Keeping Her

by Holly Hart

  The waiter inclines his head without needing to make a note of our order, utters a polite “Certainly, sir,” and quietly departs.

  “So it’s a deal?” Skye says pointedly – treating the interruption as though it never happened. I like that, too. She’s persistent. She found an opening, an advantage – and she’s damn well going to press it.

  I grin and stick out my hand. “It’s a deal.”

  Skye reaches out with her hand and we shake. The contact is exquisite. It’s delightful. It’s like fireworks exploding in my fingertips. I hold on just a second too long – I don’t want this moment to end.

  Easy, tiger.

  Skye’s eyes flicker down, and I notice that my shirt sleeves have pulled up just an inch too far. My shrapnel scars are exposed, and I quickly let go of her hand and tug my shirt’s crisp white material down to hide them.

  “Why don’t you start by telling me how you got those,” Skye asks softly. Her eyes are clouded now. It looks like pity to me, and I hate it.

  I drag my tongue across my bottom teeth. “That’s classified,” I say. “I could tell you –.”

  Skye’s eyebrow kinks upward. “But you’d have to kill me? You’re full of shit, Harlan. Or should I just stick with boss?”

  Fuck me. This girl’s got some balls on her. I don’t know if it’s pity I see in her eyes, now – or a challenge.

  I grin back, the awkward tension of a moment before forgotten. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel, Skye?”

  She shrugs, takes a sip of the glass of water in front of her – and does exactly what she said she would. It turns out that maybe I don’t want to hear the truth. To hear the way that this gorgeous woman truly feels about me.

  “Okay, then. You’ve got a problem with control, Mr. Wolfe –”

  Mr. Wolfe. Now that hurts.

  “Mr. Wolfe was my father,” I interject with a broad grin, trying to deflect.

  “You’re doing it now,” Skye says. She cuts to the heart of the matter. She’s the knife, and I’m butter.

  “You’re deflecting, and I don’t even know if you know you’re doing it. The dress – that was one example. You want to shape the environment around you. You want to bend it – me – and anyone else around you to your will. And if you keep going,” she shrugs sadly. “Trouble sleeping will be the least of your problems.”

  The silence between us is crushing. I clench my fist, and feel adrenaline spiking in my bloodstream.

  “You’re reaching, Skye,” I growl.

  “Am I?” She fires back. “Am I really? Or am I shining a light on a part of your soul that you’d rather stayed hidden? Tell me – how many exits are there to this room right now? If someone attacked, which is the best escape route?”

  I bite my lip, but my eyes do the same dance they’ve been doing every thirty seconds since I stepped into this restaurant. There are three entrances – the reception, the service entrance and a small door at the far end of the bar that might or might not be locked.

  I lean backwards, and my chair creaks beneath me. I’m angry, now. My fight or flight reaction is in full swing. I take a deep breath, and force the tension to seep out of me. It takes a considerable effort.

  But Skye made her point well. If there’s one thing I respect, it is smarts like that.

  “Okay, you win,” I grimace. “We’ll play it your way. What do you want to know?”

  It hurts me to back down, but with Skye I’m happy to play the long game. There’s no point falling at the first hurdle when I’ve got all the time in the world to seduce her.

  If anyone’s falling on a sword here, it’s going to be her, on mine.

  “I want to know where you got those scars,” Skye says. She kinks an eyebrow. And don’t tell me it’s classified…”

  I run my fingers through my curly hair. My right leg is jittering now, jumping up and down. It’s restless, like it always is when I think back to how I won the scars that now mark my body.

  “The Navy,” I reply simply.

  Just because I’ve agreed to play Skye’s game doesn’t mean I’m going to let her win. If she wants to unravel my secrets, then she’s going to have to get her hands dirty and do it herself.

  “I pegged you for ex-military the second I saw you. You all … carry yourselves the same way. But is that all you’re going to give me?” Skye frowns. “What ship?”

  “No ship. I was in the SEALs. Team Six.”

  Skye’s eyes widen as she processes that fact. Still, the girl’s a professional – that much is clear. She assimilates the information as though it’s no more interesting than the obituaries section in a small town newspaper.

  “Okay then,” she smiles sweetly, rubbing her hands together. “We’re getting somewhere now, aren’t we? Doesn’t that feel better?”

  Skye bites her lip and looks at me. I swear she knows what she’s doing because I find the way she looks right now all kinds of suggestive. I want to sweep every last piece of cutlery off this table and take her right here, right now – and damn the audience.

  The waiter returns, and pours each of us a glass of champagne as we sit in silence.

  “So I’ll sleep tonight?” I reply the second he’s gone. “That’s it? You’ve prodded and pried around in my head, and everything’s coming up smelling like roses?”

  “It’s not that easy,” Skye sighs. A couple of tendrils of her long red hair dance in front of her eyes, and she flicks them away. “You know it’s not. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come to me for help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well –,” she says, looking pointedly at the champagne flute I’m twirling between my fingers.

  “You could lay off the booze, for a start. But I’m a psychiatrist, Harlan – I don’t run a pill mill. I’m not just going to write you a prescription so you can drift off into a chemically induced sleep every night. I’m sure a man with your resources could find a hundred doctors willing to do that. I’m just not one of them.”

  The meal finishes more awkwardly than it started. When it’s done, neither of us order desert. I’ve built my entire career – from the Navy to now – on the principle that if it hurts, I must be doing something right.

  On that basis, then Skye’s my soul mate.

  I know deep down that she’s right – about everything. I can’t cure my insomnia without dealing with whatever’s causing it – just like you can’t take an enemy stronghold without wiping out the machine gun nest guarding it.

  But this meal has opened a Pandora’s Box. I can’t help but wonder whether I truly want to find out where it leads.

  “We do this my way, Mister Wolfe,” Skye says as she pulls on her coat. “Or we don’t do it at all. From now on, I’ll see you in office hours. Thank you for dinner.”

  208

  Skye

  We meet for our first session, late, in my office.

  Wolfe Capital’s enormous Wall Street headquarters is deadly quiet.

  I’ve never seen the building this empty. The traders were given a thousand dollar mid-week bonus, and instructions not to be seen dead within a mile of the firm’s trading floor the second the markets closed. Traders being traders, they were only too happy to leave early. I dread to think about how drunk they are by now.

  I’ve even sent Tyler home, ignoring the look of puppyish disappointment on his face. “No, you haven’t done anything wrong, Tyler – and yes, that’s everything I need for tonight…”

  Most importantly, I’m dressed like a 1920s housewife – from the plain gray skirt that drops well past my knees to the formless jacket draped over my shoulders. My drab outfit is coolly calculated.

  I need to reframe this whole relationship. I’ve got to stop Harlan from seeing me as a sexual object. He needs to see me as exactly what I am – his therapist, not his lover. And if accomplishing that goal takes me dressing like the nerdy kid at school, I can handle it.

  I hear a knock on the door, and let Harlan in with a curt nod. My face i
s stone, but inside, my heart is thumping fit to burst.

  “Thanks for seeing me so late,” Harlan says, flashing me a four hundred watt smile I’m coming to dread.

  I say dread because every time he turns that knee-weakening beam on me, I feel like a schoolgirl with her first crush. It’s not healthy, and it sure as heck isn’t professional. And tonight’s all about appearing – being – professional.

  It’s a new start.

  I gesture at the patient’s couch. “Please, take a seat. Or lie down – whatever makes you more comfortable.”

  Harlan winks at me. “Anything you say, ma’am,” he grins. “And I mean that… anything.”

  I turn my back on him, and walk back to a chair set a few yards away from Harlan’s couch. I take the time to compose my features. “Skye is fine,” I say.

  “As you wish,” Harlan says. His eyebrow twitches upward. “Skye…”

  Damn.

  Harlan has started as, I’d bet any money, he means to go on. He’s going to be a tough patient – adversarial, no doubt. Nothing’s going to be easy, not with a man like him. I’m worried about the challenge, and yet I can’t deny it, I’m kind of excited as well.

  I take a deep breath and launch straight into my questions.

  “How long since you last slept?” I ask, the name of my pen hovering over an empty notepad.

  “At all or enough?”

  “Why don’t you take it from the top,” I reply.

  I’ve found over the course of my career that it’s best to let your patient do the talking. People hate silence. They naturally seek to fill it.

  However, there is a small problem – I think Harlan knows that little trick just as well as I do. My office clock ticks like a metronome in the background as I wait for his response. We sit there in silence – a silence that doesn’t seem to bother Harlan Wolfe one little bit. I tap the nib of my pen against the notepad.

  I study his face while I wait for his response, in an entirely professional capacity, of course. His hair is dark, slightly curly, and shiny with obscene health – and the odd, stray gray. His face is mostly unlined, and he doesn’t display a hint of the tiredness that I know is dragging him down.

  “About a week, I guess,” Harlan says. “It all started about then.”

  “What did?” I ask, probing.

  “Exactly what you asked,” Harlan replies, with an amused expression on his face.

  I stifle a grimace. I was right. Harlan’s sessions are going to go exactly as I imagined they would. Slowly…

  “How long do you usually sleep, then?” I ask, switching up my strategy.

  “About five hours, give or take.”

  “That’s not much.”

  “All I’ve needed since the Navy,” Harlan replies.

  I nod thoughtfully.

  “What about last night? How many hours did you get?”

  Harlan shrugs. “Two… maybe three at a stretch. Not enough.”

  “Take me through it,” I say. “Step-by-step, as though you were preparing for bed.”

  Harlan looks me directly in the eye and raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t need to say a word. My cheeks redden instantly under his examination.

  “How detailed do you want me to get?”

  “Tell me everything,” I say. My voice sounds choked in my throat. I can’t help it. Harlan is throwing me off my game.

  “I try and get to bed around eleven, I guess,” Harlan says without breaking eye contact. “I sleep naked, with the AC set to exactly 66°.”

  He says that word – naked – so casually, without so much as blinking an eye. Harlan knows exactly what he’s doing, but so do I. It’s a defense mechanism.

  Harlan might not view it precisely that way, but that’s what it is. I’ve seen it before – a thousand times – although I’ll give him one point for being the most attractive man to attempt it with me… But I know Harlan’s game. He’s trying to throw me off the scent of whatever is really the problem.

  I know that he would do exactly the same thing in a pitch meeting with an investor, or in front of Wolfe Capital’s executive board. It’s a strategy – one that has allowed him to get to the very peak of the business world.

  It is a simple, clear, but extremely powerful strategy – never let anyone in, never admit to failure, never appear vulnerable.

  “Do you have nightmares …” I ask, attempting to steer the interview back on track and expose a crack in Harlan’s apparently perfect façade, “… about your time in the SEALs, or anything else.”

  “Never,” Harlan replies with such immediate self-assurance that I know he’s telling the truth. “It’s not that I’m waking up all the time, Skye. I’m just not getting to sleep in the first place.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” I smile.

  Harlan pauses, studying my face once more. “I watched the video, you know,” he says.

  I take a second to breathe. Harlan’s throwing out a hook, and I should know better than to lunge for it. But still …

  “What video?”

  “The video of the speech you gave to the ‘Women in Wall Street’ conference – all about traders and the high occurrence of,” he grins, “sexual dysfunctions. It got me thinking. Is that why you became a therapist, Skye? To try and fix yourself?”

  Don’t engage.

  Harlan continues without missing a beat. He sits up, and lazily drags his tongue across his bottom lip before speaking. “I can do it, you know Skye. I can make you come.”

  I feel like he has punched me in the gut. I can’t believe Harlan can speak about sex like that, so easily. He says it as a statement, unembarrassed.

  He offers me my deepest desire without blinking an eye.

  “What?” I squeak.

  “We made a deal, didn’t we?” Harlan grins. He leans forward, suddenly in his element. “You fix me, and I fix you.”

  “I didn’t agree to anything of the sort,” I reply, slowly regaining control over my voice. “I’m here because I have to be.”

  “I don’t think so,” Harlan replies in a throaty growl. “I think you want to be here, Skye, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. You could have refused to treat me. Used that conflict of interest shit to throw me off the scent. Off your scent…”

  I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, and turn my face away from Harlan, my boss. A screen of my bright red hair falls in front of my eyes, acting as a shield. I take the time to compose my features as best I can.

  “You’re wrong…”

  Harlan somehow avoids rolling his eyes. “I’m sure,” he says. “But just in case I’m not, when should I pencil in your first session?” He cocks his head to one side. “And …?”

  I go for the hook yet again. “… ‘And’ what?”

  He shoots that burning white smile at me. “And at what temperature do you like the bedroom?”

  My eyes spring wide open before I master my expression. I have to end this, now. It’s not getting either of us anywhere. This whole session has been a disaster.

  “I think we’re done,” I yelp.

  I walk over to my desk, doing my best to regain control of my breathing. I crouch down, open the bottom drawer and pull out a small gray notebook.

  “You think?” Harlan replies. I can picture his expression: eyebrow kinked, amusement dancing across his lips. “Because I thought we were just getting started…”

  “Here,” I say, walking over towards Harlan’s chair, and thrusting the notebook towards him. “Take this.”

  Harlan’s eyebrow kinks further. “What is it?”

  “I think you know,” I reply, my mind going to the moment I saw him reading my own journal, in this very office.

  Harlan eyes the notebook suspiciously. He makes no move to accept it. “Well …what do you want me to do with it?”

  I let my frustration with the way this session has gone get the better of me. “What the hell do you think?” I splutter. “Write in it!”

  Harlan stands up. He’s i
n my space. So close he could run his hands up and down my body without stretching out an arm. So close he –

  Pull yourself together.

  I thrust the notebook at him, trying to duck his attentions. He accepts it easily, batting away my attempt to hide.

  “Think about what I said,” Harlan growls, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. “Whenever you decide to break your dry spell, just give me a call. It’s a standing offer.”

  209

  Skye

  After the aborted session, I head straight for Greenwood – the traders’ favorite sports bar cum strip club. It doesn’t take an expert to figure out where the Wolfe Capital boys are hanging out. I just follow the sound of raucous whoops and cheers.

  I push my way through a crowd of hangers on – mostly ludicrously attractive girls who barely look over the age of twenty-one – all squeezed into tight little cocktail dresses. Hookers and strippers, I guess.

  “Look where you’re going, bitch,” one of them says to me with a judgmental sneer on her face.

  I ignore her. I’ve got enough pent-up anger writhing in my belly to not really give a shit about what some jumped up gold-digger thinks about me. She gives me the stink eye as I get to where she wants to be.

  “Hey, look who decided to join us,” one of the traders – a Texan named Rex – drawls. “What’re you doin’ here, Little Miss Perfect?”

  I shoot Rex a deathly stare. “I need a drink.”

  What kind of name is Rex, anyway? It’s a dog’s name in my book.

  Rex licks his lips.

  Or should I say his chops. Dogs lick their chops, don’t they?

  “That feels better now, don’t it,” Rex ostentatiously slurs, slumping down on a red leather couch next to me. His arm flies out, and rests on the top of the couch – just a few inches from my bare shoulders. I turn my attention to him, but the barely-legal girls twirling their toned bodies around gleaming stripper poles are rarely out of sight.

  “What does?” I say coolly, turning my gaze on the drunken trader.