I shuddered, a bitter taste forming in my mouth. As awful as my assaults had been, they’d never been that. I’d been lucky in comparison.
“He was beaten severely in prison, as many child sex offenders are. Sent to the infirmary with several broken ribs and damage to his testicles. I imagine he’s also been raped.”
“Hopefully several times,” I said, feeling more malicious than I liked. “He sounds like he deserved it.”
Edward nodded. “He did, didn’t he? Oh, I should also tell you his name. Charles Endcott. He spent time as a private chauffeur a couple of decades ago before going on to become a school bus driver.”
Charles.
Ron’s chauffeur. The man who I’d gotten off in the back of the limo at the age of ten. I felt like I wanted to throw up.
I also felt something else, something stronger than my revulsion.
I felt validated.
I felt relief.
I felt like fucking cheering.
“How do you feel hearing that?” Edward asked, his eyes studying me.
I didn’t have to tell him. He could see it on my face, surely.
“But you didn’t make that happen.” It was almost a question. It had only been a couple of months since I’d told him about Charles, not enough time to track down the man and put him on trial. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me to find Edward had a hand in his prison beatings. How had he even tracked the guy down?
“No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “It feels just as good when I do.”
I swallowed. It was despicable how good I felt about someone being beaten and raped. Even someone who deserved it. But I really did feel a rush from it, especially knowing that he was no longer able to hurt other girls.
No one had believed me when I was young. I hadn’t been able to go after him the legal way, but if I’d spent my adult years trying to go after his ass instead of playing Hudson’s silly game, how much better the world would have been for it.
Once again, Edward was the serpent and I was tempted. It would have made me feel powerful to be part of something like that. I still could be now. It wasn’t too late. The two of us working together, badass heroes, of a sort.
But even if the world would be better for that sort of vigilantism, would I be better for it?
I looked over at my husband, a devil who had promised to take care of his own. A thought occurred to me. “Did you ever seek revenge on Marion’s behalf?”
He shook his head once, then said, “That doesn’t matter.
“But I want to know.”
“And I don’t want to talk about it.” He began cleaning up the bottles of body wash and shampoo to put on the side table where the items were usually kept, his actions as well as his tone shutting down the topic.
My jaw went rigid. He always closed down when I tried to talk about Marion. It infuriated me, but more than that, it hurt.
And I couldn’t help but make up a slew of awful ideas about why he wouldn’t talk about her. What had happened between them? Had his determination for revenge been part of it? Had he gone too far on her behalf? On her behest?
Or were his reasons simpler and more devastating to imagine. He’d told me before that she’d been the one to leave him. Was he still in love with her? Did he love her more than he loved me?
If I submitted to him as fully as she had submitted to him, would his feelings change? Could I win him over completely?
When he was done cleaning up, he sat down again and sighed. Reaching out, he traced my tense jawline with a gentle stroke. “You don’t have to change your mind about Ron. He’ll go down no matter what. But there are other men, men who should be dealt with. Men who are dangerous to others.”
He wanted me on board, and I wanted to be his. I opened my mouth to agree to whatever he wanted from me.
Then I shut it again.
No. I couldn’t try to earn a man’s love. Not anymore. Not ever again.
I loved Edward, but I had to stay true to me, above all.
“You’re right. They should be dealt with. And I hope they are. But it can’t be by me. It’s a path that leads too closely to the person I was, and I’m not going back there again.”
He sat silent, his fingers moving down my neck and across my collar, tracing the bone with a delicate caress. Did he think this would persuade me to his point of view? Or had he moved onto something else?
I kind of liked the something else. A hunger was blooming at his touch, despite the three orgasms he’d given me earlier.
On the verge of giving into his seduction, I pulled myself together and turned to him, reaching my wet hand up to cup his cheek. “And not by you, either, Edward. You don’t need to do this for me. I don’t want you to, okay? Please don’t go revenging on my behalf. Promise me you won’t.”
His eyes locked with mine, steady and dark. He held them there for a heavy beat.
Then his gaze moved down. To my lips. Then to my arm where his fingers now danced across my bicep. “You know, I understand why he’d bathe you,” he said, his voice a rumble of need. “Touching you like this is a drug.”
My stomach flipped, setting off a storm of butterflies. Somewhere in the last several minutes, he’d managed to make me forget about the baths of the past, about their predatory nature. Even talking about Ron, tonight had been about me and Edward in the present.
His words now should have been a reminder that I’d once been a sexual object to a man who should have loved me like a parent, should have made me cringe and feel the shame I’d always felt for being cast in the role. And they did, in a way, but they also made me remember I’d come out the other side. That I could be sexy and sexual and it would be appropriate. That I could be desirable and it not be indecent.
I felt very desirable in this moment. And full of desire.
As if connected to my thoughts, Edward stood with me as I stood, his mouth latching with mine. I threw my arms around his neck and, when he lifted me from the water, wrapped my legs around his waist, neither of us caring that he was still in his tux and I was dripping wet.
He carried me to the bedroom and made love to me until I was drowning in ecstasy, until I was sated and boneless, until the conversations of the night became flecks of pigment instead of the whole picture and I was completely lost to being his.
Ten
Edward
Camilla peered at me from the other side of my desk and nervously fidgeted with the cuff of her blouse. “What will my excuse be for staying at the hotel? I live in London. Why would I need someplace to stay?”
She was stalling her departure, anxious about her mission to intercept Ron Werner at the Savoy. She wasn’t as good at improvising as I was, so these last minute details were important to her. I reminded myself of that, resisting the urge to rush her out.
While she was on edge, I was eager. I’d been waiting almost my entire life to bring down the man who’d ruined my father. I’d thought I’d been close to triumph when I’d married Celia, but though the taste of victory should have been on my tongue it had been bitter, knowing what I’d have to do to my wife in order to obtain it.
Thank God that hadn’t worked out the way I’d planned.
Now, my enemy wasn’t mine alone. My motives for taking down Ron Werner were as much for her as for me, and that made the nearness of his demise all the sweeter.
“You just purchased your new flat,” I said, with more patience than I thought I had in me. “Say you’re having your kitchen redone.”
“You live in town too. Why wouldn’t I just stay with you?”
“Because we’re on the outs. The papers are still talking about it. You left your son with us for the weekend, because he missed his uncle so.” I ignored her eye roll. “But you couldn’t stand to stay in the house with her.”
“Celia, you mean.” She sighed. “You really want me to play up this family feud with her?”
“I think it makes sense, yes. From what she tells me, his abuse has gone unmentioned for decades. He
may not even consider she holds animosity toward him—who knows what a monster like that believes about his actions—but in case he does, it would be good that he doesn’t think you have any reason to be sympathetic toward her.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she agreed. “I just want it all to be believable. I don’t want to be the reason this messes up.”
“You won’t be. You’ll be—”
A knock on my office door interrupted my train of thought, the rap too light to be Jeremy. “Come in,” I instructed, sure I knew who would enter.
“Sorry to disturb you.” As I’d guessed, Celia sauntered in, a small package in her hand. She carried it directly to me. “You said to bring this up right away when it arrived. Jeremy was in the middle of changing a bulb in the reception room, so I offered to take it.”
“Thank you.” I took the box, my eyes reluctant to leave her. She’d begun taking on design work recently, which meant leaving the house and meeting with clients, so I’d taken to dressing her in clothing that wrapped her up completely. I was possessive by nature and preferred others saw as little of her body as possible unless I was on her arm.
Not that it made a difference. She was still delectable wearing wide-leg gold studded black trousers and a long-sleeved sweater, not an inch of skin showing below her neck. Maybe even more so.
With effort, I pulled my gaze to the package, tearing into it as I half listened to the conversation between the women.
“I really appreciate you letting Freddie stay here. I hope it’s not too inconvenient.”
“Not inconvenient at all. We love having him here.”
“He won’t be a bother with your work?”
“Of course not. Anwar’s here and the staff. And it gives me an excuse not to hyperfocus on my projects.”
The box opened now, I pulled out one of the matte business cards and looked it over. It was clean, simple. Only her name, email, and phone number.
“It looks good,” I said, handing it over to my sister.
She took it, twisting her lips as she admired it. “It does. It should do.”
Celia gestured at the card. “May I?”
Camilla passed the item over to my wife who examined it, her brows knit together as she did. She had to have plenty of questions—why it was so stark. Why it didn’t say that she was the Consulting Art Director at Accelecom or, if it was for her photography hobby, why it didn’t list her website.
The question she voiced, however, surprised me. “Fasbender?” she asked, referring to the fact that Camilla had chosen to drop the Dougherty.
“I’ve officially gone back to my maiden name,” she said in explanation. “It’s a new era. New home. New name. New me.”
She looked better for it, too. Her eyes were less sullen, her face more filled out. I hated to admit it, but being on her own was doing wonders for her.
Or maybe it was her own thirst for vengeance that was bringing her to life. It was the first time I’d involved her. I should have considered doing so long before.
Celia gave a teasing grin. “Am I to assume this long weekend means there might be a man involved? Edward said you were staying in town.”
Camilla gaped as she looked wide-eyed from my wife to me.
Celia followed her gaze, her smile disappearing when she realized she wasn’t going to get an answer. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice tight. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s really none of my business.”
She handed the card back toward Camilla who refused to take it. “Edward,” she spit sharply, and though that was all she said, I knew what she wanted from me.
“It’s not a secret from you, Celia,” I said. “We’ll tell you. It’s just a matter of whether or not you want to know.”
“Is this about Ron?” Celia’s voice was steady, but I could see the card shaking in her hand.
I reached out to take it from her, and she immediately wiped her palms down her trousers, as though they were sweating. “He’s staying at the Savoy through Sunday.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t realize he was in town. Do you know why he’s here?”
“He seems to be attending a party this weekend. An acquaintance. I’m not sure the relationship.”
Seeming to be dissatisfied with the rate at which information was being exchanged, Camilla jumped in. “I’m going to try to meet up with him at the hotel bar. Accidentally.”
“And then what?”
I studied Celia’s expression, but she’d put up her mask, her emotions tightly guarded.
Either she didn’t care in the least or she didn’t want me to know how much she cared. Since she was still standing there, since she’d asked for more information, I had to think it was the latter.
Which meant this was the time to convince her that she should be involved in going after her uncle, not just because it would please me, but because it would be deeply satisfying to her.
“Camilla is going to try to pique his interest, that’s all,” I said. “Casually let him know she’s aware of his interests. Give him her card. Later, she’ll reach out and invite him to Exceso. He should feel safe in that environment, no matter whether he trusts the person inviting him or not. There he’ll connect with plenty of the type of men he’s interested in knowing. I won’t even have to interfere. That’s how relationships work there.
“But I do have some friends there who will be looking out for him. One is an undercover FBI agent who will be there at the same time. He’ll get close to Ron and hopefully, either through Camilla or directly, he gets an invitation to whatever Ron has planned next in the States. Once we get him on his own soil, at an event he’s hosting, we should be able to take him down for good.”
Again I watched for a reaction and found nothing.
“Well?” I prodded.
“It’s a noble plan and all. I admire the amount of thought you’ve put into it. But it’s not going to work.”
“Why is that?” Camilla asked, concern evident in her tone. “Did we miss something? What part won’t work?”
“All of it, really. You’re going after him as if he’s a serial pedophile, trying to appeal to some attraction he has for little girls in general. There was only just me.”
I had missed something. I’d missed this. It had been apparent to me from the first time she’d told me about him that Ron was a predator. Men didn’t get that good at that kind of grooming without having practiced before. And when they were done with one victim, they moved on.
It had never occurred to me that Celia wouldn’t realize the same thing.
“You’re sure about that?” I asked gently, hoping I didn’t have to be mean to make her see the truth.
She paused to consider for only half a second. “Pretty sure. He’s dated many women since then. Long-term relationships. And who else would he have had access to? Who’s letting their daughters stay over at his house? I was a singular situation.”
“You were special.”
“Right.” But she hesitated, not as sure as before.
“You were his Lolita,” I pressed. “His girlfriend. He loved you because you were you, not because you were a child, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
She scowled, her arms crossing over her chest defensively. If my sister hadn’t been present, I was certain she would have pressed back.
But she was trying to be respectful, because I demanded that from her, and I took advantage of her silence to push on. “I know you aren’t that naive, Celia. Are you willfully ignoring the truth here?”
“Are you willfully being an arse?” Camilla asked, not bound to the mandates of respect that my wife was bound to.
It gave Celia enough time to come up with her own response. “I’m being honest, Edward,” she said firmly. “I want to get him as much as anyone.”
“Do you?” It was a fair question since she’d told me before that she wanted nothing to do with my revenge schemes.
She answered with tightly pursed lips.
I changed tactics. “There have been other girls,” I said softly. “It wasn’t just you.”
“How do you know that?” Her voice was thinner now, her guard finally coming down.
I opened a desk drawer and pulled out the file I’d been collecting. I threw it on the edge of my desk, facing her, and opened it up, spreading the items out so she could see the photos, police reports, and copies of cleared checks I’d managed to obtain through my investigators. “He has a circle of friends who are rumored to have been involved with illegal sexual activities. Some have even faced charges, nothing that has stuck. There have been several undisclosed payouts over the years, however, including two from Ron. One made to the daughter of one of those long-term girlfriends you mentioned. I’m guessing that’s where he’s gotten his access.”
The color drained from Celia’s cheeks. “What?”
“And he got access through his friends. He and the lot of them hold regular events. Semi-annually, it seems. The location varies, always at one of their country houses. Based on the few accounts that have made it to my sources, I believe they’re parties like the one where your uncle auctioned you off at.”
“He auctioned you off?” Camilla asked, horrified.
I hadn’t told her the details. They hadn’t been necessary. Now, though, it seemed important to remind them both why Ron Werner deserved to be destroyed.
“I think I need to sit down.” Celia looked for the closest seat.
I was up out of mine before she took a step. I helped her to the chair against the wall, then knelt in front of her.
“There have really been others? Besides me?”
I reached out to stroke her cheek with the back of a single finger. “I’m afraid so, bird.”
“Oh, God. I didn’t know.” Her tone was broken and weary, and yet it sliced through me. If I could have taken the pain from her, I would have. I would have siphoned every terrible ache, adding them to my own until I couldn’t tell the difference between hers and mine. I was a blackhole, yet despite the gravity of my emotions, I couldn’t draw hers to me without taking her with them.
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