Page 76 of Dirty Little Secret, Baby
There's no one there. Did he get the room wrong, maybe?
"Umm... could it be that you..." I begin, carefully turning my head to the side.
"You miserable little rat," I hear another voice drift toward us from the driveway. This time, too, I turn my head toward it, but I don't have to shield my eyes from the light, because the voice has been echoing in my head all day: Alex is standing there.
My world stops making sense, and for a brief moment, I forget why I even drove here. Why did his assistant say he was herescrewing his ex-assistant when he wasn't even home? What exactly is going on here?
"Good of you to come. Right on time," his assistant says. "Look who I've got up here. What do you think will happen if I drop the ladder? I'm not sure if a fall from this height is fatal. What do you think?"
"Don't you dare do anything to Beth," Alex bellows, storming toward his assistant.
My head is spinning, and I don't understand anything anymore. What have I gotten myself into? Alex and his assistant apparently really don't like each other. But am I some kind of leverage now? Is he really going to push me over, ladder and all? I always thought I'd scream in panic in moments like this, but I'm completely calm, wondering if I can grab onto the windowsill if I fall. But then what? Without a ladder, that won't last long, and there's no one in the room to pull me up.
"I have some papers here," the assistant says, pulling them from his back pocket and throwing them at Alex's feet along with a pen. "Sign them, and I'll leave the ladder standing."Alex picks up the papers, glances at them, and looks up furiously, his gaze alternating between his assistant and me, then back to the papers.
"Don't worry, Beth, I won't let anything happen to you," he calls out. I just nod mutely. I'm not capable of much more, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry, because the man who's taking myshop away and who ran off when he found out we had a child now wants to save me. The irony.
"You won't get away with this. Neither you nor Jake," he mutters, glaring darkly at his assistant.
"We'll see about that. But time's up. Are you going to sign, or should I..." The ladder wobbles, and now a scream does escape my lips as I try to hold on with all my strength.
"All right. Leave her alone. Here," Alex says, throwing the wad of paper and the pen toward his assistant. "Now let her go."
"With pleasure," his assistant says. Then I feel myself falling. He pushed the ladder over anyway. I can only think of Ben. Of my son, who will grow up without a mother and without a father.
It'll all be over in a second.
Forever!
Chapter 36
Alex
As I see the ladder fall, I feel raw fear seize me. Fear that this bastard I trusted, who was my assistant for so long, will hurt the woman I love.
The moment I got here and saw Beth standing on the ladder, I had a bad feeling. I knew I’d do anything to save her. Anything. That’s why I signed that insane paper Eric tossed at me. It said I’d assign the rights to build the mall across from Beth’s shop to Jake’s company and waive them for life.
In that moment, nothing else mattered. I have enough money and could build another mall somewhere else and buy Beth as many stores as she wanted. But that would only be possible if there was still a Beth.
I never would have expected him to cross that line and actually shove the ladder once I gave in to his demand. But apparently I hardly knew Eric, whose face twists into an ugly mask, and he seems to take particular delight in watching the ladder—and Beth, screaming—fall.
When the ladder finally lands in the bushes, silence falls. Not a sound from Beth, and raw terror grips me again. What if she...
"No," I bellow. "Beth? Can you hear me? Are you hurt? Are you okay?" I ask, and I run toward where she must be lying, fighting to block out the images in my head telling me it’s too late, that I’ve lost her and she...
"It’s too late. You lost. Your mall, your woman, and..." Eric says as I run past him.
"Shut the hell up," I snap, spin around, and drop him with a wild punch. I don’t wait to see him fall, but I hear the dull thud as his unconscious body hits the ground. Yet I feel no satisfaction, only fear for Beth.
"Beth?" I call again when I reach the bushes the ladder crashed into.
"Alex?" I hear a faint call.
That’s Beth! That’s her voice! She’s alive! I could cry with relief.
"Beth? Where are you? Are you okay? I can’t believe what that bastard did to you, I..."
To my surprise, it’s Beth who fights her way through the thicket of the oversized bush I’d been meaning to have removed because it looks like a giant ball and the gardener charges an outrageous amount every time he trims the beast. Apparently the thing broke her fall and, at first glance, left only a few scrapes. I will never say a bad word about that plant again.
