Addicted to Pearls (Revised) (Pearls Series)

by Dani Marie

  Tori and Vic spent the weekend laughing and enjoying the time alone together. They found out that they had a lot more in common than they thought they would. Not only that but being together was easy and fun. Monday was harder.

  Vic was not easy on the officers during training and stressed the fact that jumping the gun and not getting all the facts right could open the department to lawsuits and mistakes. Owen, Jeff and the Chief were quiet during most of the training. Although Jeff and the Chief didn’t like it they took the situation, and their part in it, better than Owen. Owen didn’t like being shown up and having someone telling him what he had done wrong. His youth and arrogance caused him to get angry instead of learning from the situation. On Friday afternoon, after Vic had left, Owen got his cell phone out and sent a few emails out.

  That week was also a difficult one for Tori. People weren’t sure how to react to her. They were shocked to hear of what had happened, and even though the couple had been released, some people seemed to still think they had done something wrong. Several people wouldn’t talk to Tori and she even had a couple say rude things to her about the whole thing. She saw Vic every night and fell more and more in love with him, but her work was suffering.

  Once Vic had headed back home, she was left with more vicious talk and several people gave her the cold shoulder. She was trying to be strong though because she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  The officers and city employees were now cold to Tori. Vic had been pretty rough during training and bruised several egos. Gloria was on vacation and since her Mother and Lisa weren’t talking to her, Tori didn’t have anyone other than Vic to talk to about the situation.

  One morning a couple weeks later Tori was reading her work e-mail when she opened one from a member of the city council that shocked her to her core. It was so hateful and telling her that she should be ashamed and should not be allowed to continue working for the city. Then she opened the attached photo. Her heart stopped.

  Obviously, one of the officers that had arrested her and Vic had taken a picture with his cell phone. It was grainy and not completely in focus but there was no doubt it was her and exactly what she was doing. To think someone had a naked photo of her, showing the pleasure she had been experiencing in such a degrading way was unthinkable. She burst into tears and quickly told her boss she had to go home. Tori just couldn’t face everyone that day, not knowing how many of the people she knew could be seeing that photo. She was so upset she didn’t even answer the phone later that evening when Vic called.

  When Tori went back to work the next day she was greeted with a letter requesting her presence at the next city council meeting which happened to be that night. She figured she was going to be reprimanded again, but how could they blame her? This whole situation was the fault of the police department and especially Owen’s imagination. It wasn’t her fault, other people had love affairs without the problems she was having. Why was this becoming such a problem?

  Tori tried to talk to Vic about it but he had been somewhat quiet and less talkative the last few days. So it was with a feeling of dread that she went to the meeting. She dressed conservatively and kept telling herself not to cry, which she seemed to be doing a lot lately.

  It was worse than she thought, the council was so negative and they asked for her resignation for moral reasons. The council brought the whole incident up again, in public, commenting about how the photo had been seen by many towns’ people and that her actions had tarnished the reputation of the town itself. She was so shocked and completely embarrassed that she didn’t even argue, she just nodded and left.

  Tori had been so happy, she was finally living and such wonderful things were happening, then all of a sudden if felt as if everything was being ripped right out from under her feet and she didn’t even have anyone to talk to about it. She tried calling Vic again that night and got his machine. She told him in a brief message that she would be losing her job. Tori was crying and so upset that she could hardly leave the message. She waited with the phone in her hand, finally falling asleep on the sofa waiting for a call that didn’t come.

  Chapter 17

  Vic’s work was a mess. He was thinking of Tori way too often and that bothered him. He didn’t want a full on relationship but that was definitely what was happening. Tori wasn’t a love‘em and leave’em type of woman. On one hand he was thrilled with her, on the other he was straining to break away.

  To make it worse, he was slipping at work. He almost blew an undercover operation because he wasn’t paying attention. He caught himself and everything worked out but it just brought out more indecision about what to do with his life. Too many people’s lives depended on him being at the top of his game. He couldn’t afford distractions.

  When Vic heard Tori’s voice message he was torn. Should he call, but if he did he knew he would tell her to come live with him and then he would be tied down and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to work undercover anymore. Not with a wife. Wives weren’t very understanding about missed dinners and late nights, flirting and other things that came with the job of an undercover officer. Vic knew if Tori moved in, he’d fall even harder and marriage would be the logical outcome.

  Vic tried to talk to his Dad about the whole situation, but his Dad just laughed and told him he was in love and he might as well face it and deal with the repercussions. This did not help Vic feel better about things, in fact it just scared him more. That evening he deleted Tori’s message and didn’t answer her next three calls. He could tell she was still very upset and he felt like the worst of the worst about it. He just didn’t feel like he could handle the whole falling in love thing at this point in his life.

  He'd never been so confused.

  Chapter 18

  Tori was sitting in her living room wondering just how her life had taken such a strange turn. All of a sudden she was unemployed, lost her health insurance and was pretty sure she wouldn’t be hired by anyone else in town. Her safe secure life was slipping away. She had some savings but she had a mortgage, utilities and car payments to make. She was still trying to understand how she got in this position. The worst was that Vic was no longer talking to her. She had just this evening called one last time and got the machine. She told him that she wouldn’t be calling again as he obviously didn’t want to continue their relationship. After she had hung up, Tori had cried for hours.

  Tori had given her heart to Vic. She just couldn’t understand why he had backed away from her, she thought things were going so wonderfully. There were times when she wished he hadn’t found her again. At least she would still have her job and wouldn’t be facing the problems she was having at the moment.

  The next morning as when she woke up, she stood up and promptly fainted. Tori hit her head when she fell and it was several minutes before she came to. She sat on the floor wondering what to do. Maybe she just needed to eat. She slowly got to the bathroom and washed the blood off her temple. Then she went to the kitchen and fixed herself a sandwich. As she sat at the table she tried to think what else could have caused her to faint like that, she never did that.

  Nothing came to mind and she talked herself into believing that it was not eating and the stress she’d been under and that she would be alright. Tori went to back to bed believing that she would be fine by tomorrow. The next morning Tori sat up in bed and weaved a little. She wasn’t awake enough for that to sink in when she suddenly felt ill and ran to the bathroom to get sick. She retched until her sides hurt. She sat on the floor feeling terrible and trying to get herself together deciding that she would have to make an appointment to see a doctor. She couldn’t believe it, all those years with insurance and she was hardly ever sick and here she was without it and now she felt worse than she ever had.

  Tori made her way to the phone and called the clinic. Armed with an appointment she forced herself to take a shower in the hopes that it would make her feel better. Two hours later she was sitting in the exam room with the doctor. They
had taken blood and urine samples and were running tests. The doctor was listening to her breathing when the assistant walked in and handed the doctor a note.

  “Ah, well now this explains it,” he said with a gentle smile. He continued his examination than sat down to talk to Tori. He asked her more questions about her menstrual cycle and made several notes. When he took her hand and told her that one of the tests had come back and she was pregnant, Tori could only stare at him. That couldn’t be, they’d been careful, there had only been those two times when they had forgotten to use a condom. Surely she couldn’t be that unlucky she thought.

  But, she was. Talk about having your life completely fall apart she thought. She left the clinic with a prescription for pre-natal vitamins and several brochures to read. That evening, Tori realized she would have to call Vic one more time. He needed to know she was going to have his baby. There was never a thought but that she would have and raise this child. So she called him, she left him a message that it was urgent that he call her right away.

  Two days later and with a rising sense of anger at his refusal to return her calls she left him another message.

  “Vic this is Tori and I’m pregnant. I’m not asking for anything but thought you should know. I’ve lost my job and have my house up for sale. I’m not sure where I’ll be moving and unless I hear from you, I won’t bother forwarding my whereabouts to you. I don’t understand what happened and why you don’t want to talk to me, but I could really use a friend right now. Please call me, I need you.”

  Tori cried for hours that night and over the next few days as it became apparent that Vic wasn’t going to call. She knew she had to try one more time. She was almost shocked when Vic answered the phone. “Vic, its Tori and I need your help. I’m not sure what to do.”

  He couldn’t believe she’d called again. It was making him crazy and each time made it harder for him to resist her. “Look, it was fun while it lasted but I can’t deal with your little problems right now. Lose my number, please, damn it,” he said and hung up. He knew it was cruel but didn’t know what else to do. He was so confused and just reacted.

  Tori was crestfallen. Her little problem? That one threw her completely. How could he think of a baby as ‘a little problem'? It was so out of the realm of what she expected from the man she’d fallen in love with that it took a few days for the whole situation to sink in.

  Then she woke up one morning and realized that she was going to be a mother. That she was going to have a baby of her own. Someone to love and take care of. The rest didn’t matter anymore, she had plans to make and life to live and give. She smiled to herself and started taking charge of her life again.

  Tori sold her car and bought a used sedan that would be easy to get the baby in and out of with no payments. She put her house on the market and was lucky that it sold quickly. She had a huge yard sale to sell most of her furniture and belongings. She was building her savings as best as possible. She researched towns and cities in the vicinity and realized that the city was the best place for her to go. With better hospitals and programs for single mothers that was where she needed to be. The fact that Vic lived there couldn’t be a factor and she hoped she could just avoid him.

  Tori found a small one bedroom apartment to rent and was glad that with the sale of her house she was able to pay a year’s rent in advance. She put several months’ worth of payments on the utilities and the only luxury she allowed herself was cable television. She knew she wouldn’t be going out so she would need something to keep her from going stir crazy.

  Tori found a wonderful doctor that she felt comfortable with and he had a cash discount for those without insurance. She paid the prenatal fee in full and had even paid the deposit and estimated hospital bill in advance. Things weren’t great financially but, if she could find a job she could start building her savings back up for when she couldn’t work. Tori felt lucky that at least she had been able to do that much and began her search for work as she settled into her new home. Although she was sad at times, mostly she was happy. She was going to be a Mom.

  Chapter 19

  Vic listened again to Tori’s message about an emergency but this time with anger. Yes she might have lost a job but she could get another one. Today one of his officers had lost his life and he damn sure couldn’t get that back. Vic wasn’t directly responsible and hadn’t been involved in the case but that didn’t’ seem to make him feel any better about the situation. In fact it made him feel worse as he thought maybe he could have foreseen the problem and saved the man if only he’d been on the case. But Vic had taken a few weeks off of undercover work to try and get his head back in the game. Vic was so mad at himself that after he hit the delete button he threw the machine on the floor and went to drown his guilt in a bottle of Jack. He knew it wasn’t fair but somehow in his mind, Tori was responsible for his troubles and he wished he could quit thinking about her.

  It didn’t help that he was still dreaming of her. Waking up in the middle of the night, hard and frustrated.

  The next morning he picked up the answering machine and plugged it back in. He didn’t realize for several days that the machine was broken and wasn’t recording messages. Vic attended the funeral and threw himself into work to the point that his boss was telling him to go home night after night as he continued working well past quitting time.

  Vic was not a nice man to be around for the next couple months. He even tried dating, but that was a disaster. The woman had been willing and he just couldn’t muster the urge. He wasn’t going to try that again anytime soon.

  Vic’s Dad was worried about him and took him to lunch to talk. “Son, have you thought that maybe you’re missing a certain young lady?” he asked him. Vic suddenly knew his father was right, that he needed closure to figure out what these feelings for Tori were. He still didn’t think he wanted a permanent relationship with her but, he felt bad that she had been going through a hard time and he didn’t offer any support even if that support was just friendship. So that night he tried to call her. He was surprised when her number got him a recording saying the number being disconnected. He called the courthouse in Claytonville the next day and was told she was no longer working there. He tried directory assistance and got nowhere. The following day he ran her name through the police system and came up with a blank as well. Finally out of desperation, he called Chief Darius and asked him about her. All the chief would say was that she had left town and that he hadn’t heard anything about where she was. He did give him Tori’s mother’s name and phone number though.

  When Vic called Tori’s mother the woman just ranted at him about sinning and hung up, no help there. At this point, Vic decided that Tori must have been starting over and didn’t want any ties to the past and that included him. He decided he’d have to let her go. He still dreamt of her most nights and at times when his drinking went too far, he could admit to himself that he missed her and wished she was still in his life.

  Chapter 20

  Tori finally found work as a convenience store clerk. All that office experience and hard work didn’t amount to anything without a good reference. The only office job she came close to getting was squashed when they called the court house and they were told she was asked to resign for moral reasons. Minimum wage wasn’t building her savings like she needed and the worry of finances was weighing heavily on her. When she was six months along and starting to really show her boss noticed. Tori was struggling to keep up with stocking and lifting like she had been and her boss began cutting her hours. Then he cut her job completely when she only had a couple months left until she was due to have the baby. Tori was told there were “cut backs” but she knew why she’d been fired.

  The bright spot in Tori’s life was her child. She was doing fairly well with the pregnancy and had done what she could to prepare for the inclusion of a new son in her life. She had been so scared when she first learned she was having a boy. With no brothers and a father that hadn’t been very involved
in her life, she wasn’t sure she would know how to raise a child to be a strong well-adjusted man. Tori read everything she could on raising children at the library wanting to be the best Mom she could be. She began talking to her son, singing to him and telling him about everything. He became not just her baby, but her best friend and confidant. She knew that would have to stop at some point when he began to understand her, but for now she needed a friend and he was handy. Through it all she was still happy. Tori felt blessed about the baby and that she was now ‘among the living’ as she put it.

  With only a month until delivery Tori did a tour of the hospital. They needed all the final paperwork filled out and wanted to know who would be coming with her during the birth. She was so embarrassed to have to tell them that there would be no one with her. Tori just straightened her spine and lifted her head, refusing to be pitied. When she was filling out the last of the paperwork the clerk asked her if she was going to want pain medication options. Tori planned on having a natural birth but knew that many women changed their mind once they faced the pain of childbirth. She nodded her head and then her heart sank when the clerk told her that she would have to pay another huge deposit. She didn’t have that much to spare. Her budget for the next few months was already stretched to the limit. She told the clerk she would think about it and let her know in the next couple days. The clerk understood and gave her a sad look putting the paperwork away.