Chapter Forty-Four
Carina
Carina’s head was spinning. She didn’t know how she would have made it through the afternoon without Declan’s help and Josh’s unwavering support. Declan had walked her through each step and expedited the process to secure a restraining order. She was thankful he had been there because it very well could have made her do an about-face and head right back out the county office doors. Josh had stood by her side, his hand wrapped around her waist, whispering words of encouragement.
After they filed the order, Carina and Josh stopped at her townhome and packed as many things as she could carry. With a suitcase in one hand and a duffel bag in the other, Carina glanced over her shoulder and halted. It dawned on her then, as she surveyed her foyer and the quaint kitchen, that she was leaving this life behind and starting another one with the man she loved.
Her daydream of falling asleep every night with Josh and waking up every morning with him was interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on her door. Instinctively she dropped the bags she was holding and withdrew her gun from her purse.
“Stay there, Carina,” Josh said, walking to the door. He peeked through the peephole. “It’s a woman.”
Intrigued and completely disobeying Josh, Carina crept over to the window and looked to see who was paying her a visit. What the hell? She immediately set her gun down on the coffee table and went to the door. “I know her, Josh. It’s okay.”
“It’s not going to be okay until you’re in my apartment with the doors locked and the world shut out.” Josh sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was not comfortable with this. Carina would make this quick and find out why Eric’s former secretary was standing on her stoop. Josh opened the door. “Can we help you?” he asked, his tone clipped.
“I came to see Carina. Is she here? I wanted to…”
“I’m right here, Kay. What’s wrong?”
The older woman gasped and put a trembling hand over her heart. Her bottom lip began to quiver and her eyes welled. “Oh God. It’s all my fault. Look at you. I saw it on the news… look what he’s done to you…again.”
Carina reached for Kay’s hand and brought her into her home. Josh closed the door behind him. He didn’t leave Carina’s side, even as she led Kay to the living room couch. Carina took a seat and Kay followed her lead. “I’m fine, Kay. Really, it looks worse than it is. But why do you think that this is your fault?”
“It is, Carina. Forgive me,” she said, tears now streaming down her cheeks.
“Kay, you couldn’t have known. No one could have predicted what he…”
“You’re wrong. I may not have witnessed Eric hitting you that day you came to see him, when he wasn’t expecting you, but I know what happened. I followed you to the parking lot and found you sitting behind the steering wheel of your car. You were crying, trying to get yourself together, I imagine, so you could drive. And then you dabbed your lip with a tissue. Your face was swollen and you were bleeding. I was seconds away from approaching you when you started your car and sped away. I went back into the school. Eric was waiting for me. Everyone in the office had left for the day, which meant that I was alone with him. In a calm voice he told me that it was in my best interest to keep my mouth shut. That I wouldn’t want to jeopardize my pension so close to retirement. That it would be a pity if my husband, who has his medical benefits through me, suddenly lost his coverage and would no longer be able to receive his lifesaving chemo treatments. It was my word against…”
“His,” Carina said.
This poor woman. Carina took her hand and looked her straight in the eye. “He’s the only one at fault. Him. Not you. Not me. And he’s going to pay for what he did. I’m not going to remain silent anymore.”
Kay sat up and wiped away her tears. “And neither am I. Carina, before I came here I went to the police station and made a report. I told them what I saw and that Eric blackmailed me. I wanted what he did to you that day on record. I also wanted the authorities to know that if I were ever called to testify, I would be there…without hesitation. I won’t allow him to intimidate me ever again. I promise you that. I’m just so sorry that I wasn’t stronger before.”
“He thought he was untouchable, that no one could bring him down. But he was wrong, Kay.” Carina gave her a hug. “He’s finally being exposed to the world for what he is. And I couldn’t be happier.”
Kay nodded and wiped her eyes. She stood and walked to the door. Carina gave her one last hug before telling her goodbye and that they would most likely be in touch very soon. The second she left, Josh pulled Carina into his arms. “You’re amazing. You know that?”
She snuggled into his neck. “And you make me feel strong. That I can do this…fight him.”
“There is no more I anymore. We will take him on. And we won’t stop until you’re safe,” Josh said. She could feel the muscles in his back tense, sense his unease that they were still in her townhome.
“Let’s go home, Josh.” He smiled and gave her a quick kiss before grabbing her hand and leading her to his car. “Can we make a stop at the grocery store on the way? I would love to make you dinner tonight.”
He unlocked the passenger side door and helped her in. He rounded the vehicle, entered through the driver’s side and secured the locks. Josh withdrew his wallet and handed her his debit card. “Whole Foods will deliver right to our front door. Order anything you want.”
She stared at his card. “Is this one of those ‘precautions’ Declan spoke of?” she asked.
He set the card on her lap and started the car. It wasn’t until he pulled away from the curb that he answered her. “Yes. It isn’t safe for you to be out right now.” Josh reached over and took her hand in his.
Carina hadn’t grasped the gravity of the situation until now, with the probable consequences of Kay’s police report, and what Declan’s ‘precautions’ really meant. For the foreseeable future she would be held captive, not by Josh, but by Eric. The prick still had the control and the power. “I can’t believe this is happening, that I have to hide, that you are uprooting your life for me…for what? For Eric!” She felt the car closing in around her. “I can’t do this, Josh. I can’t live in fear. I won’t let you take on this burden. It’s not fair!” She was sobbing and seething at the same time.
Josh pulled over and turned off the ignition. He grabbed both of her trembling hands and attempted to still them in his. “I’ve been waiting for you to have that moment of clarity, that moment when you finally realize exactly what you mean to me. But it appears to me that you need me to spell it out for you. You are my life, Carina. If something happened to you, I wouldn’t survive it, nor would I want to.” He released her hands, turned the car back on and pulled away into the mounting traffic.
His words, his tone, the certainty in his eyes left her speechless, and they drove the rest of the way home in silence. Once in the parking garage beneath his building, he quickly hustled her into the side entrance, sprinted up two flights of steps, and entered his apartment. She was trying to catch her breath as he went from room to room. When he appeared satisfied, he walked over to her, took her bags and placed them in his bedroom. She was still standing there holding his debit card, trying to recover from the shock of it all, when he reemerged from the bedroom.
“Order enough food to last us a week,” he said, nodding to the card between her fingers. “I’m going to give Declan a call and make him aware of Kay’s report. I also want to see if Ross has been served the restraining order.”
“Um…okay.”
She started to fumble through her purse for her phone when she felt Josh take her into his arms. “I’m sorry, baby. I just…”
The emotion in his eyes overwhelmed her and she kissed him. Josh groaned against her lips. As much as she enjoyed their foreplay, she wanted him inside her. She broke free of his embrace and ran into his bedroom. He was two steps behind her when she reached the nightstand and opened the drawer to retrieve a condom.
“Carina, wait…”
Boxes of condoms lined the drawer. Though it was somewhat disturbing to see the quantity of condoms Josh kept on hand, her attention was drawn to the other items within…and immediately she felt her heart sink.
***
Josh
Dangling from one finger was a set of handcuffs. She reached into that godforsaken drawer and grabbed multiple silk scarves and a blindfold and held them out for display.
He imagined that she was thinking the worst and he fought the urge not to vomit. But there was no way to avoid this conversation. She deserved to know who she was in love with and hopefully, God willing, would continue to love after he answered her questions. He took a step forward and was comforted that she didn’t retreat. He gently took the items from her and placed them back in the drawer. Josh turned and looked at her, but her gaze was fixed on the nightstand.
“I know you’ve been with a lot of women. You’ve never hidden that from me.” Carina knelt on the floor and leaned against his bed. “But the things in that drawer…seeing them in a drawer next to the bed we share…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Makes it so real.”
“Carina, I can’t change the past. I wish I could. There would be so many things I would have done differently.”
She looked at him through tears he had caused. “I know how childish I sound. But I can’t stop envisioning you in this very room, on this bed, pleasuring women, making them scream as you fucked them.” The pain in her voice gutted him and all he wanted to do was hold her. But he knew she wasn’t in the mood to be comforted; in fact, it probably took everything she had not to run out of his apartment. He knelt next to her.
“Until you, sex without strings, without emotion, was what I needed, the only way I knew how to cope with…things.”
“What things?” she asked.
He took a deep breath and though it was a risk, he reached for her hand. Surprisingly, she didn’t pull away. And it was that gesture that gave him the strength to unload a weight that had been bearing down on him for far too long.
“Once upon a time there lived two siblings, a brother and sister. Twins, in fact. And they couldn’t be closer. They were everything to each other because they didn’t have anyone else except for their Lady Jane, but her visits, though frequent, would never be enough. What those twins wanted was a mother and a father. They wanted to wake up in the mornings before school and eat cereal with their parents. They wanted to be told by their father to be good at school and not be fresh. And they longed to sit at the kitchen table after a long day of reading, writing and math and enjoy a snack prepared by their mother. She would ask them what they had learned and they would avoid unimportant subjects like history and science and discuss what really was critical, like recess and lunch. She would frown, but underneath she would be smiling.”
Carina squeezed his hand and his motivation to continue multiplied exponentially.
“But that was a dream, one which those twins knew very early on would never be their reality. And so they learned to rely on each other, their Lady Jane and their favorite nanny, Regina, to make dreams of their own. And as they grew up, those dreams never faded.” He cleared his throat and prayed to keep it together. “Julia was to be the most talented pianist New York City had ever seen, maybe even the world. And that boy, that stubborn, opinionated little boy wanted to be a doctor. He didn’t know of what at the time, but he knew he wanted to help people. So when their parents gave their eighteen-year-old twin children an ultimatum, they chose their dreams. They packed their bags and left that night. Their destination, at least until the boy started college and the girl started her first year at the Rockhill School, was Lady Jane’s cottage by the sea.”
Josh felt the tears well and for the first time he didn’t need to secure the mask. He let the tears fall. “But they never made it to their sanctuary. The boy lost his best friend that night. He lost the courage to take risks. And he thought, until recently, that he had lost the ability to love.”
Carina crawled onto his lap and took him into her arms and cried with him. “I’m so sorry, so sorry,” she sobbed. He held onto her for dear life and if it wasn’t for the doorbell, he would never have let her go.
“I need to get the door, sweetheart.” He inhaled the sweet scent of her hair and almost reconsidered. “It could be Paul or Declan with news.” Josh wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He went to his bureau and opened the top drawer. Inside were balled up socks and underwear. But underneath his boxer briefs was the gun Paul had brought him earlier this morning. He retrieved the gun. “It’s just a precaution, Carina.” Josh cocked the gun, just as Paul had instructed. “Stay here, love.”