From Despair Grows Order: The Broken Billionaire Series Book 3

by Nancy Adams

  In the midst of this inferno of misery, I heard his key in the door and my blazing eyes struck sharply upon it as it opened. When he stepped inside the apartment, Josh appeared surprised to see the bedside lamp on. He then seemed even more surprised to see the tears and fire shining in my eyes. In that moment his face went the whitest shade of pale. He was about to say something, but before he could, I’d burst from the bed, was upon him and slapping his head with all my vicious fury.

  “How could you,” I repeated as I struck him over and over, his own hands covering his face and blocking what he could. “How could you do that to me….I love you so much and you break me like that…What is it with you, huh?…You’ll never change, you’ll always be a bastard…a rotten bastard…terrible…terrible…”

  But by then all my energy had flown out of me. In exhaustion, I crumbled to my knees at his feet, throwing my head into my hands and screaming into them. His hand touched my shoulder and I instantly recoiled from it, my skin drawing away from his very fingers.

  “Don’t touch me,” I wailed into my palms. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

  Realizing that I was deadly serious, he went over to the table and sat down at it.

  “I was going to tell you,” he said in a weak, trembling voice. “Right this minute. But I see she got to you first.”

  “Please, don't speak,” I repeated in a distraught voice from within my hands. “Just don’t speak. I can't hear your voice right now.”

  “But I need to talk.”

  His voice, containing so much pleading, enraged me then and I looked up sharply, flashing my emotionally bruised eyes at him.

  “You don't get to talk,” I snapped at him. “I’m now going to go into the bathroom, clean myself up. Then I’m going to pack my things, get dressed, leave and never come back. And I would appreciate it if—”

  “Sarah, please.”

  “SHUT UP!” I screamed at his face. “I’ve seen and heard enough already tonight. I just want you to sit there and say nothing while I leave. Can you do this last thing for me?”

  “This last thing!? What do you mean by that?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m moving back to my father’s.”

  “Then before you do, please hear me out.”

  “Hear what out? I’ve already seen it all. Did you know that your femme fatale records her lovers?”

  “No, I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “Well, now you are. So you can't deny it; I’ve seen the evidence.”

  “I wasn’t going to deny it. I was going to confess. The reason Amy called you tonight is because I told her that it was a mistake and that I wouldn’t repeat it—”

  “Then what were you doing there tonight? She told me you’d just left hers.”

  “I was telling her in person to leave me alone, and to leave you alone.”

  “Well, it didn't work. She loved pouring poison into my ear and then sending me footage. Loved hearing my heart break. What sort of person is she anyway?”

  “She’s fucked up. But, please, I didn’t want to hurt you. The other night—”

  “Oh no!” I interrupted, wagging my finger at him. “No, you don’t get to make excuses for this.”

  “This isn’t an excuse.”

  “Well, it certainly sounds like one, and I don't care for it. Whatever happened between us the other night was no reason to jump into bed with some psycho. Period.”

  “I know it wasn’t,” he uttered, breaking into tears as he did.

  This piqued my sympathies and I had to take my bloodshot, glistening eyes from him. I buried this sympathy under the falling building of my absolute loathing for him then. I merely shot up from the floor, where I still sat, and fled into the bathroom. Under the spray of water, the fleeting images of the video message attacked me like a plague of stinging insects. Her lustful cries, this Amy, flooded my eardrums and I clenched my teeth and fists.

  When I came out of the bathroom, he was still sitting at the table, head in hands, sobbing away. I glanced at him for a mere second, before grabbing my suitcase from under the bed and flinging into it everything I thought I’d need.

  “Please, Sarah,” he sobbed. “Please.”

  But I ignored him, zipped up the case and dressed in a furious whirl. Soon, I was storming past him, out the door, his ‘pleases’ still murmuring from his mouth the whole time. It was, however, when I was stomping along the landing toward the stairwell of the apartment that I realized he still had the keys to the car. I halted my wrathful march, stamped my foot down on the concrete, and had to turn back. He must have realized himself, because when I reached the door, he was already standing there holding the keys. I snatched them from his hand and, in a second of utter contempt, struck him one last time with all my fury, clattering his already-red cheek. He appeared to have both expected this and allowed it, because he didn't attempt to block it and almost presented his cheek to me for the blow.

  That was the last I saw of him. A minute or so later, I was driving through the early morning city like a maniac, driving like I’d never driven before, tears constantly cascading from my eyes, misting my vision as I screamed the car out of there and to my father. Reaching home—because that’s what it was now, home—reaching there, I came in through the door to find my father was already up, sitting at the foot of the stairs in his vest and underwear, looking sleep-weary and a little disconsolate, holding his mobile telephone in one hand.

  “Daddy!” I burst out the moment I saw him.

  He stood up and immediately came to me, taking me in his arms.

  “It’s okay,” he cooed into my ear. “You don't have to say anything about it. Josh called, he told me everything. Just come to bed, I’ve already made yours up. Troy’s not here tonight.”

  “I hate him so much,” I cried in desperation into my father’s chest.

  “You will,” he whispered. “You will. Just try to get some sleep and think about it all in the morning.”

  It wasn’t until he said this that I discerned just how exhausted I felt. I was shaking all over and needed all my strength to climb the stairs to bed, my father staying by my side the whole way up, holding my trembling hand. He kissed me goodnight, a tender peck to the forehead, and I sank into bed. The last thing I saw before becoming enveloped in black sleep was my father’s face at the doorway, gazing at me with a sad look.

  SARAH

  I awoke late that morning, having slept another six hours after arriving. At the end of my bed sat Lucy, gazing down at me with benevolent eyes.

  “Good morning,” she said sweetly.

  “I can’t really see the good in it,” was my caustic response.

  I gradually sat up in bed, my body feeling unusually heavy, my limbs aching. In my whirring head I felt like going back to sleep, and I’d even go so far as to say that my sister’s presence annoyed me, as well-meaning as it was. All I wanted was to spend the day lying on my side in bed, nothing else. In essence, I wanted to wallow in my own misery, embrace the swamp of darkness fully. It was Saturday, and everyone should have been at the food bank.

  “Who else has stayed behind?” I asked.

  “Me and Daddy. Kay went earlier. Do you wanna come downstairs and have some breakfast, it’s almost midday.”

  “No I don’t want to come down,” I replied in an irritated tone.

  I thrust myself onto my side, displaying my back to Lucy, and pulled the covers over my body, hoping that this would give her the message to leave.

  “You can’t stay in bed all day,” she said softly.

  “Watch me.”

  “Just come and sit downstairs with us. If you don’t want breakfast, then don't eat. Just come and be with us. You need to be away from your thoughts and we can be your distraction.”

  “I don't need to be distracted.”

  Lucy sighed and a needle prick stabbed at my heart regarding my treatment of her.

  “Okay, when you're ready,” she finally let out in a gentle voice.

&n
bsp; She got up from the bed and made her way to the door.

  “Lucy,” I said as she reached it, “tell Dad I’ll be down in a minute.”

  An instant smile lit her face up and she nodded, before leaving.

  Once I was sitting around the kitchen table, I said nothing and ate nothing. I sipped at my coffee and stared forlornly out the window at the big oak tree at the end of our garden. As a young girl, I’d often climbed it, being as good a climber as any boy. I’d get up in it and sit on the main bough, gazing out across the landscape of houses that stretched out in every direction, into other people’s gardens, lost in playful thought for hours. Oh, how I wished I could climb up in there now and disappear into innocent thoughts. How I wished I could erase so much of my history that had robbed my mind of its innocence: the terrible poverty I’d witnessed volunteering; the awful iniquity and injustice that I’d become privy to as a lawyer coming up against the most merciless of governmental and corporate organizations; the discovery that man was so darned corruptible. Then more recently, my father’s infidelities, Andrew’s harsh words, my relationship with Josh and his subsequent cheating.

  Yes. I wished to erase it all from me and go back to that world of innocent play; spit out the apple and return to Eden. I guess that was why I’d enjoyed the trip to the Caribbean so much; it had allowed me to drift back into that careless, child’s world. Oh, how long ago that time seemed to me now, when I had danced with him, ran through the streets with him, had him chase me on horseback, stood atop of Havana rooftops held in his arms while flocks of birds played in the crimson sky. It seemed so long ago that it was almost like another childhood, long gone and never to be retrieved in this life. All that had been wonder was now cast into darkness, dissolving like clouds into rain, happiness into tears.

  For the rest of that day, I said very little, managed to eat something, and sat watching TV. For their part, my family never pushed me on anything. I could tell that my father wanted to say something—after all, he’d spoken to Josh the night before—but he was a shrewd man concerning his daughters and knew when the time was right to approach them. That Saturday, so soon after everything and with my nerves still shredded, the wound raw, was not the time to talk to me. So everyone, even Kay the merciless interrogator, left me alone. I simply stayed within their vicinity until bedtime and we all left it at that.

  The whole day through, my mind had been numb, as though everything that had once existed in there was now gone, replaced by a desert wilderness. Any thoughts left behind revolved around the utter hopelessness and pain that I felt regarding Josh. I even pitied myself for the fact that every time the phone rang, I expected—hoped even—that it would be him. But he never did call, and that day went by within the shadow of misery, until I hauled my body back up to bed, thankful for the solace of sleep.

  The next day, I went to church, as numb as ever, the second Sunday of service in a row that trickled by unnoticed. Dinner was once again a hollow experience, and before I knew it, I was returning to bed. Having observed that I was still not ready to talk, my family had once again respected my mood and treated me with kid-gloves. When I went up that night, Dad had asked if I would be in to work the next morning. I felt a little annoyed at this question.

  “Of course I will,” I stated back to him. “I don't see why I should abandon my responsibilities because of Josh Kelly.”

  He gave a crooked smile and I went off to bed.

  SARAH

  Monday, I threw myself into the Miller case with everything I had. I spent the morning chain-drinking coffees and going through every piece of paperwork that might strengthen our case for a new inspection. I found several pieces of particular interest, a couple of complaints regarding a gas leak on one of the floors that hadn’t been covered by the city’s inspection. I decided to follow them through, and, in the afternoon, I drove down to the building and saw the tenants who had filed the complaint four months ago.

  At the building, the tenants took me to a corridor where they opened a recess-cupboard in the wall that revealed several gas pipes with temporary lagging stuck around them.

  “You see,” Gerry, one of the tenants showing me, said. “The pipes are so old they’re rusting from the damp. These two here have cracks in them, but Langley just sent some cowboy to cover the leaks.”

  This was perfect. Well, obviously not for the residents. But it did prove that a dangerous leak was possible and required the city to act under certain articles of the district code. They would legally have to take a review of the whole building. I took pictures and got an independent gas-plumbing engineer to take a look. Shaking his head, he assured me that this was bad. I clenched my fist. We had them. I asked the engineer if he’d be willing to write us a statement giving his damning verdict, and he agreed. But not before instructing me to get someone down here right away to place more lagging around the pipes, what with the existing stuff flaking off in patches.

  Once that was done, I drove back to the offices, calling Karl on the way, the engineer following me back in his car.

  “Hey, Sarah,” he answered in a gentle tone, the same gentle tone he’d been using with me all day, “you get anything?”

  “Oh, I got something, Karl. Those leaking pipes detailed in the complaint by Gerry Anderson and his wife; well, they're still leaking apparently and the engineer I got in to have a look, says that it’s getting worse. The gist of it is that the pipes need complete replacing and checking throughout the whole building. It means the city have got to call another inspection as it’s a danger to life.”

  “Hot dog!” Karl rejoiced boyishly, making me smile. “You got the engineer on board?”

  “Yep, he’s following me to the offices now to make an official statement.”

  “Oh, you miracle, Sarah. We can get a new inspection essentially about the gas piping, but then hit them with the other complains, especially the thirty-three post-inspection complaints about the mold in the building. They’ll have to admit to it, because we’ll be watching them all the way this time.”

  After the call, I was filled with a benign respite from my worries with Josh. I permitted myself to float away from my relationship problems and concentrate on the case, glory in this victory. I felt genuinely pleased with myself. This, however, wasn’t allowed to live for long.

  I was using Kay’s phone until I replaced mine, and someone must have given him the number, because I saw Josh flash up on the screen. I was torn in two. One part wrestled desperately for me to pick it up, while another part held it back and wanted me to skip the call. In the end, both sides won a partial victory.

  “What?” I answered the phone angrily, all my former sensations of joy sucked out of me like an oyster from a shell.

  He was silent for a moment, and in that time a vacuum of nothingness opened up inside of me, my heart palpitating wildly in my chest, my legs going weak at the pedals, my palms sweaty at the wheel.

  “How are you?” he finally asked in a broken voice.

  “How am I!? You break my heart…”

  I fell into tears. I hadn't wanted to, had wanted to give him my anger and not my sadness. But at the sound of his voice, and the thoughts that his question had evoked, I simply broke down.

  Wiping my eyes rapidly so that I could see the road, I went on, “How do you…think I am, huh?…After having my…After my…UGH!” I cried out in frustration, my words tripping over my swollen throat and stumbling from my tongue.

  “Are you coming home?”

  I tried to answer him, tried to say the words, but my sobbing was all I had in that moment, and it took me a good deal of strength to cry out “No” to him.

  “Sarah, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me,” he wept down the phone. “I can't forgive myself. It was nothing but a stupid act. I was so angry at you and I got drunk—but that’s not the point; neither is it an excuse. I just did something that I immediately regretted, and which even at the time I regretted. A voice in me was ringing out, screaming at me to stop, but
the animal—”

  “It’s called your conscience,” I snapped.

  “Please, Sarah, come home. Come back tonight and talk to me. I can’t breathe in here on my own. I haven’t slept since you left, it’s killing me.”

  “Well, it’s you that killed us,” I screamed furiously into the phone, before cutting the call and very nearly destroying a second mobile telephone within the space of a few days.

  Upon reaching the office parking lot, I spent a minute sitting in the car cleaning my face up, my eyeliner running down my cheeks. Even that made me sad, as I recalled that I hadn’t really worn eyeliner until Josh had complimented me on it once. Since then I’d put it on every day, and this morning had done so automatically before realizing why.

  Once I was cleaned up, I guided the engineer into the offices and introduced him to both my father and Karl, before we went into Dad’s office. At the door, Dad stopped me as we followed Karl and the engineer in.

  “You okay?” he whispered to me as we stood in the doorway.

  “Sure,” I nodded, sniffing a little from my runny nose.

  “I wouldn’t be much of a father if I didn’t point out that you look like you’ve been crying.”

  “I have. Josh called.”

  “I know.”

  I turned my eyes on him sharply.

  “Why would you know that?” I asked.

  “Because I gave him Kay’s number to call you. He’s been texting me these past couple of days asking how you are. He’s real cut up—”

  “Oh, no,” I interrupted, trying my hardest to hush my voice. “No, you don't get to stick up for him.”