“Do you want to talk about what happened last night?”
And just like that, ice-cold water surged through my veins as I shifted my body to get from underneath her. “No. I don’t want to discuss it.”
“But I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” I said as I got up and out of bed. I put on the pajama pants that I had worn when I entered and walked toward the door. No one needed to know the pain that that night had caused, and I wasn’t ready to talk about.
I didn’t look back even when I heard her sniffle and the barrier between us closed with a soft click.
26
Anais
“I’m an idiot,” I mumbled to myself as I paced my bedroom. After Damien stormed out of my room, we had done our best to avoid one another over the last couple of days, which hadn’t been hard due to us both claiming the work we needed to do for our jobs was more of a priority than anything else.
It was two days before Christmas. I felt like a mouse in a glass prison that needed to get the hell out. I knew going into this there was a chance that I might become addicted to him. His touch. The way he made me feel. Him allowing me into parts of his world. I thought I’d done my best to prevent it. When Damien didn’t want me, I avoided being near him, but even that hadn’t protected me and my thoughts from migrating to him.
I had done what I said I wasn’t going to do. I was addicted to Damien Cross and it was only a matter of time before he realized it and kicked me to the curb. The thought of him doing that made my stomach turn. I knew who he was before I became addicted and yet I still fell. No, I needed to get out of whatever this was first. He didn’t even trust me enough to tell me what caused him to scream out at night. I could try to make it through the last week, but I knew I would be lying to myself and driving myself to the point of hysteria if I stayed. I also wasn’t any closer to finding out who Charlotte DePalma was or her connection to Damien. This all troubled me and was why I needed to leave now.
There was another way that I could find out more information about Charlotte. I stared at my computer, lying on the made-up bed in this room. Ellie had done some research when she alerted me but hadn’t found much at the time. Over the last couple of days, I hadn’t been able to find anything and it didn’t hurt to look things up one more time, did it?
I opened my laptop, typed in my password, and waited for my browser to load. Once it had, I typed in Charlotte’s name and New York City to see if anything popped up. I got lucky because an article that was published four hours ago came up. My hand shook as my cursor hovered over the link. I took a deep breath and clicked. My eyes scoured the article, taking in every word about an event that took place years ago. An arsonist burned down a cabin, killing one person: Charlotte DePalma. The murder was tragic, but one of the pictures that was included with the article was an image of a younger Damien. It had been easy to spot, outside of him looking much like the man he was today, because of the pictures Selena had hanging around her home. He was listed as Charlotte’s boyfriend and the last person she was seen with although he was never charged with a crime. My emotions jumped from sadness, to fear, to anger more rapidly than I could deal with. This needed to end.
I figured Damien was either in his childhood bedroom or in his father’s office, and since I hoped to catch him alone, I walked across the hall to his bedroom first.
A quick knock on the door confirmed that he wasn’t in there, so I went downstairs to the office, hoping that both Damien and his father weren’t in there. I knocked on the study door.
“Come in.” It was Damien’s voice.
I took a deep breath to steel myself because I hadn’t been expecting him to be there, and I was about to face the devil himself.
I opened the door and he looked over at me from his place at one of the windows behind the huge wooden desk. He was alone. “Is this urgent? I have a phone call in five minutes with some important investors who are overseas.”
“Who is Charlotte DePalma?” I wanted to give him an opportunity to explain himself, although I knew way more than he thought I did. I walked further into the room and stood several steps in front of him.
“Why do you care?”
“What happened to her?” I believed this was the first time since Damien and I had met that I had shocked him. His eyes widened briefly yet an indifferent expression moved into place.
“You need to mind your business,” Damien said, still as calm as ever. That only further enraged me.
“I’ll tell you who Charlotte DePalma is. Charlotte DePalma is your ex-girlfriend who died in a horrible house fire when you were eighteen.”
His silence was palpable.
“Wow.” Damien’s silence spoke volumes. When he still hadn’t said anything, I continued, “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”
“It wasn’t your concern nor your business.”
Tears welled up in my eyes and it finally became clear to me where I stood in all of this and how much I had truly fallen.
“This whole time you were hiding this from me.”
“Anais, this wasn’t any—”
“Stop with the bullshit!”
His blue eyes darkened, and I could feel their stare trying to freeze me into place. “Watch your words. Unless you want me to punish you by—”
“You can go fuck yourself.” Any threat that he had behind his words didn’t mean a thing to me at this point as I unleashed the pent-up anger and frustration that had been inside of me for far too long. “Did you have her killed?”
Damien’s demeanor turned hard. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“What? She didn’t want to play any of your little games, was that it? Is that why you did it?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know I wasn’t there fifteen years ago, but what I do know is that you still won’t tell me the truth and you locked me in a deal that I had no choice to be in.”
“Bullshit, Anais. You always had a choice. You could have walked away at any point, and I would have let you go.” Damien took two steps toward me.
I scoffed. “No, the whole point was to use me until you got tired of me. If I left, my family’s company would have gone to shit, and you wouldn’t have given a damn about it. That’s because you care about no one but Damien Cross.”
My words had their intended effect on Damien because he stopped walking toward me. “Well, the opportunity to leave is still open.”
“Does that mean you’ll still wipe my father’s debt? That’s the only reason I’m here.” The taste of freedom was almost too much to bear.
“Given the number of days that you’ve been here and seeing that there is only a week left, if your father pays the rest of the money that your services didn’t provide, the debt will be wiped.”
I knew he used that phrasing to get under my skin. It did sting, but I didn’t care. I prayed my father had that money and it wasn’t my problem anymore.
“This whole arrangement is over, and I don’t care if the thirty days aren’t up. As someone who said that they would always keep their word, I trust that you will wipe my father’s debt clean once he pays off the rest of what I couldn’t as it states in the contract.”
Damien took a step back and looked out the window in his chair. “Pack your things and I’ll make sure that Rob drops you back off at your apartment.”
“Thank you,” I said, and turned and walked away. I could feel his eyes burning a hole through my body. And it wasn’t until I closed his office door behind me that I wiped the tears that were flying down my face.
I bolted up the stairs and reached the room that had become my second home. It didn’t take long for me to pack the items that I’d brought with me and once I was ready, I carried my bags down the stairs. I felt bad for leaving under such short notice and after Selena and I had gotten friendly with one another, but I didn’t think I could face her at the moment. Bernard greeted me at the door and wished me well on my
trip back to the city.
I thanked him and he opened the door just as Rob was exiting the car. The two men helped load the few bags I had, and I gave a sad smile to Bernard. I stepped across the threshold to enter the waiting car that would soon take me back to the life I once knew.
Although alive and bustling, New York City’s streets seemed lonely even as we passed hundreds of people. It wasn’t long before Rob dropped my bags off at the door of my apartment and gave me a small wave. He walked back down the stairs and into his car. It took me a minute to find my keys, since I hadn’t used them in about a month.
Once I walked inside, I felt that loneliness creep up again. Ellie was at work so there was no one to greet me at the door like there had been at the Cross residence. Although I had been renting this apartment for three years, it was like entering a new home for the first time. This didn’t feel like me anymore. It wasn’t the place I used to know, although everything looked the same. It wasn’t the apartment that had changed. It was me.
27
Anais
“Thanks for coming over for dinner.”
I smiled at my mom as she grabbed my hand and squeezed. There was a lighter expression on her face, one that I hadn’t seen in quite some time.
“Of course, it’s Christmas. Where else would I be?” We both chuckled as Dad joined us at the dining room table.
My father cleared his throat. “There’s something I wanted to tell both of you.”
My hand immediately went to grab my wine glass, bracing for the worst.
“The debt is fully paid.”
I was glad that I hadn’t taken the opportunity to take a sip because I knew it would have ended up everywhere.
“What?” My mother was the first to speak.
My father nodded. “Looks like there was a Christmas miracle. I wasn’t expecting the call at all since I still had a couple of weeks to pay it, but the entire thing has been wiped clean. I didn’t have to pay a cent.”
Wow, Damien hadn’t even charged my father what he and I had agreed would be paid before I stormed out of his parents’ home. I was stunned, yet ecstatic about the news, but I wondered what the catch was because it seemed as if Damien never gave up on anything without a fight.
“To make matters better, this officially puts Monroe Media Agency back in the black and clients are coming back in droves. I think—no, I know—things are going to be much better.” He hugged my mom first and then reached over to hug me.
“That’s wonderful news, Dad. I’m so happy. Sounds like drinks are on you tonight.”
My parents chuckled and we enjoyed the rest of our Christmas evening.
The Christmas holiday came and went, and the next few days flew by in a blur. It didn’t take long for me to get back into a similar routine that I had before Damien came into my life. I went to work, and I came home, and the same thing happened the next day. Ellie and I hung out a few times, but life got in the way once more and it wasn’t as frequent as both of us wanted it to be. Damien hadn’t said a word to me since I left, and word never got out about our arrangement or fake relationship rumors. The talk about Charlotte also died down around the same time and I wondered if he had something to do with that. To top it all off, I had found nothing else about the man who was watching me, nor the break-in at the townhouse. At the very least, he seemed as if he wasn’t watching me anymore and for that I was grateful.
New Year’s Eve and Day came and went, and I thought about the Cross family more often than I wanted to admit. Although it wasn’t my style, I would have liked to have been there to support Selena, especially given how nice she had been to allow me to stay in her home.
On the job front, work was going well. Monroe Media Agency was still gaining new clients and I could see the stress leaving my father’s face as the days went on. I couldn’t be more thrilled. I was busy with the new clients too.
A couple of days after New Year’s, I was reading an email from a coworker when my father stepped into the office after knocking on the door.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Your mother can’t make it to a meet-and-greet event tonight. Could you join me?”
I looked down at the several-years-old-but-still-in-good-shape black A-line dress I was wearing and looked back at my father.
“What you’re wearing is fine because it’s not a huge formal affair. Plus, it’s been a while since you and I have had some father-daughter time anyway.”
I put my head on my fist as I leaned on my desk. “Dad, if you wanted to hang out, we could hang out.”
“I know and I think we should do more of that. Things are looking up and we’re both going to have more free time to do more with one another, your mother included. She and I have a date set for Friday night.”
I smiled. I was glad they were still going out and keeping the romance alive. “And did she give you that fancy Rolex that you have on your arm?”
Dad actually blushed and nodded but didn’t offer an explanation.
“Yeah, I’m not doing anything tonight so I can go with you.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you at five and we can walk over together.”
“Sounds good. See you then.” We shared a small smile, and he left my office, closing the door behind him.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He was right. The event had been fine, and we spent most of the time talking up Monroe Media Agency to some of his friends and potential clients. Plus, I got to spend time with my father and have a glass of wine. What more could I ask for?
I glanced at my father and said, “No, it was fine. You know I’m not a huge fan of schmoozing.”
“But you’re wonderful at it. And you’ve definitely gotten better with it over the last couple of months.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
We walked over to get our coats that had been checked and I smiled when Dad helped me put mine on. We walked over to the exit of the building where the fundraiser was being held and looked around. “Do you want to go home with me so you can see your mother? Then I can drop you off at your place or you can stay in your old room.”
“Sure. We can split a cab.”
“Okay, I’ll see if there’s one nearby. You stay near the building and keep warm.” His suggestion made sense. It was still cold in the city and standing near the building would probably be warmer. Plus, this street wasn’t well lit, and I appreciated being closer to a source of light, versus trying to find a cab in the dark.
Only seconds later shots rang out and I dropped to the ground so fast I lost every ounce of breath that had been in my lungs. Chaos surrounded me as people ran in different directions, trying to outrun whoever was firing the gun.
Although my ears were still ringing, my first thought was finding out where Dad was. “Dad?”
I didn’t get a response.
“Dad!” My scream was more of a shriek as I panicked and tried to pick myself off of the ground.
It took me a moment, but I saw a motionless body lying a small distance away and I took a few steps toward the body, shoving people who were running toward me out of the way. It was then that my eyes landed on the watch, the one I had complimented my father on just hours before.
“No, Dad!” I screamed as I tried to run toward him. I could see something dark seeping out from underneath him and the urge to get to him increased tenfold. My forward mobility stopped when someone grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth. My muffled screams did not attract any attention as people ducked for cover.
“Get off of me! Let me go!” came out as a mumbled mess, and the person continued to pull me in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. It was then that I was thrown into the back of an SUV that then sped off. When I tried to sit up and open the door, the childproof locks were engaged in one swift motion and the next thing I knew, something was thrown over my head and my hands were tied behind my back. My screams did nothing to deter my kidnappers and the SUV sped off to its destination unbeknownst to me.<
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Thank you for reading! The next book in the series, Scarred Empire, will be released in Spring 2021.
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About the Author
Bri loves a good romance, especially ones that involve a hot anti-hero. That is why she likes to turn the dial up a notch with her own writing. Her Broken Cross series is her debut dark romance series.
She spends most of her time hanging out with her family, plotting her next novel, or reading books by other romance authors.
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Also by Bri Blackwood
Broken Cross Series
Sinners Empire (Prequel)
Savage Empire
Scarred Empire
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Savage Empire: An Enemies to Lovers Dark Billionaire Romance (Broken Cross Book 1) Page 16