Dirty News (Dirty Network Book 1)

by Michelle Love

  “This is working much better,” I say and see him give me that look I forgot he has. The one that silently tells me not to question him or talk back and just do as he says.

  I pull the gloves back on though. I haven’t the strength to argue with him at this point. I need rest and I need it now!

  “Good girl,” he says then opens a drawer, retrieving a metal whisk to stir the milk.

  I don’t say anything as that pretty much pisses me off. I watch him in silence as he prepares the drinks. He gives me quick glances now and again and it has me thinking he’s got something he’d like to say or ask but is having a hard time bringing himself to do it.

  “You’re acting strange,” I finally say when he brings the cups of hot chocolate to the table and sits across from me.

  “Am I?” he asks as he blows over the surface of one of the cups then places it in front of me. “Don’t drink it yet, it’s very hot. You can use the warm cup to help warm your hands up.” He places my gloved hands around the cup and smiles at me. “See.”

  “Yes, I’m not a moron!” I snap at him. “You’re treating me like a child, Nic. Stop it!”

  His eyes go wide with my outburst then he looks down. “Tell me about your past, Natasha. Tell me why you had no boyfriend when we met. What had you all alone?”

  “I was way too busy with my school work is what had me all alone.” I venture to take a sip of the creamy looking drink.

  “Not yet,” he says as he looks over his cup at me. “Before college, did you have a boyfriend?”

  Shaking my head, I answer him, “No. I wasn’t into boys my age. I liked older men. Being that I was underage had my hands tied. So, I ended up not dating anyone. When I was twenty, I dated one of my professors. He was ten years older than I was.”

  “What ended that?” he asks me.

  “His wife,” I say and laugh a little. “I had no idea he was married.”

  “Is that a thing that’s a definite no-no with you?” he asks and watches my reaction a bit too intensely.

  “What, the man I’m dating being married?”

  He nods. “Yes.”

  “Of course,” I say and sip the drink that’s cooled enough. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I’ll be honest with you as I do hate games and I feel like I’m playing with you instead of being straightforward. Your father told me how you broke up a man’s marriage when you were sixteen. He told me how he thought the man had come on to you and he nearly killed him. He told me he caught you giving the man a blowjob and you remained silent all these years. But recently, you told him it was you who initiated the act.” He stops talking and just looks at me.

  I am stunned my father told him all of that. “My God! I can’t believe he told you that!”

  “He had his reasons. And now I want to know something. Is this your true character? Are you a woman who cares not if she wrecks a home? Or are you the woman I came to know, respect, and love?”

  Shuddering as I feel him judging me, I wrap my arms around myself. “I don’t know what the hell to say to that, Nic. You, yourself, told me I had a darkness inside of me. It was you who said that to me. It was you who tried to bring that out in me and now you sit here and look at me as a judge and jury. Well, I don’t like it one bit. And to be judged by you is preposterous!”

  “At least I am upfront and honest about my past. You seem to want to keep yours hidden. Is that the kind of person you are? One who dabbles in the dark and wants to keep it hidden as you walk around with your head held high, though you don’t deserve to?”

  Getting up, quickly, I find the chair falling to the floor as I make my exit out of the kitchen. “I’m not doing this right now. I don’t have the fucking strength to do this with you.”

  He’s right behind me, his hand touches my shoulder. “Where are you going?”

  “To bed. In the guest room. The one that was to be mine if I signed your bond. I want to be alone,” I tell him as I keep moving. “You can send the doctor in when she gets here. Just leave me alone.”

  “You’ve been alone far too much this last year. Get into our bed.” He steers me to his bedroom and I find myself fuming mad at him.

  As we get to the door, I turn around and glare at him. “I won’t be coming back to a relationship where you dominate me. I’ve been lorded over for far too long. I am weak right now. I will get stronger, though. And I will never be dominated again. Do you understand me? I may not be the woman for you any longer. I am not the same person.”

  His eyes go soft. The hardness that had reigned over his expression has all but disappeared. His lips fall softly on my forehead. “I am sorry. You go into the bedroom and rest. Get undressed. I’ll send the doctor in when she gets here. I am sorry, Natasha. Things are so unsettled. I yearn for them to be settled and our lives going forward.”

  With a nod, I place my hands on his chest. “I am not in a state to make promises I can’t keep. I have a road ahead of me. One where I need emotional help as well as physical. I want you to know, I understand if I am too much for you to handle right now. I can go live with my parents.”

  “We’ll see,” he says then opens the door and ushers me into the room. “For now, you undress and climb into bed and soon the doctor will be here to start helping you get better.”

  I walk into the room, alone, as he closes the door and leaves me. I have to wonder if the doctor can help me at all as I feel lost and very helpless. I hope I don’t push Nic away just to protect myself from any more pain. That’s the last thing I want to do but I feel it welling up inside of me. Self-preservation.

  NICHOLAI

  As I close the door to the bedroom, leaving Natasha alone as she requested, I get the distinct impression she has many things haunting her right now. I don’t like it and I don’t like how I am handling any of this.

  When her father told me about her past, I was shocked. I know I shouldn’t have been. It was me who knew she had something hidden inside of her after all. But hearing it out loud that she purposely seduced a married man, ending his marriage and family as well as getting his ass royally kicked by her father, well that left a mark on my soul.

  She is not the sweet and nearly innocent women I thought she was. And why that’s bothering me so much is a complete mystery. I am by far no innocent. But I am not hiding anything either.

  I play with the box in my pocket that holds the engagement ring I meant to give her today and have to hold back. It’s not the right time. Things are up in the air. Her spirit is weak as is her handle on life right now.

  Making my way to the elevator to have the ring placed in a safe deposit box I have on the ground floor of the building, I find myself feeling a bit sad about things.

  Nothing is working out as planned. I thought she and I would fall into each other’s arms and everything else would melt away. I was wrong. She has been drugged and neglected and even worse when she was in Hawthorne’s hands.

  Liz is working the desk I see as I get off the elevator. “Can I have the key to the room where the safe deposit boxes are. I need to put something in mine?”

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Grimm,” she says with a smile.

  “Oh! Yes, I forgot. Merry Christmas, Liz.”

  She hands me the key. “Did you buy your lady something valuable for Christmas, sir?”

  I nod then say, “I did. But I changed my mind about giving it to her. She’s in a frail state. Now is not the time.”

  “Were you going to ask her to marry you, Mr. Grimm?” she asks and I find her curiosity annoying.

  I simply walk away instead of biting her head off for being so intrusive. It is Christmas after all.

  As I open the safety deposit box, I find the few things I keep in there, staring up at me. My grandparents’ wedding set is in here. My mother gave it to me when her mother passed on a few years back. She told me to keep it and maybe one day hand it down to one of my children.

  The thought of having children had been on my mind a little over a year a
go. I was going to ask Natasha to marry me on Christmas of last year but she had been taken away and that never happened.

  I had so many plans that were halted. She’s so weak. Her body is much too frail to ask her to have children anytime in the next year. All my dreams and hopes have been dashed. And I have a couple of men I can blame for that. But then again, perhaps it’s Natasha’s own karma that got in our way.

  Perhaps the fact she broke up a marriage means she’s not to have one. Or maybe she will have one in which someone will come along and break hers up. I would be the victim in that scenario. The role of victim is not one I like to play.

  Pushing my thoughts aside, I place the black box inside and close it up, locking it away again. I was so sure this was the right time to ask her but things couldn’t be worse.

  As I walk out of the room, I find the doctor coming inside the large stained glass doors. Bits of snow come in with her and she brushes off her coat on the mat.

  “Hello Sandra,” I greet her.

  She looks up and smiles at me. “Hi Nicholai. How are you?”

  I take her hand and lead her to the elevator. “Not great. Glad you’re here.”

  She kisses my cheek, a thing I didn’t use to allow her to do when she was my slave over three years ago. She stopped that lifestyle and with that, she began to treat me the way she wanted to.

  I kiss her cheek back and run my arm around her shoulders, pulling her in for a hug as the elevator doors close. “What’s wrong?” she whispers as I hold her to me.

  “So many things, Sandra. So many,” I say as I can’t stop hugging her.

  “Nicholai, I talked to your father. He told me about what happened to the young woman. It’s a tragedy but she’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of that.”

  I let her out of my tight hug and run my hand over her dark hair. “I can’t explain it all to you. It’s hard for me to take it all in. I love her but what she’s been through may have made huge changes in her. She’s dead set on there being no domination by me and I can’t stop that entirely. It’s how I was raised.”

  She nods and seems to understand me. “I’ll talk to her as well as examine her.”

  “She may not tell you this, she didn’t tell me. It was her father who told me. He had her locked up for over a year. He had the people who were watching over her, give her sedatives three times a day for that entire time. She’s been off them about four days now.”

  Her eyes droop with sadness. “How terrible for her. I think she should also see a psychiatrist.”

  “Me too. I’ll get that all set up for her,” I say as I open the door to my apartment.

  “About how she’s changed, Nicholai. You should give this thing some time between you two. I know you’re a man who’s never been in love. To say you love her is a huge thing where you’re concerned. Don’t make any hasty decisions, either way. She’ll need time and you will too.”

  I nod and take her to the bedroom. “She’s in here.”

  Sandra stops as she sees I’ve let Natasha come into my bedroom. “You allow her in your personal bedroom?” she asks with a frown.

  “Yes,” I say and watch the pain spread over her face.

  “Nicholai, can I ask you a question?”

  “You may,” I say and take her chin in my hand to get her to look at me as she was looking down.

  “Why her? What did she have that I didn’t?” she asks me as tears pool behind her dark eyes.

  “I cannot explain it at all. She had an unbreakable spirit that I admired. But I’m afraid that spirit has been broken and she seems to fight like a dog that’s been chained up and she looks at me like I am trying to chain her up again.”

  “If she can’t be who you want anymore, would you ever think of giving me a chance again? In a normal relationship, not like what we had before.” Her eyes search mine and I find myself feeling bad about what I have to tell her.

  “Sandra, you are a magnificent woman. Any man would be lucky to have you. I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. My heart beats only for Natasha. If she’s changed into a person I cannot live with or a person who cannot live with me, it will leave me very broken. You wouldn’t want a broken man, now would you?”

  She shakes her head. “I see it in your eyes. You love her. You really do. I’ll go take care of her for you. I’ll do all I can to get her to see your love for her is real and you won’t hurt her. You won’t, right?”

  “I will never hurt her,” I tell her, then open the door. “Thank you, Sandra.”

  Natasha is asleep I see as Sandra goes to her. “I’ll wake her up. Wish me luck, Nicholai.”

  I nod and close the door. Leaning my back against it, I wonder if I will ever get to be happy. Will things ever work out right for me?

  NATASHA

  “You don’t seem to understand me, Doc. I want to get better, I do,” I say.

  He looks at me with a knowing smile on his thin lips. “Tasha, it’s been nearly an entire year of me seeing you once a week. And still, you refuse to let me in completely. I cannot help you if you don’t. Should I find another psychiatrist for you?”

  “I don’t want to start from ground zero with anyone new. I’ve already lost so much. I can’t stand to be around people. I can’t stand to be alone but I am always alone. Nothing makes me happy. No one makes me happy. I can’t start over, Doc. I just need your help to break through this barrier inside of myself. I’ve pushed everyone away. Help me,” I plead with the man.

  “It’s there, within you, Tasha. You say constantly that you forgive your father for what he did to you.”

  I stop him. “Because I do.”

  “You don’t,” he says, simply. “How could you? He took your world away from you. You had to go into rehab for six months to let your body recuperate from the addiction it had to those sedatives. You lost the man you love because you were drinking heavily to take the place of the sedatives. That is one person’s fault. And it’s not yours. So, blame who is responsible instead of holding it all in and lying to yourself about forgiveness you do not have for the one who caused all of that.”

  “It does no good to blame others for your own problems,” I say. “I’ve been told that all of my life.”

  “By the man who did this to you, Tasha. Come to grips with it. Your father changed you and your life. You were able to blame James Hawthorne for his part in your emotional upheaval. You accepted the settlement that made you a wealthy woman. You testified against him in court and faced your demon head one where that man is concerned. Now it’s time to face your father and let him know he hurt you and you want an apology. You want retribution for what he did to you. You got it from Hawthorne, now get it from your father.”

  “I can’t do that,” I tell him for the hundredth or so time. He wants me to do a thing that’s impossible.

  “Until you do, then you will continue to stay stagnant. Not growing, not moving on with life. You’ve managed to conquer the alcohol that controlled you. You’ve managed to live life on your own terms as you refused to allow anyone to control any of your actions. And how’s that working out for you?” he asks with a grin. “How do you like making all of your own decisions? All of your own plans without anyone’s interference? No one tells you what to do at all. How does that feel?”

  I’d love nothing more than to tell the man it feels wonderful but I’d be lying and he’d know that. “It’s terrible. Yes, I can make my own plans. You know what they are, day after day? What shows to watch on television. What books to read alone when I get to bed. No one tells me a thing. No one tells me they love me. No one asks for my kisses. No one says a thing to me or tells me to do anything because I walked away.”

  The tears start flowing as they always do when I remind myself that I got exactly what I told Nic I wanted. I got a life with no one dominating me. Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that everything he said or did was some type of domination. It got so bad that when he asked me to change the channel of the show I wasn’t ev
en watching as I was also reading a book, I threw the remote at him and had a screaming fit that he was trying to control me and I left his home that very night.

  He watched me pack my things and leave his home. He never said a word. He didn’t tell me to stop. He didn’t tell me to stay. He just watched me leave. He let me leave him.

  I suppose he was sick of me. Sick of my drinking. Sick of my constant quick temper when I even remotely thought he was bossing me around.

  I blew it and I know it was all me who did that.

  “He came in today. He had a session a few hours before yours. I always make sure to keep your appointments far apart so you two don’t run into one another here,” he tells me, making my heart ache.

  “How is he?” I ask as I wipe the tears away with the tissue I always have at the ready when I come to see the psychiatrist Nic still pays for me to see.

  “He’s okay. He’s sad. His life hasn’t turned out the way he wanted it to. He asks about you every time he comes. He wanted me to relay a message to you. Would you like to hear it or not? It’s up to you,” he asks me.

  “No, don’t tell me anything. He’s the past. I’m not looking at the past,” I say as I set my mind. I have to move forward.

  “If you never look in your past then you will never learn from it and be able to be the person you can be. I’m not asking you to forget you father by making it known you find him responsible for what happened to you. I am telling you when you admit that to yourself and tell him what you think then you will feel a weight lift off your shoulders. Only then will you be able to deal with life on terms you can live with.”

  “So, tell my father and myself he’s the reason my life went to hell in a handbasket?” I nod. “I can try, right?”

  “That’s all you can do, is try,” he tells me and puts his pad of paper and pen away. “Session is over for this week. See you next week.”

  I nod and give my eyes a final wipe then get up and leave his office. Taking a deep breath, I walk to the elevator and get in it. It’s full of people and I always find myself having trouble breathing in the crowds.