The Truth About Fairy Tales (5 page)

             
I ran away from him just like the last time, but I didn’t go home. Not right away.

             
I walked the wet streets for hours, before making my way back home. And then I called every single phone number I had for Ben, but he wasn’t taking any of my calls.

****

              The following morning, I woke up feeling sicker than I could ever remember feeling in my life.

             
I had a terrible cough and my body ached all over. I was certain it was all because of the long hours I’d spent out on the rainy streets.

             
I forced down hot tea and started taking just about everything I could find in my medicine cabinet without much luck.

             
By afternoon, I was no closer to feeling up to going into work than I was facing Ben again. I called in sick and prayed he'd just get on that plane tonight and disappear from my life, taking all of the mistakes I’d made since meeting him away with him to Paris.

             
I was not to be so lucky. It was still early in the evening when Ben knocked on my door. It took everything inside of me to answer it. In the end, I knew I owed him some explanation.

             
“Maggie, how could you do that to me?” He looked more hurt than I ever believed possible. “Is that really who you are—just another one of my uncle’s women? You know he has them falling all over him, don’t you? You won’t be anything special. You won’t be more than a number. Is that what you want? How can you let yourself be just another rotation in his weekly schedule of women to sleep with?”

             
That hurt. I didn’t know anything about those other women, and though the very thought of them hurt more than I could have imagined, I wasn’t really surprised. Wasn’t that was just the way I’d pictured Jackson. Cold and uncaring where women and relationships were concerned. Just liked he’d been with me.

             
“Ben, it’s not like that. I can’t explain it and I certainly won’t try to make excuses for my behavior last night. I don’t know how it happened.”

             
“Oh really? Give me a break, Maggie. You’re just like all the others. I only thought you were special. So how many times have you slept with him? I can only imagine how funny the both of you must have found all my fawning to be. Did you joke about it? I hope you’re happy, because you’ll never mean anything to him. I would have loved you. I cared about you. To me, you were special.”

             
At those heartbreaking words, Ben headed for my door. I realized he hadn’t said anything about Paris.

             
“Ben where are you going?”

             
His laughter sounded far bitterer than I could ever believe possible from Ben. He looked at me with contempt written all over him.

             
“I’m not going to Paris. And you and my uncle can both go to hell.” I was too stunned to do anything more than watch as Ben walked out of my life like I’d told myself for weeks now I wanted.

             
I paced my tiny apartment, not sure what to do. The more I thought about Jackson’s callous behavior toward his own nephew, the angrier I became. Forget the fact that he’d treated me like what he believed I was. How could any human being treat his own flesh and blood that way?

             
Now, in my defense, if I hadn’t been hopped up on Nyquil I would never have gone over to his house that night. At least I had the foresight not to drive. I was out of control and I knew it wasn’t only because of the medication. I was angry and hurt and I wanted Jackson to feel some of the pain I was going through.

             
Even as common sense warned me to wait until I was feeling more rational, it still didn’t stop me from calling a taxi to take me to Jackson’s fancy mansion.

             
I paid the cabbie and sent him on his way not really considering how I was going to get home after I’d said what I came there to say.

             
I knocked on his door, actually, it was more like I banged on it not wanting to think about the fact that he might not be home—certainly not alone in there. I wasn’t sure which of those weekly women in the rotation would be in line for tonight, but I didn’t really care. I was angry and I was a woman scorned. The worst possible combination.

The second he opened the door and saw me standing there, it hit me through my medicine haze that he didn’t show any signs of surprise. In fact, he didn’t show any emotion at all. He merely stood aside and let me pass.

              Jackson had been expecting me. Probably thinking I couldn’t get enough of him. I barely gave him time to close the door before I turned and faced him ready to give him exactly what I’d been rehearsing in my head all afternoon.

             
All those carefully thought out words deserted me in the face of Jackson’s very seductive smile. I stood before him trying to focus on why I was here in the first place and not the smile. Then I remembered I hated him.

             
“Do you have any idea how much you’ve hurt Ben?” I practically yelled those words at him but still no reaction. No emotion at all. “Let’s just forget how you treated me for the moment—I mean I wouldn’t have expected anything different from someone like you. But think about what you’ve done to your own nephew! How could you do that to him? How could you hurt him that way? You broke Ben’s heart. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

             
That, at least, brought him out of his complacency. I’d finally gotten a reaction out of Jackson Riley, but it wasn’t what I wanted. It was all anger. And he was coming towards me very purposefully. I didn’t realize, until my back actually hit the glass behind me, that I had been moving as well. Every step that brought him closer to me, I took a step away from him.

             
“As I recall, I wasn’t in bed alone.” That subtle little comment made me flinch. He couldn’t have hurt me more had he actually hit me.

             
“And Ben will be fine—once he’s away from you that is.” That last part he added very deliberately. Jackson wanted to destroy that tiny amount of resolve I was still clinging to. It worked.

             
I tried to push him away, but he didn’t budge. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Ben isn’t going to fall in with all your plans for his life. He’s not going to Paris!” I expected to face more of his anger. Instead, he simply looked at me with that same calculating look I’d seen before.

For the first time, I realized how foolish I’d been by coming here tonight. What had I hoped to accomplish? I couldn’t change
his mind, or make him feel anything, especially not regret.

             
“He’s on the plane right now.” I knew he’d seen my skepticism before I could open my mouth and deny his words. “Care to make a bet? Pick up that cell phone of yours and call him right now… I dare you?” he added quietly.

             
Suddenly all the fight went out of me. I knew I was defeated. I’d never stood a chance really. Of course, Jackson always got what he wanted. Ben would be on that plane to Paris. I didn’t even doubt it anymore. There was no need to call. After all, I’d helped him make it all possible. I’d done exactly what he wanted. Jackson had won just as he knew he would from the beginning.

             
Now I only wanted to get away from him as fast as I could. To be alone with all of my realizations. “You’re right. I suppose you usually are. You always get exactly what you want don’t you?”

             
I expected that look of triumph again, but it wasn’t there. “He’s not in love with you. He’ll have forgotten you within a week there. The question is,” Had I only imagined Jackson’s voice sounding so gentle, almost seductive as his words brushed across my face. Or was it simply the effects of the Nyquil? “Are you in love with Ben?”

             
Jackson moved closer as he spoke. His hands were touching me again, but it wasn’t the same. There was nothing of the anger that had been there the night before. His fingers were gentle as they threaded through my hair, his thumb stroking down my cheek.

             
“I’m not answering that…” The second his lips touched my throat, I knew that I was. Whatever he wanted, I would do.

             
“Are you in love with my nephew, Maggie?”

             
“No…” I hated the way all of my emotions, every single effect his hands had on me were right there in the shaky sound of my voice. That sexy little laugh of his told me he knew he had me.

             
“Did you sleep with him?” He was so close, his eyes searching mine looking for the truth.

I shook my head.
I wasn’t ready to give it to him.

             
“Okay, we’ll leave that question for later, but you will answer it. You know that don’t you?”

             
He didn’t wait for my answer. He simply lifted me into his arms and took me to his bed.

             
We made with the same abandoned passion as before, but once the fire died away, my conscience returned along with my cold and I tried to get away. A little too late to be very convincing, but I could hopefully keep some of my self-respect.

             
Jackson had other plans for me. He stopped my escape easily enough by reaching for my hand.

             
“Where are you going?”

             
“I’m leaving. I should never have come here.” Boy did those words never ring more true. Of course, they were a lot too late to have much of an impact on him. Somehow, I managed to free myself from his grasp. He got out of bed and followed me.

             
“Come back to bed, Maggie.”

             
“Let me go. All I want to do is go home.” Jackson stopped my struggling by taking me in his arms. It was then that he realized something was actually wrong with me. He was just about ready to toss me over his shoulder like some cave man, when his fingers touched my hot forehead.

             
“You’re burning up. Are you sick?”

Okay, at the first sound of concern in his voice, I almost lost it. I bit my lip and tried counting to ten. I wouldn’t cry in front of him. I wouldn’t.

             
“Yes, I’m sick and I want to go home.”

             
He ignored what I wanted all together. “Get back in bed where it’s warm.” When I didn’t move, he lifted me—not in primeval fashion, but a little too gentle for Jackson Riley—into his arms and back to his bed.

             
“Stay there.” He ordered before walking away from me. I couldn’t say a single word. I was biting my lip, praying that I wouldn’t disgrace myself further in his presence by crying.

             
“Here take these. They’ll help you feel better. I used them when I had a nasty cold a few months back. They’re good. Don’t worry,” he added at my skeptical look, “they’re not poisoned.”

             
“I can’t take them. I’ve been taking Nyquil all day.” Did that really sound as childish as it did to me? I prayed it was just my fever distorting my rational thoughts.

             
He laughed but didn’t budge. He still held those little pills out to me unrelenting. “It’s okay. You can take them—they won’t hurt you.” Once I’d swallowed his pills never bothering to ask him what they were, he got back into bed beside me and lay facing me.

             
Too close for comfort for someone fighting back tears.

             
“I could make you sick…” I whispered as he eased me closer.

             
Jackson smiled at my little girl voice. “Oh, I think I can handle anything you can give me, little bit.”

             
At the tender sound of those words, I did it—I lost it. I started to cry. Just before my tears took my vision away completely I could almost swear I saw a human emotion in those otherwise cold blue eyes.

             
Tenderness? Impossible.

             
Jackson gathered me in his arms and held me while I cried my foolish tears.

“Not so tough after all are you, little bit?”
he whispered against my ear and for the life of me, I think he meant that as a compliment.

Chapter Four

              I woke somewhere just before dawn and remembered where I was. All my mistakes came back to remind me that it was my own impulsive behavior that had brought me here. I was still in Jackson’s bed trying to remember just how many times we’d repeated those mistakes last night.

             
Slowly I untangled myself from his arms, hoping that he wouldn’t wake up and force me to face those mistakes again. I got lucky.

             
Jackson mumbled something incoherent in his sleep and turned over on his back. I got out of bed, searched around the floor where I knew I would find my clothes scattered around the room.