Bedeviled

by Madison Michael

  “Carlotta, I cannot get a job. No one wants me. I need you, Querida. I need you to get me a job at Old World, a good job. I deserve it. You owe me.”

  “You are acting crazy, Gil. I don’t owe you. You need to get out.” She was shouting and trying to get around his broad shoulders to reach for the phone. He would not budge and she was cornered like a mouse in the center of the bed. She had to move from her vulnerable position.

  Leaping away from him toward the other side of the bed, away from the door, she realized she would have to traverse the entire room but it would put some distance between them. Gil caught the movement early though, grabbing her arm and almost yanking it from its socket. He pulled her back onto the bed before lying across her nightgown-clad body.

  Charlotte was defenseless now, her arms pinned beneath Gil’s body. His foul breath in her face, he began kissing her while she bucked beneath him and turned her face away.

  “Don’t you dare turn from me, bitch,” he barked at her, slapping her face hard. “I was good enough for you before, and I am good enough now.”

  Charlotte felt Gil’s hands on her naked legs and started screaming at the top of her lungs. In a haze, she realized he was undoing his jeans. He had every intention of raping her.

  “Shut up before I make you,” he hollered above her noise, slugging her with one fist while he pulled his jeans lower. “You will love this, Querida. It will be great.”

  Charlotte felt the weight lift from her and fresh air flow into her lungs with a whoosh. Gil was being yanked from the room by two burley Boston policemen. His feet never touched the floor until they had him on his knees in the next room. He was handcuffed and taken away while a young EMT soothed her and suggested in the kindest of tones that they get her to the hospital.

  “I’m okay,” Charlotte kept saying, “He didn’t do anything.”

  “You mean he didn’t rape you? But you are beat up pretty bad.”

  Charlotte refused to go with them, gave a brief statement saying that her old boyfriend had gotten angry. She should have pressed charges. She was an idiot. That was where she had made her big mistake.

  Instead of making Gil go away, she had been forced to run and hide again. At her wits end, her meeting with Regan and an opportunity to move to Chicago were godsends.

  Charlotte disappeared again and stayed happily hidden until August, when a shadow in the park turned into her worst nightmare. Except this time, Alex had been there to rescue her, to protect her.

  I should have known it couldn’t last.

  There was no escaping Gil, Charlotte finally acknowledged. This was her reality and she gave in to it. Gil was growing more desperate for money, his family was pressuring him to leave his rough crowd behind and become the man he had shown as a teen he could be. He said he wanted that too.

  Sort of.

  He wanted it the easy way, or the trappings of it. Getting it honestly, through his own hard work and effort? Not a chance. Instead, he would blackmail his way into a job, into a marriage, into the right society with the right opportunities.

  He knew all of Charlotte’s secrets and he would divulge every one of them, no matter who he hurt or endangered.

  “You will come home. You will tell everyone you want to marry me. Tell them you are anxious to start a family, that you are sick of working so hard. I don’t care what you tell them. But make them believe you, Charlotte. You better be the best little actress ever born.”

  “Why would you want me knowing I hate you?” she had thrown in his face.

  “Hate is very close to love, Charlotte. Isn’t that what they say? You loved me once. You will learn to love me again.”

  “After everything you have done, I could never love you. And back then, we were kids, Gil. That wasn’t love.”

  “It was for me,” he told her, running a hand through his dark locks, and flashing his deep brown eyes at her. He looked handsome in that moment, and very, very dangerous. “You’ll make them believe, Carlotta, or people will get hurt. Your precious Alex – I can get to him. Your father, do you want me to go public about him? It would destroy your family. You decide, Querida. It is up to you.”

  “I will convince the world, Gil. You just name the day.”

  Gil had reached forward to kiss her and she had pulled away like he was a viper.

  “You love me, Car, remember. You want to marry me. Now come give your Gilberto a loving kiss. Make them believe.”

  So she did. Everyday for two weeks she had lived this lie, let him kiss her and hug her in front of their families and friends while her skin crawled. Her would-be rapist was now her fiancé.

  There is no other scenario, she determined, returning to the present. You can never, ever let anyone believe otherwise, Charlotte. Make them believe or people will die.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Something’s not right about this,” Sloane told Randall as she snuggled with him in front of the fireplace and looked out the window at the dark night. All she could see was her own stunning reflection, and the gorgeous open and rugged space that was their Lake Tahoe home. She loved being here, in this house where Randall had proposed marriage. They had been here with only his father since New Year’s Day for two blissful weeks, but tomorrow their friends would arrive for a week of relaxation and skiing.

  Sloane knew how much Keeli needed the break. Business had been insane for the last ten weeks of the year, filling and delivering on a record breaking number of orders to major distributors and overseeing production of custom pieces.

  Business had never been better, or harder. Thank God for Keeli’s creativity and calm demeanor. Left to her own devices, Sloane thought she would tear off a few heads, but running things with Keeli was somehow fun even when it was exhausting. It never failed to amaze Sloane that she and Keeli had gone from competing for the same man, to colleagues, to true friends. Especially since Sloane was a sore loser.

  Randall had gone through all the year-end paperwork associated with the world of high finance, so that he would have no trouble getting away. He ran a smooth ship and delegated where he needed to. Tyler, too, had come into the year-end with no major issues, although he warned the group that Wyatt would be exhausted from growing the tech company he started for another consecutive year.

  Regan was in the worst shape, desperately needing a getaway. She was more emotional than usual and horribly overworked since the departure of Charlotte. For the last three weeks, Regan had been doing both jobs and trying to get through Christmas.

  The group was unhappy with Alex, who had bailed on them and taken off for Aspen alone, brashly telling his friends they were uninvited for the skiing holiday that had already been planned. No one dared challenge him. He was an ogre since Charlotte moved out. She had left Chicago a month ago but the hole she left in their lives remained hollow.

  “You need to stay out of this,” Randall warned Sloane. “Charlotte is a grown woman. She knows her own mind.” The commotion at the door saved Randall from a spat with his fiancé, who loved to have her own way and had just opened her mouth to argue. “They’re here!”

  “It is about damn time,” Sloane noted. “They should have been here hours ago. They will help you see that I am right.”

  “Let it go, Sloane,” Randall pleaded. “Think how tired they all are if it is this late here. Do not get into it. Promise me.”

  Sloane agreed reluctantly, and five minutes later she was the most gracious of hostesses.

  “You must be exhausted,” she told the women as they preceded the men and luggage into the house.

  “And starved,” Regan added. “I cannot believe we are two hours behind schedule. Can you ever forgive us?”

  “Of course we can, Regan. We all know how tough it is to get away for a week. We all have so much on our plates.”

  “Do not let her off the hook,” Tyler jeered. “She held us all up so she could do an extra hour of meetings.” His words were rough, but the look he gave Regan, and the soothing arm he pla
ced around her shoulders, belied his words.

  “It’s just a good thing we had Wyatt’s plane.”

  “You wouldn’t have kept us waiting if we were on a commercial flight,” Keeli observed. “Maybe we should have thought of that.”

  “Okay,” Regan threw her hands up in a sign of surrender. “Guilty, guilty, guilty. Now can I get some food?”

  Sloane reached into the fridge and took out platters of meats and cheeses, salads and rolls and started reheating a large pot of soup on the stove, then opened a bottle of wine to breathe. Meanwhile, Randall showed the couples to their rooms and laughed when Tyler and Regan took separate rooms.

  “When are you going to make a move?” he challenged his friend.

  “Never, asshole, so just drop it.”

  “Idiot,” Randall muttered under his breath, but he indicated a room far from Regan’s and no more was said despite the longing look Tyler gave Regan’s retreating form.

  Sloane made sure Randall’s father, Mark, was invited to join them, but he declined and the group of friends fixed heaping plates of food, then gathered around the large table.

  Conversation was a rehash of the travel that day, the Christmas holidays and excited plans for the week. Still, it didn’t take Sloane much effort to turn the discussion to Alex and their efforts to get him to join them.

  “I have called twice,” Sloane announced, “and Randall sent a slew of emails.”

  “He didn’t even respond to me,” Randall revealed. “That is why Sloane finally called him. The guy’s a mess. We need to drag his ass up here for a few days.”

  “It’s Charlotte,” Sloane announced. Randall shot her an “I told you to stay out of it” look but Sloane ignored him and forged ahead. “Don’t you agree Regan? Something fishy is going on.”

  “I told you , Ree, leave it alone.” Tyler said from beside her, earning a high-five from Randall. “It’s Charlotte’s choice.”

  “Is it? I keep thinking about the way she gave notice. There was something going on.”

  “Yeah, her family was in trouble,” Tyler pronounced. “Of course something was going on.”

  “No,” Regan contradicted. “Something else. Something weird.”

  “What do you mean, Ree? Weird how?” Keeli asked.

  “Oh no, Keeli, please just stay out of this. We are in big trouble if you all put your heads together,” Wyatt pleaded.

  “Watch it, Bro,” Regan warned before turning back to Keeli. “She said she wished things could be different.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler interpreted, “she wished her family situation could be different.”

  “Exactly,” Randall agreed.

  “Then why such a hasty wedding?” Sloane asked. All eyes shifted to her except Regan’s.

  “You guys didn’t know? Didn’t you tell them, Regan?”

  “I might have failed to mention it,” Regan said now in a small, innocent voice. “I got an invitation this week to Charlotte’s wedding.”

  Chaos erupted around the table with everyone firing off questions at the same time. ”What wedding?” “When?” “To whom?” and finally “Does Alex know?”

  “I have the invitation in my bag, so I can show you. In Rhode Island, March 1st, to a childhood sweetheart and I think Alex might know. I think that is why he’s not here,” Regan stated.

  “How can she be marrying someone else when she loves Alex?” Keeli asked the room at large.

  “Exactly,” Sloane agreed. “That is my point exactly.” She fired a look at Randall who was pointedly looking elsewhere.

  “Charlotte is a smart and strong woman. You are such drama queens. If she didn’t want to marry this guy, she wouldn’t be marrying him.”

  “Oh Wyatt, do you have to be so logical?” his wife asked him. “What if he is forcing her?”

  “Or her family is forcing her?” Regan added.

  “Or she is being blackmailed by them all?” Sloane suggested.

  “You ladies read too many novels,” Tyler announced. “Things like that don’t happen anymore. Not in America at least.”

  “But how do you explain the guy that beat up Alex that night outside my office?”

  “Alex got beat up?”

  “He never told you?” Regan looked from one friend to the next, astonished. “I wonder why he never shared that.”

  “Maybe cause he lost the fight,” Randall mocked.

  “Oh shut up, Randall,” Wyatt tossed across at his friend good-naturedly. “What happened, Regan?”

  “Right when Charlotte gave her notice, Alex came to see me. He wanted me to help get her to return his calls. But of course, she was gone. Anyway,” she continued, back on point, “he had blood all over his shirt and his nose looked broken to me. I guess it wasn’t, but it was bad. Anyway, he told me a man had jumped him right across from the office and punched him.”

  “That could have been anyone. It’s Chicago,” Sloane interjected. “Yeah, but the guy threatened Charlotte, her family and Alex.”

  “Shit, why didn’t he tell me?” Randall said, angry. “I would have beat the crap out of the guy.”

  “Well, my friends,” Regan announced, waiting for their undivided attention, “the guy who punched Alex is now Charlotte’s fiancé.”

  After the shocked “What?” and “Are you serious?” questions had filled the air, Sloane asked what she wanted to know all along.

  “So, team,” she queried, like she was speaking to her high school cheerleading squad, “what are we going to do about this?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The women wanted to problem solve that night, but the men’s objections of exhaustion and needing time to think prevailed and soon everyone went to their own rooms to consider the problem, unpack or sleep.

  Over coffee the following morning, the conversation picked up right where it had left off. There was disagreement on how to help, but the group all agreed on two things – something was not right and Alex needed to get involved. All three men fired off emails to Alex effectively saying the same thing – get out of Aspen and over to Tahoe or they would come get him. Then, while they waited, the skiers hit the slopes with Randall’s father, a ski bum if ever there was one.

  By mid-afternoon, everyone reconvened in the enormous living room before a roaring fire and picked up the morning’s conversation. No one had heard from Alex so Wyatt took it upon himself to fly to Aspen and bring him back to Tahoe to join the planning. He promised to deliver the reluctant man to their care by nightfall and was quickly gone.

  In his absence, Regan shared with her friends the formal wedding invitation she had received just days ago. The heavy velum contained the traditional words for a wedding invitation, her parents cordially invited Regan to attend the marriage of Carlotta Maria to Gilberto Arelo, son of…”

  “Carlotta Rocha? What the hell is going on here?”

  “A Catholic wedding in Providence, Rhode Island? I am completely confused.”

  The comments came and Regan found herself explaining that Charlotte had a hidden past. When her friends tried to accuse Charlotte of attempting to fool them, to pass herself off as more important than she was, Regan was quick to defend her.

  “The mistake was actually mine. I just assumed she was a Roche from ‘the’ Roche family. They are donors at Harvard, and a large number live in Boston and so I leapt to a few conclusions. Charlotte tried to tell me right away, then she saw her opportunity to get out of Boston and she took it.”

  “I knew as soon as I did a background check, and eventually Charlotte admitted everything.” Regan chose not to tell the group how long it had taken for her employee to fess up. It didn’t matter, they had moved to the subject of her lying to Alex instead.

  “She told him everything right after Thanksgiving,” Regan told them. “He didn’t take it well.”

  “The hypocrite!” Tyler announced before he could check himself. “How dare he get mad at her for hiding her past when...”

  “Tyler,” Randall cut him
off.

  “Are you keeping secrets?” Sloane asked.

  “Not our secret to tell, Sloane. I have to respect the request of a friend.”

  The three women tried to get a kernel of gossip from the men, but all were tight lipped. Later, in the hot tub, Sloane and Keeli made a game out of guessing what it might be before giving up in frustration.

  “We will have to corner Alex about this,” Keeli suggested.

  “Maybe we should fix this Charlotte mess first? I may have accused her of trying to ‘pass herself off’ earlier, but the truth is I really like her. We need to get her back with Alex. It needs to be our top priority, ok?”