by Kim Karr
I can’t even think straight.
How is this happening to me?
How the fuck did I let this happen to me?
As I step out into the lobby, I turn back around. I should go back up there and fight for her. Make her choose, but he’s her past. Of course she’ll pick him.
They always do.
This I know from experience.
I might have only been ten, but it was a lesson learned the hard way.
Dazed, I think my legs are moving. I can’t stop the memories from rushing back. The feelings I felt those days, weeks, months, and years after my mother left us for her first husband.
Some kind of scream leaves my throat but there’s no sound. I start to wonder if I’m even breathing.
Just then my cell phone rings. Hoping the call is from Tess, I reach for it. It’s not her. It’s Hayden, and I need the distraction so I hit accept. As soon as I do, I’m so disoriented I’m unable to say a word.
“Nick, you there?” he says.
“Yeah,” I manage.
“You need to get to the airport right now. The Feds are at the realtor’s office we used for the land deal in Miami and have an order to freeze the pending sale.”
Work.
My life.
My entire life.
It’s all I have left. All I ever had.
In a rush, I walk out into the cold of the night. “What the fuck? Why?”
“They’re saying illegal funds were used to secure the land.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I know. We need to get down there and prove the money is legit. I got us the last flight out tonight.”
I open the door to my Rover and hop in. “Text me the flight details. I’m on my way.”
Once I hang up, I take a moment to contemplate what to do about Tess. I could blow her off altogether, but I can’t seem to do that. I want her to see my name. Remember me. Feel something when she reads my name, even if she is with him now. And so I send her a quick text.
Not going to make it tonight. Something came up. I have to fly to Miami. Don’t know when I’ll be back.
Feeling like my heart has just been ripped from my chest, I start my car. And then as I put the car in drive, I look up at her building. I hadn’t thought much about her six year relationship with Ansel Gaspard since the two of us got together. It didn’t appear that he was ever on her mind. And hence, I never thought of myself as the rebound guy.
I guess I should have.
My bad.
34
Tess
Today is the first day the temperature has reached above fifty degrees in five months, maybe six.
Outside, I sit on a bench beside Fiona and watch Max climb the stairs to the top of the slide.
This playground is one of the ones Nick and I took him to make a snowman. That seems so long ago now.
Fiona places a gloved hand on my shoulder. “Don’t look so sad, Tess. Ethan said there’s something serious going on in Miami. I’m sure Nick’s just trying to take care of it, and that’s why he hasn’t called.”
I blow out a breath and run a hand raggedly through my hair. “No, Fi, something else is wrong. It’s not like him to cancel on me the way he did, and then not to text or call me either. I really think I scared him the other night when I started talking about how things were meant to be. Christ, I should have just shouted from the rooftop that we were meant to be.”
Her gaze shifts from Max to me. “Stop it right now. It hasn’t even been a full day since he left. Don’t start thinking negatively. He’ll call, just give him time.”
“How can you be so positive when just yesterday you told me to be careful?”
“Because I know you really want this to work, and I want what makes you happy.”
With a sigh, I pull out my phone and check it again. I’ve texted him and called him, but he has yet to respond.
Her voice is soft when she speaks again. “Do you think Ansel saw him last night and said something to him?”
With a shaded hand on my forehead to block the sun, I shake my head. “Even if he did, what would he say, I proposed to my ex-girlfriend and she turned me down.”
Fiona laughs, but then covers her mouth trying to stifle it. “I’m sorry, but how stupid was that?”
“It wasn’t stupid, it was desperate. And I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”
She makes a tsk sound. “Tess, you shouldn’t feel bad about telling him to fuck off. He deserved it.”
“I didn’t tell him to fuck off. I told him I wasn’t in love with him anymore. That I loved someone else. And regardless of everything, I spent six years of my life with him. If nothing else, that gives me license to feel a little bad about hurting him.”
“Well, he didn’t feel bad when he fucked all those women over and over, and hurt you,” she mutters.
“Fi,” I warn.
She raises her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, but fine, the conversation is over. Want to hear about my night?”
“Oh, my God, I completely forgot. Did Jace come over? What happened?”
She scoots closer to me on the bench. “He got the nanny to keep Scarlett and came over around eight. We’d just gotten Max to bed so it was perfect timing. At first, the three of us sat in living room drinking a glass of Ethan’s brandy—”
I cut her off. “He pulled out his brandy for the occasion?”
“Yes, he does that when he’s nervous.”
“So it’s when he’s nervous. I couldn’t figure it out. Nick said he’d only had two glasses, once when he found out you were pregnant, and then after Jace’s wife died.”
Her face goes solemn. “Yes, after Tricia died, Ethan was a nervous wreck over how Jace was going to be handle everything. He was really worried about him.”
“Wow, I had no idea. He’s doing okay though, from what Nick and you have told me, anyway.”
Max goes running past us over to the small jungle gym. “Slow down, Max,” Fiona calls, and then says, “I guess as okay as a person can do when they lose a spouse. Well anyway, one minute we each had a brandy and were talking, and the next I just stood up between them, crooked a finger, and said come on. I sauntered right up to my bedroom without even looking back, and the entire time I undressed, dropping my clothing as I went.”
I stare wide-eyed at her. “And, what happened next? Did they follow?”
She makes a little face. “At first I wasn’t certain. I waited at the foot of the bed, and waited, and then I heard the soft whisper of bare feet along the wooden floor. They showed up in the doorway both bare-chested, and both fully erect.”
“Were you nervous?” I whisper, although besides Max, we’re the only ones out on the playground.
She shakes her head. “No, not at all. Something clicked for me right then. The sight of the two of them together made my heart pound. I held out my hands, one to each of them, and they took them. I tugged and they came toward me. I put my arms around their waists. Theirs went around my shoulders. I kissed Ethan first, uncertain how he would react to seeing me kiss another man. But when I moved to Jace’s mouth, Ethan ran his hands over the slopes of my breasts and freed my bra so he could suck on my nipples.”
I can feel myself getting lost in her story, and immediately get how she must have been lost to the mood.
Closer still she moves. “We spent some time during those first few minutes figuring out how to best move, and they each removed the rest of their clothes. Soon after that, four hands covered me, and I closed my eyes. Together they removed my panties and spread my legs as I stood at the end of my bed.”
“And?” I bite out, anxious to hear the rest.
“Do you really want to know all the dirty details?”
“Yes, I do,” I whisper yell.
She sucks in a breath. “After a lot of twisting and tangling and sucking, we settled on me kneeling on the bed with Ethan behind me, and Jace on his back beneath me.”
I try to picture i
t, but make a face of not quite understanding. “Ethan fucked me, while Jace ate me and I jerked him off.”
“Oh,” I yell, and then scrunch my face and say it again. “Oh.”
She nods. “Oh, is right. It was amazing, Tess. Any woman who says they’d turn it down is lying. I felt like a queen who was being worshipped by four hands, twenty fingers, and two dicks.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” I laugh. “And Ethan, how was he after?”
“More loving than ever. After Jace left, we took a shower and he washed me and then took me to bed and made love to me. I really think this is going to be good for us.”
I hope so, I really do.
35
Tess
The temperature drops again by Monday.
It’s in the high thirties as I make my way to the coffee shop, and my car is barely warmed up before I park in the lot around the corner from the café.
I didn’t sleep. I haven’t eaten. And I can’t get a hold of Nick. His phone is going directly to voicemail now, so I’m pretty certain he’s turned it off.
The overcast in the sky makes everything darker, especially for this early in the morning. I really wanted to stay in my bed and feel sorry for myself, but I made myself get up and go to work.
Bracing myself for the cold, I take a deep breath and open my car door. It’s eerily quiet, and there aren’t any cars parked here yet. I pop my trunk, needing to bring in the crate of samples I brought home and never even removed from the spot it currently occupies. I should have just left them in the café.
Before I even make it past the passenger door, a hard object runs into me. I’m taken off guard, and try to see what is happening. But my head and body are being slammed against the car. It’s not an object. It’s a person. A man. And he’s pounding one side of my face into the metal so hard, I can feel blood trickling from my brow.
Terrified, I cry out for help, but a hand covers my mouth to stop me. Tears clog my throat and panic grips me.
A jab, or maybe a punch lands against my side and a radiating pain tears through my belly. I try to scream, but he’s still covering my mouth. I try to kick, but his grip on my body is too tight. I try to bite him, but all that makes him do is clamp down on my mouth harder.
I feel like I can’t breathe.
When he pumps his hips against me in the most vulgar way, I start to hyperventilate, certain he’s going to either rape me or kill me, or both. The feeling of his body against mine makes my flesh crawl.
Roughly, a hand digs into my hair and yanks it back, and then he slams my face against my car one more time. I can taste blood in my mouth, and an agonizing pain splinters through me.
The metallic tang of blood on my tongue makes me feel nauseated. Dizzy. There is a gulf of blackness, and I force myself to stay conscious. I’m frightened. Scared. Weak. And I hate being weak. I focus on that. Using that rising anger to fight him off, anyway I can.
With all my might, I somehow manage to get my foot out of the vise-like lock his legs have my legs in, and donkey kick him right in the balls.
“Motherfucker,” he sneers and takes ahold of my hair again, this time even harder, pulling me back away from the car.
I’m shaking from head to toe as fear curls in my belly, spreading to my chest and into my throat, grabbing me, and squeezing me until I can barely breathe. He’s going to kill me right now.
When he lets go of me instead of inflicting more pain, my mind races with what to do.
Should I turn and gauge his eyes out?
Grab him by the balls?
Stomp on his foot and then run?
Or scream my brains out?
I’m calculating which move might work when he shoves something in my pocket and whispers, “Good luck, sweetheart.”
His breath smells of coffee, and his cologne is vile, and a faint memory rips through me, making me stumble. I know who this is.
With a hard shove, he pushes me to the ground.
I fall in a heap, panic now all I know. I close my eyes tightly. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. My throat closes up when I try to scream. Somehow I manage to raise my hands to defend myself, but nothing happens. Slowly, I open my eyes and look up, expecting to see him pointing a gun at me or holding a knife, but he’s gone.
Tears are stinging my eyes, making everything a blur. I stumble as I try to stand and end up crawling to the car and using it to make myself get up. I look around and see no one. I scream anyway. Scream and scream and scream.
My phone. I need my phone. My purse is on the ground and the contents have spilled. Searching, I spot it.
I’m breathing deeply, trying to slow my heart rate, to quell the panic still rising in my chest as I lurch for it.
But I can’t stop it. I can’t focus. I can’t seem to find my feet. I stumble as I bend to get it, land on my hands and knees, and then crawl to it.
Bleeding and crying, I sit on the ground and call 911. Once I’ve explained what happened, I find my wallet and keys and start moving. Running, I head toward the café for safety. My fingers tremble as I try to put the key in the lock. It won’t fit. The more I try to turn it, the more it keeps jamming.
Giving up, I hold my keys tightly in my hand. My tears are falling so hard I can barely see the blur through them. Sagging against the door, it’s then that I realize the door is unlocked or the lock is jammed because it swings in.
In early morning dawn, I can’t really see inside, but as soon as I step through the glass doors and turn the lights on, I can see there is no safety inside.
The place has been vandalized. Graffiti is strewn all over the walls. The paint and chemicals that were left behind have been opened and poured out all over the floors, and someone took a sledgehammer to the drywall. The place has been demolished.
Shaking beyond my control, I slide down the wall to the ground. I’ve felt alone many times in my life, but never more than right now. With my phone still in my hand, I call the only person I can.
She answers right away. “Tess, is everything okay?”
“No Fiona, no it isn’t,” I cry.
“What’s wrong?”
I do my best to tell her.
She stays on the phone with me until the police arrive. It takes them more than ten minutes to get to the café, and less than ten minutes to write up their report. I tell them what I know. That my attacker was wearing a black ski mask that covered his face, and his body was also covered in black. The entire time I can hear my phone ringing from inside my purse. I assume it is Fiona, but I can’t very well stop what I’m doing. I’ll call her back once I’m finished.
“Anything else about his appearance you can tell us?”
I shake my head. “He never let me turn around.”
In response they tell me there is not much they can do without more of a description. When I attempt to explain to them that his breath smelled, and that I’ve smelled that same vile coffee breath before, they stop me before I can say anymore. Facts, they only want facts, not hearsay or suspicions, they insist.
I’m holding a damp cloth to the side of my face when Ethan arrives. Since Fiona couldn’t leave Max alone, or very well bring him, sending her husband to bring me to her house was the best solution. He gasps when he sees me, and once he makes sure I’m okay, he turns to yell at the officers for not having already arranged to have me transported to the emergency room. While Ethan reads them the riot act, Ash comes flying through the door.
I blink several times, not understanding what he’s doing here. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Anything broken?”
I shake my head, no I’m not okay, and no nothing is broken, and then I can’t stop a low whimper from stuttering past my stiff, swollen lips.
Seeing that I am shaken up, Ash enfolds me in his arms.
Hoarsely, I whisper in his ear, “It was Mathias Bigelow.”
He pulls back and gently pushes the hair from my eyes. “How can you be sure?” he whispers.
“His breath.�
�
Ash looks at me for a long time. “Did he say or do anything else?”
I nod, remembering the paper he shoved in my pocket. Slowly, I pull it out. It’s the other help wanted sign that was taken from the café window on Friday. “He shoved this in my pocket, and said good luck, sweetheart.”
Looking at it, he says, “I don’t understand.”
Before I can explain, the officers turn to address me. “Miss Winters, is there anything else you can tell us?”
Ash shakes his head, signaling for me to stay quiet.
“No, I’ve told you everything I can remember right now.”
One of the officers hands me his card. “If you think of anything, please call me. Mr. Miller insists on transporting you to the emergency room, are you in agreement with this?”
I nod.
Once both officers are out the door and back in their car, Ash speaks up. “What am I missing, Tess?”
I walk over to the makeshift desk, which is oddly still standing, and pick up the other sign. I hand it to him, and then explain what happened on Friday.
His face goes white, and he pulls out his phone.
Ethan narrows his eyes at him. “What the hell is going on?”
Raising a finger in the air, Ash turns around to whisper into his phone.
“We need to get you to the hospital and get that cut stitched up,” Ethan says, lifting and patting the cloth that I was holding to my face.
I suck in a breath, knowing that crying will only make the cut on my cheek burn more. “How did Ash find out what happened?” I ask Ethan.
Ethan daps at my face lightly. “I called Nick on my way here.”
I wince from the pain spreading across the side of my face. “And he answered when you called?”
Ethan shakes his head. “I had to call Hayden and make him put the fucker on the phone.”
I take the cloth from Ethan and press it against my face. “Did he say why he hasn’t answered any of my calls?”
He nods. “He said he saw Ansel at your place Saturday night, down on one knee proposing to you.”