“Maybe he will be as unhappy about that as I am about him buying me a $65,000 car I didn’t want…” She started before rejecting another call from Jim. “I wanted to buy my own car with no help, input or anything else from Jim, but he has totally disregarded that, so sod him. I will not take his calls,” she said defiantly.
Sandra smiled. “On your head be it.” And then she made her way upstairs.
Tasha sat for a moment and jumped as the house phone rang. She went towards it and saw it was Jim’s office so picked up the receiver and immediately hung up again. She returned to the kitchen and was in no way surprised when her phone alerted her to a new text message.
Not on your bloody life thought Tasha as her anger simmered further. She watched her phone as another message appeared.
She laughed out loud and muttered to herself, “No chance.”
Another message followed.
She stared down at the message and knew this was futile, but decided she was not going to roll over on this matter. He had totally disregarded feelings she’d made clear on this subject and she was cross with him. She smiled that although he was professing to be annoyed with her he had left the kiss on his messages.
The next message hit her inbox as she sent her only reply.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she shouted at her phone as she saw that her message appeared to have been sent after his most recent message, his gentler message acknowledging that she would be angry, but her anger was likely to pale into insignificance to his when he received her message that he would see as a response to his most recent message, not all of the others.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she repeated as his next and final message appeared.
She looked back at the message trail and after his nice message was hers that simply said:
Then came his response:
How did she always manage to do this to herself? She’d been in the right and her reaction had been justified, yet here she was in the shit again because of the order the messages had been processed and now the way they appeared. She considered phoning him, or texting back to explain the misunderstanding in their text, but decided against it. He was going to be really mad now, so she may as well just wait until he was home and work through it then.
It was about half an hour later when Mike appeared in the kitchen. “Sorry Tasha, but Jim is my boss and I like my job, so when I’m told to sign for deliveries, I sign,” he explained apologetically.
“It’s fine.” Tasha really meant it. She knew she’d been wrong to put him in that position and certainly would never expect him to go against anything Jim wanted him to do.
“It’s in the garage. Go and take a look at it. It’s a beautiful car and looking never hurt anyone, did it?” He smiled at her.
She conceded his point with a nod then made her way outside and into the garage.
She flicked the lights on and actually thought that this was so much more than a garage. It was more like a showroom; there was a limo, the SUV, the Q7, a couple of motorbikes, two other cars that looked very expensive and old, classic old rather than aged. Then there was a space for Jim’s Mercedes and of course her car, the very sporty, red Audi. As she stared at it she had to admit that it was very nice, but she still believed she’d been right to feel angry about it.
She turned at the sound of the garage door behind her opening electronically and felt more than a little nervous as Jim drove in beside her and got out of his car. He stared at her making her feel really uncomfortable. He stepped closer until he was standing over her.
“Natasha,” he said quietly.
“James,” she replied, feeling apprehensive about what she should say or do next. “You’re home early,” she finally said, almost stammering with nervousness at his dark expression and closeness.
“Yeah, well I thought I might come home and screw myself.” His face remained almost expressionless as he made reference to her text message.
“James, I can explain about that, really.” Her nerves were skyrocketing.
“Of course you can. I usually admire your ability to explain your way out of situations, Tasha, but not this one and not now. Now, you need to listen, not talk,” he said very darkly making her audibly gasp as she breathed deeply. “Now, we, you and I are going to take a look at your new car and after you’ve agreed that it is actually a very beautiful car I will show you what else I have bought for you. Then, baby, we will address your ridiculously childish behaviour in not taking my calls and we will discuss the inappropriateness of your message. Once we have done all of that you will thank me for your new car, okay?” He stared down at her expecting no objections to his plan.
