***
Saturday evening, I stood in my room, freshly showered, staring into my closet with nothing on but my bra and undies because I had a date with Jack. Like, an official date. I’m pretty sure this was as official as you could get, so yes, it was a date. And I was staring at a closet full of Goodwill clothes.
My secondhand wardrobe hadn’t warranted a second thought until this moment, when suddenly the need to look amazing sat on my shoulder like an avenging angel.
I looked at the little alarm clock on my nightstand and saw that I had fifteen minutes to get ready. My options weren’t going to get any better if I stared at them longer. So I pulled out a dark red sweater and the one pair of jeans that were actually flattering on me and called it good. In the bathroom I did my hair, pulling it up and using a rolled-up sock to make a huge bun. It would have been more incognito of me to let it block some of my face, but tonight I didn’t want to hide.
Staring in the mirror, I was grateful for my (mostly) clear skin, since I had not a stitch of makeup to my name. I had a whole case of it in my go-bag. I’d learned to do contouring to make the bone structure of my face look different if need be—something I had only done when I was going from one city to another.
I slipped on my polka-dot boots since they made me smile, then grabbed my coat before heading downstairs to await Jack’s arrival.
The doorbell rang as I descended the steps. “I’ve got it,” I called back to Adeline so she wouldn’t try to get up out of her chair for no reason.
Pulling the door open, I got my first glimpse of date-night Jack.
Crap. He looked even better than when he was in uniform.
“Hey,” was all he said in greeting.
“Hi.” I stepped out and closed the door, discovering that he also smelled good. No idea if it was cologne, deodorant, laundry detergent or body wash. Whatever it was, it worked for him. And for me.
This was going to be a problem.
Focus, Leila. You are a strong, independent, kick-ass woman who has defied her villainous father, eluded his henchmen, and built a life for yourself. You will not be derailed by some small-town, good-looking cop who wants to pry into your life.
Apparently, I could be really dramatic when I gave myself a pep talk.
“You look nice,” Jack commented as we walked toward the sidewalk.
“You too.” Understatement.
We turned to the right, toward Jack’s house, and I pulled my coat tighter. The temperature the last few days had been a lot warmer than the day I arrived in the snowstorm. Most of the snow had melted and there were just a few lone piles of dirty ice clinging to the corners of lawns.
But it was still too cold for my liking. My hands were clutched at my chest in a vain attempt to hold in my own warmth. Oh Louisiana, how I missed you.
“It’s not that cold,” Jack said from beside me and I could tell he was trying not to laugh at me.
“It’s freezing.”
“It’s probably close to fifty degrees.”
“I’m used to warmer weather.” Despite growing up in NYC, I had adjusted to Louisiana weather and enjoyed it very much in the twenty-three months I’d stayed there.
There was an awkward, strained silence, wherein I realized that he was trying not to guess where I had been living that had warmer weather.
Try as I might, my brain refused to produce a subject change, so we just walked in silence until we reached his house.
“I hope you have chocolate,” I said as he unlocked his door. “Otherwise, this is going to be a sad excuse for a movie night.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” he said with a teasing shake of his head.
My worry over a lack of chocolate was unfounded. He had a slew of candy bags spread over his coffee table, most of it chocolate. Good man.
“I have ice cream too, if this is unsatisfactory,” he said as he found the remote and fell back onto the couch.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I pulled off my boots and climbed onto the couch, grabbing a throw pillow that I could use as a barrier between myself and Jack. I didn’t bother thinking too much about why I needed a barrier.
We started the movie and I gorged myself on chocolate while trying to enjoy the movie. It was harder than it should have been, because he kept distracting me with his Jack-ness.
At one point I had to visit the little girls’ room. Jack’s feet were propped up on the coffee table and he tried to move out of the way at the same time that I stepped over. Something about the stumbling and tangling of our legs made me all nervous and flushed and when I reached the bathroom, I spent more time splashing water on my face than actually using the facilities. I stared at my reflection and tried to talk myself out of my growing infatuation, but it was no good.
I went back to the movie, which Jack had paused for me, and somehow my throw pillow barrier had disappeared. I tried to squish myself into the corner, where I wouldn’t accidentally touch him, but he seemed totally oblivious. He smiled like all was right with the world. “You ready for ice cream now?”
I groaned, which turned into a laugh. “I’m already headed for a sugar coma; I don’t think I need any more help.”
“Okay. Then I’ll let you get back to drooling over Chris Pine.” He started the movie again.
Somehow Chris wasn’t as appealing as I remembered him.
It only took a few minutes for my toes to accidentally bump into Jack’s leg. I pulled back, but he just set a hand on my foot and said, “You’re fine,” without looking at me. He left his hand there.
It was a good thing I already knew what happened in that movie.
At the end of the night, Jack helped me put my coat on and I tried not shiver as his fingers grazed the back of my neck.
“You want to take any of this home with you?” He gestured toward the chocolate-laden table. “Or should I save it for next time?”
I fought back the giddy smile that wanted to jump out at the thought of having another evening with him. “Better save it for next time.”
“It’s a plan.” He reached for his coat and we headed out into the (even colder than before) night. I kept my arms wrapped tightly around myself and set a brisk pace.
“So, I didn’t notice any drooling during the movie,” he said and I chuckled. “Well done. I’m glad you can keep it together in the face of such masculine whatever-you-call-it.”
“I’m fairly certain I didn’t call it anything. I just figured a self-proclaimed nerd would appreciate Star Trek.”
“Oh, so the movie selection was for me?”
I laughed. “It was a space action movie. Of course it was for you.”
“What about Chris Pine?”
“If I wanted to watch something just for Chris Pine, I’d be a lot more likely to pick Into the Woods.”
“Was that the musical one?”
“Yup,” I said with a big grin.
“Hmm.” He suddenly looked worried.
“Yeah, probably not your thing.”
“Hey, I can appreciate classy Broadway stuff. Especially if I’m watching with the right person.”
I just shook my head.
“I can! You can pick the movie again next time, and it can be anything you want. You don’t have to pick some shoot ’em up movie just for my sake.”
I gave him a skeptical perusal, but he held my gaze. “All right,” I conceded. “I’ll come up with a really good one.”
“I look forward to it,” he said, but he looked like he was facing possible torture.
We turned up Adeline’s walk and I pulled out my keys, suddenly nervous because this would be our first after-date doorstep scene.
I was fairly certain he wasn’t stupid enough to try to kiss me, though. I mean, it might have been nice—I might have thought about the possibility once or twice—but that didn’t mean I was anywhere close to actually wanting to cross that line. Kissing meant we wouldn’t be just friends anymore, and if we were anything other than friends, then what in the wor
ld would we be?
“Thanks for hanging out with me tonight,” he said as I unlocked the door. “I had a lot of fun.”
I dared a look up at him and smiled at the way he hunched in his coat. “I had fun too. Now go home and get warm.”
He gave me a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Bye,” I said and slipped inside.
Adeline had left the stair light on for me, so I went straight up to bed, a perpetual smile stuck on my lips.
9
JACK STARTED FINDING excuses to drop by more frequently, and though it made me nervous, I did start to feel a sort of ease around him. He would tease Adeline and make her blush and then throw me a wink and make me blush. He looked at me like I wasn’t wearing crappy hand-me-down clothes, and his dark eyes took up more space in my brain than they should have.
Tuesday evening, he asked if I’d be willing to go out to dinner with him. I told him I couldn’t, because I just…couldn’t. Because of the paranoia and the lack of money and the lack of decent clothes. I was slowly hoarding the bit of extra money that Adeline was paying me, but I didn’t dare spend any of it on clothes or makeup or eating out. If I couldn’t find a way to get into that bus locker, then I would have to scrape together enough money to pay for a good ID. Then I could get a real job. So as much as I would have liked to go out with Jack, pretend it was his birthday and make the waiters sing to him, I couldn’t.
Luckily, Sunday was another movie night. Date, really. I considered making him watch Pride and Prejudice just to be mean. I also considered Into the Woods, but it was such a favorite of mine that if he ended up making fun of it, I would be annoyed. Better to pick something a little more neutral.
I settled on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It was one I had really enjoyed, but that I wasn’t overly attached to. I had checked to make sure it was available to stream, and I was ready and waiting half an hour early. Jack was going to pick me up again so we could walk down to his house together. I loved that he insisted on being my escort. It crossed my mind to object and insist that I was capable of taking care of myself, but honestly, it was really nice to have someone looking out for me.
I went downstairs and did a little spin for Adeline, who was nice enough to tell me I looked amazing in my drab clothes. Then I heated up some dinner for her and made sure she was good for the evening before asking permission to use her computer.
“Of course. Just don’t click on any mysterious links.” She pointed her fork at me. “You never know what’s going to show up.”
I bit my lips together to keep from laughing. Adeline and technology didn’t have the greatest relationship. “I’ll be careful,” I assured her as I went down the hall to her office.
I searched my father’s name and was surprised when an article popped up as the top search result. Yes, my father was a known player, but he was usually careful to keep any big stories under wraps. My hands trembled as I clicked the headline, which read, “Julien Marchant’s Girlfriend Missing.”
The fact I hadn’t known he had a woman in his life was irrelevant. What had happened to that poor girl? Had it been him or someone else? His competition? Russo?
I read over the article and discovered that my father and a woman named Amelie Gerard had been seen together at many private dinners. She was a curator he’d hired less than a year ago. Now she was gone. Had my father turned on her? Blackmailed her into doing something she couldn’t bring herself to do? She wasn’t working at the auction house anymore. She hadn’t been seen with my father for more than three weeks, and no one the reporter had spoken with seemed to know or care if she was coming back. My father had retreated from public view, and no one knew if it was because he mourned her leaving or because he was responsible.
Was Russo making every woman my father cared about disappear? If I ever went back to that world, would that be my fate? Was Russo looking for me even now?
Or was this my father, doing everything in his power to control someone he claimed to care about? He had talked about loving me so often. He had said he’d never let anyone hurt me. I supposed he reserved that privilege for himself.
In the middle of my sophomore year, a chance to go to DC with my government class had come up. In my mind, it was a no-brainer. I would be with my school, and it was educational—safe. I thought it was completely innocuous and couldn’t fathom that my father would object. I traveled with him fairly often, so I knew my way around airports and public transit.
I brought him the brochure and told him I’d already filled out the paperwork. I just needed his permission. No doubt he could feel my enthusiasm bubbling over. I needed this trip, this chance to be away from my dad for just a little while. I think my need clouded the reality of who he was.
“Absolutely not,” he had said. No explanation. He barely even looked at me.
“Why not?” I asked, panic percolating as I realized he was going to keep me from this as well.
His fists crashed down on the desk in front of him and I jumped, nearly dropping my carefully filled-out application. “Do you think I would let you leave me?” he demanded, his face filled with rage.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said in a voice so small it should have come from an uncertain child. “It’s a trip, Dad. The school sponsors it. I’m sure it’s safe.”
“You’re never leaving here. Do you hear me?”
Never? How could he say never? He was overprotective, but he had to know I would leave eventually. “Dad, I’m going to go sometime. For college,” I reminded him without raising my voice. “I have to build my own life eventually.”
“Your life is here. It will always be here.” His eyes were cold and hard.
A weight settled in my chest, ready to crush the air from my lungs. “So I’m a prisoner in my own house?” Surely that wasn’t what he meant.
“If that’s what it takes to keep you safe, then yes. There’s nothing out there for you. Everything that you need, I will provide.” He meant it. He was going to keep me here forever.
“That’s not a life, Dad!” I couldn’t live like that. I was barely surviving as it was, with the hope of escape once I graduated.
“Do you want to end up like your mother? Shot dead because you won’t listen to me?”
I pulled back, shocked that he would say it like that. I knew that my mother had been shot, but we never discussed it. He never discussed it. A helplessness settled into my skin and then sank deeper, down to my bones. I ran from his office, letting the application fall to the floor as I went.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t possibly force me to stay here forever. He had just gotten scared that I would leave. He’d overreacted. But he wouldn’t really force me. Right?
The truth was that I didn’t know, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had held out hope for so long, thinking that high school graduation would be the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was obvious now that there never had been a light. I had been trapped in this dark space ever since Renee left.
An aching want welled up, an irrational need to believe that my father would do right by me, but deep down I knew that he never would, and that realization made me reckless. I stopped trying to be the perfect obedient daughter, stopped trying to please my dad in the hopes that he would love me enough. So when Tessa befriended me, I jumped at the chance to be friends with someone I knew my father wouldn’t like. She was a wild child, unafraid of any risk. She loved being friends with the “criminal’s daughter,” said it gave her bragging rights. She invited me to her birthday party and I wanted to go—I was sixteen, I deserved it. One night was all I asked, just one night of teenage fun, teenage normalcy.
Of course, Dad said no. For the first time in my life, I said screw it and snuck out. I wouldn’t let him keep me locked up. So I went, to prove that I could leave, that he couldn’t force me to stay. We had so much fun. I danced and flirted and even got my hands on a beer (which tasted disgusting and I d
idn’t finish). When my bodyguards found me at the clubhouse Tessa’s parents had rented, I refused to go with them. I was going to be in trouble regardless; the least they could do was let me enjoy another hour or two. They coaxed me into a separate room to try to talk me into leaving, then they shoved a needle in my arm and I woke up hours later, back in my room.
My father sat in a chair beside my bed, and once I was lucid enough to focus on his face, he only spoke one sentence. “I told you. I won’t lose you too.” Then he left.
That had been my breaking point. I had lain there in the dark of my room, staring at the ceiling and realizing that there was no line my father would not cross. He was determined to keep me in his house, and he would do anything to make that happen. It was absolute control or nothing. And believe me, I felt like nothing.
My dad had always been overprotective, stubborn—but I loved him. I loved him in the way that any little girl would love the only parent she had left. I had made excuses for his behavior ever since my mother died, because if I didn’t believe that he cared about me, then who did I have? Despite everything, despite the way he controlled my schedule, the way he used me to manipulate others, I loved him, and I had believed he loved me—right up until he’d had my own bodyguards drug me. Then the feeling of his chains snaking around me, suffocating me as they dug into my skin, became too much. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. This was what my life would look like if I didn’t get away. Being constantly dragged back to his side, no choice, no freedom, no air.
I was done. I didn’t speak to my father for a solid month, but I did start planning. It had taken me months to work out the details of my getaway as I gathered resources, stockpiled money, and researched how to disappear, how to stay hidden in plain sight, how to move on so there was no trail.
I’d been a week shy of my seventeenth birthday when I’d left.
Left. It sounded so simple, but it had required exact timing to know when to jump from the yacht that September night. I’d had to steal a wetsuit while the party that my father was hosting raged around me. I’d had to be familiar enough with the shoreline that I recognized the mansion that signaled it was time to throw myself at the mercy of the ocean. I’d been spending hours in our pool every day that summer so I would be able to reach the shore under the cover of darkness before anyone realized I was gone.
If I Could Stay Page 10
