Lucky Seven
Page 18
He felt relieved and happy that she had no reason to stop him seeing what was on her phone, especially as one message had been from Gerry. He still wasn’t quite sure how he hadn’t read and deleted it.
“I just thought you may want to know Marc is in a foul mood today courtesy of Angie phoning him at two thirty this morning and insisted they discuss future opportunities, other clients, the weather and what she was having for breakfast. Anything and everything I believe.” They both laughed as Jim added, “And he reckons if he ever meets you, he is going to kick your ass because she’s your agent, but rest assured as your ass is actually my ass I shall protect it.”
“Thank you. That reassures me no end.”
“Don’t take it personally, he threatened to sack Marcia this morning and she’s his wife.” Jim laughed at the memory of Marcia’s glare.
Tasha giggled at a highly strung and tired Marc.
“She told him he should go for it if he wanted to spend the rest of their marriage sleeping on the sofa. It really has been a great morning so far.” He laughed again, then with other voices infiltrating their conversation, he continued to speak, “Baby, I need to go, but if you need anything, just call. Sext you later.”
Tasha sat up and considered what to do to occupy her day before Jim returned. She thought she might just stay at the house and explore the grounds beyond the pool.
She looked around for her robe, but there was no sign of it. In fact, there was no sign of anything to wear. As her search for clothing led her to the walk-in wardrobe she attempted to slide it open, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked. She tried the other door and found it was locked too.
If this was Jim’s idea of normal behaviour he really was crazy. This was the something else he was going to think of. She was now stranded here, in this room, naked until he came home. If she could find any consolation in this it was at least he would be coming home. She knew he hadn’t locked her up and abandoned her indefinitely. Despite her own inner reassurances, she was furious. He had absolutely no right to do this. She was not an errant child, although her hot and sore ass suggested she might have allowed herself to be cast in the role. She winced as she looked at it in the mirror and then chastised herself for smiling at the memory. Her anger increased as she thought about his call that morning and his, if you need anything. She needed something alright, clothes. She was way out of her depth with a fucking crazy, domineering, Hollywood hotshot who thought this was acceptable on any level.
She dropped onto the sofa with her phone and immediately regretted it as she realised how firm the sofa was against her behind. She selected J cell from her contacts and waited.
“Hi, honey,” came his answer.
“Don’t you hi honey me, you fucking crazy son of a bitch, control freak, bastard,” she spat. His reasonable tone only irked her further.
“Wait while I take you off speaker.” His tone was flat enough that she was unsure whether her call really had been received on speaker. With his next words she instantly regretted her quick temper and foul mouthed tirade as she realised, yes, she had been on speaker. “Marc, give me ten minutes, please,” There was a pause, presumably while Marc left and then Jim, with an agitated tone spoke to her again. “Do you want to tell me what the hell that was all about?”
“You. It was about you leaving me as a prisoner in your bedroom, naked,” she shouted, unsure who she was most mad at, him for leaving her there or herself for being there in the first place.
“Stop shouting,” he said firmly. “It was you who said I couldn’t lock you in because it was illegal, so I improvised.”
“Why? What the fuck have I done now?” She was still shouting, incapable of speaking with anything resembling an even tone and unable to control her emotions that were moving from anger to something else, something old and familiar. Fear.
“Stop shouting. And can we lose the language, please?” She really didn’t feel it was a question. “After yesterday I didn’t want you let loose in Hollywood in case Doogie fucking Howser put in another appearance.”
“Christ, Jim, this is mad. You can’t keep me a prisoner all day.” Although that was clearly what he was doing. She meant it. It was mad to try and control her movements this way. “I can’t even go downstairs.” Her fear rose further and tearfulness entered her voice. Fear that any ideas of a life after Friday were beyond flawed and fear that any life they might have would involve being locked away and controlled in the extreme. Sadly, she already knew when others controlled you and you didn’t comply or it went wrong there were consequences, not fun, sexy consequences but bad ones. The first of her tears slid silently down her cheek. “My plan for today, in case you cared, was to stay here, maybe in my new bikini I now wish I’d bought myself, to look around. No more.” Her tone calmed and her tears ebbed as she resolved to compose herself, not wanting to reveal the darkness of her mind or past to Jim.
“I was making a point. You are mine and you have to accept responsibility for your actions because I don’t think you do.” He sounded almost reasonable in his defence of his actions.
“My arse and I would disagree.” She gave him a firm shake of her head and a pout he was unaware of, thinking he didn’t understand. He didn’t get this, how he’d made her feel.
“Tasha, I get you’re pissed at me, but after I tied you to the bed in New York and you were amused by it I thought you’d be okay, but what’s done is done. Watch the TV, pretend you’re on a spa day,” he said seriously enough that Tasha thought he might actually think his actions were acceptable which was the scariest thing in this whole situation. He deemed this appropriate behaviour.
“You are joking! A spa day, really? New York was different, for one thing you were nearby. Where does Sandra think I am?”
“In bed, unwell. I didn’t want you disturbing when you were naked, not by Sandra anyway.” He laughed a single short laugh, but when there was no laughter returned he stopped.
“You think this is funny and you can get all cute and sexy about it? What if there’s a fire?” She wondered why the hell she was considering a fire escape when all she should be focused on was an escape full stop. “Maybe I won’t let you do this to me. What would you say then, Mr Control Freak?”
“Tasha, I thought it might be amusing, if not funny, like New York,” he conceded but immediately continued to speak and irritated her again as he tried to turn into playful James. “I really would like to get cute and sexy. I’ve missed our sexting today.”
Tasha said nothing. She had no clue what to say. What was there to say that she hadn’t already said? He now seized upon her reference to him being a control freak but made no attempt at an apology.
“I am a control freak, Tasha. I don’t deny it, you know I am, and you seem to like that about me.” He sounded slightly defeated now.
She slumped back on the sofa and wanted to deny she liked his controlling ways, but she couldn’t. He was strong, protective. He made her feel safe because he was in control and the complete opposite of him was her dad and she didn’t like him. He’d never ever made her feel safe. He was never in control, not as he should have been, no matter what he thought. He was weak and had never protected her, quite the opposite. She thought of Dan and Pippa and felt guilty for leaving them with him. What a mess her life had been before she’d left for New York and now it was snowballing into a full-scale disaster zone.
“I get you’re not happy with the situation, but I don’t think you can actually stop me doing it now I’ve done it.”
She heard Jim’s words and they made her want to scream. They sounded distanced slightly as she fought the ideas and thoughts her mind was awash with along with memories of a past that seemed intent on keeping her imprisoned, much like Jim.
Uncertainty descended. She had no clue who she was angry and frustrated with now. It wasn’t even Jim or this situation. Although they did feature on her screaming list, but the main focus was her father. She wanted to hurt him, like he’d hurt them, but he
wasn’t there. Jim was though and he’d manipulated her and made her vulnerable. Weak. A victim. Like her father had. She knew Jim hadn’t intended to make her feel those things, but did that make it better or worse? She thought when Jim talked about her smart mouth it was usually light-hearted and almost complimentary, but her father never called it smart. He called it vile, poisonous, toxic and too fucking clever for its own good, but that was usually as he hit it. Maybe Jim was the same, but different. Maybe as he viewed her as being his property he thought this was okay and she would have to dance to his tune now rather than her dad’s. Were they two sides of the same coin?
“I bet Doogie Howser would come to my rescue and you’ve left my phone.” She spoke with the venom she’d so often been accused of as she goaded him for a reaction.
“But I took his card.”
Suddenly, she detected no warmth in Jim’s voice, just a cold detachment. She shook her head. She was in no way equipped to deal with this. Another person would have been prepared for Jim’s response, but she hadn’t expected it. She had been hoping to incite some discomfort or a sense of wrong doing on his behalf. Her hopes for some kind of acknowledgement of his misjudgement and wrong doing in this situation didn’t seem to be forthcoming.
Tasha heard the sound of her own laughter, hard and ironic as she reviewed her whole sorry life.
“Of course you did, you think of everything don’t you, unlike me. I never think of anything; too stupid, too self-centred meaning I will never amount to anything. All I am is tits, an arse and a cunt…if it looks like shit and smells like shit, it’s Tasha.” She was rambling and beginning to cry uncontrollably as she thought of all the times her father had said those things to her and worse, him and Liam.
Gerry had saved her or so she’d thought until she found him in bed with her best friend. Maybe she was the fuck up, not her dad. After all, she was the common denominator and she was the one who was naked and stranded in the bedroom of a man she barely knew and yet couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. That couldn’t be right, could it? Nobody knew where she was. None of her people had any idea of her location even if her people were limited in quantity, as the people she cared about most seemed to make a habit of letting her down. This was all wrong. How could she ever have thought she’d be worthy of these surroundings, of this man? There was always a cost. Even when she was only on the receiving end of crap, she always had to pay. It seemed her current poor choice was the controlling man whose bedroom she occupied, naked. The same man who’d abandoned her, punished her for no reason she could fathom beyond the fact she needed reminding that she was his to do with as he pleased. Was Jim really like her father? She didn’t know because she didn’t know him, not really, did she? She was hugging herself tightly and crying gently when she realised she was still on the phone.
“Natasha, speak to me, please, baby. What are you talking about?” He sounded very concerned at her outburst. “Look, I’m coming home now. Amanda, cancel everything for the rest of the day, Marc I have to go.”
She heard him speaking as she tried to compose herself again. “No, it’s fine. You shouldn’t cancel your work, not for me. I’m fine.” She aimed for insistence as she knew his work was of greater importance than her, everything was of greater importance than her, especially now she’d allowed him to see a glimpse of the mess she really was.
“You are far from fine, Tasha. Please, talk to me, honey,” he pleaded.
“Okay, but you stay at work as you’d planned, please. I’m sorry. I don’t do that. I don’t cry and I don’t have meltdowns anymore. Can we go back to the bit where you took me off speaker phone and we will both laugh about this and just accept you’re a crazy control freak and I’ll wait here watching the TV naked. We could text and get answers to questions and talk about life after Friday, please.” She could hear how close she was to hands and knees begging, but didn’t care because she needed him to remain at work. Moreover, she needed him not to see her this way. “Assuming you still want life after Friday.”
“Okay,” agreed Jim hesitantly. “But I will drop everything for you if you need me to, ever,” he said sincerely. “Oh, and I can think of nothing I want more than life after Friday, honey.”
She could feel the tears threatening to reappear because nobody had ever done that for her, ever, not really. Nobody had ever put her first without question. Some of her tears were suddenly guilty ones for thinking Jim viewed her like her father did or worse still, that he was simply another version of him.
“Thank you.” Her voice shook slightly. “Even if I had Howser’s number I would never have called him,” she promised, desperate for him to believe her.
“I know, baby. You were pissed with me, I get it and I never took it anyway. Text me whenever you’re ready and remember, I like you very much.”
“Ditto,” she whispered as she hung up and allowed all of the tears she had to leave her body, somehow feeling calmer with each violent wrack of her body.
She splashed cold water on her face and as Jim had also removed every towel in the place dried her face with toilet tissue. She brushed her teeth, her hair and sprayed deodorant, body spray and perfume. She was only missing clothes now, but found nakedness slightly liberating once she accepted it. She picked her phone up and checked the two messages Jim had left unopened. One from Angie telling her about her call to Marc. She laughed, thinking Angie would love to know Marc was in a foul mood now.
She replied with a simple, ‘Lol x’
Then the next message was from Gerry.
She considered her reply and then decided to come back to it. She would text Jim first and hopefully lighten the mood between them.
She laughed in amusement and disbelief. She really had called him all of those things.
How could he know how she sounded in a text? He was far too clever for his own or at least her good.
She waited for Mr Possessive to reply.
His response was unexpectedly calm. Maybe the morning’s events had forced him to rein himself in a little.
She stared down at her phone, willing a response to arrive, something to confirm she hadn’t gone too far with her, I like you more than a lot declaration. Seconds turned into minutes and then his response appeared.
She smiled. He knew he liked her more than a lot. A frown creased her brow because feelings were going to complicate things no end and what her life really didn’t need were further complications. Very soon she realised she was smiling again, knowing no matter how complicated things got she wanted him in her life and would take whatever that brought with it.
Tasha sighed and remembered how she’d felt when she’d discovered Gerry. Worse still, how she’d felt when she’d learned he was going to be a father and that she would not be the mother to that child. It had felt as though her whole life had fallen apart in those moments and yet, with hindsight it hadn’t. It had simply released her from the clearly defined and planned life she’d expected to live with Gerry and now the world was her oyster. Or it would be if she could find a way of releasing Dan and Pippa the way Gerry had freed her. Jim’s next message arrived and was focused on her still.
She noticed a message alert from Lizzie which diverted her attention from her past and Jim’s reaction to it. Opening Lizzie’s message, she smiled.