Protect Me Not

Chapter 17

Victor awoke to a panic attack, something he had never experienced before. His excessive sweating left his sheets drenched. He could feel his heart racing and the sharp chest pain he was experiencing was excruciating. The more he tried to get himself out of bed, the harder it was for him to move. He could feel his throat closing leaving him gasping for air. Victor knew that he had been under a tremendous amount of stress so he was fairly confident he would be fine as soon as he could get his breathing under control. His short shallow breaths slowly lengthened offering him more and more oxygen with every breath he fought for. Once he managed to get his breathing under control, Victor sat up in bed and reached for the glass of water on his bedside table. Unable to concentrate on much these days, he picked his cell phone up and called into the office to inform them that he would be taking a short leave of absence. He instructed his secretary to clear his schedule for the day and put a memo out to his colleagues to apologize for his unexpected and abrupt leave of absence. Victor assured his assistant that he was fine but needed to travel to Toronto to take care of a very important business matter. There was nothing more important to Victor than Mary. Although his secretary assumed it had something to do with Mary, she would never intrude on his personal matters by asking. She did as she was instructed and left it at that. Victor could always rely on Cynthia's capable work ethics and abilities. She's been with his firm from its conception and remained loyal throughout his career. Cynthia loved what she did as a career and dedicated her entire life to her work. She never married although she was known to date a few men in her time. She never had the urge to start a family nor wanted a committed relationship. She always thought it complicated life regardless of personal choices, age or financial situation. Time and time again, Cynthia witness the reunion and bitter break ups from all the people close to her. She didn't want to add to the statistic of one more broken marriage. Her beauty and charm was well sought after in her younger days but as time aged her face and body, she became even more thankful to have divulged herself into her work.

"I'll send the itinerary over to you via e-mail as soon as I receive the confirmation booking," Cynthia told Victor.

"Thank you Cynthia and please prepare a hefty bonus for yourself. I will sign off on it and Barry can have Administration release it to you by tomorrow. Please take this gift and pamper yourself however you feel fit. You deserve so much more but please know that I value your loyalty and unwavering dedication to my firm and me," Victor explained.

"Thank you very much. I do appreciate your recognition of my hard work Sir," Cynthia replied with gratitude.

Victor hung up from the call and calmly took a few deep breaths in and slowly exhaled. Recognizing that he needed to slow down a bit, his next phone call was to book a massage to help ease his tension. Ever since his car accident, Victor went to regular massage therapy to help with his non life threatening injuries. He noticed massage therapy helped with his muscle tension so he continued with the therapy even though his Doctor gave him a clean bill of health. Hopefully his massage will coincide nicely with his flight time out to Toronto. Victor's anxiety increased with the thought of his trip to Toronto being in vain. What if Mary completely rejected his visit or worse, had already moved hotels and he couldn't find her. The latter shouldn't be a problem because Camden would know her whereabouts. A flood of emotions started to overcome him and instantly he could feel his heart palpitations start with fluttering and erratically heart beats. Fearful of another anxiety attack, Victor shifted his focus on getting a precious gift for his wife upon his surprise visit. There's just one more phone call he had to squeeze in before he booked his massage and then he would need to get packing for his trip to Toronto.

Victor had been planning a very special and extremely romantic getaway for the two of them to a remote island in Bora Bora for their ten year anniversary. It was meant to be a complete surprise to Mary. Victor had been attentive to her work schedule and pre-arranged a two week open schedule in March with her Assistant already. The final details of planned meals, nightly entertainment and day excursions had yet to be confirmed but everything else had been considered and reserved. Victor arranged one piece of fine hand crafted jewellery for everyday they are away and had his personal jeweller make plans for it to be delivered to the Island ahead of time. Victor even pre arranged to have the jewellery item placed on her bedside with a short pre written love note and a single rose on a regular basis through the hotel's concierge.

The sound of Victor's cell phone notification tone brought him back to the present moment. Remembering that he gave specific instructions to Cynthia to forward his itinerary he snatched up his cell phone eager to review the Toronto booking. With great disappointment, Cynthia apologized that the first direct flight wouldn't be possible until the next morning and that she would hold off in booking until further instructions were given to her. Victor stared at his e-mail for what appeared to be a lifetime. With so many thoughts running through his mind, he couldn't seem to make an educated decision. On one hand, he wanted to rush out to Toronto to ensure Mary was okay. Unable to shake his uneasy feeling about her travels, he wanted to reply back to Cynthia to instruct her to book the flight anyway. On the other hand, Victor also wanted to honour Mary's personal request to give her some space and time to sort through her own issues. Victor paced back and forth while contemplating his decision in his head. Although he knew the right choice was to let Mary deal with things on her own, he had always been the one who helped her get back on her emotional feet. Maybe that was the whole problem. Perhaps all those times he tried to ground her from her emotional chaos, he was in fact only placing a band aid on the real problem. What if the real problem was in fact Mary needing to learn to take charge of her own life including her emotions and past experiences? She always had Victor to cushion her hard realities. Mary never had to steamroll through any of her raw emotions on her own.

Victor noticed that he had an unread e-mail from Camden. He could feel his heart start to race again and hoped it was an update on Mary. He opened the attachment and stared at Mary peacefully asleep in her hotel suite. At that moment, Victor decided to hold off on his trip to Toronto, even though a small voice in his head kept telling him otherwise. Victor physically felt sick to his stomach at the thought that Mary could be in some serious turmoil and he was not there to shelter her from it. Knowing that Camden was there to keep her safe, he diverted his plan from being there in person to requesting Camden in taking a larger role with Mary. He reviewed his text message from Camden, more specifically the comment he made of how Mary drank too much the night before but that it was a natural progression to healing. Victor replied to Camden's message asking him to do whatever he needed to stay close to Mary. Victor offered to double his compensation and requested constant feedback whenever possible. Now Victor waited on Camden's response. Almost expecting a reply immediately, Victor grew concerned when he didn't hear back. It had been nearly five minutes and Victor still had no reply from Camden. Ten minutes passed and still nothing which drove Victor into another anxiety attack. Victor made his way into the bathroom to splash cold water onto his face. He looked at his very pale reflection in the mirror and realized for the first time how much he had aged. His youthful and boyish face had matured into a masculine but chiselled version of his father's. His once luscious and thick dark hair had slowly started thinning. Victor poked at a few stray grey hairs and contemplated pulling them out. He decided against it rather quickly. He knew it was a myth but just the thought of two additional grey hairs growing in replace to the pulled one didn't appeal to him. Aging was a natural progression in life and he was determined to embrace the process. Mary always told him that men with salt and pepper hair colour looked handsome and distinguished. Growing increasingly worried when he didn't hear back from Camden, Victor picked up his cell to place a direct call to him. Just before he pushed the call button, a text message from Camden came through. He responded with a simple "yes boss, no worries."