Author's Note: Everything that happens in this chapter is consentual, if dubiously, but if you didn't like chapter 2, then there is probably still too much cruelty for you in chapter 3, even with a perfectly lovely ending.
Almost two weeks later, Matthias strolled into the Italian restaurant, smiling. It wasn't just because things with Helen had gone exactly as he'd hoped so far, either. This place had a lot of fond memories too. When Alice asked where he wanted to meet up to celebrate, though, there was only one option: Clasico. She'd been delighted, of course because Helen had still been working here when they'd started dating. She had no idea how it would twist the knife in the wound he'd inflicted so recently, and so he asked her to keep it a secret from her wife until the night of the event. It was the place they'd all met, but it was also the place where he'd met so many of their friends and Helen's Exs before he left for the steak house he worked at now.
As Matthias looked around, he realized it really hadn't changed much, either. The decor had been updated a couple of times over the years in a piecemeal fashion, but if you looked past that, almost everything was still the same. Same layout, same kitchen, and the same closet where he'd fingered Elizabeth to a quiet but powerful orgasm right after the lunch rush. As he walked past the host and looked for the women he'd be dining with, he shook free of his reminiscence. There would be time for that later. Right now, he needed to focus on putting a nice little bow on the game he'd started so long ago with Alice and Helen.
He found them easily enough at a booth in the back, sitting next to each other. Alice looked sexy in a yellow crop top and jeans, while Helen looked remarkably less enthused in a blue dress that did as much to hide her figure as Alice's outfit was doing to flaunt it. When they noticed him walking up Alice smiled a little brighter, and the thin veneer of polite boredom on Helen's face cracked momentarily, revealing a scowl before she remembered to smile blandly at his arrival. Yes, Matthias thought to himself, everything was going just right. This was shaping up to be a wonderful evening.
"I'm so glad you could come," Alice said, standing up to hug him as he got to the table.
"Of course," he said, holding the hug a bit longer than appropriate while he locked eyes with Helen. "I wouldn't miss this for anything."
After they finished hugging, he settled for a limp handshake with Helen and sat down. Once seated, he opened his bag and gave each of them a wrapped package with a couple books and a few baby gadgets inside. "Everyone will be trying to give you a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting, but I have it on good authority that these do a much better job for a first time mommy."
"You didn't have to do that," Helen said, setting the package down like it might bite her.
"Right? This is too much," Alice chimed in.
He waved away their concerns, and eventually the conversation devolved into normal pleasantries. None of it was important. All that really mattered to him was that Alice was completely oblivious to what was obvious to him: Helen's secret. That surprised him to some degree, given how poorly Helen was trying to hide her animosity, but then she was probably always like this to some degree when his name was brought up, he supposed. Eventually the waiter arrived, and he was the only one to order wine with his pasta. He ordered the Pinot Grigio as much to compliment the lemon garlic shrimp as to see if Helen would follow suit. When she didn't order a red to go with her eggplant parm his smile increased fractionally.
With their orders in, Alice took the opportunity, and left Helen and Matthias to use the ladies room. "Well, Helen," he asked, as soon as her wife was out of ear shot. "Do you have a present for me?" Her only answer for twenty seconds was to stare murderously at him, before she eventually reached into her hand bag, pulled out a stick, and slid it across the table to him.
"Is this what you wanted, you bastard?" she asked, using the anger welling up from her heart to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. "You wanted to knock me up? Well con-gratu-fucking-lations. You did it."
"I couldn't be happier," he responded, ignoring her sarcasm as he looked from her to the double lines, and back again. She wasn't lying, and of course, neither was he. She was well and truly caught in his trap now.
"Of course you are. You wanted this for some sick fucking reason," she hissed, trying to keep her voice down. "And now you have it, but answer me one thing, smart guy? When Alice finds out, how does that conversation not end in her finding out you're a piece of shit rapist, huh?"
"Well--" he started, before Helen talked over him.
"Because as soon as you break her heart with your sick games, I'm going to an abortion clinic, and you're going to fucking jail," she said, getting a little louder even as she tried to whisper. "I'll bet you didn't think about that, did you, smart guy."
"If you'd let me--" he tried to say.
"You just figured you could make the whole world play your screwed up games and now--" Helen finally stopped talking when he reached across the table to point accusatorily at him and reached out and took it in both of his, surprising her by holding her hand.
"She's coming," he hissed, taking advantage of that surprise to jolt her back to reality with the only thing that mattered to her: Alice.
"Well, aren't you two being cute," Alice said as she walked up to the table. "Should I be jealous?"
"Not at all," Matthias said before Helen could open her mouth. "After all we were talking about you."
"Oh?" Alice asked as she sat down. "Anything juicy?"
"Well..." Matthias let the word hang there for a moment to build suspense before he finally said, "Let's just say it's a surprise, and surprises are more of an after dinner thing."
