by Anna Bloom
We watch each other as a swirling tornado of uncomfortable silence moves around us.
"What did you take, Sophia?"
Her top lip curls into a snarky sneer. "What’s your role here, Henderson? Security or sober companion? You seem to be getting yourself confused."
I’ve hurt her with my asshole actions I know that. Yet like a collision about to happen I can’t stop myself from making it worse.
I lean towards her, despite the naked skin, despite the warmth radiating from her body, despite the fact I want her so bad it’s hurting every inch of me. "I’ll be whatever I need to be."
Get a goddamn grip, Blake.
The pink blush burning over her skin deepens into a hot red as she springs away. I watch it bloom over the pale skin along her throat. Christ, how much do I want her? It doesn’t bear thinking about. My dick stiffens in my jeans and I’m repulsed.
"You promised me you would tell me the truth." She plays the promise card just like she used to as an adolescent. Back then it was promises to take her to the mall, or the cinema, not divulge the dark secrets I contain.
I snort a burst of laughter and her mouth falls open in surprise. "The truth. I don’t even know if you can handle it."
I need to stop talking, but she’s just bloody standing there in that underwear. All I can think of is that pervert all over her, but then I can only wonder if I would be any different. My entire body wants her, is straining to touch her.
"What?" her eyes widen until the bloodshot whites are glimmering. "What do you mean, handle it?"
It’s some fucked up shit but I want to hurt her. Tell her how it is for me, how it’s been knowing the truth about her since Erica turned up on my door and showed me the evidence. "Someone knows about you, Sophia, knows about just how low your dependency stoops. They’ve been sending blackmail letters threatening to expose your dependency for months, and…" I hesitate, the words sting my throat but I need to get them out. "They know what you do… when you’re high. With Johnny, with other, uh, users."
Her skin, which is already pale and ghostly, fades until it blends with the cotton sheets. "What?" her voice wavers. If it wouldn’t have looked idiotic I’d have punched myself in the head for being a first-class twat. "Do you know what I do?" A tremulous waver lowers her voice until it’s a broken crack.
"I’ve seen the letters and the pictures that came with them."
In truth I wish I’d never seen them, didn’t know the dark ways Sophia finds love when she’s out of her mind on drugs. But I had. And those images will stay with me for life.
Horror widens her eyes and sheer humiliation etches across her face. "How can you bear to look at me?" she says with a shrill piercing cry.
I draw a shuddering breath into my chest. She watches it drag through my airways, her eyes wide. "Okay, lets calm this down, will you let me explain?" I hold my hands up in surrender, softening my tone.
"You can’t lie. Blake, I can’t take anymore lies."
I don’t want to lie. I want to tell her that the reason I can still look at her is because I still love her. Deep down in a forgotten place, I love her. I always had.
Curse me, but I reach for her. That wall with the one missing brick wants to come down.
Sophia trembles, her whole body vibrating against my hands. "I’m just a job, Blake. I know that, but you loved me once, didn’t you? Erica told me."
She draws her bottom lip between her teeth, squeezing the rosy flesh until I think it will bleed. Her eyes swim as she looks up at me.
And then I change everything with seven little words.
"You’ve never been just a job to me."
In my hands, Sophia, the only girl I’ve cared about—cared about too much when I shouldn’t, hadn't cared enough about when I should have—falls apart. Wracking sobs splinter her chest and I pull her tight, holding her firmly, until my own chest is heaving with the rise and fall of hers. My hands stray to her hair, smoothing it with my palms, my fingers skimming a path until her delicate face is once again cradled in my hold. "Sophia," I murmur her name. It’s nothing more than a throwaway prayer, a half-murmured wish I know will never be.
It’s all wrong.
Knowing you are too old and taking advantage is the only useful knowledge when you can use it to stop yourself from doing wrong.
I can’t. My mouth lowers. Every millimetre I have the chance to stop, but I don’t. I clutch her tight as if she will disappear, and lay claim to her lips. Using my hold on her head I tilt her face until she opens for me. Inhaling her breath, the heat of her tongue washes into my mouth and using my own tongue I explore her kiss until she’s limp in my arms.
She shudders and my body lights with a scorching fire until my dick is pulsing against the denim of my jeans.
Counting backwards from five to regain control I break myself free. She’s everything I’ve ever imagined, I’ve ever wanted. Soft and warm, hot and smooth, fiery in her responses. She tries to grab me back but I easily catch her wrists in my hand, lifting them above her head. There I have her, locked in my hold, the fragile bones of her wrists flinching under my firm grip.
"What drugs did you take, Sophia?" I need to know.
A dark flash ripples within the depths of her eyes but she shakes her head. Her lips, bruised from my desperate kiss, part. "I don’t know."
I nod. She wouldn’t lie, if she says she doesn’t know, it’s the truth. Whatever this sick, twisted situation is we’ve gotten ourselves into, I don’t think either of us can lie. Not anymore.
"My question." Her voice wavers and my stomach tightens.
I keep her hands above her head, holding her tight in my grasp. It stirs something dark and restless deep within me. "Yes?"
"Did you love me, Blake? Before? Was Erica telling me the truth for once?"
This is it. The defining moment of our past and our present.
I hold her gaze. "Yes." My answer is more feral growl than spoken words and her eyes widen at the sound of it.
There it is. The truth.
She doesn’t know how obsessed I once was. How I still want to possess every inch of her, how I still love her now. But now she knows once she had been so much more than a job.
To my surprise tears slip down her cheeks, one, then two, until a torrent lands on her freckled bare skin.
"I’m so sorry," she mumbles, wiping at her nose and damp cheeks with the palms of her hands, smearing moisture everywhere. "Sorry that I’ve disappointed you, sorry that I’ve lied to everyone about who I am."
"I’m sorry too, more than you will ever know." I release my hold on her wrists and gather her into my arms, kissing the blonde strands, smoothing the skin of her face.
She’s in my arms, her back pressed against my chest. How we’ve become a tangle of limbs I don’t know. It’s nothing sexual, it’s just us holding one another, two people clinging to a life raft in a sea of hopelessness. Across the bed are the letters Erica brought to my house and the others that have arrived since.
"Someone wants to destroy you, Soph. What they did at your home, they were trying to drag you back into your twisted world and they nearly did—you ran straight to him and offered yourself over without a thought. Whoever it is must have known the cravings would be too much." I grimace at the thought of her unconscious and lying underneath the bastard. What is wrong with him? Is he just as fucked up as her?
"I fell again." Her voice wavers and I run a hand through her fine pale hair. It feels like silk against my skin and I stop myself from taking the touch further. Sophia is bound so tight in her own secrets. If this is the path we are now on, we need to unravel one another slowly until the mess we’ve made is tidied away and we can be free. "I only ever wanted someone to want me." Her confession snaps my universe in half.
I’m the one she’s talking about. If I’d kissed her that night five years ago, if I’d told her how I’d felt, she would never have walked this path of destruction. She would never have lost her self-respect. Instead, I’d
left thinking I was doing the right thing—taking the moral high ground. That ground had crumpled and fallen beneath us both.
I’m her trigger.
Self-loathing runs through me like an out-of-control stampede.
"It’s okay," I soothe, my lips close to her ear. "I won’t let anyone get that close again and you, you can heal. We’ll make sure no one knows the truth. I’ll protect you from everything." I would promise her the world if I could. I’d hand it to her in the palm of my hand.
She sniffs every so often as we sit in a tangled embrace with silence lapping around us "Who knows about the condo, Soph? Someone must."
"No one. I promise. Just Jacobs, Erica, and the cleaner, but the cleaner doesn’t know it’s mine. I’m careful not to leave anything personal around."
"How did you hire the cleaner?"
She sighs. "I asked Johnny’s PA to call an agency."
"So, Johnny knows?" Acid burns my throat at the mention of his name.
"No. Jemma did it as a favour, then once the contract was in place I called and pretended to be her and changed the address I’d originally given."
I nod slowly. She was thorough but it wouldn’t take much for a personal detective to dig and find what they needed. Everyone had a price in Hollywood—even Sophia herself.
I can’t stop thinking about Johnny. Would he be twisted enough to try to blackmail her into continuing with her dark ways? My gut says yes, but my head when I look at the letters tells me this is a personal vendetta.
One thing is clear. There is someone out there who wants Sophia to pay. Pay for what, I don’t know.
"The detectives are going to want to talk to you."
She gives a small nod.
"Sophia, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I should have done as soon as I came back. I just, I just."
"Just what?" She turns her head resting on my chest.
"I just didn’t want to jeopardise your recovery. Guess I fucked that up. And." I allow a small sigh to escape my lips. "I guess I didn’t want you to know that I knew what you’d been doing."
"Do I repulse you?" Pale blue eyes find mine.
"No."
"Why did you leave before, Blake? It hurt when you left. I had no one."
My eyes shutter and I wince. No more lies. "Sophia, I’m eight years older than you. You were seventeen. How do you think that made me feel? I repulsed myself."
"But you’re still eight years older than me, you always will be, even when we are grey and old."
"But now you can be old enough to know what you want."
"And what happens if I want you now, still?" She turns a little, her lips curving at the edge.
"I don’t know. I can’t protect you and be with you. It’s one of the fundamental rules of being a protector."
A wane smile spreads across her lips. "What if I hired another bodyguard?"
I shake my head. No chance in hell I’m leaving her safety in the hands of another—not again.
"Soph." I nudge her but then my face falls as I think of the predicament we are in. "I can’t walk away again either."
Sighing, like I’ve promised her the world, she relaxes against me, our breathing in sync just like we’re practising yoga. "Erica said if I break the contract with the studio it will all be over." She spins her rings, fiddling. Her withdrawal from last night’s high seems mild. But I know from watching others go through this it takes longer than one morning.
"What do you want to do?"
I wait for her to speak—it takes an age. "Blake, I want it to be over. I don’t want to live a lie anymore."
Chapter Seventeen
Sophia
I have calls to make.
First to my counsellor at the centre. It isn’t a great conversation but she agrees to my plan.
Then to Charlie. I tell her I’m stepping back, that I need more time. She tells me I’m a fool.
Third to Ted Stein. Most of what he says doesn’t need repeating.
Fourth to Johnny. I tell him it’s over; that I will never play our games again. I should have told him this the day I came out of rehab. I should have stuck to it. That’s on me. Not him.
Fifth to Sarah, it’s just an answerphone, a voice not Sarah’s telling me to leave a message. So, I do, I tell her what’s happened and that I hope I have the strength to clean it all away.
My first relapse and the fallout has been spectacular. This time though I haven’t ended up in rehab. Haven’t nearly ended my life with the cut of a blade in sheer desperation. I know what the difference is between this time and last. Blake. He’s saved me just like he always said he would.
I’d run away from him, angry and burned, but I’d known in my heart he’d find me and save me.
Now we are uncovering our secrets one slow step at a time.
"Here." He tugs on my hand as we stand outside the condo. Police tape flutters across the doors as if someone has died inside. I guess in a way there has been a demise—my career. Davies has called. He wasn’t on my own call list but I’m on his. The press has the story of my relapse, where from, no one knows, but it’s out there, circulating and he thinks it will break. Davies doesn’t know how it’s going to spin. I’ve got a pretty good idea.
I shiver and Blake reaches out his other hand, his fingers tightly closed over a small object. "What is it?" I ask.
When he turns his hand palm up, there settled on the rough skin is the GPS bracelet I’d flung onto a bedroom floor, five years before. The bracelet that connected him and I.
The bracelet I remember searching for on my wrist only the previous night.
Lifting an eyebrow, I quiz him with a glance. "I thought you weren’t leaving my side." That feels good to say and a faint smile curves on my lips—my head still pounds with every move I make so I’m not going to be performing celebratory cartwheels at this new development—not yet at least.
"I’m not," his eyes burn with stomach flipping intensity. "but you have a remarkable skill at escaping me."
"I’m not running again."
"Sure." He chuckles a little and despite my banging headache, and the remnant of the drugs in my system pulling me on the mother of all downers, I chuckle too.
"I’m going to call Sloane and get him to step up his investigation into the letters."
"Who’s Sloane?"
"Uh, Sloane gets me jobs when I need them, but he’s very good at ferreting out information." He grabs my hand and it’s electric. Blake Henderson is actually holding my hand. Somewhere unicorns skip over a rainbow in delight. "Let’s go pack some stuff and then we can get on our way." He turns, his face still hesitant. "Are you sure about this, Sophia?"
"Yes." I’ve never been surer. Blake has offered me an out, an escape, but that isn’t all he’s offered to me. Wordlessly he has given me the thing I need most—time. Time to sort myself out. Time to work out what it is that I want. Time to try to find myself.
He loved me once and I want him to love me again, but I want to be the clean girl that once captured his heart. I can’t do that in Hollywood. So yeah, maybe Charlie is right, maybe I’m a fool giving it all up, but I wanted a stab at the one thing I’ve never had. Love. And I will do anything to give it a shot.
The condo still smells of smoke and Blake hesitates on the threshold. "Are you okay with this?" I think he wants to run ahead performing ninja rolls as he sprays the place with air freshener.
"Yes." My voice sounds more confident than I feel. An uneasy sweat prickles the back of my neck, but I step across the threshold. Everything looks nondescript. You’d never know the place had been violated only the day before. Blake keeps one arm tight around my waist as he pulls his mobile phone from his pocket. I take the sneaky opportunity to absorb the sight of him. It’s as if I’m using my eyes for the first time. A dark shadow lines his jaw and he scrubs his fingers against the rough stubble. Purple shadows bruise under his eyes and I know I’m the one who put them there. Whatever pain and withdrawal I’m going through, I’m making it
just as excruciating for him. I place a hand on his arm. Strong muscles roll under my touch and a spark of heat settles in my stomach. He flinches at my direct touch but doesn’t move away. My mouth dries and I run tentative fingers up his arm. "Blake, I’m sorry. Sorry I’ve put you through this, you’re exhausted and it’s my fault."
I wait for him to make a quip about it being part of the job, but he doesn’t.
"We’ve done the sorry’s." His eyes graze my face with a look of tenderness, his firm mouth softening. "Let’s try not to have to do them again."
"What you saw, it was wrong." It’s so wrong it’s impossible to put it into words.
His head shakes. "I saw a young girl being taken advantage of." His fingers lift my chin and I duck my head, hiding my burning face. His touch scorches against my skin bringing my senses alive from the rubble of desolation they’ve been lost in.
"I’m not the innocent party, Blake." Shame colours my face and sweat slicks my palms. He shrugs as if my guilt is of little consequence to him.
"None of us are innocent, Sophia, none of us, but what he was doing was wrong." Blake’s face immobilises into a mask of fury at the mention of Johnny.
I have a million non-innocent thoughts running through my head. What would it be like for him to kiss me, again? Touch me, have me?
Those impenetrable blues watch intently as I flush with my runaway mind.
Holding my hand, his fingers linking with mine, he leads me to my room. It will take me all of thirty seconds to pack. Then we will be gone.
"Motherfucker." The expletive booms from his mouth. He tries to block me but he can’t and I dart around his bulking form to see the mess on the bed.
A pile of cocaine wrappers scatter across the duvet and in the middle is a picture of me. Me with Johnny. My eyes are closed, my arms above my head which is tilted back in ecstasy as Johnny kisses my neck. I know it’s not his kisses painting the expression of wanton abandon on my face; it’s the drugs burning through my veins.
