Absorbing White

by Charlotte E Hart

  “You have to be kidding me, Alex. This is not reasonable. Come on, please?” It’s probably my last plea, because I know there’s only one decision to make here. If I’m going to make a run for it when I step foot outside that door, I’m going to need to be wearing something.

  “I could just force you, you know? But where’s the fun in that? I thought you’d like the choice. Four.” Tara is giggling again. My eyes swing to hers with a death glare attached. She’s one messed up cookie. An hour ago, he was dragging her around and scaring her, and now she thinks he’s funny? Utterly deranged.

  “Five.” My hands shoot up in front of my body to stop him. I have no idea what he’s about to do, and while my inner slut might be widening her legs for him, rational thought is interfering extremely well.

  “Alex, no. This is not normal. You cannot negotiate for clothes. You’ve kidnapped me, for God’s sake.

  And now you won’t allow me the freedom to wear clothes outside? What is going on in your head?”

  “I have given you a choice. I’d make one if I were you before I change my mind. And you’re not welcome in my head anymore. No one is.”

  The gasp that leaves my mouth echoes because that hurts more than a slap round the face, and I can tell by the look he’s giving me that he’s deadly serious. My arms fold gently around myself as I stare across at a man I am no longer in contact with. I may be standing with him. I may be mere feet from him, and I may be speaking to him, but he’s not hearing me anymore. The man I love has apparently left, and the realisation sinks in that I’m now dealing with someone I hardly know at all. I’m dealing with someone who has little or no regard for my thoughts or feelings, and who will do as he sees fit or entertaining, regardless of the consequences to my heart. I thought I knew him. I thought I could find a way through this for us and try to understand. I even thought I could fight him about this, but I can’t. I know that now. He won’t let me.

  “Why?” It’s all I’ve got left. Not the clothes, not Tara, not the kidnapping, just why would you destroy something so wonderful? Why would you ruin love for no good reason at all.

  “Still thinking too much,” he says as he removes his hands from his pockets and walks away from me to the bedroom. My eyes fall to the floor in defeat. I’m utterly lost, three thousand miles away from home, and naked with no idea what he’s doing or why. “Here,” he says, suddenly in front of me again, doing up a blue shirt and now wearing jeans. I look up at his face, desperately hoping to see some emotion etched into it. There isn’t any that I can see. “Take it, Elizabeth.” Take what? I shake the mist of defeat off and look towards his hands to see the knife there. What is it with this bloody knife?

  “I don’t want the knife, Alex. I want to go home,” I reply quietly as I try to move away from him. He grabs my arm, and I can’t even find the strength to pull it away. “Please, just let me go. I haven’t got anything left. You win.” He physically turns me towards him and opens my palm.

  “You keep this with you all the time. Use it if you need to,” he says as he wraps my fingers around it firmly and turns to walk away again.

  Tara is by his side in seconds, applying a new coat of lipstick and pouting stupidly. I watch as he grabs her hand and leads her out of the cabin towards the opening door. Phillip arrives beside them, so I rapidly try to cover myself with my hands before bolting for the bedroom to snatch Tara’s clothes. Whatever was happening with the orgasm negotiation has passed it seems, so sod it. I’ll just put her clothes on and deal with whatever temper tantrum he might have. Besides, if I give them a bit of time to get into the car, hopefully I can just leg it from the steps and head for a building.

  Throwing the bloody knife down onto the bed, I do some quick shuffling and buttoning and I’ve at last got some clothes on. I grab my shoes and head back into the main cabin to get my bag. Phone! I need to call Belle. One look at it has me rolling my eyes in exasperation. Of course it would be dead, wouldn’t it? Helpful. Digging around, I find fifty pounds and then realise that that’s not going to be very useful in America, either. Jesus, could I be in a worse position?

  I look over at the door and wonder what the hell I’m going to do. Just run for it… That’s all I’ve got, isn’t it? I just have to get myself down those steps as nonchalantly as possible and then run as fast as I can towards the nearest people. I scan my shoes in my hand. Four-inch heels are not going to be helpful in the slightest. Well, not until I can stop running anyway. I quickly cross the space to the window to check which way I should be heading, and I can thankfully see a small building with what appears to be a tower or something sticking up off the top of it. That’ll do. It’s not too far, and once I’m there, I can call Belle and she can sort tickets, and maybe she’ll send Conner over to kill bastard Alex, or at the very least find my version of him. Right, I can do this. I’m ready. My head spins back to the bedroom as I remember the knife. Do I need that? No. Why would any rational human being need to carry a weapon? Mind you, we are in the States. Don’t they all carry guns? Maybe I do need the knife.

  My feet are carrying me toward the offending item before I’ve thought anymore about it, so I grab it by the blunt end and slip it into my bag. I won’t be using it anytime soon, but I’ve got it nonetheless. Oddly enough, as I walk past the space where I had it at his throat, I smile to myself because regardless of my confusion after the event, he was right. I did feel in control for a few minutes. That power he was talking about was very definitely etched into my thoughts. It was clearly a moment of complete lunacy, but it was there. Arsehole. Why does he have to be so fucking superior all the time?

  Three more steps have me rounding the corner to the exit and planning my running strategy. The freezing air hits me as I look down towards the car that’s waiting at the bottom and see a burly man standing by the back door, presumably waiting for me to arrive. Phillip suddenly bumps into me, so I spin around, wondering if he might actually be helpful to me if I plead my case. I’m met with a small smile but nothing else that shows he might give me a hand.

  “Miss Scott, I think it’s time for you to leave now,” he says as he glances towards the car.

  “Phillip, I don’t want to go with him. Can’t you help me?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he replies with another smile. Clearly he’s not about to piss his boss off any time soon.

  I swing myself back around to face the car again and just put one foot in front of the other until I’m hovering at the bottom step, trying to assess the best route. There’s only one, and it’s pretty straightforward. The door of the car opens just as I’m preparing to run, and out he steps, that sodding hair ruffling about and a frown of irritation marring his brow. We stare at each other for precisely thirty seconds, and I know this because I can feel my heart pounding at the exact same rate. I can hear it rattling in my ears, and that pitched thudding causes all sorts of memories to come flying back to me. His heat on me, his arms around me, his weight on top of me, his hands holding me, his love, his grip. My fingers grasp the rail tighter as if somehow trying to tell me not to run for some inexplicable reason, and yet I can’t stop my foot from picking up, ready to run for it.

  “You know I’ll catch you,” he calls across to me with a slight lift of his mouth. He’s right. He probably will, but as my other foot leaves the step and I let go of the rail, I know I’ve got to try. I have to at least try and find some level of sanity again. My bare feet hit the tarmac just as I rip my eyes away from his, and I head for the building as fast as I can. It’s not far. I just need to keep this pace up and I might even make it. My thighs scream at me as the cold air rushes across the thin silk of Tara’s blouse, and my feet hammer into the floor, hoping to propel me just that bit faster. I’m so focused on my target that I feel my shoes leaving my hand in a bid to increase my pace because I can hear him gaining on me. I can almost feel his hands on me, in me, holding me and refusing to let me get away, just like he always does. Oh god, I can’t even run away from him successfully bec
ause there’s a small part of me that wants him to catch me, to touch me again, to make all this crap go away. And then an utter miracle happens as I see a man leaving the building in front of me.

  “Help me!” I scream. “Help, please.”

  The man looks over and stares at me in shock. He starts to move towards me, so I find the last of my strength to get to him. Just as I’ve got about twenty metres to go, I hear his agitated voice at my side as his hand grabs my wrist from behind.

  “Don’t make me hurt him, Elizabeth.” My feet start to slow at the thought. He wouldn’t, would he? His grip tightens as he comes around to my side and grabs hold of the back of my neck to stop me. “Amusing as it might be, I know how you hate the sight of blood,” he continues as he twists my neck so that I’m looking directly into those eyes again. I shift my gaze to the man and try to calculate my situation. There’s a building full of people in there. Surely he wouldn’t be so stupid as to beat someone up when anybody could be watching? No. Brutal he might be, but an idiot he is not.

  “You alright, Miss?” the man says, as he gets closer. This is it. I’ve got one chance to leave him, and if I’m going to do it, now is my opportunity. Alex’s eyes narrow at me as I suck in a breath and yank my neck away from him.

  “No, I’m really not. This man is trying to take me with him and I don’t want to go,” I reply as I pull my wrist out of his grasp and take a step backwards. The man moves closer and holds an arm out to separate me from Alex, so I keep my gaze trained on him in the hope that it will stop him from going off into some uncontrollable rage. “I just want to leave, and he won’t let me. Could you help me phone my sister please, so I can get back to the UK?”

  Alex’s face doesn’t change as he watches me like a hawk. There still isn’t any emotion, and I’m sure he’s not in the least bit bothered about the man standing between us. He isn’t, however, doing anything other than staring for now. I take another step away and reach for the man’s arm to drag him away from the potential threat, who has now pocketed his butchering hands.

  “This won’t work,” he says as he continues to stare. I tug again on the man and keep retreating one step at a time. “I told you I’d never leave you, Elizabeth. I meant it.”

  Oh, I’m sure he did, but that isn’t going to stop me getting the hell away from him for the time being so I can find some normal people to rationalise with. He takes a few paces towards us, so I speed up our movement by pulling the man even harder. Thankfully, at just the right moment, another man appears from the building and calls over to his friend, whose name is apparently John. Alex stops and watches the other guy with a sneer, raising a brow at me as his hands come back out of their confines. Oh my god, he is going to do it.

  My body is in front of the man before I know it, and my hands shoot up in defence of some sort. I will not be the cause of this poor man’s demise.

  “Let me go, Alex,” I say as I keep moving us all backwards and hear a door opening. “Please, if there is any love left in you then you have to let me go now.”

  John grabs me by the arm and moves me into the doorway behind him as his friend follows and twists the bolt to secure us all inside. All I can do is keep staring at the man I still love as he turns his head away from me and walks back toward the car.

  That’s it. I’ve made it. I can go home.

  Chapter 4

  Elizabeth

  “W hy the fuck are you at JFK?” That’s what Belle is screeching in my ear as I try to explain where I am over her ranting. She’s clearly not best pleased with Alex, and given the twenty-four missed calls from her on my phone, I’m not surprised. Thankfully, John has the same phone charger as me so I’ve been able to plug in and call home. John has also been out and rescued my shoes from floor, although he waited until Alex’s car had disappeared. I wouldn’t let him go until they’d all driven off and danger had gone with them. “Are you saying he kidnapped you? I mean, Conner said he thought it all seemed a bit strange, but I assumed you’d just gone home, and what the hell happened with that Aiden Phillips chap?”

  “Belle, can you just get the ticket sorted and we’ll talk about it when I get home? I just can’t explain it over the phone,” I reply as John drapes a blanket over my shoulders and passes me some much-needed coffee. I smile up at my saviour and huddle into the comfy chair. I’m apparently in mission control’s lunch area.

  “I’m doing that as we speak. You’re on the next flight out but it doesn’t leave for another seven hours so you’ll have to find something to do for a while,” she says. “Anything worth doing there?”

  Probably. I’ve always wanted to come to New York, just not under these circumstances. I scan the area around me and realise that no, there is absolutely nothing to do here.

  “Doubt it… I don’t care. I’ll just hang around and then go over to the main airport to catch the flight.”

  “Do you want me to check you into a hotel for a bit? There are a few here that you could go and relax in?” The thought is very appealing to say the least, and I’m sure John could get me there safely.

  “Is it far?”

  “No, there’s one just around the corner. I’m booking it now.”

  “Thanks, honey,”

  “Listen, just go and get yourself a hot bath and I’ll try and organise some clothes for you. I can’t believe you’ve got nothing with you. I’m sending you the details of the hotel via text now.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a call when I’ve checked in and got settled.”

  “Okay, love you. I’ll let Conner know what’s going on. He was worried about both of you, not that I’m worried about Mr. Dickface White. I hope he rots in a fucking hole somewhere.”

  “Belle, don’t, okay? I can’t listen to that right now.”

  “Alright, I know. I haven’t got a clue why you put up with his shit. Honestly, Beth, what the hell is his problem? Is he a psycho or something?”

  Very probably. And a murderer.

  “Thanks for the help. Chat later,” I mutter, then end the call and drain the remainder of my coffee to go in search of John. The sooner I’m in that hotel room, the better as far as I’m concerned.

  Two hours later, having been safely delivered to the hotel, I’m sitting on the bed wrapped in a towel, staring blankly at the wall in the hope that some sort of logic will present itself to me. Unfortunately, nothing is forthcoming. I suppose I’m just going to have to admit to myself that this is over, that for whatever reason, him telling me about his past has created something we can’t get past. I don’t know why he’s doing any of this, but I do know that I can’t put up with it. I also know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the thought is very nearly killing me, again. He left me before and we found a way back together. This time I walked away from him. Not because he’s a murderer, but because I wasn’t prepared to tolerate his behaviour, because I just needed some space. And now I can do nothing but think about the look on his face when he told me he meant what he said about not leaving me. Resolute is the best word I’ve got for it. He may have held himself back from just grabbing me again, but I’m not stupid enough to think that he won’t be coming for me again. There’s not a cat’s chance in hell that I’m never going to see him again, because he’s just not going to give up that easily. But, if that’s the case, why all the bloody strange behaviour? And why did he appear to want me angry with him? He was doing things to make me angry, or maybe upset me, hurt me. I can’t even begin to process why, though. Why isn’t he just talking to me and seeing if I can find a way to accept what he’s done in the past.

  Regardless of all of this, I do still love him. Doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he know that when all’s said and done, I’ll probably still follow him to the ends of the earth because I love him?

  Stupid Beth. What idiot would do that for a man like him?

  Me. I would, because I can’t imagine him not next to me every day, every night. I already miss his smile, his cadence, his very rhythm of being near me. It doesn’
t matter to me what those hands have done before now. That’s not the man he is to me, and this odd behaviour may be who he was once, but it isn’t the beautiful man I know now. It isn’t the man who gives me his thoughts, his memories, his love. It isn’t the man who chuckles sweetly when I try make light of something serious, and it isn’t the man who lay in my lap and had tears running from his eyes.

  God, I’m so tired of all this. Actually, I’m just plain tired to be honest.

  I look over to my bracelet and necklace lying on the bedside drawer and wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do with them now. A bracelet that means I’m his and a necklace that means he’s mine. Mine… Is he still mine? Do I even want him to be mine anymore?

  Confused is not enough of a word for what I’m feeling right now. I’ve had to deal with so much from him that I can’t think straight anymore. You hear about these types of relationships – the ones where one of the parties is just plain weird – but I never believed I’d actually be in one. I always assumed that plain old me would just find a nice quiet man who made me laugh and pottered through life reasonably happily. Maybe have some children, live in a normal sized house and socialise with other normal couples who talk about gardening, and holidays in the Med. Perhaps strive for the slightly unattainable in some hope of creating a better life for my children while watching the world go by and wishing for something a little more. And that’s what he offered me in a roundabout sort of way, wasn’t it?

  “I will give you every piece of the damaged soul you ask for in return for your acceptance of it. That is all I ask of you – that you do not condemn me because of it.”

  The words ring in my ears as I reach my hand across to the bracelet and finger the stones lightly. Accept him for it, not condemn him because of it. He knew then, didn’t he? All that time ago in the back of the car, he knew he was going to have to tell me this at some point and hope that I could deal with it all, that I could forget the man he may have been and concentrate on the one he is for me. Can I? Can I let all this go and become part of some conspiracy in his twilight zone of Mafia come MI5 stuff that I have no idea about. It’s not exactly the quiet life I was hoping for, is it?