Chapter 1 #2
But it was when a certain Russian mafia member—Beketov or Belenky or something—had spilled a little too much blood that even Gordon couldn’t save him.
The district attorney wanted someone to make an example out of, and Gordon’s guy was it.
Now one of Chicago’s most notorious gangsters was behind bars, and Gordon’s ego still hadn’t quite recovered.
“It’s still a night to celebrate, right?” Parker said. “Not considering your little… blip.”
Gordon pinched at my back some more. He was punishing me for his boss’ words, for something I had nothing to do with. “That’s in the past. And last week was a success. That Wall Street moron was close to seeing ten years in prison. If I hadn’t shown up…”
“It would have been a disaster for him. The papers wouldn’t stop talking about you.” Parker gave me a little nod, a sleazy smile on his face. “I hope you take care of him at home the way a good wife should.”
Gordon laughed. “She does her best. You know how they can be.”
“A little bit of training can do wonders.” Parker waggled his eyebrows my way. “Stacey would be happy to teach you all the ways a wife should please her husband. She always asks about you. She barely sees you these days.”
I waited for Gordon to speak up for me, but when he didn’t, I realized it was finally time for me to put that mask back on. “Oh, right,” I said. “I’m just so busy these days.”
Parker snorted. “With what?”
“Juliette prefers to stay at home,” Gordon said. “I always find her in front of the TV. That’s her favorite hobby, I think.”
“Ah. She must be so stressed out.”
“You have no idea what it does to her.”
“My one is quite similar, except her favorite hobby is buying more shoes than we can fit in the closet.”
“Aren’t they all like that?”
“Some of them cut back and mature when they have a baby on the way. My ex-wife did that. So did my other one. Stacey, though?” Parker chuckled. “She has a different mindset. Maybe this one,” he said, nodding at me, “will have a more old school approach.”
“One can only hope,” Gordon said lowly.
“Now if you excuse me, I need to find Stacey.” Parker turned his back to us. “She’s probably somewhere making a fool of herself…”
I watched Parker walk away, hoping for Stacey’s sake that when her husband died, she got everything—and that he’d die rather soon.
Another one of Gordon’s co-workers approached us and I couldn’t let the smile falter, of course.
No. I had to stand there all night like I was being graced with the presence of royalty, like I was meant to care about Gordon’s boring friends, like I wasn’t supposed to hate being married to a man who didn’t love me and who I didn’t love back.
When the co-worker finally left, Gordon pinched my lower back once more and leaned down, his lips against my ear.
“There’s something important I need to talk to you about,” he said, voice low and bitter.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s important, so we’ll talk about it at home. I just want you to be prepared.”
“Can I get a hint?”
“No,” he snapped.
“Do we have to?” I mumbled.
He pinched me harder. “Yes. Don’t be stupid. I hate it when you’re stupid. Go get me another glass of wine. Nothing for you. Now. Hurry.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I approached the bar with slow steps. What an exciting night for me. Belittlement, misery and then a boring conversation back at home with a man that hated me.
I shot the bartender a smile as he slid the full wine glass my way.
Gripping it tight, I walked back over to Gordon and let him snatch it from my grasp, my eyes finding the sparkling ring on my left hand.
It was something I was supposed to show off proudly.
It was big and heavy and cost more than all the dresses and suits everyone was wearing combined, but I had never been able to form any sense of attachment to it.
It was tacky and hideous, a reminder that everything about my life was fake.
Fake marriage, fake husband, fake smile.
Every last part of my life had been molded to look good in the eyes of everyone else.
For some reason, I let Parker’s words from earlier repeat in my brain.
To the future and all that the future brings.
Those words should have been ones of encouragement.
They should have been bright and hopeful and promising, but instead, I was dreading tonight and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
The future held no light. Not for me. It just felt suffocating.
* * *
My husband knew my period cycle better than I did and I hated him for it.
With a heavily marked calendar in his office, several applications on his phone, and a team of world class specialists just a call or two away, Gordon Cavendish was the most prepared man in all of Illinois.
The days when I was ovulating were never forgotten, and every morning before Gordon left for work, he’d hold the calendar in one hand while tapping the current date with one of his fingers, one bushy eyebrow raised as he reminded me: today is the day.
He didn’t even need to say anything else.
I knew what that meant, that I had to prepare for another session of him on me and inside me.
I hated every second of it and had to resist the urge to vomit all over him every time. So, for those few minutes, I would just close my eyes, let him do what he needed to do, and pray that tomorrow would be the day he dropped dead.
I used to fight him off. For months, I’d claw and scratch at him, my fingers pressing into his shoulders, trying to force him off of me, but he was always too strong.
I quickly learned that saying no would end in me being punished.
He’d slap me across the face, punch me in the jaw, tangle his fingers in my hair and yank and bend my neck in a way that it wasn’t meant to be bent.
Saying no got me bruises. Fighting him got me cuts. He liked seeing me like that. Scared, trembling, alone. I stopped giving him the satisfaction and learned to fight off my tears.
So, I had been expecting more of that as I sat down on the red velvet bench in the walk-in closet, carefully taking out one diamond earring and then the next.
After Gordon and his boss had that little discussion, I had instantly sensed that his ego had deflated.
All night I had been mentally preparing myself to feel his sweaty body plastered to mine.
We were home now, and Gordon was hard to avoid despite the size of the place I was forced to live in.
But as he stormed into the closet still dressed in his suit, he tossed something onto my lap instead of touching me.
Thank God.
Frowning, I looked down to see that he had thrown a red presentation folder at me. Across the front was a picture of what I assumed was supposed to depict a bright eyed, smiling couple: a man with his hands resting on a woman’s swollen stomach. Right above them were the words Vaud Fertility Center.
“What is this?” I asked, opening up the folder.
Inside was a stack of papers, the first revealing a beautiful photo of an aerial view of a building.
It looked more like a castle with its soft pink tiled roof and towers.
The garden behind it was huge with lush trees, with green hedges and what appeared to be an expertly looked after rose garden that surrounded a fountain.
Off in the distance, right under the deep blue sky, were mountains.
More trees bordered the castle, giving it the feeling that whoever was inside got to be cut off from the rest of the world. Lucky them.
“Vaud Fertility Center is in Switzerland,” Gordon said bluntly.
My eyes widened as I stared up at him. “Switzerland?”
“Yes. This is a fertility center I’ve had my eye on for quite a while.
It’s only been open for three years. I’ve been paying close attention to their results, and every couple that’s worked with them has had success.
They work solely with a single couple one on one during a three-month period.
Just strictly one couple and no one else. It will be perfect for me.”
“Three months?” I blurted out. “You want me to move to this place for three months?”
“I’ve already paid for our placement there,” he said. “One million dollars, Juliette. I expect you to not only go, but to do so with a smile on your face.”
“Why three months?”
“We will not see success overnight,” he snapped. “You’ll spend the first month doing rigorous assessing. These are tests and examinations they don’t have in this country. I am paying for the best, so I expect the best.”
“You’re gonna let me go on a plane?” I laughed in shock. “And go to a different country?”
“I don’t like the idea of it, but yes.”
“There’s no way.”
“I’m making an exception just this once.”
“You’re not gonna let me go on a plane. Or travel. Or… be somewhere that’s not here,” I said, gesturing to the space around us. “I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not happy about the idea of you traveling, but there’s no other way to get you there, is there? You’re going.”
I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “A whole month of just… tests?”
“Yes.”
“And will you be doing them?”
His eyes quickly darkened. “Why would I be doing them?”
Avoiding his gaze, I looked back down at the heap of papers. “How do you even know if this place is legit? You said it’s a fairly new clinic.”
“Only the richest of the rich have attended it. That means they pay top dollar for the best doctors in the world to see them. I have seen the results and the evidence. We’re going and you will give me that baby.
I’ll be more than happy to pay for another three-month treatment if I have to.
These doctors are the finest in the world.
They know exactly what they’re doing. If they’ve helped everyone else, they’ll help you too. ”