by Ella James
That sets off another wave of sobs. I look at the girl through my tears, and she looks at me. She looks freaked out. I don’t blame her. I rub my hand over my face and say, “I tore it.”
She looks at me like she’s wondering how that happened, and I shake my head. “No, I’m saying I tore it. I got pissed off and tore it, like a wrestler!”
The woman laughs. I laugh, too. “It’s okay. I’m insane. I know.”
“You’re not insane. Just upset,” she says kindly. And I notice that her red hair is wild. Like she’s been on an adventure. Maybe she has. Maybe she would understand if I told her.
“My life is so messed up. You don’t even know. First my fiancé broke things off and then I fell for my best guy friend. It was messed up—really messed up—but I’ve had a crush on him since like, the dawn of time, and he was in the middle of a really awful time and I just…I don’t know.” Tears clog my throat. “I think I just wanted to be invaluable to someone.” I meet the woman’s green eyes and hold her gaze, pretending I am in confession. “He really needed me at the time, and I wanted to feel special. I let myself get carried away, and then I embarrassed myself. And now he’s here, and I want to be his friend and be here for him but I’m not sure how I can.”
I wipe my tears, then glance around the room, suddenly remembering I’m in a supply closet. I inspect the little room more closely and notice a black leather jacket folded neatly on one of the shelves. A familiar black jacket. “Oh my God, is that Cross Carlson’s jacket? Are you his wife? Are you that biker chick he met in Mexico?”
Her eyes bug out, and oh my God. I whirl around. “I can’t believe I told you all that! I can’t—Oh my God!”
Well this settles it: I will never, ever let myself fall for the wrong person, ever again. Not a friend and not a drunk. In fact, I refuse to fall for any guy!
*
MARCHANT
I bump into Missy King on the first floor of the hospital. It’s maybe half an hour after I was an asshole to Suri, after I’ve arranged to have a private plane take me home.
Missy King is this call girl type who used to be friends with some of the women at my ranch. She vanished two years ago, and everyone assumed she was dead.
So I’m surprised to see her.
At first, I just stare at her, wondering if it’s really her, or if my addled mind is playing tricks on me. But she continues to be there, petite, red-haired, looking much the same (one of the things my mind is actually good at is remembering faces). Then, she seems to notice me. Yep, she thinks I’m familiar. So I walk into the little seating area where I spotted her and decide to offer my services as Rescuer, pro bono.
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” I say after I walk up to her, “if you’re safe or not, but I can keep you safe,” I promise. “You can hide out at the ranch—as long as you want. No strings.”
I say other things. Maybe they’re more eloquent. It’s interesting how I can be in my head and say whatever I’m saying to convince Missy King to come with me, and I’m not really aware of the words.
If she notices that I’m a few colors short of a rainbow right now, she doesn’t show it. The taxi ride is quiet, and when we reach the private airport where the plane is waiting, she follows me up the stairs without asking any questions.
I’m not inclined to try to talk to her. I’ve made enough of an ass of myself today without adding to it, and she doesn’t seem interested in talking anyway.
Before the plane takes off, I lock myself inside the little bedroom and stare at the ceiling while I battle my demons. The same ones I’ve always had. The ones I know I can’t afford to listen to. I put my hands over my ears. I roll over on my stomach. I dig my fingers into my hair. I cup the tattoo on my side and try to pretend it isn’t there. I get up and pace the bedroom.
I step out of the room for a minute and watch Missy, working a crossword or Sudoku or some shit. She looks okay. She’s still here, so I figure she’s not a hallucination. I’ve been known to hallucinate when I’m in this state.
I shut myself back into the tiny bedroom and allow my mind to wander to Hawkins. How much I’d like to kick his ass again. But when the plane lands at the airport behind the Love Inc. ranch, I’m shaking and I just need to find someone to fuck.
I call Rachelle and tell her to put Missy in my suite at the main house. I also tell her to put one of the guards outside her room.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” I say before I end the call, even though I know I won’t be any better tomorrow.
After aiming Missy—Meredith, she said her real name is—toward the main house, I hurry around the pond, to my garden house, and slam the door. I feel a little more relaxed, but I’m still geared up. My clothes feel itchy, so I peel them off and throw on a robe.
Then I call Ansley’s, a discreet escort service I used to use, years ago, before I decided it was bad for business. I order three women, all with short, dark hair, and spend the next few hours trying to escape myself.
When they leave, I stumble into the bathroom, dressed in nothing. I look at myself in the mirror and I see someone I’ve never seen before. I try to pull the wrong hair out and try to wash the wrong face off, but it doesn’t work. In fact, I’m bleeding now.
From somewhere very far away, I remember Dr. Libby telling me to take some Ativan if this happens. So I take some. I can’t remember how many, so I settle on five, and now it’s getting dark.
7
SURI
I stare out the floor-to-ceiling window that serves as one of my small bedroom’s four walls. The view is post-card pretty. Dusky, golden light twinkles off a large, heart-shaped pool. All around the pool are iron chairs and ferns. Behind that, shadowed by the setting sun, is a grove of oak trees so large I can hardly see their tops. Through the shadows, past a few weeping willows and a beautiful pond, are two rows of cottages. English-style, so stone, with wooden shingle roofs and lots of wildflowers all around the front porches.
I feel like I’m at a resort, but that’s just a façade. Because this isn’t a resort, and I can’t really enjoy these beautiful grounds. In fact, I haven’t enjoyed myself since we arrived yesterday afternoon.
That’s because the resort is Love Inc.
Marchant Radcliffe’s brothel.
Cross is recovering, aided by the open bar in the first floor lobby. We came here for him—so Lizzy and I could keep an eye on him while he recovers from the loss of “Merri”—but so far, the place doesn’t seem to be helping him at all, and neither are we.
Meredith is the real name of Missy King, one of Cross’s father’s former mistresses—one who got caught up in a terrible situation and ended up sold as a sex slave in Mexico.
I’m still not clear on all the details, but somehow Cross found out about her fate and went south to try to find her. He did, but after they made it to America, she disappeared again.
He isn’t actually married to her. That was just a lie they told at the hospital.
The weird thing is, I’m pretty sure Cross wishes it was true.
I don’t know for sure, because he won’t talk to me. He won’t talk to anybody. He’ll hardly even come out of his room on the second floor. If Lizzy and I want to see how he’s doing, we have to knock for ages before he might open the door—and if he does, he’s red-eyed and solemn. Like he’s mourning for this woman. Which I guess he is. Clearly, he is.
I watch some uniformed employees pull a sheet of cement over the pool—they seem to be turning it into a dance floor—and wish the Cross thing didn’t bother me. I shouldn’t care that Cross has fallen hard for this girl. It’s not my business, and besides, no one even knows where she is. I hope she’s okay, and I should hope she pops back up, but if I’m totally honest with myself, I hope she stays away. I don’t know much about her other than her unfortunate situation in Mexico, but…at one point she was seeing Cross’s father. That’s just sleazy—right?
Why doesn’t Cross think so?
I lean my head a
gainst the window and sigh. My breath makes a fog circle on the glass, obscuring the backyard, so all I can see is the fading gold of sunlight and a bunch of shadows. It suits my mood.
Somehow, I got stuck with Lizzy and Hunter in this huge suite Marchant built for Hunter back when this place first opened and the boys were living out their frat house fantasy.
The suite is large enough for three, I guess—it has four bedrooms—but it’s still awkward, sharing space with them. I feel like a third wheel.
This is made worse because I know Lizzy is keeping something from me. I’m not sure what, but she never hangs around to talk to me when Hunter goes into the Love Inc. library to work. She grabs her laptop and says she’s going off somewhere in the building to work herself, on her master’s thesis; she’s trying to complete it at a distance, and I get that…but it’s weird that she doesn’t want to spend any time with me. We’re best friends, remember?
My breath on the window dissipates, and I see a cluster of beautiful women spill around the pool. They’re talking animatedly about something—I can hear their voices through the glass—and my heart catches when I realize the woman at the center of the group is Lizzy.
I swallow hard and tell myself to grow a thicker skin. She’s doing her ethics thesis on the escorts here, so of course she needs to talk to them. Besides, they’re her friends now—right?
She introduced me to most of them almost as soon as we arrived here. And when we came back to the room, I was withdrawn and quiet because I feel kind of uncomfortable around these confident, extroverted women who see things so differently than I do.
Lizzy knows me. She could probably tell I was uncomfortable, so she’s hanging out with them solo. What’s the point of inviting me?
I sit back on my king-sized bed and think of Cross, occupying the single room nearest to the stairs, one floor up.
I could check on Cross.
I will check on Cross. He’s probably in his room brooding. But he’s the reason I’m here, after all. And if he doesn’t answer the door, I’ll go do some yoga by the pond.
I dress in black yoga pants and a pink sleeveless shirt, plus my sneakers, and I’m out the door in just a few minutes.
I knock twice on Cross’s door before he answers. My heart jumps into my throat. He hasn’t answered my knocks since we’ve been here. All I want is for our friendship to go back to normal. The door swings open, and I find myself staring at a young, blonde girl.
I frown. “Meredith?”
She shakes her head. “Lucy. I’m cleaning up.”
“Oh, so Cross is gone?”
“I guess so. The room is empty.”
It smells like a bar. I feel sorry for the girl. “Okay…well, thanks.”
She nods and closes the door, and I’m not sure what to do with myself now. I make a slow circle on a red runner covering the hardwood. There’s another one of those big, floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the hall. I can see Lizzy by the pool with her escort friends. I tell myself I could be out there with her, if I hadn’t acted so reserved—okay, antisocial—last night.
I can’t help remembering the conversation Lizzy and I had before she came to Vegas: me, telling her that sex should be with someone you really care about, and Lizzy insisting that it didn’t have to matter so much. Now Lizzy’s met her soul mate and I’m alone, letting drunk strangers get me off in bathrooms, no less.
How the tables have turned…
Maybe what bothers me most is that every other second I’m here, I’m thinking about Marchant Radcliffe. It’s not what he said or how he behaved that’s the problem. It’s that he caught my eye at all. Because that’s what enabled him to hurt me with that nasty comment in the hospital hall. I let him in. I, Suri Dalton, am addicted to drunken assholes.
I rub my eyes and head back downstairs, where I plan to take a side door and an indirect route to the pond. As I walk, I keep my eyes peeled for Marchant Radcliffe, while my mind regurgitates the scene from the Wynn bathroom.
The old Suri would never do something like that. She had pride. And poise.
“I had pegged you for lonely, not desperate…”
I bite my lip.
I head through the main hall, a massive, rug-covered area filled with bookshelves, couches, and cozy alcoves where the women and men who work here meet their clients, before then taking clients back to their rooms. I hurry past the open bar and past the elevator shaft, headed for a door that’s topped with a glowing, red EXIT sign on what I think is the side of the building.
I’m bursting through the door, already feeling the soft heat of the night on my cheeks, when someone yelps.
I take a big step back and find myself staring at a red-haired woman. She’s petite, with huge breasts, an hourglass waistline, and a fine-boned face. She has twinkling green eyes, traces of dimples on either side of her mouth, and she’s wearing an elegant, green wraparound dress. Obviously an escort.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, stepping back, onto a little garden path.
“That’s okay. It was probably my fault.” I stare at her face for a second before my hands fly to my mouth. “Oh my God, I know you! You’re that nurse! You’re an escort, too?”
It’s rude to blurt it out this way, but my mouth moves before my brain can stop it.
And then, while her face twists and her mouth opens wordlessly, my brain makes a furious lunge forward.
This woman has red hair.
Lizzy told me ‘Meredith’ has red hair.
“Oh my God. You’re Missy King!”
“Meredith,” she whispers, wide-eyed.
“Wow.” So this is her: Cross’s Meredith. My gaze sweeps her small, taut body, and I can’t help comparing myself to her. Cross didn’t even want to kiss me, and he wants to marry her. As my eyes sweep her body, she takes a wobbly step back. She’s about to turn, to go, but all I can think about is the one glimpse I’ve had of Cross today, late this morning when Lizzy pried the door open and I peeked in: Cross, lying in his room, propped up on pillows, sipping something alcoholic and playing solitaire on his phone. “Have you seen Cross yet?”
She bites her lip, and I forge ahead—for Cross’s sake. “He misses you so much. And yeah, if you were wondering, I’m okay with that.” My failed attempt at seducing Cross came up when I babbled to the “nurse” in the supply closet, so I’m sure she thinks I’m in love with her man. “Cross is one of my very best friends, and I just want him to be happy. I think he would be, if he knew that you were here. Does he know?”
She steps back a little more. “I haven’t talked to him.”
“So…are you?”
Her green eyes meet mine, and my heart sinks before she opens her mouth. “Listen…I’m just laying low here for a while. Until I get my life together again. It has nothing to do with Cross. I didn’t even know that he would be here.”
“Do you care about him?” I ask bluntly.
Her eyes burn. “I care very much about him, but there’s lots of baggage between us. Lots of…obligation.” Her mouth twists downward.
“Well I can tell you this. He really seems to care about you, and I’m sure you know, he’s been through a lot. Be careful with him, okay?”
She nods, tears filling her eyes, and dashes off between the trees, toward what I’m pretty sure is the escorts’ dormitory.
My stomach is in knots as I walk the other way, into the bushes I hope will hide me from Lizzy and everyone at the pool.
I’ve heard there’s a large, shrubbery maze to the left of the pond, before you reach the cottages. It’s a unique feature, so I tell myself my aimless nighttime walk has an educational purpose. That I’m not just running from my troubles.
I breathe deeply as I move under massive weeping willows and between carefully manicured snap roses. Despite the turmoil in my heart, I can’t help but feel impressed. This place might be a cesspool of sex-for-pay, but the grounds and the interior design are stunning. I tell myself they have to be, to keep the clients coming—h
ar de har—but I can’t help wondering if the lavish grounds say more about Marchant Radcliffe than that he’s a good salesman.
What kind of guy is he, other than one who drinks?
I think back on what Lizzy and Hunter have been murmuring about him since that day at the hospital. Hunter thinks he’s doing drugs, and Lizzy thinks he has anxiety or something. Apparently, since he left the hospital that day, no one’s really seen him. He’s not answering calls from anyone but Rachelle, the woman who helps him run the ranch, and he won’t answer the door to his private cottage when Hunter knocks.
Lizzy says he’s drowning in gambling debt because he can’t stay away from blackjack. So he’s a gambler and a drinker. Isn’t that lovely?
I wonder what made Adam a drinker. Was it anxiety? I think that was a big part of it.
My thoughts are wandering to what my parents think about the news that Adam and I split, when I step out from beneath a copse of oak trees and I see the shrubbery maze, twisting like a square worm in the darkness. A few more steps, and I can see the shrubs are tall—easily taller than six feet—and in the warm breeze, their little leaves dance.
It would be stupid to go into a maze as it’s getting dark. I’d probably get lost. And yet, I step in. The situation resembles my life right now so much, I almost hope I will get lost, just so I can have to work my way back out.
8
SURI
By the time I get back into our suite, I’ve decided that I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m not helping Cross, I’m not spending any time with Lizzy, and I’m startling at every turn, worried about whether an encounter with Marchant Radcliffe would result in me slapping him or jumping his bones.
I’m tucking clothes into my suitcase, about to put in a call for the plane to get me in the morning, when the door opens and Lizzy sticks her head inside.
