Sigh

by Angel Payne

  The answer to that, in either direction, turned her into a frozen block.

  The phone on the nightstand blared into her reverie.

  She forced steadiness to her hands. “Stop it and chill. They’re looking for Mark, not you.”

  Sure enough, after half a dozen rings, the caller hung up.

  Thirty seconds later, the rings began again.

  She used the bathroom, determinedly ignoring them.

  On the third attempt, she glared at the contraption. “It’s called a cell phone. It’s in his pocket. You think of using that number?”

  When round four began, she sighed—until thinking it might be Mark himself, calling and needing her for some reason. Or—shit—maybe it was an emergency from Washington or from GRI that couldn’t be trusted to cell lines.

  She dived for the receiver.

  “Uhhh, good morning. Senator Moore’s—”

  What? Office? Villa? Den of decadent Dominance and submission?

  Just like the white-hatted cowboy he evoked, Brandt Howell took over the line. “Mornin’, Ms. Fabian. My sincere apologies for cuttin’ in so soon after sunup, but the senator didn’t want to be disturbed last night and gave me his cell to monitor for calls. About a half hour ago, damn thing started goin’ off wilder than a fire alarm in a hay barn at a fireworks convention. Didn’t recognize the number, so I disregarded it at first, but apparently the bastard got hold of it from someone high-up at GRI, and the shithead hasn’t stopped since.”

  “What is it?” Her heart stopped, picking up his uncomfortable undertone. “The senator will be back in a minute, Brandt. Has something happ—”

  “Actually, Ms. Fabian, the caller’s looking for you.”

  “What?” Her pulse returned, but it sped with trepidation. “Me? But how does anybody know I’m…uh…” Lying in the man’s bed with scrapes on my arms from where he tied me up and then gave me the best orgasm of my life?

  “Hey, nobody else knows. Don’t worry. I’ve got your back as well as the senator’s. But this guy tried your cell a bunch of times and then got on the line to the hotel’s security team, who were also instructed not to bother the senator. So they routed him to me, and here we are.”

  “Shane.” The word spilled out as the gears of logic clicked together in her head.

  “Who?”

  “My brother,” she explained. “The MO fits. He’s a little persistent.”

  There was a commiserating snort from the line. “Maybe the senator should keep him in mind if he ever runs for office again.”

  “Right.” She knew Brandt wouldn’t mind her inability to muster a laugh. At the moment, possible reasons for Shane’s urgency jabbed her mind like hornets, with the same reaction: a little irritation, a little fear. He was going through a lot of trouble to get to her, which meant he was wound up. And Shane never got wound up over good news.

  “So you want them to patch the call through?”

  “Yes, please.” She forced a smile to the words. “Thanks, Brandt.”

  Through the next ten seconds, she pulled the covers tighter against herself and again reached for the pillow that smelled so much like Mark. She set her chin. Though there was no way for Shane to see, she hoped he’d hear it. No, she’d make him hear it. If she couldn’t summon the strength for herself yet, she was going to be more clear, more determined, for Mark.

  “Hello? Hello? Who the hell am I talking to now?”

  She sighed. “Shane, calm down. It’s me.”

  “Rose! Thank fucking God, at last!”

  A giggle slipped out before she could stop it. “Wow. Congratulations, brother. You do know how to use the big-boy words.”

  “Don’t start now, Rose. Please not now with the sarcastic sass. I’ve been trying to reach you for two hours on your cell. Where the hell are you?”

  She swallowed and kept her chin up. “You know where I am. Apparently, you’re on a first-name basis with every member of the resort’s security team now too.”

  “Who all tell me you weren’t answering the door at your room. So you know damn well what I’m really asking.”

  “Wait. You sent them to my—” She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. I should’ve known you’d do that.” She took a steadying breath. “All right, so I’m not in my room. I’m a grown-up, Shane. And I’m not out in the middle of the beach with someone—”

  “I should hope to hell not!” A scuffle filled the line. She practically saw him pacing his chic apartment overlooking the river, gazing out on the spectacular view but not even seeing it. “Sweet heaven, Rose, please tell me you’re being discreet. If word got out you’ve been sleeping around at this ‘training’—”

  “What? What, Shane?”

  Her spine went stiff, feeling like a lightning rod of frustration was jammed up it. How many other times had she felt like this, charred yet soaked, absorbing the jolts of his and Mother’s judgment? But that was her part to play, right? The one who always laughed too loud and smiled too wide, who felt too much and spoke too honestly. Because of it all, she’d cost the family an alliance that would have…

  Gotten her a lifetime of the exact same thing.

  Suddenly, she saw the universe’s wisdom in absolutely everything that had happened to her.

  Thank God.

  “Spit it out, brother.” Oddly, Shane’s stunned silence made her smile. “Come on, tell me. Exactly what would happen if I indulged in some ‘island delight’ with one of my colleagues? Maybe more than one? Isn’t that what everyone’s talking about anyway? Isn’t that what you and Mother have been busy with lately, more Rose damage control? How many committees did Mother have to sacrifice herself to in order to make everyone forget I’m actually off—gasp—helping the world?”

  She braced herself for his signature huff or perhaps the sneering laugh Shane had perfected at one of the city’s leading legal teams through the years. When he gave her only thick silence, she got a little scared.

  “Mother hasn’t had time for any more volunteer projects. She’s been filing for bankruptcy.”

  She took her own turn for silence. Hers resonated with shock. “But how? Why?”

  “Stay calm. I’m having enough trouble keeping Mother tethered.” The huff finally came. “Thank God for sedatives.”

  “Sedatives?” She felt her lips pursing as she echoed the word, her concern real. What was Shane getting at, throwing in a word like that? Her brother had more fathoms than the Mariana Trench, murkier now because of the real fear he’d stirred. Yes, Mother was childish and superficial, but she was still family. Their mother. “What are you saying? Is there an emergency? Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine, Rose. Did I say she wasn’t?”

  Aside from just implying their mother was sucking down her martinis in pill form every four hours, she supposed he hadn’t. “I really don’t understand,” she stated. “Father left her millions in the settlement. Even so, if she sold off just half her furs and jewelry, she’d regain a nice part of it.”

  “Not going to happen.” There was a decisive pause, as if Shane was squaring up his stance. “She’s going to need them. We’re moving forward with a new plan.”

  She stifled the urge to let out another laugh, this one not so amused. “Of course we are. Which is why you’re calling.” The impetus for his urgency in reaching her began to crystallize. He wanted to make sure he still had the marionette strings attached to her, the control still wielded.

  She shook her head. Control. What a chameleon of a word. She’d hated it all her life, equating it to sleepless nights of pondering Shane’s catalogs of her mistakes at some dinner or agonizing over what shoe Mother would approve of for the charity tea or, in true Eliza Doolittle fashion, wondering what was appropriate to yell at one’s horse at the racetrack. In her world, control was about containment, reins, and everything she couldn’t be. But Mark had changed that. In his hands, the term had become a gift, a treasure she gladly gave because of the world he opened in return, tying her in a
connection she’d craved forever. Something so different than the irritation now jabbing her, courtesy of the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Every minute right now counts, Rose.” Shane’s tone gained a new edge. “Every move we make, all three of us, will count from here. So, yes, that’s why I’m calling.”

  She pulled in a deep breath, desperately wishing Mark had returned by now. She imagined him next to her, tawny eyes glittering, a half smile jerking at his lips. “All right. Let’s have it, then. What’s this spectacular new plan?”

  She could almost smell her brother’s anticipation through the line. “Do you remember Tristan Rouselle?”

  “Yes.” She said it as if telling a four-year-old the earth was really round. “It’s hard to forget one of the founders of your God’s-gift-to-the law firm, Shane.”

  Instead of the defensive snort for which she braced, her brother actually laughed. “He’s on the governor’s short list to fill Mark Moore’s seat in the senate. It was announced yesterday morning.”

  Her stomach tightened. So it was the last thing she expected to hear. But the announcement tripped her less than the tie-in to Mark. Even hearing his name on Shane’s lips… It bridged her old caterpillar to her new butterfly like a tenacious cocoon that wouldn’t fall free.

  “Okay.” She used sarcasm to mask her anxiety. “And?”

  “And we’re going to help him land it.”

  “Now I’m lost. Help him? He can’t run for a seat in Indiana, can he? And if so, how’s he going to do it with Mother’s furs and jewels?”

  “Rose.” Now it seemed like she was the four-year-old. “He’s got a bigger house in Indianapolis than he does in Chicago. And he’s single.”

  “Yes. So is Mark Moore.” Her guts took her by surprise again. They definitely didn’t like the sound of that.

  “But he wasn’t when he got elected. A successful candidate needs a good woman.”

  Understanding glimmered. “And Mother is going to be that woman for Tristan.”

  “You mean Senator Rouselle?” He chuckled again, jerking them forward by a few years. Now they were eleven, and he was beating the pants off her at backgammon—only the playing pieces were people, and the stakes were no longer piles of M&Ms.

  “And what if ‘Senator Rouselle’ doesn’t see her as that woman?”

  “That won’t be an option.”

  She wanted to roll her eyes, but Shane had ridiculed that out of her years ago. Even in a phone conversation, she didn’t dare. “And that’s where the plan comes in.”

  She listened to him take a hefty swig of a drink. Since it was six thirty a.m. in Chicago, it was likely his daily cup of custom-blended coffee. “The public devours good love stories, sister. They crave a gooey fairy tale. But with most political candidates, they have to hear about it after the fact. Tristan and Mother are going to let them live the story as it happens. She’s going to become their real-life princess.”

  “And as her prince, Tristan rides to the senate.”

  “And maybe, in a few years…beyond.”

  Shane’s endgame turned glaringly clear. He’d probably scoped out the floor plan of the White House and already picked out his office. Scary truth was, it wasn’t an unrealistic hope. She remembered rumors of the same thing swirling about Mark himself last summer.

  But all of it still confused her in one distinct, disconcerting way.

  “Shane, I’m still not sure why you plowed your way through half the phone lines and most of the security team in this place to tell me this.” She picked a nervous finger at the corner of the bed sheet. “It’s not like I’m going to be around to screw things up for you, right?” She held out a tiny hope, fizzling fast, that this time he’d deny the implication—that he’d protest how proud he really was of her for doing this. And Lake Michigan would sprout real icebergs. “In two weeks, I’ll be almost ten thousand miles away.”

  “And Mark Moore is training you to get there, right?”

  Her stomach clenched tighter. “Yes. What does he have to do with—”

  “He’s your teacher, right? And nothing more?”

  She swung a wild stare around the room. Shane’s tone… It made her search for hidden cameras they didn’t know about. Or maybe his question would morph into a laser beam, slicing across the miles and exposing her here, clad in nothing but the sheets Mark had ripped from her body…

  “Wh-What the hell kind of question is that?”

  “Listen, Rose. Tying yourself to the headboard for Owen was a tough enough mess to clean up, but this is a new playing field. It’s muddy, it’s brutal, and it’s not for a little green nymph to run around in with her knickers at her knees. You’ll get hurt—and this pain will be deep wounds, not knee scrapes. The collateral damage will be insurmountable. The press has already started sniffing around at the firm. Not the glossy tabloids either. This is the Times, the nightly news stations, CNN…”

  As he droned on, she clawed her hair with a shaking hand. A messy playing field. She already felt dragged through the mud, though Shane technically hadn’t gotten the details right. She hadn’t really tied herself to the headboard that fateful night at the Fairmont. She’d never gotten that far.

  The memories hit, so clear now, of how dashing Owen had looked when they’d gotten back to their suite after the rehearsal dinner. He’d had a Scotch or two more than his norm, making him pretty frisky, especially because she’d put up a playful protest about not “doing the deed” so close to the wedding. She’d looked at his growing erection and his heavy gaze and decided to get bold. “Have I been a bad girl, my love? Do you need to spank me? Do you need to do it hard?”

  He’d bolted from the room thirty seconds later.

  She’d never seen him again.

  Her face burned with the humiliation again, though time had dulled its impact a little. There was also another strange difference to the memory. She’d always remembered the look on Owen’s face from that moment and assumed it was revulsion. Now, she recognized it for its truth.

  Fear.

  There were a lot of words she could use to describe Mark Moore. Fearful was nowhere in the neighborhood of that list.

  Then why did her heart pummel at her ribs with a deafening cadence?

  Why was this entire conversation making her body taut, her head throb, and her heart hurt?

  For an answer, she only had to think of the fact that Shane had called, period. Her brother had hunted her down across the miles to remind her of one important fact. To him, to most of the world, she was still—how did it go?—a little green nymph with her knickers around her knees.

  God.

  If he only knew her “knickers” were already a soaked blob at the bottom of the pool.

  Forget it. The point was made. Nothing had changed, had it? She was still hardwired with the fuck-up chip, programming that didn’t magically get erased by the submissive chip. She’d fail Mark, just as she’d failed Owen. But this time, as Shane had said so damn eloquently, the playing field was muddier.

  And this time, she truly cared about the guy holding the ball. Cared? Oh God. She wished she was only at cared with Mark. With cared, the twist in her stomach wouldn’t feel like a drain snake dipped in acid. With cared, she wouldn’t be covering the sob in her mouth and the curse she longed to let fly at her brother. Why the hell had he waited to make this call? Had they done this yesterday morning, she’d never have caved to Mark’s invitation or come to the villa. She never would’ve known the ecstasy of letting him turn her body into a thousand electric raindrops, her soul into a bird that gathered those drops and flew to the moon and back with them.

  She never would’ve known the misery of now.

  She slammed her forehead to her knees. Her gulps lodged like boulders in her throat.

  “Rose? Rose, are you still there?”

  “Y-Yeah. S-Sorry.”

  “So we have nothing to worry about, right?”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “N-No, Sh
ane. It’s cool. Everything’s good here.”

  “Perfect. Enjoy paradise, then.”

  As he hung up, she almost laughed. Paradise. Sure, if that’s what you called this. What the hell was this? She’d never felt anything like it before. She’d been dying to get off the call so she could release the pressure in her chest, the agony in her body. But now, while everything ached behind her ribs, nothing broke free. Her eyes stung and her head throbbed, but the cries jammed at the base of her throat. Her bones were as stiff as wood. Her lips were as dry as sawdust.

  Somehow she got herself off the bed and back into her half-soggy clothes. Falling into the chair at the desk in the next room, she focused on wrapping her fingers around the pen in the holder there and pressing letters into the resort stationery. Five minutes later, most of the pad was in the wastebasket, filled with her ridiculous attempts at putting this into words.

  Everything was so lovely. Thank you for—

  I had a wonderful time. But now—

  It’s not going to work out. I think we both know it. I’m not that good at all this, and—

  It’s come to my attention that we’d best just—

  I want you to know I’ll never forget—

  Senator Moore, thank you for a most enjoyable—

  “Crap!”

  The single word pulled free the cork on her dam of emotion. As the sobs finally came and her anguish flowed, she scribbled the only message that made complete sense.

  I’m sorry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mark looked down at the paper in his hand and its two scribbled words and forced himself not to crunch it into a ball and hurl it across the training classroom. The wad was already half-destroyed from the first three times he’d done that. But continuing to vent his fury wouldn’t get him anywhere right now. It wouldn’t gain him any more clarity for the confusion that had hit when he arrived back at the villa, bearing a breakfast feast and a continuing hard-on, to find the bed empty, the trash can full, and the damn note on the table.