Needing Him (7 page)

Her husband was her high school sweetheart.  They got married after she turned twenty-one and they began building their life together.  He loved her with every fiber of his being.  Even after being together for so long and having a child he still found ways to show her he cared.

Pulling up to her stone ranch home, I shut off my Jeep and grabbed my bags.  Well, it was really just a small bag and my purse, but you get the picture.  I didn’t make it to the front door before it was swung wide open.  Anna ran to me, embracing me in a hug that said I was away for too long and to never do that again.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said.  “Now get your gorgeous ass inside and fill me in on everything.  I have plenty of ice cream and chocolate.”  Nodding, I followed her into the house.

Anna was beautiful.  She had long auburn hair and a nice curvy figure.  Her personality made her even more attractive.  She was sassy, but always friendly.  People gravitated to her like a magnet.  I felt fortunate to have her as my friend.

We spent the next three days catching up.  I told her all about Radek and Kai.  I also finally confessed and told her everything about the baby.  She was one of the few female friends I had and I knew that she would understand.  She said I should have told her back then.  I knew I could have confided in her, but it was too hard.

It felt good staying with her and living in a bubble.  I disconnected from all social media and only used my phone for calls or text messages.  Everything else was ignored.  I was sad to leave her, but she did provide some much needed therapy.

Ace was beyond excited to see me and almost plowed me over.  Poor boy.  I felt bad for leaving him, but if I didn’t get away I knew I would only get worse.  When I returned home and stepped through the door, it felt cold to me.

Walking around, I realized that the cold was due to Radek’s absence.  He was a force of his own.  His personality, his love - fuck me - his body.  I felt the weight of him being gone from my life all over again as if it were fresh.  Maybe getting away wasn’t such a good idea.

I was thankful for one thing.  No photogs outside of my gate.  Holy hell, I was so glad they were gone.  If one more would have asked me who I was dating or what my relationship with Kai was, I know I would have snapped.  There’s only so much a person can take and in my still wounded state who knew what I would have said.

I walked to my refrigerator and noticed I really needed to get some groceries.  I had to go right away, because if my ass hit the couch I wouldn’t be moving.  Grabbing my keys and purse, I was about to walk out the door to the garage when I heard the buzzer on the intercom.

I checked the screen and my heart stopped.  Radek.  He was at my gate in his black pick-up with his aviator shades on concealing his eyes.

With a shaky hand I hit the button to talk to him.  “Radek.”

His voice was missing the firm tone he usually used.  “Kasi, can I come up?  I want to talk.”

“I think you’ve said enough.  Besides, I was about to leave.”  I wanted to give into him in the worst way and let him up, but knew that wouldn’t be good for me.  He hurt me and I had to remember that.

“Please.  Let me explain everything.  I want to tell you why I left you.”

I went from feeling torn to pissed off in a matter of seconds.  “You want to explain everything?  I’m sorry, but you did plenty of talking last time I saw you.  Unless what you’re going to say starts with how you had lost your fucking mind, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Just let me up.  All I want to do is talk.”

“No, you need to leave.  I’m going to be driving out in one minute.  Your ass better move away from that gate.”

“I’m not moving and I know you can’t move me with any of your cars.  I’m not going to leave until we talk.”

“Fine.  Say hi to the officer when he shows up.”  I was bluffing, kind of.  I didn’t want to call the police on him, but I didn’t want to face him either.

“For fuck’s sake, Kasi, open the gate!  I’m done playing.  Let me up there before I park the truck and scale the fence.  You know I will.”

“You’re done playing?” I laughed a crazy, maniacal laugh.  “You were done two weeks ago when you left me over a fucking misunderstanding.  I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you up here to stomp on my heart some more.  Fuck you, Radek!  Now move your truck.  I’m done talking.”

I walked away even though I could still hear him talking.  At no point during that little conversation did he say he was sorry.  Well, screw him.  I’m not going to let him continue to hurt me.  Time for me to go into self-preservation mode.

I decided to drive the Jeep since it was the biggest vehicle I had. Once I got to the bottom of the driveway I didn’t see his truck.  Good!  Pulling out onto the street I saw a familiar jacked-up truck driving behind me.  Of course he would follow me.

I opened the moon roof and stuck my arm through it, giving him the finger.  Even though his windows were tinted I could see from the way the sun reflected off of his sunglasses that he was shaking his head.  My reaction shouldn’t surprise him.

He continued to follow me through town, all the way to the grocery store.  Well this should be interesting.  Nothing like making a scene in a public place.  I parked as far away from the store as possible.  I knew we were going to argue and I wanted the least amount of witnesses possible.

He parked his truck next to mine.  I tried to exit my vehicle before him, but he was faster.  Radek was at my side in the blink of an eye.

He was an arm’s length away causing my body to go rigid at his proximity.  Removing his sunglasses, he stared deep into my eyes.  I missed him so much it was painful, but I couldn’t let him back in to do more damage.

Turning in the opposite direction, I took two steps before his hand firmly gripped my elbow.  He spun me to face him.  Our faces were a breath away.  God, how I wanted to kiss him.  Wanted to wrap my arms around him and forget everything.  My heart was pounding in my chest.  Just as I was about to lean in and do what I so badly craved, I remembered the pain.

Pulling my hand back, I smacked him across the face.  His hand went to his cheek as he stood stunned.  He never let go of my elbow though.

Tears welled in my eyes as I spoke.  “You hurt me!  Don’t you get that?  I loved you with all of my heart and you broke me.  You!  The one man I gave everything I had to.  Now let go.  I have shopping to do.”

With that, I wrenched my arm away from him and stomped off toward the store.

~ 8 ~

I was fuming when I entered the grocery store.  Luckily, there weren’t many people there.  I took my time shopping.  With any hope Radek would be gone when I got back to my car.

Checking my phone before exiting the store, I saw an hour had passed.  I kept chanting in my head ‘Please don’t be out there’ over and over.  When I got within twenty feet of my car I could see he was still there, leaning up against his truck.  Ugh!

As I approached he pushed away from his truck and walked toward me.  “Oh no!  Get back into your truck and drive the hell off.  Go!”

“No.  I’m going to follow you until you talk to me.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!  I already said all there was to say.”  I opened the back of the Jeep and starting unloading the groceries from my cart.  Radek picked up one of the bags to help, but I grabbed it from him.  “Don’t touch my stuff,” I hissed.

He raked a hand through his hair.  “You might have said all you wanted to, but I haven’t.  Not by a long a shot.  There is a lot I have to tell you.  I need to explain everything so you know why I did what I did.”

“You know what I needed?”  He shook his head.  “I needed you!  I needed you to trust me and you couldn’t.  You saw something that you interpreted to mean something else entirely and ran with it.  You, my ex, are a dick.”  I slammed the back hatch of the Jeep.  “I’m going to put this cart away and your ass better be in that truck,” I said pointing to his pickup, “when I get back.”

The shopping cart was returned and when I turned around he was gone.  Good!  I didn’t even glance into his truck when I climbed into mine.  Instead, I screamed.  Radek was sitting in my passenger seat and scared the shit out of me.  “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.

“You won’t let me talk.  Now you have no choice but to hear me out.”

“I have the choice of dialing nine-one-one and asking the police to remove your ass from my property.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Want to make a bet?”

I dug around in my purse until I found my phone.  Unlocking the screen, I pressed the phone button to dial.  Radek snatched it from my hand.

“Dammit, Kasi!  Let me talk!”

“Fuck you!  Give me my phone back!”  I was reaching for it, but he kept moving it away.

The anger that was raging through me wanted an outlet.  I wanted to scream, to punch something, and to cry all at the same time.  What did I do?  I started my SUV and drove.

“Thank you,” he said.  “Let’s go back to your house and talk.”

“Oh, we aren’t going to my house.  We’re going to the police station so they can get you out of my Jeep.”

I could see from the corner of my eye that his mouth dropped open.  He knew I was serious.  You want to fuck with me, then you get what you deserve.

“I went to Erin because of you!  I did it for you!”

“Boy, is that rich!  You went to the person who was threatening me and had fucking dinner with her?  Was that for me too?  Did you fuck her too?  For me?”

“Holy shit!  I went to California to find Erin and put a stop to everything.  I blackmailed her ass back!”

Wait, what?  Abruptly, I pulled the Jeep onto the shoulder of the road and came to a stop.  I turned in my seat to stare at him, not uttering a single word.

“I went to Erin and told her that if she released the information she had on you that I would go public with the fact that she slept with her ex-husband’s best friend repeatedly while they were still married.  If I did that she would lose what tiny bit of alimony she was receiving.  You see, her ex-husband felt bad when she pleaded to him prior to the divorce.  She said she had only slipped up once and knew she made a mistake.  He didn’t fully forgive her, but did offer a small amount of money every month.  Well, not small to average people, but small to her.  If I went public with that fact she would lose what little money she was getting.”

“How do you know all of that?”

“Pilots talk.  I have some friends who I still talk to and did some digging.”

My brain was trying to wrap around everything he was saying.  Some things still didn’t add up though.  “If what you’re saying is true then why did you have dinner with her?”

“I knew she wouldn’t make a scene out in the open.  I told her that if she didn’t keep her mouth shut I was going to walk right outside of the restaurant and tell the paparazzi what a whore she really was.  She went pale.  Fucking pale, Kasi.  I knew I had her.  She smiled and nodded all through dinner, acting like the proper person she pretended to be.  Only I could see through that smile that she was gritting her teeth.”

“That doesn’t explain how she found out I was ever pregnant in the first place.”

“Apparently your doctor had an asshole for a receptionist.  You had called one day after the miscarriage saying you were still in pain.  The receptionist, who is also close friends with Erin, put you on hold, grabbed your file, and went to get the doctor.  The doctor and a nurse were reviewing your information and she overheard about what happened.  She had already seen you in there with Kai and Lee and put two and two together.  Then one night when the receptionist was hanging out with Erin, she got shit-faced drunk and spilled everything.”

“Oh my God.  How many other people know?  What if she tells others?”

“Don’t worry, I thought of that, too.  I found out where she lived and went to pay her a visit.  She lives in a bad part of town in a run-down apartment.  Come to find out she is waist deep in credit card debt.  Erin has no clue, because this chick dresses the wealthy part.  I threatened her.  Told her if she opened her mouth one more time that I will out her to her bitch friend and also go to her employer.  She no longer works for your doctor, by the way, but another one.  Not to mention she could be sued for breach of privacy.  The government could also go after her and your doctor could be sued.”

It was too much to take in.  I couldn’t believe someone would do such a thing.  Well, actually I could.  Some people are only about themselves and don’t care about others.  Another thought occurred to me.  Why did he break up with me?  “If what you’re telling me is true, why did you leave me?”

He began to speak, but at the same time I noticed a police cruiser had pulled up behind me.  What the hell?  An officer walked to my window as I was rolling it down.

He was an older man, a little heavy set, and had a stern look on his face.  “Are you broken down, ma’am?  Do you need help?”

“No, Officer.  I pulled off of the road to have a conversation.”  That would have been prime time to get the asshole out of my Jeep.  Although, he did just tell me what happened with Erin and I did believe him.  I stared at him the whole time he spoke and didn’t see him flinch or anything.  Maybe I should give him a chance to explain even if I really didn’t want to.

“This isn’t the place for that.  You’re blocking a driveway,” he said nodding to the lane I was parked in front of.  I hadn’t even realized.  “You need to move along.”  The officer looked into my SUV, eyeing Radek.

“Thank you, Officer.  We will.”  He nodded again and turned to go back to his cruiser.  I could hear Radek chuckling to my right.  “Shut up.  You have nothing to laugh about.”

“You have to admit that was funny.  At least we weren’t in here having sex.”

I turned toward him.  “If we were fucking that would mean that I had forgiven you, which I haven’t.  You have a hell of a lot more explaining to do, but apparently we now have to do it at my house.”

Putting the Jeep in gear, I drove off to my home.  We stayed quiet for the remainder of the drive.  I parked in the driveway without opening the garage.  Radek was not getting into my home unless he had one amazing explanation as to why he broke it off with me.