A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel

by Shana Vanterpool

  His audible swallow was louder in the quiet room. “You wanted me.”

  I sobbed at the floor. “I wanted you.”

  A deep groan emanated from him. “Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.”

  I lifted my head. I did this. There was nothing left to hide.

  “I loved you.”

  His eyes slid closed. He leaned his head back and soaked up my admission. “But you love him more?” he asked, eyes still closed

  “Yes,” I admitted. “I loved him more. I had to choose. I knew after we slept together that it wouldn’t have stopped. So I picked Denny before I had to pick you.” My tears hit the floor. “But I thought about you. I lived for our appointments. Even when I ignored you, I wanted you, Dash. But it was Denny first. He saved me. He gave me what I had. He gave me … me.”

  Before Denny I was just a broke young college student struggling to bring my dream to life. Denny stepped in and showed me a way. He took a girl who was lost and turned her into a woman who pretended she wasn’t.

  “Look at me,” he ordered softy.

  I lifted my gaze once more. “Please let me go home. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I used you, made you think you were crazy. I’m sorry. But this is wrong. You’re doing something irreversible right now. This is too far. If you let me go home, I won’t tell anyone. I’ll tell Denny everything. That I cheated, that I lied. You and I can pretend this didn’t happen. But you have to let me go.”

  “I’m not punishing you.” His eyes began to glisten. “You think I’m punishing you?”

  “Aren’t you?” Wasn’t this punishment for hurting him?

  “Kinley. This is finally having what I want. What you wanted once, even for an hour. This isn’t punishment for cheating, or lying. I’d never do that to you.”

  I couldn’t find him through my tears. “This feels like a punishment. The attack, the rope, the fear—this is punishment for it all.”

  He rose from the couch and came over to me, grabbing the tops of my arms. I looked up at him, my insides trembling. “I forgive you for lying. I forgave you the second you did it. I’m not punishing you.”

  “Then who is?”

  His eyes bored into me. “Forgive me?”

  I was close to passing out. My eyes were blurry. “No.”

  “I had to have you. It worked out better for all of us this way.”

  My breathing was labored.

  “He knew about the affair.”

  I hung limp in his arms and shook my head. How?

  “Did you forget your security videos are streamed to your files at home? You did it for him so he wouldn’t worry. What with, working with all of us lunatics,” he tacked on bitterly. “He found me. He sought me out. Told me if I wanted you, I could have you. On one condition. I had to make it look like you never existed.”

  My vision faded. There was more black than there was gold.

  “But when my men showed up six months later, he had a change of heart. He was mad. He didn’t really mean it. Whatever his reasons were no longer mattered. It was too late. I already gave him his price. Kinley Hashawaye would be gone before the night. For six months he’s known, and you picked him. You picked a man who sold you, over a man who just wanted to love you.”

  I let go of my sanity in his arms. They cradled me against his chest.

  “Denny never loved you.” His words shattered my heart. “Denny only loved himself.”

  7.

  You Won’t Be You

  I hadn’t gotten used to waking up in this nightmare.

  Even after my eyes opened in my bedroom. The sun was up, glowing delicately through the white bars onto the walls, creating the illusion of beauty.

  There was nothing beautiful about this place. All the gold in the world couldn’t hide this darkness.

  The deceit in my heart was overbearing. I hadn’t meant to cheat on Denny. He was different. He was the first man in my life I wanted to be better for. A better me, a different me. But after the first three years, things between us had gotten empty. Our kisses felt like a stranger’s greeting. He worked late hours, I worked late hours—the spark had faded. I ignored it, threw myself into my career, picked up more clients.

  One of those clients happened to be Dash.

  The moment I laid eyes on him, he took my breath away. Gorgeous, sexy, tall, and off limits. At first I ignored his hungry gaze, but soon, I craved it. The way his eyes caressed my bare legs, my thighs, my heels. I found that when I dressed a certain way, his eyes savored my skin. In his eyes there was emotion, warmth, there was a spark I had been missing, even before Denny. This spark could become flames, and I had always wanted to burn from attention that intense.

  Dash became my obsession. I yearned for our meetings, wanting to hear his brain, his thoughts, to sift through what made him who he was. But I had ignored his insanity in exchange for him.

  There had been a current in the air. It made my panties wet when he left. My hand tingled when he shook it. My thighs quivered when he looked at them. Soon, that current got bigger, harder to handle, to ignore. We talked about our lives, about our insides. We spent an hour together that meant more to me than the other twenty-three of the day. There were missing pieces inside of me that hadn’t been so apparent when I sat across from Dash McKing.

  One day that current turned into a livewire. Our eyes connected and I just wanted to be wanted. The night before, I’d walked in on Denny masturbating to porn on his phone. He hadn’t made a move on me in so long my libido was dry. But he could jack off to fake moans and hard-on’s that had probably been purchased? We fought, we screamed. We said things we didn’t mean, things we meant, and the tears of my heartbreak were as damaging at the absence of his. The next day, there was Dash, undeniably sexy in all black. His long hard body in a fitted suit. He shook my hand, and I looked at his mouth.

  The man had the most perfect mouth. Full pink lips that looked so smooth and sweet. The sight of them alone made my inner muscles clench. I wanted it. I wanted his mouth right then, right there. I couldn’t think about anything else.

  I snapped. I gave in to my desire for a man without knowing what my desire would bring. I grabbed his face and brought it down on mine. And that was it. Sparks erupted. We were fire and heat in my office. His taste, his feel, the warmth of his body—I’d been lost in him. He ripped my pantyhose off and yanked his thick hard cock out of his pants, and within seconds we were connected. For an hour we were sex and sweat. He bent me over my desk, I pulled his hair, and he made me fall apart like no man ever had. After he came inside of me, he cleaned me up. Tasted me until I was willing to admit it to myself.

  I loved him.

  I looked forward to nothing but him.

  I was in love with him, and if he asked me right then and there to be with him, I would have said yes. Because I hadn’t wanted to say no. Afterwards, we’d both been in a daze. Frida had buzzed me that my next appointment was there. I tossed my pantyhose and panties in the trash and fixed my shirt.

  I ushered Dash out of the room. The moment he was gone, the magnitude of what I’d done settled over me. The guilt was instantaneous. I didn’t hear a single word the rest of my patients said. All I could think about was being the girl I was before Denny found me.

  The empty girl who had nothing grounding her.

  Maybe it was selfish to put that on him. The responsibility to keep someone on the ground, when they could float away, was asking to fail. But I had been floating so long, drifting in this world without a grounding force, that when I met Denny, I felt like my feet were coming toward earth. I was unmoving, because I had finally found someone who wanted me to leave the same footprints as them.

  The shattering of that lie was as painful as knowing I’d shattered it long before the cracks had formed.

  I rolled onto my side and stared at the blue sky through the bars on my windows. I wondered about those bars. Did he think I’d jump?

  Denny had known all that time? Six months would e
xplain the coldness that came from him. The days without a phone call, late nights coming home, slipping into bed without kissing me goodnight. I hadn’t known it at the time, I’d just been glad I could avoid him. The lie was in my eyes, all over my body, and apparently on my boyfriend’s desktop. I forgot all about the security videos. Nothing worrisome had ever happened between my patients and I, so there had been no need to discuss not filming.

  The wireless camera was hidden on my bookshelf and fed through my Wi-Fi, pointing right at my desk and the seat across from it. He’d watched Dash lose himself between my legs. The pain that must’ve caused him; my eyes blurred. If he’d cheated on me I would have lost it. But Dash’s words had wormed their way into my brain. My boyfriend knew all along, knew it and wanted me gone.

  My sob broke the silence. Denny probably hadn’t known that Dash would make good on his word. He hadn’t known Dash would take me forever.

  And apparently, Denny didn’t mind. Wanted me gone, like I never even existed. And Dash was all too willing to make that a reality.

  With a disgusted growl, I tossed my covers aside and marched for the door. I drug my finger over the sensor and it slid open, granting me access into the main floor. I looked around the space, large, but strangely confining, only to find that Dash wasn’t there.

  I stood there, a pawn in his games. “Dash?”

  I waited. Finally, the wall opened where I tried to access yesterday, and he emerged. He looked like he’d been sleeping. His hair was a mess, his shirtless body showed off his pale abs, and his shorts hung low on his hips. I ignored his body. His eyes were rimmed in red, and the bruises I gave him had grown. In his half asleep state, he looked more youthful. In reality he was thirty-one. I was twenty-seven. There was a four-year gap between us that should have been enough. His dangerous family blood should have been enough. His mental illness should have been enough. But there was something about Dash that had defied the common sense law in my brain. Because common sense didn’t make me feel … alive.

  Now, however, the current that thrived between us was snuffed out. It was so gone, I could look into his eyes and gladly look away. Disgust emanated from my heart. He had me abducted, tied me down to a bed in this skyscraper, and used the love of my life to steal me.

  “What?” he rumbled.

  But I had a part in this.

  I hugged myself. His voice was like a low hum, so deep it registered an octave lower. “Can we talk?”

  He motioned for me to do so, clearly sleep muddled. I knew he had trouble sleeping and trouble waking up, that he could spend days in the in-between of consciousness and unconsciousness.

  “I slept with you knowing I had a boyfriend. I cheated on Denny. I went home to my significant other and thought about you. I betrayed him and I let you think you were crazy. I watched you, knowing you were getting worse, and my fears kept me from saying anything. That wasn’t fair to you or him. I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. What I did was …” I shook my head. “Selfish. It wasn’t fair. I get it. I’m sorry,” I begged, pouring everything I had into my apology. “But you can’t do this to me. This.” I waved my hand around this beautiful lie. “Isn’t what I want. I want to go home, to my house, to my life. You have to let me go.”

  He blinked at me. He narrowed his gaze. His eyes were glassy with confusion, insanity, with his unstableness.

  Finally, he frowned. “Your life is gone, Kinley. Denny’s gone. He never loved you, at least not—” He looked down. “As much as I do.” He looked back up slowly, showing me the emotions burning in his eyes. “I would never take a check for you. I would never settle for anything less than your body, your heartbreaking blue eyes. Every time I look into them, they break my fucking heart. No one and nothing will get in my way of you. But Denny let me get in the way, he let you get in the way, he ignored you, knowing there were a million other men out there who would kill for a chance to have those long tan legs wrapped around their waist. He doesn’t deserve you.” He patted his chest, coming closer. “I deserve you. I want you here, with me, forever. You wanted that too. You looked into my eyes and said it all to me. You can keep lying,” he snapped, when I opened my mouth to deny him. “But you were there. You fell in love with me the same second I fell in love with you. There’s nothing to go back to. There’s only me. Get used to it.” He stomped around me for the kitchen, wrenching the fridge door open and shoving his face inside.

  “You kidnapped me!”

  “I never touched you.”

  “You’re insane.” I watched him pull out a jug of tomato juice and twist the top off. “What do I have to do to convince you this is messed up?”

  He brought the drink to his lips, but paused and glared. “I’m not insane. I’m mentally ill. You said it countless times.” He began to mimic me. “You have a chemical imbalance in your brain. Your brain suffers from lower levels of serotonin. Your chemical makeup differs from the norm. That doesn’t mean you’re crazy, that means you have to try a little harder to be sane. You’re a shitty therapist.” Then he brought the bottle to his lips and chugged.

  I gasped indignantly. “I’m a shitty therapist? Then why did you keep coming back?”

  He raised one eyebrow condescendingly.

  “We had sex once. Once!” I held up my finger for emphasis. “One good lay isn’t enough to pay me six-hundred bucks an hour for six more months.”

  “Good? You think that lay was only good? Your eyes were stuck in the back of your head. That lay was the best of your life.”

  I huffed in frustration. A sense of rage I hadn’t felt in years slithered over me. “If it was so good, why did I go back home to my boyfriend?”

  The second it left me my mouth I knew I did the worst thing. I let my anger take control of my mouth the way it used to for most of my life.

  A myriad of emotions played in his eyes. Hurt, anger, fury—they churned.

  He set the juice down and braced himself against the counter. “Yeah, well, that guy you loved more than me sold you out for a million dollars. He set you up. He found me, not the other way around, and wanted you gone from his life, so think about that, you ungrateful good lay.”

  My anger dissipated like my breath, displaced in a manner of seconds, like I hadn’t breathed at all. “You gave him money for me? You paid him?”

  I must’ve looked as devastated and gutted as I felt, because his face dropped the narrowed eyed rage, exchanging it for remorse.

  “I had to. He thought he was getting money. Really, he was taking a cushion. If he talks, he’s implicated too.”

  “He sold me?” I couldn’t believe him. This cold hard rage settled over me. Six months I tortured myself over this man for what I did, and he sold me? For a million dollars? Is that all I’m worth? Should I be flattered or offended? I rolled my eyes and grunted in disgust. This was a nightmare. This entire situation was a disgusting ugly nightmare. “You bought me, Dash?” I’m angered further by the hurt in my voice.

  “I would have paid far more.”

  “How romantic. Did I come with a complimentary leash, or did you only get me?”

  “Kinley.” He stepped for me.

  But I pointed at him. “If you come closer to me, I will punch you. Right in your disgusting handsome face. Let me go right now, or I’ll—” I looked around the room, a sense of desperation moving over me. Now I knew why he barred the windows. “Let me go!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  “I had to have you.” Desperation coated his words, his body.

  “Well now you do. Are you happy? I loved you, Dash, but I can’t even stand the sight of you anymore. Did you really think I’d be happy about this? That I’d jump into your arms and we’d be together?”

  I could tell by his glassy gaze that he did think that. He wasn’t even thinking straight for one second of the day. All of them there tainted in his displaced reality.

  “Can you not realize how utterly insane that sounds? You sold me!”

  “It was hush mone
y.”

  “In case what? My boyfriend felt bad for selling his girlfriend to a gang member?” My screech could touch the clouds.

  His eyes flashed. “You know I’m not a gang member.” And then he pointed, a far more threatening point than all his others. His anger was outward, not internal, and it was aimed at me. “Do not compare me to my father one more time. You know how I feel about that. You know what it does to me.”

  And I could push the limits, I could push him. I could demand one more time for him to hear me. But I’d spent hours with this man. I knew when he was on the edge and when he was taking people with him. So I pulled back. Because I was glad there were bars on the windows too. “You’re not a gang member.”

  He took a deep breath and looked me right in the eye. “Don’t ask me to let you go again. Don’t bring up that this is insane. I know it’s insane. I am insane. Don’t ask me for anything unless it exists in this kingdom. Denny is gone. I forgive you. You’re mine. Accept it and move on.”

  I opened my mouth, but he raised his hand.

  “Is the next thing out of your mouth any of the above?”

  I considered it, and then I shook my head.

  He didn’t look like he believed me, but nodded warily. “Then go on.”

  “Do you have your medicine?”

  “I do. But,” he continued. “I’m not taking it. When I take it, I get this feeling we’ll never work. I have this fear that if I’m not me, then you won’t be you.” He frowned. “Does that make sense?”

  I gawked at him.

  “Well it makes sense to me. That’s all that matters.” He motioned for me to follow him. “I know you’re hungry. You haven’t eaten in days. We should eat the fresh food while we have it.”

  “How long have we been up here?”

  “Two days. Eggs?”

  “I’m not hungry.” How could I eat right now?

  “Eggs,” he decided. He pointed at the barstools across the counter top. “Sit.”

  “I’m not a dog. Just because you bought me, doesn’t mean I have to follow your orders. I’ll stand. Right here.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stood in the open space between the kitchen and living room.