Jack shook his head and tried to beat off the anger. “Please, keep your voice down.”
He wanted to wrap his hands around her precious little throat. His head was running laps around the table. The romance had begun in the backseat of his 7 Series BMW the first night they met. The wheels came off a few months later when she started calling him at the office. Every message was marked “urgent.” After a bit of cajoling, Angel agreed to let things cool off. When the National Physician’s Association convened their annual meeting in Barbados, Jack didn’t see any harm in taking Angel along. Thandy, after all, seemed to be engrossed in her work. And when she wasn’t in her own office, she was licking stamps for Sloane’s campaign. Jack filled out the conference registration package and put down Angel’s name under spouse.
“We should talk about the future,” Angel said.
“I thought I made that clear.”
“And I am very clear. I’m having this child. Your child.”
Jack cleared his throat. “Let me guess. You want money.”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t want your money.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. You’d be by yourself.”
“I just want our baby to have both of his parents.”
“You should grow up,” he fumed.
“You told me you wanted to get married. Remember in Barbados?”
Jack remembered perfectly. He’d said enough to grease her skin and slide her out of her bikini. He said something about getting married and her bathing suit magically fell off. He hadn’t meant a word of it. If he ever found himself standing on his own two legs in a church again, reciting vows of marriage, it would be with Thandy.
“Yeah, I remember. That’s when I thought you were more responsible.”
“I’m not the only one responsible for this. You’re the one who likes going in bare ass!” she said just as the waiter approached the table. “They still make condoms, you know.”
Unashamed, Angel kept talking until the entire restaurant could hear her.
“I said keep your voice down,” he sneered.
“Or what, Jack? Keep my voice down or you’ll do what?”
He reached for his wallet and threw three one-hundred-dollar bills on the table. Two for dinner, the third for Angel’s tirade.
“It’s time to go,” he said, yanking her up by the arm.
“Let go of me!” she snapped back.
Everyone in the room stopped and watched like they would any good train wreck. Jack pulled her from the table and escorted her to the car.
“You think you can just shove me around like this? Take your hands off me!” she demanded.
“Get in the car!”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I said get your ass in the goddamned car!”
She swung her fist and he caught her by the wrist.
“You better think long and hard before you swing on me,” he said, gripping her by both wrists.
She bit him on the knuckle. Angel then hawked up a mouth full of phlegm and spit in his face. His open hand went all the way to China and came back with a terrible force to her face. Angel dropped like a rock.
“I said, get in the car!” he ordered.
Angel crawled inside, sobbing. He picked up her shoe from the pavement and tossed it in after her, barely missing her head.
“Do not think for two seconds that you will ever, ever tell me what I will and won’t do!” he started as he wiped the saliva from his nose with his breast scarf. “I don’t do ultimatums. I’m telling you right here, right now, we are finished. And by the way, you’re not pregnant. I don’t know who went to Dr. Whitehead’s office, but it wasn’t you.”
His eyes were on fire, lit up like a pair of tiki torches. He loosened his tie with one hand and steered with the other. The car jerked and blazed forward. She cowered in the passenger seat, holding her face as he tore out of the parking lot.
“I swear, I swear before God that if you ever spit in my face again, you’ll regret it for the rest of your pitiful life. Since you’re off in la-la land and can’t seem to think straight, I’ll do it for you. Do you know how many women want to be Mrs. Gabrielle? Shit, the current Mrs. Gabrielle still wants the job! And you thought you could pretend to be pregnant and—poof—all of your lovely little wishes would come true?”
He punched the accelerator and tore through the streets.
“Jack! Slow down!”
He blew right through the tollbooth express lane.
“Shut your mouth, Angel. For once, just shut your fucking mouth. You talk too fucking much!”
Twenty minutes later he pulled up to the curb in front of her house and told her to get out.
She didn’t move at first.
“Bitch, get out of my car.”
She reached for the door handle and said, “I don’t want you to be angry with me. I can explain.”
“Well, yeah, that’s what you say.”
Before she could get her feet planted on the sidewalk, he reached over, slammed the door, and sped away.
“Damn lunatic,” he muttered.
CHAPTER FORTY
The house was dark and quiet. Jack stopped in the kitchen first for a snap of cognac, then went down to the cellar. The first shot made him forget all about Angel. The next made him remember Thandy.
He’d called her that morning. Her voice was soft and somewhat distant. He did most of the talking. Jack was just glad she was listening; he wanted her to hear him. He’d only summoned the nerve to call her after Sloane told him that he had spoken to her. He wanted to hear her say Chicago was a mistake and that she was coming home on the next flight out. That she still loved him and wanted nothing more than their life together. He might have waited for a more decent hour, but he couldn’t bring himself to let another minute go by.
“We’ve filed for divorce,” he had explained.
“And?” Thandy said.
“And it’s almost over. I don’t want things to drag out, so I’m going to settle.”
“Good,” she had said softly. “That’s the best thing for your sons.”
“Thandy, I want to come up to see you.”
“It’s not a good time,” she told him.
“You’ve got a lot on your shoulders. It sounds like a great opportunity. I don’t want to rush anything.”
“There’s nothing to rush,” she whispered.
“Listen, baby. I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I wish we were having this conversation in person. Hell, I didn’t even know where to find you. Sloane wouldn’t even give me your number at first.” He’d paused. “You just took off.”
Thandy said nothing.
“How is Chicago treating you?” Jack said with a softer tone.
“It’s fine. It’s a little chilly for November, but otherwise fine. We’ve had a few light flurries, but I hear the worst is yet to come.”
“I hope it snows like hell.”
“I love snow, Jack. But you wouldn’t know that. When I was a little girl it would snow up to the front doorstep every January. It’s my favorite time of year. My grandfather used to call me his January girl. Listen, Jack. It was good to hear from you. And I hope things turn out the way you want them to.”
She was trying to say good-bye, but he had more to say.
“You’re more like an October surprise. We had an anniversary last month,” he reminded her as he tossed his feet onto the carpet and got out of bed.
“I thought you might have forgotten.”
“How could I? I’ve had ten years with the most wonderful woman alive.”
“You never remembered before.”
“I’m sorry, Thandy. I was selfish.”
“I never asked for a lot. I never asked you to be or do anything.”
“That’s the most wonderful thing about you. I want to make it up to you if you’ll let me.”
“I’m not sure you can.”
“So, is this good-bye?”
She’d paused and said
, “Indeed.”
He could hear the quake in her voice. Jack wanted right then to put his arms around her, to kiss away every disappointment he’d given her. But she was more than five hundred miles away, sufficiently out of reach.
“I wish I could say something to change your mind,” he’d said. “I just want you to have the best of everything.”
“Then let me go.”
As he leaned back in the nursing chair, he replayed their conversation in his head again and again. The cognac that usually steadied him had made it to his brain and was loosening his muscles. He started to count to ten, then started over again. His breathing slowed and his legs steadied. There was a rumbling on the floor above his head.
“Dr. Gabrielle, it’s the police!”
Jesus, he thought. That bitch.
Flora Perez, the housekeeper, had opened the door. She pointed them to the cellar. Jack thought quickly as he heard the officers descend the stairs. He put his hands in the air.
“I’m unarmed,” Jack called across the room.
They followed Jack upstairs to the living room, where he was ordered to sit on the sofa. One officer questioned the housekeeper briefly, then released her.
“Lo siento, Dr. Gabrielle,” she said as she went upstairs. “I am sorry.”
“Toda será multa, everything will be fine.”
Afraid the authorities would discover she was in the country illegally, she went straight to her room and packed her clothes.
“Dr. Gabrielle, did you have dinner with a Miss Angel Delafine?” one of the officers asked, hovering over him.
“Delafuenta,” he corrected. “I did. I took her to Angelo’s on Alpharetta Highway.”
“You argued with her there?”
“She did most of the talking,” Jack said, looking away.
“Is it fair to say you had a disagreement?”
“You could say that. She was screaming like a crazy woman. The whole restaurant heard it. There must have been a hundred people there.”
“Did you strike Miss Delafuenta? She said you threatened her life.”
“I need to call my lawyer.”
Jack took the cordless phone into the kitchen and dialed Parham. The lawyer appeared at the front door less than fifteen minutes later. He greeted the officers and motioned for Jack to join him in the den.
“What’s this about?” Parham whispered as he closed the double French doors.
“Some girl says I hit her.”
“Did you?”
Jack said nothing.
“Did you?”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Only after she swung on me and spit in my face. Look at this shit!” Jack held up his bloody knuckle. “She bit me.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Angel.”
“Are you fucking her, too?”
“I was. But then she lied and told me she was pregnant.”
“Ah, man, you’re smarter than that. If Etienne gets wind of this, you can kiss your whole damn kingdom good-bye.”
“She’s not pregnant. Manipulative, but not pregnant.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s another affair, my man. Etienne will unload all of this in court. You got anything else you need to tell me?”
“No, that’s it.”
“If I’m going to get you out of this mess, you’ll have to come straight with me,” Parham pressed, standing between Jack and the door. “We’re not going back out there until you tell me everything. I can’t defend you if you’re going to keep coming up with surprises.”
“That’s it,” he lied again.
Now wasn’t the time to unearth a decade of indiscretions. The others were irrelevant—vestiges of the well-staged life he was no longer drawn to.
The men walked back to the living room, where Jack calmly answered a barrage of questions. He was suddenly sure of himself again. Parham’s presence stiffened his back. There were two of them and now the score was even.
“My client was only acting in self-defense,” Parham advised. “The woman in question attacked him first.”
“She admits that, but she’s got one heck of a shiner,” the taller, thinner officer said. “She says you wouldn’t let her out of the car. She’s claiming false imprisonment.”
“We were all the way up in Alpharetta. That’s at least twenty-five miles north. What was I supposed to do? Put her out on Georgia 400? Drop her off at the tollbooth?” Jack explained. “I took her straight home. It was late.”
“The law says we have to book you both. The judge will have to sort this out.”
The officers cuffed Jack and took him to a waiting squad car. Parham followed the cruiser to the station house. The next morning, after he posted a cash bond, Jack instructed Parham to approve the settlement. Etienne got everything she wanted. Angel sat in jail for four days until her mother could wire the bail money. Two weeks later, after a round of negotiation, Jack and Angel stood before a judge and dropped the charges.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
It was just after 8:00 a.m. Two lawyers and three accountants sat around the conference table, their ties already down at half-mast, their sleeves already rolled up when Etienne came in. Every man there, including Wynn Finlayson, had been summoned—her very own handpicked team of experts. There were decisions to be made and a ton of money to count.
One by one, as if on cue, the men carefully laid out the matters at hand. Jack Gabrielle had rolled over like a patsy. Etienne would have enjoyed it better if he’d begged. He could kiss her ass until the sun came up and it wouldn’t make a difference. For her part, Etienne started counting wins the old-fashioned way, a dollar at a time. She had fifteen million reasons to be happy.
“I find it hard to believe he just gave in like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “The Jack Gabrielle I know hates to lose.”
“I was a little surprised myself,” Finlayson said.
Etienne smiled with sweet satisfaction and nodded to a far-off place.
“Seems everything runs its course,” she said to no one, hardly able to contain her glee.
“These things have a way of working themselves out,” Finlayson said. “The point is you got everything there was to get. No jury trial.”
“Are we sure about that?”
“If he has any other assets, then he’s done a mighty fine job of hiding them.”
“I don’t put anything past him. I trust him about as far as I can pick him up and throw him.”
“I thought you might toss him out of a window,” Finlayson said, laughing.
“The day isn’t over yet.” She grinned.
The first accountant took the cue and began detailing the settlement ad nauseam. He spoke in clear, short sentences like every other CPA on the planet. He was compulsive, if not anal retentive, relishing every detail. Etienne liked the idea that the team was so thorough, although she couldn’t muster the concentration to follow along for more than a few minutes at a time. She wanted them to spare the gory details. Jack had always managed the family finances, something she regretted now. Most of the information was news to her. How much was here, how much was there. Etienne was soon bored and began to fidget after the first hour.
A second lawyer presented her with the settlement documents. Etienne scanned the paperwork. The actual court date was many weeks away, but technically she was a free woman—a very rich and very free woman. Staring away again to some far-off place, she hardly heard a word of their briefing. She cared only about one number: fifteen. At that moment she wandered upon a frightening thought. She had no husband, no house to go home to. She didn’t even own a car. Etienne hadn’t planned for the day after. She’d gotten by on Jack’s black American Express card and a hired town car.
The lawyers had been up well past midnight preparing for her arrival, anticipating any questions she would have, but instead Etienne picked sparingly at her muffin. Orange-cranberry, no sugar, just as she had requested.
“I can’t say I know what I’m doing,” s
he said finally. “It’s not like I get divorced every day.”
“Take your time,” Finlayson instructed. “Make sure you understand everything.”
She skimmed through the paragraphs and initialed the changes. She blew out a lengthy sigh, then signed and dated the last page. One of the accountants signed as a witness and then the notary added her seal, after which the stack was ferried off to the copier.
“I don’t even know where to start,” she said as she stood up from the long table. “I think I need a car.”
“You’ve got enough money to start over any way you want,” Finlayson said.
“I don’t know what I want.”
“It’ll come to you.” His voice was steady and sure, comforting.
When she was satisfied, Etienne pushed back from the table and stood up. “I should get going.”
“I imagine you’ve already set up an account to receive the funds.”
“I hadn’t thought about it really,” she said. “I’m ashamed to say I’ve never had a bank account of my own. I’ve been living on Jack’s credit card since the day I left.”
“You should open your own account. After the judge signs the final order, you’ll need to be ready to receive the funds. You’ll need a solid financial strategy. And don’t spend any more money until you decide what you really want. The order makes you personally responsible for any new debt incurred after the day you left.”
“Any recommendations?”
“I have a colleague who runs the Wealth Management practice at a big firm. They’re out of Chicago, but they’ve got a great reputation,” one of the accountants offered. “The division president is from Atlanta. I think you will like her.”
“Thandy Malone,” Etienne guessed.
Her cool, methodical tone evaporated. According to Etienne’s calculations, Thandy Malone had been in Chicago several months. Her phone call had hit the mark. Still, just the thought of her name caused a violent eruption in Etienne.
Even still, she tried to tell herself she didn’t have bad feelings for Thandy, that she was just one of Jack’s more than frequent infidelities. Bitches and whores.
The January Girl Page 13