BRITTANY
Against my better judgment, I go to Jason’s place anyway. I might find a woman with him, but I have to let him know I didn’t do anything with Josh. I took him to the ceremony, then my driver dropped him off; no sex was involved.
As I enter the lobby, I see a tall, slender redhead and she seems to be waiting for someone as she sits on one of the plush seats. I glance at her as I walk over to the private elevator that goes up to Jason’s penthouse.
“Who are you?” she asks as I press the button to go up, but it glows red at me. “That’s locked. Jay isn’t home yet.”
“Jay?” I ask, but I know she has to be one of Jason’s women. He just hasn’t let her in on his real name. And I won’t be doing that, either.
She looks me up and down. “Yes, a man by the name of Jay Caldwell lives in the penthouse.”
I nearly laugh out loud as I hear the last name he’s told her. “Oh, my bad. I must be in the wrong building. I’m looking for someone else.”
Her light green eyes narrow at me, and I think she suspects I really am here for the man she must consider to be hers. “What’s his name?”
I grapple with a name and come up with, “Todd Strangerfield.”
The last name, I’d like to retract, but it’s out there and I feel very stupid. No one is named stranger anything!
“Strangerfield?” she asks with skepticism. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that surname before. What ethnicity is it?”
My eyes roll with the woman’s question, as I see her as the type of woman I call boorish. An uptown, natural New Yorker who thinks her bloodline makes her something a bit above everyone who isn’t a native of the big city.
I decide to take a seat and wait for my man. The place right next to her will work just fine. We’ll see how he reacts with this little scene when he gets here.
At least this way I’ll be able to see if he was serious at all about letting the other women go and giving me the faithfulness I demand from him.
I am aware there’s a real chance he either won’t be back tonight and sleep in another woman’s bed, or he may come back with another woman under his arm. And then this lady here will know she’s not his one and only thinks she is.
I stretch my legs out in front of me and cross my ankles and jangle my flip flop as I lean back on the cushioned sofa. “My guy’s an American Indian. He changed his name when he became a U.S. citizen.”
A confused expression runs over her really pale face. I don’t think she gets out in the sun much at all. She really doesn’t look at all like Jason’s type.
Who am I thinking about? Jason doesn’t have a certain type. He wants to screw all women! I forgot who the hell I was thinking about for a second there.
“A United States citizen?” she asks me.
“Yeah,” I say, and look at my toenail polish that has a tiny chip on the left pinky toe so I know I need to get to my mani-pedi lady tomorrow.
“An American Indian needs to become a citizen of the United States? Is that what you’re saying?” she asks me, as she looks at me as if I’m stupid.
“Of course he does.” I roll my eyes at her again and it hits me like a brick.
Fuck! I am a terrible liar!
But I won’t be telling her how I’m lying. Instead, I sit quietly as she looks me over. I look her over out of the corner of my eye, too.
“So what is it you do? What did you say your name was, again?” she asks.
Not bothering to look at her, I answer, “My name is Brittany Caldwell. I design book covers.”
“Caldwell? Just like my fiancée?”
My head turns very slowly to look at her, then down at her left hand. And, sure as fuck, there’s a goddamn big ass diamond on it. I bite my lip and have to hold in a scream.
After waiting a few moments to stop myself from storming out of here and never talking to Jason again, I swallow back the scream and say, “I’m from the Texas Caldwells. I doubt your, fiancée, did you say he was?” I wait for her answer.
“Yes, Jay is my fiancée. But he’s from Tennessee, not Texas. I suppose that’s a typical southern name.”
I nod and hold out my hand. “May I see that gorgeous ring he put on your finger?”
She goes pink in the cheeks as she holds out her long fingers and wiggles the one with the rock on it. “Well, he didn’t actually give this to me. It was my great grandmother's. When he told me he wanted me to be his and his alone, I took it out of the safe deposit box my family has kept it in and put it on my finger to keep other gentlemen away from me until he gets me one.”
“Oh, so no formal proposal yet then?” I ask, as I take a silent sigh of relief.
“Well, not a down-on-one-knee proposal, but he did tell me that he’d get me a proper ring. But he wants it to be very special and very expensive. He’s searching for just the right one and then he’ll officially ask me to be his forever.” She gazes at the ring on her hand and I find her very sad.
To have such a belief in a man that you would give yourself a ring, well, that’s just really sad, I think.
And even sadder when you take into account that man has a ton of other women you are completely unaware of.
And now I feel bad for this woman. She seems like a nice person. Just not real man-savvy, is all.
“Wow, what a great guy. Tell me about him. Tell me what made you know he was the one for you. What did you say your name was?”
“Pamela Watterson.” She smiles, then places her hand on her leg so she can still see the awesome ring she thinks will keep the man she thinks is hers. “Jay was a man who caught my attention. He’s a shy guy.”
I stifle a laugh. Jason is anything but shy. “Oh, yeah?”
She seems to be reflecting back to the time they met and her face is all glowing. “I found him in a hospital. He was there checking on a patient. Jay Caldwell’s parents died in an auto accident when he was ten. He lived in one foster home after another. It’s a miracle he managed to make anything out of himself. He became a billionaire after inventing a device that he sold to the medical industry.”
“And what was this device, may I ask?” I am really bewildered that this woman hasn’t done a bit of research to see if he’s telling her the truth. Which he isn’t.
“I don’t know the name of it. I only know it’s a tiny plastic piece that can replace a piece of the human heart. That’s all I know about that. It doesn’t matter how he got his money, after all. It’s the fact he’s such an awesome man, with a heart as big as they come.”
It’s not his heart that’s big, it’s his lies!
“So how come you don’t have a key to his place? Or did you just forget it?” I ask as I tap my chin with my finger and look at her.
“Jay is a private man. I can’t blame him. He’s been robbed so many times. And once he was held captive by a robber who was trying to get a ransom. Only there was no one to give the robber a ransom, and he ended up letting Jay go, after holding him for thirty hours,” she tells me as she clutches her throat. “I was so worried during that time. I’d shown up unexpected, and when I called him to tell him to buzz me up, he whispered to me what was happening.”
“Why wouldn’t you have called the police?” I ask, as this woman is a fucking moron.
“I told him I would, but he told me the man said he’d kill him if they came. He told me to go home and wait and he’d come to me as soon as it was over. He assured me it would be over by the next day. One way or the other, he or the robber would be dead.” She goes a shade paler, somehow.
“That must’ve been hard on you,” I say, as I want to wring Jason’s neck for what he did.
If he’s doing shit like this to her, what kind of antics has he pulled on the tons of other women?
She nods. “I didn’t sleep or eat until he came to me. Then he held me tight, and we made love for hours.”
My stomach lurches and I run my hand over it. “How sweet,” I say with a grin.
This man needs to be stopped. I’ve never felt it more than I do as I sit here and listen to the shit he’s done to just this one woman.
“My Jay is sweet. He’s the sweetest man in the world. He’d give the shirt off his back to anyone who needed it. I mean that literally.” She fans herself with her hand, the one with the ring on it. It seems she likes to flash it around.
“Literally?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, and gets this silly smile on her face. “You see, once I was walking down the sidewalk, and I saw Jay’s car and driver. I waved and went to the car as they were stopped in traffic. Jay took a minute to roll the window down and when he did, he barely did. I could see his bare shoulders and asked him where his shirt was. He told me he saw a homeless man and gave it to him.”
“How nice,” I say, and know there’s much more to the story than that. “So did you get in the car with him?”
“I was going to, but he said he had to get to an important meeting about his invention and he’d see me later.” Her eyes show me she had a bit of an idea he might have had another person in the car with him.
The windows on his car are so dark you can’t see in. “Weird he wouldn’t let you tag along, huh?”
She shrugs it off. “Like I said, my Jay is a private man. He did come over later that night, around midnight. He made love to me like he’d missed me so much. It was spectacular. I just wish the man didn’t have such a thing about condoms. He always wears one, even though I’m on birth control. It makes me feel as if he thinks I am some disease-ridden mongrel.”
He’s the mongrel!
I pat her shoulder. “Be glad he does that. One never knows for sure how faithful someone is, after all.”
“My Jay is faithful. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.” Her smile is wide and her eyes are shiny and I’m beginning to think this is an awful thing I’m trying to do here.
She’s an innocent in this game Jason is playing. I have to say at least I’m an honest person who tells the men I mess with exactly what I’m doing. If I’m with one man and another guy calls, I tell them who I’m with or that I’m with someone else and I’ll call them when I get time.
Jason is making these women think he’s serious. He’s making them think he’s going to marry them one day.
He and I are going to have a long talk, whether he’s mad at me or not. I can’t let him keep doing this to women. It’s just wrong.
I get up and give the poor woman a smile. “I think I’m at the wrong place. It was nice to meet you. I hope everything works out for you, Pamela.”
“You, too,” she says with a wave. “Have a nice time with your American Indian, Brittany. I can’t wait to tell my Jay how I met a woman with his same last name while I was waiting for him.”
“You do that. I bet he gets a kick out of it. Bye, now.” I leave the building and walk to the edge of the sidewalk to hail a cab.
What am I going to do with this man?