“What?”
Now it’s my turn to snort. “Read a fucking history book, man. They look it, all dressed up and sent into the arena for battle. But the stage was set by those in the shadows. Those with the real power. The fights were rigged.”
“You’re fucking kidding me. Like professional wrestling?”
Laughter thunders out of me. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Got it. No gladiators. Arena masters?”
“Nah.” I peel the label off my drink and watch the bubbles bounce against the inside of the plastic. “We gotta think bigger than that. Go back a step. Trojan horse type of thing, maybe.”
“Now you’re talking in riddles.”
“Yeah.” I rock my jaw from side to side. There’s something there, in the back of my mind, but I can’t grab onto it. Not yet. But it’ll come to me. I close my eyes. “Wake me up when we get to New York.”
— —
“What are you doing here?”
I give Clara Forrester my most charming smile as she glowers at me from the door of her Hell’s Kitchen artist loft. It doesn’t work. I look at Tag, and he tips his head to the side.
She opens the door.
He laughs at me as he steps past. Pretty motherfucker. Oversized bear is what he is, and all the girls eat him up.
I roll my eyes as I follow him inside.
“You can’t go on this trip,” he says gently, pointing to her suitcases piled in front of a bookcase near the door.
“Of course I can.” She crosses her arms in front of her, wrapping her floor-length sweater coat thing tighter around her small frame.
We first met this woman before I went to Miami. She’d agreed to fly down there after I talked to the Feds, but of course that plan went to hell in a hand basket after Lively was arrested for Hailey’s kidnapping.
From the pained look on her face, that’s where her mind has gone. “I agreed to speak to the investigators when it was all in the past. But they came to see me this morning. They told me what happened and why he’s been arrested now. I can’t…” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I need to distance myself from that danger.”
I clench my jaw to keep from asking her if she’s stupid. “Lively will eventually find out you’ve spoken to the investigators.”
Fear flashes in her eyes. “And I have you to thank for that.”
I keep my voice soft and speak slowly as I try to erase her false sense of security. “If we could find you, someone else would have—eventually.”
“But nobody else did. Until you showed up, that was just a gross part of my past. Now it’s my terrifying present. I’m not okay with that.”
“That was luck.”
“Well, my luck was pretty damn good until you showed up in my studio. You don’t understand. This is my life we’re talking about.”
“I do understand. The reason Lively was arrested? The raid they told you about? He kidnapped my girlfriend. This is my life, too. This is personal for me.”
Over her shoulder, I see Tag giving me a warning look, but I don’t care.
“You would be Jane Doe 2,” I explain, more urgently now. She can’t walk away. Hailey’s kidnapping is just one single set of charges. Clara’s the witness that blows the entire case wide open. “It wouldn’t just rest on your shoulders. Hailey—that’s my girlfriend—she’s going to testify, too. But together, your testimonies will reinforce each other’s.”
“There have to be others. Let them come forward,” she whispers.
There are others. The singer Tabitha Leighton was a dead end—Wilson and Jason came back from California empty handed—but the FBI has a list and Wilson has another one. None of those women spent as long with Lively as Forrester did, however. None of them saw the inner workings of his organization.
“You’re a silver bullet,” I say, but words aren’t landing. I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from throttling her.
“You can do this.” Tag says, moving forward. I step back and watch as he crouches in front of her. He takes her hand with his big, thick fingers and she bows her head like he’s broken her with those four simple words.
“I don’t think I can.”
“If you go to Europe, he will have you killed.” His words are blunt, but effective. She starts to cry and he leans in, letting her collapse on his shoulder. “You’ll put him away for life. And then you’ll get yours back. And we’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Bull in a china shop, getting shit done.
No matter what the cost.
—eight—
Hailey
Cole sends a text message during dinner, saying he wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. I spent the entire day running errands, and now I’m at a French bistro with my younger sister, Alison.
“I can’t believe you’ve got bodyguards,” she says, staring pointedly at Scott, who’s sitting at the next table. He gives her a thousand-yard stare and she rolls her eyes.
“Hey, don’t be rude.” I kick her under the table. The attitude is totally unlike her, but I get it. There’s something about these oversized men that bring out the bitch in us, like we want to see how far we can push them—and what they might do when we’ve gone too far.
Oh, shit.
My face heats up as I flick my gaze over to Scott, then back to Alison. My baby sister.
No.
She gives me a look of complete innocence.
Which just means that I’m one hundred percent on the right track.
“Bad idea,” I hiss under my breath.
“Eat your dinner,” she says, her lips turning up in a secret smile.
Oh God. My sister wants to be spanked by my bodyguard. This is unacceptable.
Like I said, I totally get it.
“How’s school going?” I say, a little louder than necessary. It would be pointless for me to tell Alison she can’t crush on the guy with the gun, but I can underline in six different ways to him that she’s off-limits. “Adjusting to university okay?”
She rolls her eyes. “Subtle.”
I stick my tongue out at her. It wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t a challenge.
“Actually, I have a meeting with an advisor for my senior thesis,” she says, emphasizing the last two words. Out the corner of my eye, I see Scott smirk.
“Which won’t be until the year after next, right?” I take a sip of my wine, which I can drink and she cannot, because she’s only nineteen.
“Nope, I’m on an accelerated program, so I’ll start it at Christmas. Your baby sister is all grown up now.” She smiles sweetly and shifts on her chair. I can feel her crossing her legs under the table, and I don’t have to glance sideways again to know that Scott’s looking at her miniskirt sliding up her thighs.
Men.
“Blink and you miss it.” I mutter under my breath. I was going to ask her if she wanted to sleep over at my place tonight, but with Scott downstairs, that’s a terrible idea. By the morning she’d probably have baked muffins and wheedled her way into the apartment downstairs on the pretense of kindness. She’d ask to see his security equipment and next thing I’ll know, I’ll be an auntie to tiny wrestler-shaped babies.
But I don’t want to go home alone, either. Low-level anxiety twists in my gut at the thought of sleeping alone.
Like she can read my mind—at least the worried part—my sister sets down her water glass and nibbles on her lower lip. “So you’re on your own tonight? Do you want to come back to the estate?”
“Nope.” That’s an easy answer. The harder one is how I’ll get to sleep.
“Dad’s not there…” He’s gone to London—I already know that from my brother. Apparently he’s planning on staying out of the States for a while—and the motivation behind his extended business trip makes my stomach turn.
I sigh. “I don’t want to deal with our mother, either.”
She shrugs. “Okay.” Her phone vibrates on the table and she grabs it, reading a message on the screen. She scrunche
s up her face as she looks up at me. “Will you hate me if I bail after we finish eating? Some people are pulling together a study session tonight for my Critical Methods class…”
As much as I don’t want to be alone, I want my sister to go be a university student more. The biggest worry in her head should be acing her exams. “Definitely do that. I’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t look like she believes me, and she’s torn. I don’t want her to have to carry the burden of my issues—especially because they’re in my head. I have bodyguards, for goodness sake.
“Really. Go. Be super smart and make me proud.” I smile, then take a sip of wine to cover the tremor that threatens at the corner of my mouth.
The anxiety gets worse as I stand outside my apartment, waiting for Scott to do a visual sweep. When he steps back out and waves me in, my heart is hammering so hard in my chest I don’t know how he can’t hear it.
Even though I’m under guard, I don’t feel safe. I feel like a sitting duck, which only makes that ugly feeling in my gut bigger—naming it as ridiculous doesn’t help.
Taking a shower doesn’t help. Putting on a t-shirt Cole had left on my bed doesn’t either, not even when I text him, because I can’t tell him why I’m reaching out.
H: You busy?
C: Little bit, but I can take a minute. What’s up?
H: Nothing. Never mind.
C: Hey…I’m thinking about you, remember that. How you taste and feel.
I don’t send him another message. What I want to say, Come home and hold me, sounds needy even inside my head. And he’s busy.
By the time I’m standing in front of my dresser, looking for something else to sleep in, my skin is crawling. Instead of sleep shorts, I pull open my pants drawer. I reach for yoga pants, but when they’re in my hand, I just set them aside and grab the stretchy jeans underneath.
Then I strip off Cole’s shirt and put on a bra and a long sleeved t-shirt.
I’m not kidding myself anymore.
I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I need to get out of here.
In a flash, I remember Cole giving me his key. No matter what…
In the weeks that have passed, I’ve scouted out his place, even though I’ve never been inside it. I’ve preferred to bring Cole into my world, keep as much normal around me as possible.
So it’s a big deal that I want to go there now.
I can’t go downstairs and knock on the door and ask Scott to take me over. He’ll check with Cole, who’ll flip out. He doesn’t get what it’s like inside my head, all these feelings and worries that aren’t grounded in real threats.
And then wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, he’ll drop it all to come to me.
Nope. I can’t do that.
So I slip out the fire escape door. The metal staircase goes all the way to the ground floor, so it’s not nearly as exciting as it looks in the movies, which I’m totally fine with. I need to be somewhere else. I don’t need to do something stupid at the same time.
I dart through the alley and head for the Metro. Five stops away on the Red Line is an entire space filled with his smell and his stuff, that I can touch and breathe in and wrap myself in until he gets back. I don’t care about keeping my sense of Hailey anymore, about sticking to my normal world. That blew up a week ago. Now I just need Cole.
I turn his key over and over between my fingers once I’m seated on the train. Ever since that first night he slept over, I’ve kept this on my keychain.
Even when I hated him, I trusted him.
Even when I thought he’d used me, I kept this small piece of metal as a talisman of hope.
And for that brief week of normalcy, I thought about giving it back a dozen times. There’s an order to normal relationships and it doesn’t start with having a key to your boyfriend’s apartment before you’ve ever been inside it.
That’s a step that we haven’t taken yet—he’d offered for me to stay there when we came back, but just the first night, and hasn’t offered again since.
Well, having a panic attack at the thought of being home alone probably counts as a good exception to the normal rules of dating.
I should have just told Scott I wanted to come here. He’ll probably notice at some point and Cole will be upset. I pull out my phone to call, then put it away. I’ll call him once I get to his place so he doesn’t worry.
I get out at Dupont Circle and move quickly through the evening crowd, thinking of what I’ll say to the doorman if Cole hasn’t put my name on the access list—but in my heart I know he has.
I’m on high-alert, constantly scanning around me, a running commentary going in my head of the people around me. Couple on a date. Guy going to the gym. Guy coming from the gym, and checking out the first guy. Same bag, branded with the twenty-four gym around the corner. Maybe that’ll work out for them.
As I walk the final block to Cole’s place, my skin tingles with the awareness that I’m on my own. Relatively defenseless and maybe still a target.
But I won’t let that stop me from living my life.
As if to underline the point that I’m relatively anonymous, just a girl hustling down the street, a woman walks past me, too closely, and slams her shoulder into mine, spinning me around. My heart slams against my chest, thumping a mile a minute as I scramble to the side of the building, waiting for the next attack which doesn’t come.
Nope, just the standard pedestrian rudeness.
Okay, then.
I rub my sweating palms on my jeans, then lift my head just in time to see Cole approaching his building from the other side.
He’s not alone.
I was prepared to be alone tonight. Ready to run the risk of ditching my bodyguard and maybe facing something ugly in the outside world.
I never thought it would be my boyfriend, walking into his apartment building with his ex-girlfriend, their heads close together.
But of course it’s not that simple. Of course he doesn’t just disappear inside and I go running off into the night, because there’s this thing between us. A magnetic connection.
Cole’s head snaps up and he looks around.
I’m right here, I think, frozen to the spot. When he finds me, his entire face darkens and he strides toward me, scanning behind me for my shadow.
“You’re not in New York,” I say as he reaches me and slides his hands up my arms to hold me just below the shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” He rakes his flecked amber gaze over my face, then around me, his jaw flexing as he takes stock of the fact that I’m alone.
“I was…” Coming to cry myself to sleep in your bed seems like a silly answer now. “Nothing.”
“Where’s Scott?”
“I assume still at my place. I went out the fire escape.”
Cursing under his breath, he yanks out his phone and taps a furious text message. Then he slides the other hand over my shoulder and cups the nape of my neck, like he’s going to move me toward the building.
Nope.
I stand my ground as he starts to move, and his arm snaps straight. He doesn’t let go of me, he just turns back and stands there, having a stare-down with me.
“Hailey, come on.” He scowls.
“Look, you’re busy. This was a mistake.” Not because I don’t trust him, but because I don’t want to know what’s going on. He’s clearly in the middle of something—and for my own sanity, I’m not going to think for a second that it’s personal. “I’ll go back home. Really, it’s fine.”
“Fine is the last fucking thing it is. Scott’s lucky if he doesn’t get fired for not noticing that you dodged out of there, and what the hell were you thinking?”
I swing my hand up between us and swat his arm away from me. He just rolls his eyes and snags my hand, entwining our fingers—which also serves to yank me closer to him. I can feel his heart beating quickly through his dress shirt, and I resist the urge to pet him comfortingly. That might give him the upper hand.
Ha.
Who am I kidding? He always has the upper hand. All I can do is hold on for dear life.
He huffs a frustrated breath and shakes his head, his gaze burning me. “You were kidnapped one week ago. Ditching your guard is not an option.”
“You told me you were out of town and I was just coming here to sleep in your fucking bed,” I spit back at him. “And I got to your building, so obviously it was fine.”
His lips tighten as he searches my face, looking for…I don’t know what. “Come upstairs.”
“No, I don’t want—”
“You said if you could do something to help, you would.”
I frown at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Come upstairs,” he repeats, turning and sliding his arm around my waist. Point, Cole, because while I tense up, I let him propel me toward where Penny Kristoff is standing.
She smiles at me. I manage something that approximates a grimace in return. Ugh. I try again, this time channeling my inner Amelia Dashford Reid. Having a soulless socialite for a mother has some advantages.
Without another word, Cole guides us through the lobby and up the ornate staircase.
We stop on the third floor and walk silently across plush carpeting. The hallway is lushly decorated, with gorgeous wallpaper and expensive light fixtures. His apartment is a corner unit, and it’s surprisingly big. And modern. Cold, sleek furniture decorates the space, an interesting contrast to the traditional lobby and hallway.
Also in the space are Tag Browning and another blonde who looks a lot like Penny. Well, let’s be honest—all thin, beautiful blondes look the same to me. I shove back that little bit of self-loathing and glance at Cole. Is this an orgy? I regret not discussing hard limits before, because if I’m going to have group sex, I don’t think I want any skinny blondes involved. Which probably isn’t fair to them, but I’m feeling kind of fragile.
“What’s going on?”
“Hailey, meet Clara Forrester. She’s an artist from New York who spent some time with Gerome Lively a few years ago. Clara, this is my girlfriend, Hailey. And that’s Penny, the agent I mentioned who will help us.”
Hate F*@k: part three Page 5