“This is what’s in it for you,” she said as he began to lick and then to suck and then, as she knew he would, to eat vociferously, as if he’d never had a meal like Alex in his life.
***
Their first night together in the condo and they didn’t make love. They lay, naked in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. Matty was fatigued from too much work and Shay was exhausted from too much emotion, and all they wanted right here and right now was to be together. After a long time of quietness, where nothing could be heard but the low hum of the central air conditioning, Shay, who was turned into Matty and had her head on his chest, looked up at him.
“Matty?” she said. Although his eyes were closed, she knew he had not yet fallen asleep.
“Yes, babe?” he replied, his eyes so tired that he kept them closed.
“You work too hard.”
He smiled weakly. “Lately, I do. I’ll slow down soon. This economy is bad for many failing businesses across this country, but it’s been fantastic for DSI.”
“Because you buy up all of those failed businesses?”
“Precisely that,” he admitted. “A business fails, we buy it rock bottom cheap, or partner with the owners, restructure it and eventually sales it at an inordinate profit.
Everybody wins in the end.”
“And what about us?” she asked.
He opened his eyes. “We win too, Shay, is my prayer.”
“But it’s not clear, is it? I mean, not like your business model. With us, it’s not so cut and dry.”
“I would have thought that it was.”
“Come on, Matty, how can you? We never even discuss our relationship. I mean, I have no idea where I stand.”
“You’re my heart, Shay, where do you think you stand?”
Shay liked the sound of that, but it still sounded evasive to her. He didn’t say, you’re my lady, my one and only girlfriend and we’ll keep progressing from there, or I hope one day for you to be my wife. It was no kind of commitment like that. He just reaffirmed what she already knew: that he cared about her. But what about that higher standard? What about love?
She snuggled closer against him as his arms wrapped around her tighter, and they again fell into that companionable quietness. This condo was her home for now, this beautiful, lakeside home. But she somehow felt uneasy, as if this wasn’t really hers at all. Forget the fact that Matty never said I bought this for you. But, as Jordy had said, it was more like he bought if for her use. Which meant his use, too. Which meant, she knew, that any time he wanted some, all he had to do was come on over and get it.
She didn’t like that particular fact. Didn’t like it at all. She didn’t know if she wanted to be that available, that accessible to any man. But by making this move into this condo of Matty’s, into the home of a man who had yet to confess any love for her, she knew she was doing exactly that.
But before she put the last of her clothes in her suitcase, before she even left Devender Hall with Matty, she had already convinced herself that this move would be a temporary one.
That she was merely appeasing Matty’s worries because he had been so good to her. That once she graduated, once she landed her own job and was making her own money, she would still have enough of her independence intact to tell Matty thanks, but no thanks, she was now able to handle her own business. She knew Jessica would say she was being an in the meantime whore, or some such person, but she wasn’t trying to let the likes of Jessica Malveau bother her now. Because she cared about Matty, too, maybe even loved him deeply if love was what she thought it was, and she didn’t think she was robbing her own values or self worth, to simply be in tune with his concerns for her.
Besides, she kept telling herself, this was only temporary. And she’ll be singing her own tune soon and very soon, she found herself musing, as her eyes closed the way Matty’s already had, and she, too, slid into that kind of restful, peaceful sleep that was too often equated with the calm before the storm.
NINE
Matty, along with a handful of his senior staff, sat at the large conference table within his suite of offices at DSI and attempted to make sense of a barrage of new acquisition possibilities. As each senior manager spoke, giving their pros, he gave the cons. Whenever his cons outweighed their pros, he passed on the acquisition. Whenever their pros outweighed his cons, he agreed to table the offer and investigate further. When the intercom buzzed, he was livid.
“Didn’t I tell you I was not to be disturbed, Irene?” he barked at his secretary, surprised that she would disobey his very direct order.
“I know, sir, and I apologize. But it’s Dr. Graham on line four and she says it’s an emergency, sir. Otherwise, I would not have interrupted.” Matty hesitated. Alex was a drama queen when she wanted to be, the dramatic way she announced her news about her pregnancy proved that, but she never would disturb him at work unless it was vital. “I’ll take it,” he said and pressed line four. He glanced at his managers. They all knew he had had a long-term relationship with Alex Graham and they all were careful to feign disinterest, all looking at the papers in front of them, the walls, each other, everything and anything, but Matty.
“I’m super busy, Alex, can it wait?” He said this as soon as he picked up the phone.
“Hi, Matty.”
Her voice sounded hoarse, strained. “What is it?”
“Could you come to Dr. Stewart’s office?”
Doctor who, he wanted to say. Then he remembered. Clive Stewart, a medical doctor of some sort and one of those supporters of Franklin’s he always saw at various fundraisers and other elite functions. “Why would I need to come to his office?” He heard what sounded like sobbing come from Alex, what then sounded like a phone dropping, and then another voice on the phone: a male’s voice.
“Hello, Mr. Driscoll?”
“This is?”
“Clive Stewart.”
“Oh, Dr. Stewart. Is Alex all right?”
There was a slight pause. “No, sir. I’m afraid not. I was wondering if you could come over. She’s in a bit of a state.”
“May I ask what this is about?”
Alex’s voice could be heard sobbing greatly in the background, with no, no, no, this can’t be true , singing out from her hysterics. Matty thought it could be related to her pregnancy, but her plaintiff wails sounded too personal, too deep down, to be only about that.
Unless the complications were about deformities, or even life-threatening.
“Please come, Mr. Driscoll,” Clive said more urgently. “I’ll explain when you get here.” Then he gave Matty the address, and hung up.
Matty held the phone in his hand for some time longer, his heartbeat beginning to quicken, and then he hung up too. After he dismissed the room, agreeing to meet again with his staff later that afternoon, he sat alone at the big table, and prayed.
***
Alex was seated on a sofa in Clive Stewart’s office when Matty was ushered in from the reception area of the busy medical practice. She wore her standard designer skirt suit and had her long, shapely legs crossed. She didn’t look sick, she didn’t even look pregnant. All she looked, to Matty, was radiant.
Clive stood from behind his desk and extended his hand. He looked worried. “Mr.
Driscoll, good of you to come,” he said as they shook.
Matty immediately looked at Alex. “Hello, Al,” he said to her. It was only when she looked up at him could he tell that something was wrong.
“Have a seat, please,” Clive insisted, and Matty walked over to Alex and sat beside her on the sofa.
“You okay?” he asked when he sat down.
Alex looked at him and did all she could to summons tears. They came, they didn’t fail her now as she knew they wouldn’t.
“What is it?”
“I’ll get to the point, Mr. Driscoll. Your wife, I mean Alex here, has been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.”
“ALS?” Matty asked, astounded.
&n
bsp; “Also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, yes, sir.”
Matty’s heart dropped. He looked from Clive to Alex and back at Clive. “But that’s . .
. I mean, it’s awfully degenerative, isn’t it?”
“There’s very few diseases more degenerative, I’m afraid.”
“But. . .” He looked at Alex. “When were you diagnosed? Did you just find out?”
“We’d been running tests for a long time now,” Clive chimed in. “And by we, I mean specialists at Johns Hopkins. We were hoping against hope, of course. But to no avail. It’s definite now. She has it and there’s no cure.”
Tears streamed down Alex’s face as if on cue, and Matty quickly pulled her into his arms. He was no expert on ALS, but he knew enough about it to know that it was a horrible disease, that Alex would get progressively worse and worse, that her days of caring for herself are probably soon to be over. He looked at Clive.
“How long? I mean. . .”
“She’s experiencing the generalized muscle weakness now. Soon, there’ll be muscle wasting with cramps, and then muscle twitching. Eventually, full blown paralysis where she’ll need around the clock care. After the paralysis, there’s usually a three-to-five year survival rate.”
Matty pulled Alex closer, tears staining his own eyes. “And what about her pregnancy?” he asked the good doctor.
Clive didn’t miss a beat. Alex had already taken care of that after Matty had shunned her. Now this would be her perfect excuse. “Had to be terminated immediately,” he said, his knowledge of ALS almost as general as Matty’s, but he soldiered on. “At least that was what the experts had recommended. She couldn’t afford to put that kind of stress on her already stressed muscles.”
Matty understood. He understood that this was so far beyond his wildest imagination of a tragedy, that he could do nothing more than hold onto Alex. The woman he’d known and loved for over a decade. Poor Alex. His dear Alex.
***
Shay sat on the gurney in the campus clinic and tried to exhale. She barely succeeded.
She looked at the nurse again.
“This has got to be some mistake,” she said. She had been feeling weak and dizzy, but nothing she gave much thought to. Besides, she had come to get her resupply of birth control pills, and nothing more. This was supposed to be a family planning visit, nothing more.
“Pregnant?” she said for what the nurse had recorded was the fourth time.
“Yes, Shanita, according to the test, you’re pregnant.”
“But . . .” But what, she had to ask herself. Yes, she was taking birth control, but even she had to admit she missed some days. Especially when Matty was out of town for those extended periods.
“Is the situation that dire for you?” the nurse asked her. She was a tall, chubby lady with fat cheeks and long, straggly blonde hair.
“No, not dire exactly,” Shay thought. It wasn’t exactly dire. Because she knew what Matty would do. He would want to marry her immediately, he was that kind of man. But what was worrying her, what she couldn’t conceal, was her anxiety about it all and if she was ready for marriage, for a baby, at this young age. She loved Matty, but she didn’t think she was ready for all of this.
She hopped off of the gurney, grabbed her book bag, and left. Matty would be coming over tonight, as had been the case every night since she moved into the condo, and they’d talk about it then. And at the end of that conversation they would either both be thrilled, or miserable with the news. At this rate, Shay thought, as she hurried for her last class of the day, she had no idea how even she was going to ultimately view this unexpected, shocking, life-altering bit of news.
***
Matty took Alex to her home and ended up staying the night. He couldn’t leave her, not after her worse fears had just been confirmed. She was, in essence, dying, and it was sure to be a slow, painful, agonizing death.
The silence in her home made it all feel even more wrenching. She cried most of the evening and when he put her to bed, she continued to sob. So he got in bed with her, pulled her to him, and just held her as tightly, as sweetly as he could. Alex had a lot of bravado, but her bark was far worse than her bite. She had no-one in this world. No family, no real friends, just male admirers who used her and abused her for that gorgeous, now deftly ill body of hers. Matty really was all she had, and they both knew it. That was why he held her. That was why he refused to entertain any other thought, except caring for Alex. This was no longer about him, no longer about what he wanted, what he needed. Until her dying day, he had already decided, it would be all about her. What Alex wanted. What Alex needed. Alex.
His cell phone rang again. But he didn’t even bother to look at the caller ID. He just held onto Alex, as she began to cry anew, as the horrors of what she was to face began to overtake her, he believed, and shook her to her core.
“It’s all right,” he kept telling her, over and over, as she cried. He wanted to tell her that it was going to be all right, that everything would be all right, but even he couldn’t be that unrealistic.
***
Shay kept the phone to her ear until the ringing stopped and Matty’s voice mail picked up.
“This is Driscoll. Please leave a message.” She didn’t. She’d already left two others. She hung up the phone.
Where was he, she wondered, and why wouldn’t he phone? He’d stood her up before, promising to come and get her but something would come up that delayed him. But this was the first time, since she moved into the condo, that he didn’t phone to tell her he was delayed.
It was already going on eleven. When midnight rolled around, and she was still waiting up for him, she knew this was bordering on ridiculous.
She refrigerated dinner, turned off all the lights, and went to bed. If he came, he came.
If he didn’t, he didn’t. But she wasn’t losing any more sleep wondering about it, either.
The next morning, Shay stepped out of the shower in her master bathroom already feeling fatigued. The nurse told her to expect it, but it still felt unnerving. When she dried herself off and re-entered the bedroom, ready to dress for class, she was surprised to see Matty, fully clothed in his suit and tie, lying, on his back, across the bed.
“Matty!” she said, surprised and thrilled to see him. She dropped the towel, ran and jumped on top of him. He put his arms around her.
“Oh, Matty, I miss you!” she said, remembering that lonely night she had just endured.
“Where were you?”
The anguish in Matty’s eyes scared her. He held her, but there was no passion there.
“Put on some clothes,” he said, hitting her lightly on her bare butt. “I’ve got to talk to you.” She got up as he began to rise, and watched as he walked out of her bedroom. What in the world, she wondered, had happened? Did he find out about her pregnancy, and was going to deny that the baby was his? Had she been that wrong about him? She dressed quickly, anxious to hear this conversation.
Matty was seated on the living room sofa by the time she had dressed, with book bag in tow, and made her way up front. Alex was taking the day off today, and he had promised to do the same, but he knew he had to do this first, something he had been dreading doing all night. And when Shay walked in, looking so young and vulnerable, his heart dropped. How in the world was he going to live without her?
Shay saw that anguish still in his face when she walked in, and that look, that tortured, agonizing look, caused her to grow faint, too.
“What is it, Matty?” she asked him, knowing that it was far more urgent than she had at first determined. Her biggest fear was that he would be upset with her for slipping up on her birth control, but this was something different. Something very different.
Matty just sat there. Now Shay was really worried. She walked over and sat next to him. “What is it?”
Matty looked at her. His heart pounded. “Oh, God,” he said, the anguish now in his voice.
“Matty, you’re scaring me. What�
�s wrong?”
Matty shook his head. “We can’t. . . I can’t . . . Something’s happened, sweetheart, that makes you and me not possible.”
Shay didn’t quite understand what he meant. “What’s happened?” she decided to ask him.
He didn’t know how to put it. “You know Alex Graham?”
“Dr. Graham, of course I do.”
Matty exhaled. He knew he had to get on with it. “She and I . . .she was my long-term relationship, Shay.”
Shay didn’t like where this was going. “She was the person you broke up with just before we met?”
“That’s right.”
“And now what? You’ve gone back to her?”
Matty ran his hand repeatedly across his forehead. “It’s not that simple.” He looked at Shay. “She’s sick. She just received some very bad news and she deafly ill, Shay.”
“Ill?” she asked. “She looked fine when I saw her that night at the clinic.”
“She’s been diagnosed with ALS, Shay. With Lou Gehrig’s disease.” Shay’s heart dropped. “Oh my God. Are you sure, I mean, could there be some mistake?”
Matty shook his head. “No, I met with her physician yesterday. She’s been seen by the best, by specialists at Johns Hopkins. There’s no mistake.”
“But that’s a terrible disease, Matty. That means she’ll need around-the-clock care.” Matty nodded. “I know.”
It was only then that it hit Shay. And she understood. She stood to her feet and walked away from him to the other side of the room. She now understood. “You’re going to give it to her,” she finally said. “Aren’t you? You’re going to care for her yourself, aren’t you, Matty? That’s why you said we can’t be together, isn’t it?”
“It’s not . . .” Then he nodded his head. “Yes,” he said.
“But we still can be together, can’t we? You can hire somebody---” He shook his head, looking Shay dead in the eyes. “No, Shay. I can’t. She and I discussed this. What she wants is for us to get married. What she wants is to not die alone, Shay.”
Romancing Her Protector Page 10