Justice For Juniper novel Chapter 5

She touched him. Sometime in the day, today, Denise Perez touched her husband’s collar.

She rose from the table wordlessly and raced to the bathroom, barely making it time to position herself over the toilet and empty the contents of her stomach. She heaved hard, tears streaming down her cheeks and she heard his footsteps approaching as she kept her eyes closed.

He was holding her hair back and asking her what was wrong.

She slapped him away; aware she was potentially fucking up a sting operation for the morning but unable to stop herself. “Your shirt stinks. Get away from me.” She was furious as he backed away in alarm.

“What do you mean my shirt stinks?” he lifted it up and sniffed it.

She didn’t miss the way his eyes rounded for a fraction and then shook his head.

“I don’t smell anything.”

He was gaslighting her. Son of a bitch.

“I do.”

“Okay,” he immediately unbuttoned it and shrugged out of it, dropping it into the hamper. “Maybe you’re smelling the bathroom spray or something from work, but I don’t smell it. I don’t know why it’s made you sick though.”

“Must be my headache.”

“You’ve never suffered a headache which made you throw up before,” he watched her with concern in his eyes as she cupped water from the bathroom sink into her mouth and spat it out. “I’m worried honey. Maybe the stress of all this baby making pressure is getting to you. What if we stepped back a bit?”

“You don’t want a baby now?” she whirled on him furiously.

“No. I do. I do want to have a baby. I want to grow our family. I’m just worried for you. You’re stressed. You’re getting headaches you never used to get. You’re throwing up, now. Friday I missed the appointment and usually you understand work things, but you didn’t talk to me again until Saturday. It’s a lot of pressure we’re putting on you. It’s all on you and I hate that we’re doing this to you. If I could take it on me, I would but I feel guilty that it’s you that is stressing over this the most.” He wrapped his arms around her, holding her head to his bare chest and kissed the top of her head, “baby, I’m really worried about you.”

“I need to lay down,” she whispered as tears streamed down her cheeks, grateful she couldn’t smell the perfume on his bare skin. At least his clothes had been on today. She pulled herself out of his embrace, hating herself for hating him. Could it be bathroom spray? She knew his habits better than anyone and knew he used the men’s room at work every morning after his second cup of coffee. Yet her gut told her it wasn’t what he claimed it to be.

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