Dark Favors

by Sophie Stern

  I still didn’t know why he was using me.

  There was definitely something he wanted.

  A guy like Nathan Locke didn’t look twice at a girl like me without a damn good reason. There was something he was going to get from me, whether I wanted to give it or not, but what? That was yet to be seen.

  “Look at the house,” he said. His voice was cool and even, but controlled. That was so him. He was always in control. He wasn’t like me: getting angry or wild for no damn reason. He was just always there. He always seemed to know exactly what was important, and he always seemed to understand exactly how to handle me.

  I hated it, and I loved it, and I was confused by it.

  I looked at the house.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Look up, Paige.”

  I looked up. There, on the second floor of the house, in a window, was Nathan Locke. He was in a suit, of course, and he was standing there on the phone.

  “I am not going to murder you,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Now come inside, Paige.”

  “Okay.”

  I ended the call and stared at the house. I stared at Nathan. He looked at me for probably an entire minute, and then he stepped back from the window, vanishing into the shadows of the space. Where was he going? What was he doing?

  More importantly, why did he want me here?

  It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense, and I was so very tired of feeling lost. Still, he had promised me something, and I hadn’t forgotten it. My dad. He was going to tell me all about him one of these days. That was the thing about Nathan that I did think was true. I thought that he was going to tell me who my dad was. It might not be in the way that I wanted him to, and it might not be at the time when I wanted him to, but he’d tell me. He’d stay true to his word.

  At least, I thought that he would.

  And so I walked up the stairs to the mansion. Despite the fact that the building looked wildly abandoned and uncared for, the steps weren’t creaky or broken. Apparently, someone had maintained the property quite well. They had taken care to make sure that everything was as it should be, and that nobody was going to die walking up the front stairs.

  When I reached the door, I looked at it. This was the last door Locke’s sister had ever walked through. It was the very last place she’d ever been. Whatever happened to her had happened here, and I was about to be in that same place. I reached for the knob and turned, and then I pushed the door open.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t the pristine interior of the mansion. While the outside had become decrepit and had fallen apart, the interior of the space seemed to be perfectly preserved. I walked inside, looking around. I bit back a gasp.

  The inside of the mansion was a beautiful bright whit. I stared at the lovely staircase, not quite sure why I was looking at something so fantastic. There were two separate starts to it: one on each side, and then they met up top in the center of the room to form a little balcony. Straight ahead was a huge, wide hallway that presumably led to other rooms: probably a kitchen, and maybe a sitting room. To either side of me were closed doors, but none of that mattered.

  Nathan Locke appeared at the top of the double staircase.

  “You made it,” he said.

  “Why are we here, Locke?”

  “That’s Mr. Locke,” he said.

  Only this time, there wasn’t any snap to his reprimand. This time, he almost seemed sad when he said it, and I knew why. He’d been thinking about her: about his sister. He was here, in the place where he lost her, and he was sad.

  I started moving before I could convince myself that it was a bad idea. My feet carried me up one of the staircases to him, and then I wrapped my arms around him. At first, he stiffened, not used to this kind of raw gesture: especially from me.

  We might be fooling around, but we weren’t affectionate. Not like this. He hesitated, but after just a moment, he seemed to relax, and he wrapped his arms around me, too. We held each other for a long time, and then I pulled back and just looked at him.

  Locke looked like he’d aged overnight. He looked tired, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

  “Why are we here?” I repeated my earlier question.

  This time, he took my hand, and he led me down a side hallway. We passed a couple of closed doors, and a couple of open ones. From the quick glances I had inside, it seemed like this part of the house was just as perfect as the rest.

  So what had happened here?

  Finally, we reached a set of glass pane doors, and he pushed them open and led me outside.

  “I left the office because I had a call from the police about trespassers,” he said. “They were gone by the time I got here.”

  “Trespassers?”

  “I own the property,” he said. “I bought it.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Because Rebecca died here.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m glad you aren’t playing coy. I figured you knew by now what had happened to her.”

  “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “But Amber told me a little bit.”

  “Amber is a good person, even if she does have a big mouth,” he said.

  “She doesn’t have a big mouth.”

  I felt the need to defend Amber even though we didn’t know each other very well. We definitely weren’t friends. I couldn’t use that word to describe our relationship, and yet...

  Well, she was a fellow woman. I felt an obligation to make sure that she was treated right even when she wasn’t around. I wanted her to be respected and cared for. That was important. It was wildly important.

  “She does,” he said. “But that’s not always a bad thing.”

  We stood for a minute, and he seemed to be looking for the right words to say. That was so Locke. Everything had to be so precise for him, so perfect. It was a little bit annoying, to be honest.

  “Rebecca came to look for something,” he said.

  “What kind of something?”

  “The kind of something that only very rich, very elite people try to hide,” he said. “Long ago, this place used to be rented out occasionally for special galas or private parties.”

  “Something happened,” I said, thinking of what Amber had said.

  “Something happened,” he agreed. There was a long pause, and then he started speaking again. “She was working on a paper in college,” he said. “And she started researching someone very powerful. She found out that he had been associated with the missing woman from this place all of those years ago.”

  “You didn’t want her to go,” I realized. “You didn’t want Rebecca to go sticking her nose in it. You probably knew this guy was bad news.”

  “I didn’t know she was even planning on looking into the vanishing,” Locke said. “She was living with me at the time, and I was responsible for her. Our dad had passed away, and our Mom...” His voice trailed off for a minute, but then he just smiled sadly. “Our mom died giving birth to Rebecca.”

  So that was why I hadn’t seen her in any pictures.

  That was why she hadn’t been mentioned in any articles.

  “It’s never easy losing people we love,” I told him.

  “Not so much,” he agreed.

  “She sneaked out,” I said. “She sneaked out and you feel bad,” I realized. Then something else hit me. “Locke, you don’t blame yourself, do you?”

  “Of course, I blame myself,” he said.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It was entirely my fault.”

  “She was an adult. She could make her own choices. It was her decision to go out. It might not have been the best decision, and it might not have been the one you wanted her to make, but it was hers to make.”

  “You sound like her,” he said quietly, looking at me. “That’s exactly the kind of thing she would have said.”

  I didn’t know how I felt about being compared t
o my not-boyfriend’s dead sister, but judging by Amber and Locke’s reactions to her memory, it sounded like Rebecca was actually a pretty cool person. There was definitely a little part of me that regretted the fact I would never get to know her. It sounded like she was quite interesting.

  “He killed her. I know it. She was too close to the truth,” he whispered. “Too close, and then she lost everything.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “A police officer showed up at my door. Similar to what happened today. They had reports of trespassing. Apparently, there was a neighbor at the time who was nosey, just as there are nosey neighbors now. They’re different ones,” he added. “Trust me when I say I canvassed the neighborhood and talked to anyone who could tell me anything. Nobody ever was able to prove there was anyone here but Rebecca that night. Falling off a balcony wasn’t like her.” He shook his head. “They ruled it an accident, at least, and not a suicide, but I know it was murder.”

  I let that sink in. Whoever Rebecca had been going after was a horrible person, apparently. It seemed as though that person was the kind of man who would do anything to protect his legacy and his secrets. That was the kind of dangerous person you didn’t want to be around, well, ever.

  “So why did you buy this place?” I asked him, trying to get to the heart of everything. “I mean, it’s...it’s just a reminder of what you’ve lost.”

  “It’s not a reminder,” he said. “There’s not a day that goes by when I’m not thinking of her, so this place? It’s no more of a reminder than just being alive is.”

  I knew what he meant. It was how I felt about losing my mother, too. When she died, people were so scared to talk about her, as if them bringing her up would be the thing that made me hurt. Grief was so stupid in that way. I didn’t care if people brought up my mom because, well, I was always thinking about her.

  “Why then?”

  “I didn’t want anyone else to have this place,” he finally said. “The owner was an old man whose daughters rented out the property. He died a few months ago, and I contacted them and bought it before he could be placed on the market.”

  “That’s quite the power move,” I pointed out.

  “Perhaps,” he said, and a little smile crept onto his face. Then he reached for me, and he pulled me close, and he kissed me. “I needed you here with me,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming.”

  I was shocked to hear him say that, and I looked up at him. He was watching me carefully.

  “Does it upset you to hear me say that?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m just surprised.”

  “Why? You know I care for you.”

  “I don’t know that at all,” I pointed out. “You call me into your office to work for you because I owe you,” I said. “But you’ve never indicated that you care.”

  “I’m pretty sure eating your pussy until you have a screaming orgasm on my face says otherwise.”

  I blushed, but shook my head.

  “I didn’t scream,” I muttered.

  “The executives on the 24th floor would beg to disagree.”

  “They heard that?” I gasped, hitting Locke on the chest. “How the hell did they hear that? I’m so quiet!”

  “You aren’t as quiet as you think, darling,” he laughed and shook his head. “Come.”

  He reached for my hand and led me back inside.

  “I want to give you a tour,” he said, and he did. He showed me the property, and it was just as beautiful as I thought it was going to be. There were two huge kitchens with big, wonderful ovens and countertops. There were cabinets filled with beautiful dishes. There was a library on the first floor, and there were at least a dozen bedrooms upstairs. We ended up in the master bathroom at one point, and I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

  “This is bigger than my bedroom,” I pointed out.

  “Which room in the house is yours?” He asked. I realized that he hadn’t been inside since Fawn and I moved in.

  “The one on the north side,” I said.

  “Ah,” he smiled. “I should have known. That’s a beautiful one. The sunlight comes in so nicely in the mornings.”

  “Right?” I agreed readily. “I was nervous at first since the window is so big. I thought about getting those darkness curtains...you know, the blackout ones?”

  “I know the ones,” he said. “But that would be a pity.”

  “I agree,” I said, smiling. Then I turned back to the bathroom. It had the world’s biggest tub. Seriously. The bathtub was bigger than my entire bed. “I bet we could both fit in there,” I told him.

  “In the tub?”

  “Haven’t you ever wanted to know how many people could fit in there?”

  He shook his head.

  “Honestly, the thought never occurred to me,” he said.

  “I bet that’s what your trespassers were doing this morning,” I said. “They probably heard about your incredible bathtub and wanted to sneak a peek.”

  He laughed, smiling. That mop of hair shook ever-so-slightly as he did, and I smiled. It was good to hear Locke laugh. He did it so rarely. He was forever Mr. Serious, forever the man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  Well, he didn’t have to do that now. I didn’t think I was any sort of goddess or princess when it came to seducing a man. I wasn’t under the mistaken impression that I was somehow going to be able to save the world with my smile or by loving him, but I could make a difference in his life today by getting his mind off of the fact that he’d lost someone.

  Many someone’s.

  “Come on,” I took his hand, tugging. “Let’s see.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  I climbed up the two steps that it took to get up to the top of the tub, and then I climbed in the interior stairs. I’d never seen a bathtub with stairs before, but I wasn’t about to miss this chance. Locke followed me into the tub and we each sat down on one side: me in my skirt-with-pockets, and him in his suit.

  We crossed our legs, and we looked at each other.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I demanded.

  “I thought I was the one in charge.”

  “I never claimed to be your submissive,” I laughed.

  “No, but I claimed you as my submissive.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you,” he shrugged.

  “There’s more to it than that,” I pointed out. I didn’t say what I was thinking: that I thought he had some sort of ulterior motive. I didn’t tell him that I was pretty sure he had something he wanted from me. There was a part of me that was absolutely certain that he was a wildcard. There was a part of my soul that wouldn’t let me forget the fact that I didn’t really know him as well as I thought I did.

  And he wanted something.

  That was how men like Locke worked.

  They didn’t have close friends. They were too busy conquering the world. That was part of the reason Locke was so lonely. He was a real estate guru, but he was wildly professional about it. There was a part of him that was looking for something.

  I just didn’t know what that something was.

  Chapter 15

  Locke

  I shouldn’t have admitted to liking her, but I couldn’t quite hold back.

  I was supposed to be a bad boy philanthropist with a heart of gold, but I wasn’t. I was just me: bitter, broken. I was a bastard, and I didn’t deserve to even be spending time with someone as perfect as Paige, let alone touching her.

  But there we were: two people sitting in business clothing in a bathtub in the middle of a Saturday morning.

  There was only one thing I could think about.

  Kissing her.

  Paige seemed to get the memo without me even saying anything, because she seemed to crawl over to me in the tub. How she managed to look so graceful despite be
ing in a dress and being in a bathtub with me, I didn’t know, but she did.

  She climbed onto my lap, then, and she kissed me. Somehow, this time, it was different. We’d kissed plenty of times in my office. She’d played with my cock and I’d seen every inch of her, but somehow, I knew that this time...

  This was going to be it for us.

  My heart was in a freefall when it came to Paige, and after talking with her about Rebecca, I knew that I needed to change my plan. I had known for awhile that I was going to be outing her to Josiah Reagan as his illegitimate child. The plan was to take her to the gala next weekend and, during his big speech about morality in the city, expose him. I was going to make my own speech and show everyone in Ruby City exactly who they were dealing with.

  But I couldn’t, I realized suddenly. She was kissing me, and I wanted her, but all I could think about was that I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to break her heart. Not after all of this.

  I’d been fighting the pain of losing my sister for so long that it had consumed me. Was I really willing to make Paige suffer, too?

  “Come to the gala with me,” I found myself asking her. She pulled back and looked at me, surprised.

  “The gala?”

  “It’s next weekend,” I said. “There’s going to be a huge art gala. Some of my sister’s work is going to be showcased, along with a bunch of other local artists. The theme is love and morals.”

  It was fitting, I thought.

  “I didn’t know your sister was an artist.”

  “She used a secret name,” I admitted. “The art in my office? All done by Rebecca.”

  “Why did she use a secret name?” Paige asked wondrously. “That art is all so incredible. I love it so much. There’s the piece with the father and daughter walking, and-“ She stopped, and her mouth formed a tiny “o” as realization dawned. “It wasn’t a father and daughter. It was a brother and sister, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I told her. “Sometimes she painted us.”

  “She really was full of surprises,” Paige said.

  “Come with me.”

  “I don’t have anything to wear,” she told me.

  “I’ll buy you a dress.”

  “Okay,” she said. She didn’t argue, didn’t promise to pay me back, and didn’t tell me that was too much. I was happy about that. It was nice to offer someone a gift and have them just accept it totally, unconditionally, without feeling upset or awkward.