Dangerous Love

“Oh darling! It’s beautiful!” Caroline squeaked with wide eyes as she opened the Free Valley Finery jewellery box.

Anthony smiled back her, watching contently as she carefully took the necklace from itscase. Her excitement was making her fingers shake, so Anthony enveloped Caroline’s hands in his and slid the chain from them.

“I’ll do it,” he offered as she turned away from him on the sofa and held up her dark hair. He uncoiled the necklace and gently kissed the side of her neck as he fastened the clasp. The locks of her thick hair bounced around her shoulders as she turned back to face him.

“I love it!” she whispered admiringly before she gazed up at him.

Looking back into her eyes he stated,“I love you.”

The kiss that followed began tenderly and then evolved into something far more passionate.

Later Anthony ran a finger down her bare shoulder before kissing her soft skin. He rose from the bed and began to dress.

“Where are you going?” she asked, sitting up. The necklace still hung across her throat, above the sheet she hid modestly behind.

“I have to go home. Need to prepare tonight and then present my report tomorrow. I might be late round tomorrow night, depending on how long the presentation goes on for.”

As Anthony sat on the end of the bed putting on his shoes, two slender arms wrapped themselves around his neck and Caroline’s lips left a moist kiss on his stubbly cheek. “I’ll be waiting for you,” she promised.

Her sweet perfume, her playful touch and his ever-intense love for her took over and he turned back into her arms, forced her back down and kissed her deeply.

A nagging thought drilled into the back of his mind, distracting him, and Anthony knew he had to go. If he stayed the report he gave tomorrow would not be acceptable to either his superiors or himself. Filling in details on the spot, without the proper preparation was unprofessional –sloppy– and not something he could allow himself to do. Like the necklace he’d bought for Caroline, everything he gave needed to be given in the knowledge it was the best he had to offer, the most he could do, the disciplined perfectionist in him allowing nothing less.

Hovering above her he sighed, “I’m sorry, baby. Gotta go, now, but believe me I’d much rather stay here again tonight.”

Pouting up at him from between her sheets she lowered her eyes. “Okay. Try not to be too late tomorrow night though, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Anthony agreed. He blew her a kiss and left.

Leaving Caroline’s the night before had been the right thing to do. He’d been able to prepare more and to deliver his presentation more thoroughly. There had been no questions and everything was completed far quicker than anticipated, so Anthony had decided to drive over to Caroline’s after lunch and surprise her.

As usual, the road she lived on had lots of parked cars forming an unbroken barrier along the roadside, and it took Anthony a little while to find a space to park.

As he turned off the engine, he glanced up at Caroline’s distant front door, just in time to see her closing it behind her. A quick scan revealed her heading towards a taxi. Knowing he couldn’t catch her before she reached the cab, Anthony grabbed his phone and called Caroline’s mobile. He watched, barely able to see her as she stopped just before getting into the taxi and answered. With the display flashing the caller id, she knew it was him and said “Hi honey, can I call you back later? I’ve just stepped out of the shower and my hair is dripping wet.”

Anthony was stunned and felt a bolt of electric pain squeeze his heart and compress his chest. Dazed by these unexpected words, Anthony simply answered “Okay. I’ll speak to you tonight.”

“Thanks honey.”

Anthony watched in cynical disbelief as she climbed into the cab and it pulled away.

“Why would she lie?” he asked himself. He could not answer at first, but then the only possible explanation stabbed into his mind. “Could she be seeing someone else?” The mere suggestion was enough to hurt, and before rational thinking could convince him there was a much less sinister reason for her deceit, Anthony had started his engine and was following her.

“I can’t believe Caroline would betray me! But why else would she lie?”

“Because they’re all alike!” the dark side of his mind answered. “This isn’t the first time a woman has cheated on me – I should have been expecting it!”

A large drop of rain exploded off his windscreen. This first drop ledthe way, as a second later countless followers arrived. The car’s wipers fought them off, but the sudden change to miserable weather brought Anthony to pity himself.

“What is it about me? Did I do something wrong? Is there something I’m not doing at all?”

There was a rumble of thunder and Anthony’s mood became fierce.

“NO! It’s not me, it’s her! Women don’t know what they want! They claim to want a man like me, a man to treat them nicely, but then they always stray away to the bad boys and expect me to be waiting when they return!”

His temper rising, Anthony’s thoughts had found an angry path they could follow.

Sound from the pouring rain hitting his car faded into insignificance with the monotone groan of the wipers, as his thoughts absorbed him. His mind’s eye showed him pictures of a shadow holding Caroline in itsarms. The shadow wrapped itself around her, caressing her and sending Caroline into realms of ecstasy and bliss, before beginning to smother and submerge her entirely within itself. The shadow then exploded out into water as a blast of rain sprayed across the side of the car, and yanked Anthony from his waking nightmare.

On autopilot Anthony had followed the cab out of the residential area where Caroline lived and along the highway towards the shopping city. Stuck at the traffic lights he could only watch as the taxi pulled up outside the front entrance to the Free Valley shopping city.

The lights changed, but Anthony didn’t move, staring instead at Caroline’s chariot of betrayal and trying to make out through the rain what was happening.

Anangry car horn screamed from behind him and as if it were the signal she needed, Caroline’s umbrella appeared from the back of the taxi and she hurried towards the entrance.

Anthony accelerated away towards the car park and as luck would have it, managed to find a space almost immediately. With haste he made his way into the shopping centre and hurried to the point where the car park connected to the shops.

“If she comes this way, then I’ll be able to head her off, otherwise I’ll have to search the entire place for her.”

But Anthony was confident that this was the way she would come, as from the main entrance, a person needed to walk this way to get to the food court and most of the bars.

Anthony waited, disguised in a tinted plastic bubble that held a public phone, watching for Caroline to pass. He fought the urge to leave the alcove and search for her, knowing she could not have got here already, and desperate still to follow her and see who she was meeting.

Moments later Caroline marched past the alcove with the public phones in and Anthony saw the look in her eye before turning entirely away from her in case she glanced over. She was moving with purpose. Not the relaxed strolling pace she always had with him, but at a set speed, obviously fuelled by some important meeting.

Anthony couldn’t help slamming the receiver down onto the phone, then he walked to the corner of the alcove and peered around. Caroline was disappearing in a field of people.

“Where did they all come from?” Anthony asked himself. But although the people made it harder to keep an eye on Caroline, they also made it easier to conceal himself from her.

Looking further ahead Anthony could see the Short Stop bar that they’d been to before. She was making her way towards it and towards-

“Who the hell is that?!” Anthony’s mind demanded of him.

The stranger outside the bar was tall and handsome. Like Anthony, he wore a smart suit, but no tie. He looked about the same age, very well tanned – and Caroline was heading towards him. As she neared, the stranger smiled at her and then Anthony felt something bump off his hip.

His attention dragged from his pursuit he looked down to see a small boy now sitting on the ground at his feet, looking up at him with a quivering bottom lip.

“Oh, I’m sorry little guy,” Anthony apologised as he hooked his hands under the boy’s arms and lifted him to his feet.

“What are you doing!” a female voice demanded. “Danny,come here!”

“I’m sorry, I knocked him down by accident.”

“Well pay more attention to where you’re going then! Danny,are you all right?”

With the woman’s attention now on her son, Anthony quickly escaped and continued on. Both Caroline and the man she was meeting had disappeared and Anthony could only assume they had gone into the Short Stop together.

The crowd had thinned and Anthony was able to reach the door to the bar in only a few moments. Determined to catch Caroline and her lover red-handed Anthony launched himself into the bar and scanned the few customers. At this time in the afternoon there were only a few people and the one barman was deep in conversation with the only two women Anthony could see.

A door at the back of the bar swung shut and Anthony remembered that the restrooms were at the back. The men’s was in plain sight while the ladies’ was around a corner and out of sight.

Anthony realised that if they returned separately and then saw him, he might not get the proof he needed of their affair. Fury boiled up inside him as he wanted this resolved now and before he knew what he was doing he found his hand pushing the restroom door open. After the second door, he saw the shadow from his earlier fears. The man that had smiled lustfully at his true love, the dog that was trying to take Caroline from him. Anthony felt himself shaking uncontrollably. He could never hurt Caroline and despite what she was doing, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to. But this man, the accomplice and more than likely the cause of her actions, yes this wretched person, he would like very much to hurt.

Anthony could see they were alone in the room, but he would not have cared if it had been otherwise. He strode towards the sinks and without warning gripped the back of the man’s neck and rammed his head down into the edge of the porcelain basin. There was a ‘thunk’ which drowned out the rushing water for a second, before Anthony, who had not lost his grip on the man’s neck, raised his head to eye level and said “Hello.”

Although he hoped for even the slightest sign of recognition in his enemy’s eyes Anthony saw none there. With his free hand he rammed his fist into the stranger’s stomach, twice, then a third and final time before releasing the man’s neck and permitting him to drop, winded, to one knee.

Anthony looked down at the humbly positioned figure before him, but saw only a man that had sought to take away the one thing he loved more than anything else. His momentary mercy dissipated and, enraged, a surge of adrenalin gripped him, causing a spasm of fury and his knee to launch up into the man’s unprotected face. Anthony felt a snap against his kneecap and realised he had just broken the man’s nose. Before the man could lift his hands to his ruined face, Anthony released one final, furious blow and hit Caroline’s lover on the side of his head, as hard as he could. The punch connected and the man tumbled to the tiled floor.

Satisfied at last through the beating he had given, Anthony felt the raging storm of emotions within him settle down to more manageable feelings of pain and betrayal.

Staring down at the prone figure Anthony thought, “Time to go and leave Caroline to see what you look like now. And when you describe your attacker to her, will she know it was me?”

Anthony left the men’s restroom and as casually as he could manage made his way back across the bar.

There was still no sign of Caroline and of this he was glad. His anger quelled, Anthony felt hollow within himself. He no longer felt pleased or even satisfied at what he had done, just cold towards himself and his surroundings. He just wanted to go home and wait for the inevitable call that would come. How would Caroline react? He thought he knew. He thought with anger towards what he had done, as she hated violence.

The trip back to his car happened in what seemed the blink of an eye and it felt like less than a minute before he’d pulled back out into the heavy rain.

The drops that had made him feel so miserable before now served to distract him, as he concentrated on them throughout the drive home, not allowing himself to dwell on what he had done.

The evening moved slowly towards night and finally she returned his earlier call.

“Hi honey, are you still at work?”

“Ah, no.”

“Oh good! Will you be round soon?”

Anthony was confused – why was she acting so normal towards him? Hadn’t she figured out who had beaten up her lover?

“I suppose so.”

“Good. I’ve got something for you!”

Anthony’s mind went back into overdrive – did she know what he’d done? Did she have the police waiting there for him, ready for her lover to identify him? No, the police would have just come round and arrested him. What could it be?

He answered tentatively, “Okay, I’ll be round soon.”

“Great! See you soon then. Love you.”

She was waiting for him to respond in kind, and even though Anthony did not feel he could, he heard the words come out of his mouth anyway. “Love you too, babe.”

The phone cut off and Anthony hung up.

Anthony was in no mood to worry about the rain. He made his way without rushing to his car and then drove in a dream-like state to Caroline’s house. It was a trip he’d made many times before and this wet journey held no surprises for him.

When she opened the door to him and saw him standing in the drizzle that still persisted, she dragged him into the house.

“What is it? You seemed pre-occupied on the phone. Did your presentation go well?”

He nodded and took her by the shoulders, searching her eyes for any hint of resentment for what he’d done.

“What is it?” she repeated.

Confused and now feeling tired from the torrent of emotions that he had felt that day, Anthony sighed and let his eyes drop.

She wiggled from his loosened grip and sang over her shoulder, “I have something that will cheer you up!”

Seconds later she returned and with a huge smile on her face, handed him a plastic bag.

“What’s this?” he asked automatically.

“Open it!” she instructed.

Within the bag was a parcel, which once unwrapped contained a small box. The box had the name Free Valley Finery on it – a name Anthony recognised as not only the jewellers from which he had bought Caroline’s necklace, but also as the best jewellers in the city, the one in the Free Valley shopping city, two shops down from the Short Stop bar…

“Open it, open it!” Caroline insisted.

His mind was gone and unable to do anything but obey, his hands opened the box and revealed the watch he’d pretended to admire the day Caroline had almost caught him buying her necklace. They’d been together and he’d made an excuse to slip away and get the necklace. She’d been quicker than he expected in the shoe shop and the watch ruse had been employed to keep her off the scent of her surprise present.

“It’s the one you wanted! I loved this necklace so much,” she declared lifting the chain from beneath her top, “that I just had to get you something in return. Then I remembered the watch and so I couldn’t help myself.”

A smile of confused understanding touched his lips for only a second and then he stated more than asked,“You got this today?”

She nodded.

The obvious truth finally crashed down into his now rational mind. Caroline wasn’t having an affair. She had lied to him to keep him away, just as he had lied to her, through love and only that. No deceitful acts were taking place behind his back. Caroline had not betrayed him or committed any crime against him in any way. The only criminal here was him. He had beaten an innocent man, who more than likely had done nothing more than smile at a pretty girl as she passed by.

Caroline tilted her head to one side, “What’s wrong?”

He did not answer with words, but stepped to her and enfolded her in his arms.

“Ugh, you’re all wet!” Caroline complained, but when he squeezed her tightly, she stopped struggling and simply held him.

“I love you, so much,” he admitted and kissed her hair.

“I love you too! I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you” she confessed.