by Helena Vera
The message had since been deleted but there are half a dozen messages from Jack and fear grips me the more I read.
“You’ve got a beautiful wife. Nice body.”
“How’d you feel to lose the most important thing in your life?”
“How about a fair trade? An eye for an eye. You took away my business, I’ll take your wife from you.”
“If you ever try to threaten me again, I’ll blow your brains out, Axel.”
“Just passed your wife at her new office. She’s alone. Now would be the right time…”
“Relax, I’ll watch you squirm some more before I take her from you.”
I click the button to lock the phone and replace it to the bedside table, trembling. I need answers tonight and I wouldn’t stop until I get some. This guy I don’t know from Adam is threatening my life and I deserve to know at least why.
Now it makes sense Axel drops me to work every day and picks me up. He’s trying to protect me but this isn’t the right way to go about it, by hiding the truth from me.
I listen to the sounds in the bathroom, hearing the tap being turned off. I hear him brush his teeth and gargle before he walks into the bedroom. He’s completely naked and makes no attempt to cover up.
He wants sex, I can sense it and I don’t have the heart to resist him. he slips beneath the covers and without speaking pulls me closer to his body. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him, returning his fervor. We are both panting and hot for each other. I need no foreplay to prepare me for his entrance. He lifts my negligee over my head and kisses my neck, down the gentle curve where out baby was starting to make his presence known.
When our bodies join, the sex is just like the other couple of nights. He kisses me desperately as he thrusts into my body over and over, working my thighs apart with his hands. He sucks my nipples which makes me erupt into his arms.
“I love you Axel!” I cry clinging to him as he continues to slake his lust until he too is driven over the edge. With a groan, he flops over to his back and pulls me into his arms. I go willingly and lie on my side with a leg thrown between his, my fingers drawing patterns on his chest.
“Axel,” I say softly, hoping tonight I’ll finally have the truth. “Will you tell me about Jack? Please.”
My head is on his shoulder so I know his heart skips a beat. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“I read the messages in your phone,” I confess. “And they don’t seem like nothing. Plus you lied to me about what you were doing in the office earlier.”
“You went through my phone?” he asks in shock. “What happened to the privacy you begged for when I answered your phone some month ago.”
“I had to. You were hiding it from me and I could tell it’s bothering you. Axel.” I hesitate to add but plunge right ahead. “Even our sex is different.”
He stiffens. “What? Bad?”
“No, not bad. It’s just a little more aggressive.”
He stares at me in alarm. “Did I hurt you? The baby?”
I shake my head. “No, we’re fine. I’m just saying all this is affecting us in every way and you deserve to tell me who Jack is and why he wants to hurt me.”
“It’s not really you he wants to hurt,” he answers and rubs a hand over his face in fatigue. “He wants to hurt me but he knows the one sure way to do that is to get to you. But he doesn’t know I’d die before I let anything happen to you, Joyce. And the baby. If he so much as touches a hair on your head, I’ll fuck him up good and he’d have no idea what hit him. Nobody messes with you and I don’t give a damn if he was my best friend.”
The anger in Axel’s voice send shivers down my spine and I know he means every word of it. “Your best friend?” I parrot.
“Yes,” he sighs. “Jack and I were best friend from high school. He was always ambitious and we went off to college together. When we were finished, with my inheritance and his we started a new business venture. I should have questioned where he got his capital since he doesn’t have wealthy parents like I do. Anyway we started the company and I started hearing rumors about Jack and him wielding threats and intimidating clients. He wasn’t above using every dirty trick known to man. Sometimes those tricks were illegal.”
“What did you do?” I ask, prompting him.
“The business was doing great but I didn’t want to have ties with him after he refused to listen to me,” he continued sadly. “So I offered him the opportunity to buy out my share of the company at half what it was valued. At the time, I wasn’t into the money, I just wanted to get out. It turns out, a lot of investors and clients only wanted to do business if I was also a part of the company. So the business failed. Miserably.”
“And he blames you,” I conclude for him.
“Yes, he thinks I took away the business from him,” he adds. “Especially since recently I acquired a business deal he had been hankering for and without it, he has no hope to regain confidence in the last of his clients. He’s had to file for bankruptcy.”
I digest the information he is parting. Axel had said he was unscrupulous in business but so were many businessmen. Would he be harmful though?
“Do you believe his threats?” I ask. “Or do you think he’s bluffing.”
Axel’s arms tighten around me. For a few minutes, he doesn’t say anything. His hand reaches down to caress the beginning of the gentle swell of my belly. Turning his head to regard me, his lips cover mine in a soft, sweet kiss, possessive kiss.
“He’d have to go through me first before he can hurt you,” he whispers against my lips.
32
CHAPTER
“Suzanne, may I borrow your car please?” I ask my assistant who is looking up at me confused.
“Umm, sure,” she replies and then adds half-jokingly. “Once you’re not about to use it to commit murder.”
Usually a fan of her wit, I can’t summon a laugh today. I’ve to meet Jess in the next twenty minutes and I have to get there before the bodyguard realizes I’ve tricked him in sending him to get me lunch. I don’t want him following me around and reporting my every move to Axel.
“Thanks.” I take the key from her and hurry from the office, walking across the street to the parking lot. I locate her blue Subaru and get inside, quickly backing out the lot and heading to Hudson’s Café to meet Jess.
I strum my finger on the steering wheel as I drive the ten minutes to the restaurant. When I enter the diner style restaurant, Jessica is seated at the horse-shoe shaped bar. She’s out of business attire because she is on summer holidays and is wearing a pair of tight high-waisted jeans and a cropped top. She looks amazing and when she turns to me, her eyes are sparkling. She has the same look on her face I do when I think about Axel.
“Well you’re glowing,” I say and slide onto the bar stool beside her.
She reached over to give me a hug. “Bah. You’re the one with the pregnancy glow. You’re absolutely radiant. You look amazing pregnant.”
I grimace. “I’m still at the good stage. Wait until I can’t see my feet for days and then we’ll get back to that.”
We break our conversation to take a look at the menu and order lunch. Although breakfast still remains a challenge for me and I often have to eat crackers and dry toast, by lunch my stomach is generally settled for me to have a large meal to make up for breakfast. I ordered chips and salsa, cheesy fries, a turkey bacon swiss sandwich and a glass of lemonade.
“What was it you wanted to tell me?” Jess asks as we munch on lunch.
“There’s someone who is stalking me,” I begin then go on to explain to her about ‘running’ into Jack the times I have and the threatening messages he sent to Axel. “I’m not sure if I should believe I’m in any real danger or if he’s just saying those things out of anger,” I end.
“Never take those things lightly even if he’s bluffing,” she advises me. “It always pays to be safe than sorry.”
“But if that’s true,” I argue. “He’s had so many
opportunities to harm me and he never did.”
“Sounds like a psychopath if you ask me. What you need is to get yourself a gun.”
“But I don’t even know how to use one!”
“Then I’ll teach you but you need to protect yourself honey. It’s our Second Amendment right.”
“I don’t know Jess.”
“Guess what. We’ll go to the firing range and practice then when you feel comfortable, we can think about getting you a gun. How about that?”
“Hmm. Okay. Maybe. Let me think about it.”
The ringing of my cellphone interrupts our conversation and I know who it is before I even retrieve the phone from my bag.
“Hey Axel.”
I hold the phone away as a string of curses leave his lips. Jess cringes, able to hear him even though he isn’t on speaker.
“Why is he mad?” she whispers.
“I ditched the bodyguard,” I whisper back before bringing the phone back to my ear. “I’m at lunch with Jess, Axel.”
“Why the fuck did you go without the bodyguard?” he demands. “Dammit woman, do you know what I thought when Vinnie called that you weren’t at the office?”
“I just needed sometime alone with Jess without your man at my back,” I explain.
“Ever stop to think that he’s there for a reason.”
As if to remind me of that, I find myself staring into the steely gray eyes of Jake and his mocking smile. He’s sitting at the bar a few seats down and tips his drink in my direction.
“Oh God, he’s here,” I breathe into the phone before realizing I shouldn’t have said to Axel.
“What? Jack’s there?”
“Yes.”
“Dammit Joyce, where are you?”
“I think he’s leaving,” I respond, watching as Jake gets up, leaving a tip at the bar and sauntering out the restaurant like all is right with the world.
“Is he gone?” Axel asks.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Where the hell are you?” he demands. “This is exactly why I don’t want you going off on your own.”
“Hudson’s café,” I answer, feeling appropriately chided.
“I’m going to have the bodyguard come pick you up.”
“I’m with Jess, Axel. I can make my way back to the office.”
“It’s either that or I come pick you up and I’ll tell you Jess that right now I’m so angry with you, you’d do well to choose the bodyguard.”
“Okay,” I acquiesce. “But I drove my assistant’s car so he’ll have to drive behind me.”
“When I get home tonight, Joyce. You and I are going to have a serious talk.”
Uh oh. Another lecture I bet. He hangs up after telling me to call him immediately should Jack return.
“Why the hell would you object to a bodyguard following you with that nutcase around?” Jess asks once I’m off the phone.
“It’s uncomfortable,” I argue.
“Better uncomfortable than dead!”
I pale at Jess’ words, shaken. So she thinks Jack has the potential to harm me too.
“I’m so sorry,” she immediately apologizes. “I didn’t mean to say that. It’s just that Axel’s working so hard to protect you. You can be a little more accommodating.”
She stays with me until a scowling Vinnie walks into the restaurant. Feeling childish for what I’d done to him, I apologize knowing Axel probably chewed his head off about letting me out of his sight. I go without a word, asking Jess to call me when she gets home. It suddenly strikes me that Jack would have seen me with her and may target her as well.
The rest of the day went uneventful. At exactly five Vinnie comes knocking at my door and when I asked for half an hour more, he insists the ‘boss’ said we should leave at exactly five. Without an argument, I pack up and leave with him.
At home, I continue working on a project for work and that’s how Axel finds me, my feet tucked under my body on a couch in the living room, my computer in my lap. I bite my lip nervously, prepared for him to bellow at me but he simply shakes his head and walks out.
Axel has never walked out on an argument between us before so naturally I am alarmed. Instead of following him up the stairs, I go to the dining room and set our places at the table for us to have the dinner the Mrs. Johnson had prepared for us before leaving.
Just as usual as every other day, he returns several minutes later, changed out of his jacket suit. He’s wearing sweats and a T-shirt. He still doesn’t say a word to me as I share us a plate of the double bean and roasted pepper chili over rice and cornbread. We eat in silence until I get tired of it and try to make conversation.
“How was work?”
“Fine.”
“And the Rosario contract?”
“Okay.”
“How is everything coming with the new hotel?”
“Great.”
His one word response causes tears to spring up in my eyes. A lump forming in the back of my throat, I try to continue the dinner in silence but it’s more than I can bear. I push my chair back and get up to take my plate to the kitchen. He makes no move to acknowledge me leaving him.
In the kitchen, the tears trickle down my cheeks. Okay, may I had been thoughtless in leaving the office today with the bodyguard. He doesn’t have to shut me out like this. I’d have preferred him ranting and railing at me but this quietly seething Axel isn’t someone I know how to read.
I’m handwashing the utensils I’d used for dinner when he walks into the kitchen. He stops beside me and leans against the counter, observing me but I can’t look at him. I don’t want him to see the tears shining in my eyes.
“Joyce,” he starts but stops.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. It won’t happen again.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe that,” he says on a sigh. “You’re the most stubborn, hard-headed female I’ve ever met and that scares the crap out of me. Why won’t you let me take care of you?”
“I’m used to taking care of myself,” I answer softly.
“And that’s fine just work with me on that, not against me.”
“I just needed some time away from all the craziness going on. Sometimes I wish…”
“Sometimes you wish what Joyce?”
“Sometimes I wish I had my old life back,” I reply.
“You mean you wish you’d never met me.”
“No!” I protest and spin away from the sink to face him. “I’d never think that. Axel, I love you. Without you, there wouldn’t be an us. Nor this baby. I’m grateful to have you in my life. It’s just that all this is so complicated. I didn’t have all these problems when I was poor.”
“Well, soon we’ll not have to worry about Jack Petersen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jack called me up yesterday. He wants us to talk. To make peace between us.”
33
CHAPTER
I toss and turn all night and it’s more than the heartburn that has become a characteristic of my pregnancy. The thought of Axel meeting up with Jack doesn’t sit right with me. Axel is hopeful about it, longing for his old friend to return to himself when they’d just met but I’m not sure if Jack can change after all Axel had told me about him.
All sorts of crazy thoughts are going through my mind in the middle of the night. What if Jack is just trying to draw Axel out so he could harm him? I start to sweat and have to ease from beneath Axel’s arm to go to the bathroom and take a shower. The cool water feels good on my body but prompts me more into wakefulness. After about half an hour trying to get myself into a better frame of mind to sleep, I return to the bedroom.
Taking Axel’s phone from the bedside table, I return to the bathroom and sit on the closed toilet as I unlock his phone and go through his messages. This is the last thing I’d ever expected myself to be doing but when I believe he is in danger I have no apology for it.
The fact he hasn’t changed the securit
y pattern although he knows I’m aware of what it is, makes me feel happy. I trust him not to be with any other woman. He loves me and I don’t believe he would ever cheat on me. Not after all he’d gone through to get me in the first place.
There’s only one message from Jack that asks Axel to call him but I find a call placed by Axel to him that went on for almost an hour. If only I could replay that conversation.
Seeing all the missed calls from Jack, I’ve an idea and check Axel’s voicemail. Since his setting is for new messages to be played first, I listen to the voicemails from Jack asking them to meet up for old time’s sake and discuss. Those seem normal but instinct prompt me to listen to all the messages and they are a lot. My blood runs cold to hear some of the threatening messages.
“You must be feeling smug, don’t you Axel? You’ve got my life. Everything I’ve ever wanted. The business, money, a hot wife. And what am I left with? Nothing. Nobody wants to do business with me anymore and it’s your fault. You killed my business and I’m going to take away something precious from you. Now just for me to decide, your life or the life of your new bride? What do you think?”
Another similar voice message makes me even more alarmed.
“Just saw you with your wife. So easy to empty a few rounds in you and watch her scream from your brain splattered all over her.”
The violent threat has me throwing up into the toilet. I’m so loud it’s a wonder I don’t wake up Axel. When I am left feeling limp, without an ounce of energy left, I wash out my mouth and return to the bedroom. I replace his phone and slip into bed beside him. He immediately rolls over to face me, and reaches out for me, pulling me up against his body.
I press my eyes closed tightly and swallow the sob that is in my throat. I’ll not lose him. Whatever happens, I would not lose Axel to that monster. My grip tighten on him as I fall asleep.
The next morning, when I wake up, Axel is already ready for work. I’m up late because I had so much trouble falling asleep last night. I sit up in bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. He hears my rustling and turns around from the mirror as he fixes his tie.