by Scarlet West
With a sigh, I pulled myself out of bed. I didn’t want to think about feelings. I certainly wasn’t going to talk about them with anyone. Not yet, anyway. Pete knew about the marriage now. I had told him after my father yelled at me that day. But, what I didn’t tell him, was the fact that it was fake.
I had passed it off as real to both of them, and even I wasn’t sure why I’d done that. I didn’t trust Pete to not rat me out about being married, but I did think he’d have the brains to keep the fact that it was fake under wraps. The guy meant well, he just talked a little too much sometimes, and that was the problem.
After showering again, I dragged a razor over my face and put gel in my hair. I didn’t want to go down to the office or deal with my father. I didn’t want to see anyone there, really. I wanted to spend the day with Ashley, and that scared me.
What would we do? Hang out and do nothing? That was even worse than going out with her. It was so against anything that I’d ever done with my life, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. The fact that it was something I wanted to do bothered me, not the idea of us doing it.
I stared at myself in the mirror. There were times in my life when I knew I had to pause and really think about what I wanted, and this was one of those times.
“You’re getting way too caught up in all this. This is a game, and she’s not one of the pieces. She’s your partner in this, and you’re going to come out on top. When you do, you’re going to go your separate ways, and this is all going to be a distant memory,” I said quietly.
I still didn’t want her to hear when I said things like that, but there were times when I had to hear it for myself. I had to keep a grip on reality, and I felt myself losing focus. We were in this for the money. Both of us, and nothing was going to change that.
After drying my face I headed out to the kitchen. Breakfast was usually simple, and often times I skipped it. I grabbed a cup of coffee as Ashley lazily milled about, getting her own breakfast and getting ready for work. She wasn’t wanting to work today, either, but she was determined to keep it up as long as she could.
“Maternity leave is going to drive me crazy, I just know it is,” she told me more than once. “I don’t want to take days off before and get used to it before I go crazy.”
So, I took her to the bank every morning on my own way to work, then I spent the day thinking about her at the office.
It was a quiet ride that morning. She was tired from the night before, and I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, I really didn’t have anything to say. It wasn’t anything against her, I just wanted to get through the day so I could forget about it and go home.
“You okay?” she asked. “You’re usually more talkative in the morning.”
“Just tired,” I told her. “There’s a lot going on down at the office, and it’s been rather draining.”
“Same,” she said. “I might fall asleep standing at the station today.”
“You should be sitting,” I told her. “That would be easier on your feet.”
“Then I would fall asleep,” she laughed.
My phone rang and I looked down, surprised. It was rare for my phone to ring that early in the morning, and I wasn’t in the mood for my dad to yell at me already.
My heart sank when I saw Candace’s number flash on the screen.
“Shit!” I said.
“What’s wrong?” Ashley asked, looking at me in surprise.
“Nothing,” I said. “Sorry, nothing. I just hate when my phone goes off this early.”
I hoped she bought my lie, but she certainly didn’t seem to. She didn’t ask about it, but the way she looked at me, then my phone, then back to me bothered me. Women were already good at guessing when men weren’t supposed to be talking to someone, and I had a feeling I was giving off the warning signals.
“Well, I hope they get the hint and call you back at a better time,” she said as she looked out the window.
“No time would be a better time,” I said. “I have shit to do today and don’t have the time for telemarketers.”
“Is that who it was?” she asked. She once again looked at me with that same expression, and I knew I had to get myself out of the hole fast.
“It was just a number on the screen,” I said. I avoided a lie, but I still felt guilty about it. “So I’m assuming.”
“Annoying,” she said. Neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive, and I was glad it wasn’t long to get there. I pulled up in front of the bank and she got out, smiling before she closed the door.
“Have a good day, and don’t work too hard,” I told her.
“You too,” she said. “Watch out for those early bird telemarketers.”
I laughed and rolled up the window, then I sped off. I normally waited until she was inside before I drove away, but my heart was racing. How the Hell did Candace get my number? Last I knew she was in Italy, or traveling somewhere else with her friends. She wasn’t supposed to be back for months.
But, I knew her number. I knew it from all the times she’d called me in the past. The many times when I told her I didn’t want to talk, or when I was too busy, or when I found any other reason I could to avoid her. But, the number would relentlessly by on my screen, and I eventually had it memorized.
I sped to the office and walked in with an attitude. Several of the other employees got out of my way without saying a word to me, and I was glad. Anyone who got in my way was going to have their head ripped off. I didn’t care what they had to say.
I stormed right into my dad’s office, throwing the door closed behind me. He looked up at me from the rim of his coffee mug, taking his time with his drink. I put my hands on my waist, staring at him with my chest heaving.
“How long has Candace been back in the states?” I snapped.
“How the fuck should I know? You were the one who was supposed to marry her,” he said with a shrug.
“Fuck off!” I snapped again. “I told you from the beginning I wanted nothing to do with her, and you aren’t going to make it seem like that now!”
“I’m not making anything seem like anything,” he said. “You were the one who was supposed to marry her, and you ran off with someone else. Now it’s your problem to deal with. If you don’t want to talk to her, then block her number.”
“You know that’s just going to make her show up at my house!” I snapped. “This woman is crazy, and I told her a million times I don’t want anything to do with her. I don’t know why both of you can’t get that through your heads!”
“Well, son, you are an adult now, and you need to make adult decisions. I told you what I wanted, and for the longest time you went along with it. Now you’ve gone and made a real mess for yourself, and you’re going to have to get yourself out of it. I’m not going to swoop in and rescue you,” he said. He took another long drink of his coffee, and I scoffed.
“No, but you’re going to send the bitch right to my doorstep?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, just staring at me as he drank. I knew I should have seen this coming. He was pissed in more ways than one. He didn’t like it when I went against him, and I was sure he wasn’t happy that his daughter in law was related to Victor Velvet.
So, what was he going to do? He was going to play my game against me. He didn’t approve of my wife, so he’d get rid of her. But he wouldn’t do it in a sleazy way. Not to him. No, he would play with the pawns until she saw the wrong one, and then it would be over for me.
“You are a monster,” I said at last. “I can’t believe you did this to me.”
“Like father, like son,” he said. “Where do you think you learned how to go around people to get what you wanted?”
“Fuck you,” I said. I turned on my heel and walked out the door, not listening to Peter when he called out to me. I didn’t want to talk about anything that had to do with the company. I had to get this problem figured out.
I wasn’t sure how much of my façade my father knew, but I had a feeling, he
knew more than he was letting on, and he was going to play dirty until he got his way. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure how to play dirtier.
I didn’t know how Ashley would respond if she met Candace, and I didn’t want to find out.
14
Ashley
“No, Dear, what’s wrong with you today? You are usually so good at this,” Mrs. Pray stood in front of me with her large spectacles staring right at me. I looked at her, then at the money I’d counted out on the table. She was right. I was way off.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I’ve got baby on the brain.”
“Baby?” she asked.
My face changed as I realized what I just said, and I laughed. “Yes. You see, I’ve recently been married, and now I’ve got baby fever. I want a kid so badly, and that’s all I’ve been thinking about. But I’m going to get this counted out for you again.”
She stared at me as though I’d lost my mind, but I did my best to ignore her looks. I didn’t want to explain anything to her, and I worried she was going to get a manager involved. It was bad enough that Jenny had been staring at me like a lunatic all morning, now I had the customers asking questions, too.
Of course, she was right. I had fucked up counting out her money for the third time in a row. She offered to do it herself to make it easier for me, but I couldn’t allow her to do that with bank policy. I knew it would only take them checking the security footage once to realize that I’d let a customer count out the money, and I could be in a lot more trouble than I wanted to be.
“How’s that?” I asked as I handed her the bills.
“Well, you’ve got the right amount now, but I wanted it in an envelope,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Of course she did. She always took her money in an envelope. “Let me get that for you right now. Here you go! Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“I think you better have a cup of coffee or get more sleep or something,” she said. “That was painful.”
“For you and me both,” I muttered too low for her to hear. She walked out and I sighed, putting my face in my hands and my elbows on the desk in front of me. I was glad it was a slow day. I was fucking up things left and right.
“Late night?” Jenny asked from her register.
I hated talking to Jenny about anything, and I really didn’t want to talk to her about my problems with Blake. But then, she was known for her rather loose choices in life. If there was someone who might be able to help me out with how Blake was acting, it could be her.
Be careful with this. You don’t want to tell her anything she can use against you later. Remember that you don’t trust her. There are so many things in life that look pretty on the outside, but they will kill you if you give them the chance. Don’t give her that chance.
Talk to her, but be smart about it. Be smart.
“I’m just having issues with my husband, and I’m not sure how to handle it,” I said with a wave of my hand. I wanted to make it sound as unimportant as possible. The less she knew about it, the better for me.
“Oh dear! You poor thing! What kind of issues?” she asked. She scooted her chair over much closer to mine, and leaned toward me. The look on her face made me genuinely think she was concerned, but there were still warning bells going off in my head.
“Well, it’s just that. He was, I don’t know,” I said. “Sorry, it’s dumb, forget I said anything,” I waived my hand again and shook my head, turning my attention to the computer in front of me.
“Come on, I’m good with boys. I can tell you exactly why a guy is doing what he’s doing, and what you need to do about it,” she said sweetly. “Trust me. I want to see you happy, and I’ve never seen you so sad as you are today.”
I felt the tears welling up in my eyes and quickly grabbed a tissue off the counter. I put it to my nose, hating at that moment the hormones that came with pregnancy.
Fuck you, hormones! You do this to me on purpose! Now she thinks that I’m really upset when I really just want a bit of advice! Thanks a lot.
“Oh, Honey, I know how hard it can be. But I’m here for you. Trust me,” she said with a smile. She reached for my hand, and I sobbed when she touched me. I was still pissed off over the hormones, but I didn’t dare explain that to her. I wanted her honest opinion, not some bitchy one she was going to blame on my pregnancy brain.
“Well, he’s always been very loving to me,” I lied. “But last night he came home, and he was so much more so than normal.”
I figured it was a safe way to analyze us having sex. Though he was always kind to me, that was the first time he had done anything like that. She watched me carefully as I spoke, and she nodded.
“Go on.”
“Well, this morning, I thought things were different when we were in the car. Like, I don’t want to be overly sensitive about things, but he was quieter than normal,” I said.
“I see,” she dragged out the last word, and stared at me with the same look of worry on her face. “And do you think there was a reason for it? Maybe he was tired from what you did last night?”
“I asked him about it, and he said he was just tired. Then he went on to say that he had a lot of things going on at the office, and that was what was on his mind,” I said.
“And you don’t believe him?” she prompted.
“It’s not that I don’t believe him,” I started, but then I sighed. “I mean, I do. It’s just what happened after that made me wonder if there’s more to the story that I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?” she gasped.
“Well, I mean we were riding along, and it was right after he told me he was just tired and the office thing when his phone rang,” I said. “He was so weird about it. Like he said a swear word and basically told me that it was a telemarketer.”
“Does he hate telemarketers?” she asked.
“I’m sure no one loves them, but with how jumpy he got, it just seemed like there was something that he wasn’t telling me, and I don’t want to be paranoid, and I don’t want to accuse him of anything, but I just felt like he was trying to leave me in the dark, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it,” I sighed again.
“Do you have reason not to trust him?” Jenny pressed. I was starting to get the impression she was pushing for there to be problems between us, and I wondered if I had done the right thing by telling her about this in the first place.
“I don’t think so, and like I said, I’m sure I’m just being paranoid,” I said.
“Well, in my experience, when a guy is acting like that, then he’s hiding something, and I’m guessing it’s bound to be another woman,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked. There were tears in my eyes again, and this time, I wasn’t sure if it was from the hormones or real pain. My heart sank at her words, though that was the fear that had been in the back of my mind all day. I hated the thought of there being someone else, even if he and I were just fake.
But then, why would we have sex? If he was seeing someone else, was he that big of an animal he had to come home and have sex with me? It didn’t make sense to me. Then again, he was the one with the party lifestyle, and as far as I knew, that hadn’t really changed.
“I’m telling you. Men get jumpy when they don’t want you to find someone out. I bet his mistress called him this morning. Maybe just to say hi, maybe to ask about something that they had planned, maybe because of something that they already did together,” she rambled on.
I wanted to slap her. I wasn’t sure again if I was fighting the hormones that were raging through me, or if it was the fear that was just coming to light. I hated the thought of all this, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Then it struck me. If Jenny knew so much about how to handle men, then she should have the answer.
“So what do I do?” I asked. “I love him.”
The words startled me as they came out of my mouth, but I wasn’t going to try to fix it now. I was sure there was a part of me
that meant it, either way, I had to be convincing enough to Jenny she told me what she thought I should do.
“You’re going to have to find out if it’s true,” she said. “Or dump him.”
“I can’t just dump him!” I said a little too harshly. She looked up at me, and her eyes darted to my stomach, but she said nothing as I quickly continued. “He’s my husband. I can’t just go home and dump him because of something I’m not even sure happened.”
“True, then you’re going to have to get to the bottom of this. Of course, you could always ignore it. There are times they just need to get it out of their system and they’ll come back,” she shrugged. “Either way, don’t let it get out of hand.”
A customer walked in and she moved back to her station, ready to help them and leaving me to think about what she’d just said. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It did make sense, and what she said did line up with what I feared. But, I didn’t want to just dump him.
I also scared myself by telling her that I loved him. Was that true? Is that why I was so upset? Or was this all just a bunch of hormones because of the baby? I knew I was driving myself insane with my fear, but that didn’t change the fact that I felt I was going insane.
Was I crazy? Was that what Blake had done to me?
I had to get to the bottom of this.
15
Blake
“Hey, you’re like a million miles away. What’s going on, man?” Peter waived the paper in my face, and I snapped back to the moment. I glanced over to him, then I shook my head.
“Can you believe it?” I said.
“Can I believe what? The fact that you aren’t paying even the slightest bit of attention to this and this could be our biggest breakthrough?” he asked. He had more charts and graphs on the table, and was hoping that the next pitch he made was going to be the one that got us investors.
I, on the other hand, had a feeling that my father had already talked to most of the investors in New York who were worth talking to, and convinced them all that we weren’t worth their time.