“I thought you said we were going to give this relationship, our relationship, a true chance to take off.”
“And that’s exactly what we’re doing. What have I done to contradict that?”
“You want your boys to respect me. You want this entire town to respect me. Then you cheapen me by suggesting I move in with you?”
Charles was dumbstruck. “Cheapen you?” he asked, amazed that she would think such a thing.
“Don’t do that. Don’t try that let’s play dumb shit on me. Yes! It would cheapen me! You told me that Jericho was the kind of town that put great stock in family values. That’s why Donald had to get married when he impregnated Susan. That’s the kind of moral code that exists in this family values kind of town. But when it comes to me? Oh no! None of the rules apply with me. You can just move her in. You can just treat her like a wife without any of the trappings of marriage. Don’t buy the cow, just get the milk for free!”
Tears were flowing freely now. “I thought you were different, Charles. I thought you were really a righteous guy. But you’re not. You’re no different than every other man I’ve ever known. It’s never about what I want, and what I need, and what I desire. It’s always about the guy. And what he wants, and what he needs, and what he desires. And my stupid ass has allowed it. Relationship after relationship after relationship! But I’m done. I’m out of the allowance game.”
She turned to reopen the front door, but Charles grabbed her from behind and wrapped her up in a big bear hug. His heart was pounding.
“Oh, my baby,” he said as he held her. And then he turned her back around. “I didn’t mean to imply any disrespect, Jenay. I wasn’t . . .”
But that look on her face said it all. She was done.
He let out a heavy sigh of regret. “I’ll take you home,” he said.
And even the term home, when she was actually living in a hotel, in his hotel, made her cringe.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Charles drove slowly along the low, rolling hills that led them back into town. While he was upstairs getting his keys and his wallet, his sons had left the house, knowing the last thing he needed was to have them hovering around right now. But it was obvious to Charles that Jenay couldn’t wait to leave that house either, and possibly him. It felt as if they were going along just fine, and then bam. They ran into a brick wall. A wall he didn’t realize he had erected.
He glanced at her as he drove. She seemed so flustered that it broke his heart. Normally, he would let people think whatever the hell they wanted to think. But he couldn’t leave her this way. “I wasn’t trying to disrespect you, Jenay,” he said.
“So what were you trying to do?” she asked him. “Disregard me? Did you decide you wanted a bed warmer full time and you were giving me the job?”
“You know better than that!”
“No I don’t know better than that!” she shot back. “I thought I did. You’ve shown nothing but kindness towards me, Charlie. I thought we were heading in the right direction. And we were. Only different directions. I’m thinking we’re heading in the direction of marriage, while you’re thinking shacking up will do.”
“I thought it would help both of us, Jenay. Not just me. I haven’t lived with a woman for over fourteen years! I needed to ---”
“You needed to what?” Jenay asked. “You needed to know if I was good enough to live with you?”
“I needed to know that you were alright,” Charles admitted. It was a devastating admission for a man like him. “I’m out of town often, you know that. Hardly a week goes by when I don’t have to handle some business out of town. I thought you’d be safe at the Inn, but you see what happened there? So I decided I should move you into my house. And yes, I decided unilaterally. That’s how I function. It was wrong, but that’s how I’ve handled my life all of my life.”
Jenay looked at him.
“So I made the executive decision to move you into my house. Nobody was going to come anywhere near my home without permission. Nobody was going to set you up there, or even think about harming you there. I knew it was too soon for us to talk about marriage. I knew that wasn’t on your radar screen right now. But what happened to you three weeks ago, the way they so easily set you up, and how it could have turned out so differently for us, did something to me, Jenay. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but other than daytrips to Boston and New York, I’ve stayed close to you since then. It affected me like that. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. I wasn’t trying to disregard your wants and needs. I was trying to protect you. I did it clumsily, and because I didn’t talk to you first, I did it wrong. But I swear to you I wasn’t trying to disrespect you.”
Jenay turned her gaze upon the dark, back roads they traveled. She didn’t know what to believe. But it was a fact. Other than a couple of daytrips to handle his business over the past month, after that jewelry fiasco, Charles was a constant in her life. They slept together at the Inn, or at his house, every night.
She looked at him. “I appreciate your concern,” she said, “but I’m not moving in with you or anybody else. And just like you handle your life; just like you function the way you function? I function that same way, too. I have to have the only vote in where I live and whom I live with and how I live my life. I gave up that right when I married Quince. I’m never giving that up again.”
Charles glanced at her, and then back at the road. He should have known better than to think she could be handled. He should have known better.
“I’m not the village idiot, Charlie,” she said, and he laughed. “You didn’t put an idiot in charge of your hotel. You didn’t decide to get in a romantic relationship with a fool. Treat me right, treat me fair, treat me respectfully, and we’ll make it just fine. Treat me wrong, treat me like some piece on the side, treat me in anyway disrespectfully, and it’s over. I’ll be so out of here you won’t believe how quickly I leave. You feel me?”
Charles looked at her. “So you’re tough. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I’m tough enough. That’s what I’m saying.”
And Charles could appreciate exactly what she meant. She wasn’t trying to be the boss, but she wasn’t interested in being the patsy either. “Okay,” he said, and nodded his head. “I feel you.”
Jenay smiled. “I’ll bet that’s the first time in your entire life you used that line.”
Charles laughed. But she was right. Feelings and Charles Sinatra were as dissonant to each other as oil was to water.
But just as he turned to head into town, where Jericho Inn was located, his car phone rang. The screen showed that his son Tony was phoning. He pressed the Answer button on his dash screen.
“What is it, Tone?” he asked.
“It’s Donnie,” Tony said. He was on Speaker. Jenay could hear the entire conversation.
“What now?”
“After I left your house, I decided to swing by his place to see why he was a no-show. Good thing I came. He did it this time, Dad. I had to pull him off of Susan. She’s in pretty bad shape.”
Charles could barely contain his fury. “I’m on my way,” he said, pressed off to end the call, and then completed a U-turn and headed back toward the interstate.
“Isn’t she pregnant?” Jenay asked, horrified.
“Yes!” Charles yelled. “That damn boy!”
The hallway in Donald’s house was narrow, as Charles and Jenay headed for the master bedroom. Tony closed the front door and followed them, but they were moving so fast that they were already in the room by the time he caught up. And when Jenay saw the woman she remembered as Donald’s bride, and saw her face so battered that her eyes were swollen shut, she stopped in her tracks.
Charles hurried to the bed and checked out his young daughter-in-law. But she jerked away from him. She was crying, and was doubled-over in pain on the bed, and did not want to be touched.
“You okay?” Tony asked Jenay when he came up behind her. All she could do was nod. Donald did
this, she asked herself. How could Charles’s son do this?
“Tony,” Charles said as he looked at Susan.
Tony hurried past Jenay, and went up to his father. “Yes, sir?”
“Call 911.”
Tony looked at him. “You mean call Dr. Dross?”
“Call 911,” he ordered again, and then left the room.
Tony, surprised that Charles wasn’t in the protect Donnie at all cost mode anymore, did as he was commanded. He pulled out his cell phone, and called 911.
Charles walked past Jenay, walked back down the hall, and into what she assumed was one of the guest bedrooms. Unsure what she should do, since the female did not seemed to want anybody around her, she followed him.
Donald was sitting on the bed, like some beautiful angel, and he stood up when his father walked in.
“She deserved it, Dad,” he said self-righteously. “I caught her again with that same guy, with Paul again. They claim they were just talking. But I don’t want him here talking to my wife, and I told them that countless times! But instead of beating his ass this time, I kicked him out and beat hers. She deserved it.”
Charles began walking up to his son. Donald was still defiant. He was still filled with that rage it took to nearly beat his own pregnant wife half to death. But Charles had a different kind of rage. The kind of rage that wouldn’t touch a woman, but that could beat grown men into submission. And that was exactly what he did.
He beat the shit out of his youngest son. Jenay tried to stop him. Tony ran into the room and tried to pull him away. But it was no use. He was giving Donald the kind of beating Donald had given his wife. And when he finished, when he finished beating Donald down so decisively that he was crying in a corner like the spoiled brat he had become, he then stood straight up. It was only then did Jenay and Tony realize he wasn’t out of control at all. He knew exactly what he was doing.
He walked out of the room, and then out of the home altogether. Jenay followed him, certain he was devastated by what his son had done, and what he had just done to his son in retaliation. But when she made it out into the warm night air, devastation was the last thing she saw on his face. There was no anger there either, nor that rage. But sadness. Pure sadness.
She wanted to go to him, but for some reason she sensed he needed space right now, not her empathy.
And sure enough, he began pacing, as if he still could not get over, not what he had just done, but what his son had done. Beating down a woman like that. A pregnant woman! Then, just when she thought he was ready to say something, ready to voice his feelings, he pulled out his own cell phone. To Jenay’s shock, he called Chief Joffee himself.
“Come and arrest my son, Joff,” he said, “before I kill his sorry ass.”
And when he said that, and he killed the call, tears welled up in his eyes, and he began to sob.
Jenay was blown away. Charlie crying like that? But she did not hesitate. She hurried to him, and pulled him into her arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The cab drove him from the airport to the Inn, and dropped him off at the front door. He paid the driver, grabbed his suitcase, and hurried inside.
“Good evening, Mr. Sinatra,” the cheerful desk clerk said.
“Hello, Rita. Has Miss Franklin knocked off for the day?”
“She was off today, sir.”
That surprised him. She wasn’t the type to take a day off. What prompted that? They weren’t exactly on great terms right now. But he didn’t discuss his concerns with any clerk. He took the elevator up to the VIP suite. He was just about to use his keycard, but decided to knock instead.
It had been three days since the police arrested Donald for beating his wife. Three days since the police refused to arrest him for what he did to his son. In the eyes of Jericho law enforcement, a man beating on a man was a fight. A man beating on a pregnant woman was a crime. Donald was arrested. And for the first time in Donald’s entire life, Charles didn’t come to his rescue. He was going to face the music this time. He had crossed the line.
It had also been three days since Jenay set him straight about any notions he had regarding shacking up. He left town, on business he had been neglecting for the past month, not only so he could give her a little breathing room, but he needed his space as well. He didn’t phone her, he didn’t check up on her. He kept his distance. He even, initially, questioned if he wanted to continue a relationship with her or anybody else at this time in his life. He didn’t like to be driven by emotions. He didn’t like to live like this.
But by the night of his first day away, he was missing her. By day two, he picked up the phone to call her and put it back down nearly ten different times. By day three, he had to see her. He even phoned her on his way in from the airport, but it went straight to her voice mail. Now he was desperate.
When she didn’t answer his knocks at the door of the VIP suite, he decided to use his master key and enter. He called her name, and walked around the suite, but she wasn’t there. Then a thought occurred to him. She had taken the day off, according to the clerk. He’d been gone for three days, which would have been ample time for her to leave him, if she wanted to. He hurried to the closet and flung the doors open. And to his horror, it was true. All of her belongings were gone. He looked through the drawers. They were empty too. He immediately picked up the telephone and called Bookkeeping. Meg answered.
“Jean is off today?” he asked her.
“Yes, sir,” she said into the phone.
“Then why did she clear out the VIP suite?”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.”
“I thought you knew, sir.”
“Knew what?”
“She moved.”
“To a different room?”
“No, sir. She moved out of the Inn and into her own place.”
Charles frowned. He couldn’t believe it. “When?”
“Yesterday, sir. She took today off so that she could get things organized.”
“Do you have her address, Meg?” he asked her.
“Yes, sir,” she responded.
“Give it to me,” Charles said, although his heart was a cross between concern, and outright rage.
To his surprise, his Jaguar was still parked at the Inn. Had she left him so completely that she refused to drive his car anymore, he wondered, as he got in it and drove off. He left his suitcase in the VIP suite. Despite the evidence, he still wasn’t ready to accept her departure.
But when he put her new address in his car’s navigation system, drove to the small cottage on Cornerstone Lane, and she answered the door as if she’d lived there for years, the realness of her decampment hit him hard.
When she saw that it was him, she stepped aside and allowed him passage in. It was obviously a furnished rental home, but he could tell she was cleaning it and still settling in.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” She closed the door.
“That your car?” he asked her. A used Ford was parked on her driveway.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said.
“A rental?”
“No, I bought it yesterday.”
“Oh yeah? From where? I own a car dealership, Jenay. If you were tired of driving the Jag, you could have told me so. You could have selected any car you wanted.”
“I know that, but I received the insurance check and saw this car in the paper. So I purchased it. It was a private sale. I got it for a really good deal.”
Charles was attempting to contain his anger. She could have gotten one for no deal, no cost, but she decided she didn’t want his help.
“Anyway,” she said, “how’s everything going with you?”
“How do you think?”
He was going to be belligerent about it, she could tell. He wasn’t interested in seeing her side of the coin at all. She decided to move on. “How’s Susan? Have you heard anything?”
Charles hesitated. She had changed subjects on him, and it was too important a subje
ct for him to ignore. “She’s still in ICU,” he said. “They believe she’s going to pull through, but it’s going to be a long road to recovery for her.”
“What about the baby?”
“The baby’s okay, thank God. But it could have been a very different story.”
Jenay still couldn’t get over how badly beaten Susan had been. “And your son? Heard from him?”
“He calls as often as they allow him. He wants me to get him out on bail.”
“You’re not going to?”
“No. Hell no. This is one mistake I’m not fixing. This is going to be all on him.”
Jenay knew it had to be hard for Charles. “Have a seat,” she said to him. “Would you care for something to drink?”
“What’s this about, Jenay?” he asked her.
Jenay exhaled. In true Sinatra fashion, Charles did not have time for the sideshow. He wanted the main event. “I needed my own place,” she said.
“You had your own place.”
“I was staying in your VIP suite in your B & B. That wasn’t my place.”
“So I’m the bad guy for making it easy for you? You work there, you live there. How could that be problematic?”
“It wasn’t problematic. And you aren’t the bad guy at all. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Charlie, I really do. But I need my own.”
“Why all of a sudden?” Charles was distressed. “Because I suggested we might move in together? That scared you that badly?”
“It didn’t scare me,” Jenay pointed out. “It woke me up. I can’t ever again allow myself to dance to somebody else’s tune. Because if we hit a sour note, I’ll be the one out in the cold. And I can’t risk that again. I may not have another comeback in me.”
Charles stared at her.
“I accepted your job offer because I knew it would give me great experience, but also because I did, and still do want to give our relationship a chance. But there has to be some boundaries, Charlie. I’m still getting to know you. There’s still a lot about you that . . .”
Charles waited for more. She didn’t go on. “That what?” he asked.
Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) Page 18
