Love Me Billionaire Boxset

by L A Pepper

  I stared and saw no movement. It was probably just a trick of the light. Maybe there was a large package sitting there. Maybe it had always been like that and I only noticed the man-shaped shadow when I thought someone was watching me. I had to be paranoid. I let the curtain fall and turned on the music.

  Painting. That would take my mind off things. I hadn’t been out in days, my dog walking gig was being covered by one of the other walkers I knew from the dog park. There was only me, and being alone. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it?

  * * *

  I sat up in bed, gasping. The darkness of the night pressed back on my eyes.

  Something had woken me. A nightmare, I thought, a dream of being chased, being followed, being watched, of knowing I was always doing the wrong thing. Threat. Nightmares. Anxiety. Paranoia. Fear. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

  I reached for the glass of water at my bedside for my parched throat. Something had woken me. A dream? Or a sound?

  The house was silent. The street was silent. In the distance, I heard dogs barking. Far away. Thoughts of paranoia teased me. Marcus had always said I was paranoid and oversensitive when I called him on the things he’d done. When money had gone missing from my wallet, or I thought he’d been whispering about me to his friends, or when I felt like I was being followed. Paranoid, he called me. And naïve to think anyone would bother with me. Why would anyone want to follow me? I wasn’t anything special. Sometimes he accused me of being out to get him, destroying his reputation, talking about him, or trying to sabotage his career. I knew I had done none of that, but the way he turned my head about always made me drop the question of what he had been doing to me.

  I hadn’t been paranoid, and I hadn’t been oversensitive. He had been watching me. He had been spreading gossip about me, his own wife, so no one would trust me or believe me when I told them what he’d done. And he’d taken all my savings and used them, for his business, he’d said, for us, he’d said, but there was no evidence of him using it for business. And I wasn’t naïve. I didn’t believe him anymore, even if it was a nightmare that had woken me. It was my house and there were people out there, watching me.

  I got out of bed and stumbled over some books I left on the floor before finding my flip flops. Maybe I was paranoid, but I would be smart paranoid. I checked my windows, locked. Then I went around the whole house, checking all the doors and windows, my heart beating wildly the entire time.

  Everything was locked up tight, safe. The street out front was empty, and quiet, the shadow in the doorway was gone.

  I should have felt safer. I should have felt at ease as if my paranoia was silly. Instead, my heart raced harder. Someone had been watching me. That shadow in the doorway. If it was gone now, that meant someone had been there before. I knew it. I don’t know how I knew it but I knew it. I sat in the dark because I was afraid that if I turned on the light, they would know I knew they were out there. They could see me. They would come and get me.

  I was terrified. It was a waking nightmare. I sat on my couch, my cell phone in my hand, my arms wrapped around my knees. What had woken me, I asked myself? Was it a nightmare? Or was it a noise? I sorted through my mind, trying to remember. I didn’t remember a dream, I didn’t remember a nightmare. I should remember if I’d been woken by a nightmare. All I remembered was a noise. A clatter. Like garbage cans rattling.

  A noise woke me. I stood, my phone now activated. My finger hovering above the keypad. I was about to call 911, to call the cops.

  For what? For the fear that someone was watching me? For rattling cans on a New York City street? A bad dream? They would laugh at me.

  James. I wanted James. I wanted his arms around me. He made me feel safe. He would listen to me. I felt stronger with him. He’d tell me if I was paranoid or had a reason to worry: my reality barometer. He’d tell me if I was crazy or full of shit, just like I’d tell him if he was an egotist or spoiled. But he’d never tell me that I was stupid, or foolish, or I didn’t know what I’d seen with my own eyes. I trusted him.

  Suddenly I did feel foolish. Why had I left him at all? Why wasn’t I with him right now, when I could be safe with him, and I wouldn’t be alone? I wouldn’t have to do any of this on my own.

  Bette told me to come to them if I felt like I needed someone. I needed someone. Now. I needed James. And he was right there. Right across the wall. Right through the garden. All I needed to do was go to him and everything would be okay.

  I grabbed my hoodie and the key to the French doors of the brownstone and unlocked the three locks and the deadbolt that I had made sure were secured just a few minutes before. I threw open the door. And froze, terrified.

  “Hello, Doll.” He stood there, filling the door. Tall and broad. Heavier than I remembered, his dark brown hair longer with a scruff of beard.

  I dropped the keys and stumbled back. “Marcus!”

  “Long time no see.” He took a step into my house.

  “What are you doing here?” I couldn’t help backing up. The threat of him zinged through my whole body, putting me on high alert. He had never hurt me before, not physically. But I was afraid now. There was something different about him. He was on edge, not his usual in-control self. I’d never seen him like this.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” He was angry. His words thrummed with fury. He came in another step, not waiting for an invitation.

  “No! I don’t want you here.” I stumbled over my side table, knocking it with my knee. The dog rhinoceros statue wobbled. “We’re divorced. It’s over. It’s been over a long time.”

  “I did not agree to it being over.” He crowded into the small living room, closing the door behind him, and took up all the oxygen. The air was gone. My brain was racing. He didn’t lock the door behind him. Obviously, he wasn’t a native New Yorker. If I could get around him, I could whip it open and run to James. I couldn’t think about how easily he would catch me, maybe at the gate. If I could get outside maybe I could yell and James would hear me and come. I stalled.

  “You did, you did. You signed the divorce papers.” I stayed where I was. My thigh pressed against the statue. I put a hand on it to steady it. To steady myself.

  “I just wanted you to shut up, Hannah. You were screeching at me and you wouldn’t stop. So I signed it. I did not agree.”

  “That is what’s called agreeing, Marcus. Legally. It’s a legal agreement. You can’t take it back now. You divorced me. We’re over.”

  “I didn’t agree! You’re mine. I own you and you know it!” He yelled. His voice was raspy, and he seemed to lose the control and self-confidence that he always had, the man who made me believe that he’d take care of me, made me fall in love as a young girl, and then turned controlling. He spoke the truth of how he always felt. That he owned me. “You knew it and you left, anyway. You’re mine, and I’d never let you go. We weren’t done with our conversation and we are not done with this.” He stumbled into a lamp, reeking of cheap whiskey.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “What else was I supposed to do? You left me with nothing. All I had was the bar.” He held onto the lamp as if it was all that was holding him up.

  “You had all my money! The house. My car. I left you with everything.”

  “Nothing!” he roared. I backed away, trying to get him to come inside so I could find a way to run out of the door. “I am nothing without you.” In his voice, I could hear an echo of the dashing, romantic guy I first met. The one who seemed like he had it all together. Like he could take care of me, understand me. Be my friend. But really just wanted to own me. Life disappointed. And it terrified.

  “You need to leave, Marcus. You aren’t supposed to be here. Please.” I was not ashamed to beg. Sometimes if I begged, was sweet and submissive, he would give in. It made him feel like he was a big man.

  “Oh, you think begging will work after I found out that you’ve been whoring yourself out to that pretty boy?”

  “No, Marcus. I’m n
ot. I didn’t. I’m sorry.” The apologies came to my lips so easily. I didn’t like it. I never knew what he’d be like if he was drunk. If he’d get angry or distracted and fall asleep after a rant. I didn’t know how to respond to get him out of my house and away from me. I had to be careful because if he thought I was mocking him or teasing him, he would blow up and it would get worse.

  “Let me see you. Let me see the whore.” He reached out a hand and fumbled for the lamp switch. I blinked in the brightness. He looked terrible. Unshaven, jowly, stains on his shirt. I’d never seen him like this. “How long, Hannah? How long were you cheating on me?” He advanced on me. His shadow loomed.

  “I never did. Not once.” I edged around the armchair. One step closer to the back door.

  “Lies, Hannah. Lies. I have the evidence.”

  He took a magazine out of this back pocket. One of those gossip rags you read in the line at the grocery store. It was open to a picture of me, and next to that, one of James.

  “You’re a homewrecker, Hannah. You wrecked our home. With your lover. Your childhood sweetheart. It says right here. You knew him as a girl. You were always in love with him. They said you were obsessed with him. I knew it. I knew you were cheating on me. You tried to lie, but I knew you never loved me. It was him all this time.”

  “I never did. I never cheated. You knew I never even went anywhere. I was always at home. You knew.” I didn’t want to bring up the men he hired to watch me, but he had the proof. I never went anywhere or did anything.

  “You didn’t deny being in love with him. You whore. The whole time.”

  I opened my mouth to deny it and… I couldn’t. I had been in love with James the whole time. I had fallen in love with Marcus thinking he was like James, so smooth, so in control, but I’d been wrong. The realization hit me hard. “I didn’t cheat,” I repeated, it was the only thing I could say. “I didn’t even meet him again until he came back from LA. A year after we were divorced. I swear, Marcus.”

  “You’re a liar! You still had your parents house. You told me they sold it and moved to Florida. You lied about it.”

  “No, I didn’t lie. They didn’t sell it. They just moved. They were renting it out before I moved in. I swear you have to believe me.”

  “I never believed you. You are a liar and a whore.”

  “I’ve never lied to you.” I didn’t have to take this anymore. And I didn’t want to anymore. I was tired of being frightened. “I loved him, but I was never with him, he didn’t love me back. I let it go and moved on. I found you, and I loved you, too. I loved you, Marcus. I wanted a life with you. I wanted to be happy. But you didn’t want me to be happy. You wanted to own me.”

  I felt my strength coming back. “You don’t own me, Marcus. You never did and you never will. We are over. Leave or I’m calling the police.”

  “No, you’re not.” He reached under his shirt and pulled a gun from his waistband. The gun turned on me. “Put the phone down, Hannah.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You don’t get to ask me questions. Sit down, whore.”

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t look away from the black muzzle pointed at me. I had never seen a gun in real life. It loomed in front of me, heavy. Weighty. I thought about death and fear and the constant feeling of waiting for violence to explode. I thought I would have been panicked. I thought I would feel afraid. Shaking and trembling or frozen like a rabbit in front of an oncoming semi truck. I wasn’t. I was calm. It was as if I was always waiting for this to happen. As if I knew the threat had always been there. That was why I was always scared. That was why I ran, leaving my life behind to start over again. That, and the way he constantly tried to whittle me down so I wouldn’t be able to fight back.

  I didn’t feel whittled down. I felt knife-edged and sharp. “I didn’t know you had a gun, Marcus.” I sat and gestured to the chair opposite me. “Sit down, we can talk.”

  “I don’t want to sit down. I got the gun when you left. You made me angry, and I didn’t know why.”

  “It’s because you couldn’t own me, Marcus. That’s not love, Marcus. You can’t own people. We’re not property.”

  “If I can’t have you, neither can he.”

  “He doesn’t have me either, Marcus. I’m my own person. Can’t I belong to myself?”

  “Why did you leave me, Hannah? We were happy together. I need you. I loved you.”

  “That’s not love. That’s control. Put the gun down, you don’t want to do this.”

  “You’re mine, Hannah. Mine. You need to come home with me.”

  “This is my home.”

  “Why do you make me do these things, Hannah? Why can’t you just be my wife the way you’re supposed to?”

  “Because I don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want to do this, Hannah. You’re making me.”

  “Then don’t do it, Marcus.”

  He raised his gun.

  Chapter Nine

  I woke out of a fitful sleep to the dogs barking up a storm. “What the hell,” I grumbled and buried my head under the pillow. Since Hannah left, I hadn’t been able to sleep well, so the little I’d gotten was more important than ever.

  The dogs kept barking.

  “Bette!” I yelled, “Shut those dogs up!” There was no response from Bette and the barking continued. “Bette!” Nothing. “Dammit..” My cousin slept like the dead, and the brownstone was so sturdy the walls were nearly soundproof. She probably didn’t even hear the dogs, let alone my weak, sleepless yell. I let out a long, dramatic sigh that I felt all the way to my toes, and pulled myself out of bed, shoving my feet into slippers and pulling a t-shirt over my head. Maybe I’d sit out in the garden in my pajamas and have a drink and contemplate my future alone. I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep tonight, that was for sure.

  When I threw open the door, the barking was much louder. Frantic. Coming from downstairs. “What the hell, you dumb dogs. Shut up!” I made my way down the hall, passing Bette’s door and pounding like a maniac on it, because if I had to be awake for this, so did she. No sleeping Bette beauty in this house.

  “Shut up, darling, I’m trying to sleep,” she yelled back.

  “Your dogs are going crazy. Get up and do something.”

  She fussed on the other side of the door. It opened and there she was, her dark hair disheveled, dressed in a silky bathrobe. Who wore robes like that in this day and age? I only slept in pajama pants because of my broken sleep. I kept waking up at night and it was easier to get up and wander when I was already half dressed. She looked like someone from a movie. I’d never understand my cousin.

  “What’s wrong with my dogs?” She eyed me suspiciously like I’d been the one to do something to my dogs.

  “I don’t know, they’re going crazy. Why do your dogs bark like this?”

  “They don’t. They never have. Something’s wrong.”

  “Maybe they found a mouse or something.”

  “Please. They let a squirrel eat their food. They just stood back and watched. They’re not hunters, they’re big babies.”

  “Well, you need to shut them up.”

  She pursed her lips at me and shoved past, heading downstairs. I followed her, trying to ignore the sense of unease that was rising under my rib cage. Everything had caused me unease since Hannah left. This was no different, I told myself, but I failed to believe it.

  “Andromeda! Cassiopeia,” Bette called from the bottom of the stairs. The dogs did not come. “Andy! Cassie! Come!” They did not.

  “The kitchen. They’re in the kitchen.” I shoved past her, my unease growing.

  Bette trailed me. We found the dogs both in the kitchen, at the French doors, barking at something in the garden.

  My unease ballooned into fear. “It’s Hannah,” I said.

  “No, it isn’t. No, it isn’t, darling. It isn’t.” Bette was frightened too. “It’s something in the garden.”

  “It’s someONE in the garden, Bette
.”

  We looked at each other, and we both knew.

  “I’m calling the police,” she said.

  “Keep the dogs in the house.” I grabbed Hannah’s extra keys from the bowl in the kitchen, hoping she’d either locked all the locks or none of them because I couldn’t play whack-a-mole with different keys. I ran out the French doors while Bette held onto the dogs and I ran through the night dark garden for Hannah.

  Something was wrong. I knew something was up. I bowled through the garden gate between our houses and stilled when I reached her tiny courtyard. It was just cement and a cafe table with a couple of chairs. Just some potted plants. It was quiet. It felt wrong. It terrified me down to my bones. I should have made her stay with me. I shouldn’t have let her go.

  I paused and listened, willing my racing heartbeat to slow down so I could listen. I could hear her. She was in there. She was awake, in the middle of the night. And she was talking to someone. No one should be in there in the middle of the night.

  I heard her, but I couldn’t make out her words. Then I heard a man’s voice. Low. Angry.

  “Then don’t do it, Marcus!” She exclaimed. Marcus. Her ex-husband. The fear inside me broke open and there was no more room for uncertainty.

  He’d come for her.

  He couldn’t have her. “No!” she cried and I would wait no more. I threw open the door.

  There was Hannah, her eyes wide and alarm green, perched on the sofa, and a large hulking man turning to me. With a gun.

  “No!” she yelled. “No!” It was a scream. She stood where she was, the lumpy couch with her blanket dropped on the corner, all the art on the walls and bulky dog rhinoceros like it normally was, but this wasn’t normal.

  The man, Marcus, Hannah’s ex-husband, glared at me. His dark eyebrows lowered over his face. His nostrils flaring. “You’re the rich boy.” He was big. Bigger than me. Dressed in boots and jeans while I was in slippers and pajamas.

  “Hannah, leave,” I said. Not taking my eyes of the man.

  “I should kill you. You stole her.”