"Get out of here," Nicole screamed angrily, shoving him backward toward the door as hard as she could. All that managed to accomplish was to cause the door to tightly shut behind him.
"Not before I get some answers, sweetheart," he insisted determinedly but calmly, making every attempt to keep his frustration with her under control. He wasn't even angry with her for not showing tonight. If she was having second thoughts about moving forward with their relationship, although he would be greatly disappointed, he completely understood. In actuality, he had been fully prepared to spend the next several months trying to smooth things over with her so it wasn't all that surprising that she may be having a change of heart. What aggravated him was her refusal to discuss whatever troubles or doubts there were possessing her thoughts.
"You really are unbelieveable." The long, blonde ponytail she'd pulled her hair into while she was freshening up swayed back and forth as she shook her head in disbelief. "After what you did to me tonight, you have some nerve barging in here and demanding some sort of explanation from me."
[i]What I did tonight?[/i] "What do you mean?" [i]Was it possible word was already out about what happened in the square?[/i] Her soulful eyes told him what she was feeling reached way beyond anger. She was hurt. It was then he realized there were more than emotional wounds. Her left eye was bruised. For a moment he reasoned it must've happened during yesterday's fall but his recollection of the incident determined that impossible. Something else had happened.
"My god, Nikki, what happened to you," his hand reached out to touch her face with the same loving concern that was in his voice. When her hand rose to her defense and violently smacked his away, he had an incredibly intense sensation of what it felt like to be stabbed in the gut.
"Don't touch me," she insisted firmly, in a voice that was at least one octave lower and a few decibels higher than her normal speaking voice. "And don't stand there and pretend like you actually give a damn about me!"
"I don't need to pretend anything. I love you."
Nicole felt herself going into a daze. She refused to even look at him. It was way too dangerous. One look into his eyes would be all it took to fall into the trap again so she instead fixed her gave on an itsy bitsy spider she spied crawling around the rim of he bath tub.
"Sweetheart, did someone do this to you,"his voice was full of alarm as his hand reached out to her face and ever-so-gently he stroked the bruised area around her eye with his thumb. "How did this happen?"
[i]Bad move, Nikki,[/i] she scolded herself. She'd been too preoccupied avoiding looking at him that his sneak attack caught her off gaurd. She'd allowed him to touch her. That damn Celine Dion began to taunt her again. [i]But when you touch me like this, and you hold me like that, I just have to admit that it's all coming back to me...[/i] Yes, touching was just as bad. With that lesson learned, she reached up and angrily smacked his hand away. "Look, I'm fine. Just please, do me a favor and get out of here."
"No," he replied firmly, his back sliding down the door as he sank into a sitting position against it, creating a considerable obstacle between Nicole and her freedom. "I'm not going anywhere until you, first, explain to me what happened to your eye and, second, tell me why you refused to return any of my calls."
His statement caused her to shriek out in a hysterical laugh of disbelief. "Really? What calls, EJ?"
"What happened to your eye?"
"Stop avoiding my question. What calls?"
"You're the one who's avoiding the question. I asked you before what happened to your eye? Quid pro quo, my dear."
"Fine, I fell. What calls?"
"What do you mean, 'what calls?' I've been calling and texting you all day long!"
"Well, perhaps you confused my number with the other Nicole in your little black book cuz I got news for you, honey. My phone didn't ring once."
"Well perhaps you should call your carrier and have that checked out because there is only one Nicole DiMera in my book and I know her number by heart, thank you."
"Oh, no my phone is working just fine."
"Really," EJ asked, raising his eyebrows with renewed interest. "So then I guess that means you have no good excuse for not calling me."
"I called you damnit," she screamed at him, frustration finally getting the best of her. "I called you at least a dozen times. You have a lot of fucking nerve coming in here and accusing me of avoiding you."
"I don't know what else I'm supposed to believe. You don't call me, you tell Kate that you're not coming tonight, then when I show up here you refuse to speak to me."
"Why are you lying?" Her anguished scream echoed through the walls of the tiny tiled bathroom walls.
"Sweetheart, I-I'm not, "EJ insisted matter-of-factly, pulling himself to his feet so that he could approach her. He wanted so badly just to take her into his arms and hold her until they got this whole mess sorted out but with each step he took toward her she took two steps back.
"I never told Kate I wasn't coming. You knew damn well I was going to be there. You know, for all of a minute I actually thought that everything was perfect. When you gave that quote that 'behind every great man is a great woman,' I actually pictured us standing up there, arm in arm, grinning at all the Bradys and Hortons who were looking at us in horror. I gotta hand it to ya, you got me good this time."
"No, Nikki, you've got it all wrong. I-I didn't know you were there!"
He was good, she had to give him credit. If she didn't already know him as well as she did he might be able to pull off the panicked, wrongly accused act he was attempting to play.
"Ok, so let me get this straight then. If wasn't about embarrassing me in public, which seems to be what you're getting at, then you want me to believe that you only went with this Patti chick because I stood you up? I'm sorry to tell ya, that doesn't help matters much."
"Darling, I'd never seen or heard of that bloody woman until Kate called her out. Kate told me you weren't coming and she came up with that on her own. It was supposed to be you. I had no idea what was happening until it was too late."
"OK, so I'll play and assume that this is true," she had to take a moment to swallow away the lump in her throat before she could continue. It was as if there was some secret inner battle taking place in which her mind was desperately trying to prevent her voice from asking a question she probably did not want to hear the answer to. "Why didn't you just stop her? If you really cared about me, why would you let her stand up there and convince everybody that I'm no longer a part of your life?" That was it. The tears she'd forbid herself to shed before him instantly flooded her eyes and began rolling down her cheeks. Her composure which she'd prided herself in maintaining during the majority of their conversation so far now came crumbling down around her. Her voice was shaky, emotional, vulnerable. Just as he surely wanted to see her.
"I don't know, I-I was shocked. It wasn't sinking in. I thought everything was going according to plan. I asked her what the hell she was doing and that's when she told me you weren't coming."
"So you just gave in, figuring, oh well, she didn't show up so just go with it?"
"No," he shook his head sadly, the realization was setting in that any bit of trust he'd managed to re-establish with her the night before had been thrown to the wind. "All I could think about was coming to find you and see what happened to make you change your mind."
"But you didn't," she screamed, her face becoming distorted with anger as she filled in the rest of the blanks of what she knew. "You stood up there and let her put her arms around you, and kiss you. And, from what I hear, you went on to finish your speech, smiling all the way through to the end. During which part exactly were you thinking of me?"
"All of it. This was all for you."
"Yeah, to humilate me. Well, congratulations. It was a success."
"Nikki-"
"Just shut up. I don't want to hear anymore. I am so done with you."
"Darling-"
"I'm leaving for Chicago tonight. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready."
"What? Chicago," he said looking confused, repeating the words as if they were completely foreign to him.
"Philip and Chloe will be here any minute to pick me up so you need to go," she said in her most monotonous, unemotional voice, making all attmepts to avoid eye or skin contact as she tried to sneak past him through the door.
"I'm not going anywhere and neither are you."
She could hear the fear and desperation in his voice but it came through most of all in his kiss. He took her completely by surprise, spoiling any opportunity for her to protest. His lips met hers with such a ferocity as if her ability to either stay or go depended on freeing herself from his determined embrace. Pure and natural human instinct allowed her to momentarily kiss him back. It was the resurfacing of her self-taught preservation skills which finally brought her to her senses only, no matter how hard she tried to pull away, he would not surrender his hold on her. A firm hand to the back of her head kept her lips permanently locked on his; his strong arm wrapped around her waist pulled her to him tightly, allowing him to completely possess her. Her hands were one of a few weapons left and she fired fists repeatedly into his chest in hopes that the blows would finally weaken him just enough for her to escape before it was too late. It was her own strength which gave way first. The pounding of her fists went from constant, to intermittent, to non-existent, all in less than ninety seconds. Every bit of resistance drained from her muscles until she was reduced to putty in his arms. It was only once she was in this state he felt it was safe to ease his hold on her. His lips finally departed hers after one last breath-taking draw upon them but soon found their way to her forehead where he planted one sweet little peck.
"Please don't go," he pleaded in a whisper, his warm breath tickling her ear and sending shivers down her spine. "Sweetheart, this is all just a terrible misunderstanding. First thing tomorrow, I'll set the record straight. I want the whole world to know that I love you, and only you."
That was it. It was exactly what she'd always wanted to hear. Somebody not only merely loved her but loved her the most. So why was it that those words turned out to be the most frightening thing she'd ever heard?
When he'd cheated on her with Taylor, before the betrayal even took place, she never was completely sure where she stood with EJ. She'd wanted to believe he'd fallen in love with her again, it had certainly seemed to be heading in that direction, but he hadn't told her as much and he'd never really promised her anything except an opportunity to be close to Sydney.
Now things were much different. He was promising her the world and, if she were allow him to control her fate in such a way, he could just as easily rip that perfect world from beneath her faster than he could serve it up on a silver platter. She could go from having everything to nothing in a matter of minutes and there would be nothing she could do about it. The only thing that would spare her sanity would be to take the proper, preventative precautions. The only way she could truly keep her heart from being ripped to shreds was to run away now and put it to an end on her terms. At least that way she would always know that at the moment she left him, there was no one else in this world that he loved more, or so he claimed...either way, it was as close to the fairytale as she would ever get. She was just going to have to do without her happily-ever-after.
"I'm sorry but, it's just not enough."
"What then? Darling, please," he cupped her face in his hands, refusing to allow her to look away as he pleaded with her, "Tell me what I need to do to convince you to stay and, whatever it is, I'll do it."
"I don't think you can," she replied, shaking her head sadly. "I don't think you have it in you."
"What? What don't I 'have in me?"
"The fight. You know, I think if you had made one, very simple gesture today, it could have prevented all of this from happening."
"Which is?"
"Why didn't you come to me? I mean, did the thought even occur to you when you couldn't reach me on my phone that maybe something had happened to me? No. Instead, you assumed I was avoiding you."
"Oh Nicole, come on, you know that is not fair! I knew you were fine. Mary and David, they were both here with you all day long!"
"What?" She looked at him as if he'd just uttered the most nonsensical thing she'd ever heard.
"They said you were fine. Sweetheart, believe me, there was nowhere I wanted to be more than with you but I thought you understood that I was preparing for tonight. That's why I sent Mary and David to you to help out until this was all over. I suppose I wrong to assume once you saw what I was up to, you'd understand."
"Don't you dare. Don't you sit there and try to make me out to be the unreasonable one with some ridiculous story. I don't think Mary or Dave would appreciate you in involving them in your stupid lies either, just so you don't look like the bad guy."
"I don't know what you're talking about. It's not a lie, I sent them. My father and Kate, they told me you were running around all over town shopping for an outfit, and-and going to the salon." As he watched her shake her head in denial, it all suddenly became clear. He had been played. His father and Kate had fooled him into believing they supported his reunion with Nicole. He should have known they only sought to destroy it instead. He began to laugh maniacally, only because if he didn't laugh he would surely cry instead.
"Oh, so now this is funny?"
"It is actually cuz you see, for a moment I really believed that my father and Kate wanted to see me happy. You gotta admit the level of my stupidity is somewhat entertaining."
"Ah, I see, so now you're blaming your father and Kate for causing you to not do what you should have done in the first place."
"Sweetheart, don't you see? My father and Kate, they set this all up, it has to be. It's the only thing that makes sense."
"I guess I can buy that, if I choose to believe you which you'll be happy to know that I do." His smile in response to her statement was bright enough to warm the entire room and reach the inner depths of her heart. It was a shame that it wasn't going to last. "But you still should have come. I know I couldn't simply take someone else's word for it if I wanted to know if you were OK. I wouldn't believe it until I could see it with my own eyes, or at least hear it directly from you. You just couldn't make the one extra bit of effort to show me how much you care. I can't live the rest of my life that way, always feeling like there is something or someone else more important to you than me."
"But darling, I told you, there is no one more important to me than you."
"Really? What about Johnny and SYdney?"
"Oh, Nicole, come on! They're my children, of course they're at the top of my list. But so are you. You certainly wouldn't expect me to say that I love Johnny more than Sydney, would you? Isn't it entirely possible that I just love all three of you equally?"
"See, that's the thing EJ. You say a lot of things that sound so lovely. You're full of all the words and phrases that I want to hear. What you lack is the action to back them up. You can tell me you love me for the rest of your life. You'll just never be able to prove it."
She was right. He'd never be able to prove it, but not for lack of trying. He was beginning to realize that when it came to Nicole, nothing he did would ever be good enough. She couldn't help the way she felt; she'd been terribly wronged by every single man in her life, himself included, which he supposed should make him more understanding of her position. Instead, he felt himself becoming consumed with rage. He shouldn't direct it at her. It was her father he wanted to pummel into the ground, that bastard Trent whom he now could only wish that he'd killed himself but more than anyone, he was angry with himself. Out of the three he had mentioned, he was the only disaster he could have prevented from happening.
It was now he who needed to get out of there. He needed to go somewhere to explode that was far, far away from Nicole. He could feel the angry words rising to the surface and he knew that given the opportunity, he would use them, with no real intent to hurt her. He just needed to hurt something as badly as he was hurting right now, but he didn't want that something to be her. With that in mind, he stepped aside and opened the batroom door, creating a clear, unobstructed path for her to leave. "Don't let me keep you from missing your flight."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," she mumbled under her breath as she grabbed her crutches and hobbled past him through the door. "Just throw in the towel, like you always do." She had already made it well past him which was why when the loud thud and sound of shattering glass came unexpectedly from behind her, she nearly jumped ten feet off the ground.
"Me? You're the one who's always running away!"
Nicole turned around to find that the source of the noise had apparently been his fist smashing her bathroom mirror. There were broken shards of glass littering the floor and the countertop. The part of the mirror which remained intact was smeared in blood, as was his fist. His angry yell shook the walls of her apartment to it's core. Within seconds there was a pounding at her front door.
"Nicole, it's Andrea from next door. I just wanted to let you know I called the cops and they're on their way."
"It's OK," she called out to her neighbor, her voice quavering with emotion. "My guest is just leaving."
"Oh, I'm not going anywhere," EJ shouted, reigniting the screaming match. "Isn't this what you wanted, hmm? For me to stay here and beg while you play hard to get? Or, perhaps you just want me to follow you all the way to Chicago just so you can spit in my face then send me home empty-handed when I get there."
"Right now all I want is for you to get the hell out so I never have to see you again."
"You think you can hide from me in Chicago, sweetheart?"
"Why do I need to hide? You won't bother to come find me. You've already made it clear I'm not worth the extra effort."
"Well, maybe I just shouldn't let you leave in the first place!"
"Oh, and how do you plan on stopping me?" She set her own trap with that one. It was a good thing she only lived a block away from the police station. She never thought she'd ever be so happy to hear Bo Brady's voice.
"Nicole, is everything all right in there?"
"No," she cried out in desperation, just as EJ grabbed her and was about to lay another mind-numbing kiss on her. "I need your help in here!"
She could hear the door handle jiggling while EJ continued to move in for the kill, completely disregarding the presence of the impending outside interference.
"Can you come and open the door for us?"
She made a minimal effort to free herself from his grasp but it was useless. Like always, his mere touch made her weak. "No, I can't" she finally answered. Within seconds, they had broken through her door. Bo, Rafe, and another young officer she didn't recognize came flying through her door, guns blazing, aiming right at EJ.
"Move away from her, Junior."
EJ backed off, throwing his hands up in surrender for the second time that evening.
"What's going on here, Nicole," Bo asked, stuffing his gun back into his belt before approaching her while the other two kept theirs aimed at EJ.
"He broke in through the balcony, she said, gesturing toward the broken screen. "I've asked him repeatedly to leave and he won't."
"Uh-huh, you two been fighting? Your neighbor reported hearing you both screaming and shouting at each other."
"Yes, because he won't leave!"
"We were just talking," EJ insisted, finally chiming in with his two cents.
"Well it doesn't look like you were just talking to me," Rafe added, acknowledging EJ's bloody fist. "Looks like you been doing a bit of punching too."
"Oh, yeah, the mirror."
"Well from the looks of it, I'd say it was more than the mirror who got it. Is that right, Nicole?"
For a split second she stood there confused, not sure what Rafe was getting at. That's when she remembered her black eye. The old saying was right; everything does happen for a reason. Earlier in the day she never thought she'd be grateful for the bruise she would have to wear for the next few days. Now she realized, it was her salvation. "Right," she agreed, further confirming their accusation by rubbing her bruised eye and conjuring up some phony tears for some added dramatic effect.
"What? Nicole?" EJ shook his head as he stared at her in disbelief.
She couldn't help smiling at him as Bo and crew went to work on him, reading him his Miranda rights as they slapped the cuffs on his wrists and formally charged him with breaking and entering along with assault and battery. She knew the charges wouldn't stick. He was after all, a DiMera and likely he wouldn't even have to spend the night in jail, which was fine. She didn't need him to be locked away for the rest of his life to keep him from her. All she needed was a short enough window to get him away from her until Chloe and Philip arrived to take her to the airport, and then to Chicago. One she was on the plane, she was safe, she was sure of it.
Even though he continued to beg and plead with her from all the way down the hall as the police dragged him from her building by force, as long as she were able to escape, all of his words of desperation' wouldn't amount to a thing by the morning. She'd be in Chicago, and he'd be in Salem and they would both move on and try to forget the whole thing had never even happened. At least most of it, anyway. The one silver lining in all of this was that at the very least, for the rest of her life, she would always remember that his last words to her were, "I love you."