Broken Pasts (17 page)

CHAPTER 19

There
are some days when you get out of bed and you know beyond a shadow of
a doubt that it is in your best interest to climb right back in, pull
the covers over your head and sleep away
one
of those kind of days.
As
soon as I opened my eyes, I knew I was having
one.

My
first clue was the sound of screaming from down the street (it was
the cheating ass and his teenage mistress, even better). The second
was that my alarm hadn't gone off and I was now a half an hour behind
schedule. The third was that Nathaniel was wearing his sunglasses.
If I'd had any other choice, I never would've gotten up.
Unfortunately for me, I had a daughter who was already in trouble for
her artistic representations of the human body and who did not need
to be missing any class, a business that I had neglected in order to
better focus on my psychotic ex-husband, and a bodyguard that I had
shared my very first mutual masturbation session with the night
before.
God. Fucking. Damn it.

With
a sigh, I climbed out of bed and paused as Nathaniel turned around to
look at me.

“
Something
wrong?” I asked him, but he just smiled back at me and slid
them off his face. When he did, his expression was strained and a
think just a tad nervous. Great.
Please don't make me talk about
last night,
I prayed as I examined the tight set of his lips and
read secrets there. Lots of them. He was holding them back for now,
but sooner or later, I was going to hear them. Not that I wasn't
interested, I was. I
lived
for mysteries. It was just that I
was afraid to hear what they were, to have my image of the man
changed or tainted in any way, shape or form, and since it was
one
of those kind of days,
I was certain that that is exactly what
those secrets were going to do.

“
No,
I just … ” He paused. “The sun was bothering my
eyes.”
Sure,
I thought back at him, but I didn't press
the point. We all have security mechanisms and the shades were his.
Keep those secrets back just a little longer, Nathaniel, and then
you can bare your soul to me, I promise.
“Theresa …
”

“
Don't,”
I said as I slid past him and moved down the hallway towards Rhea's
bedroom. Nathaniel followed along behind me. “I have to get
to work. It's going to be a madhouse when I get there, I just know
it.”

“
I
need to talk to you,” he said as chills ran down my spine.
Told you.
When a man says he needs to talk, it always signals
disaster, at least in my experience. I sighed and nodded, hoping
beyond any reasonable doubt that it had to do with Gary's case and
not Nathaniel's deep, dark secrets. I opened Rhea's door. “Time
to get up,” I told her.

“
I
don't want to,” she said as she rolled over and buried her face
in her pillow. I scooted into the room and gently shook her
shoulder.

“
We
all have to do things we don't want to do. Mommy has to write up
some custom scripts this morning.”

“
Can
I stay home with Nathaniel?” Rhea asked, looking back at me and
flashing her best, sweetheart smile.

“
Nope.
He's coming with me. You can see him after school.”

“
Mom!”
she whined, metaphorically digging her feet in and refusing to budge.
“But I don't
feel
good.”

“
You
feel fine, Rhea. You do this at least once a week. Come on, what do
you take me for?” She cast the full force of her glare on me
and in all of her nine year old glory, she said, “I hate you,
you bitch.”

Let's
just say the rest of the day did not go over much better.

The
ride to Rhea's school was unpleasant, at best. She was mad at me for
being mad at her, and I was mad at her for calling me a bitch.
Nathaniel knew better than to get involved.

“
Your
dad's going to pick you up after school today,” I told her as
she got out of the car. “Don't go home with – ”
Rhea slammed the door in my face, and I opened it after her. “You
are in so much trouble, you have no idea.”

“
Screw
you,” she said as Mr. Clarke shot me an evil glare, and I had
no choice but to retreat back into the Chrysler.
When I get home,
I'm going to go straight into her room and grab every single Pokemon
game that I can find. They are
mine.

“
Sorry,”
I told Nathaniel as I leaned up between the seats. He was already
pulling out of the traffic circle a hundred times more skillfully
than I'd ever managed to do. We only got honked at by
two
minivans. Now there's a record. “Sometimes, she just –
” My phone was ringing. I groaned. “Now what?”
It was Brenda. Apparently Ms. Brown was waiting for me in my office,
threatening to pull her project with us because one of the developers
had spelled her first name wrong on the website.
Vagina Brown
was
listed as the chief executive officer of Brown Cosmetics. It was
supposed to be
Virginia.
“Okay, just, I don't know,
just distract her until I get there, okay?” I said and then
mimed tossing my phone out the window. Apparently Nathaniel saw me
and laughed.

“
One
of those days?” he said.

“
How
did you know?” I asked as I slumped into my seat and tried to
catch a glimpse of emerald in the rearview. I wanted nothing more
than to take Nathaniel home, tear off his clothes, and explore the
urges I'd been denied last night, but that was not going to happen.
I had a twelve hour workday ahead of me,
at least.

“
It's
okay,” he told me. “It happens to us all.”

“
She's
nine and she called me a bitch. Is that normal?” Nathaniel
laughed again, and the sound of his voice was like a balm to the
rough day I was having. I sighed and rested my head against the
seat, hoping beyond hope that the day was on an upward spiral, that
things would only get better. “Hey Nathaniel,” I said
and watched as his eyes flicked up to the mirror and caught mine.
“Rhea's at her Dad's tonight, so maybe we could have that talk
over dinner?” I watched his gaze darken briefly before he
nodded. Whatever it was that he had to tell me was bad. I didn't
say another word and neither did he.

When
we got to the office, Nathaniel went into bodyguard mode almost
instantly, sliding on his shades and plastering a professional frown
across his perfect face. That was fine by me considering Brenda was
wearing a pink blouse with
way
too much cleavage, a skirt that
threatened to flash me at every turn and a pair of thigh highs with a
very visible garter belt. I'd rather Nathaniel blended into the wall
instead of getting caught on her radar. If I had to hear the baby
talk voice she often used on men, I was going to puke.

“
He
can't speak,” I told my crew as I wove my way through a sea of
questions and pointing fingers. “He's a statue for all that
you're concerned.” I flung open the door to my office and
prepared to face Satan. Contrary to popular belief, Satan is a
she.

***

“
No,
thank
you,
Ms. Brown,” I said as I escorted the world's
prickliest client out of my office and closed the door with an
audible sigh of relief. “Demon
bitch,
” I said and
noticed that Nathaniel was smiling at me. If the back wall of my
office hadn't been made entirely of windows, I might have cleared off
my desk and had a repeat session of yesterday's fun. Or at least I
could entertain that thought. Truth was, I was a bit of a coward.
Nathaniel was probably going to have to make the next move if we
wanted to scoot this thing along.

“
I
should've become a mortician,” I told him as I moved around my
desk and plopped down in the oversized leather swivel chair that I'd
just
had
to have. In all honesty, it was about as comfortable
as a cactus.

“
Why's
that?” Nathaniel asked with a smile, slipping his glasses down
just enough that I could catch a glimpse of his green eyes.

“
Then
I wouldn't have had to listen to my clients bitch.” Nathaniel
opened his mouth as if to speak when my assistant/apprentice/resident
hooker opened the door.

“
Good
news,” Brenda said coming in without knocking. I'd only told
her a hundred times, silly me. She flashed a manila envelope at me,
and I couldn't help but notice that her breasts went along for the
ride, bulging out of her top like muffins. I glanced over at
Nathaniel, but he was in bodyguard perfect position and wasn't
looking. Or at least I hoped he wasn't.

“
What
is it?” I asked as I looked at the four digit number next to my
inbox and died a little inside.
It's going to take all day just
to get through these.

“
It's
from Gary,” she chirped and tossed the file dangerously close
to my now cold cup of coffee. The liquid jiggled and danced, but
didn't manage to go over the edge. Lucky her. “Divorce papers
maybe?” she asked with a wiggle of her eyebrows. It took me a
whole minute to process.

“
Divorce
papers?” I whispered as Nathaniel came striding across the
room, a perfect column of darkness in his suit. He put his fingers
on the envelope and looked at me as if to ask permission. I glanced
around him and noticed that Brenda was checking out his ass. I
cleared my throat, but that didn't work. Instead she just asked me
if I needed any water, all the while scoping out Nathaniel with an
unabashed sense of glee. “Thank you, Brenda,” I said
finally, using my best boss voice. She blinked several times, like
she was coming out of a coma or something, and finally disappeared
out the door, closing it loudly behind her.

“
May
I?” Nathaniel asked as he removed his glasses and stuffed them
in the front pocket of his suit. I held out my hand as if to say,
Go
right ahead.
I still had that other creepy package on my mind,
the one with the stuffed animals, video games, and books of porn. If
Nathaniel wanted to check this first, all the better for me. If
there were naked pictures of Gary or weird letters or whatever the
hell else, he could take them for evidence and I wouldn't have to
look at them.

I
closed my eyes and tried to practice some deep breathing techniques
while Nathaniel slid his thumb under the top of the envelope and tore
it open.

Several
moments of silence passed before he spoke.

“
Theresa,”
he said as my eyes snapped open and I looked up at him. His voice
told me that I didn't want to know, that Gary had somehow crossed
another line. Nathaniel's eyes were on fire, like two round pits of
hate, burning like hot oil, shimmering with rage. I had a feeling
that had Gary been in the immediate vicinity that he might've been
dead. “I need you to look at these, but I want you to remain
calm. I'm here now, and he can't hurt you.”

“
Nathaniel
… ”

“
I
need you to understand that I will not let him hurt you,” he
repeated as he dropped the packet of files to the desk and reached
out, taking my face in his hands. Nathaniel locked eyes with me and
would not let me go. “Do you understand?”

“
I
… ” I think he was trying to prepare me, so I wouldn't
panic. Instead, his behavior was having the opposite effect,
convincing me that the worst was about to happen. My mind started
spinning completely unbelievable and utterly ridiculous stories.
He
got custody of Rhea somehow
or
He killed my mother and
photographed it
or
He's summoned demons from hell to come and
take me away.
That's how bad it was. “Let me see,”
I whispered as Nathaniel released me with a massive sigh and pushed
the papers across the desk. No, wait, not papers, photographs.
Nice, big, glossy 8 x 10's. Dozens of them. Of me and Rhea.
Sleeping.

I
stood up suddenly and sent my chair flying against the glass, wheels
spinning as it toppled over in my frenzy.

“
No,”
I said because I didn't know what else to say. “No, those are
staged. They're not real.”

Nathaniel
watched me tensely, and I could tell he was trying to decide between
bodyguard and … that 'b' word, if he even was one. We still
hadn't figured that out. At that point in time, I couldn't have
cared less. Bodyguard won out.

“
Theresa,
they very well could be. I need you to calm down and take a look at
them with me. Maybe they're from before, when you were married?”

“
No,”
I whispered as tears of rage sprung to my eyes and I felt adrenaline
coursing through my blood like fire. If Gary had been within range
in that moment, I would've strangled him to death. “They're
not. The blankets … when I moved out, I didn't take them with
me. I bought new comforter sets.” I pointed at the photos.
“Those are them.” I swallowed hard and forced myself to
take one of the photos between my fingers. I couldn't bear to look
at the ones of Rhea, so I stared at my sleeping face. There I was at
my most vulnerable and he was lording over me, taking photos like he
didn't have a care in the world. He could've hurt me, raped me,
killed me. And Rhea … I closed my eyes and held back a howl
of rage. It wouldn't do me any good, not yet.