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“I’d rather you explain this!” she snapped. I heard her pumps move across the flooring then they ceased when she came to a standstill somewhere behind me.
I turned around to see her stood with one hand sat on her hip, the other clutching a bunch of papers with pictures and information on Max and Raine. I rolled my eyes and reverberated my lips against each other then turned back to make my much-needed black coffee.
“Well, Niki?” She scraped the legs of the chair away from the table and took a seat, slamming down the papers on top of it.
“Research,” I replied with a shrug, as if to imply that the five hours I had spent obsessing over her at the computer was a normal and natural thing to do.
“This is that hot new girl that turned up at the studio on Thursday, isn’t it, the one you wanted one-on-one time with yesterday?”
Spooning in the sugar and stirring the cups I took a seat opposite her and pushed her cup towards her. “Yes, it is, and just so you know, she’s into dicks before you even think about going there!”
“She’s married, Nikoli! M. A. R. R. I. E. D.” She punctuated each letter of the word like I was a moron that couldn’t understand what it meant.
“I’m aware that she’s married, but something isn’t right with her, and I’m concerned,” I replied, taking a welcome sip of the steaming black coffee.
I watched Petra shake her head and look at me flabbergasted. Her dark brown eyes had widened and her lip glossed oxbow lips dropped open. “Don’t do this Nikoli, don’t fall for her, it’s wrong, she’s married just …just.”
“Just what? You haven’t seen what I have, Petra. That first day she turned up? She had a whopping bruise on the side of her cheek that she tried to cover up with make-up, yesterday when I was showing her the closed hold and slid my hand along her arm, she had faint bruising from fingers all around her wrist. She’s on Valium for panic attacks, and she’s so fucking nervous all the time, she jumps at raised voices, doors banging and every time I look at her, all I can see is her silently screaming for someone to save her.”
Petra scoffed then narrowed her eyes towards me. “What? and you think you should be that person? She can only be saved if she wants to be saved, you should know that. She isn’t mom!”
Those words caused the heat to rise through my body. The hand clutching my cup began to tremble and my head pounded harder as the blood gushed around it. “I know she isn’t mom, but she is displaying all the same signs,” I replied through gritted teeth.
Petra stood to her feet and paced backwards and forwards, her hand periodically dragging through her dark mane of curls. “Is this because you couldn’t save mom from dad? You’re now hell-bent on saving some other woman?”
“No one could save mom, she took her own life because of that fucking bastard. I’m not going to stand by and watch another woman be a victim of domestic violence and do fucking nothing!” I said sternly, and pushed to my own feet.
Petra raced towards me and clamped her petite hands on my arms, “Nikoli, you have no proof. Okay, maybe you have seen a similar pattern in her, but you have no proof. Has she admitted anything to you? Have you spoken to her about this?”
I shook my head silently and dropped back in to my seat. My head automatically bowed into my hands. “I can’t talk to her about it, not yet anyway. I need to build a bond with her and she needs to be able to trust me first. I’m telling you sis, she’s a victim and I’d bet my life on it, it’s that shit of a husband.”
I’d spent hours poring through media articles and photographs on the happy, loving Peters’ couple. He was a successful lawyer who had ploughed his way up the ladder to corporate partner, she was what the media termed, a trophy wife. She was twenty years younger than him and for the life of me, I struggled to see what she saw in Max. He was okay-looking and maybe in his younger years he was handsome but in my mind, they looked more like father and daughter than husband and wife.
I’d found myself hoping to find something incriminating against him, but I found nothing. In all the pictures of them together, her smile seemed forced, never reaching her eyes. Her eyes always looked dull and lifeless as though she was going through the motions but wasn’t really there, and the more pictures I looked at, the more determined I felt to save her.
“Niki, do you like her in that way, or is this just a way to make up for our failings at mom’s suffering?” Petra asked me gently, sitting on the floor at my feet.
My mind pictured Raine yesterday when she had stood herself upright in front of me with her hair gathered on top her head, my eyes had instantly homed in on her neck. It was long, elegant, and smooth, just like a swan. I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. It was the most beautiful neck I’d ever seen, I wanted to hold it, trail my fingers down it, skim the tip of my nose up it, kiss it, lick it, taste it. I just wanted to fucking devour it. I had to tear my eyes away from her before I did something stupid, something I’d regret.
“You like her, don’t you?” Petra pressed when I hadn’t answered her question. I slouched back in the chair and reached for my coffee, deciding to evade the truth. “I don’t know enough about her yet, but I can’t watch another woman suffer the same fate as mom, Petra. I just can’t. I’m going to save her if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Do you have a plan to get to know her better?” She asked me, raising her eyebrow and smirked.
“I’m going to suggest extra dance lessons, Saturday and Sunday,” I replied with a matching smirk.
Pushing to her knees she wrapped her arms around my neck and I sighed in to her shoulder. “You do what you feel you need to, Niki. Just remember an abuser, a manipulator and a control freak will not let her go easily, you need to be careful coming between this man and his wife. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I nodded as my right arm slid around her waist. “What time are we meeting Miss Right then?”
“Can you be ready in an hour?” She giggled excitedly then pulled away and rose to her feet, “your approval means the world to me.”
With a deep sigh, I drained the rest of my coffee and stood up, “Sure, I’ll meet you there, I’ll just get showered and changed.”
*
After a hot shower, some toast, and another coffee I felt more human. I pushed all thoughts of the beautiful Raine from my head, determined to enjoy the evening ahead and give the once over, and even maybe my approval on my sister’s new girlfriend.
The cab pulled to a stop on Grand Street and I handed over some money then swung open the door, straight into someone. The guy turned around, red-faced and I apologized profusely.
