Just the thought of having that vile thing back around my neck, even as a distant possibility, even as threat that has already passed, fills me with all sort of discomfort.
“What… what made you change your mind?” I ask, breathless.
“I did not change my mind, Lilly. It was just one of the available options to me to guarantee that things would proceed without a hitch. Ultimately I thought this meeting would better serve as a true demonstration of my trust in you. I was angry last night. I won’t deny it. I dislike having things out of my control. But, you must make exceptions for the unexpected. I did not intend for you to jump headfirst into this outside world. Not so soon. Not this fast. I intended there to be a series of steps that we would take together, each one progressively larger than the last, and each one building on the trust that we established before. Your behavior at each of those steps would determine how we would proceed, going forward.”
He fixes me with an inscrutable look. “It was, in a way, meant to be representative of the TGB progression that I gave you earlier.” I flinch. He notices. “I know you do not like the term, Lilly. I know what those three letters represent to you. But for us… for you and me…” He tilts my chin up. I have to suppress a shudder when I glimpse the stark intensity in his eyes, “…to have any chance of moving forward, in the way I intend, we both have to acknowledge our past. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I . . . ” I blink, and have to look away. Suddenly, I wish very much that I were clothed. I curse whatever rashness possessed me to drop the sheet.
“Yes,” I finish lamely. “I do.”
“Good.” Jeremy stands back and turns away. “Now run and get dressed quickly, my Lilly-flower. You’ll find clothes waiting for you on top of the towels in the bathroom. I took the liberty of putting them there. I’ll give you six minutes. Don’t be late.”
***
Exactly three-hundred and sixty seconds later, I burst into the living room, borderline frantic, with my hair obviously still wet.
I find Jeremy leaning against the bar. He has his phone on the counter, and is engaged with something on the screen. He looks up at me. A smile flitters across his face.
“Early by thirteen seconds,” he says. “I’m impressed.”
“I had plenty of practice keeping time when you left me in the dark,” I say. The words don’t come easily to me. Talking about what he’s done in the past will never come easily. But, I force them out anyway, determined to show him that I will not balk at those topics again.
It’s a resolution I made in my hurried shower. It’s all about power between Jeremy and me. If he sees that he can have more of it, just by virtue of being able to bring up topics that make me uncomfortable, his natural inclination—no matter what his other desires might be—would be to exploit it, to dominate me.
I can’t and I don’t expect that ever to change. Jeremy is drawn to power like a moth to a flickering flame. If I show weakness, it puts me at a disadvantage.
So, I’ll be strong and face my fears. I’ll face our mutual past, and I’ll lay it all out in the open, whenever the need arises, with as much ease as he. Sure, it might be nothing more than an act, at first. But, acting like something is real for long enough has the curious ability to actually make said thing real, in your own mind, anyway. It’s about what a type of training, a type of mental conditioning that works on yourself.
His lips make a firm line on his face. “Yes”, he says. “I would imagine you did.” His eyes flare. I see a new challenge in them. “I watched you every day, you know. I saw you fall. Would you like to know something, Lilly? Something sick, twisted, and perverse?”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I dislike the way his voice shifted when he asked the question. It’s a reminder of Stonehart.
But I square my shoulders and face him defiantly. “What?” I say.
“The time you slipped… the time you did not make it to the chair soon enough?” he says.
“You actually had forty seconds left.”
My eyes widen. I feel faint. I have to stick my hand out against the wall to prevent myself from falling.
“You . . . lied!” I whisper.
Jeremy moves around the counter with the fluidity of a snake. His eyes are black, as they fix on me.
“Yes”, he says. “You see, Lilly, I am not perfect. Even though I strive to make myself seem as such, particularly in your eyes, beneath the surface lies a very fallible man. I sin and I have weaknesses. My life is not the pure existence I make it seem.”
He stops a foot away from me. The air between us crackles with a strange mix of hostility, apprehension, and always, that lingering sexual tension.
“Do you resent me for it?” he asks. His voice is low and scratched like sandpaper.
“For shocking me?” I begin.
“No,” he cuts me off. “For lying to you, Lilly. Do you resent me for telling a lie?”
I look at him, and try to consider the question. My mind focuses solely on the memory of the excruciating pain I felt that morning on the floor. At the horrible current pulsing through me. At the awful knowledge that that morning, I had failed.
Except, I had not. I did make it to the chair on time. It’s just that Stonehart, watching through the cameras hidden in the ceiling, decided that he would have some fun with me.
“Well?” he presses. An urgency creeps into his voice. “Answer the question, Lilly.”
“I…” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough, dammit!” he curses. I jump as his fist hits the wall.
“Jeremy,” I say, my voice small. “You’re frightening me.”
His eyes narrow. “Good,” he snarls. “That’s good. You deserve to be frightened of me. I deserve to be frightening to you. It’s no less than the end result of all the things I’ve done, isn’t it? It’s actually a natural extension of them all. Isn’t it, Lilly? Isn’t it, my dear Lilly-flower?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. In truth, he’s terrifying me. I want nothing more than to sink to the floor and cower like a little girl. Right now, Jeremy is making me feel small, powerless, and insignificant.
“You do know, Lilly,” he says. “Don’t lie to me. Look at me! Tell me what you see when you look into my eyes. Tell me what you see reflected in my pupils when they stare at you. Tell me, goddammit!”
His hand flies out and he grabs me by the neck. The back of my head hits the wall. He begins to squeeze.
My breaths shorten. Nothing I could have done would have prepared me from this. Nothing about Jeremy’s demeanor would have hinted that he’d be capable of this. Not this morning.
“You’re hurting me,” I whisper.
His grip on my neck doesn’t let up. Instead, he steps in front of me, and looms tall like the statue of some vindictive God.
“Answer”, he whispers with supreme intensity, “the fucking question.” He brings his face inches away from mine. His eyes zero in on me. They’re dark and storming and absolutely terrifying. I don’t know where the shift came from. “What do you see?”
“I see… me”, I say, and gasp when he loosens his grip. All the pooled up blood rushes to my head. Euphoria takes me for a moment as my brain is replenished with oxygen.
“You see you,” Jeremy chuckles. It’s a humorless sound. “A very literal interpretation of my question, Lilly, but probably the one I deserve. Would you like to know what I see, when I stare at you from behind those same eyes?”
I swallow and try to shrink back, to somehow make myself invisible against the white wall.
“I see . . . a goddess,” he tells me. He does not back away. “I see such strength. Such magnificence. Such pure, innocent, uncorrupted goodness.”
He exhales. His shoulders fall, and he looks down at his hands. He flexes and unflexes them into fists.
“And when I look in the mirror … when I saw myself this morning before I left, do you know what I saw?”
I shake my head. My
voice trembles nearly as much as my body quakes. “No.”
He brings his eyes back to mine. When he speaks, I hear something completely uncharacteristic in his voice:
Uncertainty.
“Would you like to?”
I swallow and give him a tiny nod. I want to massage my throat where his fingers doubtlessly left a mark, but I dare not move and draw more attention to myself.
“I see a bad man. An unworthy man. A man who is regarded, by the only woman he’s ever loved, as a monster.”
I fall back. My head is spinning from sheer emotion. He… loves me?
I blink away sudden tears. I feel weepy again. But, I do not want him to see me cry.
Jeremy stops by the window. He puts both his hands against the glass, above his head, and leans his forehead into the pane.
Silence stretches.
“Well?” he says, just when I think the tension is going to become unbearable. “Don’t you have something to say to that, Lilly?”
I try to gather my thoughts. To replay the trajectory of our conversation in my mind.
There must have been something I missed. Some nuance I overlooked. A word I misheard. Something… that would explain the true meaning of what Jeremy just told me.
I come up empty. The words came clear. The meaning behind them was clear. It was all clear, dammit. I no idea what to do with it!
“You can’t mean that,” I whisper, and wince. Jeremy’s actions and words might have a double meaning. But, he’s not one to say things he doesn’t mean.
He makes a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh. “I do,” he says, still looking away from me. “But enlighten me. Which part gives you incredulity? The part where I am conscious of the things I’ve done and my appearance to you, or…” he looks over his shoulder at me, “… the part where I said that I love you?”
“Both,” I breathe, and sink down to the floor. My knees are unwilling to hold me any longer. “Both parts, Jeremy. You can’t mean what you say.”
“I do.” He looks away again. His shoulders rise and fall in an enormous sigh. “I do, and the worst thing is, I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“When did this … revelation . . . occur to you?” I ask softly.
“It’s been there, in the back of my mind, for weeks. That is why I did what I had to, Lilly. When you slipped . . . when you fell . . . I thought that if I punished you there, in that instant, it would stabilize the dynamic between us.”
“What dynamic? You mean the one outlined in the contract?”
“Yes, Lilly,” Jeremy emphasizes. “Yes, that exactly! You must know that is reason I chose you.” He snorts another laugh. “Of course you do. You’re no moron. I’ve insinuated as much to you, in our time together, anyway. The Yale Daily News that I left you. Stonehart Industries’ connection to Corfu Consulting. Hell, even the Barker Prize, Lilly. I orchestrated all that.”
“No,” I say. I shake my head, trying to deny his words. All it does is make my vision spin. “No, you couldn’t have. Not the Barker Prize. Not that.”
He turns to me slowly. Seeing me on the floor, he takes the few cautious but determined strides to close the distance between us. Cautious for my sake, I imagine.
He kneels down before me. His eyes are on my level. He reaches out as if to touch my face. I flinch away, it’s such a small movement I would think it imperceptible. But Jeremy notices. His eyes never miss a thing.
He leaves his hand in the air for a moment, and then drops it down to touch my knee. That’s okay. I’m fine with him holding me there.
“I had to give myself access to you”, he says. “The Barker Prize was one way to do it. It was the best way, for me. Everything that happened after led you right into my snare.”
I blink through the moisture in my eyes and turn my head away. I can’t bear to look at him. Not now.
“Why are you telling me this?” My voice hitches somewhere in the middle of the question. “Do you enjoy tormenting me, Jeremy? Does it give you some sick sense of pleasure to render all my accomplishments worthless?”
I’ve never told anybody this. The Barker Prize was actually something that I was extremely proud of. In the grand scheme of things, it was second only to my acceptance to Yale.
More than anything, that prize showed that I was worthy to be in Yale. I’m only human, after all. After seeing the brilliance of my classmates, especially my freshman year, doubts began to creep in about whether I belonged there at all. Doubt about whether someone in admissions could have made a mistake.
Those unsettling thoughts were part of the reason I was determined to work so hard. The overwhelming part was not to end up like my mother. Realistically, anybody who completed the four full years and graduated with a Yale diploma would have everything she needs to avoid that sort of life. I knew that. But the nagging feeling of unworthiness, the small shadow of self-doubt was what really drove me to commit so much to my academics.
Winning the Barker Prize was the second vindication of my capacities. It proved to me, in no uncertain terms, that I really was one of best. At least, when considered in the narrowly-defined lens of academics.
So yes, no matter where it led me, the prize was something I had always treasured. I’d considered the possibilities of Stonehart—when he was still Stonehart—manipulating things somehow, but always dismissed it as a foolish conspiracy theory.
But now . . . to hear him tell me, straight-out, that that conspiracy theory was actually the truth . . . it hurts. It hurts more than I would have imagined. It hurts because it strips away that precious sense of autonomy that I always held so dear.
His eyes widen. His hand tightens on my knee. It is a gesture of compassion, but so soon after that same hand was gripped around my throat, the effect is undeniably lessened.
“Not worthless, Lilly. No. Never worthless. You won that prize of your own merits. Don’t doubt that.”
“Didn’t you just imply the opposite?” I ask. I still hadn’t looked at him again. But, I could feel the strength building in my voice. It’s somehow easier to talk about such… pedestrian... subjects—especially compared to the alternative that we were discussing. Especially compared to . . . love.
“There were other companies who wanted you. Recruiting the winner of the Barker Prize is an enormous accomplishment in and of itself. Consulting and Investment Banking firms fight tooth and nail to try to get each year’s winner to select them. You think that the offers you received were the only ones on the table? No. But I pulled enough strings, called in enough favors, to make mine—to make Corfu’s—the only real choice for you.”
“How many other offers?” I ask. I look at him. “How much have you hidden from me?”
“There were five others offering comparable terms to what Corfu gave you.”
“Five,” I say. I worked my tongue around my teeth to help to get some moisture back in my mouth. “Five other offers that I never saw. Five other offers that would have led me away from you.”
“Yes,” Jeremy says. He leans forward, coming close enough that I can smell his delectable, primal male scent. I try to ignore it, but it has a natural influence over me. Exactly like his voice. “Yes, Lilly. There were five more offers that I convinced the firms to withdraw. It wasn’t easy. I had to pay a very large sum to get it done, but it was necessary … for me to get to you.”
“How much?” I ask.
This time it’s Jeremy’s turn to look confused. “How much what?”
“How much did you pay to make me yours?” I glare at him, my eyes sharp and hard. “How much am I worth to you, Jeremy? How far were you willing to go?”
“I’m not going to answer that,” he says. “Because whatever I paid pales in comparison to what you are worth to me now. You, Lilly, and nobody else. Only you. And not because of who you are, but because of what you’ve done to me. You’ve changed me. You’ve affected me in a way I was not prepared for. In a way I could not have expected
."
“You ask me how much you’re worth? You’re priceless. And the possessions I’ve accumulated in my life, everything I’ve built, any accomplishment I’ve achieved … all of those pale into nothingness when compared to you.” He reaches up, and touches my cheek. His fingers are warm against my skin. “You are my Lilly-Flower. You are worth more than anything in this world to me.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. No matter how much time I spend with this man, I will never get used to the way he interweaves such apparent genuineness with such clashing hostility in the span of a single conversation. I will never be ready for his constant and sudden shifts in mood, no matter how much I might expect them.
“So you chose me,” I say, trying to move the subject away from the topic of feelings. “Why? Why me, Jeremy? What do you want with me?”
“What I wanted in the past, and what I want now, are two very different things,” he says.
“Another non-answer.”
“A deflection. Because I know that the meaning you’re searching for will not be found in the answer to ‘why?’ More important, to me, to you . . .” he tilts my chin up, “… is what comes next.”
He’s softened again. His eyes carry that same inherent intensity, but the tension has oozed out of his shoulders. His body no longer looks like a strung bow. He is no longer the predator ready to pounce.
“And what’s that?” I breathe.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “But we will discover it together. I did not plan for this, Lilly. I did not plan to fall in love.”
He says the words with such unabashed honesty that I cannot doubt any longer that they are true. There is not even a sliver of hesitation behind his statement.
Again I stall, racking my brain for the proper response. If he wants to hear me say the words back, he’ll find himself waiting ten times the length of this contract before there’s even the remote possibility of it. How can I love a man who’s done so many horrible things to me? How can I reconcile the awareness of the latent violence that he has hidden deep inside of him with the gentle, more caring Jeremy that I have grown to know?
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 46
