The Beginning of Us (138 page)

I felt sick reading it. All along Stosh had thought that her plan was to take my baby and raise it with him. This guy was claiming that she had planned to raise the baby with him. Stosh grabbed the phone out of my hand and shoved it in her face. “Is this true?”

She spit in his face. “Screw you! Screw you both!”

He cocked his arm back and I threw myself in between them. “Don’t do it. Don’t stoop to her level.”

He pointed at her. “If it were up to me, you’d be at the bottom of a fucking river, tied to a cinder block, you evil whore!”

She rolled over and tucked her body as she cried.

I looked over at Stosh who shook his head and walked into the bedroom. I think he’d had enough of my sister for the night. He came back out and went into the bathroom. The sound of the water turning on let me know that he was getting a shower.

I grabbed her by the arms and started dragging her into the room. “Get off of me!”

“Shut up! You keep digging yourself into a deeper hole.”

Once in the room, I let her slam back down on the floor. Her hands were bound tight, as well as her feet. She couldn’t do anything to me. “You’re going to pay for this, Willow. Rafe will come for me. We have plans.”

“I saw Rafe earlier, as well as Mom and Dad. They all think I’m you. Right now, they think you and Stosh are working on your relationship. Well, I guess me and Stosh are working on our relationship. The new and improved version of you knows how to keep her man happy, since he’s loved me the entire time.”

“You won’t get away with this. They’ll figure it out.”

“No they won’t. You did such a good job making me look like I was crazy that they won’t believe anything out of your mouth.”

She finally realized what was going on. I don’t think she got how I was going to pull it off, but it was happening and there was nothing she could do about it.

“I’ll never pretend to be you, Willow. This isn’t happening!”

It was, no matter how much she cried. I shoved the gag back in her mouth and smiled as I walked out the door and shut it behind me.

Chapter 18

Tears for Fears.

I went straight toward the bathroom, finding the door to be unlocked. Without hesitation, I found Stosh standing in the shower, letting the water run over his body. He had both arms against the wall and his head against it.

I took off my clothes and he didn’t even realize that I’d come into the bathroom. When I slid open the glass door, he saw me and moved over to give me room. I didn’t say anything. It was better to just wrap my arms around him.

“Sorry, I just lost it! I’ve never hit a female in my life. She’s just…She’s not even human. She’s possessed by the devil or something equivalent. She has no soul.”

I kissed his wet skin as I pressed my lips on his back. “She knows what to say to get you worked up, that’s for sure.”

He finally turned around. “I just keep thinking we should run away instead of doing this. I have a bad feeling about it. So much can go wrong.”

I looked right into his eyes. “I don’t want us to have to give up everything, including both of our family’s. Let’s just give this plan a chance. She will break. I may not know anything else about her, but I know she can’t take what we’re doing to her.”

He started washing my hair. “If something happens that puts us in danger, we’re out of here. I’m not going to stick around and get arrested.”

“You’re overreacting. I’m not going to jail. So what if I tied up my sister and held her prisoner? She ruined my life.”

He put both hands on my cheeks and looked into my eyes. “I’m going to have a back-up plan.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever! You won’t need it.”

We finished washing but stayed in the shower, realizing that Ivy couldn’t hear us talking. “What are we going to do about Rafe? We can’t have him bringing attention to us. It has to look like we are working hard at our marriage.”

I ran my hands up his wet chest. “I am working hard on my marriage.”

We both laughed, even though the conversation was supposed to be serious.

The conversation was dropped when the water began to get cold. We both climbed out of the shower and made it to the bedroom before anything else was said. After putting on a bra and underwear, I climbed in bed next to him. He was sitting up, flipping through channels, looking for something to watch on the television. I leaned over and plugged both phones in to charge. When I did it, I noticed several more messages. Stosh was too busy with the television to pay attention to what I was doing. I leaned over the bed and looked at them.

I need you to call me. – R

Meet me tomorrow at my place. – R

Please? –R

I don’t know what came over me, but I replied.

Okay. – I

I rolled back over to see if Stosh had noticed and he hadn’t. After realizing that he didn’t have a clue, I laid there staring at the ceiling and wondering if I should tell him or not. He was already freaking out about my plan not being a good idea.

I had to do what was best. There was a baby that I had to worry about. Rafe could complicate things and I wasn’t about to let that happen.

I rolled over and cuddled with Stosh. “I think you should go into work tomorrow.”

He sat down the remote and cuddled up with me. “I told my dad that I had to stay home and take care of you. I can make all my calls and do my invoices from here.”

“I was thinking of going over to my parent’s house in the morning. The longer I ignore their calls, the more likely they are to come over and check on us. We can’t have that happening.”

“I’ll just go with you. I’m sure they’d rather see us together.”

I hated lying to Stosh, but I was protecting him and our future. “Yeah, I guess so.” I hoped this next part was believable. “Oh Wait! You need to stay here. What will you do if Rafe shows up and has a key to this place? Ivy could have given him one, you don’t know. If he comes in and finds her we’re screwed.”

I could tell that he felt defeated. “Will you at least hurry home. I mean, I know you’re healthy, but I like the idea of taking care of you. Being without you, right now, makes me nervous.”

“I will be fine. How about I pick up lunch on the way home?”

He kissed my nose. “Fine. You win.”

I was all about cuddling with Stosh, but like all cuddle partners, it gets too hot to sleep like that. Shortly after rolling out of his arms, I laid awake upset with myself for lying to him. So many lies had already been told. I couldn’t believe that I was telling so many of my own. It made me uneasy.

The next morning came too fast and I knew that I had to go through with what I had set out to do, so I got dressed and headed out before Stosh could argue about it. I wasn’t used to driving my sister’s vehicle, but it was necessary. After doing a search on the internet, I had Rafe’s address and had plugged it into the GPS.

When I pulled up and saw the size of his house, I was in shock. My sister had picked him for a reason. I wasn’t sure what he did for a living, but he definitely had money. His house wasn’t a mansion, but it was damn near one.

I knocked on the door several times, before he answered it wearing only a robe and pair of boxers. The smile on his face let me know that I still had him faked out. It amazed me that all these people had no clue the kind of person that my sister really was. She’d told so many lies to so many people.

“Hello, my love. Come in, come in.” I hated feeling him put his arm around me and lead me inside. “I’m making your favorite breakfast.”

“I can’t stay long. I have a doctor’s appointment.” Maybe I should just be a professional liar. I was getting pretty good at it.

“We must discuss what is happening.”

I sat down on the other side of the kitchen table and tried not to look around the house. Ivy would have known where everything was, so I had to make it seem like I was comfortable. “Rafe, I appreciate that you stuck by me when things were at the their worse. I just can’t continue this with you. It isn’t fair to you or to me.”

“But, you were the one who said we had to leave. You told me we were going to be a family. I’ve already paid for the house in Malta.”

Did he say Malta?

Holy shit! “My feelings have changed. I want to work things out with my husband. I owe it to him.”

He shook his head and approached me, crouching down on his knees. He grabbed my hands. “Please don’t say these things. I love you and you love me.”

I pulled my hands away from him, stood up and walked away from him. He was still on his knees, waiting for me to say something. I saw the pain in his eyes and I knew he was heartbroken, grasping at straws for something to hold onto. “I’m so sorry, Rafe.”

He shook his head and looked down. He really was a gorgeous man. I could see how Ivy would want to be with him. “I won’t give up. You’ll come back, you always do.” He poured himself a drink, even though it was still early in the morning. I could see his hands shaking as he tipped it back and sipped from it. I’d forced a man to be an alcoholic. This was yet another reason that my life was off track.

I wondered how many times my sister had told him it was over. Maybe she didn’t know who she wanted to be with. “Look, I came to tell you in person. I’d appreciate it if you let me move on. What we had was great, but it’s over.”

This guy couldn’t take a hint. He ran up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, keeping me from going anywhere. I tried to pull way, but he was too strong. “Please. I don’t want you to go back to him. He beat you and cheated on you. How could I be okay with that? You deserve to be happy. I can make you happy, Ivy.”

I kept my body as still as possible. Fear was overwhelming me. “Please get your hands off of me.”

Finally, he let go. I ran out of the door and didn’t look back. I have no idea if he’d followed me outside, but I didn’t want to take the chance and have him catch me. That man was creepy and obsessed.

I drove out of his private development and finally parked at a nearby grocery store. I needed to relax before I walked back into Stosh’s place all worked up. Besides, being stressed couldn’t have been good for the baby.

While I was there, I went into a pharmacy. While browsing around, I finally spotted what I’d came there to look for. I grabbed a bottle of prenatal vitamins and a bottle of Tylenol. Once I paid and got back into my car, I emptied the Tylenol into another half empty bottle and filled that bottle with the prenatal vitamins. Then I discarded the prenatal vitamin container so that nobody would ever know that I’d purchased them.

I didn’t want to keep the secret much longer, but the timing had to be right for me to finally be able to tell people the news. I kept picturing Stosh’s face when I told him that he was going to be a daddy.

It was going to make him more happy than he’d ever been before. I rubbed my stomach and thought about our little bean growing inside of me. I hoped that all of the stress that I was under wasn’t harming it. The last thing I wanted was complications. I just wanted he or she to be healthy and have a loving family to belong to. Stosh was a part of that now and I couldn’t wait to be able to be free of all of this bullshit that was going on around us.

When I got home, it was nearly twelve. I’d stopped by and grabbed two salads from a local deli.  I could have just bought one, considering they were enough to feed a small summer camp full of kids.

I went inside and sat the bag down on the countertop. Stosh wasn’t in the living room. I knew he was home because his car was in the driveway. I checked the bedroom and the bathroom, but he wasn’t there either.

I walked out to the main house and checked the door. It was locked, so I knew he couldn’t be inside. He wasn’t out by the pool or anywhere in the yard.

I started to panic, thinking back when I felt like he’d betrayed me in the worst way. There was one more room to check and I was too afraid to open the door. What if they were in on some kind of master plan. What if he’d been lying to me the whole time?

The more I stood on the other side of the door wondering, the more upset I made myself. With my hand on the doorknob, I took a few breaths and opened the door. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when it opened. The pain I felt was unbelievable and I didn’t know what I was going to do.

Chapter 19

What the…

I just stared for a few moments, trying to picture that what I was seeing wasn’t actually happening. Stosh was laying down on his back. His eyes were closed and so were Ivy’s. She was laying on top of him, but that wasn’t what alarmed me.

Ivy’s hands were undone and next to her lay a baseball bat.

I ran over toward them and pushed my sister off of Stosh. She didn’t wake up.

“Stosh, can you hear me?” I put my head against his chest and heard his heart beating. That was my first concern. I just needed to know that he was still alive.

Upon further inspecting him, I noticed that he had a gash on the other side of his forehead. It was bleeding down onto the carpet and there was a puddle already there.

I looked around the room and saw that it was in a disarray, like she untied herself and waited for him to come in. What she must not have figured was that he would have fought back.

He started to stir and I leaned in close to his face. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“I was so worried. What happened?”

Before he could respond, I watched his eyes get really big. Just as I turned around, I felt my sister’s fist punching me right in the face. I went down hard, landing next to Stosh and right in his pile of blood.

I could see him trying to focus enough to stand up and help me, but it was obvious he had a concussion. He needed to get to a hospital.

I put my hand over my face to block any more blows that were coming my way. “Ivy stop!”

She shoved me out of the way and made a dash for the door. Unfortunately, I was just as fast. I grabbed the leg of her pants and sent her falling face first. She landed hard on the floor and it must have taken her breath away. While I stood up and rushed for the door, she remained still, trying to catch her breath. I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back in the bedroom. “Get the fuck off of me!”