by K. Z. Riman
One night! That was the same with me! It was just for one night! I knew that was a possibility, and still gave in. How could I have given in? It was the drug. Just the drug. It wasn’t me! It wasn’t…well, of course, it was Scott! He was always on the lookout for women!
Wait! What am I doing here?
As I rambled, talking to myself, I had unknowingly marched right to his door. I pulled my hand, which was only a few inches away from knocking, and took a step back. I shouldn’t be here. Whatever he did should not be my business. Whether he had some woman inside his room now or not, it was not my concern.
“Is he still asleep, ma’am?” Leo startled me, as he stood at the end of the hallway, asking me a question he probably already knew the answer to.
“Umm…” I looked at him and then back at the door. “Yeah…I guess.” I walked towards him. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Mister Grimaldi said he would be the one to…” He stopped as his eyes blinked rapidly, looking away from me. When he looked at me again, he changed the topic. “Should I ask one of the maids to prepare your breakfast while you take a shower?”
“Yes. Please.” I retreated to my room to clean myself up. I didn’t take a shower, though.
I was having breakfast out on the deck, half an hour later. It was a lovely day and I really didn’t want to ruin it, especially as Sean had called.
“…and then we saw the dolphins and the penguins…” He couldn’t even stop for breath as he told me how his two days with his grandparents had gone.
I hadn’t heard him this happy before. Although it pained me to know he thought he owned the world because I gave up and brought him here, it brought joy to my heart knowing he had been given what he deserved.
He stopped. “Are you crying, Mommy?”
“Oh, no, no,” I said, trying hard to stifle a sniff as I wiped away a tear that escaped all my attempts to be strong. “Mommy misses you, honey.”
“I miss you, too…Oh, yes, Grandma…Mommy, Grandma wants to talk to you now.”
“Okay, honey. Mommy loves you!”
“Sean loves you, too, Mommy!”
“Hello, dear.” Her voice was soft and cautious. It sounded as if she pitied me, or as if she wanted to know something but was too hesitant to ask. “How are you?”
Well, I might as well say it. “My fever has gone, Mother.”
“Yes, I heard.” She paused. “My dear, Scott didn’t…I mean…”
Should I answer right away or act dumb about this? I didn’t want to sound defensive. Whatever happened between Scott and me was my fault, too. “Didn’t…?”
“He didn’t do anything stupid, did he?”
I felt a lump in my throat. It was harder to lie to her than I expected. “N-no. Of course not. He brought me home.”
She let out a sigh of relief, and then chuckled. “Forgive me, dear. I shouldn’t have asked that. Keith and I are worried about you.”
“I understand.” That was something unexpected. I didn’t expect them to worry about me, more than they would their son. I should have trusted them and their intentions of keeping me safe and making me part of their family.
“Well, I hope you and Scott decide to come and see us on Friday so we can stay a little longer here. Sean is having so much fun.” She was hopeful. I knew she told me that for a reason—she wanted me to convince Scott to go.
“I’ll try and persuade Scott, Mother.”
“Oh, would you? Thank you, dear. We hope to see you on Friday.”
It bothered me how I should ask him to come with me, without sounding too eager. I could tell him I’d go by myself, and perhaps he would drive me, just to make sure I left. He would have all the time in the world to womanize again.
Leo was feeding Max when I found him. He was such an able guy, doing everything for Scott and the family, with his father, Luis. He patted Max on the head and started making his way back inside the mansion.
“Everything okay with breakfast, ma’am?” he asked me.
“Yes, thank you.” I gave him an appreciative smile and he smiled back. “You should have more prepared for Scott and his companion.”
“Companion?” He looked confused.
“Yes, his lady…” Oh, was I wrong about this? “Didn’t he come home with a woman?”
“No, ma’am. Mister Grimaldi was alone when I brought him home from Mekha,” he replied.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Scott’s voice rang about the mansion as he came out to join me. He’d already had his shower; his hair was still wet. He looked…hot. “An omelette, Leo.”
“Certainly.” Leo nodded at him and smiled at me, before going in.
“You didn’t.” I told the truth.
I wasn’t disappointed that he didn’t bring home a woman. The tingling in my tummy gave me the uneasy feeling that I was in fact…satisfied. It was nothing emotional, I was sure. I mean, as someone who cared, I just wanted him to return to the right track soon and leave his nightlife behind.
“You didn’t go to work,” he said, unfolding a newspaper.
“No. I was sick. What’s your excuse?”
“I’m the Vice President. I don’t need an excuse,” he said, eyes still on the paper.
I let out a sharp breath of annoyance. “Still the conceited man, I see.”
He didn’t respond. He kept turning the pages. When Leo came with his breakfast, he took a sip of his coffee and turned to me, “You’re sick. Go back to bed.”
“Fine!” I stood up and turned to face him. “Carter was here last night. He brought me flowers,” I suddenly remembered. I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling he had the right to know. It was his house, not mine. Besides, it wasn’t like I would be able to keep it from him. Leo would surely tell him.
“What do you mean he was here? I thought you were sick?” He dropped his newspaper and turned to me, looking at me intensely.
“I was. I spoke with him for only a few minutes and then he left.” When I started heading inside, he stopped me.
“Wait! You entertained him while I wasn’t here?”
“Is that a problem?” I saw no reason why I couldn’t. He was the son of a family friend.
“Of course! What sort of woman would entertain a man, unchaperoned?” His voice raised a tone higher. “Mother and Father weren’t here, either!”
“Leo was here.”
“He is not family!” he said, and I didn’t answer. “You enjoy Carter’s company, don’t you?”
“No,” I replied quickly. I realized I had said it without thinking. So what if I was enjoying Carter’s company? “I mean…”
“Oh, God, how flirty can you get!” He threw his hands in the air and shook his head, appalled.
“Excuse me?” I wasn’t expecting that! “Carter came over because he heard I was sick! He brought me flowers, and we had a little chat. Then he left. How was I flirting?”
One of the maids was peeking out through the windows and left as soon as she realized I had seen her. I didn’t want the servants listening to our fight, so I headed straight for the gardens, hoping Scott would follow me.
He did. “Oh, come on. You are such a hypocrite, Kelsey! You have always been.”
“Always been? How was I a hypocrite back in college?”
“You’ve always been acting as if you are vulnerable and pure, trying to have my brother save you all the time, when you could very well stand on your own. You were always this…this silly little girl, running to Seth for cover whenever I hit on you, but you lived alone in your apartment, sure that you could be so damn independent of anyone!” His strides were as rapid as mine, going everywhere I went.
“Where is this coming from?”
“Tell me, Kelsey. What is it? What is this act of yours, huh?” He was
speaking in hoarse tones like he was angry at me.
I didn’t speak. I had nothing to say to him.
“For six years, you kept yourself away from us?” He sounded convinced that he was right about everything he was saying, everything he was thinking about me. “Six damned years…and look at you now. You return to us with your new strong act, induced by your belief that you could turn a lot of things around. Then you entertain suitors?”
“Suitors? Carter is not a suitor. What the hell are you talking about?”
I moved around a tree, but he tried blocking me, both ways. He was playing a game with me, a mind game he had started long before I had even realized it. What made him think Carter was courting me? Just because of the flowers?
He grabbed both my arms and pushed me against the tree. This was becoming a favorite past-time of his! “Tell me, Kelsey. Aren’t you being a hypocrite?”
“No!”
“There it is again. You are being a hypocrite.” He was starting to close in on me, moving his face to a few inches from mine as he smiled deviously. “Why do you even pretend that you didn’t enjoy the night we had sex, when I know damn well you are just aching to try it again?
Oh, God, is that it? It’s because you’re a jerk!
I pushed him away, convinced that he wouldn’t be able to get anything from me again. He was making a habit of this—a dangerous habit of using me while he’s here.
“Get away from me!” I walked away, but he still followed. “Will you stop following me?”
“Not until you admit…”
Fine! He wanted it this way, huh? I turned and faced him, cheeks flushed as I felt myself burning. “I’m not going to admit anything to you as there isn’t anything to admit! Your belief, of me being a hypocrite, is just as twisted as your excuse for a business venture.”
“Me?” He snorted. He wasn’t going to take me seriously, was he?
I faced him, moving closer. “Yes. You! You’re the hypocrite here. You stay here and pretend like you care about your parents’ company, when I know for a fact that nothing will change your mind about leaving.”
“Of course nothing will change my…”
“Why not leave now? Why wait? Oh, right. You’re waiting for your inheritance!” I nodded exaggeratedly.
“Yes, and I’m leaving in a year! That was a bargain between a son and his father, and I took it. It was a bargain, which you have no business getting your nose into!”
“Ah! Just like how your nose should be nowhere near my relationship with Carter. Tell me, Scott. If you are so damn convinced you are leaving, why take the bargain? Why not fight for what you really believe in and get it over with? Why not go now and live your pathetic excuse for a damn life?”
Now, he turned away!
I followed. He was never good when it came to speaking about himself. Just as before, I barely knew who he really was, and it was quite the disappointment. I had always known he was a jerk, but I would never know who he really was because of his defenses. I didn’t want to grow old knowing him only as a jerk, a man who would not change for the better. I had always wanted to know more about him. He was always private about his life and the things that he cared about. He was secretive about the things that made him wake in the morning, and things that mattered to keep him going. Of all the times I ached to understand him and to finally know more about him, it had to be now.
“Tell me. Why are you here? Why are…?”
“No! You tell me why you are here!” His eyes were suddenly filled with rage. He was looking straight at me but I could feel, as he grabbed both my arms again, that he was close to exploding.
He was yelling. “You haven’t answered any of my questions. Why should I answer any of yours? What else have you been keeping from us? That money from Jake Frost, what was it for? Your real family? Where are they? Why did you raise your son alone? What secrets do you have that make you so fucking defensive when it comes to your heart?”
“There isn’t a secret, Scott!” I yelled, pushing him away from me as tears began pouring out of my eyes.
How could I tell him things I’d never told anyone before? There were things that I hadn’t been able to tell Seth. Why should I tell Scott now? As I looked at him, filled with undeserved rage, I simply lost myself.
He finally made me admit, “What do you want to know? Do you want to know my parents died while I was young because of a car crash, while they were fighting about my father’s mistress? Do you want to know how I ran to their graves many times, because I had no one? No one from my relatives wanted to take me in because I was adopted! That money from Jake Frost? I had to borrow that because I wouldn’t let any customer from that damn bar fuck me, but had bills to pay! Anything else? What do you want to know?”
He stared at me, wide-eyed, as he swallowed hard. He paled and took a deep breath, waiting to see if I was going to cry again.
“That was the secret. I’ve lived my life trying to make a living out of…of…” I forced my eyes shut as I rested both my hands on my hips. “Do you even want to know what I did to survive?”
I inhaled deeply. “Yes. I was strong, and I had nothing but that. Was it so wrong for me to want to have someone protecting me? To feel…to feel what it’s like to have a man like Seth, come to my rescue whenever I needed it? Tell me, Scott. Was it so wrong for me to want love, even as it sometimes made me weak?”
He didn’t answer.
“If you do not want me here, I can easily go,” I said. Somehow, I really didn’t know why I never made a move to turn away.
He was speechless. He was staring at me and his eyes no longer had that rage. They softened as we hid from the sun, amethyst turning to the softest of shades. His breathing became deeper and slower. As his lips parted, I knew I had gained his pity, which I never really wanted.
“I’m not the one with defences here, Scott. You are.”
We were now standing by the storage house, facing each other, away from everyone. “Kelsey…”
“You know what? I don’t need this.” I wiped my tears angrily.
He had made a fool of me too many times in the past few days. I believed I had raised my son with enough self-respect to let me leave with dignity.
“No, wait.” He thwarted my effort to return to the house, grabbing me, placing his arms around me as I struggled free. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t know how…”
“Let go, Scott! You’re such a jerk. You are always so mean to me!”
As one of the maids came out into the garden to pick some fresh roses, he pushed me inside the storage house and locked the door behind him. He didn’t want anyone knowing he was fighting with me.
Scott was secretive, and was afraid of his parents finding out he was exactly how they saw him to be. Our arguments, no matter how rational, would never get his parents’ attention in ways he wanted. He knew his parents would take my side no matter what, and so he was careful about letting any of the maids know what we had been up to.
The room was dark and smelled of dust and old, hardened paint. It hurt my nose as I breathed deeply. Unlike my pain, the smell went away on its own as I got used to it.
He turned on an incandescent bulb that made clicking sounds, flickering rapidly before fully lighting. It was old and wasn’t giving out enough illumination for me to see how his expression had changed the moment he realized he could no longer argue with me. I looked at Scott as he looked, first out the window, and then at me, before turning away to touch a few things from the storage shelves.
“Looks like we’re stuck here,” he said in a low voice, taking a box and throwing it back.
“Why? Is the door broken?” I whispered sarcastically. My heart was racing against my chest.
“You know, you’re not funny.” He narrowed his eyes at me as he spoke scathingly.
“You’re not, either.” I had started heading towards the door when I heard one of the maids’ loud voice as she mentioned to another maid she had seen Scott and me arguing about something a little while ago. She was wondering if it was about money.
I found myself suddenly swallowing hard and looking for a place to sit. There was an old couch in one of the dimmer corners of the room and I hurried to get there so I wouldn’t fall. Scott let me, not saying anything.
We listened to the maids chattering for a while, as if listening to a radio drama. People with small minds usually had the loudest of voices and the best rumors to tell. I went from being a slut to a good woman, all in five minutes.
“They think I’m here for the money,” I murmured as I hugged myself, eyes on the floor.
“Whose fault is that?”
“Yours! You kept yelling at me, asking me why I was here!” I snapped at him.
“Will you shut up before they find out we’re in here!” he hissed, moving towards me. “It’s bad enough they know we’re arguing.” He paused and sighed. “As far as money is concerned, I bet their question was more directed to me.”
“Whose fault is that?” I could be as mean as him.
He ignored me. “They knew…even when I was younger, that I usually came home whenever I needed money. Everyone in this house knows that you have never accepted any help from the family since you had Sean.”
“Thank you for telling me,” I said, as I watched him sit down beside me.
He snorted as he slouched back and placed his hands over his head. “Is that the only thing you are going to thank me for?”
“Will you give it a rest?” I yelled at him. He struggled to shut me up again, placing his hand over my mouth. I forgot about the maids, who were still gathering the roses for the dining table.
We froze for a while and waited. They had stopped chatting, too, and for a moment, I thought I had been heard. We would have been discovered in the most suspicious place in the garden to stay in.
“I think these will be enough. We should go and check with Leo,” one of them said, and then we heard footsteps.
