His Absolute Authority: A Scandalous Billionaire Love Story (Jessika, #3) (19 page)

When my vision cleared, I realized where I was: laying in bed on the train.  How long had I been sleeping?  And who was knocking on the door?

Whomever it was, they knocked again.  This time they called out quietly, too.  "Mrs. Landseer?"  A woman's voice.

I got up from the bed.  The woman knocking was at the door in the other room.  It seemed so odd to think of myself as having two rooms in a train, but that's what I had, so I supposed I needed to get used to it.  It wouldn't be for much longer, anyways.

I stood near the door, staring at it, curious.  Before I decided to open it or not, I said, "Who is it?"

"Your husband called a little while ago," she said.  "He said you might be hungry.  It's not a designated meal time, but he requested I make an exception and bring you something to eat."

My stomach accepted this exception, growling in agreeable hunger.

I clicked the lock on the door to unlock it and pulled it open.  A kind, regular looking woman stood in the corridor, tray in hand.  She smiled in greeting.

"Sorry if I woke you up," she said.

I furrowed my brow, confused.  "How did you know I was sleeping?"

"Your hair," she said.  "It's a little messy."

"Oh."  Well then...

"It's nothing much," she said, switching her attention to the tray in her hands.  "Chicken Caesar salad, with a piece of pita bread, plus some butter if you like.  Caesar dressing, but I can get you something else if you want.  There's also a small bowl of macaroni and cheese.  It was your husband's suggestion; he said you might like it."

I laughed.  Asher and I had just talked about that, hadn't we?  I told him sometimes I didn't want anything fancy for dinner, I just wanted macaroni and cheese.  From a box, even.  It didn't matter.  And here it was.

I smiled and took the tray from her.  "Thank you," I said.  "I really am starving.  I haven't eaten since last night.  I meant to, but..."

Jeremy bought me some food, even.  Not a lot, but I should have at least snacked on something.  As it was, I was famished.  My stomach growled again, begging me to eat.

"You're welcome," the woman said.  "I understand.  Life is hectic sometimes.  That's the nice part about riding a train, though.  You can sit down, enjoy your meal, and watch the scenery.  We'll be passing through country landscape for about another hour before we ease back into civilization, so there should be plenty for you to enjoy."

I looked over my shoulder and peered out the window there.  She was right; it was true.  Fields of grass, with a forest of trees far in the background as a backdrop, along with wildflowers mixed with bright sunshine flooded my view.  It was quiet and soft, nothing extremely out of the ordinary, but definitely beautiful.

"I'll do that," I said.

"Good," she said with a smile and a nod.  "If you need anything else, there's a button to page an attendant right above the seats.  Push it and I'll come around shortly."

"Thank you very much," I said.

With that, we parted ways.  I slipped the tray of food onto one of the seats near the window.  There were two seats, one facing the other, both next to the window.  A folded down counter table lay between them.  I lifted the table piece and propped it up with a stand hiding beneath the tabletop.  For good measure, just in case, I hurried back to the room door and locked it again.  Moving my food tray from the seat to the new table, I sat down and set about sating my hunger.

Everything looked delicious!  It was plain, as far as food and fare went, but that didn't matter.  A fork and knife and napkin lay hidden inside a rolled up piece of pita bread wrapped in plastic foil.  I neatly undid everything, setting my utensils to the side and my napkin in my lap.  Then I opened the plastic container with my salad, and breathed in deep.  It smelled fresh and crisp, with a faint tang of spiced chicken, and a little shimmer of sharp cheese to go along with it.

Besides the food, she'd brought me a bottle of orange juice and another bottle of chilled coffee-flavored milk.  I didn't make a point of drinking coffee-flavored milk all that often, but right now it seemed like the perfect thing.  I uncapped it and drank deeply, enjoying the sweet, slightly bitter taste.

This, I thought, was bliss.  Just sitting on a train, enjoying a nice, regular meal, with the isolated country passing me by.  Nothing fancy, nothing particularly out of the ordinary.  Just me.  Just this.

Granted, I was sitting in the fanciest accommodations the train provided, but it still seemed mostly regular to me.  It was less fancy than a lot of the alternatives like a plane trip, and it was something I could deal with.

I didn't know why I felt this way.  Truth be told, I loved going on vacations with Asher.  In our one year of marriage so far, or just about, we'd gone on more vacations than I remembered going on in my entire adult life.  Many of them were because Asher needed—or wanted, I suspected—to visit every one of his vacation resorts personally to ensure appearances and so he could be open and accessible to the people who worked under his enterprise's name, but we still enjoyed ourselves.  It involved some amount of work on his end, with business meetings to attend, meeting the managers of the resorts, talking with some of the other staff, and having people come to him with questions or concerns.

It was a vacation, too, though.  While Asher did his business things, I could lay in bed and relax.  Or sit by the pool.  More often than not there were beaches, too.  I could go swimming, or have half-off drinks at the resort restaurant and bar during certain hours of the day.  If they knew who I was, they gave me drinks for free, but I tried not to broadcast that fact.

And we didn't go on vacation everywhere all the time.  Just when something new happened somewhere that Asher wanted to check up on.  There were so many resorts we hadn't been to yet, and I didn't really know how we could ever go to them all.  He told me we would eventually, though.  He laughed when he said it, but I thought he did that because of the odd cross of excitement and shock on my face.

Asher enjoyed himself.  He worked hard, and I knew this, but he enjoyed himself, too.  He wanted me to enjoy life with him, and to enjoy myself, as well.  And why not?

Vacations were one thing, though.  Regular life was another.  I didn't mind doing crazy, extravagant things at his resorts, because we'd only be there for a weekend, or maybe a week at the most but not usually.  When we were back at home, the extravagance was constant, and...

I didn't know why, but it bothered me in a way.  I didn't think I deserved it?  Or, I didn't think I should always have extravagance like that, at least.  Excitement like that should be reserved for special occasions.

A part of me thought I'd start to find it commonplace if it happened all the time.  Honestly, it was kind of commonplace, too.  I didn't want to forget, though.  I didn't want to live life and expect everything to be of the most extreme high quality.  I didn't want my life to be an endless array of exquisite culinary delights, surrounded by museum-quality art in the halls of our enormous mansion, with house staff at my beck and call.

I didn't want to forget that these things were special.  I never wanted to take them for granted, so in some ways I thought I downplayed them or shunned them.  Maybe that wasn't the best way to go about it, either, though.  Ignoring the excitement and extravagance by either taking it for granted or by showing aversion to it kind of amounted to the same thing in the end, didn't it?  Both were a way of looking away from it and not seeing it for what it was.

I ate quietly, thinking these things to myself, while staring at the beautiful landscape outside.  Picture perfect and serene; everything was idyllic.  I didn't want to take it for granted.  I wanted to savor it for what it was and remember it forever.  I finished eating and smiled to myself, watching nature's beauty pass by.

Sharp, green trees stood like beacons in the distance, or maybe some kind of wall.  What were they guarding?  I watched them begin and end, seeming to go on forever, endless.  The gentle wind outside sent ripples through the tall grass between the train and the trees, creating a living wave.  Nearer to the train, the rush of our passing sent the grass into sporadic bouncing jumps, flickering this way and that.

Everything passed, though.  Nothing stayed the same.  The farther out I looked, the more it seemed similar, but obviously it wasn't.  And the closer I looked, the faster everything seemed to vanish, replaced by something else, something more; the same concept, but a different realization.

The idea gave me pause.  Maybe this was an important thought.  I didn't know.  Maybe it was my sleep-groggy mind coming up with platitudes to explain nothingness.  Nothing was nothing.

That thought made me laugh.  Nothing had to be nothing, but if nothing really
was
nothing, then it must be something, or anything, and...

I thought this might involve abstract mathematics, which I had no idea how to figure out.  Or maybe I was going crazy.  Maybe I should take another nap.  I laughed again.  If anyone passed by in the hall outside, they might think me insane, except they didn't know I was here alone, so maybe not.

I tucked my food away on the table and decided to do something more useful than nothing.  I had plans, afterall.  Very good ones, I thought.  Or at least interesting.

I stood and went back to the bedroom area, fetching the pharmacy bags that I'd brought.  I kept them somewhat hidden from Jeremy for one reason, though he knew most of my plan to begin with.  The one reason wasn't initially a part of that, though.  I'd save it for after.

I took inventory of everything and placed it on the bed: latex gloves, a couple of boxes of dark brown hair dye solution, some self tanning lotion, a box of disposable shower caps, scissors, and... I only glanced at the final two boxes quickly, becoming suddenly uncertain of why I even bothered getting them.  It was a stupid idea, honestly.

I started to close the window curtains to give myself privacy, but then I realized I was in the middle of nowhere.  No one would be peeking into my room, now would they?  In a fit of independent whimsy, I left the curtains wide open, then began to strip myself of my clothes.  If Asher were here, I might have made a fun show of it for our pleasure.  Mostly for his pleasure to start, but if he liked what he saw...

My mind whirred at the thought.  I remembered our many bouts of love making the previous night.  I wished we could've been on the train together.  How nice would that be?  We could make love endlessly (or at least until the train stopped) with the curtains open, bright sun pouring onto our entangled, naked bodies.  Him and I, together, combined, our mussed up hair and sweaty selves slick and shimmering against each other.

It sounded rather wonderful, except I didn't have time for that right now!  I inwardly chastised myself and told myself I needed to hurry.  Quickly, I checked my phone, too.  I had plenty of time, but I needed to make sure I finished everything before we stopped at the next train station.

I used to dye my own hair sometimes, but I hadn't in a long while.  One of the perks of being married to Asher was that he didn't mind how often I went to a salon to have things like this done.  I tried not to go too much, but every few months I would treat myself.  Just in case I'd forgotten anything, I read the hair dye instructions a couple of times.

Not the most exciting of things, but necessary for what I had in mind.  Thankfully, the bedroom suite had a shower (or two, actually), which was... just a small booth off to the side of the bathroom, but it should be enough.  I brought my things into it, standing naked on the cool tiles, and set to work.  The towels they provided weren't exactly the nicest, but I felt kind of bad getting them dirty like this.  I'd leave a good tip?  Was that a thing people did on trains?  I never had before, but I supposed now was a good time to start.  I put one pair of latex gloves on and got to work.

Everything went mostly as planned.  When I had my hair covered in dark brown dye, I lifted it up and tucked it under a shower cap.  It took a little work, but nothing too bad.  Once I finished, I took off the gloves and wiped away any stray spots of dye on my ears, hands, and shoulders, re-tucked the cap in place, and wrapped a towel over my head.  Now I just needed to wait, so that was good to go.

I grabbed the self-tanning lotion next.  I needed more gloves for this, so I put on another pair.  I still used self-tanner sometimes, even now, because I didn't like the idea of going to a tanning booth.  Maybe it was irrational, but I worried about these things.  Maybe that was irrational, because I was about to put chemicals all over my body, but... oh well.  The lesser of two evils?  Who knew.

While the dye set in my hair, I covered my skin in an even coat of self-tanning lotion.  My skin went from light to quite a bit tanner in a matter of moments.  It didn't take too long.  This was kind of relaxing in its own way, actually.  Transformative, almost?  I was becoming a new person, figuratively and kind of literally.  The hope was that no one would recognize me after this, and then...

Then I could hide safely.  At least for a little while, anyways.

I covered my legs, feet, and some of the middle of my body, but hesitated to go up further.  I still needed to rinse my hair after the dye had set, and any tanner on my skin that got wet would sort of ruin everything.  I didn't relish the idea of having a splotchy, half-tanned looking face.  Not much of a disguise if everyone kept looking at me because of my own foolishness, now was it?

The time ticked by.  I rinsed my hair, dried it as best I could with a towel, and then dried it even more with a hair dryer hidden away in the bathroom.  Once that was finished, I fit my hair under a fresh shower cap.  I worked, methodical, applying tanner to my stomach, breasts, arms, back, neck, and face.  I was running out of latex gloves, but I should be mostly fine now.

I didn't need to put self-tanner on my entire body, I supposed, but I wondered if Asher might like it?  I would look kind of different, right?  Maybe foreign and exotic?  My entire plan was to look like a new and different person, and a part of me wondered if he might get excited from that.  A change of pace, you know, but nothing bad or anything.  A bit of spice!