Nobody Knows (13 page)

Chapter Sixteen

I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in my own bed that night. I looked at the clock and it was a little after two in the morning. I hadn’t noticed the time passing, but I had been staring into the blank television and, as the minutes ticked by, I curled my legs beneath me and hugged myself absentmindedly. I was hurt. But I was hanging in there. Right then, in that moment, that was all I could do. I stretched out my tired, aching muscles as much as I could before curling up into a ball. It wasn’t so much a sleep as it was a thousand cat naps strung together with unwanted moments of panic.

The night passed slowly, but when I woke the haze in my head still hadn’t cleared. If anything, it was denser than before. Feeling like I had been hit by a bus, I padded softly towards the bedroom, trying desperately not to wake anyone. I stole a glance at the clock. It was a little after five. The house was still silent and dark. I knew I had at least another hour and a half before the girls began to stir.

I opened the door, and to say I was shocked by what I saw was the understatement of the century. I’d imagined I would push open the door and sneak in to see Joel spread-eagled on the bed snoring happily. But he was nowhere to be seen. He must have snuck out the side gate before I woke.

Instead, the room was buried beneath a mountain of boxes. I don’t know where they had come from, but standing beside the bed, taller than me, was a cardboard tower. Startled, I walked through the wardrobe into the en suite. I splashed cold water on my face, then tipped my neck and heard the crack caused by the uncomfortable couch. I noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Glancing around the en suite, something was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Convincing myself I was going crazy, I turned and left. I almost made it out of the wardrobe before I noticed what had vanished. Me.

All my clothes were missing from the closet. None of my shampoo or moisturizer or perfume was on the countertop in the bathroom. I immediately became enraged and obsessed. I found myself pulling open drawers and opening cupboards. Everything I owned was gone. None of my pajamas were in the pajama drawer. My sock drawer was empty. The bathroom cabinet had been wiped clean. Every trace of my existence in that room was gone.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. It was all too much. I slid down the door frame and sucked in deep breaths. I wasn’t sure where the tears had come from, but they streamed undisturbed down my face.

“Mum!” the howl came. Someone was awake, but I couldn’t pull myself up from the floor. I was paralyzed with shock and dismay. Then the call came again and the time for my own drama was gone. Just like that. One word and all my thoughts and problems were no longer a priority.

Eventually I dragged my astonished, aching body from the floor and stalked back out of the room. I didn’t mean it but I let the door slam behind me, shaking the windows.

“Oops,” I heard myself apologize half-heartedly.

I found the girls were awake and already in the middle of getting dressed. I looked at Bianca and her mismatched clothes and found myself smiling. When I realized I was smiling, I stopped myself. But that was the last thing I should have been doing. I had just discovered that my loving, caring husband had packed all my clothes and toiletries into boxes and kicked me out of my own bedroom. There was nothing to smile about. Yet there I was, standing in the doorway to Bianca’s room, unable to wipe the stupid, cheesy grin from my face. And in that moment, with my hands resting protectively across my pregnant belly, I made a decision that would change everything I knew. No matter what Joel said or did to me next, he would never hurt my children. And he had no hope in hell of getting rid of me and keeping them. It was all or none.

“Mummy,” Bianca sang sweetly, looking up at me with wide, innocent, hopeful eyes. “Look, Mummy. I did my own hair. Is it pretty?”

Using all my strength, I managed to stifle a giggle. Yes, Bianca had done her own hair, and it was stunning. Somehow she had managed to defy not only reason but gravity as well, and amongst her beautiful brown locks was every clip, every ribbon, and every barrette that she’d ever owned. “Yes, darling. You look beautiful,” I cooed, adjusting a clip that was falling out.

“Can I go and show Charli?” Her adorable wide white smile beamed up at me. I couldn’t help being in love with my daughter.

“Go on, I’m sure Charli will be impressed.”

I just stood there, frozen to the spot as she pushed past me and skipped down the hallway to find her sister. When I heard giggling, I headed back towards the kitchen to begin my day. Make breakfast, prepare lunches, and drop the girls at school before grocery shopping, picking up Charli a new pair of swimmers for lessons later on that afternoon, and a quick trip to the doctor’s before I picked them up again. Even being a mum without a day job was tiring. I never had more than five minutes in a row to myself. But admittedly, I wouldn’t have asked for anything different.

I gave one final fleeting thought to the boxes neatly stacked in my old bedroom. Part of me wanted to storm into Joel’s office and just yell and scream and make a scene, but the other part of me, the more stable, mature part, wanted nothing more than to pack the girls’ belongings, load it all onto a truck, and drive away. The way I was feeling I knew I could have the house sterile and empty again before Joel even noticed. I just wished I knew what his next move would be.

Moments later I was securing the girls’ seatbelts and headed for school.

Chapter Seventeen

Joel

Striding through the office as purposefully as he could, chest puffed out, trying to look busy and important, Joel barely managed a snort as he was greeted much too cheerily by the busty blonde receptionist behind the desk.

“Someone’s snotty this morning,” she taunted under her breath before refocusing her attention on her long, fake, bright pink fingernails.

“Have you got something you want to say to me?” Joel snapped, appearing immediately beside her. He hadn’t heard the actual words she had said, but he had known for a couple of weeks now that she thought he was a jerk. And she provoked him every chance she could.

“No. I have absolutely nothing to say to you, Mr. Matthews,” she sung sweetly, pushing back from her chair and standing up.

Joel had to admit that this chick had balls. She was right in his face. The further he puffed out his chest, the further she stuck out hers. He was impressed. Not only by the attitude confronting him, but also by the ample size of her bust. He was slightly mesmerized by it and couldn’t stop his eyes from looking straight down the front of her top.

“Good!” He smiled seductively at her, licking his lips. “’Cause if you did I would invite you to do it to my face rather than muttering your sly, smart-ass comments under your breath, Becky.”

Joel noticed the goose pimples that dotted her exposed skin. They made him feel powerful and in control. “No, Joel, I have nothing to say.” She backed up. As she stepped backwards, he came towards her, quickly closing the gap between them.

“I have work to do. I should get back to it,” Becky said, slipping back into her chair and staring at the blank computer screen. Strangely enough, Joel felt completely confident and aroused. He loved the power he possessed. He could see that he was dominating Becky in every way. And she had nowhere to go. She was under his spell. Like his bitch wife had once been. But now she was too fat, too pregnant, and too complacent to be of any use to him. She wasn’t even an ego boost anymore.

With the overpowering stench of Becky’s cheap perfume, Joel’s confidence and erection grew. He bent over her, gently pushing some of the wild strands of her blonde locks away from her face and whispered suggestively to her. “I know you want me. It’s only a matter of time.”

“You’re…you’re married,” Becky stuttered, hers eyes darting back and forth, searching for a savior. “So what?” he whispered again, nibbling her ear. As he turned to leave, Joel just couldn’t help himself. He reached down over Becky’s shoulder and helped himself to a handful of her breast, freezing Becky where she stood.

Shocked, Becky gasped. Frozen to the spot

As she fought back angry, bitter tears, Becky grabbed her bag and ran out the door. She was already frantically dialing her boss’s phone number as she pushed through the double glass doors and out on to the street.

Completely oblivious to the distress he’d caused or the tears streaming down Becky’s face, Joel ducked into the kitchen and poured himself a juice. He wasn’t sure whose it was, but he helped himself anyway. He had a content smile on his face—so far, a great day. He had started with a detox, getting rid of his wife’s shit, before putting that tart sitting out in front filing her nails in her place. He finished his juice and dropped the dirty cup in the sink. Someone else would take care of it. They always did.

Stalking back into the office, Joel slipped into his leather recliner and put his feet up on his desk. He had a mischievous but satisfied smile on his face. So far today he had “cleansed” his room and his life as much as possible of his wife, and still managed to scratch an itch with the bosomy idiot sitting at the reception desk. He felt invincible. The phone lines were quiet, which was unusual, but not eerily so. It was still early and most solicitors he knew wouldn’t have finished their morning coffee and gossip sessions.

Joel sat there completely relaxed. He glanced around his office and saw a lifetime of his achievements. The top of his filing cabinets were covered in trophies from years of hard work, dedication, and manipulation. Photos lined the walls from award ceremonies and half-famous clients. The only indication that he even had a family was a small photo of Bianca and Charli on the back of the door. There was no sign that Gillian was even in his life.

The phone rang and Joel was jolted out of his daydream. As he began to swear and curse down the phone, his boss appeared in the doorway. After a few more moments of bitter words and half-hearted cajoling, he slammed down the phone. “Asshole,” he cursed.

“Something up?”

“Yeah, the bitch from 46 McKinley Way just withdrew her property,” Joel snapped a little too forcefully for Samantha’s liking.

Joel and Samantha had never gotten along. Not since the day she was promoted from below Joel to his boss a little over twelve months earlier. She despised the way Joel spoke to and about women. Sometimes he was just rude and other times he was so damn offensive it took all her strength and will power not to slap him across his perfect face.

“You mean the emotionally fragile single mum with three kids, one of which has Down syndrome, whose husband just died in the Middle East building bridges?” Samantha asked, attempting to remind Joel that the woman he was so angry with wasn’t doing this just to piss him off.

She knew that Joel had a temper. Samantha had watched as he grew more destructive and more obnoxious. Controlling him had become a full-time job. She didn’t even have time to sell anything herself. The less she sold, the less she earnt. The less she earnt, the more she hated the fact that these days she was pretty much a glorified babysitter, making sure Joel didn’t do anything that would get them sued was infuriating and unnecessarily time consuming.

“Yeah, that stupid bitch. She’s got no idea how much time and effort and marketing I spent trying to sell that place. And I was so close…” he muttered under his breath.

Samantha could feel the tension brewing. Joel was at boiling point and she knew she only had a short time left to diffuse him before he caused something more than the usual nightmare. “Just give her some time to get everything together. I’m sure she’ll come back,” Samantha attempted to reassure him. Although she said all the right things out loud, internally Samantha knew that it was all bullshit. After hearing the way Joel spoke to her, Joel had no chance of getting this one back.

“Whatever,” Joel grumbled before waving his hand dismissively at Samantha. She gave up and walked out, shaking her head. Things were getting worse, but there was nothing that she could do for now.

Joel watched on with bemusement as his boss stumbled in her stilettos. The cynical part of him wanted to annoy her to such an extent that she couldn’t help but spin so fast that her heels wouldn’t keep up and she fell on her fat arse. In Joel’s mind, that was where she deserved to be. But if anyone asked, no, he wasn’t at all bitter that she had been promoted ahead of him.

For a few moments Joel watched on, not sure how he was supposed to feel. A combination of thoughts floated about inside of him and all of a sudden the room was too small. Too closed in. There was no air. No windows. He needed to get out of there. The claustrophobia was nauseating. Jumping up from his seat, Joel flew out of the office, barely pausing to glance back.

Outside in the fresh air, Joel slumped over, hands on his knees, sucking in long deep breaths. Something wasn’t right but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then it struck him, like a tonne of bricks. This time he had gone too far. And as fear gripped him, Joel heard whimpering.

Becky was sitting on the garden edge behind him, her face streaked with mascara lines, her eyes wide and red. He could hear the short, sharp, shallow breaths as she gasped between sobs.

Joel couldn’t help but steal glances in her direction. He found himself wondering if it was his fault she was out here, sitting alone in the icy wind, sobbing to herself. Or did she have some other issues, bigger problems than he knew? Surely it wasn’t his fault. She wasn’t that pathetically fragile, was she? But a niggling in the back of his mind made him pull himself together and walk over to stand in front of her.

Becky looked up at him with pure terror. Gone was the pain and anguish, now only all-consuming and paralyzing fear was left. And it wasn’t just fear, it was unadulterated panic. Joel was towering over her, arms folded across his chest, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Please…please just leave me alone,” she whimpered desperately.

Joel scrunched up his face in disgust. He could see that she was clearly distraught, but the only remorse he felt was the concern for his own career. Whether Becky knew it or not, she could destroy everything he had worked for. With one word, all the late nights, weekends, all the hours spent on the phone, all the lies he had told, the very thing that he had molded his whole life around could be gone.

“Becky.” He smiled softly at her. He had been around long enough to know how to play the game. With women it was simple, he’d been taught. And after years of honing his skills, his arrogance made him believe that this would be no harder than closing a deal. A young, dumb girl just had to be played the right way. He lowered himself slowly onto the ledge beside her. “Are you okay?” he offered.

Joel watched with interest as tiny bits of spittle coated her face as he spoke, causing her to recoil. “I’m fine,” she stated matter-of-factly. The instant the words passed her lips, Becky began wiping at her eyes. She squared her shoulders and looked up at Joel’s softening face defiantly.

Without pausing to consider the consequences, Joel reached out and put his hand on Becky’s thigh.

Jumping up from the ledge, she backed away from him, daggers in her eyes. “Don’t you ever touch me again!” she snarled.

“Becky,” he began, standing up and inching towards her. Instinctively Becky found herself backing up until she crashed into the brick building behind her, knocking the corner of her elbow on the rough surface. It wasn’t a deep gash, and there was no blood, but it still stung.

“Fuck off, Joel!”

“Excuse me?” Joel retorted, surprised that she had the audacity to speak to him like that. Didn’t she know who he was?

“I said ‘Fuck off, Joel.’ You ever come near me again and I guarantee a few tears will be the least of your concerns. Not only will you be squirming about on the ground in so much pain you will wish you had been desexed years ago, but by the time you’re able to drag your sorry ass up off the ground, you’ll only be standing up to greet the police.”

“Listen here, you stupid little tart. I don’t know who you think you are or who you think you’re threatening, but I won’t stand for your drama queen antics. You might think you are all that, but you are nothing. Completely replaceable. We can always just get some other big boobed, blonde Barbie to do your job. God knows it’s not fucking hard. So you just keep your mouth shut,” he snapped, tiny bits of spittle covering Becky’s face.

Joel should have quit while he was ahead. The more he spoke, the more Becky grew in confidence. She had him rattled and she knew it. He was making threats and back tracking. He was worried.

“I don’t know how your wife puts up with your bullshit.”

“Don’t you dare mention her!”

“Why not? Do you remember that you actually have a wife?”

“Shut up!” he threatened menacingly.

“What? Doesn’t she know about all the skanks you parade through the office before closing the blinds? Do you think we’re all stupid?”

“I told you to shut up!” Joel roared as he back handed her, leaving a stinging red hand print on her cheek.

Seeing the shock on her face, Joel realized that he had gone too far. He had never meant to hit her. He wasn’t a violent man, he reassured himself. “I’m sorry, Becky,” he apologized as he backed away, embarrassed. “I never meant to…I’m so sorry…” Joel turned and fled.

“This isn’t finished,” Becky stated, but he was already too far gone to hear.