“You cleaned up.”

I raise my eyebrows, bored. If she was coming for a fight—I wasn’t interested.

“Well?” I say, “What do you want?”

“Oh, I’m here to make a deal with you,” she looks at me expectantly, narrowing her nut shaped eyes.

She stinks of expensive perfume and new clothes. I watch as she perches lightly on the arm of my sofa as if she’s too good to actually sit on it.

She looks like a china figurine in a thrift shop. I walk to where she is and face her.

“Say what you came to say and get out,” I demand.

She clears her throat, a delicate chirping noise, and folds her hands in her lap.

“I’m sure you are aware by now that certain incriminating things have come into my possession.”

“I am aware that you stole my pictures and letters, yes,” I manage.

“It was clever—what you pulled on Caleb,” she pulls a monogrammed cigarette box out of her purse and flips open the lid. “He told me you were manipulative when we first started dating. But wow!”

She taps a cigarette into her palm and runs her thumb along the wheel of her lighter. I remember Jim doing the same thing. I have lost my fascination with the process.

“You’re like a bad cold, Olivia that just won’t go away. But, you are going to go away and you‘re going to leave my fiancée and I alone.”

“He’s no more your fiancé than he is mine,” I snip. “In fact, as far as I know, there is an engagement ring sitting in his sock drawer that he never plans on putting on your finger.” I watch in satisfaction as the color drains from her face.

“If there hadn’t been an accident, if you hadn’t shown up, I would be wearing that ring right now. Do you know why? Because he chose me. He dumped you and moved on to me. You are just his little distraction. You mean nothing to the real Caleb.” She is panting, her eyes on fire like her stupid hair.

I feel gunpowder ignite in my veins. She didn’t know anything about Caleb. I was the one he fell in love with first. I was the one who hurt him most. I was tied to him by broken hearts and tears and regret, and by God, it was more of a bond than she was ever going to have with him.

“If you see me as so inconsequential, then why are you here?”

She thinks about it.

“I’m here to offer you an escape.” I watch her scarlet lips suspiciously, as they curl around the cigarette.

“I’m listening.”

“If Caleb finds out how you’ve taken advantage of him…well, I’m sure you know what will happen,” she taps her ash onto my scarred coffee table. “If you stop seeing him—if you disappear, I won’t tell.”

“You won’t tell?” I mock her kindergartener choice of words and roll my eyes. “He’s going to know what I did when his memory comes back. What difference will it make to me if you tell him now or he finds out later?”

“You get to walk away by choice. Keep some semblance of integrity. Think about it darling, you’re going to be humiliated when he discovers your little lie. There will be a confrontation, tears, and hurt that will take a long, long time to heal. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t give a damn about you—it’s Caleb that I want to protect.”

“Somehow, I find it hard to believe that your sole concern, in this matter, is Caleb,” I say blandly. She stands up dropping the butt of her Charleston onto my carpet and stubbing it out with her toe.

“You’re the selfish bitch Olivia. Let’s not confuse things here. I would never do what you have done. Never!” Her words sting me with their truth. Even this disease of a woman would never have deceived the person who she loved. I am so horrified by her words, that I take a threatening step towards her.

“When I met him, he was still dealing with the hurt you caused,” she points a finger at me.

“It took me a year to make him see that you weren’t worth it. A year,” she hisses. “You are nothing but white trash and I will not let you near him again! Do you understand me?”

I did. Maybe if I’d fought for him like she was doing, we’d still be together.

I sigh. If I refuse her offer, she would go right to him with her proof. Sure, I could bring up the wrecked apartment and the blackmail but even weighing her crime against mine left me in a bad place. I was diarrhea and she was merely a bad case of indigestion. And what about Caleb? He would surely cut Leah off if he knew her part but that would leave him hurt and alone. What type of monster would I be to let him hurt—again? Especially, just so I could spite Leah? If I disappeared, he would eventually forget about me. He had once before.

I concede.

“Fine. Get out.” I walk to my door and open it without looking at her. I want her gone, out of my home, and out of my life. There was no person I hated more, other than myself. She pauses on her way out and looks me in the eye—bitch to bitch.

“I always win.” She tosses an envelope at my feet and walks away. I slam the door and then kick it. I pace my apartment yelling every swear word I can think of.

It is time for me to forget. My heart feels like it is going to explode from the pain. I slide down the wall and pull my knees to my chest. I have to get out of here, out of this place that is saturated with Caleb. That’s it! I decide. I am leaving and I’m never coming back.

Chapter Thirteen

The Past

I was introduced to the viper Caleb called “mum” on the first day of September, just a couple of months past our one year anniversary. We pulled up to the two story colonial around four o’ clock. I immediately started ringing my hands. Caleb parked next to a large fountain that was spitting water rudely in my direction. I looked away feeling snubbed already.

“It’s just a statue, Duchess,” he said smiling at my expression. “She doesn’t bite. I’ve done several drunken dives into that fountain, I should know.”

I smiled weakly and took the long way around the car to avoid looking at it.

Caleb took me firmly by the elbow as we approached the door. I had the distinct feeling that he thought I was going to run. I wanted to.

As the door swung open, I was given a brief glimpse of what his mother thought of meeting me. She was caught off guard, perhaps we arrived a minute earlier than she expected. Her face was set in a hard scowl as she faced her husband, as if they had just exchanged bitter words. I saw him look at her in disapproval and I knew—a gut feeling that it had been about me. Seconds passed, the air argument was swept under the rug and they were both smiling at us, welcoming me into their home. I stood to the side like a forgotten accessory as Caleb embraced his mother, kissing her on the cheek. She was evaluating me even as she stroked his hair and marveled out loud about how handsome he was. I could taste her dislike in the way her eyes darted to my hair and back to my face as she waited politely for her beloved son to introduce us. At last, Caleb gave his stepfather a slap on the back, man to man affection, and turned toward me.

“This is Olivia,” I heard him say and I smiled timidly stepping out from behind his broad shoulders.

Mother Dearest eyed me like I was a rotting carcass and stepped forward to take my hand. I was annoyed by her immediate dislike of me. I wanted her approval. I wanted it like I wanted him.

“Caleb, you’ve found yourself the prettiest girl in Florida,” his stepfather said, winking at me. I relaxed.

“It’s very nice to finally meet you,” his mother nodded tightly.

I saw Caleb look from me to his mother and I inwardly cringed. He knew. I looked down at my cheap shoes in shame. I had bought them especially for this occasion. I wished I was better at hiding things from him. I wished I had bought a more expensive pair of kickers.

“Dinner is just about ready; shall we move to the dining room?” She motioned for us to follow her with a light flick of her wrist. The walk to the dining room was torturous. I felt like an outcast following at the back of the line. Mother and son trotted in front of me, their arms clasped intimately as she giggled at everything he said. Caleb’s stepfather had disappeared right after dinner was announced only to reappear once we were seated at the table. I wondered bitterly if they would even notice if I disappeared.

I sat rigidly in my chair as his stepfather asked me polite questions about my studies and his mother sized me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Luca, as everyone called her, was five feet even, with long blonde hair and startling blue eyes. She looked more like Caleb’s older sister than his mother and I suspected that there was a team of plastic surgeons somewhere to thank for that. She was beautiful, well-bred and opinionated and I am sure her opinion would be that I was not good enough for her Caleb.

“What do your parents do, Olivia?” she asked me, taking a delicate bite of her lamb.

I had never eaten lamb and was trying to smear a blob of the brightly colored mint jelly onto a chunk of it.

“My parents are both dead,” I said. The next question was the one I always dreaded answering.

“Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. May I inquire as to how they passed?” I looked at her pearls and her cream colored pantsuit and I wanted to say ‘no you may not’ in that same haughty tone she was using with me. Instead, I bit my tongue, for Caleb’s sake.

“My father committed suicide when I was thirteen and my mother died of pancreatic cancer during my senior year of high school. When they were alive, my mom taught fifth grade, and my dad just kind of hopped from one job to another.”

She looked unruffled but I saw a slight tensing of her hand as it clutched the stem of her wine glass. I was no good riff-raff. A stain on her high society living. She would be mortified if I became her daughter-in-law.

“How did you manage?” she looked genuine this time, sweet even, and I saw what Caleb saw—a good mother.

“You’ll be surprised what someone is able to handle given no other choice.” Caleb squeezed my hand under the table.

“That must have been very difficult for you,” she said.

“It was.” I bit my lip because now I wanted to cry. I responded to sweetness like a f**king fruit fly and now she’d managed to disarm me.

“Caleb, love,” she said in that same honeyed tone. “Did you make any decisions about London?”

London? I looked at his face. He was holding his breath, his eyes amber intensity.

“No. We’ve already discussed this.”

“Oh, well you best hurry up, an opportunity like that won’t be around forever. Besides, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t go,” she pointedly shot a glance in my direction.

“London?” I said quietly. I saw her raise an eyebrow out of the corner of my eye. Gloating.

“It’s nothing, Olivia,” he smiled weakly, and I knew it absolutely was ‘something’.

“Caleb was offered a job in London,” Luca said, folding her hands beneath her chin, “by a very prestigious firm. And of course he still considers London his home because all of his friends are there and most of his extended family as well. We are very supportive of his making the move.”

My mind went blank. I felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of cold water over my head.

“I don’t want to go,” he looked at me now—only me. I searched his face, trying to decide if he was being sincere. “Maybe if you had already graduated, you could go with me. It would be a possibility. But, as long as you are here, that’s where I am going to be.”

I froze. He had just thwarted his mother in front of me and made it known that I was his number one priority. If there was an altar of Caleb, I would have gladly worshiped there.

“Caleb, you can not be serious,” his mother’s face twitched as her good breeding fought against her outrage.

“You barely know her. I hardly think that you should make a decision based on some fling.”

“That’s enough,” he said it calmly, but it was easy to see that he was ruffled.

Caleb tossed his napkin into the plate in front of him and pushed back his chair. “Do you really think that if Olivia was just a fling I would have brought her here to meet you?”

“Well, she‘s certainly not the first girl you‘ve brought home. You were very serious about Jessica and—”

“Luca,” this warning came from his stepfather, who until now had been observing the whole exchange in silence. “This is none of your business.”

“My son is most certainly my business,” she spat, lifting her small frame from the table, “I refuse to watch him throw his life away for an opportunity hungry…”

“Let’s go, Olivia.” Caleb grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the table. I was holding a mouthful of half chewed potato in my cheek. I swallowed it abruptly and looked at Caleb in growing confusion. Was he really walking out in the middle of supper because of me? Should I do something?

“I have never spoken harshly to you before and I’m not going to start today,” he said to her calmly, though by the rigid set of his shoulders and the firm grip he had on my hand, I knew his calmness was a farce. Caleb’s anger boiled beneath the surface like hot lava and when it erupted, there was no getting away. “If you don’t accept Olivia, then you don’t accept me.” And then he walked me out of the room so quickly I barely had a chance to digest what had just happened.

“Caleb?” I said when we were in the driveway. He stopped walking and I almost toppled over as I was pulled to a skidding halt. Before I could say anything else, he spun me around like we were dancing and pulled me against his chest.

“I’m sorry, Duchess,” he said kissing me softly on the lips. Both of his hands were on my face and his eyes were locked with mine in such intensity I wanted to cry.