Empowered

by Cynthia Dane

  How unfair was this? Here she was, ready to party and move on from some asshole who had consistently lied to her – and dared to pry into some of the most personal matters a woman carried in her heart. Angel was here to let go on Sarah’s behalf. To release the pent-up frustrations consuming her ever since Lucas walked into her life. Why did I ever sleep with him? I should have left well-enough alone the last time I was here. Sarah folded her arms on the bar and buried her face in their depths. Her wig was more than happy to choke her.

  She needed it.

  “Excuse me, Miss. Care to have another drink, this time with me?”

  The man was young and unfamiliar. Well, maybe Sarah had seen him around before, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember him. He had the face of an intern, but to be here by himself, he must have been an heir or new, rich blood of means. Either way, he couldn’t have been much younger than Sarah. While such men may lack in certain finesse, they made up for it in all-night stamina.

  God, who cared anymore? This night was shot enough as it was. Sarah better cling to whatever she could get. As long as the guy was hot and a decent enough flirt, she was ready.

  “Sure,” she said with a quick flip of the hair. Time to turn the charm back on and stop feeling sorry for herself. If she blew this like a quick-tempered hurricane, she’d regret it. “I’m having a martini.”

  “So I see.” The man nodded to the bartender and ordered Sarah another martini. For himself, he asked for a whisky highball, no wedge. The drinks were there moments before Sarah batted her eyelashes and cranked up her fervent seduction.

  “What brings you here, stranger?” Her shoulder grazed against his. “It’s been a slow night around here. About time the wind blew someone in.”

  “Honestly?” the man grinned over the rim of his glass. “I’m looking for a good time.”

  “As it so happens, so am I.”

  Finally. Sarah was starting to wonder if she lost her touch when it came to getting men into bed. Or into a private room. Whichever. She’d do this guy in the back of a cab if it sealed the deal for the weekend.

  She fully intended to walk into the office Monday morning, look into Lucas’s lying eyes, and comment flippantly on her activities that weekend. The least she could do was make him jealous before stepping on his balls to drive home the point that they were never, ever going to be a “thing” again. (Not that they were much of one to begin with, mind!)

  Oh, Sarah had so many intentions. So did this guy, who clearly arrived too late to receive the same message everyone else in the club had when it came to Sarah making the rounds. Because once she glanced in his direction again, intent on turning up the seduction a few more notches to make this happen as quickly as possible, a firm hand slammed down between them.

  Sarah leaped back, almost landing on the empty stool behind her. Her prince of the evening likewise widened his eyes and gaped up at the large, overbearing man interrupting their tryst at the club bar.

  The thing Sarah hated the most? How her heart fluttered when she recognized Lucas’s aura before his face.

  “You have no idea what you’re getting into here, kid,” Lucas said, never once taking his blue eyes off Sarah’s shocked face. “This woman is nothing but trouble.”

  “Um…”

  Lucas barely glanced at the younger man before moving to sit on him. The guy took the hint. Within two more seconds, Sarah’s would-be prince scrambled off the stool and took his chances elsewhere.

  Sarah wanted to say something. Anything. Yell at him. Scream in his face. Tell him to mind his own fucking business for once in his God thrice-damned life. But she was too busy making sense of the evening to immediately lash out at him. Ah, yes, there was his bodyguard now, hovering a few paces behind them, keeping watch over the increasingly drunk patrons. He didn’t… he did, didn’t he? Sarah didn’t have to ask what was going on to realize Lucas had sent word for nobody to mess with his woman. That’s why everyone was willing to talk to her until they recognized her. “That’s Blackbourne’s girl,” the room practically screamed. “Touch her and he’ll kick your ass. You don’t mess with another man’s woman, no matter how much she makes you think she wants you. Maybe she does, man, but you don’t fucking dare.”

  So she did have a sign hanging over her head. A sign that said “Property of Lucas Blackbourne. Fuck only if you want to lose your life.”

  Sarah swallowed the rage building in her throat. “The fuck are you doing here?”

  He leaned against the counter, his bespoke suit fitting so well on his broad body that Sarah would become enthralled if she didn’t watch herself. Remember, we hate this guy. Easy enough to think when the man wasn’t in the room with her. But when Lucas Blackbourne put up that protective shield around them, the only thing Sarah could think about was how much she wanted to curl up in his arms and listen to his heart beat in his strong chest.

  No. He was a liar. A cheater. The type of man she wanted to stay far away from outside of one-night stands she refused to regret.

  “I should ask you the same thing.” His voice was obnoxiously soft. It was the kind of tone Nigel would take with her, not the voice of a man who wanted to bang her brains out. “What are you doing, Sarah?”

  “None of your damn business. Leave me the hell alone.”

  The bartender approached to ask if Lucas wanted something to drink. He shook his head so curtly that the woman had no choice but to retreat to the other side of the bar for the remainder of the private conversation. “I’m in town because of you. I heard you were heading up this way and knew you were coming here to make mistakes.”

  “So what if I am?” Sarah snapped. “I’m not yours. I do as I please.”

  “You sure do, Angel.”

  He was fucking with her, wasn’t he? He would. He recognized Sarah in her Angel persona. Knew what it meant, what she intended. She was dressed to kill and looking for hot sex. Not with him, no. He didn’t get this anymore. He lost the privilege of hooking up with Sarah or Angel when he tried to get into her head instead of her body. I can’t forget him standing there, practically naked, saying he was sorry. What kind of narcissist pulled that bullshit? A man named Lucas Blackbourne, that was who.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Would you rather I call you Sarah in a place like this?”

  ‘No. Don’t call me anything.”

  “I have to call you something. You don’t seem like the kind of woman who wants to be called baby.”

  “Rather stick a knife in my ear.” Sarah secured her wallet in her coat pocket and attempted to slip away. A stiff hand covertly grabbed her arm and held her in place.

  “Spare me a few minutes. We need to talk.”

  Oh, sure. They needed to talk. About many things, Sarah supposed. Like how he had a kid he never thought to tell her about. But no. He wanted to talk about her life, didn’t he? Or maybe “talk” about how everything was a huge misunderstanding and she simply needed to give him another chance. Is that what he wanted? I bet he’d love that. Asshole.

  “Go to hell.”

  “Suppose I deserve that.” Even so, he did not relent his grip on her. “I went poking into things I shouldn’t have. To be fair, I didn’t expect to find something as… intense as that.”

  “Yeah, well, now you know. What are you going to do? Use that information to blackmail me into being your lover? Because it won’t work. I don’t care who you tell. Seriously. Tell the whole fucking world. I’m not going to let you hold that over my head.”

  “Why in the world would I tell anyone?”

  “Oh, I dunno. The fact that you didn’t have a problem with sticking your nose in my ass to begin with?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t think it would be that dark.”

  Dark. Because what Sarah needed was confirmation that her shit was dark.

  “Let’s not do this here. Let’s go somewhere else. Doesn’t have to be a hotel. We can go to a café, a restaurant…”

  “Fuck you. I�
��m not going anywhere with you.” She looked down at his hand. “Let me go. I don’t care if your bodyguard bullied everyone into staying away from me. You can’t hold me hostage. I’m not your possession.”

  “I don’t think you are.”

  “Then let me go.”

  Lucas’s hand dropped to his side. Sarah attempted to get up again.

  Yes, the attempt was made. But by the time she spun around again, she was so tired that she forgot how to stand on her own two feet.

  “What are you doing, Sarah?” Lucas asked again. “What do you hope to achieve in a place like this? It’s not…”

  “Don’t say it.” She knew what he wanted to say. Healthy. It wasn’t healthy. Yeah, well, who was he to tell her what or what not to do with her body and sexuality? Maybe it’s the only thing that makes me feel like I have control. “I don’t need your moralizing. I get enough from my doctor.” The same bitch who made a grand show of exhibiting how concerned she was about Sarah’s supposedly dangerous behavior.

  “I’m sorry about everything that’s happened to you, Sarah. Nobody should have to deal with what you have. But…” Great. Here he went. “This isn’t how you handle it. There’s nothing for you here but more hurt.”

  “What the fuck do you know?” She spun around again, so quickly that some of the pins came undone in her hair. Not that she needed the wig anymore. Angel might as well go back to sleep for all the action she was going to get that night. “So this place is good enough for you? Good enough for the rest of these people? Do they look like they’re hurting to you?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not saying the place is the problem, or what two consenting strangers decide to do with each other… only that if someone has gone through what you have, this is probably the last place she should come to try to work through it.”

  “I’m so glad to hear about the shrink degree you earned at Princeton.” Sarah slapped her hand against her face. Why? Why did her body think now was a good time to start crying? No, no, no! This was not supposed to happen when she dressed up as Angel. Angel had fun. She didn’t care what people thought. She only wanted to have a good time and go back to sleep in the morning, when Sarah woke up and reclaimed the body they both inhabited. Angel was supposed to help Sarah get through life. To let her sit back and forget those horrifying memories that sometimes crept up on her as air stilled and rooms became silent.

  “Sarah. I care about you. I don’t say that flippantly.”

  Fuck it. She wasn’t going to sit there and take his hypocrisy any longer.

  “If you care about me so much, why didn’t you tell me about your kid?”

  Lucas sat back with a start, but did not say anything. He took Sarah’s untouched martini and swirled the olive around the rim of the glass. “You found out about that, huh?”

  “You’re not going to deny it?”

  “The last thing I want is for my son to find out one day that I denied his existence.”

  “Fuck you, Luke.” She laughed in resignation. “You harp about my secrets, my terrible history, the way I choose to handle things… and you’re hiding a kid from me? Who’s the woman I saw you with, huh? Your wife you’re not actually divorced from? The main squeeze you keep in the spotlight when you’re not fucking me on the side? I knew that this,” she gestured to the narrow space between them, “was shallow, but Sarah is not some man’s affair.”

  “It’s good enough for Angel?”

  “You’re not going to deny that either…”

  “You know,” he said, leaning against the counter, “I thought that was Alice’s car I saw yesterday. You were in it, weren’t you?”

  Like he wouldn’t deny anything, neither would she.

  “So you saw me and Victor. That’s my son, by the way. Victor. Bouncing baby five-year-old. Hmph. Guess that means he’s not really a baby anymore. My, where does one’s life go?”

  “And the women?”

  Lucas pondered the rows of bottles displayed before them. Spirits from all over the world. The Caribbean. Europe. Japan. Argentina. Morocco. “The woman you saw leaving in my car is my ex-wife. I never lied about being divorced, or when it happened. That was our son together, from our marriage.” He drank Sarah’s martini. “The older woman was her mother. She and Victor live with her parents since the divorce.”

  Sarah didn’t respond. Not audibly, anyway. Yet in her head she screamed at herself as loudly as she could. You expect me to believe that? To coddle you because you have a son you never told me about? And a hot ex-wife who gets to take your car everywhere? How ex are you two, exactly? Why did you divorce?

  Lucas turned on his stool, motioning to the bodyguard a few steps away. “There’s a lounge down the street from here. It’s quieter. Less… charged, if you catch my drift.” He glanced Sarah up and down. “We’re dressed well enough for it. Shall we go? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “How many of it will be lies?”

  “I haven’t told you a single lie yet, and I’m not about to start.”

  For all she knew, that was a lie.

  ***

  Sarah – for she was wholly Sarah again, her blond wig folded up and in a spare paper bag someone handed her – sat in the corner of the quiet lounge Lucas thought so highly of. He sat across from her, jacket removed and necktie askew. His five o’ clock shadow was more prominent now. She had barely noticed it back at the club.

  Mr. Blackbourne’s bodyguard stayed a respectful distance away at another table, on his phone but cautiously alert. The closest table of guests was far enough away to give Sarah and Lucas the illusion of true privacy. Subdued jazz music playing over the speakers helped bolster that effect.

  They shared bourbon and house made garlic bread. Sarah didn’t care about fitting into her tights or dress any longer. She took a hearty bite of bread and washed it down with Lucas’s favorite brand of bourbon.

  She had no idea why she was entertaining him. Curiosity? The knowledge that her night was over? That she had wasted a trip to New York when she could have stayed home all weekend and had the same amount of fun?

  Whatever her reason, she knew she didn’t want to do much talking. So she let Lucas yap all he wanted once the drinks were down and they were left alone by the staff for the hour.

  “I met Jill at Princeton. She wasn’t a student, though. She was the granddaughter of one of the department chairs and often stopped by to visit him. Lunch, mixers… stuff like that. Didn’t think much of it at the time. I only happened to meet her when we crossed paths at one of those mixers hosted by her grandfather. The man didn’t even head a department I had anything to do with, but Damon was interested in it, and convinced me to tag along.”

  Sarah drank more. I care about this, why?

  “You’ve seen her. She’s beautiful, but she’s also charming to a fault. Within five minutes I was intrigued by her. Within fifteen I was in love.”

  My head itches. Damn wig. Sarah pulled one of her hairpins from her wallet and used it to scratch an ornery spot on her scalp.

  “We started dating, of course. I was in Heaven. If you ask Damon, he’ll tell you I was the most insufferable lovesick fool at Princeton. What’s sad is that he didn’t even go there anymore. He was doing grad school in Oxford, and I had decided to stay at Princeton. But he visited often enough to see how I had changed. He was also the first person I told when Jill announced she was pregnant. He told me to make something right about it, because when you’re men like us, you can’t get away with lovechildren in your twenties.”

  “Only in your sixties, right?”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking when I said that.”

  What was with this guy and all the apologizing? Lucas said sorry more than most live-in help. “So you married her.”

  “Or offered to pay for… you know.” Lucas was suddenly incapable of eye contact. “But when she told me she intended to keep it, I planned a celebratory getaway and proposed to her. We got married three months later. I finally
bested Damon at something, and it was having the biggest pregnant bride at my wedding.”

  “She’s gotten bigger since then.”

  “My ex has become skinnier.” Lucas shrugged. “Wish I could say that we got married and gradually fell out of love from there, what with my career taking me back and forth between two, sometimes three countries and suddenly having a kid to take care of, but things didn’t go quite that smoothly.”

  His voice quieted. Sarah shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as if he were about to tell her about wicked conspiracies.

  Close.

  “I had always known that Jill is… ill. She’s not well, let’s put it that way. Part of the reason she visited her grandfather so often was because of her own tumultuous past. She was mercilessly bullied at her boarding school growing up. Said it started because she was late to develop, and from there it spiraled until she was the class whipping girl. She coped by drinking.”

  “I see.”

  “She was in recovery from a lot of things when I met her. Her grandfather paid for her treatments since he was the one who paid for the boarding school and felt responsible for her trauma. He was a good man. I was upset when he died a year ago. Anyway…” Lucas continued to search for more bourbon in his glass. He would have to order another, but that required summoning a server, and he was too deep in his personal story to bother. “I don’t know what triggered it. Might have been motherhood, or the fact I wasn’t around that often. All I know is that one night I came back and she was in the middle of a bender.”

  Kind of ironic to be talking about this while they drank alcohol, but here they were, and Sarah seriously considered getting drunk to deal with this.

  “I put up with it for two years. Two years too long, Damon said. He had the misfortune of coming over to our place in Copenhagen and seeing how bad she had become. Our son wasn’t even being looked after by her anymore. Her mother came over to take care of things.”

  “That’s messed up.”

  “But you know what? Because I was an idiot and still in love with her, I tried everything. I hired the best doctors, tried to get her to go to the best programs. I wanted her sober for Victor’s sake. And for mine, of course, but by then I was realizing that our marriage was over. We would never be able to recover from it, because during one of her benders she cheated on me with a rival family’s oldest son. It was a giant fuck you to me and my family. When I confronted her, she called me the most vicious names. Claimed I had done things I never did. Threatened to take my son to a place I would never be able to see him again. Then she had the gall to say that she had gotten pregnant on purpose. Just stopped taking her birth control, because her grandfather had gone into debt paying for her life and she needed to make sure her family got money. Why she didn’t wait for me to propose to her naturally I have no idea. Maybe she felt her demons coming back and wanted to seal the deal before I found out the truth.”