Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
E den
My day at work included enough frustration for me to want to scream, so I’m happy to be back home by just before six.
I barely have enough time to shower and change for Ava’s little get-together that I suspect is some effort by Marius to make me forgive him.
She wouldn’t tell me what the party is about, so I figure she’s hiding the real reason we’re getting together on a Monday night.
It's so typical of Ava to want to play Cupid this one last time.
So Marius has convinced my best friend to help him. He really is quite the charmer. Not that Ava is a tough customer. She’s a pushover when it comes to those King men. She has to be to let them crash at her house whenever they feel like it.
I pour myself a glass of wine and head up to the bedroom to get ready. It’s nearly October, but Mother Nature still thinks it’s summer. Ava should have put off that end-of-year party for a few weeks.
Setting my glass down on the dresser, I wonder if I should bring a bathing suit tonight. It will certainly be hot enough to swim, but I don’t think I want to. If the party moves outside, I’ll hang out on the patio while everyone else takes a dip.
I wish I knew what Marius had planned so I could know what to wear.
Since I don’t, I walk over to my closet and start choosing from my favorite outfits.
I should probably just go with a sundress since in warm weather they’re always a good choice, but I decide to check with Ava just in case what’s going to happen tonight doesn’t call for a dress.
Grabbing my phone out of my purse, I call her, and she answers almost immediately. “Eden, you’re coming, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, of course. I wouldn’t miss one of your parties for my life. It’s just that I’m unsure what I should wear. I’m not going to be doing anything strenuous, am I?”
She laughs at my question, which I guess gives me my answer. “Strenuous? Not that I know of, but if you and Marius make up, then what happens after might be considered strenuous.”
As she giggles at her comment, I think about sex with Marius. I should correct her about that description. Strenuous would be the least of what happens with us. Exhausting, mind-blowing, and intense would be better descriptions.
I don’t tell her that, though. I might not want to hide my marriage to Marius King, but I guess I’m a little like him in that I don’t want to share everything about us, even with my best friend. That’s the reason I can forgive him.
“Okay, so if I wear a sundress, that will be okay? This isn’t a formal to-do, is it?” I ask as I lift my teal blue dress with the cute black bows where the skinny straps meet the dress off the hanger.
“Yeah, that will be great. Wear the diamond necklace. I love that on you. You’ll be here in time, won’t you?” Ava asks, and I have the sense she’s hiding something big from me.
“You know that was a gift from Marius.”
She chuckles and says, “Now that I know you’ve been together for two years, I could guess that.”
As I hold the dress up in front of me and look in the full-length mirror, I ask, “Hey, you don’t have anything you want to tell me, do you? Ava, you know as well as anyone else in the world that I’m not a fan of people springing things on me. Marius isn’t going to do anything like that, is he?”
“You mean like jumping out of a cake and surprising you?”
“No, like he’s going to do something that scares me. I can handle a person surprising me, but I don’t want to feel like I’m blindsided.”
She doesn’t answer for a few moments, which makes me worry even more, but then she says, “Oh, Eden, it’s not anything like that. Marius just wants to make you see he loves you. That’s all.”
“So now you’re a big fan of that King? What happened to the woman who slapped him across the face?”
Again, she hesitates to answer, so I add, “It’s okay, Ava. The man is very persuasive.”
“I was going to stay mad at him, but then he told me about how Theo slept with his girlfriend right after they broke up. He was heartbroken because he still loved Maia. He made me see why he was so insistent about keeping you a secret.”
I toss the dress on the bed and head for the bathroom to freshen up my makeup. “No worries. As I said, Marius is very persuasive.”
“That really happened, though. Eleanor told me she heard the two of them in the game room the day Marius found out what Theo did, and she told me Marius sounded devastated.”
Normally, I’d ask Ava how hearing something like that about Theo makes her feel, but I can hear in her voice how sad she sounds simply telling me about it. She always did have a huge blind spot when it came to that particular King brother.
“Okay. I’m not angry you’re being nice to the man I love, Ava. He’s not a bad man. He just made some mistakes. In fact, I’m happy you’re back to being one of his biggest fans. I don’t know what I’d do if my best friend hated my husband.”
“Oh, good! So you’ll be leaving soon to come up here? I want to make sure the food we’re making will be nice and hot.”
I check the time on my phone. 6:22. I’m going to have to leave in the next few minutes if I want to reach the King estate on time.
“Let me go so I’ll be there by just after seven, assuming I don’t hit traffic. I’m sorry I might be late. Work was a bear, and it took forever to get back home. I swear everyone and their brother was in the city today.”
“It’s okay. Just get here as soon as you can. I’ll keep everything waiting for you. See you soon, Eden!”
The call ends, so I set my phone on the vanity and get busy redoing my makeup. When I finish, I tip my head down and then stand up to give my hair some body. Just about ready for whatever awaits me tonight, I smile at myself in the mirror.
“Ready to forgive that husband of yours?” I ask my reflection, but I’ve known the answer for days.
Of course, I am.
After getting my dress and my favorite necklace on, I look in the mirror one last time and grab my purse before walking downstairs. As much as I love this penthouse apartment, I wish we lived closer to Ava and Matthias. Maybe I’ll mention that to Marius after the party tonight.
Just as I reach the kitchen, the doorman calls from the main floor. I answer it, even though I really don’t have time to spare right now.
“Mrs. King, a woman named Samantha is down here. She said you’d know her. She’d like to come up and see you.”
He drops his voice to barely a whisper and continues. “She seems upset. I think she may have been crying. May I send her up?”
For a few seconds, I silently debate whether or not I should make time for Sam. I’m in a hurry, but she was sweet and I’d hate to abandon her if something happened. I haven’t had a chance to mention the whole situation to Marius yet, so I should talk to her.
I’m sure Ava and everyone else will be fine with me being a few minutes late.
“Sure, Ernest. Send her up. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
I don’t have to wait long before the elevator doors open and Sam steps out. I can immediately see her eyes are red rimmed like she’s been crying for a while. I don’t know how I might be able to help, but the least I can do is listen if she wants to talk.
Sam hurries over to me, sniffling. “Thank you for letting me come up.” When she notices I’m dressed and ready to leave, she adds, “I’m interrupting. I’ll leave. I shouldn’t have come here. You’re a busy woman. I’m sorry for bothering you.”
She turns to walk back toward the elevator before I can say a word, so I reach out and grab her hand to stop her. “No, it’s fine. My friends know I’ll be a little late. I can talk for a few minutes. What’s wrong?”
Without turning around, she says in the saddest voice I’ve ever heard, “I texted Marius about if I have a job or not, and he never got back to me. I think he’s ghosting me, and I don’t know why.”
The poor thing. That husband of mine can be such a piece of work. What is he doing that he’s too busy to answer a text from this girl?
“Oh, honey, I’m sure he’s just being his absentminded self again. He gets like that sometimes. You know how he is.”
Every word of that is a lie. Marius King never forgets anything. It’s actually one of his most impressive personality traits. He’s attentive to details occasionally to a fault, almost as if he’s single-minded. If he’s not answering her texts, she’s right. He’s avoiding her.
Sam turns around and sniffles again, wiping her tears away. “Do you really think so? He’s never been like this. Every other time I’ve texted him about a shoot or anything else, he’s always answered within a few minutes. I was sure he was ghosting me.”
I slip my arm around her shoulders and gently guide her into the kitchen.
“Men do silly things. You just have to roll with the punches. At least that’s how I handle things like this.
I didn’t get a chance to speak to Marius yet, but when I do, I know you’ll hear from him and things will be back to normal. I’m sure of it.”
“Thank you so much for being willing to listen. I’m just so worried. I can’t afford my rent if I lose my job, and when I talked to my roommates last night about what’s going on, they were nice but they said they can’t give me any extra time. I’m barely hanging on.”
After giving her a sisterly squeeze to show I sympathize with her, I walk over to the refrigerator. “How about a drink? I have iced tea, soda, and water.”
“Is it sweet tea?” she asks, and I swear I hear the hint of a southern twang when she says the words sweet tea.
I shake my head. “No, just regular unsweetened. I have sugar, though, so you can make it sweet.”
“Okay. Thanks!” she says, and although I listen for the twang again, it’s gone. Odd.
As I pour her a glass of iced tea, I ask, “Are you originally from here, or did you move here from somewhere? I ask because when you said sweet tea, I was reminded how my grandmother says that. She’s from Virginia, down near Richmond.”
She smiles, but it’s half-hearted. “I grew up in South Carolina, but we moved up here when I was sixteen. I guess when I’m upset, my southern comes out.”
I nod as she explains why I heard a twang, wondering why I didn’t hear it when she was really upset earlier. It doesn’t matter. People can’t control a lot about themselves when they’re crying over their life falling apart.
“Well, you don’t have to worry. Everything’s going to work out. I know it.”
My attempt to be a supportive big sister type seems to work, and as Sam drinks her tea, she says, “Where are you going? Do you need to leave?”
I wave away her concern with a smile. “My friend’s house. Ava’s, the house you were at for that party. She’s having another one, and I think the whole thing has been set up for Marius to convince me I should forgive him. Between you and me, it’s going to work.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
Instantly, I feel bad for rubbing my impending happiness in her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“It’s okay,” Sam says with a smile, but I see tears in her eyes. “You and Marius make a great couple. I hope I can find someone like him.”
God, I could use a drink. Then I remember I left my wine glass upstairs.
“I’ll be right back. I just want to get my drink from the bedroom.”
“Sure!” Sam says, suddenly less weepy than before.
My grandmother always says a nice glass of iced tea can make anyone feel better. She usually means sweet tea with enough sugar to rot a person’s teeth out of their head, but I guess regular unsweetened tea works too.
I hurry upstairs so I don’t leave Sam alone for very long. On my way, I glance at the clock in the mezzanine area. 6:35. I should get leaving in the next few minutes so I’m not too late for the party, but it feels wrong to make Sam leave when she’s so sad.
Then again, she sounded like she was fine right before I came up here. Maybe she’d be okay with my having to go.
A noise makes me spin around, and I see Sam walking toward me. What the hell is she doing up here?
Holding up my glass like I need to prove I had a reason for coming up here, I say, “Found it! I was just coming back downstairs.”
She doesn’t say anything, and a second later, she pulls a gun out from behind her and aims it at me. “You’re not going anywhere. Sit on the bed and don’t do anything stupid, or I’ll shoot you.”
I notice the twang is back, but my fear makes that detail suddenly unimportant.
My hands shake as I sit down like she ordered me to, and I spill the last few sips of my wine on the floor next to the bed.
Terrified, I set the glass down on the floor and sit up to see her pointing the gun directly at the center of my forehead.
“Why are you doing this, Sam? I thought we were friends. I welcomed you into my home.”
She paces back and forth across the bedroom, her focus and the gun pointed at me the whole time. “Why is it okay that you have everything and I have nothing? It’s not! Why should you get a man like Marius?”
Oh, God! She’s lost her mind. She’s going to kill me because she’s obsessed with Marius.
I don’t know what to say, but I have to try something, so I settle on the truth or some nice version of it.
“Sam, you deserve a great man. You do. I hope you know that. It’s just that Marius is with me.
It was pure luck that we got together. Nothing more.
Not that I deserve him and you don’t. Please let me go. You don’t have to do this.”
“He’d want me if you weren’t around. You know that, don’t you? That’s why you want him back. Because you know that he would be with me if he was free.”
With every word she utters, her voice cracks and inches higher and higher. I need to keep her calm, but if we keep talking, she’s only going to get more upset.
If I want to get out of this alive, I need to find a way to make her see I’m not the bad guy here. I just don’t know how.
“I knew that night he called me and said he wanted me to come to that party with him that he finally realized how he felt about me. I’ve waited for so long, but that night I knew.
All I had to do was be my bubbly self, and we’d finally sleep together and he’d be mine.
Then you ran out of the party upset, and he suddenly felt sick.
I knew right then and there that if Marius and I are ever to be together, you have to go. ”
My heart slams into my chest as my stomach roils, nearly making me sick. Nobody is going to come to save me because they don’t know I’m in danger. Even if Marius left Ava’s right now, he’d take too long to get here.
I’m not going to make it out of this alive.