“Not complaining.” He closed out of whatever he was working on and swung his chair to face me. “I just figured you’d be battling a mighty hangover today.”
“Fuck you. I’ve even been to the gym already.” I’d rented a locker at the club so I didn’t have the duffel to prove it.
“Good for you. Have a cigar.” He picked up the ornate box from the corner of his desk and handed it toward me.
I shook my head. “You look cozy. Playing house with her, are you?”
He set the cigar box down and pulled one out for himself before giving me a look that said I’m-not-discussing-my-girlfriend-with-you.
“And yet you want me to discuss Jolie with you.”
He bit off the end of his cigar, then pointed it at me. “The difference is you don’t want to hear my shit with Sabrina. I do want to hear your shit with Jolie. So you gonna lay it on me or what?”
I couldn’t protest because it was true. I didn’t want to hear about his happy love life. I was too bitter and jealous. Fuck him for being lucky enough to have everything work out. Must be fucking nice.
My expression must have told him exactly what I was thinking.
“Oh, come on,” he said, standing up. He walked around the desk to me and stuck the cigar in my face. “Sit down. Smoke with me. You want to tell me, and I want to hear. Don’t make me have to work to get it out of you.”
I held my scowl for another few seconds before taking the offering and putting it in my mouth. Donovan was there instantly with a light. I puffed, getting the cherry nice and red while he returned to his chair and lit one for himself. “I hate these, you know.”
“But you enjoy burning up my cash. These are Gurkhas. Seven-fifty a stick. Hate it less now?”
He knew me so well. I really did get a kick out of wasting his money. I cracked a small smile as I sat down in his leather armchair. “Marginally.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The room filled with the scent of cognac and tobacco as we puffed silently. I knew where to start, and as he’d guessed, I was anxious to tell him, but now that I was here sitting down with him, it felt a little less urgent. Like maybe I’d made it all up in my mind. Not her visit, because that had definitely happened, but the atrocity of her request. Was I making it a bigger deal than it was? I’d told her no, I meant no, was there really anything to say about it?
I supposed that was what I was here to figure out.
“She wants my help with something,” I said eventually, glad that Donovan hadn’t pushed me to say it before I was ready.
“Figured as much. She disappeared for all these years. Couldn’t imagine she’d pop up again unless she was desperate. Are you going to help her?”
“You’re not even going to ask what it is?” I was sure he would have wanted to know that first thing. Here he was jumping past the most important part.
“The favor is less interesting than your response.”
“But how can you decide if my response is justified if you don’t know what the favor is?”
He tapped his finger on his cigar, then leaned forward. “You really are going to make me work for this.” There was the Donovan I knew.
I inhaled deeply on my cigar, taking in more tobacco than I needed, but damn the buzz felt good. “She wants me to kill her father.”
He didn’t bat an eye. “Does he deserve it?”
“Uh. Does anyone?”
“Yes. There are most definitely people who deserve it, and you know that as well as I do. You’ve worked with a fair number of them.”
Sure, I’d worked with some despicable men in my life, but I hadn’t ever sat around contemplating a death wish list. “I’ve never thought it was my responsibility to make it happen.”
“It’s not. Unless you decide it is. Have you decided it is this time?”
“I can’t believe you’re calmly sitting there, casually asking me if I’m going to murder my ex-girlfriend’s prick of a father.”
“If that was the entire extent of the relationship you had with Stark, I’d maybe be more worked up about it.” He considered his words. “Nah. Probably not.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. Calm, collected, cool-as-a-cucumber Donovan Kincaid didn’t get in a fuss about much of anything. Why had I thought this would be any different? “She should have asked you to help her out.”
“She still could. Want me to find someone?”
I couldn’t decide if he was messing with me or if he was sincere. Or if he actually knew someone who did that kind of job.
Whatever the answer, my response was the same. “You helping her is the same as me helping her, and I’m not fucking helping her.”
“Because the favor itself turns you off or you don’t want to help her at all?”
“Both.” It wasn’t true. I wanted it to be, but I’d offered her money and a place to stay within twenty-four hours of our initial meeting. “The first one. Frankly, you should be turned off by it too.”
He ignored my attack on his morals. “Then if she’d asked something else, something less…”
“Illegal,” I filled in for him.
He gave me a knowing glare. He knew legality had never been a problem for me. “Something less life ending, you would have helped her out.”
I didn’t know how to answer that. Honestly, I was appalled she had the gall to ask for anything from me at all, and if her favor had been anything else—if she’d asked for me to give her a recommendation or sign a get well card, anything at all—I would have probably turned her down. Because she deserved to be the disappointed one this time. Because how dare she?
The only reason I’d helped her out today was because it hadn’t been as satisfying to turn her down yesterday as I’d wanted it to be.
“I don’t know, Donovan. I don’t know what I would have said if her request had been something reasonable. I think I would have turned her down no matter what.”
“But you’d still be thinking about it today.”
I didn’t have to respond. I was here, wasn’t I?
Eleven
“So I’ll ask again—does he deserve it?”
It was a moot point as far as I was concerned, since there was no way I was helping, but as long as Donovan wanted to go down this road, well. It could be interesting to see where it led. “Stark was...not nice.”
“So I’ve gathered from what you’ve said in the past.”
“Abusive for sure. Physically. The kind of abusive that Child Protective Services would want to put behind bars.”
“But you could never prove it.”
“No.”
“And he wasn’t like that with other students?” He was familiar with the charges I’d tried to bring against my former headmaster, though I’d never gone into detail. It seemed he’d done some research of his own, or had at least figured out enough of the parts I’d left out to know what to ask.
“Nope. I was special.” The wrong kind of special.
“Yeah, well, you know why that is.”
I was quiet for a second, remembering all the reasons that man had hated me from day one. “Yeah. I suppose I do.”
“Not your fault. You dealt with the cards you were handed.” He rolled his cigar between his lips. “But you’re saying he wasn’t really a danger to anyone after you were gone?”
My instinct was no. Though I couldn’t have said what he’d done after I’d left.
There was also a chance I’d been a buffer for his brutal nature. And with me gone, he could very well have gotten his sadistic kicks elsewhere, including on Jolie.
My mind started to wander to someone else who might have been his victim, someone other than Jolie, but I shut that line of thinking down right away, unwilling to follow it. It was bad enough thinking he might have used his daughter for his punching bag with me gone. I didn’t have room to worry about anyone else.
But Langdon Stark’s danger didn’t just lie in his hands. “On paper, no. He was a model headmast
er who ran a model school. He produced the best students who got into the best colleges. The parents who sent their kids there didn’t care about methods. They wanted results.”
“So they didn’t care if the guy in charge smacked them around a bit?”
“No, not that. I really don’t think he laid a hand on anyone else. At least, I couldn’t find anyone who would admit it when I was looking for corroboration when I filed charges. But he was…” I paused, trying to think how to describe it. The man was a gaslighter and a master manipulator. Looking back, it was just as hard to identify what was so horrible about him as when I’d been in the middle of it.
“This one time, for instance,” I said, deciding it was better to give him an example. “I was still new to the place, but a couple of the guys were feeling me out. Seeing if I was worthy of their time or friendship. This kid, Birch—I don’t remember his first name. He was a total asswipe. So of course he was popular. He liked to write these horrid stories about the people he didn’t like. He thought they were funny, and of course anyone he shared them with would laugh like they were because he was a guy with that kind of power, but they were really just mean. Stories about how slutty the girl in math class was or how the kid with the glasses had a limp dick.
“So this day, he wrote a particularly nasty thing about the fat kid. Presley.” I’d never forget him—wide eyes hidden behind round glasses that only made his face look heavier. Smart, but shy. Decent. Nice. “I mean, this story went on and on about Presley’s size, how he’d never get laid, and if he even tried he’d end up rolling over on the girl and killing her with his weight.”
“Sounds like we need to take a hit out on this Birch guy,” Donovan said. As though taking a hit out on someone was everyday for him.
“Eh. Birch was a prick, but he was harmless for the most part. Most of his victims never knew they were being made fun of. Except this time, the story had been passed to me, and I was reading it behind my history book, pretending to laugh as I did so he’d think I was cool. Or maybe I really did think it was funny. It’s hard to have that perspective in the aftermath. Anyway, Stark was subbing for the professor that day, and he caught me.”
“Uh-oh.”
It had been ridiculously stupid for me to have been acting up in front of him. I should have been on my best behavior the minute he’d walked in the room. Even new, I’d figured that much out in my encounters with him.
But I’d been seventeen and a rebel, and I’d wanted to fit in, and that need outweighed any sense of survival. “And instead of just sending me to detention or dealing with me privately later on, he turned the whole thing into a spectacle. Brought me up to the front of the class. Made me read the whole thing out loud.”
“Okay…and?” Donovan seemed to need help seeing the point.
“And it was awful. Not for me, necessarily—though yes for me, too, because like hell was I saying who really wrote it, and so of course most everyone thought it was me. But the worst part was that Presley was in the class, and he had to hear it. I could understand the nature of the punishment, truly I could. But as soon as Stark heard what sort of story it was, he should have stopped me and dealt with me later. That’s what a decent educator would have done.
“Not Stark. He prodded me on. He made me read every cruel word, made Presley listen as I made fun of his size in every wicked way possible. Made me keep going, even after Presley had started to openly cry. I tried to keep my eyes on the paper so I wouldn’t see his face, but I couldn’t miss the sound of his sobbing. And when I glanced at Stark, praying he’d let me stop, he had the most gleeful look in his eyes. Orgasmic. Like he was in heaven.”
“Sounds like a true sadist.” Donovan tapped the growing ash off the end of his cigar into an ashtray.
“Mm,” I murmured in agreement. Then I dropped my own cigar in the tray, feeling too sick from the memory to smoke anymore. “I could recount a dozen stories like that. He didn’t lay a hand on his students, but he was psychologically abusive.”
“Psychological abuse is quite often worse than physical.”
“But harder to identify.” I waited a beat, then added, “Harder to justify murdering over.”
Donovan raised a shoulder as though not quite sure he agreed. “I imagine his treatment of his students isn’t the reason Jolie wants him gone.”
It was my turn to shrug. “She wouldn’t say why.”
“She wouldn’t?” Finally, Donovan seemed surprised.
“Wouldn’t tell me why now or why me.”
“Hard to ask someone for such a heavy favor without having a reason. She offer to pay you?”
“No, no. No.” I paused, not sure I wanted to say more. But it was Donovan, and I always told him everything. “I think she’s broke, actually. Might be why she came to me. Because she thought I might do it for her without compensation. I was probably one of a whole list of ex-boyfriends she approached to do the deed.”
He shook his head. “I doubt that. Still seems hard to expect you to be motivated without more information.”
“Right.”
“Has to be something pretty important though. Something specific. To bring her out of hiding.”
I leaned back in the chair, considering. This was what I liked about my partnership with Donovan—he thought differently than I did. He looked at the whole picture while I was focused on the minutia. He followed trails of thinking that I would never see and ended up with an understanding of situations that was often out of my scope of comprehension.
Regardless…
“It doesn’t matter what her reason is. I’m not helping her, and I’m not covering for her if someone comes asking me questions later on.”
“Then that’s it. Your decision’s made.” He didn’t sound like he was trying to dispute me. More like he was trying to confirm.
“Yep.”
“Great. You’re done with this and her; you can move on.”
“Yeah. Exactly how I was looking at it.” Well. Except. “Actually, not quite done with her yet…”
He raised a quizzical eyebrow, and with his black turtleneck and slacks, he looked more like a behind-the-scenes mastermind than usual.
For some reason, that made it harder to want to admit my fuckup. But he’d find out one way or another. Donovan had a way like that. “Like I said, it seems she’s got a money problem. Couldn’t afford to keep her hotel through until she leaves. Refused to take money from me for it. So I told her she could stay with me.” I said the last part fast. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Now both of his eyebrows rose. “Seems you weren’t opposed to helping her after all.”
“It’s barely helping her,” I protested. “I wanted her off my conscience. That’s all.” It had nothing to do with the way my chest felt tight when I was near her or the way her gaze pierced into my soul.
“Off your conscience, into your bed. Sounds right.”
I gave him a stern stare. “I’m not going to fuck her.”
“Want to bet on that?”
Last time I’d made a bet with Donovan, I’d ended up with Gangster tattooed across my back. I vowed never to make that mistake again.
But it was impossible not to want to show him up. He always acted so superior. Like he knew everything and everyone better than they knew themselves. And maybe if I had a bet with him, I wouldn’t be tempted to even consider letting something sexual happen with Jolie.
Not that I was considering sex as it was. I definitely wasn’t.
“Sure thing. I win, and you get the tattoo of my choice this time.” I already had it planned out—a heart with flowers and the word Mom.
“When I win, that will be two tattoos you don’t want on your skin. You ready for that?”
“Not going to lose, and I’m definitely ready to see you in ink.”
“You’re on.” He was too far away to shake on it, but a nod sealed the deal. He grinned like I was a fool. “This day just took an eventful turn. Glad to have you back in town. How long
are you here?”
I hadn’t booked a return flight yet. Every instinct said I should get on a plane sooner rather than later. If I got something out tonight, I could stop by the hotel, gather my things, and not have to see Jolie ever again. I’d picked up the phone to make a reservation at least three times since I’d first had the thought. Twice I’d started a text to have my assistant do it.
Then I’d think about what was waiting for me at home—enough work to keep me busy. Designer sheets that only ever smelled like me. A list of revolving hookups who didn’t mind meeting in hotel rooms.
Arguably the perfect life.
I had no logical reason to stay, and a million good reasons to run, but I was stuck again in that tar pit that surrounded Jolie. Desperately wanting to get out but unable to make myself move.
“I guess I’m leaving Saturday,” I said. She’d be gone then. I’d be able to leave.
“Jolie must be flying out Friday.” His grin widened. “Got any blank skin on your torso? I want to pick the best spot for your new art.”
“Fuck you.”
“You mean fuck her.”
I refused to reply. We sat quietly again, and I mulled over everything we’d talked about, trying to decide if I’d gained any perspective from our conversation. Usually talking with Donovan helped shift my view, but everything looked exactly the way it had when I’d walked in. I was just as adamant that I wasn’t going to kill Stark as when I’d arrived. I was just as pissed that she’d asked me. I was just as determined to hate her forever.
Fucking her hadn’t crossed my mind before Donovan put the idea in my head, but I was just as resolute about that as well.
“Do you have to kill him literally?” Donovan asked, interrupting my what-a-waste-of-time thought spiral.
He was always trying to figure out the way that most of the people involved came out a winner, usually with him the biggest winner of them all. It was abnormally altruistic for him to care when he wasn’t eligible for a prize.
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