by Alice Ward
Had she been going through my personal files?
I didn’t have time to think about it. It didn’t matter. I needed to find her, tell her I was sorry, beg her to forgive me.
My heart rate doubled. I’d never done those things before, never begged someone to not go. Just the thought made me feel sick, but I had to do it. I couldn’t let her walk out of my life.
On the way to the elevator, I called Emma’s cell phone. It rang and rang. I cursed, furious with myself. I had to catch her.
Thinking fast, I called my private driver, asking him if he’d seen her. He informed me she’d just walked past him in the company parking garage. Satisfied, I hung up. Maybe I could catch her in the parking lot.
She was nowhere to be found though. The driver waiting for me with an open door informed me she’d just driven by mere seconds ago, heading for the exit.
“Follow her,” I instructed him, hopping in the car.
I couldn’t waste time going to Emma’s apartment or job to wait for her. I’d already done so much damage. With each minute that passed, she got farther and farther away from me, the words I’d said to her cementing in her head.
But once I had her, I would never let her go again.
The driver hit the gas, merging into traffic. I didn’t know what Emma’s car looked like, but soon it became obvious he was following a white Jeep. I strained to look through the divide, eager to catch up with her.
She drove for about fifteen minutes. When she pulled into a street parking spot, my stomach sank.
It was Ander Williams’ apartment building. I recognized it from pictures in the file Greg had presented me with. What was Emma doing there? No way in hell had she taken an interest in the man after randomly glancing at a file on him.
I watched her climb out of her Jeep. Watched her hurry to the front door, her dark hair bouncing.
Suddenly, it all made sense. The tidal wave hit me, pain and anger pummeling into my guts.
I’d been betrayed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Emma
My pulse beat in my wrists, giving me the strength to hold up the giant load of clothes. Though they’d been too much to carry when Niall bought them for me in New York, I now had the strength to cart them all. I’d carried the arm full down the sidewalk and through the foyer of his building. The porter let me in without a single question, my visit the other day apparently being enough of a reason for showing up there again.
The elevator dinged open. I wasn’t afraid. I was heartbroken, yes, but I wasn’t afraid. In my pocket were the jewelry pieces Niall gave me. For a brief minute, I had actually thought they might serve as an emblem for the rest of my life — a testament to the passion growing between the two of us. But now I wanted nothing to do with those beautiful diamonds. I wanted them gone from my life forever.
I awkwardly hurried to the penthouse door. Taking a chance, I slipped a hand free to turn the knob. Unlocked, the door swung open.
I stomped through the foyer, my pain giving me courage. I was doing the right thing. I knew it. Meeting with Ander earlier in the day had made me even more certain of it. He’d thanked me for passing along the information about Niall’s malicious plan, had actually been grateful for my help. He was nothing like Niall. No one was like Niall because Niall was pure black, corrupted.
I entered the living room. The man haunting my thoughts stood standing at the tall windows. Upon hearing my steps, he turned, revealing the glass tumbler filled with liquor in his hand. I dropped my load, letting the boxes of fine dresses and shoes fall to the floor. One of the lids popped open, and a billowy shirt tumbled out. Shoving my hand into my skirt’s pocket, I pulled the two jewelry boxes out and threw them down onto the pile.
Niall stared.
“I’m just returning these,” I explained, pushing back the tears.
Still, he said nothing. It was worse than him spouting cruel words, worse than him even calling me a whore. At least then I knew what he’d been thinking. Now I knew nothing. He was lost to me. Just like he’d always been. I only thought I’d known the man.
I turned to go.
Finally, he spoke, his voice cool as ice. “You’re really something.”
I stared at the hallway. “What?”
His footsteps bounced against the walls, coming closer to me. “You thought you could pull the wool over my eyes.”
I turned around to face him, nearly at a loss for words. “What are you even talking about? I opened myself up to you, Niall. I chose to see the good in you, which is something no one else seems to do, by the way!”
His jaw tightened. He took a swig of liquor then set the glass down on a nearby bookshelf. His eyes shone with a detached air.
“How long have you been drinking?” I asked him.
“I gave you everything.”
I scoffed. “What? Clothes? Jewelry? A trip in a private jet? Those aren’t the things people want most, Niall. They want companionship.” My voice cracked, but I went on. “They want love.”
He blinked rapidly. “You forget who I am.”
I worked my throat, unable to keep the tears back. I let them go, several of them sliding down my cheeks. As much as I wanted to hate the person standing in front of me, I couldn’t. It didn’t matter what he’d done to me, didn’t matter what he might ever do. All I saw in that moment was a sad and lost soul, someone who couldn’t open up because he just didn’t know how.
“You’re thinking of what everyone else sees,” I whispered. “I see something else... the part of you that you won’t show the world.”
He tore his eyes away from mine and ran his palm over his face. He looked so tired. Haggard. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms, tell him it would be all right. It wasn’t too late to change.
“Emma,” he rasped, staring at the wall.
I took a step towards him, the magnetic force between us pulling me the rest of the way. Niall’s face snapped back towards mine and his arm wrapped around me. He pulled me tight, pressing me up close against him. Our mouths met with a ravenous need. He pulled me even closer, falling into the wall with me against him.
I broke off first. “This is driving me crazy,” I gasped. “I can’t... can’t be treated this way.”
“You’re doing it to yourself.”
I gaped at him then pressed my palms against his chest and pushed myself away. Fully disentangled from him, I wrapped my arms around myself, keeping my distance.
“What’s wrong with you?” I seethed. “How could you say that?”
He slowly shook his head. “Don’t act like you’re the good girl you make yourself out to be. The charade is over. I’ve seen through you.”
I hugged myself harder. This was insanity. I needed to leave. Yet I still couldn’t.
“Tell me why,” I demanded. “Why are you hurting me?”
He cocked his head, anger flashing in his eyes. “Why are you hurting me? Tell me that, Emma.”
A dry sob left my throat. “I won’t hurt you anymore. I’m leaving. You’ll never see me again.”
I turned to go, but he lunged and grabbed my hand.
“No,” I feebly protested, making half an effort to pull away. He already had me, though. Already had his arms slipped around me, and his face nuzzled into my neck. I closed my eyes, trying not to give in but not being able to help it. With his touch, everything else slipped away. The past. The future. None of it mattered.
“Don’t go,” Niall practically begged. “Don’t go.”
Bringing his lips to my throat he kissed me, working his way up my jaw and to my lips. The sudden affection melted me, and I relinquished all control, collapsing into his arms. We were falling, falling, our lips locked together the whole time.
I was vaguely aware of the cool floor pressing into my back, of the hard wood against my shoulder blades, but all I could focus on was Niall. To his mouth against mine. His weight on my chest. His soft but strong hands pushing my skirt up, pulling my underwear down.
I kissed him harder, worked frantically on his belt. No more thinking. I couldn’t do it. I just needed to have him inside of me, needed to get him as close as humanly possible. I reached a hand into his boxers, ran it over his delicious length. He nipped my bottom lip, then sucked on it, drawing it in between his teeth.
His cock twitched in my hands, hot and eager. It grew thicker and longer as I rubbed both of my palms over it. Niall pulled my panties down to find my clit. He rubbed his thumb over it, making me delirious with a hundred emotions, a thousand wants and needs.
Pain and pleasure. That’s what he’d promised me. He’d done more than fulfill that promise, because what I felt inside of me blew every other moment of my life out of the water. I wanted him so badly, needed him so badly. He brought me so much joy, gave me so much pain.
But I didn’t love it in the way I thought I would. It was wrong. It was all so wrong.
“No,” I gasped into his mouth.
His hands didn’t stop, nor his lips. For a few seconds, I let him keep going. Everything would be all right, after all. It had to be. Things would work out in the end.
But I knew that wasn’t the truth. Things didn’t just work out. You made them work out.
With as much strength as I could muster, I pressed my palms against Niall’s chest and pushed him off of me. He went, and I scrambled backwards across the floor, pulling my underwear up, my skirt down.
I couldn’t look at him. “I can’t do this,” I gasped, stumbling to my feet. I pressed my hand against the wall for balance.
“Because you already got what you wanted?”
My head snapped up. Niall finished zipping his pants, a cold look on his face.
“What?” I asked. “Sex? That’s what you wanted.”
He snorted. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about. The money. You got your pay. Now you can just walk out of here and go on with your life.”
“I’m not taking that money,” I answered through gritted teeth. “You could offer me millions for all I care. I’m not taking anything else from you.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not talking about my money.”
I slowly shook my head. Was the man actually insane? Was he imagining circumstances that didn’t exist? “What are you talking about?”
“Stop playing dumb, Emma. Ander Williams. He’s the whole reason you agreed to the weekend with me.”
My mouth fell open. “N-no.”
“Yes. Or perhaps it’s not quite that way. You agreed to the weekend with me and then, somehow, Ander got word of it. He came to you, asked for you to be his spy.”
I frantically shook my head. “Do you not hear yourself? In what universe am I someone’s spy?”
“I saw you today, going to his home.”
A wave of realization hit me. “You saw... oh... wow.” I shook my head, the contents of my stomach curdling. There I was, about to surrender to Niall all over again — his mouth on mine, his hands up my skirt — and I’d almost completely pushed aside one of the most unsavory things about Niall: his thirst to dominate.
My voice shook as I spoke. “I went to Ander to warn him. I saw your folder on him, the one with all the plans to bring him down.” My chest constricted. “He’s a good man, Niall. I know him. He cares about people.”
Niall’s face stayed frozen.
“I just want you to know I wasn’t working for him... not that it seems to matter,” I bitterly added. “You probably don’t believe me, do you? You can’t trust anyone.”
My heart burned. I hoped the words I’d just thrown out weren’t true, but I knew they probably were.
“You put him before me,” Niall coldly said. “You betrayed me.”
“No,” I protested.
“Even if you weren’t working for him, you still chose him.”
“Because you were going to hurt so many people! If you hurt Ander, you hurt all the people he helps. Do you not see that?”
“It’s business,” he hissed. “Something you don’t seem capable of seeing.”
I bit my bottom lip so hard it drew blood. My temples pounded. My heart screamed out, begging for the torture to be over. Never before had I been so simultaneously drawn to and repelled by a person. My body ached to be close to his, my heart to be pressed against his chest. And yet my stomach sank at the things he did.
“Will you leave Ander alone” I asked him. “For me?”
He threw his head back and laughed.
“You really don’t get it, do you. This city is mine. Mine. From nothing, I rose from the ashes of what was my birth and what was supposed to have been my life. Men like Ander Williams didn’t hold out their charitable hand to me, promising to make it better. To put food in my mouth. A kind hand on my shoulder instead of…” His face became a cold mask. “Instead of leaving little boys in the hands of sick assholes.”
I gasped. “Oh my God.”
He sneered. “Your God? He didn’t do a damn thing either.” He waved his hand in the air. “Everything you see here, I created on my own. I built it with my blood. My sweat. But never tears because I stopped shedding those when I was a boy.”
I took a step toward him, compassion overtaking everything. He held out a hand and I stopped.
“Look around you, Niall. You’ve done it. You’ve created more than anyone could ever dream of. Isn’t it enough?”
His eyes seared into me. “Enough? You don’t even know what you speak of. You. You’re so happy to settle for being someone who waits on other people, who is putting herself though school just so she can wipe someone’s filthy ass.”
I bristled.
“You’re so ready to settle for being a nurse, but why not a doctor? Why not go for it all if you really want to care for people,” he sneered, saying the last words like they were dirty.
“I have to go,” I gasped, not even knowing how to argue with him. “I can’t do this. This is messing with my head.”
His eyes shone, a hint of wetness there. Was he close to tears after all?
“Then go. Live your insignificant little life and leave mine alone.”
No. Not Niall Lambert. Not the man who put himself above the needs of everyone else in the whole world. He didn’t know how to cry.
And it didn’t matter anyway. It didn’t matter what he did or didn’t do. All that mattered were the choices I made. I’d fallen for him. That much was undeniable. Twelve hours before I might have called it love. Now I didn’t know what it was.
One day I would figure it out. I would discover just why I’d felt the things I had, why I’d been so easily seduced, so willfully drawn into a web of power and manipulation. One day I would know myself better and maybe even know just what it was about Niall that made me fall so hard and fast.
But all of that was far away. Right then I needed to leave. I needed to perform the simple act of walking out that door. As much as I longed for Niall, as much as I wanted to believe there was some good in him and that it could come out, I couldn’t try anymore. I couldn’t stay when the simple act caused me so much pain.
I loved myself more than that.
I loved myself in the way Niall couldn’t, and until I found a man who could give me just what I wanted, I needed to take care of myself.
My happily ever after was not with the likes of Niall Lambert. I knew this now.
I deserved better. I deserved so much more.
Niall’s face remained like granite, betraying nothing.
“I can’t,” I gasped, more to myself than to him. I turned and ran, stumbling over the pile of clothes and tearing it from the penthouse.
He didn’t come after me.
He never came after me.
And I never looked back.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Niall
I took another swig, emptying the glass. The whiskey bottle sat on the floor a few feet away, a few ounces of liquid still in the bottom. A few feet too many to reach. A few feet too many to bother with.
How long had I sat the
re?
I didn’t know. Time didn’t work the same way anymore. There was only one eternal second, playing over and over. The last second I’d seen Emma’s face.
I’d wanted to stop her, yet I hadn’t. And it was for the best. She’d betrayed me, ground my sense of worth into the floor. She should have been mine.
But she turned me down. And it didn’t matter what she said. She could spew all the excuses in the book. She’d shown her true loyalty by going to Ander.
Already the man was winning, and we weren’t yet in direct competition. He had Emma. He had the best thing available.
I clutched the arm of the easy chair. I dragged it over to the window after she left, maybe leaving scratch marks on the floor. It didn’t matter. It could be taken care of. Everything could be taken care of.
My chest constricted. Except her. She couldn’t be gotten back.
A sour taste filled my mouth. Let her go. She was nothing more than a passing fancy. For a brief minute, I actually thought I’d been falling in love. Now I knew how ridiculous that was. Love was for those still caught up in the lofty ideals of Romanticism, for those whose wills were subject to their hormones. The strong saw such feelings for what they really were and pushed past them.
Like me.
I finally saw my time with Emma for what it really was: a distracting weekend. With her out of my life, I could focus on the important things. My city.
I stared at the city lights, my eyes burning. Millions of people, going about their day to day lives, thinking and doing mundane things. How many of them knew about me, sitting and looking down on them?
Anyone who didn’t know of me soon would. Before long, every person in Chicago would know my name, would know I was the reason the city thrived, the reason it woke up each morning and went to sleep each night.
There had never been a thing I wanted that I didn’t get.
Except her.
I pushed the thought away. She was gone. Dead to me. It was good I hadn’t given in to my feelings because Emma hadn’t returned them. She’d been in the game for her own benefit, just like everyone else. I’d fucked up by getting close to her, trusting her, but I would never do that again.
