She had looked away guiltily when he talked about the cousin that was like a sister to him—his uncle’s daughter—and how her death turned his uncle into even more of a shell of a human being.
They now knew a whole lot more about each other since that Fiji trip and she hadn’t been frightened away; in fact, he felt keenly the opposite—he knew she felt closer to him.
Eric looked at the ring he had picked out for her then put it away again, hiding it in his desk drawer.
It was still too early.
He needed more time to make sure.
Then he got an idea—the company Christmas party was probably the perfect time to propose to her, in front of everyone, in a place where he could pile on the romantic gestures. Her dad would be there, her best friend would be there—everyone she’d want to witness it would be there.
In the meantime, he needed to prep her so that there was no other answer but yes when they got to that point.
Eric set about brainstorming ideas to sweep Janet off her feet.
***
After a particularly grueling day at the office, Janet couldn’t wait to get home.
She parked, then got out of her car and headed to her place.
Then, her walking slowed.
Janet couldn’t put her finger on any particular reason, but she suddenly had a very bad feeling as she walked up to her condo.
The usually bright building had an ominous look to it, although nothing about it had actually physically changed.
You are totally freaking out for no good reason, she tried to tell herself, but her gut disagreed.
She walked slowly toward her door as she tried to ponder the possibilities.
She had no reason to think David was there—her locks had changed and he didn’t have a key and she hadn’t heard from him since their final lunch date—no calls, no texts, no emails. He had ceased to be a problem since promising to leave her alone once she made it clear there was no hope for them; he had gotten her message. She and Eric had been seeing each other for over two months now and still not a peep from David.
Still, her mind kept connecting the two in that moment—was he attacking Eric somewhere in unleashed jealous rage?
She tried to think of other reasons for her feeling of dread, but they all pointed to David.
But why? she thought. She’d had two blissful months with Eric since their trip to Fiji. Why now?
She figured she was being ridiculously silly, and perhaps a little vain. That maybe she was just afraid of how deeply she’d fallen for Eric and her emotions had her confused. Maybe the dread she felt was due to Eric—that something would go wrong with them. That perhaps they’d run into some trouble as a couple, some obstacle—an old flame showing up with a child, an arrest for some old crime—something horrible about to come between them or worse yet, break them up. Not being with Eric was the absolute worst thing she could imagine—she could no longer see her life without him in it.
She took another step forward, realizing that she had actually stopped her progress toward her place.
Then she paused again, considering calling Liz or Eric.
She definitely didn’t feel safe.
But what if David was there? Would she be putting them all in danger? Would David harm Liz if he thought she was in his way?
Suddenly, Janet realized she didn’t know David after all, or at least wasn’t acquainted with this particular part of him in her three years with him. She had never seen him act out jealously like he had—although she had never given him reason to before. This jealous, obsessive side of David was a stranger, and strangers were unpredictable.
Just turn around then, she told herself. Turn around, hop in your car and drive around until you think it’s safe and feel better. Or stay the night at Liz’s.
It was what made the most sense, wasn’t it?
Bad feeling about my place, she texted Liz.
Don’t go in, a text came back, but from Eric, and she realized she had accidentally texted him instead.
Sorry—meant to text that to Liz, she replied.
Don’t go in, he repeated.
I’m just being paranoid, she typed.
Her phone rang and she answered it.
“Janet listen to me—don’t be stupid. If you have a bad feeling, it’s probably for a good reason. Please.”
His last word was plaintive.
“But what should I do?”
“Go back to your car and wait for me.”
“You don’t have to do that...”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Okay. But I’m not staying on the phone with you.”
“Fine, exert your prerogative however you want except for this—just don’t go in there. Promise me Janet.”
Janet remained silent.
“God, you’re so stubborn—this is for your own good! Don’t you care about your own well-being?”
“I think I’m just freaking out and being illogical to be honest with you. This is like a bad dream except I’m awake, you know?”
“Exactly. As crazy as it sounds, logic doesn’t come clearer than that when it comes to hunches. Your subconscious put some stuff together you haven’t realized yet—you haven’t caught up with it in a way that makes sense, but don’t you dare dismiss your gut as illogical.”
“You’re just trying to keep me on the phone with all that psych mumbo-jumbo.”
“That goes without saying—stay on the phone with me, wait till I get there.”
What was she supposed to do? He lived about twenty minutes away—although he had stayed at work to work on something at the office and the office was fifteen minutes away if there was no traffic...
In any case, it was a long time to wait.
Suddenly, Janet started feeling better—talking to Eric helped calmed her down and she was able to see clearly how unreasonable her fear was.
“Hold on,” she said to Eric.
If David had broken in, she’d be able to tell from the lock or the windows, wouldn’t she?
She carried out a visual inspection and saw no signs of tampering.
Then she realized she had accidentally disconnected the phone and she quickly slipped it to silent, knowing Eric would call back once he realized it.
She didn’t want the ringing phone to rattle her while she was trying to feel the place out.
Finally, she confidently walked back to her door.
David’s not that crazy, she thought. It’s one thing to have and use a key when we had recently broken up, but now, it would be a crime.
Breaking into her place for whatever reason and tampering with her locks would be absolutely criminal, and David was no criminal.
She opened her door and flicked on her light.
She was flooded with relief as her apartment flooded with brightness, and she saw no signs of flowers or other gifts, and no signs of David.
The place looked exactly as she had left it.
Her next breath rode on happiness, and she quickly shut her door behind her feeling ridiculous.
She grabbed some water to soothe her parched-feeling throat and to help cool down her emotions.
You are definitely losing your mind girl, she thought as she took off her jacket, then started taking off her shoes as she headed to her bedroom.
She flipped on the switch and froze.
“Hi babe,” David said calmly from her bed, moving to a sitting position and with no hint of a smile or any other positive emotion on his face.
Janet was still frozen in shock.
But as soon as he started getting up and coming toward her she was reanimated. She dropped her shoes and ran back toward the living room but he caught up with her easily and quickly.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he said, wrapping his arms around her from behind, restraining the movement of her own arms.
“David, what is this? How did you get in?” she asked, trying to reach his logic.
“I’ll show you who has
a small ‘lump.’ I’ll show you who has the final say here.”
Janet’s mouth dropped open but a scream didn’t come out.
She racked her brain for other ways to reach him.
“David you know I didn’t mean that—I was just hurt and angry...”
“Yeah, like you didn’t mean you never really loved me?”
He had dragged her back to her room.
He threw her on the bed and shut the door behind them.
To Janet’s horror, he started fiddling with his pants.
“David, you don’t want to do this—you know who my father is don’t you? You’re not gonna get away with this!”
“Oh yeah? Who’s gonna stop me?” David said, his eyes hard, and at that moment, Janet took in a breath and opened her mouth to scream.
David’s hand cupped over her mouth and she struggled against him, trying to bite his hand while wrenching her limbs, fighting against his grip.
He watched her struggle with a slight grin.
“Money can only buy so much, can’t it?” he said, his grin widening, and she attempted to scream again.
He hiked her skirt up and pulled down her panties easily.
“Let’s see you buy your way out of this,” he said, covering her with his body and she tried to knee him.
Neither of them had heard her front door bust open, but they both turned toward her bedroom door as it burst open forcefully.
Janet briefly caught the wild, almost frightened look on Eric’s face before he grabbed David off of her, drew back and punched him square in the face.
The punch threw David off balance and he almost stumbled to the ground, but Eric grabbed him and punched him again and again, till his face was a bruised and bloody mess, and he followed David down as he finally crumpled to the floor.
Janet was alarmed when she saw Eric’s expression—he looked like a feral, savage animal—but also when she realized Eric kept going when it was clear David was no longer able to even try to fight back, out cold.
“Eric stop!” she shouted, and it seemed to wake him up from a daze.
His arm stopped its descent for another blow.
Eric looked down at David’s limp body, then at his own fist, still held in the air. Then he dropped his arm and took a deep breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked and she nodded but he didn’t look at her.
He stayed there on his knees, hands on his thighs with his head down taking deep breaths.
Then he looked up at her.
“Linda, this stops now. I’m letting your dad know—he’ll take care of this.”
“No! Look, I’ll press charges. I’ll have him arrested, get a restraining order and all that.”
“And? You know that piece of paper doesn’t mean anything to some of these guys.”
“And we’ll make sure he goes away for attempted sexual assault.”
Eric shook his head as if that still wasn’t enough.
“Call 911,” he said and she hesitated.
“Do it now,” he said forcefully, and she began dialing, not knowing what she was going to say, her heart racing even more from his raised voice.
When the 911 operator answered she just stared at him.
He grabbed the phone from her.
“I came across an intruder attacking my girlfriend and we had a scuffle. We need someone to pick him up—he’s out cold.”
The rest of his words became a blur, as did everything in the room as everything dawned on her.
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks.
At some point she felt Eric’s arms around her and it was all that registered.
The next thing that registered was the sound of sirens.
***
After giving their statements and David was taken away, Janet found herself alone with Eric’s silent fury.
She thought at first he was still steaming at the circumstance—at having discovered David on top of her about to commit a violent, horrifying act. But then she realized he had trouble looking at her, as if he was furious with her.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked and he huffed.
Despite not using words, the answer was clear to her.
“Janet, you drive me insane, you know that? What the hell is wrong with you? I told you not to go inside—your own instinct told you that. Are you hell bent on destroying your own life? You want to vanquish anything great or happy about it? You like staying in your dungeon?”
Janet was taken aback.
She had been expecting full sympathy for the trauma she’d just been through.
Eric shook his head.
“You don’t think about anyone else but yourself do you? About having your way all the time. Is that really most important to you? Because I can’t do it Janet—if you’re going to defy everyone around you and stupidly put yourself in danger because you feel it’s your goddamned prerogative, I can’t let you do this to me. How about the next time you decide to be stubborn, you do it in favor of yourself, huh? How about that?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice sounding like a strained whisper. It had been a struggle pushing the words out past the cry-ball that had rapidly formed in her throat.
He shook his head again and made a grunting sound.
Then he stopped walking and grabbed her in a hold, smothering her against him.
“Damn you Janet,” he said softly, rubbing her back with one hand, cradling her head against his chest with the other.
Then he pulled back and looked at her, and she realized his eyes held a glisten.
“Don’t you understand?” he said, sounding tortured.
He pulled her back to him, gripping her tight.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Janet’s heart liquefied.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and finally said the words that had been teeter-tottering on the tip of her tongue for weeks and weeks.
“I love you too,” she said breathlessly, and they held each other for what felt like a welcome eternity.
***
Eric had given Janet both an idea in his berating of her, and the strength to carry it out.
When she told him about her plan, he only nodded in response and she interpreted his expression as approval. Then he insisted he come along with her.
She agreed.
They both unofficially took the day off.
Janet didn’t know what to expect when she slipped the key Liz had given her a long time ago into her friend’s apartment door.
She expected Jason to be there of course, since he was unemployed and it seemed he was generally uninterested in leaving the comfort of Liz’s home. What she didn’t expect was to see a girl suddenly scrambling for her clothes and Jason trying to cover up his erect penis.
Jason looked relieved when he saw her, and Janet realized of course he would be—at least it’s not Liz, he must’ve been thinking.
Janet knew it would never be enough—if she went ahead and told Liz she had caught him in the act, Liz would probably eventually forgive him. If Janet showed her the photos her private investigator had gotten of him with various girls over the months it wouldn’t matter.
If there was one thing she had learned growing up Leonard Cooper’s daughter, it was that money talks, and despite David’s dig at her the night of his attack, it really could buy almost anything.
She dropped the black bag she’d brought with her on the floor in front of her dramatically and confidently with Eric right behind her. Both Jason and his skank jumped.
The girl then chose that moment to hop toward the door as she fitted on her other shoe, then made a quick exit, slipping by Janet and covering her head as if she expected to be hit.
Jason stared at the bag then looked back up at her, his eyes shifting from her to Eric.
“One hundred thousand dollars,” she began. “That’s what I’m paying you to stay away from my friend. You don’t call her, you don’t text her, you don’t ‘run into her’ ever again. You pack up yo
ur shit, get out of here within one hour, and this one hundred thousand dollars is yours.”
Janet knew she had him—she saw the way his eyes lit up when he put together her words with the black bag. A guy like him probably had no chance of seeing one hundred grand otherwise.
Janet pulled a piece of paper from her binder.
“This is a contract saying you’ll have nothing to do with Liz ever again. You will read this, sign it, pack up, and leave. Then we’ll hand you the bag and you’re free to do with the money what you please.”
Janet had her lawyer draw up the contract with a confidentiality clause and other terms and conditions she knew he wouldn’t bother to read. She decided to break down and summarize the rest of the paper.
“Just so you know, this also says you will not talk about this to anyone. Not to Liz, not to your cousin or your ma, not anyone. If anyone realizes you’ve suddenly come into a lot of money, tell them you found it in the garbage or won a lottery for all I care. But it didn’t come from me; I was never here. If you violate any of the terms and conditions listed on here, you owe me double the amount. Simply put: back off, disappear, and shut up. And don’t pack anything from here that doesn’t belong to you. And don’t even think about trying to hit me up for more cash at any point.”
Jason scrambled around for a pen and quickly signed.
“Oh, and she needs a ‘Dear Jane’ letter so she knows why you disappeared. Here—” she handed him a blank sheet of paper, “—write this: ‘Realized you deserved better. Don’t bother looking for me—ran away with...’ Oh I don’t know—insert whatever skank name you want.”
He nodded and scribbled on the paper.
“I’ll be waiting outside with this when you’re ready,” Janet said, picking the bag back up and heading to her car with Eric’s protective body near. “And don’t do anything stupid—we have bodyguards around and a lot more where this came from to go to people who can actually make you disappear.”
She saw appropriate fear in Jason’s face.
Jason was ready to leave Liz’s house and life forever within twenty minutes.
CHAPTER NINE: REPERCUSSIONS
Playing With Fire (Sweet Redemption) Page 9
