by Moore, Jewel
She had regretted hitting Michael, but his words had been verbal slap. The fury she had unleashed had been startling. It had been as if his rage lived just beneath his skin waiting for an opportunity to unfurl. She had known then that Michael was beyond her help. The rapid escalation of violence had been too great—he’d seemed capable of killing her the next time.
She had known that he’d needed to be made accountable for his actions, but each time she thought of the unhappy boy he must have been, her resolve had wavered.
Finally she had made her way to the bathroom, holding on to the walls to keep herself upright. She had cleaned her teeth and washed her face gingerly, avoiding her own reflection—knowing then that she wouldn’t report Michael and had been too disgusted and ashamed to meet her own gaze.
She had stayed in bed the next day, just lying on her back staring up at the ceiling, too distraught to eat.
She might have stayed in the same position indefinitely if Nathan hadn’t called her at four the next morning to say that he was on his way over to crash on her sofa. He had gone to a nightclub to celebrate one of his friend’s nineteenth birthday and had drunk too many beers. Natalie’s place was nearer to the nightclub, but she had tried to persuade him to go home instead. He had pleaded with her, saying that he didn’t want their parents to see him in his inebriated state and she had given in.
He had enveloped her in a half-drunken bear hug on his arrival and she’d barely stopped herself from crying out in agony. Thankfully, he had kicked off his shoes and immediately gone to sleep, his feet dangling over the arm of the chair.
He hadn’t awoken until after midday.
Natalie had avoided his gaze as she had made him brunch and finally he had demanded playfully, “What’s the matter with you? Did I fart in my sleep or something?”
Natalie had been forced to look him in the eye and when he saw her face, he’d sworn violently.
“Who did this to you?” He’d cupped her jaw gently as he turned her face up to the light and it had brought tears to her eyes. Not knowing about Michael, Nathan assumed the worst. “My God, Natalie, did someone rape you?”
“No. It was Michael…my boyfriend.”
“Where is he?” Nathan had looked around the flat, as if hoping that Michael was hiding somewhere, so he could drag him out and beat him senseless.
“He went home afterwards.”
“Where does he live?”
“I don’t know.” The reality of it had hit her then—Michael had never disclosed his address although they had been sleeping together for months.
“Do you have his number?”
“Yes,” she’d admitted. He hadn’t given it to her, but once when he was struggling to finish an assignment he had called her and she had saved the number.
“Call him for me.”
“Nat, please leave it alone.”
“Natalie, call him now!”
Up until that was the moment she’d thought of Nathan fondly as her little brother. As Natalie pressed Michael’s number on her mobile and handed it to Nathan, she’d realized that he had become a man while she wasn’t looking.
“Hey, this is Nathan, Natalie’s brother.” Natalie had never heard her brother speak so coldly to anyone. “I’m at her flat right now. Do you want to meet me, bro?”
Natalie was surprised that Michael didn’t simply end the call when he’d heard her brother’s voice, but the seriousness of his tone must have frightened Michael.
“If you come near my sister again, I will kill you. Do you understand me, bro?” Michael must have responded because Nathan continued before he’d disconnected the call, “Good, because this is your first and final warning.”
Nathan’s face as he’d said the words had been unrecognizable—he’d looked capable of carrying out his threat without a minute’s hesitation. It had confirmed Natalie’s fears that, like her father, if Nathan had a chance to put his hands on Michael it would end badly. She would have never forgiven herself for getting him embroiled in a situation that had been of her own making.
Nathan had demanded an explanation. She hadn’t told him everything—some things you don’t tell a brother, but she’d told him about Michael telling her that she was too tall, too dark and her hair too short to be seen on his arm.
Her brother had the same smooth dark skin she had inherited from their mother and people often complimented him for having beautiful skin. No one ever believed all he used was plain soap and water. He had modeled for just over a year when he was sixteen, but had filled out his large spare frame before his eighteenth birthday. Work had dried up when he refused to diet to achieve the androgynous look popular with designers at the time.
He’d been annoyed with her for letting Michael’s words wound her, reminding her that the scout from the model agency, who had approached them both as they’d been in Debenhams shopping, had told her that she could be Britain’s answer to Alek Wek if she lost six inches off her hips. Nathan had taken the man’s card and promised to get in touch, but she had laughed and said, “No thank you!”
Natalie had never thought of herself as beautiful, though she’d never considered herself unattractive. She’d always wished her hair was about six inches longer so she could pull it into an elegant chignon which she thought was the height of sophistication. She also wished that she was average, rather than model height—shorter women seemed cuter somehow. And at the time, with her confidence totally destroyed by Michael’s cruel words, she’d wished that her complexion was just a little lighter, more like her father’s.
Her mother always told her that beauty was about confidence and Natalie acknowledged that there was some merit in her claim. Rather than try to fade into the background her mother wore vibrant colors and walked around like she was royalty. She turned heads wherever she went and was something of a style guru to her friends.
Michael hadn’t turned up for classes for the next two weeks, and though she’d made up her mind not to speak to him, she lived every moment in dread of seeing him again. Finally she’d asked another student on the same course, who had regularly gone to the gym with Michael, if he had heard from him. He had told her that Michael had been barred from the university. He’d gotten into an argument with another student in the cafeteria one morning over who was next in line to be served. Michael had let the other student pay for his order, then he had paid for his coffee, taken the top of the cardboard cup and poured the scalding hot contents over the student’s head. Luckily, the student had been wearing a hat and warm clothing which had saved him from being badly burned. The police had been called, but the other student hadn’t wanted to press charges. The dean of the university hadn’t been as forgiving and had expelled Michael. The classmate had also told her that he had warned Michael about the steroids he’d started taking to enhance his gym workouts and make him bulk up faster.
Natalie hadn’t seen Michael again before she graduated with First Class Honors three years later. He’d lived somewhere in Islington while attending university, so she’d avoided going anywhere near that part of North London like the plague.
Then just a month after she’d started at the agency, she’d gone to the Marble Arch branch of Marks & Spencer to treat herself to some new underwear with the generous salary she’d received. The bespoke suits she wore for work demanded perfectly fitting underwear and she had been trying to decide which five of six sets of lingerie to purchase when she heard a voice full of indulgence say, “I don’t know, Melissa. They both look good to me. If you like them both, just get them and I’ll pay.”
She had immediately recognized Michael’s voice, though he’d never used that tone when speaking to her, and had been frozen in place for a few seconds, afraid to breathe in case she attracted his attention. Finally she had looked up and saw him standing patiently waiting just behind a woman who was stooping near to the bottom rung of the lingerie rack, still trying to decide.
Natalie’s hands trembled as she fumbled to replace the lingerie on the
display hooks, deciding that she wasn’t going to buy anything. All she’d wanted was to get out of the store and as far away as possible before Michael noticed her. The scraping sound of the metal hangers hooks on the metal display wasn’t loud, but it brought Michael’s head around to investigate its source.
He had filled out even more since Natalie had last seen him, looking ridiculously almost as broad as he was tall.
For a moment he looked as shocked as she felt, and then to her surprise, instead of looking annoyed that she’d had her brother threaten him to stay away from her or else, Michael looked nervous. In that split second she realized that she had him by the balls—he had gone to great lengths to hide her existence from Melissa. Now she could walk right over and introduce herself as the other woman.
Smiling she approached them, glad that she was wearing 2” heels so she could tower almost half a foot over him. Michael shook his head slightly, willing her not to come closer but she ignored him.
“Hi Michael, how are you?” She bent to kiss his cheek when she got close enough, almost laughing when he pulled his head sharply like a frightened virgin.
His girlfriend straightened and looked at Natalie suspiciously.
“Do you know her, Michael?” she asked him but continued to stare up at Natalie.
Michael seemed to have been struck dumb. It could have been her moment for some sweet revenge, but Natalie took pity on him. He wasn’t worth her time and it wasn’t as if she wanted him back, so why break up his relationship? But she would remind him of Nathan’s threat, just in case he’d forgotten it.
“Hi, I’m Natalie.” Michael’s eyes almost popped out of his head as she offered the woman her hand. “Michael probably doesn’t remember me, but we went to university together four years ago. He might remember my brother Nathan, though, who is 6’4”, has a black belt in karate and has even broader shoulders than he does.”
“I’m Melissa.” The woman smiled and offered her hand, though she looked puzzled at the detailed description Natalie had given Michael just to jog his memory of her brother. “Nice meeting you.”
Natalie had finally met the woman Michael was proud to be seen in public with—an average woman with average looks and height with mid-length hair pulled back in a ponytail. Not unattractive, but not the stunner she had imagined her to be.
Natalie had then waved them goodbye, walked back to the lingerie rack she’d been perusing, picked up all six sets of lingerie and headed to the counter. She had faced her biggest fear and survived; she deserved at least half a dozen pairs of new lingerie. She had wondered idly as the cashier scanned her purchases if Michael had ever managed to persuade Melissa to go down on him, or if he had some other foolish woman on the side performing that function for him.
Late that evening her phone had rung. It was an unfamiliar number, but she had answered the call, knowing instinctively that it was Michael.
He’d told her how good she’d looked and how much he had missed her. He’d said that she was the only person who’d ever understood him, the only person he’d ever been able to tell about his childhood.
But all she’d been thinking about since she’d met earlier that day was the loving way he’d acted with Melissa. It had been that same fond indulgence in his voice when he’d admitted to Natalie that Melissa didn’t go down on him that had made Natalie slap him—a tone filled with a mixture of admiration and exasperation, as though he was proud of Melissa for being a good girl, although it left him with a need that someone else had to satisfy.
Natalie had just had her second appointment with the therapist she had begun seeing and the woman had suggested that perhaps Michael’s stepfather had forced Michael to perform the act on him. Then she had suggested something that had never crossed Natalie’s mind—with her sharing his abuser’s Trinidadian heritage, Michael had possibly abused her as a means of revenge. Natalie had cried again for the little boy whose innocence may have been so cruelly destroyed, but the therapist had warned her about feeling too sorry for Michael, reminding her that he had sensed her weakness and exploited it.
Michael had blamed the steroids for his violence and begged her to let him come over and apologize in person. She hadn’t even been tempted to give him her new address, remembering her mother saying that substance abuse didn’t change what people were fundamentally. A friend of her mother’s had once gotten drunk and said some unforgivable things to her mother. She’d apologized the next day, saying that she’d been drunk and not aware of what she was saying. Natalie’s mother had accepted her apology, but had later told Natalie that she would find it difficult to be as close to the woman as she once was. She had said that the alcohol hadn’t put words into the woman’s mouth—it had simply reduced her inability to conceal her true thoughts and feelings.
The new humility in Michael’s voice had amazed her, but Natalie had known that it was simply a ploy to get close to her again. When he’d realized that she wasn’t going to be persuaded to become his victim again, he had dropped the ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ act and become verbally abusive. She’d let him rant and rave, then yawned loudly and asked him if he was done and disconnected the call. When she put the phone on silent and ignored his next twenty or so calls, he’d started sending her text after text: pleading with her to let him come over to see her in one message, then threatening grievous bodily harm if he ever saw her again in the next.
After a week of calls and more texts than she could count, she’d answered his call early one Saturday morning and told him calmly not to call or text her again. She’d told him that she had saved all his texts and would pass them to the police if he persisted. She then suggested that he see a therapist, saying that being a victim didn’t give him the right to victimize anyone else.
He’d called her, “a cold, unfeeling bitch” and hung up.
He’d never called her again.
It had been a unpleasant reminder of a period in her life she’d wanted to forget, but it had made her finally see Michael for what he was—a victim, but also a weak man who was looking for someone weaker to victimize so that he could feel good about himself.
***
Deciding with her head that she would accept a non-exclusive relationship with Stephano was easy, convincing her heart that something was better than nothing was much more difficult. And Natalie couldn’t help but wonder if he had been relieved when she’d said that she didn’t want to take the relationship any further—he hadn’t attempted to persuade her otherwise and they had returned to just being work colleagues. But the companionable friendship they had enjoyed was now ruined. And though Natalie made an effort to forget the heated passion they’d shared, memories assailed her as soon as she walked into the office, and got even stronger when she was seated at her desk.
She hadn’t looked for to a Valentine’s Day since Michael. This year was no different.
Stephano came to work, issued his usual morning greeting and settled behind his desk without acknowledging the significance of the day in any way. Natalie was relieved that she had a lunchtime meeting with a client, so she wouldn’t be there for him to not ask her out to lunch. The meeting was likely to extend to late afternoon based on previous meetings, so she would avoid seeing Stephano for most of the day.
When she arrived back at the office at quarter to four, she found a single, perfect red rose in a slender glass vase and a monstrously large box with the Hotel Chocolat logo on her desk.
She tried not to smile too broadly, but she couldn’t help herself grinning like a fool as she looked over at Stephano and mouthed, “Thank you.”
It was totally over the top.
She had fallen in love with the luxury chocolate range on her first trip to the new Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford when she’d wandered into the shop and been offered a sample. She had immediately treated herself to their Dark Signature Collection.
On her twenty-fifth birthday less than a month ago, she had brought the larger Classic Signature Collection to the office to s
hare. She had ended up eating most of it herself over the next days as the guys had each taken one or two and then forgotten about them.
This monstrosity was the Signature Cabinet—the largest collection they had available and so expensive she’d assumed no one ever bought one.
“New man, Natalie?” Morgan perched his slender butt on her desk and turned over the card attached to the box to have a look at the inscription.
“None of your business, Morgan!” She smacked his hand playfully. It didn’t matter if he read the card. It simply said, ‘I’m yours. Be mine.’
Morgan laughed as he made himself more comfortable on her desk. “Hotel Chocolat. Hmm, he must be loaded or very in love. Which is it?”
“Morgan, get off my desk and let me get some work done!”
He was blocking her view of Stephano and she really needed to transcribe the minutes of her meeting and make some further notes while the ideas were fresh in her head.
“Be like that, then.” Morgan walked off in a huff, pretending to be hurt. “I won’t tell you what my new boyfriend got me for Valentine’s.”
“Too late! You told me he got you premium tickets for Billy Elliot,” she reminded him.
“Me and my big mouth!” Morgan covered his mouth as if to recall his earlier words and then laughed at the futility of the action.
He sat down when he got to his desk and got straight back into whatever he’d been doing. He could be playful at times but was one of the hardest workers on the team.
***
Finally they were alone in the office and Stephano came over to her desk.
“Are you insane?” she asked him. “It will take me a year to finish those chocolates!”
“A year?” He raised his left eyebrow questioningly, in the sexy way he did sometimes and her insides quivered. “I know how much you love those chocolates.”
