Love Undetected

By Leichelle

True love is like a stew, you just have to stir up and bring the good stuff to the top again.
Camille Wilson had spent over 28 years being a devoted her life to being a wife and mother. She had a house in an effluent neighborhood of D.C., three beautiful and successful children and a husband with a successful job. One would believe she almost had it all. Now that she had an empty nest Camille wanted to get her marriage back on track. She is ready to turn down the lights, open the wine, and seduce her husband.
True love doesn’t exist and anyone that says so is only after two things, sex and your bank account.
Marshall Price believed that statement whole-heartedly and the cynical private detective is never wrong. In his experience romance was overrated and unnecessary. Infidelity is a given in his book and love is just a made up notion. When takes a new case comes his way to investigate the seemingly innocent Camille Wilson, Marshall discovers being wrong might just be the right thing for his heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leichelle
• Release date: Mar 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781519220424

Leichelle

Interracial Romance Writer I love taking different situations and telling stories that are interesting and not the usual run of the mill. Not every chapter has to be erotic, not every guy has to be an Alpha billionaire, not every woman had to be perfect in every way. I enjoy inspiring, encouraging, and uplifting others.

Book preview

Love Undetected 142

Chapter One

Camille Wilson fussed around the kitchen putting the last stack of pancakes on the table. This was it. Their youngest was leaving the nest for college. She looked at her son turned young man as he excitedly talked with his two best friends about all their plans and expectations. She felt alive with possibilities as the boys, oh pardon, young men hoped to get into the engineering program and take the world by storm when they started their own company.

Victor Wilson was very handsome at 6’ 3" with milk chocolate skin, dark black hair he kept in a high and tight fade, and dark brown eyes housed behind long lashes. The only feature he seemed to have inherited from his father was his smarts for the sciences, otherwise there was no doubt that Victor was her son with her coloring being just a shade darker than his. Her other children also looked like her with the exception of her daughter Vila being a lighter shade like her father. The joke was that Fred Wilson had had little do with making his three good-looking children with his long hours in the research lab instead of with his beautiful, homebody wife. But Camille had not let such talk bother her. Their beautiful children were theirs and that was enough for her.

She and Fred had met in college. He was a senior and she was a sophomore. He had courted her and swept her off her feet in a matter of days during the last weeks of the spring semester. A tall but slightly chubby young woman, she wasn’t the one males sought after for dates. She had had one serious boyfriend while living in foster care but their hot and heavy teenage love soon faded as most high school infatuations after graduation and the new promises of green pastures elsewhere. She had then decided to stay focused on getting through school, surviving her three part time jobs, and hopefully not get kicked out of her rent controlled apartment. Then Fred Wilson, the highly sought after, can have any girl he wanted, light skinned president of the university’s Black scholars group had taken a notice of her. If one of her classmates hadn’t told her who he was she would have put him in the long list of guys that ignored her. A top scholar and highly sought after prospect for multiple research companies, Fred Wilson was having a great senior year. He was also the school’s hero having had survived an accident in France and was still alive to tell about it.

There were times she wondered why this handsome, smart man was interested in her but his attentiveness always relieved all her doubts. Upon Fred’s graduation and an offer for a lucrative research position from a bioengineering company she had dropped out of school to become a wife and a couple of years later a devoted mother. She didn’t regret throwing herself completely into her new roles and worked on making her family everything she had ever dreamed a family could be. They lived in a great neighborhood, they were financially stable, and they had wonderful kids. She couldn’t complain.

Vance, their firstborn was studying ecosystems in Alaska. Vila studied law, moved to Los Angeles and opened her own practice with her attorney husband. And now Victor was leaving and she was trying to downplay her excitement. As much as she loved her children she knew it was past due for her to get her relationship with Fred back on track. They had fallen into a pattern of him at work and she being a homemaker with intimate moments being far and few between to almost none existent. Sex once, maybe twice a year was not enough.

Camille was done with that. She thought about the large bag from Victoria’s Secret and knew that she was ready to get back to the steamy nights and blissful mornings her marriage used to be full of when they first got married. It was time to put the sparkle back in their lives.

So you have everything you need? We aren’t forgetting anything? she tried to keep her voice even as she placed one more plate of bacon before Victor and his friends. She shook her head as they grabbed every strip as if they hadn’t eaten anything all morning.

Fred was in his home office, claiming he had already said his goodbyes last night. She hoped as soon and the kids hit the road she could put on outfit number one and maybe use number two later in the afternoon. Camille felt like she was going to jump out of her skin as she anticipated the next few hours would include heavy breathing, a lot of sweating, and overflowing pleasure.

Lost in her carnal thoughts she was surprised when Victor rose from the table and hugged her, I wish you were going with us. It’s time you did something for you and got a life.

She playfully hugged him back, Victor, I have a life. I get to rest a little until you and your siblings decide to bless me with grandbabies.

Mom, please, Tyler and David don’t need to hear this! You are too young to be a grandmother. I wish you’d go back to school and finish your degree.

You sound exactly like your sister. Well maybe I’ll take up a hobby or something.

Or get your own place, he unsuccessfully said under his breath before stuffing another pancake in his mouth.

My own place? Boy what are you talking about? Camille asked with a frown while removing some of the empty plates from the table.

Nothing, I just think it’s time you entertained other possibilities. It didn’t go unnoticed that David and Tyler seemed to have found something interesting in their plates.

Oh I have, one of those includes seducing your father, Camille said with a smile as the boys seemed to look even more uncomfortable.

TMI, mom. I was thinking a trip to L.A. or shock Vance and see him in his natural habitat. Camille wasn’t sure what it was but Victor would not meet her eyes as he busied himself with collecting his bags. You guys ready?

Camille inwardly smiled as the guys stuffed some more bites in their mouths and gathered the to-go containers she had on the counter. This had been their ritual ever since junior high when they had started playing football together. Today they would not be coming back after a long day of classes and after-school practice. They would check into their dorms and she and Fred would have the whole house to themselves.

All three kissed her on the cheek as she escorted them to the door. Fred, the guys are leaving, she called behind her.

Camille heard a door open and waited for him to approach as she watched Victor and his friends get into the car. She would have chastised Victor for going to the car without speaking to his father but some years ago she learned that her youngest had a complicated and tolerant relationship with his father and they seemed to function better at a distance from each other than going through the motions as a strong father-son unit. All the kids seemed to be distant from their father. It had started when Vance entered high school and nothing she tried ever seemed to bring them closer. She had hoped that as the kids became adults and found their own independence they would include their father in their lives again.

Be sure to call me when you get there, she called out. She kept the small tear that threatened to fall in check as Victor waved at her and nodded at his father. She placed her arm around Fred’s waist and laid her head on his chest. There goes our baby. The nest is officially empty. She couldn’t bear to watch the car back out of the driveway and move down the street.

When Fred didn’t respond she looked up at him and he seemed to still be looking in the direction the car had gone. Maybe he was going to miss him too and just didn’t want to show it. Other than the romantic side she had seen when they first started dating, Fred was not an emotional guy. He had expressed pleasure and happiness after the birth of the children but if she had been quizzed on what was truly going through her husband’s mind she would have flunked out.

What are your plans for the day? Fred asked her as he gave her a slight squeeze and kept his arm on her shoulder.

Camille looked at him momentarily shocked. He rarely if ever asked her about her day or what she might be doing. He once told her he always assumed she was doing something for the home or the kids while he took care of the finances.

She didn’t have any close girlfriends so to speak. Living in foster care didn’t afford her the opportunity to make any friends that she could count on. When Fred had uprooted her from their college town in Michigan and they had moved to Washington D.C. she hadn’t gotten the chance to know anyone. She had volunteered at the kids’ school and met other parents but she always felt like the fifth wheel at most functions. She wasn’t extremely shy but she wasn’t a social butterfly either. She had fallen into a comfortable lifestyle of quiet nights of reading, carting the kids wherever they needed to be, and keeping a warm and happy home while Fred worked.

Sex had not been a problem either. Fred was very traditional and on occasion he would get a bit wild, which always thrilled her, but once Vance had entered high school their sexual encounters had dwindled to numbers she could keep on one hand. Many times his work and her busyness with the kids had overshadowed their lack of love making. As the kids began to need her less and become more independent the missing component in the marriage began to be strongly felt.

I was thinking of spending the day with you, she answered looking at him with what she prayed was not too hopeful an expression.

Fred smiled at her and she was taken back to that day on campus when he walked across the quad and sat next to her on the park bench. She had been studying art history when he had come into her life. She had been the perfect girlfriend and later the perfect wife and mother. Her understanding nature had brought a balance to his ambitious and sometimes relentless desire to be successful. His sharing with her that he had come from a poor family and her foster home background had solidified their bond and made them the perfect rags to riches couple.

She was pulled from her musings but his next statement, I have got a surprise for you. I’ll meet you in the bedroom in five minutes. Camille loitered at the door as she watched his retreating back. She finally closed and locked the door when she heard him close the door to his office. With a large smile she rushed upstairs to their room and stuck her head in the closet wondering if she had enough time to slip on one of the lingerie purchases before he made it upstairs. Her hand falling on one of the new bras made the decision for her. She grabbed it and ran to the master bathroom. She ripped off what she was wearing and put on her new bra. She looked at herself in the mirror, thankful that she had invested in the workout machine in the den and had actually used it every day. At five foot ten inches she wore her two hundred pounds well. Fred had always liked her 42 Ds and the extra natural padding she had in her hip area. A little more ab muscle training and firming of her arms and she would be more than satisfied with how she filled out her clothes. Pulling her shirt back on she walked into the bedroom just as Fred opened the door.

He had one hand behind his back and was looking at her. Camille tried not to let her straighter posture and uplifted chest seem obvious. This was it, time to get the party started. She reached for him just as he thrust a paper in her face.

It took her a moment to focus and finally read the words itinerary, flight, and boarding pass. Itinerary?

Surprise, I’ve made arrangements for an all girls’ spa week in Las Vegas just for you. Camille stood speechless as he hugged her. She was still dumbstruck when he placed the papers in her hands and continued, Your flight leaves in two hours so pack quickly. She still hadn’t found her voice as she watched him gruffly pushed things aside in her closet and pull out two pieces of her luggage set.

You have worked so hard and now you can take some R&R, Fred said as he placed the suitcases on the bed.

But I thought we could spend the day together. Maybe rechristen the house. Her voice sounded unsure and weak. ‘Come on girl, tell your man what you want.’

We will, but I’ve got the huge presentation and final push for the project the team has been working on and I thought that while I’m away in New York you can go on vacation and we can meet back here to celebrate. His voice did not convey that he had heard what she said.

You’re going to New York? Camille voiced, still dumbfounded by the papers he had pressed into her hands.

Um, yeah, but never mind that. I’ve got you set up in a nice resort on the strip and there are plenty of diversions to keep you busy as you relax.

I wouldn’t have minded going to New York. I’ve never been there, Camille wasn’t ready to let the matter drop like she usually would. Maybe he would change his mind and take her with him anyway.

But babe I wouldn’t be able to do anything with you. I thought maybe being in an exciting place with a great night life would show how much I care about you. About us.

Camille tried not to feel guilty at how ungrateful she must appear. He had planned all this out for her to thank her for all her hard work over the years. If only he had asked her. If only he had taken the time to see what she might want to do now that there were back to just the two of them.

Thank you, I guess I’m just surprised that I’m leaving today. She tried not to show her disappointment when he kissed her on the forehead as if she was finally being a compliant child.

That’s my girl. Okay so get packing and I’ll take care of getting you to the airport on time. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there after he left. ‘Ever the passive wife, huh Camille.’

Shaking away some of her disappointment she turned to the task of packing her suitcase. A week in Las Vegas. Maybe she could get Vila to meet her there. She smiled at that thought and decided maybe this wasn’t how she was hoping to start her empty nest phase but if this gesture was how Fred wanted to get them back on track then she would be the perfect partner and accept his thoughtful gift. Let the new adventure begin.

Chapter Two

Soft music played in the background and waiters busied themselves with the needs of tables spread out around the elegant ballroom turned restaurant. The building had changed hands multiple times in the past twenty years depending on how up or down the economy was. Currently business was booming and the owner was sitting fat and happy. Of course some of that was due to Marshall’s expert help in finding the owner’s spouse in bed with the head chef and their embezzling of restaurant profits for over three years. The guilty parties were confronted, evidence was presented, attorneys made settlements, and another client was satisfied.

Private Detective Marshall Price didn’t come cheap. He wasn’t a cop turned private sector either. Graduating at the top of his class in criminal justice and serving his country in the Marines he transitioned into the worlds between the FBI and CIA as if he was born to it. His success