CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
After William prepared them a light salad for lunch, they retired on the balcony off from his bedroom and watched his groundskeepers work busily around his vast estate.
And the security guards all over the place, all of them armed with long rifles, reminded Joy of just what manner of man she was latching her wagon to.
And for the most part it felt wonderful.
She believed William to be a good, kind, decent man.
A man that treated her better than she’d ever been treated before.
And she believed, over time, that he could very well become the best man she’d ever known.
Right up there with Gramps. But it felt daunting, too, because he was no ordinary man.
He was a billionaire, according to Google, when she’d only known men with barely two pennies to rub together.
But being with William it felt daunting, also, because of what happened earlier.
She stood against the rail looking out across the property.
Wiliam was in a chair, his legs crossed as he sipped wine and looked at her.
He was still stunned that he had claimed her as his own, as his girlfriend, when no one else had ever carried that title.
His wife didn’t even carry it. She got pregnant. They got married. No love story there.
But Joy filled his heart with nothing but love and gladness and a kind of giddy hopefulness he’d never felt before.
And even when he kept going back to her age, which he kept going back to often, he recalled what Bobby said to him.
Because it was true. It didn’t matter about an age.
He didn’t need a woman of a particular age to make him feel complete. He needed Joy.
“How many acres?” she asked him.
William had to think about that. “A couple hundred acres if I’m recalling correctly.”
Joy inwardly smiled. Leave to William to not even recall how many acres of land he owned!
But she had another, far more pressing question, on her mind. “Is this where you lived when you were married?” She asked this question softly, as if it was mere small-talk, and then she turned around to look at him. To see his reaction.
William knew what she was really asking: Was this house once another woman’s home? That was the question. But he wondered if it would matter to an unpretentious person like Joy.
“No,” he was pleased to say. “I lived in Westchester County, in New York, during my marriage. She got the house in the divorce, but I remained in the area for my daughter’s sake. I purchased this home afterwards. After Kaitlyn,” he said to clarify.
But Joy was the only person he felt comfortable saying her name around. Because he knew she wouldn’t ask stupid questions, or try to heal him in a way that fit her needs and desires as so many other women had tried. Joy knew when to say when.
Joy didn’t force a conversation about Kaitlyn, or even his decision to leave the city where she died.
She knew what it felt like to want to make a new life for yourself.
Or to at least try to rebuild something out of the ashes.
She decided, after he told her about Katie, that she would never be the one to bring her up.
At least not until he was able to talk about her freely and happily, which he wasn’t ready yet.
That was why she turned back around and stared out at the landscape again.
She moved on. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
What’s beautiful is what I’m looking at right now, William wanted to say.
But he didn’t go there. It was all too new.
It was all too soon. And time would tell if it would last. After their declarations of affection one toward the other, he’d already decided to slow it down.
For both their sakes. “How are you feeling?” he asked instead.
She turned back to him again. And leaned her back against the railing. “I’m fine. That’s why those tests were all negative. I wasn’t injured, I was just shook up a little. Especially when I saw . . .”
William stared at her. And waited for her to continue. “When you saw what, Joynetta?”
“When I saw that man with that gun.”
He could see how shaken she still was. And he realized in that instant that he’d been more concerned about her physical health, and the fact that she didn’t have a scratch on her, than her mental health, which could be hiding a plethora of scratches.
“Come here,” he said to her as he unfolded his legs and sat his wine glass on his side table.
Joy pushed away from the railing and went to William. When he pulled her onto his lap, she leaned backwards so that her back rested against the left side of his chest. He leaned back too, and held her. “Tough day, hun?”
“You won’t get an argument from me.”
“I know you’re physically fine. Thank God for that. But how are you mentally sweetie?”
She didn’t respond as quickly as he would have liked.
It was as if it cut much deeper than he had thought.
But then she spoke up. “It was kind of terrifying to see a gun pointed at me. At first I thought he was a cop when I saw that gun. I thought he was coming to help me and drew his gun to protect me for some reason. But then I saw that look in his eyes. And I knew then that that brother was trying to kill me, not protect me.”
“You saw the gunman clearly?”
“I stared right at him, if that’s what you mean. If Cory’s car hadn’t knocked him over, he would have pulled that trigger I’m certain of it.”
“Did you recognize him at all, Joy?”
This time she shook her head. “Never seen him before in my life that I know of. It all happened so fast, I can’t even remember details of his face. He was a black man in a baseball cap, and kind of tall and skinny. But that’s all I remember about him.”
William knew trauma kept you in a fog, too, particularly when it came to remembering details in that moment. “And you can’t think of anyone who would want to harm you?”
“That’s what the Police kept asking me too, but I don’t know anybody who would be so mad at me that they would want to kill me. No way. I don’t get involved with people like that.”
After that car crash and Max discovered a gun was involved, he ordered a deep background on Joy.
William didn’t like it, and made his dislike clear.
But he didn’t forbid it, either, because he knew it was necessary.
And he knew that to be especially true now that she wasn’t mentioning the obvious. “You can’t think of anyone?”
“No. Nobody at all.” But then she looked at William. What was he implying? “What are you trying to say? That I do know somebody?”
“Your ex-boyfriend perhaps.” William said this and looked at her.
Joy frowned. “Z?”
“Juan Sanchez?”
“We call him Z. Or just Sanchez, but yeah that’s his name. What about him?”
“Did you know he was released from prison a couple weeks ago?”
Joy nodded. “Contessa told me so, yeah. But what does he have to do with anything? I saw that man’s face. I may not be able to pick him out of a lineup, but I knew he wasn’t Z.”
“Did you know the reason he was incarcerated?”
“He nearly beat an old lady to death because he had a beef with her son. Yeah I know.”
William continued to stare at her.
“I know what you’re thinking and I agree. Why would I be with bad news like that? But we were broke up months before he did that to that lady. I was already so over Z it’s not even funny.”
“According to my chief of security, he may not be over you. According to Max, he tried to see you twice while you were locked up, but you wouldn’t allow it.”
Joy frowned. “Why would I allow it? I didn’t wanna have nothing to do with him.”
“Even though he might have been able to bail you out?”
“I didn’t want him doing nothing for me!
I don’t owe him a dime and I never will.
How could you think I would want that bastard to help me?
He treated me like I was a mangy dog in the streets when we were together.
He cheated on me all the time and then lied about it like it was me.
Like I was just imagining things. And my young, dumb ass put up with that bullshit for years.
When I left him I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. I can’t stand him!”
William was glad to hear it. And he showed it to Joy by holding her tighter. “But do you think there could be an if I can’t have you nobody will revenge factor on his part?”
Joy was shaking her head. “He didn’t give a damn about me, William.
Not one gotdamn. The only reason he wanted to see me while I was locked up was to laugh at me so he could say I didn’t come see him while he was locked up, so that was my punishment.
I know Z. He never loved anybody ever. He don’t know the meaning of love. ”
“So I have nothing to worry about with that young man?” William asked.
“If you don’t get out of here,” Joy said with a laugh. “You have nothing to worry about at all. And I mean at all!”
William smiled as if he was relieved, but her insistence did very little to assuage his concerns. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight until the mystery of that gunman was resolved.
But as she sat on his lap, he needed a different type of resolution. Joy began to feel it too as his penis was hard-pressed against her and as his breathing changed. And he was standing up without giving her a choice in the matter.
“We’re going to bed,” he said definitively, and carried her there.