Darkside Love Affair

by Michelle Rosigliani

  “You never included her on the guest list. Why?”

  “I must have forgotten about her. There were a lot of people.”

  “You are a smart man, Jack. You do realize that by concealing her name, it looks suspicious. Why did you leave her name off of the guest list?”

  I didn’t mention that he had also forgotten about Rheya Larsson but waited patiently for his reaction. He extinguished his half-smoked cigarette and jumped to his feet, walking to the crystal bar in the corner where he poured a generous glass of brandy. It seemed his nerves needed more than just tobacco to be soothed.

  “It just slipped my mind,” he insisted and gulped down the second glass of alcohol.

  “You know what I think? That it slipped your mind exactly because she was Jennifer’s friend.”

  My instincts had not been wrong. Jennifer had told something of importance to her friends, and now, only Elana Beckham was aware of that information. Luckily, she could be a substantial pawn in the elucidation of Jennifer Gunnar’s murder, but until all the cards were on the table, she risked the same horrible fate as her deceased friends.

  “You know what I think?” he shot back, his tone menacing, his eyes cruel. “That you are my lawyer, and as my lawyer, you are doing a very lousy job.”

  “I have your best interest at heart,” I lied but tried to appear serene nonetheless. Unlike other lawyers, I was naïve enough to side with the truth. I was naïve enough to want justice to prevail. “She might be a valuable witness. We should depose her, don’t you agree?”

  Jack looked incredulous. His eyebrows nearly united with his hairline, and his jaw turned slack before he composed himself.

  “She has nothing to say that the other guests haven’t already said,” he muttered, but his fingers trembled around his tumbler as he lifted it to his lips.

  “Let’s hope she has more to say than Rheya Larsson.”

  The glass fell through Jack’s fingers and shattered in tiny pieces as it hit the ground. He pinned me with a glare so full of hatred and contempt that the blood turned cold in my veins. I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. Just like Jase Parker, Jack hadn’t verbally supplied anything of significance, but his attitude and the dread in his eyes divulged all I needed to know. I was close to the truth.

  “You know what’s funny, Jack?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder. He sighed heavily and didn’t seem remotely interested. “People from that party keep dying, and the question is: why would someone go so far to silence them?”

  I turned and left, but as I exited Jack’s apartment, I thought that his expression right at the end looked even funnier. He looked surprised like he truly didn’t know the answer to my question.

  A crew was working on the elevator and politely directed me to take the stairs, but as I headed to the other end of the hallway, Vincent Cole came jogging up the stairs and quickly disappeared inside an apartment.

  I followed him as if in a daze. At first, drowned out by the blows and crunches and loud voices of the workers, I missed the sound of approaching footsteps coming from an adjacent hallway. At the very last minute, urged by pure instinct, I whirled back and hid around the corner. Mayor Stewart pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door of apartment 13, the same apartment where only moments ago Vincent Cole had entered.

  “Finally,” he snapped, not stepping inside just yet. “I’ve been looking for you all day. Where were you?”

  I could see his profile, but Cole remained inside, his voice not carrying to my little shelter behind the wall. The mayor was distraught and furious, and while he spoke, he gestured angrily, much like his son did.

  He hesitated in the doorway, glancing my way. I shrank in my refuge and tightened my fingers around the handle of my purse. I was breathing raggedly, and my heart was thumping crazily in my chest. It would have taken the mayor less than ten steps to find me, and then...

  “This is getting out of hand,” he continued, and I let out a breath of relief. “I expected you to have dealt with it by now. If they keep digging—”

  That piqued my interest. He was worried, and the emotion felt alien to a man who wielded his power as a weapon. Whatever hadn’t been dealt with could cause him serious trouble.

  “I’m doing my part, now do yours,” the mayor threatened then paused.

  I strained to hear Cole’s reply, but nothing came, not from what I could hear. A worker spotted me standing there around the corner and eyed me suspiciously, then he glanced at the mayor. I smiled and rummaged through my purse, faking clumsiness until the workman lost interest and returned to his business.

  “And take care of that—girl. She’s causing more trouble than she’s worth.”

  With that, Mitch Stewart stepped inside the apartment and shut the door with a bang. Frustration crawled up my skin like a swarm of ants. Who was that girl and what was the mayor afraid could be found if they kept digging?

  It must have been less than five minutes when Cole emerged from the apartment, looking like a burglar afraid to get caught. He walked down the adjacent hallway where the mayor had come from, holding his phone close to his chest.

  Eventually, I mustered the courage and strength to move from my hiding spot and leave the building. My legs were trembling, and my palms were sweaty, but worst of all were my muddled thoughts.

  My head ached with questions and doubts. When Cole excused himself earlier on, he looked odd and a tad too rushed, but I had never imagined his urgency had anything to do with stealthily meeting the mayor.

  Just when I thought I had a grasp on things, everything turned upside down. Just when I thought I had placed my trust in the right people, new suspicions dismantled all I had believed.

  Maybe Cole was not the man I believed him to be. Maybe the one covering things up for the Stewarts had never been Drake.

  I returned to my hotel room and continued working, struggling to extract the truth from the spider web that had been woven around Jack Stewart. Sometime after four in the afternoon, a knock at the door interrupted my work process.

  A young man wearing the hotel’s uniform politely handed me a single coral pink rose with a red ribbon tied in a pretty bow around the long stem. I accepted the flower and the enveloped card and remained dumbfounded in the doorway long after the valet left.

  “Let me gaze upon your shadow,

  And kiss the soft contour of your shape

  In waves of emerald and cotton

  As it spreads and trembles

  And in the end, it breaks.”

  I looked at the white card and the black written lines with a stupidly giant smile on my face. If I hadn’t recognized the writing, I might have even felt offended, but I knew who had sent the rose and written the note. Marcus, I thought with a sudden warm feeling in my chest.

  Roughly an hour later, silence was disrupted again by the same controlled knock. When I opened the door, the same young man greeted me with a warm, conspiratorial smile and handed me a peach-colored camellia in a transparent plastic case. Another note was tied to the case by the same red satin ribbon.

  “Let me find shelter under your wings of fire,

  And stroke the softness of your heart

  For you are light and I am dark

  And as your flames leap and conquer

  To you, my lady, I will bow.”

  Marcus was not here with me, but I could swear I felt his breath fanning across my skin while he sensually recited the words. From miles away, he managed to make my blood hot and my flesh burn for his touch. With his attentive gestures and well-planned scheme, he surprised and seduced me.

  Sometime close to six o’clock, I realized I was actually expecting another knock at the door, and eagerly so. When it finally came, I almost darted to wrench the door open, a giggle escaping me right before my eyes stumbled upon—nothing.

  Nobody was waiting in the hallway, but there was a single white envelope forgotten on the ground. I went back into the room and grabbed a napkin, then I used it to pick up th
e envelope and retrieve the folded card inside.

  Don’t give up!

  The cryptic message left me speechless, but my thoughts were roaring. Who had written the note, and what shouldn’t I give up on? Was this a stupid joke or just a test?

  When another knock echoed timidly, I hurled the door open with visible irritation, expecting the mysterious messenger from earlier to finally make an appearance, when in fact my flower valet waited patiently and slightly amused in front of my door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I muttered, schooling my expression in an amicable one.

  “For you,” he said simply, pushing forward a sophisticated crystal vase with tuberoses, a red ribbon, and a safely tucked note beneath the satin bow.

  “Let me love a love that sheds its armor,

  And feast on lips of silk and velvet

  For I am storm and you are fire,

  And as for you I thirst and hunger

  Together, my little lady, we shall ignite.”

  I brought the note to my lips and kissed it. I had never been particularly fond of poetry because I had never been overwhelmed by emotions enough to understand it. Now, laid on paper in Marcus’s crisp handwriting, almost coming to life in his voice, the lyrics made me feel giddy and desperately in need of being touched, of slowly becoming complacent under his deft caress.

  The thought that Marcus had planned this before he departed, leaving strict instructions to the hotel staff for when and how to deliver his gifts had me basking in a pleasant, calming joy. I wasn’t the only one starting to care.

  Setting the tuberoses in the living room next to the rose and the encased camellia, I allowed myself another moment of admiring the beauty of the flowers and rejoicing in the feeling that made my heart thump faster, then I returned to work.

  I ordered dinner and finally switched my laptop off sometime after ten o’clock. I felt tired, but even more so in Marcus’s absence. I considered calling him, but hearing his voice and not having him beside me would have been like pouring salt over fresh wounds.

  Eventually, I slipped inside the steamy shower, letting the hot drops pour down over me like rain. I stood there, with my head bowed, my forehead pressed against the tiled wall, and a hand gripping my throat until the torrents of water battered the restlessness pulsing in my muscles.

  When I finished, I returned to the bedroom, my eyes appreciating the comforting darkness. I climbed into bed with my back to the windows and to Marcus’s side of the bed. Enveloped by the sheets that only a night ago had been tangled around our clammy bodies, his scent was so strong that I could almost taste it on my tongue.

  I closed my eyes, and his beaming, seductive face appeared effortlessly behind my eyelids. I thought I could feel his warmth, his breath caressing the nape of my neck, his touch warming my shoulder, making my skin tingle in anticipation.

  “The poem, did you like it?”

  Although I recognized his voice, I twisted under the covers and let out an impulsive, earsplitting scream. A hand came over my mouth, stifling the distressed sounds, and an easy amused laughter mingled with my scared shrieks.

  “Easy, sugar.”

  “Marcus,” I breathed, thinking in a corner of my mind how tired he sounded. “You are here.”

  I reached for the lamp on my nightstand and flooded the room with an amber light. I was sure I looked just as shaken as I sounded. Marcus was lying on his side, supporting his head in his left hand. A sleepily amused grin twitched his lips upward, and a lustful look settled in his ocean-blue eyes. He was here with me, and I was sufficiently selfish to luxuriate in the joy and comfort his presence brought me.

  “Where else would I be?”

  “New York,” I muttered, knowing he had his own responsibilities and deadlines at the engineering company he worked for.

  He shook his head, a listless movement that gave away his exhaustion. I secured his face between my hands and brushed my lips across his. The kiss was short and chaste, yet full of emotion. The smile he regaled me with almost stopped my heart.

  “You expected me not to come back? It makes me edgy when you are away from me. It makes me desperate when I am not certain that you are safe. I’ll be coming back to D.C. for as long as you are here.”

  “And it’s not up for discussion,” I said, mimicking his voice as well as I could. We looked at each other in silence, then we both started laughing. He clasped my shoulders and pulled me to his chest, where nothing could touch me but him.

  “The day is too long without you.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  Lying on top of him with his arms like bands of steel around my waist, I writhed just enough to be aware of his presence, of his hot body underneath me. I stroked his face with gentle fingers and lingered on his sleepy eyes and parted mouth. No touch, no kiss, not even a breath was hurried.

  The transition between innocent touches and frantic, purposeful thrashing happened smoothly like we didn’t care about anything else in the world but simply being together. With Marcus, it was never about the race to the glorious mind-blowing pinnacle, but about the journey that led to it. It was about the firestorm that consumed and united us.

  “Thank you for coming back. You center me. You keep me anchored. You keep me safe.”

  “Always.”

  Marcus nestled my body tightly against his chest, refusing to allow any modicum of distance between us. I kissed him one more time and stared at him until my eyes closed, and I drifted. I knew he wouldn’t be by my side in the morning.

  THE NEXT DAY, VINCENT Cole waited for me in the reception area, and we drove to Drake Kendrix Zane together. It was difficult to keep my cool and not let my suspicions show, but eventually, I managed to put on a collected smile on my face.

  At the firm, Drake wanted to prepare Jack for testifying during trial. If the jury saw his pain and heard his side of the story, they would be less inclined to convict him, Drake claimed.

  Jack was particularly irritable, so I chose not to interact directly with him if possible. He wasn’t as sarcastic as usual and listened to all the suggestions that Cole and Drake were giving him, but his heart wasn’t in the testimony they were forging.

  Sometime during the meeting, my phone chimed with a text from Marcus. Have lunch, he wrote. I nearly chuckled. He knew I wouldn’t get the chance to eat, but it was nice nonetheless that he had thought of it. After that, my attention took a more enjoyable path.

  I thought of Marcus and how delicately he had kissed me early in the morning before he returned to New York. I thought of the many ways he had surprised me over the little time we had been together and how badly I wanted to reciprocate. For the remainder of the day, I considered all possibilities and produced all sorts of scenarios, but because I was not as impulsive as Marcus, it was harder to think of ways to surprise him.

  By ten in the evening, I was already expecting him. I knew the journey back and forth, the long workday, and the distance between us would drain him. I also knew that a man like him didn’t frequently take bubble baths with calming salts, champagne, and chocolates to complement the mood. It wasn’t something out of the ordinary, but it was my way of showing him that I cared for him and that I appreciated the effort and the time he put into our relationship.

  Disappointment gripped me as the minutes rolled by, and Marcus didn’t come back. It was well past eleven, and there was no sign of him. I nearly took the bath alone, but doing so would have only stressed even more harshly his absence.

  Sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi, I dipped my fingers in the water, feeling the soft texture of the foam. It was getting chilly.

  I turned on the heating system and kept waiting for Marcus as the water warmed up again. Wearing a white satin robe and nothing underneath, I strolled to the living area and finally worked on something other than Jack’s case. I did something I hadn’t done in a tremendously long time.

  I downloaded the pictures I had taken in Constitution Gardens and started editing them until they looked l
ike stills from a movie. The work kept me busy and the disappointment at bay.

  “Charlotte?”

  It didn’t matter how late it was or how long I had waited for him. I leaped off my seat and dashed to the door, jumping into his arms and locking my hands around his neck as soon as I reached him. I slammed my mouth against his with an exultant giggle and only released him when neither of us could breathe anymore.

  “What’s this for?”

  Those gorgeous eyes of his looked as tired as they had the previous night, but they regarded me with desire and delight.

  “I...” the words got stuck in my throat and the notion of what I had been about to say made me flush and look away. Marcus had gotten too quickly and too deeply behind my barriers, but I wasn’t ready yet to let him know just how deeply. “You kept me waiting, Mr. King.”

  I slid off him and struggled not to beam when his hands didn’t leave my body. I gently pushed his hands aside and slowly walked backward to the open door of the bathroom.

  Grabbing the knot of my sash, I untied it without releasing his sultry gaze. A low rumble came from deep within his chest, and his Adam’s apple convulsed in his throat. His former hungry stare was voracious now.

  Taking another step closer to the bathroom, I pushed the robe off my shoulders and let it pool at my feet while Marcus drank me in. I was by no means so courageous as to not feel self-conscious, but I steeled myself and stomped over my insecurities. I had planned to seduce him, and I wasn’t going to back down now.

  Marcus inhaled sharply, taking one tentative step toward me. I winked and gave him a provocative smile, then I turned around and proceeded to the dim-lit bathroom, aware of my complete nakedness and the way the warm, perfumed air caressed my skin.

  My heartbeat echoed a raging rhythm in my ears, but I knew Marcus was following. Slipping a foot into the hot water, I focused on my toes as they disappeared under the white foam, rather than on my nudity. I glanced over my shoulder and found Marcus standing mere feet away. His fingers were working quickly on the buttons of his shirt.