Though I blame this hag and my ex-friend for taking my family away from me and doing who knows what to my wife, I can’t forget that I need more information before making my move. I have no intention of going back and forth with this shit. I see a one-two knock out punch, and game over. I’m guessing Dana didn’t get the memo and had called this bitch and told her where my wife is. If that’s the case, she’d just added a little more hell to her comeuppance.
“Be there at eight, not a minute later, or I’ll make you sorry.” I could all but feel the venom coming through the text.
“Hmm!” I started typing again. “I can’t be there any sooner than nine…thirty.” Giselle started to panic and tried to grab the phone.
“No, Calen, you can’t do that; if you don’t do as she says, there’ll be trouble.”
I hated the fear in her voice. She could have no idea how she’d just doomed her incubator by her reaction. Just what the fuck did this bitch do to my woman that would make her react like this? When I met Giselle, it’s true she was shy and reserved and barely spoke above a whisper. Like Dana had implied earlier, I had been the one to draw her out of her shell. The one who’d coaxed the new self-assured woman out in the open.
But somewhere along the way in the last two years, she’d reverted back to form and seemed even timider than when we first met if that were possible. I had a gut feeling that that was because of me and our son, which only made my anger boil. I bit my tongue for now, though, while inwardly I was seething. I had to think long and hard about how to answer her and to put her fear at rest.
“No, baby, this is how you take your power back. She’s trying to control you. There’s only one alpha dog in your life, and that’s me. The only person who has any say in when, where, and what you do is me. Remember that. You don’t owe anyone else that level of compromise.” I almost said too much but caught myself just in time.
I turned the phone off and all but threw it on the nightstand before turning back to her. She looked so vulnerable and fuckable at the same time that I didn’t think twice as I pushed her back on the bed. She sat bolt upright again. “Wait a minute, you know?” I could already see the telltale tremble in her lip.
“I know.” She broke.
I had to hold onto her when she tried to run away from me and instead wrapped my arms around her tight while she cried heart-wrenching sobs of anguish that dug into me hard. I didn’t utter a sound. Just let her get it all out until her wails turned to sniffles and her body literally collapsed against mine from exhaustion.
“Did Dana tell you? Was she the one who told her where I was?”
“She told me some of it, and yes, she’s the one who told your mother where you were, that you were married to me.” I wanted to ask and say so much more but realized that part of my reluctance to do so stemmed from fear. If she’s so afraid of this woman that she’d ran, leaving the life we’d built together behind then, I have no idea what kind of hold the woman has on her or from whence that fear comes.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” See? Her whole body went into fight or flight, and I already knew from the look in her eyes that if given a chance, she’d choose flight again. “Okay, you don’t need to answer that, but I’m going to ask you one thing, and you’d better tell me the truth.” I waited for her eyes to clear before cupping her cheek with my palm and staring into them.
“Did Ann Winthrop threaten me?” I got my answer before the sound of despair left her lips, and she threw her arms around me, holding on tight. My poor baby, fuck! My poor treatment of her, every negative thought I’ve had about her since she left, all of it came at me like a wall of bricks tumbling down on me at once.
I felt such guilt at that moment that I couldn’t even find words. I held onto her as tight as she was me and the two of us sat there on that bed, both lost in our own thoughts. My mind had switched from making love to my wife to murder and mayhem. It was just past six in the morning, which gave me roughly three hours to get my shit together. I have the rest of my life to make love to her; this other cannot wait.
First things first, I sent Ann’s number to my phone, then blocked and erased it from hers. I didn’t bother going through her old messages since I could well imagine the kind of communication they once shared. “I’ll be back. I have some stuff to take care of in my office. I’ll meet you and Junior in the breakfast nook for breakfast when he wakes up.
I kissed her head and headed for the door. I’d told Silas not to call until he had everything I need and I know the other man well enough to know that he’d take that shit to heart. But I also know that with his resources, he’d have found something by now, no matter how small. I won’t put Giselle through the trauma of telling me about her bitch mother, not yet. I want her as far away from this shit as possible. But I’m not about to face her in a few hours with my dick in my hand.
Silas answered on the first ring, and the first words out of his mouth were very encouraging. “Morning, sir, I was going to give it another hour before calling you with what we’ve got so far.”
“Give it to me.”
“Okay, going with some of what Gordon gave us, it was a pretty good head start. We’ve traced your wife back to the Swiss boarding school. It wasn’t easy getting through the red tape, and the boys had to do some stuff that wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but we got results.”
“The name change happened a little after her eighteenth birthday, but no one on either side knew about it. Meaning, the people in Switzerland had no idea that she’d changed her name and no one stateside knew her by any other name. I’m not sure how they didn’t put two and two together since the name she chose was Winthrop’s maternal grandfather’s name, but there you have it.”
“Now, as for Ann Winthrop, I’m still waiting to get my hands on the coroner’s report, but from what the others that Gordon put me in touch with had to say, it’s looking like maybe she did him. Now for the reason, I was about to call you.”
“There’s more?” He had more than I expected at this point, even though most of it was stuff I’d already deciphered on my own.
“Winthrop left a substantial amount of money and property behind, get this, it was all put in trust for your wife, but she doesn’t get it until she’s thirty. We’re talking more than a half a billion dollars in monetary inheritance alone; that’s not taking into account the holdings and the business he started. Oh, and the estate that Ann still resides at.”
“What did he leave her?”
“Five thousand dollars so that she couldn’t contest the will. If your wife dies, then the money, everything goes to charity, unless your wife has a child, then it all goes to the kid. I have the lawyers’ information to pass along to you if you’d like. From what little I gathered, they’ve been looking for her for a while, which I take to mean she has no idea about the will.”
I thanked Silas for the information and then sat in silence as I got my thoughts together. I’m pretty sure Giselle knows nothing about the will. She’ll be thirty in two years, and now she has a son. There’s no doubt that Ann Winthrop knows the terms of her late husband’s will, so…
My mind went to a dark and sinister place. I’m about to put a wrench in this bitch’s plans. No wonder she wanted to get my wife away from me. As I reached the door of the office, I came up short at the realization that I had no doubts about Giselle’s innocence. The fact that it never crossed my mind that she might’ve known about the will was all the evidence I needed to show me that my anger and distrust in her was at an end.
I went to the master suite to shower and get dressed so I could head downstairs to have breakfast with my family before going to meet my mother in law. I stopped off in the study long enough to give Delores, who was in there, some instructions. “Bring my wife’s stuff out of storage and put it back in the master suite. Call Ellen and have her clean all the jewelry in the vault and reset the pieces that need it; I’ve left it unlocked.”
I walked away, choosing to ignore the s
mug look she gave me. “And Delores, what happens in my home is no one else’s business.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yeah, that’s why she had the phone in her damn hand when I looked back at her. I hadn’t even cleared the door before I heard her address mom on the phone.
“It’s done; that boy came to his senses; how much do I owe you?” I only heard her side of the conversation, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what that was about. “No-no, a bet’s a bet, you won fair and square, you do know him better. I thought for sure, stubborn as he is, it would take at least another month or two. Oh, you still here?” She finally noticed me in the doorway, watching her, and shooed me away.
I shook my head as I walked away, feeling lighter than I have in forever. I’ll feel ten times lighter after I deal with this beast that thought she could come between my family and I. I had to change the look on my face when I walked into the breakfast room and saw my wife and son already seated at the table waiting for me. A scene I hope to repeat time and again.
Calen
I put aside my thoughts for the next hour as I enjoyed the time spent with my family, then called mom to come over and stay with them while I was gone even though I’d beefed up security, and there was no way anyone was getting near them. Before leaving, I leaned over her, where she sat hand feeding the baby pieces of fruit, which he seemed to have no interest in.
“I’ll be gone for a little while; you’re not to leave this house.” She looked at me as if only now remembering that I was going to meet her mother. “Do you really have to go see her?”
“Yes, I do. I have to tell her that she’s not allowed to come near you or my son ever again.” Among other things that you don’t need to know about.
“Be careful, she’s very dangerous; I think she…” She bit her lip and looked away, but she was still clutching my arm.
I kissed her hair once again and stood up straight. “It’s going to be okay; I won’t be long.” I’m sure she was about to tell me she thinks her mother had killed her father, so there goes any doubt I might’ve had about her knowing about that. No time to get into it now; I had to get there and back, so she didn’t stress.
I was smiling by the time I sat in the back of the car. Smiling, because by the end of this meet, I’d have vanquished all her fears. I let all that I’d learned from both Gordon and Silas play through my head, putting my attack in order. I realized as Jeremy drove through the streets to her place a couple of towns over that I was partly to blame for her lack of trust in me.
You see, I’d made it a point never to show my wife the darker side of me. She’s never seen me go after someone, whether it be a business situation or something more personal. There was never any reason for her to know the more ruthless side of me, so I guess I can see why she’d be afraid that her bitch of a birthing vessel could take me. Hah.
“Everything okay, sir?” Jeremy’s question intruded on my thoughts.
“Yes, why?”
“Nothing; I thought we were going to the Missus’s apartment?”
“We are.”
“Okay!”
“Okay, what?”
“Nothing, it’s just…you look like you do when you’re about to knock some sense into someone. Is there something I should know about?” He watched me in the rearview mirror. I hadn’t been exactly honest with him about the reason for this little trip. He was under the impression that I was going to pick up some stuff for Giselle and the baby, even though he’d asked me how come I didn’t just buy what they needed, which is what I would’ve done if that shit was true.
Damn, this is what comes from your people knowing you too well. I wasn’t sure about what I was going to learn today, which was my reason for keeping him in the dark about my true purpose for going there. It’s my way of protecting my woman from whatever this evil hag is going to reveal. Plus, if I have to get messy, the fewer eyes and ears around, the better.
Speaking of which! I put the code Silas had given me into the phone, and the inside of Giselle’s apartment came into view on the screen. The place was empty though a look at my watch showed that it was a little after nine-thirty, which is the time we were supposed to meet.
I called ahead to the men I had sitting on the apartment to see if she’d shown up in the vicinity yet, or if she was purposely running late. I figured if Dana had called her that she’d want to get to the bottom of things as soon as possible, and making her wait could only work in my favor. She’s already going to be in for a surprise when I show up instead of my wife.
“She just arrived and is about to make entrance, sir.”
“Good, is she alone?” I was still thinking about the Salvo family and the shit they get up to. If she’d used them to strong-arm Giselle, she hadn’t said, but I can’t think of any other reason for the fear my wife holds for the woman.
I hung up the phone and told Jeremy to take the long way once I received affirmation that she was indeed alone. I went back to the screen and watched as she walked into the apartment. She was a beautiful woman in her early fifties with a perfect salon cut and highlights in her dishwater blonde hair.
It was hard to see the color of her eyes behind the shades she wore until she took them off as if hearing my thoughts from afar. Brown! I wasn’t surprised that my wife looked nothing like her. I’d seen a picture of her dad, and she was the female version of him down to the dimple in her chin.
The woman on the screen was attractive enough, but she was no match for the daughter she’d birthed. I sincerely hope that that has no part in her jealousy for her own kid. That’s just some sick shit, but I’m aware there could be a host of other reasons behind her hate. Like the fact that she seemed hard, jaded, while Giselle is a soft feminine angel who makes me want to tear down and destroy any and all who bring her pain. Like this one.
By the time we arrived, I was already half an hour late and still took my time making my way inside. I knew she was still there pacing the floor, had seen her fury grow as she tried calling my wife time and again only to have her calls rejected since I’d blocked her number. I have to remember to get my woman a new phone that’s attached to mine.
I studied her for a few seconds more from outside the closed apartment door before using the key I’d taken from Giselle’s purse to let myself in.
“How dare…? You who are you? What are you doing here?” She stopped short in her tirade as she met me at the door.
“Sit down; I’m sure you know who I am; you strike me as the type to do your homework.” I’m sure someone like her understood very well the smile I gave her. “I don’t have time for this. Where’s my daughter?” Since she wasn’t going to be civil and sit her ass down, I took a seat and crossed my leg over my knee, and waited.
Her eyes darted around the room as if expecting Giselle to appear out of thin air. “This has nothing to do with you. I’d think that you of all people would want clear of this. What little sob story did she tell you? You know she’s always been a liar, right? I bet she tried to tell you that her brat is yours. You’d be a real fool if you believed that. Didn’t she leave you?”
This bitch! I didn’t even bat a lash. Just let her carry on as though she were talking to herself. “I heard all about how she came running back to you for help. I didn’t think someone like you would be such a sucker as to take her back after what she’s done.” She was fishing and nervous as hell. This is what I expected, the reason for my surprise appearance.
She hadn’t had time to prepare to face me, to get her story straight, so this floundering mess before me was missing her teeth. The teeth she’d sunk into my wife, making her cower in fear. I knew someone like her would be nothing more than a coward, and I was right, so I held my peace for a little while longer and let her tie herself up in knots.
“Did she tell you about all the men she had running in and out of here since she left you? Or did she play the innocent virgin like she did when she talked you into marrying her?” It was obvious that
this woman knew absolutely nothing about my wife, and I’d had enough of her shit. “That’s funny; the men you hired to watch her tell a completely different story.”
“What did you say?” That one stumped her for a bit, but she bounced right back admirably, I might add. “Listen, it doesn’t matter like I said, this does not concern you. This is between my daughter and me. Now, where is she? She knows better than to keep me waiting.”
“You mean my wife? She’s at home with our son.”
“Wife? She’s not your wife; you’re divorced.”
“Think again, and while you’re thinking, think about the fact that you fucked with the wife of Calen Addison the fourth.” I waited for her to let that sink in before the sinister smile dropped from my face to be replaced by a cold hard glare.
“You don’t scare me. I have just as much wealth as your family.” She lost some of the starch from her back and was back to looking around the room like a trapped deer at the end of a hunter’s scope.
“No, you don’t, my wife does. But I’m sure you know that her half a billion is just a drop in the bucket for Addison Enterprise and all our holdings. That’s why you wanted her away from me, isn’t it? Because you knew that there’s no way in hell, you could fight me and win!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever she told you…”
“Cut the shit, lady. I’m not here to play games with you. I’m here to tell you once and for all, stay away from my wife and son. If you come near her again, I will destroy you.” I know she has no plans on obeying that particular order, and I don’t want her to. The next words out of her mouth verified it.
“You can’t tell me what to do with that little bitch and her spawn.” I sat back against the chair unmoved and stared her down.
Dare To Love Again Page 15
