“I told you, Daddy. She’s real,” Li-Hau said again.
“Yes you did.” He reached down and put his arm around her.
This was Superdad?
I couldn’t speak, I could barely breathe. Ben had just pulled me into one of the biggest lies I’d ever been privy too. Clearly he was still with her mother. That was surely the only possible explanation for his behavior and this level of deception. He’d had an affair with me and now he was desperately trying to cover his tracks and I was unknowingly caught up in all of it.
“Well, thanks for coming,” he said to me. “Li hasn’t stopped talking about you.”
He said it like that was some kind of consolation prize. Like that should make me better in some way.
“So, Sera?” her mother spoke again. “How long have you lived at Killarney Gardens?” She was looking directly at me and I was unraveling under her gaze.
“About five, six years now.”
“Ben just moved in there,” she said, turning to look at Ben.
He nodded. “Yes. It’s a nice place.”
“It’s okay. A little small, if you ask me,” Mei said scrunching up her face.It was her.She was the woman who’d been at Ben’s apartment. She was the woman Ben had been so desperately trying to hide me from. I bit down on my lip to try and stop the tears. This time they weren’t tears of sadness, they were tears of anger.
“I suppose the gardens are okay,” she conceded. Mei was, without a doubt, the kind of woman that females naturally took an instant dislike to. She had that cool aloofness down to an art form and oozed a sense of superiority out of every one of her pretty, porcelain pores.
“Yes, that’s where you met Li, I believe?” Ben suddenly said. “In the garden?”
Mei shot Ben a filthy look. “You let her go to the garden by herself?” She stared daggers at Ben and he looked like his world was about to explode, shatter and collapse into a black hole.
And then Li quickly piped up, “Lerato was right there with me!”
I stared at the little girl in shock. She sounded totally desperate. Something was obviously very wrong. Li looked up at me for confirmation and my heart tugged when I looked into her pleading eyes.
I nodded, “Yes, I met Lerato there too.”
Her mother looked satisfied and I noted that Ben’s shoulders sagged in relief. I’d clearly stepped into the middle of a hornet’s nest, and if I didn’t tread carefully, I was going to end up being stung.
“So, Sera.” Mei turned her attention back to me and I wasn’t sure I liked the way she was looking at me. It seemed to make Ben nervous as well.
“What do you do?”
Ben flashed me a desperate look, and again, I knew what he wanted from me—I was never going to forgive him for this.
“I’m a waitress.” At least it wasn’t a blatant lie. She looked at me like I’d just told her I cleaned toilets for a living. I didn’t like this woman at all.
“And you?” I asked, pretending I gave a shit.
“I’m a model.”
I nodded. Of course she was a fucking model. Of course Ben would have had a child with the world’s hottest female alive.
“And you?” I turned to Ben, playing the role that had been forced upon me without my consent.
“Advertising,” he said quickly.
“How exciting!” I tried to hide the disgust in my voice, but I wasn’t sure I was doing a good job of it.
“Ben,” Mei spoke again, her voice stern and demanding. She was definitely beautiful, but there was something so ugly about her. “I really think you should speak to some of the other parents now.”
I glanced at Ben. He looked startled again. “Of course. Good idea.” He moved away quickly as if she’d just cracked some kind of a magic invisible whip. He didn’t look back and walked away as fast as he could.
