by Hazel Parker
Philip, I am terribly sorry, but I have to reject your offer. I understand the sentimental attachment to the property that you and your family would have, but it is mine. I have owned it for many years now. I hope this will not impact our friendship.
Yours,
Thelma
Elizabeth looked up at Rick. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure that you don’t.” Rick nodded. “I just found out myself. Apparently my grandfather’s family built this house. When your grandmother went into the senior complex, my dad offered to buy the property. Of course Thelma said no. She wanted you to have it. But—”
“But your dad wasn’t ok with that.” Elizabeth looked back at her grandmother’s signature.
“No,” Rick sighed. “He went off on a rant the other day, which I didn’t understand. Then Daniel and I started looking around—”
“Daniel…helped?” Rick gave her a bit of a smile.
“Daniel’s sorry if he freaked you out. But he’s really a decent guy.” Rick’s smile faded and his jaw tightened. “My dad’s plan was apparently to frighten you out of the house, and then buy it himself.” He looked apologetic. “Elizabeth, I never had any idea.”
“I’m sorry.” Elizabeth was still frightened, but she did feel bad for him. “Your father needs help.”
“That he does.” Rick looked down the stairs. He held out his hand for her. “We should both go and have a talk with the officers.” He ran his fingers over her neck. “You’re bruised. You should see a doctor.”
“Later.” Elizabeth took his hand. “Come on.”
*****
It had been two weeks since the incident in the house. Since that night, Elizabeth no longer saw or heard anything strange. She’d offered to not press charges against Philip, but the local police were hearing none of it. Philip had crossed the line between simply trespassing and causing harm. While Elizabeth hadn’t been seriously hurt, she knew she’d never be able to get the incident out of her mind.
Philip had confessed to everything. While Elizabeth had thought he was a sweet old man, his statements revealed a different personality. He was bitter and angry with Thelma. He claimed the two had an agreement over the years for her to sell him the house. But then, suddenly, she’d supposedly changed her mind.
Philip was furious. He’d done so much work on the property, which he believed was rightfully his family’s, and now he’d have no claim to it. When he’d heard that a single woman was moving into the property, he’d figured it would be incredibly easy to get her out of the house.
He’d left the monkey doll the first night. It was a family heirloom that Philip’s family claimed was cursed. He’d thought it might send a message, given that it was so ugly.
Elizabeth had proven better than he thought. And then she’d become involved with Rick. Elizabeth wondered if he’d watched them in bed. She did not want to think of it.
Rick and Daniel had both been incredibly apologetic regarding their father’s actions. As strange as Daniel had originally been, he had become just as pleasant now. Elizabeth had even agreed to let him move into the caretaker’s house.
Rick did not need to move in with him. He was still spending his time with her. She could not blame him for his father’s actions, and she’d told him that—in many ways.
It had been a rough start, but Canver had been just what she’d needed. She could only imagine the future she had ahead of her.
THE END
Business Affair
“Did you read this article, Marie?” Meg asked from behind me.
I knew which one she was talking about without turning around. Rinsing the last of the dishes, I took my time setting them aside to dry, and wiped my hands on a towel. Forcing a smile, I turned around and came to stand behind Meg’s chair. I was drawn to Jack Lawson’s grainy, black and white image looking up from the newspaper.
“I read it,” I said. Meg’s eyes were on mine, no doubt trying to gauge my reaction.
“So what are you going to do?”
“About what?” I shrugged.
“Well, I just figured you would want to try and see him.”
“To what end?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe to tell him about—” She gestured to the other room where Will sat watching cartoons.
I sighed and looked back down to the picture. It was an old one, one I’d seen a few other times. He was boarding a plane, looking back over her shoulder with his political smile fixed in place. Even through the distortion of the newsprint, I could see beyond to his handsome features, fresh in my mind. In some respects, it was hard to believe 3 years had passed since we were together. Other days it felt like a lifetime ago.
“It says here he’ll be in town scouting locations for a campaign office. That’s good, right? That means he’ll be back in town again.” She smiled. It was a hopeful smile and I was grateful for a friend who could supply the optimism I was lacking. I sat beside her and picked up my coffee.
“You seem to forget that there was a reason for not getting in touch with him in the first place. None of that has changed.”
“You mean that his mother is a snobby, old cow?”
I laughed at Meg, never one to mince words. “Yeah, there’s that. Plus, I don’t want to know what fathering an illegitimate child with his personal assistant will do to his political future. That’s a political scandal gold mine. I didn’t want to lay that on him then, and I still can’t do that to him now.”
Meg waved her hand at me, haphazardly folding up the paper. She turned in her chair to face me and placed a hand on mine, a surefire sign she was going to use her serious voice. I smiled in anticipation of whatever warped nugget of advice she was about to give me.
“Marie, honey, you’re thinking about this all wrong. This isn’t about what you think he wants, or what you think is best. It’s about what you feel.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. Next she’ll be reading my horoscope and taking me to her palm reader.
“No, seriously. You can’t sit there and honestly tell me that a big part of you doesn’t want to see him again. That you don’t want to tell him he fathered a child, one who has an attitude as big as his dads. It’s not like you two parted on bad terms or anything. I think he deserves to know.”
“That’s true, but if he was willing to walk away back then, before either of us knew I was pregnant, then I have to believe he would have wanted to walk away if he had known. Maybe he wouldn’t have because he felt obligated to stick around, but I didn’t want him like that.”
“A lot of time has gone by. You don’t know what he wants.”
I nodded absently. Meg and I had been friends for years, and she had been there with all her sage advice when Jack and I started seeing each other, when he decided to move to Washington, when I found out I was carrying his child. Because of that, she considered herself an expert on the topic.
“Besides, people have a way of bumping into one another. It’s a small world and all that. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ran into him before you knew it,” Meg said before she got up and dumped the dregs of her cup down the sink. With a smug smile, Meg grabbed her purse and wagged her fingers at me, leaving for work out the back door.
I shook my head and started for the living room to get Will ready for daycare. Sometimes I hated being neighbors with my best friend. Especially when she was right.
*****
The restaurant was especially slow for a Thursday, and the day dragged on. Picking at the gum stuck to the bottom of the tables gave me loads of time to let my mind wander, and it always seemed to come back around to Jack. Thanks, Meg.
My mind could vividly replay every sequence with stunning clarity. The first time I met him when I interviewed for the position of his assistant. The long evenings spent working, trying to deny the attraction we both felt, even when my resolve was weak. The night we finally both gave in, too exhausted to keep up the farce that we wanted to keep it professional. I let myself go back t
here, to all the memories that I usually held back. I savored every inside joke, each brush of his knuckles over my cheek, every time he held me close.
Locked in the privacy of the bathroom on my lunch break, I saved my favorite memories. The ones I couldn’t allow myself to relive in the hum of the restaurant. I lowered the seat and sat down, and let myself travel back to that first night. I closed my eyes and I could hear the deep rumble of Jack’s voice in my ear. He was leaning over my shoulder, both of us studying the documents on his desk.
The front of his thigh brushed against me as he leaned forward to indicate something. I stilled, mindful of him so near. I was holding my breath, waiting for him to move back again, but he didn’t. Instead his face hovered near mine, close enough to feel his breath on my cheek. He stayed like that for what seemed like forever, hesitating.
My skin trembled, waiting in anticipation for his next move. I remembered hoping that this would be the night that the tension broke and we gave in to each other. I had been so exhausted from pretending otherwise. As the memory faded in until it was as clear as on that night, my body was washed in the same feeling of anticipation.
Even now I could feel my flesh aching for his touch, liquid pooling at my core. I inched my hand up my leg, under the polyester skirt to my underwear, damp to the touch. Pulling them aside, my fingers found the source of my heat and I stroked myself, encouraging the rush of adrenalin that began pumping through me.
I let myself think of Jack’s hands and the first touch of them to my hip as we remained frozen in place at his desk. His hands grabbed me firmly, not a gentle caress, and I willed him to not move away, not deny me this time. And he didn’t. His hands curved along my hip and down to my ass. His actions were coarse, almost crude. I welcomed it.
After all these months, I wouldn’t have been able to stand tender or gentle. All the close encounters and almosts had me wound too tightly. The rough pull of his hands as he seized my skirt and jerked my underwear down was a delicious contrast to his usual mild manner, his polished smile, his tailored suit.
I recreated the moments of anticipation before Jack took me, spreading my legs wider in the narrow stall, letting my knees fall open and touch the cold, metal walls. My fingers sped up as the rasp of his zipper echoed behind me. My heart beat faster, as it had three years ago when I felt him moving behind me.
He had his cock in his hand, the smooth tip pushing against me from behind. I had bent over his desk as I had envisioned doing dozens of times before. With my forearms resting on the glossy wood and my skirt bunched around my waist, I hadn’t cared what a cliché I was. I wanted to feel him inside me and it didn’t matter where or how.
Rubbing my clit with my thumb, I slipped two fingers into my wet core and relived the moment when Jack thrust into me, no priming, no words exchanged. None were needed. Months of foreplay was more than enough. I accepted him wholly, welcoming his length with a low moan of pleasure. My wet fingers kept time with the memory of his hips. They thrust into me, unyielding, until I could no longer use my arms for resistance.
Jack gripped onto my hips, holding me firm to him, and continued his driving efforts. The pressure inside me continued to build until I was reaching my peak. Jack’s fluid movements were ceaseless and my body thrummed until I was crying out in release, my body limp under his hands. The roar of Jack’s own shuddering release was loud in my head. In the bathroom stall, my probing fingers stilled, wet from a quiet, unsatisfying orgasm.
I leaned back against the cold porcelain and let my breathing slow. I could remember many different times we had been intimate, some sweet and gentle, some rough, but that one was my favorite. The hours of fantasizing, on both our parts as it had turned out, finally came to fruition that night. For four months after that, we stole away every chance we got, up until the day he moved. Then I was back at square one, fantasizing about him all over again.
*****
I sighed and I looked around the disaster that was my living room. The end of day routine was upon me again and I began gathering toys off the floor. A week had gone by and despite Meg’s insisting that it was only a matter of time before Jack and I crossed paths, I had yet to decide what to do about him. Though I was sure we didn’t run in anywhere near the same circles anymore—Jack being a hopeful for the Governor’s seat and me barely scraping together enough for my mortgage payment—I had to admit that Meg had a point. At some point down the road, it was bound to happen.
I dumped the armful of toys into Will’s toy box and played out all the scenarios in my head. If I ever did run into him, what would I say to him? What if Will was with me?
I could move.
No, I couldn’t afford to start over somewhere, and besides, that seemed a little extreme. But I also couldn’t spend every minute I was out looking over my shoulder.
I scrubbed at the mystery goo on the underside of the coffee table like I was going to beat an epiphany out of it. In the back of my mind, though, I knew there was only one thing that I could do. I had to tell Jack about Will.
In some ways it probably would have been easier to tell him when I had found out. It wouldn’t have been hard to get a hold of him; Jack had left voice messages and sent me emails after he moved. I hadn’t returned any of them. Meg thought I was an idiot.
But I loved Jack. I never told him so, but I did. And more so I respected him and his big dreams. Jack was so very driven and focused when it came to his career. And sex. I admired him for that and I knew what the news of my pregnancy would have done to those ambitions.
The guilt of keeping it from him didn’t go unnoticed, though.
It was a little easier when I didn’t think I would ever see Jack again. Only sometimes would I think of all the things he was missing out on, the memories I had robbed him of. But then I would remember that he lived three states over and he wouldn’t have been able to take part in them anyways. I found quite a few ways to justify away the guilt.
But now we were sharing the same city again, and I didn’t think my conscience could justify keeping Will from him anymore. If I told Jack and he decided not to be a part of Will’s life, then that would be the end of it. Life would go on as it had been. Any other possibility and I would have to figure it out when I crossed that road.
I decided to move fast, the resolve still fresh. The next day, with a pep talk and babysitting services from Meg, I got in my old beater and headed downtown. The radio was playing a fast song, so I cranked it, hoping the sound of the music would drown out the voice trying to convince me to back out. Part of me was excited at the thought of seeing Jack again, but it was swiftly tempered by the other part which was dreading the gravity of the visit.
Navigating through the one-way streets, I made my way to the Belanger Hotel. I knew Jack would be staying there because he always stayed at the same hotel when he was in town during his campaign stops. Lucky for me, or maybe not, Jack was a reporter’s dream: he charmed crowds, photographed well, and always provided a succinct quote. It was easy to follow him in the newspapers.
I drove past the hotel and down a side street, opting to find a free spot to park and walk back. It was a warm day and I had dressed in a skirt and a sleeveless blouse, both of which I had spent far too much time picking out. I didn’t have a huge wardrobe, but it didn’t feel right showing up in my usual collection of discount clothes. Especially when I had to walk through one of the nicest hotels in town. And see the most handsome man I’d ever slept with.
My nerves were kicked into overdrive as I walked through the doors. I didn’t have a plan, really. I was just hoping he would want to talk to me. I suppose I was hoping that he wouldn’t and I could leave, having done my due diligence. The woman at the front desk gave me a warm smile as I walked up.
“Could you give me Jack Lawson’s room number?” I asked, sounding as nervous as I felt.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t give out room numbers,” she said. I exhaled a relieved breath, thankful that I was able to avoid the whole
thing, but then she added, “But I can call up to his room on your behalf if you’d like.”
I forced a smile and gave her a brief nod, the mix of nerves and excitement churning my stomach.
She took my name and looked up Jack’s room. I strained to hear the brief conversation, but I couldn’t gain a single clue as to what Jack, or more likely his assistant, had said. Placing the phone back on the receiver, the concierge turned back to me.
“Mr. Lawson asked me to send you up. He is in room number 1201.”
I thanked her and made my way across the lobby to the elevator that would take me to the penthouse. I pushed the light for his floor and watched the numbers climb, hoping a kid would poke his head into the car and run his hand down the buttons, forcing me to stop at each floor and draw this ride out. Unfortunately, though, that didn’t happen, and the doors dinged open on the twelfth floor mere seconds later.
The quiet of the hallway was maddening, creating a surge in my nerves. Standing before his door I took a calming breath before I knocked. Almost immediately the door was opened and instead of seeing an assistant, I saw Jack standing on the other side.