Everything You Are: Everything For You Trilogy 3

by Orla Bailey

  I wait until Libby returns before gathering up my things.

  “Are you done yet?” she asks.

  “Are you?”

  We grin at each other.

  “Come on. I’ll give you a lift home. Maybe he’ll drop me off first,” I suggest.

  I’ve wrapped the peonies, every last one of them and I hand them to her. “They’re at their best when you’re falling in love.”

  Libby smiles shyly down at them. “Do you think he feels the same way about me?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.” Have I ever seen that look in Jack’s eyes?

  Crossing the car park I wonder again about Phil. There’s been no sign of him since the altercation and I really should start making enquiries. Why Jack would have attacked the man if he didn’t care about me, I have no idea.

  I have no idea either, if Phil’s actually safe, beyond Jack’s word for it and I’m not certain I can trust that anymore.

  * * *

  I enter Belvedere with a leaden heart.

  Lenuta has already left for home. There is a note with the hotel phone number and instructions reminding me to call Jack propped up on the counter. She orders me to eat the soup she has prepared especially, first.

  I lift the lid and sniff. It smells amazing and looks delicious. Real rib-sticking peasant fare. But my stomach rebels. I know I won’t be able to swallow a single bite. Not with this hanging over me.

  I go through a ritual to prepare myself and so what if it’s just a delaying tactic? Jack tells me I’m brave but I’m not. I shower then dig out the bag I brought back from my apartment the other morning and pull out my old threadbare sleeping shorts and strappy top; the ones I wore when Jack first broke into my apartment. I feel now as I felt then. Alone. This time, I’m handling it sober.

  I gather my towel-dried hair into a rough, loose braid which hangs down over one shoulder. Lots of wispy strands immediately rebel. I can’t even control that but they match my frayed mood. Pride makes me draw on a thick curved stripe of black eye-liner and a little mascara for courage. That, and a tight hold on my pillow will have to do.

  I realise, looking in the mirror that subconsciously I have made myself as completely unlike the pseudo-sophisticated and artificially perfect Amanda as it is possible to be. If that is who he really wants, then I am not it.

  I know in my mind I’m wrecked with love for him, yet certain of one thing. No matter how much I love Jack, I cannot stay with him if he doesn’t love me the way he says he does.

  To the exclusion of all others.

  Right now, that isn’t looking too likely. My world has been turned upside down and I am without armour. I sit on the bed taking deep steadying breaths to put myself in a calmer place but Here Comes the Rain Again persists on a continuous loop through my mind until I have to force myself not to run to my violin to escape within its endless melancholy.

  I jump when the house phone rings.

  Irritation courses through me. I don’t want the distraction of dealing with anyone. I need to make the call. Reluctantly I reach for the extension. “Hello?”

  “Tabby. Baby.” Jack.

  My stomach lurches. Every muscle in my body stiffens but my heart leaps in joy at the sound of his voice. I just can’t help myself. Just hearing him has the same effect on me every time. For once I’m glad we’re parted by continents. If he was in the room with me, this fortress I have constructed around my heart since this morning would crumble; breached by the traitor that lives inside it. Me.

  “Tabitha? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is everything alright? You sound very quiet. Is the connection fine your end?”

  “I hear you.” I bite out the words. Unfriendly. Injured.

  “Oh.” He pauses. Then the tone of his voice changes. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  Rage rips through me like a forest fire. “Is there anything you want to tell me?” I wait. I give him a chance to confess, even now.

  His voice is wary but measured. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know.”

  I wait but he doesn’t say it. He thinks his affair is none of my business. Every covert kiss and touch I witnessed between them returns; a spectre to haunt me. He’s a man who feels he can keep any secret he damn well pleases.

  But I refuse to play his brutal games anymore. “Then tell me about Amanda.”

  “What about Amanda?” His voice is a shard of ice that cuts straight through my heart.

  “You could start with the fact you’ve taken her with you to Singapore.” There. I said it. A kind of relief washes over me now it’s out in the open. He knows that I know. Everything.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? Is that all you have to say to me?”

  “What else would I say? Amanda is here in Singapore. But evidently you know that.”

  My stomach clenches so hard it causes me physical pain and I screw up my eyes, wincing. I’m in the eye of the storm but a force of destruction circles around me with its mega-strength of devastation.

  I hold my voice steady. Becalmed. But it’s a stillness I don’t feel inside. “Why didn’t you tell me you were taking her with you?”

  “You didn’t need to know.”

  All calm vanishes. “Well fuck you!” I slam the phone down to end the call. I can’t do this. Can’t say what I want to say. I hurt way too much.

  I collapse on the bed, making loud animal noises. Howling. Nothing left of human dignity. Burning tears of devastation drop and soak away like they’ve never existed. Jack has slapped me in the face. His betrayal is absolute and I never want to see him again.

  The phone extension rings. Against my erratic sobbing it is jarring, discordant. I let it sound until the message recording service kicks in. It starts up all over again. I wail through all of it, yowling over the incessantly synthetic chimes, retching dry heaves of despair.

  Next, the phone in my handbag goes off. I let it. I hate the ring tone immediately. Again and again house phones and cell phones ring out as I weep. Eventually they all turn silent until all I’m left with are the racking shudders of my own misery.

  When the television in the bedroom suddenly flares to life with an early evening news broadcast I’m stunned into silence. It turns itself off again. And on. And off. The bedroom lamps extinguish, illuminate and flicker off again. And again. Startling thoughts of poltergeists change to a distant recollection that Jack has remote, computerised access to the electrical systems in his apartment.

  One undesirably upbeat song, recognisable as a clear message – Stop What You’re Doing – starts playing through the speaker system at full blast. I get he’s demanding my attention. He has it. Even continents away he won’t allow himself to be ignored.

  At his next ring I pick up. “What?” I say stiffly.

  “Laptop. Skype. I want you looking at me when you hear what I have to say and I want to see you when I say it. I’m not doing this over the damn phone.” He hangs up.

  I’m shocked speechless. He sounded livid. Absolutely irate his treachery has been discovered; his lies have not remained concealed.

  How dare he treat me like that? I’m hurting like hell here whilst he’s having the time of his life with that woman and he dares to be angry with me?

  I scan all options. Leave him to stew? Call a taxi and disappear into the night? Skype?

  That’s the one. I want to look into that man’s double-dealing, cheating eyes when I confront him with the truth. I want him to know what he’s done to me and see how happy he is that he’s completely annihilated me. I need that before I walk away. I’ll never believe him again as long as I live.

  Besides, I want to wish him and Amanda the best of luck. They deserve each other.

  I yank my laptop from its case and have it open on the bed in front of me before I’m even totally aware of what I’m doing. Without pausing to remember how I’m dressed, I boot up and log on.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jack’s vide
o call comes through immediately. I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands leaving a smudge of black on them, fix my face into a stony mask and accept the connection.

  I want to scream at him. I want to shout. Every obscenity that ricochets through my skull tries to blast its way from my throat but I say nothing. I’d rather know how he intends talking his way out of this one.

  But seeing the face I love, I only just hold it together. I’m a wasteland.

  The knot of Jack’s tie is carelessly yanked down and the top buttons of his stark white shirt are already open. I drink in every painful detail but harden my heart against how he makes me feel. Lost and Lonely. Abandoned and betrayed. His dark hair looks sexily messy and my stomach lists with the idea he has just engaged in some welcome home activity with Amanda after returning from all-day meetings but had to hastily pull himself together to make this unplanned face-to-face with me. Like I’ve interrupted something special. I stare. His hair looks exactly the same when I run my hands through it in unrestrained passion and lust. Missing him.

  I swallow back a sob.

  Jack lifts his hands and drags his fingers over his scalp as his eyes raise themselves to mine. He draws in and releases a deeply reluctant sigh. “Okay. Let’s have it.”

  Every effort to smother the fiery sparks of my battered dignity, fails.

  I ignite.

  My anger is a lethal weapon launched straight into the frozen heart of his betrayal. “Me? It’s you that’s let me have it. Your cold-hearted, two-faced, insincere contempt has ripped me in two. You’ve shredded me. Why send all those fucking flowers? Did the two of you find that exquisite little gesture particularly amusing? Pretending there’s an us. There is no us. There’s you and her. I don’t exist except to provide some sick sort of entertainment for the pair of you. You’re a cheat and a liar and I hate you for using me like this. Hate you, for letting me think you even might have cared. You’re a complete bastard, she’s a bitch and you suit each other perfectly…” So much for dignified injured pride.

  I’d continue but my oxygen levels have dipped dangerously low for failure to draw breath. Dizziness engulfs me and the dim lights sparking in my line of vision suggest I’m in danger of passing out if I continue but I don’t care.

  “Done?” His voice is deep. Its volume dangerously low.

  It’s a tone that ought to give me pause for thought but I’m way beyond reach of its warning. His uber-control is as irritating as an ant. He doesn’t even care enough to lie to me anymore. Or fight back. But I’m hyper alert to every atom of his being and can’t fail to see the quiet ticking of irate muscle in his throat and jaw. I don’t care about that either.

  I draw my second wind. “How the fuck can you sit there like this is nothing?” I scream. “As if nothing’s even happened?”

  “Mind your mouth. Harry raised you better than that.”

  “Fuck my mouth! You seem to prefer quite a different type of female anyway.” I screech the words, as if needing to raise my voice higher just to breach the distance between us; to crack his callous skull wide open with the knowledge that he’s destroyed me with utter indifference. “You’re sharing a fucking hotel room with her so fuck off!” I want him to react. I want to demolish that cool, calculating disregard and force him to acknowledge his disdain for me and admit his true relationship with Amanda.

  My chest heaves as I struggle to catch another breath. Once again I find myself waiting for a pathetic apology. An excuse. Anything. At the very least I want to witness his shamefacedness now I’ve caught him out in this monstrous lie.

  I get nothing.

  His lips thin. “Christ Almighty, if ever you needed a real spanking...”

  His statement shocks me to the core. He breaks every rule of common decency yet wants to punish me?

  “Real? As opposed to what? Nothing we did was ever real so too fucking bad. Get your kink on elsewhere. You’re still in Singapore. Fucking. That. Bitch.” I find it less and less easy even to pretend to inhale.

  “I won’t tell you again,” he threatens. “Refine your language.”

  “What for? You clearly prefer to associate with cheap whores!”

  “Damn it, Tabitha, when I get my hands on you –”

  “– Dream on. I’ll be long gone. You’ve had your hands on me for the very last time.”

  His voice drops to a menacing level. “You’re not running, Tabitha.” He sounds so certain it’s not even a question.

  “No. I’ll be walking away with my head held high. Hang yours in shame. If you have any.”

  “I have done nothing to be ashamed of.”

  He’s glad. He wants everything out in the open. Sick to death of pretending. “Keep… telling yourself that… You might... even… believe –” He wants me to know I’ve been used; abused. I grip the bed covers, squeezing so hard my fingers numb.

  His lips part ready to retort, Arctic eyes flashing blue ice, but he silences. “You might want to start counting those breaths.” His tone is tight, reserved. He’s barely restraining himself.

  “You want… me to... stick around to… hear… more?” What else can he stun me with? Perhaps they’re already married and that’s why he’s in Singapore. I gasp. Could it be even worse than I thought?

  “Listen to me, Tabitha!” Jack dominates me with his tone. “Breathe in and count. Two. Three. Do it!”

  What else is there to do? Let myself curl up and die before his eyes? I wouldn’t give either one of them the satisfaction. My eyes may sting and stream but it’s only because my lungs – as stubborn as I am – refuse to oblige me.

  “God damn it. Breathe! Look at me.”

  I follow his voice the same way I take the hand he always held out to me. Inevitably. I can’t do anything else.

  “Keep going. Hold it. Like that. That’s it. Now again.” Instructions arrive sure and steady with the complete conviction I’ll comply with them. He’s so certain of me.

  It takes a while for the full effects to kick in. I had no idea how much I was struggling. He counts, I breathe. And with the phosphorous-flash of anger subsiding, abject misery replaces the vacuum left inside. I can’t help myself. I don’t want Jack to have the gratification of seeing me do it but I break down and cry.

  “You’re going to be okay.” Jack stretches his fingers out towards me then balls his hand in a frustrated fist and drops it to his side. He can’t physically touch me but emotionally I’m as connected to him as if we had a fine chain welded between us that no physical distance can sever. It’s going to take a long time to get beyond the emotional reach of this man, no matter how devastated I feel.

  His voice modulates. “Why can’t you trust me?”

  It’s a neat trick to pull off. He sounds devastated too as if I’m the traitor here.

  I glare back. “How can I trust someone who lies to me so effortlessly?”

  “I have not lied to you.” Jack’s voice rings with conviction but he’s as accomplished at deception as everything else. “Christ, Tabitha. Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to yourself.”

  I point out the simple facts. “You’re sharing a hotel room with her.” My voice breaks on another pathetic sob.

  “It’s a suite. She has her bedroom and I have mine.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? How much you spend on her comfort is hardly the point. You flew to Singapore with Amanda but you kept it from me.” I can hardly bring myself to say the words out loud. “You want her.”

  “I want you.” He won’t take those blue, blue eyes from mine.

  I throw my hands over my face for a moment to block them. When I look up he’s totally in control again. The Boss. But of course he is. I’m expecting him to react like a cheating boyfriend who has been exposed, but he isn’t that. He isn’t my boyfriend. He never was. I’m just as Amanda says. Stupid. Driven by immature fantasies. An executive toy for him to de-stress himself with and enjoy. It was always her he wanted in the end and I have been a fool.

  As much as I
want to, I don’t have the strength to sustain this level of rage. My voice drops as I appeal to any particle of decency he has left in his body. “Please don’t torture me anymore. Just leave.”

  He hesitates. “Is this the end?”

  The word decimates me. “Why did you tell me you loved me?”

  “I do.”

  “Stop lying to me! Why would you take Amanda away, if you loved me? You’re making things up with her. You can’t get her out of your mind.”

  How long ago did he plan his trip to Singapore to include her? All the time he was making love to me? Making me a victim in their little charade? I have been so badly used.

  Perhaps the incident at Claridge’s Hotel was planned to bring an end to their nasty little joke. One he was party to all along. It makes sense. He’s been so determined to protect Amanda from my accusations, he even made me apologise to her. How they must have laughed over that. I’m quite the little sucker. A dupe who just wouldn’t let this false liaison go. I have only myself to blame.

  When Jack left the hotel he called a halt to our affair. I was the one who wouldn’t accept it. The one to chase him down and beg him to come back to me. I was the one who engineered this continuation of his abuse and I’m stunned by my own gullibility.

  “I wanted to believe you might have loved me.” I confess quietly. “Now I know you never will.”

  “Listen to yourself. Trust your own instincts if you don’t trust mine.”

  “You’ve been using my instincts, my deepest feelings, to hurt me. I’ll never forgive you, Jack, for doing that to me. Never.” My voice trails off to a whisper as the awful finality sinks in once more.

  Deep lines etch the space between his eyebrows. “How can you say that? Your lack of confidence in me hurts me so much.”

  Is he crazy? How desperate does he think I am? “Whatever vile game you’ve been playing is over. You’ve betrayed my faith in you in the most contemptible way.”

  “I have never betrayed you. I’m angry you’d even think that. Don’t you know me better than that?”

  “I thought I did. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Wouldn’t care? Admit you’ve been screwing Amanda all along, then I can at least move on with my life.” My words are a bitter lie. “Give me some closure. Can’t you respect me enough to be honest with me even now? What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?”