by Holly Hart
It yelped, paws scrabbling backward. It squirmed, turned and scrambled back.
And then it collapsed, staring at me with terrified, exhausted eyes that swept from side to side, desperately trying to get a proper look at its tormentor.
I lay on top of it, just heaving. “Jesus,” I laughed, filled with a primal euphoria. “I wasn’t expecting that to actually work.”
I heard a muffled noise behind me – the reason I’d thrown myself in harm’s way in the first place. I turned, to see the girl standing with hands clamped over her mouth, almost in shock and trembling. I wanted to hug her, to hold her, and to whisper into her ear that I’d make it all better.
“Cara…” I whispered, blinking stupidly. I understood why I hadn’t hesitated to help her, even before I truly knew who she was. Deep down, somewhere in my heart, my body had recognized the redheaded girl instantly.
She was the girl I dreamt of every night, whose memory kept me going when I reached my lowest ebb. And I knew that helping her wasn’t a decision, it was an instinct.
I held out my bleeding hand, careless of my injured man’s curious stares, and barely noticing the tattered, torn silk sleeve of my suit jacket. The dog squirmed underneath me, but I pressed my knee into its ribs and asserted my strength.
I barely even noticed what I was doing; I was so caught up in studying Cara’s still beautiful tear-streaked face, and the way her freckles spotted the curves of her cheeks. A fire stoked within me. I wanted – no – needed her touch. I needed her to heal me, to fill the gaping hole in my soul that had been missing since I left her.
But her face didn’t light up with delighted surprise, or even stunned, faltering warmth.
She wore a hunted look. And it broke my heart.
3
Cara
You know when you hit it – that moment that flips your whole life upside down.
You see it in movies, and read it in books, and it’s amazing, all-encompassing. You’re glued to the screen, or else you turn the pages so fast they start to smoke. It eats you up and swallows your soul, and spits you out on the other side, satisfied and whole. But you never think it’ll actually happen to you. Not really. Lives don’t just change with the snap of a gorgeous man’s fingers.
Until they do.
They’d snapped, and transported me to a world I never knew existed – a world of comfort and luxury, changing my life forever. I just wasn’t sure whether it had changed for better… or worse.
“What the hell are you doing here, girl?” I muttered. “You’re not supposed to be here. You’re a mom. You don’t get to just take a vacation whenever you feel like it.”
Speaking aloud seemed to help crystallize in my mind the decision I needed to take. The sound of the words echoing off the bathroom walls, punctuated by the tinkling ripples of water moving in the gigantic enamel bath tub, rammed it home.
No matter how delightful stretching out in a tub the size of a small swimming pool really was –
No matter that the bathroom fittings were gold-plated, nor that for the first time in months I didn’t have to be stingy with the hot water, for fear of not being able to pay the gas bill –
No matter that the bath robe hanging on the back of the door was made of Egyptian cotton, so soft I felt my nipples might slice straight through it –
No. None of that mattered because for the first time in years, I felt wanted again.
Don’t get used to it, I warned myself. He’s dangerous. You’re supposed to be escaping danger, not running straight back into harm’s way.
No, my mind was made up. I had to tell Val that whatever he wanted with me, from me, to do to me – it wasn’t going to happen. I shivered.
“But one night,” I whispered. “How much could it hurt?”
I relaxed into the bath tub, groaning as each muscle in my body unwound, as my back started to mold itself to the tub’s gentle, sloping curves, as the stress and pain of the last two years melted away. I didn’t mean sleeping with him. Hell, I’d done that before, and that beautiful repercussion was mine till she turned eighteen…
No, I just wanted to sleep in a bed made for two.
I wanted to know what luxury was, even if the memory of what I didn’t have would haunt me for the rest of my life. The hotel suite Val had me taken, in a chauffeur driven black Mercedes by a stout man who didn’t say a word, cost more for a night than I made in months. I would have protested, but the truth was, at that moment I was suffering from shock.
Just have one last night.
I reached for the hotel’s complimentary iPad. I’d always wanted one, but when you’ve got a choice between feeding your baby and playing some stupid game, it’s a decision that never exists.
An unworthy thought crossed my mind. Maybe, here, iPads were like slippers. Would they even notice if I took it?
It might have been how I was raised, but it wasn’t who I wanted to be. I blinked and the thought was gone. Instead, I called up the video calling app, punched in a number I knew by heart, one that I had called a hundred times, a thousand – and always at my lowest, darkest moments.
A worried, strained face appeared on screen; my oldest friend, the one person in my life who never gave up on me. She spoke a million miles a minute, the words tumbling from her lips like water out the Hoover Dam.
“Cara? Cara, are you okay? Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for –.” She paused, her tense frown disappearing. Then it redoubled, as her face screwed up with confusion. “Cara, where are you?”
How to answer that question? “Hey, Lex.” I said, playing for time, and surprised at how exhausted I sounded. “How’s Kitty?”
“Kitty?” Lexie replied, confusion rippling across her face. “Kitty’s fine. She’s with my two next door, and you know what Poppy’s like. She might only be five, but she’s got the head of a girl ten times her age on her shoulders. She hasn’t let Kitty out of her sight since you dropped her off. But Cara, what the hell’s going –“
I cut her off – again. I felt bad, but like I said, Lex had known me from the start. She’d understand – and besides, she was the type who didn’t stop for breath.
“Is it okay if I ask you to look after her tonight? Just one night, I promise.”
“Of course you can, anytime. You know that. You’ve looked after my little terrors a hundred times, haven’t you? But, Cara…” She sighed, perhaps sensing she wasn’t going to get anywhere. “Just tell me you’re safe?”
I tilted the tablet’s camera around the room, a grin curling the corners of my mouth. I felt kind of bad that I was the one about to climb into a four poster bed when Lex was every bit as deserving, perhaps more. But I knew she wouldn’t mind. She wasn’t like that; I knew if our roles were reversed, neither would I. “Does this look like a girl who’s in trouble?”
As the view changed, and opened up from just my ever-so-smug, glistening face and wet, slicked-back hair to take in the rest of the opulent bathroom, Lexie’s mouth fell open.
“You know what,” she sighed. “Whatever you’re up to, have fun for the both of us, okay? Because girl – if I need it, I know you do.”
In the background, a howl of pain interrupted us, crackling through the tablet’s tinny speakers.
“Everything – ” I began.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Lexie grimaced. “Maisie tipped herself over again. That girl, I tell you. Listen, I gotta go.”
She killed the feed before I got a chance to respond. A pang of hurt flashed through me. I’d hoped to speak to Kitty, at least just to tell her I loved her before she went to bed. I started to doubt myself. I’d barely spent a night apart from her in two years, was this any time to start?
“Don’t be so silly,” I murmured, trying to ignore the prickling feeling of tears forming in my eyes. “She won’t even know you’re gone.”
If anything, that realization hurt more. Like any parent, I guess, I oscillated between a constant terror that my baby was growing
up too fast, and the eternal disappointment that she wasn’t growing up fast enough…
Lexie’s right, I thought, chewing my lip with a rueful gusto as I contemplated the morbid rollercoaster my thoughts had hitched a ride on. This isn’t healthy. You really do need to get out more.
I pulled myself together, forcing the aching reminder of separation down into the depths of my brain. Someplace where it couldn’t bite me, scratch my self-confidence, or whisper that I was failing as a mother, because that wasn’t true. Even supermom gets a night off every once in a while, and this was mine.
“I think, little lady,” I declared to the steam-filled room at large. “That it’s time to check out that minibar;” And to stop talking to yourself, you crazy woman.
I leaned forward, awakening muscles that barely remembered their jobs. I hoisted myself out of the bath, eyes naturally glancing up to check out my reflection. Condensation had formed on the mirrors that once gleamed on every wall, hiding my image and turning it into a shapeless, formless wraith. I grimaced.
It wasn’t the body I remembered, before Kitty. A few more curves here, and the odd stretch mark there. Still, it was mine, and I was proud of it. Besides, how much time does a single mom working two jobs have to work on her ass?
Not much.
I swathed myself in the cotton bath robe, not bothering to towel myself down. The luxurious cloth enveloped every inch of me, brushing delightfully against skin that radiated heat. It wrapped me up like a giant enchilada, and I couldn’t have been happier. Every last ounce of tension had drained out of my body.
So, I’ll drink a couple of rum and cokes, I thought, and watch some pay per view; then to bed by ten? Perfect.
I grabbed a small bottle of jasmine-scented hand cream and began to open as I walked back into the suite proper. I tipped a little of the velvety liquid into my palms and started massaging it in, entirely absorbed in the little slice of luxury.
“You look,” a deep, throaty voice began, in a tone that was barely more than a whisper. “Unbelievable.”
I dropped the little bottle, and as it hit the floor, the yellowy cream inside exploded out and splattered across the thick carpet. I cringed, barely able to bring myself to look up. I knew whose voice it was, of course, I had strained to remember it for years. But a wave of terror exploded within me nonetheless.
It was the awful, inevitable consequence of a life lived in terror, where there was no such thing as a nice surprise – only ones that left bruises. I knew he wasn’t like that, but I couldn’t help it.
Valentino raised his hands in apology. His tattered suit jacket was gone, and a new white shirt hung pristinely off shoulders outlined by the crisp material, sleeves neatly rolled up above a bandaged right arm.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. I called up here from the front desk, but…” He waved his hands, a look of embarrassment creeping across his face. There was something else, too: a hunger in his eyes as he drank in my body; the slightest flaring of his nostrils; a reddish heat on his cheeks. Or maybe I was imagining it.
I fell to my knees, driven by a need to do something, to fix things – but most of all to hide from his gaze. It opened me up, exposed my every curve and edge, rammed home the disparity between us so keenly – him with his neatly pressed suits, and me…
Well, still the same sad little girl I was when he disappeared, still living my painful, parochial life.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, mopping the mess up with a thick handful of white towel cloth grabbed from the bottom of my bath robe. “I didn’t mean to –“
“Cara –“
“I’ll pay –“
“Cara!” Val said, and this time my name came out in a strangled shout. He closed the distance between us and pulled me up to him, lifting me as though I was a bag of feathers, not a woman with baby weight and the heaviness of a lifetime of cares pressing down on her shoulders.
“Be still, okay? You spilled, what – cream? Who cares?”
With my heart pounding at a hundred beats per minute, the heat from the bath joining with the warmth built by embarrassment and fear, and my cheeks radiating a brilliant, burning red, I barely heard the words coming out of his mouth. I felt small and hurt, shrinking in on myself like a fearful child, not a grown woman.
“Cara…” Val murmured, his voice breaking with pity. He pulled me into his broad, warm chest, and my wet hair darkened his fresh white shirt. I tried to pull my head away, tried to blurt out an apologetic warning, but my tongue was tied.
Besides, Val didn’t let me, anyway. He grabbed my head softly with one of his huge, powerful hands and cradled it like he was holding an egg. His palm brushed against my cheek, and his other arm swaddled my body like a baby’s blanket. The embrace was warm, and protective, and I never wanted him to let go.
“You know what I did the first time I got a room in this place?” He whispered into my ear, in a sweet, caring tone.
My tongue remained locked in a catatonic agony of concrete; all I could do was shake my head, blinking back angry, sorrowful tears.
“I’ll tell you.” Val murmured. He snaked his palm from my cheek to my shoulder, and then down the outside of my arm until he grasped my hand in his.
He lifted my arm away from his torso, and as it broke free I felt a sense of emptiness. He didn’t give me a chance to dwell on it, manipulating my arm so that it was an extension of his own. He pointed at the bed.
“See that?” He traced all four posters with my arm, and his, lingering on the luxurious, heavy gold-accented red upholstery.
I nodded, desperately resisting the urge to clear my nose.
“The first time I stayed here, I accidentally set fire to that bed,” he chuckled. Deep, ticklish vibrations echoed from his thick, white chest and bounced right into mine. “I fell asleep with a cigarette in my hand, and when I woke the whole suite was filled with smoke. And you know what?”
I sniffed and buried my head into his shoulder, hiding from his caring gaze. He waited, and waited, and finally I steeled myself to reply. “What?”
“They still let me stay here. They didn’t care. Well, that’s not entirely true.”
“It’s not?” I sniffed – again. The clenching, closed-off feeling began to melt away in my throat.
“No.” Val grinned, pulling himself back and away from me slightly so that I could see the wide grin stretched across his lightly stubbled face. “They made me pay. But what good is ‘fuck you’ money if you never get to say, you know – fuck you.”
I felt lightheaded, drunk from the heat of the bath, the emotion that had ripped through me with all the suddenness of a tropical storm, and most of all, Val’s proximity. It was everything I had dreamed of, strained behind closed eyelids every night to remember, and he was so close.
He smelt the same – clean and sharp, but he had a man’s frame now and the black dusting of age on his chin. A wave of desire overcame me, and my knees might have sagged underneath me, perhaps even given way without Val’s firm hold on my body.
“I guess you’re right…” I whispered, my voice sounding tame even to me. I couldn’t tear my mind away from how much a short couple of years had changed him – and how little I had to show for it, other than ten more pounds on my hips and a half dozen lines on my brow.
“No, I know so,” Val said, spinning away gleefully. “Now, if you can forgive me for scaring the living daylights out of you…?”
Forgive him? I should be the one begging to apologize.
“Of course,” I stammered. “I –“
“Good,” he said, cutting across me and pulling a glistening bottle of unopened champagne from a silver bucket of ice, hidden from sight by the back of the couch. Rivulets of freezing-cold water dripped down the side, and he mopped them away with a thick white napkin pulled from the top of the bucket. He busied himself opening it, and a muffled pop danced across the room as he let out the cork.
I watched the scene like a bystander at a car crash. I knew that I n
eeded to put a stop to it. I had two choices – tell him the truth now, or else beg his leave, and never look back. Instead, I took the coward’s way out. I didn’t say a word. He handed me a flute of champagne, tiny bubbles of foam still subsiding, and the cold glass burned against my devious fingers.
Val raised his glass, and his eyes lit up as they fell upon me. “Here’s to second chances.”
I choked. “Yes, to second chances.”
4
Val
Letting Cara out of my sight hurt, even if it was just to let her change. But it was worth it. She looked like a million dollars; ten million. Hell, you couldn’t put a price on legs like that.
And that was just the legs. You throw the rest of the package in, you’re talking billions. I couldn’t afford to buy her. No man could. And just tonight, I was allowing myself to believe that she was mine. I wanted her – tonight.
Just thinking of it was a welcome break from the last few months; hell, the last couple of years.
“Jesus, Cara,” I whispered. I’d picked the black cocktail dress because it was the most expensive damn thing in the store – and I paid for it without even looking at the price because a girl like Cara deserves nothing but the best. I’ve been rich, and I’ve lost it all, and made it back a dozen times over.
The realization that none of that meant a damn thing without someone to spend it on hit me like a sledgehammer. The sheer, guttural power of the thought rocked me backwards.
For months, I’d spent my time ruthlessly amassing money, and power, and respect – but what did any of that mean without one fundamental thing to tie it all together? I’d been living a shadow life, like building a house without nails, a brick wall without mortar. It didn’t take more than a backward glance at Cara’s undeniable, radiant beauty to know that she was the last piece of the puzzle.