Authors: Holly Nicolai
Opening the card, Mandy froze in place. The
card read, "I will expect you at the club....soon, tigress." Her
happy smile changed into an annoyed scowl. "Arrogant, conceited
pain in the ass! When Hell freezes over, I will!" Mandy growled
aloud and dropped the roses in the nearest trash can.
"Mandy, how could you?" Nicole scolded and
glared at her.
"If you want them, you keep them!" Mandy
glared back and stormed off to her office, slamming the door behind
her. She remained in her office for the remainder of the day, only
coming out for a mug of her favorite mocha then went right back
into hibernation again. Paula was on duty with Nicole so there was
no reason for her to come out. Instead, she worked on the ledgers,
orders for Emmitt, placed special orders for customers, and checked
out new best sellers on the online catalog. She worked herself as
hard as she did when she ran or trained with Master
Yang.
By the end of the work day, she was not only
caught up on everything, she was way ahead. It was a great feeling
and she decided to celebrate with some Chinese food and wine after
Krav Maga training that night. She was worried about her no holds
barred fight for graduation because she'd be facing off against
Master Yang's best student whose identity remained unknown. All she
knew was that it was a he and he was a former student who had
reached Master status and instructor status both, which told her
that in a no holds barred match, she was most likely going to get
her ass kicked.
The match was going to be wicked and lethal,
hence the armor of pads they'd be wearing for protection but things
could still go wrong. Master Yang felt she was ready but she wasn't
so sure herself. She was nervous and afraid, to be honest. But that
was something to worry about later. Right now she had to get her
butt to training. She insisted on being very punctual in her life
and with every appointment she needed to attend. She lived and
breathed her routine and didn’t like it disrupted for any reason.
Any deviation needed to be planned out and scheduled. She could not
and would not go back to a life of chaos and disorder, she would go
insane!
Over the course of the next three days,
Mandy’s daily routine was normal and safe, except for the mornings
which started out as minor irritations and soon became harassment
in her eyes. Each morning Jett doubled the flowers he sent the day
before and every morning, she threw them right in the trash. With
each bouquet, he left a message card alluding to his patiently
waiting for her to come to the club. She threw the flowers in the
trash and they always found a way back to her condo thanks to
Nicole. She couldn’t bring herself to throw away the cards.
Instead, she took them home and put them all up on her corkboard on
the inside of her closet door. They were flattering even if she
hated his presumptuous nature. He needed to leave her safe and
orderly life alone.
She had no room for distractions or
complications and something told her Jett would be both and in a
major way. A part of her wondered what it would be like to be
normal and free to accept his advances, to be the object of his
fantasies and his desires, to feel his touch upon her body and
maybe even be loved by him.
On the third day, there sat six dozen yellow
roses and another card. This time the message was different and
read, "Throw these away, tigress and you
will
be going on a
date with me tonight, after your Krav Maga workout. Understand? See
you soon, Jett."
"Now he’s gone from presumptuous to stalker!
Damn him!" Mandy growled loudly.
"What do you mean?" Nicole and Emmitt both
asked at the same time. Emmitt handed Mandy an extra-large mocha.
Mandy handed over the card for Nicole and Emmitt to read which
caused them both to break out in laughter.
"Priceless! Way to go Jett." Nicole said
excitedly then sighed as her eyes grew dreamy.
"He is damn determined to spend time with you.
I’ll give him that. Girl, you might as well give in. From what I
hear, when he sets his eyes on something, he is as driven as you
are Mandy, if not more so. And right now, he wants and desires you
girlfriend. He is driven to have you and won't stop until he does.
I say go for it girl, have a one night stand with Mr. Sinfully
Delicious and get him out of your system once and for all." Emmitt
said.
"Hmm. Maybe I should." Mandy said and honestly
considered it for a moment before she shook the thought right out
of her head.
What the hell am I thinking
? "No. It is never
going to happen and I am not going on a date with him either! And
just how the hell does he know my routine? His stalker tendencies
are driving me crazy!"
The more she thought about Jett spying on her
and his stalker tendencies, her anger grew until she saw red. His
actions reminded her too much of what she left behind. In case he
was watching her right now, she had a strong message for him. "I’ll
be right back." Mandy said, grabbed her car keys and the six dozen
wrapped roses from Nicole's arms and stomped out to her car where
she loaded her things into it. She got the address and directions
to Jett's club thanks to OnStar and drove there.
Mandy pounded on the entrance door half
expecting Jett to answer it. But when no one answered, she set the
six dozen roses against it and thumb tacked a note to the wood door
that said, "LEAVE ME ALONE! THE ANSWER IS NOT ONLY HELL NO, BUT
HELL NO UNTIL HELL FREEZES OVER!" She then looked directly up at
the security camera just in case her note wasn’t clear enough and
yelled, "Stay the hell away from me, Jett Damian or I’ll kick your
fine ass all the way down to the center of Hell!" She turned away,
marched back to her car out of sight of the camera and drove off
like a bat out of hell. She no longer gave a good-god-damn who had
seen her or what they thought of her either!
Back at the bookstore, Nicole watched Mandy
storm in as though possessed by the Devil himself. She knew she
should warn her that she had company waiting in her office, but all
that came out was, "Uh….Mandy?" Mandy turned eyes full of pure
hellfire on her and growled, "I’ll deal with you––later," and kept
on going toward her office. Mandy was only in the office for a few
seconds when the yelling began and a few seconds more to see Jett’s
new and hot driver running for the nearest exit and looking
terrified.
Nicole glanced over at Emmitt in shock to see
him struggling to keep his laughter under control until the poor
man fled the building. The minute he was gone, she saw Emmitt
double over as his laughter burst out. Arms wrapped around his
middle. Nicole was just grateful it was a slow day and they had no
customers at that moment.
Ten minutes later, Mandy came out of her
office taking slow measured steps to Emmitt's counter where she
barked at him, requesting three extra-large mochas and slapped her
money on the counter. Emmitt laughed even harder until he managed
to get a good look at her face then scrambled to get what she
wanted as his laughter died a quick death. Mandy nodded and took
the tray of cups with her and headed back to her office. She yelled
over her shoulder at Nicole to get her ass in there,
pronto!
Nicole knew deep inside, Mandy somehow found
out she had been the one to give out the information on Mandy’s
routine to Jett. Mandy clearly needed help in the love department.
She was sure Mandy could not even find a pig in a barn without
help. She hated seeing Mandy alone all the time, she just needed to
have a little bit of fun and Jett seemed to genuinely care. She
also didn’t know the whole story of Mandy’s past, only what she had
been told, but now she had a bad feeling it was much worse than
Mandy let on. She assumed Mandy needed an ear to listen while she
talked about it.
With sudden regret, Nicole dragged her feet on
the way to Mandy’s office. When she passed Emmitt's counter, he
asked her what she did to piss off the boss this time. Nicole did
not answer, instead face flushed a deep red and she tried to avoid
his intense gaze.
Emmitt was smart and it only took him a couple
seconds to realize what Nicole and Jett had talked about that night
at the club. "Jesus Girl, you didn’t?" Emmitt was shocked that
Nicole would so blatantly disregard Mandy's wishes. He had his
answer when her face turned an even deeper red. He gasped out loud.
You idiot, you have pure hell to pay now.
Nicole knew all too well how severe Mandy's
temper could flare and she really didn’t want to be on the
receiving end of it. But if she did not get in there, she knew
Mandy would come out even more pissed and would drag her into the
office, nearly ripping her ear off.
"You dared to gave Jett Damian personal
information about me when I specifically asked you not to. I
explained to you that my very life depended on it, did I not,
Nicole Givens!"
"Yes, you did, Mandy." Nicole stood in front
of Mandy's large antique desk and stared at an invisible spot on
the wooden floor between her feet. Inside, she was fuming. Mandy
had to right to treat her like a child!
"Nicole, It wasn’t a figure of speech and now
you have put my life in serious danger. This business I purchased
for the three of us and neither of you put a red cent into at the
startup and still profit from because I care about you and your
futures, will go away and close down. If I have to go underground
again, I will liquidate all of the assets and it will be as if I
never existed in your lives or in this city. Do you now even have
the slightest idea of the ramifications of what you have done
Nicole?" Mandy’s voice was soft and resigned, almost as if she had
already given up.
"What do you mean by underground?" Nicole
asked softly as she sat in the chair across from Mandy, trying to
understand what her friend was not willing to say.
"Underground means I have to go back into
hiding from my ex again. You will never understand just how
dangerous a sociopath really is and I pray you never have to. My ex
David killed two other women before he said he loved me and then
tried to kill me by shooting me in the back of the head. I barely
survived with my life, the doctors said it was a miracle I lived."
She turned around and lifted the back of her hair and removed her
hair extension piece to show Nicole the large bald indentation at
the base of her skull. When she heard Nicole gasp on a sob, she
replaced the extension, lowered her hair and turned around. "David
loved to brag about killing those girls and about how he got away
with it. I refuse to be number three and I will hide for the rest
of my life if need be in order to keep myself alive and safe. He
thought he had killed me until I showed up at the trial and
testified against him. He promised me then that 'us' would never be
over, not until I died. Those who helped me put my obituary in the
paper and stated I had a stroke and later died of my injuries
inflicted by him before they hid me away here and changed my
name."
Nicole now felt like a tiny ant in a big
world. Mandy had only asked her for one promise and she had
willingly broken it two nights before, while clubbing and
inebriated. The saying, the path to Hell is paved with good
intentions arose in her head and in her mother's voice, making her
feel ten times worse.
At the time, she thought Mandy was being a
stubborn ass where Jett was concerned and so she told him
everything she knew about Mandy's routine while he plied her with
as many drinks as she could handle and even promised her a night
with a Dom in his club. If she had to be honest with herself, she
was insanely jealous that a gorgeous and rich man like Jett Damian
wanted plain jane Mandy O'Neal as intensely as he did. While the
only men who wanted her were users, players or assholes.
Nicole tried to hit on Jett, offering him
anything he wanted, but he made it quite clear that the only woman
he wanted was Mandy. She broke down and cried while she told Mandy
the truth. And when she finished, she felt even worse, like a true
piece of shit, because she knew Emmitt and herself would still be
living one step away from the streets if not for Mandy.
Mandy did everything for them all out of the
kindness of her heart––stating, she knew how horrific life could be
and wanted to give them both a better life than she had been given.
Hunter at least had already purchased half of the building from
Mandy and Emmitt was in the process of paying her back for
everything she'd initially purchased for the coffee shop. She had
not really thought about it, until now. She also now realized that
for the past five years, she had been taking Mandy and her share of
the profit that she got from the business for granted.
Mandy had always been content with her helping
out in the bookstore and never asked her to pay back her share of
the initial start up that she promised in the beginning she would
nor did she ever ask her to pay her part of the cost of purchasing
the condo. In all this time, she had never thought to even offer
either. It was a true revelation about herself. The truth really
did hurt like hell and she did not like this side of herself she
now saw so clearly. Had she been Mandy, she would have hated
herself immensely. Everything Mandy did for her and all she had
asked in return was for them to respect her privacy.
"Mandy––I…." Nicole's voice trailed off, at a
loss for words.
"You can go back to work now." Mandy sighed
heavily as tears escaped her eyes. Everything she had worked so
damn hard for over the last five years, was all gone because she
had stupidly trusted the wrong person. She couldn't stand to look
at Nicole a moment longer right then. She had no one to blame but
herself for her choices in her life. When Nicole just continued to
sit there, Mandy spoke up again, "Nicole, please just leave me
alone now. I have to think and plan what I need to do
next."