The Contract (Nightlong #1)

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  “Yeah, oh yeah… I don’t get holidays do I? Because the boss doesn’t take holidays, so neither do I. Neither do I. I’m stuck in this prison with you aren’t I? Aren’t I? Admit it.”

  I must have hit a nerve because he turned his back on me and threw his glass through the air. Smashed pieces everywhere, I watched the velvety red liquid slide off the ivory surface of a kitchen cupboard. My heart popped my chest, thudding as I watched his suit jacket shake up and down with his shoulders. Hands in his hair, he said slowly, “I’m adding a new rule to the list. You are never to go near another man, do you hear me?”

  So, this was about jealousy?

  “Oh, come on! Cornish is gay!”

  Dante turned swiftly, hands in his hair, a wild look in his eyes. “I don’t fucking care if he’s a eunuch, he still has ten fingers and one fucking tongue and that’s eleven too many appendages for my liking! Stay away from him… and everyone else!”

  I laughed because I saw he was upset too and I wanted to goad him. “Ah, whatever. He only had eyes for you and your beautiful face.”

  I continued to laugh manically. I didn’t sound attractive and his expression turned stern.

  “What did you just say?”

  “He’s gay isn’t he?” I shrugged, and drank a few more sips of wine, at the same time grabbing an orange from the fruit bowl to open.

  “No, about me. What did you say?”

  “You’re beautiful,” I said, tearing open my orange.

  “You think–”

  I looked up and into his eyes. “Seriously, what is wrong with you tonight Dante? Don’t tell me you don’t realise you are.”

  Hands on hips, his chest stretched his shirt as he leaned forward with confusion in his eyes. “What are you saying? That I’m beautiful by other people’s standards… or you think I am. That I’m… I don’t understand. You told me I’m old. You told me I have battle scars… you told me I’m not… you said–”

  “I said, what?” I begged, plopping orange segments in my mouth.

  “You said I’m old.”

  “You are feckin’ old, doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful.” I split the other half of my orange into segments and added, “You’re also obnoxious, egotistical, a bastard and a fetishist, annoying and downright disgusting sometimes, but you’re still beautiful. It’s just a term, don’t read anything into it.”

  “You’re impossible,” he barked, hands still on his hips.

  “Yeah, well Miss Impossible drank half a litre of vodka before you dragged me out into the cold night, so I’m going to bed.”

  I dragged myself off my stool but when I did, I felt woozy. He tried to help me regain my balance but I batted him off and rubbed my head.

  “Fresh air that’s done this, I can drink anything me,” I said, trying to blame him.

  I started walking but wobbled again so he picked me up in his arms, growling, “I’m getting you to bed whether you like it or not, Miss Impossible.”

  He stomped upstairs with me in his arms and my eyes were closed when I wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered, “You’re very beautiful, Dante.”

  It was the last I remembered of that night.

  Three

  I PEEKED ONE EYE OPEN and groaned. Light hurt. Everything hurt. How much did I have to drink? Wait… it was mixing drinks that did it. I would have known better if I hadn’t been caught off guard by everything that happened last night.

  Pulling the sheets up around my head, I groaned louder and found that beneath the covers, I was just in my undies.

  As my mind cleared of all the crazy drunken dreams that had terrorised me throughout the night, I remembered the smashed glass… and Roman… then him carrying me to bed, and asking about whether I thought he was beautiful… and asking about…

  I groaned even louder and shouted, “Gawd sake!”

  “Good morning. Reliving the highlights?”

  “What the–”

  I struggled from beneath the sheets and found Dante up and about, wearing jeans and a casual shirt. He put down a cup of coffee on my bedside table and catching a glance at the clock, I saw it was way past noon.

  “I slept?”

  He laughed. “You slept. I thought I better stay. I didn’t want to leave you here alone. I worried you’d choke yourself in your sleep on vomit… or worse… try to leave after cutting out the tracking device. You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  He smiled smarmily which made me think he’d probably been rummaging through the kitchen and had found my equipment for getting rid of the damned thing.

  “Why on earth would I try to escape the vile tyrant keeping me held hostage? I have no idea.” I dragged the cup of coffee he’d made off the side and took a swig before burying myself back under all the covers.

  “I like this new honesty we have going on. I’d love to tell you all the drunken things you said as I put you in bed last night, but it’s going to be more fun keeping those little titbits for my own amusement.”

  For a brief moment, I recalled how a younger, more naïve version of myself once felt about this man. I once fancied I loved him, but now I knew different.

  I hated him.

  “Whatever, you can’t wind me up. I’m cleverer than you.”

  “You are? Well, if you say so,” he said, and left the room.

  I drank my coffee down angrily and dwelt on angry thoughts. What could I use to clout him one? The iron… my handbag? What about a brick? There might have been one in the back garden for just that purpose…

  And how did he get hold of casual clothes? Unless he did have some of those in his wardrobe here…

  It being Friday, I’d missed an appointment with Solange to have my hair done before Paris tomorrow.

  “For gawd sake,” I complained as I struggled to get my legs out of bed. “I’m late!”

  “I cancelled Solange,” he shouted from downstairs. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I heard the TV playing and it was suddenly like we were just normal people doing normal things. I didn’t think he even watched TV. Maybe the news… but not TV. He was too automatic – too arrogant – for TV, right?

  Feeling insane, I climbed into the shower and didn’t wait for the water to warm up before I jumped in. I needed to be woken up, and quickly.

  “WHAT happened to your hair?” he asked when I seated myself beside him on the sectional sofa, a new cup of coffee in my hand. I dragged a blanket off the back of the chair and draped it over my knees, settling in to watch reruns of Columbo with him.

  “It’s curly, didn’t you know?”

  “No, I didn’t. You’ve always had it straight.”

  “I’ve always had it tied back in a bun… or straightened out. It’s naturally curly.”

  Left curly, it only reached the middle of my back.

  “It looks lovely.”

  “It looks stupid,” I retaliated. “I always got bullied for it. I don’t like it.”

  “Well I do. I really like it.”

  “Look Dante, we know this isn’t us.”

  He smiled. “What isn’t?”

  “Watching crappy TV, you nursing my hangover and pretending to care.”

  “I do care!”

  I didn’t turn to see his eyes. I was strong as long as I never looked into his eyes. I chewed my cheek before calmly telling him, “Go spend some time with your girlfriend. Isn’t that who you should be spending quality time with? Not me. I’m just the outlet, remember? We’re not friends, just employer and employee.”

  “Ciara–”

  “Don’t even bother. Go do your job or whatever cock and bull story you live outside of this house–”

  “I stayed over and I’m still here because I’m worried you’re not well.”

  “You’re the only thing making me unwell.”

  “What?” he exclaimed, sitting forward, shocked.

  “You think I want you here after last night?”

  He’d tossed a glass across the room and it had sma
shed into a million little pieces because he hadn’t liked me challenging our arrangement.

  “Ciara, please don’t start an argument again.”

  “Then, go.”

  “I don’t want to go. How do I know you won’t try to run–”

  “You’ll catch me, so what? You’ll just catch me. What are you really worried about?” I caught a glance at his face and his cheeks were red, and he did seem genuinely worried.

  “You’ll run again… but what if you get hurt this time? I want to stop you from running before you injure yourself or do something silly. Please tell me what would make you stop wanting to run.”

  I turned my eyes to his, taking my concentration away from the TV show neither of us were really watching. He looked genuinely and bizarrely worried. It was disconcerting.

  “Please, tell me what you need and I’ll give it you, Ciara.”

  There he was again… using my name.

  “Dante, don’t–”

  “Just tell me,” he said softly, taking my coffee cup from me. He held my hand and old, familiar feelings surfaced in me. Hateful feelings.

  Loving feelings.

  Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “I want someone to come with me to galleries and to restaurants and to museums. I want a man to hold my hand when I’m clothes shopping and for him to like the things I wear.”

  “I love everything you wear. You have great taste. What else do you want?” He sounded optimistic, like it could all be so easy… like it could all be arranged. It was hope I heard in his voice… but he was kidding himself, and we both knew it.

  “I want to have friends and to live a life and to have love, have a man who loves me, have him love me every night… every morning. I want love, Dante. I’m so alone. I just want love.”

  I broke down into tears, hoping he’d take pity on me, hoping he’d understand.

  “I can’t give you any of that, Ciara–”

  Nodding, I replied, “I know.”

  Wiping tears from my eyes, I kept nodding. If he was able to give me all that, he would have done – ages ago. He’d had six years to make his move. I’d given him six years already.

  “However, I can show you how desirable you are to me.”

  “I want more than to be desirable, I want to be more,” I said, pleading with him to please give me more.

  “You are more,” he said, reaching out to touch my cheek, “but I can’t give you more. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t, Ciara. I just can’t.”

  I left the room in tears and rushed upstairs, away from him. He wouldn’t let me run free, he wouldn’t let me in, he wouldn’t let me love him.

  I hated him!

  I slammed my bedroom door and ran to my bed, throwing myself on top of the unmade sheets in agony, in floods of tears. I was crying so loudly I didn’t hear him enter but I felt him sink into the mattress with me and put his arms around me from behind.

  “Please don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

  I turned and pressed my face into his chest, trying to gain succour from him. Eventually my sobs abated and I laid calmly in his arms, his heart beating hard beneath my ear. He tugged his fingers through my thick curls and kissed my forehead.

  “Terrible, terrible things happened to me in the past. Don’t ask for what I can’t give.”

  “Let me go, then.”

  “I can’t!”

  I shot up off the bed. “Why fucking not?”

  “What you do for me… it’s the only thing keeping me sane!” he yelled, protestation thick within his tone. “You signed the deal… I didn’t force you to.”

  He stood on the opposite side of the bed to where I stood. I needed the bed’s width between us otherwise I would seriously have clocked him one with the bedside lamp.

  “Six years of my life, Dante. Let’s consider that notion. In six years a lot can happen. A girl becomes a woman. I was eighteen, damn it! Eighteen! I didn’t know what I was getting myself into and time has changed me. Time here, hours spent alone, have changed me. I’m ready to live again; I’ve done my mourning and I’m ready to live again.”

  “Mourning?” He grimaced, confused.

  I turned my back to him. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t. I don’t mourn… I automate. It’s how I survive and coming here to be with you, it’s the only thing I look forward to.”

  “Such a crock. What about Little Miss Girlfriend?”

  “Ciara, that’s not comparable–”

  “Go, just get out!” I screamed, still standing with my back to him.

  He huffed and puffed before reluctantly leaving my bedroom. I didn’t let myself breathe until I heard the front door slam shut downstairs.

  ***

  I caught up on some proper sleep that afternoon and when I woke in the evening, it was like a fog had cleared and I knew exactly what to do. He’d driven me to this and it was on his head; I had been pushed into reckless action yet again because he was a bastard, end of.

  I calmly walked downstairs in my towelling robe, heading for the kitchen island where the scalpel and the gauze and surgical solution still were, hidden inside the drawer where I’d left them yesterday. So he hadn’t found them, or maybe he had, but he’d decided to leave them there.

  I had to get out of this city and go someplace else, somewhere different where I couldn’t get hurt again. He was destined to hurt me, like I was destined to love only him. It was better it all ended now.

  I drank a healthy load of vodka and with my vision blurry and my senses dulled, I looked down at the arm housing my tracker and felt around for where it lay inside me. It was half a centimetre deep and I took a deep breath, pressing the tip of the knife to my skin.

  “FUCK!” It hurt like hell but with my free hand, I dug the skin upwards, hoping to aid the knife in popping out the tiny little chip inside my body.

  I began shaking all over and drank more vodka, but it wasn’t helping. I really needed anaesthetic. The cut felt like I was digging into my soul, hitting nerves in such a way I knew I was going to pass out if I didn’t achieve this – and soon.

  I made a severe cut and the pain was so bad, I couldn’t even feel it. Blood everywhere, I laboured immensely to dig out the alien item and soon, it was rolling off my cut-open skin and to the floor.

  I ran to the sink with the cleaning solution in my free hand and poured it all over myself. Aware I was panting and losing focus, I had to overcome the shock and steady my breathing to do the next part.

  I put a wooden lollipop stick between my teeth and over the sink, I threaded a needle through my skin to stitch up the wound, which was only as wide as it was deep but stung like a bitch. Every stitch fucked with my ability to maintain control and not scream the house down.

  I cleaned around the wound and rubbed in some ointment before covering the stitches with a large gauze plaster.

  With no time to spare, I yanked open a cupboard door and took some strong painkillers, washing them down with more vodka.

  I ran upstairs and began packing a few things into a small bag, just enough to keep me going. I couldn’t use my Cleo Patrick passport because that would give me away. He’d track it. Emptying the safe of some spare cash I had, I left the passport there, my original one having been confiscated six years ago.

  I pulled on some running shoes, jeans, a t-shirt and hooded sweatshirt, an old woollen coat and a scarf around my neck for added camouflage. It was early spring and I didn’t know if I would be sleeping rough in the cold tonight. I’d done it before and knew I could do it again if I had to.

  Standing in front of the full-length mirror as I prepared to leave, I saw a ghastly reflection. Tears had swollen my eyes and pain had made my cheeks puffy. Mascara smeared all around my face, I couldn’t believe I was finally doing this.

  Grabbing a wet wipe, I quickly cleaned my face and checking I had my driving licence, I ran from the room with my bag under my arm.
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  I unlocked the back door and ran for it, not even bothering to lock up, chasing down the long garden to head for freedom.

  I’d have to go back to Ireland but it was a price I was willing to pay to get away from that man. In Ireland I knew people I trusted, people who’d not sprag, people who knew how to keep a secret better than I did.

  I arrived at the tall fence at the end of the garden, looking up as it stood in the way of my freedom. One, last barrier. Looking down at my throbbing arm, desperate for the painkillers to work so I could tackle this without screaming, I willed some sort of miracle.

  I knew there was nothing for it.

  Sensing Dante close by, I knew he might come over tonight to check on me. An imbalance in the force, his vibrations were so close… I knew he was near.

  Maybe he even had microphones in the house?

  I couldn’t risk mucking this up.

  I had to go!

  I climbed the high fence, wincing in agony as I did, the new stitches pulling as I strained myself to climb the eight-foot bastard in my way.

  “Cleo, WAIT!” I heard him shout.

  So, he had returned.

  Like we had a mental bond, I’d known he would return.

  Well, fuck him.

  It was too late.

  I ran down the alley behind the houses and was grateful to myself for making use of my home gym equipment which he’d encouraged me to use to keep up my strength for his benefit.

  Once out of the alley behind the row of houses, I looked down the residential street I found myself on and knew I wouldn’t be able to get all the way down the road without encountering Dante, who was no doubt circling his way around the street to get to where I was. He knew the lay of the land as well as I did. I’d tried this once before, but this was different now… I had seen the bastard for what he really was and now was my chance for escape. I’d do anything for it this time.

  I spotted one of the houses had its bins out front and I ran across the street, opening the various waste units only to find them all mostly full – except for the one containing compost materials.

  Hearing a car screech down the street, I didn’t think.