Pretty When You Cry

by Skye Warren

  The vial had been gone from the nightstand, stowed safely in Ivan’s trousers. So I did what I’ve done for years. I traded my body for what I needed. I let him spank me and fuck me. I gave him a good show, and when he was too sated with climax to notice, when he’d let his guard down the way he could only do for me, I stole the little bottle.

  I see the moment recognition passes over his face, cutting through the chemical-induced exhaustion. His gaze flits to mine. There’s a slight incline of his head that might be an acknowledgment of what I’ve done. Or it might be goodbye.

  Or it might just be the drugs taking effect, dragging him into unconsciousness. His large body slumps to the floor with a sickening thud.

  The first thing I do is check his vital signs. Strong. The second thing I do is arrange him so that he’ll be more comfortable when he wakes up—flat on his back, arms at his side, a pillow from the couch under his head.

  Sarah Elizabeth is staring at me, mouth open in shock.

  Okay, I guess it would be kind of weird to see two grown men suddenly fall asleep. Especially considering what else happened today. “They’re just asleep,” I say gently.

  “But…but why? I thought you and him were together.”

  Together. That’s one word for what we were. Depraved. Toxic. And beautiful.

  “I couldn’t let them keep you against your will,” I tell her honestly. “Not after what you had been through with Leader Allen. Now come on. We need to cover a lot of ground.”

  We gather supplies from the hotel room—and from the men themselves. Money from Ivan’s wallet, a knife from Luca’s pocket. Then we’re heading downstairs, hailing a cab. Vanishing into the night. We’re five blocks away before Sarah Elizabeth asks the question she’s been holding in.

  “You could stay behind. He would be mad that you let me go… but he wouldn’t hurt you. Would he?”

  “Not like you think,” I mutter. But he would hurt me. “The truth is that I needed to go myself, whether you were here or not. I need to… be my own person.”

  Not his little one, as much as it hurt to know I’d never hear those softly spoken words again.

  By the time Luca and Ivan would regain consciousness in the morning, we are already four hundred miles away. We change clothes and hair colors and accents. Even knowing we’ve made it safely away, I continue looking over my shoulder. There’s both trepidation and hope in those backward glances, but it doesn’t matter.

  Ivan doesn’t find me.

  We took the one surefire way I know to disappear—those anonymous gray buses.

  And Ivan himself told me where to go.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Don’t,” I say, taking the basket away. Beth sticks her tongue out at me but lets me take it from her. She knows she isn’t supposed to be lifting heavy things at this point, but she likes to stay active.

  “Fine,” she says. “If you insist on being a worrywart, I’ll go turn that last batch into a pie. They’re already going soft.”

  “Yes, please.” I love this girl’s baking. Sarah Elizabeth goes by Beth now. She’s a happy, playful young woman who bears little resemblance to the timid girl we spirited away all those months ago. However, one thing that remains from her old life is her love of all things domestic. Especially baking. And I can’t say that I’ve complained.

  Meanwhile I’m better suited to hard labor, whether that’s working a pole or picking peaches from trees. Both leave me exhausted and sore, but the peaches have the added bonus of producing pie.

  The ground around the cottage is hard-packed dirt, cool against my bare soles. No hand-sewn linen shoes for me. No stilettos either.

  Sarah Elizabeth and I made it all the way to the coast, to the little countryside town where a boy was abused and neglected. Where he fought with everyone he met. Of course no one knows our connection to this place. Ivan’s grandmother passed away a long time ago, her only presence an empty house outside of town.

  We rented a little cottage six months ago, servant’s lodging for the main house. The landowner never comes here, the local agent told us. I already knew that. This is the one place Ivan will never look for us. The one place he’ll never return.

  I’m lost to him, but in another way, I’m found. I learn that I can survive on my own. I learn that I miss the relentless, almost reckless passion of a man. And I learn that as much as I miss it, I don’t need it after all.

  We tell people we’re sisters. Picking peaches pays most of the rent. Sarah Elizabeth sells what she bakes to pay for food and other necessities.

  It’s a good life, a quiet life.

  A lonely life.

  Physical work means I can fall asleep at night, instead of remembering. Remembering Leader Allen and his last words to me, his revelation. Or was it a confession? Whether he is or isn’t my father, he’s gone now, forever.

  I remember the Grand too, more than I’d like. And Ivan.

  So it seems like a mirage when I see him.

  I notice the silhouette immediately, a rare break in the sideways sunlight. The shadow turns into a man. And the man turns into…him.

  The basket turns to lead and slips out of my hand. Peaches tumble to the ground and roll toward him.

  I can’t see his face, but I recognize the breadth of his shoulders and the lean lines of his hips. I recognize the cut of his suit and the elegant shape of his shoes. I even recognize his hair, the way he forces it down, as if he can control every single strand—but a few in the back always point up if he’s had a long day. Like now.

  It’s a relief to see that he’s stayed the same. I feel so different than what I was before. My hair is cut to my shoulders, shorter than it’s ever been, and dyed auburn. The sun has brought out freckles on my shoulders, on my chest. The dress I’m wearing is modest and feminine, the ruffle hemline just below my ankles. I am not the girl who cowered in Harmony Hills. I am not the stripper who danced in the Grand.

  I am a different person now, a different woman—standing in front of the man I still love.

  His eyes are a clear grey, like a winter sky. “Here?” he asks.

  In this place where he was tortured and abandoned.

  In the place he found beauty and peace.

  “Here,” I answer.

  He nods, just once. “I’d like to have a word with you.”

  A word. He wants more than a word. He wants to bring me back like I’m a wayward child to be led by the hand. For years I hoped my mother would somehow find me, that she would care enough to come after me. Now Ivan wants to do that for me, wants to be the caretaker I didn’t have, but it’s too late. I grew up in between the flashing stage lights and daily spankings. Or maybe I only grew up when I left.

  His voice is the one that sounds different. He’s still dominant. That is part of his core, not a skin he can slough off. But all the same he sounds…careful. As if this is important.

  As if I’m important.

  It makes me feel somehow formal. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He steps forward, and the light breaks over him, illuminating the patrician nose and high cheekbones, the firm lips and pale eyes. His face still flashes in my mind in the seconds before I come, rubbing myself with my fingers, desperately trying to think of something else—someone else.

  He looks exactly as I remembered him. Except for his suit, which is more rumpled and less starched than I’ve ever seen it, as if he’s slept in it overnight. It makes me think of how he would have looked when he first put it on, crisp and handsome. Then he might have thought about our conversations, about the place he swore never to go, and realized where I’d come. Would he have placed a call to the local agent to find out there were two girls renting the cottage on his land? Maybe, but he wouldn’t have stopped to confirm. He clearly came straight away, rushed over, desperate.

  Something inside me warms at the thought of him hungry to see me.

  The door isn’t locked. I give it a small nudge, and
it swings forward.

  At least Sarah Elizabeth is around back. I suppose I should be sending her some kind of warning to run, to hide. I’m in some kind of trance—seeing him here doesn’t feel real. I could almost be rubbing myself, in bed, alone, climaxing to the thought of him. That seems more likely.

  At least until he brushes by me—solid, warm, with that faint Ivan musk.

  Real.

  I bring him into the cottage. So much for a warning signal. He obviously found us. If he had planned a smash-and-grab job, he’d already have done so.

  The cottage has exposed rafters and whitewashed walls. Lavender dries on the wall, upside down, scenting the air and calming me. This place may be small, but it’s mine in a way no place has ever been. Not Harmony Hills. And definitely not the Grand. Those places had belonged to men, and I’d belonged to them too.

  Ivan’s gray eyes take in every inch of the space, from the overturned crates serving as chairs around a rustic table to the gingham curtain hanging in the middle of the room, half hiding a daybed. At first Sarah Elizabeth and I shared the bedroom, but I moved out so that she could be more comfortable in her final months—and to give her more room when the baby is born.

  Nerves flutter in my stomach. What will Ivan think of this house?

  His voice is quiet when he speaks. “It’s beautiful.”

  More than quiet, he sounds almost reverent. And I know he doesn’t just mean the cottage. He means the life I’ve built here. He means me.

  “Thanks,” I say softly, feeling shy.

  He clears his throat. “Candace—”

  “How is Lola? And the girls?” I have to interrupt him. I can’t let him finish. I’m afraid of what he’ll say, what he’ll ask me. I’m dreading saying no.

  A slight nod tells me he knows exactly why I stopped him, but he’s letting it go. For now. “Good. We found Bianca.”

  My heart thumps. It had hurt to leave, even if I’d had no real ties to most of them. Maybe if I could have said goodbye. “Is she okay?”

  “She got in deep with a dealer. He was affiliated with Fedor. We’re working it out.”

  Relief and gratitude form a knot in my throat. “Thank you.”

  His expression turns stark. “I apologize that I let you think I wouldn’t help.”

  He doesn’t just mean Bianca. “I always knew you would help me, Ivan. Sometimes the price was just too high.”

  He’s silent a moment. The past whispers between us, spankings and orders and a rough bloody fuck on his bed—somehow beautiful in its brutality.

  He nods once, eyes filled with pain. “I’m sorry for that too.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. He should sound like a stranger, speaking those foreign words. But he doesn’t. He apologizes like he does everything else—with the entire force of his will.

  “Is that why you came?” I’m the one careful now. I’m the one with something to lose. “To say sorry?”

  “That. And other things.”

  Other things, other things. My imagination can fill in some heartbreaking other things. My hands are shaking as I go to the sideboard. “Do you want a drink?”

  A pause. “Candace.”

  I rummage through old, empty liquor bottles, glass soft with dust. There’s a bottle of wine I popped when we first moved in. The scent of vinegar makes my nose scrunch up. “Maybe not.”

  “Candy.”

  I swallow hard. He never calls me that. I force my hands to my sides, still turned away. “Yes?”

  “Would you come sit down?”

  Dread. That’s what I’m feeling as I turn and face him. And regret. And love. God, is this what love is? It feels like there’s a hole in my chest, because there are only two ways this ends. I can be his property or nothing at all.

  The cushions have no strength left. They sink as I sit down, pushing me closer to Ivan. Why is this sofa so tiny? It didn’t seem that way when Sarah Elizabeth and I would chat late into the night, drinking grape juice instead of stale wine.

  I hold myself stiffly, keeping one inch away from him. Without that inch I’ll feel his strength, his solidity. Without that inch, I’d have nothing left to hold myself back with. A strip of air is the only thing keeping me safe.

  And he knows it. His pale eyes take in my posture, my expression. He looks down at the space between us, and something like defeat crosses his hard features. Then he closes his eyes as if making a decision.

  “I’ve brought you a gift,” he says, pulling something from his coat pocket. A slip of paper. “I’m not sure if you want it, but if not, I’m sure my agent in the city can help you dispose of it.”

  I take the paper as if it might catch fire. It does burn my fingers, just that faint heat from his body. My hands are trembling so much it’s hard to read, but then I do. And then the paper goes the same way as the basket, right out of my fingers. Not tumbling and rolling this time. It floats gently to the ground.

  The deed to the Grand. That’s what he gave me.

  I can’t—Why would he—

  He stands, voice grave, eyes not quite meeting mine. “I’m glad to see you doing so well, Candace. I thought… Well, the country seems to suit you.”

  Then he’s standing, walking away, leaving only the faint impression of expensive fabric and constrained power. I can only stare at the place where he had been, wondering, praying. He’d asked me once, What do you want then?

  Something to call mine.

  Then I’m standing up, saying his name. He’s already made it to the door, long strides taken quickly. I have to shout, and it echoes back to me from the walls. He stops walking but doesn’t turn. Not until I run toward him, bare feet slapping the floor, graceless and terrified. He’s leaving.

  And he’s leaving his heart behind. It’s a hollow man who faces away from me, shoulders tense. He’s leaving his heart behind, that’s what he’s telling me by giving me the Grand. He had a hundred businesses, some of them more lucrative, almost all of them more glamorous than a seedy strip club in the poor part of Tanglewood. It was his heart, and he gave it to me.

  “Ivan, wait,” I say, catching up to him. “Please.”

  He turns, only halfway. Listening. Waiting. Hoping? “What is it?”

  “Take me with you.”

  If I’d been hoping for him to take me in his arms, I’d be disappointed. He laughs, a rough sound. “You’re happy here, Candace. Stay happy.”

  “No, I’m—” But I can’t lie, not about this. I am happy here, happier than I’ve ever been. My own place, my own place. My own body to dress and move and touch how I please. It’s something I’ve never had before. “I want to be with you.”

  He turns to me then, letting me see the ravage on his face, the utter desolation. “You want a mirage. I’m the man you left behind, little one. That will never change.”

  My breath catches. Little one. “I don’t need you to change.”

  One eyebrow rises, disbelieving. “No? Then why did you leave?”

  “Because…” I take a deep breath. “Because I needed to change.”

  His gaze sweeps over me, cataloging every change. “Maybe you’re right. I thought you were beautiful before. Now you look even more beautiful. More than that, you look happy.”

  He gives me the compliment with such an easy grace, it steals my words. He’d been so closed off before, holding me so tight I couldn’t breathe. Now he’s giving me the Grand, he’s giving me his kindness. He’s so open, and with a sinking heart, I realize this might be the end. Only now can he be this open, when he’s leaving it all behind. He’s finally opening his fist, only for me to realize how much I needed the crush of him, letting me go when I realize how much I want to stay.

  My lower lip trembles. Tears fill my eyes. “I’m your little one.”

  His expression softens a fraction. “I know.”

  “Then how can you walk away?”

  “How can I do anything else? I came here to beg for you back, to tell you I could be different, be better. That I w
ouldn’t need to treat you like a little girl. But I can’t do any of that.” He stalks away two steps and then returns. “Fuck, look at you. You’ve never looked so happy, so innocent. And so damn little.”

  I take a step back, away from the fury in his voice. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Yes, it’s a fucking—I want you like this all the time. And I want you like this in my goddamn lap while I feed you from my plate and then put you to bed. I can’t help wanting it, little one. All I have to do is look at you, and I’m hurting with how much I want you.”

  I was afraid of his spankings, of his humiliation. I’m still afraid, even though it turns me on. But taking care of me…that’s what I want too. He held himself back out of some twisted sense of honor, as if maybe kinky spankings were okay when tenderness was not. “Take care of me, Daddy.”

  His eyes flash. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  “That’s a naughty word.”

  He reaches for me, hand tangling in my hair. “Daddies use naughty words sometimes. And they do naughty things, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” I say meekly, knowing exactly where this is heading.

  He steps forward again. I step back.

  “Have you been naughty?” he breathes.

  My eyes widen. I don’t want to tell him the truth. Not because I can’t take the physical pain of a spanking. No, I need that pain—yearn for it in the middle of the night. But I can’t take the pain of his coldness, bent over some hard surface while his body is far away, two feet of distance except for his hand against my ass.

  I shake my head, lips pressed together.

  “No?” he asks, drawing out the word. Another step forward.

  Another step back. “I…I don’t…”

  The backs of my legs hit the daybed, and then I’m falling backward. He’s right on top of me, kneeling over me, his presence a delicious shadow blocking out the light. I have a brief thought that the old bed might not support his weight, pure muscle, and so much of it—there’s an ominous creak. Then his mouth is on mine, his hands are pressing my wrists above my head, and all thought leaves me.