Business as Usual

by Hughes, E.

  “I’m terribly flattered,” I stammered. “You mentioned the position was on an interim basis, but for how long?”

  “Only a few months. Long enough to whip us in shape. We reviewed your corporate profile, Elizabeth. The job is yours if you want it.”

  A week later, I was on a flight to New York to meet with executives about the transition. Just when I thought I was down on my luck, something wonderful happened. The magazine was exciting, the people were beautiful, and money flowed like champagne from advertisers vying to buy their way into our pages. I just had to stop the financial hemorrhaging the previous president had caused. I was grateful for the short term role at Le New York Fashionista because the position would end before I entered my third trimester. The job had also given me the opportunity to prove I could make it without my father. I was immensely proud. I also had a corner office! I was immensely proud. I also had a corner office!

  “You should start a maternity line,” Francesca said, observing my wardrobe, as I walked into the office one morning. “You look fabulous.”

  I shrugged her off.

  “These old rags?”

  Francesca rolled her eyes, smiling.

  “Seriously, I didn’t do anything special. I bought what I normally would wear, just in a larger size.”

  “What? A size zero?”

  I laughed in her face. “I wish! I’m starting to need an elastic band in all of my pants.”

  “Oh the horror,” Francesca cried, a mortified expression on her face. “But you are right, that belly of yours is really starting to pop out!”

  “I’ll try not to eat,” I assured her.

  Everyone at the company was stick thin. I felt like hippo these days.

  I walked into my office and sat at my desk, shifting through files, wishing my life was as perfect as it looked to people like Francesca. But none of them saw the real me... the one hurting inside. The one who’d lost the man she loved over a misunderstanding. The one raising a baby alone. People at the magazine only saw the pretty woman in designer clothes temporarily occupying the president’s office.

  Throwing myself into work was the only way I knew how to cope. So I was the last person to leave the office that night. It was dark outside when I climbed into the elevator, hand resting on my belly. The kid kicked a lot these days. At more than four months pregnant, he was making his presence known. I had an ultrasound earlier that week, and knew I was having a boy. I was a little disappointed at first. I was hoping for a girl. But in the end, the baby’s gender didn’t matter to me at all. I just wanted a healthy baby.

  I also made an appearance in court to extend the restraining order I had against Danny. I won a default temporary order after he missed his court appearance while he was in the hospital. Thankfully he didn’t contest it.

  The elevator came to a halt a few stories down, the motion of the abrupt stop making me dizzy. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as a man dressed in dark clothing and a hat climbed in. The elevator started moving again, when he suddenly pressed a button causing it to stop. I looked up, ready to rip his head off.

  “Are you out of your freaking mind? What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Elevators made me nervous.

  The man lifted the brim of his hat from over his face and looked up.

  “I figure this was the only way I could get you to talk to me,” he said.

  I took a deep breath and pressed a button, starting the elevator again. I glared at the numbers blinking overhead while Ethan stared at the side of my face, as the elevator swiftly carried us to the bottom floor. Seeing him again hurt so much. Why couldn’t he stay away?

  “I miss you,” he said, as I strolled out of the building into noisy Manhattan traffic without so much as a look back.

  I hailed the first cab I saw and jumped in, praying he wouldn’t follow me. It had taken months to get over what happened between us. And now he was back. Obviously I hadn’t been punished enough. Ethan called my cell phone, but I refused to take his calls. He even left voice messages… but I deleted them unheard and had my number changed. I even had my cat Roger moved from the beach house to my apartment in New York, shortly after putting the house up for sale. Despite the shaky economy, the house sold after only a few weeks on the market. I’d been a ghost for months. How did he find me?

  The cab parked in front of the two story brownstone I lived in fifteen minutes later, to my relief. I had to use the bathroom. The baby, I was told, had found a place on my bladder. He was probably using it as a pillow.

  I hurried up the stairs of my apartment building and stuck my key in the door, eager to get inside to use the bathroom. That’s when I heard a vehicle parking in front of the house as the cab sped away. I looked over my shoulder at the dark blue Maybach and cursed. I opened the door to my loft apartment and rushed inside, slamming the door behind me. The doorbell rang a few minutes later.

  I opened the door to find Ethan standing on my porch. I tried not to notice how good he looked.

  “You found me. Happy now? Have your lawyer serve my divorce papers here, and not at my office, thank you. As you may well already know, I prefer to keep my private life, private.”

  “How could I forget?” he answered, eyeballing my perfectly made up face.

  I folded both of my arms across my chest and glared.

  “How did you find me?”

  Ethan gave me an envelope and gestured for me to open it. My heart thundered in my chest as I slowly peeked inside, expecting divorce papers. Instead, I found a check for an obscene amount of money.

  “What is this?” I demanded.

  “A check for the beach house. That’s how I found you. I got your address from your real estate agent.”

  “You’re the buyer?”

  “I bought it for us.”

  I took the check out and ripped it, scraps of paper falling between us to the floor.

  “You can’t buy your way out of this one, Ethan.”

  “I wouldn’t try.”

  “Good. Now please leave.”

  He pressed a hand against the door as I tried to close it.

  “How’s the baby?” he asked, voice taking a serious tone.

  “The baby’s fine,” I replied, giving him no more than that.

  “Have you had an ultrasound?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are we having?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “As I stated before, I prefer to keep my private life private. And that includes my pregnancy.”

  “I have a right to know,” Ethan pressed, stepping into the frame of my door.

  “You’re not the father, remember?”

  Ethan’s smile was faint. “I was hoping you would let that one slide.”

  “Not even if your life depended on it.”

  “Fair enough... What if I asked you to take me back? I miss you, Elizabeth. I wish we could get past what happened between us.”

  “You kicked me out of your country.”

  “Admittedly, I was wrong for that.”

  “You left me at an airport, alone and pregnant.”

  “I have no excuse,” he said, looking down.

  “You hurt me.”

  “I will never do it again.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not enough. Why come back? Don’t you realize how much you’re hurting me just being here? I finally got my life in order and you can’t stand it.”

  “I miss you, is that so wrong?”

  “Right, because your feelings are the only ones that matter.”

  “After I saw the pictures of you and Daniel I flew into a jealous rage. I saw my naked wife with another man. There was no reasoning with me. As far as I was concerned, you were having an affair. I now know I was wrong.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I answered coldly.

  “No. In fact, it only makes me feel worse. Especially after seeing the video, the way he treated you…when you told him you loved me.”

/>   You allowed him to humiliate you, in order to protect me… I don’t need your protection, Elizabeth. I’m your husband, I’m supposed to take care of you...”

  I tried to keep my tears in check as memories of that horrible night came flooding back.

  “I’m sorry for rehashing the story. But you deserve to know the truth.”

  “There’s more?”

  Ethan nodded. “The idiot actually kept the footage, thinking he could blackmail you again. We paid him a visit a few days after you left. I wanted to deal with him personally.”

  “What did you do to him?” I asked, surprised by the revelation.

  “We gave him a haircut. Needless to say, your ex-boyfriend had to spend some time in the hospital when I was done with him. We also confiscated the material, including the videotape, to keep him from using it against you. When I saw the footage, what you tried to do for me and your father, I tried to find you, I tried to apologize, but it was too late.”

  “I accept your apology, but unfortunately, it’s not enough.”

  I moved to close the door in his face, but he stuck his foot inside.

  “I’ll prove how much I love you,” Ethan declared, stripping out of his jacket.

  He rolled up the sleeves of his button-down shirt then ran downstairs to the Maybach, where his bodyguards stood waiting for him. He then took his watch off and gave it to Chan before walking down the middle of the street until he was so far, we could barely see him.

  “What is he doing?” I asked the guys.

  Chan and Michael stared down the road in awe, as Ethan dropped to his knees.

  “Kowtowing,” Chan answered.

  “Why?” I asked, completely confused.

  Michael shrugged. “He’s humiliating himself to earn your forgiveness. Some guys do it when their wives are mad at them. Usually when they cheat.”

  “Face is very important in Chinese culture,” Chan continued. “This could be very embarrassing for him.”

  I shook my head, watching in horror as Ethan bowed all the way up the street, his forehead tapping the pavement, as he crawled forward.

  I climbed down the stairs, and walked as fast as my belly allowed, as I hurried down the road to stop him. When he looked up, the middle of his forehead was bruised, his arms strong as they pushed against the pavement. I couldn’t’ bear to see him like this.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”I shrieked.

  “Begging your forgiveness,” he said, tapping his head on the ground again. “I humiliated you, so why shouldn’t I be humiliated? If I have to make a fool of myself to prove my love, then so be it. A man should never wrong his wife.”

  “Please stop…” I begged, covering my mouth with a hand.

  “No.”

  Ethan bowed and continued down the road again until speckles of blood were left behind him on the pavement. Unfortunately, he was not only hurting himself, but he was embarrassing me. People came out onto the sidewalk and yelled for Ethan to get off the road before he injured himself, as cars swerved around him. Some of the bystanders even held cell phones and cameras, no doubt to upload video footage online of the fool kowtowing in the middle of the street!

  “If you don’t stop, I’ll not only, never speak to you again, but I won’t allow you to see the baby.”

  Ethan stopped dead in his tracks, but stayed on his knees.

  “What are we having?” he asked.

  “A boy.”

  “I was hoping for a girl,” Ethan said. “So I can show her mother, how much I love them both.”

  “A healthy happy baby is good enough,” I answered.

  “Hopefully he won’t end up in the middle of the street on his knees like his worthless father.”

  My heart softened, a little.

  “You’re not worthless, Ethan. You made a mistake and you hurt me in the process.”

  Ethan finally stood, turning to face me with blood on his bruised forehead. I winced as he drew toward me. .

  “Thank you, for getting off of the ground,” I said.

  He was still handsome, even with a big purple splotch on his face.

  “I’ll never leave you again,” Ethan said, drawing me into his arms, his eyes capturing mine.

  He reached down, caressing my belly for the first time, the palm of his hand encompassing it as the baby kicked and fluttered. Then he finally kissed me on the lips.

  “You still love me?” he asked, eyes swelling with tears.

  “Love, is what got me in trouble in the first place,” I answered.

  Then I realized, he’d never actually heard me say it to him. It was no wonder why Ethan couldn’t bring himself to trust me. Or for that matter, how I could trust him, after all of the deception and lies between us.

  “I do love you,” I confirmed. “Even against my better judgment, I want to take care of our family together. But I’m scared.”

  “I’ll never hurt you again,” he pleaded, desperately. “I love you, Elizabeth.”

  Ethan reached into his pocket, revealing the pink diamond wedding ring I left on his desk when he kicked me out of his office. He tried to slip it on my finger but I made a fist, preventing him from putting it on my hand. I wasn’t letting him off easy. I didn’t need another Eugene on my hands.

  “We’ll take it one step at a time,” I answered, opening my palm against his chest.

  Ethan tilted his face forward and kissed me.

  “Now, let’s put some ice on that stubborn head of yours,” I said.

  Ethan grabbed my hand and led me back to the apartment, and with a wave, the guys climbed back into the Maybach, driving away as we walked inside, leaving past hurt, lies, and betrayals outside on the doorstep.

  The End.

  The following excerpt is from the book, Disappear, Love by E. Hughes.

  CHAPTER ONE

  **********

  “Why on earth would you cut your hair? You are a hot mess! Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you...”

  I looked at mother and rolled my eyes. She was at it again… complaining about the way I looked. When I was little I used to wear a Brewers baseball cap to ballet class… Mother would squint her eyes, pout her lips disapprovingly, and tell me to pull my pink tutu over my flat butt… “Can’t catch a bee without a stinger,” she’d say in that sugar coated voice of hers. Mother was a perfectionist, which is probably why I’m so messed up.

  She stood in my bedroom, hands parked on her slender hips as she examined the condition of my room. She wore her perfectly coiffed dark hair swept into the neatest bun I’d ever seen. She was the perfect housewife… like Mrs. Cleaver, or better, Claire Huxtable but without the legal pedigree.

  “Victoria… Are you listening to me?”

  “It’s not your hair so why are you worried about it?”

  Mother sighed. “You look like a boy.”

  “Good! Maybe people will shut up about me finding a boyfriend and leave me alone for once.”

  “What kind of man is going to want a skinny, knock-kneed, bald headed girl? You need to marry a nice Dominican boy and start acting like a grown up. Your father and I can’t pay your bills forever.”

  “If you want me to move I’ll move.”

  Mom swung her petite body around my bed and dumped the pillows from out of my pillow cases and tossed them into her laundry basket.

  “You don’t make enough money.”

  “I’ll move in with Dana,” I taunted.

  “With Dana?” mother asked, turning her head to the side to look directly at me. “I’m starting to wonder about the two of you.”

  …and I was starting to worry about her. Mama had the nerve to complain about me living at home but hated the idea of me moving out.

  “Wonder what?” I snapped.

  I slipped my feet into a pair of tennis shoes and rolled the bottom of my skinny jeans.

  “About you and Dana hanging around so much. The only person you want to be with is her. Why don’t you find a nice young ma
n and settle down.”

  “You sound like a broken record.”

  Mama rolled her eyes as she collected the dirty t-shirts and socks littering the floor.

  “Is that all you think about?”

  “Somebody has to! It’s been a year and a half since the accident, Victoria. It’s time to move on.”

  Mother looked up at me, sadness in her eyes. “I worry about you…that’s all.”

  “I’m twenty-four years old. I can take care of myself, OK?”

  “I gave birth to you. I know how old you are!”

  “Ugh. Don’t remind me,” I groaned.

  Mama dropped the dirty linen in a laundry basket and frowned as she picked it up and propped it on her hip.

  “Victoria Taisha Lawford? You never answered my question.”

  “We’re not lovers! It’s just a stupid haircut. A pixie cut. In fact, it’s not short enough to qualify as a ‘pixie’, I can still put it in a pony tail. Women wear haircuts like mine all the time.”

  “I spent fifteen years of my life growing your hair out and you go and chop it all off in one swoop! You’re so ungrateful.”

  “Dana said it was cute.”

  “Who cares what Dana thinks? And what kind of girl runs off and joins the police force anyway? She acts like a boy, too. ”

  “Normal girls. Like Dana. Gawd you’re so old school. She joined the force four years ago. She’s a detective now. Get used to it.”