“Pay it back.”
“What do you mean? I can’t pay it all back yet, even if I wanted to. I’ve already started investing it.”
“I’ll help you pay it back.”
“This is insane, Daniel. Maybe we should talk about this another time, when things aren’t so complicated. You’re asking me to give up everything I’ve worked for.”
“That’s not all you’ll be giving up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Landon. He needs to be out of the picture.”
The blood drained from my face.
He laughed. “Well, not completely out of the picture. As long as you work with me, Erica, I’ll be satisfied if you just remove him from your life. That way I won’t need to remove him in a more permanent fashion.”
I fisted my hands, tensing against the anger that rushed over me. He couldn’t be serious. “Blake isn’t a threat. He loves me. You’re deranged if you think I’d leave him just because—”
His nostrils flared. Without warning he lifted his arm and backhanded me against the car. I fell back with a thud, catching myself before I dropped to the ground. My shaky hand went to the place where he’d made contact. The sharp pain of it paled in comparison to the shock that he’d done it, and without hesitation. I pulled myself up slowly, too afraid to look at him. I had to get out of here but before I could even think about my next move, he brought his face inches from mine. I swallowed hard and pressed back against the car trying to still my rapid breathing.
“That’s a warning.”
I shivered at the unforgiving tone.
“I run this fucking city. I don’t care how much money Landon’s got, no one threatens me and gets away with it. You’ll do this or I’ll fucking kill him. He wouldn’t be the first to cross me, and I doubt he’d be the last. I protect what’s mine at all costs, and right now he’s in my fucking way.”
I recoiled at the venom in his voice. I was too stunned, too scared to speak. I chanced a look at Connor who stood apathetic and emotionless a few feet behind Daniel. My chances of getting out of this situation on my terms were quickly dwindling. I fought the tremble that coursed through me. I was trapped.
Cautiously I tilted my head up to Daniel, trying to read him. He stared back with a smug glitter in his eyes.
“You wouldn’t,” I challenged, my jaw resolute.
He lifted his hand and I flinched back. I opened my eyes when he brushed his knuckles over the stinging flesh of my cheek, a surprising act of tenderness after what he’d just done and said.
“I certainly would, Erica. Don’t doubt it.” His voice was low, deliberately slow, his breath spiked with alcohol. “You’re smart so it won’t take long for you to learn how things work in this family. If you care for him, you’ll stay away from him. We don’t need any more accidents. Do you understand?”
Fear sliced through me, his words chilling my blood. When he put it like that, nothing had ever been more clear. I swallowed before answering, trying to keep my voice steady.
“I understand.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Let me out here.”
Connor slowed to a stop a few blocks from the office. I reached for the handle. Daniel caught my wrist, preventing me from exiting the vehicle, which was all I’d wanted to do for the past twenty minutes. I’d loosely considered jumping out of it while we were driving, but thought better of it.
“I know you’re going to think I did this for the campaign, but I did this for you. For us. I made a sacrifice, and now you need to make one.”
I stared blankly out the window. After all of that, he wanted my blessing, my forgiveness? That he did was almost laughable.
“Look at me.”
I closed my eyes a second before facing him.
“He’s too close to all of this, and I can’t take any more chances. Try to understand what’s at risk before you decide to hate me.”
I caught a glimmer of regret in his eyes. Maybe he was sobering up, but the part of me that might have softened at his words before had been silenced. Only days ago, I’d longed to know him better. Now I’d gotten a glimpse of who he really was—a dark and violent man under the suits and the clout. I’d seen too much, and there was no going back now.
“Can I go now?” I wasn’t sure how much longer I could survive in his proximity. I longed for the muggy summer air outside the car, to be free of him and his goddamn henchman. His threats and his warped brand of paternal love were suffocating me. The urge to scream simmered below the surface. If I didn’t get out of the car soon, I was going to boil over.
Finally he released me. I left the vehicle as gracefully as I could when I wanted to scramble out and run as hard as my legs would take me. Instead, I kept a steady normal pace back to the office, never looking back.
When I arrived, James was there. His gaze was glued to his computer screen. He stood and came closer when he saw me.
“Jesus, are you okay?”
I hadn’t been crying, but my face felt hot and swollen. I looked to the floor, self-conscious and all too aware of the heated skin where Daniel had slugged me. I hoped it didn't look as bad as it felt—physically, anyway. Nothing could look as terrible as I felt on the inside.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. I considered staying, working through whatever he’d put together, but I couldn’t think straight. Not a chance. “We’ll need to pick this up on Monday. Thanks for coming in though.”
He was silent for a moment. He touched my chin, lifting my eyes to his. His were surprisingly intense. I’d never been this close to him in good light to really see them, but they were a deep fathomless blue with specks of gray. He brushed the heated flesh gently with the back of his hand, his expression unreadable.
“Who did this to you?”
I stepped back, suddenly panicked by the contact. “Nobody. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
I retreated to my office. My hands were trembling so hard I could barely grasp my things as I shoved them into my shoulder bag. James appeared the second I finished.
“Erica.”
“See you Monday,” I said quickly as I passed by him, leaving before he could say anything more.
* * *
I walked for blocks until my feet wouldn’t take me any farther. I settled on a bench in a park nestled in the middle of the city. The streets were quiet. The clouds had begun to clear and the sun was thinking about coming out again. Unfortunately, that did little for my spirits.
Daniel’s threat played on repeat in my mind. If we were gambling with anything but someone’s life, I might have considered calling his bluff. But he’d killed Mark. He’d even gone so far as to make it look like a suicide, and the cops, even if they weren’t being paid off, would probably buy it. Daniel wouldn’t have done it any other way. Case closed, someone’s life snuffed out. Not that Mark’s life was the most honorable, but who was Daniel to decide? He’d killed his own stepson.
What was keeping him from doing the same thing to Blake? He was right. Blake could buy and sell Daniel. But Daniel had power and an impressive network of connections built over generations. I didn’t doubt his ability to make someone disappear if he decided it needed to happen. The only thing I doubted was whether he could do it knowing how much Blake meant to me. That depended heavily on how much I meant to Daniel. On one hand, he’d all but told me I was his pride and joy. On the other hand, he’d backhanded me into a car and seemed to take smug pleasure in exerting that kind of control over me. I wouldn’t call that love.
But I had to do something and find a way out of this mess that kept Blake and me together. If I could buy us some time, I could get closer to Daniel and make him understand that Blake wasn’t a threat, wasn’t his enemy. If I could do that, Blake and I could have a future. Somehow I needed to convince Blake to give me that time, though, and that wasn’t a conversation I could imagine right now. We fought and bickered and meddled, but we wanted to be together. We were closer than we’d ever been. Now I needed to put distan
ce between us. If I didn’t… I couldn’t even think about what could happen if I didn’t.
And who could I talk to now? I couldn’t trust Alli because she was so close to Heath. Marie would worry too much, or worse, go to the police. Anyone who knew Daniel had killed someone, even if it was supposedly for my benefit, would be another person whose life was at risk. I had to carry the burden of this terrible truth alone, at least for now.
I wasn’t sure when to expect Blake back from California, but the first order of business was getting out of the apartment before he did. I called Marie.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“I need to talk to you about Daniel.”
She was silent on the phone for a moment. “What about?”
“I want to know what went down between him and my mother. Everything you know.”
I heard her sigh, and I could tell right away that she wasn’t going to make this easy for me.
“Erica, you’re talking to the wrong person. Your mother was the one who knew him, not me.”
“And you knew her. You were the closest person to her when they were together.”
“So what? They had a brief and passionate love affair, and then they went their separate ways. That’s the whole story. I don’t know what you want me to tell you, honestly.”
I closed my eyes and thought of my mother. Her face. Her pretty blond hair and her smile, the way she’d held me when I needed comfort the most. I needed her now, more than ever. My throat tightened with emotion, and I took a deep breath to snap myself out of it. Crying over this would get me nowhere. My mother was dead and my father was a sociopath. These were the facts of my life.
“Can I come stay with you for a little while? Maybe a couple weeks until I find a new place?” I finally said.
“Of course. Do you need me to come get you? You’re worrying me.” Her tone had shifted from defensive to caring. Getting her to believe I was fine would be easier than convincing Blake that we needed to end our relationship, though.
“No, I’ll manage. Don’t worry, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll be here.”
I hung up and started the long walk back home.
* * *
I spent one last night in the apartment. I was exhausted by the day’s events and I needed to sort through my thoughts before I could face anyone.
But sleep was little relief from the day I’d had. In sleep I was as tortured as I had been hours ago. I jolted awake, frantic that something had happened. A cold sweat chilled my skin. I pulled the blanket tightly over me. The fiction of my dreams had me believing my worst nightmares. That Daniel had followed through on his threats. That Blake had disappeared. Gone, irrevocably gone. I curled my knees close to my body and willed myself back into reality. Blake was safe, but only if I could keep him safe.
The weight that somehow I had brought this on myself, on all of us, settled over me. Because I had, hadn’t I? Any way I thought about it, all this came back down to me. Mark was dead and his poor mother would never know the truth. Despite Blake’s attempts to keep me safe, from Mark and then the truth, he was now in Daniel's cross hairs. And I was headed into a future so unknown to me, I couldn’t begin to fathom it. A life at Daniel’s side, if he had anything to say about it. I couldn’t imagine what it might be like to belong to his life of politics and greed and manipulation. A life that Mark knew all too well, no doubt.
I clung to the vision of the life I had hoped for. One I couldn’t see clearly before, maybe out of fear of what it really meant. One where Blake and I had a future, a real life together. One where we belonged together and no one was threatening to take that away from us. I dared to think of marriage, of building a family together. Then the tears came, exhausting what was left of me until I fell into another restless sleep.
Daniel emerged out of the fog. He’d found me, hunted me down. He could because Blake was gone, forever. Over and over the scene played out until I felt I’d never escape. I thrashed in and out of consciousness, trying to purge the terrible thoughts from my system. Then the chill was replaced by a sudden warmth. Weak with relief, I relaxed. I felt Blake all around me, hushing away my cries. My lover. The power of our love together could surely countervail Daniel’s threats and the uncertainty that I now faced. He could make it go away, somehow… In my dream, I tried so hard to believe that. I clung to the promise of it.
But he wasn’t a dream. Blake was with me, loving me with his touches, kissing away the worry. In the dim light of the room, I opened my eyes into his. So familiar and yet so foreign, the eyes that looked back at me were loving, filled with worry. Scooping me into his arms, he kissed me, deeply and passionately. I kissed him back, desperate to have him with me again. I inhaled him, unable to believe he was real.
“Another nightmare?” he whispered.
I shook my head. No. My life is the nightmare now. I held my lip between my teeth to keep it from quivering. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.
He released it with his thumb and lowered his mouth to mine again. He was flush against my side, still fully dressed from his travels. Thoughts raced through my mind as I tried to separate dreams from reality. The relief that he was with me again was quickly overwhelmed by what that meant. I clung to him, gripping his shoulders as if he might leave again. I had to keep him close.
“Missed you, so much.” He kissed my neck, my jaw, then my lips again, as if he couldn’t get enough of me but couldn’t decide where to start. “Can’t stay away from you like that anymore.”
The love in his voice, cracked with emotion, shredded me. If only he didn’t love me, everything would be easier. I could mend my own heart and put myself back together the way I always had before. But the thought of leaving, that he might feel a fraction of what I would at the separation, was unbearable.
He slid a hand under my tank top, palming my breast, plumping it in his hand and thumbing my nipple. He pinched my nipple and I gasped, arching off the bed.
“Make love to me, Blake. Please, I can’t wait anymore.”
I let my hands roam, remembering every plane of his body, the hard batch of muscles leading below the band of his jeans. I crashed my lips into his and wrapped my body around him in every way possible. The intensity of what I felt for him shot through every limb as I scrambled to remove the layers of clothing that separated us. Nothing would make sense now. I just had to love him tonight, to give us that much.
He stripped down, and seconds later he lowered onto me, covering my body with the heat of his own. The sensation of his skin on mine overpowered me. I’d never wanted him more, loved him more. I slid my hands over his chest and down his body until I reached his erection, the satin skin burning in my grasp. I couldn’t wait a minute longer to have him. I guided him into me and he pushed deep with one thrust.
A hoarse cry left my lips with the rush of him filling me. Nothing had ever felt so right. We stayed that way for a long time, holding each other tight, as if one of us might disappear at any moment.
“Now I’m home. Right here.”
He rocked into me, impossibly deep, and I arched into the movement, loving every slow thrust of our bodies connecting. I wrapped my arms and legs around him until we were touching everywhere, fully entangled.
He held my cheek in his palm, trapping me in his gaze. I couldn’t. I closed my eyes and turned away. I was afraid of what he’d see if he looked too hard. He forced me back to him and kissed me, thrusting deeper as he did. I gasped and shuddered, reveling in the familiar waves of heat saturating every cell of my being. Every limb hummed.
I tried not to think about the other side, the long fall from the earth-shattering bliss he gave me to the darkness of a life without Blake. I tried not to think about it, but the cold, hard reality of it crept in. Time ticked by, my body refusing the climb, evading its addictive pull. If only I could suspend this moment—our bodies impossibly close, slick with the heat of our passion, a never-ending state of being. I could live with that, never reaching th
e top, if it meant we never had to come down.
I turned away, staring into the near blackness of the room, my thoughts too far from us. He turned my face back to him, his own expression strained, his skin tight and flushed.
“Goddamnit, what’s going on?”
I stumbled, trying to find the words. “I’m sorry. Don’t stop, please.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to think about anything but you.”
He stilled. Then without warning, he pulled out of me and left the bed. He rustled through his travel bag by the door. How he could see anything in the darkness of the room, I wasn’t sure.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting you in a better frame of mind.”
The bed dipped under his weight again.
“I did some thinking while I was away, baby, and I think you need this as much as I do. We’ll start slow though.”
My breath caught as he stretched my arms above me, encasing my wrists with two soft leather cuffs, looping the connecting strap around a rail on the headboard.
“There. That’s better. You okay?”
“What are you going to do?” It was a quiet plea. A part of me was afraid of what he might do, but I needed something and soon.
He grabbed my hips and tugged me lower until my arms were fully extended above me. My breath hitched, my muscles tensing with the position. He planted a wet kiss between my breasts, and I sighed. Moving to one and then the other, he teased the tips with warm strokes of his tongue. My nipples were hypersensitive, almost painfully hard, jutting out shamelessly for his slow torture. He bit down gently and my body jerked from the pleasure that shot through me.
He continued to roam with one hand while the other slipped between my thighs to the apex of my desire. He teased my clit, tracing my opening, and then back again, my core quickening with the motion.
When I thought I couldn’t take much more, he withdrew and flipped me to my belly, my arms tautly outstretched. The cord of the cuffs twisted around the rail, increasing their tension on my wrists.
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