Rebound

by Rosemary Rey

  “When did you take the key? It had to have been early on because a couple of months after we started dating, the Inn was sold to PGC, and I’d lost my job weeks ago.” I stopped to sift through the overload of information. I covered my face with my arms, holding my head, pushing down the tears.

  “Alice fought so hard to stop a sale from happening. Because Alice was terminal, Ross decided he no longer wanted to be tied to the Inn. Your medical degree really came in handy to check her diagnosis and treatment plan. How great that I told you about her illness? Or did you invade her medical records, like you did mine? Lucky for PGC, and Pentagon, you knew she had declined further treatment and was ready to die. How opportune was it that she’d signed over all her worldly possessions to Ross, not wanting to wait for her own death and the end of probate of her estate? Pentagon had a fucking lucky break, didn’t it?”

  “Did you know that Alice left me half of Liberty Inn in her will?” He nodded, ‘yes’. “Of course you did, I didn’t. But then again, I’m just a simple girl from Southie, who doesn’t need to inherit half an Inn when a more deserving corporation would better benefit from tearing it down and building a mega residential facility.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “So what was the plan if she hadn’t signed over her ownership of Liberty to Ross before her death? What if Ross didn’t plan to sell and I would’ve acquired half of Liberty upon the settlement of Probate? Would you have married me, continuing this fucking charade of a relationship, and tried to convince me and Ross to sell Liberty to PGC?” I hissed.

  “I wouldn’t have taken it that far.” He admitted.

  “That’s right. You wouldn’t have taken it that far because I didn’t mean anything. You have standards.” I inhaled a deep breath grounding myself for an answer to the string of questions I had for him.

  “How far would you have taken it, Matt? Help me understand the timeline of when you met me, discovered my connection to Liberty, and closing on the sale of Liberty to PGC, when was I supposed to learn about all of this? What was supposed to happen to us?”

  “I don’t know, Perla. I hadn’t planned on falling in love with you.”

  “You can stop with the pretense, Matt. I know now. I know that this was all a sham. You don’t need to continue with this facade anymore. You’re free. You don’t have to figure out a way to extricate yourself from this . . .” I sighed. “I was just a pawn in this game.” He shook his head.

  “Perla, I still want to be with you. I’ve always wanted to be with you. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have brought you to meet my family. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have wanted to spend time with your family at the wedding. You mean everything to me.”

  “Ha. I’ll never believe anything you say now or ever again. You used me. Your friends used me, twice. What I need to know before I walk away, and I will walk away, is ‘Why was I the target of Pentagon twice?’ I guess the Gods were against me. I must have done some really fucked up things in a past life to get screwed so royally in this life . . . my mother’s illness and death, my brother’s death, the demise of my marriage, I’m in excruciating debt, Alice is dying, and you broke my heart. Was it worth it?” I didn’t wait for an answer.

  “God, I’m so humiliated. The thoughts of all the things we’ve done, and the sexual activities, you must’ve been so revolted, keeping up appearances by being intimate with me.”

  “No. No. No. No. No. No!” He came forward, knelt before me, and raised his hands to hold me at the waist. “I’ve always wanted you, that wasn’t ever in question. Everything we’ve experienced together was real. It was always about us; me and you.”

  “If you think I could ever believe that, after all the lies these past few months, you’re delusional.” I choked.

  “How can I prove that what was between us is real?”

  “There’s nothing you can do or say. We’re over.”

  “No, please. I’ll do anything. I’ll tell you anything you need to know.” He pleaded.

  I shook my head. There were so many questions that I already asked him. He chose to be silent. I didn’t think the answers would make a difference anyway. Our love affair was broken. My love affair was over.

  Without making any promises, I needed to know his truth. Could I ever trust his story?

  “I don’t think anything you say would change anything. The damage is done. I need to move forward.” I proceeded to walk to the door. He grabbed my wrist, and gave me a pleading look.

  “Can you please sit? Please let me explain.” With my wrist in his strong hand, he tugged me to the couch. “I didn’t know about Pentagon’s take-over of Parisi. I mean I knew that we were acquiring construction companies that would be used to build Pentagon’s future project, The Pentagram.” I smirked at the name of the new venture that destroyed my life because I’d felt like my life had been cursed. Pentagram was a fitting name for a project that set out to destroy lives for its creation. I rubbed my temples.

  “The Pentagram? Hermanas Malditas. I’m definitely fucking cursed.” I spat, pulling away from his hands.

  He pulled his hands back and placed them on his jeans, rubbing his thighs. “I didn’t know about you. I had no idea that you were employed by the construction company or that you were married to the President of the company. I learned all of that later.”

  “How much later?”

  “When Pentagon needed Liberty. There was a dossier on you that I read after I met you.”

  “How soon after you met me did you read it?” He sighed and shrugged.

  “I read it that day. You listed your current employers when you registered with my office, and I saw Liberty was one of them. After you left, I talked to Brady and he confirmed the names of Liberty’s employees, and he messengered the dossier to my office. I confirmed through pictures and information that it was you. We decided that we needed to get close to you to acquire inside information to purchase Liberty. I went to the gym. You saw me. I asked Paul for more information about you. I told him I was interested in asking you out. He didn’t tell you that I’d asked about you.”

  “Where did the dossier come from?”

  “Brady had one created for everyone of importance, which was only three people. At first he only targeted Alice and Ross, but when he learned about the will and your ability to inherit part ownership, he had one made on you. It had information about your work history and your marital history, so I let everyone know that I was going to be the one to get the information from you.” He kneeled before me, seeking to make eye contact, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “I wanted to date you because I was attracted to you from that first moment I saw you in my office. You affected me so quickly. I couldn’t fake that. I’m not Brady. I couldn’t bear the thought of any of my friends being with you. I just had to see how far we could go, even though I accepted a ‘job’. The job also meant protecting you.” My stomach rolled over at his calling our relationship a ‘job’.

  “Did you know that Brady used my sister-in-law for personal gain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that how all of you operate? Have a woman fall in love with you to get her to reveal secrets and help in the acquisitions?”

  “That wasn’t how I operated. Zipper, Kent and I were busy with our careers. I got married, so I didn’t use women for gain.”

  “But you didn’t find it morally repulsive or despicable when the others did it because you chose to do the same thing to me.” I retorted.

  “It was business.”

  “Business?” I interjected. “I didn’t think it was business when I made love to you. I didn’t think it was business when I told you I loved you. I didn’t think it was business when I saw myself married to you, thinking about having . . .” I shook my head and took a moment to collect myself.

  “Did Brady have anything to do with Aida suggesting to Ben that I sign a contract of repayment to the company?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know
anything about that debt. I just knew that you were married and that it dissolved soon before we acquired Parisi.”

  “Did the dossier have any information about my debts?”

  “Yes. We’d planned to make you an offer that would eliminate your debts, if we couldn’t get information on Liberty without your knowledge. We didn’t need to make an offer because I got your key to Liberty and it was used to obtain information about the ownership of Liberty and Alice’s will in testament leaving you and Ross fifty percent joint ownership in the Inn.” The tears flowed. My body shook with pain in his admission that he played a huge part in ripping the Inn away from Alice, and from me.

  “You also filled in the gaps when we had conversations about Alice and Ross. We were able to proceed with information that we got early on.” He continued.

  “This all makes so much sense now. You don’t think that my debt is connected to Pentagon?” I spat.

  “You just connected the dot for me. I have debt created by the discrepancies of Parisi’s business, a company Pentagon was working to acquire for building Pentagram. Pentagon wanted Liberty as a site for Pentagram. I worked for both companies in the crosshairs of Pentagon.”

  “You didn’t work for Parisi and Liberty at the same time. The connection is coincidental, Perla.” He reasoned.

  “Pentagon was willing to offer me money for debts created by Pentagon’s initial sin—getting my sister-in-law to trump debts that would leave me beholden until some knight in shining armor came along to offer me money to get me out of this overwhelming obligation. But your dick was so good that I left myself open to give you exactly what you needed, a key to Liberty and information that would make it all too easy to take it over. And I’m still left with the fucking debt I never created.” My hand went to my face, restraining the tears from falling. So much was revealing itself so fast. I felt dizzy with the information overload.

  “When did you take the key?” I needed to know now that all was falling into place.

  “The second night you slept here, after your shift at Liberty. When we made love . . .” I felt an ache in my chest and a wave a nausea coursed through my core.

  “We fucked. It wasn’t love.” I slapped my hand to my forehead. I wanted to flog myself for my stupidity.

  He closed his eyes and swallowed before he continued, “I took your key and gave it to an associate of Pentagon, who followed up with duplicating the key. He returned it in the morning when I met him on my run. I put the key back in your purse and went into the room to make love to you because that’s what I felt for you.”

  “Give me a fucking break, Matt. You didn’t love me two days after fucking.”

  He cast his head down and covered his face with his hands. “Perla, please don’t dismiss my feelings. I know you’re angry because we used you for Pentagon’s benefit, but what I wanted from you was more. I still want you. You’re a big part of my life, and my future.”

  I rolled my eyes. I thought through his previous statement: Pentagon couldn’t have known I would work at Liberty after ending my work with Parisi. It was coincidental. I reconciled with the fact that I may never know how it all connected.

  “You said that you’d been trying to buy Parisi at the same time you were working on the Pentagram project, how long had you been planning on purchasing Liberty?”

  “Pentagon . . .” he corrected, “Pentagon wanted both companies simultaneously. We’d been working on Pentagram for years, at least five years in conception and three since we started the development plans. We made offers to the properties on the acreage and we had a few refusals, but eventually Pentagon bought all but Liberty. It took that long. We acquired Parisi over a year ago . . .”

  “And Aida died about eight months ago. When did Brady start dating Brigit?”

  “Perla, I don’t want to talk about their personal lives.” He groaned.

  “Oh, that’s rich, literally. You all knew about my fucking personal life before I learned anything about you, yet you can’t tell me anything about theirs. Always protecting the boys. ‘Bros before hoes’, isn’t that the saying, Matt.” He shook his head.

  “I signed my contract and separation agreement with Ben a year ago. I’m trying to figure out the situation with Aida. It doesn’t make sense.” A pounding began in the back of my head, and I tried to suppress a yawn. I was tired from a full work day and these turn of events knocked me for a loop.

  “I have to go home. I’m tired.” I rose to walk to the door. I reached for my keys in my purse and found the key to Matt’s apartment. I started removing the key from the key ring.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m returning your key.”

  “No, Perla . . .”

  “As of today, I have absolutely no use for this key, Matt. I don’t intend to use it to walk in and out of that door.” I put it on the table next to the front door.

  “Wait, please. We have to work through this.”

  “I worked through this already.” I turned around. “You and your friends used me. How do we get passed that? How do I work through the fact that your company’s quest to continue making millions . . . oh sorry, billions, ruined my life. You were part of that plot. I want absolutely nothing to do with you or Pentagon. You didn’t just fuck me, you screwed with my life and people I loved, and you’re so egotistical that you thought I would stay with you after that revelation. Fuck you!”

  “How did you find out about Pentagon, Perla?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “You didn’t know about the company or my connection before today. All of a sudden you come home and spout off history and accusations.” He started getting angry. I could tell by the furrowed brows and gruff voice.

  “Spout off accusations? You mean the truth, right? You don’t need to know who told me or how I found out. The fact is I know now. I hope the money you make from Pentagram was worth the pain caused to not just me, but the Parisi family. And I beg a merciful God that Alice never finds out, and if she does I pray she will forgive me for destroying her beloved family business. She’d rather have left it to me because she trusted me, but was probably harassed in her vulnerable state to let it go. Her defeat and loss of Liberty will probably kill her faster than the cancer.” I walked to the front door. He rushed at me and pulled me to him. He turned me to face him. One arm around my body and the other snaked up to my face. His large hands held me at the back of the head. He gripped my hair, ensuring that I face him.

  “Perla, I know I fucked up. I wish we hadn’t met under those circumstances. What we have is real. I want to make this up to you.” Desperation choked his words.

  “The circumstances in which we met were real, Matt. I was injured and I went to your office for help. You chose to use those circumstances to follow through on your mob’s plan for your financial gain. You always had a choice, and you chose wrong. And in my heart, there’s no coming back from that.”

  He kissed me. The ferocity in his kiss caused my heart to skip a beat, and then pound profusely. I felt betrayed by my body’s need for him to soothe me. My clit swelled at the pressure of his body on mine and his touch on my skin. My nipples pearled with his chest pressed against me. I had to get away. I moved my face to reject his kiss. He kissed the spot below my ear. His hands squeezed my hips.

  “Please, babe. Believe me, it was all real. I love you. I want you. I need you. Don’t you feel me?” His erection pressed on my mound. His hands slid down to my buttocks and lifted me up. I stood on my tip toes. My clit was stroked through my dress. His erection made harder by his jeans. I gasped from the stimulation. With all my might, I pushed him away and he dropped me to stand on my feet. I opened the front door and exited.

  In the hallway, a man stood at the elevator call button. As I approached the elevator, it chimed its arrival. Matt called out to me. I turned to see him plea with his open arms. I walked into the elevator after the person and lowered my head to the floor, dismissing Matt’s plea.

  At the grou
nd floor, I rushed out of the confines of the elevator. I refused to shed tears in public. These tears would wait until I closed the door to my studio apartment. Upon approaching the glass doors, I was stopped by the concierge.

  “Ms. Mercurio, Dr. Keene asked that you not leave, he’s on his way down to take you home.” He was on the phone line with Matt.

  “Raul, tell him I’m on my way home by cab. Thank you.” I gave him a weak smile.

  I walked out the doors and asked a valet to call a cab. He whistled for one, which promptly stopped in front of us. The valet opened the door and let me in. I thanked him and offered him a couple of dollars. As he closed the door, I heard Matt yell out my name. I asked the cabbie to drive away. Urgently, he roared out of the driveway.

  I watched as Matt ran toward the cab with his hands in the air. I was not going home. I needed a shoulder to cry on without judgment and without trying to “fix” my pain. I didn’t want someone who would try to solve my dilemma. I knew just the person who would take me in without question. I prayed that the tears would hold out until I arrived at my destination.

  Stay Tuned . . .

  for the next book in the series, published in Fall of 2014

  Unbound, The Pentagon Group, Book 2 by Rosemary Rey

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