Page 31 of Save Us
Welcome to your new phone, English Rose! K X
Where are you? You’re not in your New York pad, are you? KX
Leo reads over my shoulder, and we frown at one another, not quite knowing how much to tell him for fear of him acting rashly. He’s already holding in so much anger.
Been out cold for a week or so. Long story. I’m with my grandfather. Due home next week. BX
I show Leo and wait for him to nod his approval before I press send. I don’t know why, but my heart is racing uncontrollably, and I feel like a physical fear is spreading out across my entire body. I guess I already know what Oliver and my grandfather are capable of if they were to ever find out I’d been consorting with one of their enemies.
My God, what the hell did he do to you this time? KX
He found out I was preventing his spawn from growing inside of me. You can imagine how angry he got. I’m fine though, K, don’t do anything stupid. BX
Motherfucker. I want you to try and text me every day. I’m sick with worry about you, Rose. KX
I’ll try. BX Don’t do anything stupid! X
“God, Leo, I can’t take all of this!” I groan and lean into him as he wraps his arm around my shoulders to help guide me back to my room. I don’t fight him on his decision to return me inside; I suddenly feel exhausted.
Together, we find somewhere suitable to hide Kai’s phone and hope to God no one does an Oliver on my room. If anyone were to discover my newest hidden secret, I honestly don’t think I’d make it out alive.
Xander
It’s late when I carry my little sleeping beauty inside of our house on the beach. I’m so damn tired I’ve stopped thinking coherently. The only thing I know to do is to put my little girl to bed and kiss her goodnight, all while letting out a sigh of relief that she’s safely back home. I say ‘home’ but for me, nowhere feels like such a place without Beth. In fact, I almost crave for those tense weeks back in the cabin when we had nobody but each other. When our baby girl was safely growing inside of her and our dreams were still possibilities.
Rosie is asleep in her bed, safe and warm, the sight of which soothes me a little. It’s a time when every parent likes to let out a relieved breath and thank their lucky stars that they managed to make it through another day. Stephen is still in Europe, so seeing as my head is refusing to let me pass out like Rose, I shut myself away in my office to check on emails and other unimportant stuff. With any luck, I’ll bore my mind into some sort of unconsciousness.
Three emails in, and the sound of my phone vibrating across the desk has me jumping in shock. As soon as I realize what it is, I find myself frowning at the noisy intruder, wondering who the hell is trying to call me at gone midnight in the middle of the week. It’s either some nuisance call offering me compensation for some bullshit, or something really important.
“Fenton!” I huff as I continue tapping out an email to my PA, ignoring my usual rule of hanging up on private numbers.
“Mr Fenton, good evening,” a low voice says over the phone, a smug one which I believe I invited into my house not too long ago. It has me immediately tensing up with an unsettling feeling inside of my stomach.
“Mr Fox,” I answer with what I hope is a voice that matches his confidence. “To what do I owe the pleasure at two in the morning?”
“Some information you may well be interested in,” he replies with his words laced in an arrogant smirk. “Are you aware that Mrs Lawrence was recently admitted to hospital? Privately, of course, but with very serious injuries. The papers reported it as an accident, yours included. However, I think we both know what, or who could have caused her to be hospitalized with multiple bruises, cuts, fractures, and internal bleeding.”
“Perhaps the motherfucker to whom she’s married? Probably, but how am I supposed to prove that? I’d be so tied up in slander my balls would drop off from a lack of circulation.”
“Would it help if I told you I had a contact number for her? A private contact number? I have it on good authority she’s currently staying with Carl Steele. Meanwhile, Oliver has been instructed to remain in New York to give her time to ‘recuperate’.”
“And why the hell would she talk to me? I represent a pretty fucking big threat to her,” I reply as I laugh over such an offer. The guy must be nuts if he thinks she will be willing to talk to me. “Who knows how many times he’s already had a pop at her. Talking to me is only going to bring that threat closer again.”
“I met her once,” he responds, noticeably ignoring what I’ve just said to him, “she’s very beautiful, very quiet, very…lost. Xander, can you honestly imagine what it would be like to be tied to a man like Lawrence?”
“I’d rather not, for many reasons, but no, all the same.” I pause with a heavy sigh, knowing I’ll concede to his wishes because I’m too curious not to. “Send me the number and I’ll see what I can do. I guess she can only hang up on me, which is what she is clearly going to do.”
“Good,” he says decidedly, “sending it now. Tread carefully, Fenton, she’s going to be fragile, so you stomping in with your size thirteens isn’t going to do you any favors.”
“What the hell do you take me for, Fox?” I laugh, to which he surprises me by chuckling back, albeit momentarily. “I can be charming and gentle when I need to be. Just ask my five-year-old daughter!”
“Good. I’ll be in contact, Mr Fenton. Goodnight.”
I shake my head, still staring at the phone when he hangs up before I even had a chance to respond. I tell myself not to take it personally, that he’s just that sort of no-nonsense guy. Jonah Fox uses you when he needs to but couldn’t care less when you become surplus to requirement. I guess he got his fingers burnt from forming a close relationship with Oliver; I can’t blame him. Still a shifty asshole though, one I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him.
As soon as I place the phone back on top of the desk, a contact buzzes through and I find myself glaring back at it. Something inexplicable makes me desperately want to call that number, to talk to her, but even I know that a half two in the morning phone call is only going to thoroughly freak out the hidden Mrs Lawrence. The woman has just been attacked by her own husband and given who I am, and why I want to talk to her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she destroyed the phone just to avoid any future contact with me.
After a few more moments of indecision, I end up settling for sending a text. Unfortunately, I know natural curiosity won’t let me sleep without doing something. Besides, at least she is as far away from Oliver as she can be. If I’m going to make contact, now’s the time to do it.