Betrayed Chapter 2

"Oh, Lance," she gushed, "it's perfect – just perfect."

The platinum card was out in a flash and the beaming associate began tallying the sale. The smile on Dianna's face froze as she watched the figures add up on the invoice. She grabbed me by my lapels and pulled me aside.

"They're... real?" she whispered hoarsely. "We can't... I couldn't...."

"So... what," I responded earnestly, "this whole, magical experience should be fake, just like my sham of a marriage? Dianna, we are going to do this; if not for you, for me. I'm not expecting you to commit to me for a lifetime. This whole weekend, starting from when I walked through your door last night, is shaping up to be exactly that; Magic. When it's over, I want to be able to look back and say: 'This was real.'"

"But Baby," she protested, "I'm not real. You don't know anything about me...."

I shushed her with a fingertip to her plush, inviting lips.

"Eyes of the beholder, Baby Girl," I responded softly. "You're real to me. This moment in time, if only a moment, is real. Let's enjoy it together and let tomorrow take care of itself."

Her second assault on my ribcage was more impassioned than the first. Still, she took great care in folding the receipt and insisted it went safely into my wallet.

The shoes happened by pure serendipity. We were on our way to Mrs. Field's to buy some Nibblers to tide us over until dinner and saw the exquisite sandals in the window of a specialty shoe store. They were nothing more than thin soles and series of narrow, red sequined straps, revealing rather than concealing the foot and wrapping, then buckling around the ankle. All of it was perched on pencil-thin five-and-one-half-inch stiletto heels. Dianna almost ripped my arm out of its socket dragging me into the shop. There was no question these were the right shoes for the dress, or that they were ideally suited for Dianna's mesmerizing strut.