17. Charlie
17
Lex’s captain was hovering, being nosy if you asked me, but maybe he’d heard from Lex and knew why he was late. I paced on the deck with my fingernail firmly lodged between my teeth. Being late was one thing, but this was ridiculous. Maybe I felt this way because I’d gotten here earlier than I originally planned. My flight was ready with all passengers checked in ten minutes early and we got a good tailwind, so I got to Miami faster. I also had no checked baggage because I didn’t want to have to wait in that line. I just rushed through the airport and caught the first cab.
It wasn’t like Lex to keep me waiting, and my calls went straight to voicemail every time I rang him, which meant either his phone was dead or he had it shut off. Neither of those things were like him either. He was always excited to hear from me now, once I’d gotten the hang of his schedule and didn’t call during appointments.
I tried to assuage my ridiculous anxieties by telling myself he was just stuck in traffic or that his last appointment had run late. I hadn’t encountered any traffic at all, though, and my only delay had been getting access to the boat. Even Lex’s captain wasn’t here when I arrived. I had to wait on him to escort me down the pier where only owners were permitted or accompanied guests.
“Ms. Martinez, are you sure I can’t get you a drink?” The captain once again appeared on the deck to check on me. I didn’t know if he thought I needed a babysitter or if the yacht club’s rules were so strict that even on the boat I had to be under supervision, but I was annoyed by it. Still, I put on my best smile and shook my head.
“No thank you. I’m not drinking tonight.” I’d already told him several times, even when he asked me if I just wanted water. I got that he was being hospitable, so I tried not to be overly snippy. I just wanted Lex to get here.
“You can use the remote to find something to watch if you’re bored.”
“You haven’t heard from him?” I asked again, for the third time. Surely Lex would have called his yacht captain to inform him if there was a delay setting sail this evening, but the man offered a curt expression while shaking his head.
“No, ma’am. I just do what I’m told.” He chuckled and then turned around and vanished, and I sank onto the leather couch facing the television. From this vantage point, the captain would be staring at me while I watched a show, but I had no choice. Even if I wanted to go lie down on a bed to calm the morning sickness and the nerves I felt, he’d just come find me anyway.
Picking up my weekend bag, I opened it and looked inside at the little onesie I had specially made earlier at one of those souvenir T-shirt shops near the bay. The pastel green cotton signified my obvious ignorance to the sex of the baby, but the words silk-screened on the front left no doubt why I had it. In bold yellow letters it said: “Baby Hartman.” My plan was to give this to Lex and let him draw the conclusion, because if I had to tell him, my nerves would get the better of me and I’d throw up all over his beautiful boat.
So far, the night wasn’t working out exactly as I hoped, but I knew things would turn around once he got here. I reassured myself that Lex was just running late and that I should try to relax. I found the remote in the end pocket of the couch after a bit of searching and used it to turn on the TV. Nothing seemed interesting, not a single show I wanted to watch. It ended up being background noise as I laid my head back and thought of Lex and what his reaction might be to my news.
All week I’d been wrestling with it—back and forth over how to tell him, what he’d think, how I’d feel if he wasn’t exactly excited. Every single night, I’d had bad dreams about it too, about him potentially rejecting the idea that we could have a family, about Mr. James’s accusations that Lex wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.
Four of the past seven mornings, I woke up to such bad morning sickness I couldn’t keep anything down. I wondered how I’d make it through all of this by myself with the man I loved so far away from me, but there wasn’t a way for us to actually be together right now. Besides the fact that while I would wholeheartedly jump into this with him and move in, I wasn’t sure how fast he’d want to take things, and my job was in Tampa. I doubted he’d move his practice there, and I didn’t have a shot in the dark at getting a job here.
Despite all the obstacles and hurdles that stretched out ahead of us and our relationship, I chose—like always—to look at the possibilities and not the problems. If I started looking at the problems, I’d run away scared. My parents set a good example for me when they came to this country. It was rough; they knew no one. They had so little, almost no money, no jobs. And they never quit. If they could do that, then I could weather a long-distance relationship and get through this pregnancy.
My hand unconsciously fluttered to my stomach as I sat up to look at the TV when I heard a news broadcast come on. The reporter said something about a crash on the bridge, which made a lot of sense. It would account for the reason Lex was now forty minutes late and still counting. I reached for the remote to turn up the volume, praying it wasn’t Lex’s car involved in the accident, and I listened as the reporter gave the lowdown.
“Traffic is finally starting to move again after near gridlock for the past hour, James. Back to you on the ground.” The camera panned to a male reporter standing next to a police car with flashing lights.
“Thanks, Janice. That was Janice Holmes from Miami Five’s weather copter with the bird’s eye view. Now on the ground, you can see the flow is starting to move again. You can expect the road to clear quickly now that the major debris is off the highway.”
There was no sign of Lex’s vehicle anywhere, but I did see the way cars were crawling. It didn’t look to me like traffic was starting to flow again, but if it had been gridlock then even ten miles per hour was better than that. What I did see, which at first shocked me, then enraged me to my very core, was Lex’s face.
He sat in the passenger seat of a slow-moving convertible. The sporty car was trapped along with all the others moving this way at such a slow speed I had no problem picking him out of the crowd. And the person driving too. Myra Lewis, that actress he had on his boat who was more than tipsy and ended up slovenly drunk that night. She was smiling and throwing her head back as Lex spoke to her and it made me so upset that I was on my feet pacing again.
Lex was not only with another woman—again—but a woman I knew was not having cosmetic surgery at his hand. She said herself it would be a while before she jumped back “under the knife” as she put it. And she was also known as one of the biggest lady players in the city, at least as far as tabloid gossip went. I might have a difficult time trusting Lex, but I definitely would never trust her. Why was he with her? And better yet, would Amy think I was overreacting right now?
I looked back up at the television screen, but the clip had passed and the broadcast had shifted back to the studio where the news anchors were talking about the weather and a cold front moving through. I wanted to be calm—I really did. I just couldn’t. The tabloid photos of Lex climbing into cars with random women, coupled with the way I first met him—an actress leaving his home and me walking in on him dressing—just confirmed what Mr. James kept telling me. He wanted to force me to write something I refused to see, but the blinders were off now. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen that.
I snatched my bag and headed right off the yacht to the parking lot, and as I did I ordered an Uber. The driver said it would only be a ten-minute wait, which meant he was somewhere nearby, and I was glad. I wanted out of here before Lex arrived and I had to explain why I was fuming mad at him. I never wanted to speak to him again.
Tears burned my eyes and I fought to keep myself from becoming hysterical. I swore to myself this would be whatever it was, and I wouldn’t get hurt by it because I had no plan to let my heart get carried away. And then I let my heart get carried away anyway. This shouldn’t have been happening. I knew the risk before I even returned for our second interview and I took that risk. I knew this might be a possibility because I’d seen the tabloids, but I was stupid for believing the best in people. Some things really are exactly as they seem.
My Uber got here a full sixty seconds sooner than he estimated, and I climbed in without a second thought. Baby or no baby, Dr. Alexander Hartman now had no access to my heart; he was in my past and would forever stay there. In fact, I forced myself to concede that it was all my fault since I should have known better. I didn’t blame him for being himself one bit. I blamed myself because I refused to see who he clearly was the entire time.
I didn’t even stop to get a hotel. I had the Uber take me straight to the airport. Even if there were no flights tonight, I’d at least be safe and away from Lex’s prying or badgering should he try to find and follow me. I had half a mind to order a flight right to El Paso and go directly to my parents’ house where he would never find me, but I had some business to finish up in Tampa first. As it were, I had no place in this state anymore. Not ever again, so long as Lex lived here.
Tears burned my cheeks and I swiped them away, more angry than sad. His actions cut me deep, but they didn’t surprise me. I didn’t want any child of mine to be raised by a man with zero morals. Besides, if Lex even cared—which I doubted he did—it would only be to keep his reputation intact and out of the press. Men like him were the sort who paid women off to keep them quiet and not expose the truth. I didn’t need or want his money, and I didn’t plan to stick around for that payoff.