When she returned to the hotel that night, Kate found Jonathan there. He was standing in front of the fireplace, with his back to her, and staring at the dance of the flames and not around him. Jonathan didn’t look at her, not even when the door closed behind her with a certain noise. This happened because of the amazement to see him there because Kate hadn’t expected to find him there. Because of this, she couldn’t control the shake of her hands and, releasing the door, it closed behind her.
Not even Kate understood why she felt like this. She didn’t know why her hands were shaking and why her heart was strangely pouncing in her chest, giving her the feeling that she lacked air at one point. Kate also felt scared, although Jonathan hadn’t ever been brutal, at least not with her. Even so, she couldn’t chase that fear away, something she felt more vivid than ever while staring at the man’s back… that man that she had adored once and had expected so many times before to come to their room and spend some time with her.
Jonathan hadn’t stopped by that hotel room for so long though. There’d been days if not weeks since he forgot her there, abandoning her alone in that strange place and somehow forgotten by the world. A place where she had made friends eventually, even if she hadn’t ever expected this to happen.
Yet, this happened and she was so happy. She spent a beautiful evening among friends and she felt, even if for a short time only, that her wings healed. She thought that, after that night, everything would change and her life would improve, that she wouldn’t be as lonely as she’d been by then, that she would have someone to talk to about her thoughts and feelings, that they’d spend some time together, and that she would forget about loneliness. What she hadn’t expected was to see Jonathan there, who seemed to have returned to her: so unexpectedly, something she didn’t want at all at that moment.
Yes. For an unknown reason to her, Kate hadn’t expected him to be there and didn’t want to have him there. Jonathan was there though. He seemed to wait for her, even if she hadn’t called him there. To be more precise, Kate hadn’t called him at all in the last two weeks since she’d been to his office to bring him some clean clothes, seeing that it had been days since he hadn’t stopped by the hotel. Yet, coming to his office, she had been told that „Mister Ward went on a business trip.” This news confused her so much that Kate even felt dizzy after this. She even staggered to her feet because she felt betrayed.
Kate felt so betrayed that day. She felt all this deeply in her soul because this was unbelievable for her that the man that she loved and loved her, as Jonathan had told her before, left the town without even telling her about this. „He didn’t even text me about this,” Kate eventually thought. „He didn’t do that because it seems that I’m not someone important to him.”
Thinking about all this, Kate’s eyes filled with tears. She didn’t say anything though, for a long time. She only stared in front, at a blind spot, as she used to do each time she felt lost or betrayed. She did that each time to be able to control herself again, stand up, and move on. And, as it always happened, this trick helped her: she could deeply breathe in after this, calmed down a little, and asked in a shaking voice, „With… whom Mister Ward went this time?”
„With his secretary, with Mrs. Loyle,” Jonathan’s assistant told Kate that day, a man whose name was Mikel Stevens. She knew that man, who had been working for „Ward&Partners” for about six years already.
Kate smiled. „With her,” she thought after this. „Of course, he didn’t have time or desire to tell me that he left the town. He did that because he was with her, as it had always been.”
Closing her eyes, for a few moments only, Kate felt dizzy again. She felt that the whole world collapsed over her shoulders. A world she had been building step by step, from solid bricks as she thought, but which was falling apart at that moment like those castles built from sand.
Feeling someone’s hand touching her arm, Kate opened her eyes. Looking in front, she saw Mikel’s eyes focused on her. The young man in front of her looked scared, as she hadn’t ever seen him in those two years since she had known him. A man who was on the cutting edge, as Kate had heard others talking about him. Still, Mikel Stevens was an innocent man, about whom others said that he didn’t know too much about life.
„Who seem not to understand all this are others though,” Kate whispered, staring at Mikel’s face, who kept looking at her, with sadness in his eyes. „Yes, there are others who don’t understand this world and not him. Mikel seems to be a man who understands so many things in this world, but who still prefers to be blind, deaf, and mute just not to hurt others. Even if he doesn’t manage this all the time.”
She suddenly winced when she heard Mikel’s deep voice, asking her, „Are you okay, Mrs. O’Connell?”
Kate sketched a forced smile. „Of course, I’m fine. Why shouldn’t I be?” She lied to him that day. „Just… dizziness,” she rushed to add after that. And, suddenly straightening her back and withdrawing her arm from his, she forced another smile and said, „Nothing happened eventually. Nothing from what I haven’t ever experienced or that can knock me down.”
„Still, I think you should take a seat and rest a little bit, even if it’s for a short time only. This will make you feel better, I think.”
„Or maybe worse, don’t you think so? The bandage on a bleeding wound makes things worse, hiding the evil but not removing it. I’ll do the same if I pretend that I suffer when it’s nothing like that.”
Mikel stared at her after such words. He seemed confused. Not because he didn’t understand the reason why Kate suffered but because he couldn’t understand her: why she acted like that, as if nothing happened or as if she didn’t care about that. It was obvious that she suffered so much at that moment and that she felt betrayed. Nevertheless, he said nothing about this, for minutes in a row. He only looked at Kate’s face, who seemed not to know what to do after that.
Eventually, understanding that it was maybe the time to do something, at least to leave that place and stop humiliating herself in front of others, Kate gave Mikel the package with the clothes she brought with her. Then, she told him in a confident voice this time, „Please give these clothes to Mister Ward. When it’s possible, of course!”
„Should I tell him something more, Mrs. O’Connell?”
„Something like?” Kate pretended not to have understood the question.
„That you passed by here, for example, and…”
„It’s not necessary,” Kate cut Mikel off. „I’ll take care of this. To let him know that I stopped by. You just give him the clothes as I’ve asked you. I’ll take care of the rest.” Then, confident, Kate said goodbye to Mikel and rushed to leave the lobby because she hadn’t been left to enter the office and had been asked to wait there. „At Mister Ward’s request,” as the receptionist told her. That’s why Ward’s assistant was summoned to the lobby to meet her and tell her that Jonathan went on a business trip and that he’d send him what Kate wanted to tell him. „As though we are strangers,” Kate thought after that while walking on the street… a street so crowded at that moment. Still, she met so many empty souls at that moment, people that had no bond with her, but still people that made her suffer so much at that moment.
The reason? Jonathan’s betrayal. Yes, it was undoubtedly about betrayal that day because Kate was sure that he was at the office. She saw his car in the parking lot when she stepped out of the taxi. She was damn sure about this because she knew his black car so well, as she knew so many other things about Ward.
„At least I thought I knew him,” whispered Kate, eyes bathed by tears while still wandering the streets. „I thought I knew him and that I could be proud of that. I’ve been so wrong. Yes, I’ve been so blind believing truths that are simple lies for so long already. I wanted to embrace the lie and ignore the truth, thinking that it was easier this way. It had been easier for me not to see that the fact that he ignored me, abandoned me, and my loneliness had nothing to do with his work but with another woman. It had undoubtedly been because of her. Undoubtedly…”
That day Kate wandered the streets for so long. She said nothing about what she felt, she just thought about this. Her heart talked to her in her place, that heart that was bleeding and weirdly pouncing in her chest, silently crying her pain. Her heart cried because Kate had been blind and believed too much in dreams, loving and giving herself totally to the one she loved. As a reward for her care and love, she’d been slapped and embraced the betrayal and longing, something that had always been with her, especially lately, even if she seemed not to have been aware of that.
Why exactly didn’t see Kate that longing? Because she still believed in love. She believed each word Ward told her. She believed when he told her that he was busy at work because the new project in which he was involved took all the free time he had and that’s why he couldn’t see her more often. He told her to be patient and that he’d come to her as soon as he could. Yet, he didn’t come. „How to come when he’s busy with her? How to come when another one steals that time he should have spent with me? How to come when he’s with her, holding her to his chest as he has held me once, giving her all he has promised to me? He did that because she’s not as stupid as I’ve been to wait for so long, just to find out eventually that I’ve done that in vain. I’ve lost the war before entering the battle… a battle for the love that might be already forbidden to me.”
***
„Why are you here, Jonathan?” Kate asked Ward when he finally looked at her.
„Shouldn’t I have been here?” The man coldly asked her, staggering to his feet. „As far as I know, this is my house too.”
Kate smiled. „Your house!” She whispered after that. „A house about which you’ve forgotten… the road toward it, I mean. Since a long ago, by the way… for weeks, Jonathan. You haven’t passed by here for two weeks.”
„I’ve been busy,” he drily replied, looking elsewhere. „You know it,” he added after that, looking through the room but not at her. „I work so hard. That’s why I don’t stop by. Yes, I work and I don’t have time for something else. You instead, as always, reproach me for my absence and coldly look at me instead of being happy that I’m here, with you.”
Kate’s eyes filled with tears after such words. She wasn’t crying because she was sad but because she was disappointed. Love betrayed her once again, something she blindly believed in. The man she had sacrificed herself for so many times before betrayed her too. Yes, he did that, although Kate became lonely because of him, living in a world she practically didn’t know, in a different town where she didn’t have friends and where she could be only with the books. She hadn’t ever complained about this though because she loved him and because she decided to wait for him.
Instead of being grateful for her sacrifice, he reproached her that she was cold with him, scolding him instead of being happy that he came. He reproached her that she wasn’t happy to know him there when, before that, he’d been the one who had chased her away from him so many times. The reason? Another woman. The same „another woman” for whom he had forgotten Kate, for weeks. He even denied Kate access to his office for that „another one,” sending his assistant to tell her that he was „on a business trip” when he was busy to make another one happy.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
„What about my happiness?” Kate whispered in her head, staring at the man’s face, who seemed a stranger in her eyes at that moment. „What about us? What about my sacrifice, dedication, and my heart that still waits for you? Isn’t my heart also important?” She also thought about this, staggering to her feet the moment she understood that if Jonathan was there that night, it probably was because he argued with „Her.”
Yes, he was there that night, but Kate was sure that he didn’t come because he missed her. No, if he had missed her, he would have brought flowers as he had done so many times before when „he’d been busy and couldn’t take care of her.” He would have come there sober and not drunk because Kate clearly saw that the man was barely staying on his feet. Not only did this tell Kate that he was absent, even if his body was there: Jonathan’s eyes told her the same, eyes in which she saw sadness, disappointment, and betrayal. Eyes that Kate knew so well because she had seen them so many times before. She had also seen all this in his eyes before, but she hadn’t ever understood why those eyes looked like that.
Honestly, Kate hadn’t ever seen Ward looking like that: messy, unshaven, with a lost glance, wrinkled, and disheveled. No, she hadn’t ever seen him looking like that because despite his long and repeated absences, despite his ignore and abandonment, despite the pain from her heart, and that she wanted to feel a real woman in his arms, Kate hadn’t ever abandoned him. On the contrary, she had always taken care of him to have clean clothing, to look good when they went out, to keep up appearances, and never be someone to be mocked by others because of the way he looked. Kate did all that, knowing that a man like Jonathan Ward, who was „a hunter in the world of businesses,” should keep the appearances no matter what.
Yet, it had been enough to let him alone for two weeks for Jonathan to look completely different: messy and a totally different man. Yes, she clearly saw this in him while looking at him coldly. Kate couldn’t look differently at him because she couldn’t understand how he could fall so down for another woman. Because of another woman, it’s better to say. At the same time, she couldn’t understand why he kept her next to him if another woman stole his nights, dreams, and ideals, those for which he had been fighting for years. Yes, it’s been years since Kate had been with him, doing everything to avoid getting him into trouble or being involved in his business. She did that because she didn’t want Jonathan to reproach her that he failed because of her. Even so, she got to be nobody for him, someone whom he didn’t even dare to look into her eyes and tell that he needed some time to be alone and understand whom he wanted to be with if not with her.
Eventually, when Jonathan headed toward her, staggering on his feet and seeming to be absent, Kate involuntarily took a few steps back. She didn’t stop until her back didn’t touch the door. Even then she wanted that door to vanish and let her run away from there, far away and forever from him. Why did she feel all this? Kate couldn’t explain. She also couldn’t explain that feeling of nausea that had been suddenly felt in her stomach. This happened the moment she felt the strong alcohol smell coming from Jonathan.
Feeling that pungent smell coming from him, Kate turned her head to the left and covered her nose for a few moments. Understanding that it might not be right to do that and to offend Jonathan, Kate tried to control her reaction and looked straight into his eyes when he was only one step from her. Jonathan didn’t look at her instead. He only pounced on her, hungrily and brutally kissing her neck, unable to control his impulses, as though he was trying to punish her for something, even if he was the only one to blame for that story. Other times, Kate would have ignored such a behavior, thinking that it was because of the anxiety, of the long absence, or because he missed her. At that moment though, she didn’t find an excuse for all that.
No. At that moment, Kate hated to be touched by Ward. She hated to be kissed by him, feel his touches, and the smell. Kate hated to have him so close, although she couldn’t understand why she felt all that. No, she knew this: she was treated like a nobody at that moment, considered the „other one,” someone who was always ready to wait for him, available for him when didn’t have „other options.” Yes, Kate had always waited for him despite the pain he caused to her, despite being lonely for so long, and despite the disappointment. At that moment though, she seemed to have understood that all that had been enough for her. That’s why she suddenly pushed him away from her, yelling at him, „Stop this, Jonathan! I don’t want this!”
Ward dumbly looked at her. „You don’t want? What?”
„Intimacy,” Kate muffled, swallowing hard after that. „You are drunk. That’s why I think you should go to sleep.”
„Yet, I want you,” murmured Ward, kissing her neck again. He even wrapped his arms around her, brutally. He’d even been gross to her while mumbling through kisses, „Kate, I want you. I dreamt of your body all this time.”
Kate burst into laughter, taking Jonathan by surprise, although she thought he was so drunk and couldn’t understand what was reality and what fantasy. Even so, he stared at Kate after she pushed him away from her. Then, still laughing, she ironically told him, „You wanted me? When exactly, Jonathan: when you were with her or when she didn’t allow you to be with her anymore?”
Jonathan shook his head, confused. „She? What the hell are you talking about, Kate?”
„Let’s not pretend,” Kate hissed through her teeth, with a controlled hatred in her voice. „Stop playing this game, Jonathan! I know the truth already. I’m aware of your „business trips,” about her, and about the fact that you denied my access to your office because this might have bothered her.”
„You know, you talk nonsense right now,” Ward mumbled. „I have no idea what you are talking about.”
„Of course, you know,” Kate shouted again. „I know about you and Loyle. I know about the snake with green eyes that charmed you so well that she put you into her bed, making you forget the way back to my arms, Jonathan!”
Suddenly, Kate froze. She even felt cold-like ice beads of sweat running down her back after that. This happened because of Jonathan, who suddenly punched the door behind her. Then, looking at her with hatred, Ward hissed through his teeth, „Don’t dare to talk like this about her, do you hear me? Never talk like that about her!”
„What about me, Jonathan?” Kate whispered when she could control herself, even if she kept shaking inside. „What about me, the one whom you allowed her to trample and treat like a nobody? Haven’t you ever forbidden her something related to me?”
The man said nothing about such accusations. He only looked at her, somehow absent and savage, uncontrolled, as though her words spurred him inside to something more. Ward even felt offended after Kate’s words, even if he tried to hide everything from her. Yes, he wanted to hide his affairs from her because Kate was for him the perfect wife and girlfriend, the only one who could stay with him while he climbed the stairs of the glory. At the same time, he couldn’t give up on the other one, who was filling him inside. Yet, the other one wasn’t like Kate and couldn’t replace her. Why? Because Kate grew up in a wealthy family, received a good education, had relationships and class, and caught the others’glances with her elegance and beauty, not to talk about the fact she was smart and admired by everybody. Susan instead was noticed only due to her green eyes, the color of the fresh herbs, and due to her perfect curves, virtues that were only for the moment. Yet, all this wasn’t something he could brag with in front of others. Honestly, he hadn’t ever heard a good word told to him by others when they saw him with Loyle. Yet, he had heard so many compliments while he’d been seen with Kate.
Yet, this hadn’t ever been enough for Ward, who felt that Kate lacked something. What exactly was missing in Kate or why he felt that he missed something while having a relationship with her, Ward didn’t know. Nevertheless, he blamed this lack for the failure of their relationship and that he preferred to stay away from her. This didn’t mean he wasn’t jealous of her when he saw her accompanied by others or having success. All this squirmed him inside, just as the thought that she might prefer another man someday bothered him. That’s why he did everything to rag on her when they were alone. Yet, he did that in the hope that she’d stay away from others. Thus, he was trying to get rid of every single obstacle that might have appeared in front of him because he was sure that sooner or later he would turn back to Kate when his relationship with Susan would have reached an end. When this would happen, Ward needed Kate there, waiting for him and ready to love only him, even if he’d have cheated on her so many times after that.
At least, Jonathan had thought about this before. He thought that Kate wouldn’t ever reproach anything to him because he knew that she loved him. That night though, Kate reproached him that he had a relationship with Susan and that he had forgotten her. She reproached him for his absence and coldness, and Kate even seemed changed. Why did Ward have this feeling? He had no idea. Honestly, he didn’t know this because he hadn’t ever gotten to know the real Kate. All he knew about her was what family she belonged to, what studies she had, that she was beautiful, elegant, smart, and… that’s all. No, wait: he also knew that she was a woman that many men liked and would have wanted to have, even if those men knew whose woman Kate was. That’s why Ward did everything for Kate to be with him forever, not caring about Kate’s dreams, feelings, what she wanted in the past, or what she would like to do in the future.
Honestly, Ward didn’t care about this. Eventually, Kate was another porcelain sculpture from his collection. Yes, it was cruel to compare Kate with an expensive object from his collection, but he couldn’t avoid thinking about her this way. Jonathan couldn’t do that even if he saw her as a woman since he met her for the first time. He thought like that about her even after he had had her so many times in his arms and kissed each inch of her skin. Nevertheless, he hadn’t ever thought about her as the only woman in his life. Why? Because he thought that the man who loved a single woman forgot about himself. At the same time, he thought that if he had let Kate know about his thoughts and preferences, he would have chased her away from him. That’s why he hid from her his relationship with Susan and other women, even if he felt that Kate knew or at least suspected that he was cheating on her. Even so, he hoped to have her with him as long as possible. Yet, that night when she rejected him, Ward felt fear… he was afraid to lose her. That’s why, saying nothing about what he felt, Ward just held her to his chest and hungrily kissed her, not paying attention to the fact that Kate was pushing him away from her.
Feeling his lips brutally kissing her skin, Kate started to shudder. She even wanted to fight with him, trying to get rid of him because that night she didn’t want intimacy with Ward. Not that night and not after she had spent beautiful moments in the arms of another man. At another man’s chest is better to say, who treated her like a princess when they danced in his small apartment and who took care of her all that evening, somehow afraid that she’d feel awkward with them or would be bored. That „other one” also asked her if she felt good with them and if she needed something else from him. Alex asked her this when he accompanied Kate to the hotel and if she wanted to spend more time together, walking or talking about small things. Alex gave her that tenderness that was something unknown for Kate, who had always been treated coldly by Ward, who saw in her only the woman, with whom he could cool his soul but with whom she hadn’t ever felt fulfilled or a real woman.
Eventually, the moment they got next to the bed and Jonathan tried to lay her by force on him, Kate pushed him away from her, managing to escape the trap of his arms. She managed to escape because Ward tripped off the bed’s foot and fell on it. Yes, he tripped because he was so drunk and couldn’t keep his balance. Why did he drink so much? Because of Susan, with whom he had a hot fight that night on the eternal subject: when he’d end his relationship with Kate and would see only her. Yet, He couldn’t do that. Ward couldn’t abandon Kate because he loved her. In his strange way but he loved Kate while he saw in Susan only the other one, a beautiful woman with whom he spent some time, filling the gaps of „solitude,” something he couldn’t ever do while being with Kate. Yet, through the fact that he drunk so much and couldn’t control himself anymore, he got to fall on the bed, bumping his head on the wooden edge of it. Thus, Ward gave Kate the chance to escape from him and enter the bathroom, locking the door. She even yelled at him after this that he was a coward and didn’t know how to love a woman.
The moment he heard the bathroom door locked, Ward smiled. „To be damn,” he murmured, laying on the bed and weirdly smiling. Then, covering his eyes with his arm, he started to laugh, even if he didn’t know why he did that. Yes, Jonathan laughed at that moment, but he was laughing at himself more because he fell so down that he couldn’t control himself and ruined all his plans. At the same time, he gave himself away in front of Kate, hurting her more. Not that he would have cared about this too much or he wanted to apologize. He just did that, moved by an uncontrolled impulse because Ward was like that: a man who could trample others just to make sure he’d get to a certain point. At the same time, Jonathan didn’t have such words like „I’m sorry” or „Forgive me” in his vocabulary. All he knew was that he deserved everything and that others should apologize in front of him, even if the one who had been wrong was him.
Eventually, he fell asleep. Jonathan Ward fell asleep without saying anything else to Kate that night. He felt exhausted both physically and emotionally, although nobody knew the real problems he had at that moment. Ward not only had business problems but also personal because his mother, Esther, found out already about his affairs and failures and asked her son not to dishonor her in front of others because she had given up on too much in her life to ruin everything because of her son’s caprice. Esther had also ordered his son to end his relationship with Susan, whom she saw as an opportunistic woman, asking Jonathan to do everything for Kate not to find out about his affair. For Esther, her son’s girlfriend, Kate, was perfect even if she hadn’t ever seen Kate as an ideal woman for her son. Even so, Kate was perfect to help Jonathan reach the glory, even if he hadn’t ever made her happy or made her feel like a real woman.