The red lion E-Book

Aiden Kelly

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 306

Beschreibung

Already when he climbed the last stairs to his secret love nest, he saw that Sarah had only leaned on the apartment door. She couldn't wait for him to come, he thought, and already with this thought an exciting shower came over him. He hurriedly ended his short and whispered phone call and let his mobile phone slide into his left jacket pocket. He opened the door with a smile on his lips and stepped into the hallway. Out of nowhere, she rushed towards him and jumped into his arms. Her slender tanned arms threw themselves around his broad shoulders and her endlessly long legs snaked around his hips. Her full lips pressed onto his as he slipped down her narrow back with his big hands and lingered on her firm little buttocks. He felt that she was not wearing panties under her black negligee. His penis immediately became hard and stiff. His hands greedily massaged her ass while she gave a little soft sigh.

Leseprobe

The Red Lion

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Unauthorized uses, such as reproduction, distribution, storage and transmission, may be prosecuted under civil or criminal law.

All rights reserved by the author.

Original copyright © 2018, by Aiden Kelly

The Red Lion

Already when he climbed the last stairs to his secret love nest, he saw that Sarah had only leaned on the apartment door. She couldn't wait for him to come, he thought, and already with this thought an exciting shower came over him.

He hurriedly ended his short and whispered phone call and let his mobile phone slide into his left jacket pocket. He opened the door with a smile on his lips and stepped into the hallway.

Out of nowhere, she rushed towards him and jumped into his arms. Her slender tanned arms threw themselves around his broad shoulders and her endlessly long legs snaked around his hips. Her full lips pressed onto his as he slipped down her narrow back with his big hands and lingered on her firm little buttocks. He felt that she was not wearing panties under her black negligee. His penis immediately became hard and stiff. His hands greedily massaged her ass while she gave a little soft sigh.

"Let me come in first," he finally shouted with a smile while her legs were still clutching his hip. "Outside hat´s rained", he continued with a rough voice, "I have to take off my wet clothes".

"Why?" she breathed moaning. "Just undo your pants and we're floating right here in the hallway," she murmured with a smile and let her legs slowly slide down his wet leather jacket until her feet had firm ground under her again. He liked it when she talked like that and she knew it. His arousal was almost immeasurable. She was exactly his type. Long blonde hair, a slender solid body and open and aggressive in her sexuality - and she did not attach importance to a firm bond or any obligations because she

was married.

With a man who was always busy and twenty years older than her, but who offered her a lot of money and social respect. Perfect for Jack. Once again he had chosen just the right one to live out his sexual fantasies without risking his marriage and professional status.

Many kilometers away from the apartment where Jack Delaney was holding his shepherd's meeting, a telephone kept ringing. But only after the twentieth ringing did the handset become cumbersome and unwilling to lift off. There was no answer at the other end of the line. Only voices could be heard.

Voices, a rustling sounding like clothes. Everything sounded dull and unclear. You had to concentrate to understand the words. But whose voice the caller was was immediately clear. It was clearly Jack Delaney's voice, and then there was a woman's voice. "Sarah, you hot bitch can't wait, can you?" was Jack's voice. His breath was panting, his voice strained.

A cackling laugh followed. "Come on, Jack," replied the woman's voice hoarse,"„Na to me, here and now. Groans swelled through the earcup, it became louder and more urgent. Then the couple seemed to move into another room. Clumsy footsteps could be heard. A sharp little scream and an even louder moan followed. One of them fell on something soft. Then the rustling became louder and drowned out the voices almost completely.

But in the meantime it was no longer spoken but only moaned ecstatically. Jack and the woman moaned louder and wilder, it almost sounded animal. Suddenly there was a crack on the line and the connection was broken. But it didn't matter.

What I heard was perfectly adequate. The death list had been extended by one more person. Slowly and silently the handset of the telephone was put back on the fork and the dimmed night light in the room was extinguished.

A man like Jack Delaney needed woman and career as well as endless sex affairs with nameless women to give his everyday life a touch of adventure and excitement. Until now he had always had exactly the right nose for which woman was available for the latter without causing him any problems.

Except for the last one. This penny had turned out to be burdock. She was a rocket in bed, but unfortunately she talked too much and seriously believed he was leaving his wife to be with her. What a ridiculous thought! His wife owned the largest private bank in the city. She was the only child to inherit it from her father after his death.

Since his wife had absolutely nothing to do with the banking business, she left all business to him, because he had already worked in this business for more than ten years and knew all tricks and tricks inside out.

When he joined the private bank Lombard & Groming two years ago, Jack Delaney was thirty-four years old. He was athletic and tall. His black hair shone in the sun like liquorice, and his steel-blue eyes formed a perfect contrast. He was a woman type. One in which even shy women could not avoid looking a second time.

His smile was breathtaking and his mind wide awake. He always knew when to talk to whom and how. With whom he had to face up well and whom he could easily make a tool for his own interests.

After only a short time, gossip and gossip in the office had led him to find out that the top boss, Jeremiah Lombard, had heart disease, while his former partner Sam Groming had died of a stroke even before Jack was hired, but not before he had sold his partner so many shares in the joint bank that he owned the majority with fifty-one percent.

Also, Jack had learned that Jeremiah Lombard was a widow and had only one child. To Jack's greatest joy no son but a daughter - an adult unmarried daughter! Louise Lombard was twenty-three years old at the time.

She had only returned to Creek County a few years ago from a distant boarding school and devoted herself exclusively to art. She lived in a house on the outskirts of town, which her father had bought for her on her return. Jack did not yet know why Louise did not live in her father's huge estate. Louise Lombard was neither beautiful nor ugly.

A girl like her would normally not even have noticed Jack - if she hadn't been the only daughter of his heart-sick boss. Unfortunately, she rarely came to see her father at the bank. And if she did, then she always made a slightly absent impression as she floated through the corridors with a bunch of art books under her arm and the! wild brown curly mane that almost covered her face.

When Jeremiah Lombard looked after his daughter, Jack saw in his eyes something like concern and softness, qualities that otherwise seemed completely foreign to this tough businessman.

"So that's your weak spot," Jack whispered with a smile as he secretly watched his boss as he said goodbye to his daughter after one of her rare visits. The predator had scented his victim's weak spot. The hunt was on!

In a good mood and with a beaming smile on his lips, Jack Delaney entered the bank the morning after his exciting night of love. He greeted employees of whom he knew neither their first names nor anything else from their lives. He was also not interested as long as they did their work to his satisfaction and did not annoy him with incompetence.

He passed the table of a credit account clerk and stopped in front of a huge bouquet of flowers decorating her desk. He deeply sucked in the scent of the colourful spring flowers, keeping his eyes closed for seconds. "I love the scent of spring," he raved, winking mischievously at the young lady.

"I bet he's from one of your countless admirers," he added in jealousy. The little one was cute. She had caught his eye from time to time. His type exactly. About mid-twenties, tall, blonde and slender.

Terribly shy, I'm afraid. She started off in bright red every time he approached her or praised her.

"But Mr Delaney," she replied, slightly confused, "they are from you and Mr Groming... for his birthday".

Jack switched at lightning speed. "Of course, I know," he played the prankster, "I told you the flowers were from one of your countless admirers". He grinned ambiguously and pointed silently at himself. Once more he winked at her and disappeared happily whistling in his office. He dropped into his chair and laughed briefly. "Clean man Henry also thinks of everything," he said to himself and shook his head mockingly.

Satisfied, he sat back in his black leather chair and turned it towards the window. The view from his office, the former office of old Lombard, fascinated him again and again. You could see the whole small town from up here on the tenth floor. Jack loved this spit-roasted, conservative nest meanwhile right. For he was now the king of the city.

When he came here two years ago, he could never have imagined staying longer than a few months. Until his employment at Lombard & Groming, he had been more of a high level vagabond. From New York to Los Angeles, he had traveled through the country, gaining a better position each time with his expertise in the banking business.

But whenever he realized that his career wasn't moving fast enough in the bank where he was working, he'd looked around for something new. He had made many contacts and had even been placed by a headhunter from time to time. But no matter how cunning, hard-working and cold-blooded he had been, at some point he got to a superior he could not overtake.

Be it because the top boss was too loyal to long-time employees or because it was a matter of some family clique. But at Lombard & Groming, he was in the way. On the contrary. Jeremiah Lombard was the sole ruler of the bank after Groming's death. He liked Jack and encouraged him - and he had a scurried daughter who needed to be housed!

At first Jack believed that Henry Groming, the nephew of his father-in-law's deceased partner, was a serious competitor for the highest position of power. There was a contract between Jeremiah Lombard and Sam Groming that employed family members, who also held a leading position, were absolutely non-terminable unless they intentionally caused the bank serious financial or image damage.

Henry fulfilled his duties so dutifully and with such integrity, however, that Jack has unfortunately not yet been able to impose either of them on him. Jack was more cunning and cold-blooded in his business practices, and through dirty little secrets that he regularly had in his hands some of Lombard & Groming's most important business partners, because this clause also applied to Jack if he got into debt. Henry of all people would then be able to take over his post.

Henry's ambition had always been limited to fulfilling the tasks his uncle had once entrusted to him flawlessly and competently. He wasn't looking for Jack's chief position. Of course, Jack only suspected Henry's fear of a power struggle with him.

Other motives someone like Jack couldn't imagine. But still he had felt Henry for a long time as a threat. And that was when it came to Louise. Henry and Louise had known each other since they were children. Henry's parents died of cancer shortly after each other, so Henry, then seven years old, grew up with his uncle Sam and his wife Eileen.

They didn't have children of their own, so Henry became a sort of surrogate son. As Jack once learned from his father-in-law during a conversation about old times, Henry was a quiet, often sickly boy, but blessed with a bright mind.

He had looked over his uncle's shoulder in the bank for years without attracting much attention, absorbing his knowledge like a sissy! mm. Sam Groming himself was sometimes surprised at the boy's comprehension, which only became clear to him when he entrusted Henry with a task that he then solved better than he had ever expected.

Sam Groming loved Henry, even though he sometimes worried about his lack of business fighting spirit. But he took him to every visit to the Lombard house and so Henry and Louise became friends, who both grew up as single children. As Jack knew about Jeremiah, the two had a welded childhood friendship.

Together they built a tree house in the garden of the Lombards, in which they entrusted themselves all their little child secrets under the firm vow never to tell the adults about it. When Jack thought of these stories of his father-in-law, he breathed a disdainful sigh.

The two children had chosen for their tree house the tree under which Jeremiah had once proposed to his wife Helen. It was an apple tree Helen's father planted after he bought the house.

He had bequeathed the manor house and the bank he had founded to his daughter Helen. After the wedding with Jeremiah Lombard, nineteen years older at that time only eighteen years old, Helen had insisted on starting her family and raising her children in this house.

Jeremiah, the busy banker, was only right. So he did not have to worry about buying a house and building a household, but was able to devote himself entirely to the banking business and lead the bank, which at that time still bore the name Silverstone & Groming, to much more size and success. Jack grinned at the thought of his father-in-law. They were carved from one piece of wood, as Jack soon realized when he began to seek Louise's favor.

A short knock ripped Jack out of his mind. His secretary Miss Simmons came in. As always, she looked a little cranky. Jack hated that old crow.

But they, too, could not be dismissed. She had already been the secretary of old Silverstone. And when he handed over the business to Jeremiah Lombard, he insisted that Marianne Simmons be taken over. Maybe Silverstone and they had a thing once, Jack mockingly thought. A hundred years ago or so...

"Good morning, Mr Delaney," she greeted him with a chilly voice. "Here are the important documents you asked me to sign last night," she added, putting a red folder on his desk.

"Thank you, Miss Simmons," he replied with a smile on his face. Although the old Silverstone and also Jeremiah Lombard, as well as Henry Groming had called her Marianne or still called her, she insisted with Jack Delaney that he addressed you by your last name.

Today was just too beautiful to be spoiled by the old lemon. Today was the day he was to choose Marianne's successor. Because in a month, Marianne's time was up and she would finally retire. Jack couldn't wait to trade this oldtimer for a fancy new car. "Be so kind as to bring me a cup of coffee," he asked her, and his smile grew even wider. She knew exactly that he wanted a cup of coffee first thing every morning, but stubbornly as she was, she made him ask for it every morning.

"With milk and sugar?" she continued her teasing, because of course she knew the answer exactly.

"As always with milk only, Miss Simmons," he replied with an emphasis on Miss, since Marianne had never been married despite her sixty-four years and nodded her head in a meaningful and amused way.

Marianne was just leaving the office when Jack called her back. "Oh and Miss Simmons," he called and reached for something in his jacket pocket, "please be so kind and charge up my cell phone," he asked and handed her his cell phone.

"The battery's dead and I left the charger here in the office yesterday," he added, explaining. Surprised, Marianne looked at the tiny telephone. "Maybe the battery's broken," she suspected. "You had it connected to the charger for several hours yesterday..."

"Just recharge it, okay," he cleared her. Last thing he wanted to do was talk to old Feddel about his cell phone battery. With her head raised high, Marianne stepped out of his office with her mobile phone.

Snorting with rage, she sat down at her desk and reluctantly connected her mobile phone to the charger. She couldn't stand that lying son of a bitch and abrundtiefly bad person. Even his father-in-law wasn't easy to get along with. He was as much of a ladies' man as this Delaney. But at least Lombard had sent her a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates every now and then to keep the various women who were still calling in the office after they had already been dumped by the Lord mercilessly away and thus had their boss's back free.

She abhorred the sinful doings of men. And unfortunately, this sinful behavior has already spread to many women. After all, there had to be some whores messing with adulterers like that. She was just glad she had never come across such a greyhound.

On the gallows they all belonged, ranting in their thoughts. In the first place this Delaney... he just ordered, the and the woman no longer put through and that was it. That she then had to deal with these whores by telephone and almost felt soiled by it, no, he didn't think of that, the guy didn't appreciate that.

Poor little Louise, she thought with compassion. Such a loving, naive girl, so thoroughly trusting and kind-hearted. How could Mr. Lombard give such a delicate being to such a guy?! But Jack Delaney was just the type of man Jeremiah Lombard was back then.

He probably saw Jack Delaney as some kind of son substitute. But unlike Delaney Louise, Lombard really loved young Helen Silverstone. Moreover, Lombard was already a little more mature, immerhi! n he had been nineteen years older than young Helen. In the beginning he loved her with everything that belonged to her.

Passion, longing and worship. Otherwise Abraham Silverstone would never have given him his beloved Helen to wife, she was sure of that. But over the years the first two things had probably eased, but Lombard had always adored and loved Helen Silverstone in his way.

Marianne had felt this when he told about Helen or asked her to get flowers or jewellery for Helen's birthday or our wedding anniversary. He had never forgotten an important date that concerned Helen. But of course, he was a man like many others and had dedicated himself to the devil at some point and later let himself be carried away to some stupid affairs.

Marianne's lips became narrower than they already were. If poor Louise had been brought up by Helen for more than ten years, then the seed of God that Helen had planted in her would have blossomed to full size, then she would never have fallen for the cheap flattery of this Delaney, she continued her thoughts bitterly. Everyone at the company knew from the start that this guy was only after Louise's legacy.

Louise's beauty was of inner nature. She was not one of those hollow Barbie dolls females that Jack Delaney otherwise preferred. Lombard also knew what Jack really wanted, Marianne believed.

But for him the most important thing was that the bank continued, became even more successful and Louise got a sturdy boy from a guy like Delaney who could continue the family business. Lombards greatest fear was that Louise might end up an old maid and tear off the generation chain. Only little Louise didn't seem to understand what was going on.

Never surrounded by men, Jack Delaney suddenly showered her with compliments, he took her shopping and bought her clothes she never dared to buy alone. He pampered us with his tastings and undertakings. The poor child had no chance at all to grasp a clear thought, so the guy attacked her, Marianne grumbled.

And as soon as she realized, Lombard was already organizing the wedding and telling God and the world about his daughter's imminent marriage to the successful banker Jack Delaney. Marianne knew Louise from birth. She had always liked the shy, dear girl very much.

And she had suffered with her when the horrible thing had happened to Helen, her mother, and the little girl, just ten years old, only stood with her father from one day to the next.

It had been Helen who had always and everywhere been with Louise, who had educated her and taught her the values of life as well as possible. Helen had been a religious Catholic and had also brought up her daughter in this spirit.

Louise had already been able to say all ten commandments at the age of four or five, as well as the explanations. Every evening she said a prayer before going to bed and went to Mass with her mother on Sundays. Without Jeremiah Lombard, of course.

He had little love for his wife's and daughter's faithful veins. Helen was credited for Louise having become such a good, devout and educated child, Marianne decided with a defiant expression.

After Helen's death, Marianne was often in private with the Lombards, whenever Louise from the boarding school was at home, and tried to look after Louise as well as possible. Since the death of her mother Louise no longer liked to come to her parents' house, because it was there where she had found Helen dead.

Marianne felt partly responsible for the girl and tried to protect her from the evil in the world as much as possible. Above all, like Helen, she paid attention to Louise's Christian upbringing. And that's exactly what Jeremiah Lombard seemed too much at one point.

When his daughter with over twenty still not a single admirer with home geb! He attributed Marianne's exaggerated zeal to warn the young woman too much against men and to portray everything that had to do with sexuality as bad and dirty.

He undermined the personal contact between Marianne and Louise, but the two secretly talked on the phone a lot and Marianne had always made it her duty to look after Louise unshakably.

By the time Jack Delaney showed up, she had succeeded. The secretary was so lost in her memories that she didn't even notice the phone ringing on her desk.

"Lombard and Groming, anteroom Mr Delaney. Good morning. What can I do for you," she reported routinely in a monotone voice.

"This is Penny Harper, Miss Simmons," Marianne heard the tense voice of her credit colleague. "I'd like to speak to Mr Delaney."

"Oh, Miss Harper," Marianne surprised. "I hope you feel better again and you can come back to work on Monday," she could not resist saying.

For a week this slacker has been making herself ill without sending a note of illness, she thought reproachfully. But certain ladies here at the company can obviously come and go when they want, she added in thought with renewed anger towards Jack Delaney. Penny Harper didn't answer Marianne's question.

"Mr Delaney is just...", she was just about to get rid of Penny Harper following your boss's instructions, as she had for days when she came up with an excellent idea to get rid of Jack Delaney,"...in his office. I'll put you through," she finished the sentence and pressed her boss's line.

"Yes?" was a close call.

"Miss Harper wants to see you again, Mr Delaney," she gnashed. "I tried to reject her, but she just won't let up," she added with a worried voice. "She threatened to come into the company and raise hell if I didn't put her through. What could I do?" she lied the blue of the sky.

"It's okay," Jack pressed out, "I'll take the call."

With a mischievous grin, Marianne pressed a finger on her phone's fork and then took it away. She placed one hand on the mouthpiece and pressed the receiver firmly to her ear so that she could understand every word of the conversation between the two.

In her thoughts she sent a prayer of encouragement to the good Lord. "I know I shouldn't lie and listen to other people's conversations, sir. But what are my little sins as opposed to their unforgivable sins?" It was a purely rhetorical question!

Penny Harper was not only furious about Jack's behaviour towards her, but had been desperate since this morning. After she put the gun on Jack's chest so that he finally decided between her and his wife, he had dropped her like a hot potato.

And now she had also determined that she was pregnant by him! This morning she had taken a test from a pharmacy in another place and had immediately gone home. A few minutes later she had the cruel certainty that she was not only abandoned, but still unmarried! Her hitherto radiant party life had collapsed like a house of cards.

"Penny," she heard Jack's reproachful voice, "I told you not to call me anymore."

"Jack," she whimpered, "I had to talk to you. It's just awful, Jack," she shouted in a fragile voice. "I'm... I'm pregnant!" As if through cotton wool, the words arrived with Jack. Son of a bitch. This little bitch wants to plant a brat on me, was his first angry thought.

"From me?" he asked and humiliated his ex-lover even more than he had already done.

"Of course you did, you bastard," it burst out of Penny. "You know I've only been with you the last few months," she continued excitedly. "Jack, we love each other," she desperately tried to soften him. What a hopeless undertaking.

"We have to get married, Jack. We're having a child," she summoned him like a drowning woman begging for salvation. "Louise lost your child after her father's death," she said jealously, "so you'd only end a marriage that's already broken.

You wouldn't leave a family. But if you leave me, you leave the woman expecting your son, Jack! I can talk to Louise. She'll understand."

Jack drove himself moaning with one hand over his face before reaching for the final blow. "Listen, Penny, I left you a week ago when I didn't know you were pregnant," he explained to her like a little annoying kid. "You don't seriously think this sudden pregnancy will change anything?"

Penny listened petrified. "Penny," Jack reiterated, "we no longer live in the Middle Ages. So go somewhere and let it go away," he recommended cold-bloodedly.

"It's too late," she shouted on the phone.

"It's too late, Jack. Goddamn it, we live in a stick-conservative catholic place. If you don't help me, I'll tell Louise everything. How do you think I'm supposed to live here with an illegitimate child?" Her voice changed, she was on the verge of hysteria. Now Jack's collar burst too.

"Fucking bitch," he yelled out, "now you remember where you live? Now? After du´s drove with me for months like a bitch in heat? The only thing I promise you, you piece of shit, is that if you don't get out of town and out of my life.

I'm gonna drag your reputation through the mud, put every lever in motion so they'll chase you out of our town tarred and feathered. And don't you dare get anywhere near my wife. You got that, Penny?" he thundered and slammed the phone on the fork. At the same moment Marianne also silently lowered her handset onto the fork.

She was sitting back in her chair, numb. "The lips of a strange woman are sweet as honey and her throat is smoother than oil. But afterwards she is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a double-edged sword...", she quoted from the Bible as if stunned.

Jack's breath was heavy, his face was red with excitement. He hadn't even heard the knock on his office door, let alone Henry Groming kicking in and leaning casually against the door as he sat with his back to him during the phone call. For seconds Jack stared at him from big confused eyes before he quickly returned to his composure.

"Tar and feathers?" Henry mocked with his eyebrows up. "I thought this way of getting rid of annoying contemporaries was a little out of fashion. But, well, it could still be used in Creek County.

"Henry," Jack called again, "be glad you never have to deal with pushy women. Believe me, in such moments I sometimes wished I was as disinterested in the female sex as you are," he let go of one of his favorite tips to Henry.

He loved to subconsciously accuse Henry of being a homosexual. Of course he knew that wasn't true, Henry had tried everything - at least in his reserved way - to get Louise. But he hated it when Henry turned his back on the moralists, so he liked to turn the tables.

Henry also knew that Jack sometimes called him Henriette before other co-workers. Inside Henry was furious about Jack's impertinence and he would have loved to go to his throat. But Henry was too intelligent to react so primitively.

He preferred a verbal duel with his opponent. "By the way, Henry, great, great, great, great, that you thought about the birthday of the little ones from the credit accounts department," Jack continued with a slightly nasal voice. "A wonderfully colourful bouquet..."

"Taylor," Henry replied in command. "I'm sorry?" Jack asked in astonishment. "Her name is Taylor, Sandra Taylor and she's been working for us for three years," he explained and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"You really should know good co-workers by name," he accused him of using narrow lips. Jack leaned back in his chair with a broad shoulder and grinned arrogantly.

"Unfortunately, my head is so full of important work," he did regretfully, "and I just don't have your memory for names."

Henry pushed his hands into his trouser pockets and stepped towards the office's large panoramic window. He now stood with his back to Jack, who had followed his movement with a half turn in the chair.

"Speaking of important work and memory of names," he said in a dangerously quiet tone. "Did I just understand you correctly? Penny? Was Penny Harper your phone partner just now? Our company?"

Jack tensed up instantly.

That Henry was a really fucking smart guy if he wanted to. "Yes...", he replied, taking only fractions of a second to think of something plausible. "She called to call in sick for the next week," he lied without batting an eyelid. Henry jerked to him.

It could be clearly read on his features that he did not believe a word he said to his counterpart. "And that's why you want them to be chased out of town like tar and feathers," he mocked, "I'm curious to hear what the union has to say," he continued his very personal pleasure.

He enjoyed Jack turning and twisting under his superior face. But Jack wasn't that easy to corner. Sighed, he leaned back and grinned cheekily at Henry.

"Bad boy, just overhear Daddy's conversations," he said shaking his head and turned to the folder with the documents Marianne had just put on the table for him to sign. "Anything else, Henry?" he finally wanted to get rid of the annoying visitor.

"Actually, I just wanted to know how Louise was doing," he confessed truthfully. Since he heard that she had had a miscarriage after her father's death and had been cared for and treated in a sanatorium, he was worried about her. He had once tried to visit her, but was rejected by the director, Dr. Parker.

She forbade any visits. "Louise needs complete rest right now," she explained to him. "I only allow Mr Delaney to come in once every two weeks so Louise doesn't completely lose touch with the outside world." Without even having seen Louise, he had to leave again.

Jack's tone became more peaceful, almost condescending. "Oh Henry," he sighed, "since Louise married me instead of you, you can't stop worrying about her," he said without looking up from his records.

"She is in the best of hands and will soon be able to come home," he informed Henry. "The psychologist who looks after her knows Louise from when her mother died," he continued casually. "Louise is an old hand at therapy.

She will also survive this and then everything will be fine again," he ended and showed his counterpart a crooked smile. How Henry hated that guy. This was another moment when he would have liked to go to his throat.

Instead, he turned on his heel and took long steps out of Jack's office. Jack laughed briefly as he looked after him and then returned to his work. But he couldn't really concentrate on it anymore. And somehow the whole good mood with regard to today's job interviews was blown away.

It was just that damn penny, he thought discontentedly. Henry went back to his office, calm on the outside, but boiling inside with rage. Perhaps for the first time in his professional career he dropped the door behind him crashing into the lock.

He hurried to the office window and put his palms and forehead against it to cool off. Yeah, Jack was right. He had never been able to cope with the fact that Louise had not married him then but this Hans Dampf in all alleys. How could she?

It didn't suit her to choose a man like that. But Henry was sure that her father was behind it. Maybe he pressured her with something. Tears burned in his eyes, but he did not give them free rein. Much more than disappointed love, Louise's current condition made him sad. He really loved that woman with all his heart.

And that's why he just wanted to see her happy, even if it was with that son of a bitch. But he knew from the beginning that this pig could only make her unhappy. He shamelessly did it with every young woman he met. Mostly women from the bank.

For these stupid chickens, he was the big boss they hoped would give their careers a big push forward or they even thought they could tame the big ladies' hero Jack Delaney and he would become a good lamb in their arms. He shook his head in disbelief.

How could they be so stupid? Henry didn't really care about any of that. Louise was the only one who counted for him. Louise, she had been the love of his life. He had already loved them as a boy when they had sat together in the tree house and told each other everything. Her eyes were so bright and bright, her mind so bright.

How many times had he painted a wild brown curl out of her sweaty forehead? Of course he had also met other girls in later years. But they seemed dull and boring to him one and the other. With ! no one had even come close to such familiarity with him as with Louise.

It was as if the same soul lived in her and in him. Between them, looks were enough to know what the other one thought and felt. And so Henry became clearer every time he met Louise in the bank or sometimes by chance in the city that her soul suffered, that she gradually perished next to this man. Sometimes he even dared to talk to her about it.

Whether she was happy with Jack, whether he treated her well, as she deserved. But Louise was too decent a person to talk about the man she had married. She preferred to suffer quietly and quietly. And Henry slowly broke that. He could barely stand it anymore. That Jack Delaney had to leave her life, leave all our lives. He just wanted to get a gun and shoot him. But that piece of shit wasn't worth him going to jail for. And in the end, it just wasn't Henry's way of solving serious problems so brutally. No, he had to think of something more subtle...

Penny Harper's tears had dried up after she had probably sat in front of the phone for an hour, still clutching her hands around the receiver on her fork and shedding streams of tears.

Now, only now, she had really understood who and what Jack Delaney was. A rotten dirty pig who had only used her to flick her off her jacket like an annoying insect and mercilessly abandon her in all her hopeless situation.

Apart from the tears that had endlessly run down her cheeks, nothing had moved in her face or body the whole time. She was petrified. It was incomprehensible what position that pig had put her in. Her career, her reputation, her life - everything was ruined.

She screamed involuntarily when the phone rang next to her.

At first she was very suspicious when she heard who was calling. But after hearing what Henry Groming wanted from her and that he would like to see her about it, she agreed.