by R. K. Lilley
"What? What the hell is that supposed mean?"
"It means I'm a loser. I don't do anything. I don't contribute. I'm living here, in a mansion, and I've done nothing to earn it."
"That's bullshit. You're a high school student. That's your job right now."
That was laughable. I was a C student on a good day, when I was actually trying.
Most days I didn't even try. My mind tended to wander as soon as a teacher started talking.
"I don't deserve any of this, Dante. I don't deserve to be here."
"Deserve? What does that even mean? And if you don't deserve to be here, I don't either."
It was so outrageous I almost felt slighted by it. Insulted. "Please. Look at you, with your perfect GPA, your scholarships, your college applications, your SAT scores, your popularity, your football, your perfect everything. You belong here, in a house like this, in a life like this. The only thing about you that doesn't fit in here is that, for some reason, you want to be with me."
That got to him. I'd been bringing up a sore spot of mine, but I saw I'd rubbed us both wrong. His voice when he spoke was derisive. Offended. "None of that's for me. You think I enjoy any of it? And do you think I have a choice? Those things are the bare minimum that's expected of me, the Durant heir, and even that is not enough. And you're not a fucking Durant charity case. You might as well be a Durant. You will be someday, because you're never leaving me. Not happening."
That did something to me, played havoc with my heartstrings, made me become more agitated and go soft. It was nothing so much as a hostile, backhanded proposal of marriage, but sucker that I was, it still made me melt.
I was flushing as I tried to get back on topic. "I'm keeping the job."
His lips curled. He looked like he wanted to punch a wall. "Fine," he bit out. "But I'll drive you to and from."
I didn't argue the logistics of it with him. I'd won. It was enough. I didn't need to rub it in his face.
All that fussing aside, talking about having a job and the reality of it were two different things. After four days waiting tables, I wanted to quit. Pure stubbornness was all that kept me from it.
People were rude, men were gross, and the manager was a lech.
It was an old-fashioned diner with a pretty simple menu, but it seemed like I did nothing but screw orders up for at least the first week.
And worse, much worse than any of that, five days into the job Harris found me.
He didn't do anything I could take real exception to at first. He just occupied a booth in the corner, ordered cup after cup of coffee, pretended to work on a laptop, and watched me.
For hours.
I tried my best to serve and then ignore him, but the barest amount of small talk was required for the job, even for him.
"Do you bring your work here often?" I asked him begrudgingly the first day he did this.
He smiled warmly. "Every day."
Oh joy.
I asked my manager, Brett, about that at the end of the shift. He was an overweight, middle-aged man that I was 100% sure had hired me because he thought I was attractive and he liked having eye candy around.
As always when he spoke to me, he addressed my breasts instead of my face. "I think he's been in once or twice. Be nice to him. Don't charge him for coffee. Police discount."
I tried not to roll my eyes, and complied.
"Do you ever eat?" I asked Harris on his third day of stalking me out in the open.
He sat back in his seat, biting his lip. Something new had entered his eyes. Something I did not like. "That an invitation? You want to grab a bite to eat with me after your shift?"
I blushed, blushed like an innocent fool. I could tell he got off on it, and I wanted to kick myself. "I have a boyfriend," I muttered and hurried away.
He never did more than watch me. He never had the opportunity. Dante was true to his word, he dropped me off and picked me up every single shift. I was more thankful for it than I'd been anticipating.
After the first day of Harris eye-fucking me for three hours, he was there when Dante showed up to get me. The two men had a volatile stare down but that was it. Harris made sure to leave before Dante showed up again. He was oily slick.
It put me in a bad position. Harris wasn't doing anything, so there were no actions I could take to stop him.
I told myself that I was bothered by him because I allowed myself to be bothered.
I wanted to tell Dante about him, but how could I? It would prove his point, and besides and above that, there was not a damn thing he could do about it.
There were a few times Harris stepped over the line, but even then it was a tenuous thing, and in a game of his word against mine, mine meant shit to anyone that could've done something about it.
I was a few weeks into this. I was at that point where I hated it, but I wasn't done fighting for it; my cursed stubbornness at its most counterproductive.
Harris was doing his usual routine, inhaling bad coffee and unabashedly watching me.
It was a particularly dead day, and the slowest part at that. There was a half hour window between the after school rush and the late dinner crowd where we rarely had more than three customers sitting at a time. On this day there was only one.
My stalker cop. I was refreshing his coffee when he said, voice low and dirty, "You sucked your boyfriend's dick today, didn't you? I can tell. Your lips are swollen. Was it this morning? You're living with him, right? Did you wake him up with your mouth around his cock?"
I'd frozen at the first sentence. Literally. I'd been pouring his coffee and I just kept pouring, overfilling the cup until it ran in a slow dribble onto the table.
I was mortified, face flushing in embarrassment and building temper. And he wasn't finished.
"Or was it in the car on the way over? Did he pull over to the side of the road and give you a throat-full right before he dropped you off for your shift?"
That made me blush harder, because it wasn't far off from the truth.
Had he been following us, or was it really that obvious?
"You're disgusting," I told him with heartfelt venom.
"Careful. Remember that you don't want to rile me."
I stormed away and refused to serve him for the rest of the shift. I just let him sit there, glaring at me.
Later, when I'd collected my composure and calmed my rage enough to talk about it, I told on him to my manager.
It fell on deaf ears. Or rather, ears that could not have cared less.
"Don't piss him off. The last thing I want is trouble from the police," was all he said.
Two strikes, I told myself. One more and I was quitting.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
~Lao Tzu
PRESENT
DANTE
Scarlett woke up moody and cross after about four hours of sleep. She had to be on set again. I'd selfishly deprived her of sleep and she let me know it.
When I tried to shower with her, she locked me out of the bathroom.
I was repentant . . . to a point. I was sorry she was exhausted, but I also knew it'd been unavoidable. She was lucky to have gotten any sleep at all.
I was driving her to the studio before she spoke the thing on both of our minds.
"What does Adelaide have on you? Tell me."
I tried not to let my face so much as twitch. "You want to do this now? On your way into a long day of work?"
She didn't answer, which was answer enough. This role was important to her. Even at her most self-sabotaging, she wasn't going to screw it up. And aside from the previous night's unavoidable, sleep-depriving gluttony, I wouldn't be screwing it up for her, either.
"Tonight," she stated stonily, a faint but unmistakable hint of a threat in her voice.
And I knew what the threat was. Of course I did. I needed to talk, or poof, she was gone.
"Tonight," I agreed. "Are your roommates still on a trip?"
"Yes. They come back late tomorrow."
This next part I didn't like. It went against the grain of every instinct I had. But I'd rarely balked at doing what needed to be done. "When they're home, you sleep at your apartment." My tone was careful. I was going for neutral, but it came out more than a touch pained.
I felt her staring at me. Her eyes were burning a hole into the side of my face.
I kept my gaze resolutely on the road.
"Okay," she said simply.
She wasn't even going to ask? I hated that. Hated that she might not really care, that somehow she could go even one more night without me and not need a reason why.
I'd spent many, many nights without her, but I'd always, always, had my reasons and known them too well.
But if she was going to let it drop, I had to let her. I had so many blows to deliver. I needed to pull punches whenever, wherever, however I could.
Maybe if I could space out the damage it would do less lasting harm to her.
One could hope. I was less a man for wishing and more a creature of action, but I'd take anything I could get.
The drop-off didn't go well. She tried to dart out of the car without a goodbye, but I stayed her with a firm grip on her wrist.
"A kiss," I told her solemnly. We would get back on track. We had to. I'd been through hell and back, had lost faith in everything except for this, her and me, simply because I had refused, despite every awful thing working against us, to let it go.
Sometimes faith is a choice.
We would get back on track.
She was as far from me as she could get in the restrictive confines of the vehicle.
It was a small car though, a Jaguar F-Type, so we were still pretty damned close.
"Scarlett, just a kiss. I'll behave myself, I promise."
She watched me warily. "I can't, Dante. I don't have any time. I need to keep my game face on here. This role is important to me.
I knew, absolutely knew, that she was just making excuses. It hurt, but I'd been hurt worse.
I told myself that it wouldn't always be this way.
"Just a kiss on the cheek, then, and then we'll say goodbye," I cajoled.
She was worrying at her lip, looking at me like I might bite (because she knew me), but she slowly nodded and leaned a bit closer.
I met her more than halfway, placing a chaste, loving kiss on her cheek, then her forehead, then her other cheek.
Her breath was coming out in little pants, her eyes closed, lips parted.
So much for chaste.
I rubbed our lips together, tongue darting to lick hers tentatively, and then deeper, stroking into her mouth, my hands going to cup her face.
She moaned, deep in her chest, a sound of abject need, and started sucking on my tongue.
I pulled back with a gasp.
Her face was stunned for a moment but it quickly turned into a glare.
I almost smiled. "See you tonight."
"Bastard."
*****
She got home late, and I was waiting up for her. Even if I could have put it off another day, I wasn't sure I wanted to, at this point. I was ready to come clean, to get it all out in the open, at last.
God, it was a long time coming.
Scarlett didn't draw it out. We'd barely cleared the bedroom door when she said, "What does she have on you? Tell me."
I stopped mid-stride, turning to her. She'd gone by her apartment before she'd come over and packed an overnight bag. I'd carried it upstairs for her and still had it clutched in my right hand.
I dropped it on the floor, just staring at her for a minute.
Where to even begin?
I felt my head shake. A slow, precise movement. A little to the right, a little to the left.
It was enough. So simple but so telling.
Her face froze. "That," she said dully. "Of course. For how long?"
"You know," I said.
I watched as comprehension struck. It was a terrible thing.
The look in her eyes would haunt me. To the end of my days. Haunted.
Like everything with us, the hurt cut both ways.
"She made you break up with me." She said it like she didn't quite believe it.
You'd think the truth would be less harmful than the lies I'd told her. But sometimes the truth is the hardest thing to stomach, especially if you knew that some part of you should have seen it all along.
"Of course." Two words. Straightforward. Brutal in their simplicity.
She jerked like she'd been struck, her blinking eyes searching the room frantically, looking anywhere but at me.
"When you made that phone call," she paused, "both of those phone calls," she corrected herself. "She was with you, wasn't she?" Her voice broke on the question, her tone so raw it made my chest ache and my eyes sting.
But I answered her. "Of course."
And there it was.
She staggered where she stood. I was over in a beat, going to her, but I was a second too late. She had collapsed to the floor.
I'd only ever seen her once like this, bowed in on herself. Broken, bent, boneless in her pain. A pile on the floor.
Completely defeated. Destroyed.
Even with the way I'd known, because I had absolutely known, that I'd broken her heart, the pain of it had never made her shoulders less straight. Her pride, which was both the bane of my existence and one of the things that'd saved us both, had only ever left her one time before.
And now.
I scooped her up in my arms and carried her to bed. She was shaking and crying. The sobs quiet but powerful, rocking her entire body in waves until she was convulsing against me.
I'd hurt her, and myself more. I'd had to lie, had to, but I wished I could make her believe one truth: Her pain was always worse for me than my own.
She was inconsolable, sobbing in my arms like her heart was breaking all over again.
Eventually she spoke, haltingly and in near incoherent fragments. "The things we've done to each other. . . . The things we've done to ourselves . . . You don't know . . ."
"It's all in the past," I murmured into her forehead. I was running my hand over her head, over and over, petting her. It was an old familiar gesture, the way I always used to comfort her before our lives had gone to shit. "We can put it in the past and leave it there. We can move on. We will find a way to move on," I told her, the words ringing desperate because I was trying to convince myself, as well.
"You don't know," she sobbed brokenly. "You don't know."
I shut my eyes, old, familiar pain washing over me. My voice was thick with emotion when finally I said, "I do know. We both do now. All that's left is to move forward."
She started shaking her head and didn't stop. "No. No. You don't know. You don't know."
"What don't I know, angel? Tell me. I'll try to fix it, whatever it is."
But she wouldn't say. She was done talking and back to weeping. She was so upset she'd bitten her lips bloody. She didn't seem to notice, her eyes shut tight, but I did.
It was another thing I'd only seen her do one time before.
Quietly and firmly, with my fingers, I made her stop.
"Shh. Shh. It's okay," I soothed her, blotting at her lips with my shirt.
All the while, my heart was breaking all over again.
She didn't ask me any more questions that night, and I was relieved.
We'd both reached our threshold on suffering for the moment.
I hoped that the worst was past us, but I've never had much luck with hope.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
"Life is hard. After all, it kills you."
~Katharine Hepburn
PAST
SCARLETT
"Do you know the kind of trouble that old bitch has gotten me into? Do you even care that you're messing with my career? All I've ever done is care about you and try to do right by
you, and this is how you repay me?" Harris spoke to me in a low, mean voice, pitched quiet enough that his words didn't carry beyond his usual stalking booth in the diner.
That was the first time I started to get a real sense that he was delusional. He seemed to have some idea in his head of what our relationship was, and it was not even remotely close to reality.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said stoically. I started to move away.
"Vivian Durant. She's been prying into my actions, questioning my methods. She went over my head, to my superiors, and, because she's filthy rich, they're listening to her."
Finally an encouraging development. It made me feel brave enough to say, "Good. Maybe you should stop bothering me every day. Maybe you should give up on stalking teenage girls altogether if you don't want to get into trouble for it."
I dodged away when I saw the look on his face. If we'd been alone with him looking at me like that . . . I'd have been very concerned for my safety.
Harris stopped coming to the diner after that.
I thought that was the end of it. I really did. I stopped worrying about him, stopped dreading any possible run-ins, stopped letting fear rule my actions.
Gram had scared him off and that was that. Yay for Gram.
I put him out of my mind.
But Harris was only biding his time. He was patient, and determined, and he held all of the power.
He showed up at school one day. He had no trouble pulling me out of class. All it took was a brief conversation with my English teacher and that was it.
"Scarlett," Mrs. Cowen called. "Detective Harris would like a word."
The girl next to me muttered, "The hot cop is here for you? Lucky girl."
I walked out into the hallway, turning to look at Harris. I folded my arms across my chest, stance belligerent. Expression belligerent. Attitude belligerent.
He killed that little bit of defiance soon enough. "Your boyfriend is finally being charged for that murder. A warrant's been issued and some officers are planning to pick him up at football practice."
