‘Done it’ presumably was a reference to the video. However, she wondered what he meant by ‘if I’d known it would come to this.’ Had someone told him about Bill causing the family to flee to England?
A feeling deep in her gut told her that wasn’t what Chris meant. Somehow, she just knew that something had surfaced online.
She hadn’t Googled herself since that night she’d vowed not to, but Chris’s message compelled her to log on. She searched for her name and immediately found what he was talking about.
Photographs. Photoshopped pornographic photographs. Of her.
Heart beating, Sasha read the corresponding article, which talked of how she sold pornographic photographs to fund her studies. Supposedly, she’d taken the photos during her relationship with Chris. Of course, she’d done this behind his back and without his consent, giving the public more evidence of her deviant and duplicitous personality.
Sasha grabbed a robe and pulled it about her, then paced out into the hall. She called Chris.
“You need to put this right,” she said the second he answered.
“You’ve seen the photos,” Chris said simply.
“How did she even get hold of them?” Sasha cried, assuming immediately that Pippa was behind the whole stunt. “I’m barely eighteen in half of them! What if my mom sees them?”
Chris sighed. “I know. I know. If I could get Pippa to get rid of them, I would. But she’s got some kind of document and—”
Sasha finished his sentence for him. “...she’s gagged you, too.”
Chris sounded sheepish. “Yes.”
“Look,” Sasha said. “Thomas and I are going to take legal action against her. We have a fantastic lawyer in England who’s going to come to Chicago to work on the case. We have enough to get Pippa jailed for harassment. Do you think you’d be able to be a witness if it came to it?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “After what I did to you?’
Sasha thought of Thomas’s power of forgiveness. He’d continued to love his sister through years of turmoil. Chris had betrayed her once, but their friendship had endured for years and that was worth something. It shouldn’t be thrown away.
“I can forgive you.”
She listened to the sound of Chris breathing on the other end of the phone. “I was just so hurt,” he said.
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I do. I thought you were going to come home with me. I thought you’d finally realized that Chicago wasn’t doing you any good. Then he turned up and spoiled it. I wanted to punish you.” His voice had an air of melancholy. “I was wrong.”
“Chris,” Sasha said as gently as she could. “You have to understand it’s over between us. Completely. Forever.” She looked back through the crack in her open door and gazed upon the sight of Thomas in the crisp white sheets, sleeping contently. “I love Thomas.”
“I know,” Chris replied from the other end of the line. “I’m just worried that he doesn’t love you in return.”
In the bedroom, Thomas rolled over.
“That’s my risk to take,” Sasha said into the cell phone. “You can’t protect me from heartbreak.”
Chapter Thirty Four
The meeting with Carla, the lawyer at Aunty Mabel’s late husband’s firm, went well. She felt they had a strong case for harassment, which would put Pippa away for a long time.
They left the swanky office and parted ways. Sasha had promised to take her mom to London, a place she had often said she wanted to see before she died. She was just headed for her taxi when she received a call from someone she hadn’t expected to hear from ever again. Kelly.
“What do you want?” Sasha said the moment she answered.
Kelly cleared her throat. “Don’t worry, this isn’t a social call. I thought you might be interested in a piece your old friend Alicia wrote. It’s about your beloved Thomas Lloyd.”
Sasha clambered into the back of the taxi. “‘My Night of Passion with Hollywood’s Bad Boy?’ No thanks. I found out all the details for myself.”
As the taxi pulled away, Sasha heard Kelly cackle on the other end of the line. “Not that one. The other one. The recent one.”
Sasha frowned. “What recent one?”
She was waiting with anticipation as Kelly lit a cigarette and took a puff. “Oh, didn’t Thomas tell you?” she said on an exhale. “He gave an interview with Alicia after you left him.”
“What?” Sasha felt her spare hand curl into a tight fist. She shut the call off.
Thomas would never just give an interview to Alicia. She was his go-to journalist, the woman he called up when he wanted casual sex. She threw her phone into her purse.
“Turn around,” she said to the driver.
***
“You absolute fucking bastard!” Sasha cried, as she stomped across the lawn.
Olivia looked up alarmed from where she’d been playing with Gertrude. She stood and pulled the dog by the collar into the house.
“What am I supposed to have done?” Thomas said, putting down his cup of tea and looking up from the paper he’d been reading.
“Alicia,” Sasha replied.
Thomas pulled a face. “Oh. That.”
“Yes, that! How could you keep something like this from me?”
Thomas took a sip of his tea. “You and I weren’t together at the time.”
“So you slept with the next available person?”
Thomas didn’t even try to deny it. “Yes. I did. It was easy and I needed comfort.”
Sasha threw her arms up in disgust. “You don’t even like Alicia!”
“So? I don’t like you sometimes, but I still enjoy fucking you.”
“I can’t believe you!” Sasha cried. “You made such a huge deal out of Chris kissing me, but you were hiding this from me the whole time.”
“I tried to tell you,” Thomas said calmly. “Back when we were at your mother’s. You declared that you loved me, and I thought it would be a good time to mention it, but you told me not to say anything. Don’t you remember?”
She did remember. She’d thought Thomas was going to tell her whether he loved her too, and at the time, she just didn’t want to know.
“Your sense of logic is twisted,” Sasha hissed under her breath. “Mom and I are leaving.”
Thomas stood. “What about the court case? We’ve just about finalized everything.”
“What about it?” Sasha cried, flashing angry eyes at him. “Do what you want. Just do it without me.”
She started to storm into the house to look for her mom when Thomas grabbed her by the arm to stop her.
“Think of your mother,” he said sharply. “She’s unwell, and you have nowhere to go, no one to look after her.”
Sasha thought of Chris. She wrenched her arm free. “Yes, I do.”
Chapter Thirty Five
Julia was furious when she found out she had to leave England. She’d grown fond of Aunty Mabel and Gerald, and even had a soft spot for Olivia, who seemed to latch onto her like she was the mother she’d never gotten to know.
“I’m not happy about you pushing me from pillar to post, Sasha,” she’d said. “You need to make your mind up about that man. Either you love him or you don’t.”
“I don’t,” Sasha replied instantly. “I know that now.”
The only bit of Thomas Lloyd she loved was his cock. However, the man attached to it was cold-hearted. They could never have a satisfying future together.
Her mother remained angry throughout the whole flight home. It was only when Chris met them at the airport that she perked up.
“See, Mom, I knew you’d be happy once we got you home.”
Julia glared at her daughter. “We’re not going home though, are we?”
She was right. Sasha just didn’t feel safe going back to their home. She’d arranged for them to stay with Chris instead.
When she saw him, she felt so relieved. They hugged tightly. She had her be
st friend back.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” she said. “I need you, Chris. I need you on my side.”
“I’m on your side,” he replied.
***
Chris had lived in the same house since the end of high school. He’d worked since a young age, saved up, and with some help from his parents, bought the little place at the age of eighteen. Five years later the place had become a home, filled to the brim with his trinkets. He’d played soccer in high school and won quite a few medals that were displayed proudly on a homemade shelf.
“You two can take my room,” Chris said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
As Sasha readied herself for bed, she remembered losing her virginity to Chris here. It had been a tender moment. They were in love, the best of friends, and they respected one another. There was nothing kinky about it, just a moment of amazement as they’d learned for the first time what it felt like to unite in that way. She’d never realized sex could be anything but a beautiful experience between people who loved one another—until she’d met Thomas and learned it could be a frantic, animalistic act between people who loathed and loved one another in equal measure.
Being with Thomas Lloyd had changed her irrevocably and entirely. She would never be the same again. She would never be the innocent girl who liked flowers and candlelit lovemaking. Something had awoken in her. She’d learned what her body was capable of and anything less than what Thomas gave her would never be enough for her again.
She realized then that her mom was wrong. She didn’t need to make her mind up about Thomas at all. She could love him then hate him then love him again. It was part of the thrill. It was part of what made their partnership unique. Her leaving him, him leaving her, her chasing him, him chasing her, her betraying him, him betraying her, it was just a rollercoaster that they were riding together. Without all the drama, it would be boring.
It hit Sasha then that she’d lived her whole life in the same way that she’d experienced her relationship with Chris. She’d always pretended that she was a risk-taker because she’d flown the nest and gone off to college, but really, she’d been taking the sensible route. She’d worked hard so she could get a good, stable job and a nice little income to buy a boring apartment and turn into Kelly drinking wine alone on Friday night with her cat. Every decision she’d made had been sensible, right up until the point she’d met Thomas Lloyd. He’d flipped everything on its head. Nothing would be the same again. And she didn’t want it to be.
Sasha waited for her mom to fall asleep then slipped out of the bedroom, along the corridor, and onto the porch. She took her cell phone with her. Thomas had called fifty times. She called him back.
“At last,” he said.
“You’re persistent.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to make sure you found somewhere to go.”
“Don’t be sorry. Your persistence turns me on.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry?” Thomas said.
“Is this a bad line or something?” Sasha said sarcastically, repeating his words from earlier.
“Sasha, what on Earth has gotten into you?”
“Nothing. And everything.” She shook her head, trying to get her thoughts into some kind of order. “Thomas, I like what we do to each other. I like the drama. The highs and lows. It makes me feel alive.”
“Does that mean you forgive me for sleeping with Alicia?” he said.
“No. But I like hating you as much as I like loving you.”
“That’s fucked up,” came Thomas’s reply.
“But it’s true.”
She listened to the silence of Thomas mulling it over in his mind. “You’re right. Now what?”
“Now you tell me exactly what you did to Alicia. I want a blow-by-blow account. Every lick, every suck, every thrust.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” he said, but he was laughing as he said it.
“I’m comfortable with that. So. Tell me. Take it from the top.”
She heard Thomas inhale. “Well, we were at the Atomic interview. I was pissed at you, and I needed to let off some steam. So I told Alicia to pour us both some wine. I came up from behind and slid my hand inside her blouse—”
“That was me, Thomas,” Sasha interrupted. “You’re confusing it with what happened on the plane.”
“No, I’m not. That’s how I did it with her, too.”
Revulsion coursed through Sasha. “You’re a fucking pig. Were you thinking of her while you fucked me on the plane?”
“Quite the opposite,” Thomas replied. “I was thinking of you while I fucked her. I repeated the whole experience on the plane with you because I wanted that exact experience again, but with the right person.”
Sasha’s rage calmed. “Fine,” she said, coldly. “Go on.”
“Do you need me to? Can’t you picture it now?”
Of course, Sasha could imagine it more vividly since he’d gone through almost exactly the same motions with her, but she still wanted to hear Thomas say it. She wanted to feel that intensity of emotion—the hatred, the passion, the anger. The more he made her feel, the better.
“Tell me,” she repeated.
Thomas sighed and explained how he’d made her come with his fingers then bent her forward and fucked her hard and fast from behind.
“Did you come as hard with her as you did with me?” Sasha asked, feeling a knot of anger rolling in her stomach.
There was a pause before Thomas said, “I didn’t come at all.”
Sasha sat stock still. “You didn’t?”
“She doesn’t do it for me like you do, Sasha,” he replied. “No one does.”
Sasha felt the familiar sensation of affection seep into her. She was about to ride another part of the rollercoaster, the part where they reconciled and had explosive, lustful, romantic sex.
“Come back to England,” Thomas said. His voice had lowered to a sultry whisper.
“No,” Sasha replied.
“You’re still mad at me for fucking Alicia,” Thomas said with a heavy sigh. “Why did you make me recount the whole thing if it was just going to rile you up—?”
“No,” Sasha said, interrupting him. “That’s not what I mean. I mean I’m not coming to England. I want you to come here.”
Thomas cottoned on. Sasha wasn’t saying no to a liaison; she just wanted it on her own terms.
“Meet me halfway?” he replied.
A thrill of excitement coursed through Sasha. This was why she’d fallen for Thomas Lloyd. For the spontaneity. For the adventure.
“Where do you have in mind?” she asked.
“Iceland. Reykjavik. I’ve always wanted to fuck in a hotel made of ice.”
“Now who’s crazy?”
“I’m booking the flights now. I’ll meet you there. Oh, and Sasha?”
“Yeah?”
“Buy some birth control pills, will you? I want to feel all of you.”
She snapped her phone shut and closed her eyes as anger, pleasure, and power pulsed through her veins. For the first time in her life, Sasha realized what it meant to be alive.
Chapter Thirty Six
Sasha had never flown halfway across the world just for sex before. She realized that Thomas must want to make it up to her so bad after what happened with Alicia. She made a mental note to get mad at him more often.
Her mom had told her not to go. She’d said that Thomas was bad news. As much as she loved England and Aunty Mabel and Olivia, she couldn’t bring herself to fully trust the man who’d turned her life upside down. Julia told her daughter about men she’d known in the past who behaved like Thomas, erratic, blowing hot then cold, who loved the breakup as much as the makeup. Sasha had shot back at her, “Is that why you married Dad? A nice, sensible man who left you when you got ill?” Sasha didn’t like arguing with her mom, but Julia just couldn’t understand why her daughter still decided to take that flight.
Sasha touched down in Reykjavik.
It was the height of winter, which meant the sun never rose. Twenty-four hours of darkness meant no way of knowing where one day ended and another began—the perfect setting for a marathon makeup sex session. Lucky also, because the hotel only existed in the winter months. It would have melted by April. The idea that their moment here would be just a snapshot in time added to the romance of the situation.
The hotel was made entirely of ice and glass—the floor, ceiling, and all the furniture. It was beautiful and insane. It was certainly going to be one of the more memorable experiences of Sasha’s life.
Sasha was wearing a huge down coat, beneath which she’d worn Thomas’s favorite of her Amore outfits. It was so cold she could feel that her nipples were hard beneath the sheer top.
She went up to the woman standing at the counter made of ice.
“Do you have a reservation?” the woman said in her thick Nordic accent.
“Yes. It’s under Lloyd.”
“Aha. Mr. Lloyd arrived several hours ago and has gone to the saunas. He’s booked out our largest suite for your stay. It’s one of our art suites, whereby the furniture has been sculpted by a local ice carver. Would you like to follow me?”
Sasha shivered as she was led through the glittering tunnels, her stiletto boots clicking as she walked.
The woman stopped by a frosted glass door and pushed it open. “Enjoy your stay.”
Sasha stepped inside the room. The art piece was an intricate sculpture surrounding the bed. The bed itself was also made of ice. There was a real fur cover and a mattress. Sasha considered undressing and posing for Thomas but realized she’d get far too cold. He’d have to warm her up first.
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought of being reunited with Thomas. She knew he’d be desperate to make it up to her, and that would result in as many orgasms as she demanded.
She heard the door click open. Thomas had returned from his sauna. His cheeks were pink, and he had sweat on his forehead.
“You made it,” he said. He strode forward to kiss her, but she turned her cheek.
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