The Drazen World: Irrelevant (Kindle Worlds Novella) (6 page)

I don’t know if he hears the question underlining my statement. But he does s
eem to view me through new eyes. I try to push off the top of the bathroom sink because there’s not much left to say. We both know I’m right.

“Stop. Please.” He unties my robe, another “just because gift” from him, and my hands fall away as he pushes it off my shoulders. He leans forward and kisses my trembling lips, saying against them, “Once upon a time—”

“I don’t want to hear another sad story, Jon. Not now.” I turn away from him, heart breaking that he’s not hearing me.

He continues again like I never interrupted him with one of his large hands cushioning my cheek. “Once upon a time, a lowly stable hand ran into a little girl with hair the color of wheat.” He runs his hand through my dirty blonde hair. “She had eyes the color of a promising sunrise. He wasn’t himself that afternoon, believing he’d lost everything that mattered. Instead of worrying about her skinned knee, she helped him to his feet and dusted him off. Years later, they met again but under bad circumstances. Fucked up circumstances, really. He watched her dance under twinkling lights and wanted to be the man who could wrap his arms around her.”

My breath hitches in my throat. “Jon.”

He strips out of his clothing. Then he’s right back at my center that pulses with need for him. He’s tender and slow when he kisses me as if we have all the time in the world. “Please?” He’s at my entrance, asking me for permission.

“Yes.” I accept his hard length into my hot center, groaning at the immense pleasure of our joining.

“Don’t leave me. Stay. Stay with me. Stay with this boy with no name,” he pleads, pulling out. “You’re my air. I don’t exist if you’re not by my side. I’ll go back to being a nameless boy if you’re not with me.” Tears are all I have to give him at his surprising revelation. “I should’ve told you sooner, shown you how much you mean to me, Katherine.” He’s right back, pushing inside of me with strength and care as tears fall freely from his eyes onto my breasts. “I love you, baby girl.”

I lose it at his confession, falling over the cliff and crying with him. Too overcome, all I can do is nod. A groan of ecstasy comes from the depths of my soul as I come apart.

“I thought I knew what love was, but I didn’t. Not until you.” He pushes forward again.
“Not until I met you again, Katherine Smith.” He pulls out breathtakingly slow.
“Your arms are strong enough to pick me up and tender enough to lie within on days when I feel like I’ll never be anyone but a boy with no name.”

I suck in a deep breath, swept away by Jon. I’m physically spent, but he holds me up, supporting me with his strong embrace.

“I want my forever with you, and even then, that’s not long enough for me.”

I kiss him into silence, unable to take anymore.

“I love every single thing about you. Stay. Stay with me,” he begs again.

I wrap my arms around his neck, keeping him buried within me, and we fall over the cliff rapturously ... together.

Eleven

There’s a loud bang on the front door, waking me up from my sleep. When I reach the door, I’m robbed of words at the sight of Monica standing before me. Across from me, she’s fully made up, no dark hair out of place and in a black dress, which flaunts her slim curves. I feel childish in my Ironman pajamas, one of Jon’s favorite superheroes.

“Pack your things up. Your ‘personal assistant’ days are over,” she says, air quoting and spitting her distaste at my feet. She raises her head, facing me with a smile that radiates from her inner being, then steps closer to the door. “Your employer’s been shot. I just got the call.”

“What!” I clutch onto the door for support so my legs don’t give out from under me.

Her smile becomes even more effervescent, if that’s possible. “I received the exciting news an hour ago. I’m on my way to the morgue right now to identify the body.”

Tears trickle from my eyes and stain my cheeks.
I just spoke with Jon last night and everything was fine. He even promised this was his last out-of-town trip for a long time and he’d be home in time to celebrate his thirty-third birthday today.

She lowers her voice, looking me square in the eyes. “I knew who that bastard was the minute I met him again on Fifth Avenue. Hard to hide that red hair of his. Same nobody who knocked me up and tried to make me feel irrelevant about his full scholarship to Harvard and NYU and early graduation from high school. His low-class seed should’ve never been planted in my womb. That botched abortion I had to have to save my name took away my ability to ever have children with someone who truly deserves me. Jonathan Drazen robbed me!” I stagger back from the rabid animosity. “And to top it off, he brings you here. Flaunting his affair in my face … at my home!” She’s shaking in her rage. “A fucking irrelevant bitch and a stable boy. You two deserve each other.”

I open my mouth to say something, apologize for causing her pain unintentionally and to beg for answers.

“Another trip down a flight of stairs can always be arranged.”

Her chilly threat snatches the air out of my lungs, and I fall to my knees.

“Now pack your shit and leave my home!” Her gaze, filled with hate, speaks louder and more clear than the words she’s just uttered. “I won’t hesitate to call the police if you’re not gone in fifteen minutes.”
She’s a flurry of black dress when
she whirls away, my heart destroyed without a single care. My mind is confused about where I’m to go.

“This is your stop,” the Lyft driver tells me, snapping me out of my memory and back to the passenger seat of his compact car.

I step outside and face the early morning. A muggy kind of heat that makes my clothing stick to my body and sweat pour from me in a matter of minutes follows me as I climb the steps of one of Manhattan’s oldest places of worship. The imposing architecture, which almost kisses the powder blue sky, does very little to block out the scorching sun. I finally reach the top of the stone steps and pull hard on the overly large doorknob.

As soon as I enter, there’s a big, glossy picture of Jon in a dark gray suit seated on a desk at Drazen Inc.’s headquarters on Fifth Avenue. I don’t see the smile on his lips that I saw often in the cottage. He looks as I met him on the patio at his wedding reception: dark, imposing, dangerous. I hurry past the picture of the man the newspaper announced a week ago died inside a car driven too fast and wrapped around a street lamppost.

Each pew I go past is packed with notable faces such as former and current mayors from New York City to men and women who look like they’re conquerors in their respective fields. I don’t need a seat anyway because I don’t plan on staying. I join the back of the line to wait my turn for a chance to see him one last time.

My heart clenches and my stomach is as unsettled as it was when Monica shared the news of Jon’s death. My eyesight blurs with tears that won’t fall. I look up to see I’m next to be able to view the casket, and that’s when I think I hear the whispers off to my right. I keep looking forward, guessing the sources for the low commotion.

I almost stop breathing at the sight in front of me.

He’s so still.

I reach the front but can’t go closer to the casket. His suit is crisp and boasts of luxury as he’d worn all his clothing in life. But he’s so pale. His red hair is neat and slicked back. I find the courage to go closer and graze his patrician nose, then his lips with my fingers. My heart begins to hammer once again. My stomach somersaults, and my equilibrium is disrupted. An uncontrollable wail leaves me because everywhere I touch him is cold and stiff, not warm and soft as it once was.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Monica flings my hand from her husband’s face. I turn but can’t see below her wide-brimmed hat or beyond her darkly tinted sunglasses covering her eyes when she finally tips her head back.

“Leave. Now.” Maria’s on my other side, gritting her hate for me through her teeth.

Low chattering starts again. This time I’m not imagining it. The talk I hear grows louder as the three of us stand idle in front of the casket.

“Who is that?” I overhear a feminine voice ask.

When I peep over one of my shoulders, several women are definitely talking behind their hands and are wearing curious stares. I don’t have to worry about what they’re saying because eventually their words drift my way.

“I heard that was his mistress,” someone nears me says.

“Did you hear she was forced to have a threesome with them? Poor Mon. What that woman suffered through.”

Tears gather at the back of my eyes again at the vicious lie. The rumors, the gossip, and the innuendos all make me want to disappear, but surrounded as I am, there’s no way these two women will allow me to leave with my self-respect intact and my dignity not in shreds as they believe I deserve.

“I wonder if she has someone I can pass my number on to.”

The man audaciously winks my way, then uses his hands as a phone, mouthing
call me
.

“You’ll regret you stepped in here with your knock-off designer shoes in that cheap polyester suit, you low-life whore.” Monica grips me right above my elbow. Pain shoots out when she yanks me closer to her body. “Now get out of here before you regret being born ... even more.”

The lewd jeers behind me, the convoluted lies ... I snap. “I heard you. In the library.” I remember every word, have every scent memorized, and if I hear that mysterious man’s voice, I can identify it even while blindfolded. I may not know the name of the man, but I’m confident what I heard incriminates Monica in some kind of plot. Deep down, I know the truth even if I’ll never be able to prove it. “That’s the last time you put your hand on me.
You
had something to do with this, and you pushed me down those stairs. And if you ever threaten me again, I’ll be the first person at the police station.”

Color drains from her face. Her eyes are the size of saucers when she removes her glasses with her pale, shaky hands.

“Now, move
your
two-bit whoring self out of my way.” All the years of mistreatment, untruths that caused me to doubt my self-worth, the name calling ... Rage powers through my heart, and I’m one more breath from calling her out publicly. She wisely does as I ask. “You and your no-good mother have been clear from the start. You want nothing to do with me. That’s fine.” Beside me, Marie’s a ball of nervous energy, fidgeting her fingers against the fabric of her dress. “I didn’t intrude on your life,
sister
. Your heartless mother here sold my services to save her sorry behind.”

One of her hands is in the air about to land against the side of my face.

Through my brave lips, I say, “I dare you. It’ll be the last time you use that hand again, Monica.”

“Mrs. Drazen, don’t make a scene. There are people watching.” The man’s words are aimed at Monica, but he’s staring at me.

She seems to come back to herself, lowering her hand then pushing her glasses back over her black eyes. “
Then do your job and get her the hell out of here!” She stares at me for a long time then says, “If I never see your face again, it’ll still be too soon.”

“Likewise.” I turn away from the last of my family and follow behind the man with my head down. Then I remember Jon’s words.

Walk with your head held high. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.

So I do. I raise my chin higher, lifting my head up while the whispers trail me, haunting me as I’m shown to the side door of the church. I don’t leave through it, choosing to walk another path, through the door I entered before.

I refuse to feel cheap or to be treated as if I’m trash. Good, bad, or indifferent, Jon loved me. Me. And I’m worth walking through any door I choose, and I won’t ever choose the side door.

Twelve

Time moves slowly but it does move on. I go through the mundane like waking up, eating, and going to bed. I fill the rest of the hours with going to work. With each new sunrise that greets my replanted Asters in my new but small garden, a new Katie emerges. There’s a new zest in my step since my run-in with Monica and Marie. Standing up to them reinvigorated me. I surprised myself that day, but I no longer feel like an encroacher, someone who
only
has to take what’s dished out and served by others.

I walk in my kitchenette toward the stove to turn on the kettle. I don’t have much but my rental studio apartment is mine. The emergency money left by Jon in the cottage’s safe helped finance the apartment, but everything inside shows off my personality, my growing style, and things I’m learning that I like.

My verbal scuffle with Monica was an important step in my personal growth. But it was only a first step. One night when the mundane became overwhelming and I ended up crying rivers of tears watching a historical show featuring a hero who resembled Jon, I knew I needed an intervention. Not only to help me process my grief but one who could work with me to sort through my issues about my parents, my half sister and self-image.

Paying for a therapist isn’t cheap but it’s worthy every cent. With her help, I’m even trying new things like yoga and cycling to see what I enjoy, to know who I am. There’s not a day that I don’t miss or think about Jon, but I think he’d be proud of the woman I’m becoming.
Yeah, he’d be proud
, I think to myself, sitting in front of the television with my cup of coffee.

“We have breaking news. Channel Five has received word that Monica Drazen, wife of the late Jonathan Drazen III, was arrested late last night.”

I choke on the hot liquid and grab the remote to increase the volume.

“Mrs. Drazen and her mother, Marie Faulkner, were arrested in a murder-for-hire plot at the Drazen’s home in über exclusive Hyde Park.”
There’s a video image of Monica looking smug as she’s escorted from her mansion with her mother behind her. I peer closer at the screen, and rather than remorse, Monica’s smiling for the camera and pronounces her innocence.
“An insider close to the investigation told us that the plot to kill Mr. Drazen, founder of a multi-national technical security corporation, was put in motion before they married a year ago.”

Well I’ll be damned!

The reporter goes on to other news, but I’m still reeling even as I head out for my yoga class. I’m so distracted that I wobble through the worst warrior pose since my two-week start and almost lose my balance attempting a tree pose. I’m still beating myself up for not being focused in class as I head up the few steps to my front door. A distinct cologne wafts into my nostrils and stops my ascent.
Maybe you’re losing it.
Then I tell myself Jon wasn’t the only male who ever wore that scent. I take another step and stop dead in my tracks.

“Hey, baby girl.”

“Wha-what’s going on?” He’s here and alive, looking fine and healthy. “Yo-you were shot. In th-the chest,” I tell him through trembling lips, recounting the things I read in the newspaper about his death. “I-I don’t understand.”

He stands up, and I back away, still not sure if it’s a ghost, a figment of my imagination, or someone playing a cruel joke on me.

“Let’s go inside.” Jon stretches out his hand for me to take, but I hesitate. Maybe hearing about the arrest of my stepmother and my half sister this morning is still messing with me. I
have
been off since hearing about a murder plot. “Katie, please.” His eyes crinkle at the sides from his warm smile that’s so familiar yet cautious. Like he’s unsure of himself.

I rush into his arms. “Is it really you?” When our chests meet, I know he’s real. Tears fall onto my cheeks. “How are you here?”

He takes the keys from my unsteady fingers, helping me indoors to sit on the couch. I see his mouth moving, but everything is fuzzy, and I see two of everything.

“Wait here,” he mumbles, leaving me alone. He’s back with a glass of water, feeding it to me with care and love. “Is that enough?”

I nod because that’s the only thing I can do in this moment. My face presses into his neck, breathing him in. One of my hands roams over his chest to feel for deadly bullet holes where his heart beats. “You’re here,” I tell him again low but happy. I didn’t need him to live, that much was proven when my life carried on the day following his funeral. But his love, his presence rounds me out ... makes my life that much richer, more complete. He’s my other half. The one I didn’t know I was searching for. The man with the indecent proposal who changed my entire life.

“I know I have a lot to tell you, but it’s so good to see you.” Jon captures my hand, planting a sweet kiss on each fingertip. “To see with my own eyes that you’re all right.” He pans the cozy living room with my simple furnishings that I put together on a shoestring budget.

“The money you left in the safe was just enough to cover my deposit and to get a few things,” I tell him as a way to explain the missing curtains over the windows and the snack table holding up my television. “I planned to—”

“It’s perfect.”

I look down at his large hand over mine and still can’t believe what’s going on. So many thoughts whir around my head and I spew the first one out in nervousness. “I-I was kicked out of your funeral.” His hand tightens on mine, and I wonder what’s running through his mind. This morning’s news story comes back to me. “I told you about the voices in the library but I wasn’t specific.” That conversation was brief because I wasn’t sure Jon wanted to hear what I had to say. “I heard Monica, definitely, and someone else, a male. The day when—”

“When she pushed you.” His chin dips and his profile is closed off. “I should’ve told you what was going on, but they weren’t sure of your involvement.” He turns to face me, and his green eyes are filled with sorrow. “I wasn’t sure of your involvement.” I slide my hand from under his.
He
didn’t trust
me
? “The police came to me with Maria and Monica’s plot from the very beginning. Back then I was running on revenge and the quest to get Monica back for the way she treated me, discarded my love when I worked for her family.”

I open my mouth to say something but he shakes his head and I keep my peace, giving Jon the space to go on.

“What I’m about to say, please, I need to beg for your forgiveness. I wasn’t thinking. I was foolish, selfish, and filled with rage. I wanted to see who Monica had conned into her play. I came to Maria with the idea of having you work and live with her daughter and myself. Instead of anger as I assumed, she demanded payment.”

My face is hot. Now I’ll finally hear the truth.

“‘A king’s ransom to fuck the whore’ she told me.”

“Ho-how much was that?”

Jon grips my hand. “Katie, look at me.” I can’t though. The events in the parlor. Being bought like chattel. “Please,” he says, voice broken up with pain. And when I finally raise my head up, his cheeks are wet with his tears. “I’m sorry. I am.”

“I know.” But I still need to hear the number. How much was I sold to get out of Maria’s home when she knew the details of Jon’s intentions toward me. “How much was this ‘king’s ransom’?”

“A million and a half. But I couldn’t go through with it. Not after the time I spent with you in the parlor. I wanted you. That much was true from the day of my reception but you were such an innocent. I wasn’t thinking straight. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in my revenge, baby girl. That’s the reason I left for all that time. I couldn’t take you back to Maria’s and I was too selfish not to have you near me. But I didn’t want to hurt you either.”
On my lips, he begs low, “Say you forgive me. Please? You’re my heart. I need you to forgive me.” His voice cracks. “Anything could’ve happened to my heart, Katie.
I
left you with that madwoman! I should’ve fought to have you brought into police protection.” All I see is his face wet with tears. “I could’ve lost you because I was blinded by my need to avenge decades-old shit that wasn’t worth the fight. Your sister was after my money and was willing to do anything to get her hands on it.” Jon pauses briefly like he’s not sure if he should shut up and say more. Then he gets bold when I remain stunned by his confession. “Please, say something. Anything. Curse at me. Call me a miserable peace of shit.” He slaps his wide chest, covered by a short-sleeved gray T-shirt. “Because I deserve it. I do. I call myself all kinds of names. I wasn’t here to protect you, to watch out for you. I love you so much. And this is how I show you. It hurts when you’re not around.” He doesn’t hide his anguish; his regretful tears splash on the hardwood floor under our feet. “My revenge almost destroyed you. Please, Katie. Tell me you forgive me. Tell me it’s not too late for us.”

“I forgive you but I still have questions, Jon.” This man isn’t my father who won’t answer me and I’m no longer the woman afraid of her own shadow. “Why still go through with the wedding if you knew Monica wanted to kill you? Was there no other way around that? Was that a legitimate wedding at all?”

He eases his back onto the couch but settles me between his muscular legs. His hands, the ones that caressed my feet in the hospital when we miscarried, wrap around me, drawing me nearer to him. “There were other ways but I had to see if she’d still marry me. Please know that my mind was so twisted with my revenge that I wasn’t thinking clearly. I knew the police were gathering their evidence against her, and legally she would be handled eventually. But I needed to see how far she would go with her play-acting. If I had to do it over again, I would choose the sister whose sunrise eyes I’ve dreamt about for seventeen years.”

“I can’t be your mistress again.”

“I’d never ask that,” he’s quick to tell me. “The marriage was annulled this morning.” Seconds become minutes while his heart thunders under my back. “Marry me, Katie. Marry me because this boy with no name is only who he is when you’re by my side.”