by Kaylee, Katy
“Exactly. It would always get under my skin, pissed me off like nothing else. And you know how - sometimes you start to wonder if they’re right.”
David nodded.
“But when I’m with Roni, I never feel that way. Even back in high school when everything else was shit, I never felt that way with her. She makes me feel like I’m - like I can do anything, I don’t know, and half the time I wonder how she can see that in me when I can’t see it in myself but I’m not about to give it up. I feel like I could take on the world when she’s with me.”
“And that’s how it should feel,” David replied. “Hold onto that woman, no matter what. I’m glad that you two found each other again.”
“I’m not giving up on finding you someone.”
David sighed. “Look, if this Roni of yours has a best friend? Sure, I’ll consider it, I trust your judgment. But really, I doubt that there’s anyone that I could feel safe being vulnerable with and risking my heart with.”
“We’ll see about that,” I replied.
After our workout, I went home and showered, getting ready to meet Veronica for our date. It was one of our more ‘conventional’ dates, just going to get dinner at this new place that had opened up. Veronica had this huge craving for traditional southern comfort food lately, and hey, I was never going to say no to some good classic fried chicken and cornbread, so far be it from me to stop her.
I still wasn’t picking her up at her place yet, and I was careful about inviting her over to my place. We usually only came here to watch a movie, and she’d admired the furnishings and the backyard. But I wanted to go at her pace, and our homes were, I knew, both intensely private spaces for us, so I didn’t want to try invading her space too much or make her come into mine, not if she wasn’t ready.
Instead, I met her at the restaurant, where we grabbed a booth in the back. For a lot of couples date night probably meant getting dressed up, but this was a casual place and so we dressed to fit. I thought she still looked radiant, even just in a simple summer dress, her hair in a braid.
But something was… off.
We got our menus and perused, and usually I would make jokes about the menu items and Veronica would respond. But today she just smiled at me and nodded.
After we ordered, I saw she wasn’t drinking, just swirling her straw around. She seemed tense, and she wasn’t reaching out to touch me like usual.
Something was definitely wrong.
“Hey.” I caught her hand under the table and rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Veronica gave me a bright, dazzling smile. It was her showcase smile, the one that she used at charity balls and the like. I knew that it was fake. “Just had a long day.”
“Roni.” I kept my voice low and soothing. “I know that something’s wrong. It’s okay, you can tell me. I’m not going to get angry.”
That was something I would occasionally remind her about. After the way Chad would blow up at her, I understood that she might have an instinctual fear of making someone upset, even if she knew – logically - that I wasn’t going to treat her the way that Chad had. A verbal reminder was a good thing, it could help soothe her.
Veronica sat there, tight lipped, for about a minute. Our food arrived in the meantime and I thanked the server, then went back to just focusing on holding Veronica’s hand, comforting her.
At last, she said, “Preston Andrews came to my house.”
Preston Andrews. Why was that name familiar?
“He’s a friend of Chad’s. Or he was, I don’t know how much Chad will like him after Chad hears that Preston’s been trying to get with his ex-wife.”
My hand tightened around Veronica’s, instinctively. Veronica squeezed back. “He’s a lawyer, been involved in a lot of high-profile cases.”
Oh, yes, that was how I knew of him. I’d heard about him from time to time. “I hear he’s ruthless.”
“He is. I never liked him that much, but I thought he was at least… a little better than Chad. Turns out I was wrong. He’s just as bad, but in a different way.” Veronica took a sip of her drink to steady herself, her hands shaking slightly. “He’s smarter than Chad is, but I think he might actually be more ruthless. Chad is… he’s lazy, almost. I mean, I remember when he would go out to strip clubs and have sex with hookers I would think, God, at least seduce the wives of your friends or something, have an affair with your secretary, have a bit of class, you know?”
Veronica gave an odd laugh that made my heart squeeze. “But Preston, he’s actually got us… he’s using the law to threaten us. To blackmail me. He’s determined to marry me. Apparently he’s had a thing for me this whole time and I… on its own, it’s not necessarily creepy, you know, we can’t control who we develop feelings for, but there’s a gentlemanly way to handle it and a creepy way to handle it and now - now he’s acting like I’m just some, some property to be passed from one person to another. Like he should get a prize for treating the car better than the last owner did.
“I’m not a car, or some prize that one man will pick up once the first one’s done with me. I’m my own person. And I’m not going to marry someone just because I want stability or just because they want me to. I’m finished with doing just what other people want me to.”
“As you should be,” I told her. “Hey, drink some water, okay? It’s all right. You’re absolutely right, he’s being an asshole.” I was seeing red all over again. What did this guy - who did this guy think he was, huh? Who the fuck was he to threaten and blackmail Veronica? That wasn’t how you got a woman to like you and frankly if I were him I’d watch my back if I was married to someone that I got through coercion.
“He knows about us,” Veronica said, sipping at her water. Her eyes were glittering with tears that she was refusing to let fall. I passed her a napkin and she wiped at her eyes. “He found out about us, somehow, I think he’s been having me followed. He said he was keeping an eye on me.
“If I don’t dump you, and date him, then he’s going to report you. Sue you, or something, I’m not sure how but he’s a lawyer, I know that he’ll figure out a way to do it. A way to get to you.” Veronica’s brave attempt to stifle her tears didn’t work and she began to cry in earnest.
“Sweetheart, hey.” I quickly pulled her into my arms. “Just cry it out.”
“I’m sorry, I feel like all I do with you is cry.”
“You got out of an abusive situation, a lot of shit’s being stirred up. It’s okay for you to cry and to work out your emotions, all right? Don’t let anyone make you feel otherwise.”
Veronica nodded against my shoulder. “I never felt like… I couldn’t show Chad how much he affected me. And out in public, you know, my parents always taught me to keep up appearances, to never let anything unpleasant show. But with Chad it wasn’t so much propriety as it was… I didn’t want him to have any more power than he already did.
“And so now that I’m free of him, I feel like all of those… reactions and emotions that I was holding back all of this time are finally bursting out and I can’t contain them and it scares me, it makes me feel like I’m some stupid child.”
“You’re not. Far from it. Look you know how my dad was. And I blamed myself for being so emotional about it, too. I always felt like I should be able to handle it better, to be stronger, especially as a boy.
“My therapist helped me see that when you’ve been imbalanced for so long, it’s like a pendulum. You have to swing back the other way a few times before you can rest in the middle and find that balance. You were incredibly brave, putting up with him the way you did, not letting him break you.”
“I don’t feel all that brave.”
“We never do, when it’s us, and we’re in the moment. But you were. You are.” I kissed the top of her head.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, when you were going through all of that,” Veronica said, her voice small.
“You were there for me,�
� I replied. “You were supporting me, always telling me that I was a good person and not to listen to my dad. You helped keep me… alive, really, until I got to college and could get a therapist. It wasn’t your job to fix me, just like it’s not my job to fix you. But you helped. You made me happy, and you supported me and helped me to feel safe, and that meant the world. It still does.”
Veronica gave a small laugh. “I just find that ironic, because I’d say the same about you. You helped me feel safe. Taken care of. It’s always been you who did that.”
I hated to bring up a sore subject, but I had to know more about this Preston issue. “So he’s going to expose me for sleeping with you unless you agree to date him.”
Veronica nodded, sitting up straight again. “I never meant for this to happen. This is all my fault, I convinced you to break the rules while you were still my doctor. I could ruin everything for you and I don’t want you to lose this. You’ve worked so hard for everything that you have and I just don’t want you to have it taken all away.”
“I’m not going to break up with you just because some asshole is threatening us. If we break up it’s because it’s the right thing for both of us. Not because someone is pressuring us. I’d be miserable without you, and I like to think that you wouldn’t be too happy either.” I winked at her, and Veronica laughed a little through her tears.
“You might have come on strong, but I was the doctor. I knew the rules, and I broke them. It’s my own fault for crossing the line. You didn’t brainwash me, I had free will the entire time, and I chose not to do what I knew was the legal thing. I chose to be with you. So that’s on me.”
“What are we going to do, then?” Veronica whispered. “If we keep dating, then he’ll expose you and he’ll ruin you.”
“We’ll figure something out,” I promised. “We will.”
Veronica only started crying harder. My heart went out to her, and I wished I could just straight up cold clock this Preston asshole. That wouldn’t do anything except land me with an assault charge, though, so I kept that thought to myself.
Our waitress stopped by with our food, shooting us a worried look. “Her grandmother just died,” I explained, pulling a sad face.
“Oh, you poor thing,” the waitress said. “You take all the time you need.”
Good old southern hospitality.
Veronica eventually calmed down, and we were able to eat. I held her hand under the table, since she seemed to need that continual comfort—not that I minded giving it to her.
“Hey, why don’t we get out of town for the weekend?”
Veronica looked at me. “This weekend?”
“Yeah. Nothing big, just go somewhere nearby to cool off and get some space. We can avoid Preston’s spies and have some time to ourselves, and then on Monday we can focus back in and come up with a battle plan. Preston’s a busy guy, right, a successful lawyer, I’m sure he has other things to do with his time and he’ll give you a few days to stew in your nerves. That’s how lawyers operate.”
Veronica nodded, giving me a tentative smile. “I’d like that.”
“Hilton Head Island sound good?”
The island, as it was just called by those in the upper crust, was a beach retreat for wealthy families. There were a lot of luxury homes on there, cute little boutique shopping centers, fancy restaurants, and of course a bunch of golf courses. I had a friend a few years ago who wanted to get rid of her vacation home after her husband had passed—it just had too many memories that she couldn’t handle. I’d bought it from her, planning it as a summer spot for my family once I had one.
Now I finally had someone to bring there, someone who would appreciate it. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as a lot of the other houses that had sprung up on the island, since it was one of the first houses built there. It was smaller, and less decadent, but I liked it that way. No need to be ostentatious.
Veronica smiled. “I love it. I haven’t been there in years.”
“Then it’s settled.” I kissed her cheek. “And don’t worry about a thing. I’ll make all the arrangements.”
24
Veronica
I was so glad to finally get to Hilton Head.
Getting here would normally have been a breeze, but not with Preston’s men following me. I had no idea who these people were, or even how they were managing to follow me, I just knew that Preston wasn’t such a good lawyer by accident. And it wasn’t because he knew the law, either.
Lawyers could and in fact were encouraged to look everything up when it came to law, instead of just relying on their own memory. Everything had to be backed up by paperwork. No, it wasn’t his using the law well that had gotten Preston where he was today. It was his ability to charm and scare his opponents and juries, and his ability to use his contacts to dig up more dirt on the opposition than anyone. He would even dig up dirt on his own clients so that he could be ‘aware’ of anything that would be used against him by the other party. I’d heard him talking about it to Chad a couple of times.
Now all of that was being used against me.
Ted wasn’t the high school prankster for nothing, though. And while he had been a troublemaker, in our senior year after I’d dumped him he had graduated with good marks. He couldn’t have gotten into a good college if he’d had as many stains on his record as he honestly deserved for all the stunts he’d pulled, but he’d been good about making sure there wasn’t evidence. By our senior year everyone would know it was him, but half the time nobody could pin it on him.
Preston’s goons were up against a professional who’d been evading authority a lot longer than they’d been stalking people.
We knew that time was of the essence. We had to leave tomorrow, or Preston would have time to figure out something was going on. Ted had his nurses cover for him at work and said he was staying home with a toothache, then slipped out the back door and walked a few blocks through his neighbors’ backyards before hailing a cab.
He had been texting me the entire time, keeping me appraised, and making me laugh with his antics.
Meanwhile, he had arranged everything for me. He bought me fake plane tickets to New Orleans, so that Preston would think that I was spending the weekend there. Then instead of heading to the airport I went to the train station, swapping out cabs twice along the way. I boarded a train to Asheville, North Carolina, a beautiful and popular town in the Smoky Mountains.
Right before the train doors closed, I got off on the opposite side, and hurried down the platform steps and into the women’s restroom before the train moved, so that nobody watching would see me fleeing.
Once that was taken care of, I took the bus down to the harbor, where Ted had chartered a private boat for me. At last, and only then, had I finally been able to relax.
Now I was on the island, and if I’d been followed successfully this entire time, I certainly couldn’t tell. I was pretty sure the train was what did it - got whoever was keeping tabs on me off my trail - and taking a bus and using cash meant that Preston couldn’t use my financials to track me, if he had managed to get a hold of those. I didn’t like to think about that idea. I could sue him for it, of course, if he had, but it still wasn’t a pleasant idea. He was invading my life enough already by having people tail me.
I stepped off the boat onto the marina and looked around, my suitcase in hand. I had packed light, since I’d known I would be running around all over the place to get here, and it was only a weekend getaway. Nothing requiring fancy packing, especially since I suspected I wouldn’t exactly have use for clothes.
Ted came quickly down the pier, grinning at me. He was gorgeous, and mmm, already shirtless, wearing long dark blue swim trunks and sunglasses, his hair windswept. I could see in the bright sunlight the muscles I had been feeling and admiring for weeks now, and nearly swooned.
“There you are,” he said, sweeping me up into his arms and kissing me, and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kisse
d back, feeling languid and dreamy in the warm summer sun.
We kissed for, well, far too long to be decent, but I didn’t care. I was with Ted, on this gorgeous island, and we were about to have a carefree weekend away from all of the awful things and people that had been plaguing me.
Ted finally pulled away once my knees began to go out from how turned on I was, surveying me with a satisfied glint in his eyes. “Mmm, look at you, getting needy already.”
“And who’s fault is that?” I shot back, breathless and panting.
Ted winked at me, then took my hand. “C’mon, I want to have time to give you a tour.”
We drove up to his vacation house, and I enjoyed the view the whole way. And I didn’t mean the one outside the car windows. It felt almost like spring break when I was in college, that same giddy, carefree feeling where we could do anything, be anyone, and that we had to be sure to do it quick because we only had a week before school and exams started up again.
Ted’s house was beautiful. As we pulled up I saw him fiddling with the steering wheel a little, drumming on it with his fingers like he was nervous. I didn’t see how he could be. This house was beautiful. It was old, looked like one of the oldest on the island, in fact, but it had clearly been lovingly taken care of all this time.
“I love it,” I said, smiling so wide it hurt.
Ted glanced at me. “You sure? I know it’s not… well.”
Not as big as the other houses, not as fancy, might not be what you wanted or expected.
Poor sweet man, always wanting to give me only the best, to take care of me.
“It’s beautiful.” Ted parked the car and I got out, still admiring the house. “I like it much better than all these new homes. Some people clearly just want to flaunt how much wealth they have, you know? It’s tacky. And I’ve kind of become… disillusioned with the… wealth and the upper society and all of that. This is so much nicer. It feels like a real home.”
Ted’s face went a little pink and I realized that he was blushing. “It’s been in the hands of this one family for generations. A friend of mine, and her husband’s family, they took care of it all this time. They ended up co-owning it together when the time came, but then my friend’s husband died and she just couldn’t bear to keep it. It didn’t feel right, exactly, since it wasn’t her family, it was her husband’s family, and with all the memories… and I wanted to have a summer home for my family, when I got one. So I bought it from her, with the promise that I’d put a lot of new memories in it.”