The Escape

by Alice Ward

  My mother had come from an old, respectable name, a descendant of the Roosevelt family. My father’s grandparents had immigrated here from Europe. He had come from working-class roots but had been so ambitious and talented that he quickly rose to fame after law school. Her name only bolstered his position, added to that status. I never saw love between them, not even regard, really. I was positive there’d never been lust. They simply tolerated one another for the sake of… what?

  Me?

  No. A son was just part of the process.

  They tolerated each other for the sake of appearance, for the illusion it gave to them both.

  “You know what I’m referring to,” I muttered. “Why do you accept that kind of treatment from him?”

  Her cheeks pinked. “Your father is a good man.”

  “He treats you like shit.”

  Her eyes snapped to mine. “Cameron.”

  “Mother,” I said, mirroring her tone, exasperated. Could she really not see it? Did she really think that this was what life was — doting on her husband, spending time at galas, entertaining and presenting the perfect plastic model of stability while he went out and sowed his wild oats, fucking women just because he could? “How can you stand it? Don’t you want more?”

  She straightened on the couch. “I’m quite happy,” she said, though it didn’t ring true.

  That was what came from treating marriage like a business proposition. That was the fate they wanted for me, and exactly what I’d have with Bernadette. Because Bernadette was my mother, thirty years earlier. Bernadette would mold herself around my life seamlessly, almost as if she wasn’t even there. She’d let me spout my own opinions, no matter how wrong, let me fuck a hundred other women if I liked, as long as I slept beside her at night. I ran a hand through my hair, utter exhaustion setting in, then started to laugh.

  My mother shook her head at me like I was deranged. “Really, Cameron. What’s gotten into you?”

  I stalked to the bar and poured myself a scotch, then downed it in one gulp. I wasn’t entirely sure, but it felt a little like clarity.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Brooke

  I stood in the shower Monday morning, washing off all trace of Cameron from my skin.

  I hadn’t had anywhere to go all weekend, so I’d stayed at home, replaying the events of that night, believing I could smell his scent oozing from my pores. I browsed the millions of Google results for Cameron Brice online, my heart skipping every time I found a particularly hot picture of him. As I gazed at each one, I’d think, Here is a man who can slay in the bedroom just as well as he can in the boardroom.

  And I had been slayed. Dead. Not in body, since my body still buzzed from his touch, but my mind had been completely fried. It was enough to keep me out of commission for the entire rest of the weekend. I hadn’t responded to my mother’s calls or texts, and Kiera had sent me a standard, Want to get together for drinks tonight? That was Saturday, and I’d blown her off.

  I just... couldn’t. And it wasn’t malaise that filled me. Not at all. It was the knowledge that anything I attempted to do would be positively dull compared to Friday night. And, I didn’t know how I would hold in, much less hide, the humming in my very pores.

  Sunday night, I finally went through my photographs on the camera, gazing at his picture with longing as I relived each moment of my night with him in vivid detail.

  Then, I deleted every picture and shoved the camera under my bed.

  After that, I’d opened up an email to Owen Blakely’s secret account. In it, I attached the only things I could find that might’ve been of any use to him — summary of Cameron Brice’s activity for the previous week, conveniently leaving out everything that happened midnight on Friday. I also attached Cameron’s meeting schedule for the upcoming week along with a note…

  Hello, Mr. Blakely,

  As promised, here is my weekly report on the subject. Please let me know if there is anything I can elaborate on.

  Thank you.

  B

  I also included my mileage report from all the tailing I’d done, which by now had nearly five-hundred miles on it. Five-hundred miles of absolutely nothing, and I expected him to reimburse me for it?

  Shame had filled me as I hit “send.” It was far from privileged, top-secret information. Any moron could’ve put together a similar dossier.

  I’d gone to bed thinking I needed to step up my game. There had to be some illegal donations he’d accepted, or secret meetings he’d had, and I simply needed to put my nose to the grindstone and uncover them. He had a slew of meetings scheduled for Monday. Perhaps I could find some time to get into his office while he was out.

  But Monday morning, as I showered, a new life force surged through my body, one that had nothing to do with my FBI ambitions. As I thought of going to headquarters, I shivered in anticipation.

  I didn’t want him to be out at meetings, and I didn’t give a fuck about searching through his office for dirt. I just wanted to see him again.

  After I blew my hair dry and started to fix that awful wig with the heavy bangs over my head, I sighed in desperation. He’d been nice to Violet, wanting to carry on a conversation. It had made me think that he was lonely. Maybe if she pressed him enough, he would open up and talk to her. But that was the most I could expect, and it wouldn’t be enough. The way he looked at her was altogether different from the way he looked at Cassandra. It was sterile, almost pitying. He was just being nice.

  Part of me wished he would see who I was, so he could see me. The real me.

  I couldn’t let him. I had to wait for Friday.

  Damn him, I thought, unbuttoning my sweater. I fished the chain and clamps out of my underwear drawer and affixed them into place. As I did, I breathed out a sigh. Cameron was wrong. I didn’t need these to think of him. It was like he’d been my high, taking me to places I’d only dreamed of, and now, I needed the clamps just to give me some semblance of that feeling, to keep me from losing it during the long and dull days that stretched ahead.

  I wasn’t sure if I was addicted to that high, or to the person who’d created it.

  My phone buzzed as I fixed on the horn-rimmed spectacles. It was an email from Owen Blakely. I groaned inwardly as I opened it, and read the very terse wording:

  Thx.

  O

  I frowned. The Blakelys were rich, but not ridiculously so, and they rarely flaunted it. When I’d become friends with Kiera, I’d gone to her house in Radnor a few times. It wasn’t Delancey Place by any means — it was comfortable, small, and homey. Nothing like Cameron’s wealth, which oozed from his every pore. Blakely drove a Toyota Prius, for god’s sake. But above all, he was a genuinely nice, down-to-earth guy. You could joke with him, relax with him. The first day I’d met him, he’d made us pizzas while singing “`O Sole Mio” in Italian falsetto.

  But when I became his employee, that changed.

  I’d heard he was a hard-ass to his workers, and that you didn’t want to cross him when he was angry. Kiera had told me I was crazy for wanting to put myself through this assignment because he drove his people to tears on a daily basis, but I couldn’t believe it. Surely, he’d make an exception for me?

  Wrong.

  He called me into his office and tented his hands on his blotter. He told me that, in no uncertain terms, he was depending on me. He’d clapped me on the back as I left, giving me a smile, but since then?

  Nothing. I’d only spoken and emailed with him a couple times since the official hiring, but he’d only become icier and more terse in our communications. He hadn’t said as much in the email, but I could sense it…

  He’d wanted more than what I’d given him so far.

  He was disappointed in me.

  Never had I screwed up so royally on an assignment. In school, I always went above and beyond. I’d never gotten less than an A in my classes, even from the youngest age. Guilt anchored itself around my neck.

  Closing out of the email, I
finished stepping into my Easy Spirits, trying to summon up a plan to dig deeper, get more dirt on Cameron. But every time I thought of him, a picture of him lost in the throes of our lovemaking came to me.

  I cursed myself as my phone began to ring. Kiera. I answered, “Good morning, gorgeous,” knowing exactly why she was calling and preparing for the onslaught.

  “Really?” she asked, sounding peeved. “Is that what I get after you ignore my messages for the second weekend in a row? What, did you find a new best friend? Is that it?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She scoffed. “‘Good morning, gorgeous?’ Why do you sound like you’ve been cheating on me?”

  I cringed. In a way, that was exactly what I had been doing, sleeping with the enemy. I was instantly regretful. Even though it was Kiera’s way to be the ultimate drama queen, for the past couple weeks, her ire was deserved. I hadn’t been the best of friends. I’d blown her last two invitations off, and I hadn’t responded to her texts as quickly as I should have.

  “But she’s really hot,” I said, trying to make a joke of it. “You’d like her too.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t do threesomes,” she said with a little snort. “Listen. Last chance for you, before I go off and find another love of my life. Friday night. You in?”

  Friday night. The night I’d practically red-circled in my head, since it was the next time I’d be with Cameron. “As long as it’s not too late,” I started, then realized I sounded like an old grandma the second the words were out.

  “Why? You have something else going on?”

  “Um.” I tried to come up with some excuse but found myself grasping at straws. “Saturday morning, I was planning to get up early and tail Brice. He has a golf thing.”

  “Oh, right.” I knew she could never fault me for working to bring down her father’s biggest enemy. But it was a total lie. I had memorized most of Cameron’s schedule, especially Friday through Saturday, just to see how much time we’d be afforded together. And though his schedule was as full as the Schuylkill Expressway at rush hour, with dinners with important people every night this week, he’d had a glorious ten-hour opening from midnight Friday night to ten on Saturday morning, right between a dinner with the mayor of Philadelphia and a golf tournament in Ardmore. “How are things going with that?”

  I shrugged. The way they were going was, in my opinion, very, very good… if you considered the sex. In all other regards, it was terrible. I doubted Kiera, as close as we were, would understand. No, in fact, she’d hate me. I was failing her father, big time. “Okay,” I said vaguely. “Haven’t really come up with any good dirt. He’s squeaky clean.”

  At that point, I had an image of washing his delicious, naked body under a shower, soaping him up, and I nearly went weak in the knees.

  “Well, that sucks.” She sighed. “But there’s got to be something. You’ll find it. He’s such an asshole.”

  “Yeah. He is,” I agreed, not sounding nearly as resolute as I’d wanted to.

  “Great. So… Chickie’s and Pete’s. And don’t blow me off this time, or your name is mud.”

  Ugh. I couldn’t understand why I’d have to travel all the way to South Philly during rush hour when there were so many places in the Northeast which would do just as well. “Why there?”

  “Craving their crab fries. And the Phillies are playing. So Lorenzo wants to meet there.”

  Of course, it had to be a guy. Lorenzo had been Kiera’s man since the beginning of spring. He was a political intern in his first year of law school and worked on her father’s campaign. Speaking of assholes, he seemed like one too, from what I’d seen. But I’d never seen Kiera so whipped over a guy. He said “jump,” she jumped. And Kiera had been doing a lot of jumping lately.

  “Oh. How is Lorenzo?” I asked, not caring to know, really. Just the fact that he was still in the picture was enough to annoy the shit out of me.

  “Good. Progressing,” she said, and I could tell she was smiling. Who was I to fault a friend for loving a man if he made her that happy? She lowered her voice. “He is a fucking beast in bed. I have to tell you more when I see you, but let me just say, if there was an Orgasm Olympics, we’d win gold.”

  I let out a breath, and the clamps tightened under my clothes, my thoughts again drifting to last Friday night. Kiera and I had always been totally honest about our relationships, sharing all the gory, and sexy, details. In the past, there was nothing I couldn’t tell her. But this? I couldn’t tell her about this, no matter what. Even though it had been amazing. Even though it’d been consuming the majority of my brain for the past few days, it was completely and entirely off-limits. Even if Cameron had made me the Queen of Happiness, she’d definitely fault me.

  “Hey, girl?” she said as if sensing exactly what I was feeling. “Are you all right?”

  “Well… I’d rather just go with you,” I said, which was the truth, if not all of it. “How about tonight? Downtown?”

  She huffed, but I could sense that it was her being overdramatic, and in fact, she was flattered. “Since when did you become such a difficult bitch?”

  I couldn’t really say it was because I hated her boyfriend. So I said, “I want you all to myself, gorgeous, and I can’t wait to see you again.”

  “Fine. Capital Grille? Seven?” she asked, naming one of our favorites.

  “Perfect.”

  After ending the call, I made it to work at eight, and as I climbed the stairs, I had a small crisis of confidence, trying to remember who I was pretending to be. Brooke? Cassandra? Violet?

  Violet. Assuming her hunched over, meek persona, I opened the door, then said my quiet good mornings to the other people in the office and scurried to my desk.

  Cameron wasn’t there. It was, as I’d known, his busy day, full of meetings, but he was just downtown. I hoped he’d stop in to change his suit and freshen up midday, as that had proven to be a regular thing for him. Every time the door opened, I found myself looking up, hopeful. But it wasn’t him. At one time, a man came in, holding a large garment bag. “Dry cleaning for Mr. Brice.”

  Bob stood up and took it, then motioned to me. I watched as he reached into his top drawer and pulled out a key. He handed the key and the garment bag to me. “Please put these in his office,” he said to me with a wink.

  I nodded and scurried to the back hallway. I quickly opened the door with the key, found the hook on the back of the door, and deposited the freshly cleaned items where they belonged.

  Then, I looked around. Yes, there were plenty of places where secrets could be hidden. And I had a few moments to snoop. I could have quickly gone through his drawers, or the massive file cabinet in the corner of the room.

  Instead, I studied his personal things. A plain white mug with the remnants of black coffee at the bottom. A jar of pens. Actually, there was nothing very personal, at all, as if he’d been well-trained to hide that side of himself from the world. I looked up at the small mirror on the wall, where he’d freshened up so many times, wondering if it had seen any of his secrets.

  Then I turned to the suits. Something compelled me to reach up, pulling down the zipper in the middle of the heavy garment bag.

  I saw the crisp lapel of the suit first. All of his suits may have looked the same to the untrained eye: They were dark, conservative, and likely custom and expensive. But I could sense the subtle differences. The one in front of me was the dark one he’d worn this last time with me. It was like every last detail of that night had been engrained in my head. I could tell by the color of the buttons, the weight of the fabric.

  I reached up and looked at the label. It had been hand-sewn with the name of the tailor.

  I ran my fingers up and down the fabric, then grabbed a sleeve, bringing it to my nose. It smelled slightly like the dry-cleaning solution, yes. But I could also detect the smell of him. It was a scent I desperately wanted to bottle. I inhaled it deeply, again and again, until I knew my time was up.

  I quickly
zipped the bag, feeling ashamed of myself again. I’d had the perfect opportunity to do what I’d been hired for, and instead, I’d gone the insane stalker route.

  Closing the door behind me, I handed the keys to Bob, who placed them in the upper tray of his desk drawer. Well, at least one good thing has come out of this. I know where the keys are to his office.

  Not that I’d ever use them. Still, what if the insides of his drawers were just as clean and secret-free as the rest of the office? What would I do then?

  Bob had me addressing invitations for some gala in June during the afternoon. A party at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As I wrote out the names of every millionaire in the city from A to Z, I could just see Cameron ascending the Rocky steps with the woman in the blue dress. Bernadette Dryden. I’d learned her name during my marathon weekend googling session. I wasn’t sure if they were exclusive, but they’d been seen together a lot in the past few months, so I assumed so. She was twenty-eight. Her father was a billionaire, and she was the sole heir to his fortune. She’d grown up in one of the most expensive properties on the Upper West Side of New York City, being showered with every possible privilege. She’d graduated top of her class from Wharton, and was, as I’d noticed, the perfect candidate to decorate the White House after 2024.

  God, I hated her. I wondered if she’d be able to keep that First Lady poise and refinement if she knew her boyfriend had been fucking me last weekend. I wondered if she knew how dirty he really was, frequenting sex clubs, making me wear that chain thing while I ground on his cock.

  Ugh. The thing was, I didn’t think he was her boyfriend. He looked more like her obligatory escort than anything.