The Charade (21 page)

I stood in line behind two other people waiting for my small Brazilian blend.

They were in love. The kind of love where no one had said the words ‘I love you” yet, but it’s evident by the non-verbal language. One of them isn’t a fan of holding hands, but does it anyway just because they want to make their mate happy. They stare at each other eyes and say nothing. It doesn’t matter if there aren’t any words to say, just being with each other among the silence is all that matters. I wished I had it.

My blood boiled looking at them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. They looked so cute together. I clenched my fist into a tight ball. I’d pout when I got back to my apartment.

Why did everyone have to be happily in love except for me? And who is
that
fucking in love at 6:15am? I rolled my eyes at them. I prayed they saw me.

“Will the Brazilian blend be all for you?” asked the barista. Her nametag read Amanda. Her voice was perky; too perky for that time of day.

“Yes.” I looked over at the couple. Their embrace tightened. He whispered something in her ear. She giggled. His hand rested right above her behind. I just wanted my damn coffee.

“You should try our caramel drizzled coffee cake.” I gave her a fake smile and shook my head no. “It’s really yummy. Are you sure?” The girl tested my patience.

“No thank you.” I don’t know how I got the thank you out.

She responded even perkier. “How about our hot apple cider? It’s here for a limited time.” I looked over at the couple – canoodling, oblivious to everyone else in the world.

“No.” I screamed. “I just want my coffee.” My voice changed to a shriek. The entire coffee shop came to a standstill. “No coffee cake, no fucking pumpkin spice with whip cream on top that’ll make my thighs explode. Just coffee. Is that okay? No cream. No sugar. Scorching hot. Straight black. Is that too much to ask?”

Grinders stopped. The baby in the corner stopped crying. Keys on a gentleman’s laptop stopped being clacked. All eyes were on me.

Amanda slid my coffee over to me and I slid her a dollar, a nickel, and two crusty pennies. Her face looked stark white in embarrassment. I surely ruined her day. The only sound I heard was the vocal chords of Tony Bennett coming from the speakers.

I inched over to grab a napkin and another coffee sleeve when I looked at the newspaper rack. As if the scene I made didn’t make my pulse accelerate uncontrollably, what my eyes fell upon surely did.

On the Daily Herald in bold letters read, “Local Billionaire Victor St. James Involved In Sex Scandal!”

The cup of coffee fell through my hands, splashing on the floor.

Chapter 14

My heart is all I have. But sometimes, I wonder if that’s enough.

I stood at the door with hot tears streaking down my face. I needed answers – fast. I banged on his door. I wiped the tears from my face before he opened it. He stood there, naked, with a smirk. The sun blared through the shades, casting an orange hue over his slick skin. He probably finished his morning workout. One hundred pushups and one hundred squats. His abs rippled and his pelvic bone peeked above his boxers.

I needed to focus on the matter at hand – him fessing up.

“Hmm. I wasn’t expecting breakfast in bed,” he said. I slammed the newspaper into his chest. To say he had a lot of explaining to do was an understatement. “Hello to you, too.” He caught the newspaper in his hands and leaned in for a kiss, but I walked right past him into his apartment. This was no time for affection.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with a clueless expression on his face.

“Read,” I barked. I plopped down onto the couch, steaming. My knee couldn’t stop bobbing up and down if I tried. I rocked back and forth against the top grain Italian leather cushions. My pulse thumped rapidly, surely my heart bursting out of my rib cage was next.

Victor pulled the paper from out of his chest and saw how fidgety I was. He walked over towards me. I stood up and said, “Read. It. Now.” I breathed heavy through my nostrils. “You got anything to drink?”

“Drink? Do you know what time it is?” Victor pulled out the paper and rustled it to the front page. He mouthed the words under his breath, ‘Local Billionaire Victor St. James Involved…’” He didn’t bother finishing it. He balled up the paper and threw it behind him. “Nonsense,” he said flippantly. “Absolute trash.”

“How could you be so nonchalant about this?”

“Because it’s not true.”

“But three women have come forward saying you sexually harassed them at Stellar.”

“And you believe them?”

I paused and looked at him. He appeared insulted.

“Wow.” His head jolted back and a confused look colored his face. “You think I did this don’t you?”

I didn’t respond.

I wanted to believe. Deep down I did. With all we’d been through. All the secrets. All the drama.

The only thing that I was assured of was his word. He had never lied to me. He didn’t tell me all of the truth, but he never lied.

He came over and sat next to me, grabbing my hand tightly, and facing me head on. “Natasha, I could never do such a thing. Ever. You know that.”

He did have an appetite for sex; much more than the men I regularly dated. It was the only thing that made me doubt him. I pondered if I was more upset about what actually happened or just finding out the way. “Listen, I know you know how I feel about sex...” I shifted my glance towards the floor. He gently grabbed my chin and brought my face to meet his. “I. Did. Not.
Do
. This.” His breath became jagged. Desperate.

There had been so many red flags that popped up since we met. “I can’t act like this I has been the smoothest of rides with us,” I said.

“Every relationship has its bumps. I guess this is our first
true
test.” He ran his hands over his head. “I have a bit of an aggressive appetite for sex. Maybe more than the average man.” My hands trembled inside of his. “But I’ve never lied to you. And
would
never lie to you.”

“I just don’t know what to think. You hid this from me. What am I supposed to think? When were you going to decide to tell me?” I stood up and placed my hands on my hips. He sighed and his head fell into his palms.

“Adam said he wasn’t going to run it,” he said between his fingers.

“Who is Adam?”

“He’s a writer for the Tribune. He promised me he wasn’t going to run the story.”

“Why are you trying to hide this?” I turned my back and stared at a picture frame in the corner. It was a picture of us I didn’t remember taking. It looked like it was from Chicago. We were in bed together, laughing hysterically.

“I’m
not
hiding this.”

“It sounds like it.” He grabbed my arm and twirled me around to face him.

“It’s bullshit, that’s what it is. You didn’t need to know.” His voice raised several octaves.

“I didn’t need to know? Women…say that you’ve attacked them and it makes the front page – and I don’t need to know? Am I worthless to you?” I yanked my arm back in disgust and walked to the kitchen. I turned around and planted my hands on the frame of a chair at the bar. My knuckles turned pale from how hard I gripped the cold, gray steel.

“Look,” he said placing his hand on my shoulder, “it’s not true. I’ve dealt with shit like this for years. They’re all bogus. I didn’t tell you because my lawyers usually take care of this. Two, three days, we pay the woman off and she shuts up. No one hears a peep out of it.”

“That makes me sound so confident.”

“Whatever. It’s not true.” He sighed. “I could never do something like this.”

“Victor I had to find out from a newspaper!” I screamed.

He went over and sat down at the piano. He placed his hands on the keys. His shoulders looked extremely tense and tight. He didn’t play any music. He just sat there trying to fill the space in his mind with something other than stress. “I’ve been alone most of my life. I sort of liked it that way. And then I met you.” I came and sat down on the bench next to him.

The look on his face revealed that there was more to the story. He was hiding something else. I gave him a look as if to say fess up. He drew in a heavy breath and exhaled gradually.

“I was afraid. You came back into my life and I didn’t want to mess it up with you. Like I said I’ve dealt with this before and my attorneys usually shut things down before the stories make it to the press.” That comment really made me feel some type of way. I frowned and my neck shot back.

“You really know how to make a woman feel at ease. What the hell does shut it down mean?”

His voice lowered and sounded more comforting. “I hate to sound so curt or cold, but I mean my attorneys usually negotiate a settlement with the women and then you never hear from them again.” I still didn’t feel reassured.

“So you pay them off?” My heel tapping increased. I heard the words he spoke, but they weren’t the words I wanted to hear.

“Yes. I know how it sounds.” His eyes looked dull. “But that’s how you know the women are lying. These women, I don’t know them.” He pushed his finger down on a black key. The sound it made was dissonant. “The worst thing about my life is that people with agendas, bad agendas, seem to flock to you. Seem to chase you. Seem to follow you. Lately I’ve felt as if becoming wealthy has been a curse.”

He slowly got up and walked to the window, overlooking midtown. He laughed to himself. “How naïve I was,” he said. “When I started to become really successful, I said if I ever made five million, I’d retire and buy a small beach house on some remote island somewhere and just catch fish and eat mangos all day.”

I remained silent and listened. “I don’t trust many people,” he said. He brooded over what he just said and stroked the stubble on his chin. “As a matter of fact, I only trust you. I don’t have to question if I trust you. I just know it. I can feel it. Right here.” He pointed to his gut.

He paused.

“Do you trust me?” he asked. I smelled the sour taste of doubt in his words. “Tell me you trust me.”

I swallowed hard. “I trust you.” I came behind him and wrapped my arms around him like the sun wrapped its glow around the room. “If you’re committed to someone. There can’t be secrets. I need to be involved. In everything.”

“I didn’t want to involve you. These things tend to get messy and I didn’t want to stress you out.

“I’m not made of glass.”

“Look, this was supposed to fizzle out. They always do.”

I sighed dejectedly, but I began to feel better. “How long do you think this is going to last?”

“Not too much longer.”

“I just want you to let me in. Not some of the time, not just things here and there. I want all of it. Even if you think it’s going to hurt me.”

“Okay.” He exhaled deeply. “From here on out. You’re involved…in everything.” He got up and went to the bedroom and returned wearing a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants. “Which reminds me.” He placed a key card in my hand. “This is how committed I am.”

My eyes widened. “Exactly.” He laughed. “Now that you’re with me. I only ask one thing of you.

“What?” he asked. “You want me to want me to wear a sign that says ‘Property Of Victor St James’?” He chortled and pinched the side of my stomach. “Ouch!” I said scowling. “Can you blame me for asking? I’ve heard about possessive you rich men are.”

He went over to the kitchen and brought out a cucumber. He diced it up and popped them in his mouth one by one. “It’s not that,” he said shaking his head with a nervous smirk on his face.

“Your days of working at Stellar are done. No woman of mine is going to work when she doesn’t have to.” I heard the crunch of the cucumber in his mouth.

“Really, so I’m…what…just supposed to just lay around here and look cute and bake cupcakes all day?”

“Perhaps.” He stood silent before bursting into laughter at the fact that I thought he was dead serious. His laughing made me frown harder. “I’m joking. Honestly, you wouldn’t want to even be caught dead there after what happened with Tyson.”

“I’m no stranger to gossip. I can handle it.”

He slid a cucumber into my mouth. “Not only that. The building is going to be swarmed with reporters. Cameras everywhere. Are you sure you’re ready for that?” He raised an eyebrow.

Was I? Maybe, but I wasn’t willing to find out.

***

My eyes were heavier than sandbags as I lay on the couch back at my apartment. Live with Victor? And quit my job at Stellar? All of this was happening too fast.

My phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize. And I never answered those. There never was good news on the other end of the line. It was probably a collection agency calling about overdue library books that I hadn’t returned.

I listened to the voicemail and I shot up on the couch, my hair flying forward.

It was Matt – my father.

I held the phone in my hand which quivered slightly, deliberating if I should play this game with him again.

After I placed the phone down on the arm of the chair, I darted into the kitchen and took my yellow tea kettle out of the cupboard, filling it with tap water.

Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at the plastic, white phone and gnawed on my lip. I folded my arms and returned my gaze to the stove as the kettle rattled under the increasingly bright orange burner.

I pulled out favorite mug. It read ‘Fly Or Die’ on one side and the other side had a cartoon Cessna airplane flying through fluffy clouds. I ripped open a pack of chamomile tea and lobbed the teabag into the mug and continue to wait for the pot to hiss. I raced my finger under the words on the back of the packet, reading how the leaves were fair traded and certified organic.

My eyes jutted over to my phone. The white, rectangular object lingered in the distance. My focus turned towards the kettle. Steam billowed from it.

I looked at my phone again. It sat there. Silent. Looming, phantom-like.

I waited for some unexpected event to interrupt me, like the smell of gas where the entire apartment complex had to be evacuated for a few hours until the matter was resolved. I would conveniently forget my phone.

Water never took that long to boil. I snapped on my purple rubber gloves and grabbed a scratchpad from underneath the sink. I scrubbed the speck of spaghetti sauce in the sink. The sink was spotless, except for that tiny speck. I saw my reflection sparkle back at me from the silver finish.

The water rumbled louder as I threw the gloves back under the sink.

I looked at my phone and my foot tapped against the kitchen floor.

I sighed.

I tilted my head and scrunched my nose up at the kettle. “Hmph,” I said. I grabbed the kettle handle and straightened it, making sure it was center in the coils of the burner. I leaned back against the counter and looked at it again. I turned the kettle clockwise away from my face towards the refrigerator.

I frowned at my phone and waited for my water to finish boiling.

I dashed over to the phone and swiped it off the arm of the chair.

I pushed the green phone icon and the red
call
button next to his number glared at me.

I glared back. My thumb hovered over the button for what seemed like minutes.

Before I could press it, the tea kettle screamed at the top of its lungs. I hurled the phone into the couch and it landed between the cushions where uncapped ink pens, cookie crumbs, and loose nickels rested.

I darted over to stove and removed it from the burner which was the color of molten hot lava.

I smiled as the steam of the hot water rushed to moisten my nostrils and transformed the clear water to maize-colored goodness.