I'm not sure how that grabs me.
"So far, so good," Adrian says, pouring himself another glass of red that is not Beaujolais nouveau. He's referring to the fact that my mother hasn't knocked on the door yet, and I hush him violently.
"Don't tempt fate," I hiss at him, like fate can't hear me if I'm whispering.
He shrugs. "I'm not superstitious."
The doorbell rings.
"Welcome to hell," I mutter, as I go to answer.
My mother gives me an icy smile. "I see you've rethought your holiday plans."
"Yeah, well, I guess you were pretty persuasive." I stand in the middle of the doorway, attempting to block her path. "I'm kind of in the middle of something right now."
"Nonsense. You can always make time for your mother when she's visiting from so far away." She pushes past me, and stares Adrian down as she pulls out a chair on the opposite side of the table. "Well. Seems like you've taken the news rather well, unless she's saving that for pillow talk."
I grit my teeth. "It's fine, Mom. Really. I already told him I'm not going to do it."
"Yes." She grimaces slightly. "But you're going to anyway. I can see it in your face. You've always been a terrible liar, for such a deceitful little witch."
In that moment, I think I actually see Adrian's jaw unhinge in disbelief. Or perhaps in preparation to swallow his prey whole; it's always hard to tell, with him.
"Are you laughing at me?" my mother hisses. I realize that mental image has brought a pretty inconvenient smile to my face, but I don't particularly feel like hiding it. With Adrian beside me, I feel a strength and steadiness at the center of my chest.
"No," I tell her. "There's nothing funny about you, Mom."
Adrian clears his throat. "Don't speak to her like that."
Vicious anger flashes in my mother's eyes. "She's my daughter, Mr. Risinger. I'll speak to her however I like."
"You're very skilled at bullying, Mrs. Burns," he says, his voice deadly quiet. "It takes one to know one. You may have a few decades of experience on me, but I promise I don't back down easily."
She just quirks an eyebrow at him. She's not taking him seriously - not yet.
"I'm not terribly pleased with the way you've taken over my daughter's life," she says, daring a response.
Adrian's fingers are tapping out their slow executioner's beat on the table. My mother's eyes snap to them, staring, her lips going thinner and thinner as she stares.
The look on his face is terrifying. It's also the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"At least I appreciate her," he says, his voice quiet and even and calm. "Your daughter is brilliant, and beautiful. I think it's very sad that you can't see that. But I think it's reprehensible that you talk to her like she's a disappointment. Mrs. Burns, quite frankly, I don't care about your guilt trip. An animal can give birth to a child and raise it, so that doesn't particularly impress me. I don't know how Meghan turned out the way she did, but all I see is you trying to intimidate her into being a scared little girl again so you can feel important. I won't hear this. I've said what I have to say, and if Meghan is determined to allow it…well, there's nothing I can do about that."
He stands up, slowly. I don't dare look at my mother. My heart is thumping, my head rushing and my fingertips tingling.
I reach out and grab his wrist.
"Don't leave," I tell him, softly.
"Well." My mother's voice is soft and tremulous. "It looks like you've made your choice. Don't come crawling back to me when he finds a skinny woman-"
Adrian slams his hand down on the table. I almost jump out of my skin, but my whole body is throbbing with a heady mixture of gratitude and fear and…
And love.
"Get the fuck out," he growls. "You heard her. GET THE FUCK OUT."
My mother slams the door behind her, but I hardly hear the sound. I'm clawing at Adrian's clothes before I even realize what's happening, then I push him against the wall and I tumble to my knees.
I suck him desperately, urgently, but he pulls me to my feet before I can finish him that way. Kisses me until I'm dizzy with it, then spins me around and presses me against the table. His hand on the middle of my back, he makes me bend at the waist and assume the position. He yanks my panties and pajama pants out of the way.
He knows, without being asked, exactly what I need.
At first it's slow and gentle, light little smacks followed by caresses. Then harder, and harder, until the tears I've been holding back finally come. He spanks me as the tears fall, pooling on my dining room table.
Most men would be afraid to fuck me while I'm crying like this, sobbing, like my soul's being ripped out of me, but Adrian, Adrian knows. He knows the exact moment when I need to feel him inside, stretching me, yet another challenge for my body to accept. Every sensation banishes the guilt and fear and ugliness further from my mind. Every thrust, every jolt of my hips against the hard wood, certain to leave bruises. Every smack of his palm.
He grasps my hair by the root and yanks my head up, and I whimper. But I remember the safe word, and he knows I remember it. He doesn't stop. Doesn't even hesitate.
His every breath is a growl. I can feel all the coiled tension in his body, everything he held back while he listened to my mother's insults. Ever so slowly, ever so gradually, he replaces little fragments of self-hatred with a strange, sharp sense of joy. One for each thrust. One for each heartbeat. One for each breath.
There are so many, so many more, so many little fragments in places I can't even find. But this is a start.
In spite of how it would look to anyone watching, what I feel in his movements, in his touch, is something very simple. But a revolutionary concept, to me.
I matter. I have value. I matter.
Not me, but thinner. Not me, but with better clothes and a better haircut. Not me, but with a flatter stomach. Not me, but with a more advanced degree in something useful. Not me, but with more discipline and self-control.
Just me. Just me, the way I am, every day when I wake up in the morning without even having to try.
I howl his name when I come, rattling the table, and I don't give a fuck about my neighbors.
Afterwards somehow I'm sitting on the floor, crumpled down with my pants more or less pulled back up, panties still slightly askew, and the tears still flowing. Adrian is beside me, pulling me into his lap. Kissing my forehead, murmuring that everything is going to be okay.
I don't quite believe him. But it doesn't matter, really.
Because I've got him.
***
I go to sleep swimming in tears, and I wake up in love with Adrian Risinger.
Maybe I was before. Maybe I always was. I don't know, but it takes me less time to realize it than it takes me to notice that he's gone.
He carried me to bed last night, stripped down and climbed under the covers and held me until I feel asleep. I remember that. I didn't exactly expect him to be here when I woke up, but I still feel a cold disappointment in my chest as I turn on the coffeemaker.
There's no note on the fridge, nothing written in the mirror for the steam of my shower to reveal. He doesn't call or text. I don't know what to make of that, and it frightens me, more than it probably should.
I was a raw, exposed nerve last night. I feel slightly more sensible now, but I'm still in love. It throbs quietly with every heartbeat, so much a part of me that I can't figure out why I ever denied it. And that's how I know it's real.
Adrian's feelings are a bit more of a mystery, but he wouldn't have stuck himself in the middle of a fight between me and my mom - twice - if he didn't care about me.
I manage to pull myself together for work, my heart thumping overtime, afraid of what he's going to say to me when I walk in. My hand shakes so much that I almost spill his coffee, and as soon as I walk in, I'm starting to think maybe I should. Preferably all over his lap.
"Hey, um…" I sit down, slowly. "I missed you this morning."
> He glances up at me. Fuck. Are we really doing this again?
"I'm sorry about last night, Meghan," he says. "I obviously overstepped my bounds. It should never have happened. If you want, I can try to apologize to her…but I'm sure she doesn't want to hear from me."
"You didn't," I insist, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes already. Damn it. "She needed to hear it, and I needed to hear it too."
Adrian processes this, silently. I can tell he wants to say a thousand things he's not saying, but he's shut down again - some door inside that he'd cracked open is slammed shut again, and I don't know how or why.
"I got carried away," he says, quietly. "We both got carried away. It's what tends to happen with us, isn't it?" He looks up with a tentative smile, like he's hoping I'm going to let him off the hook.
Not a fucking chance.
"Great," I say, getting to my feet. "Great. Fantastic. So I'm the only one who felt that last night, huh?"
He lets out a long sigh. "I didn't say that."
"So?" I cross my arms. "Well?"
"I just think…just because something feels like a good idea, doesn't mean it is." He's still not looking at me. "I'll hurt you, Meg. If I'm close enough to make you happy, I'm going to end up hurting you. That's just the way it is."
I can't argue with him.
It's been months since he reduced me to crying in the bathroom, hoping no one else walks in.
I hate him.
Except I don't. And really, that's my biggest problem.
***
When I get home, I do the only thing I can think of: I call Izzy.
We exchanged numbers before the conference ended, and she told me to call her if I ever wanted to talk. This obviously qualifies, although I'll have to think fast to avoid spilling the big secret.
I manage to get through a version of the backstory that fits in with the idea of me as the author, and him as the editor. Izzy listens patiently, making encouraging sounds, while I rant.
"I don't know what to do, Izzy. I really don't. So I'm probably disowned now, no big deal, right?" I let out a little burst of hysterical laughter. "It shouldn't be any great loss. I mean, I'll be better off without them. I know that. I've tried a thousand times to understand my mom, to relate to her, to make her relate to me. But she acts like I'm a different species. She just can't accept that I'm her daughter. And my dad, he just stands by and pretends he doesn't see it. Adrian was right. It's horrifying, the way they treat me, and the only reason I've put up with it is because I'm supposed to. Well, fuck that. Fuck that and fuck them. But the thing is, I never would have sided against my mom if he wasn't there beside me. He's all I have now. And he doesn't get it."
Izzy's quiet for a moment, letting me finish. "I think he gets it, Nat. I think he gets it, and it scares the piss out of him. That's no excuse for acting like a shithead, but from what you've told me, as far as he's concerned, a committed relationship might as well be a rabid bear chasing him. The way he acts isn't going to be logical or make any kind of sense. He's trying to protect himself, and you."
It makes sense, and I hate that it makes sense. "That's fine. You know what? That's fine. If he doesn't want anything serious, I get it! But if he didn't want a relationship, he shouldn't have acted like this. Sticking his nose into my family affairs. I could have kept the peace. It wouldn't have been great, but at least I'd still have a family."
"I'm sure you can still patch things up with your mom," says Izzy, softly. "If that's really what you want."
"It's not, though!" I can feel a sob starting to form in my throat. "I can't. I can't go back bowing and scraping. Nothing he said was wrong, and my mom deserved to hear it. I won't apologize for him. But I shouldn't have had to, in the first place."
My thoughts are all over the place, and I'm barely making any sense, but at least I realize it. I'm not sure I'm making any sense to Izzy, but at the absolute worst she's pretending to understand, and that's good enough.
"I don't doubt for one moment that he cares about you," she says, at last. "When I saw you two walk in together, I was sure you were a couple. He can barely take his eyes off of you."
It's nice of her to say, but I don't quite believe her. It was sexual tension that she saw, though the romantic in her clearly wanted to interpret it differently.
We finally hang up when I realize I've run out of things to say. She makes me promise to call her if I need to talk again, and I tell her I will. But she's just going to tell me the same things over and over again, and she doesn't know the real story. The years of resentment and impossible standards and sarcastic jabs, all aimed at making me feel inferior to him.
It doesn't take a PhD in psychology to unpack my role in all of this. Really, it's only natural that I sought approval from someone cold and demanding, because it was the only thing I knew. The biggest mistake people make about me is assuming that Adrian's behavior doesn't bother me. Of course it does. I just have a unique ability to tolerate it, thanks to my mom administering a slow, steady dose of the same poison throughout my childhood.
I might be more fucked up than Adrian, but between the two of us, it's a damn circus.
Chapter Fifteen
I've given up on trying to understand Adrian.
After going over and over everything in my head, a thousand times, I can't make sense of it. It's driving me crazy, so I set it aside.
I have to.
Granted, it's hard, working around him. But what can I do? I can't force him to realize how much he hurt me that night, and I know that whatever happened in his head really has nothing to do with me. Deep down inside, I hoped I was important enough to overcome it. I wanted to be the one who made him forget fears, hesitations - to throw caution to the winds.
He's that person for me. I've realized that now, too late to do anything about it.
I'm not sure how many days it's been. I just keep showing up, doing the same tasks I've always done, smiling and apologizing for him, like it's my second nature. Because at this point, it is. The whole time, my mind runs over thoughts and images of me and Adrian. Over and over again, trying to make sense of it. So many times that I've grown numb to the memories. Or so I tell myself.
One Friday morning - or maybe it's a Wednesday, I can never be sure anymore - I stop by his office with some paperwork. He's on the phone, but he waves me in as usual.
"Yes, Kara, I understand that…but the thing is…"
I leave quickly, because I've got no reason to stay. But it would take superhuman strength to avoid doing what I do.
He's talking to her on one of the open lines - I could easily pick it up and listen in. It was probably a mistake on his part.
All the same.
I lift the receiver, carefully. I tell myself that whatever they're discussing, I should be privy to it. As long as I'm continuing to play the role of Natalie McBride, I need to be involved.
They're in the middle of some kind of heated argument. Immediately, I know I should hang up, but I don't.
"- never, not once, have you trusted my instincts." Adrian's voice simmers with barely-restrained anger. "It would be nice if you acknowledged I have some worthwhile ideas."
"Right, like when you had that brilliant idea to make Amanda fat."
Kara's words bite through the air like a whip, and I freeze. For a moment, all I hear is both of them breathing, sharply.
"I thought we were done discussing that." Adrian's throat is constricted with anger. I can hear it; I can picture him clenching his fists under the desk.
"Just trying to make a point," says Kara, her voice deadly sweet. "You wouldn't be where you are without me. And this whole Natalie McBride nonsense is headed for disaster. You need to get rid of Meghan, and come out to your fans. You think they'll be upset that a devastatingly sexy billionaire has been writing about all their fantasies?"
"Now that I've outright lied about it?" He sighs heavily. "Yes, Kara. I do. I do think they'll be upset. I also think my colleagues - the real ones, yo
u know, the ones in the business that actually made me a billionaire - will run me out of town on a rail."
With a sharp exhale, Kara responds. "Meghan's just holding you back, Adrian. It's high time you accepted that. Get over your little crush and move on. You can't keep using these book tours as an excuse to fondle her ample breasts."
She's mocking him, with a term he uses frequently in the books.
She's mocking me.
I hear a click, and I realize one of them must have hung up. I replace the phone in the cradle as gently and quickly as I can, heart racing.
Little crush.
Kara.
Fucking Kara.
But did Adrian…?
I always knew she didn't like me.
Two months after I was hired, he started writing.
Make Amanda fat.
My palms are damp with sweat. It couldn't be true. Amanda couldn't really be based on me.
Adrian might have given in to sexual tension on our trip, but he doesn't like me. A man like him? No. He'd enjoy a body like mine in private, but he'd never flaunt me on his arm in public. Even if he did buy me that nightie. Even if we did go that fucking 80's prom together. There's just no way.
Tears are threatening in the corners of my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I stare at my computer screen and try to figure out what I should do. What I can do.
Then, I remember something.
There's that discussion loop. The one Adrian temporarily gave me access to, so I could see the messages Kara posted as him. So I could keep my story consistent. He cut me off before I had a chance to look at the really old stuff - and anything that might have been posted before the first book was published.
If there were any clues remaining of the original draft of His Secretary, I'd find them there.
Praying he hasn't changed the password, I locate the site and log in.
Bingo.
It takes me a moment to come to grips with the navigation, but I'm finally able to sort by date and begin combing through the posts.
When I see a few dating back to the very same month I was hired, my mouth goes dry.
His Secretary: Undone Page 16