Taken Love (7 page)

But I wanted his release deep inside of me, or in my mouth, as well as on my body. I wanted to lie there, dripping wet with the mixture of us inside me, and covered in sweat, just like I used too. Maybe that day would come again when I could have some protection in that area, but for now, I needed some protection from the rage that awaited me, once I told him my plans to start school week after next. He wiped me down with a warm cloth, and came back to lie beside me. He leaned over and kissed me deeply, and I hesitantly kissed him back. He then opened his eyes and looked at me, narrowing his eyes, trying to read me. “What’s wrong, baby?” He asked, lying beside me, our feet’s tangled in the other’s as he rubbed his hand down my arm, looking at me expectantly.

“I need to talk to you about something.” I stated, and swallowed rather loudly.

“WHAT IS IT baby?”

“I’m going back to school.  I’m starting at Columbia in two weeks.” His face immediately changed into one of anger, he exhaled harshly, releasing me from his  arms,  and  I  could  feel  the  draft  hit  me immediately.

“Are you asking me, or just telling me this?” He snapped, shrugging his shoulders, looking at me completely flustered. He sat on the edge of our bed, slipping back on his boxer briefs, and handing me my underwear. I snatched them from his hand, and put them back on, as he exhaled harshly. He ran his fingers through his hair, staring away from me, the tension radiating off of him in waves. We didn’t fight a lot, or even disagree too often, but when it did happen, it was pretty intense. He wanted to control everything, and I wanted what I wanted from him, when I wanted it. So it was a battle of wills until one of us cracked, and it was normally me. Once he got his hands on me I would normally cave. I just couldn’t resist his touch. We were both still growing up, and we were trying to do that together, and we were succeeding, for the most part. I think as long as we were honest with one another, we were doing very well. I had nothing to complain about on that front. He was always honest with me, and so was I… except with this. He then turned towards me, and just stared at me in silence, as I sat up, moving closer to him.

“I want to go, JP, I really don’t want to waste time sitting here while you’re out there getting a jump start on
your
future.”

“Ours,” He quickly corrected me. “Our future together, Kathleen. You have everything you need here, and you couldn’t wait and take a year off? We talked about this already, we’re supposed to wait a year.”

“I changed my mind… I mean, haven’t you?” I heard his sharp intake of air.

“I am making investments to secure our future, baby, I want to make this money work for us, and our livelihood. I want us to have it all, and I want to have a successful business.”

“You will, and I know you are, but I want some things too. I’m not asking you to go, JP.” His eyes widened at my brazen words. “I’m asking you how you’d feel if I got a small efficiency near the University, so I don’t have to commute here during the week.” He stood abruptly, and I could feel that his anger was reaching an all-time high. His fists were balled, and his shoulders were stiff. When he looked over at me, growling, that’s when I knew it… he was pissed.

“You want to
leave
me?” He snapped, yelling as if he were a madman. I started to move near him, crawling on the bed near the edge.

“No, I just want too—.”

“You’re not going anywhere, do you hear me, Kathleen?” I stopped my movement, and raised up onto my knees, staring at him in silence. Why was he so upset, it was just college? “You did all this on you own, why didn’t you discuss this with me?” He yelled. “I don’t know, I couldn’t find the right time.” I muttered.

“We live together, so how could you
not
find the right time?” He snarled.

“JP, this doesn’t change anything. I’m still your wife, and I love you.” He huffed, and walked towards me, grabbing both my shoulders.

“If you go, this changes everything, Kathleen,
everything
.” He grated out. That was when I saw it, as his eyes roamed over my face. I realized there was panic in his eyes.
But why?

“Why would everything change, Johnathan? Don’t keep things from me, we should have no secrets… none at all. ” I cried, not being able to hold back the tears that now fell from my eyes, as he stared at me in torment.
What was wrong? Why was he panicking like this? What did he mean everything would change? Would he not want me anymore?
His eyes closed, and he looked as if he was thinking too hard. When his eyes met mine again, they were teary.

“We would lose it all, Kathleen.” He muttered.

“All of what?” I asked. I continued to look at him, as confusion washed over me, I had no idea what he was talking about. But now I knew this was serious, because he looked as if he wanted to vomit. The panic, the anxiety, the fear all consumed him now. Johnathan Pierce was freaking out about something, something I didn’t know about. The truth hit me like a Mack truck…
he was
keeping a secret from me.
I then felt his hands tighten around my shoulders, and I felt my nerves getting the best of me. The more time that passed, I was losing it. I was shaking, and tears continued to fall from my eyes, at what my husband had to literally muster up the strength to confess to me. I was waiting anxiously for him to continue, needing to know what was wrong, and how could I help make it all better.
What did he need from me? What could I do?
I couldn’t fix the problem if I didn’t know what it was, so he had to tell me. He had to tell me right now. I blinked at him and took a deep breathe, not being able to withstand another moment of this deafening silence from him. “All of what, JP, please tell me? What would we lose?” I asked again. He sighed, and swallowed, he took a deep breath, and his mouth parted.

“The money.” He uttered, and I could see the shame in his features. I flinched my eyes, not fully understanding what he meant. He had a trust, and it’s for him, so how could he lose that?

“I don’t understand what you mean. How could you lose something that was given to you?” I whimpered.

“Yes, it was given to me, but it came with specific stipulations to gain access to it… and to keep that access.” He whispered, and I lowered my head, trying to breathe. I knew a little about trust fund stipulations from Blair’s, she complained all the time about her very limited access to hers all the time over the years. Blair’s trust had stipulations that required her to complete a minimal of five years of college at a law school. I never really asked him about his trust, or if there were any stipulations in his obtaining access to it.
I mean why would I?
When a lawyer hands you a check, and it clears, what more do you really need to know? I always assumed that he needed to graduate high school to gain half of his trust, but now as I think about it, while he gazes nervously at me, that assumption seems a little ridiculous and juvenile.
Who gives a high school graduate access to ten million dollars?

His parents were smart, and very successful in the financial markets, so they wouldn’t have been that crazy. They had died from a car accident years ago, and had already set up his trust, and the stipulations for access beforehand. Which had to be honored whether they were alive or dead, I presumed. I looked up, and found myself glaring at him, as the realization dawned on me that there was a catch to all this. “What were the stipulations, JP?” I asked him through clenched teeth, because I now knew I had something to do with it.

“I had to get married first.” I gasped, and he shook his head at me, not believing how his own words sounded. “But ba—” I slapped him so hard my hand stung, and I cried out in pain.

“You... you… ASSHOLE!” I screamed. I hopped off the bed, and he ran after me, grabbing my arms.

“Baby, I love you. I didn’t marry you for the money.” He pleaded, as I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t think straight. My world had stopped spinning, I was flabbergasted. As he shivered in panic while staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I felt as if I couldn’t put two sentences together, I was devastated.

“You didn’t... tell me... this. You kept this... away... from me. You married me... to… inherit… your fortune.” I panted each word, talking to myself more so, than to him. If I thought he looked panicked before, after glancing up at him, he really looked panicked now. “I mean… nothing to you.” I cried, as tears fell from my eyes, lowering my head, feeling completely defeated.

“NO, NO, KP.” I snapped my head back up to his, as I breathed him in, and felt disgusted.

“Don’t
you
call me KP, do you hear me? You don’t deserve me. You used me!” I yelled.

“I wanted to tell you, but my family—.”

“Was there another stipulation for you? An alternative, in case you didn’t get married?” I hissed, and he exhaled, completely frozen at my question, and then he nodded.

“A degree from college, a four year college degree, or marriage were the only two stipulations.” He sighed. “Kathleen, please, I only wanted to be able to take care of you like you deserved to be taken care of baby. I love you with all that I am.” He pleaded, releasing one of my arms, placing it over his heart.

“I was never rich, Johnathan, money means nothing to me. Honesty, trust, love and respect means so much more. Our vows… mean the most to me. You,
meant
the most to me.” He gasped at my use of the word “meant,” which placed him as a figment of my past. “You broke our vows, and omitted the truth this whole time. Let me go… I’m leaving.” I breathed.

“Kathleen, fuck the money. Don’t leave me. I need you, I need you every day, baby… please, please.” He urged and pleaded with me.

“You could have told me before or after I fell in love with you, I would have still married you, Johnathan. But you knew all along, the guilt eating you up… and
you said nothing
.” I snatched my arms from his, as he stood there in shock. “You’ve broken my heart, Johnathan, and now you can add that to the very long list of Kathleen’s firsts, that are either given, or
taken,
by Johnathan
Asshole
Pierce.” He gasped at my words, and I knew I hurt him, but he hurt me too. I turned and walked to the bathroom, and slammed the door, I ran the shower and cried harder than I’ve ever cried before. I felt like I was dying. My heart was split open and bleeding on the inside.
All this for money?
He lied, and deceived me for his trust, and now everything we’ve shared… was now in question.

This was just terrible, and my pain continued to magnify, as the tears poured out. My legs felt numb. I could hear him yelling for me, while banging on the bathroom door, but I wanted no part of him.
Did he ever love me? Was I always just a transaction to him?
I wanted nothing to do with someone like that, someone who put money and power over human emotions, love and commitment. The words I said to Blair not too long ago came back to my mind.
“I would never understand why people let money change them. I saw it all the time. Money became a religion for some, it controlled their lives, but I never understood such idiocy.”

Well, now millions of those little green bills with dead presidents on them, have now done the ultimate. They'd cost me my marriage, my best friend, and my will to trust any man. Operation ignore that asshole was now back. But since I could never fully ignore
that
asshole, I will ignore
all
assholes. Operation ignore all assholes, sounds good at this point, it’s what I needed. I needed to focus on me, and my life, and not on anyone else. I would go off to college, using the funds my grandparents left me, as originally planned, and face life alone, as a soon to be divorced woman. My soon to be ex-husband could go to college, and gain access  to  his  funds  rightfully,  by  obtaining  his degree, leaving me the hell out of it. We were supposed to facing the world together as husband and wife, but things don’t always go as planned, do they?
Was a broken heart tolerable? Why aren’t half-truths perceived as lies? Are you really ever fully aware of other people’s motives? Were the sacrifices really worth it? Will I ever believe the words of another man?
I didn’t know the answer to any of those questions anymore, and I had no intentions to find out.
It’s over
.

HE WHO WAS once a boy, is now a man. A man who now stands 6’2 in height, whose broad shoulders   compliments   his   toned   and chiseled chest of masculinity. A man whose feared and solidified, as an unmovable force, one to be reckoned with in the realms of entrepreneurship. A man who has graduated college with a double major in finance and business. A man who has managed to turn his twenty million dollar trust fund, into a billion dollar empire. May I please re-introduce, the CEO of P2 Enterprises, Mr. Johnathan Pierce. CEO, multi-millionaire, and entrepreneur of a world-wide investment firm based out of New York City and Paris. He’s also a playboy, but by choice. His heart was consumed whole a long time ago, by a girl named Kathleen Toth-Chamberlin, who is long gone, but has never been forgotten.

        ***

It’s been four years since she left me and ran away, but not before telling me that I was dead to her. Not before telling me to forget her, and that she wanted nothing to do with me. Not before I had broken her in two, and I find myself regretting my decision, in not telling her everything every single day of my miserable life. I knew that she was the only woman on this earth who deserved to carry the name Pierce, but she no longer wanted what came with that name.
Me
. It all happened so fast, I still have whiplash when I think about it. She yelled, screamed, slapped me, and pounded her fists on my chest as she cried. She called me names, and threw things at the wall, before she left the house that day and never came back… ever. She’d sent her mother and brother to get her things that next week, and she filed for divorce a month later.
I was devastated
. I still am devastated. Not just because she left, not just because I’m still madly in love with her… but because now I can’t find her. After she left me, she went on to Columbia and majored in creative writing and environmental science, and she had not once, contacted me, or responded to any of my relentless calls or texts. Eventually she changed her number, and I had to accept that she didn’t want to talk to me again. She had just upped and moved to New York, to go to school, moving into one of the dorms. I, on the other hand, was determined to keep the place that we’d shared, while we were still together, and by any means necessary. With the pending retraction of access to my trust fund underway, after she’d filed to divorce me, I had limited financial options now. The whole situation had me thinking about things in a new light, and without any undue influence from anyone. I had a choice to make, one that I thought long and hard about before deciding. I made the choice to readmit my trust in full, before any decisions were made from my parent’s attorneys.

In doing so, I would only use the funds I was allotted after being married for three months. So, I could only keep upward of a million dollars, until I graduated college, or until she withdrew her petition for divorce. But she never did. I had no intention of signing it anyways, she wanted a divorce, and I didn’t. So I walked away with almost a million dollars, money that she was entitled to as well. Problem was, she didn’t want anything from me. I knew I had messed up, and made a huge mistake. But I felt in returning the trust of my own free will, that I had made the first step in the right direction. After I secured our condo, I went and paid my tuition in full for college, and took each day as best as I could. But who was I kidding, I was having some
serious
withdrawals. I missed her so much, it literally hurt every day to be without her. She was more than my wife, she was my best friend, she was my lover… she was my, everything. It hurt so bad that she didn’t want to talk to me, or see me, but I still saw her. I had my own way of keeping tabs on her. My Uncle Bobby always had his own financial firm, and a few assistants.

After she’d left me, he assigned one of his loyal assistants to me. He thought I was overwhelmed in my daily tasks, since there was so much going on in my life, and maybe he was right. But there was only one women who could help me, and she didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I really didn’t need any help in my work or schooling. I could handle my work load, and my schooling at Yale, because there was always motivation for me to succeed. What I couldn’t handle, was knowing that Kathleen was just out there, and I had no clue what she was doing or who with. I needed to see her, but after the fourth time I attempted to see her, where she ran in the other direction once she spotted me near her dorm. I decided right then to give her some space, she obviously needed it. I knew she was under a lot of pressure, with her schooling and academic demands, but I could see that she was still hurting.

After thinking of her being all alone in New York, my anxiety eventually got the best of me, and I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands. I decided to have my new assistant keeping an eye on her for me. His job duties would now include watching Kathleen. While it was seemingly
not
a part of his job description, I really didn’t care. He was hired to assist me, and that’s what he was there to do, in any way that I needed him to. I intended for him to watch her as I saw fit, that’s if he wanted to continue to work for one of the next CEO’s in the financial world. So ever since her second year of college, she was being watched. Not only for my personal needs, but for her safety as well. I had photos of her brought to me weekly, and I always had her class schedules. I even knew when and where she would work out, and for how long. It was strange seeing her body slowly developing, over the time we have been apart, her body was truly evolving into one of a goddess.

I knew her body, just like I knew my own, but both of us were growing and expanding into adulthood rather quickly, with good dieting and exercise. It wasn’t hard to see her new curves and structure, especially with her work out attire being so skimpy, too skimpy. I always liked when she wore those little outfits in the house while she worked out. They always made me cut her workouts short, with the need to devour her whole. Sometimes she had on a small tank top and short-shorts, or tight stretchy biker shorts and a matching halter top. Or just a sports bra and spandex skirt.
Hmmm…
I really loved
, and
enjoyed those photos, when delivered to me. Her new found curves were maddening, and I was desperate to taste her. I wanted to breathe her, and feel her sweat on my naked body. I wanted to come inside her, and re-claim what’s mine
. MINE!

Yes, I still crave her in every way imaginable… wouldn’t you? But in those other photos, she didn’t look as well as I would have liked her too. She looked so worn out and stressed, she was sad. The realization that it was
all
my fault, made me cringe inside. My assistant told me that she was almost always alone, she didn’t have a lot of friends she hung out with. She was never one to go looking for any new friend’s, parties, or new adventures, just to stay busy and open-minded. She didn’t like those kinds of distractions, and neither did I, unless it was with her. After seeing no changes in my weekly surveillance reports of her gloomy demeanor, for almost the entire four years she attended college. In that alone, made me stop the spying a few months into her fourth year at Columbia. I just couldn’t take looking at another photo or video of her moping around, looking as hurt as she felt on the inside… on the outside. Whether if she was at school, or at her parent’s house for the holidays, she was still so depressed and over thinking things. I could always tell when she would be thinking too much, whether in person, or in a photo. She was still in my heart, whether I saw her in person or not, but there was one thing missing. One thing lacking from within every photo I’d seen of her. One thing still lacking, while I watched her roam around the shops at Christmas time with her family, from the tinted windows of my BMW. It was the one thing that made her priceless to me…
Her fire
. There was always a
fire
in Kathleen, one that made her who she was. She was her own woman, no matter how young, she was free spirited and full of life. But now when I saw her, I knew she wasn’t free, and she was sailing through life on auto pilot. That fire I always loved about her was no longer there, and it was my fault. I never meant to hurt her, I never wanted to do anything to make her leave me. If only she could believe me, if only she could consider forgiving me. If only…