Illicit Affairs

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

The phone rings as Hal is flipping through the tv channels, and he reaches for it, answering it blindly. "Hello?"

"It's Private Mills." The deep voice on the other line speaks.

"Oh, hi there. Did you find something?"

"Check your email."

Hal walks to the study, his heart beating faster in his chest as he turns on his computer. There's an email labeled "CONFIDENTIAL" right at the top of his emails and, reluctantly, he clicks on it.

He takes in a sharp breath as soon as the pictures are on his screen. "Fuck."

"I'm sorry Mr Cooper."

"No, thank you. It's better that I know, clearly she wasn't going to tell me herself." The sound of a car door shutting catches his attention and he's quick to close the screen. "She's home. I'll talk to you later. Thank you."

He hangs up the phone tossing it to the side and pulling up a word document, pretending he's just been working on an article while she's been out.

"Hal?" Alice's soft voice flutters through the house. "Are you still awake?"

"In the study." Her heels click against the floors as she makes her way into the room. "How was work?"

"Exhausting." She answers with a sigh, stepping behind him and placing her hands on his shoulders. "What are you working on?"

"Just an article for the Register." He reaches up to take one of her hands in his own. "Did you get your work done?"

"No, it's like endless paperwork. I think I've got a few long nights ahead."

Hal's jaw clenches at her words. "I'm sorry honey."

She shrugs. "Hopefully we'll get everything done quickly."

"And FP, he's still helping?"

"Yes. He's been a lifesaver lately."

"Well I'm glad he's so helpful." Hal squeezes her hand a little tighter than planned.

"I'm going to go take a nice hot shower and crawl into bed." She tells him, walking back towards the door.

"I'll be up soon."

He waits until he knows she's upstairs to open the pictures again. It gets his blood boiling. He wants her to hurt as much as he does, and he knows just the way to do it.

_

She wakes up earlier than planned, wanting to get a head start on work, so she had pecked a chaste kiss to Hal's lips and made her way to the office.

And of course she found a cup of coffee on her desk when she arrived, it's become a sort of ritual now. She logs into her computer, planning to go find FP as soon as she does, but finding an email instead.

She sits down in her chair, opening the email. There's no subject line and the email isn't one she recognizes, it's probably just spam.

She clicks on it, expecting some email about how she just won some scam of a giveaway, and preparing to delete it, but what she finds is so much worse.