by Skye Warren
I dropped the entire soggy biscotti into the mug. And as for the rest of it, working for Henri, I hadn’t been working. Not really. I’d been forced, and I had fought back.
I placed my palms flat on the table, feeling the hand-scraped texture underneath. “Like you said, if I had just done what I was supposed to do, you wouldn’t be in this mess. I didn’t want you to have to…have sex with Philip because of me.”
She looked away. “It’s not so bad.”
That wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. “I wouldn’t know.” The men in the penthouse had touched me. They had been planning on having sex with me, but I’d fought them. And then Shelly had come. I was still a virgin. “Apparently even when I want to seduce someone, I do it wrong.”
“Well, you don’t have to do that. Neither of us does,” she said. “We’re his guests.”
That sounded like a lie. Why would Philip help me without getting something in return?
“Philip and I will take care of Henri,” she said with more confidence. “So you just stay put. Let me know if you need anything. I’m sure we can order you some clothes so you’re not stuck wearing my hand-me-downs. Right, Adrian?”
I was startled when his muffled voice answered right away. “Right.”
I glanced at the closed kitchen door. “Um.”
“Adrian’s a terrible gossip,” Shelly said, which elicited muttering from the hallway. “We love him anyway. Couldn’t live without him.”
“Damn straight.” Adrian bustled back into the kitchen, this time carrying a slim silver laptop with him. “As if I need to eavesdrop. You can be sure I have more advanced surveillance methods if I were even interested in what you were saying.”
He flipped the laptop open on the table and navigated to a fancy clothing store. I’d thought we had nice things in my household—a new dress from Express or someplace like that, someplace where a T-shirt didn’t cost a couple hundred dollars. My eyes bulged. And this was a temporary wardrobe?
Someone was definitely going to pay for this, and I suspected it was going to be Philip. And that meant Shelly would be in his debt. It meant I would be in his debt.
“You two have fun,” Shelly said, leaving the kitchen as quickly as she’d swept in.
That left only Adrian and me—and this laptop, which somehow represented everything I didn’t want, the kind of loose spending that had led to my family’s financial situation, owing someone who was dangerous. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t really need clothes. I can just wear this.”
“Look,” Adrian said. “Philip is good, but even he isn’t a miracle worker. And someone like Henri? It will take him some time to work out a strategy. You can’t wear the same clothes every day.”
I had just spent three days chained to bathroom pipes. Now I was still virtually a prisoner, but they were concerned about my fashion sensibilities? “Umm, I just… Maybe someplace cheaper? Like Walmart.”
Adrian sent me a droll look. “Philip has money. You may as well take advantage.”
“That’s what I don’t want to do,” I said quickly. “He’s already doing enough by letting me stay here.”
The way Adrian studied me made me shift in my seat. His expression softened. “I don’t know all the details of your situation, but I know you’re scared. And you should be. These are some scary assholes you’re dealing with, Philip included. He doesn’t give a shit about most people. They’re collateral damage to him. But regardless of the reason, he’s decided to help you—and you can believe this much: when you’re under his protection, you’re safe.”
Chapter Seven
ONLY THE NEXT day, I couldn’t find Shelly or Adrian anywhere.
I knew better than to go to Philip’s office after what had happened there. Instead I wandered the hallways of his expansive house, peeking around corners so I wouldn’t find him.
There were actual wings as if this were the castle in Beauty and the Beast. In the part of the house where our guest rooms were, the halls were papered with faintly gleaming thick stripes, almost pearly, that went from the crown molding at the high ceiling to the floor.
As I explored deeper into the house, they changed to some kind of black leather padding, studded with buttons. I ran my fingertips along the leather, such a strange choice for a wall. It reminded me of Corduroy’s exploration in the department store, finding wonders he didn’t quite understand. He had pulled off a button and been discovered. I had no desire to be found; my hand fell away.
I reached the end of the hallway and slowed, ready to turn around.
The shadows at the far wall caught my eye, something not quite right about the way they lay across the padded-leather paneling. I kept walking, even when the plush white rug ended, leaving only hardwood floor.
When I got close, I could see there was a false wall extending part of the way into the hall. From far away it wasn’t obvious that anything else would be back here. Up close, I could easily turn the corner into a small nook—which contained only a metal spiral staircase.
I had thought the second floor was the top floor. What was above this? The roof?
The stairs shivered under my weight. I had no idea how Philip ever ascended them without them swaying like a tree in a storm. When I reached the top, I discovered I wasn’t on the roof. I wasn’t outdoors at all, not technically, but the glass windows surrounding the small enclosure made it feel like I was, the panes like facets of a diamond—a jewel from which to study the stars. There were pillows and impossibly soft throws strewn over the small nook. Did Shelly know about this place? I imagined she did. She seemed to know everything about Philip.
Even though the little observatory was beautiful, I felt like I was intruding on someone’s private space. I climbed back down the spiral steps—and ran into a large, wide body at the bottom.
It held me there, hands on the rails at my sides, locking me in. Philip. “What the fuck are you doing?”
My blood rushed through my ears, making my voice come out too loud. “Nothing.”
“Then why do I keep seeing you all over my house? First my office, now here. Are you a spy? Who sent you?”
“What? No!” Oh my God. Talk about paranoid. Then again, maybe it was warranted considering Shelly had been an informant for the police. “I was just…I was just curious.”
That wasn’t what I had meant to say. I couldn’t find Shelly. I was looking for the kitchen. I’m scared. There were a million things I would have said if I could have thought about it, but his presence, so close, so warm, so large, removed the ability to think. And once the words were out, I recognized the truth of them. I was curious about Philip Murphy—and that was a dangerous situation.
“Curious,” he said, sounding amused. It was too dark to see his face completely, and it gave him the impression of a god, watching me from above as I stumbled and fell far beneath him. “You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”
Curiosity killed the cat—a dangerous situation for sure. “I’m not a cat,” I said hotly.
He ran a hand over my hair, a gentle caress. Petting me. “I don’t know,” he mused. “You have claws.”
“Trust me,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. “If I had claws, you’d be bleeding by now.”
A silent laugh, more vibration than sound. “Maybe I am.”
“No.” I was the one bleeding. I was the broken one. “Don’t,” I said thickly.
“Don’t what?”
At least he didn’t say it with feigned innocence. He knew exactly what he was doing to me, but he wanted me to say it.
“Don’t act like you give a shit,” I said. No one gave a shit. Except for some reason Shelly did. My heart clenched.
“You’re in my house,” he countered. “That makes you my business. And I’ve been thinking about your…offer.”
My offer. Sex. That was what he meant. Suddenly my mouth went dry. His posture, blocking my exit, felt more sinister than before. He had refused me flatly, cru
elly. And I’d been both hurt and relieved at the time, but I’d thought it was over. “You said you weren’t interested.”
“I thought about what you said. It’s only fair you pay your own debt. And I…” A hand cupped my waist and then slid down to my hip, burning a path—branding me. “I can’t deny I would enjoy it.”
My pulse raced, blood hot. “I doubt that. I don’t know anything.”
“I could teach you what you need to know.” A taut pause and then his voice was rougher. “I would love to teach you.”
Arousal bloomed between my legs, and I shuddered. “What about Shelly?” I whispered.
I felt his displeasure shimmer in the air around us. “She won’t like it.”
“Do you care?” I didn’t think he cared what anyone thought about him, didn’t think he would let anyone stop him.
“You’re too young,” he said instead of answering. Or maybe that was his answer. Shelly was protecting me because I was young—and somehow that had made me off limits even to a man like him.
Too young. I lifted my chin, defiant. “The men at the hotel didn’t think so.”
“And I’m just like them,” he said, half question.
He was nothing like them. They were small and mindless, rocks falling from a mountainside. Philip was his own freaking mountain. “You are,” I whispered because I wanted to hurt him, the same way he had hurt me when he rejected my naked, battered body.
It shouldn’t have bothered me when he did that. I should have only been glad.
And I shouldn’t have been able to move him at all, a small dandelion in his large shadow.
But he went stock-still, and somehow I knew I had gotten to him. A direct hit. He peeled his hands off the railing and walked away without another word. And I knew in that moment that I did have claws—I was glad of it. I needed some kind of defense against this dark world.
I had made him bleed. I’d won something tonight.
And lost something. I felt that too, just as sure.
Chapter Eight
I LAY IN my bed, the same bed where I had dreamed about cute boys at school and first learned to touch myself. I had been innocent then, but I felt different now. Changed in some fundamental way I couldn’t yet define. It wasn’t only about sex, knowing the mechanics of it. It wasn’t even about cruelty, the marks of which still lingered on my skin. Those things mattered, and I still woke up with nightmares, even now, having been back home for six months.
But there was something else, something elusive and strangely tantalizing. A secret beyond my reach. Something about Philip and the way he had looked at me, dismissed me, hurt me—but saved me too. I would always remember that, even though he was the one part of this experience I wanted to forget the most.
He had protected me, after all. And he hadn’t touched me again.
Some small, dark part of me wished that he had.
I stood up unsteadily and walked to the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me, the one with shadows under her dark eyes and dull black hair—the one who looked nothing like the people around me.
For weeks, I had lived in a well-guarded house with Philip. And with Shelly.
A strange, protective little family.
The truth was, I missed them.
My adoptive parents had taken me to a counselor who had told them to give me time. Mom and Dad were dubious about that. So was I. I didn’t think time would turn me back into the girl I had been, so desperate to please them first, so desperate to rebel later, the one in glittery tops and short skirts. I was some other creature now. But what?
This is where you come from. This is who you are.
Even the sight of bathroom pipes beneath the sink made me vomit.
I collapsed on the cold tile floor, sobbing so violently that my whole body shook. That was what had changed about me. He had changed me. He’d made me want something I shouldn’t, awoken a slumbering dragon inside me. And now that I had seen Philip, wanted him, there would be no turning back. The sweet family life I had always dreamed of—how would I find it now, with this mirroring darkness inside me? This strange and lonely desire?
I sobbed on the floor, not even stirring when I heard a knock on the door.
Then my brother’s voice, hesitant. “Claire?”
“Don’t call me that,” I sobbed. “That’s not my name. It’s not.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously. He came into the bathroom and knelt at my side. “Okay. Whatever you want to be called. That’s what your name will be.”
It sounded so simple when he said it like that. I could have any name I wanted. Something no one had ever heard of. I could leave Claire behind, the desperate teenager, the name given to a daughter they didn’t want. I could be someone else, someone who didn’t live in fear.
Except all I could see was Philip’s dark eyes when he looked at me the very first time, as if I was something precious he had found. All I could hear was the mocking timbre of his voice when he said my name—the name Shelly had given me.
“Ella,” I whispered.
“Okay,” Tyler said, putting his arms around me, an awkward but sweet embrace. “That’s what it is then. Ella.”
That was who I’d become. Someone who would define herself by a man who didn’t even want her. That was why I stared at the ceiling for hours.
She’s been through a trauma. It will take her time to work through it.
I could hear the counselor like a chorus inside my head. It would take time, and really, that was all I had left. No family except for a brother who wasn’t actually related. No friends except for a call girl who may or may not stay in contact with me.
No one to love, except a man who had sent me away.
We were all human-sized continents, separated by oceans of doubt. And Philip, he was a volcano. He could scorch the earth and then rebuild it anew.
That was what he had done to me. Gone was the rebellious wild child, gone was the broken little girl. In her place was a fresh terrain, fertile earth for something to grow.
I sobbed in my brother’s arms, washing away every trace of the old me, not knowing if there would be anything left when I was done.
Then suddenly I couldn’t cry anymore. I couldn’t even think.
Breath came fast and then not at all. I opened my mouth on a silent gasp.
The world faded to black.
It was my first panic attack, but not my last. I continued having them for years after, even when I graduated high school and started college. Even when I moved out of my parent’s house and into a dorm. They were like aftershocks, painful reminders that Philip had changed me—forever.
Chapter Nine
Three years later
“SO, THE PRISONER’S dilemma.”
“The prisoner’s dilemma is a theory that shows why two rational individuals—two prisoners—might not cooperate, even if it would be in their best interests.” I answered the question dutifully, my mind only half on the walking pop quiz. The other half was focused on the little alcove of mailboxes beside the elevators. My breath came faster, illicit anticipation over something as innocuous as a postcard.
Sloan was my classmate, a junior with an eternal golden tan even in the heart of Chicago. “And Axelrod’s four conditions for the strategy to work?”
“The strategy must retaliate, be forgiving, nonenvious, and…” I would have to reread the chapter in our sociology textbook tonight, but I couldn’t pass up the mailboxes now. “I’m sorry. Mind if I stop here? I’m expecting a letter.”
It wouldn’t have been a letter, exactly. It would have been a postcard, the next in an unsteady stream of anonymous cards. I had been surprised the first time I got the blank postcard, then confused and scared and ultimately charmed. There was only one man who could have sent them, who would have sent them, these smug and mysterious links to a man I shouldn’t know.
Sloan blinked. “Oh. Sure.”
I hadn’t waited for his resp
onse. My key was already inside the lock.
The little metal door swung open. I rifled through credit card offers and pizza delivery coupons, heart racing, palms sweaty. And nothing else.
It wasn’t here.
Disappointment was a punch to the gut. I struggled to control my expression.
“No letter?” Sloan asked. His voice asked, From who?
“No letter,” I repeated dully.
It hadn’t come for months now.
Well, what did I expect? For him to pine forever? It was a miracle he’d remembered me at all. I had met Philip in a blur of crime and bad decisions. He’d been handsome and powerful. And there’d been something between us, something dark and curious.
But he hadn’t touched me in the end. He’d let me go.
Sloan cleared his throat, expression half expectant, half hopeful. Oh no. “Ella, would you…would you like to go on a date?”
My heart sank. I’d been too young for Philip. Too good for him, or so he’d claimed. The good girl. The worst part was, I couldn’t even argue. All I’d done since then was go to class like an obedient daughter, ignoring that my adoptive father’s gambling debts had gotten me in trouble in the first place.
Sloan was perfect for me, in every way. Except he didn’t make me ache.
When I touched myself at night, it wasn’t his boyish face that I pictured. It wasn’t his lean body I pictured between my legs. I had never been with a man, not all the way, and the only man I could imagine myself with wasn’t interested.
“Sloan—”
“I think we get along,” he filled in quickly. “And I really like you. I know you don’t like me like that, at least not yet, but maybe in time that would change.”
The last word lilted up, like a question. My mouth snapped shut. I felt bad for the answer I’d have to give. I also felt impressed that he knew my answer—and that he’d asked anyway.
Sloan was a good guy. Cute in that lanky, all-American way I should be attracted to.
I just wished he inspired half the heat that a single blank postcard could.
I glanced at the stack of junk mail in my hands. There wasn’t a postcard. Hadn’t been one for months. They had always been erratic, but now it was time to face facts.
