The Anatomy of Jane (WJM Book 1)

by Amelia LeFay

  Just like that he walked out.

  I didn’t want him to leave, but after what he’d said, I wasn’t sure how to respond. Instead, I stepped out of the room and leaned on the rail, listening as the door shut behind him. What was happening? I didn’t even understand myself. Why was I so pissed that Jane had stopped coming to work? Why put so much effort into getting a maid back? Why this? Why that? The more I thought, the more my head hurt, so I kept putting it off.

  “Error.” The door beeped as someone put in the code. Glancing down at my watch, I realized it was the first of October. The code changed monthly.

  Had he forgotten?

  Rushing down the stairs, I nearly tripped, making me further embarrassed. I stopped to straighten my clothes before opening the door. I had expected to look directly at Wes, but instead, my head dropped down at a navy blue Patriots baseball cap.

  “The code changed?” she asked softly, looking up to me.

  Fuck the code.

  “Jane? What happened?” I cupped the side of her face and saw the damage: her lip was busted and torn on both sides, her left eye was dark reddish-yellow, and the bruises even spread across her nose. She wore a jacket, a turtleneck, and leggings, but I had a feeling there was more damage to be seen.

  “Sorry for taking a week off, but I’m here to clean now if you haven’t gotten a new maid.” She lifted a bucket of supplies for me to see, not at all answering my question. I stood there raging and it built up inside of me to the point where I was clenching my fists. “Please stop staring and let me clean, Maxwell. It’s the only thing I’m good at.”

  Stepping aside, I let her in, though I wasn’t sure if I was breathing any more. She moved to the couch where she took off her jacket and folded it neatly. She put her cap on top before putting in earphones and grabbing her bright yellow gloves.

  I’m going to kill them. No, I’m going to fucking crucify them!

  Pulling my phone out of my back pocket, I dialed quickly and he answered on the first ring.

  “When I say I’ll see you later—”

  “She’s back. Come up now…she’s…she’s hurt.”

  “What do you mean she’s hurt?” I could already hear him walking.

  “Someone beat the shit out her!” I fought back a scream as my hands trembled. Each breath got shorter and shorter.

  The line went dead. Putting the phone back in my pocket, I opened the door and waited for the elevator to come up. I took no less than a minute. He looked like I felt. His eyes were hard, his lips in a thin line as he came inside, and just like I did, he froze when saw her wiping down the coffee table.

  “She’s cleaning?” he hissed through his teeth before stepping forward to go to her. I stopped him and put my hand on his shoulder after closing the door.

  “She’s trying to make herself feel useful. She doesn’t like to be pitied.”

  “I know that, but she’s hurt!” he snapped at me. “Who did this?”

  “I know what you know. She just came here and asked to clean, so I let her clean, but know this: I’m not letting her leave until I get a fucking name.” I moved to take a seat on the stairs.

  His jaw cracked to the side before he took a deep breath. Taking a seat beside me on the stairs, he put his hand over his mouth.

  “Whoever did this…” He trailed off, clasping his hands shut, and I understood then what had been so hard for me to understand five minutes before.

  I cared about her. I didn’t know why. I couldn’t explain it. All I knew was at that very moment, watching her, it fucking hurt. It was torture. The Jane I knew was strong, feisty, kind, and a pain in the ass workaholic, but someone had tried to break her. No. Just no.

  We waited two hours.

  That was a total of sixty-four winces, twenty-two quick stretches, sixteen sharp inhales of pain, nine times where she just paused and stood there lost in thought, and four times she wiped the corner of her eyes. When she did it a fifth time, I couldn’t take it any more.

  Getting up, I walked into the kitchen and stepped in front of her. She looked at me with her big hazel eyes, and I wiped the corner of her bruised eye, and pulled out the earphones.

  “Who?” I asked, placing my hand on her bruised face. “Who?” I asked again.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Bullocks,” I whispered, running my hand over her lips. “Don’t brush this off. Talk to me. Who?”

  Her eyes watered and she looked away. Stepping closer, I wrapped her in my arms and she just sobbed. She trembled like a child. Kissing the top of her head, Max leaned on the kitchen island, his head down, strands of his black hair covering his eyes.

  “I’ll go run a bath,” he muttered, turning away.

  Nodding, I bent down and picked her up. She wrapped her arms around me, not letting go like a terrified little cat. It only made it hurt more. None of us said anything as we walked up the stairs to the master bedroom. I placed her on the bed as Max went into the bathroom.

  “Do you want me to go?

  “I need help,” she whispered, not looking up at me. “I can’t lift my arms that high.”

  Swallowing the painful lump in my throat, I reached to the bottom of her turtleneck and pulled it up slowly, reaching under to help her right arm out and then the left, gently lifting it over her head…

  Christ.

  The bruising on her face was not nearly as bad as it was on her stomach and chest. If this was a couple of days after, I could only imagine how bad it was after it happened.

  “Jane,” I whispered, shaking my head. I had no other words.

  “I’m okay,” she lied again. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t. Seeing her like that, I wasn’t okay, but it wasn’t about me.

  “Do you want to keep your bra on?” I asked, noting her bra had a clasp in the front, so she could take it off herself.

  She just reached up and undid it. Like the rest of her, her breasts were bruised too. The marks were all from beatings, and there were no teeth marks or hickeys. It didn’t rule out sexual assault but…

  “When I fantasized about being naked in front of you guys, it wasn’t like this,” she tried to joke, shifting to the edge of the bed to take off her leggings. Again I noticed no hickeys, thumb or hand impressions; in fact, her legs were pretty much the only things not beaten. Whoever had done this had focused on her top half.

  “That’s the part where you say something sexual or something. You’re Wes, the free-spirited wild one,” she whispered to me.

  “Right now, I’m Wes, one of the men, trying to…trying to make you feel safe.”

  She laughed lightly and it was music to my ears. “You guys don’t have to do anything to make me feel safe. That’s why I came. I’m scared everywhere else but here. He can’t get me here.”

  Putting her hands over her face, she cried again.

  Hearing the door opening, I watched as Max came over and kneeled beside me in front of her.

  “You are safe here. You can stay for as long as you want, and you don’t have to clean a damn thing.”

  She chuckled, sniffling a couple times before dropping her hands and looking at us. “Thank you.”

  I hated how she thanked us. Like…like it wasn’t normal for her to be treated with kindness. Lifting her up again, I walked us into the bathroom.

  Max had dimmed the lights and put a few candles around the tub; the TV was even on to…Vanilla Sky. Putting her on her feet, she walked over to the tub. Max inhaled seeing the bruise on her back as she got into it, the bubbles surrounding her.

  “Ask me why I like this movie.” She sat staring at the screen.

  “Why do you like this movie?” Max asked, leaning against the bathroom sink as I leaned on the door.

  “Because the message is that no matter how bad life gets, no matter how many wrong turns or ups and downs you go through, it will always be better than dreaming your life away,”

  she replied, pulling her legs to her chest. “I’m alive for a reason even if my junkie parents a
bandoned me at birth with enough heroin in my system to kill a baby elephant. Even though I have hospital bills and debt up to my ears. Even though I have no money and have spent all my life alone. Even though my boss put me down as the co-owner of a club he started with drug money resulting in me getting beaten by some…loan shark. I have to be here for a reason right? God isn’t just fucking with me? Trying to see how much I can take before I off myself?”

  My eyes burned. Blinking away the tears, I moved to go sit beside her, but Max beat me to it and perched on the rim of the tub. He put his hand on her cheek as he kissed the top of her head. “You have two reasons right here.”

  She glanced up at him, frowning. “You just want to use me to hide your relationship.”

  “No,” he said while shaking his head. “At first, maybe, but now…now I want know what it would be like for the three of us. I care about you. Wes is obsessed with you, but none of that means anything without you saying what you want. You don’t have to say it now. Just stay here, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Trust didn’t just happen overnight. If it did, she would have come the moment the beating happened. She needed time and space. We’d give that to her. In the meantime, we were going to figure out how the hell to make these bastards pay.

  Chapter Seven

  Max had left an hour ago in order to prepare for his eight o’clock segment, and I had officially closed my restaurant for the day so one of us could stay with her. The only problem was I had no idea what to do or say. So, I did what any reasonable man should do: I called my mums. Yes, that was plural.

  The phone rang a few times as I sat in the penthouse’s living room. The first thing I saw was smoke when the video call connected.

  “Mum? You all right?”

  She waved her hand through the smoke, and I saw a part of her dirty blonde hair before she stepped outside, coughing. “If it isn’t my favorite little wanker.”

  “Mum, you’ve got to stop calling me that,” I replied, even though I couldn’t help but smile when I saw her face more clearly. My mum, Brenda, always kept her dirty blonde hair short, and also had an earful of piercings. “What is going on? Why is the house on fire?”

  “Because someone sent a simple recipe for their mother.” She pointed at me, taking a seat on the patio.

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  She turned the camera for me to see the smoke coming out the window…the handiwork of my mother, Pippa.

  “All she had to do was melt the cheese!” I laughed.

  “Instead, she was trying to melt our house. Come home. Save me. I miss eating home-cooked meals.”

  I rolled my eyes at that. “Mum, you’re the one who taught me how to cook.”

  “Yes, and you surely surpassed me, so after eighteen years of raising you, little bugger, I deserve to be pampered now in my old age.”

  “Look at that skin! You do not look a day over forty.” I winked at her.

  She frowned. “I miss you. You look skinny. How can a chef be skinny? No one eats food from a skinny chef.”

  “I am not skinny; I’m fit. Everyone here loves me because they think I cook healthy.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not even a little bit. What is the point of life if you don’t add a little butter sometimes?”

  She and I both laughed at that.

  “Stop it! You’re making me miss you more.”

  “Brenda.” I give her the very same look she used to give me as a child.

  “At least say you miss me, too, you little twat.”

  “I miss you both.”

  She inhaled deeply, like she was getting a power boost before exhaling. “Okay, what does my little wanker want?”

  “Can’t I just call to say hi? Or to make sure my childhood home hasn’t burnt to ground?”

  “Wesley.” She gave me the look, and I cringed at how effective it still was.

  “Fine…I have a friend.” I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it, but I wish it wasn’t like that. It felt cliché, but she didn’t interrupt me. “She’s an amazing, hardworking person and a week ago she got hurt. She didn’t come to me until now. Also, I don’t know her very well, but I know I want to help her. I just don’t know how. She’s become quiet and she’s not a naturally quiet person.”

  “Sounds like you know her well,” she replied, her eyes softer.

  “No.” I frowned, wishing I did. “She’s just a very genuine person. If you met her, you’d like her instantly.”

  “Wesley, what’s happening with Maxwell?” she asked and I wished she hadn’t.

  “Nothing, we’re still together.” As far as I know.

  She stared at me for a long time before speaking. “Does he realize you have feelings for someone else?”

  “She’s just a friend. Honestly, we haven’t known each other for—”

  “I’ve known you for thirty-one years—thirty-two, the day after tomorrow, and in all that time you’ve only ever called me twice about specific people in your life: Maxwell and this woman. What’s going on darling?”

  Running my hand through my hair, part of me regretted calling. “Mum…can we just focus on her right now? I just need advice. What do I say?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, shrugging. “If she’s as genuine as you say then that’s probably what she wants from you—truth.”

  “Women love it when you bare yourself to them.” I heard the soft giggle of my other mum, Pippa. She sat on the armrest of the chair and came into the frame, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. “If she doesn’t want to talk about herself then be honest with her about who you are. The more she feels like she knows you, the more comfortable she’ll feel about sharing her problems.”

  “So be a douche and just keep talking about myself?” That sounded like an awful idea.

  “No, you ass, you do things together and sometimes put in a tasteful slip like ‘Oh that shirt reminds me off when…’, things like that. What are the stars telling you?”

  “To leave the astrology for you. I’ll call you later. I love you both.”

  They waved before hanging up. I pulled the ear buds out of my ears and stood up as Jane came downstairs wearing one of Maxwell’s button down shirts. Her hair was down and was still wet from her bath.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your call.” She lifted her hands as if to push me back. “I just wanted water.”

  Nodding, I headed into the kitchen.

  “I can get it myself.” She followed after me.

  “You’re a guest,” I reminded her, grabbing the glass and the pitcher of water from the fridge. I filled the glass and gave it to her, hoping she wouldn’t run back to the room. For a split second I’m sure it crossed her mind, but she stayed sipping. Maxwell and I wanted to call a doctor, but we also didn’t want her to feel like we forcing her to do anything.

  “I was beaten up a lot,” I blurted out, thinking about my mum’s advice.

  “What?” She looked so confused. “You look like you’d be doing the beating.”

  “Thanks,” I smirked.

  “No…I didn’t mean—”

  “I got what you meant,” I said, pouring myself a glass of water before taking the seat opposite her.

  “Why were you beat up?”

  “Because I was a scrawny pale child with two mums, thick glasses, and a love for reading. Aka, what you Americans call a ‘nerd’.” Oh, the good old days! Bitter sarcasm intended.

  “I can’t see it.” She waved her hands over my body, and I realized that once again I stood in front of her half-naked. I was so used to rarely wearing clothes here. Nothing I can do about it now.

  “Puberty, contacts, and a few tattoos do wonders.” I shrugged, leaning forward. “But before that, it was eighteen years of being dragged into closets or washrooms and having teachers make off remarks. Each time I told myself I would fight back. I wouldn’t just let them bully me. And each time I still ended up with a busted eye or broken nose. It didn’t ma
tter if I changed schools. My mums got into arguments about it. Brenda, she’s a poet, and although she looks tough because of her temper, she’s a big softy. She wanted to homeschool me, but my mum, Pippa, she wasn’t having it. She said it would only make me awkward and unable to stand up for myself. They were already stressed over my little brother, Charlie, being sick with leukemia. I couldn’t deal with all of it, so I left home. I went to university in London. Only stayed there for a semester, then my brother died. Instead of going home, I ran away to France.”

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” she replied, finishing her water.

  I paused, staring at her empty glass.

  “Do you mind if we get something stronger than this?” I lifted my glass.

  “Yes, please!” She smiled, lifting her glass to me.

  Grinning, I took both of them and placed them into the sink before getting proper wine glasses.

  “Tell me when,” I said to her after uncorking the red wine. Pouring it into her glass, I waited and waited and she didn’t say anything until the wine was right at the rim.

  “Perfect.” She grinned, leaning over to sip the top so it wouldn’t spill over.

  “Are you sure? This is very strong.”

  She just waved me off and drank like she had been dying for a drink. When she finally took a deep breath and licked her wine-stained lips, her glass was as full as mine.