Beauty and the Thorns

by Black, Stasia

  It’s easy to catch a cab since Adam’s place is downtown and soon I’m on my way home. I’ll have to call a moving truck this weekend to get the rest of my stuff from Adam’s and from wherever he put it in storage.

  And then what? What comes next?

  Logan. Everything got so crazy last night I’ve barely had two minutes to think about him, but he’s got to be hurting right now. But he’s got to understand that I wasn’t rejecting him last night, just his high-handedness. In the bedroom, yes, I love it. He commands and I obey and in a wild way I still don’t fully understand, it’s allowed me to be free. But our relationship only works if we trust each other.

  I need him to trust me as absolutely as I trust him.

  I take a deep breath as I let my head sink back on the seat cushion.

  “Hey, I know you,” the cabbie suddenly says. “You’re famous. You’re all over the papers today.”

  “What?” I lift my head up and frown at him.

  He’s squinting at the rearview mirror, sizing me up. “Holy shit, it really is you. Wait till I tell my buddies, they won’t believe it.”

  We come to stop at a red light and he pulls out his phone. “You mind posing for a pic? Otherwise the guys’ll never believe I drove you around.”

  “Wait, what do you mean, I was in the papers—” but he’s already snapping away.

  “Stop it,” I hold out my hand as the car behind us honks its horn. The light’s turned green.

  The cabbie drops his phone and starts driving again. Seriously, what the hell? Was my broken engagement to Adam in the papers today? Do the gossip rags really not have better to report on?

  “So were they your idea or Archer’s?”

  “What?”

  “The piercings,” he points to my chest. “Wouldn’t have pegged you as that sort of girl.”

  Who does this guy think he is? I start to pull out headphones so I can listen to music for the rest of the ride, but not before I hear him add, “The two of you looked cozy in bed.”

  My head snaps up. In bed?

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Pics in The New Olympian Inquirer. You and Archer all hot and heavy. Everyone in the city’s talking about it.”

  What. The. Fuck.

  I stuff my earbuds in for the last ten minutes and give a minimal tip when he drops me off at my townhouse. What kind of crap have they photoshopped now just to sell that gossip rag? I hurry over to a newsstand close to my building, still dragging my two heavy suitcases behind me as I go.

  I don’t have to look hard to find it. The paper is front and center, the headline above the fold reading, “Mogul Adam Archer’s Engagement: The Inside Story” and smaller, Insider snaps of couple canoodling after their big celebration.

  I snatch the paper off the stand. It’s me. I don’t know how, but it’s me. In the red bra I’m still wearing now. I’m lying sprawled across Adam’s chest, in my bra, in a bed.

  What. The. FUCK?

  “Hey lady, you gotta pay for that. You’re mangling it all up!”

  I rip the paper down. It is indeed mangled in my clenched hands. Mouth pursed in fury, I fumble in my purse for some cash and slap it down on the counter of the little kiosk, then I spin away and look at the paper. There’s not just one picture, there’s several. It’s clearly me. In only one of the pictures are my eyes open the slightest crack, but I look super out of it.

  Which confirms the suspicion that’s been niggling on the edge of my mind all morning. It was just so absurd, I didn’t think there was any way—

  But it’s terribly clear now.

  I was drugged.

  I was fucking drugged last night.

  At the engagement party? At Adam’s?

  Did Adam Archer drug me?

  Even as I think it, it sounds absolutely ludicrous. He’s New Olympus’s golden boy. Heir to a billion dollar empire.

  But I’ve been drugged before…and this felt eerily similar. And Adam was at the Autumnal Ball. So was Logan. And a lot of other people were at both events, for that matter.

  I rub a hand at my pounding temple. Then another terrifying thought strikes. Did anything else happen to me while I was unconscious? But I squeezed my thighs together and do a quick inventory of my body and nothing feels off or like it was…invaded. At least physically.

  But how in the hell did the paper get the pictures? I look back down. Adam looks asleep in the pictures, too. So who took them? What the hell is going on?

  All I know is that it’s time to get some answers. I’m tired of being in the dark.

  I hold up my hand and call, “Taxi!”

  * * *

  “She insisted she see you, sir,” Adam’s harried assistant follows after me when I barge into Adam’s office. His corner office is on the top floor of Archer Industries, as spare and masculine as his apartment.

  There are several other men in suits opposite Adam’s massive desk but he waves to his assistant. “It’s all right, Gladys. If you’ll excuse me, gentleman, I’ll need to conclude this meeting early. I have a pressing appointment.”

  Adam nods my way as the gentleman get up and gather their things, immediately at his beck and call.

  Adam walks over towards me, blond hair styled to perfection. “I’ve been trying to call you all day. Are you okay?”

  I frown at the concern in his eyes. He seems absolutely genuine but something makes me shiver. I don’t know why goosebumps suddenly run up and down my arms at his proximity.

  “You have?” I pull out my phone, only now realizing it’s dead.

  “I’ve had my publicist trying to get ahead of it. I can’t believe Rachel would do this to us.”

  I blink. “Wait, what? Rachel?”

  Adam stares at me a moment, before saying slowly, “What do you think happened last night?”

  He urges me to come in and take a seat. I feel a little like I’m being herded, but I do sit down.

  He offers me a bottle of water. For a second I stare at it, remembering when he offered me water last night.

  “I think I was drugged,” I finally say, carefully watching his reaction.

  He wipes a hand down his face and looks towards the window before softly cursing. “I can’t believe she would go that far…but you did seem out of it. When you wandered into my room, it was like you were sleepwalking but I couldn’t wake you up. You just climbed into bed with me and it seemed better to just let you rest there.”

  His head snaps back to me, hands up. “I was a perfect gentleman. I didn’t do anything. We just slept. But Rachel must have come in at some point and taken those horrible pictures. And gods, if she drugged you to make you so out of it just so she could get the shots…”

  I shake my head. “None of what you’re saying makes any sense. Why would Rachel do any of that? She’s my best friend.”

  Adam cocks his head to the side. “Is she? I’ve gotten to know her a little in the past few weeks while you were out of town, to help me with planning and coordinating meetings with Belladonna.” Adam reaches out and puts a hand on my thigh. It feels wrong and I pull away. It could just be because anyone besides Logan touching me feels wrong. Adam lets me pull away without comment, then continues on about Rachel.

  “To me, it’s felt like she’s jealous of you. She complained about how you’re always getting all the attention, even when you weren’t there. She said your friendship was always about you and never about her. I don’t know, I can only guess. But it was definitely her who sold the pictures to the Inquirer. I had my people look into it. Maybe it was just for the money. She sold them for half a million dollars.”

  All the air heaves out of my lungs at his words. Half a million dollars? Holy shit. That’s enough money to tempt anybody.

  But still, Rachel? I’ve known her for years. I thought we were…friends.

  Though maybe that was all in my head. Maybe in reality I was just her boss who she put up with because, well, I was paying her salary. And when a better opportunity c
ame along…

  I stand up and turn away from Adam. “I need to go.”

  It’s time for that long, hot bath I never got. I need some time to clear my head and try to untangle the truth from fiction. If that’s even possible at this point.

  Twenty-Nine

  22 Years Ago

  Logan

  “Yeah, you better run! Run home to mommy!”

  I flee up the steps of my trailer home and make it inside right as a rock hits the door behind me. Bastards!

  I slam the door shut and put my back against it, breathing hard. They’ll leave me alone now that I’m home, but it’s really only putting it off until tomorrow.

  Caleb, Pete, and Pete’s brother Paul are these giant assholes from school who live in the same trailer park but have somehow decided they’re better than me. Really there’s just more of them and Pete got held back a year so they’re all giant fucks even though we’re all just twelve.

  I thunk my head back against the flimsy wooden barrier. But at least for tonight, I’m safe.

  I have to blink to see around the double-wide, Mom keeps it so dark in here. I can immediately tell she hasn’t been out to look for a job like she promised.

  She’s stuck in the same place on the couch where I left her this morning when I took off for school. Nestled in the couch with about a thousand blankets over her, zoned out to what’s on TV.

  “Have you eaten?” I start to ask when I notice a new addition to the discarded packages of chips and TV dinners.

  “Mom,” I say slowly. “Why are all your pills out on the table like that?” There are dozens of bottles all grouped together, beside a tall glass of water.

  It’s like for the first time since I banged into house she even realizes I’m home. “Oh, Logan. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  It’s then that I really take in my mom. She used to be really pretty. I’ve seen pictures. But now she just looks…old and tired. Her eyes are sunken and barely open. Her hair is kind of papery and fried from being bleached too many times.

  She was doing okay last year when she had this boyfriend, Rog, but he was a loser like every other guy she chooses and after they broke up, she’s just never really recovered.

  When my dad left when I was little, she tried to kill herself. She wears bracelets on her wrists to cover the marks, but I never forget they’re there.

  I eye all the little bottles again, wanting to grab them all up and pour them down the kitchen sink.

  “Mom,” I insist. “What are you doing?”

  Her eyes drift back towards me. “I don’t really understand the point of it all anymore. Why we’re all trying so hard. For what?”

  For me! I want to grab her shoulders and scream. For your fucking son!

  Why can she find the point in living for all those boyfriends but never for me? I guess I’m not enough. Was never enough.

  I clench my jaw and stubbornly move past her to the coffee table and start gathering up all the little pill bottles.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” It’s the first time all afternoon I’ve heard any life in her. “Stop that. Logan, I need those.”

  I spin on her. “For what? So you can kill yourself and leave me all alone?”

  She looks hurt, like I’ve wounded her, but then her eyes drop guiltily. Because we both know I’ve just spoken the truth. “It’s not like that, Logan. It’s not about you. These are grown-up problems. You can’t underst—”

  “And if you die and leave me alone? You think that’s not some grown-up shit I’ll have to deal with?”

  “Logan,” she gasps. “Language.”

  “See?” I take her hands. “I need my mom to get on my case about language. I need you, Mom. I love you. It’s us against the world, right?”

  She nods wobbly and squeezes my hands back.

  “So you won’t leave me?”

  She shakes her head. “I won’t leave you. I promise. Just trust me.”

  “I trust you, mama.” And I do, I trust her more than anyone else, she’s all I’ve got in the whole entire world.

  She starts pulling the pill bottles out of my hands. “I’m sorry I scared you. Let me just go put these back in the medicine cabinet.”

  Reluctantly, I let go, but only after she gave me another long hug, and whispered in my ear, “You’re becoming such a good man, Logan. I’m so proud of you.”

  I hugged her back, hard. Maybe we’d make it after all…

  Except that the next morning I found her dead in her bathtub, bottles of empty pills strewn on the ground.

  Thirty

  Present Day

  Daphne

  When I finally make it back to my apartment yet again, still hauling my stupid suitcases around with me, I’m exhausted. Emotionally. Physically. The world is tilted upside down and all I want is to crash for about a hundred years.

  Except that there’s Logan, pacing back and forth in front of my building like a stalking predator. His hair is wild and he’s not even wearing his mask. People are crossing to the other side of the street just to stay away from him.

  But all I can think is Beautiful man. Beautiful beast.

  I needed him and here he is.

  I wave at him as soon as I get out of my taxi. “Logan, help me with my stuff.”

  His face darkens as soon as he sees me. But I hold up a hand. “Don’t even start with me. You don’t know the day I’ve had. At least come into my place so we can talk things out.”

  I can’t imagine a shouting match on a street corner in front of my townhouse.

  Please just let him be reasonable and hear me out for once, I pray as we ascend the steps to my apartment. That’s all I need from him. I’m making so many sacrifices here and I need to see that he can do the same. That he can sacrifice his pride and listen.

  He grabs the bags from me roughly and follows, a hulking, furious black cloud huffing behind me as we go up the stairs. He’s silent as I pull out my keys and push open the door to my empty apartment.

  If he’s surprised by it’s emptied out state, he doesn’t say a word. Then again, not saying anything is becoming a theme with him. Though, maybe that’s a good thing. If I can say my piece, and if he’ll actually listen—

  But as the door slams shut behind him, he barks, “On your knees. Beg for my forgiveness.”

  I immediately start shaking my head. “Logan, I didn’t do what they said. Those pictures aren’t—”

  “On your knees!” he roars. “Your Master has given you an order!”

  Which just pisses me off. I love what he does to my body. I love the way he commands my pleasure and all that I’ve discovered in that space. But that’s not what this is. He’s pissed. He thinks I betrayed him. Again. And he won’t fucking listen.

  I peel off my shirt. When he sees the bra I’m wearing—the same one from the pictures—his eyes go as dark as the clouds in the blackest storm.

  “Did you enjoy being his whore?”

  I fly at him but he catches my wrist before I can slap him. “I hate you,” I hiss in his face. “Nobody hurts me the way you do.”

  “And you fucking love it,” he growls, face still furious as he drags me towards him, slapping my ass hard as soon as he can get his hands on me.

  I’m instantly wet. He’s right. I’m addicted to him.

  He grabs my face and kisses me hard. It’s a dominating, devouring kiss. Staking his claim as he slides a huge hand into my panties and pinches my clit within an inch of its life.

  I squeal and twist beneath him, but when he releases his hold, the flood of pleasure that hits me like a wave has me buckling under him so that it’s only him who’s holding me up.

  Not for long, though, because soon he’s dragging me towards the couch and shoving my jeans all the way off.

  “Please,” I can’t help begging. “I need you inside me.” Maybe if we can connect in this way, then we can start—

  “I thought you hated me,” he sneers.

  I twist underneath him to face h
im even as I kick off my pants the rest of the way. I search his eyes, so tumultuous with emotion, and I grab the sides of his face, the ruined and the whole, with my hands.

  “Logan, we could have everything, if you would just trust me. Listen to me about what happened. And trust me when I say I didn’t betray you. That I would never betray you. Trust me.”

  But it’s like my plea is a bucket of ice water on his head. He wrenches away from me. “I can’t. You’re a liar. You’re all liars.”

  I scramble up to a sitting position. All? “Who?”

  He looks briefly my way before shaking his head. “Women.”

  What the hell? But then he’s grabbing his shirt off the ground and shrugging it on over his head. “I should never have come here. This was a mistake.”

  My heart sinks with every step he takes away. He doesn’t even look back once as he leaves, the door closing behind him with a resounding thud.

  Thirty-One

  Present Day

  Logan

  It was my mom all over again. I slam out of the building and people back away in fear. Fine with me. They don’t want me? I don’t want them either. I hop in my truck and burn rubber as I pull out of the parking lot.

  Trust me. Trust me, she said. When the evidence she was lying was sitting right fucking there.

  Obviously Mom was going to kill herself that night, no matter what the fuck I said, or what she promised.

  And the pictures of Daphne and Archer in the papers—it was the truth in black and white. Words don’t mean shit.

  There’s the truth. And the truth is that no one ever picks me. My mom picked being dead over being with me, so big fucking shock that Daph picked Archer with his money and his fucking perfect face and—

  I let out a roar in the cab of the truck as I drive back to the castle. I want to destroy something. I want to rip the whole fucking world apart.