“It’s never a good idea to build something up in your mind for a long time—it’s almost always a letdown.”
“Not this time. Even in my imagination, I didn’t think they’d be this good. I’m not lying when I say you have the prettiest pair of tits I’ve ever seen. Perfectly symmetrical with the loveliest shade of pink. I have dreams about them.”
“You were pretty drunk the first time you saw them.”
“Not as drunk as you might think.” He grins and his eyes dance with glee.
My breath hitches in my throat. Was it all an act?
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted you so badly, but there didn’t seem a good way to get there. We’d had this adversarial relationship from the start, and I didn’t know how to change the course. One night while I was out with a couple of friends having a whiskey, I realized that would be one way to get past your guard. So I swallowed the rest of that glass and had another double before I headed home.”
I narrow my eyes. “So you weren’t really drunk?”
“I wasn’t feeling any pain, but no, I wasn’t sloppy drunk.”
“Hmm. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Consider it a compliment. I went to a lot of trouble to think up ways to be with you, Marley. I was attracted to you the second you strode into my office like a queen on a mission.”
A queen on a mission. I rather like that description, though that is not how I felt that day.
I look up into his face and we lock eyes. In his I see something resolute. Is it devotion? Is it faith? Or is it… can it be… love?
He told me he loves me, and now I think I may see proof of it in those crazy light, almost transparent-looking eyes of his.
I continue to study him in all his naked glory. This man is such a work of art that he might as well be chiseled in marble. I think I want to hire a sculptor to create a statue of his manly beauty. I don’t know that Fletcher would go for that, but it seems selfish not to share him with the world.
Then again, he’s mine, all mine, and I never was one for sharing my toys.
After we make love a second time, this time faster and rougher, we lie in our postcoital glow. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so content in all my life as I do right now in my husband’s strong, capable arms. My finger randomly swirls across the skin of his chest. He’s lying on his back, his arm around my shoulders, his eyes closed. Seeing him at such peace makes my eyelids grow heavy, and I surrender and shut my eyes.
Just as I’m drifting off, I hear him speak.
“It’s time, I think.”
My eyes flip open again. I have my head resting on his muscled shoulder, so I roll it back to peek up at him. “Time for what?”
“To tell you my secrets.” He peers down his nose at me. “Don’t you think?”
“I told you mine.”
He inhales deeply, and his right hand begins to play with my long hair.
“Before you start, I should tell you that Saylor told me about the kidnapping incident. Just bare bones, though.”
He pulls his head back to look at my face. “When was that?”
“That time we went to lunch. She thought you would’ve told me during our long courtship before we married.” I giggle.
He sits back again and pulls me tighter to him. Being here in this intimate position with Fletcher—naked and entwined—feels so right but also so alien. I’m so used to us being friendly strangers, living in close quarters but acting like ships passing in the night. I have to keep touching him to reassure myself that now, this thing, is real. That we’re together.
“Hmm, I suppose that makes sense. It was the defining moment of our childhood. So… all right, here goes. We had a nanny.” He frowns. “More like a governess really. She was young and very pretty as I recall. Her name was Zalika. She was from Zimbabwe, but she’d been working in Botswana to earn money for university. She was very sweet and soft-spoken.”
“I know she was killed,” I say quietly.
He nods. “Right. We were kidnapped—she was taken with us. I hatched a plan to escape, and I asked my brother and sister to wait for me. But Bram decided we should all go and jumped down after me. Shattered his leg. I kept going, determined to get help for us. I’ve never told my siblings what I’d learned because I didn’t want to scare them.” His eyes bore into mine. “To this day they don’t know. No one does.”
I bolt upright, sitting with my spine straight as a board. He’s sharing something with me that no one else knows? Shit just got real between us. “What did you learn?”
“They were going to kill us. The kidnappers didn’t know I could understand what they were saying, but I could. They spoke in Swahili, and even our nanny couldn’t understand them, but I had studied the language when we were living in Kenya the year before, so I knew enough to get the gist of what they were saying. They said they’d keep us alive until they got the ransom money, and then they’d kill us and dump our bodies in the city for the police and our parents to find. I knew I had to do something fast.”
“Saylor said she and Bram saw them rape the nanny.”
Nodding, he presses his lips together. “Yeah. I did too.”
“I thought you were already gone by then.”
“No, they had raped her before, right in front of me. They even laughed at the idea of me seeing it. She was sobbing, and they did all sorts of bad things to her. She wasn’t in on it with them and did not deserve to die. Poor Zalika, she had her whole life ahead of her.”
I feel as if someone punched me in the stomach. Oh my God. He was ten years old when he had to endure that. How awful for him, how traumatic.
No wonder Fletcher always needs security around him. He’s deeply scarred by the experience he had as a child. Anyone would be.
“The rest of the story is happy. I made it to the road where I flagged down a car that just so happened to contain a government official. He called the police and my parents. Within minutes they had the roads blocked off. When the police descended on them, the kidnappers had only recently begun to look for me. They’d found Bram and brought him back to the house, broken leg and all. He was in agony, and they didn’t even call a doctor. I guess they couldn’t.
“I’d worried so much in the hours I’d been away that they’d hurt or kill my brother and sister. I think I aged ten years in those hours. I led the police to the spot in the woods where the house was located. I told them where Bram and Saylor were being held—what part of the house, which wasn’t much more than a lean-to on stilts—and they had a man scale the building and climb in through the balcony. He was able to grab both kids and lower them down to a waiting policeman. The whole operation was almost ridiculously easy.
“Their only concern was getting Bram and Saylor out, and once that was accomplished, they were ready to mow down everyone else. Including Zalika, even though I told them she was not involved. They shot her right in front of me. She looked at me a moment before she died.”
He shakes his head.
“I’m s-s…” I can’t get the words out, I’m so choked up. I stop to clear my throat before continuing. “I’m sorry, Fletcher, for what you endured as a little boy. Now I understand your need for security. After what you went through…”
He pulls me to him again, holding me there tightly. I suppose telling the story dredged up some nasty feelings in him. I wrap my arms around his trim waist and kiss his chin. “You’re okay, you’re fine. We never have to speak of this again.”
He presses his lips together and nods, his face devoid of emotion. Poker face. He sure knows how to hide his emotions.
“Now you know all. It seems there’s more of your story to tell me. Let’s get it out and over with now.”
49
Fletcher Creed
Marley does not look happy about sharing details of her sordid story with me. But I have to know. If I leave things to my imagination, it will be worse, I’m sure, than the truth. Plus, if I’d known about the public hu
miliation that Holland put her through before, I would never have given her a spanking in front of my men.
I caress her hair, giving her time to begin, and when she doesn’t, I lightly tug on it. “Come on. Spill your guts.”
“I mean, you know the story. He got me right from the train station and managed to get past my guard. I was very cautious and suspicious at first, but he was convincing, and he stayed in character for weeks. I think I was with him for almost a month when he started his shit. I couldn’t believe it at first.
“It started with rough sex.” She rubs her eyes with her fists, and I can’t tell if she’s crying or just rubbing her eyes. When she stops I look down, but her eyes just look a little red. “He took me home early one day, told me I owed him, slapped my face so hard my brain bounced. Later, he made me put on a dirty outfit and got savage during sex. That very day I started planning my escape.
“Then about a week later, I was at work—at his company—when he came over to me and told me to go home and get ready for the party he was having that evening. He said my outfit for the night was on the bed. He was really brusque and cold with me, and I started getting a bad feeling about this party. When I saw a douche and enema were on my to-do list, I knew I was dead. Keep in mind that I was guarded 24/7.
When I got to his house—where I was living—I saw the outfit he’d laid out for me was almost obscene. It was a bustier with a latex skirt that was the size of a rubber band. There was a note instructing me to wear the thigh-high stockings and no panties.
“Wearing that so-called skirt with no underwear… well, I might as well have been naked. I put on the clothes while praying he’d be home before any guests arrived, so I could reason with him. That didn’t happen. He called ahead to tell me when he’d be home. He said a friend of his would be getting there first and that I should entertain him.
“‘And Sasha,’ he said, ‘he’s a good friend. Make him happy.’” She looks up at me. “Sasha was the name I gave him instead of my own.”
I watch her throat bob as she swallows, and her eyes squeeze shut. My instinct tells me not to force her to keep going, but I need to know this story for several reasons. I know it hurts her, but telling me will also free her from the shame of it. I hope anyway.
“Go on, my sweet. I’m here for you.”
She buries her face in the space between my arm and chest. Just when I think she’s too upset to finish, her head pops up, and she sighs. “The whole point in sending his friend first was so his friend could fuck me, obviously. When I protested, the friend called Rico and put me on the phone with him. Rico sounded more furious than I’d ever heard him, and he told me to do as Victor wanted me to do, or he would make me very sorry when he got home.
“So… I did it. He hurt me with anal sex, hit me with his belt. I would not allow him to tie me up, and he was fast to tell Rico that when he got home. The two of them held me down to strap me to the bed and then took turns beating me with their belts. To add insult to injury, the bastard put me on display for his sick party, telling his guests that this is what a naughty girlfriend looks like. It was the most humiliating thing to be naked and beaten while everyone was dressed up and having just a great old time. It was mostly men, but there were a few women there. No one helped me.
“The next day I couldn’t go to work—I couldn’t move I was so welted up. Nothing ever hurt as much as that. My escape was already in the works, but I moved up the timeline after that night.
“That wasn’t the last time he did something like that. He did it again a few nights later when he invited some friends over for dinner. He got some serious kicks out of humiliating me and watching me have sex with his friends and acquaintances. They didn’t seem to mind that I was unwilling. They were just fine with it.”
“What a lowdown piece of shit. I want to kill him. I think I will.”
“No. What are you talking about? You can’t do that. I’m free of him. No, we’re free of him. The best revenge is living well, right? So that’s what we’ll do.”
I smile at her pluck. She is an amazing woman, and I’m so incredibly lucky to have found her. I’m still going to kill Holland, but I won’t tell her that. Truth is, I may not have to if he goes to prison. Maybe someone else will do it for me, though for his crimes, they’ll probably send him to a cushy minimum-security place. Then I’ll make plans. But till then? I’ll just enjoy my wife and my life.
“Okay. What do you say that I take you out for a fabulous dinner?”
“Yes, that sounds wonderful. I’m starving.”
“We’ll take the Jag and have ourselves some fun.” I slap her thigh a little harder than I intended to. “Get dressed. I’m taking my gorgeous wife out tonight. Wear that silver dress—you look freaking edible in it.”
She giggles when I say that, and the sound is a balm to my frayed nerves. After telling her my story—and in a sense having to relive it—and then hearing hers, I was not feeling too great. But now, making plans for dinner and hearing her girlish laughter, it’s like an elixir that brings me nothing but delight. And in an instant, I’m feeling good again.
Fletcher Creed
Epilogue
Four months later
I stroll into the restaurant, walking past crowds waiting for a table. Morocco X is the hottest new eatery in Chicago, and I’ve heard it’s impossible to get a reservation. Definitely one of the times when I appreciate having the last name of Creed. Thanks to years of hard work and almost definitely some serious cheating of my great-grandfather and then Grandpa after him, our name is golden in this city.
An attractive young woman stands just inside the entrance to greet diners. “Mr. Creed, hello and welcome. Your party has yet to arrive, sir.”
I glance at my watch. “I’m a bit early. Shall I have a drink at the bar?”
The young woman smiles, and her hand trembles slightly as she gestures to the dining room. Is she nervous? “If you prefer, but I can seat you now if you like.”
“That would be great, thanks.” I flash her my patented winning-business-deal smile, trying to put her at ease. Long ago I realized that I put lots of people off their game—by now I’m used to it though in the past I found it unsettling.
I follow her to a table set privately in a bay window in the corner of the dining room—in other words, pretty much the best table in the house. When I take my seat, the hostess smiles at me, her scarlet lipstick gleaming in the lamplight. “I’ll send a waiter right over to take your drink order, sir, and of course, your dining companion when she arrives.”
“Thank you.”
I take the time alone to scan the interior. It’s odd because it’s done up like a Moroccan caravan, yet the menu is entirely French. I pick up the wine list to study their offerings. Since this dinner is business-related, wine is all the alcohol I’ll indulge in. The situation does feel somewhat strange—a business lunch with strangers is one thing, but a dinner with a female I’ve never met feels too intimate. My wife, however, insisted I meet with this woman, Jonna Hostedt. Marley said the woman had important information for me but wouldn’t give me any other details. That in itself is strange.
The waiter sweeps over with a flourish to take my drink order. I decide to order a bottle since the one I want isn’t served by the glass. In less than five minutes, the sommelier is tableside, uncorking the wine and allowing me to taste it. I give it a minute to breathe, inhale the notes, and then taste it.
Perfect. I nod my head in assent. I have time to take exactly two sips of the wine before I glance up to see a woman enter the dining room and immediately turn heads.
Whoa.
She is distinctive-looking, and I have to wonder if she’s my dinner companion. All Marley told me is that Ms. Hostedt is noticeable. The woman walking purposefully into the room is definitely that. I see the hostess speak to her, look my way, and then begin to lead the woman over.
So yes, it is.
I do a quick assessment. She has short black hair cut asymmetri
cally with a long lock hanging dramatically over one eye. She is long and lean and has an outfit on that would look comfortable on a fashion runway with its complicated design and multiple layers of different fabrics. When she lowers her glasses, I can see that she’s wearing dark eye makeup, and her lips are painted a deep red hue. From her ears dangle earrings encrusted with precious stones. I would guess her height at about 5 feet, 11 inches, but as she approaches, I can see she’s wearing stiletto heels, and I notice she has a tattoo of a dragon on her ankle. Maybe she’s the girl with the dragon tattoo? I smile as I rise to my feet to greet her.
“Ms. Hostedt, I presume?”
Her deep voice startles me at first. “Yes, Mr. Creed. Thank you for meeting with me.”
“Please, have a seat.”
Once she is seated and the hostess departs, I give her a small smile. “May I offer you a glass of wine? It’s a good vintage. A nice cabernet.”
“Thank you, I would like that.”
While she has a heavy European accent, there’s something about the lilt to her voice that catches my attention, and my eyes dart back to her face as I’m pouring the wine. She’s wearing a pair of tinted glasses but I can see her eyes behind them. Very familiar. Is it Marley playing a trick on me? My wife was a professional master of disguise, after all.
“Forgive me if I’m being rude, it is not my intention, but do you require the glasses, or are they a fashion statement?”
“Everything I wear is necessary.”
Necessary? Maybe so. Laughing softly, I wait for her to pick up her glass to try the wine. Hands are always a giveaway, which is why during my one and only attempt at disguise, I wore gloves. Unfortunately, Ms. Hostedt does not go for the wine. Her hands remain below the table.
Faker: A Fake Relationship Romance Page 33