So I dragged myself there. Not because I wanted to, and not because it would make a blind bit of difference to anything, but because, in some fucked up thought process, what Malachi wanted meant more to me than what I did. Maybe I still wanted to do as I was told like a good girl would. Or maybe there was just some part of me that refused to let go. I don’t know.
Didn’t care to analyse it at the time either.
Reggie was sombre as I walked into the room. Unfriendly. He scowled as he read out the will, making sure I understood his disagreement. I think I was in shock. Or I couldn’t hear straight, but I had to ask him several times to explain the facts in human language rather than lawyer speak. It was relatively simple – everything was mine. Everything. The houses, the castle in the snow, the multiple companies and holdings. The list went on, and he kept reading as if I was still listening. I wasn’t. I was dreaming. Damn sure it was a hallucination that wasn’t meant for me.
He went on to talk about criminal lawsuits and about Malachi not being of sound mind when he made the alterations to the will. Something about cousins who were not accepting the will and would contest it. He was in agreement with that because there weren’t any children between us, so no legal heir for the Jones' fortune to fall to. Children. He wrote children into his will.
Our children.
I don’t really remember the exact details after that. I was too busy thinking and wishing and trying to stop myself crumbling into a pool of tears. Reggie kept talking. Words kept coming. I just kept thinking about the time on the plane when he told me he’d made revisions to his will. And then I got lost in countless conversations with myself. I told Malachi he wasn’t ready, that he didn’t know about children and marriage and life. I shouted that at him outside the church. I was wrong. He did. He knew everything he wanted. I was living his thoughts with every next word out of Reggie’s mouth.
I didn’t ask about the funeral. Couldn’t bear the thought of it. My own guilt and blame was too far gone to even think about standing at his grave. I was a wreck of a human, too lost in the nightmare of moments to contemplate seeing that, let alone feeling it. I might as well have been dead with him because my soul was ripping in two along with my heart, as Reggie kept speaking.
The last of his words told me to get ready for a battle if I wasn’t prepared to give it to Reggie himself. He talked through that theory. Said he could break the fortune up and put it where it could do most good. I shook my head, refused that option. How was I to know if any of these people knew what good was? So he said he’d argue the battle for me when it came. Something about loyalty to Malachi. I think that was the first time he actually managed to get my full attention again. It made me sit up straighter in my nightmare, made me think about what he’d given me and what I needed to do for him to prove my own loyalty. Wasn’t going to change anything, but if there was one thing I wasn’t going to do it was let him down like I already had done.
The enormity of everything that entailed hit me four days later when I got a call from Malachi’s company office. Things needed signing. Letters opening. Decisions making on a scale I’ve never even contemplated. I didn’t understand half of it, let alone what my choices would mean going forward, but I did as best as I could. I tried. I stood there in front of six men, and their assistants, and their assistants, and I held my ground. It was ground Malachi had given to me as far as I was concerned. Choices I had to make on his behalf.
I’m still trying now as I sit here in this quiet bar and scroll through email after email in the hope that I can make sense of shit that means nothing to me. I owe him this, though. I owe him everything in reality. My life included. But mainly I owe him time. Every fucking minute. Eternally. I might not have been enough for him in that room, and yes, I might have made a mistake by running and taking some breaths on my own, but I’m trying to believe – despite my fault in this – that something good can come of the time we had.
I lean back, eyes closing. I’m exhausted. Not just because of this, but because things feel so unfinished. Night after night I cry myself to sleep in his bed – my bed apparently - hoping and praying he’ll just arrive in front of me at some point to dispel this reality I’m in. He won’t. I know that, but I wish he would because it isn’t my house I’m living in, it’s his. And it isn’t my money either. That’s his, too. I’m just here trying to make things right somehow. I’m failing at that because there aren’t any solutions that make sense. He’s gone because of me, and nothing I do makes that go away.
A waitress comes over, refilling my coffee for me. I listen to the noise she makes, irritated with it, and then slowly open my eyes afterwards. Nothing’s changed. No Malachi here to rescue me from this damn confusing life he led. The more I read of his life, of the decisions he needed to make, the more I understand the man he became. I can see every obstacle he must have had in his way, every judgement he had to make on right and wrong. Even I don’t know how to make the correct choice, and my morals, as he would say, should make the decent choice on everything. Not that simple up there where he lived, though.
And us mere mortals know nothing of any of it.
I’m done for the day.
I pile my documents into my bag and head out onto the street, fiddling with the ball on my chain as I go. I can’t take it off because I’m now him, and I’m being tracked wherever I go by his team of men. My team of men, I guess. Still, that’s not the reason I wear it. I wear it because it keeps me close to him, makes me feel his hands on me, his protection around me. Not that I deserve it, but he gave this to me. Even in his death he gave me his protection as best he could.
I look up at one of the team waiting for me, as I get out to the car. He opens the door for me, scans the area around me. They did that for him too – protected him.
It’s a shame they didn’t protect him from me.
Tears burn the back of my eyes as I slide in, and the car pulls away. I don’t let them come. They’re only allowed to fall at night when I’m in his sheets and I can smell him around me. Whatever I’m trying to do doesn’t involve me being weak in front of anyone. The only person that saw that was Malachi. He was the only one that gave a damn about those tears, and the only one that did something to get rid of them for me.
I look at the ring on my finger, watching the ruby glint under the lights. At least I still have these cuts that lie littered on my body. They remind me of his hands on me each day, the sense of peace that brought somehow. I was wrong that day – his cuts into me have replaced Tommy’s. In fact, they’ve decimated what was before him and left me with only one man that ever touched me.
Our time together was anything but usual. It was war and harmony wrapped up in a dark bow that meant something to us alone. Tit for tat. My lips tip up, memories whispering at me. Asshole. Freaky asshole. An asshole I loved. It’s the one thing I am certain of without any distraction because I miss him more than I’ve ever missed anything.
We end up taking the long route home. I ask for it. I need it. Not like I’ve got anywhere else to be or anyone to get home to, and the night air soothes me now. I’m not jumpy in it like I used to be. I’m happy to let it wash over me to remind me of his castle and his hands and his eyes. Such dark eyes. Eyes to get lost in. Arms to get lost in too. Protective arms. I miss that too.
Travelling the roads as if we own them, the driver gives little care for anything that tries to get in our way. The car speeds up, turns corners, makes the time longer for me. They know me now. They understand my need for space and thought, for memories. The screen’s up between us and I’m alone in here, no interruptions to my melancholy mood because this isn’t a depiction of classic love stories, is it? I knew it the second I began falling in love, and the ending for us was far more disturbing than the start ever was. My fault. Not his this time.
And there’s nothing I can do.
We pull up near the stock exchange for some reason. I look out at it lazily, then push the intercom to ask why. The door beside me opens before I can get a question out.
“Mam.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, watching him look around the area.
“Get out please, Mam.” The driver gets out too, flanking him so as to shield me.
I stay exactly where I am, damn tired and emotionally drained. “Listen, I said the townhouse. I meant it. I don’t know what’s going on but-”
“Sorry, Mam, but you have a meeting.”
“I do? With who?”
