by Liz K. Lorde
The miniature piece in my left ear came to life then, with the sound of Leonardo's voice filling my head. "Bring your nerves down a notch there, darlin'. Tell him you're Rachel's friend. Make it believable, yeah?"
"I'm a friend of Rachel's," I blurted. In my ear I could hear Ligotti and his crew clamoring to themselves.
Michael's piercing green eyes narrowed on me. "That's surprising."
"I'm sorry?" He was wearing an expensive, and in any other woman's case a drool worthy, three piece suit of gray with a red tie.
His sharply cut lips twisted upwards. "She has no friends. Rachel's a class A succubus sent from the underworld to feed on men." He gave me another appraising look, and I could feel my heart tapping quicker against my breastbone. "But I'm sure you know that." For some reason he made me feel like a kid, just standing there above me, the weight of his gaze keeping me pinioned to my seat. Just remembering to breathe was a chore in of itself, and in that moment I wished I'd brought JB with me. Michael practically glided from his spot over to the wooden and elegant chair opposite me. He pulled it out, keeping his eyes on me. "You're much prettier than her you know, it must kill her to have to stand next to you when you're out. How well do you know her?"
Did he just call me pretty? "Not that well, actually." You hadn’t been called that by a man since… I couldn’t seem to focus on remembering what I rehearsed with Leonardo and his crew.
Leonardo's voice whispered in my ear. "She went to college at Rutherford for her law degree."
"We were roomies at Rutherford."
Michael's brows went up at my answer, and he promptly sat in the chair. Somehow every move he made seemed to be done with an economic grace. "So what happened with her," his tone was sharper now, probing me for a satisfactory answer. "Rachel may hunger for the blood of men, but there's one thing she likes more." He rested his arms on the table, waiting expectantly for me to finish his sentence.
"Wine and a free Netflix account?" I suggested, brushing back a loose strand of blond hair, "sorry, that's me." Binge watching Arrested Development and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was accounting for most of my free time now, it seemed. Getting buzzed just to fall asleep and quiet my head from all the memories, the thought of it all made my stomach churn.
That comment I made almost garnered a smile. I could hear Leonardo's woman laughing in the background from their hideout. "No," Michael said incredulously. "She likes money. Lots and lots and lots of money. And if there's one thing that my father has, well, you know. So why isn't her ass in that chair?" He pointed a finger at me, and a burst of heat found my chest like he'd shot it. "Not that I'm complaining too much, you know. What’s your name?"
"Oh," I said blankly hoping to compose myself, completely uncomfortable with existing right now. "She's sick. And it’s Sarah."
Michael was unfazed. "I just spoke with her a few nights back.” He took a moment and then added, ”you know, you look familiar." Crap, maybe I should have dyed my hair or something. Does he recognize me from TV? I wasn’t on prime-time or anything.
"I know and she told me how excited she was about this..."
"Date."
"Yeah, but I guess she got food poisoning."
"Where from?" His words held an inquisitive edge, and Michael leaned in a little closer, to the point where I was catching the scent of his person and a hint of honeyed cologne. "I'll make sure to sue them out of existence with an army of disgustingly overpaid and terribly bored lawyers. They bum around my basement playing darts to pass the time." The way he said it, I believed him fully.
Leo spoke again: "Stall him for a sec there."
I let out a quiet laugh, and his shadow of a smile widened. "I'm being serious," he assured. "You give me the name of it and not another soul in this god forsaken place will want to eat there again."
"My memory's not so great," I admitted, mostly because I always wanted to forget things. "Plus you know," please don't catch me on this, "Rachel's such a fast talker. Verbal diarrhea or something, you know."
His eyes told me that he agreed. "She has a bad habit of trying to get a word in edge wise, and not letting others give their opinion. I'll ask her about it later."
My heart dropped at the thought of being caught in my own lie, but Leo quickly assured me that everything would be fine. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to completely believe that. "Yeah," I said, "well she knows that I don't get out too much anymore, and she figured you'd just reschedule a month later cause you're so busy."
His dimples showed now, and electricity flickered through me. "Never too busy for a pretty woman," he answered in that suave, powerful tone. "So pat yourself on the back for me now," he instructed, and a moment later he shook his head up and down. "Go on, pat yourself. You earned it, tonight you're the MVP. You're my hot date."
Hot wasn't a word in my self-descriptive vocabulary. Heat kissed against my cheeks and if I had a cross to kiss right now, I would have done it just to not blush. "Thanks," I bit back sarcastically, "when I was growing up my daddy always promised me I'd be some know-it-all CEO's hot date. I think my hometown might even erect a statue in honor of this spectacular accomplishment."
His green eyes widened and his brows lifted, cocking his head and moving back in his chair an inch or two. "Whoa, shots fired. You know they don't allow guns here, right."
I hadn't meant to smile. There was something about the man, the way in which he sat and spoke and listened; it was all with an aura of arrogance. Still, like a secret path in the woods I felt a sense of curiosity hurrying me onwards. "So Rachel didn't really tell me much about you," I mentioned as the waiter came by with two ice cold waters. We each picked our dish, and the young ken doll of a man spirited himself away. I’d went with the blue crab cakes, a rib-eye and a side of Brie and Parmesan mac and cheese.
Michael cracked his knuckles and his phone vibrated - he only decided to give it a glance worth of his time before returning to our conversation. "What you see is what you get," he said with a cool edge, "I spend my days juggling a slew of transactions related to the company." He locked his gaze with mine, and it felt like all the lights around us dimmed into darkness, leaving only a private spotlight on us. "I spend my nights crashing parties, starting them, or a mix of the two. When I'm not busy flashing around fake smiles and limp handshakes for the charities that I'm forced to go to, the rest of my time ends up one of two ways."
An invisible hand squeezed against my heart. "What's that?"
"F and F. Fighting or fucking." He leaned forward and suddenly I felt the heat of those eyes as they imagined cutting off my clothes. It felt like he was right behind me, that I could somehow feel the heat of his body so close to mine - the lick of his breath against my neck, the scent of his person on my nose. His fingers trailed from just underneath my ears, down and past my neck to my shoulders. In that moment I was torn between fear and helpless attraction. I wanted to scold myself for fantasizing.
This was not me.
"Your cheeks are turning pink," Michael said sotto. I turned my face away from him in a mild case of embarrassment. "See I could tell from just one look," he said. "You're the kind of girl that doesn't do the deed on the first date."
"I don't," I concurred firmly, still not finding the will to look at his smoldering, chiseled face.
"But I bet a part of you wants to change that," he said in a subtly seductive, one that made me hang on to his every word. "Are you an honest girl?"
Warmth blanketed me at the forwardness of the man. "I try to be an honest woman."
"Tell me then" his eyes trailed from my breasts further down, before locking my eyes again. "Does it make you wet? The fact that, if I went underneath this table right now, I could drink between your thighs."
Tightness formed between my legs, and I felt my heart skip a literal beat. There was an urge to chide him for being so forward, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything like that. "If you really think I'm going to let you do that," I squirmed in my chair, trying to sty
mie the lust that was flooding me. "Then maybe it's true what they say about CEO's being sociopaths."
Michael let out a soft, but refreshingly genuine, laugh - his lips then upturning to a knowing smirk. "I'm not CEO yet," he revealed. "You can save my soul still," he jested, "but you didn't answer my question."
"Surprised you couldn't catch that was intentional." I tried to wish away the pink in my cheeks. Even though the thought of sex, so rare as it was, brought me back to that dark moment - it wasn't that which was so unbearable. It was the unseen finger that tickled at my heart like a fool's feather. The feeling of being open with someone, with a man. The intimacy of connection, it made my body wrought with a scalding anxiety.
"If that was you trying to get out of the question, you're not as honest as you'd like to think." For some reason, this made the back of my neck crawl with a feeling of needles. He was lighting my combative fire. "Don't think that I'd missed you moving earlier."
There was a forceful pulsing against my damp sex, and I straightened out my back in the chair. "Please. You pretend to know me after a few trite lines that I'm sure you've practiced on every hopeful girl that got so unlucky as to be in the same room as you." There was some snickering going on in the ear comms, and that only seemed to make the anger in me flare further. I put my hands on the table as I leaned forward. "Respect is something that you earn, you know. Something you can lose. I bet you never had a girl walk away from you, have you?" I vaguely noticed a person walking in my direction, and a salivating smell graced my nose.
There was a chink in Michael's armor. His cold and ever-appraising look wilted into a tight, challenging face. "No," he said with a filthy pride that reeked of a smug, privileged upbringing. "I haven't. But there's a reason you haven't run off." If it's because I'm starving and have a horrible inability to turn down food, he'd be correct. "You're having fun," he insisted in a teasing, matter of fact voice.
I smiled inwardly, but tried to hide even that from him. That was when the waiter finally arrived with our food. Blue and scrumptious crab-cakes sat in wait for me, drizzled in butter and herb. The smell of gooey Brie and various other cheeses wafted to me, and a series of crisp grill marks against the rib-eye steak made my mouth salivate and my stomach hurt for satisfaction. While we sat and ate, putting away some of our frustrating physical attraction and unfathomable desire to butt heads, everything was perfect for a moment. Placing a morsel of the medium rare steak into my mouth, an explosion of flavor assaulted my buds, and I was slightly embarrassed to be caught moaning from getting such an expensive treat.
"It's not customary to moan at the table. Unless of course, you're at my place." Michael jabbed, cutting another strip of his rare and thick porterhouse. I cut off another piece of my steak, popped it into my mouth, and exaggerated a moan this time.
Leonardo's crew talked amongst themselves, with Connifer asking: "What's going on?"
Michael's dry and unamused facade returned. "Your grace truly knows no rival."
"It doesn't. And I'm convinced you were born with a broom up your butt," I went for a scoop of mac and cheese. "You can't exert your will over everyone, you know." He didn't seem to care for that one. His jaw tightened up, and his Adam's apple dipped. This steely look overcame his face, and I think there was some sorrow to be found in his eyes the longer that I looked. Michael didn't come back with some quip, he instead ate in silence for a long moment, until I couldn't resist the thought of asking him if I'd upset him. "Are you alright?"
"Perfectly," he could have said it a thousand times, but each time would have revealed how dissonant the word was from his quietly pained inflection. Michael put down his silverware, having it clink against his plate, and he grabbed his phone - entering it's pass-code and fiddling with it.
"You've been nothing but brash since I've met you. I thought you held honesty in high regard," I challenged, trying to banish the thoughts of before, mentally noting how I'd have to change my underwear after this was all said and done.
He didn't say anything for a good fifteen seconds. He seemed affixed to his phone now, curiously tapping at it. "You're right," he admitted, looking at me now, making me feel like I was made of glass. Like one touch could break me. He was considering something. "You know I thought that you looked familiar," his voice had become distant and uninterested, still with an undercurrent of anger. His brows furrowed slightly, and his nostrils flared. "You're that woman who reported on Leonardo Ligotti. Our stocks dropped nearly twenty percent that evening. Is your name even Sarah? Because Jane Chatworth on this article would beg to differ.”
"Michael," I started, "I was just doing my job."
"It cost me dearly," Michael forcefully moved his chair back and stood up. "Tell me," he urged, his eyes burning through me, "tell me why you lied."
"I use a fake name when I'm on camera," I replied. "Per my boss's request."
"How fascinating," it was a cruel sarcasm, "please. Tell me more." I felt my stomach turning into nervous knots, and the voice of Leonardo's crew filled my comms. They all talked about how I needed to get out of there. That the mission was off. "I have no time for this charade, whatever your angle is, I’m not interested," he stormed, turning around and getting ready to walk away.
"Wait!" I blurted too loudly, getting a few looks from the others in the dining room. He turned around to face me. “The mob has been trying to play you,” I told him quietly, taking the flesh colored piece from my ear and tossing it onto the table.
The lines of his face curled into a pensive look as his eyes drifted between me and the device. “What. What the hell do you mean?”
“They’ve been hiring girls and setting up ways for them to get close to you.”
“Bullshit. Why are you telling me this?” his words were sharp, but the look of anger on his face was far more pointed. “What’s in it for you?”
“I’m a woman of intuition. My whims change with the wind.” It hadn’t always been that way; ever since I felt his breath on me that night, I’ve tried to always listen to my gut. “There’s nothing in it for me,” I said bitterly, “not anymore at least.”
There was a long pause between us as Michael’s eyes showcased the great consideration he was putting in my words and tone. “Alright,” he replied with reluctance, “if you’re being straight with me, and that’s a very big if. Then we need to leave. Now.”
Chapter 6
Michael
The journey from the city to Wester Woods where my estate was located was an uneventful one. I'd asked Jane why she'd work for the mob, and if there was anything else that I needed to know about the bastards. She informed me how she had a great deal of outstanding tickets for speeding - that the Ligotti mob was trying to get someone close to me. To uncover something.
I still wasn't sure if I should be trusting her. But I couldn't let her be alone in this. It took courage to admit what she had, even if I'd caught her in a lie. The mob would be ruthless knowing that she betrayed them so flagrantly.
"Starting to think we'll never get there," she said in that soft voice.
I looked at her through the rear-view mirror, seemingly unable to keep my eyes off of her. There was some natural, magnetic pull that she had on me. This simple driving desire to drink in everything that she was. To bask in all of her mortal delights. "We're getting closer," I clipped.
"You've said that twice already."
"Closer still," I replied, my head swimming to the past of this place. "We'll pass the Heart Tree--" tightness gripped at my chest then. "The lone Quaking tree. And then we'll be there.” You don’t even know if you can trust her fully yet. “I don't normally bring people here," I grumbled. What would she think about me bringing this girl here? Familiar pain cut deep into my chest, and I could count the freckles on her face again - could paint every way that she would smile in the morning light.
If love can be lost, so too can it be gained. That was what I used to think. Used to think before the fingers of regret and shame and guilt and sor
row held me prisoner.
She moved in the backseat then. "You mean you don't bring people you barely know here."
I shook my head as we turned down the dirt road through the night. "No, what I mean is that I don't bring people here. Period." Not anymore at least. I liked to hold my parties outside of this place, now.
She did not respond for a beat, and I thought my tone too harsh. "I see," she said, light as an angel's breath down one's neck. "Can I ask why?"
Slowing down as we approached it, the headlights of the car revealed the lone Quaking tree. Or as the legends liked to call it, the Heart Tree. It towered above everything else, it’s trunk unusually large for it’s species. It glowed a fiery, bright yellow from the car’s lights; it’s leaves naturally that color, and it’s thousand branches reached out like thin, curious fingers. "Because I need a place to be alone," I told her, "or as alone as I can be anymore." Too alone without her touch, without her kindness. "This isn't just another property to me."
"So you grew up here or something?"
It was more like I died here. "Yes," I said simply, the sadness worming it's way into my chest as we glided to my home's entrance. Though you wouldn't be able to see it so well at night, the titanic estate was nestled on the outskirts of the Wester Woods; a great and green clearing. It was surrounded by fencing from lumber that I'd chopped and fashioned myself with the help of my father. Morganna had helped me every step of the way as well. Not to mention Tim.
I parked the car just outside of the off-white painted mansion, the garage was already packed with enough cars. To the south-east of the estate was a stable where I kept my prize winning horses. Not far off from there, was an old well that seemed fond of growing rose bushes beside it.
"Hell of a place to grow up," Jane openly reflected. We exited the car and I turned to face her, once again taking in the figure that was supposed to be hurting me for the Mob's benefit. Something troubling washed over me, like electricity running through my veins. For once in what had been countless years, I was feeling nervous. Me. For some reason, it made me angry. Angry to have so much emotion over a person. "Are you okay?" She asked sheepishly, "you seem lost."
