sale agreement and saw Johan's signature, he closed his eyes.

"Eleven years," he said quietly. "I lent him the money for his first car."

Mia reached across and took his hand.

He looked at her, and the anger in his face broke into something rawer. Something that made her chest ache.

"Come home with me," he said.

---

Daniel's house was in Parkhurst, all exposed brick and big windows and almost no furniture. She'd been there a dozen times, always with Johan, always for a beer on the stoep.

She'd never been upstairs.

He didn't kiss her at the front door. He didn't kiss her on the stairs. He took her hand and led her straight through his bedroom into the bathroom and turned on the shower, and only then, with steam rising around them, did he turn and look at her.

"I need to not think for a while," he said roughly. "Is that okay?"

Mia answered by pulling her dress over her head.

He undressed her slowly after that, like he was unwrapping something he'd waited for. Her bra. Her panties. His hands sliding over every inch of skin he uncovered. Then he stripped out of his own clothes, and she let herself look at him properly in daylight for the first time. Broad chest. Hard stomach. A long scar down his ribs from a rugby match years ago. Thick and hard and ready for her already.

He backed her into the shower, and hot water poured over them both.

This time he kissed her slowly. Deeply. His hands in her wet hair, his body pressing hers against the cool tiles, the heat of the water and the cold of the wall making her shiver. She ran her palms down his chest, over his stomach, and wrapped her hand around him.

He groaned into her mouth.

"Mia."

She stroked him slowly, the way he'd teased her, watching his face. His eyes slid shut. His forehead dropped against hers. For once, he was the one trembling.

"Not yet," she whispered against his lips, and smiled when he laughed, rough and helpless.

Then she sank to her knees on the wet tiles.

She took him into her mouth, water streaming down over both of them, and Daniel's hand slammed flat against the wall. She went slowly. Deep. Savouring every low, broken sound she pulled out of him, his fingers tangling in her hair, his hips fighting to stay still.

"Mia, stop. Stop, or I'm going to..."

He pulled her up and kissed her hard, spun her around to face the wall, and pressed his body along her back. His hand slid down between her legs and found her already slick and aching.

"You liked that," he murmured against her ear.

"Yes."

"Say please."

She laughed breathlessly and pushed back against him. "Please, Daniel."

He lifted one of her knees onto the shower ledge and slid into her from behind, slow and deep, all the way, and held her there, his arm wrapped tight around her waist.

"I've got you," he whispered.

He moved. Long, slow strokes that built and built, the water pounding down over them, his mouth on her neck, her shoulder, his fingers circling her in rhythm with every thrust. Her palms slid on the wet tiles. She came with a cry that echoed off the walls, and he held her up through it, then drove into her harder, faster, until he followed her over with her name on his lips.

Afterwards, they stood under the water until it started to run cold, her back against his chest, his arms around her.

"We're going to stop him," Mia said.

"I know." He kissed her shoulder. "Together."

---

They were lying tangled in his sheets an hour later, the brown envelope on the bedside table, when Daniel's phone rang.

He glanced at the screen and went very still.

Johan.

He put it on speaker.

"Bru!" Johan's voice boomed through the room, cheerful and loud. Mia pressed a hand over her mouth. "Listen, change of plans. The Cape Town thing wrapped up early. I'm flying back tonight."

Daniel's eyes met hers.

"That's great, man," he said evenly. "Good news."

"Ja, ja. Listen, come for a braai tomorrow night. Bring a bottle of that red you like. Mia will make her potato salad." A pause. Then Johan's voice dropped, just slightly. "And we need to talk. Just you and me."

"About what?"

"About Mia." Another pause. "I think she's hiding something from me."

The line went dead.

Saturday. A braai. Johan, Daniel, and every secret she had tried to bury, all around one fire. Mia stared at the screen until it went dark, her heart pounding. Whatever happened at that braai, nothing would ever be the same again.

To be continued...