"Broken"
Written by VeGirl 2013 © All Rights Reserved

Maya moved out from the hotel, and into a vast flat in town. Linda was there to see her order the movers around. She smiled to herself when she though about that girl as submissive. The thought was amusing, but somehow Linda understood the need to explore a different side of one's personality.

"This is a beautiful place, Maya."

"Thank's Linn, the moment I saw it, I knew I had to have it. Kind of what I thought when I saw you." She winked and that did strange things to Linda's inside.

"Maya, you're a flirt, did you know that?" She snickered.

"Sure I know."

The girls hung out a couple of times during that week, having lunch or shopping together. They managed to establish some new kind of relationship that they were both comfortable with.

"I'm glad our friendship isn't ruined," Linda said one day they were having lunch together.

"Of course it isn't ruined! It's better than ever." Maya laughed. "It is more complex. And if you want me to top you one day, just let me know, sexy."

Linda chortled. "Not awkward at all."

Jayden was working a lot and Linda had her mother bugging her to visit them. Reluctantly, she took the train down to her parents estate. Her sister Melinda was supposed to be there, but had some emergency at work that craved her precence, so she left Linda to fend for herself.

"How is your delectable fiancee?"

"Delectable? That's creepy mum!"

Her mother snickered. "He is a good looking bloke, I'm not too old to notice, my dear."

"That might be so, but I am your daughter," Linda said vehemently. "And Jayden is mine!"

Christine just smiled, glad to find that there was determination in her daughter despite her mild ways. She had actually been a little worried that her two daughters were so different from each other, and that Laurinda would be pushed down by both men and women in her life. Jayden had seemed respectful even if he had an assertive side that apparently appealed to Linda.

Linda was glad when her father got home that afternoon to defend her from the dragon called Christine Payne. "It's so good to see your pretty little face poppet." Her father hugged her.

"Thank's dad."

He offered her a Pimms before dinner. "Is Jayden working?"

"Yes, he seems to have a lot to catch up on since I got back," Linda mumbled.

"I bet he does, he couldn't have gotten much work done during your absence. He called us almost every day to keep us posted of how the investigation went," her father explained.

"Really?" That was new information to Linda who thoughtfully slipped the spicy drink with pomerance, herbs and liqorice.

"He was very worried about you. He said that you had slipped through his fingers once, but this time he was determined to find you."

The words affected Linda and her heart swelled by his caring of her parents. "And he did."

"He sounds like a man you better hold on to." Her father smiled and winked at her.

"I thought I might," she said cryptic.

~ • ~

Shopping with Christine Payne should require a steady dose of valium to work, Linda thought. She was rude to the salespersons, annoyed when something didn't fit and she seemed determined to show off her worst side that day. The rain was pouring down when they hurried to out to the waiting car. They both got wet, but her mother was furious about her jacket. "Look, this is ruined," her mother exclaimed.

"Mum, it's not ruined, it's just..."

"It is ruined, now I have to get a new one!"

"Yes mother," Linda sighed tired. "Please buy a new one. I'm sure they can have one delivered if you call them."

Her mother mumbled something that was best to tune out. She got embarrassed and tired the days her mother acted like this in public, and after three days, Linda cut her visit short and took the train back to Liverpool. She hurried the last steps to avoid being totally drenched from the rain. The hotel lobby provided a longed shelter. She had been through a trainride that just went in and on and was so glad to get out of there.

"Miss Payne." Robin, the portiere nodded and gave her a smile.

"Hi Robin, shitty weather," she chuckled.

"Certainly is." He smiled and she walked past him.

The smile remained on her lips as the lift took her to the top floor and the penthouse. She was relived to get away from her mother's temper tantrums a day early and longed for Jayden's arms around her. The lift stopped and she stepped into the livingroom at the same time a girl came walking out from Jayden's bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel.

Linda halted in her steps and her heart plummeted in her stomach.

"What's taking you so long, gorgeous?" Jayden's voice was heard seconds before he rounded the kitchen and walked into the room, wearing nothing but a pair of sweats. He halted abruptly. "Linda?" Emotions flickered over his face as his eyes met Linda's.

Linda felt like she had been stabbed in the gut. She dropped the bag in her hand and turned on her heal towards the lift again.

"Linda, wait." Jayden hurried after her but she was already inside the lift and the doors were about to close. "Linda, let me explain!"

Linda heard him yell, but the searing pain through her torso made tears stream down her cheeks as she hunched into the back corner until the lift immersed from the top floor.

"Bloody hell!" Jayden yelled and called immediately the desk to have them stop Linda.

Linda in her pain panicked, not knowing what to do she pressed the second floor, entree and then settled on the basement, anything to avoid running into people. Under ground she knew where the spa and storage-areas were located and she found a corner in one of the empty rooms where she could curl up and cry her eyes out.

Why did she have to get home early?

Then again, she praised that she had, so she could find out the truth about this honest, perfect man she had agreed to marry. How could she have thought he had changed? This wasn't the first time she had walked in on him with a girl, this was the same nightmare all over again. Her mobile rang and rang, and she fished it out of her pocket and turned it off, while violently sobs wracked her body.

The pain was excruciating.

She had no idea how long she had been lying there in a fetal position, with her arms wrapped around her body. Her head hurt like a monster-migraine, and she could barely breathe through those swollen sinuses.

What was she to do?

She knew she didn't want to meet Jayden again, and when her brain started to function again, she knew that Jayden would already have called Zoe, probably to fill her with some lie about what had happened.

She started her phone again and turned the sound off to not have to listen to it beep for every missed call. The number she called was her sister's.

"Please come pick me up without asking questions," she squeaked out in a hoarse voice when her sister answered.

Melinda hesitated for a moment, but then agreed, not really having to ask what had happened. She thanked her lucky star that she had been on a businesstrip in Manchester, and not home in Bristol when the call came. Within the hour, she had stopped by the hotel and picked up Linda by a staff-door at the hotel.

"I'm not gonna ask if you're okay," she mumbled to her sister, who looked like a total wreck.

Linda didn't answer. All her insides had turned to a blazing fiery pit of pain, and she wanted those drugs Casper had given her to escape from reality if only for a moment.

"Your phone's vibrating," Melinda said, making Linda pull it out and turn it off again. The older sister merely glanced at her before she focused on her driving to take them out off the big city traffic and on the M6 south.

The pit of fire, slowly merged into a vacuum in Linda's chest as her sister took her to safety, while the radio played upbeat tunes with 'Girls Aloud' and 'Raidiohead'. Whenever there was any trace of a lovesong with 'Adele' or 'Coldplay', Melinda changed the station, to another upbeat song to hopefully lessen her sister's pain.

After driving for two hours, Melinda stopped for gas and something to eat. "I know you don't feel like eating, but I am going to put something in you, preferably without force." She gave her sister a sympathetic smile. "Come on beautiful."

Linda exhaled half a laughter by the clear sarcastic sentence. "I am, aren't I?" she said, sounding like she had a cold.

"You've been gorgeous since the day you were born, my ugly duckling." Melinda put her arm around the shoulders of her little sister, who leaned into her. "Let me feed you."

While the older sister ordered them something to eat, the younger sibling walked to the bathroom to wash her face in cold water. Standing there to look at her swollen, puffed face, her mind flickered to all the great memories she had of Jayden. All of them cracked like a mirror that was smashed into million pieces and she knew she didn't want to listen to whatever lie he had about who the blond girl in the towel was. She looked down on her left hand and slid the ring off her finger.

It was over.

"So... you're not taking me to mother are you?" Linda asked when they got in the car again.

"Throw you in the lions pit when you're hurt? Who do you think I am, Lucifer?" Melinda looked appalled at her little sister.

Finally a hint of a smile was visible on her sister's face, and Melinda knew that sarcasm and a hard attitude was the only way she would pull through this ordeal. "First of all we're gonna stop at a Vodaphone store, to get you a new number. You can't keep the phone off all the time."

~ * ~

When the Fed-Ex package arrived, Jayden had no thought at all what the heart-breaking contents would be. The ring that he had put on Linda's finger fell out in his open hand and his heart shattered into tiny fractions instantly.

He had left so many messages on her voicemail, that he thought it would be totally jammed, but he just had to try once more. "This number is no longer available," was the mechanical operator's message and Jayden threw his phone into the wall in a rage.

Why the hell couldn't she have listened to his explanation? It wasn't at all what it must had looked like to the poor girl, but how could he explain when she refused to listen.

~ * ~

After the ordeal of buying a new phone, he had called Zoe who knew nothing at first, but then refused to answer. He called Maya who said that he had to take the consequences by himself and he had called Linda's crazy mother who didn't know anything.

What was he supposed to do?

The first few days he didn't bother going to work, everything he did circled around finding Linda. Again. He gathered all the people and information he had when she had disappeared earlier, and used his security team to try and locate her. Again.

The problem was that she didn't want to be found.

Whatever research he did and however many people he called, he was still stomping the same spot. She seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Again.

Maya just kept telling him that she would try to get in contact with the girl, but that she would not be some kind of a messenger between them. Zoe admitted after a few days that she had heard from Linda.

"Is she okay?"

"What the bleeding hell do you think?" Zoe snapped.

Jayden growled. "I get it, I'm an ass."

"Yes you are," Zoe snapped. "I thought you were in love with the girl."

"I was!" He shook his head. "I mean; I am," he added with a sigh.

"Then being unfaithful was probably a bad idea."

"I wasn't cheating on her!"

"Semantics, Jayden! I'm not involved in this, if you want her to know something; speak to Linda! Goodbye." Zoe hung up on him and he got so damn frustrated that he didn't know what to do. He aimed to once again throw his phone, but stopped himself.

He couldn't get hold of Linda and all their mutual friends told him to talk straight to her. How was he supposed to speak to her if she refused to answer?

Frustration finally pushed him to bury himself in his work. The business was all he could focus on; it was all had control over. His employees were almost ducking as he entered the room, with him being a thunderstorm, not willing to compromise the slightest.

When Sarah called he was already on edge about some businessdeal that was going down the drain. "What do you want?"

"A shag; you know that."

He just growled.

"Not with you, you dumb ox!"

"I have a bit on my mind, so if you don't have anything good to say, then just hang up!"

"I heard she left you."

The line got silent.

"Didn't you give her enough naughty?"

Still silent she could just hear Jayden take deep breaths. "If you were here I'd strangle you," he pressed out.

She just chuckled. "Why do you think I called instead" she taunted.

He still sounded like a bull, about to attack. "What do you want Sarah? I'm not in a mood for social calls."

"I noticed."

.