Escape to Love

by Vanessa Miller

  Steven, stood between heaven and earth beckoning Jay to follow him.

  The waters of the ocean shimmered and became this beautiful sight as colors blended and stretched out as if a path to someplace was being set before his eyes. Jay was compelled to walk the beach, following the brilliant color. “Where you lead, I will follow,” he said out loud hoping that God was listening.

  ***

  “Come on, Renee, let’s take a walk on the beach,” Larry said as he took off his shoes and rolled up his pants.

  She’d watched Jay walk away from their party and head down to the beach. He was in a foul mood and Renee had a feeling that she was responsible for it. She had apologized, so she didn’t understand why he couldn’t just accept her apology and be cool about it. Shaking her head, she told Larry, “You go ahead, I’m just going to sit here for a while.”

  “Suit yourself.” Larry grabbed Dawn’s arm and said, “Walk with me.”

  Dawn took off her heels and followed Larry and a few others down to the beach. Renee sat down on the steps that lead to the beach. Jay had been good to her. He’d given her a job and looked out for her when Marlin came to her job acting a fool. Now she had offended him and that had not been her intent. She just didn’t know how to relate to men anymore.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Dean said as he sat down next to her with a drink in both hands. He held one out to her.

  Renee stared at the drink, thinking of time Marlin had slipped something in her drink and then she’d woken up in bed with one of his business associates. “No thank you. I gave up drinking about a year ago.”

  Smiling Dean said, “More for me.”

  She smiled back at him and then said, “You seem a lot more relaxed this weekend. I’m glad the demo of the new site went over well.”

  “It did,” Dean agreed, leaning back and taking a few sips of his drink. “Now has to figure a way around his problems so we can get the IPO to go through.”

  “What’s wrong? Why would Jay have a problem with the public offering if the new site is doing well?”

  Finishing off his drink, Dean looked in her eyes and said, “You’re beautiful, you know that.”

  She’d heard those words more times than she cared to relive. There was always some man thinking she was beautiful and wanting to possess her. So, he could show her off and have his friends comment on her beauty. Marlin even went as far as sharing her with his friends. Beauty didn’t mean a thing to her, not with the way she’d been made to feel on the inside.

  “I don’t think you need that second drink.” Renee stood.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  “I’m going to turn in for the night. I have a book I want to finish.”

  “You’re going to miss all the fun.”

  She smiled, but didn’t respond to that as she headed back to her hotel room.

  ***

  “Can’t sleep?” Ramsey asked Carmella as she tossed and turned in bed.

  She sat up, turned on the light and put her husbands hands in hers. He’d slept on the couch the night before, but was now, thankfully back where he belonged. “I’m worried about Renee.”

  “Renee is far away from Marlin, so she’s fine.”

  Carmella shook her head. “Something has happened. I don’t know what, but she’s in trouble, Ramsey. We need to pray.”

  Ramsey jumped out of bed and reached for the telephone. “Let’s call and see what’s going on.”

  “No, let’s pray first, then you can call.”

  Ramsey vacillated for about a second. He then put the phone down, climbed back in bed and held Carmella’s hands. “Okay, I trust your discernment, so let’s pray.”

  ***

  Still feeling awful about how she treated Jay earlier, she put on her nightgown, sat down at the edge of her bed and pulled her cell phone out of her purse. There was only one message. Her dad was saying something about him and Carmella praying and that he wanted her to call home. But she had read Carmella’s praise report and knew that she was the cause of any discontent her step-mother was feeling.

  Renee didn’t know how to respond to that, especially since Carmella wanted everyone in the family to send out their own praise alerts. But Renee had nothing to praise God for. She sent them a text, letting them know that she was going to bed and would try to call in the morning. Hopefully by then she would know what to say to Carmella.

  Grabbing her novel out of the bag, she stretched out on the balcony and picked up reading where she left off. It would be an interesting diversion. Something to take her mind off of the friendship she had ruined. She read for about an hour and then her lids began to droop. The book was good but she’d had an eventful day and it was time to shut it down. Walking back into her room, she turned off the lights, got in bed and then pulled the covers up as she drifted off to sleep and fell into a dream about Jay Morris’s captivating smile.

  He had that straw hat on his head again, but this time, Renee removed it from his head and purchased it for him. Instead of getting pressure from Jay about things she didn’t want to talk about, they held hands as they walked down the street, back to his car. They reached the car and Jay opened the passenger door for her. Renee hesitated, then put her hand on Jay’s face as she pulled him closer.

  “What are you up to?” Jay asked as he inched closer.

  Without answering, she got on her tippy toes and brought her lips to his with a hungry she’d never known before. The ravenous way in which Jay returned the kiss left her spent and in a state of undoing. Then just as they had come together, they broke apart. She could see him, but she couldn’t get to him. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get around the barrier separating them. Jay was her future, but she didn’t know how to get to him.

  “Calm down baby, I’m here.”

  The voice penetrated her dreams and caused a chill to run up her spine as she felt the covers being pulled off as someone got in bed with her. Renee racked her brain, trying to figure out how someone could have come into her room. She’d not only locked her door, she’d latched it as well. But then she remembered that she’d been on the balcony reading her book and not locked that door when she’d come back into her room.

  “I’ve come for what you owe me.”

  Her eyes widened. Had Marlin bonded out of jail and followed her to the Bahamas. But he didn’t sound like Marlin. The man in her bed sounded like... she screamed as she hit the switch to turn the light on and then she jumped out of the bed.

  “Where are you going? Don’t you believe in paying your debts?”

  “You’re drunk, and I don’t owe you anything.”

  “Either going to get my night with you, or I’m going to get my money back.” He reached up and grabbed her, pulling her back to the bed.

  “Let me go. Leave me alone,” Renee screamed, but it was no use. He wasn’t listening.

  8

  Arnoth ran like the wind, his charge was in trouble and he needed to get someone to that room, quick, fast and right now. Jay was coming up the walkway, he’d spent the night at a church revival, listening to the anointed preacher all the while praying that God would take the idea of Renee out of his heart.

  Waving him forward, Arnoth yelled out to him, “Something is wrong with Renee. Hurry, I heard screams in her room.”

  Jay didn’t even ask who the man was. As soon as he told him that Renee was in trouble he sprinted into the hotel and told the desk clerk. “I need a key to open Renee Thomas’s door. She’s in distress.”

  “I’m sorry sir, but I can’t give you the key if you’re name isn’t on the room.”

  “Then you better follow me with that key. Because I’m going to break the door down if I have to.” Jay took the elevator was taking too long, so Jay took the stairs three at a time. When he reached Renee’s floor and then roamed the floor listening for sounds of distress. He called out, “Renee,” every few seconds. He knew what floor Renee and Dawn were staying on, but that was it. In his haste to get to Renee he forgot
to ask for the room number. How could he help her if he couldn’t find the room?

  ~~~

  “Don’t you touch me,” Renee yelled at him as he attempted to run his hand down her back.

  “That dress you wore tonight was beautiful. Did Marlin buy it for you?”

  “You’re a pig.” Wrestling to get away, Renee managed to pull one arm free of his grip. That’s when she remembered the pepper spray she had left on her nightstand. She leaned forward, reaching for it. She almost had it but he pulled her back to him.

  “Pig or not, you’re going to give me what I came here for this time.”

  She scratch him. As he yelped. She broke free and grabbed the pepper spray. When he tried to reach for het this time, Renee sprayed him, and kept on spraying until he held onto his eyes and screamed like he was being bludgeoned to death.

  Her door burst open. Renee swung around preparing to spray the newcomers with pepper spray. All though her attacker couldn’t see, he kept coming after her, screaming, “You’re going to pay for this!”

  Renee stepped out of his reach and kept her eyes on that door. Then as Jay rushed in with a hotel clerk right behind him, Renee dropped the spray and rushed into his arms. “I’m so sorry for what I said to you before. Thank you.” She shivered in his arms as she said again, “Thank you so much for being here for me.”

  “Help me Jay, I can’t see.”

  Jay turned toward the man who’d called out to him, “Dean? What on earth are you doing in here?”

  “He’s drunk Jay. He tried to rape me.”

  “Rape?” Dean said the words as if nothing could be further from the truth. “I was simply trying to get what’s owed to me. Her boyfriend sold her to me and I never got the chance to collect until now.”

  Jay looked to Renee. “What is he talking about? Are you a prostitute.”

  Without Jay saying another word, she knew his mind had just traveled back to this afternoon when she said she wasn’t going to sleep with him for a bracelet. “It’s not what you think. I have never sold myself.”

  “Do you want me to call the police ma’am?” the clerk asked.

  Completely mortified by the thought of anyone else find out what Dean tried to do to her, she turned to Jay. “I don’t want to talk to the police tonight. And if they believe Dean over me I could wind up in prison on foreign soil.” She was becoming hysterical at the thought of anyone believing that she was selling herself.

  Jay handed a few large bills to the clerk and said, “Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know if we need anything else.” As the clerk nodded and left the room, Jay pointed to the door and said, “Get out of here, Dean.”

  “I can’t go anywhere. She pepper sprayed me. I can barely see anything.”

  With a look of disgust on his face, Jay turned away from Dean. “Let’s get your things, Renee. You’re going to stay in my suite tonight.”

  Renee and Jay quickly grabbed her bags and headed out of the room. Once they were in his suite. He helped Renee to a seat on the sofa while he made her a cup of tea. Handing it to her, he say, “Drink this. It should calm your nerves.”

  Tears that hadn’t come during the attack because she had been running on pure adrenaline, were flowing freely now. Jay sat down next to her and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry that happened to you Renee. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll get it done.”

  She wanted Dean to pay for what he’d done to her... wanted Marlin to pay too. But that would mean that she would have to let the world know what a fool she had been. She kept trying to hide her secrets away in the corner of her mind, hoping they’d get lost and she’d never have to think about them again, but things kept popping up, causing her to relive the horrors of losing her baby, of loving a man who’s motto for life was ‘you play, you pay’. And she had paid dearly.

  “Do you want to talk?”

  She let Jay go as she wiped the tears from her face. “Where do I start?”

  He handed her some tissue. “Wherever you want. I’m here for you. And if all I can do to help is listen, then I’ll do it.”

  “How ‘bout we start with my first real boyfriend. Your best friend. The one who dumped me in college. But before he did, he told one of his friends on the football team that he could have me.”

  “The guy had asked me out on a date before Chris broke up with me, so of course I said no, I’m dating someone. I can’t go out with you. Chris laughed in my face and told me to guess who had given him my number.”

  “I never would have thought Chris would do something like that.”

  Shrugging, Renee said, “I guess I’m the kind of girl you don’t just throw away.. you give away like a present or something.”

  “No,” Jay said with force. “You’re the woman that a man should cherish and look out for.”

  “I wish you had asked me out before Chris. I always assumed that you liked me. But when your best friend asked me out instead of you, I figured I had read the signs wrong or something.”

  Sorrow filled Jay’s eyes as he lightly ran his hand through her hair. “You read the signs right. I was gearing up to ask you out, Chris knew it and he beat me to the punch.”

  “Things would have been so different for me if you had been my boy friend in high school. Maybe we would have stayed together, huh? And then I never would have took up with Marlin.”

  There were a lot of woulda-shoulda-couldas in this world. Jay leaned his head against the back of the sofa without responding to Renee.

  “You don’t believe me do you?”

  “I don’t want to badger you. Lord knows you’ve been through enough tonight. But I don’t know what believe since you won’t talk to me.”

  Turning her face away from his view, she said, “It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you. I’ve just been so ashamed of the things I’ve done.”

  Jay sat back up and put a hand on Renee’s face, turning her back to face him. “The last time I checked, the only perfect person is Jesus Christ. So, this is a no judgement zone. You can trust me, Renee. I look at you, and I wonder what happened to bright, vibrant and confident teenager that I used to dream about. You’ve changed and I just want to know why?”

  “But can you handle knowing?” Renee asked. She felt like a broken china doll. She would probably chatter into a thousand pieces if Jay turned away from her now.

  He took her hands in his. “I won’t let you down. You can trust me.”

  “I sure hope you’re telling the truth.” She gulped hard and then began. “First off, I want you to know that I am not, nor have I ever been a prostitute. But Marlin did things to me when we were together.”

  Hesitating for a moment, trying to hold onto her courage she continued, “He once drugged me and then let one of his business associates sleep with me. He claimed that I cheated on him and just slept with a man I barely knew on my own. But I overheard a conversation where I discovered that this same man invested about a hundred thousand in Marlin’s reality company.”

  “So he used you to get what he wanted out of this investor?”

  She nodded. “With Marlin, everything is a commodity. She put her hand on her chin and added, “My brother told me that Marlin’s business dealing were unscrupulous. But I didn’t listen because I was attracted to his good looks and his success. But the real estate market had dried up. He’d lost a couple of big deals and by the time we got together, even though I didn’t know he was badly in need of cash.”

  “And where does Dean come into the picture? Why does he think you owe him?”

  Renee shook her head. “I don’t know. But I’m tired of talking about Marlin and Dean. I want to be free from the evil they have brought to my life.” After a moment, it was as if she realized what that freedom would cost her and she said, “Oh my God. I have to quit my job.”

  Jay vehemently disagreed. He stood and began pacing the floor. “You don’t have to quit your job. Dean attacked you. He lucky you didn’t call the police on him.” Jay stopped
pacing and turned to her. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Nobody cares what some top level executive tried to do to me. I’m just his assistant. For all we know, the police would believe that I was actually trying to sell my body to him.”

  Jay sat back down next to her. “But you had me and the clerk to verify your claim. We saw what happened.”

  Lowering her head, Renee said, “You have your IPO to think about. What would have happened if the president of your company had been arrested this weekend for an attempted rape?”

  “It wouldn’t have been good for us. But I’m the CEO and majority holder of the company. I would have figured something out.”

  “It’s not worth all of that. You’ve worked too hard to get where you are for someone like me to come along and spoil everything.”

  “Hey.” Jay put a finger under her chin and lifted her face so that she was looking at him when he said, “You’re worth so much more than you know.”

  She tried to smile, but it didn’t quit make it across her face. “Thanks for saying that. It means a lot to me that you would think that.”

  “Why don’t you believe it? That’s what I want to know.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, as she realized that what he said was true. She didn’t think much of herself. And hadn’t for a long time. How else could she have loved a man who could beat a baby out of her?