by Jane Henry
My phone buzzed and beeped.
Social media was out of control. Melody sent me article after article until I felt like I could throw up.
Psychopath strikes again
Kidnapping in our little town
Local waitress found.
I deleted them all and finally sent her a text telling her I was home, not to send me any more new articles, and where she could pick me up.
After asking the cab to wait for me, I raced inside the mansion and hurried upstairs to my room to gather my things. I stepped into the closet to grab my bag and books, tripping on something in front of me. Frowning, I picked it up. It looked like some sort of metal latch. I glanced up and my mouth dropped open in wonder when I saw the smallest little opening to an alcove. I saw where the latch had fallen off, maybe weakened with age, or perhaps it was meant to be, as I pushed the little alcove door open. It wasn’t an alcove at all, but a little cubby space that I couldn’t even fit my whole body into. Something cast a shadow on the wall of the little cubby. With trembling hands, I reached for it, coughing as a shower of dust came down on me. My fingers wrapped around the hard cover of a book. Curiously, aware of the time and importance for speed, I pulled the book down and let it fall open.
Written in large, loopy letters, lay the diary of Samantha McGovern.
"No, sir,” I said, as my phone continued to beep and chime. Melody had taken me to the hospital to visit my mother, and now I answered questions from the local police department. It seemed the entire internet was on the attack against Sawyer, with Gavin at the lead. Post after post crucified Sawyer, making false, terrible accusations against him. His being arrested paled in comparison to the slandering that was tearing him asunder online. Gavin had riled up the masses, and the masses had predictably responded. “That is not what happened at all. All that happened was that I agreed to be his employee for a short time, to perform some tasks he needed.”
My cheeks flushed at the memory of what we’d done together. I swallowed hard, and splayed a hand at my throat.
The officer questioning me just raised a brow and took more notes.
“And I believe your mother has been held for questioning as well, in the hopes that she will receive the medical attention she deserves?”
“This is why I’ve asked you to allow me to see her,” I said between clenched teeth. “She needs regular psychological intervention, yes, of which I am aware and prepared to pursue, but she does not need, nor has she ever needed, to be committed to the McGovern mental hospital.”
He held a placating hand up. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m merely doing my job here.” He nodded. “She may go. Now take her to her mother.”
Melody came to my side. “Oh, God, Annabelle,” she said. “What a mess. Sawyer will never recover from the attack on him. They’ve made that clear that he won’t. His career is ruined.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t take me against my will and you know it. I’ll tell whoever will listen. If the attack is on social media, then it makes sense that the return defense will be on the very same platform.” She took a right turn and accelerated as we got close to getting to where our mother was being held.
We finally arrived, and pled our case to the caseworker. We were let in to see Mom, and she rose to her feet when she saw me. I embraced her, and she hugged me back.
“They found you!” she said. “Oh thank God, Annabelle.”
“I wasn’t lost,” I said, my emotions rising as I whispered in her ear. “Mom, I’m fine. Really. I promise. Mister Gryffin is a good man, and he takes care of me.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “Then I was wrong to tell them you were taken? I woke up and was convinced you were. Did they come to get him? Will bad things happen now, because of me?”
I shook my head and swallowed hard. “Wonderful things have happened because of you,” I said in return, my eyes filling with tears, and a sob threatening to choke me. I had to hold it together. “So very many things. But we need to get you out of here, and we need to prove your innocence!”
A deep, familiar voice sounded in the hallway. “…And just today, we’ve seen with our own eyes that Annabelle is no longer functioning at full capacity. Her presence with Sawyer Griffin has rendered her mentally useless.”
Ha! What did they want to check? They could test anything they want and prove how Gavin falsified his news stories.
Gavin sauntered into the room. My fingers fisted and I wanted to punch his arrogant, handsome, foolish face for him.
I released mom. “What have you done?” I fumed. “You’ve set an all-out media attack on Sawyer! How dare you? He’s done nothing at all to you. You ought to be ashamed!”
He signaled behind me, I assumed to his cameraman.
“Oh?” he asked, putting a microphone up to my mouth. “Tell us again, Annabelle. What he’s done is foolish, is it?” He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Agree to marry me, and this all goes away.”
“Never!”
His eyes clouded and his jaw clenched as he spoke back into the microphone. “Our small-town waitress has lost her mind in the mayhem that surrounds her kidnapping, and it was only through the intervention of local authorities alerted by me that she stands here now, safe and sound, in front of us.”
Anger roiled through me. “That is a lie,” I said. “All a terrible lie.” I took a step toward the camera. “This is recording? Then I have something to show you.”
Gavin reached for me but someone pulled him away. I spoke rapidly, before I lost my spotlight, and I pulled the diary out of my bag. “The accusations against Sawyer Griffin are patently false. All of them. I went to live with Sawyer of my own accord, and he took very good care of me. In addition to his innocence as far as my kidnapping is concerned, I have further evidence that the murder accusations against him are also false!”
Gavin sputtered and writhed in my peripheral vision. I turned to look at him then, and gasped. It was not a security officer who held him, as I’d assumed, but Sawyer himself, no doubt released from custody and coming to get me.
He came for me.
His eyes fell to the diary as I continued as the cameras rolled. “This is a journal written by the very fiancée who you all believe was murdered in cold blood by Mister Griffin.” I held it up. “Within these pages, written in her very own hand, is a vivid explanation as to how she planned to throw herself over the cliff to her death, how she’d planned it for months.”
Pain flitted across Sawyer’s features and his jaw clenched, but he held Gavin tightly.
I tapped the journal and turned to Gavin. “You want evidence and a story? Read this. But only if you rescind the accusations you’ve made.”
He blustered and fumed, but he was no match against Sawyer. “I will drop the story.” Sawyer released him with a shove, and Gavin stumbled, reaching for the journal.
I looked at Sawyer, who nodded. He didn’t want the journal any more than I did. It was a link to a past we would forget, the chains that bound him freed by the evidence I now held.
Gavin frowned at me but snatched the book, his eyes widening as he read the words.
Sawyer stood to the side, and opened his arms to me, his brows raised hopefully as he waited. Would I still go to him?
Cameras still rolling for all the world to see, I ran to him.
One month later
"Beauty finds Prince Charming,” Sawyer read. He snickered at the headline of the article written for us, as I snuggled up against his chest in bed. “They’re right about the beauty, but I’m no Prince Charming.” He tossed the article to the side and leaned over to kiss me, his bare chest brushing up against mine. I’d thought our night of lovemaking had left me sated, but it turned out, I was wrong. I pressed my body up against him, needing to feel him all over again.
“Of course you’re Prince Charming. What surprises me most is how they refer to me as beauty.”
His hand cupped my jaw and I opened my eyes at the very moment he planted a kiss o
n my forehead. “There is no doubt about that, beautiful.” I ignored him, ducked around his attempt of a kiss, and snagged the magazine with the article, reading loud.
“In a whirlwind of conflicting articles and erroneous information, the newlywed couple has made their debut. Mister Sawyer Gryffin, husband to Annabelle (Symphony) Gryffin, married his beloved wife, redeeming his reputation as a monster of a man. Whereas locals once thought him responsible for the death of his fiancée, they now tote him as “a benevolent benefactor,” and “a true altruist. Ohh!” He’d snatched the article straight out of my hand and tossed it down.
“Altruist,” he growled. “They don’t know my wife is responsible for the attempt at vindicating my sordid reputation.” He planted kisses down my neck and my eyes closed of their own accord. He was the master of my body, and I could do little to stop him once he started.
Not that I wanted to.
“No, they don’t know that I was the one who orchestrated those donations, but they also don’t know what a very good man my husband is.”
His tongue flicked along my collarbone and then lower, as he worshipped my breasts, flicking his tongue along the sensitized nipple, drawing the tender skin between his teeth. He released me just long enough to hiss, “Fuck them.” He pressed my wrists against the bed as he returned to my nipples. I sighed in delight. I loved him so much and it thrilled me to see that others were finally getting a glimpse at who he really was, a generous man who bowed to no one, who led with certainty… a man who loved me.
But my mind was growing hazy as he worked me over.
“No, Daddy. Fuck me.”
“I love when you beg” he said, climbing on top. “ I love you.”
“And I love you,” I breathed, as he held me close, in the arms of my very own beast, my friend, my lover. They could call me beauty, and I’d accept that I was beautiful to him. But the true beauty lay between us, the joining of two people who together, had finally found perfection.
Epilogue
"This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Annabelle whispered, staring out at the Seine, her little hand in mine. The diamond on her ring finger sparkled in the glow of the lights of Paris.
Mine.
She was mine, and would be forevermore.
Her mother had been released from the hospital a week prior, into the care of a full-time aide. She had a full suite in an attached apartment near my home. Annabelle would visit her as often as she liked. Her mother didn’t like me at first, until I showed her her new home.
“You did this for me?” she asked.
“He did, because he cares about you, mom,” Annabelle said. “Remember that what Gavin said about him was false. He loves me. We are going to get married.”
And somehow then, it all clicked, and her mom had one of those rare moments of clarity.
“Oh, very good then,” she said. “I do think it good you married into wealth. You know I don’t have two pennies to pinch together.”
We laughed at that, all of it, even Melody.
Annabelle took the money I’d insisted on giving her, the full payout I’d promised in our original agreement, and sent her sister on a European cruise. She’d meet us in Paris the following week, but until then, our time was our own. Annabelle no longer needed the money. She was mine now, my wife, and everything I owned was hers.
Gavin lost his job as reporter for the Tribune, and moved out west. Last we heard, he’d married the daughter of a wealthy Texas tycoon, and swore off the reporting industry. He now took small commercial acting jobs on the side, and managed his wife’s money as a profession.
We kept our home on the cliffs, but hadn’t yet come to a decision as to where we’d spend most of our time.
“Where should we stay?” I asked Annabelle, as she looked out at the Seine, sipping her glass of wine. She squeezed my hand in hers.
“Doesn’t matter to me, really,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t mind where I am. I love all these places, because you are with me.”
“I love you,” I responded, bringing her fingers to my lips and kissing them.
She laid her head on my chest and squeezed. “And they both lived happily ever after.”
* * *
THE END
