“Now look,” she lowered her voice, “I need you to do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Look at this food.” She pointed to her untouched breakfast tray. “It’s disgusting, and there is no way I can eat it. This is where you come in.”
“I’m not supposed to leave you, Anabel—”
She waved a hand. “Oh please, has anything happened to me? I just want you to run down to the Burger King in the cafeteria and please bring me a Croissanwich.”
“That sounds just about as disgusting as your tray of food looks,” I told her.
“No, they’re delightful,” she sighed. “Please, Jared?” And she shot me the big blue eyes.
“Alright,” I groaned, getting up.
Anabel clapped her hands. “Thank you so much.”
“Just do me a favor, okay? Don’t tell Matt about this,” I warned her. “He’ll kill me.”
Anabel was the picture of innocence. “Of course not. I’d like some hash browns as well. Oh, and a glass of orange juice.”
“I take it you’re over your morning sickness.”
“Jared, I’m so hungry,” she wailed.
So against my better judgment, against Matt’s warning, I left her.
Chapter 43—Anabel
It was way too easy to manipulate Jared. I shook my head at the thought. I sat up in my bed and started to pull my hair into a braid. It was greasy, and I briefly contemplated how much I desperately needed a shower.
After Jared had been gone for about ten minutes the door swung open, and I was about to greet the nurse when I realized that it wasn’t her at all. It was someone whose presence made me very uneasy. She closed the door, and then I was face to face with Alexis. She quietly entered the room and came to stand next to me. “Hello, Anabel.”
“Hi, Alexis,” I stammered. “I have to say, you were the last person that I expected to come visit me.”
She cocked her beautiful head, and glanced around the room. “This isn’t a social call. It’s a business one.” I did not like her tone at all.
“What do you mean?” I felt a slight adrenaline rush, and I wanted to be anywhere but here. Alone with Alexis.
“You understand why I’m here, don’t you, Anabel?” She eyed me speculatively. “You and I have never gotten along, so I’m not going to play at pleasantries with you. Besides, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Time? For what?” I squeaked.
“You’ve ruined my life, you know” she went on, slipping on a pair of gloves. “I didn’t think that it was possible that someone so…inconsequential…could do something like that. I’ve spent so many years worried about my enemies here, but you…in a matter of weeks you have destroyed everything.” Her tone was so matter of fact; she could have been talking about the weather. “You’ve turned my husband against me. You’ve taken my children away from me. Sam and I are probably going to get a divorce.”
I was shocked. “I had no idea.”
“Mm,” she said. It was so unnerving, she was completely emotionless. But I felt my heartbeat racing and I started to wonder if it might be a good idea to yank out my IV and run for it.
“But you know, Anabel,” she continued, edging closer to me, “that’s not what got me. What bothered me the most is the fact that you have taken away from me the only person who I ever truly loved.”
“Alexis, I’m sorry about Sam, I—”
“Sam?” she stopped, and then laughed. A high, cruel laugh. “No, it was never Sam. I just used him to get to where I wanted to go. And then you destroyed all that we built.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to,” she returned. “He’ll be back soon, won’t he? He won’t leave his precious Anabel alone for long.” The disdain dripped from her voice, and it was then that I fully understood the depths of her hatred for me.
So I began to panic. “No, Jared will be right back.”
“We haven’t much time then.” She gave me another icy smile. “You know, I’ve never done anything like this before, but to tell you the truth, I think I’m going to enjoy it, Anabel.” And then she shoved me against the bed, hard.
“Alexis!” I gasped. She was pressing right on my chest. “Alexis, the baby—”
“Shh, Anabel,” she whispered, taking a pillow and pressing it against my face. “It’ll all be over soon.”
So this was it. I was going to die. Well, I wasn’t going to go without a fight. I kicked her, managing to knock Alexis away from me and against the wall, and I attempted to get myself extricated from all the medical equipment that was binding me to the bed, but I knew she was coming, and—
“Lexie,” I heard a low voice say.
I looked up as she turned. “Jared?” she asked. The hatred was gone from her voice; it was now soft and gentle.
He stood in the doorway, but this wasn’t a Jared I had ever seen before. His eyes, normally so cool, were full of feeling—and even compassion. “Lexie,” he crooned again, in a voice that was almost a caress. “What are you doing?”
She trembled, and it dawned on me then that Alexis’ biggest problem wasn’t what I had done to my brother. It wasn’t even that I had made a mockery of everything they stood for. Even now as she stood inches away from me, wanting to kill me, it suddenly hit me that while she had never been all that great to me, she hadn’t turned nasty until that night at Blair House when she had heard Jared admit that he might be in love with me.
Because at the heart of it, while she missed the power and her status, nothing had blown Alexis away more than the fact that Jared could feel that way about me. Me. Not her.
I swallowed. That’s what all of this was about. For the first time, I saw how she stared at him, her expression raw. I could feel it and, probably more than anyone else had ever been able to, I understood it.
Alexis was in love with Jared. Every emotion that manifested itself on her beautiful face betrayed that. I had never seen her like this—so weak, so tremulous and fragile. So needy.
My eyes went to Jared, and I saw he wasn’t any better off than she was. His face was pained, and again, in that voice that was almost sweet, he said, “Lexie, why are you doing this?”
“She’s nothing, Jared,” she told him, and her voice almost broke. “She’s nothing. So why her? Why her and not . . .” But she couldn’t finish.
So Jared did it for her. “Why her and not you?” He came closer to her. “You know why. I couldn’t do it to Sam.”
“He hates you,” she whispered, touching his arm. “He hates you, because of her. So what does it matter anymore?”
It was gut-wrenching, watching this. I watched him touch her face. “Once upon a time you loved him, you know.”
“She ruined everything,” she declared, and her voice hardened.
“No, it was before Anabel.” Now his arm gently went to her waist. “Look, I was flattered, but I never took it seriously, and I thought you never did either. But I had to back away after that night in Vermont.”
“Why?” Now she sounded like a child. Her tone was soft and pleading. “I wanted it, Jared. And you did, too.”
“Of course I did,” he murmured, slipping his other arm around her. “But what did you want from me? No good would have come from it.”
“If you leave her,” she began, reaching up to him. “If you leave her, I won’t hurt her. But Charlie will. He knows she knows too much.”
Charlie. Oh my gosh, Charlie had killed my dad. I gripped the rails of my bed, reeling from this knowledge.
But it didn’t look like it had even registered with Jared. “Alright then, Lexie,” he agreed. “I’ll leave with you, right now. And I won’t look back.”
“Oh, Jared,” she breathed and then kissed him.
Now when I kissed Jared, I was always a bit hesitant, but Alexis kissed him with complete abandon. It was all I could do to just watch and feel the electricity that passed between them. It shook me to my very core. How could I have missed it
before? The chemistry between those two . . .
But then suddenly Jared broke apart from her, and in a flash pinned her against the wall. “Anabel,” he barked. “Call security.”
But I couldn’t. I just stared at Alexis’ face, pressed against the wall, and I saw the hurt, anger, and betrayal that overwhelmed her as she realized Jared had used her to protect me. Then I watched as everything drained out of her and she deflated, and all of the hope left her.
I know she would’ve killed me without a thought. But I couldn’t help but feel extreme pity for her.
“Anabel!” he snapped. “Push the call button, if nothing else!”
So I did. I sat there in silence and watched the scene unfold: the nurse immediately came to my room and when she saw Alexis and Jared, called security. I watched as two police men handcuffed Alexis and led her away. I watched Jared call my brother and tell him what had happened, and I saw the pain that flashed across Jared‘s face at Sam‘s angry response.
And then we were alone, and I think Jared realized I hadn’t said anything to him. “You okay?” he asked, taking a seat next to me.
“What happened in Vermont?” I whispered.
He sighed. “Your brother was in Vermont when he found out he was to assume office. He and Alexis and I celebrated, and Alexis especially drank too much.” He paused.
I kept my eyes on the floor. “Okay.”
“She kissed me and then apologized in front of Sam,” he continued. “And then as I was leaving to go to my hotel room, she insisted on walking me out, and kissed me again.” He swallowed. “I just laughed it off, especially since we had never really gotten along. I figured it was just because she was high on the alcohol.”
“Jared, that sort of thing doesn’t erupt from two previous kisses. Get to the point.”
“After I went to bed, she came into my room.” He stopped again. “Do you really want to hear this?”
I nodded mutely.
“She climbed into my bed, but—” he stopped. “But we didn’t. I could never betray Sam.”
“Was that the only time?” My voice was small.
“Lexie was persistent,” he admitted.
“See? You even have a nickname for her.” I attempted to swallow the lump that was forming in my throat.
“We never—” and he searched for a word—“consummated it, if that’s what you mean.” He shook his head. “Look, Anabel, I know what you’ve heard and what you probably think of me, but I couldn’t do that to your brother. I‘ve never slept with Alexis. And what happened between you and me stopped her from chasing me around anymore. She put me on her hate list the moment you arrived here.”
“You should have told me,” I whispered.
“Why? And make you think even worse of me? I didn’t want to press my luck,” he persisted.
“Did you love her?” I asked. “And do you still?”
“Anabel, no,” he denied, trying to hold me, but I pulled away.
“Then explain to me what I just saw.” Now I sat up. “I’ve never seen anything like that. There’s something between you two.”
“There’s nothing between us because I would never let there be,” he stated.
“But you love her.”
“I’ve never loved anyone like I love you,” he told me.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t love her.” I met his eyes. “Jared, that—whatever that was—makes what you and I had look like nothing.”
“You can’t be mad at me over this. You’re in love with Matt.”
“Well there’s a point.” I swallowed again. “I can’t do this.”
“What can’t you do?”
But I couldn’t explain it to him. It all hit me at once: Jonathan was dead. I was pregnant, and my baby’s father had some sort of twisted thing going on with my brother’s wife. The one who wanted to kill me. Plus, Charlie had killed Jonathan. Charlie, who had claimed to love me as his own child, had murdered him in cold blood, and would’ve gotten me too if—
—and then I remembered everything.
After my dramatic exit from Jonathan’s office, I stalked into my bedroom. I haven’t done anything wrong, I thought. This wasn’t my fault. It was Jared’s fault. I don’t deserve this, I told myself. Coming to my father, and begging him to help me, only to have him accuse me of seducing Jared—well. I was angry. More than angry, I was livid. I was sick and tired of everyone on the island. None of them cared about me. None of them loved me, not even my father.
This is no longer my home, I thought. Homes are supposed to be safe and welcoming, and there was nothing left for me here. Jonathan’s rejection of me, his accusations—I realized then and there that I would never trust my father again to be there for me.
I had rarely come to Jonathan for comfort or for advice; growing up, I had always had Marilyn and my father’s interest in me waxed and waned. As a child this was bewildering: one moment Daddy wanted nothing more than to spend an afternoon doing puzzles with me, and then the next day if I fell in the courtyard and scraped my knee he wouldn’t come over to pick me up and kiss me and tell me that it was okay. He could never console me, I thought grimly, pacing harder. Jonathan didn’t like to be around his crying daughter, he left those situations for someone else to clean up.
I had thought that Jared had broken my heart the night before, but I was wrong. He couldn’t have broken it because my father had done that a long time ago. The truth was I had tried to pull it back together for Jared. I had wanted Jared to be the one that reunited the fractured pieces of my heart, but instead he had shredded them even further.
I couldn’t change the situation with Jared. But my father was my father, and I deserved better from him.
Well, so be it. I was going to give Jonathan a piece of my mind.
I had come back down the hallway toward my father’s office, my thoughts turbulent. I kept asking myself the same questions over and over. How could he not defend me? For once in my life, I was going to stand up to him. He had treated me like a child for far too long, and I wanted to hurt him with my words as much as he had hurt me. Approaching the office, I hesitated a little, but then I steeled myself and approached the door. My hand was resting on the doorknob when I heard six gunshots, in rapid succession.
I gasped, and the door cracked open, and there was my father, face down on the ground, with a masked Charlie standing over him, clutching the still-smoking gun. I was frozen to the spot. “What have you done?” I whispered.
He quietly said, “I’m sorry Annie—I didn’t want it to be this way.” I gasped in horror, and as he slowly raised the revolver, but no shots came as my body launched into fight-or-flight mode. I ran down the hallway, toward my bedroom, but then hesitated at the door. Something told me not to go there, and instead I continued down the hallway for a long, long time, and then I raced up the coil of stairs that led to the attic and I hid, paralyzed by my fear, and I fell into practically a catatonic state until Jared came upon me.
“Anabel, say something,” he pleaded, bringing me back to reality. But I couldn’t do it. I was spiraling out of control, because as I looked at him, Charlie was still pointing a gun at me, and my father was dead. I had been raped. My baby’s father loved somebody else, and I loved someone who would quite possibly leave me the moment she was born.
So I fell into myself.
Chapter 44—Jared
Kevin shut her bedroom door, where we were all anxiously waiting. “Let’s go downstairs,” he suggested.
As we sat around Anabel’s living room, Kevin cleared his throat and said, “Physically, she’s fine. But she’s refusing to speak.”
“What do you mean?” asked Matt.
He pulled out a sheet of paper that was covered in Anabel’s neat handwriting. “I asked her why she wouldn’t talk to me and this is what she wrote: ‘I don’t want to fall apart.’” He sighed. “I think Anabel’s memories and what happened at the hospital are too much for her at the moment.” He handed the paper to Meghan, and sh
e and I pored over it. “You can see what she says.”
I don’t want to fall apart.
I don’t want to see anybody.
That’s not true, I have been eating. Charlotte can attest that I clean my trays.
I gave a written statement. I don’t have to testify.
That’s good news.
“What’s good news?” Meghan asked.
“Oh, I cleared her for vaginal delivery,” he announced. We all looked surprised, and he went on to say, “The heparin worked, she’s not having pain anymore and she wants to do it naturally, which explains this comment.” He pointed to the line that read, I guess I’ll have to find someone to go to childbirth class with me.
“I’ll go with her,” I muttered.
Kevin pointed to the line that read, I don’t want to see him.
“She didn’t write a reason,” I scanned the page.
“Does she need one?” Meghan asked. Matt looked like he agreed.
“Did you say anything to her?” Kevin asked. “Something that might have pushed her over the edge?” Charlotte, Meghan, and Matt were all looking at me, and I hesitated at Carrie’s presence.
“Go upstairs, Carrie,” said Phil.
She sighed and exited the room, so I said, “I told her about what happened with Alexis and me.”
“You told her about Vermont?” gasped Meghan. “Why?”
“What happened in Vermont?” Charlotte asked.
“Alexis attempted to sleep with him,” explained Meghan.
Matt looked at me sharply. “But didn’t succeed?”
“I never slept with her,” I replied. “Look, Sam was my best friend, okay? I would never have done that to him.”
“Messing around with his sister fell under your code of ethics, however,” he snapped.
“Oh for crying out loud, Matt, shut up,” Meghan said, irritated. “You’re not going to get her out of that room by provoking a fight with Jared.” She folded her hands underneath her chin. “Let’s focus on what we know. What exactly is running through Anabel’s head right now?”
“She thinks I’m in love with Alexis.” I sighed. “I don’t blame her, Sam thought it too.” Things had changed with us after Vermont, even though he had said he believed me that I didn’t want anything to do with his wife. Our business relationship had been fine, but our personal one had become tense, and had only gotten worse after Natasha‘s death. I had viewed my assignment to see Anabel as a way to repair that, but I had screwed that up, too.
Anabel Unraveled Page 32