by Hannah Ford
“It’s ours,” he said.
“What?” I turned away from the window.
He was standing there, his hands in his pockets, and for the first time, I saw Noah look shy. His face was hopeful, like he really wanted me to be impressed with what he was showing me. “I mean, if you want it,” he said. “I’m expanding my business and I want you to be my partner.”
“What?” I asked again. I shook my head, not sure exactly what he was talking about. “But I’m not even a lawyer yet.”
“But you will be,” he said. “And until then, you can work here, for me. Once you pass the bar, we’ll get your name on the door. Partner. Right away.”
Partner.
The word echoed through my brain. It was the holy grail of law, the thing lawyers toiled away for years to achieve, the long hours and sleepless nights all for the greater good of making partner.
“But why… why would you do that?” I asked. Noah had never taken a partner. He had lawyers who’d worked for him for years who he hadn’t made partner, lawyers who’d proven themselves far better than I had.
“Because it’s us,” he said. “I want to be with you every second, I want the two of us to build something together.” He crossed the room and took my hands in his, the light from the city washing over his strong features.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It feels a little strange. I haven’t… I haven’t earned it.”
“Please, Charlotte,” he said. “Say yes.”
He moved closer to me, his lips inches from mine, his mouth tempting me.
“What will you give me?” I flirted.
“A partnership in my firm isn’t enough?” he flirted back.
“Not if you have something else to offer.”
“I have this.” He kissed me softly on the side of my neck, and longing flooded my body.
“What else?”
“This.” His lips moved to my collarbone, and his mouth grazed my skin, sending heat roaring through my body.
“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Cutler.”
“Oh, you have no idea, Ms. Holloway.”
“If I say yes,” I said, as his hands found the tie on my dress and tugged on it gently. “Does that mean you’ll be my boss?”
“Technically, yes.” He had my dress completely open now, and his hands slid down the curve of my hip and over my ass.
“So I have to do whatever you say?”
“Yes.”
“And what do I get out of it, again?”
“This.” His hands moved to the front of my panties, dipping inside the waistband before moving further and spreading my folds, his fingers finding my clit and rubbing it gently.
I groaned.
“Is that a yes?” he asked me with a wicked grin.
“I don’t know,” I said. “How long do I have to think about it?”
“Five seconds.”
“Five seconds?” I repeated. “That’s not even the length of a good commercial.”
“Five…” he warned, his index finger curling inside of me. He kissed me, sucking softly on my bottom lip as he pulled away, teasing me. “Four…” He reached down and grabbed my ass, picked me up like I was nothing. I giggled and wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me to the lone desk that was in the room.
He sat me down and kneeled in front of me.
“Three…” he warned, reaching up and pulling my panties off.
My knees trembled, my body shuddering deliciously at the thought of what was coming. Sure enough, he reached up and pushed my legs apart. “Two.” His voice was gruff now, commanding.
“One.” His mouth pushed into my pussy, his tongue taking me.
I groaned and leaned back as he continued, not letting up, his mouth and fingers working inside of me, teasing my clit, rubbing against me.
“Time’s up, Ms. Holloway,” he growled as he stood up.
“I don’t know if I have enough information,” I said saucily.
He undid his pants and slid his cock into me in one smooth motion. He began fucking me as I wrapped my legs around him. He stared into my eyes, the two of us coming quickly and at the same time.
“Please, Charlotte,” he whispered. “Please say yes.”
“Yes,” I said, grinning. “Yes, yes, yes.”
***
This is what it feels like to be happy, I thought as we drove back to Noah’s apartment.
Nothing mattered anymore except for the two of us.
It wasn’t until we were getting ready for bed that that the niggling feeling began tugging at the back of my mind.
You haven’t told him about the letter.
So? I argued with myself. Who cares about the letter? It’s not important.
You should have told him. And he didn’t even ask you to marry him.
So? I shot back. He asked me to go into business with him, to be his partner.
That’s not marriage.
I told myself to shut up, but the thoughts swirling my head wouldn’t go away.
They got stronger and darker when Noah returned from his shower. He crossed the room to get a shirt from his dresser, and I got the first look at his wound without a bandage over it.
I gasped.
The stitches slid in a jagged, angry line down the side of his body, black spikes sticking out at random intervals, the skin around the wound red and puckered.
“Oh, Noah,” I breathed.
“What?” he asked, then followed my gaze to his stitches. “It’s not as bad as it looks, Charlotte.”
I watched as he pulled a t-shirt from his drawer and slid it over his head. “Aren’t you supposed to keep the bandage on it?”
“Only when I’m showering.”
I frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Charlotte.”
He slid into bed beside me and pulled me close. I snuggled against him, grateful for his closeness, for the smell of his soap and aftershave, the warmth of his arms. But something was still off.
We’d had this beautiful, magical night, and yet…
Stop it, I told myself. You’re being crazy. Noah wants to move on, and you should too. Nothing bad is happening. The bad stuff is over. And so what if he didn’t ask you to marry him? You haven’t known him that long. It would be insane to expect something like that. Besides, he asked you to a partner in his business. That is a huge deal.
I tried to comfort myself with that fact, but I couldn’t fall asleep.
The room felt too dark and the outside noise of the city, usually comforting in its ability to lull me to sleep, suddenly seemed like an intrusion.
When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamt of Mikayla.
We were in an elevator together, trying to escape from Force.
We were trying to get to the top floor of the building. Somehow we knew that if we could get there, we would be safe, we would be saved. Both of us were dressed in our auction outfits, but we weren’t scared or anxious – we were excited because we were about to be free.
But when we pushed the button for the top floor, the display started acting crazy, flashing random numbers and letters. And yet the car kept soaring higher and higher, faster and faster, until the elevator got stuck between floors 364 and 365.
I started to scream, and when I turned around, Mikayla was screaming, too, her jaw hanging from its hinge, blood pooling in her mouth. “You left me,” she screamed. “You left me there to die, Charlotte! You left me!”
“No,” I told her, shaking my head. “No, I told the police about you.”
“I’m dead!” she yelled. “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead!” Blood specks flew from her lips as she came toward me, her arms outstretched. She wrapped her hands around my neck, and her eyes turned shiny and black as she began to strangle me.
I gasped for air and reached up, grabbing her arms. But they wouldn’t budge. I felt myself starting to black out, to suffocate, and I woke up gasping and covered in sweat.
“Charlotte,” Noah said, reaching over
and turning on the light next to him.
The room glowed brightly as I tried to catch my breath.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It was just a bad dream.” He put his hand on my forehead, pushed my hair away from my face. “You’re safe, Charlotte.”
“I was back in Force,” I said. “Or somewhere like Force. There was that girl, the waitress, Mikayla.”
“Shhh,” Noah said. “Shh, it’s okay. It wasn’t real.”
He got up and moved to the bathroom, returned with a glass of water and set it down on the table next to me. I took a sip, my heart slowly returning to its normal cadence.
“I don’t know what happened to her,” I said.
“In the dream?”
“No. In real life. Do you think she got out of there?” I’d told the police about Mikayla, had told them about how she’d claimed she was being held against her will. I’d given them her description and her name, but they hadn’t seemed too interested in that part of my story. They’d been more interested in the details about Professor Worthington, about what he’d tried to do to me and Noah.
“Charlotte, Force was shut down,” Noah said gently.
“I know Force was shut down.” The club had been evacuated that night, shuttered closed until the police could finish their investigation. But what would they be investigating, exactly? Was it just the attempted murder? Or would they look into other things, too? The things I’d told them about the auction and the girls who’d been drugged and seemingly imprisoned?
“Was… do you think they’re going to try to investigate everything? Like how Mikayla said she was being held against her will?”
Noah frowned and shook his head. “Charlotte,” he said. “That is not your concern.”
I stared at him, then sat up in bed and set my water down on the nightstand carefully. “Of course it’s my concern. We were there together, Noah. She needed my help.”
“Charlotte, there’s nothing you can do.” He reached for the blankets, lifted them like he was going to tuck me back into bed. “Come,” he said. “Try to get back to sleep.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Yes, you are. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“I’m not.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I was acting like a petulant child, but I didn’t care. “A girl is in danger, Noah. I have to help her.”
“You don’t even know that girl, Charlotte. You have no idea if she was really in danger, or if it was some kind of fantasy she was playing out.”
“She was in real danger, Noah. I saw what they did to her. They beat her into submission, they used her. She fell and she split her lip wide open, and they whisked her off into some back room to do God knows what to her.”
“Charlotte, I hate to tell you this, but the things that go on at Force… you cannot possibly begin to know what they’re really about. Including what was going on with that girl.”
“So, what? I’m just supposed to forget about her because there was a chance she was playing out a fantasy?” I shook my head. “That seems insane.”
“Charlotte.” He sighed and dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes. “You told the police what you saw. There is nothing else you can do.”
“I can go down the police station. I can make them listen.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” he said simply. “I will not allow that.”
“You won’t allow that? What am I, a kept woman?”
“Charlotte, if you pursue this, you could be putting yourself in grave danger. And for what? A girl you know nothing about, a girl who could have been in a situation she wanted to be in?”
“She wanted her lip to be split, blood pouring down her face?”
Noah sighed again. I saw his eyes soften for a beat, and for a moment, I thought he was going to agree to help me. But then his jaw tightened. “There are millions of people all over the world who are in trouble, Charlotte. You cannot help them all.”
“But I might be able to help her.”
“Do you have any information that might aid the police in their investigation? Did you see or hear something that might lead them to the people responsible for this?”
I thought of the Dungeon Masters, the ones backstage who’d been in charge of the auction. They’d all been covered in masks.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then what do you hope to get out of this?” he asked. “All you will accomplish is to put yourself in danger.”
“You already said that. How am I going to put myself in danger?”
“Those men will come after anyone they think is threatening what they’re doing.”
“But if that’s true, doesn’t it prove that what they’re doing is wrong?”
Noah shook his head. “I will not discuss this anymore, Charlotte. You need to move on. We are beginning to build our life together. And I will not allow you to put yourself in danger. Not now. Not ever.”
He returned to his side of the bed, shut off the light and plunged the room back into darkness.
I felt tears of frustration welling in my eyes. Why didn’t he want to talk about this? Why did he always shut down on me?
I never fell back asleep.
I tried, but I couldn’t.
At six am, I heard Noah get up and leave for work.
He kissed my forehead, but I pretended to be sleeping.
***
As soon as I heard the front door of the apartment shut behind him, I grabbed my bag from where it was sitting on the chair in the corner of the bedroom and carried it into the master bathroom.
I sat down on the edge of the tub and pulled out Professor Worthington’s letter. I felt like a thief, opening it here in the bathroom, like I was hiding something.
You are hiding something.
I knew Noah had left for work, and yet I was so afraid of him finding me with the letter that I was skulking around in the bathroom like some kind of thief.
I ran my finger under the seal.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded carefully into thirds.
My Dearest Charlotte,
I am writing you this letter to tell you that I have gravely underestimated you. I don’t regret the things I had to do to you at Force, but I will say that you surprised me in the end.
How you swung that shoe at me, Charlotte!!!!! Charlotte!!! That was amazing, wonderful, perfect, just so you. It impressed me and made the love I have for you in my heart grow and bloom.
I have lost my eye because of you. I am half-blind now, but it is a small price to pay for having a reminder of you branded into my body. I wish I had that eye CHARLOTTE as I would send it to you.
I am sure you want nothing to do with me, I am sure you have been brainwashed by CUTLER, but I would invite you to come and speak with me. I would like to talk to you about what happened, to shed some light on the incident, TO TEACH YOU and give you more lessons.
Of course, that is not the only reason I would like to see you. Selfishly, I will enjoy your company immensely. I am lonely here without you, Charlotte. I need news of your whereabouts, of what you are doing.
I am sure you are with CUTLER, and the thought drives me MAD MAD MAD. HE is not GOOD for you CHARLOTTE. He is BAD FOR YOU. A woman like you deserves so much more.
Please come and see me. I will answer your questions.
Please bring me a newspaper, if you do come. I am so desperate for news of my plight.
Forever yours,
Colin “Professor” Worthington
I placed the letter back into its envelope, then turned and prompted vomited into the bathtub.
There was nothing in the letter that was horrible – no threats of cutting up my body, no promises to get out and come and see me. They were just words on a page – they could only be so bad. And besides, there was nothing he could write in a letter that would even come close to the things he had already done to me.
But just knowing he had been the one on the ot
her side of the pen, just knowing he had contacted me brought back all the memories of that night and stirred something up inside of me, thoughts so dark and horrible I didn’t want to ever think of them again.
I began to clean out the tub, washing away my dinner from last night, that beautiful dinner that Noah had arranged for me, all of it gone.
I washed my face and brushed my teeth, studying myself in the mirror.
I had planned on going back to school today, but now there was no way.
I returned to bed, climbed in and curled up under the covers.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was being roused by something wet licking my face.
I picked my hand up and pushed the wet thing away, then snuggled deeper into my covers.
But whatever it was persisted.
I opened one eye and a furry face stared back at me.
A dog.
There was a dog in my bed.
“What the hell?” I murmured, sitting up.
The dog seemed to like this. He gave a playful little bark and wagged his tail happily. He was medium-sized, with shaggy golden fur and a very cold nose.
.He was wearing a bright red collar, and tied to it was an envelope. My name was written on the front.
I reached out and opened it.
Dear Charlotte,
I was hoping this might brighten your day. The people at the shelter tell me he is a mutt, maybe some golden retriever, maybe some border collie. He is about three years old, and apparently past the puppy stage, although he still seems like a puppy to me.
Jared has been instructed to deliver him and leave his things with you – a leash, a bowl, a toy, some food.
He will need a name, which I will leave to you.
I love you very much,
Noah
I smiled.
A shelter dog! Noah had gotten me a shelter dog, even though he definitely didn’t want a pet. He’d done it for me.
I could hear the sound of rustling in the kitchen.
“Jared?” I called.
“Yes, miss,” he called back. “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but Mr. Cutler insisted it be a surprise.”
“That’s okay, Jared.”
The dog was already making himself at home in Noah’s bed, his body snuggling up against mine. I giggled as he licked my face.
