Into the Black

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

I’D REACHED THE music room by the time Nick caught up. I tried to pull the door closed, but he put his foot in the gap to stop me.

“Please, just leave me alone.”

I didn’t want him there. I didn’t want anyone to see me in this state, let alone Nick, but I couldn’t summon up the energy to push him away. The tears were coming, and I wasn’t sure I could stop them.

“Sorry,” he murmured, putting his arms around me and pulling me back into him. “I didn’t think.”

“It’s okay. It’s me. I’m overly sensitive at the moment. I need to give myself a good talking to.”

I gulped in air, trying to swallow my sobs. Which didn’t work, dammit. I’d already broken down on Nick once in England, and I hated the thought of embarrassing myself further by doing it again.

Nick spun me to face him, then gently lifted me onto the edge of the grand piano and caged me in with his arms. With anyone else, I’d have felt trapped and fought my way out, but this was Nick.

My makeshift perch put me at eye level with him, and I tried to look away. Staring into someone’s eyes was like looking into their soul, and I didn’t want Nick to see the pain and blackness tumbling through mine at this moment.

Except he wasn’t about to let me off. He put a still-sweaty palm against my cheek and turned my head so I faced him again, leaning forward so his forehead rested against mine and I couldn’t break his gaze.

“It will get better, I promise,” he whispered.

“How can it?” Right now, Virginia felt bleaker than the Arctic. “Everything here reminds me of him. I’m sitting on a piano that only he ever played, in a room that was more his than mine, in a house he helped me to build. I could go into work, but if I did, I’d have to drive a car he bought for me to an office we shared at a company named after him.”

Nick didn’t answer, just softly stroked my hair.

And my words just kept tumbling out. “When I face people again, I know they’ll offer sympathy, or pity, or avoid me altogether because they don’t know what to say. Or they’ll say something that reminds me of our life, like you did. Everything I see or hear or do or think brings back memories and makes me miss him more. And the nights are even worse.”

“It’ll get better because we’ll make sure it does. All of us. You’re not alone in this.”

I sighed. “I appreciate you guys being here, really I do. It’s just my head’s a mess, and I can’t fix it. I’ve never felt like this before.”

“It’s called grief, Emmy, and it’s perfectly normal to feel this way. Your world got turned upside down. It’s going to take time for the hurt to fade.”

“I don’t think it ever will. It hasn’t so far. At least now I know I had a heart, despite what people said, because I can feel the massive f*****g hole in my chest now it’s been ripped out of me.”

“It’ll be like that for a while.”

“How long did it take you? With Jana?” I whispered.

He stared at the wall beyond me, remembering too. “A couple of years before I could look at a picture of her. Double that to remember the good times rather than the end.”

A tear ran down my cheek, the wet track cooling under Nick’s breath. His eyes glistened as well.

“Forever isn’t enough time,” I said, my voice hoarse.

Nick pulled me forward into a hug. “I know, baby. I know. What can I do to help?”

“Nothing,” I said weakly, my words muffled against his chest. “I thought about renting a place where I wouldn’t be surrounded by reminders all the time, but I’ll have to face up to things at some point. There’s so much for me to sort out—his companies, his investments, the properties, the will. And bloody Miriam’s suing me on top of that.”

“Miriam’s suing you?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, nobody said.”

“Yeah, well, she is. She wants his money. She won’t get it, but it’s just one more thing to deal with. I need a distraction. Somehow, when I was living in England all this didn’t seem so real.”

“How can I take your mind off things? Do you want to watch a movie? Have dinner? Go shopping? What about a holiday?”

“You’re seriously offering to go shopping?”

If Nick would go that far, he must be really worried about me.

It was almost funny watching him squirm. “Uh, Dan’s coming back tomorrow. She’d love to go. Or Mack. I could cover for Mack at work while she takes you shopping.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass. I always leave the shopping to Bradley, anyway. He knows what I want to wear far better than I do. No, I think what I need to do is get back to work. That’s gonna be uncomfortable though—I’ll be like an exhibit in a zoo.”

“Do you want me to send a memo around telling everyone they should treat you as normal?”

“No! That would make me seem weak. Plus it’s an open plan office. I can hardly avoid people.”

“In that case, do you want to ride in with me in the morning? I could pick you up after my meeting?”

“Yeah, I’d like that. Assuming I’m still alive, that is.”

After today’s session with Alex, I had my doubts.

“I’ll come over at ten and hang around till you’re ready to go.”

Nick lifted me off the piano and set my feet down on the floor. I nestled into him as he wrapped an arm around my waist, the way he always used to do when we were dating all those years ago.

“Come on, let’s get a smoothie. We both need one after that workout.”

He walked me through to the kitchen.

“I’ll have strawberry and banana.”

“Not the kale and wheatgrass Toby’s lovingly prepared?”

“Don’t. Just do— Oh, fuck.”

Miriam stared through the window, and her mouth curved into an evil grin when she saw Nick’s hand resting on my hip.

Enough was enough, and I’d had it.

“Emmy, no,” Nick said, but I ignored him and stormed out the back door towards Satan’s pet bloody manatee.

“Ahh,” Miriam cackled. “Did I interrupt a session with your fancy man? Charles hasn’t been dead for five minutes, and you’ve already taken up with someone else in your little love nest. I’ll be adding adultery to your list of crimes.”

It rarely happened, but I was literally speechless.

What did she know about my crimes?

Thankfully, Nick stepped in and answered for me. “Even if we were having a session, as you so charmingly put it, Emmy’s husband would have to be alive for her to cheat on him.”

Nick sounded calm, but I could feel from the way he gripped my hip bone that he was anything but. I moved a bit to release the pressure. Who wanted a hip replacement at thirty years of age?

“Well, you would defend her, wouldn’t you?” Miriam said. “The pair of you were probably at it long before Charles died.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Miriam,” Nick snapped back at her.

“Not to mention the fact that everyone says she killed him. The Black Widow, that’s what the papers are calling her.”

I’d always prided myself on never losing my temper, but Miriam would try the patience of a saint. And I was certainly no saint.

“Miriam, I know why you’re here. You want cash. I’m well aware of your financial situation and, unfortunately for you, I have the money and you don’t. My husband didn’t leave you anything. And if you think that walking into my house and accusing me first of adultery and then of murder is going to loosen my grip on the purse strings, I’ve got news for you; it won’t.”

“My lawyer says you manipulated Charles so he left me out of his will. He tells me I’ve got an excellent case. I am Charles’s only living relative, after all.”

Barely. If she kept that up, she’d be next in the ground. “Apart from me, you mean. I was married to him. For eleven years, Miriam. Eleven damn years, almost twelve, during which he probably spoke to you once every six months despite the fact that you only live fifteen miles away. And do you know why that was? Because he couldn’t f*****g stand you. Now get out of my face and get off my property before I have you physically removed. And best of luck to your lawyer; he’s going to need it.”

“Listen to you, Miss High and Mighty, standing there spewing profanities.”

“I’m not spewing profanities, Miriam. I’m enunciating them clearly, like a f*****g lady. Now, I’m calling my security team. It’ll be entertaining watching them cart you off. I’ll remind them to bring the elephant gun, and then I’m gonna make popcorn.”

I turned on my heel, stomped into the house with Nick, and slammed the door behind me so hard the glass rattled. Then I broke a nail hitting speed dial on my phone and cursed until I got through to the security guard on duty in the gatehouse.

“Get Miriam out of here. Right now. And while we’re on the subject, why the hell did you let her through the gates in the first place?”

The guard spluttered an apology. “I’m sorry. So sorry. She said she had an appointment. I did tell her she wasn’t on the list, but she said it didn’t matter because she was family.”

“Just to make things crystal clear, I don’t have any family. The only appointment I’ll be keeping with Miriam is her funeral, and I’ll only go to that so I can check that someone’s put a stake through her heart. Now get rid of her.”

I flung the phone down on the counter and a bit of plastic chipped off the edge.

“Sodding phone!”

“And breathe,” Nick reminded me.

“I’m breathing. There just isn’t room for that woman in my life.”

I only had one go at it, and I didn’t intend to waste either my time or my thoughts on Miriam.

“There isn’t room for her in anyone’s life. Literally. You can probably see her ass from space.”

“If it got any larger, Earth would start orbiting it.”

“And she’d block out the sun.”

You know that old saying that you either have to laugh or cry? Well, today I laughed. Hysterically. Nick and I both did. I’m not sure whether it was about Miriam’s butt being so big it had its own zip code, or at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation with her accusations and threats. At least I wasn’t crying. That was a step in the right direction.

By the time security called back to say Miriam had left, we’d both collapsed on the sofa, spent.

“Are you staying for dinner this evening?”

“Uh, I actually have a date. But I can cancel it if you want me here.”

“Don’t be silly. Go on your date. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself for an evening, and Toby’s already made me food.”

Nick got to his feet. “If you’re sure?”

“I am. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Just call if you need anything, and I’ll come back. I don’t mind. Honestly. I’ve been out with this girl twice already, and last time, she cooed over a baby at the next table which is always a bad sign.”

Nick headed off to change before meeting the lucky lady. And she was lucky—women threw themselves at Nick with abandon, and wherever he went, he left a trail of disappointed females in his wake. Since Jana, none of his assignations had lasted longer than a few weeks, but I wasn’t surprised—nobody wanted to risk that kind of devastation more than once in a lifetime.

Nick’s departure left me at a loose end, so I made myself a coffee. Then I wrote a list of things to do at work tomorrow. Then I screwed that up and started again, scoring a bull’s-eye as I threw the paper in the trash. After four attempts, I decided to bypass the writing stage and just lobbed the wadded-up pages at the bin instead.

After I’d wasted the entire pad of paper, I wandered out to the kitchen, made another cup of coffee, and ate a Snickers bar that Toby had somehow missed when he threw the edible food out of my cupboards. Then I felt guilty for ruining my diet. One Snickers wasn’t so bad, right? After all, if a single bar weighed two ounces, I’d have to eat 965 of them to consume my own body weight. Plus they contained peanuts, and a girl needed her protein.

I made yet another mug of coffee and spent an hour watching YouTube. Perhaps I should get a kitten? They were so damn cute.

Hold on. I hated wasting time on the internet. What was wrong with me?

Grief, Emmy. It’s called grief.

I missed my husband, and I was doing anything to avoid thinking of him. But it hadn’t worked, had it? Because there he was, front and centre of my mind again.

How about trying a different tactic? What had Nick suggested when we were back in England? Writing a letter to tell my husband how I felt. Letting all my pain out onto the paper and putting my agony into words.

Well, it was worth a try, because my current tactics sure weren’t working. And if it didn’t help, I could always stab myself in the eye with the fountain pen.