Romance: Gibson's Legacy ( New Adult Contemporary Erotic Romance) (Last Score Book 1) (8 page)

This was the only thing that Kace and I disagreed on, because realizing that dream may have meant moving state to make it happen. As fortune would have it, we had a pretty big venue for music events less than twenty minutes from where we lived, and I managed to land a job as a digital image designer for them.

The buzz of working in a concert venue and the bustling pace of live performances had me in my element. I had loved being a part of that scene.

Most of the bands that played there had their own set production teams, but occasionally there were some that were more about their music than the technical stuff so that’s where we kicked in and even if I do say so myself, I was pretty good at the visual stuff.

Kace was happy for me at first, but with the unsocial hours of a career such as that, it wasn’t long before he began to get pretty fed up with me not being around when he finished work. Being a much sought after sound engineer in a recording studio, Kace he didn’t exactly keep regular hours either.

So what started as bickering slowly became emotionally charged, heated exchanges between us, to the point where I constantly dreaded the subject of work coming up, because after a few months there was always conflict around me having the career I had studied hard for. I don’t even know when it happened, but Kace became more and more dismissive and depreciative of me.

Arguments about my work gradually became personal attacks about me as a partner and eventually about not being the woman I should be in his eyes. Eventually, Kace had chipped away at my self- esteem so much that he eroded my confidence in my own abilities, either in my work, or as someone worthy of a guy like him.

Becoming controlling and angry, Kace grabbed me by the throat one night and told me he was glad he hadn’t married me, but still expected me to be a loving partner and have sex with him whenever he decided to be intimate with me.

Our whole relationship shifted again when he stopped coming home at the usual time saying he had to stay late at work, until eventually, he was just blatant about going for drinks with the guys and girls he worked with at the recording studios.

So the mental abuse continued, but the physical violence was a slow burner. However, two months later it happened again. Kace came home drunk one night and forced himself on me when I refused to have sex with him.

Extremely aggressive towards me, Kace seemed to develop an intolerance of anything to do with me and seemed to hate everything I did. The spite he then levelled toward me was frightening.

Ultimately, my decision had been to completely submit my body to him and let him have sex, rather than to put up a fight. I wasn’t submitting to him out of trust but out of fear of what might have happened if I refused, and if I just lay there the whole ordeal was over much quicker.

Bruising my neck when he bit me on the last occasion gave me feelings of another level of degradation. Feeling low and dirty at the hands of my own partner had my stomach churning over with nerves, but I sucked it all up and waited for him to go to work the next day before I let my feelings out.

Once he had left for work, I scrubbed my skin for hours. My own focus on my work wasn’t on form and it had suffered because of what was happening at home. Eventually, by mutual agreement I had to resign my post.

Being stuck home was the worst thing that could’ve happened to me. At twenty two years old, I had become a master at concealing my bruises from my friends and family. I also discovered how good an actress I was in the presence of them.

I knew instantly the first time he had an affair, because he came home with a huge bouquet of flowers, and I saw glimmers of the old Kace in his attentive, complimentary behavior. The guilty look and the sudden attention he paid me spoke volumes.

Devastated by his treatment of me, I had felt even lower both in my mood and my self- esteem. Kace had me feeling so unattractive I had begun to have skewed thoughts that he deserved to be with women who could be more attentive towards him.

When he knew I knew about her, he projected his anger onto me, telling me I didn’t care enough about him when I could let him do that and this was the first time he really lost it and hit me.

One hard slap across my face was all it took to change my life completely. Our loving relationship was gone forever. Mistrust and fear had taken over and his domineering and manipulative behavior came to the fore.

Kace threatened that if I ever told anyone he’d hit me, he’d tell them it happened under extreme provocation, when he had found out about my affairs. That kept me scared because I knew that Kace always held the room captivated when he spoke, so I knew he was very clever and capable of convincing people that his life was so awful, that by the time he was done spinning his story they would have been lining up to give him a medal for staying with me.

I couldn’t have risked that happening. There was no way I wanted to be put in the position of defending myself, especially to my parents, they idolized me. So, I said nothing and the mental abuse continued, but the physical violence was on hold again.

To be honest, I was thankful for Kace’s affairs because when he was with those women, he wasn’t at home beating on me. Although I was repulsed one morning when he’d come home smelling of sex, perfume and liquor and had tried to climb on top of me.

That was the one time I fought back and paid dearly for it. He hit me so hard, I was dizzy and sick. I read up on it and from the bang on the head he gave me when he struck it on the wall, I knew I had a concussion.

Stuck in hell. That was how I felt, and I couldn’t see any way out of the horrible life I had fallen into. Kace’s mind games had messed with my head to such an extent, I was scared to be around him, but even more frightened to be without him.

However, that all changed the day of my twenty fourth birthday. For almost two years I had suffered the life he was dealing me, when the letter threw me a life line.

I had been stuck in a terrible situation and I couldn’t see any way out of the horrible life I had fallen into. Kace’s mind games had messed with my head to such an extent I was scared to be around him, but even more frightened to be without him.

Collecting the mail from the box at our apartment block, there was a rare letter for me. Apart from the two birthday cards from Ruby and my parents, there was a crisp, white, expensive looking, watermarked business envelope addressed to me.

Correspondence by mail by anyone toward me was a rarity with me being a stay at home partner and completely reliant on Kace for everything. So when I saw the expensive looking envelope with the lawyer’s stamp on the back I was anxious to know what it was about.

Pushing my fingernail under the seal, I ripped it open while I headed in the direction of the elevator to go back to the condo. Expensive watermarked paper with gold embossed lettering stated that it was from Sherman, Braun, and Partners, Attorneys at Law, Will & Probate specialists, and it showed an address in New York. Bunching my brows, I frowned, wondering what in the hell a law firm was doing writing to me.

Dear Ms. Jenner,

We are writing to inform you that as of the 20th April 2014, you are now in control of the trust fund set up in your name by George Alexander Jenner, on 13th May 1991. Please contact Mr. Francis Sherman at the above address at your earliest convenience, to claim control of said trust and complete the necessary transfer of title deeds for property in your trust. If you have any questions regarding this correspondence please do not hesitate to contact me during office hours. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully

Francis Sherman, P.A.

My legs buckled and a grabbed a hold of the mail box to steady myself. After reading the letter for the sixth time, I pulled out my cell to call the number. I was trembling and my heart was almost beating out of my chest, because I so needed what the letter to be true.

My fingers were shaking so badly I could hardly punch in the number out. As the line connected, adrenaline coursed through my body at such speed that it made my heart pound even faster than the effect of the letter and I had a metallic taste of shock in my mouth.

After several minutes of speaking with the fast talking New York lawyer, Mr. Sherman, I learned that I was the owner of a small apartment in New York and I had a trust fund of eight hundred thousand dollars. Everything he had said sounded incredulous.

My dad’s father, my grandfather, had left my parents a house worth two hundred thousand dollars and about eighty thousand in cash, but there was no mention of me in his will that I was aware of. I was only a baby when he died.

Ringing my dad to check if this was true, my heart fell to the pit of my stomach when he told me he knew nothing about any apartment, or other money belonging to my grandfather. So I called Mr. Sherman back and asked him to talk to my dad, because I had begun to think the whole thing was a hoax.

When my dad called me back, I could hear the smile and excitement in his voice. “It’s true, honey. I spoke with your attorney and he’s Frank Sherman you're granddad's friend. He wasn't able to tell me about the trust before due to client privilege, but as you gave permission, he told me that the apartment had been rented out for all this time and maintained by the trust fund. Until recently it had a life-long friend of your grandfather’s living in it, but he died and as soon as he did your trust fund was to be released to you. Mr. Dunn died last month, so the lawyers had twenty eight days grace to wrap up his affairs and free it up to pass on to you.”

Stunned, my dad was as stumped as I was about my inheritance. He had no idea my grandfather had this amount of money stashed anywhere. My next request to my dad should have sounded strange, but I asked my dad not to tell anyone, until I had my head clear about what this meant to me.

Twenty four hours later, when Kace had gone to work, I met with Mr. Sherman at a local hotel. Coincidently he was flying to Florida on vacation hence the speed of our meeting. “For twenty odd years I’ve wondered what you looked like. You have a lot of your grandmother in you, she was a very beautiful woman as well.”

Explaining that he was also a personal friend of my grandparents, and one of my grandfather’s closest, Mr. Sherman told me the title deeds were held in his name as trustee, so the transfer would be simple. We both signed in the presence of two notaries that Mr. Sherman had lined up as witnesses, and he faxed it back to his office for them to handle.

“Your grandfather knew he was dying and his one regret in life was not living long enough to get to know you. The apartment paperwork will be completed in due course, but there is no reason why you can’t have the keys now, Chloe. You are free to do whatever you wish with it. If you intend to sell you’ll have to wait for the transfer of the title deeds to be recorded. Under the terms of the trust I am permitted to transfer one tenth of the trust today and the rest will be freed to you in seven to ten working days after signing. As you have signed all the necessary paperwork and provided me with your bank account details, my office will transfer $80,000 to your account this afternoon. As previously discussed the $800,000 is your net worth after taxes.”

When he handed me the keys to my apartment, I wrapped my fingers around them and all my pent up emotions almost choked me. Not because this was a connection to my dead grandfather, but because I had just been handed a life line. Working a swallow hard, I placed the keys safely into my pocket.

A plan to escape had been forming in my mind ever since I’d been given the news and I knew I had to leave Kace and claim my life back. I was frightened about how to do that, but no matter how scary that felt to me or how lacking in confidence I felt, I knew that my life depended on it.

CHAPTER 8 – COWARD

Chloe

After I met with Mr. Sherman, I went to see my parents. Finally telling them what had been happening to me. I was feeling embarrassed and ashamed about telling them, worried as well, because I thought my dad would go ballistic and I just wanted to get away.

I hadn’t seen them face to face for a couple of weeks and both of my parents were devastated when they saw my bruised face. My heart pounded in my chest and ached because I knew I was hurting them when I told them about Kace and even more when they realized it wasn’t a one-off event.

Tears streamed down my mom’s face as I told them the only way forward, would be to get as far away from him as possible, but my dad was furious and wanted me to stay with them and to go to the police.

That made me panic as well because the thought of going through something like a trial on top of everything I had already faced felt like too much to deal with.

Eventually, once we had finished talking and my dad saw the state I was in dad very reluctantly came around to my way of thinking. I could simply disappear and live my life in safety fourteen hundred miles away. Kace would have no idea about the apartment or the money, so would never suspect where I had gone.

I could have gone to stay at a hotel and not gone back at all, maybe I just wasn’t thinking straight or maybe I just knew how Kace was always one step ahead and would find me before I could get away.

One thing I knew was that if I was going to leave, it had to be impulsively or I would talk myself out of it. My mom nearly fainted when I made the decision to leave the next day. I had somewhere to live and enough money to do that the rest I’d figure out as I went along.

So I went home for the last night and as frightened as I was I knew it would give me closure. I could see my parents were frightened for me but I’d lived with it for the past year another night of survival I could manage.

Flight SB 11 was booked by my dad’s secretary to cover my tracks by the time I left my parents and I was flying to New York the following day, but meanwhile I had to try to contain my nerves and disguise my apprehension from Kace.