Violets & Violence (20 page)

At last, Bill returned. “I’m real sorry to do this, Carter, but I’ve got some business that needs tending.”

I gave an understanding nod, thanked him for his time, then left the
Ill Eagle IV
.

At this time of year, full and complete darkness settled over the city shortly after quitting time at the office. But I stayed a little late, tidying up some of Jonathan’s reports in an effort to make my clients’ derivatives strategies look cleaner and well worth the premium fees that our firm charged for that service.

But by six-thirty, I was ready to leave. I packed and locked up my desk, headed to the elevators and checked my phone during the descent. No messages. Nothing from Violet, and that had me a little worried, if not feeling a little rejected.

With a sigh, I shoved the phone back into my pocket just as the elevator doors opened in the lobby. Straight ahead, through the tall glass windows, I saw the last stragglers stuck in traffic (Detroit traffic didn’t exactly compete with Chicago’s, or New York City’s, but it wasn’t exactly nonexistent either) and the dark, late sky.

That feeling of loneliness compounded once I pushed through the revolving doors and felt the cold, crisp air on my face. While the snow hadn’t started flying yet, I wished I could’ve secured an indoor parking space in my own building rather than the one across the street. The cost to park here was a little steeper, but the convenience alone would make it worthwhile. I still remembered how scarce parking had been before Kwame’s corrupt reign as Detroit’s mayor and the financial collapse of 2008 had sent financial services business out. Back then, I essentially had to park in Greek Town.

As I crossed the street toward the Kennedy Square garage, I heard my name, and the voice startled me before I even reached the opposite side of the road. Thankfully, Detroit traffic was what it was, scarce.

Spinning around, I found my ex-wife waving at me, her heavy winter jacket reaching mid-way down her thighs. She looked beautiful, which I was surprised to admit after she wrecked my heart like she had. I was reminded of the days when I considered her to be perfect. Now, I would go only as far as beautiful. No more perfection. I had stopped believing in that, especially after a day like today when I realized just how suspicious Violet’s interest in me truly were.

“Carter, wait up!” She crossed the street in her heels, one hand clutching her expensive, over-priced Coach bag, the other gripping the lower half of her jacket so that she could move those legs more freely.

“It’s a late night,” I said, stepping onto the sidewalk with her.

“Yeah, Lewis was supposed to pick me up at six because my car is having work done,” she said, her face flushed from the cold. “But he just texted and said he was held up at work.”

I frowned, a little surprised. “I thought you drove a Mercedes.”

She nodded, agreeing with me.

“Aren’t they supposed to be indestructible tanks?”

She shrugged. “It’s all about living, remember? The finer things, even if they spend a bit of time in the garage.”

“And I thought he—” I chose ‘he’ because I refused to address either of them by their name after what they had done to me and my life. “—worked from home.”

She nodded again, agreeing with me once more.

We both laughed at how crazy this all sounded, or maybe it was more to chase away the awkward silence. “I see, it’s all about the finer things,” I said. I started to open my mouth, to offer her a ride home and save her from freezing to death. But I realized it meant I would need to spend more time with my ex than I should. It had taken me a long time to get to this point where I could have a conversation with her and not want to break down and cry my heart out, or curl into a ball, close my eyes and pray for instant death. 

After that moment of awkward, post-laugh silence, my ex reached out and touched my forearm, her eye growing wide like she wanted to cozy up with me. “We’ve still got our lunch date this Friday, right?”

I had forgotten all about the date she had bullied me into.

“Carter,” she coaxed. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. Of what we’ve become.”

“Divorcés,” I said, just to make sure we both understood what we had become.

She tilted her head to the side.

I scratched mine. It wasn’t itchy, but it saved me from pulling my hair out. “I don’t know if lunch is such a good idea,” I told her. “I mean, do you think we should travel down that road? After everything…?”

She tilted her head to the other side, the way she tended to do when taking selfies for all of her trendy friends on social media sites, the same friends with sugar daddies who lived life for those finer things. “Sometimes, things just happen,” she said in a voice that downgraded her intelligence level. “And time gets away from us. Sometimes, I think time got away from us, Carter.”

I groaned. Involuntarily, of course. “You made a choice,” I reminded her. “That choice wasn’t me.”

“Time got away from me,” she went, placing a hand on her hip. “And while I don’t regret the choice I made, and I love Lewis – I really
do
love him, Carter – I sometimes think the only way I can get back on track is if I…” She shook her head, shrugged and threw her hands into the air. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say, Carter.” And then she laughed, an embarrassing chuckle, before shaking her head some more. “This is why I wanted to have lunch.”

“Because you miss me?” I asked. I was confused, completely lost. What was she trying to say to me?

“No!” More laughing, but then she stopped. Her eyes took on something of a glow. “I mean, yes. I’m going to hell for admitting this after what I’ve done to you, but I do miss you, sure. That’s not why I want lunch, though. I’m…I don’t know how to say this, but…” she sighed, flapped her arms out to the side in exasperation. “I’m trying to figure things out.”

I checked the time, the cold penetrating my jacket and spreading across my arms and chest like ice. I hated the cold, I had no more patience for this conversation. “I’ve got to get home,” I lied. I had no reason for knowing it at the time, but I really
did
need to get home; I would’ve left work on time if I had known what awaited at my loft.

“Come on, Carter, really? Let’s grab a coffee while I wait for Lewis.”

I considered her offer, I really did. With Starbucks less than a block away, it would make for a nice way to get warm again, even though I didn’t want to waste my Tuesday evening with my ex. I knew better. In her own words, I wanted better, I wanted the
finer things
.

My ex-wife…me…coffee… that all seemed a little regressive, didn’t it?

It wouldn’t end well. It hadn’t ended well the first time around, and I had no reason to suspect it would end any differently this time.

I shook my head and started backing away from her. “I’m sorry, I can’t. But we’ve got that lunch thing on Friday, right?”

“Carter!” she laughed. “Really? You’re going to leave me here like this?”

“I have to. I’m sorry.”
Remember how you left me?

By the time I entered the parking garage, I was running away from her. Like the Devil incarnate had sent her to get me.

In my building, I took the stairs rather than waiting for the slow elevator. I liked to take the steps two at a time because it felt like I spent less energy while moving quicker than if I climbed them one at a time. Once I stepped onto the third floor, I found myself immobilized for the second time in less than thirty minutes. Except, instead of my ex-wife, it was the sight of Violet seated outside my door.

She looked up at the sound of the stairwell door clicking shut and, once she recognized me, she rose to her feet. “Carter,” she said, wiping her hands down the sides of her jeans, which had scratches and fade lines along the front of her thighs. Tonight, she was sporting red hair, straight and long, and it reached just below her shoulders.

“Violet,” I replied, blinking hard. “Why are you here? If I’d have known you were coming…”

“No, I wanted to surprise you,” she said, her voice cold.

Hot and cold, hot and cold…this is cold Violet. Damn, I hate when she’s cold like this
.

I reached for her anyway, and she gave no indication of reaching back for me. The burning in my gut came back to life and I felt my shoulders slouch a little.

“Can I come in?” she asked, stepping a little farther away as I moved up to my door.

“Of course you can,” I answered. Deep breath, long sigh. “I have some questions for you anyway.”
Might as well get those answers now.

I glanced over at her. She seemed to be picking at her fingers, fidgeting even. I didn’t understand the nervousness unless she had come to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. Like something about Luke, the truth everyone else seemed to know – that they were a couple, had been since
the
beginning of time
.

Sliding the key into the lock, I reached out for her again, but she took a deliberate step back this time.
Cold.
So I held out my hand, and she refused to take it.

“What is it, Violet?” I asked at last.

She nodded at the door. “Let’s talk inside.”

I considered her for a few seconds, aware of the discomfort caused by this lengthy silence. “I…uh, I’m really sorry for what happened this weekend. I…”

“Not here,” she said, glaring at me with those cold, greyish-green eyes of hers.

Shutting my mouth, I faced the door. I sensed the pressure mounting in my chest, the numbness creeping into my hands. The last time I had felt this way, my ex-wife had explained that she no longer had feelings for me, that somewhere over the confusion of the past few years of marriage, she had lost those feelings, the ones that keep marriages alive. I had offered to take her out in the lame-ass Camry and help her look for it. But by that stage in our relationship, no amount of humor could have dissuaded her from breaking my heart. Nothing I could’ve said or did would’ve kept her with me, not even the child I wanted. And that feeling, from when she looked at me with the pity in her eyes and destruction on her mind, came back to me now. This woman standing next to me, watching and waiting for me to let her inside my loft…she didn’t love me.

I turned the key and listened to the lock disengage, but before turning the knob, I closed my eyes and considered what was going on here.

Don’t let her in, she can’t crush you if you don’t let her in
.

Stepping inside, I took another deep breath and seriously considered asking her to leave. I didn’t want to do this, not when she was like this. But when I looked back into the hallway, she was already gone. She had disappeared.

Like magic.

“Carter,” I heard behind me, inside the loft.

Before I could jump or scream or even absorb the sound of her voice, I felt her arms slither around my waist.

Turning around in her embrace, I thought she felt like the biggest compliment that ever lived. This woman seemed completely different than the one that had avoided my touch in the hallway just a couple of seconds ago. Against me, she felt warm and soft and complete; in the hall, she’d felt cold, sharp and destructive. I didn’t understand these rapid swings. They not only confused me, but distracted me from the truth I seemed to be discovering about Violet, namely that she was something of a thief and a con artist.

“You have a phobia,” she whispered, leaning up for a kiss and then squeezing me against her, tightly. I never wanted her to let go of me, but I knew the heartbreaking end was inevitable. Even if we survived my uncertainties and her fears after visiting my childhood home, we would have to contend with a long-distance relationship that might start with Broadway but would eventually pull her to Las Vegas for her big magic show.

I allowed guilty chuckle. “Phobia?”

“Of texting, or calling.” Her eyes narrowed into a glare. “Were you
really
working late tonight, Mr. Borden?”

The memory of my ex-wife running me down as I crossed to the parking garage returned to me. “Yes,” I told Violet.

She cast a sideways glare this time. “You know better than to lie to someone with magical talents…”

I spun out of her arms and stepped to the side, away from her. “I saw my ex-wife,” I admitted. I wondered if I sounded or looked guilty; I had no reason to. “She saw me after work.”

“And?” Violet prodded, stepping past me and moving into the eating area. I could hear the hurt in her tone, which surprised me because I had figured she knew already since she had magical talents and all that jazz. And didn’t care. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I said, possibly too quickly. The way you ask a truant child what he had done, and he snapped back, “
Nothing.”
Of course it had been nothing, and in my case it really was nothing. “She wanted to grab coffee.”

“But you didn’t,” she answered for me, and a tiny smile curled at the edge of her lips. “Which is why you’re home so late.”