Whatever He Wants (41 page)

 
     
“That’s okay. If you have your own private
gym, why do you have a gym membership?”

 
     
“I use my home gym when I wake up in the
morning and since the gym membership is a perk for all the executives at my
company, I usually go there when I get off work.”

 
     
“That makes sense.”

 
     
They fell silent again as he pulled into a
garage. He led her through a side door.  “Wow, this place is nice.” It was
something right out of
Dynasty
. And
she thought her penthouse was pretty fancy. She was aware of his wealth but it
still amazed her that people actually lived like this.  “It’s pretty big
for one person.”

 
     
“Yes, but I’d always intended to marry and
start a family.”

 
     
“The average family can do quite well with
a house one-tenth of this size. Not that I’m knocking it. It’s a beautiful
home.”

 
     
“It’s not a home; this place is just
somewhere to rest my head. It’s really just a status symbol that appealed to my
ego at the time I bought it.”

 
     
“You make it sound so bad. You have the
money to purchase it. It’s not like you’re living beyond your means.”

 
     
“I guess, but I’m just telling you this
place doesn’t really hold much meaning for me. Can I get you something to
drink?”

 
     
“What? No butler to take care of that?”
she teased him.

 
     
He smiled but shook his head. “I’m not
home enough to appreciate a butler and I never really figured out what their
purpose was.
How about that drink?”

 
     
“No thanks.” He led her to a sitting room
that was elegantly decorated.

 
     
She chose a seat on the edge of a leather
arm chair, and James took the seat at the end of the couch catty-cornered from
her. Their knees almost touched and she quickly repositioned herself. The man
affected her in ways she couldn’t control. She was just here to talk. “So,” she
prompted him to start as he continued to stare at her with that impenetrable
gaze.

 
     
“I’m sorry. I can’t help staring because
you’re so beautiful.” It had only been recently when Noelle was able to view
herself as an attractive woman, but it was still difficult to take a compliment
at face value. When James said it, however, she knew he meant it. She could
feel it.

 
     
“You’re stalling.”

 
     
“Sorry,” James said again with a grin.
“But I’m sure you understand how difficult it is opening up about a difficult
past.”

 
     
“Of course.”

 
     
“My childhood wasn’t pretty either. My
mother was a drug addict and I didn’t know who my father was until I was nine.”

 
     
Noelle gasped. “Oh, James, I’m sorry.”

 
     
“It’s not as bad as you think. She was
more neglectful than abusive, even though she had her moments. I had her
father, my Grandpa Lou.  Like your mother, my grandfather was my best
friend. He took care of me and looked out for me.  He was my hero.”

 
     
“He must have been very special.”

 
     
“He was. But he worked a job that involved
hard, back-breaking labor which eventually debilitated him.  He was
wheelchair bound after an accident on the job, probably when I was around
eight. At that point the line was kind of blurred on who was taking care of
whom. My mom would disappear for weeks, sometimes months at a time, mostly on
drug binges or because she found some new man to fund her habit. But getting
back to when I learned who my father was, I learned his name was Stephen
Alexander of
AlCore
. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of
it but it was a pretty big deal. They were industrial suppliers. The
Alexanders
had money, status and the whole nine yards. I
found out about Stephen at his funeral.”

 
     
“That’s awful, James.”

 
     
“I couldn’t feel something for a man I’d
never met but I was always curious about him of course. What kid wouldn’t
wonder about his father? My mother would mention him from time to time but it
was never kind words. So one day she takes me to his funeral and tells me that
man is my father. It’s the day I meet Sheldon Alexander, excuse me but I refuse
to call that evil son of a bitch my grandfather. Anyway, there was no denying I
was an
Alexander,
I looked just like a younger version
of Stephen. Anyway, when Sheldon and I first meet, he looked at me and called
me a bastard.”

 
     
“That’s so cruel. You were just a child.”

 
     
“I guess in his opinion it was never too
early to put his inferiors in their place. I would later learn when I got a
little older that my grandfather had been the
Alexanders’
gardener and that’s how my mother and father had met. My father was already
married and his wife fell pregnant around the same time my mother did. From my
understanding she was told to abort me and when she didn’t my grandfather lost
his job. My mother wasn’t the maternal type so I can only assume she thought
she’d get a steady stream of funds if she kept me. But it didn’t quite turn out
that way for her. I think my father may have given her money from time to time
but Sheldon controlled the purse strings in that family. He also made sure my
grandfather wouldn’t find decent work around town. He had to resort to taking
menial jobs, under–the-table jobs, until he hurt himself. And even though we
struggled my grandfather made it seem like we were the richest family in the
world. I never considered us poor until I attended the
Goodwell
Academy. That’s a private academy for the children of the very wealthy. Turns
out after my father died, he’d left money for my education to go the academy
he’d attended as a boy. That’s when I realized we weren’t rich at all. Not only
weren’t we wealthy, I was
a nobody
. From the time I
attended that school, I was made aware that my shoes weren’t designer-made. I
didn’t have a two thousand dollar back pack and I couldn’t afford to go on the
expensive field trips. And David, my half-brother who also attended the school,
led the charge.”

 
     
Noelle raised her brows in surprise. “The
David you’d told me about before was your brother?”

 
     
“Yes. I suppose tormenting me was his way
of distancing himself from me. I got the nickname ‘welfare’ because the other
kids saw me as a charity case. There wasn’t a day that didn’t go by when I
wasn’t taunted or beat up in the adolescent years. The headmaster looked the
other way because he was essentially an employee of these kids’ parents. Once I
hit my growth spurt and learned to defend myself, the physical bullying ceased
but the social torment continued. I tried to fit in by excelling in class and
joining sports teams, and though I did well, the kids still talked about my drug
addict mother and called me white trash, most of the time when they knew I was
within hearing distance. They’d pretend they didn’t mean for me to hear it but
I knew that wasn’t the case.”

 
     
Noelle closed her eyes as she listened to
his story. Hearing how badly he’d been tormented in school brought back some of
the meaner pranks the kids had pulled on her. The one she remembered most
vividly was when she’d worn a pair of light-colored pants to school. One of the
girls who happened to be dating her cousin Derrick had poured some chocolate
pudding on a seat, knowing Noelle would inadvertently sit in it. The kids
laughed at her and said she
crapped
her pants. It was
a joke to them but she’d cried herself to sleep that night. It saddened her to
know James had suffered a similar torment among his peers. “I’m so sorry,
James.”

 
     
“Thanks, but I’m not telling you this to
gain sympathy, it’s just how things were. Despite all that, I still tried to
fit in and get those people to like me and they never did, but one day I got
partnered with Gillian Jamison in chemistry. She was probably one of the more
popular girls in school. She was gorgeous and sweet, or at least I believed she
was. And the best part was
,
she liked me too. She
didn’t care about my background. I fell head over heels. We dated most of our
senior year. She made school bearable. I thought things were looking up but
they took a turn for the worst. My mom, who had been missing for almost a year,
was found dead in an alley from an apparent overdose. The kids were ruthless. I
didn’t really love her as much as a son should but she was still my mother. We
didn’t have much money to bury her but my grandfather borrowed against his
whole life policy to give her a proper burial. I think the only reason her
death affected me was because it was so hard on Grandpa Lou. To shorten this
already long story, one of David’s cronies kept pushing my buttons until I
snapped. I beat the shit out of him and broke his nose. I was expelled with
only had a semester to go.”

 
     
“Didn’t they understand the other guy
started it?” Noelle asked, outraged at the injustice.

 
     
James smirked. “You forget, I was
a nobody
and this kid’s family was old money. I was actually
quite lucky not to end up in jail. I’d had a scholarship lined up at Yale but I
lost it because of my expulsion. I had to take the test for my GED instead of
getting that prestigious
Goodwell
diploma. It broke
my grandfather’s heart because I know he was looking forward to seeing me walk
across that stage.”

 
     
“That’s terrible.”

 
     
He grimaced. “It actually worked out the
way it was supposed to. My grandfather became really ill with an aggressive
form of cancer. The cost of treatment alone exceeded his Medicare coverage and
while I’d picked up a few jobs to help us make ends meet it wasn’t enough. Now
mind you, I’d never asked the
Alexanders
for anything
but for my grandfather, I was willing to swallow my pride. So I made an
appointment with Sheldon. I was actually kind of surprised that he agreed to
see me. I found it odd that he wanted the meeting to be at one of the
apartments he kept and not at his office. I didn’t think too much of it because
I was focused on asking for financial help for Grandpa Lou.”

 
     
James gulped and his hand began to shake.

 
     
“Do you need a moment?” Noelle asked
softly.

 
     
“No I have to get this out or I never
will.” He hesitated for a few more seconds before continuing. “I made it clear
to Sheldon I’d pay back every penny and then…he told me nothing in life was
free. Before I knew what he meant, he grabbed me by the neck and slammed me
against the wall. I was surprised at first because I didn’t expect it. He took
my arm and twisted it behind my back until I thought it would snap. He was so
strong and the more I struggled the tighter he held on. Next thing I know he
bent over a table and he’s calling me these names, vile names, variations of
what my school tormenters called me but more sexual. But I’m not even sure if
it was about the sex or more about humiliating me. He wanted to show me he had
the power and I was nothing. He said as much to me.”

 
     
“He raped you?” Noelle whispered in shock.
What kind of person would do something like this to his own flesh and blood?

 
     
“He didn’t penetrate me if that’s what
you’re asking but it wasn’t from lack of trying. He almost did. I still have
nightmares about his cold hands on my body and his old shriveled dick on my
back. I fought harder than I ever had and broke away from him. I got out of
there as quick as I could but not before belting him in the face. And as I ran,
I hear him chuckling because he knows my grandfather will die without the care
he needed. I also think he laughed because at the end of the day he knew there
was nothing I could do about it. A few months later Grandpa Lou died. On the
night I sat in the hospital with him, as he took his last breath, Gillian
called me to break up. She ended up with my brother subsequently. I think when
I buried my grandfather a part of me died. That’s when I set my goal to never
beg. I wouldn’t beg acceptance, I’d demand, I’d have the best of everything:
money, power, women, and the perfect trophy wife”

 
     
 
“Everything was going according to plan and
then I met you and I was confronted with that boy I was and it angered me
because I didn’t want to feel that helpless again. You made me feel vulnerable,
and I fought and raged against it. I was nasty to you because I didn’t want to
be weak for anyone.  But the truth is
,
I was
already weak because I wasn’t really in charge of life like I believed I was. I
used my past as excuse for becoming a dick. And, truth
be
told, all the material things I thought would make me happy don’t mean much to
me. And now that Sheldon is gone, I hope he’s roasting for what he’s done, to
all the people he tormented, but it doesn’t change anything. There comes a
point in a person’s life when they have to stop blaming other people for their
life choices and start taking responsibility for
themselves
.
I’m halfway there I think, but like you said earlier, healing takes time.”