Flawed

by Tracy Wolff

  Her words slam into me without warning, ripping through my chest—my heart—like a freight train that leaves me stunned, destroyed, in its wake. Tori doesn’t notice—her back is still toward me as she reaches for the wine, pours it into the two glasses she’d picked out from the bar while we were waiting for the food delivery—but that somehow makes it all the more real.

  Her flippant tone, the easy acceptance of the dandelion’s fate—of her own fate—breaks me to pieces even as it fills me with rage…and with emotions I never expected to feel. Not now. Not for this woman who has spent most of our acquaintance hating me—and making sure I know it.

  But how can I not feel deeply about Tori when she exemplifies all the strength and power and beauty of the dandelion on her shoulder, the dandelion I’m still tracing with an errant finger?

  “Ready to eat?” she asks, completely oblivious to the chaotic thoughts churning inside me.

  When I don’t answer right away, she glances back at me. Her eyes are wide and vulnerable in a way they almost never are, her lips curled in one of the first unguarded smiles I’ve ever seen from her. And just that easily, all my rioting emotions coalesce inside me and I tumble straight down the rabbit hole…and straight into love with her.

  It’s a powerful realization, one that has my stomach doing somersaults and my knees trembling for the first time in my life. Actually trembling, like some damsel in distress or some kid with his first crush. I want to reach out, grab the counter to steady myself, to give this sudden understanding of my feelings for her a chance to sink in.

  But she’s still watching me, her eyes growing careful and her smile starting to flag as seconds continue to tick by without an answer from me. Which won’t do, not at all.

  It takes every ounce of self-control I have to school my face before she can see it, to hide the love I have for her and the rage and the sorrow I feel on her behalf. She won’t thank me for my feelings—will read them as pity—and after the near miss this morning, the last thing I want is to alienate her all over again.

  So I do the only thing I can do with all these emotions rampaging around inside me.

  I spin her around and growl, “I’m ready for something,” as I pull her into my chest and lower my mouth to hers.

  She laughs as she kisses me back, then plants a hand firmly in the center of my chest to push me away. “You’re always ready for that,” she tells me.

  “Is that a complaint?” I fake offense even as I wonder how I can make her fuckhead of a father pay for what he’s done to her. How I can make Parsons pay.

  “It is absolutely a complaint. I’m starving and you’ve barely let me eat all day.”

  “Oh, right.” I pull her chair out for her and wait until she’s seated before moving to my own. “Like it’s my fault you haven’t been able to keep your hands off me all afternoon.”

  “Oh, is that what’s been going on?” she asks as she dishes up two plates of salad. “Me not being able to keep my hands off you?”

  “Or your lips.” I tilt my head to show off the tiny lovebites she sucked into my jaw earlier. “Not that I’m complaining or anything. Just stating a fact.”

  “Of course you are.” She rolls her eyes. “It must be a curse to be so irresistible.”

  “Yeah, well, everyone needs a little suffering in their life. It builds character.”

  “And you handle it so well.”

  “I try. We all have our burdens, after all.” I’m grinning like an idiot at this point, but then so is she.

  It’s another first for me. I never knew relationships could be like this—full of banter and fun and fantastic sex. Before Tori, I always viewed relationships as distractions, as something I occasionally put up with (and resented) in exchange for regular sex with the same woman, since one-night stands got old years ago. Of course, those relationships never lasted long because I wasn’t interested in giving my attention to any of the women I dated for longer than it took to have dinner and get them off a couple of times a week. Which is why, for the last few years, I’ve tended toward friends-with-benefits situations. If there are no expectations, there’s no disappointment when I get lost in one project or another and forget to call.

  With Tori, it’s different. So different that I have a hard time thinking of this in the same terms as any relationship I’ve ever had before. She is absolutely a distraction—I should be working right now, in fact—but unlike the other women I’ve been involved with, I don’t mind her taking my attention away from my work. I don’t resent spending time hanging out with her when I should be working on my desalinizer. And I sure as hell can’t compartmentalize what we’re doing—and what I feel for her—the way I’ve always done in the past. Hell, since she moved in here, I’ve struggled more with forgetting about her long enough to get some work done than I have with trying to remember her. Because the truth is, to me anyway, Tori is as unforgettable as she is irresistible.

  The only problem is, I’m not sure what these new feelings of mine mean—for either of us. Especially considering how much she despised me just a few short days ago. Her life is a mess right now, everything topsy-turvy and inside out. It seems unfair to ask her for anything more than what we have going on, seems impossible to expect her to make a decision about being in an actual relationship with me when she has no money, no job, and nowhere else to go besides right here.

  Just the thought of how vulnerable she is has my skin crawling with uneasiness. No, now is not the time to try to define anything about our relationship. Or to even decide that we’re in a relationship. Not when she’s so vulnerable and confused. The fact that I’m not—the fact that I feel like I’m thinking clearly for the first time in a long time—doesn’t matter. Not when Tori is so vulnerable.

  She’s already accused me once of treating her like a whore. The last thing I want to do is pressure her into being with me because she feels like she has no other options. The idea grates, but then so does waiting when so much inside me is pushing me to take her, to claim her, to make her mine every way that I can.

  But that’s the caveman talking, and I can’t afford to give in to that small, irrational part of my psyche. Not now, when Tori is sitting across the table and smiling at me like she means it. Smiling at me like I matter, and more, like this thing between us matters.

  No, I can’t push her. Not now. Not until she’s back on steady footing. If that means waiting until she has a job, waiting until she’s confident again in who she is and what her place in the world is, then that’s what I’m going to have to do.

  I won’t like it, but I will do it.

  Which is why I spend the rest of dinner making Tori laugh, telling her embarrassing stories about Chloe and the numerous disasters I’ve had in my workshop as I tried to perfect one invention or another. I want to delve deeper, want to pull her into my lap and tangle my hand in her short, multicolored hair as I demand that she spill her secrets to me. But I don’t want to scare her away. And I sure as hell don’t want to hurt her, not this woman who has a dandelion on her shoulder to remind herself how impermanent everything is.

  When dinner is finished, we clear the table together, then grab what’s left of the Chianti and wander into the family room to watch TV.

  But we’re barely settled on the sofa when Tori turns to me and says, “I’m going to do an interview.”

  “An interview?” I don’t know why I repeat the words, or why I make them into a question when there’s only one interview she could be talking about right now. Only one interview that would put that look on her face, that would have her wrapping her arms around herself in a weak attempt at self-preservation.

  Maybe it’s because I want to protect her, too. And while the logical part of my brain knows giving this interview is the right thing to do, the rest of me wants nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and shelter her. To keep her safe.

  “I called Chloe and Ethan when I was upstairs.” She’s not looking at me now. Instead she’s staring through t
he huge wall of windows and out at the roiling sea. A storm is coming in—I can feel it in the breeze blowing through the open doors—but it’s nothing compared to the storm I can sense brewing inside Tori.

  I hate that she’s in this position, hate even more that some low-life scum like Alexander Parsons is the one who put her in it. I don’t say that to Tori, though. I simply ask, “So what’s Ethan going to set up for you?”

  “An interview tomorrow afternoon at the local NBC station. They’ll put a piece together and it’ll run here and on MSNBC tomorrow evening—plus anywhere else that picks it up.”

  “Which will probably be everywhere, considering the publicity push the studio is giving Parsons’s movie right now.”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  I know how I feel about it. I want to find Parsons and knock his fucking teeth down his fucking throat. I want to beat the ever-loving shit out of him until he figures out that he never should have fucked with Tori like this, never should have treated any woman the way he’s treated her.

  I want to do more than that, though, want to do more than just fuck up that pretty face he’s so fucking proud of. I want to ruin the bastard. I want to fucking destroy him, want to hit him so hard and with so much shit that that precious career of his rips apart at the fucking seams.

  It’s why he threw Tori to the fucking wolves, after all. To give his profile—and in turn, his career—a boost. Ruining that career the way he’s ruined Tori seems like poetic justice to me.

  I’ve already got a bunch of bots scrolling the ’Net, looking for dirt on him. So far he’s come up clean. Too clean, in fact. It took about five minutes of digging for me to figure out that he’s had his online presence professionally scrubbed. Maybe he did it just because he’s an actor and in the public arena all the time. Or maybe he did it because there’s something to find…

  Call me suspicious, but I’m betting on the latter. The guy is a total dick after all. So much so that I’m betting it isn’t new. I’m betting he’s been like this—self-serving and misogynistic and opportunistic—even longer than he’s been famous. Which means it’s only a matter of time before I can dig up a few skeletons on him. And when I do, I’m pretty sure they’ll be more than just skeletons. They’ll be full bodies with a hell of a lot of dirty secrets to tell.

  I remind myself to be patient just a little longer, to give the bots time to do what I programmed them to do. But it’s hard when I can see how much Tori is suffering. When I know how much she’ll continue to suffer because of that bastard.

  “I feel…I don’t know what I feel,” she finally admits. “The tape is bad enough, but this? Having to go on TV and talk about my sex life with that man, to tell the world that he recorded me without my knowledge and released it without my permission? To play the victim for the whole world to see? I’m not okay with that.”

  “If you’re not okay with it, then you shouldn’t do it.”

  She laughs, but it’s not a pleasant sound. “Yeah, easy for you to say.”

  “It isn’t, actually.”

  She looks at me for the first time since she started this conversation. “Isn’t what?”

  “Isn’t easy for me to say. I want to watch you hang that bastard out to dry, want to watch you fry his ass every way it can be fried. But this isn’t about me or what I want. And it’s not about Ethan or Chloe or Ethan’s PR people, either. No matter how much we’re trying to help, no matter how hard we’re trying to spin this in your favor, in the end it isn’t about any of us. It’s about you. And if you don’t want to do it, if you feel like going on TV and talking about this will only hurt you more or make you feel worse, then don’t do it.”

  I reach over, put a hand on her knee. There’s a part of me that expects her to pull back, to pull into herself and away from my touch—and my advice. But the opposite happens instead. It’s like she’s just been waiting for me to reach out to her, because her whole body goes limp and she melts into my touch. Melts into me.

  I pull her close, into my side at first and then onto my lap as I use every ounce of willpower I have to keep myself from trembling with relief. With gratitude.

  She burrows into me, wraps her arms and legs around me and buries her face against my neck. I pull her even closer—hold her even tighter—and start to rock her back and forth. As I do, I realize she’s not crying tonight, and she’s not shaking.

  She might be clinging to me like a limpet, but when she lifts her head to look at me, she is dry-eyed and resolute.

  “You really don’t think I should do the interview?” she asks, studying my face.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She looks confused. “I thought that was exactly what you said.”

  “What I said was, if you don’t want to do it, then it’s okay not to do it. The last thing you need is to be forced into it—even if it is by the people who love you. If going to that studio and letting them ask questions about that tape and your relationship with that asshole upsets you or freaks you out or makes you—for even one second—feel like Parsons is getting another chance to hurt you, then fuck, no, you shouldn’t do the interview. This is about you now, not him, and how you handle it needs to make sense to you. Nobody else, just you.”

  “So you think I should do the interview?” She looks totally confused and I don’t blame her.

  Because the truth is, hell, yeah, I think she should do the interview. If she’s on her game, Tori could annihilate the motherfucker in a single sound bite. She could blow his whole stack of cards ten miles high, and that is something I would pay a lot of money to see. But not if it hurts her. Not if it causes her any more pain than she’s already gone through.

  “I think you should do what’s right for you, sweetheart.”

  “Chloe said I could be a spokesperson for other women who have gone through the same thing. That I could draw attention to the double standard and—”

  “No offense to my sister, but fuck that.”

  Her eyes go wide. “Excuse me?”

  “Seriously. Fuck that. I mean, sure, maybe you could draw a spotlight to the double standard on this sort of thing. Maybe you could do some good. But not if it risks your own psyche. Remember, you are what’s important here. You are what matters. Not the American public’s curiosity. Not being a spokesperson for other women who have suffered this same thing. And definitely not the bastard who got you into this mess.”

  “You’re not making this decision any easier, you know.” She sighs heavily. “I’m a grown woman. It shouldn’t be this hard to figure out what’s right for myself.”

  “I’m sorry.” I press a kiss to the top of her head since she’s got her face buried in my chest again. “I wish I could do this for you.”

  “No, you don’t.” She’s smirking when she lifts her face to mine. “No sane person would wish this craziness on themselves.”

  “I’d trade places with you in a second if I could. You don’t deserve this.”

  Her laugh is bitter. “You sure about that? A girl plays with fire long enough, she’s bound to get burned.”

  “This isn’t getting burned. This is getting incinerated. And yeah, I’m damn sure you don’t deserve it.”

  I grab the almost empty wine bottle, pour the dregs into Tori’s glass, and hold it out to her.

  She shakes her head. “I’ve had enough, thanks.”

  It’s not the answer I was expecting. Not because I haven’t noticed that Tori’s cleaned up her act recently—I have—but because I don’t think anyone would blame her for needing some liquid courage right now. Or just something to help her relax. God knows, I’m ready to grab the nearest bottle of Jack and down a couple of shots, and all of this isn’t even happening to me.

  I grab on to her instead, pull her even closer. And then kiss her with all the rampaging emotion inside me. With all the love and fury and fear for her that are slowly eating away at me.

  She pulls back first, and wh
en she opens her eyes I see the tears she tries desperately to blink away. It fuels the fire inside me, brings my rage to a boiling point. Goddamnit.

  I want to tell her not to cry, want to tell her everything is going to be okay. But who the fuck knows if that’s even true? Who the fuck knows how this is going to turn out?

  Look at Chloe and the mess that came back years later to tear her life apart. Tori wasn’t raped like Chloe was, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t violated. Doesn’t mean she isn’t suffering. If she wants to cry, I damn well feel like she’s earned that right.

  I lean forward and brush my lips over her eyes. Kiss the tears away. As I do, she lets out a sob so deep that it shakes her entire body. I wait for the rest, wait for the tears and the fury that I know are roiling around deep inside her.

  It never comes. Instead she swallows back the sobs, brushes away the tears. And when she looks up at me, it’s with a softness—an openness—I’ve never seen from her before.

  “Why are you being so kind to me?”

  I don’t even try to hide my confusion when I ask, “Why wouldn’t I be kind to you?”

  She raises a brow, gives the laugh I’ve heard dozens of times over the last year. But it doesn’t hide the vulnerability in her eyes or the slightly inward slope of her shoulders, like she’s bracing herself for a blow. Another first from this woman who has only ever shown me strength. I’d be excited by the change, by the fact that she’s finally letting me in, except for the fact that she’s suffering. I wouldn’t wish this mess on anyone, let alone on the woman I love. The woman who has been such a staunch protector of my sister for so long. The woman who took care of her and had her back long before Ethan was in the picture. Long before I understood just how completely I had failed her.

  “Kind isn’t really what we do, you and I.”

  There’s a million things I can say here, a million different ways I can play this, and each one of them will change our relationship in subtle but important ways.