by Lily Zante
It is me and I don’t even know how to answer to that. He’s so red in the face that he’s starting to scare me.
“This is Ward Maddox. I thought you might have been able to keep your legs closed for him.”
I gasp, as if he’s punched me in the stomach. “What ... why ...” I can’t bring myself to ask him what business this is of his because I’m still reeling from his words.
Jamie talking to me like this is unheard of. He jabs a finger in my direction. “You can’t help yourself. Any man who pays you any attention, and you lose the ability to think.”
I open my mouth. Then close my eyes. He’s thinking of Dale, but this is different. “This is different. This isn’t what you think.”
“He’s Ward Maddox. He’s supposed to be a recluse. How did you manage to ensnare him?”
His accusations bring tears to my eyes. I’m as hurt by his words as I am by his tone. The man I thought was my friend is speaking to me with so much venom.
Even you, I think to myself. It’s bad enough having a lover cheat on you and hurt me the way Dale did, but I never imagined my good friend would hurt me.
“Do you know what he did to his girlfriend?”
I cock my head, certain that I didn’t hear right. “His girlfriend?”
“He killed her.”
I feel a double hit to my body, to my stomach and my chest. I struggle to breathe. “No ... that’s not true ...”
It’s not true. It can’t be.
“You said she died under mysterious circumstances.”
“It came down to her word against his, and she’s dead.” Jamie slams down his coffee cup.
“But … I checked. I … I couldn’t find anything.” I checked once, and I didn’t find much on him. I would definitely have remembered something like this.
“He’s a powerful man. It’s all buried.”
“It would have come out.”
“It’s his word against ...” Jamie turns his hand, palm side up, as if asking me to dispute this further.
I refuse to believe it. “Ward wouldn’t. He’s not capable of such a thing.” I might not know everything about him, but I know he wouldn’t do something like this.
“He’s messed up in the head, Mari. Deep down you know it.”
“That’s not true. You don’t know what sort of a childhood he’s had.”
“He got sent away from his parents, because he smacked his dad’s face so hard, his jaw cracked.”
My mouth opens. No way. This is a lie. It didn’t happen like this.
“You’re in bed with a monster. Only someone like you would find someone to fuck, even when you should have known better.”
He rushes off, then comes back. “Tell him I had to go.”
The door slams hard and Ward appears. I’ve been standing comatose for goodness knows how long. “Where’s Jamie?” he asks, looking around. I stare at his face, Jamie’s allegations fresh in my mind.
“Mari?”
“He ... he... he said he had to go. Something came up.”
Ward scratches his head. “That’s a shame. I rushed to get finished.”
“You can do a workout by yourself,” I tell him, even as doubts and worries screech around in my head. There is so much I don’t know about this man. At first, I thought it was because he was an introvert, wanting to keep to himself, but now I wonder if it’s because he has much to hide.
Chapter Forty-Three
WARD
* * *
“I’ve told you about Dale,” she says, sipping from a glass of water. We’ve had dinner, sitting at the kitchen island, and now we’re having our end of day discussion. “Tell me about your former lovers.”
Not again.
She takes my hand, entwines her fingers in my hand, moves her stool a little closer.
“Why do you want to know?”
She sounds exasperated. “Because you know all about me.” She volunteered that information. I hated her last boyfriend, but maybe because of him, I got to meet her.
“Some people are closed books,” I say, kissing her hand. “While some of us can be read as easily as a Dr. Seuss book.” I raise an eyebrow and smile.
“You take that back,” she says, laughing. “I am not easy to read.”
“If that’s what you want to believe, you can.” She told me. It was as if she wanted to get it all out of her system. He sounded like a bastard boyfriend. I’m glad he’s her ex now. She deserves better, and I want to try and be that someone better.
“You’ve always said you like to be alone, and you prefer your own company, so I want to know. How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long ago have your past relationships been?”
She’s not going to give up. We had this a few weeks ago, but she’s now started asking me again. My past is my past, and I want to look forward, but I sense she won’t give up asking, so it’s better if I tell her. I’ve had short relationships. There was the editor’s assistant. The woman who arranged a book signing in Santa Monica. The secretary at the Arts Council in Montecito.
Short. As in a couple of weeks. There have been others, of course, but no one I wanted to be around long enough. No one I cared enough about to open myself up to. No one I could trust.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, I really want to know.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
She laughs, then stops laughing and looks at me, as if she can’t tell whether I’m joking or not. “A week, maybe two. I have encounters.” That’s probably a better word for it.
“Encounters?” She gives me an are-you-kidding look.
“I don’t like being with people, not the whole time.”
“But…pfft.” She puffs out a surprised breath. “A week or two? What is that?”
“Sex is what it is.”
Her expression sobers. She’s connecting the dots. “Is that what you and I are?”
“This has been longer than a week or two, hasn’t it?”
She looks pensive. “Is that why you and I were stop-start in the beginning?”
I nod. “I didn’t want to get involved, but I couldn’t resist you. I struggled with it, I couldn’t be with you, and then I discovered I couldn’t be without you.”
She seems satisfied, but I don’t get a cutesy cuddle or kiss, which is what I thought my confession would earn me.
“So, when was your last ‘encounter?’”
“Just over a year ago. Thirteen months, to be precise.”
“Thirteen months,” she echoes, sitting forward. I can see the top of her cleavage and it sets my pulse racing.
“I don’t get to meet people,” I protest. “You’ve seen me. I sit at my desk all day long. Writing is a solitary profession.”
“You poor thing,” she says with much pitying exaggeration. “Tell me more.”
I snort. “Why do you want to know, Little Miss Inquisitive?” I lean forward and give her a kiss.
She kisses me back. “I want to know everything about you.”
“That’s impossible,” I say.
“Impossible to want to know everything, or impossible for you to tell me?”
“Impossible given the boner you’re giving me.” She has that effect on me every single time. I talk to her, we get close, kiss and hold hands, and I want to throw her over my shoulder and take her upstairs.
“I can take care of your needs,” she says, seducing me with her bedroom voice all over again. My breathing steps up a notch. “But I want to know things about you. You’re like a black box, Ward. I want to know if you’ve ever been hurt … like I was … Dale.”
All I want to do is take her clothes off and make love to her. I press my forehead against hers. “What’s the point of talking about the past? I’ve been hurt, but I don’t want to dwell on that.” Mari is something new and exciting for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way about anyone. I never thought I would ever find this type of connection again
, and yet, here it is. I just wish she’d stop with the one hundred questions.
She thumbs my lower lip. “I just want to make things better for you.”
“And you do.” I stare at her, our faces so close together that we are breathing in one another’s breath.
I slide my tongue into her mouth and give her the longest, deepest kiss. My insides throb with excitement as I stand up and swoop her up in my arms. There’s only one way this night is going to end, and it’s not with an interrogation.
Chapter Forty-Four
MARI
* * *
Because of Jamie, I’ve looked things up online, things about Ward and his past.
There are photos of book signings, and a few rare pictures of him shaking hands with various literary people. I even find a few pictures with Rob. There are none with women though. Like a stalker, I googled his past girlfriends, and only found a mention of Lisa Dooley. She died but there is no mention of how she died. If it had been suspicious, surely it would say. What I did read was that Ward went on to have some sort of breakdown. It was after the success of his first book. He couldn’t write for years after that.
I don’t want to believe Jamie’s words. He’s annoyed and he hates me, and he thinks I’m a slut for being with Ward. Who the hell is he to judge me?
When I look back on all our interactions, I see things differently now. He behaved more like an older protective boyfriend, which is something I don’t need. The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes, his questions and preaching about my boyfriend choices.
He thinks I’m making a mistake with Ward, but he doesn’t know the half of it. Ward isn’t messed up, he’s hurting. No one understands this better than I do.
I decide to avoid Jamie, and no longer hang around the kitchen for our daily chat. I find it odd that this is a situation I never thought I would be in—growing closer to Ward while being at war with Jamie. I don’t want to make up with him. He’s being awful sulky about something he knows nothing about, and he’s too overprotective for my liking.
We need a break. We’ve worked together, and then continued to see one another through this job, and with both of us going through changing relationships and job losses, and adjusting to a new life, it’s no wonder things are difficult.
If Ward and I are seeing one another, I shouldn’t need to hide it from one of my closest friends. My attempts to get Ward to open up aren’t always successful. I’m finding out things slowly, but chipping away a little at a time. He’s had a lot to deal with and I’m trying to be gentle with him.
This will take time. I love being with Ward, I love what we have, and no one is going to ruin this for me. I want to tell my mom because I’m so happy and I want to share my happiness with her but I don’t want to risk confusing her because she doesn’t even know about Dale and me splitting up.
I head towards Ward’s study to clean it while he’s showering. The fire is burning as usual. He must have been up early to get some work done before Jamie arrived.
I wipe down the desk, taking care as always when I lift his notebooks and piles of paper, his pens and pencils, to wipe away the dust before neatly putting them all back in order, just the way he likes it. I see a scribble on a piece of paper and, curious, I take a peek.
Ward has scribbled my name again, in bold, beautiful, elegant letters. He has beautiful handwriting for a man. I stare at my name—there are no love hearts or doodles, or scribbles—it’s just my name, but it’s enough to send me into a tailspin of happiness.
He thinks of me.
He thinks of me even as he sits here trying to get words down. I’m always in his thoughts. It’s the most reassuring and comforting feeling.
I think of him almost all the time. It’s like I can’t ever get enough of him. Most nights, he’s also in my bed, it’s like he can’t bear to be apart from me. As if he can no longer bear to be alone.
I shove the sheet of paper back again in with the others and tidy up the piles before I begin wiping his lampshade, but my curiosity gets the better of me. I’ve never read any of his work. I don’t even know how he writes. Jamie’s always said that he’s a gifted writer, but I don’t know. Maybe taking a little sneak peek might give me another window into this elusive man?
I move away a few stray sheets of paper, and find page one of his manuscript. The title says, ‘The Unseen Face-DRAFT’. I get a tingle in the pit of my stomach knowing that I’m looking through something that only Ward has seen. I leaf through the crisp white pages, unbound and loose, and glance at the pages of neatly typed prose.
This is his new book. The one he’s been working on the entire time I’ve been here. I wonder if being with me has shaped any of his thoughts and his words. It’s a conceited thought to have, but I’m curious.
My breath stops in my throat. My heart thunders.
I’m so tempted to read it even though he has warned me not to. I don’t read horror, but my fear is less due to that than because Ward told me not to.
I bite my lower lip as I turn the first page. My eye catches the first sentence: She took my heart and broke it; hurling it against a stone-cold wall so that it splintered into a thousand shards.
Who is she? And why did she break his heart?
I want to know.
My gaze flies across the next line, and the next, and the next. My skin begins to crawl as I read the first paragraph. I try to find myself in this protagonist. Is it a protagonist or is she the victim who dies?
I am already captivated, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t read books like this. I like Ward’s style. His words hold me captive and I can’t stop reading. I go to the next page, the plot reeling me in, the descriptions of the old house making me feel as if I’m there. I hold my hand against my thundering chest.
I should put this away.
I should put it away right now. A fear of Ward catching me mingles with the fear crawling up my spine as I read. Thump, thump, thump beats my heart.
I read on and on. One more page, and then another.
I need to stop. But I can’t.
It’s not entirely scary, not yet, though Jamie said Ward’s horror isn’t exactly gory, it’s more the type that messes with your mind.
Jamie.
He might appreciate a glimpse. I could give him a sneak preview. Just of the first page. It could be a peace offering. Ward doesn’t need to know, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Sliding my phone out of the pocket of my pants, I get ready to take a picture and then I stop. I can’t do this. What am I thinking? My desire to do right by Jamie—and validating it with the weak excuse that Ward won’t know—has clouded my shaky judgment. No way. I can’t do this to the man I love.
“What. The. Fuck?” Ward’s snarl bites through the air and the phone I was about to put away almost slips through my hands.
“What the hell are you doing?” he bellows.
Fear shuts down my vocal cords. It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it. It’s the twisted look on his face.
“Well?” he yells, walking towards me with a menacing stare. My heart slips through my chest and trickles out of my belly. Ward’s gaze, once warm and inviting, now turns to ice.
“What did I tell you? Why the fuck are you snooping around?”
The sheets lie spread out on his desk, blatant evidence of my crime. “I ...” I open my mouth but words fail me. He wants answers and I can’t even begin to explain this.
He snatches the papers off the desk and I’m suddenly scared. I violated his rules. I’m the one who’s at fault. “I can explain.”
“You …” His face twists, his voice thick with revulsion. “You conniving, lying little …” He can’t bring himself to spit the rest of the words out and then grabs something and hurls it across the room. It hits the wall with a SMACK. It’s only when it lands on the floor that I realize it’s my cell phone.
“What have you done?!” I cry out, rushing to pick it up.
&nbs
p; “What the FUCK have you done?” he roars back. His face is so red. I’ve never seen him so mad. I need to explain. I need to say something, do something. “I’m sorry. I ... I didn’t mean to but ...”
Ward walks over to the fireplace and throws the pile of papers from his desk into the fire. All of it.
“Noooooo!” I yell, my jaw goes slack. What has he done? He’s flipped. All his hard work. “Ward!” I rush over to his side, see the fire greedily swallowing up his neat white pages. It’s the finished manuscript. What was he thinking? I stare at him because I’m worried that he’s gone mad. He shows no emotion. His face is calm.
I don’t know whether to reach in and save what I can. “This is your book. What you’ve been working on.” I grab the poker and try to move some pages to the side, away from the heat source, but they all crumble like orange dust. “You’ve ruined it.” A cry of anguish steals up my throat.
“You ruined it,” he says coldly. The chill in his voice guts me. It’s like an ice pick straight in my stomach.
“Ward,” I touch his shoulder.
“Get. Out.” His voice is deathly quiet.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The enormity and craziness of his actions unnerve me. “Your writing sucked me in. It’s brilliant. I couldn’t stop—”
“Get. THE FUCK. Out.”
Even though he’s angry, I feel for him losing his manuscript. I’ve seen him toil over this. I’ve come to understand his pressure. Rob will go insane. “You didn’t need to burn it.”
“I told you,” he bites out slowly. “I warned you.”
I touch his arm, but he shrugs it off with a violence that catches me by surprise. I don’t understand the big deal of me reading a few pages. Rob was going to read it. Why is me reading it any different? Besides, this was just the paper version. He has it all on his computer. He can easily print off another copy.
“You have to believe me. I didn’t mean to read. It was just so good—”
His hard eyes turn on me. “Are you deaf? Get. Out.”
I take a step back, because this is more than a warning. This is an execution order. He’s back to being how he was before. A bully. Feral. Neanderthal. Scary.