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“So, I suggest you move away and let me leave the apartment, unless you intend to cause me bodily harm.”
Reece was tempted, torn between the need to detain her and wrap his hands around her throat. But he believed her words, could discern the streak of determination in Jess’s clear-blue eyes. She was serious, and he had no choice but to let her go. He was a fighter though.
“What about Johnny?”
“What about him?”
“If you publicly shame me, it will affect not only me but my business partner, Johnny, as well. And since he’s married to your dear friend LeeHanne, she’ll be mortified too. Are you prepared to risk a steady friendship to regain your freedom?”
“If I make it clear it wasyouwho coerced a drunk woman to get married, nobody else will be affected,” she returned, unrelenting.
Degree by slow degree, Reece straightened his spine and stepped back.
Jess studied his stony face awhile, not trusting him not to try and prevent her from leaving the apartment again. Nausea made her catch her breath when she finally turned her back on him to retrieve her coat from the rack nailed beside the door. Breathing in several mouthfuls of restorative air, she took her tote and wobbled out of her own apartment, leaving him inside. Had the situation been different, had their confrontation not been so significant, she would’ve laughed at the irony of having to threaten someone to be able to leave her own place. But since today was one of those days in which she felt like she’d stepped on another planet, and all she wanted to do was go back to bed and wake up tomorrow when everything would be alright, instead, Jess felt like crying.
She’d woken up in her bed, naked, without remembering exactly how she’d gotten there but with a headache and a bad taste in her mouth. Hearing movements coming from the kitchen, she’d put on her underwear, a pair of jeans and a sweater, then left the bedroom to investigate the source of the noise. It was Reece pouring some juice in two tall glasses. Jess went to him with a tempting smile on her lips, meaning to entice him back to bed, but was stopped short by the grave look he gave her. When he asked her to sit at the table, she complied and took the juice he offered her.
“Pineapple. I thought you’d like some,” he explained, and she thanked him.
Conscious of the poor state her stomach was in, Jess took a few tentative sips. He drank his glass in a gulp, sat facing her, and pointblank dropped his bombshell. The rest was bitter history.
Back inside her apartment Reece moved to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a beer. Dropping into the nearest chair, he set the beer on the table, raked his hands over his face, and stared at the sink not seeing it, just engrossed in rehashing LeeHanne birthday’s party the previous day.
She was the wife of his friend and business partner, Johnny Jenkins. They’d been pals since high-school, and had pursued a career in the police force for five years together, before Johnny met LeeHanne. To spend more time with her, he’d decided to quit patrolling the streets and instead started a private bodyguard agency. When he’d proposed going into business with Reece, he had liked the idea and joined Johnny in his venture. After three years, they had made quite a name for themselves for their expertise and the high quality of the services they offered. That was why any bad publicity had to be avoided at all costs, and he had to let Jess go.
But LeeHanne Jenkins was also the one, in a way, responsible for his present misery, because she had introduced Jessica Wright to him three weeks ago during another of their bashes.
It had been lust at first sight. It had never happened to him before. They had just locked eyes and felt an undercurrent run between them. Exchanging a quick and meaningless “hi”, they’d raised their hands to shake. But instead Reece had wrapped his large hand around her smaller one, and guided by instinct, wordlessly, forsaking their hosts and the party, had walked her out of the room with no precise destination in mind just determined to find a private, secluded space to be alone with her. Inside one of the Jenkins’ bathrooms, they had only whetted their appetite for each other, and before the night was over, they had already stripped off their clothes and made wild, passionate sex in her apartment. Since that fateful encounter, they’d met on several occasions. All of them had started off with him going to her place to take her out to dinner, and all had promptly ended up against the kitchen table, on the sofa, against the front door, or in her bed.
Neither had ever experienced such a driving need to mate. It was as if their next breath depended on that single act to be drawn. So last week, when he’d heard Jess say to LeeHanne –to whom she’d been friends with for almost as long as him and Johnny, that she loved him, and having sex with him was like being shaken by an earthquake, he’d decided they should be together for life, and gone about securing a marriage license. Thanks to his many business connections, Reece had managed to cut through miles of red tape so that Jess could sign the official papers scant seconds before the actual ceremony took place. And all it had cost him was the money to cover the fees, and a few hundred bucks of fine bourbon to show his gratitude to his connection in City Hall.
To find the courage to propose –he’d never proposed to a woman before and was somehow nervous, yesterday afternoon he’d drank two glasses of straight whisky, and since the bar was self-service, those glasses had been full to the brim. When he’d finally worked up enough bravado to approach Jess, he’d found her chatting with some friends, and had been glad to see she was already tipsy herself. Once he’d managed to be alone with her under the sycamore tree at the far-east end of their friends’ garden, they’d drunk more from the bottle of champagne he’d brought with him from the bar, until he found the courage to propose to her. Throwing herself enthusiastically against him, she’d cried her excited “yes” and like in a movie, Reece and Jess had presented themselves at City Hall in time for their booked ceremony. Later, a cab had taken the newlyweds back to Jess’s, where they’d slept off their booze, too tired to do anything else. And the rest was bitter history.
The following morning at nine on the dot, the divorce papers were hand-delivered to Reece at his office by a hurried process server. With them came an ultimatum. Jess was allowing Reece a month to return the signed documents or else she was going public. Again, Reece had no choice but to grant Jess her wish. His and Johnny’s well-established security agency couldn’t afford to be subjected to cheap and bad publicity.
Man, he was furious. He’d made a royal jackass of himself with her, but damn, he’d been so sure, so confident Jess would fancy the idea of having him as her husband. Everybody knew that a woman in love ultimately craved one thing and one thing alone, and that was marriage…All but Jessica Wright –blast her. Instead of being over the moon for his resourcefulness, she’d accused him of having never understood the first thing about her, had angrily reprimanded him for his actions, and had all but screamed to never take her for granted again. Yes, she’d been honest enough to admit she’d told the truth to LeeHanne when she’d said she loved him, and was physically attracted to him, but had decided to put her cursed freedom above all, him included, and had stubbornly pursued her divorce. What was freedom worth though, if it meant condemning oneself to a lonely life, or to a safer, meaningless relationship? The way Reece saw it, intense emotions were what kept a person alive, and life worth living. If only he hadn’t been so damn drunk, and so blinded with lust…
ChapterTwo
FEBRUARY
Five months. That’s how long it took for the divorce to become final. During this period, Reece and Jess had gone out of their way to avoid meeting or talking to each other, but now Reece, holding the papers she had already signed, and which only needed his signature to make the divorce effective, was inflexible in his request that Jess was present when he wrote his name on the dotted line, and gave her back her cursed freedom. Threatening to publicly expose him, she’d left him with no other choice but to comply with her request, and grant to her an uncontested divorce. He now wanted at least the satisfaction of showing to Jess just how eager he was to sever all ties with her.
That was why his attorney contacted hers, who contacted his back a few hours later, saying Jess was unable to meet his request just then. Knowing that once she’d signed her part of the papers, the formalities would be dispatched between their legal representatives, she’d taken some time off, and left town. Reece’s attorney rushed on to add that he was sure she’d not changed address or left the country, otherwise he would’ve been notified, and was so sorry he couldn’t fulfill his request. To Reece, this clearly translated into a “she’s nowhere to be found, and wants nothing to do with you,” but, determined to have it his way, at least this once, he started a private manhunt.
The first thing he did was try to track down her cell phone, only to find she’d either switched off the phone or the GPS system. Swearing, because he would’ve liked to avoid involving other people in his quest, he contacted all those he could think of. The first person he talked to was LeeHanne. The two women were good friends, confidants, and if someone could help him locate his estranged wife, LeeHanne was the one. He subjected her to the third degree, but apart from learning that Jess had taken two weeks off from work to go on vacation, LeeHanne had no idea where she might have gone, though she reassured him that when Jess had given to her the keys to her apartment asking LeeHanne if she could water her plants, Jess had said she would be back in ten days. Not satisfied, still mad at her, and firm in his decision to sign the divorce papers only in front of her, Reece had next talked to her colleagues at The Edge, the hair and beauty salon where she worked as a hairdresser, but they only repeated what LeeHanne had already told him. As this further attempt brought no results, Reece had called her parents, after finding their number on the internet. Twenty minutes later, having reassured Mrs. Wright that nothing had happened to her daughter, he ended the conversation, promising to visit them soon, and was back to square one. Her parents lived in the Chicago metropolitan area, but neither knew Jess’s whereabouts.
Reece did not tell anyone the reason he was looking for her, and let a vague “I need to talk to her” stand in the way of an explanation. His persistence was certainly going to stir more than one question about the nature of their relationship in those he spoke to, but at this point Reece didn’t care. If at the beginning anger and hurt pride had motivated his quest –because Reece was sure Jess was playing some childish hide-and-seek game to further annoy the hell out of him, now it seemed not a soul had heard from her the past seven days, three hours, and forty-five minutes, urgency and deep concern had long replaced his anger.
Why had she left town without telling anyone where she’d gone and without taking her phone with her? He could understand her avoiding him, but not her friends and family as well. Had something bad happened to Jess? His past experience as a cop made him imagine several gruesome scenarios. His heart constricted in his chest.
So far, the only thing he had not tried was the police. There still were a couple of friends in the force who could discretely help him if asked, and Reece was quite prepared to contact them. But first, he needed to try one last thing.
Taking his car key he drove to her apartment, and, using the second key she’d given him soon after they’d met, Reece let himself in. It was the second time in a week he’d gone there trying to find a valuable clue indicating Jess’s whereabouts.
Unfortunately, he had not known her long enough before he’d foolishly married her, and wasn’t familiar with her wardrobe, but inspected her closet anyway. It was while he was rummaging through the second drawer in her closet that he remembered she had a red tracksuit she loved dearly, and, being February, he hoped that wherever she had gone, she had taken it with her. Although the way his luck recently was running, she had probably decided to spend fifteen days in sunny, hot Hawaii, and had taken her favorite bikini with her instead.
The tracksuit was nowhere in sight. It wasn’t in the washing machine or in the dryer either. She had it with her. Then memory struck.
