Dirty Diana by January James

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Eventually, I felt light above me and I was able to breathe again. My body was limp as I was hoisted into the air and twisted around. As my head spun, I saw faces. Not Aaron’s but other peoples’. People I didn’t recognize. I was lowered. I felt someone’s arms wrap around me. I was carried out of the room and into another. My numbed brain couldn’t process where I was going. Even when I was placed in a large bathtub half-filled with lukewarm water and softly scented bubbles, I forced any recollection from my mind. I stared straight ahead, as though whatever wasn’t in my direct line of sight didn’t exist.

Warm water covered my hair and I felt hands rubbing soap into it. Was it Aaron? Had I imagined the other people? Visions of the woman at the Decadence Club tying my hair back glided through my mind, along with the face of the man who’d jack rabbited me into the mattress. Donnie Hoffman appeared like a hologram wagging his finger at me, telling me about the three rules. Some part of me knew I was living through a trauma, and all I could do was close my eyes.

When they re-opened, I was lying in a large, comfortable bed, with a man by my side. I didn’t dare look up. If it was Aaron, then I was still in the same hell, only cleaner.

The weight on the bed shifted and the figure bent down towards me.

“Hey…” came a soft voice. “Di, it’s me. Jude.”

I was convinced I was dreaming. How could I have gone from being pinned to the floor by Aaron, to lying in a bed beside Jude? I forced my neck to turn until his face came into view.

“Fuck,” he gasped, and broke down right in front of me.

“Di, I’m so sorry,” he cried. “I should have been here. I should never have let you out of my sight.”

His hand covered his face but I could see the contours of his cheekbones which, despite my state of confusion, still sent ripples of lust through me. He sat up and dragged his hands down his face, pushing up his jaw, angrily. He didn’t say anything else. Something had changed between us; I could feel it.

“What happened?” I tried to speak but it came out as a whisper. My vocal chords ached.

Jude sighed, heavily, then turned to hold both of my hands. “Sheridan told me where you were going the minute you left, so I got a cab straight here. I called the police on the way; I had a bad feeling and I didn’t want to chance anything.”

He sighed again, letting out a low growl with it.

“Di, I heard the screams as soon as I got close to the door. I couldn’t get up the stairs fast enough. I had cops right behind me. When I saw him hovering over you… fuck!” He shoved his fingers into his hair, gripping the sides of his head as though it might explode. “I turned fucking feral. I couldn’t help myself. I got him off you as fast as I could and…”

“Go on,” I needed to hear it all.

“I beat the guy to a pulp, Di. The police saw it all.”

I felt my chest rising and falling as I prepared to ask him what I needed to know. “Did he rape me?” I whispered.

“He was inside you when I grabbed him but only just, I think,” he said, the despair in his voice causing it to tremble. “If only I’d been two minutes faster,” he shook his head, a fresh flood of tears streaking down his cheeks.

“I nearly killed him, Di. Right in front of you. It took three cops to pull me off.”

“Where was I” I asked, bewildered.

“You’d shut down,” he replied. “It’s textbook, apparently,” he said, sighing again with the effort of understanding.

“Where is he?”

“The police have him.” Jude leaned over me and stroked a hand through my hair. “Diana…. You’ll never see him again. He is gone, believe me. And if he ever gets out early, I will kill him, I promise you. I would have killed him just now, if they hadn’t stopped me.”

He scrubbed at his face.

“Fuck! I wish I had. I think I’d rather do jailtime than live knowing the fucker is still walking the same planet as you.”

I pushed myself, with some effort, up onto my elbows, noticing a thick bandage tied around my thigh and purple bruises forming around my hips.

“But… he isn’t coming back, right?” I asked, the panic not completely subsiding within my chest.

“No,” Jude shook his head, his face fixed into a determined scowl, like a boxer about to finish off his opponent. “He’s not coming back.”

I pushed myself up to sitting and stared at the wall. “He’s gone,” I whispered, unable to believe it. Even though I’d been out of his reach for the last four years, he’d been in my life, looming over me, always with the threat he might track me down and do something like this. It would take some time before my brain would accept I was finally free, that I was no longer estranged from my mother, that I could live my life like a normal person.

“The pen…” I remembered.

“The cops took it. Evidence.” Jude said.

“I’d had it engraved for you,” I whispered. “But I never want to see it again.”

Jude turned to face me and finally, a look of something resembling hope, appeared in it. “What did it say?”

“It just said ‘Rebel Records Chief Music Maker’. It was silly really, but I wanted to commemorate a significant change in your life. It was a beautiful pen.”

“It was,” he smiled, “but I don’t think I’d be able to look at it again without thinking of this, right now.”

My heart dropped and I could no longer feel blood pumping through my veins. It dawned on me: he couldn’t handle this. He would never think of this moment as one in which I’d been saved, as I would look back on it. He would always see this moment as the one in which he’d failed. And it would take a strong man to be able to live with that. Was Jude strong enough?

“Are we ok?” I whispered, dreading his reply.

He paused for too long and my eyes filled with tears. I heard him breathing steadily beside me but I couldn’t see him through the salty veil. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t bear to hear him utter the words.

I pushed myself slowly to my feet, my thigh instantly burning from the change in pressure. I started to limp towards the door when I felt his hands behind me, scooping me into his arms. The tears fell, drenching the t-shirt Jude must have dressed me in, and I couldn’t look into his eyes.

“Yes, we’re ok,” he said, finally, sitting down and cradling me on his lap. “But I can’t speak for you—I could never imagine what that must have been like—but I’ve changed. In the last two hours I’ve become a different fucking person.”

I managed to look up at him, fearing the next words to come out of his mouth.

“I’m never letting you out of my sight.” He bent his head, his tears falling to mingle with my own. “I’ve realized today just how much you mean to me. I knew you meant a lot before, but now… You’re my life, Diana, my world. If anything happened to you, I don’t think I could go on. I know I told you I loved you, back when we were still fighting each other at Empirical. But it’s so much more than that now. I want you by my side, always. You’ve worked your damn way into my soul. When something happens to you, I feel it, physically.”

His eyes bore into me, willing me to believe every word.

“This is more than love, Diana. You’re the air that I breathe and I can’t live without it.”

He buried his head into my shoulder and I felt the tears roll down my chest. As for words. I had none; he’d exhausted them all. No-one had ever said anything so beautiful to me in my life. I squeezed him to me and kissed his head, cherishing his damp hair against my lips.

Eventually, the tears stopped and he looked back into my eyes.

“I want to go to the awards,” I said, surprising us both.

He shook his head. “No, Di, you need to rest.”

“No. I need to be with the team. It’s an important night.”

“No, it isn’t, Di. We haven’t been nominated for an award. We’re a brand new business now; we weren’t eligible.”

“It doesn’t matter. The acts are there. I’ve hardly seen them since the Gardens, and I know how tight their schedules are now. I need to thank them, check in on them.”

Jude shook his head again but I knew I’d got in. He pulled me to his chest.

“You’re such a good person,” he muttered. “But you’re infuriating. I have to let you go, otherwise you’ll bloody find a way there without me.”

I smiled, apologetically. “You’ll come too?”

“Of course. I’m never letting you out of my sight,” he replied, horrified that I’d even considered he wouldn’t accompany me.

“Thank you.” I leaned forward and he opened his lips for me. It was the first time we’d kissed since that morning, since before Aaron had broken into Jude’s home. Jude took it slowly, moving his tongue lightly against mine, letting it graze along my lips. He held my head gently, as though it was made of the finest glass and might shatter at any second.

It was a kiss filled completely with love. It came from the bottom of his heart with open arms. It came from his soul.