Underestimated Too (38 page)

“You don’t need to call me you son of a bitch. You
can hear every word I’m saying,” she screamed. One by one I watched the cameras
being smashed by Morgan’s deadly hands and a wooden bat; I was wondering where
the hell she got it from.

Debating on what to do, I dialed Derik. He was my
only option. Someone had to calm her down.

‘How’d it go?’ he answered, nonchalantly.

‘Derik go to the mansion. Now! Morgan knows. She
knows everything.’

‘What? How do you know?’

‘She’s smashing cameras with a bat. Get over there
and calm her down.’

‘I told you this would happen. What does she know?’

“I don’t know. I’m on my way now. Don’t you fucking
touch her. You understand me?’

‘Yeah, I hear ya,’ he replied. I wasn’t convinced.
Fuck. I needed to be home. If he so much as laid one finger on her, I’d kill
him.

That was the longest two hours of my life. Running
to the car, I dialed Morgan’s phone with no answer. Derik wouldn’t answer his
either. Shit. Something happened. Something was wrong. I could feel it.

I had no idea what the hell happened. Derik was MIA,
Morgan wasn’t answering her phone and there was no sign of her when I finally
entered the house.

‘Morgan,’ I called to the empty house.

‘I ran upstairs, the den, the kitchen, my office,
she wasn’t anywhere. Where the hell was she? It was a long shot, but I walked
down the long hall where Michael once slept and where I’d once kept Morgan
locked for days. She wouldn’t go down that way. She always said it gave her the
creeps and left an eerie feeling in her bones. I, of course, knew why she felt
that way. I felt that way about that room too.

‘Morgan,’ I softly spoke.

Her words will haunt me for the rest of my life.

‘Do you think it’s still Stockholm syndrome when you
fall in love with the Drew that you didn’t know?’

 I hated the thought of that. Stockholm syndrome.
What a filthy word and she felt that way. She thought I was a monster.

She’d no doubt lost her mind. She stood and pointed
the gun right at my head when I tried to go to her. That was the first time in
my life that I’d felt real pain. She cried, shaking and screaming out
everything I’d ever done to her. Her entire life had been a bad joke and I made
it worse.

‘You hit me, Drew. You hurt me,’ she cried over and
over. Her words rang like sound waves, repeating incessantly, ‘You hit me, you
hurt me.’

I’d finally done it. Everything that had been
bothering her over the last few months was out. She knew. I spent an hour
confessing and explaining through a microphone, just like I’d spoke to her many
times. Knowing she was crying from everything that I was saying to her, I
wanted to go to her. I wanted to hold her and take away the pain, the pain that
I caused. The pain that I could have kept from her, and now the fury that I
felt learning that Derik had raped her, not once, not twice, but multiple
times. I let that happen to her too.”

I could have interrupted Drew at that moment. I
almost told him that I forgave him, and not to be sad over it. I didn’t say
anything when I felt the pain in my eye after touching it. Brushing my hair
back in a breath of disgust about all of this, I felt it, deciding to keep
quiet and let Drew talk.

“Locked in that room for four hours, I paced, cussed
screamed, and hated myself. Would she really leave me there? What did she mean with
my sheriff
? She was really going to marry another man while being
married to me? That meant he fucked her. I’d kill that son of a bitch. Some
other man had his hands on Morgan. My mind was all over the place. What right
did I have to be angry with a man that evidently did what I didn’t? He loved
her. Why didn’t I love her? Why couldn’t I have been the prince charming that
day when she turned eighteen, picked her up with a white horse and carriage,
and got to know her?

Not even a year before I would have been fretting
about her exposing me to Callaway, telling him all that I had done to her. That
wasn’t what I was worried about. I didn’t care about any of it. I was worried
that I was going to lose her. I couldn’t lose her. It could have been great. I
could have shown her so much. We could have experienced a whole world together.
Why did I have to be such an ass?

I excitedly looked up when I heard the lock on the
door hours later. Morgan stood, staring at me. Taking a step forward she
stopped me with her hand on my chest. I stopped.

‘I don’t want any of this,’ she stated, taking a
step back and crossing her arms. ‘I want to go home. I want to go to Maine
where I have friends.’

I nodded. What else was I going to do? What right
did I have?  ‘I’ll have Felix fly you there.’

I tried to tell her how sorry I was, how much I
loved her, but expectedly it didn’t work. She left.

I should have given her space, let her have a moment
to breath, soak it all in. I couldn’t do it. I called to make sure she made it
to Maine okay, and then later on that night. The height of my day became my
nightly conversations with Morgan. Two whole weeks, I went without seeing her.
I couldn’t take it. I had to see her. There had to be some reason for me to go
to her.

‘I want to find my mom,’ she confessed as we talked
on the phone.

 That was all I needed. I’d find her mother and
deliver the news.

I didn’t really have a hard time at all finding
Amanda.  She had married a handyman, opened a bed and breakfast in North
Carolina, and had a daughter. I delivered the news to Morgan the very next day.

I would almost say that was the best couple days of
my life. I mowed her grass for her, changed her oil, and hunted sea glass, my
new favorite thing to do. I actually found one of the rarest colors there is:
black. I was going to do something special with it, for Morgan. We made love on
top of the world again, this time overlooking the ocean.

And then we had a fight. Morgan left her laptop on
the table while she showered. I would have been fine with the email from
Dawson, offering to let her go. It was hers that pissed me off. She was
downright, yelling, telling him not to do this, not to throw what they had
away. I was fighting a losing battle. I’d never win. The cards were stacked
against me and good guy Dawson would win.

I took off walking, calling Felix to get the plane
ready. The town wasn’t too far away and I hoped someone would pick me up. I
made it to the stop sign, shaking my head when I saw the good guy sheriff’s
car. The car parked behind his cruiser was also familiar. They never came up
for air until I was right upon them. I was fuming. I was pissed. Morgan didn’t
deserve this shit. Not only was Dawson supposed to be in love with her, Lauren
was supposed to be her friend. Wasn’t there some sort of girl rule about that—?”

“Drew,” I had to interrupt. What did he mean? He
knew about that before I did?

“I’m sorry, Morgan.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you think things
would have gone a lot smoother and been a little easier on me, had you told me
that Dawson was seeing Lauren behind my back?”

“No. I don’t think that at all. I think you would
have called me a snake and a liar. You would have accused me of making it up to
win.”

Hmm, Drew had a point. I would have done that then.
“Go on,” I requested, waiting to hear the rest.

“Dawson made excuses. ‘This isn’t what you think. Is
Morgan okay?’ Dawson asked. I wanted to punch him. He had his tongue halfway
down Lauren’s throat, asking if Morgan was okay.

Lauren backed away from Dawson, looking sorry
herself. I wanted to slap her too. How could she do this? How could either of
them do this to her? Didn’t they think she’d been through enough?

‘I’ll talk to you later.’ Lauren smiled at Dawson
and walked back to her car. I glared at her, shooting daggers at her.

‘Stay away from Morgan,’ I instantly fumed at
Dawson. I didn’t care what kind of law enforcement he was. I was ready to beat
the hell out of him. How could he do this? She was sitting at home confused as
hell about what to do, and he was doing her supposedly best friend.

‘You don’t know shit. Lauren knows where I stand
with her. She knows that if I have the slightest chance with Morgan, I’m taking
it.’

‘You don’t have a fucking chance in hell with
Morgan,’ I yelled, shoving him against his car.

He shoved me back. ‘And you think you deserve that
chance? You remember one damn thing. I was the one there to calm her down when
she woke terrified of the things you did to her. You think you deserve her? You
deserve to rot in prison for what you did. I only got close to someone else
while spending hours and hours looking for Riley, afraid she was with you and
what you were doing to her. You stay away from her and let her decide.’

‘One, her name is not, and never has been Riley. And
two, if she chooses me, you can just go next door to Lauren.’

‘Fuck you, man. You have no right to look down on me.
None.’

Dawson kindly gave me a lift into town, and we
bickered back and forth the whole five minutes. I could see how Morgan would
fall for a guy like him. Had I not just caught him kissing her best friend, I
would have thought him to be a nice guy. Nice guys didn’t fuck your best friend.

I did my best to leave Morgan alone and let her
figure this out on her own. I was sure that Dawson would come clean with her
and be out of the picture in no time. I did buy her a nice car and had it
delivered. I wasn’t about to let her travel in that piece of shit Honda she was
driving. I, however, didn’t realize it was going to take her six weeks to
decide.

I spent my time, trying to get my new assistant on
board and up to par. I have to say that out of every guy that I interviewed
Celeste Johnson was the most qualified. Maybe qualified wasn’t the word, she
was a hard ass, reminded me a lot of myself. She was ten times better than
Derik ever was. I may have even been a little intimidated by her.

Our very first prospect together was an actor, proposing
to his actress girlfriend. We’d flown to New York City together, wined and
dined the guy, and then showed him the very expensive merchandise. I’d told
Celeste to keep her mouth shut and to only observe. Thankfully he fell in love
with the most expensive piece I brought. The only problem was he’d told
Mystified Jewels of New York he would give them a chance as well and would take
a look at what they had. I nodded, telling him that I understood.

‘We recognize your need to see what Mystified has to
offer, however, Mr. Stewart, this piece will no longer be available after
tomorrow. Would you like for me to put a hold on the next best thing for a
couple days?’ Celeste spoke up.

‘What do you mean? You can’t hold that one for me?
That’s my first choice,’ he argued.

‘I wish I could, but it’s been promised to another
actor after today. I would be happy to hold the other one for you.’

‘What actor?’

Celeste crossed her legs, tilted her head, and
smiled. ‘You know that I can’t disclose that information. I’m sure you’ll read
it in a magazine or see it on E later this month when he proposes.’

‘You know what? Let’s just wrap this up. I’ll have
the money to you by tomorrow,’ the actor quickly replied.”

“And this was around the time Nicholas was born,”
Deidra interjected.

“Yes, I’m sure Nicholas was conceived that weekend.”
Drew replied. “I should have contacted Morgan sooner. I knew Callaway was in bad
shape, I’d just stopped by a few days before. I didn’t think he was on his
death bed. I didn’t think he was going to die. I was planning on calling her as
soon as I had some loose ends tied up with some business I’d been dealing with.

‘That makes no sense at all, Drew, Why would you
move the 32nd Street store? Its profit margin was over thirty percent past goal
last month. Move the Garland store if you want that location,’ Celeste pleaded
her case. She was good. She was real good.

‘Hmm? Garland is in a lower traffic area. Call
Burnside Realty, go check out the location. This might work,’ I decided, thinking
about it. I was surprised to see Callaway flash across my ringing phone. He
hadn’t personally called in at least a couple months. ‘Hello, how are you
feeling?’ I answered.

‘Mr. Kelley, this is Wanda. Mr. Callaway passed
about an hour ago.’

‘Why didn’t you call me? Morgan would have wanted to
be there.’

‘Mr. Callaway asked that I didn’t.’

‘Okay, and the arrangements? Does Morgan need to do
anything? Do I need to do anything?’

‘No. Mr. Callaway had everything taken care of
before his death. I’ll keep you posted on the arrangements.’

‘I’m sorry. Family problem?’ Celeste asked.

‘Not mine. My wife’s grandfather just passed. I need
to go to her.’

‘Your wife, you’re married?’ Celeste asked shocked.
I guess I wasn’t one to talk about my personal life, and Morgan had been
missing in action for weeks now. Shock was understandable.