Toronto Collection Volume 3 (Toronto Series #10-13)

by Heather Wardell

  A different part of me was surprised that I was pouring out my heart to Jake like this, especially that I'd admitted Christophe still had a little of my love. I hadn't even been that honest in my therapy sessions. But most of me was anxiously awaiting his response.

  He leaned back in my chair, studying my face. "Do you really want me to tell you what I think?"

  Did I? "I think so."

  He gave me a small smile. "Well, stop me if you decide you don't want me to."

  "Okay," I said, then realized that the woman who'd accused him said she'd tried to stop him and he hadn't stopped.

  My thought must have shown on my face, because he sighed and said, "Bad choice of words. Again. I promise, I'll stop if you say so."

  Despite myself, I felt bad for him. "I know. Go ahead."

  "Remember I don't know him, but..." He looked at me, sizing me up.

  "I want to hear it." I did, now.

  "He can't have loved you at the end," he said, so gently. "Not to do things like that."

  "But he did them because he loved me."

  Shock dropped on me like a bomb at my own words. "Oh, God," I said before he could go on. "Do I really think that?"

  "I hope not."

  "He did tell me that," I said softly, thinking out loud, almost unaware of Jake's presence. "Over and over while he was... he said he was doing everything so I'd remember him because he loved me so much." My stomach twisted. "I knew that wasn't right, that's not how you show love, and I thought I didn't believe it, but now I said it to you..."

  I turned my gaze on Jake and saw he looked as sick as I felt.

  We sat staring at each other for a moment, then I said, "Keep going. Tell me what else you think."

  "Really?"

  I nodded. He was like the old 'sweat out a fever' advice: I'd feel awful during the process but it would cleanse me of the horrors that were keeping me sick.

  He rubbed his forehead. "Geez. Okay."

  "Unless you don't want to."

  "I absolutely don't want to," he said at once. "I feel terrible for making you think of that."

  I leaned back in my chair and said slowly, "I don't."

  His eyes widened, and I shook my head. "I really don't. I think I needed to hear myself say it so it wouldn't fester inside any more." I made myself smile. "Come on. What else you got?"

  He managed a weak smile in return. "Okay. Um..."

  Before he could come up with something, I stepped in with a question I'd had for two years. "He had researched that abandoned apartment building really carefully. He knew exactly what they were doing in it when, which floor he should take me to and how to get in, all that. So how did he not realize there was going to be a construction crew in it on Sunday? At the trial his lawyer said it was a subconscious sign he didn't want to hurt me, that he wanted to be stopped. The prosecutor said that was garbage, but right from when I first heard he'd missed that detail on the building's web site I wondered. So... what do you think?"

  Jake considered this, then said, "What do you think?"

  I smiled. "I asked you first."

  He smiled back, but didn't speak.

  "Well," I said, "I do wonder. Maybe he was wanting to be stopped. And then maybe that makes it a little less bad, if he thought he'd get stopped before he finished doing everything he'd planned."

  Even as I spoke out loud the things I'd only ever thought before I heard all the flaws in the argument, so I wasn't surprised when Jake said, "But he still started. And he did keep going." He sighed. "You really want my opinion?"

  I nodded, already knowing it.

  "I think he simply messed up. I don't think he was hoping those guys would stop him. He came armed with a list of things to do and I don't believe he intended to stop before it was done."

  "And then he'd have killed himself in front of me," I said softly, knowing he was right. "He was really going to do that."

  Jake didn't nod, or shake his head, or speak, but his eyes told me he agreed and he was sorry.

  "I'm so sorry he was going to put that on you, make you live with that. And while I'm telling you the truth," he went on, while I wondered at how I always seemed to be able to tell what Jake was thinking and feeling when I couldn't do that consistently with anyone else, "you were talking earlier about why he wouldn't see you."

  I nodded and leaned forward. "It's weird, isn't it? I do think he feels guilty, which of course he should, but he might also still be angry at me. And--" A thought occurred to me. "At the trial he didn't look anywhere near as good as he used to." Two years of pre-trial custody had left him pale and skinny, with his customary French gloss worn away by his prison uniform. "Maybe he doesn't want me to see him like that again. He's going to be sentenced soon so maybe that makes him feel weird. He might think it would bother me to see him in prison at all. Or maybe he was afraid that seeing me would hurt him because I'm free and he's not. Or--"

  "Alexa!"

  I jumped at his interruption, since I'd been deep in trying to figure out what was motivating Christophe and had again almost forgotten Jake was there. "What?"

  "He refused to see you so you'd do exactly this. So you'd worry and wonder and think about him. He's still controlling you, and you're allowing it. Don't let him run your life any more."

  I stared at him, shocked and horrified. "I'm not doing that!"

  "You are," he insisted. "Maybe he feels bad about his looks, maybe he feels guilty, maybe he hates you. What does it matter? He tore you apart and you're letting him keep tearing. You're going to spend the rest of your life worrying about him and he's sitting in jail laughing at you."

  I sat frozen.

  Was he?

  No.

  Maybe.

  I'd never felt so stupid.

  I ran.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I heard Jake behind me, calling me, but I knew the city better than he did and I raced into the subway station before he could catch up. I had to be alone.

  Running on instinct, I boarded a train then transferred to another, and it wasn't until I exited that train that I realized where I had subconsciously decided to go.

  Union Square, my favorite sit-and-think spot in the city.

  I wove through the crowds of people walking around enjoying the crisp fall air and browsing at the farmers' market and found myself a chair on the shaded lawn in the middle of the square, settling into the bright green metal seat and feeling the peace I usually felt there trying to sweep over me.

  Trying, and failing.

  Was Jake right? Was Christophe, even now, controlling me? I'd thought I'd managed to start a new life. Was I wrong?

  I looked down at my hands and studied the faint scars at my wrists. He'd controlled me then, no question. He couldn't do it physically now, but...

  Sadness and frustration filled me. He was still doing it emotionally. Jake was right. Christophe had succeeded in making me worry about him again.

  I didn't want to do that any more.

  I sat thinking for a few minutes about what I did want to do, then pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number I'd saved in there on my first day of work and never expected to use.

  "Alexa!" Jake's relief tightened my throat. "Are you okay?"

  "I am. I'm sorry," I said awkwardly. "I kind of freaked out. I shouldn't have--"

  "Makes total sense to me," he said. "I would have too. You're sure you're okay, though?"

  "Yeah. I'm at Union Square." I cleared my throat. "Would you be willing to come here? I want to talk some more. If you don't mind."

  "That depends."

  I hadn't expected that. "On?"

  "On what Union Square is and where I'd find it."

  I had to laugh. "I can tell you that."

  "Then I'm happy to come there."

  I provided the directions then sat staring at the trees and the grass and a particularly inquisitive squirrel until I saw Jake, walking in my direction and clearly searching the crowd for my face.

  Other pe
ople saw him too; I noticed several women turning their heads to check him out as he went by. He was good-looking, no question, and the happiness that lit up his face when he saw me made him even more so.

  But I didn't think about that for more than a second. I had things to say to Jake that mattered more than his looks.

  He found himself a chair and brought it over to mine, and before he could sit down I said, "I'm sorry. I asked you to be honest and you were and then I ran away."

  He shifted the chair to face me more directly then dropped onto it. "I'm the one who should apologize. There's honest and then there's cruel and I went over the line."

  I shook my head. "I think you were exactly right." I sighed and made myself say the words I hated. "He's playing with me. Again. Still."

  Jake nodded. "I'm afraid so."

  "So what do I do about it?" I sounded more desperate than I'd intended to. "Sorry, I know that's my problem, but I just don't know--"

  "If you think talking to me helps, then I'm willing to share your problem."

  "Yeah." I leaned against the hard metal back of my chair. "It does help. It hurts, but it helps." A hug would too, I realized. Howard's hugs always came with the expectation of kisses, and while I liked those sometimes I just wanted to be held, now more than ever. I couldn't get that from Jake, though.

  The squirrel I'd seen earlier came over and stood on its back legs in front of Jake. Its "what are you?" expression as it stared at him made us burst out laughing. It skittered away at the sound and Jake said, "What a face on it. I think it thought I was an alien or something."

  "Totally." Laughing with him had put me more at ease, and before I realized I was going to I said, "Jake, how do you always know what I'm feeling?"

  He blinked. "Do I?"

  I nodded, and he smiled. "I'm glad." His smile faded and he shrugged. "I guess I think about how she would have felt. The woman who... you know."

  I did. "Did you ever know her name?"

  "Jennifer. That's all I have." He gave me a wry smile. "We weren't worrying about last names and all that."

  A picture flashed through my mind of Jake and a woman locked in each other's arms, kissing hungrily and moving toward sex. It sent an unexpected shiver through me. Unexpected, but not unpleasant.

  I wriggled my shoulders to push it away. "Do you mind me asking questions?"

  "Nope. I told you I'd tell you anything and I meant it."

  He sat watching me, and I knew he was expecting me to ask again whether he'd intentionally forced her. I didn't want to, though. I'd asked him several times already, and he was either telling me the truth every time or lying every time, so asking again wouldn't change anything.

  "Why do you think she accused you if you didn't do it?" I said instead.

  He drummed his fingers on his khaki-clad knee. "I don't know." A grim laugh escaped him. "I do just like you were doing back at the hotel, you know. I second- and third- and eighth-guess myself on what happened. Maybe she was married or had a boyfriend and felt guilty after. Maybe she wanted to at the time and then wished she hadn't because we'd only just met and convinced herself she'd said no. And..." he sighed. "And maybe she did say no and I didn't hear her."

  I nodded slowly. They were all possible.

  "So now I'm probably up to tenth-guessing myself, because if she did say no and I didn't stop that's brutal, but I truly don't remember hearing it. So now I don't know if I can be trusted."

  Another shiver went through me, but this one was different. I felt like the whole world had shifted around me. "Me either."

  He looked up, surprised, and I said, "No, sorry, I mean me. Whether I can be trusted myself."

  He frowned. "Why couldn't you be?"

  I wasn't quite sure, since I'd only just realized how much I shared his self-doubts, but I tried to talk it through. "Because I trusted Christophe. I went with him willingly that night." He'd said we were going there to spice up our sex life, and since he'd snuck us into other inappropriate places before I hadn't doubted him. "I walked into the room and didn't even realize there was anything going on until I drank the champagne he gave me and felt myself passing out." I shook my head. "I was so gullible. Stupid."

  Jake's frown deepened so much I thought he might crease his forehead permanently. "You went where your boyfriend asked you to. That doesn't make you stupid at all. Or gullible."

  "Feels like it," I said softly, then went on to ask him more questions because I didn't want to talk about this any more. I'd think about it later, on my own. "You said you told one other person, beside me, about the charges. Who was she and why did you tell her?"

  He gave a weird chuckle. "If I tell you, you'll assume I'm making it up. It's a bizarre story."

  "You think that'll stop me wanting to hear it?"

  This laugh was more normal. "I suppose not. Okay, here goes. It's all true, by the way."

  He launched into a story of how he'd met a woman, clearly in her thirties, at the bar where he used to work. He'd taken her home with him because she'd been mugged and seemed to have nowhere else to go, and she'd jumped naked into bed with him then the next morning claimed to be seventeen. Together they'd discovered that she was suffering amnesia and had forgotten fifteen years of her life. It had been her husband, once they found him, who'd had Jake investigated and learned about the charges.

  "Believe me so far?"

  "I think it's too strange to make up. So, what happened? He told her, I guess?"

  Jake nodded. "Kate, that's her name, or at least the name she was using at that point, came over to my place to confront me. When she woke up in my bed that first morning she'd accused me of doing something to her because she was naked, but I'd told her that she'd stripped and then passed out, which was the truth, and she'd believed me. We had started a bit of a relationship over the time we were together and trying to figure out who she was, but that ended when her husband found her."

  "Yeah, I guess it would," I said, before realizing it didn't have to. Somehow, though, I knew Jake wouldn't have continued his involvement with Kate once he knew she was married.

  "At that point, when she came over, she clearly knew about the Jennifer thing so I admitted it. She kind of seemed to accept it then, but later on she said she wouldn't be surprised if Jennifer had said no and I hadn't heard it."

  I sucked in a breath. "Ouch."

  "Yeah. That really upset me, obviously, so I decided to keep it to myself from then on. But when you showed up and I recognized you, I just felt like I couldn't do that. If you found out on your own..." He shrugged. "I probably handled it wrong but I thought of you maybe looking up all your new coworkers online and learning about it that way and I couldn't do that to you."

  "I probably wouldn't have," I admitted. "Hadn't crossed my mind."

  He gave himself a dramatic slap in the forehead. "Now she tells me."

  We laughed, and I said, "So what does Kate say now?"

  He shrugged. "Haven't seen her for about three years. She's friends and business partners with my friend Hannah, so I know she's still doing okay, but I haven't tried to see her or talk to her." He shrugged again, and this time the gesture was full of hopelessness. "Wouldn't know what to say."

  We sat in silence for a long moment, then he looked off into the distance at the frolicking squirrel and said, "Well, anyhow. That's why I told you. The search thing, and because I think it might have gone better with Kate if I'd told her myself so I thought I should do that with you."

  "Thank you."

  He turned sharply to me. "Are you being sarcastic?"

  I shook my head. "I know it wasn't easy for you to do, and I appreciate it."

  It occurred to me that Jake might indeed have gone further with the naked and apparently compliant Kate that first night than he was admitting, but then I dismissed the thought. If he had, he'd have told me.

  As I sat silent, surprised at how sure I was that he wouldn't lie to me even about something that would paint him in such a bad light, he said,
"Can I ask you one question?"

  I turned to him. "I've asked you a bunch, so go ahead."

  "It's okay if you don't want to answer, but... I have wondered if you have any idea why he put those tattoos where he did. I mean, he could have put them on your face or something, since you were knocked out."

  I nodded. "I know, I'm lucky in a way. It could have been a lot worse."

  Jake shook his head. "I'm not trying to say you should be... grateful to him or something. Not at all."

  "Oh, I know. But it would have been worse if they were visible all the time." I sighed. "I do know why he put them there. He told me."

  I looked down at my lap, at the jeans hiding my inked thighs, so I wouldn't have to look at him. "I... like having my legs touched." It went way past that. Nothing turned me on as much as a man working his way up my legs, kissing and caressing them, as I lay thinking about what he'd do when he reached the top. The closer he got, the more excited I got. But I didn't need to give Jake such detail. "So he put them there so I wouldn't... he knew I'd feel too uncomfortable to show them to another guy, let's say."

  Christophe had been far more explicit, stating flat-out that he never wanted me to have sex after him and he was marking me so I wouldn't. I didn't spell that out to Jake, but when I raised my head and looked at him I could see in his eyes that he'd made the connection.

  I sighed, and tried to sound at least a little unconcerned. "Anyhow, that's why he put them there. And I've had them for over two years and nobody but doctors and cops have seen them, so I guess he got what he wanted." I made myself smile. "Any more questions?"

  Jake said softly, "No. Just a comment."

  "Okay," I whispered, the suppressed outrage I could hear behind his calm tone touching me.

  "I have never wanted to hug someone so much in my life, but I don't know if I should."

  My throat tightened too much at his words for me to speak, but I scooted my chair close enough to his that I was able to put my head on his shoulder.