Losing Control: 2

by Tina Donahue

  “That night, he brought her to an abandoned building where he had his buddies gang-rape her. He probably figured with so many guys involved, no one could possibly pin her pregnancy on any one of them, or maybe he was hoping she’d miscarry. Not that they had anything to worry about. She wasn’t even pregnant. She’d lied so he’d never leave her. Even though he and his friends left her bruised and battered, she didn’t go to the police. Folks in my old neighborhood know how pointless that is. What could the cops possibly do for a black girl who couldn’t keep her legs together? Why, to them, she was just a common whore.”

  Catherine spoke even faster, the truth pouring from her in a stream she was unable to stop. “Shortly after the gang-bang, my mother discovered she was pregnant. I’m told I have my father’s green eyes, a legacy of the white boy she’d wanted so badly. After I was born, she hooked up with guy after guy, dragging me along because I suppose she hoped my dad would someday have an epiphany and come back into the picture. He didn’t. She finally abandoned me when I was four. Just up and left me in our Section 8 apartment. Haven’t seen her since. I have no idea where she is or if she’s still alive. Neither do her friends.

  “Opal found me going through the piles of trash outside the building, looking for something to eat, and took me in, fed me. She’s not my aunt. She lived in the apartment above ours. If not for her, I would have ended up in foster care, lost in the system like so many other kids, no different from what my mother had experienced. Opal took care of me without asking for a penny from the government. She was afraid if they knew I’d been abandoned, they’d take me from her. She asked her friends to babysit me while she was at work. She took on extra hours to pay for that and everything I needed. She loved me. Know what that’s like when you’ve had so damn little of it? I’d die for that woman. I’d sleep with as many men as I have to in order to keep her safe.”

  This time, Catherine backed away from him, her body shaking, her words unnaturally calm. “Don’t you dare think of me as less than you or your kind. I went out with you, I slept with you because I wanted to. I did that for me, not because I wanted your fucking money. I don’t care about that. I’ll never care about that. I wanted to have fun like you and everyone else in your lofty circle does all the time, as if it’s some god-given right you’re entitled to. I wanted to go on a damn freaking date. Just once, I wanted a guy to like me for the person I really am, not the role I’m expected to play. To see me, not the disadvantaged girl who came out of the ’hood.”

  She reached the door. “You have nothing to worry about or to fear from me. I’ll even sign a damn affidavit to that fact, releasing you from any liability for our time together. It was simply a few good fucks and now it’s over.”

  The reality hit so quickly and hard, the physical pain it generated constricted Catherine’s throat and rasped her voice. “I promise, you’ll never see me again, Mr. Bellamy, nor will you ever touch me. The only way that could happen would be if you book an appointment with the agency and use your precious money to pay for it. I don’t screw for free anymore.”

  Chapter Ten

  He faced his office window, immobilized by events he hadn’t seen coming, his focus on the scene below. Congested streets. Endless traffic. People arriving at the building or departing it. Men in overcoats. Women in skirts or jeans, some wearing high-heeled boots just as—

  Tim’s thoughts paused. With his palm on the frigid glass, he leaned closer to it, thinking he saw Catherine.

  His legs went weak. It was impossible for him to fill his lungs. He imagined himself down there, following her. To where? He didn’t even know where she lived. She’d never told him. He couldn’t very well haunt the nursing home in the hopes that he’d see her again.

  Why in the hell would you even want to?

  She’d manufactured everything, behaving worse than Fantine ever had. To Fantine, their affair had been nothing more than an opportunity to get as much money as she could with his father certainly obliging.

  For Catherine, their so-called relationship had been…what?

  Tim wasn’t certain. He had no idea what to believe. Had Catherine been telling the truth in here with what she’d said about her parents and Opal or was it even more lies? Who knew? He glanced back at the street, still hoping for a glimpse of her, indecision eating at him, along with sadness and a fucking lot of resentment.

  She could have told him the truth about being a call girl from the moment they’d met. Hell, they’d been at a District party, not a damn church social. No one there was virginal or even remotely moral. They would have had their fun and then—

  He would have probably walked away without a backward glance because she worked for the agency, figuring he could purchase her services anytime he wanted. They would have hooked up for some great sex, nothing more. He wouldn’t have gotten to know her as he had.

  That she liked Adele more than any other recording artist, while her taste in film ran toward political thrillers instead of chick flicks, which she dismissed as hopelessly naïve. That she hated being tickled, but also goaded him into it because she loved to laugh. Until this moment, it had been the best sound Tim had ever heard, along with her contented moans and sighs.

  Had she been putting him on during sex and the other good times they’d shared? How much of that had been an act on her part? How much the truth? Had she continued her work at the agency while they’d been together? Had she slept with other—

  Tim stopped himself from completing the thought, figuring it just might kill him.

  Not knowing what to do or where he was going, he left his office. His secretary glanced at him, then looked away quickly, no doubt embarrassed by what she’d overheard. Just short of Hunt’s office, Tim heard the man speaking to someone. David? Was he telling their friend the truth about Catherine?

  “It doesn’t matter what your reasons were,” Hunt snapped. “You should have told me.”

  Clearly, he wasn’t speaking to David or a client. Had to be Alexa. Never had Tim heard Hunt so angry with her.

  “We build this relationship on trust,” Hunt said, “or it doesn’t work.”

  Tim’s face stung with heat as his humiliation and anguish returned. He’d done everything he could to make certain Catherine trusted him, because he’d believed her explicitly, not questioning for a moment anything she did or said. No matter what they’d shared—and it had been so fucking sweet—it was all based on lies.

  He recalled the party where they’d met. She knew about him then, every little freaking detail.

  Turning away from Hunt’s office, Tim strode past Dottie’s desk, then paused in the hall, still not knowing where to go. He’d thought Catherine had shared his same taste in books. At the library, she’d led him to the fiction section, going to the titles he’d liked most in the past. More crap from his agency profile? What else could it be? Repeatedly, she’d slipped, almost giving herself away by knowing his favorite color even though he’d never mentioned it, and how he liked his steaks prepared. Stuff he dismissed, believing he must have told her, but he hadn’t. She’d had his life—a way to his soul and heart—in his file.

  “I got to where I am today because of what I do and I’m not ashamed of the decisions I’ve made,” she’d said.

  That, he sensed, was one of the few truths she’d told him. She’d wanted what he’d been given—financial security and a good education—by virtue of having been born into the right family. She’d also had Opal to care for, so she sold her body to the agency’s clients. A means to an end.

  He recalled the tears in her eyes as she said, or claimed, that she’d gone out with him, slept with him because she wanted to. That she’d done so for herself.

  Because she needed him as much as he craved her, or was something else playing in the recesses of her mind? She hoped to dazzle him to the point of a commitment so he’d help her? Hadn’t he already arranged for Matt to take over Opal’s therapy, something many of the elite couldn’t manage given the man’s h
ectic schedule?

  Tim stared at his office door, not realizing he’d been moving toward it. He recalled the smell of her skin, its softness and heat. How she suckled his throat and worshipped his cock.

  An act? The real thing? A bit of both?

  He wanted to know and yet he didn’t. She’d made him feel more powerful, more worthy than he’d been in a long time. In one afternoon, it went poof and all because he’d gone to the mall, something he never did.

  He’d wanted to get something for their next date that showed Catherine how much he cared. He’d purchased a huge box of the raspberry truffles she adored. He’d bought Opal a pretty bed jacket he’d found online, pleased the store had it in canary yellow, her favorite color. His secretary could have picked the items up at the mall, but Tim had made the trip instead, not only wanting to make the effort but excited by the thought. It reminded him of when he was little and had gone Christmas shopping with his nanny, troubling over each purchase, unlike his parents, who let personal shoppers take care of the chore.

  If he hadn’t been at the mall today, of all days, how long would Catherine have kept up her act? Until he was in so deep that what she did for a living, how she’d lied, wouldn’t have mattered to him?

  He regarded the shopping bag, crumpled on the floor of his office where he’d kicked it, because Catherine had done the one thing Tim couldn’t tolerate from any woman. Especially her.

  She’d lied, while he’d behaved like a rutting fool, having faith in everything she’d said, drowning in her attention.

  How much of that had been real? How much faked?

  He moved back to his office windows. This time, he didn’t notice the scene outside. His gut churned with hurt, anger. His uncertainty about what he should believe made him restless.

  “Tim?”

  Hunt. He didn’t acknowledge the man. Catherine continued to consume his thoughts. In his mind, Tim saw her face. Heard her voice. He told himself to forget their time together, wipe all traces of her away.

  Even as he tried, Tim knew it wouldn’t be possible and finally realized something else.

  He wasn’t done with her just yet.

  Bleak January light poured through the windows of Alexa’s office, bringing on a chill despite the heat pouring through the vents. A Caribbean vacation—white sand, aquamarine water, warm breezes—seemed ideal right about now. Not that she thought Catherine would agree.

  Alexa tapped her pen against the agency’s ledger, her attention on the phone. She debated whether to call Hunt, tell him what had just happened, then decided against it. She’d share the news with him tonight. Never again would she keep anything from him.

  Days had passed since that awful scene in the mall and what he told her had happened at his office. She and Hunt still weren’t back to where they’d been before those events and Alexa hated it. To lose his trust forever, to have him leave her life—their life—wasn’t something she could survive. Each day, she’d done all that she could to make things between them right again. It wasn’t that Hunt was being vindictive or was behaving like an arrogant prick. He’d been shaken to the core that she’d kept such an important secret, one that affected him too because of Tim.

  Not anymore. She’d prove to Hunt that her loyalty was and would always be with him, first and foremost, just as it should be.

  The agency’s front door opened.

  Alexa wished it were Ronnie. God, how she needed her protective hug and some girl talk. No such luck. The older woman and Wallace had decided to spend a few weeks in Los Angeles, visiting his relatives, taking in the sights.

  The muscles in Alexa’s neck and shoulders continued to knot. She wanted to run but remained where she was, waiting.

  Catherine came inside, thinner than Alexa recalled and a bit ashy. A casual observer might have guessed she’d just gotten over a bout of the flu rather than trying to survive her shattered hopes.

  She closed the door and leaned against it as though she needed the support to keep standing. “If you’ve asked me to come here to fire me, just do it.” She spoke softly, without emotion. “I did my best at the party last night. The client said he had a good time.”

  Not a lie. He called this morning, wanting to book Catherine for the next time he’d be in town. He wasn’t angling for sex, just a beautiful woman on his arm and intelligent conversation.

  Catherine looked as if her chaste efforts to entertain him last night had drained her of all life today.

  “I’m not firing you,” Alexa said.

  Catherine picked at the skin at the edge of her thumb and mumbled, “Then why am I here?”

  “Tim called.”

  Color tinged the young woman’s cheeks. She stared at Alexa, her expression saying this must be some sort of cruel joke. “Why?” She pushed away from the door. “To bitch at you for what happened? To accuse me of trying to trap him so I’d get his money? Did he actually draw up a document for me to sign? I told him I’d do so. Is that why I’m here? To sign a—”

  Alexa interrupted, “He wanted to book you for a three-day appointment on his family’s Caribbean island.”

  Catherine’s mouth hung open. “Huh?”

  “For this coming weekend. I told him no, of course.” Alexa sagged back in her chair. “He wouldn’t accept that as an answer from me. Said he’d keep calling, threatened to find out where this office was and would come over here and camp out if he had to until he hears the answer from you. I told him Hunt wouldn’t allow that. Tim said he didn’t care if Hunt tried to kill him, he’d still come over. And he’s not about to accept a refusal from you either—his words, not my take on the situation. He knows your semester hasn’t started and that you don’t have to maintain a bedside vigil with Opal. He’s talked to her doctors. She’s in good hands and isn’t in any danger, so you being away for a couple of days isn’t going to pose any problem with her. To make certain of it, he’s made arrangements for three private duty RNs to be with her around the clock while you’re gone.”

  Catherine kept blinking rapidly like someone coming out of a nightmare to enter a much-needed fantasy. “He actually did that—said that? He wants to see me again that badly?”

  Alexa recalled his voice. He’d tried to sound indifferent, the way one would when ordering a meal they didn’t really want. However, she’d caught the uncertainty and longing beneath his words. “He said you suggested an appointment that day in his office when you guys were—” Alexa stopped before she said “fighting”. “Well, you know.”

  Catherine’s expression changed, going from surprised and hopeful to deflated. Maybe even a little pissed. “I see.”

  “I don’t. What’s this about?”

  Her gaze turned inward. Her body tensed visibly. “He wants to prove he was right about me. That I’m nothing more than a high-priced whore.”

  “Well, screw him. Maybe Hunt should beat him up.”

  Catherine made a face. “It wouldn’t change his mind. Nothing will at this point. You were right all along. I shouldn’t have lied to him. I should have told him from the beginning who I was, what I do. It wouldn’t have stopped what happened at that party. We would have still ended up fucking like crazy. Who knows, he might have even become one of my regulars. At least until he met someone he genuinely cared for.”

  She paused to swallow, her complexion turning pasty again. “After that, we would’ve simply run into each other at District functions, where I’d be with my other clients. He wouldn’t notice, of course, if he was with a woman he loved and respected. That’s all I wanted, you know? To have him like me as an equal. To have a chance. Stupid, huh?”

  “Oh honey, no it’s not.” Alexa went to her, gathering Catherine into her arms.

  She stiffened and moved away. “I’m all right.”

  “No, you’re not. Go ahead and cry. It’s okay.”

  Catherine ran the back of her hand over her eyes. “I’m just tired, got in late last night.”

  “Sit down, please. You want something
to eat? I can order in. Chinese, Italian, whatever you’d like.”

  “No, I’m not hungry. I have to leave.”

  To go where? Alexa dreaded the thought of Catherine alone at a bar, numbing her pain. “Why?”

  “I have to go home, get things ready for this weekend.” She gestured to the phone. “Book the appointment.”

  Alexa stepped back and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Surely, you’re kidding.”

  “Never been more serious.”

  Or devastated. Her lower lip kept trembling and her eyes were shiny again. “Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s cold here. I’d like to be warm for a change. I want to have some freaking fun and get paid for it so I can take care of my bills. After all, that’s what I do.”

  Bull. This wasn’t about having a good time or enough funds to see to Opal’s care. Ever since the blowup with Tim, Catherine had refused any appointments that involved sleeping with a client. She’d kept things innocent, missing out on thousands of dollars in fees and tips.

  Despite what she claimed, Alexa knew Catherine wanted to be with him again no matter the circumstances, as much as Alexa suspected he wanted to be with her. Dumb pride and broken trust was keeping both of them from admitting it, from forgiving. “Why not give him more time to cool off, to understand why you didn’t tell him everything? You could meet for coffee, talk it out.”

  She looked ill again. “Don’t you get it? He doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to understand. I tried to get him to listen to me that day in his office. I told him things I never wanted anyone to know. He didn’t say a word and could barely look in my direction. When I left, he didn’t run after me as I did with him in the mall. If this weekend isn’t to convince himself that I’m as conniving as Fantine, or possibly worse, then it’s because he simply wants a good time. We were fucking great in bed. Maybe he’s finally figured out that screwing was all we actually had together. It didn’t go deeper than that. Maybe I was reading more into it than there was.”