by J. Kenner
"How was Chicago?" I ask, postponing the inevitable.
"Productive." He takes my hand and leads me around to the couch. "I was able to convince David to talk to me--he agrees that Sofia doesn't need to be out on her own. She has too many issues, and without her meds . . . " He trails off. I don't bother telling him that I know. And that I agree one hundred percent.
"David let her crash at his apartment here in LA. She's not there now--I checked--but I know what name she's using, so it's just a matter of time."
"What's the name?" I ask.
"Monica Karts. The last name is an anagram," he says.
"I know. It took me a moment, but I figured that out."
"A moment? I just told you."
"No," I say. "She told me. I've known her for a while now. Just casually. Someone to chat with at the Starbucks near my office."
He bursts to his feet, but I take his hand and tug him back down. "Wait. I need to say something, and I need to do it fast. It's why I came by, so please--please just let me get this out, okay?"
I can see the concern in his eyes, and it breaks my heart. But I tell myself there's no other choice. I've been over all my options, and I simply don't see a way clear that doesn't lead straight to Damien being destroyed.
For so long, he's been the one protecting me. This time, I'm doing whatever I can to protect him.
I draw in a breath, both for courage and to try to quell the way my body is trembling. My stomach twists violently, and I'm certain I am going to be sick. I shove it all down. I have to do this. I have to. I imagine that scalpel tight between my fingers and then, in what I have to acknowledge as bitter irony, I cling even tighter to Damien's hand, fighting that craving for a blade. For the pain.
"I can't do this anymore," I finally manage to say. "I can't live with the secrets and the half-truths and the obfuscation."
I see shock in his eyes, then pain, and my heart twists.
Very slowly, very carefully, he says, "What are you talking about?"
"Sofia. She was in those photos and you didn't tell me. Richter abused both of you together and you didn't tell me. And you did kill Richter, Damien. You killed him to protect her." I do not look at him. I cannot let him see that I do not blame him.
"Everything I told you about that night was true," he says. I can hear the tight grip he has on control. Any tighter and it will shatter. "All I did was leave out the reason for the fight."
"Sofia."
"He was going to start whoring her out." The words are as rough as sandpaper. "The son of a bitch was going to whore out his own daughter."
"I see." I speak calmly even though my blood runs cold. "But that doesn't--that doesn't change anything." I am wishing for some sort of solution to fly down from the sky. For a magical bubble to swoop in and carry us off. But there is no bubble. There is only cold, hard reality. "I meant what I said. I can't--I can't do this anymore."
I feel the lie pressing against me. I grab it and wrap it tight around me like a cloak. Because I need this lie. This lie has the power to save Damien even as it is ripping me apart. "I can't live knowing that there are more and more secrets underneath," I continue with my rehearsed words. "I can't go on pretending the shadows don't bother me."
"Nikki." His voice is tight and controlled, but I think I hear a hint of panic underneath, and my heart twists. All I want to do is hold him. All I want is to feel his arms around me.
I stand, afraid that if I don't get out of there fast, I will back down. And I can't risk destroying Damien. Not when I'm the one who can save him. "I need to go. I--I'm sorry."
I turn and hurry toward the elevator, but he doesn't let me get away. He grabs my elbow to stop me, and I jerk it back. "Dammit, Damien, let me go."
"We are going to talk about this." The veneer of shock that had been all over him only moments before has changed to something brash and volatile. I see the anger building in his eyes, about to explode out past the pain, the hurt, the confusion.
"There's nothing to talk about. Everything is a secret with you. Everything is a challenge. Everything is a game. This stuff about Sofia. That crap you pulled with Lisa." It is both easy and hard to say these words. Easy, because they are true. Hard, because though his secrets and shadows drive me nuts, I have accepted them as part of the man that I love. And now I am turning that around, bastardizing it in order to create an escape route.
But I have to. I just need to remember that I have to.
"Goddammit, Nikki, do not come in here and dump this on me and expect me to shrug it off and be done with you. I love you. I am not letting you walk out of this room." His wounded eyes are scanning my face, and I know I have to get out. Have to run before he sees the truth under this mountain of lies.
"I love you, too," I say, because it is the only truly honest thing I've said since I walked in this room. "But sometimes love isn't enough."
I see the shock on his face, and I turn and hurry again toward the elevator. This time, he doesn't follow, and I don't know if I'm relieved or brokenhearted.
I step on, keeping my chin high and my eyes wide and dry. Then, as the elevator doors snick shut, I see Damien fall to his knees, his face a mask of pain and horror and loss.
I slide down the polished wall and, finally, lose myself to the violent shaking of my sobs.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I keep Sofia's scalpels, and every time Damien calls I squeeze my hand tight around the cylindrical handle of the largest one as I force myself not to answer the call. As I tell myself I cannot call him back no matter how much I crave his voice, his touch. And then, in the silence when the ringing stops, I stare at the gleaming blade and wonder why I don't do it. Why I don't just use this blade and set free all of this shit that's boiling inside me, vile and violent.
I fight it back, though. I force myself not to cut.
But I no longer know what I'm fighting for, and I'm desperately afraid that my strength will give out, and one day I will press that blade against my skin, that I will feel the tug of yielding flesh, and that I will finally succumb. I am afraid that I will have to, because there is no other way to live without Damien.
I have not gone to my office for over two weeks now. At first, Damien called me five times each day. Then he dropped to four daily calls for a few days, then three. Now the calls have stopped altogether and the lure of the blade is even more potent.
I know that Jamie and Ollie are worried about me. That doesn't take a great intellectual leap to figure out because they have both flat out said as much.
"You need to get out," Jamie says one afternoon as I am on my bed, staring blankly at all the newspaper clippings and bits of memorabilia I was going to use for Damien's scrapbook. "Just to the corner. Just for a drink."
I shake my head.
"Dammit, Nicholas, I'm worried about you."
I lift my head to look at her, and when I do, I see my reflection. My face is gray and there are circles under my eyes. My unwashed hair hangs limp around my face. I do not recognize myself. "I'm worried about me, too," I say.
"Jesus, Nik." I hear fear in her voice, and she comes to sit on the bed beside me. "You're really scaring me. I don't know what to do here. Tell me what you need."
But I can't. Because what I need I can't have.
What I need is Damien.
"You did the right thing," she says gently. I have told her and Ollie the truth about what I did and why I broke it off. I couldn't keep the secret any longer. I have not told Evelyn that we broke up, but she heard the news anyway. I have not taken her calls; I'm too afraid of what she will say.
"But, Nik," Jamie continues, "now it's time to let yourself heal."
"I just need time," I manage to say. "Time heals, right?"
"I don't know," she whispers. "I thought so, but now I just don't know."
I don't know how many days have passed when Ollie shows up in my bedroom, his expression grim. "Come on," he says, taking my arm and tugging me to my feet.
"What the--"
"We're taking a walk."
"No." I jerk my arm back.
"Goddammit, yes." He grabs a baseball cap from the shelf in my closet, crams it onto my head, then tugs me toward the door. "Corner store. Ice cream. And I'll fucking carry you there if I have to."
I'm standing now, and I nod. I don't want to go out into the world, but I also don't want to fight. And maybe it will help, though I don't really believe it.
"You fucked up, Nikki," he says once we're on the sidewalk.
I don't look at him. I don't want to hear this. I know I did the right thing; that knowledge is as true to me as the sun that now beats down upon us. That truth is the only thing that's helped me survive.
"I've seen him, you know."
That gets my attention.
"I went with Maynard to the apartment yesterday. He's missed too many appointments, and there was stuff that had to be handled. Signed. Life and business moving on. But, Nikki, Damien's not moving on. He's wrecked. Shit, I think he's worse than you."
I keep my head down and keep walking, but every step hurts me. Every second that I am hurting Damien hurts me. "I don't want to hear this," I whisper.
"Just talk to him. Go see him. Jesus, Nikki, fight for it."
That makes me stop. Makes me turn to him. Makes the anger rise enough that it pushes back the pain. "Goddammit, Ollie, don't you get it? I am fighting. I'm fighting every day not to run back to him. I'm fighting because I love him. And because I do, I can't see him ripped to shreds. You saw how he was in Germany, and that was just a few people who saw those pictures. If those photos get out in the world, it will completely destroy him."
"But, Nik," he says gloomily. "He already is."
The next morning, I pick up the phone. Ollie's words have weighed on me. The dark cloud has pressed against me for too long. The lure of the blade is too sweet.
I can stand it no longer.
"Stark International." It is Sylvia's voice, clear and strong.
"I--oh--I must have hit the wrong button. I thought I dialed Damien's cell."
"Ms. Fairchild." Her voice has lost the businesslike quality. It's gentle now, maybe even a little sad. "He forwarded his cellular calls to the office."
"Oh. Where is he? I'll call the house or the apartment or wherever directly." Now that I have gathered the courage to call, I am determined to do this. I do not know exactly what I intend to say--I haven't thought this out that far--but I know that I need to talk to him. That I need to hear his voice.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Fairchild, I don't know where he is. He left yesterday. No number, no address. He said he was leaving the country. He said he needed time."
I close my eyes and sag down onto the bed. "I see. If he--if he calls, will you ask him to call me?"
"I will," she says. "It will be the first thing I tell him."
In the weeks that follows, I become a gossip hound. I troll websites and Twitter and Facebook and everything else I can think of searching for information about Damien. I find nothing. Nothing except the press speculating about the cause of our breakup.
I've seen nothing about Sofia, either, and so I do not know if Damien located her and got her back to London or if she is still in LA. Because I know Damien, I know they are not together. But I can't help but worry about how Sofia is going to blow when her frustration level from not winning Damien back reaches critical mass.
When yet another Saturday night rolls around again, Jamie is determined to drag me out of my funk. "Popcorn and Arsenic and Old Lace," she says, pointing authoritatively to the couch. "I'll make the popcorn while you set up the movie."
I do not argue. I turn on the television, then dig through the basket of CDs while the local news plays. I'm about to slip the disk in when I freeze.
Damien's face is all over the screen, along with blurred copies of horrific photos that are all too familiar. I realize my hand is over my mouth, and I fear for a moment that I am going to be sick. I stand up, pace, then sit back down again. I need to do something--anything--but I don't know what to do.
"Oh, God." The words are from Jamie, who has come into the living room behind me.
I turn and meet her eyes. "I can't believe she did it. I can't believe that bitch sent those pictures to the press anyway."
"Damien must be a mess."
I nod, then pull out my phone.
"I thought he wasn't there," Jamie says.
I ignore her, keeping my fingers crossed, praying he is no longer forwarding the number.
But it is Ms. Peters, Damien's weekend assistant, who answers the call.
"I'm so sorry, Ms. Fairchild. We haven't heard from him for weeks."
"But the news--he--is he in town?"
I hear the softness in her voice as she says, "I don't know. I wish that I did."
"What else can you do?" Jamie asks, as soon as I've ended the call.
"I don't know, I don't know." I'm pacing the living room, my fingers running through my hair, as I try to think where he could be. I have to find him. I can imagine how wrecked he is, and I can't bear the thought of him suffering through all that alone.
And then, suddenly, I remember. I snatch my phone and turn back to Jamie. "It's okay," I say. "I know how to find him."
The trouble with the phone-tracking app is that it doesn't narrow the area to anything remotely useful. Which is why I'm wandering blind near the Santa Monica Pier. I am thankful--so thankful--that he is back in LA. But I'm beyond frustrated that I cannot find him.
I think that he might be at the Ferris wheel, since he once took me up in it, but when I arrive, there is no Damien. I wander all the way to the end of the pier, check in all the little shops, circle around all the rides.
I cannot find him.
Frustrated, I take off my flip-flops and start schlepping down the beach, but after fifteen minutes of that, I'm no closer to locating him. I cut perpendicular across the beach from the shore to the parking lot and start heading south again, this time through the lot. There aren't many people out, and the lot is thinning, so I have a pretty good view, and I scan the distance looking for Damien's gait, his build, his raven-black hair.
I don't see him.
But I do see his Jeep.
At least, I think I do, and as I say a silent prayer, I take off running across the lot to the black Jeep Grand Cherokee that is parked in a secluded corner. I press my face up to the window so that I can see the interior, and my heart does a twist. It's Damien's all right; there's his phone sitting right on the console.
Now I just have to sit here and wait.
It is a full hour before he returns. I see him walking up from the beach, looking desperately sexy in faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt. I know the moment he sees me. His perfect gait stumbles, and then he pauses. I cannot see his eyes in the dark and from this distance, but I know that he is looking at me. And then he continues forward again, that same long stride, only this time it's just a little bit faster, as if now he has somewhere that he wants to be.
He passes beneath a circle of light thrown by one of the parking lot towers. I see the weariness on his face along with something else. Something harder.
I stand up straighter. I want to run to him, but I hold back, wanting more to watch him. I have missed seeing him move. Hell, I've missed everything.
And then he is here, right in front of me, his face all hard lines and angles, his black eye dark and accusing, and his amber one flat. I gasp, suddenly afraid. My heart pounds, then I cry out as he roughly grabs my arms, and yanks me to him. His mouth slams against mine, his hands closing painfully around my upper arms. The kiss is violent, harsh. A demand and an accusation all rolled into one. He bruises my lips, our teeth clash, I taste blood. And then he pushes me away so swiftly my back slams against the Jeep. "You left," he says. "Goddammit, Nikki, you left."
Tears stream down my face, and I open my mouth to apologize--to tell him I had to, that I didn't have a choice--but then he's pulling me to him again, only t
his time his embrace is soft and his mouth is full of need, consuming me, tasting me, as if he can't quite believe that I'm real. "Nikki," he says when he breaks the kiss. "Nikki, oh, God, Nikki."
I cling to him, my hands in his hair, then press my mouth to his again. I cannot get enough of him. His hands slide over my body, his mouth opens to me. My tongue wars with his. I will never have my fill of him, and all I want is this moment, this reunion. I want to drop down to the asphalt and strip him bare right there, and in that singular moment I do not know how I have survived without him.
Then it hits me--I haven't survived. I have been sleepwalking, not living. Because how can I really be alive without Damien?
"I'm sorry," I say when we finally break the kiss. "I'm so sorry she did that. I can't believe she'd do that. She said if I broke up with you--" I cut myself off. I hadn't intended to tell him that.
"I know," he says flatly. "Ollie told me. He told me what you did, and he told me why you did it."
I'm not sure whether I want to slap Ollie or kiss him, but the conundrum soon evaporates under Damien's touch. He strokes a hand along my cheek, his familiar touch firing nerve-endings throughout my body. "You're a goddamn fool, Nikki Fairchild. And I love you desperately."
I swallow tears and cling to him even tighter, savoring our connection and the way he makes me feel.
His hands roam my back, over my ratty Bermuda shorts, up along the backs of my thighs. I moan, craving a more intimate connection.
"I think maybe we should get in the car." He unlocks it and we climb in. The backseats are down and the area has been filled by a mattress. I glance at Damien, amused. "Roughing it?"
"I haven't wanted luxury. I've been living in motels, the backs of cars. I've been all over Europe and I don't think I've really seen one inch of it."
I swallow. Ollie was right. Damien has been just as broken as I have.
"Tonight, I was going to drive to the desert. I thought I'd sleep under the stars. I thought it might help." He points to the roof. I don't know if it's a standard feature or the billionaire add-on, but there is a huge sunroof over the back of the Jeep.
"It wouldn't have," I say. I know, because nothing would have helped me. Nothing except Damien.
"No," he says. "It wouldn't." His eyes roam over me, and he reaches out tentatively to touch me. "Dear God, Nikki. Are you real?"
