by J. D. Chase
‘I didn’t mean to chase you and strong-arm you into this. Well, I did but only to have you hear me out. I came after you to force you to listen to me and I had every intention of letting you walk away for good if you chose not to listen or not believe me. But I think it’s only fair to warn you that I know now that I can’t do that. I can’t let you turn your back on us and walk away. I’ll do whatever it is that you wish me to do to put things right. I’ll move mountains if that’s what you want. I’ve been making plans for weeks, working towards the moment when I could walk out on my marriage and be with you but now it means nothing. I’ll gladly give you control and let you decide how this plays out, no matter what it costs me. Just as long as it doesn’t cost me you. That’s a price I’m not willing to pay because everything else in my life is meaningless.’
Isla could see the muscles in his jaw tensing. Her gut instinct was that he was telling the truth but the last couple of days had hardened her. Seemingly heartfelt words could be conjured up amidst an Oscar-winning performance and she had no idea just how good an actor he was.
Her voice was clipped when she replied, ‘Let’s just get inside and you can start giving me some answers. I’m making no promises, Xander, except this one: if you pursue me against my will, you’ll just make me more determined to fight you. You won’t wear me down with brute force. I’m not some easily impressed airhead who is going to fall for grand gestures and I won’t be manipulated. And as for losing me, well I’m afraid you already have. Now, shall we?’
She pushed open her door and got out. She held her head high as she entered the hotel. She requested a double room and then informed the receptionist that Mr Rhodes would like another double. As she strode into the bar, she congratulated herself for the strength of her resolve under such difficult circumstances but, when she sank into an overstuffed chair, she doubted whether she had the energy to maintain it. It was only late afternoon and she was already exhausted. If it had been later, she would have suggested that they go to their separate beds and do this in the morning, although she doubted that Xander would run the risk of her disappearing overnight.
He bought two gin and tonics over from the bar and settled into the chair next to her. They both took large sips from their respective glasses but neither spoke. Isla was content to sit and sip her drink; it was as though it was an antidote to her poisonous hangover. She knew that she’d be walking away from him but she hoped that she’d do so when she was in full possession of the facts that had led to their parting. She also felt it might give her a better idea of how to handle the whole hotel ownership issue and she felt some hope that they may be able to resolve that amicably. If he had a reasonable explanation for his behaviour – and he certainly seemed to think he had, she hoped that it might be possible to continue working as the general manager, although their personal relationship was dead in the water.
‘I’m finding it difficult to know where to start,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ve been mulling over how to tell you this for weeks, and since your goons apprehended and then evicted me from my own property yesterday, I’ve done nothing else. Yet, here we are and I still don’t know where to begin.’
Isla raised an eyebrow. ‘At the beginning,’ she said, in a mild tone.
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘It’s difficult to know exactly where that is. Feel free to ask me to back up or fast forward. I met Janine through a mutual friend at a dinner party. I was attracted to her instantly and made a half-hearted attempt to chat her up but she was much more interested in talking to some boring investment banker. I’d not long bought the other hotel after the death of my grandfather and I’d been incredibly busy and preoccupied. I’d used my whole inheritance and I had nothing to fall back on if I fucked it up so I was putting in stupidly long hours, doing anything that I could to make it work. I’d work behind the bar or in the kitchen if we were short staffed. I was determined to keep a tight grip on the budget.’
He paused.
‘The point of telling you all that, is that I hadn’t had time for relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that I had no time for women but there was nothing meaningful. So when she turned up at the hotel one night, with the stuffed-shirt investment banker, one thing somehow led to another and I woke up next to her the following morning. At the time, I didn’t realise that her change of heart had only come about once she’d found out that I owned the hotel. Born and raised on a council estate, she was determined to escape the life she was used to and had cut ties with her lazy, benefit-scrounging family. I could identify with that – my lowly beginnings had made me strive for something better. We had something in common that I hadn’t found in many people. The boys at school all came from affluent families. A deprived start to life was unheard of in my school. I had a huge chip on my shoulder and she seemed to share my determination to do better; we both went out of our way to dress and act as if we were upper middle class for example. The difference was that I was prepared to work for it – yes, I had a whopping boost in terms of a good education and considerable inheritance, courtesy of my grandparents – but she wasn’t. It took me a long time to realise that it was her mission in life to find some poor sap to fund it for her.
‘Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of fun and laughter at the beginning and she was stunningly attractive on the outside – whenever we went anywhere, I was the envy of most men in the place. And not just for her pin-up body and her face. She acted so demure and sophisticated, like she was born into money. She had the natural self-assurance and confidence that brings. It was a huge ego boost for the bastard son of an alcoholic hippy, born and raised in peasantry.’
He paused again when Isla frowned.
‘When my grandparents brought me over here, I was almost feral. I had no social skills to speak of, not much of an idea of right and wrong. During my early years, I learned that disputes were settled with your fists and it was your masculinity that defined you, not a decent education or morals and values. My grandmother used to refer to me as her rough diamond.’
He smiled fondly at the memory.
‘I got into a lot of trouble as a youngster. I had difficulty understanding that if you wanted something, let’s say someone’s nice shiny bike, you didn’t just take it. And, if anyone objected when you did, you didn’t give them a beating. That’s all I knew. The whole concept of obeying laws was totally alien to me. I also couldn’t attend the local comprehensive because I’d had no formal education so I was way behind – and I mean, waaaay behind. I was basically illiterate and I was the bastard child of a drunken whore. I remember the first time I heard a teacher refer to me with those words . . . Anyway, God knows how they knew about my early years – I’m sure my grandparents hadn’t made it public knowledge; they were proud people. They’d have been mortified. So I never reported back all the insults that were flung at me, nor the whisperings and judgements that followed me around. I was small for my age, courtesy of malnourishment as a youngster but that didn’t mean I was a pushover. What I lacked in size and strength, I more than made up for in cunning and endurance. I was scared of no one and I could never walk away from an argument. So, as I’m sure you can appreciate, I got a bit of a reputation and I didn’t have many friends, well I had none really. Unfortunately, the only kids that would have anything to do with me were hardly what you’d call role models.’
Isla’s expression showed her incredulity at his words. He laughed harshly.
‘It’s okay, I’m not after the sympathy vote. I’m just trying to help you to understand how, when someone like Janine, or at least who I thought she was, showed an interest in me beyond a quick one-night stand, I was blinkered. I’d endured the embarrassment of having private tutors teaching the teenage me the same stuff they taught to pre-schoolers. Then my grandparents managed to bribe some fancy boarding school to take me on. I had no chance of catching up so I didn’t sit my final exams until I was almost twenty. It was a single-sex school and I was four years older than the others in my cla
sses. I have no idea how much it cost my grandparents in compensatory donations just to get them to keep me. Man, the fights I got into. That habit was the hardest one to lose.
‘Oh, and as for girls – the school was in the middle of nowhere. I was something of a late starter, having kept myself to myself so yet another type of education began. And remember, I’d been raised in a den of iniquity. From as far back as I could remember, I’d seen nudity and sex just as surely as you watched kids’ cartoons on TV. And what I witnessed wasn’t tender love-making. And there was neither shyness, nor inhibitions, nor shame. Gangbangs were a regular occurrence and, since the measure of the males was solely by their masculinity and females were there for their pleasure, it was pretty hardcore. And that’s the only thing I had to go on . . . so, my first few experiences didn’t go well. I found that the Tarzan approach wasn’t typical. If I did what came naturally to me, the poor, traumatised girls were out of the door in minutes like I was some sort of sex offender or something. I was lucky I didn’t have the police at my door, more than once. I learned to adapt over the years but it never felt quite right. It was bland and unsatisfying. Until Janine.
‘She was incredibly sexually adventurous and had a high sex drive like mine. Or at least so I thought. I have no idea whether it was my unconventional upbringing and all that had been burned into my young, impressionable mind but rough sex with all the niceties stripped away, as I’m sure you’ll testify, is what gets my blood pumping. I gradually got bolder and rougher and Janine didn’t object. Well, until we were married. That should never have happened. She demanded that we got married when we were having sex one night. I was about to come and probably would have agreed to anything. But we hadn’t been together long and it was too much of a rush. She wanted to marry as soon as she could and, when she learned of a cancellation at my local church, that was it. All hell broke loose. She was obsessed about having the whole huge white wedding thing, with all possible trimmings. I had second thoughts. And third. Well, if I’m honest, it felt completely wrong but she was so happy, totally in her element organising the wedding of the century that I couldn’t face pulling out. I think part of me fancied the idea of marriage because it was like sticking two fingers up to my past. My mother and her cronies didn’t believe in the institution of marriage. But then they didn’t seem to believe in any conventional societal act. So it was another way to distance myself from my past. And, of course, I had no family to speak of and I still didn’t have friends. I guess I’m destined to be a loner in that respect – I just didn’t know it at the time. I guess I clung to Janine just as much as she clung on to me.
‘Her sexual appetite was enormous in the run up to the wedding. She’s since told me that her mum had told her that the way to wrap a man around your finger, to get what you want, is to make sure he gets plenty. I’m ashamed to say that there’s probably some truth in that and I think most men would agree, if they were honest. I’m much more relaxed and easy going when my balls aren’t aching. Anyway, once we’d been down the aisle (and there was no sex on our wedding night – she was too pissed after celebrating her success), it was once a week with the lights off if I was lucky and I think that was only to shut me up. She was tired, she said – although she did fuck all. She refused to work, insisted on a cleaner, had ready meals delivered from good old M & S and moaned about having to leave the house to go to her day spa. All she was concerned with was keeping up with her friends, the neighbours or anything that she spotted on these country homes programmes. She could spend money faster than I earned it and I’m not joking. The higher the designer price tag, regardless of whether it was a piece of crap or whether we actually needed it, the more she wanted it. I mean, who the fuck has a toilet that costs over five grand? You piss and crap in it, for fuck’s sake.’
Isla found herself unable to hold back a smile. She tried to conceal it by drinking the last of her G & T but he gave a small smile as he got up to get her another drink. He had barely touched his since he began recounting his story but he brought himself a second one.
‘If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny,’ he quipped, but his expression conveyed his malice.
‘I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine you in a situation like that. Tolerating her and indulging her. You must have loved her very much.’
Big mistake, Isla.
His face contorted into a mask of hatred. ‘I don’t love her and I don’t think I ever loved her. I certainly never respected her. Not once I’d learned that she had set her sights on me for my money. She wanted status. She wanted material things. I take back what I said earlier about her keeping up with her friends – she wanted to trump them. If one had a new car, she insisted on having a better one. If one had a new large screen TV, she insisted on having a bigger one – no matter how ridiculous it looked, dominating the room. The jealousy and one-upmanship consumed her. I began to tell her that the hotel didn’t make enough money to match her spending but she knew how to get around me. Sex, yes it’s obvious, but it worked. And to question my masculinity. Another character flaw that was ingrained in my youth. She’d make jibes about how her friends’ husbands could provide for them appropriately. How a man was judged by the house he kept and how his wife was turned out, designer clothes, hair, make-up and so on, by the cars they drove, the holidays they had and God only knows what else.
‘I should have seen through it much sooner than I did. And when I did, she threatened to leave me. And that is probably the worst thing in the masculinity stakes, at least to my fucked-up mind. Added to that, my grandparents were old school. They hadn’t believed in divorce. Marriage was not a convenience; you made your bed . . . and although they were long gone, and in some ways that was worse because I couldn’t seek counsel or explain the situation, and for all I know they would have made allowances, I couldn’t bring myself to allow my marriage to fail.
‘But I felt trapped. I’d had enough. I told her that if she left me, I’d see to it that she got nothing. We’d not been married long enough for her to lay claim to half of everything with any confidence and I could prove that I’d earned every penny in the time we’d been married, and that she’d spent it all. I cut the allowance that I gave her to one that would still make many wives’ tongues loll in envy and I put my foot down over her ridiculous holiday and home improvement demands. I realised at that moment that I felt more masculine for taking a stand, for putting an end to the tens of thousands that she could get through in no time at all and then abandon on a whim, than I did when I was trying to keep her happy. It was a thankless task after all.
‘She instantly became more like the Janine I’d first met. Our sex life improved dramatically and she actually seemed to see me as more than a money machine. She took an interest in what was going on at the hotel and appeared to have transformed into the woman I’d hoped she’d be. She’d flatter me and do anything to boost my ego – she was fairly subtle about it so I didn’t smell a rat . . . until it was too late. She was caring and attentive, reasonable and rational. It was like I’d stumbled into a parallel universe. And then I found that she’d stopped taking the pill without a word to me and was trying to get pregnant. She cried and cried when I confronted her. She was broody, she said. She wanted a baby Xander to make her feel complete. That was a complete turnaround from what she’d said before we’d married. We’d both said that we didn’t care about having kids.
‘Because she hadn’t conceived instantly, she’d secretly visited a private clinic for fertility tests. She smugly announced that there was nothing wrong with her so it must be me. She said there was a real chance I could be infertile. That I might not be a real man. She made an appointment for me to get tested. I agreed under sufferance; anything to keep this new, improved Janine that it actually hadn’t been hell to be married to for a few months. And yes, part of me was affronted by the jibe at my masculinity. Growing up as I did was enough to put me off parenthood, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to go through the tests. If shooting my load int
o a little pot would keep her happy and stop her constant nagging and jibes that I wasn’t a real man for a while, then it was worth it so I went to the clinic.’
Isla’s eyebrow shot up.
Xander held his hands up. ‘I know, I know. I played my part in it too. I knew we shouldn’t have got married; it was too soon and we barely knew each other outside the bedroom but I went along with it anyway. So, in my grandmother’s words, I was only reaping what I’d sown.’
He took a large gulp of his gin. ‘Before I could get my test results, she announced that she was pregnant. And just like that, the nice, newly improved Janine was gone. So was any chance of having sex for the next nine months at least, if ever. Back came the demands: we needed a larger house, we needed to live in a better location – purely for the school catchment area; we didn’t want our child to be illiterate at the age of ten like its father, did we?’
Shocked, Isla almost spat out her drink that she was about to swallow, making her cough. ‘She said that?’
He nodded, hatred written all over his face. ‘Oh yeah. And worse. I was doubly trapped. No way could I contemplate divorcing my pregnant wife. My grandmother would be turning in her grave. And what’s worse, Janine knew it. I realised that the money-grabbing bitch hadn’t really wanted a baby; she wanted a cash cow.’
Isla blew out a breath, astonished by the other woman’s alleged callousness. ‘Oh my God. But hang on, you said it wasn’t yours.’
Xander tossed back the rest of his drink before fixing his eyes on her. ‘Yeah sorry, that’s kind of like reading the last page of a book, isn’t it? I’ve ruined the story for you.’
Flinching at his sarcasm, Isla opened her mouth to protest but Xander intervened.