The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2)

by Courtney Lane

  He agreed to move back into my mother’s house the day after we discovered my pregnancy. It took him a lot for him to do it, but it had to be done. I needed to hold onto the memory of my mother’s life, instead of her death, to prevent falling back into the coping mechanisms I’d used to feel something other than the numbness that brought me deeper into the sinking pit of depression.

  I FIDDLED WITH THE edge of my pillowcase while I listened to Eric finish up his shower in the en suite bathroom. The door opened, allowing the steam and scent of Eric’s cologne to pervade our bedroom.

  We had many things to discuss, but without my medication, I couldn’t address them. Besides the topic of the baby, he hinted about moving into my mother’s bedroom because it was the master suite.

  When he kissed my forehead and whispered that he loved me, the slow-forming pit inside my gut began to ache.

  I waited for the door to my bedroom to latch close before deciding to get up.

  My hands lingered at my torso, unable to make full contact. I could only presume I was a matter of weeks into my pregnancy; my stomach was still perfectly flat. It was quickly becoming a touch-avoidance zone I couldn’t connect with.

  I hugged my knees and looked around my room. As I stared at the brick red walls and the sleek lines of the ebony wood furniture, I contemplated all the things that were going wrong in my life. I recalled the disasters that had occurred, and continued to occur after Eric stampeded his way into my heart and mind.

  Kifo stared at me from her position on the side of the bed. When I stared back at her, she barked at me.

  Throwing on presentable clothes, I made my way downstairs with the purpose of letting her complete her business outside.

  I checked my laptop on the dining room table while I waited for Kifo to relieve herself. I had several messages from a few clients I was in the midst of working on projects with. Nothing was particularly noteworthy.

  In the most random of moments, Mr. Wilcox sent me an instant message, stating his desire to meet in person to convey his needs because they weren’t being met.

  He further claimed his website wasn’t what he wanted it to be. I sent him a message back, asking him to be more transparent about his needs.

  Immediately after, I received an IM:

  Cox81: I don’t bite. Honest. I’m a nice guy. I think you’ll find a familiarity once we sit down.

  LaNoireDe89: It’s against my policy to meet with clients face-to-face.

  Cox81: Are you sure you won’t meet me? Because I remember you watching me fuck Estelle. You were interested then. I think you still are. Don’t you want to formally meet me for once?

  My jaw dropped. Preston? How could it have been?

  Cox81: Nikki? Are you still there?

  LaNoireDe89: What do you want, Preston?

  Cox81: To convey my needs. I’ll be at my lounge downtown. I know you don’t like crowds. You’ll be glad to know that no one is around. Meet with me in an hour.

  After receiving a message with his address, an alert went up, signaling that Preston signed off. I stared at his messages for a while, sensing a sinister motive.

  He wanted to meet with me at the exact location contained within the website I’d built for his lounge. It could very likely have been just about business. My history with Eric and the people he surrounded himself with made it abundantly clear that nothing would ever be that simple. It was more of Eric’s dirty past—and possibly present—seeping into my life.

  Eric’s all-consuming tornado was coming around for a second round.

  I was torn between keeping a client, nosiness, or facing Eric’s wrath if he knew I had met with Preston.

  In a split second decision, I made my choice: I deleted Preston as a client.

  WITH MY LAPTOP IN tow, I opened the sliding glass doors to continue my work on the patio while Kifo expended her energy and made the best of the mild May weather. I nearly dropped my precious laptop when Kifo took off, growling and barking at someone on the edge of the deck. The man bent down, and appeared unassuming as he offered his hand to Kifo. She skidded to a stop and tentatively took whatever he gave her.

  “Hey,” I shouted, worried he might’ve poisoned her. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The man turned around and my entire body locked up in shock. “Since you wouldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain came to you, Mrs. Brenton. We haven’t formally met, have we?” Preston folded his arms and sported a cocky grin. Dressed in a tie and tailored shirt, his dark brown hair styled messily, he appeared to be ready for a professional date. His lips and hazel eyes smiled simultaneously. I’d never encountered him without the marks of Eric’s brutality on his face. I could understand why Estelle would’ve been torn between the two; the understanding was very short-lived.

  “No,” I shot back without a single ounce of friendliness. “Because you were usually getting beaten to a pulp by Eric or beating Estelle. Never really needed a reason to meet you, which was why I deleted you as I client and declined to meet you. If Eric comes home and sees you here…” My eyes fell away, spotting Kifo toying with the water’s edge.

  Preston paced toward me with purposeful and confident steps.

  “What are you really doing here? I doubt that you initially contacted me to develop a website for your place. Is this a cover for your more illegal activities?”

  The corner of his mouth turned up, signaling that I wouldn’t get an answer.

  Looking down, I fingered my laptop. “Guessing you service upper clientele from the way you dress and the car you drive. You didn’t need me to boost your reach. I’m slightly on the low end of the cost scale. You could’ve gone with a larger company. Unless, as I said before, the business I built a site for is a cover.” I crossed my arms, suddenly uncomfortable with the way he stared at me in complete stillness. “To show up here, you have to want something beyond the professional. Can you spit it out, so I can terminate you as a client? I really don’t like the dance of pretension. It’s so unnecessary.”

  He scoured down my body and stopped at my laptop. “Yet, I think you were hopeful. I didn’t exactly use a pseudonym. It appears everything was copacetic so long as I didn’t directly contact you.”

  “I have so many clients, I don’t really notice nor care about the names, only the work. If I paid attention, maybe I was hopeful you weren’t a sinister, woman-beating asshole involved in organized crime…maybe. But like Eric, none of the people he surrounds himself with can ever be decent, upright citizens.”

  He adjusted his tie and pulled the hem of his waistcoat to sit properly against his form. His hazel eyes persistently smiled under the shadow of his dark brown eyebrows. “You should really get to know me before you make assumptions, Mrs. Brenton.”

  “I don’t want to get to know you. I said that, didn’t I?”

  Sucking in a breath, he touched his chin to his chest with a Cheshire grin. “You could’ve ended the conversation at anytime and went inside. But you’re still here, chatting with me. You’re curious about me.” He gazed at me in a way that made me feel like I was naked. “I know exactly what you’re curious about—my ways with Estelle. You’re wondering if she really asked for it, or if I took what I wanted from her.

  “I am whoever the woman wants me to be. Whether I like being that person or not, it’s about her pleasure, never mine. If you think I enjoyed putting my hands on Estelle, you are sorely mistaken.” He shook his head. “She wanted it. She enjoyed it. She came to me, because Eric would only take it so far. As he always does. He gives only enough to get you hooked and takes it away when you need it the most.”

  Releasing a long sigh, I closed my eyes. “There are so many things wrong with what you said, I don’t know where to begin. I think it’s all a line of bullshit spoken from a well-seasoned and experienced man-whore. I’m not falling for it.”

  “Am I making you uncomfortable?” he asked, pointedly eyeing my trembling hands.

  I set my gaze to the overcast and graying sky
. “If I am uncomfortable, it’s because it sounds like you’re hitting on me, but I’m not sure.”

  “Mentioning giving a woman what she wants is considered a flirt or a line of bullshit? I’m not advertising myself to you. Maybe you think a little too highly of yourself, Mrs. Brenton.”

  “No, I don’t. You really don’t know me at all.”

  “I know this—you have a preconceived notion about me. I’m not the asshole you think I am. I shouldn’t be surprised. It was mentioned more than once, by more than one person; Eric got inside your head. He’s talented when it comes to women. Eric makes a woman believe what he wants is what she wants. While I like to help her find what it is she really wants.”

  He truly did sound like an advertisement in the sleaziest of ways. My discomfort reached an even higher level. “Were you around when Estelle died? Was watching her die your way of doing what she wanted you to do?” I was correct in my assumptions. I wasn’t sure if the truth of it all panicked or appalled me. “Preston? Were you hitting on me earlier?”

  “What if I was?”

  “Goodbye.” I turned on my heels.

  “Let’s not play this game, Mrs. Brenton,” he said after my back.

  I temporarily halted my mission to leave.

  “I know you’re curious about the many things you don’t know about Eric, aren’t you?”

  He’d successfully awakened my interest, but I couldn’t give him the courtesy of turning around and showing him I was even mildly curious.

  “I’m sure you’ve been warned about Eric before. Nothing I’ve said to you so far should be a revelation. You’re in denial about him. If you ever see past it, you will see this for what it really is. You’re a part of a cycle that never ends. It will never end.”

  I turned my body sideways, glowering at him. “I thought you married someone while making Estelle think you were going to marry her. I thought you did this while she was pregnant with your child. Why would I care about anything you had to say?”

  “My current marriage is one of strategy, not love,” he responded with impassivity. “I barely know, nor see my wife. We have an understanding either way.”

  “And Estelle? Why did you up and marry someone behind her back while she was carrying your baby?”

  He arched a brow at me as his face turned down. “I’m beginning to wonder what she told you about me. Did she say we were in love? Did she say I did things for her, to be with her? None of it is true. Eric and I play the game together. I’m very serious about that. So serious I’m willing to endure whatever pain he decides to dish out and appear weak to make sure the game is always in our favor. The answer to what you’ve been wondering is no. I never loved Estelle. I did pretty well to make sure she thought so. She didn’t know the truth until just before she took her own life.”

  I shook my head, staring down a man who went to the ‘Dr. Eric Brenton School of Manipulation and Psychotic Behavior.’

  “Can you invite me in, Mrs. Brenton?” He darted his hand out in invitation.

  “I-I d-don’t want to invite you in.” I rolled my neck, hoping to alleviate the sudden tightness. I wrung my hands, trying to will them to stop their persistent trembles. “I don’t want to be social. I’ve closed your client account, you can leave now.”

  “You would scrap nearly sixty billable hours of work for what? Pride?” He glanced at my hands. “Am I making you nervous?” he asked again as if he was expecting a different answer than before.

  “I don’t have any familiarity with that word. Pride. I don’t have a friendship with it. I don’t truly know what it is.” I shrugged. “Goodbye, Mr. Wilcox.”

  “Estelle was pregnant with Eric’s child once. Did he tell you that? If you’re thinking your pregnancy holds you above her, you’re wrong.”

  His words generated an uncomfortable feeling inside my abdomen. I didn’t care how he knew I was pregnant. I surely didn’t want to find out the how and why. I did, however, want to believe it was above Eric to talk about me with Preston. I also wanted to believe Estelle never cared to mention anything about me to Preston in any sort of way.

  I wanted to stand firm in the belief this wasn’t the continuation of a cycle from a man who got off on breaking women. I wanted reassurances the cycle ended with Estelle, and Preston simply had a problem letting go of the game he and Eric played together. In having it shut down, Preston was seeking revenge by filling my head with lies like his ex-girlfriend before him.

  “Why can’t you leave us alone?” I asked, keeping my tone placid.

  He paced over to me with a self-assurance that shook me and blocked my path to the patio doors. “What am I doing? I’m only trying to tell you the truth. I’m only dismantling the dozens of lies I know Eric has told you. Are you wondering why I’m doing this to you, when I’ve never done it with any other women before?” He rolled his shoulders. “You’re…different, Nikki. I can say it with the utmost confidence, because I know things about you—things Eric doesn’t. As for the rest? It’s not an answer I’m prepared to give you…yet. I would think you should be grateful for this. I’m doing something to help you, while desiring nothing in exchange.”

  “That is such shit,” I balked. “You want something. It’s rare for a man to do a favor for a woman he finds attractive without wanting something in trade.”

  He lightly smirked. “You think I find you beautiful, do you?”

  I shot my glance back to the door. “I didn’t say that. Move away from the door.”

  “Nikki.” He abruptly snapped his fingers, his tone calling my attention to his face. “I have nothing to gain by doing this. Nothing to gain and everything to lose. I’m trying to help you.”

  I gazed at him, startled by the way his demeanor suddenly changed. “I don’t believe anything you’re saying to me. Why would you bother unless you were getting something out of it? You can thank your deceased ex for teaching me a very valuable lesson. She tried. Tamala tried. They all failed. You will not break me and Eric apart with the guise of trying to help me, or pretending to know things about me. It’s not going to work.”

  “She was never my fiancée,” he retorted. “And your version of events is very, very wrong.”

  “Then, what do you want? To fuck me? I’m not Estelle. Eric would never share me with you.”

  The expression on his face threw me further from finding my easiness. “You think I’ll need his permission to have you? When I want you, if I want you, the decision to share won’t be up to him. You, Nikki, will soon know the true nature of the man you married.”

  “I know him very well,” I rebutted, my tone throaty and deep with a warning.

  “Nikki, you don’t. You really, really don’t. He’s just begun with you.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know a thing about Eric and me.”

  “Can I tell you what I know?” he asked, his eyes glittering. “He’s been pushing you away, hasn’t he? If a tragedy ever befell your pregnancy…” He took in a breath and let it slowly unfurl. “If it ever happens, Nikki, you will see everything everyone has tried to warn you about. You will get a firsthand experience of what he’s done to the women in his past. I see your hard exterior, but I know what I see in your eyes. Could go either way. It could make you see and leave him as you should, or it could bring you into his rapture without a way out. And you’ll do again what you did the night Estelle lied to you, and told you that she and Eric were still married.”

  “H-how…how did you know that?”

  “I’m very good at forging Eric’s handwriting. And Nikki…” he leaned closer to me, a smirk appearing on his face. “I really do know things about you that Eric doesn’t. I’ve kept quiet about those things. Would you like me to continue to keep quiet?”

  I closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling. “You’re an evil person.”

  “Maybe. But I promise you, I’m the less evil of the two.”

  “I don’t know you,” I sobbed. “I don’t want to know you. I
don’t care what you think you know about me. Consider yourself released as a client. Are we done now?”

  He slowly smiled. “Not by a long shot. Not sure you want to release me as a client. I could make or break your career, Nikki. I have a network of connections. You might remember some of them from the mistake you made with Nation X. Do you remember Red X? The hacker whose dare got you into quite a bit of trouble? You were extended an olive branch, but…it would take so little to burn it to ashes. If you want me to keep quiet, we should be friends, don’t you think?”

  I kept my eye steady on the patio doors, unwilling to look at him, nor recall the incident his words were bringing back into my memory.

  “Are we good, or should I search for another graphic designer? I’d really prefer not to. You are quite talented in what you can make a computer do.” His annoying smile turned sinister. “Well, you did get caught, but that has nothing to do with your creative skills.”

  I roughly wiped the tears from my cheeks and nodded. “Fine. I’ll keep you on as a client.”

  His smile turned up at the corners. “Good. Glad we agree. By the way, the changes I needed were simple. Darken the color scheme. I prefer black and white over differing tones of gray. Change that, and all should be agreeable.”

  His words served to further annoy me. Had I agreed and visited him, I would’ve been livid. The entire interaction through IMs was all a setup. He definitely could’ve conveyed his needs through other means. I should’ve expected no less from an associate of Eric’s who had a penchant for hitting women and getting his face pummeled into the pavement repeatedly by Eric for whatever reason.

  Turning apologetic, he stepped forward with his hands drawn down. “I’m sincerely sorry I made you cry. It wasn’t my intent. Do you forgive me? Or should I seek a grander method to convey how sorry I am? Flowers? A heartfelt sentiment? A gift card? What would you prefer, Nikki?”