by C. R. Jane
I immediately burst into fake tears. “I was just thrown in to the boy’s locker room by some seniors. I haven’t even ever talked to them before. Why would they do that?” I fake sobbed, letting go of my shirt so she could see the rip.
Ms. Franklin’s face immediately went from suspicious to concerned. “You poor dear,” she said, her southern twang soothingly sympathetic. “Are you all right? Let’s get you to the nurse. She should have another shirt for you to change into.”
I sniffed and continued my little show as we went to the nurse’s office, and I tried to describe the “upper-classmen” who had bullied me. After giving a generic description of the three guys, I went for the win. “Can’t we just watch the footage from the cameras to see who it was?” I asked. “We were standing right in front of one of them.”
There was an awkward silence as Ms. Franklin and the nurse eyed each other. “We’ll definitely take a look at that. But how about I get your stuff for you, and you go home and get some rest?
I pretended to be comforted by her plan, and I did just what she suggested—walked home with Brandon’s Rolex.
When Brandon called me that night he was upset. “I can’t believe it was stolen. There wasn’t even any sign that the locker was broken into. My dad is going to kill me.”
“He won’t kill you,” I said reassuringly. “I’m sure he has insurance, and besides, weren’t you going to give me the watch just the other day?”
There was a pause. “Dad wouldn’t have cared about that. The men in my family have always gone stupid over women. He would have done the same with my mom if he had met her in high school.” His voice became shy. “I’m pretty gone over you, Holly. I hope you know that.”
I could feel the word “love” struggling to come out of his mouth, and I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Not when I experienced actual happiness when I’d stolen his prized possession today. Not when my heart had become so cold that I didn’t think I was even capable of accepting love, much less giving it.
Brandon needed to save that word for a woman that deserved it, not someone as ugly and raw inside as me.
“I’m sorry about your watch, Brandon,” I said softly.
“Me too,” he said.
And one stray tear chose that moment to slide down my cheek.
Would it feel like this every time?
My uncle was waiting for me when I got back from talking to Brandon. He was sitting at that awful dining room table, but this time, there were no sweets. In fact, this time, there was actual emotion on his face, and it could be classified as rage.
“Why don’t you come sit down?” he asked me, and his voice was tight.
He knew, without a doubt, somehow he knew. “I got the watch,” I said, trying to keep the shaking out of my voice. I pulled it out of my bag and set it on the table in front of him. He didn’t even look at it.
“I’m afraid that the watch isn’t going to make up for how much money you’ve cost me,” he said.
And now I was really scared. But at the same time, what was the worst he could do? Kill me?
I began to fiddle with the straps of the bag distractingly. “I received an interesting phone call today from Brandon’s mother. It seemed she was concerned because she found an empty condom wrapper in his room. The good mom that she is, she wanted to make sure that her son wasn’t about to become a father. You see, her son has such a bright future, and she wouldn’t want you both to mess it up with an unplanned pregnancy.”
He smiled, like the thought of an unplanned pregnancy was funny, and it was the smile of a shark.
I had no idea what to say.
“What’s interesting, Holland, is that I’m quite sure that Brandon isn’t cheating on you. The people I have watching you are under the belief that he has in fact fallen in love with you. So the question is, why were there empty condom wrappers in his room?”
He stared at me, and I didn’t know why we were playing this game.
“You know the answer to that,” I said as I tried to remember how it felt to defy him in the first place.
“I want you to say it,” he snarled.
“I made sure that, although you own everything else about me, I got to choose how I lost my virginity,” I said, my anger outweighing my fear.
“All right,” he said, his voice all of a sudden blandly calm.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
My uncle smirked. “Please go to your room,” he said, ignoring my question. Rising, he pulled his phone out of his pocket before texting someone.
I stared at him in shock. I’d expected him to punish me immediately. Throw me down into the basement and whip me or something.
But I guess that would have been too easy. He was a master of punishment after all. He probably felt it much better to delay the punishment and let the anticipation paralyze me.
Bastard.
Whatever his plan was, I still felt somewhat lighter now that he knew. I would still worry all night about what he was going to do to me, but at least now, I wouldn’t be worrying if he’d find out in the first place.
The next day at school, Brandon was still upset about the loss of his watch, and I tried to temper down the guilt I was feeling. It was either my life or his watch. Hopefully, someone in the world would think that my life was worth more.
“I’m going to go across the street and get a coffee with Danny and Tyler,” he said as he brushed a kiss against my lips. “Do you want to come? Or do you want me to get you something?”
I shook my head. I was immeasurably beyond where everyone else in school was this year, thanks to my eidetic memory, and even though it was my uncle’s fault I was even thinking about failure, somehow, I didn’t think he’d be understanding if I did slip up or had to repeat the year.
“No, I’m good. I need to study. I’ll see you after next period?” I asked, and he nodded with a wide grin, as if he was already anticipating when he could see me next.
I heard the impact from inside, it was so loud, and the car was traveling so fast, that the noise echoed through the hallway. I walked out in a daze. Somehow, I already knew what had happened as people were streaming from the school toward where the broken body was lying in the street, the car that had hit it nowhere to be found.
And as bad as it was, the whole time, I was hoping it was one of the guys that he had been with, or a stranger on the street, anyone but him.
But there, lying in the middle of the road, was Brandon.
And even though the ambulance was called, and people were huddled over his body trying to give him CPR, he was gone.
And I was to blame.
This had been my final lesson, showing me that the consequences for disobeying my uncle didn’t stop at me.
I cried standing there, and everyone thought that it was because I had just lost my boyfriend.
The horrible thing was, I was really crying because I had just lost me.
My uncle made me go to Brandon’s funeral. He made me stand out there in the rain without an umbrella, watching the faces of Brandon’s devastated family and friends as they mourned a son and friend who actually deserved to be mourned. Brandon’s mother collapsed by the casket in the muddy dirt, sobbing so hard that I couldn’t help but cry with her. Her pain was so tangible, so enormous. She was never going to recover. She might leave today and go back home. She might take her black dress off and shower away the rain and mud, but she would be missing an integral part of her, a part that she needed to be happy in life.
And it was all my fault.
It was my fault that Brandon would never play football in college, that he’d never meet his future wife and be the kind of man that a girl would have always dreamed about marrying. It was my fault that he wouldn’t ever have children, the kind of children that grew up to be the best kind of people. It was my fault that instead of the bright future that Brandon had in front of him, he had to be buried in the ground, six feet under, his dreams no more.
It was all my fault.
Brandon’s only mistake in life was thinking that he loved me, that I was the kind of girl worth falling for.
I felt for those people as though it was my own pain. But I think maybe part of what I mourned was knowing that it wasn’t. I’d never have real pain again.
Chapter 16
Holly
Now
Charlie’s room was exactly like Jamie’s, except for the fact that Charlie was neat and Jamie really wasn’t. I didn’t believe for a second that Charlie had some sort of magical medicinal tools to fix me up. He wanted me away from Jamie. And truth was, I wanted to be away from Jamie, too. Those all-seeing eyes. They were really seeing me, probably for the first time. I’d never felt so exposed in my life.
He said he was okay with all my fucked-up because of his own. Only time would tell if that was really true.
I wasn’t even sure it was a good idea. I had to take on the ungettable con. I certainly couldn’t succeed, so did I have any business being in their lives at all? Now that I knew what was happening, I should have been shoving them out the door to go live somewhere they’d never be spotted.
But here we were in the cheap hotel, and other than the mild instruction I’d given Jamie, I hadn’t said a word. I’d always thought circumstances made me fucked up, but the truth was that I was probably just this way anyway. My uncle must have brought out what was already there.
A person with any backbone would send them away.
I rocked back on my feet. “So… medicine?”
He shrugged. “I could get some if you need it. I made up an excuse I’m pretty sure Jamie saw through so I could have you alone for a bit.”
I sat down on the edge of his bed. “I can’t get your stuff back. I would if I could. I assure you of that. As it is, I am so fucking over my head in knowing what to do, I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the surface.”
Charlie didn’t move from his place by the wall. “Like what?”
I’d never successfully told this yet. “There’s a man. His name is Elliot Woodard. He’s very rich. A billionaire. My uncle has been trying to get to him for years. His wife is dead now, but he never cheated, never gave in to any who tried to get to him, never fell for any schemes. He is the ungettable con. I have to seduce him and get his late wife’s ring.”
He stared at me so hard, I wasn’t sure that my head wasn’t going to explode. “What happens if you can’t do it?”
“My uncle kills all of you and me. If I can do it, you’re all free.”
Charlie ran a hand through his hair. He’d let it get a little bit long. It was everything I could do to not get up and go run my own hands through it, feeling the soft strands on the pads of my fingers. He had been a cuddler. There was nothing Charlie liked better than to hold me in bed at night.
If I climbed into the bed and lay down, would he get in next to me? Why was I thinking that now?
“So to save all of our lives, we have to fuck with Elliot Woodard’s.”
I blinked. He said that name like he’d said it before. I was half out of my mind, but my training hadn’t gone anywhere. I could still read people. “You know him?”
“The country club where you ditched me? He’s a member there. Doesn’t live there, but Elliot likes country clubs. He wants to play exclusive golf wherever he is in the country. My dad and him are friends. Yes, I know him. And no, he isn’t going to have sex with you. The man is strait-laced, honest, hardworking, smart, and the day he saw his wife, he stopped realizing any other women existed. They never stopped loving each other completely. He doesn’t care that she’s gone. His heart remains true.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. What would that mean to be loved like that? How would it feel to have an entire lifetime of someone’s adoration? The kind of feelings that lasted past death. What would it feel like? The sick thing was, I could probably have had that with Charlie. He’d looked at me and fallen in such a way he’d never have stopped… if I hadn’t done what I’d done.
Not that it mattered anymore.
What was done was done.
I threw myself back on the bed. “You need to run, Charlie. I know it’s not fair. You weren’t on his list. I picked you, and now you have to go live… I don’t know where. I don’t even know where to tell you to go. You’re a world famous heart surgeon, and you have to leave. I…”
He cleared his throat. “Was.”
I lifted my head. Had I heard him correctly? “What?”
“I was a world famous cardio-thoracic surgeon. Yes. Now, I am not. I’ve taken an extended leave of absence, sold my part of the practice to my partners, and stopped. I’ve still got my license. My insurance will become a problem if I don’t start back up soon. I don’t really care.”
He didn’t really care? I swallowed. Emotion threatened to suck me under. Tears flooded my eyes, but I didn’t let them down my cheeks. I didn’t get the luxury of crying. It was for people who had the right to them. I deserved none. I’d cried when I left him. That was the last self-indulgence I got where Charles Dorfman was concerned.
“I ruined your life. It’s not supposed to be like that. You’re supposed to feel pain, but not like that.” I glanced away. “Why are you being nice to me?”
He walked toward me, climbing on the bed. I caught my breath. This was just what I’d hoped. Charlie leaned on his elbow.
“You are all kinds of fucked up.”
I laughed. That was so surprising from him, I couldn’t help myself. “Yes, I am.”
“Maybe I have white knight syndrome.” He stared at the ceiling. “Not that I’m wanting to take on people with baggage, but I find I want to fix yours.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, and I couldn’t do anything about the lump in my throat. “Charlie, you can’t do that. I’m… lost. But I want to save all of you before I go down.”
“Tell me something, and make it the truth.”
I forced myself to swallow. “Okay. Only the truth. No matter how hard it is.”
“Was it real? With us? I know you picked me and your uncle picked the others. Tell me. Was it real?”
I placed my hand on his cheek. His stubble was rough. If I ever got to kiss him, it would scratch me, and I’d love it. Because I couldn’t resist the urge, I stroked the length of his nose, the slope of his chin. He’d never be beautiful, but he was strong and masculine. I loved it.
“Ninety-eight percent of it was real. Two percent of the time, I figured out how to manipulate you to steal your stuff.”
He nodded. “Good enough.”
“What?” I blinked. “How could that be good enough?”
“Because I can overcome two percent. I know you’re back… with Jamie. But none of us get to own you. We never did, even though we didn’t know it. Holly, I did life without you. Even if it’s fake, I’d rather have the fake.”
I shook my head. “You deserve better than ninety-eight percent.”
“Then going forward, give me one hundred percent.” He touched my bottom lip with his thumb. I bit down on it lightly.
“Charlie.” I sighed. “There can’t be a future. I’m a con artist who is going to get you killed.”
He shook his head. “No. We’re going to rob him.”
I stared at him. It took me a long time to speak. “You’re going to rob your family friend?”
“Well, presumably you’re going to help me. I’ve never robbed anyone. But yes, to save your life, to save my life, I guess I’m going to go there. We’re going to take Cynthia’s ring.”
He choked on the words. Charles Dorfman wasn’t going to be robbing anyone, not while I had breath in my body. My own reaction to his words surprised me. I did want to protect him. I always had. He saved hearts, he didn’t destroy them. Now if Jamie had told me he wanted to go steal a ring, I could have seen that happening. Steven wouldn’t touch it, and Graham… hell, he might steal the ring.
“Let’s figure it out tomorrow. I can’t go near the man while I look like
this.”
Charlie nodded. “Although he has a soft spot for the needy. He might take pity on you like this.”
I doubted that. Damsel in distress was a classic con. I could guarantee it had already been tried. Tomorrow was certainly soon enough for me to tell Charlie he wasn’t going to be stealing anything, not for me, not for anyone. No matter what he claimed, he’d never get over it.
We lay there like that in silence. Eventually, Charlie kicked off his shoes. We both scooted back to the pillows and silently, without discussion, moved to our old sides of the bed.
He took an audible breath, his arms around me. “Was this real?”
“Then and now.”
Charlie kissed my temple. “I missed the sex, of course I did. I ached for this. Hard to find someone you want to spend vulnerable times with. Sharing a bed is one of those things that is really good for us, but puts us at a disadvantage, too.”
I loved when he spoke doctor. The physical manifestations of grief. He’d outlined them for me once, but I knew them well. “Explain.”
“There’s some evidence that sleeping together with another person increases the production of oxytocin. The hormone they often refer to as the love hormone, but really what it does is help in the reduction of anxiety and influence how well we sleep, hence giving us a better night sleep with an increase of it. And maybe sharing a bed produces other things that reduces inflammation and hence is just better for our overall health.” He side-eyed me. “How much of that did you actually know?”
Most of it. “I like hearing you say it.”
“Why did you choose me? What was it that had you turning your attention to me?”
That was a good question. “You were mean to Mrs. Nicholson, and yet, you’d also saved her life. Something about that was intriguing. Above all that, I didn’t want to have to move on to my uncle’s choice. I didn’t want to have to go on to him. You were there. Very unromantic, right?” I paused. “I’m sorry.” I choked on the words. I’d never apologized well.
