Wait a minute, if he had been receiving all my communication, that explained why Toby was ignoring me. He wasn’t ignoring me, my messages weren’t going through. I didn’t have time to think about that standing in a room with Paul while he held my keys and I had no way of contacting somebody with my own phone.
I used to fear Paul. Even though he never worked his way up to physical violence, I was afraid of the hold that he had on me. Now, I was afraid of his scary potential. I knew that he was cracked, but this behavior was taking it to a whole other level. I was afraid to dig deeper but I had little choice but to try and reason with him.
He had proven that he was unpredictable and that he meant business. Threats to get the cops involved didn’t work on him. I felt like I wouldn’t have just been standing there if it was a stranger with me in the house and not him. He was worse than a stranger even though I knew him.
I didn’t know the lengths he would go to get what he wanted from me and I didn’t want to find out until I had a backup plan.
“Why would you do that?”
“What do you mean why would I do that? I was looking out for you.”
“I don’t need you to look out for me, Paul. I’m not in any danger.”
“I know what’s best for you. I couldn’t risk you messing anything up.” Okay, he wasn’t making sense anymore.
“What are you talking about? What am I messing up?”
“Do you know what you have growing in your belly? That kid is our meal ticket. I’m going to get the billionaire to pay out and the two of us are going to be living like kings.”
“The billionaire? Are you talking about Toby? He doesn’t even know that I’m pregnant right now.”
Paul shook his head. “Yes, he does. I told him.”
I called his bluff. “He doesn’t know you either. Why would he believe you even if you told him something like that?”
“I sent him solid proof. He’s seen the confirmation results from the pregnancy test that your doctor ran.”
“How would he even get his hands on that?”
“It was in your trash. I sent it to him.” My stomach turned thinking about Paul going through my trash and finding that out. That must’ve been how he found out that I was pregnant too. He went through my trash and found the used at-home test. He was worse than I thought.
This was scary. It wasn’t just weird and gross anymore. Paul had gone behind my back and done actions that would have real consequences in my life. It was hard to admit, but I had underestimated him. I didn’t know whether this level of crazy was new or if he had always been this way. I didn’t like feeling cornered. I was trapped. The only thing I could think of doing was keeping him talking so that I had a little more time to think.
“Okay… well, if Toby knows that I’m pregnant, why hasn’t he done anything about it? Why hasn’t he contacted me at all?”
Because he didn’t want to. My stupid insecurities decided this was the moment to come up out of nowhere. When my crazy ex who was even crazier than I thought was essentially holding me hostage.
“That’s because I made sure that he knew you didn’t want him to.”
“What are you talking about Paul?”
“Do you remember the other day when you got upset. You yelled at me to leave you alone, that it wasn’t my baby and you didn’t want to see me again. I recorded it and I sent it to Toby as a voicemail.”
I opened my mouth to speak but the lump in my throat made it difficult.
“He knows better than to believe something like that. He would want to hear it directly from me, not from someone else.”
“I told him that you and I were getting married so he knows that he needs to leave you alone. You weren’t there, babe. He definitely got the message.”
“What do you mean? Why are you even doing any of this?”
“It’s a whole plan babe, I thought it up perfectly. You’re gonna be my wife and he’s going to be the man who had an affair with you and knocked you up. Can’t, you see it? I’ll be the husband who gets humiliated and wants revenge. I’ll threaten to expose him to the press and blackmail him so he’ll payout to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Crazy might have been an understatement. He was out of his mind. He had hatched a convoluted plan out of nowhere with me at the center. How had he even started planning this? How long had he been planning it? Why did he know as much as he knew and what the hell was I supposed to do to stop him?
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, still biding my time but no longer sure for what. I had no ideas in mind.
“I know he's a bigshot, he has a reputation to protect. He’s gonna do it babe, and we’re going to be rich.”