I flipped a fifty over the seat to the driver and said, “Sunset Memorial.”
“Sure thing. Say, aren’t you that Crawford kid?”
“Nope. Must have me confused with someone else.” I sighed as I sat back in the seat. Of course he knew I was full of shit. He’d just picked me up in front of the very same building “that Crawford kid” owned, for Christ’s sake. So it was his fault that I had to lie to him. He shouldn’t have asked such a stupid question.
Before long, the heavy traffic of downtown Chicago faded from view and the sun broke through the cloud-laden sky. It was odd to see the rays streaking down through the minuscule opening, especially when the clouds surrounding them looked like they were about to pour down rain at any second, but it soothed me a tiny bit when I followed the beams straight down to the place where I was headed.
The Crawford crypt.
Well, I suppose mausoleum was the correct term, but crypt just sounded better. Either way, it was the final resting place for the only two people who had ever really gotten me, who had loved me for who I was. And one of them was probably going to walk out of that thing to smack me in the back of the head for what I had become.
“You want me to wait?” the cabby asked when he stopped at the walkway at the bottom of the hill that led to my family’s burial ground.
“Nah. I’m good,” I answered.
“Are you sure? Looks like it could start raining anytime now.”
“All the better,” I mumbled, then stepped out. Torrential rain would match the way I felt on the inside perfectly, anyway.
“Well, I wouldn’t feel right leaving you out here by yourself without at least a little something to warm your bones,” the cabby said as he reached across the seat and handed me a brown paper bag with an unopened bottle of Jose Cuervo inside. My father’s favorite—how ironic.
“Thanks,” I said, handing him another fifty and taking the bottle.
I walked up the hill to the family crypt and took a seat on the marble bench across from the door. Then I took the bottle out of the bag, twisted the top off, and poured a healthy dose onto the ground. After all, how rude would it have been for me to drink it in front of the old man without offering him a sip?
“Cheers,” I said with a tilt of the bottle before I took a swig. It burned going down, and I winced, much like the very first time I’d swiped some from his liquor cabinet when I was thirteen. David had dared me to do it, and I didn’t want to look like a pussy, so I choked back the cough my body had fought to let loose, hoping David wouldn’t know I wasn’t as tough as I made myself out to be. Funny thing was that when David took his turn, he coughed the shit out of his nose. I could still see him pinching his nostrils together and whining for a good hour after it happened about how much it burned.
I had to let out a chuckle at the memory, and then I took another hard swig before looking down at the ground. Fuck David. And fuck me.
I still remembered the night I’d lost my parents. Of course I remembered it; I’d murdered them, so it wasn’t like I was ever going to be able to forget it. Maybe not by my own hand, but it was my fault nonetheless, and that made me a murderer.
David and I had been fucking off, as usual. Drunk out of our goddamn minds. I believe whiskey had been the culprit that night, and we were drinking that shit like it was water. The challenge? Who could drink a bottle faster—straight up, no chaser. We weren’t the least bit concerned about alcohol poisoning, didn’t give a fuck that we were graduating the next day and had to be up at the crack of dawn. And neither of us was in any shape to drive. My parents had been on their way home from a night out at the opera when I’d called them. I’d only meant for them to send our driver out to get me, but my father was furious, and my mom was worried. So they’d insisted on picking up David and me on their way home. They never made it. Some other drunk motherfucker who’d decided it would be a grand idea to get behind the wheel of a car instead of calling for his own goddamn ride that night hit my parents head-on. They were both dead at the scene, clutching each other’s hands lifelessly. I knew, because I’d walked up to the accident when I saw the flashing lights. They’d been only three blocks away.
I’d won the drinking contest that night, but it had come at a very high price. That was my fault, but Delaine’s mother? That wasn’t anyone’s fault, especially not Delaine’s. She wasn’t a spoiled brat born with a silver spoon in her mouth who had no idea just how good she had it. She wasn’t a belligerent asshole who thought getting drunk and fucking everything that had a decent set of tits and a nice ass was the perfect recipe for a good time. So why was her price set so high?
I sighed and looked up toward the darkened clouds overhead. “Tell me what to do,” I said, throwing my hands up in desperation and sending the tequila sloshing around inside the bottle. At that exact moment the rain clouds above me decided to let go of the load they’d been carrying.
I had my answer. I had to let her go. She needed to be with her mother and father, which was a whole hell of a lot easier said than done. I tilted the bottle back again, but before the liquid fire could scorch my tongue, I pulled the bottle away and threw it over the grassy knoll to the left of the mausoleum. I watched it roll until it stopped at the bottom of the hill and emptied the majority of its contents onto the ground, but not all of it.
The symbolism made me guffaw like a madman. Delaine was the devil’s juice, capable of setting me on fire from the inside out. When I was around her, my mind was numb and my thoughts incoherent. And now she was free, but there would always be a small part of her that I would carry around with me. Because Delaine Talbot was not easy to get out of your system—at least, not mine.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t set her free.
~$~
I stayed there in the graveyard until well after the sun had set. It could have been hours after; I wasn’t really sure because time seemed to stop while I wallowed in my own guilt. I was freezing, and my ass and both legs were numb from not having moved from that spot on the bench. Thankfully, the rain had only lasted for about half an hour, and I was completely dry again.
I ignored my growling stomach, my parched mouth, and my incessantly ringing cell phone. People were looking for me. I knew it. And it was only a matter of time before Polly brought out the bloodhounds to track me down. But the one name that flashed across my caller ID that made me curious was Delaine’s.
Not gonna lie—I wanted to answer that damn call more than anything. I grabbed the phone on the first ring, stared at it through the second, and held it so hard through the third that I thought for sure I’d cracked the damn thing. But, I didn’t answer it. What in the hell would I have said?
So I hired a PI to check into your background, because I’m a nosy motherfucker who might have a slight tendency toward being a control freak … Damn it, she was going to be beyond pissed when she found out what I’d done. I’d guaran-fucking-tee it. And guess what I found out? That’s right. I know that you sold your body to pay for your dying mother’s heart transplant, but I’m going to keep fucking you regardless, because I’m sick and I need help—lots and lots of shock therapy to my dick might be just what the doctor ordered.
Yeah, that was so not going to happen.
My phone chimed the familiar notification that I had a text message, and I picked it up. A little flutter went through my chest when I saw that it was from Delaine, and before I knew it, I was opening the message. The digital clock told me that it was after ten o’clock already. Shit, had I been there that long?
Where r u? I’m all alone … in this big bed … naked.
My dick twitched in my pants at the image he and I both knew all too well. “Shut up. This mess we’re in is all your fault, you horny little motherfucker,” I scolded my lifelong friend.
Business meeting. Don’t wait up.
Bullshit. Talked to Polly, but glad ur alive. I’ll let her know.
Thank God she wasn’t going to push it further than that for the time being.
Of course I was perfectly aware that when I had to actually face her, all bets were off. At least she’d get Polly off my back.
Going to sleep. Feel free to wake me when you get home. If you want. ;)
Oh, I wanted. But I wouldn’t.
I put my phone in my pocket and went back to staring at nothing at all. My mother’s ghost hadn’t appeared to smack me upside the head. My father’s ghost hadn’t come out to scold me for wasting good Cuervo or to tell me to get my shit together and stop acting liking an idiot. I hadn’t had some great epiphany, or made any kind of decision about what I was going to do. All in all, it was a wasted day and night.
I pulled my phone back out and called my uncle. Daniel was a cardiologist, the best in Chicago. Not only that, but he seemed to know everyone. Probably because he was a huge supporter of everything that had anything to do with medicine. Just like how he’d bought Everett’s practice. That medical building supported specialists from almost every field, and Daniel was like a sponge, constantly trying to soak up as much knowledge as he could. I knew calling him was a stab in the dark, but I wanted him to see what he could find out about Faye Talbot’s condition and whether he could maybe help her out. No way was anyone going to give me any information with all that medical confidentiality bullshit—not that I’d understand one word of any of it even if they did. But Daniel could do anything.
After placing my call and getting Daniel to agree to help me out, I called Samuel for a pickup. It was time to go home, and even though I was dreading my body’s reaction to seeing Delaine, my heart needed to.
Samuel knew better than to say anything to me on the way home. Clearly I was not in the mood for sharing. When we got to the house, I went in without a word and made my way toward the bedroom. Even though I knew the way by heart, it still felt like I was being pulled in that direction by some unseen force. She was there, and I was like a magnet drawn to her.
For the very first time in a long time, I climbed into my bed with every stitch of clothing still on, except the shoes of course. She was asleep, but she was turned toward my side of the bed, her angelic face looking peaceful even though I knew the hell that fate—and I—had imposed upon her.
Every molecule in my body wanted to reach out and touch her, but I couldn’t. Because I was dirty and she was not. And I wasn’t talking about the fact that I had spent the day in wet clothes and hadn’t yet showered. I couldn’t bring myself to smudge something so pristine. But my smudges were already all over her, weren’t they? I had touched her everywhere, left no inch of her perfect skin unmarred by my branding.
So I did the only thing I could do. I lay there and watched her sleep, memorized her every feature, watched her breathe. And I knew right then that I would never treat her like a sex slave again.
Lanie
“Get your ass in gear or we’re going to be late!” Polly had been barking orders at me from outside the bathroom door for the better part of an hour and it was seriously grating on me. I had just wrenched open the door to tell her off when all of a sudden a loud rumble shook the house and a meteor the size of Texas crashed through the ceiling and landed directly on top of Polly’s head before barreling through to the first floor and landing with a thud. Her little arms and legs were all the evidence I could see when I looked down through the mammoth hole in the floor, and they weren’t moving—not even a twitch. Ding, dong, the witch was dead …
“Well, it’s about time!” Polly screeched, shaking me from my hallucination. The hole in the ceiling was gone, as were the hole in the floor, the debris, and the gigantic meteor. Serious acid trip. Must do again.
Polly gasped, seemingly speechless. Really, that wasn’t anything like her. “You’re absolutely … God, I am so effing jealous of you right now,” she said as she walked around me. “If the sight of you in this dress doesn’t knock Noah out of that I’m-pissed-at-the-world mood of his, nothing will.”
I walked over to the full-length mirror attached to the back of Noah’s closet door and looked at myself. The dress was gorgeous—what there was of it, anyway. It was a navy blue satin number, cut low in the back until it dipped just above the curve of my ass. The chest area was basically a sash that crisscrossed over my breasts and wrapped down and around my hips. My stomach was bare down to the place where the skirt began at my hips. And the skirt may have been floor length, but what difference did that make when there was a slit all the way up to the top of my thigh? At least the material was loose and free-flowing.
Polly had swept my hair up into a twist, but she left elegant little wispy locks strategically placed around my face. The makeup was much bolder than anything I would have done myself, but smoky eyes actually looked good on me. If only Dez could have seen me now—she’d swear I was a different person altogether, and maybe she wouldn’t be so embarrassed about being seen out in public with me.
But as pretty as I felt, I doubted Noah would notice. Polly was right—he seemed to be pissed off at the world, and I had no idea why. He hadn’t even touched me since that night in the music room, the night we’d made the most beautiful music I’d ever had the pleasure of hearing, our bodies and his piano the only instruments in the orchestra. I had to giggle-snort at myself because that sounded corny as all get out even in my own head, but it was true.
I missed him.
When he’d come home from his “business meeting” he didn’t wake me. Unusual for him, disheartening for me, devastating for the Cooch. Polly had told me that Mason had said he took off from his office like a bat out of hell with no indication whatsoever of where the fire was. He hadn’t answered his calls, not even mine, until I’d texted him.
“Did you hear me?” Polly asked in that heeeellloooo-o tone. Oh, right, daydreaming again.
“Um, yeah?” I asked, rather than stated.
“What did I say?” Polly had her hands on her hips and her head tilted to the side with her “you’re in big trouble if you don’t come up with the right answer” look.
“Noah lost his sight because the dress knocked him out and he wrote the world into his will,” I repeated. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t spot on, but it had to have been close, right?
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Get your shoes on. The boys are waiting.”
I slipped into my heels and grabbed my clutch before following the little yapping Chihuahua that was Polly out the door and down the first set of stairs. I stopped when I reached the first landing, stunned into silence when I saw Noah. He was perfect from head to toe. Black tux, white dress shirt, black shoes, and pretty face all present and accounted for. The man made it look so easy.
He looked up toward the landing where I stood. He almost turned back around, but did a double take instead. Ah, so I had caught his attention after all. He smiled awkwardly as I descended the staircase and ran his hands through his hair before he took my hand.
“You are stunning,” he said, and then kissed the back of my hand like a real Prince Charming. I realized then just how much Cinderella and I had in common. Like her, I was just a girl from the working class living out a beautiful fantasy. Only instead of a fairy godmother I had a two-year contract.
Noah’s smile broadened when he saw the Crawford cuff bracelet on my wrist, and then suddenly he dropped my hand and the smile was gone. He cleared his throat awkwardly and tucked his hands in his pockets before saying, “Okay, so we should go.”
Polly cleared her throat in turn, totally inconspicuously—yeah, right—and when Noah looked in her direction, she quickly tilted her head toward me while patting her throat.
“Oh!” Noah said, finally getting the very obvious hint. “I got a little something for you.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a thin platinum chain. When he held it up, I could see the simple blue diamond dangling from the center.
“Oh, Noah. You really shouldn’t have.” Jesus, I even sounded like Cinderella, but that was what the man did to me.
Noah shrugged but didn’t look at me. Instead he focused his attention on th
e clasp of the chain. “It really isn’t a big deal. You deserve …” He sighed and finally lifted his head with a look of certainty in his eyes, “so much more.”
That was odd. Especially considering the way he’d been treating me for the past couple of days, as if I had the plague.
Noah walked behind me and lightly brushed the bare skin of my back with his chest as he clasped the necklace in place. Before he stepped away, his fingers swept across my naked shoulders, sending chills down my spine.
I put my hand on his forearm to stop him from walking away. “Thank you,” I whispered, and then I stood on my tiptoes to give him a soft kiss. When I stepped back, I noticed the muscles in his jaw tensing like he was grinding his teeth.
I really didn’t understand what his problem was. Until two days earlier he’d been all over me like he couldn’t get enough. And now it was a complete one-eighty. I didn’t know if he was disgusted with me, if I’d done something to tick him off, or what. But I knew one thing: he most certainly was starting to tick me off. Then again, maybe that was the point. Since finding out about Julie, I’d been trying to put my bitchy side away and play nice. Maybe he didn’t like that side of me. Maybe he hadn’t changed. Maybe I was the one who had, and the new me just didn’t work the same for him.
Fine.
I stuck my chin out, dropped my hand from his arm, and started for the door. And then I realized no one was following. So I turned, looked at them, and said, “Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s get this over with.”
~$~
The ride in the limo was quiet. Polly and Mason had driven themselves to the ball, in case either we or they wanted to leave early. Noah sat on one side of the limo, smoking a cigarette while he stared out the window. Translation: he was torturing me with the whole “watch me make love to this cigarette while I ignore you” vibe he had going on.