After a few seconds of quiet contemplation, I’m aware that I need to relieve myself. I step out of the room in search of a loo. The apartment seems silent, and there is a good possibility that Jacob is still asleep. No one in their right mind gets up so early on a weekday. It takes me a while to find the right door. I’m more careful this time. I need to avoid Jacob’s bedroom at all costs.
My reflection in the mirror shows me that I overdid it last night. I look terrible and I have so many things that I need to deal with today. Dad will be expecting some updates on this case later on, especially after we filed that suit and served the subpoenas.
After I make myself more presentable, I emerge from the loo, walking smack bang into a strong muscular very naked chest.
“I’m surprised that you’re up so early. I heard your alarm earlier on. There is fresh coffee for you in the living room,” Jacob says, when I back away, trying to breathe normally again. He doesn’t have his shirt on, and I can’t seem to take my eyes off his body, lingering on that sharp six pack that could grate cheese. I lick my lips and follow the V cut on his hips that I am longing to lick, and as I move my eyes up his body over his pecs to those broad shoulders and linger on his wide delicious arms, I am hit with so much lust I may spontaneously combust. Yeah, he looks even better now than when we used to be together.
I want to find out why he brought me back to his place, but he is already walking away. I guess I have no choice but to follow him. The living room is super tidy. There is no indication that there was ever any party here just a couple of days ago. The smell of coffee instantly makes me feel better.
“Why am I here?” I question him, sitting down at the table filled with yummy goodies. A fresh wave of desire stirs in me and settles in the pit of my stomach. This feels like I’m back in Braxton. Jacob used to make breakfast for me every morning. I shouldn’t be reminiscing over those memories from back then. Jacob is just playing a very cruel game with me, showing me exactly what I’ve been missing out on.
“I had to talk to you about the case, and you weren’t answering your phone. I called the office and convinced the receptionist to tell me where you were,” he explains, sitting opposite me. Even first thing in the morning, all bed fucked and rumpled, he looks gorgeous.
“So you just decided to show up and save me when I got wrecked. How noble of you,” I mutter, pouring some coffee into the cup.
“I had no idea where you lived, so I brought you here to my apartment. Mike left and I had no one to call. I couldn’t just leave you in the bar. You had way too much to drink, Dora; anything could have happened to you and I couldn’t live with myself if I hadn’t looked out for you.”
I gape at his candid statement and feel a blush of shame at my lack of impulse control.
“It’s still pretty early, so maybe you should call your office and let them know you will be working out of the office with me today,” he suggests, taking a bite of a fresh croissant. He’d gone to a hell of an effort to make me feel welcome. Everything on the table looks delicious, and my stomach is rumbling loudly. Maybe I should start stuffing my face with food in order to deal with these dangerous memories and equally dangerous feelings he brings up in me.
“And when did you decide it was okay to undress me?” I ask archly.
“Of course I undressed you, Dora. You would have been uncomfortable sleeping in your clothes. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t seen you naked already, right?”
My face feels like it’s suddenly on fire. I don’t respond, drinking my coffee. Yes, that’s true: he has seen me naked many times. God, I need to stop thinking about him that way. He hasn’t been in my life for years.
I put some food into my mouth, just so I don’t have to talk to him. His intense look is slowly making me uncomfortable.
“So, wasn’t your fiancé worried that you didn’t come home last night?” he asks, throwing yet another uncomfortable question at me. I wonder if he suspects that I’m lying through my teeth.
“We don’t live together, so, no … he doesn’t know,” I tell him.
“That’s good; at least there’s no issue here.” He turns to a pile of papers relating to the court case and inhales deeply. “I’m ready to rip that paper apart. The bastards deserve to go bankrupt.”
“Don’t worry. We can work on our strategy this morning. After our last conversation we filed the suit. The paper should have it this morning the latest,” I say as I reach out to touch his hand to offer comfort. His hand is warm and smooth and the brief contact with his skin has me wanting more. There is no way that I can keep pretending that I’m happily in love with another man.
“Great. I’m glad. I wanted her to be fucking shocked. I bet she wasn’t expecting it.”
Fortunately for me, Jacob doesn’t ask any more uncomfortable questions after that comment about my fiancé. We don’t talk while we both finish eating. My anxiety is raising my blood pressure, and I need to calm down. Jacob is just another client.
After he gets dressed we set up a small working space in the living room. We go over all the articles that pertain to the case and see how we can build the inflammatory defamation accusation into a solid accusation. I had already read them a few days ago, but I have to walk through the case with Jacob so that he understands exactly what will happen in court and what may happen next. Court prep is vital, especially now this whole thing is going ahead, and I need to make sure that I understand everything. Jacob tells me all about his times in rehab, about his problems with painkillers and alcohol. I never thought that he would get hooked on drugs or booze; he was always so strong and so confident. Maybe our breakup affected him more than I could have imagined. Who knows? Maybe I was the reason, but there is nothing I can do about it now.
He had a problem with drugs, but he managed to clean himself up. The recent so-called expose from a couple of weeks ago claimed that he betrayed his team and family. Apparently someone came forward claiming that Jacob was seen dealing drugs to other players and on the street.
I keep shuffling through all the paperwork, thinking about his family. His mother had never been really supportive of him or his career.
“Dora, can I ask you something?” he asks all of a sudden, pulling me out of my concentration. I dart my eyes to look at him and then I automatically regret it. That tension that was evident a couple of days ago is back, thickening the air between us as fast as a snap of your finger. A sense of calm settles me like some other force is telling me that it’s okay to feel this way. Maybe it’s my second chance to fix what I screwed up the first time.
“Is this about the case?”
“No. You know, last night when I had to undress you, there were marks on your legs. Concerning marks,” he says.
Panic seizes my lungs, and I’m ready to run. I open my mouth to ask him what exactly he means, but physically I can’t make any sound. The marks he noticed are the ones I cause, the self-inflicted punishment, the release of stress and anger, the lack of control I feel that manifests itself in self-loathing. He would never understand and I could never explain.
Whenever I self-harm, the need comes over me quite suddenly without warning. Anything can set me off and every negative thought and feeling will rush through me until it becomes an ache, an itch under my skin. Panic will rush through me, followed by a mental assault of every failing and all the ways I fall short of being a good person. This builds and builds inside me like a kettle on the boil, churning the waters inside at a dangerous level, only to release steam, to reach one hundred degrees and switch off. Well, my one hundred degrees is to cut into my skin. Once the blade slices through my skin and blood wells in the shallow cut, I relax.
I deserve it, I deserve the pain. I absolve myself of my many shortcomings and my bad behavior by doing this. The adrenaline hits my system and I momentarily feel better. Like I am good enough, I am pretty enough, I am smart enough and I deserve to be loved. That single moment in time I feel validated. Then the guilt comes and I crash again. I
feel sick that I have done this. I mean what kind of lunatic does that? It’s a secret I can never tell. I want to stop, but I know I can’t. It’s all I have—it’s my addiction, my compulsion, my penance and my reward.
Realising he has seen the red tiny wounds is what brings me back from my reverie. Embarrassing heat scorches through my lungs, locking my muscles in place. There is nothing wrong with being scarred, but it’s my secret. No one knows about it; no one can ever know.
“My friend’s cat scratched me with her claws,” I lie, smiling. “She doesn’t like me very much. She is so adorable, so I always keep trying to stroke her. I’ll win her over one of these days.”
“Dora, those marks are not from a damn cat. It’s strange, but I have seen something like that before. Are you self-harming?” he asks not even trying to be gentle about it. I bite my lip, feeling torn between what’s right and what’s wrong. How long will I have to hide behind my carefully constructed façade and keep lying to throw people off the real me? How long will Jacob think to just carry on, pretending that our past doesn’t matter?
He doesn’t have the right to interfere in my life, to judge me.
“No, don’t be so stupid. I have no reason to self-harm. I have a great job, a fiancé that loves me. My life is perfect,” I continue, throwing these absurd lies, hoping that no one ever finds out the real truth.
Jacob shakes his head and runs his hand through his hair.
“Of course, your life is perfect. Sorry, I was just concerned.” He sighs. “Things change, I guess.”
The sudden awkward silence makes me uncomfortable and I don’t know what else to say. The holes in my chest that I fought so hard to close are reopening and I know that he is the only one that can put me back together. I keep staring down at the papers in front of me but seeing nothing as my mind wanders.
“I better go. I have an appointment with that woman that wrote the article, and I don’t want to be late,” I say, getting up.
“Good, because I want to go with you. I’m looking to see you in action,” he adds, like the previous conversation is long forgotten, like we don’t have to worry that perfect Dora isn’t actually so perfect anymore.
Jacob
After my statement, Dora argues with me for a good five minutes, telling me why I shouldn’t be going with her to this meeting with Sarah Willcock. In the end I follow her to the car anyway, dismissing all her advice. She thinks that we will only provoke the bitch to write more damaging stuff about me. Whatever. My relationship with my mother is damaged beyond repair anyway. She can write whatever she wants, but I’m immune this time. Rehab has changed me.
Dora needs a lift anyway. Her car is parked outside her office, so I’m taking advantage of this situation. Besides, I want to spend a bit more time with her. She doesn’t say anything to me when we slide into the busy morning traffic. I didn’t get that bullshit about the cat. She lied to me. Some of the scars on her thighs are fresh, recent. I can’t be one hundred percent sure that she is not self-harming, but there is something else about her that keeps niggling at me. She’s hiding behind that confident mask, behind that perfect life that she’s leading. I don’t like the fact that this guy she is apparently in love with and engaged to hasn’t even called yet. I would go fucking mental knowing that my girlfriend went out drinking and slept in her ex-boyfriend’s house.
“What are you trying to achieve with this lawsuit?” she asks, when I park the car forty minutes later, somewhere in Croydon.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you looking for compensation or an apology? What am I’m fighting for here?”
“Money doesn’t matter to me. I want the paper to apologise and get their facts straight. I have never been to a brothel, and I have been clean for months now. Half of the stuff that she wrote about me was completely fabricated. ”
Dora nods. “I understand that, but there needs to be an incentive for them not to try this with someone else. I am going to ask the judge for compensation and whatever you do with it is your decision.” She turns away and doesn’t ask me any more questions.
“Okay, that’s cleared up,” she says. “Miss Willcock is not expecting us so you need to behave. We need to play our cards right. I just want to find out a bit more about her intentions and set up the deposition.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be a good boy. You won’t even know that I’m here.” I chuckle and then kill the engine. Sarah had made a move on me once. I rejected her, so she decided to go after me with that damaging article. I won’t let this one go. Besides, I still need to break Dora. It’s because of her my life fell apart in the first place. In fact this whole shit show with Sarah probably wouldn’t have happened if Dora hadn’t broken off with me. I wouldn’t even be on her radar.
Sarah needs to be put in her place, and if the paper prints a retraction, maybe my mother will finally understand that I’m doing all right, that the previous articles were filled with lies. She never gave me a chance to explain what happened to me.
The atmosphere goes a little frosty when we both walk inside the press office. The secretary recognises me. Of course she does, my face has been splattered around their paper more than once.
“Sarah Willcock, please. I have an appointment with her this morning,” Dora states with authority. Her stern voice ripples down to my balls and my mind starts to wander. I really need to stop imagining her on top of me. This whole act is purely for my own good. People say that revenge is a dish best served cold, and I’m hoping that’s the case.
“One moment. Please take a seat, Miss…?”
“Harrison, Dora Harrison. Miss Willcock should know why we are here. Please tell her that this is urgent,” Dora snaps, using that tone of voice, again causing me to audibly groan.
Sweet Jesus she is turning me on with this don’t-fuck-with-me attitude she’s got going on right now. I could bend her over the reception desk I am that turned on. We were only kids before, still exploring our sexuality, but now we have both had some experience. I remember she was wild in bed, and the sex between us was always awesome. I don’t dare imagine what it would be like now or I might embarrass myself.
The secretary goes slightly red and makes the phone call. I need to stop getting excited. After some guilty pleasure, Dora will hate me. She will be heartbroken, but at least I’ll win this case.
“Well, well, well … who do we have here? The one and only Jacob Radcliffe. Ladies, please can someone pinch me? I think I’m dreaming.”
I turn around, standing face-to-face with Sarah, the bitch that dared to start a war with me. It’s too bad, because today is the day when her life begins turning into a living hell.
“Destroy her,” I whisper to Dora, and fold my arms over my chest, smiling wickedly.
Chapter Seven
Small things that matter.
“Hey, Sarah, how you doing? Have you ruined anybody else’s life today?” I ask, eyeing her from head to toe, wanting to remove that stupid smirk off her face. She has nice tits, but that’s about it. I turned her down because I witnessed the way she talked to one of the cameramen during the Six Nations Championship. She was obnoxious and rude to anyone she didn’t need to impress, and then straight afterward she started flirting with me. I just couldn’t bring myself to get involved with someone like that.
She eyes Dora intently, probably wondering if Dora is worth her time. Then she laughs, tossing her shiny blonde locks over her shoulder. If she hadn’t behaved so poorly I probably would have hit on her. She was more or less my type, although blondes weren’t always my preference, but after my breakup with Dora I decided to stay away from brunettes. They brought back too many painful memories.
“Oh, Jacob, you’re so funny. We both know that I only write about the truth. People only take away what they want from all my witty articles.” She laughs.
“Bullshit. Most of the stuff you write is absolute crap that you have embellished from a miniscule grain of rumour—”
“All right,
I think that’s enough,” Dora says, cutting me off, thank god, because I’m nearly losing my temper. “We shouldn’t be discussing this in reception. Jacob. Miss Willcock, I believe that we should move to a more private setting, out of respect for my client’s privacy.”
Sarah shoots Dora a sharp look and nods to follow her. She is swaying her hips, probably just because she thinks I’m attracted to her. Once we enter the small conference room, I know that I won’t be able to sleep tonight without smoking some green. I detest this bitch. She makes me so angry that I feel like my body is vibrating, but mostly I hate the fact that she trashed my reputation without any hesitation or thought for the consequences. I used to be an addict, I will admit it. I was a sad motherfucker who pushed everyone away. I had my priorities out of whack and I didn’t think about the future. My career didn’t matter then, but that’s all in the past. I got myself together and moved on. She had no right to write so much shit about me.
Dora decides to sit opposite Sarah, so I situate myself next to her, touching her calf with mine. Her body goes rigid, and I want to laugh. She is still pretending that I don’t affect her, but deep down we both know that she’s fighting a losing battle with her true feelings.
“As you must be aware by now, my client—Mr. Radcliffe here—has brought a defamatory case against you and your paper citing the article that you, Miss Willcock, wrote about my client five weeks ago. We obviously hope that this will not be a drawn-out case that proceeds to court, as it would not reflect well upon your person or on the media group that owns the newspaper. What I am here today to offer is the opportunity to cut out months of back and forth and costly legal teams and the use and discovery of information less than savoury about yourself. In short, Miss Willcock, we are willing to settle out of court with an agreeable seven figure sum and a letter of retraction and a public apology.” Dora speaks in a clipped no-nonsense tone, obviously not planning to go easy on her. I shift on the chair next to her, knowing that I have to let her deal with it. I’m not an expert or anything, but that bitch has to apologise. She has to admit to her mistake.