A Case For Love (Royals Series Book 3)

by Nicole Taylor

  In that moment of realization, a struggle began to take place in David’s mind. One voice said, “Kill him. Kill him. He deserves to die. Your wife is almost dead because of him. You can’t allow him to walk away. You can’t give him the chance to hurt her again. You brought this on her. You brought him into her life. You have to fix it.”

  Another voice said, “No, David, vengeance is mine. If you kill him, David, you will be disobeying me. Do you want to dishonor me for the temporary satisfaction of revenge? You will never be able to live with yourself knowing you killed another man. It will haunt you for the rest of your life and destroy whatever you attempt to build with Ronnie.”

  David’s fist stilled, midway in the air. He felt as though the very hand of God was holding his hand…staying him.

  Finally, David lowered his fist, chest heaving. In the next second, the security team showed up.

  ~*~*~*~

  It was freezing in the emergency room, but David didn’t notice. He sat there with his head in his hands awaiting the news from the doctor.

  Anne and Zach sat beside him offering words of comfort. Kirt showed up soon after.

  Eventually, the doctor came to David.

  “Senator Jones.”

  He stood. “Yes.”

  “Your wife is conscious and asking for you.”

  “How is she?”

  “Her attacker beat her up pretty bad, mostly about the face and head, but she’s tough. Even though she suffered a minor concussion, a broken nose and some bruises, its nothing that time won’t heal.”

  When David saw Ronnie, he battled against the desire to go down to the police station, drag Gershon from his cell and tear him apart. David forced a smile to his lips.

  “There’s my girl,” he said. Gently, he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  Her face was quite literally black and blue.

  One eye was swollen shut. Her lip was split. She had bandages over broken skin in a few areas. But she was alive, and he felt like weeping with joy.

  He kissed her hand gently and pulled up a seat next to her bed.

  He felt tears pool in his eyes when she said, “I must look awful.”

  “You look beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world to me right now.”

  “David...”

  “Baby…”

  “I was so scared. Did you hear me? On the phone?”

  David nodded and told her what had happened.

  It was almost ten minutes after Gershon had left his presence that David had received the call. Automatically smiling when he saw her name and photo light up his phone’s display, he had answered in a soft, seductive tone.

  “Missing my voice already?”

  Hearing no response, he had glanced at the screen and was about to say her name when he heard Ronnie’s muffled voice. David had assumed she had pocket dialed him and was about to hang up when he heard her say, “Bob.”

  His hands had stilled as his thoughts went to Bob Gershon. Yet, he had a moment of doubt. Maybe it was another Bob. Gershon had just left his office, and Ronnie was on her way to their home so how could they be conversing. Nonetheless, the Spirit urged him to listen on. Then he heard Ronnie say, “What are you doing, Bob?”

  David had immediately tensed. He didn’t like the alarm in Ronnie’s voice.

  Then he heard a male voice say, “I think you know. I want the same thing you want. The thing you’ve wanted from me all along.”

  David had felt his adrenaline race. There was no doubt the voice belonged to Gershon. And his intentions toward Ronnie were unmistakably clear. He needed to get to her now. But where was she? Gershon had only just left so he couldn’t be far away. Perhaps he was still in the compound. For whatever reason, Ronnie had decided to stop by before driving home and that sick…bastard…had cornered her.

  David started to lift his office phone to ask security to locate Gershon on the security cameras, when he heard Ronnie say, “Not here in this underground garage.”

  She hadn’t pocket dialed him. The call had been deliberate. It was an SOS.

  Racing from his office, David screamed at his secretary to call the police and alert security that an assault was taking place in the underground garage.

  He reached the elevator in record time, willing it to move faster. The numbers seemed to taunt him as they moved in slow motion. He banged against the side, cursing himself for not taking the stairs. The elevator finally stopped, and doors unhurriedly moved apart. At that same moment, Ronnie screamed through the phone from the underground car park. He could hear a scuffling and the horrifying sound of flesh on flesh and moaning.

  “Oh, Lord. What is he doing to her?”

  David prayed as he rushed into the garage and frantically searched the area with his eyes. There was no sign of life anywhere. All he could see was row after row of cars. They could be anywhere. He couldn’t risk calling her name and alerting Gershon. No telling what the psychopath would do.

  “Lord, please help me to find her,” he prayed.

  Not knowing what else to do he began walking to his right but stopped suddenly as he felt the Holy Spirit telling him that was the wrong way.

  “God, is that you? I’m so scared I won’t get there in time. Please assure me it’s you.”

  Suddenly, he heard a noise coming from his right. It was faint, but it sounded like a scream. A woman’s scream. David raced towards the sound, looked down a row of cars and saw Bob Gershon preparing to mount Ronnie, his pants halfway down his legs. David rushed up to him seized him and with a roar and the strength of ten men lifted him and tossed him against the windshield of a neighboring jeep as though he were a doll.

  “Where is he now? Did he escape?” Ronnie asked with tears in her eyes.

  “He’s in police custody.”

  “David. Did he...Did he…Did he rape me? I was afraid to ask the nurses.”

  “No, sweetheart. He didn’t. I got there in time.”

  ~*~*~*~

  Four hours later, Ronnie’s family turned up. David knew he wasn’t meeting his in-laws under the most ideal circumstances, so he braced himself for some hostility and suspicion. He wasn’t disappointed. Dana Dickson and Robert Cortelli arrived first. Dana coldly greeted him and then began firing questions at him. Robert Cortelli gave him a sympathetic look and kept his arm around his wife, possibly to restrain her.

  Erin Dickson arrived next and was close to tears. Though she was civil, she spoke with economy and seemed to view him with suspicion.

  Barbara Dickson and her husband, William Lamport III, were the last to arrive. While Barbara was concerned she also sought information on what had happened. She and her husband William were warmer than the other two Dickson women.

  ~*~*~*~

  The doctor had just told them all that Ronnie needed to rest. Her mother, sisters, and brothers-in-law left the room. David stayed with her until she drifted off to sleep ten minutes later. He left the hospital room and saw that Ronnie’s family was standing outside speaking in low tones. With slumped shoulders, he glanced at them wearily as he explained Ronnie was asleep and that he was going to the cafeteria to get some coffee before returning to her room.

  Barbara followed David sympathetically with her eyes. She exchanged a look with her husband. An unspoken signal passed between them.

  “I’ll go talk to him,” William Lamport said, dropping a quick kiss on Barbara’s lips. He turned to Robert Cortelli.

  “Bobby, can you accompany me to the cafeteria. I believe the ladies could do with a hot beverage.”

  Robert nodded “Sure.” He squeezed Dana’s arm. “Be right back.”

  Barbara turned to her mother and sister.

  “David’s hurting too you know.”

  “He should be,” Dana said.

  “It’s not his fault. From what the police said if he hadn’t arrived when he did that animal would have raped her and possibly killed her,” Barbara said.

  “Why all the secrecy about their marriage? I
don’t trust him,” Dana replied.

  “We need to get to know him before we can make such hasty judgments,” Barbara said.

  “Barbara’s right,” Erin Dickson finally agreed, “Ronnie seems to love him very much, and trust him. I trust her judgment. I know my child. She’s a sensible girl. She wouldn’t have chosen him if he wasn’t a decent man.”

  “Yeah. Cut the man a little slack. We’ve all made mistakes,” Barbara said.

  Dana gave a long sigh. “You’re right.”

  ~*~*~*~

  David found himself surrounded by uninvited guests. William Lamport and Robert Cortelli, both of whom he admired and would have been thrilled to chat with at any other time, showed up at his table and took seats. Lamport at least had the good manners to ask first.

  He viewed them with suspicion but five minutes into the conversation realized he didn’t need to. Following their well wishes for Ronnie’s recovery, they asked if they could pray for him. To his astonishment, each man offered a prayer with such humility, fervency, and faith he knew that God would hear.

  They prayed for Ronnie’s physical and emotional healing, for her and David’s marriage, for strength for the rough times ahead, for the perpetrator, Bob Gershon, to be punished for his crime. And then to David’s surprise, they prayed for Bob’s salvation.

  When they were finished David felt tears fall from his eyes. Unabashed, he allowed them to fall.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Of all the things I’ve thought about Gershon over the last several hours, God saving his soul was not one of them.”

  Robert gave him a wry look.

  “It’s not our natural inclination to forgive. It’s supernatural.”

  “You know I condemned my dad for a similar thing years ago. And I did it too.”

  “What do you mean?” William asked.

  David related to them how his mother was killed by a drunk driver and how he had felt moved to visit the man in prison and extend God’s saving grace to him.

  “My father was very angry when he found out. He accused me of caring more about strangers than my own family. Now I’m in a similar predicament. I know I should forgive Gershon, but I don’t want to. Do you know I almost killed him? I was so enraged, I almost killed him.”

  David shook his head, struggling to deal with what had almost happened.

  “I wanted to kill him. What kind of man am I, really?”

  David felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. He looked into William Lamport’s blue eyes and found them filled with compassion.

  “You wanted to kill him. You almost killed him. You didn’t. You made a choice at that moment to do the right thing, despite the temptation to do otherwise. That makes you a good man, a man after God’s own heart, like your Biblical namesake. You are the same man who listened to God after that man killed your mother through his irresponsible behavior, and you chose to forgive him. He is the same God who will supernaturally enable you, in time, to forgive Bob Gershon.”

  A short while later the men left him to go take beverages for the women. Alone again, David placed his elbows on the table entwined his fingers and began to pray to God about what was on his heart. It wasn’t long after that he noticed the scent of honey and vanilla and opened his eyes to see Dana Dickson standing in front of him.

  David idly marveled at how he could look at a woman that beautiful and not feel even a hint of physical attraction. But it was easily explained. Ronnie Dickson was his heart. No other woman engendered the physical or emotional response she did.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself properly. I just started firing off questions. I’m Dana.”

  He stood and shook her hand. “David.”

  She sat, and he took his seat.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet you before this happened,” she said.

  “I am too. I thought I was doing the right thing by waiting until the perfect time to release the news. It all seems so silly now in the scheme of things.”

  She smiled wryly.

  “The best-laid plans of mice and men. I know. I’ve made plenty of bad judgment calls myself. I’m told you saved her.”

  “Did I? It feels like I failed her. I should have been there to protect her. Prevent everything that happened. I should have collected her from the airport myself. I let her drive…”

  David broke off and dropped his head in his hands as his mind was immediately assaulted with everything he could have done differently beginning with not hiring Gershon in the first place.

  Dana reached out and covered his hand with hers.

  “David, we can all spend our lives torturing ourselves with ‘what if?’ questions. But we can’t change the past, and we can’t prevent tragedy. We live in a fallen world. You were brave when you needed to be. You were there when she needed you the most. Thank you.”

  His gaze shifted from Dana. Barbara and Erin were now standing there.

  Erin Dickson held out her arms. “We all thank you.”

  ~*~*~*~

  The press was another story. Word quickly got out that David Jones had secretly married his assistant, Ronnie Dickson, the sister of superstars Barbara and Dana, and that it had almost ended in tragedy when his former campaign manager attacked her and attempted to rape her.

  By the time Ronnie was released from the hospital the next day, the hospital entrance was teeming with media personnel.

  At David’s behest, his PR person, Drew Stein, showed up at his home, where the press had also camped out, and advised him to hold a press conference.

  After a meeting with Ronnie’s family, they agreed that they would be present to show support.

  David met with the press and said, “Ronnie Dickson and I got married two weeks ago. My family was made aware as well as her family. Be assured that I am happy and proud to be married to this woman and had every intention of announcing our nuptials this week. With respect to Bob Gershon, I did trust him with my campaign, but he turned out to be a very sick, violent person. It is my fervent prayer that justice will be served.”

  Epilogue

  Seven months later

  Ronnie took a quick peak in the car mirror to check her appearance. Looking at her smooth, unblemished face, it was hard to imagine she had looked like she had been in a train wreck several months ago. The doctor had been right. Time had healed all scars, physical and emotional. While she still occasionally awoke in cold sweats from a nightmare of the attack, those incidences were now few and far between.

  The press, as expected, had long since moved on to more scintillating stories and she and David had resumed their lives. Ronnie had not returned to work at Jones Law. She had briefed Tracey who had taken over and quite ably took the project to its conclusion two months later. Ronnie had felt a little sad that she hadn’t been the one to see it to the end.

  Those feelings had turned to immense joy, however, when the entire M&A team showed up one Saturday evening with wine and cake to celebrate the successful completion of the M&A. They had said they could not celebrate without the presence of their original project manager, the one who had played such an integral role in its success.

  David had beamed with pride throughout the whole thing. Ronnie couldn’t be sure if it were because she had gained the loyalty, respect, and appreciation of the team, or because the M&A had been such a success with only 20 staffers being severed, or because everyone present commented on how amazing their backyard looked.

  “See you later,” Ronnie said as she shared a slow lingering kiss with David before she disembarked the vehicle.

  Minutes later, she walked into her class at Chicago Law School. Placing her books on her desk and taking a seat, she greeted her new pal and classmate, Sue Garnes. They’d become fast friends when the classes first began two weeks ago.

  Ronnie and Sue were chatting quietly when their lecturer walked in. Sue glanced up and gave a low whistle.

  “Check him out, Ronnie. He’s gorgeous.”

  Ronnie followed her gaz
e and sighed with deep contentment.

  “Yes, he is. He’s also my husband,” she said, not taking her eyes off David Jones as he took his place at the front of the lecture hall.

  “Good morning students. I’m David Jones, your lecturer for this course. I’m going to begin by telling you a little something about myself. I’m State Representative of the Sixteenth District and Chairman and CEO of Jones Law. In my spare time, I play the saxophone and lead a boy’s music group at Calvary Baptist Church. I’m the happily married husband of one wife, and I like it that way thank you very much.”

  He searched the crowd for said wife’s eyes, caught them, and winked.

  “Now, turn with me, please, to chapter three in your textbook for this course…”

  ~*~ THE END ~*~

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