“I thought you wanted to compete,” I grunted, fighting my body’s reaction.
I was trembling and I prayed she wouldn’t notice, too lost in her desire to please me. She was. Her cheeks hollowed and she sucked harder, bringing her hand up to work my shaft as she slipped back into her usual routine. Hell if I cared. I was this close to exploding and now only the race to release remained. I wanted to come so bad – to fill her with my cum and watch her choke on it. I couldn’t keep up the act much longer; my body perspired, my shirt stuck to my chest and sweat trickled down my temples. My balls drew up, my thighs tightened; I was panting, my fingers digging into the counter top.
Charlie was feasting on my dick, desperate to make me succumb, but all I could think about was how desperate she was. Fuck, it made me sick and almost lose the hard on she’d spent what felt like forever working on. I threw my head back and growled my frustration. I just wanted an orgasm, what was so goddamn complicated about that?
“Get up.” I pulled her to her feet and she wobbled unsteadily, swiping the back of her hand over her mouth. “Get that shirt off.”
I reared her back against the counter, throwing her onto it and tearing the material from her body. It crumpled in my hands like my dream of ever having Skye again had earlier.
“You’re not her.” I tugged her nipples, pinching them between my fingers. Charlie cried out in both protest and a plead for more. “You’ll never be her.”
I crushed my mouth to hers and slammed into her, filling her completely; taking her breath away before she had the chance to tell me to stop.
Twenty Eight
“Protecting her is all that matters now…”
It’s all that’s ever mattered.
April 6th, 2012
“Are you serious about this?”
Jesse was flicking through Ollie’s journal and scribbling notes of his own next to mine.
“Curtis, I’m a bloody genius. You want to decode this thing, I’m your man.”
“But…” I knotted my fingers together and second-guessed everything I’d told Jesse up until this point.
“But what?” He looked up from the journal and notepads spread out in front of us on my coffee table.
“But nothing. Forget it, just see what you can find.”
“I,” he gestured to himself, stabbing his finger to his chest. Tarzan style. ‘I am man, I am genius’ style, “can find anything.”
“Okay.” I took a mouthful of beer and tried to relax and not let the sudden annoyance I had for Jesse show. It was my fault; everything was my fault. The reason he was in this thing was my fault and I didn’t know what awaited us at the end.
He was silent for a minute; his eyebrows furrowed, then his lips twisted and his eyes narrowed. Then he looked at me. I was chewing on my thumbnail and almost down to the cuticle when he spoke.
“But I need you to tell me what I can't find here.”
“Yeah? Like what?” I huffed. “We both know I’m thick as shit.”
“No, you’re not.” He laughed. “You would have done this on your own. I'm here to push you so you don’t push it aside for another year, thinking you can't.”
“Fuck off, Jesse.”
“Hey,” he whined in jest that just pissed me off more. “A little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. What do you need to know?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why this guy? Why dig up something that happened twenty-odd years ago? Who is this guy?”
“A lot of questions, man.”
“Full disclosure, Curtis.” I remembered using the same two words in the factory. If I had full disclosure, I wouldn’t be here. If I didn’t give Jesse full disclosure, we wouldn’t go any further than we were now, which was nowhere. “How can I help if I don’t know the story?”
I stood up and moved to the decanter of whiskey. I poured two large measures and threw myself back on the sofa, downing my drink and reaching for Jesse’s before he had a chance to.
“Have you ever been in love?” I asked.
“You’re gay. Is that where this is headed? Your pretty blonde is just a cover?”
“Yes, she’s a cover, but not because I'm gay, you ass. Answer the question.”
He laughed, humoured by my discomfort.
“No, I’ve never been in love. No time for it.”
“Me either.”
“And you asked me that because…?” He frowned, stumped.
“Shut your mouth and listen,” I groaned through clenched teeth but his smile was infectious. And mine dropped as soon as it had appeared. “It’s more than a word. It goes beyond everything you’ve ever read about the L-word; that thing we’re all striving for. There are no butterflies and unicorns. There are no happy ever afters. When you have it, you’re terrified of losing it, and when you’ve lost it? You have no fucking idea who you are.”
Jesse said nothing. He stared at me. I looked away; I couldn’t keep eye contact.
“It’s a burning obsession, it controls everything; every thought, every action. It eats you alive until you are nothing without the other person. It’s like that feeling when you want to beat the shit out of someone. It’s so consuming you can't see beyond it until it’s done. It’s that craving, that yearning for it to be yours. Suddenly your entire existence relies on getting it back.”
“And that’s how you feel about this Ollie?”
“No.” I dropped my head and stared into my empty glass. “That’s how I feel about his twin sister.”
“Okay,” he mused. “Interesting analogy. So, this twin…you love her but you want to beat the shit out of her?”
“No. I want to climb inside her and make her as dependent on me as I am on her.”
“And what does this Ollie have to do with it?”
I launched myself off the sofa and tried to raise the veil. The one that gave me the steely resolve I needed to tell this story, instead of the limp one, equal in density to marshmallow; the one swimming through my veins and making my hands tremble. I poured another drink before I began pacing the room.
“Christ, sit down. You’re making me feel like a shrink.”
“You wanted the story.” I shoved my free hand in my pocket before I used it to pull at my hair and tossed back half the drink. “I met Ollie first. His life was fucked; both of their lives were. Ollie was my friend, the only one I had who was interested in more than my fight stats. When I met Skye it was instantaneous. Was it love at first sight? No.”
Jesse leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and set his chin on his closed fists. I threw back the rest of my drink and rolled the glass between my hands.
“It was desperation. I needed her, just like that-” I clicked my fingers. “I needed her. To breathe. To feel. To exist. My world centred around her and it has done ever since.”
I sighed and placed the glass down before it shattered in my hand. The climax of the story was coming, the pain creeping up and tightening around me like a noose.
“Love isn’t selfish. It’s selfless. I was a selfish prick and it ruined their lives.” I looked at Jesse, his beer forgotten, his notes discarded. He was listening and had no remarks to offer this time. “Ollie had a fight booked in. I set it up for him…he was saving up to get them out, away from their mother. She was a drunk; their flat never had power or water and it stank. They shared a bedroom and Ollie would often turn up to the gym high because their neighbours smoked joint after joint.”
I twisted my sweating hands together and turned away from Jesse, looking out at the twinkling lights of the city. My heart was hammering and my breaths came in short, sharp bursts.
“I couldn’t have them living there. I had to get them out.”
I spun away from the panoramic view and reached for the whiskey, halting as I tipped it up and watched the liquid travel the neck of the decanter. I slammed it back down and bent over the sofa, gripping the back until my fingers burned.
“I knew the fight would bring in enough money. Thirty thousand. I took Skye with me to watch. I wanted her there with me, to see what I’d done for her and Ollie. I was so fucking proud and I needed her to see what I’d done.”
“What happened?” Jesse moved closer, but I stepped back and shook my head.
“Ollie died. He spotted us and lost his focus for a second. A second.” Jesse gasped and I nodded. Now he got it. “He took one punch and it killed him. I spent twenty-four hours watching the footage back to find someone to blame.”
“And?”
“There was only one person.” I looked up and met his gaze, seeing the pity I despised looking back. “Me.”
I swiped the heels of my hands over my eyes to catch the tears before they fell.
“Curtis-”
“I tried to look after her. I tried to protect her, to show her that she wasn’t alone. I failed.” A growl rumbled through me, low and deep and strangled. “The money was conditional. Ollie had to win. There was no death pay-out.”
“You gave her the money.” Jesse whispered, rising from the sofa and ignoring my silent pleas for him to keep his distance. I nodded. “You sent her away, didn’t you?”
I nodded again. “She deserved a better life than I could give her. I had nothing to offer but the shame. I couldn’t even tell her what I’d done. I was selfish. I couldn’t allow her to love me the way she wanted to.”
“You weren’t selfish, Curtis. You were afraid. You were not to blame.”
“It was a cop out. I could have spent the money with her, but I didn’t. She told me she loved me and I rejected her, like everyone else. I couldn’t let her love me, Jesse. I couldn’t.”
“I get it.” He reached me and set his hand on my shoulder, keeping a firm grip as I recoiled.
We were silent for long minutes as we looked out at the city and the impact of telling someone, for the first time in my life, what had really happened. What I had allowed to happen. What I caused to happen. I didn’t realise Jesse had released his grip, until he returned and handed me a fresh shot. I accepted, showing my thanks with a tight smile, and turned to sit back down. I was exhausted.
“I don’t remember falling for her. It just happened. I knew I loved her, more than anything, when I sent her away. But Jesse, I am selfish. I might not have been then, in that one moment when I made the decision to let her live, but it’s who I am. I’ve regretted every minute of my life since sending her away because without her, I'm nothing.”
A silence descended and it began to suffocate me slowly. Painfully. Deservedly. I knew Jesse was going to tell me to move on; to leave Skye alone because she did deserve better. But I couldn’t leave it, and that was something no words could make someone understand. I wouldn’t leave it. I still had that piece of information nobody else did.
I wasn’t giving that up.
“Okay,” Jesse said, relaxed and full of cheer once more. “So this mission is what? A retribution mission? A reunion mission?”
“No,” I shook my head pitifully and hated myself for it. “It’s a truth mission. It’s long overdue, I shouldn’t have let it get this far.”
I’d already said too much; suspicion clouded Jesse’s face and I couldn’t let him ask the question because I couldn’t bear to lie to another person I cared about. A person whose wellbeing was in my hands. He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him short with a raised hand.
“All I ever had to offer Skye was lies. Lies and deceit. I owe her – no, the world owes her the truth.” I thought back to the conversation I had with Ollie in the café, to the only part of the puzzle Ollie knew for certain. I kept the secret locked tight in its concrete box and kept my cool. “It’s a truth mission.”
Twenty Nine
Suddenly everything slotted into place. I knew I was running out of time. I knew I was screwed.
April 13th, 2012
Another Friday arrived and I sat at my desk, pretending to make an honest living. Angelica brought my coffee in with the week’s magazines; I was supposed to go over the articles about our clients, but I pulled open the bottom drawer, swiped my arm across the desk and they fell into the deep compartment. Kicking the draw shut, I got back to my monitor. I’d been staring at the screen for a solid forty minutes, trying to figure out a way to balance the books. Why didn’t I have an accountant? Because Charlie was storing her dirty money in the business and our revenue wasn’t even close to what it should have been. I stared at the numbers on the ledgers on the split screen in front of me, the content meshing into a sea of meaningless digits. I had no idea what to do.
“Mr Mason?” Angelica’s cheery voice made me jump.
I hit the button to connect us.
“Yes, Angelica?”
“I have Ms Tattersell on line one.”
I massaged the back of my neck and released a groan. I’d turned my phone off and disconnected her direct line to my office phone in the hope she’d leave me alone. As usual, luck wasn’t on my side.
“Thanks.” I switched lines and balanced the phone between my ear and shoulder, grabbing my coffee and leaning back in my chair. “Hi, Charlie.”
“Where have you been?” she spat. “I’ve been calling you since Wednesday.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been busy.”
“What’s more important than taking my calls?”
“Get over yourself, Charlie.” I slipped my earpiece in and stood from the desk, putting the handset down. “We need to discuss the terms of our…contract.”
“Like hell we do.” A shiver ran through me and I turned to face London City. I needed the reassurance that there was some distance between us. Sometimes I needed to remind myself that there was a bigger world out there, much more than the pathetic existence I lived. “I told you, there are no negotiations.”
“That was then. I’ve been thinking about that night at Fitzpatrick’s.”
“Don’t you dare. Same rules apply. I’m not going to even entertain the idea of you taking any control over this. This is my business. I think I’ve been pretty relaxed over the past year, what with you and your hot head.”
“You realise if we get a financial audit, we’re fucked, right? You keep hiding your cash here and there’s no way I can account for it.” I had to change tactics, take a new approach. “All it takes is one person getting suspicious. How much longer do you think it will be until someone goes digging?”
“I’m listening.” I heard leather creak and knew she was sitting on the sofa in her pristine apartment in Mayfair, and the penny had dropped.
“Because you’re a smart woman, Charlie, but you’ve let this get away from you. We need to stop.”
“We are not stopping.”
I began pacing the office, trying to think of a way to persuade her.
“Then you need to let me bear some of the load.” I took a deep breath and adopted a softer tone. “Baby, you do so much, and you do it all by yourself. Let me help you.”
A quiet whimper travelled through the phone. It had no effect on me; I was empty. I had to keep up the act, although it made me sick to the stomach.
“What’s your plan, Curtis?” she whispered. I had her.
“Let me do my thing for a while. Cover up the money we’ve spread over all the accounts. We’re pushing our luck.”
“You’re right,” she sighed.
“I know, baby.” I sagged on the sofa with a smile. “I have some stuff to do here today. Let me do that, get the wheels in motion and I’ll take you out for dinner tonight.”
“Sounds good.” I heard her smile. How easily the player had been played. “Oh, and Curtis?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Starting to see things my way.”
I relaxed in relief. Charlie had been diverted.
“Had to happen eventually, right? You’re irresistible, Charlie. I’ll call you later.”
I hung up before she could say anythin
g else and tossed the earpiece onto the coffee table. I scrubbed at my eyes, tired, knowing I wouldn’t be able to fix everything in one afternoon. The journal sitting on my desk, the only personal belonging in my office, was burning a hole through the desk top. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned it on, running my index finger over my bottom lip while I waited for it to boot up.
I hit Google. I was sure there would be no results for my search so I was left surprised when the link for Poise returned as the top result: the keywords ‘Skye’ and ‘Jones’ stood out in bold in the preview. I tapped the link and the mobile site opened. I’d heard the name Poise before, but couldn’t remember it having any connection with my memories of Skye.
Shit.
Nina’s picture popped up in the corner of the homepage, underneath grey block lettering with pink shadowing. I knew what the connection was.
Skye worked for Nina.
I continued to scroll through the website, skimming past the fashion news, celebrity gossip and relationship advice until I found the heading that took me to the ‘Poise team’. There was Skye, dressed in a peach-coloured blouse, with her dark hair settled gently over one shoulder. A diamond stud sparkled in her exposed ear, but it was no competition for the radiant smile she posed with.
Skye Jones, executive assistant to Nina Bertolli.
Christ.
I launched my phone onto the table and buried my face in my hands. What was I supposed to do? Skye worked for Nina, close to her; perhaps closer than anyone else. Nina was friends with Charlie and I knew Charlie was going to attack her again, which meant one thing. Skye was in danger.
And I was running out of time to save her.
***
Charlie got in the car and leaned over to kiss my cheek. I accepted the kiss, but kept my eyes ahead. In that moment, I’d never hated her more. Not even after what she did with Fitzpatrick. I’d never hated myself more. I detested us, our relationship, everything we had and everything we did.
Revival Page 16
