Chapter 12
The day flewby because by the time I got there, I was behind with work piled high, I didn’t have time to breathe. It’s a good thing I’d hyperventilated earlier, because now I was finding it hard to get a breath in at all.
It was six thirty before I was making my way back downtown. My phone rang en route and it was Pearce checking on me.
“Is pizza good for you for dinner?”
“Perfect.”
“My house or yours.”
“Mine. I need to get out of these clothes.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there in twenty. Does that work?”
“Absolutely.”
Ten minutes later I walked into a very dark house and for the first time it really gave me the creeps. My hand slid along the wall feeling for the switch, but the lights didn’t come on. I flipped both the inside and outside switches and neither responded. A sense of dread blanketed me and reminded me of my clash earlier today. Then the incident of my abduction crashed down on me and had me wondering if they were somehow connected. I sprinted out the door and punched the remote button on my car, thankful for the illumination of the headlights. I climbed inside the car and sat there trembling.
A few minutes passed when I heard the purring of Pearce’s Porsche as it pulled into my driveway.
I bolted out of my car and straight into his arms, nearly knocking him over.
Arms of steel hugged me. “Jesus, what in the world happened?”
I was shaking, but it wasn’t a full-on panic attack.
“The lights in the house. They won’t turn on. Inside or out. It freaked me out because they’ve never done that before. I’m scared, Pearce. Then I thought about the incident on the bridge this morning and it got me wondering if that guy had anything to do with my abduction.”
“Okay, okay. First, take a deep breath.”
I did and the relief was nearly immediate.
“Do you have a flashlight?”
I gave my head a quick shake.
“Let’s get one from Lisbeth. Come on.”
”I have two in my car.” I still carried the spotlights with me. “Should we call the police?”
“For what? Lights that are out?”
A nervous giggle escaped from me. “Yeah, that’s just the kind of emergency calls they want to get, right?”
Then Pearce made a sweep through the house and none of the lights worked.
”Okay, where’s the breaker box?”
“Outside.” I led the way to the side of the structure. Every circuit had been flipped off, along with the master switch. That only meant it had been done on the outside. Pearce flipped everything back on and the entire house lit up, including the outside motion detection ones.
We went back to Lisbeth’s to ask if anyone had been by the carriage house today and she said no. This was very disconcerting. With everything that happened today, there was no way I could stay here, so I packed a bag and we headed to Pearce’s. Lisbeth was going to have a security system installed in the carriage house the next day and a lock placed on the breaker box. She was also going to install an electric security gate in the driveway. We called the police to inform them what happened. We thought it important for them to have a record of it.
“What I don’t understand is why do they want to hurt or scare me? I didn’t do anything to them! It doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“Listen, sweetheart, some people are just crazy.”
“But if the two incidents are connected, why didn’t they come for me sooner?”
“I don’t think they are connected. I just think the guy in the car is pissed off at you and wants to scare you.”
“Well, he’s doing a fine job of it.”
“Can you get off work tomorrow for a little bit?”
“I can try. Why?”
“I want to buy you a gun.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, absolutely. And I’m going to enroll you in a private concealed weapons class. I want you to carry all the time.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” His brows arched.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Here I was expecting all sorts of pushback from you, and you were a pushover.”
“I’m scared, Pearce. If carrying a concealed weapon will save my life or yours, then I’m all for it.”
“I want you to understand something, Alexia. If you do this, you have to be prepared to shoot someone. And I mean shoot to kill. Can you honestly say you can do that?”
“You know, when I was bound, gagged, and duct-taped, I thought I was going to die. I kept trying to come up with ways to beat those monsters that had me. The only thing that saved me was their stupidity and drunkenness. If I would have had a gun, I wouldn’t have hesitated to use it on any of them in that room. They were getting ready to rape me.”
He grabbed my hands, asking, “Alexia, why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I didn’t really know you back then. But yeah, I would use a weapon and I would kill with it.”
“Okay, I just needed to know.”
He stuck the pizza in the oven because it was now like ice, and he heated it back up. I carried my bag up to his bedroom and hung up my work clothes in the closet. I went to the bathroom and scrubbed the makeup off my face. Afterwards, I put on a comfy pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved shirt and went downstairs.
He was waiting with a glass of wine in the living room for me. He patted the seat next to him, and I curled up by his side as he handed me a glass of wine.
“What a day!” I said, air rushing past my lips.
“I know, right?”
“Are you working tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but regular hours. No call. I want you to stay here until everything is secure at Lisbeth’s. Well, if the truth be known, I want you to move in with me.”
It was the way he said it that made my heart thump and butterflies flutter in my stomach. “You’re serious, aren’t you.”
“One hundred percent. I need to clue you in on something about me. I’ve always been a great judge of character. Not good, but great. And so has Lisbeth. That’s one thing my grandmother always said about her. Anyway, I’m not wrong about you. You’re loyal, honorable, and would do anything for someone you love. You’re kind, considerate, hardworking, you have great integrity, and you’re honest. The bottom line is I love you. I’m thirty-five years old, financially secure, and have been around the block a hundred times. I thought I was in love a time or two, but it never turned out to be the real thing. What I have with you is the absolute real thing. I’m not changing my mind. Like I said before, we can waddle in the water and wade around, but I’m not going anywhere.”
I launched myself into his arms and almost mauled him.
“Pinch me.”
“What?”
“Pinch me,” I told him again. “I want to make sure this isn’t some bizarre dream.”
“Believe me, this is not a dream.”
“Good, because you already know what my answer’s going to be. I can’t do this yet. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future. The other thing is you have got to meet Terri. I can’t do anything without her permission anyway.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. She’s my rock, and eventually, when I move in here, I need her blessing.”
“Women. You all are nuts. You know that, right?”
“Absolutely not. We stick together and support each other. She’s my only family.”
“Excuse me. What am I? I’m your lover and I want to be your husband. Isn’t that family?”
Chuckling at that, I said, “I suppose it is.” I leaned against him and slid my hand beneath his shirt. I loved the way his skin felt.
“You suppose? Well, I’ll be!” His hands covered his heart as he answered back in an exaggerated southern accent, which had me cracking up. Then he added, “Oh, by the way, we’re having New Year’s dinner with my family.”
I stiffened and almost choked on my wine. The cough that ensued had him slapping my back.
“You okay?”
I didn’t bother answering, but asked, “What did you say?”
“Yeah, I’m dying for them to meet you.”
My head swiveled back and forth. “No, no, no, Pearce. I can’t do that. They’ll hate me.” The air from my lungs made a whistling sound as it exploded through my teeth.
“No, they won’t. They could never hate you. Besides, you’re going to love them.”
“I don’t think so. I’m on a completely different level from you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I just stared at him.
He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes.
“Alexia, we’re both people. My family doesn’t judge people because of their financial status.”
“I have no financial status. I’m dirt poor. I have five hundred dollars in my checking account until my next paycheck and that’s my financial status. You have a home, and a yacht and an expensive car and God only knows what else. If I go to your family’s for dinner, they’ll ask me what I do for a living and I’ll tell them I have some menial job working for a software company. Next, they’ll ask me about my family. I’ll tell them that my family doesn’t give a rip about me and has all but disowned me. And then how much will they like your new girlfriend, Pearce?”
“Are you quite through?” His voice was edged with steel, which jerked me to attention.
“Yes.”
“Then may I speak?” he asked in that same steely voice.
“Yes.”
“You seem quick to judge my family. And please don’t deny it. You seem to think it’s fine for you to make comments like that, but you haven’t even met them. You don’t know the first thing about my family. Yes, they have money. A lot of it. Old family money. I was fortunate to be born into wealth, unlike you. But does that make me a bad person? My mother didn’t come from money. She met my father while working as a nurse’s aide at the hospital. He was an intern at the time. They fell in love and were married within three months. Her family were paper mill workers. She didn’t even have five hundred dollars to her name when they got married. Don’t tell me they wouldn’t accept you because of your lack of wealth or status. I wasn’t raised like that. And I hope to God if you and I ever have children, you don’t bring them up that way.”
He stood up and walked away, leaving me to feel like a speck of dirt. One thing was true. He was right about me and my double standard. Additionally, my emotions were in turmoil. Yes, I was head over heels in love with him, but I had this thing about us needing more time to get to know each other. He was cool about that, but I would love to be with him every night too.
God, I was such a head case. It was time for me to get a grip. This no-confidence thing was becoming absurd. It’s a wonder he wanted anything at all to do with me. I wouldn’t blame him if he told me to get out of his life tonight.
And, wow, his mom had been poor like me. He was right. Making assumptions about people was wrong, plain and simple. I never wanted to be judgey about people, so why was I being that way with his family? What a shit I was for doing that.
I got up and walked into the kitchen and he was putting the pizza on plates. I had totally forgotten about our dinner.
“God, I’m sorry.”
“Alexia, don’t say it unless you mean it.”
“I do mean it. It was wrong of me on every level to say those things.”
His eyes met mine, drilling into them, and finally he nodded. “You need to dump that inferiority thing you have going on. It’s a total buzzkill. Don’t pull old baggage out either. That shit is burned up and the ashes have been dumped in the harbor. You have unresolved issues with your shit parents … I get that part. But my family shouldn’t suffer because of it. You adore Lisbeth and she loves you too. If you think she’s great, you’ll love my family even more.”
I don’t know why, but my eyes had teared up and the water was making a freakin’ mess on my face. I didn’t want him to see because I wanted to be strong, to be the kind of girl he could be proud of, and not some stupid mewling idiot. I turned my head and quickly swiped my cheeks.
He walked around the island and pulled me against him.
“You don’t have to hide your tears, you know.”
“I don’t want to be weak. I want to be someone you can be proud of.”
“I am proud of you. Just the way you are. What I want is for you to be proud of yourself.” He held me close as he rubbed my back.
“Come on, honey, let’s eat before I have to heat this thing up again and it tastes just like the box.”