by Scott, S. L.
The words smack him in the face. “What did you just say?”
Just as I’m about to apologize, the police rush through the doors, guns aimed in front of them. Alexander grabs me around the back and we hit the floor. I’m pinned beneath him on my knees, bent over, pain pulsing through me. “I’m sorry, Sara Jane.”
But the apology sounds like it’s for more than just taking me down to shield me. “What’s happening?”
“Fuck.” His breath is harsh.
The police tell everyone to freeze while two take the lead and check out the bastard’s office. The security guard helps them determine the basic situation and we slowly rise to our feet. Alexander cups my face and leans down to look me in the eyes.
“Alexander?”
“Sorry. I saw guns, and I didn’t want you hurt. It’s going to be a long night. How are you holding up?”
“Stop worrying about me. For fuck’s sake, Alexander. Your father has died. How are you?”
“He killed himself. He made that choice, not me, so I’m fine.” The edges of his mouth are straight, trouble seen in his brows. He runs his hands through his hair.
“Maybe you’re in shock?”
“Maybe I feel a weight lifted?”
“It’s okay to not be okay. You don’t have to be strong for me.”
Taking me by the upper arms, he’s insistent. “I walked in on him about to rape you. He lied about my mother. He took me from the woman who gave me life and then tried to kill her. He never loved me. He tolerated me. Is it okay to be okay right now or do I need to put on a grieving face for you?”
“For me, no. Never. For the police, you might want to.”
“I will.” His bright smile pops into place. I can see there’s a lack of sincerity hidden in it, but that’s because it’s not a smile I’m accustomed to. “I’m going to talk to them. You’ll be fine here?”
“I’ll be fine. I always am.”
He nods and leaves me with Kimberly, whose shirt is wet from tears, biting her nails, and looking around nervously. “He said he wanted to see me exclusively earlier tonight.”
She worked with this man for years. How? Why would she want to be exclusive with him? I look her straight in the eyes so she’s very clear on the situation. “He was going to rape me before he was caught.”
Her mouth drops open, her hand covering it as tears fill her eyes again. She’s crying because the bastard who was her boss is dead. A boss she’d been sleeping with. A boss who’d kicked out a different woman from his home not a week before. She wanted an exclusive relationship with a monster. A monster capable of depravity I only thought existed in movies. He threatened me, lured me to that damn party. He tried to rape me . . . “I just expected to be inside her when you walked in.” He wanted Alexander to see me being defiled . . . Oh God. Oh God. “I want you to watch.” Alexander had used those words. He’d wanted me to watch the school tramp being fucked by another man.
Am I . . .
Am I in love with a monster? Am I no different than Kimberly? Blind? Ignorant?
I look at Kimberly and I feel numb.
No more.
Not her tears.
Not April’s.
Not mine. I can’t take anymore. My emotions detach, something Alexander always wanted for me, yet something I never wanted. Looking down I see remnants of Alexander’s father’s blood, hair, and something I’m praying to God is not part of his brains caught in the fold of the dress at my chest. A breath is sucked in when the air around me begins to thin.
Then another. Serrated like the knife that’s destroyed my fairy tale.
I’m not okay.
I look around—the chaos, the police, Alexander, Cruise, the employees here for a party. A party. Where their boss committed suicide.
I’m not okay.
My head is light, my thoughts subdued and fuzzy around the edges. I take a deep breath and leave Kimberly there, not able to help another soul, not sure if I can even help myself. I walk toward the door and push it open. Police officers and paramedics are filing out of the elevators, and I step aside to let them pass. No one says anything to me, so I step on the elevator and push the button for the lobby, wanting air that’s not contaminated by death and surrounded by hate.
The instrumental version of some past pop hit plays through the elevator intercom. Staring into my eyes in the reflection of the silver doors, I’ve lost the life that once lived there. I’ve lost who I am.
The door opens and I walk. Just walk.
“Miss?” I look at the officer at the desk. He’s not much older than I am. His uniform is crisply ironed and the light from a lamp on the desk reflects off his wedding band. “No one is allowed to leave the scene until we’ve gotten statements.”
I wonder how he decided to fight for others. When did he decide to protect and serve so selflessly? What’s his wife like? Does he have kids? Is he living the life I thought I would live? Predictable as Alexander calls it?
“Miss? Are you okay?”
No. I’m not okay. “Yes. I’m just going to smoke a cigarette and then I’ll be right back.”
He nods, seeming to understand the need. I push through the door and walk into the night. The area is blocked off. Police, firemen, and paramedics race around—in and out of the building. Reporters push to get in, and I sneak around a cameraman and walk away from the scene.
Away from this nightmare.
Away from this life.
I’m not okay.
23
Alexander
Staring out the window, I wonder where she is.
My Firefly finally flew away.
Part of me finds an inner joy in the knowledge that she was strong enough to save herself. The larger part of me, definitely my more selfish side, misses my soul mate.
I’ve watched the videos countless times. The security camera shows Sara Jane walking out of the office and through the lobby. Once she reached the garage, she took her car and disappeared No one has heard from her since, except her parents. Once.
It was clear they weren’t going to tell me her whereabouts, if they even knew where she was. I didn’t ask. I knew I’d go after her, but she left for a reason.
Over a month later I’m still in limbo. I can’t seem to let her go. Despite the chaos of working through the mess my father left behind, she consumes my days. My nights are lost to memories of her, and us. So many years spent living for the wrong reason when I had the right reason to live all along.
A knock draws my attention from the view to the door. Kate, a beautiful blonde assistant hired for the transition to replace Kimberly, stands in the doorway. Her skirt is tight. Her heels sky high. Her lips are red, drawing the bees to the honey. The thin belt that wraps around her emphasizes the curve of her waist. “The movers will be here shortly, Mr. Kingwood. The car is downstairs. It’s time for us to go.”
With my hands flat on the glass surface of my father’s desk, I stay seated in his chair a minute longer. Blood still covers the carpet, the evidence remaining when other signs of that night are gone, like Firefly. I stand. “Thank you, Kate.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
She thinks I’m that guy. The one who likes to play daddy to a pretty sugar baby. She thinks her flirting is subtle when it’s not. She thinks she has a shot when she has none.
A month ago that response would have been quicker, that thought immediate. These days I’m not so sure I should be closed off to attractive opportunities. My future with Sara Jane is unknown. Do I hold out hope that she’ll return just like the firefly she’s named after? Or do I move on?
I walk out of my father’s office and through the sea of empty cubicles, the silence of the executive offices, and the stilted air that lives long after his death. The employees have moved on with hefty severance deals and the bulk of the company is locked up in legal battles, everyone coming out of the woodwork wanting their share. One million here. Five million there. The remaining pieces of it sold below market. I don
’t care. My wealth is beyond Kingwood Enterprises. The dirty dealings of Daddy Dearest will eventually be put to rest. In the elevator, she undoes her top button and runs the tips of her fingers along her collarbone. “What if we grabbed a drink together?”
Blatant.
I lean against the opposite wall, angling my head as her fingers slide farther down until another button comes undone. “What would happen if we did?”
The question confuses her at first, but she catches on quickly. Her smile is as pretty as her gray-green eyes. “I could take your mind off things for a while.” She moves closer and touches my shirt, her fingertips slipping between two buttons.
Taking hold of her hand, I still it and lower it away from me. “How?”
Not faltering under my disinterested gaze, she says, “We’d start with a drink, or two.” She does demure well, though I see right through her. “I don’t live that far from here. I have a stocked bar.”
“What if we skipped the foreplay, and I fucked you right here in the elevator? Is that what you want?” Kate stands there staring at me with her red lips parted, but then she licks them slowly, trying to keep my attention. Her desperation for me makes the elevator hotter than it was a few floors up. When she reaches for the emergency stop button, I catch her wrist. “It was a question, not an offer.”
Her chest heaves, and she breathes out, “Yes. I’d let you fuck me right now in this elevator.”
I hold her gaze, but she’ll never replace what I had, what I tasted, what I felt when I was with Sara Jane. I’m fucked. The effect she had on my life still persists, still affecting every aspect, even ones she shouldn’t any longer. She left. She left me.
Backing across the elevator as if the devil himself knew playing with fire would get him burned, I look at this woman who is willing to give me anything, even her dignity, in exchange for a small piece of my fortune. I know that’s what she’s after. Sara Jane would have never lowered herself for wealth. Hell, she would barely let me buy her dinner.
Kate’s breathing is heard, even with distance, her fingers moving against the buttons of her shirt like she doesn’t know whether to take it off or button up. I’m about to tell her what she should do when the door opens, the ding heard loudly above. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m not single.” I walk out of this hotbox.
“I heard your girlfriend left you.”
My feet stop, the arrow she shoots right on target. Yes, my girlfriend left me. Those are the facts I’m having to face. She took my heart, my love, and my soul with her. I turn around and see hope in her eyes, as if her low blow will change my mind. “I misspoke. I’m not available.” I turn back and head for the waiting car. Climbing inside, I slam the door closed and nod to the driver to leave.
The sun has set and the lights outside are flashing through the dark-tinted windows that hide me inside. The media has been incessant in getting the story of my father’s death. As the head of a billion-dollar company, you don’t get to commit suicide without piquing the interest of many people. I hate the attention his death has brought, dragging my mother’s death back into the spotlight with him. And the worst thing is he took away my chance at justice for her murder. Even in death, he took away what had driven me for so long.
My life is now lived under a microscope. As much as it hurts that she left, it’s times like these that I’m glad Sara Jane got out. Taking my phone from my pocket, I call Cruise to check in.
“King.”
I don’t have time for conversation, so I get to the point. “Update me.”
“There’s action in the lower fourth. Chad thinks it’s the same guys who lead us to April, but I’m not sure. Could be the other guys.”
“The ones who kicked our asses?” I ask, followed by a chuckle that’s anything but amused.
“The very ones.”
“I wouldn’t mind meeting them in a dark alley again.”
“This time we’ll be prepared.”
“Set it up.”
“Already done.” He breaks character to ask, “How are you holding up?”
“The office is officially closed. I just left for the last time.” Looking at my watch, I sigh. “I have dinner with the transition team. As soon as it’s over, I’ll message you for the location.”
“I’ll be ready. And King?”
“Yeah.”
“No word today.”
“Me either.”
I hang up just as my car pulls up to the manor. It’s too quiet, the employees already gone or retired for the evening. It’s always too quiet now. I head up to my quarters, aware of the fact that what used to be my haven is now more like a tomb. The rest of the house is haunted with my father’s sins, but my bedroom is only haunted by Sara Jane.
My pockets are emptied on the silver tray on the coffee table and I flop down on the couch, exhausted. She would laugh at the tray and probably crack a joke asking where my matching spoon is. I lie back and close my eyes with a smile on my face . . .
Sara Jane smiles and my world is brighter for it. Leaning against my bike, I uncross my arms. I want to be ready for her when she reaches me.
Damn if her cheeks aren’t turning a deeper shade of pink as she approaches. My sweet girl. “Did you get it?”
She finally reaches me, her smile even bigger despite the rolling of the eyes. “You’re worse than my parents.”
“Hand it over.” She hands me the envelope. I open it and scan down. All A’s. “You’re so fucking smart.”
“Remember our bet?” she asks, her hand going to her hip.
I remember, but I think I might tease her just like I did by setting the bait that she bit hard. “What bet was that?”
“Oh noooo. You don’t get out of it. If I made straight A’s, you were taking me to your house.”
House . . . “About that—”
She pokes me in the chest. “A deal is a deal, Alexander.”
Grabbing her wrist, I stop her relentless poking and pull her closer for a kiss. “I’ll follow through.” I give her a wink. “I always do.”
We’ve been through a lot. She’s seen the side of me I’ve tried to hide, the side I was forced to share to hold on to her. And she’s still here despite how badly a night partying with my old schoolmates went. I vowed to myself to make it up to her. She wouldn’t say I needed to, but I do.
I went to talk to Cruise out back that night and came inside to find Lanie Monroe and her posse cornering Sara Jane. They couldn’t accept that it wasn’t that I didn’t want a girlfriend. It was that I didn’t want them.
I’m shit though. My father always told me I was, and I pushed her so far that I thought she would run, proving me right. She didn’t.
She stayed.
I just wonder if she’ll stay after coming to my house. She survived a dinner with my father once. That she stuck with me afterward says a lot, but I also managed to keep her away since. I get her wanting to find her place in my life. She just doesn’t realize the place she already fills. What place do I fill in her life?
“Do you ever talk to anyone from your high school?”
“Sure. Shelly and Chad.”
“Any guys I should be aware of?”
She laughs. “No. Why? Are you jealous?”
“Yes. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I’m a jealous fucker.” I hand her a helmet. “And when it comes to you, I’m not changing. Come on. Time to pay my debt.”
Riding back to the manor, I drive slower than usual, take the curves in the road a little more carefully. I always do when she’s riding with me. For someone who never liked me riding a bike, she urges me to go faster. I think she gets it now. Risking my life is one thing. Risking hers is a whole other.
I stop at the gate and punch in the code. She asks, “You have a code?”
“It opens the gate.”
“You have a gate? How big is this house?”
“It’s called Kingwood Manor.”
Her chest presses and releases against my back when she sighs. �
�You live in a manor? Like a mansion isn’t big enough?”
“No. Mansions are smaller.” I pull to the other side of the gate. You can’t see the manor from here, so I take the opportunity to warn her. “It’s big. Really fucking big. I hate it.”
With her head resting on my back, her arms around my middle, she always reads me so well. “You don’t have to hold on to so much anger anymore. I love you, Alexander. I’m here for you. No one else.”
Looking at the long drive ahead that leads to Kingwood Manor, I held this part of my life back wanting to hold on to what we have so hard that I failed to recognize that she’d love me even if I lived in rubble. “You know, Firefly, one day I’m going to do right by you. You deserve it. If anyone deserves happiness, it’s you.”
“What you don’t see is you’ve already made me happy.”
I lift her hand and kiss it before saying, “Hold on tight.”
The mansion comes into view just over the hill and her hold tightens around me. I pull up out front. She swings her leg over and stands there, looking up with Kingwood Manor looming over us. “It’s . . . I’ve never seen anything like this. Not in real life. It looks right out of a travel guide for Europe.”
“It was in my mother’s family. My father liked it the moment he saw it. My mother used to say it was haunted.”
She looks at me wide-eyed. “Is it?”
Chuckling, I set her helmet on the bike. “Not by the dead.”
Walking toward the house, she stays a step behind me. “Sometimes you talk like you’re older.”
“I call it the curse of being an only child. I was stuck around adults all the time.”
“Do you wish you had a sibling?”
Stopping on the steps, I wait for her. “No. I’d not wish this life on anyone.”
“When you say things like that it hurts my heart. I’ll do anything I can to help you. Just tell me how.”
Wrapping her in my arms, I close my eyes. “You’re in my life. That’s all I need.” She’s about to say something, but stops herself and relaxes in my arms. When we part, I take her hand. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”