Ella stares at her fiancé: his eyes are troubled and his body language suggests he’s agitated. Of course, who wouldn’t be, given his situation?
“Ian… is there something else, something you’re not telling me?”
“Can we do a little at a time, Ella? I’m struggling with this right now.”
She flips her hair back and inhales deeply. “Fine. Let’s put this aside for a moment. There’s something else I’d like to ask you before I forget.”
“Yes?” he asks, relieved to move to another topic—any other topic.
“If you can remember back to our first night together—the second time around, when you took me home from the club and we went to your new houseboat—you had mentioned something about my spending a year in the UK. When I asked how you knew, you asked if we could discuss it at another time.” She smiles to reassure him that this isn’t—quite—an inquisition. “I’m afraid that time has arrived.”
“Why is it important?”
“Because I want to know. I want there to be no secrets or lies of omission hanging between us. When we marry, I want to know that I know you, and you know me, and we can join together in harmony. That’s why it’s important.”
“I knew, Ella, because I went after you.”
“What?” He took her by surprise with his quick capitulation. She had to think about what he’d just said.
“You knew… because you went after me? To Britain?”
Closing his eyes, he scrabbles to find his equilibrium. Those days were dark, dark enough to force his gaze inward, to reflect on what he saw, and ultimately to reinvent himself… yet again. This time around it was a force for positive change but change always comes at a steep price and the price is usually acute pain of one kind or another.
The day it all happened was a Wednesday. He’d had a difficult day at work and was about to leave to go home to shower and change to meet Ella for dinner. They’d just begun to date three or four weeks before but they’d been together nearly every day or night. The word whirlwind sprang to mind.
If he’d only left when he’d planned, things might have gone differently. But as he was exiting his office, the phone on his desk buzzed three times. His staff knew that he expected the phone to be answered by the second ring so they must have left already or were otherwise unavailable. So he answered it…
“Ian?” The feminine voice on the other end was small and weepy.
“Yes, this is Ian Blackmon. Who’s calling?”
“It’s me, Ian. Kira.”
Kira: his girlfriend—if you could call her that—from a couple of years ago. Meeting briefly at the club one night long ago, he saw right away that she fit all of his new requirements, the requirements he’d defensively created after Natasha screwed him so royally: not blond, attractive in an unobtrusive way, quiet personality, few aspirations, and very submissive sexually. Yet despite her satisfying all of his criteria, she didn’t work out well for him. They’d ended their relationship slash arrangement after the four-month mark and last he’d heard, she’d taken up with another man, and went home to Nebraska… or one of those N states. North Dakota, maybe? Nevada? He couldn’t remember for sure.
“What can I do for you, Kira?” He kept his tone professional.
“Um… I was wondering if you’re possibly between relationships right now. If you’re single, I mean. I’d like to see you again.”
“No, I’m not single, Kira.”
“Oh, okay, I figured. It was worth a try.” Her volume dropped lower with each word.
She sounded as if she were speaking more to herself than to him. Yet, there was something in her voice: a tiny tinkling of alarm rang in his brain. “Is there some kind of help I might lend you?”
Now he could hear her crying. “No. No, thanks. I’m just lonely and was thinking of you. Sorry to have bothered you.” She quickly disconnected.
That phone call niggled at him the entire way home, causing him to puzzle about what exactly it was all about. What was going on with the woman that would prompt her to call him out of the blue like that? They hadn’t spoken for nearly two years.
It was almost seven when he got home, and he’d told Ella he’d pick her up at eight so he grabbed a lightning fast shower and dressed. He made it to Ella’s place ten minutes early: driving the highway at ninety in his 400 BHP sports car didn’t hurt any.
He and Ella had just finished dinner and were on their way to his place when his phone rang, cutting off the stereo in his car.