Fragments (The Broken Series Book 2) (11 page)

Lauren shrugged off her damp, red plaid shirt, revealing her skimpy white camisole underneath. I picked up her wet shirt as she kicked off her big gardening boots.

“I take it you’re done for the day,” I said.

She nodded. “Yes, with your help I finished earlier than planned. There’s no way I’m going back out there today even if I hadn’t finished planting.” She pushed her wet hair back from her face. “Where is Jack? Is he okay?”

I nodded. “He is fine. He’s on the phone at the moment so I thought I’d give him a little privacy.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Lauren said. “We have hardly seen any of Monaco since we’ve been here. I’ve been busy with the gardens and you’ve been busy with Jack. We’ve hardly left the house. We should make more of an effort to get out and do the tourist thing. We should see as much as we can while we’re here.”

Lauren was right. To be truthful, I was feeling that spending all my time with Jack wasn’t healthy. My life at the moment seemed to revolve around him. I had nothing else to occupy myself with while I was there, and I knew I was in danger of becoming obsessed. It was my personality type.

“Do you fancy going out tonight?” Lauren asked.

Maybe I should have said yes, but I shook my head. “I’m not sure I should leave Jack. Not after today.”

Lauren chewed her lower lip, then said, “I understand. Do you think he was really going to…?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so. He said that wasn’t his intention, but I’d still rather stick around here tonight.”

“Why don’t we share a bottle of wine and watch a movie or something. That would be the best of both worlds. We could stay around here, but still have some girl time.”

I grinned. “Sounds good.”

We walked upstairs. I carried Lauren’s soaking wet shirt, and she scooped up her soggy boots and shoved them in a plastic bag so they wouldn’t drip on the carpets. I put Lauren’s wet shirt in her washing basket, and she headed for the shower.

I left Lauren singing in the shower, and went to tell Jack about my plans for the evening. When I entered the sitting room my mouth gaped open. I couldn’t believe it. He was still on the phone to Rita. Their conversation had been going for more than twenty minutes.

I tried to hide my annoyance and quickly scribbled down a note on the telephone pad and handed it to Jack. He barely glanced at it before nodding and smiling at me in a dismissive way. I was worried that he might be upset if I spent an evening away from him. Especially, this evening after what had happened today. But he clearly wasn’t.

In a huff, I stalked off to the kitchen to ask Maria for the number of a pizza delivery service. I was pretty sure that Jack would choose not to eat dinner with Alexander tonight, and I really wasn’t in the mood for an awkward dinner with Alexander shooting daggers at me all night.

After Lauren and I had shared our pizza, we went up to Lauren’s room where we connected the iPad up to the television and poured ourselves large glasses of red wine. We barely watched the film, which was some chick flick, romantic comedy. Instead, we just focused on what was most important to us at the time and ended up spending most of the evening talking about Jack and Alexander.

By the time the film had ended and Lauren and I had finished putting the world to rights, it was eleven p.m.
 
Lauren had to be up early for a delivery of plants the next day, so I was about to head to my own room and collapse into bed after the long stressful day,
 
when I remembered that I had left my cell phone in Jack’s sitting-room. Wearily, I yawned as I headed downstairs to collect my phone. I was pretty sure Jack would already be asleep, but I’d sleep better if I checked up on him and made sure everything was okay. I’d spent so much time with him over the last few weeks that it felt strange being apart from him even for just one evening. Lauren was right. I was definitely getting a little too dependent on Jack.

I let myself into Jack’s wing quietly. I opened the door of the sitting room slowly as it had a tendency to creak. I didn’t want to disturb Jack if he was already asleep.
 
With the increase in intensity of Jack’s workouts over the past month coupled with his insomnia, he often tried to go to bed early these days. He needed all the sleep he could get.

But when I peeked inside the sitting room I stopped in shock, my mouth hanging open. In front of me, sitting companionably on the sofa, were Jack and Rita Volder.

What the hell was she doing here at this time of night?

They both looked up when I took a step forward.

“Hey, Kristina,” Jack said. “Did you enjoy the movie?”

I blinked a couple of times. My brain wasn’t really processing anything other than the fact the Rita Volder was now sitting only a couple of inches away from Jack. She was smiling brightly at me as if there was nothing wrong with this scenario.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to get a grip on myself. I was overreacting. They were only talking.

“Hi, it was okay.” I managed to say the words without my voice breaking. I carried on trying to keep my tone cheerful. “I’m sorry to interrupt you two. But I left my phone in here earlier.”

Brisk and business like, I headed towards the coffee table and scooped up my cell phone. Then I turned to leave.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

I knew my voice sounded a little brittle and odd. I couldn’t help it. I was doing my best to act normally.

“Don’t go on my account,” Rita said. “I’ve stayed far too long as it is. I only popped by to drop off a few papers for Jack.”

Rita stood up and stacked up the pile of glossy brochures by her feet. She put her hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Don’t forget what I said, Jack. If you want to talk anything over, you can call me any time.”

I felt myself bristle with annoyance. I couldn’t help thinking how perfect they would be together. They had so much in common. I glanced down at the pile of brochures and saw that the one on top was about Volder racing. Did she want Jack as her new driver? I felt panic start to rise up inside me. Jack wasn’t ready for anything like that yet.

Rita picked up her purse. “I’ll see you later,” she said.

“It’s been great to see you, Rita.”

I tried to keep the cheerful smile on my face. “Why don’t I show you out?”

Both Jack and Rita seemed surprised, but Rita shrugged and said, “Sure.”

Jack seemed happy enough to let us go. I walked Rita out of Jack’s wing and I didn’t say anything until we were safely in the corridor of the main house and out of earshot.

“Do you mind me asking why you came here tonight?” I asked.

Rita gave a puzzled frown and I thought for a moment she might tell me it was none of my business. But eventually she gave a tight smile and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I’m leaving Monaco in a couple of days. We’ve got the next race coming up in Europe and I’ve got a lot of preparation to do. I wanted to see Jack before I went.”

I nodded. That was the answer I’d expected to hear. But the answer I really wanted was to find out why that brochure had been given to Jack.

“Look,” I said, stopping abruptly in the corridor and turning to face Rita. “I’ve been with Jack for a while now, and I really care about what happens to him.”

Rita frowned but she didn’t say anything and waited for me to continue.

“The thing is, I know that Jack wants to race again.”

Rita smiled broadly at me. “I know. Isn’t that fantastic? In fact, that’s one of the reasons I came here tonight. I wanted to give him all the information on the new car for next season.”

I swallowed. “Are you considering using Jack as your driver for next season?”

“I can’t really discuss that with you,” Rita said, immediately clamming up. “It’s up to Jack if he wants to talk it through with you, but on my side, negotiations have to be kept confidential.”

I felt a shiver of unease pass through me as she turned and continued to walk along the corridor. I had to walk quickly to catch up.

I reached Rita as she stood at the front door with her hand on the handle. I reached out and grabbed her forearm to stop her leaving.

“Wait! There’s something you should know,” I said, not knowing if what I was about to say could ruin Jack’s career.

Rita turned to me with a perplexed frown on her face. “And what is that?” she asked.

“I know that Jack wants to race again. More than anything else, he wants to get back to it. But he’s not quite ready yet,” I said. I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling I was betraying Jack and that was the last thing I wanted to do. But I couldn’t just stand by and watch him get into something he wasn’t ready for.

“He has tried to get back into it,” I said the words slowly, hoping I wasn’t doing the wrong thing by telling Rita. “He tried the simulator with Dominic O’Brien. It didn’t work out well.”

I didn’t want to get into the gory details. Rita didn’t need to know about Jack’s panic attack, but I did want her to appreciate that Jack needed more time.

“Oh, that,” Rita said smiling. “He told me all about it. And to be honest, I was surprised that Dominic had thought of such a thing. Imagine putting someone who’s been traumatized after a crash into an enclosed simulator.” She shook her head. “There was no external light, no sound. I mean, it was hardly a surprising outcome.”

She must have seen the panic on my face because her expression took on a more sympathetic look. “I know you care about Jack. I can’t tell you where we are at the moment regarding the state of our negotiations, but what I can tell you is that we are not going to push Jack to do anything he’s not ready for. I promise you that.”

I managed to nod. I was still reeling from the fact Jack had confided in Rita about the simulator incident.

“We can just take it one step at a time, Kristina,” she said. “Jack is lucky to have someone like you looking after him.”

I tried to smile at her, but I couldn’t help thinking that she was wrong. I wasn’t the best person to be looking after Jack.

After Rita left, I figured I would brood all night, worrying about Jack. It had been one hell of a day.

But I didn’t get a chance to brood.

Something happened that blew everything else out of the water.

I had gone upstairs to change and get ready for bed. I was pulling on my oversized, baggy nightshirt when there was a soft knock at my bedroom door.

My first thought was that it might be Jack. I suppose that was what I was hoping for, but when I opened the door, I saw Maria, the housekeeper, standing there.

She had her hands in front of her, clasped together tightly. I saw the tension around her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Has something happened to Jack?”

Maria shook her head. “No. I’m sorry to disturb you, Kristina. I know it’s late, but there’s a phone call for you, and it sounds important.”

“A phone call for me?” I repeated stupidly.

Maria nodded. “Yes.”

She wouldn’t hold eye contact. This had to be bad. I padded outside my bedroom barefoot to follow Maria downstairs. There was no phone in my room, in fact, the only landline telephones I’d seen were the one downstairs in the hall, or the one in Alexander’s office, so I turned as if we were going downstairs, but Maria caught my arm.

“This way. You can use the upstairs extension.”

She led me along the corridor and then into a room I’d never entered before. It looked something like a guest suite at a hotel. It had a sitting area and an office area as well as a bed.

I thought perhaps this was where Alexander’s business associates stayed if they were guests at the house, although no one had stayed here while I’d been there.
 

Maria gestured to the phone on the desk. “You can take the call here,” she said.

A bright red light was flashing on the top of the phone. The handset was cordless and covered with buttons. I hoped I didn’t have to do anything more sophisticated than pick it up.

I lifted the receiver, and I could hear slight static on the other end of the line. It sounded like someone was calling from a cell phone.

“Hello,” I said.

Maria backed away with one hand pressed to her stomach.

“Tina?” A voice on the other end of the line said. Even if he hadn’t used the shortened version of my name, I would have recognized his voice.

But he sounded different somehow. His voice had lost it’s usual smooth, confident tone.
 

“It’s Benjamin.”

It felt like the floor fell away under my feet. My stomach churned, and my hand flew up to cover my mouth.

Oh, God, this could not be good news, not at this time of night.

“Tina, are you there?” he asked in response to my stunned silence.

I nodded as I held the phone to my ear before quickly realizing that he couldn’t actually see what I was doing.

“Yes, sorry. Is it Kate?” I asked.

The pause on the other end of the line made me feel even sicker. “Benjamin, please tell me what’s wrong.”

“You need to come back to the States.” His voice was gritty and harsh. “As soon as you can.”

Again I stupidly nodded. “Okay, but tell me what’s wrong with Kate.”

“I don’t know,” Benjamin said. “She was fine this morning, but when I came back from work, she was lying on the bathroom floor and…there was a lot of blood.”

“Blood,” I repeated, numbly. “Is the baby okay?”