by Jessica Wood
“He threatened me,” he spoke in an eerie voice as if he were talking to himself. “He wanted to blackmail me with a big scandal the company covered up a few years ago.” There was a crazed calm on his face that scared me. “He wanted half of my company…” He shook his head violently as he paced the room again. “No, I couldn’t let him do that. He wasn’t going to take my company away from me. I wouldn’t let him.”
Fear paralyzed me as I met Connor’s dark and haunting eyes.
“Liv, baby.” He grabbed my hand. “You understand that I had to do this, right? You love the company almost as much as I do. I see how hard you work. Of all people, you should understand that I had to do this. For the good of the company. For us. There was no other choice.”
“Understand?” I stared at him in bewilderment, shocked that he’d think my reaction would be any different than what I was feeling inside.
“Yes, you understand that I had no choice in the matter?”
Before I could stop myself, I glanced at the motionless body a few yards away. “No choice,” I echoed flatly, as if the words were meaningless sounds to me. Then I turned back to him, my eyes growing wide with disbelief. “No choice?” My voice escalated in volume. “Of course you had a choice, Conner! You could have chosen to not kill him.”
“Baby, come on.”
“Don’t ‘baby’ me!” I screamed at him and yanked my hand from his grip. I backed away from him, my head shaking back and forth in denial. “Who are you?” I whispered, my eyes full of tears. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Then I looked down at my hands and a gasp escaped my lips when I saw that they were covered in the dead man’s blood. It was then that I flung open the door and ran as fast as I could away from that room, and away from Connor.
A wave of vertigo struck me when the flashback ended and I was back in the reading room with Connor. The room whirled around me and I fell to my knees. I tried to grab onto the floor for support as the room continued to spin and my mind tried to process what I had just remembered.
“What did you remember?” Connor’s voice was cold as he watched me with narrowed eyes.
I willed myself to focus, to breathe, to do anything but panic. Finally, I was able to get up from the ground.
Some instinct took over and I knew that I couldn’t tell him I remembered what had happened that night. I knew I had to get out of here. “It was just a memory from my childhood. I was on a roller coaster and I was scared and felt queasy.”
Connor glared at me, and I knew he didn’t believe me. “You remember now, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “Remember what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Liv. Even if you think you’re different from before, I know you well enough to know your tells. You have a bad poker face. I know you’re lying to me.”
I took a step back from him. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Connor.” I met his sinister gaze and felt waves of panic crashing violently inside me.
“So, does it now make sense why I got you the tracking pendant? You asked me earlier why I’d go through all that trouble if we were in love, if I trusted you.” He snickered. “Now that you remember that night, you must now understand why I needed to keep a special eye on you.”
The world seemed to turn upside down as everything started to make sense. Connor wanted to make sure he knew what I was doing at all times in case I remembered what had happened that night.
“Why didn’t you kill me when I was in the coma? If I was the only one that knew what happened in that room, why did you let me live?”
For a brief second, Connor’s expression softened. “For what it’s worth, I do love you more than I’ve loved any other woman. But as you probably know by now, my company will always be my number one priority. I’ve worked too hard for it and I can’t let anyone take that away from me. So when the doctors said there was a chance you’d have amnesia, a part of me hoped that there’d be a way for us to stay together. What happened to that man was unfortunate, but necessary. I didn’t want to kill him, but he gave me no choice. He backed me into a corner. If he hadn’t tried to blackmail me and destroy the empire I’ve worked so hard to build, he wouldn’t be dead. He had no one to blame but himself.”
“How can you say that?” I looked at Connor and wondered why I had once thought he was the most caring and compassionate man in the world.
“Because that’s the reality.” There was a matter-of-fact tone to his voice, as if he had just said something mundane like “because strawberries are sweet.”
“Okay, maybe you’re right.” I took another step back toward the reading room door. I wasn’t sure what he was about to do, but something inside told me that I had to try to get out of here. “It was a difficult situation you were put in. That guy wasn’t a nice guy. He was blackmailing you. So you’re right, he needed to be punished.”
“Do you really play me for a fool, Liv? Do you really think I’ll let you go now? I know the minute I let you leave here, you’re going to go straight to the cops.”
“No,” I shook my head, “I won’t say a thing. I swear.”
I let out a scream as he suddenly grabbed both of my arms and pushed me violently up against the wall next to the door. “You really do have a bad poker face.” Then he grabbed my neck with his hands and they tightened their grip against my windpipe. I desperately gasped for air, and within seconds, everything began to fade into black.
Then, before I lost all consciousness, I saw Ethan barge through the door to the reading room. Caught by surprise, Connor released his grip around my neck, and I dropped to the floor. Ethan pulled me up and stepped in between me and Connor.
“Don’t you dare touch her, Connor!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I coughed forcefully as oxygen rushed into my lungs. I looked up and saw Connor and Ethan standing a few yards apart, glaring at each other.
“Well, isn’t this just fucking perfect. Ethan to the rescue,” Connor snarled sarcastically as he took a step back, never taking his eyes off Ethan. Between the two of them, Ethan looked like he would have an edge over Connor. Ethan was taller with his broad shoulders and a muscular frame that Connor couldn’t compete with.
“Connor, please,” I pled. “I won’t say a thing. Please just let us go.”
Connor turned to me and shot me a twisted smile. “Do you really think it’ll be that simple? Do you really think I’ll let you walk out of here and ride off into the sunset with him?”
“You don’t have to do this, Connor,” Ethan cut in. “We both care about Liv.”
“Do you really think you’d have a chance with her? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?” Connor then turned to me and a wide grin appeared on his face. “How well do you really know Ethan, Liv? How well do you really know the man who you let touch you and taste you?”
My breath caught when I heard Connor’s questions. I turned to look at Ethan and saw the apprehension and torment on his face as he looked to the floor.
“What are you talking about?” I asked hesitantly.
Suddenly Connor’s face lit up in surprise. “Oh, he didn’t tell you?” He looked over at Ethan with an amused expression on his face. “Come on, Ethan, how can you say you care about her when you’ve been lying to her this entire time?” A triumphant smile spread across Connor’s face.
“Ethan?” I stared at him, desperate for him to say something, to defend himself and deny what Connor was implying.
“Liv, didn’t you wonder why you kept bumping into Ethan? Didn’t you think it was just a little too coincidental? First in front of the hospital and then outside of the museum.”
A wave of anxiety washed over me and my mind raced, searching for a logical answer to Connor’s questions, one that wouldn’t hurt me.
Connor let out a crazed laugh. “I’ll let you in on another little secret, Liv.” There was a gleam of delight in his eyes. “I hired Ethan to get to know yo
u, to get close to you.”
His words caused my whole world to crash before me. My heart refused to believe what I had just heard, but when I looked to Ethan for answers, it was written all over his face. What Connor had said was the truth.
“Why?” I managed to ask as my breathing became shallow and ragged.
“Because I needed you to trust him. I wanted to know if you really lost your memories when you woke up. I needed to make sure you weren’t just pretending that you didn’t know to protect yourself from me. So I hired him to get close to you, to get to know you, to get you to trust him.”
I shook my head, unwilling to accept this reality.
“Like I said, Liv, nothing just happens. You met Ethan because I wanted you to meet him. I wanted you to trust him.” He paused and shot Ethan a menacing look. “What I didn’t want was for you to open your wet pussy to him. What I didn’t want was for you to leave me for him. What I didn’t want was for him to fall for you.”
“Don’t listen to him, Liv,” Ethan finally spoke up. He came over and helped me up from the floor. “Come on. I’ll explain everything. Please just come with me.”
Just then, behind Ethan, I saw Connor barreling forward with something in his hand. I screamed as Ethan turned to Connor, just in time for Connor to hit Ethan’s head with a large metal bookend.
I cried out when I saw Ethan stumble to the ground as blood oozed down from a gash on his forehead.
Connor turned to me. “Like I said, Liv. You’re not leaving me.”
“No, please! Connor, you don’t want to do this.” I backed away from him and stumbled out of the reading room.
He lunged at me and pushed me up against the railing that overlooked the front hallway.
“Please, Connor. This isn’t you.” I begged for my life, but I knew from the deranged look on his face that it was futile.
His hands found their way to my neck again and he pressed my body against the railing, bending me over the top. I gasped for air, struggling against the weight of his body. My hands desperately tried to pull his hands off me as my eyes looked down to the hard marble floor below.
Just when I thought I was about to pass out and fall over the railing, I heard Connor let out a grunt and I saw Ethan pull him off me and punch him square in the face. Connor doubled back but recovered quickly. Then they lunged at each other and struggled against the railing as they each tried to overpower the other. When they finally pushed themselves off each other, Connor threw a punch at Ethan, who stumbled back against the railing. Connor then charged at Ethan and swung his fist with brute force. But he missed. I watched in horror as the wooden railing gave way at the impact of Connor’s body, and as if in slow motion, Connor lost his balance and fell over it.
I screamed as I heard a loud thud as his body hit the hard floor below.
Paralyzed and overwhelmed with shock, I slid down to the floor and hugged my legs as I began to sob.
The next hour was a blur in my memory. Ethan had called the police, and when they showed up, they took our statements, took photos, and took the necklace and the bookend that had hit Ethan into evidence.
When the police finally left, I felt numb as the shock of everything that happened and everything that I found out stayed fresh in my mind.
“Liv, are you okay?” Ethan asked. He had cleaned off the blood from his face, but I could still see the open gash on his forehead.
“Don’t touch me!” I screamed as I recoiled from his touch.
He looked at me in concern and I saw regret in his eyes. “Please let me explain. I promise you, Liv. I’m going to make this right.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “There’s nothing you can do that will make this right.”
"I'm so sorry, Liv.”
“All you can say is sorry?” I felt a rage grow inside. “Is that enough?”
He bowed his head in anguish. “I should have told you sooner. I should have told you everything.”
“It’s too late, Ethan.” I looked away from him, unable to allow the one man I had felt so close to, the one man who I had thought could be the one, see me cry at this moment.
“You must think I’m a fool,” I said under my breath. “Playing with my emotions and making me believe there was something real between us. But you were just controlling me like I was a puppet in this made-up world you and Connor constructed.”
“No, it’s not like that. Please let me explain. It’s not what it looks like.”
I glared at him. “Well it looks like you knew Connor before we met that day outside the hospital. It looks like you didn’t just happen to be there by accident, but Connor told you to be there. It looks like Connor hired you to seduce me and get close to me to see how much I actually remembered. What part of that is ‘not what it looks like’?”
I seethed with rage inside as I processed Ethan’s betrayal.
“No, Connor didn’t plan everything that happened between us. He only planned that one meeting at the hospital and the meeting outside the museum. After that first day we spent together, I knew you didn’t remember anything. So when I told him you didn’t remember, he told me to stop spending time with you. He didn’t want you to like me. But I couldn’t leave you alone. You meant too much to me. So I continued to seek you out, to make sure you were okay.”
He grabbed my hand against my resistance and pulled it close to his chest. “Liv, the feelings we have for each other, the feelings I have for you. They are real.”
Just then, I saw Anna’s car pull up to the house to pick me up.
I pulled my hand away and took one last look at him.
“It doesn’t matter, Ethan. I can never trust you after this.”
On the verge of tears, I turned away and ran as fast as I could toward Anna’s car. I felt completely empty inside. How did everything change so quickly? I had been so happy yesterday with Ethan. I had thought we had something special. But I was wrong. It was all a lie. Everything about my life since I woke up two months ago had been a lie.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Three Weeks Later
I jumped when my phone rang. Anxiety prickled against my skin as I reached for it to see who it was. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Anna’s name appear on the caller ID.
“Hey, Anna.”
“Hi, roomie! How’s it going?” Her always-chipper voice caused me to smile.
“Not bad. I’m glad that it’s you who called.”
“Oh, are you still avoiding his calls?”
I didn’t need to ask her to know exactly whom she was talking about. Ethan.
“Yeah. He won’t leave me alone. It might be time to file a restraining order or something.”
“Hmm. Maybe you should talk to him, Liv. Let him explain to you what happened.”
“But I know what happened. Connor told me he hired Ethan to get to know me. Ethan didn’t deny it at all. We met under false pretenses, and he used me and played with my emotions just like Connor did. How can I trust that anything he says is true?”
“You’re right, sweetie. That’s hard.”
“So what’s going on?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I was calling to see if you were home right now. I was going to swing in to drop some stuff off.”
There was something in her voice that gave me pause. “Yeah, I’m home. Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing.” There was a pause. “I just have to give you something.”
“To give me? Hmm. I don’t like the sound of this.” I’d been slowly getting my memories back as the weeks had passed. Many were memories from the last couple of years, many of which included Anna. So I now knew her well enough to know when she was keeping something from me.
“Sheesh, don’t be such a pessimist! So I’ll come home in a few minutes.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Awesome. See yah.”
“Bye.”
In the last few weeks since Connor’s death, I had a lot of time to reflect on everything that’d happened
. I was also remembering many of the memories I’d had with Connor, and the more I remembered, the more I realized how far from perfect our relationship had been. Even if I had been able to overlook what he’d done the night of our engagement, there had been so many red flags that our relationship didn’t work. Yet, I heeded none of them.
Anna walked into our apartment with a sheepish smile on her face.
“What’s going on?” I looked at her suspiciously.
“Don’t be upset, okay?”
“Anna?”
Anna grinned and handed me a box. “Ethan stopped by my office today, and wanted me to give you this.”
“He did what?” I looked at her in outrage.
“Well, you weren’t picking up his calls or answering his text messages. He didn’t know what to do. He said he wanted to explain everything to you, so if you weren’t willing to meet him to listen to him, he was going to show you.”
I eyed the box nervously. “What’s inside?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I studied the simple white box and frowned. “I don’t know if I want to look inside. I don’t know if I can handle any more lies at this point.”
Anna looked at me sympathetically. “Liv, I know you may not want to hear this, but I think you should at least hear what he has to say before writing him off completely.”
“But…”
“If what he told you was true, and he was no longer working for Connor after that day you met him outside the museum, then that means the other times after that had nothing to do with Connor?”
“It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Liv, when you lost Scooter out in the rain, he was the one who was out there looking for him with you in the rain. You told me that he was different that night. He wasn’t forceful, and he didn’t try to come on to you. He was just there because he cared. When Connor, your then-fiancé stood you up on your birthday and you were alone, he was there by your side and made sure you had an unbelievable birthday. And then that night when you broke it off with Connor and he tried to kill you, Ethan was there and rescued you.” Anna sighed and placed a hand on top of mine. “It seems like every time you were lonely or needed help, he was always there for you. Yes, he may have lied to you, but he didn’t have to do all that if he didn’t care. So I think you should at least hear him out.”