Black Light: Scandalized

by Grant, Livia

  “…never liked that guy… creeped me out… buy his way out…”

  The room was spinning, unwanted memories flooding her brain, forcing out thoughts of anything except fear and fury. As if the rug had literally been pulled out from under her, Piper fell to her knees, dropping the cup of water she’d been carrying.

  As a familiar nightmare started on auto-play in her brain, Piper crouched into a ball, throwing her arms over her head in the crash position. Hands pawed at her as she fought back, screaming for help, but she’d learned—no one would be coming to her aid.

  I’m on my own.

  Someone called her name from far away. Piper fought back—scratching, hitting, clawing—until arms too strong to fight immobilized her.

  She sank deep into the nightmare until soft words started to chip through the haze. The arms entrapping her now rocked her instead. The hard floor had been replaced by a comfortable lap. She gasped for air, trying to push the panic back into its cage deep inside her. Somehow, she managed to squeak out a single word.

  “Xanax.”

  The arms enclosing her loosened. She survived on sips of air taken in fits and starts.

  “Open.” An order.

  A pill shoved into her mouth.

  A glass of water to wash it down.

  Time passed as she used the breathing techniques she’d learned to help keep the panic at bay. Why weren’t they working anymore?

  She had mixed emotions as she started to feel the medicine doing its job. As the panic receded, it was replaced with embarrassment. Slowly realizing where she was and whose arms she was in, Piper grew agitated. She hadn’t lost control like this in years and was mortified she’d fallen apart in front of Nolan—in his house no less.

  “Talk to me, baby. What happened?”

  Nolan pressing for answers was not helping. She swatted at his arms, fighting against his restraint. Her brain knew it wasn’t the same thing, but in her precarious state, she couldn’t handle being held in place. She needed to get free.

  “Let go of me! I need to stand up!”

  “You fainted. Let me help you.”

  “It’s too late for that!” the manic version of herself screamed. “No one can help me.”

  “Piper, baby. It’s me… Nolan.”

  “I know who you are, but it doesn’t matter.”

  Nolan must have realized he wasn’t helping, his hold finally loosening. Piper scrambled to push out of his lap, stumbling to her feet and steadying herself by grabbing the back of the nearby loveseat.

  She was still naked. Fond memories of their intimate time making love valiantly tried to break through her consciousness, but Piper pushed the memories down. She’d made a mistake coming here.

  “I need to go.”

  “What? No way. I’ll order in food. We need to talk.”

  Right on schedule, she felt her stomach churning. She had to fight the urge to throw-up from the rollercoaster of emotions she was riding.

  “Nothing to talk about.”

  “Are you kidding me? What the hell just happened?”

  “Nothing.” He’d stood up and was approaching her. She held out her left hand like a stop sign and cried out the first word that came to her.

  “Red!”

  Piper had a front-row seat to the horror on Nolan’s face as he flinched, realizing she’d figuratively pulled the plug on his us. Like the honorable man she knew he was, he stood frozen, unwilling to get any closer.

  Piper struggled to find the right words. “I know you want to help me, but you can’t. No one can. I need to leave. Now. So, either call me a car or I’m going to start walking.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll give you a ride wherever—”

  “No! I need to be alone.”

  “Piper… baby… please…”

  “Fine, I’ll walk.” She swatted his hands away when he reached for her as she brushed past him, headed for the bedroom.

  The Xanax was doing its job, making her feel floaty. She went through the motions of stuffing the few items she’d unpacked back into the bag Danielle had brought over earlier that day. She threw on a pair of jeans and the first top she pulled out, desperate to get the hell out of there so she could lick her wounds in solitude. Her pool flip-flops were good enough shoes.

  Nolan was pacing in the great room when she emerged from the bedroom. She could tell he had a million things he wanted to say, but to his credit, he held it all in.

  “I wish you’d let me drive you.”

  “No.”

  After a few seconds, Nolan dug into the pocket of the robe he’d thrown on at some point and came out with a set of keys.

  “Take the Audi. It’s in the garage. Are you sure you can drive?”

  “I’m sure.”

  The damn tears were back again. Nolan had made her soft. If ever she needed to channel Mistress Ice, now was the time.

  “Thanks for a fun few days, Nolan, but this was a mistake. I’ll have Danielle return your car. I’ll be changing my phone number, so don’t bother calling.”

  “Just like that?” Nolan’s handsome face contorted in anger. “You’re gonna walk out of here. No explanation.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the fucking truth!”

  “The truth? Fine. You make me soft, and there is no room in my life for that. The truth is, I like being Mistress Ice. Nothing can hurt me that way.”

  “That’s such a load of shit, Piper. You want to lie to me, fine, but do me a favor and at least stop lying to yourself. I don’t know what the fuck happened between you and Henry Ainsworth, but I’m gonna make it my life’s mission to find out.”

  “Leave it alone, Boeing. It’s none of your fucking business.”

  “Bullshit. I think I deserve to know why I don’t get my happily ever after with the woman I love. You may be okay with throwing whatever this is we have together away, but I sure as hell am not.”

  There it was again. His declaration of love. For a brief moment, Piper allowed herself to recognize how nice it would have been if she could have reciprocated, but she pushed the feeling aside. She was broken. He deserved better.

  “Goodbye, Nolan.”

  How she got the strange car backed out of the garage and onto the road, she’d never know. She had no plan. As tempting as going home was, she knew Nolan would look for her there. She needed to go somewhere alone, where no one could find her.

  She didn’t dare try to charge her phone, knowing she could be tracked that way. By some dumb luck, she found Pacific Coast Highway. Just as the final sliver of the sun was setting over the Pacific to her left, Piper headed north, gunning the powerful engine of Nolan’s pretty car.

  She had no idea where she was going, but that brought her a small measure of comfort since that also meant no one else would ever be able to find her either.

  * * *

  “You need to eat something.”

  Shane didn’t need Cartwright-Davidson managing him.

  “I’ll eat when Ainsworth is behind bars.”

  “He won’t be able to hide forever. The media got ahold of his arrest warrant. They’re broadcasting his picture non-stop. It won’t be long now.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it. He’s a moneyman. He can buy himself safe travels to anywhere on the globe.”

  “Maybe, but at least then, he won’t be close enough to hurt the people we love.”

  Shane glanced to his right to see Jaxson looking across the room, watching Emma as she breastfed one of the twins. The club owner could really be a hardass, but at that moment, Shane suspected the alpha man wouldn’t be holding up much better than he was if something happened to his Emma or Chase. The thought brought him an unexpected touch of comfort.

  Shane pushed to his feet to check on Nalani. She’d been sleeping the last two times he’d checked on her. The pain medications they were giving her in her IV were finally helping her get some rest. The only reason he’d left her side was
there were several nurses and doctors cycling through her room at all times. Maybe he’d curl up next to her and catch a few winks while he waited to hear from the police chief after they executed the search warrant on Ainsworth’s estate.

  He’d only taken a few steps when his phone rang. He dug it out of his jean’s pocket to see the Beverly Hills Police Department come up on his caller ID.

  “Covington here.”

  “We got him.”

  The whoosh of air told him he’d been holding his breath while he waited to hear those words. Now that the news he’d been waiting for had come, he realized how anticlimactic it was. While getting Ainsworth off the streets was critical to protecting society at large, Shane had to acknowledge, it didn’t do jack shit to help Nalani through her recovery.

  “Where the hell was the fucker hiding?” Shane pressed.

  “We found a few notes in his home office that gave us a hunch he was planning to rent a charter out of Bob Hope Airport. We had a couple black and whites get there just as he was boarding a charter jet. The pilot had filed a flight plan for Dubai.”

  “Let me guess. The UAE doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US.”

  “Bingo. We’ll be digging into his financials, but I suspect he’s been setting himself up to retire there if things ever blew up here.”

  “So, it sounds like you’re starting to believe that he’s a serial abuser after all,” Shane pressed the police chief.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but let’s just say we found some pretty disturbing shit at his house. We’ve only just begun to process it all, but I’m not gonna lie. I’ll sleep better knowing we have him behind bars after what we found.”

  A small part of Shane wanted to press for details, but he realized that learning about additional Ainsworth victims would only make him feel worse, not better.

  “Thanks for calling. Keep me in the loop.”

  “Will do. I’ll let you know when the press conference is scheduled.”

  “Wait. Press conference?”

  “Yeah. This is a high-profile case. There’s no way we can get away without having a press conference to announce the charges. It will probably be more like daily until the charges are finalized.”

  “Fuck. Isn’t the media circus already out of control?”

  “Exactly. Maybe by answering a few questions, the chaos will calm down a bit, but don’t forget, it will help your girl’s case if we can get another victim or two to come forward to establish a pattern of behavior. Don’t worry about it for now. It’s getting too late today. It’ll most likely be tomorrow or the next day. I’ll have my assistant send you and Davidson a text with the details after I talk to the district attorney.”

  The police chief ended the call abruptly, not even bother to say goodbye.

  Asshole.

  Shane turned to tell Jaxson the news only to find everyone in the room had stopped talking to turn toward the huge TV on the wall. A helicopter film crew was hovering over a private jet. The crawler at the bottom of the screen correctly identified the location as Bob Hope Airport, the location the chief had just confirmed.

  “Turn it up,” Shane asked.

  Chase leaned down to grab the remote from the coffee table, turning the volume higher.

  “We repeat, we are interrupting our previously planned programming to report, Hollywood movie financier and Oscar-winning producer, Henry Ainsworth, has been taken into custody while attempting to board a private jet at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. State police, along with the Beverly Hills Police Department, are declining to comment further at this time.

  “Details are still emerging, and while we haven’t been able to confirm the charges with the District Attorney’s office, our sources are telling us, a female victim was rushed to Cedar-Sinai overnight, accusing Ainsworth of sexual assault and battery.

  “Hospital authorities haven’t been authorized to release information on the victim, but we have learned she is a twenty-five-year-old housekeeper who had previously accused Ainsworth of assault. Sources not authorized to speak from the Beverly Hills Police Department have indicated Ainsworth was previously arrested but later released after accusations from the same woman were not substantiated.

  “We now return you to our normal programming. Stay tuned for further updates on this breaking story.”

  “Someone at the hospital needs to get their ass fired for releasing that much information about Nalani,” Miguel complained.

  “Hey, I’m just glad they left my name out of this report. Let’s face it, with Jaxson and me involved, they aren’t going to rest until they get all the dirt. It’s why I’m so grateful for you hosting us here, where we can have at least a small measure of privacy from the media.”

  Miguel stood from his seat at the laptop. “Watching that report reminded me, I need to have the guys double and triple checking for drones. I don’t want a repeat of what happened at your wedding, boss.”

  Shane hadn’t been in attendance, but he’d heard about the disruption to the trio’s unique wedding the previous year when drones with cameras flew over, trying to get a scoop.

  The tension that had been building all day seemed to lighten ever so slightly after the news of Ainsworth’s capture and arrest. Shane allowed himself a few minutes of relief with the group hanging out in the living room. But now that he knew Ainsworth was behind bars, the exhaustion he’d been powering through started to catch up to him.

  Detouring through the kitchen, he grabbed a few chips from the bowl sitting out on the counter, downing them as he headed back to Nalani. He couldn’t wait to tell her the good news that her attacker was in custody. Shane knew it couldn’t erase her pain or fear, but he hoped it would let her breathe a bit easier, knowing he couldn’t get to her ever again.

  He’d just finished taking a whiz in the guest bath when his phone rang again. He was tempted to ignore the call, especially when he saw it was Nolan Boeing. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to his friend talking about how in love he was with Piper Kole.

  He answered the call at the last second.

  “Hey, Boeing. I can’t really talk…”

  “What the fuck happened with Ainsworth?”

  The panic in Nolan’s voice got Shane’s attention.

  “Why?” Friend or not, he wasn’t ready to start sharing the very personal details of Nalani’s attack.

  “Just tell me, damnit. I saw the report that he was arrested. And I saw the pictures of you carrying a woman into Cedar-Sinai last night. I’m not stupid. Did he rape your girl?”

  “It’s none of your fucking business if he…”

  “I think he raped Piper, too.” Nolan’s outburst shut him up. Shane’s mind raced as he internalized the words.

  “What? She told you that?”

  “No, but we were just coming in to get ready to go to dinner. I turned on the TV to catch a weather report, and the news report was talking about Ainsworth’s arrest. Shane, she lost it. Like a PTSD breakdown—screaming, crying, flailing. It took a Xanax to get her calmed down, then she just shut down on me.”

  He mulled the implications of Boeing’s hypothesis around in his head. He couldn’t imagine Mistress Ice letting any man get the best of her. Hell, Piper was more hard-core Domme than he was Dom on his best day.

  “I don’t know. That seems very unlikely. Don’t take this the wrong way, but she’s scary as fuck when she’s been at Black Light. I can’t picture any man, especially Ainsworth, getting the best of her.”

  “That’s just it. She wasn’t always like that. I knew something had happened. I just didn’t have a fucking clue what. I know I’m onto something. I don’t know exactly what went on, but I’d bet big money Henry Ainsworth was involved.”

  “So, put her on. Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

  “She bolted, man. Took one of my cars and ditched me. I have a bad feeling about this. She scared me, Shane. I fucking hate that she’s out there alone.”

  Nalani was recovering in the next
room, yet Shane felt the same helplessness he heard in Boeing’s voice. Both men hadn’t a clue how to get the women they loved through the nightmare Henry Ainsworth had sentenced them to.

  Shane hedged on answering Boeing’s original question. “You don’t want to know the details. Trust me. Just know, I absolutely hate the idea Piper might have had to live through even a fraction of what Nalani is going through right now.”

  “I’m so damn sorry, man. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Shane knew how lucky they were to have so much help already.

  “No, the Cartwright-Davidson’s have really stepped up to help. Nalani is their employee, and they’re taking it pretty hard. I’ll try calling Piper. Who knows, maybe she’ll answer for me again like last time. If I hear from her, I’ll let you know. Please, do the same if you hear from her.”

  “Will do.”

  Chapter 24

  Piper was going to miss the crashing waves when she left the next day, but it couldn’t be helped. She told herself she’d find another rental property on a different beach once she got settled. She’d lucked out finding this Airbnb right on Pismo Beach after leaving Nolan’s.

  She’d spent the last twenty-four hours trying to get her head out of her ass. Results varied hour to hour on how well she’d done.

  In a moment of lucid cogitation, she’d broken down and finally charged her phone. She told herself it was only so she could call Danielle, which she’d done, but then the waves of self-doubt had started crashing in on her like the Pacific Ocean waves on the beach below.

  Should she open the CNN app? Maybe flip on Good Morning America to catch the headlines? So far, she’d resisted, but barely, and that temptation was how she’d known what she needed to do next.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled for the umpteenth time. It had been happening all day, urging her to make her next move, sooner rather than later.

  Piper spun around three hundred and sixty degrees, looking for the boogieman, relieved when she found she was alone on the balcony. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched, which was ridiculous. No one knew where she was, except Danielle, and she’d only told her a few hours before.