by Dyanne Davis
“I just want to teach her a lesson.”
“Simon?”
“”If she needs anything…if she needs me, let me know.”
“Simon,” Harold called his name softly, “what is it that you really want?”
“I want you to make sure Janice is protected.”
“She needs to be protected from you.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you stop all of this nonsense?”
“I’m trying. I had Davis give a retraction to the media saying Janice’s name was mistakenly put on the list. I called Janice and apologized. Then I told her to come home.”
“Told her?”
“Harold, for once, can’t you let go of my word choices?”
“No, you’re making mistake after mistake.”
“Just take care of my wife. Okay? Protect her at all costs, even from me.”
“Simon, you continue this and her family, your new family that you wanted so badly, will be lost to you. Let this go.”
A long sigh escaped Simon’s lips. “I’ve spent two hours on the phone doing damage control with her family. They called wanting to know what was going on, why we were separated.”
“And?”
“And I assured them when we were done with our war we would visit them again.”
“This isn’t a war. It’s a fight between a husband and wife. You need to go to her on your hands and knees and beg her to forgive you. You’re the one that’s turning this into a war. This isn’t a game, Simon. You’re going to destroy your life and hers if you’re not careful.”
“That’s why you’re going to look out for her, to make sure that doesn’t happen. You’re going to protect her.”
“Who’s going to protect you, Simon?”
A long moment of silence passed between then. Then it was Harold who sighed, the sound as defeated as he felt. “What are you planning on doing next?”
“I plan on getting her to come home where she belongs. She has the power to end this, Harold. She has only to come home.”
* * *
Janice’s supposed two days from home to give her and her husband cooling off time had slowly turned into two weeks. She couldn’t believe it. In the beginning Janice fought to understand her husband’s motivation. Now she was just plain angry and she intended to get back at him, only she had found no way. Her family was driving her crazy with their constant calls for updates, giving her advice on how to handle the situation. She could strangle Simon for that alone.
But she had to do something. Hiding in a hotel room was not the answer and besides, she’d run out of clothes and had been forced to call one of the upscale stores to deliver her some outfits sight unseen.
A knock sounded on the door and she went to answer, wondering who it was. The only people who’d knocked in the past two days were room service and housekeeping.
Janice was surprised to see the manager standing there looking embarrassed. She opened the door wider, permitting the man to come into the room, curious what had brought him to the penthouse.
“Mrs. Kohl, your husband called and asked me to deliver a message to you personally.”
Janice felt the baby kick and a lump formed in her throat as she waited for another hammer to fall. She didn’t know how much more she could take of this.
“Your husband said your bills are no longer being paid by him. He said to tell you if you want to live in a penthouse then you should pay for it.”
Janice’s face flamed with embarrassment. She had not thought that Simon would do this but wondered why it had not occurred to her. He had warned her. She calculated quickly the money she had in her checking account and knew it wasn’t nearly enough to cover the cost. She couldn’t pay the man, at least not yet. She had money, but it was just invested.
“Don’t worry,” she bluffed. “I can pay my own bills.”
“Good.” The manger smiled uneasily. “There is a bill for thirty-two thousand dollars. Would you like to write me a check for it or give me your charge card?” He coughed. “I’m sorry to have to get in the middle of this but if you choose to use a card it can’t be a joint one. Your husband said to tell you that he’s cut you off all of the accounts.”
Tears quickly filled her eyes and spilled down her face and she wiped them away. She wasn’t crying to gain the manager’s sympathy but out of frustration. She didn’t have thirty-two thousand in her checking or savings, nowhere near that. Three thousand was more like it.
“When do I need to pay it?”
“Tonight would be fine…but we need to make sure you can continue paying.” He hesitated. “We could move you to a smaller room if that would make it easier.”
“Thank you,” she answered. “That won’t be necessary.”
Damn, she thought the moment the door was closed. She should have thought of that. But in the past few years with Simon they’d never stayed anywhere but in a penthouse suite. She should have anticipated his move. Well, she wasn’t out yet; she had millions of her own in the market. She would sell.
Janice smiled for the first time in two weeks. If her husband wanted to play dirty, she would accommodate. She searched for Harold’s number and called him.
“Harold, I need to sell some stocks. I need money fast.”
“I need to talk to you, Janice.”
She shut her eyes as she felt her spirit retreating from her body. Janice could feel the suction as it attempted to leave. My baby, she thought and fought to come back, not wanting to, knowing that Harold wouldn’t need to talk to her unless it were bad news.
Harold was calling her name “Janice. Janice, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” she answered. “Why do you need to talk to me? What has my husband done now?”
“I would prefer to talk to you in person if you don’t mind. I won’t take up much of your time.”
“Sure, come on over. You know where I am, I assume.”
“Of course,” Harold answered. “Listen, it might take me a couple of hours to come. Is there anything I can get for you, anything that you need?”
“Yeah, bring me a psychic. I need someone to tell me how all of this got started and how it will end.”
* * *
Harold marched down the hall to Simon’s office and barged in. “Your wife called me. She wants me to cash in some stocks for her. She sounds pretty desperate.”
“She should,” Simon answered. “The manager told her she has to cough up the money for the bill. I’m not paying it.”
“You know, Simon, I never thought the day would come when I would say these words to you, but you’re being a real bastard.”
“Like father like son.”
“Like hell. I pulled Janice’s account and saw that she’s flat broke. That wasn’t the case a short while ago. Before the two of you married she asked me about her funds, and I checked. They were fine. Now she’s broke. What the hell have you done with her money? I know you didn’t dump millions of dollars into a stock that was already crashing. You’re much too shrewd for that. And you can’t be angry enough to see her destitute. Where is she supposed to go?”
“If she’s ready to tell me what a liar she is, she can come home,” Simon said, “on her knees.”
“I have never been more disappointed with you than I am at this very moment.”
“Then keep watching, the show is only going to get better.” Simon turned from Harold and looked out the window over the city.
* * *
“Spill it,” Janice said softly. “I know you have bad news. Tell me how bad.”
“You’re broke.”
“Broke? Broke?” She fell into a chair. “How can I be? You mean there’s nothing left, nothing? I have to pay the Edwardian thirty-two thousand dollars by tonight. I have at the most three thousand dollars in my checking account. What am I supposed to do for money?”
She didn’t know. Simon had never told her. Harold stared at Janice for a moment, then decided on his course of action. He
smiled, knowing what he would do. It wouldn’t be a betrayal to Simon. After all, he’d been ordered to protect Janice.
“When you married Simon, he transferred half of everything he owns to you. There are separate accounts that are not in his name. I can arrange for you to draw from those funds.”
“Did Simon tell you to tell me that?”
“No.”
“I don’t want his money, Harold. I know what you thought. I know what I said, but it was never true. I never wanted him for his money.”
In spite of his anger and disgust with his godson, Harold heaved a sigh of relief. Mary Jo Adams Kohl, AKA Janice Lace, had just gone up another notch or two in his estimation.
“I’ll take care of your hotel bill personally, don’t worry,” he offered.
“I told you I don’t want to use Simon’s money.”
“This is my money. I’ll take care of your bill.”
Janice saw the rare smile that lit the man’s face and grasped his hand in hers. “I’ll get a regular room and I’ll pay you back as soon as I straighten this mess out. I promise.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He sucked on his lips before continuing. “Simon said to tell you that you can come home.”
“Oh he did, did he? I don’t think it will be quite that easy.”
For a long moment the two were silent. Then Harold asked, “Do you still love him?”
“Of course I still love him,” Janice answered without hesitation. “I want to kill him but I still love him. I miss him like crazy and I’ve been trying to figure out just what went wrong, how much is my fault, what I can fix. But it’s as though I’m paralyzed. Every day I think, okay, I can do something. I can call him. Then he does something else.”
Janice got up and walked around the room before going to stand in front of Harold. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know why he couldn’t just allow me to explain what happened, how Tommy ended up with my bracelet. I know what he thinks. I would be a fool if I didn’t. He thinks I slept with Tommy but I didn’t. I have never cheated on Simon, not once.”
She saw the look of doubt in Harold’s eyes and shook her head. “I see he told you about the kiss. That I can’t explain. You know I had a history with Tommy so we don’t have to pretend. We were working together and remembering the past. Actually we were fighting and it just happened. We both agreed it meant nothing and I saw no reason to tell Simon. He was acting crazy enough already.”
“Yes, I know.” Harold smiled at her. “Listen, I don’t want to invade your privacy but I am curious about one thing if you don’t mind answering.”
“I don’t mind,” Janice said.
“The bracelet Simon bought for you, how did Tommy get it?”
“I went to see him. I was going to take the bracelet back to the jeweler after I left there. I dropped my purse and the bracelet must have fallen out.”
Harold was shaking his head. “Just as I figured, a reasonable explanation. Why did you go to see him in the first place?”
“I went to ask him why he was trying to hurt my husband. I asked him to stop.”
“I gather he said no.”
Janice couldn’t believe it, but she actually laughed. “He definitely told me no.”
“Why didn’t you just come home then?”
“I was still angry with Simon; he was acting like a tyrant, trying to boss me around.”
“Were you afraid of him?”
Taken aback for a moment Janice halted. “Are you asking if I thought he would hit me?”
“Yes, I guess I am.”
“Simon wouldn’t hit me.”
“After everything he’s done to you, you still believe that?”
“He loves me, Harold.”
“The things he’s done to you recently aren’t the things that a person would expect from someone who loves them.”
“He’s so afraid and I understand that, only I don’t know exactly what he’s afraid of. There is something deeper going on and he’s never told me.”
“So what are you going to do? Are you going home?”
“You know I can’t go home like this.”
“Tell me something. Why aren’t you fighting back? Why are you letting Simon walk all over you? Why are you acting like a doormat?”
The words were the same, only the speaker was different. In the past her mother had asked her that very thing about Tommy. She’d never fought with Tommy. Maybe she’d been afraid to lose him. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t fighting with Simon now. Only she was already losing him.
“Harold, Simon’s a billionaire. How am I supposed to fight him?”
“You never allowed that to bother you before and if I’m not mistaken you were happier. So was Simon. Now you’re both miserable. Maybe you should start fighting again.”
Janice thought about what Harold was saying, the things she’d been saying to herself for the past two weeks. “We started our relationship out fighting, both of us, and neither of us ever conceded defeat. It kept us even. I know it sounds crazy but that was us, that has always been us. Now I don’t have any weapons to fight him with. He’s too rich and powerful for me to be able to do anything to hurt him.”
“Are you looking to hurt him?”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for.” She smiled. “Yes, I do. I’m looking to save my marriage by any means necessary. For some crazy reason for us that includes fighting, only I can’t think of a way to fight him now.”
“You do have a weapon.”
“What?”
Harold rubbed his chin. “That’s not for me to tell you. I’m glad that the two of you don’t get physical. No man should abuse his wife, especially his pregnant wife. No matter how rich, it would make a man downright uncomfortable to be accused of it. Even if nothing came of it, he would get a good dose of his own medicine.”
Janice jumped from her chair with more energy than she’d had in a week. She lunged toward Harold and kissed him, hugging him so tightly that he was gasping for breath. He patted her arm. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what?” he said with a sly smile. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Harold, if you’d like to spring a little more money for lunch I’d love it if you stayed and had lunch with me and talked with me for awhile. I haven’t really talked with anyone for two weeks. I’m getting a little lonely.”
“So even a crusty, stuffy old man will do for company?”
“You’re neither.” She headed for the phone, took his lunch order and sat back down.
“What secret is Simon holding? Why is he so obsessed with Tommy?”
“It’s not Tommy he’s obsessed with, it’s fidelity.”
“Why, Harold? I don’t understand. He told me he’s never had a serious relationship, that he’s never been in love before me.” She licked her lips, hoping he hadn’t lied to her. “Did someone break his heart?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” Janice mumbled, feeling the pain deep in her chest.
“It was his parents who broke his heart.” Harold sighed, not knowing if telling Janice would help her to save her marriage or not, but she needed to know about the demons that drove the man they both loved.
“Simon’s father married his mother and never told her of the family legacy. He tried the same thing Simon did with you, to hide it. Lies, lies and more lies until, as it always happens, the truth came out. She was hurt because she thought he didn’t trust her, didn’t consider her to be an equal partner. She loved him madly and he was too foolish to see it.”
“What happened?”
“Because he couldn’t forgive his ancestors, he assumed she couldn’t. So he started sleeping around, anything to avoid confronting what he thought was his wife’s disgust, her hatred. She tried repeatedly to tell him that she loved him, to show him, but he didn’t believe it. After awhile she started sleeping around too.
“Eventually she became pregnant and for a short time things calmed down, but his doubts eventually got t
he best of him and he tried losing himself in any reckless thing he could think to do. Unlike Simon, he didn’t work hard at the business. He left the running of it to me. Mostly he just remained content to spend the proceeds. And his wife dwindled right before my eyes into a pale version of the beauty she’d been. All she wanted was to make her husband love her, see her as he once had.”
“Simon knew about their cheating?”
“Yes, he knew. Neither of them hid it.”
“What happened to him? Did they love him?”
“Maybe in their own way. They just never bothered to show him, either of them. They were too busy trying to outdo each other. Simon was forgotten.”
“Are you telling me that this is what Simon and I are doing? That we’re heading down the same path.”
“You are. I just hope you two don’t do to your child what was done to Simon. Money is no substitute for love. Remember that.”
“Harold, why weren’t you ever married?” Janice wanted to get the conversation away from her own problems. Besides, she was curious. “Why didn’t you ever have children of your own? Weren’t you ever in love?”
For a long moment he stared at her and then she knew. Harold had been in love with Simon’s mother.
“You were in love with her, weren’t you?”
Now it was Harold’s turn to look astonished. “She loved her husband,” he answered as the pain filled his voice. “He was the only man she ever loved.”
“That wasn’t my question. You loved her, that’s why you never married. She was your one true love. That’s why you never had children of your own.” All of a sudden, a buzzing filled her head as she pieced the puzzle together. “You can tell me to go to hell, but please, I hope you don’t. Did the two of you have an affair?”
“One night,” Harold admitted, “that was all, one night. She didn’t love me. She slept with me because she was lonely and she knew that I worshipped her. She loved her husband and she regretted that she’d allowed me to touch her, even for that one night.”
“But you said she fooled around.”
“She did, but none of the men meant anything to her, none of them loved her. I think it made it easier on her.”
“So, why did she regret sleeping with you?”