by Kim Karr
What the hell was going on?
What was Heidi alluding to?
I had to know. Before I knew it, I was in Michael’s office and at his computer before I could stop myself. My phone battery had died and I couldn’t wait until I got home. I had to know what this meant now.
The screen saver vanished and I was prompted to enter a password.
Crap.
The first word that came to mind was Clementine and I entered it. That didn’t work. I was no hacker, but I kept going, this time entering her birthdate, and what did you know? It worked.
In the address bar, I typed www.evanmarks.com. The site loaded immediately. What came up were pictures of professional-looking men, as if Michael were searching for a law partner. The site was very nondescript. Its name was across the top, with the images scrolling down.
Pick one, the piece of paper had instructed. Was it possible Michael had wanted Heidi to pick a man? What on earth for? I clicked on one of the images to see if the profile would load beneath it.
“Did you need something?” The question was asked in a cool and strong tone, like that of steel.
My hand moved quickly and the shaking caused me to click in the wrong place. A list of files filled the screen and my eyes landed on a video clip labeled Elizabeth. With no time to look at it or even blink, I somehow managed to close the window and then glance up within a reasonable amount of time. “I hope you don’t mind that I was using your computer, but I needed to check my inventory and get my orders placed before nine.” My own tone was calm, but I was anything but.
Michael stood in the doorway with a bouquet of beautiful mixed flowers in his hand. “Not at all, but you’ve been keeping something from me.”
My hands began to shake and I had to dig my nails into my palms to tame their quivering.
“You’re a hacker,” he said with a grin.
I snatched air into my lungs. I realized that I’d been holding my breath. “No, not really. After Clementine’s name didn’t work I tried her birthday. Sorry about that, but I was desperate to catch an auction before it ended.”
He gave me a casual shrug. “It’s fine. In fact, I came home hoping you’d still be here.”
I pushed the chair back and felt the sweat on my palms as my hands slid down the wooden arms. “You just caught me. I was getting ready to leave.”
Michael strode into the room looking effortlessly powerful and set the flowers on his desk.
I stood, my heart fluttering like a bird in a cage. “Here, take your seat.”
His grin seemed to widen as he approached me.
Willing my nervous trembling to stop, I circled the desk in the opposite direction. “What did you need?” My tone was eerily calm considering he’d just caught me at his computer and could very easily discover what I said I had been doing was a lie.
“Sit,” he commanded.
I bristled at the command but did as he said and sat in one of the two chairs facing his desk.
The flowers were spilling out over his legal pad and he pulled out a rose. “I’ve been thinking about something and it makes complete sense.”
My nerves were getting the better of me, and I had to clear my throat to make certain I didn’t squeak when I spoke. “What would that be?”
Michael’s suit was perfectly pressed, his dark hair expertly combed, and his eyes were an icy, icy blue. “I want you to move in with Clementine and me.”
“What?” I couldn’t contain my shock.
Those eyes seemed colder and more calculating than I’d ever noticed. “Elle, I think we need to give up this pretense.”
I sat up straighter, not liking the tone he was using with me. “I’m sorry, Michael, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His grin was almost wolfish. “You want to be a part of my daughter’s life. I think we can even go as far as to say you want her to call you Mommy. You made quite an impression at the political fundraiser. I need a confident woman in my life to help me rise up within the social circles I’ve been trying to break into for years. As you know, I hope to be elected district attorney and then possibly move up to judge or even mayor. In order to do so, I need a more stable home life.” With the rose in his hand, he fingered the thorns. “And Elle, you are the perfect woman to help me build that.”
My body was screaming “No,” but Heidi’s words, I said no and he ordered me to leave, were echoing through me at the very same time. If I flat-out said no right now, would he cut me out of Clementine’s life just like that? I couldn’t risk it. “Your wife was my sister, Michael. What would people think?”
He brought the rose to his nose and sniffed it. “They’d think a grief-stricken man found solace in a beautiful woman. Of course, we’d wait a respectable amount of time before going public, but I don’t think anyone would think badly about the situation. After all, I was a man burdened by his wife, left to raise our child, and you were there for me.”
My eyes were anywhere but on him. Sparkling crystals in the early morning light drew my attention to the floor. It was salt, like what I had seen that night I opened the bags with the cocaine in them.
Odd.
I knew half of the missing drugs were in the possession of the DEA.
My gaze wandered, and it was then I noticed a missing tile in the façade of the fireplace that I always thought was just a decorative listello. The three others were in place, but this one displayed a keypad. It had to be for the panic room. I knew the entrance was in his office but had never really paid attention to where.
I wondered why there was a trail into it or from it. Did he have the missing drugs in his possession? Here? And if so, what was he going to do with them? I didn’t like where my mind was headed. Had he left everyone in danger, including his daughter, for a profit? No, he wouldn’t. I pushed those dark thoughts away and wondered what the room looked like inside. I wondered about anything except what he was proposing, because what he was proposing to me—it didn’t sound so crazy right now, especially if he was involved with something illegal. Clementine would need me.
We both wanted something and his proposal was a way for both of us to get it. Most importantly, if I lived here, I could assure Clementine’s environment was safe. Of course, there were many other issues and I threw one out there. “I just bought a place of my own. What would I do with it?”
He set the rose down and fiddled with his mouse. “It was mostly my money. The rest of it was mortgaged. It’s not like you have money in it.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to let it go.”
“Well, you live in an area of high demand. We could rent it out in no time.”
My heart was racing. Was he going to catch me right now? Know what site I’d been on? I stood up. “I don’t know, Michael. I need some time to think about it.”
Michael lifted himself from the chair and circled the desk. He stopped directly in front of me and reached behind himself for the rose. With the stem in his hand, he offered it to me. “For you,” he said with a satisfied smile.
I took it and brought it to my nose. It smelled of his coercion and my discomfort, but that was okay, because what else did I have in my life? Did it really matter what price I had to pay to have Clementine a part of it? My initial thought was—no, it didn’t. Yet still, I couldn’t answer. The words were stuck in my throat.
“Take the week and consider my offer. We can discuss you being involved in Clementine’s life by moving in with me further next weekend. There’s no rush.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
His grin felt more genuine as it softened. “Okay,” he agreed.
I turned to leave but twisted back. “Oh, Michael, Heidi called.”
His face froze on that grin.
“She asked if you could leave her final paycheck at your office and she’d pick it up in the morning.”
He nodded. “Of course, I should have thought of that.”
My nails were biting into my palms. “I have to run. I have a
lot to accomplish today. But thank you for this weekend.”
“I enjoyed it too,” he responded, and went back to his computer.
I was breathing so hard my entire body was shaking as I started what had once been my sister’s car. As soon as I got out of the garage, I opened the window. The air was crisp and cool. I breathed in. I pushed the air out. My panic was mounting. I knew how to defend myself physically, but emotional warfare was nothing I was prepared for. Michael was using that precious little girl to get what he wanted, and what he wanted was me.
Michael just suggesting it sounded crazy enough, but me considering it was insane.
I plugged my phone in to charge and started driving. A few minutes later, the sound of my cell ringing broke my concentration. I looked down and saw blocked call. Fear seized me. I shoved it away. For the next five minutes it just kept ringing, but I refused to look at it again.
I feared who it was. Was it the same blocked caller again with some scary message, or was it Michael with more ways to make “us” work? I refused to look and hit ignore.
When I was far enough away from the house, I opened the window wider and tossed the rose out of it. With that anchor away from me, I let my mind go free. I’d held it tightly captive over the last two days and couldn’t stand it any longer.
Logan was gone from my life.
Sadness suddenly washed over me. I’d been alone for many years, but I’d never felt more alone than right now. I missed him desperately. I wanted to call him. Hear his voice. Feel his body against mine. Talk to him. Ask him what I should do.
Over the past two days I had saved my tears for late at night when I was in bed and wished I could feel his arms around me. The great loss of him in my life came barreling at me as I drove home. This time I didn’t try to push the tears away or keep my sobs at bay; the minute I let go, the memories of our time together flashed before me.
Sitting across from him eating a hamburger, walking through the park with him, sitting beside him as he drove us through Boston talking about nothing and everything—our favorite foods, places we’d been, running, the Boston Marathon that we’d missed this year but vowed to train for together and run next year. Even in the midst of the craziness, being with him over the past month was the happiest I could ever remember being.
My fingers had gone stiff from gripping the steering wheel by the time I exited the highway. Crying wasn’t going to bring Logan back. I had to worry about myself—no, not myself, that little girl. In my head I replayed what I knew about Michael. The way he was around me—mostly kind and considerate, at times manipulative. Then I thought, everyone has flaws. Could I be with him? For Clementine? Was his proposal even real? I knew it was. What kind of woman traded herself to a man to have his child in her life?
Never in a million years would I have thought me. Yet, I found myself seriously considering Michael’s offer.
And if that didn’t make me want to cry even more, because I knew he was going to take her from me if I didn’t say yes and I couldn’t let that happen. What if there was more to Michael than I knew? What if he did have a dark side? I wasn’t going to let Clementine grow up like I had. I didn’t care what I had to do to stay beside her. What I had to sacrifice. Was that what my mother had thought, too, I wondered?
When I finally pulled up in front of my house, the thought of not living there anymore widened the crack in my chest even further. It was that old familiar ache that came every time I had gotten attached to our new home when I was a child, only to be told it was time to move again.
By the time I unlocked my door, all I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and sleep the day away. My world felt like it had tipped on its axis and would never be right. Feeling off balance, I tossed my bags to the floor and then hurried up the stairs to get out of my jeans and slip on a pair of sweats.
My closet doors were closed and I opened them to throw my dirty clothes inside. When I did, I froze. Logan’s things were still hanging in the place I’d cleared for him weeks ago. I’d never checked the closet on Saturday.
In a frenzy, I ran into the bathroom. His toiletries were all still there. Toothbrush, razor, and the bar of soap he preferred to my lavender body wash.
I glanced around the room and nothing had changed since I’d left. He hadn’t been back. Everything must have been as it was on Saturday. Worry flickered in my chest.
Things come in threes.
Had something happened to him and I misread the situation?
Oh, God.
I rushed over to the dresser, and that’s when I heard the front door open and close. Blood swooshed between my ears and my pulse raced at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. I knew the sound his sneakers made on the steps.
Creak. Creak.
The louder those footsteps grew, the harder my heart beat.
I began to lose my stability. The dresser I was clutching became the only reason I was still standing. My legs had gone limp, my knees weak, my feet numb.
The more audible the creaking, the closer he drew, the more intense the aching pang in my chest grew, and then suddenly the air in the room felt thicker.
“Elle,” he said with that familiar rumble in his voice.
Like always, my body responded to his tone, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. The high and the low that came with his arrival was hard to bear. It meant he was okay, but it also meant he had left me. I took a breath so deep it lifted my shoulders. “Why did you come back?” I asked.
“Elle,” he repeated, but this time he sounded pained.
It didn’t matter. My heart was in pieces, splintered and shredded. I just couldn’t look at him. “You should have taken everything when you left, or at least come back for the rest of your things when you knew I wasn’t home.”
The floor creaked from behind me and I knew he’d stepped inside my room.
I couldn’t stand it. Didn’t know what to do. I opened the drawer I had cleared out for him expecting it to be empty, but it wasn’t. Everything was still inside it, and so was the small silver box his grandfather had given him. The one he never would have left behind. It meant the future to him, not in the monetary conversion it could provide, but in the hope he saw in it. The hope that life could possibly be normal for him someday. All the air was sucked from my lungs. Something wasn’t right.
“Elle,” he said my name again and it was like a plea. “Please look at me.”
Ever so slowly I turned around, and I quickly glanced away. He was standing in the doorway, unmoving. For no good reason, the world seemed to right itself, no longer tipping and throwing me off balance.
Light and shadow painted him as he always had been. I didn’t have to see him to know what I was looking at. Broad shoulders, chiseled jaw, and the strong lines of his face were the first things that came into view. His face, with the scar just below his eye, was both a warrior’s face and beautifully exquisite, at the same time. And his eyes, those ever-changing sometimes brown, sometimes green eyes, were eyes I wanted to get lost in. If he smiled at me they would crinkle ever so slightly, and everything hard and rough about him would instantly soften.
I made sure to keep my eyes anywhere but on him. “Why did you come back? I told you the last time that I wasn’t going to do this back-and-forth anymore. I want you to leave.”
“I never left.” His words were a whisper.
“Don’t lie. You did. You couldn’t handle the truth and you left.”
“That’s not true. I told you, your inability to carry a child doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
My chest constricted and pain stabbed my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t certain my heart was even beating, as many pieces as it was in.
“Look at me.”
At his command, I had to raise my eyes. My head snapped up to completely take him in. And when I did, for a moment, just one, the room went black. I wanted to die. I knew I had been so wrong, and that I should fall to the ground and beg forgiveness. Pinching my eyes c
losed, I tried to stop them from stinging, but that was useless. I had to see him. I opened my eyes and stared at him through blurry, wavy vision. Before me was a bone-weary man. Logan had a black eye, his head had been shaved, and he was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing on Saturday.
Yet still, when I met his gaze, the heat in his eyes was so intense I thought it would burn right through me.
He took a tentative step my way.
My knees buckled and I had to grab the dresser. “Logan, what happened?” I tried to ask him, but my throat tightened so much my words would only come out as fragments of a whisper.
His voice was gruff as he spoke. “I’m so sorry. I would have been here if I could have. I never would have left you doubting me. You have to believe me.”
The tone in his voice told me nothing he was saying was a lie.
I clenched my hand to my heart and let my painful sobs convey what I couldn’t at this very moment. I didn’t know what happened to him, but I knew he was telling me the truth. Something had happened that had kept him away from me. And here I thought he’d left me. The reality of how wrong I was shattered my already broken heart.
As if reassured I wasn’t going to turn him away, he rushed to me and fell to the ground. He was on his knees and his arms were wrapped tightly around me. “Elle, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks before I could stop them and I, too, crumpled to the floor. “I thought you couldn’t handle what I’d told you and you left me.”
His hands went to my face. “No, no, no. I would never, ever leave you. I love you more than I love anything in this world.”
“Oh, God, Logan, I love you too,” I whispered, and then buried my face in his neck. I let my sobs rise from my belly, and I cried for everything that was happening in my life, and in his. I wanted this man so desperately and I knew he felt the same about me, yet I’d let my own insecurities drive me to doubt that.
“Don’t cry, baby, I’m here. I’m here,” he whispered in a soothing tone.
