by Holly Rayner
ROBYN
I stood there next to my “husband” with my mind reeling. There were a thousand thoughts running through my head and none of them were happy ones. Igor was here, in Manhattan, standing right next to me. Aaron was twelve feet away inside the hotel. How did he know I was here? How did he find me? Why would he even be looking for me? I looked back inside. Aaron was still busy with the press and didn’t seem to have seen us, thank God. Grabbing hold of Igor’s beefy, heavily tattooed arm, I led him around the side of the hotel.
“What are you doing here?”
He smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. In his thick, Russian accent he said, “Is that any way to greet your husband?”
“You’re not my husband.”
“Oh babe, I beg to differ. I have marriage license and everything…”
“Don’t call me babe! Why are you here, Igor? What do you want? This is against our agreement. We had a contract. You weren’t supposed to look me up or track me down. We were never supposed to see each other again.”
He shrugged and said, “Things change, situations change. Contracts are sometimes made to be broken. Isn’t that how we got together in the first place? Your situation was dire and so was mine. You needed something from me; I needed something from you…”
“Stop! Just stop,” I told him, glancing over my shoulder and towards the door again. “I fulfilled my end of that bargain. You’re breaking yours just by being here.”
“I need help, babe. I have no one else to turn to. My family is all very far away. I know you don’t want me to get hurt, do you?” He looked me up and down then, taking in the expensive gown and jewelry I was wearing. “I need money. I owe a lot of money to some very bad men.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t see how your problems are suddenly my problems. Besides, I don’t have any money.”
“That necklace you wear so proudly would fetch a tidy sum…” The pig actually licked his lips as he looked at it.
I automatically reached up and touched the necklace I wore around my neck. Aaron had given it to me this morning for Valentine’s Day and I hadn’t taken it off since. Igor was right; it was worth a lot of money. It was silver with a very large solitary diamond pendant. I think Aaron said it was five carats… so yes; it’s worth a lot of money. But it was worth a lot more to me than that. It was my first Valentine’s gift from Aaron and when I’m old and gray I want to pass it on to one of my grandchildren. I would never part with it. “I’m not selling my necklace, and any money that you see me wearing came from my boyfriend. I can’t very well ask him for money for my ex-husband.”
“Current husband,” he corrected me. “We’ve never had a divorce. Maybe we should get a room together and celebrate our marriage…”
“Stop it! Current, Ex, it’s all the same to me. You’re a terrible man! I’m not asking Aaron for money for you.”
He shrugged again and said, “That is fine. I will just go to have a talk with your rich boyfriend and tell him that next I go to the media. I’m sure he will give me the money. I’d rather not do that to you though. You found a nice, fat wallet. I’d hate for you to lose it so soon. I could take it straight to the media. I’m sure that one of the journalists would want to pay for this very interesting story, but I think boyfriend will kick you to the curb either way.”
My head was suddenly spinning and I had to reach out and grab the wall. I felt like I was going to pass out, or be sick… I felt like something very heavy was sitting on my chest.
“I’ll need some time,” I told him.
He held out a disposable cell phone, still in the package and said, “I’ll call you in three days. Make sure you’re ready at that time or I call your boyfriend next.”
“I can’t believe you would do this after what I did for you…”
He laughed and said, “You did for me what you did for the money. Money is why everyone does everything. I need seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“Seventy-five thousand… are you insane? I didn’t even make that much last year… there is no way…”
“To your boyfriend that is change in his pocket. Get my money babe, I’ll see you soon.”
I stood there and watched him go. I wanted to throw up. I tucked the cellphone in my purse and realized I couldn’t hold it any longer. I ran over to the curb alongside the parking bay and began to heave. My whole body was shaking and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my back and it startled me so badly that I screamed.
“Robyn, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” It was Aaron. I turned around and threw my arms around him. I could feel the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I was going to lose him. I couldn’t lose him. I loved him too much. Oh God! I suddenly had to throw up again. I pulled loose from his arms and turned back around and heaved into the gutter one more time. “Oh baby, you’re sick,” he said.
I stood upright and he handed me his handkerchief. He looked worried and I suddenly felt guilty about that. I wiped my mouth on the handkerchief, embarrassed for throwing up in front of him and then said, “Yes, I don’t feel very well. I’m sorry. I don’t think I should stay for the rest of the party. I can have Jeffrey take me home and you can go back inside.”
“Nonsense, I’m going with you.”
“No please!” I was still trying to hold back the tears but it wasn’t working. I could feel them spilling down my cheeks as I struggled to breathe. The anxiety was crushing my chest. I finally worked up enough breath to say, “I think it’s just a touch of the flu. I don’t want you there watching me throw up. I’m embarrassed…”
“Baby, you don’t have to be embarrassed about anything where I’m concerned. If it’s just the stomach flu, why are you crying? You look upset. Talk to me please. Let me go with you and stay with you tonight. What if you need something?”
Wiping my mouth again with the handkerchief I said, “I just need to rest and drink a lot of water to flush whatever this is out of my system I’m sure. The tears are just from the throwing up and from being embarrassed a little bit. But, I promise you I will call if I need anything. Please, I’ll feel so much worse if I ruin this party for you. It’s important for the company.”
“But… Are you sure? I really don’t mind.” Aaron was looking at me with such concern in his eyes that it almost made me sick all over again from guilt. I put my arms back around him again to hide my guilty face.
“I’m sure. I appreciate you caring so much, but there’s really nothing you can do. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a bit. I probably just got a little dehydrated.”
I could feel his head nod softly against my face and then he kissed the side of my head and pulled his face back and looked at me and said, “I’m going to have Jeffrey make sure you get home and into your apartment safely. Promise me again that you’ll call if your need anything?”
“I will, I promise.”
“Drink lots of fluids?”
I forced a smile. He was so sweet and I didn’t deserve it. It was breaking my heart. “I will.” He hugged me again and then kissed the side of my face. He walked with me around the front and had me sit on the bench while he went to find Jeffrey. My thoughts were racing. What was I going to do? What was the right thing? What was the best thing? I had no idea.
“Miss Robyn, the car is ready.” I looked up to see Jeffrey and Aaron. Jeffrey looked concerned as well. I was a terrible person.
“Thank you, Jeffrey.” I hugged Aaron again and he helped me into the car.
“Remember what I said. You call if you need anything at all.”
“I will,” I told him again.
He still looked worried, but he blew me a kiss and closed the door. As soon as he did, I lay down acro
ss the seat and curled up into a ball. My stomach was going crazy and I suddenly needed to cry again. I cried all the way home. Jeffrey didn’t lower the partition, and I didn’t ask him to. I couldn’t bear the thought of looking anyone in the eyes right now. I just kept trying to imagine telling Aaron about Igor all the way home. I kept seeing his face with a disappointed look, and then his back as he walked away and left me alone again. I used to be just fine with being alone. I managed very well, but he had come along and changed all that. Now I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it.
When we got back to my apartment Jeffrey helped me out of the car and walked with me to my door. When we got there, he looked at my face. I’m sure my eyes were red and swollen from crying and my cheeks streaked with make-up and tears. He was a smart man and it was probably easy to see that I was more upset than I was sick.
“Miss Robyn, whatever it is, I’m sure it will be okay. You should talk to Mr. Winters about it.”
Leave it to Jeffrey to figure out I was full of it and this was much more than a stomach bug. I hugged him and said, “I will, soon. Thank you so much.”
He nodded and waited until I was inside to leave. I leaned against the inside of the closed door for a while. My body felt so heavy and I was still having trouble breathing. My extremities had gone numb. I’d had panic attacks before… it was happening almost daily back when I’d felt like I had no choice but to marry Igor. That’s what this was and now I knew it would pass. It still felt like I was dying in the meantime. I had to wonder about the cause of it, would that pass too? If I told Aaron about this, would I lose him?
I finally pushed myself off the door and went into my room. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and changed into comfortable pajamas. Then I went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of warm tea. I took that back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed with it. I was starting to feel a little better, the blood had begun to circulate back into my fingers and toes and my breathing was almost back to normal. I took a sip of the tea and sat it on the night stand. I thought about getting in bed, trying to sleep and forget about it all, but I knew that wasn’t going to work. The sound of Igor’s voice saying, “Get my money babe,” was rolling around in my head. Seventy-five thousand dollars… that was five times the amount I was paid to marry him. I felt my stomach roll again and barely made it to the toilet before I threw up. What was I going to do?
I cleaned myself up again and went back and lay down on my bed, curled into a fetal position. I thought back to how I got myself into this mess. My parents died unexpectedly when I was just nineteen. Having no other immediate family to turn to I was left to pay for their funeral expenses out of the small amount of money they had left behind. They had life insurance, but as it turned out they owed back taxes on their property, our home… a lot of them. I adored my parents and I still harbor nothing but respect for them, but I always knew money was neither of their strong suits and they had difficulty making ends meet. At a time when I was consumed with grief because of the tragic loss of them both I was finding out just how bad with money they were. Between the small amount of money they had in savings and their two small life insurance policies I paid for the burials and some of the taxes on the property. My plan then was to sell the house, but as it turned out, they also owed the government taxes and there was a lien put on the house. The IRS ended up with what money was left from the sale after the mortgage was paid off. After straightening their affairs I had very little money left to contribute to my student fees that I would be expected to start paying when I started college the following year, even with money coming in from the job I had. What I was making at my job at the time barely covered my regular bills, let alone any extra. I felt like I was at the end of my rope and I felt alone, without the people that I most depended on to talk to. I tried to stay positive and keep it all inside… but that didn’t work either.
One day while I was at work I got a call from a bill collector. It was a bill I was aware of so the call wasn’t a surprise. For some reason though it was like that last card you put on the house of cards that causes the whole thing to come crashing down. It hurtled me head first into a full-blown panic attack with chest pain and hyperventilation and the whole bit. My co-worker took me to the ER because at that time, I had no idea what it was. The doctor told me they were brought about by stress and that sometimes it could even feel like you were having a heart attack. They gave me medication that day in the hospital but sent me home only with the advice to stay stress free. Fat chance.
After that first one I started having them almost every day and to make matters worse, I would have them sometimes at work and college. The bill collectors were calling every day and now it was my own bills that were suffering. I ended up being laid off from my job. My boss told me it was because of financial difficulties the company was having and he wrote me a glowing recommendation… but I could see it in his eyes that I’d become more of a liability than an asset because of my personal problems. He was a nice guy and he liked me so he didn’t want to put it to me that way. The co-worker who had taken me to the ER drove me home that day. I had my things from my desk in a little box in my lap and as I thought about what my life had come to I had another attack. That was when she told me about her aunt and what she had done to make a little extra cash to pay off some bills….
She told me that there was an organization… an underground operation that matched men and women from other countries up with men and women in the U.S. who would be willing to marry them for compensation. That way those people could obtain citizenship and the U.S. citizen could make some money… in my case, much needed money. Four weeks later I was marrying Igor. By that time the bills had piled so high that I was suffocating underneath them. He needed to marry a U.S. citizen to stay in the country and I needed financial relief and support to help me continue my studies. It seemed to me like a win/win situation. I was young, I was naïve, I suppose, I believed that a contract was a contract and the people would follow it because they signed it. Igor had been really nice to me that whole time… professional and businesslike. After the wedding was over and the INS paperwork had been signed, sealed and delivered, I paid off the rest of the bills, packed my things and moved to central New York. I needed a fresh start and I was sure I had gotten one. Igor went on his way as well. I wasn’t supposed to have to look back…
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CHAPTER TWO
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ROBYN