“You don’t know anything about me,” Jamie snaps at her.
His voice is loud enough for me to hear.
Everly’s facing away from me, but Jamie is directly within my line of sight.
There’s rage in his voice.
Tonight is not going as he had planned and that’s putting everything he had worked toward in disarray.
Good, I say to myself.
I must be doing something right.
But is it enough?
Everly walks away.
Yes, yes, it is enough! Keep going and don’t look back. Go! I want to yell at the top of my lungs.
She doesn’t get far before he practically chases her down.
She nearly drops her drink but catches it just in time.
I’m too far away now. I can’t hear a word that they’re saying, but I can see the hand gestures and I can guess as to where it’s headed.
She’s trying to leave.
He’s trying to stop her.
The more he tries to force her, the more she retreats into herself.
Their fight becomes a kind of dance where one party takes over and the other practically disappears entirely.
From across the room, I watch and hope that his anger convinces her that he’s not what he seems.
He’s a liar.
A sociopath.
He is a very dangerous man who is being paid a lot of money to do what he is doing.
But then just as I think that she’s about to pull away completely, he changes his demeanor.
It’s as if he has a realization and, suddenly, his caves his body toward hers, making himself as small as possible.
Yearning for her forgiveness, he takes her hand in his.
He is gentle and apologetic and almost kind.
Don’t believe him.
Don’t do it, I say to myself over and over, as if my silent pleas could somehow penetrate her soul.
More words are exchanged.
She motions for him to follow her and their fingers intertwine.
No, no, no.
Cold sweat runs down my back.
I have to stop this. I’m watching a car crash in slow motion.
She’s standing on the shoulder without a worry in the world, and a driver going ninety miles an hour with the intention of hitting her is pressing the pedal to the metal.
She’s about to get hit, and there’s nothing I can do.
Or is there?
Instead of heading straight out of the hotel, he leads her to the bar. Another round of drinks.
Good.
This will buy me more time.
Time passes slowly when you’re waiting, and it moves like molasses when you’re waiting to do something but aren’t sure of what exactly.
When she heads to the bathroom, I see that this is the last opportunity that I will get.
As I wait for her, I gather my thoughts and try to think of the best way to make my case. But the situation is dire and it’s about to get much worse, and nothing I can possibly say can really convey that.
“You need to leave,” I blurt out as soon as I see her come out.
She looks up from her phone, startled.
“What?”
I take a few steps closer to her and lower my voice. “You need to leave.”
We are standing so close that I can smell her perfume, or body lotion, or whatever it is that smells like the sand and the sea and a life of innocence and love.
“You’re not safe,” I say, looking straight into her eyes.
She doesn’t understand.
She shakes her head.
She tries to move away, but there’s a wall right behind her.
“What are you talking about?” she demands.
“Something bad is going to happen.”
“You’re crazy,” she says, walking away from me.
I take a few rushed steps to catch up to her.
“You have to believe me.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” she says, turning to face me. “And who do you think you are, anyway?”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what, exactly?”
“Your date.”
Chapter 3 - Easton
When I can’t get through…
My words take her by surprise.
It’s as if they knock the wind out of her.
She even starts to cough, cleaning her throat over and over again, without actually making a difference.
But then, within a split moment, everything changes.
She furrows her eyebrows in disbelief and the rest of her face quickly follows.
“My date is a nice guy. That’s more than what I can say about you.” She looks as if I had knocked the wind out of her.
She starts to walk away.
I lost her.
Whatever I said wasn’t enough.
But then she comes back.
“What the hell is your problem with Jamie, anyway? You just met him.”
I hesitate, trying to find the right words.
“I can’t tell you. But he’s one of them.”
“Who?”
“He’s going to hurt you.”
“You’re just fucking with me,” she says, shaking her head.
I grab her hand. “Don’t go back in there,” I whisper.
“Let me go!” She pulls away from me. “Or I’ll scream.”
I take a step back.
It feels a little bit like dealing with a wild animal.
She doesn’t know me and doesn’t trust me.
Why should she?
But my words are making an impression.
I can see it in the way her eyes are darting from place to place without staying anywhere for too long.
“Why are you doing this? Do you get some sort of high from this?”
“No, not at all,” I say quietly.
She’s reaching out to me for answers.
The scare tactics aren’t working; all that they’re doing is putting fear into her.
But she’s receptive to listening.
She wants to hear me.
“I don’t want to frighten you,” I say softly. “I just don’t know how much time you have. I can’t tell you much. I just need you to run. Run home, get inside, lock the doors, and do not open them for anyone.”
She shakes her head.
I’m losing her again.
“Everly, please,” I plead. “Please believe me.”
“But my purse is in there.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“No, I need it to get home. How am I going to pay for a cab?”
“I’ll give you money,” I say and take out my wallet.
Suddenly, he’s back. He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her close.
“You again.” He glares at me and hands Everly her purse. “Let’s get out of here.”
Powerless to stop the car, I just stand and watch.
But when she turns her head back toward me, I try again.
“Run! Run!”
But she walks out into the hallway and disappears.
What else can I do? I wonder, looking at the way the ice cubes bounce around the bottom of the glass. They make a loud clinking sound with each collision.
I could run after her, try to stop her from getting in the car with him.
But she doesn’t know me.
The more I push, the more likely she will be to just turn to him for comfort.
No, I’ve made my case.
I just hope it was enough.
Besides, this isn’t my business.
None of this.
I should’ve never come.
I hold my glass so tightly, the whites of my knuckles appear.
I know that I shouldn’t be here.
I know that I don’t have the power to stand up to this machine, but what happens when you are in the unique position to help someone and refuse to go that extra step?
A moment later, I’m running
out of the banquet room.
I’m running down the foyer and outside.
I have to find her.
I have to stop her.
I have to do everything in my power to protect her.
Part Two
Chapter 4 - Easton
When time goes in circles…
Alone in a cell for hours on end, you have a lot of time to think and reflect and relive your past.
But instead of just going back to a few individual moments like you do in everyday life, whenever a scent or an image takes you back there, now I’m living entirely in my memories.
Every day here lasts a minute and an hour and a year all at the same time.
The concept of time suddenly seems circular instead of linear.
What happened months ago now seems to have happened in another century and a moment ago.
The one thing that I am certain of is that I have loved her for a very long time.
Long before I ever met her.
It was as if everything that happened before her occurred for the sole purpose of meeting her. Is that even possible? I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have and that’s pretty much all I have now.
The guard comes and hands me food through a little slot in the door.
The room is cold and damp and without a single window.
In here, I don’t know whether it’s day or night. All I can go by is the lights which turn on at the start of the day and turn off at the end.
There is no smooth transition like there is on the outside.
No twilight, no sunrise.
One moment the beam is the fluorescent of day, and the next it’s pitch black.
I don’t know which I hate more.
During the day, I hate the harshness of the cold white light, which makes my eyes ache. But at night, I sometimes lie awake staring into the darkness, wishing for the warmth of soft candlelight to wrap itself around me and give me hope.
As I take a piece of the soggy bread, which is somehow both oily on one side and dry in the middle, my thoughts return to Everly.
I have loved her for years.
It was a quiet, knowing kind of love, located somewhere deep inside of me.
I haven’t even met her, but it’s like I always knew that she was out there and was mine to love.
Others have loved her, too.
They told her they did.
They kissed her like they did.
She said she loved them, too.
Of these things, I am certain.
But theirs was not the kind of love that I feel for her.
I remember exactly how I felt when I stood in that room looking at the spreadsheet with the names.
There were so many of them.
To my father they were potential contestants.
To me, they were potential victims.
This was the first time I’d seen their names like this, on a list.
Compiled and organized, alphabetically, by name.
I didn’t know a thing about any of them, but her name jumped out at me immediately.
At the time, I thought that it was because her name was Everly.
Not the most common name out there.
But now, I think it’s because I felt a familiarity with it.
It was like a part of me had known her before I ever met her.
Is that possible? I didn’t think so before, but some people say that it is.
Now, I don’t know.
It certainly feels like it is.
I now know that I have loved Everly even before I met her.
It’s ridiculous and stupid and improbable, and I don’t expect you to believe me.
Yet, it is true.
And true things do not require others to believe them for them to continue to be true.
This feeling is hard to explain, as you can imagine.
But I’ll try.
I’ve lived with a gaping hole in my soul.
It wasn’t life-threatening, and I could still function and live, but I couldn’t do anything to make it go away.
To make it better.
And then Everly came along.
Breathtaking.
Quiet.
Contemplative.
Solid.
Kind.
She came into my life all of a sudden, like a breeze.
I noticed her, but I didn’t notice her.
She was there, and she needed help, so I did what I could. It didn’t work.
It didn’t stop her from coming here.
But even when I saw her on the island all those days later, it still didn’t hit me.
That she was the one I was looking for all this time.
My throat tingles and then a wave of coughing rushes through me.
My nose starts to run.
The wetness and the dampness seem to penetrate through the walls of this cell and being here for days on end has finally caught up with me.
Each cough builds somewhere in my stomach and comes out like a violent explosion. The rest of my body struggles to catch up.
It comes in waves.
One wave replaces the next one before I have the chance to catch my breath. In the end, when the assault finally starts to wane, I lie down on the thin mattress, utterly exhausted.
Think of my life as a jigsaw puzzle.
All the pieces are there.
It’s complete.
Perfect, just the way it was designed.
But then, all of a sudden, another puzzle appears.
Out of nowhere.
At first, you look at it and think to yourself, I don’t need another puzzle piece.
I’m done.
But the longer you hold it in the palm of your hand, the harder it is to push away.
And the thing about this puzzle piece is that it’s magic.
It fits around every edge and into every nook and cranny.
Suddenly, it fills in gaps you didn’t even know were there.
Suddenly, you can’t imagine your puzzle being complete without it.
Everything was so perfect right before this happened.
I had Everly.
My father was actually going to let me marry her.
I wanted to marry her.
In a flash, I’m back there.
Hot water is running down my body.
The flow is strong, and the head is right above us, creating the illusion of a waterfall.
The light is soft and inviting, like the kind that two hundred candles would put out.
We’re standing there, in the shower, holding each other.
I’m holding her.
Everly is holding me.
Chapter 5 - Easton
When I regret…
I can feel her body relaxing under my hands.
It makes me feel good that I’m putting her at ease.
She trusts me.
And I trust her.
This moment is perfect.
The hotter the water gets, the more I feel myself relaxing as well.
Perhaps, this is going to be okay after all.
Maybe a life here, at least until after we are married, is the right thing to do.
I reach down for her.
I run my hands over her body.
I tell her that everything is fine.
She kisses me back in agreement.
I kneel before her and continue to run my tongue over her body.
My lips feel at home here.
I know where to go and what she likes.
She pulls my head up and kisses me back.
My hands make their way down her breasts as hers reach for my shoulders.
I like the feel of her nails digging into my skin.
Sometimes it’s a bit painful, but it’s a good kind of pain.
I kneel down before her again and run my hands down her stomach.
I watch as the water rushes down it and the way it moves in and out with each of her breaths.
She spreads her legs apart and I
press my lips on her hipbone.
Then a knock changes everything.
The door swings open.
Guards appear.
I jump up to my feet and reach for the shower knob.
This moment should be blurry in memory, but I remember every last detail.
The large guard has the smell of cigar smoke emanating from him.
The shortest one has a buzz cut with little stray hairs on his shoulders, as if he had just had it done before the raid.
The other two are trying to keep their composure, but the look of terror in their eyes betrays them.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand to know.
Anger is pulsating through my veins, and I’m not trying to contain it.
They don’t respond.
The tallest guard opens the glass door, grabbing for me.
I push away from him, but the space is quite small and I don’t want Everly to get hurt.
She tries to come in between us and the others quickly point their guns in her face.
I flip my arms with the sign of surrender.
I can’t let this escalate.
They have guns and we don’t.
I can’t have them doing anything to hurt her.
Still, my rage gets the best of me.
“Get off me!” I yell. “Do you know who I am?”
“Easton Bay, Prince of York, you are under arrest for the murder of Christopher Weider,” the guard with the buzz cut says. “You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to an attorney—”
That’s when it all goes blurry.
The guard continues to talk, but I start to yell something in return.
Why are they here?
What are they doing?
What the hell are they talking about?
Christopher Weider isn’t dead!
They push me out of the bathroom.
Someone hands me a towel.
Someone else hands me my clothes and they surround me as I put them on.
Everly is out of sight now and we’re in the main room. They surround me and point their guns in my face.
They aren’t afraid now.
They know what they’re doing.
At first, I thought they had me confused with someone else, but now I know that they know exactly who I am.
After I get dressed, the tall guard puts handcuffs on me behind my back while the one with the buzz cut continues to read me my rights.
Lavish Obsession Page 2
