“I have to know the truth.”
“Yeah. I think you do. What should we do?”
“Get me out of here. Drive, I don’t care where.”
She nods and starts driving while I slump in the seat. I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt and fold my arms around myself, and stare through the streaked windows. It hurts so much. I just want to disappear.
“You still have a chance, you know,” she says.
I don’t answer her.
“How old are you? Twenty-eight? Honey, you’re not even thirty. Your life isn’t over.”
“Sometimes I wish it was. How many people have I hurt?”
“Not every company you take over gets shut down. Lots of people kept their jobs because of-“
“I haven’t run a single takeover that didn’t end up cutting jobs.” The traffic lights become baleful glows in the mist. I lean on my hand. “I order staff reductions…” I trail off. “I fired people to improve bottom lines.”
“Right. If you tried to keep everybody, they’d go under and they’d all lose their jobs.”
“I read those tweets, Alicia. “How many people’s Christmases have I ruined? How many divorces have I caused? I never even thought about it before. All I saw was numbers in a spreadsheet, charts and projects and equations. It’s like I forgot people existed.”
“How many Christmas presents did you ever get?”
I look over at her. She’s still not looking at me. “What?”
“How many?”
“It’s not like I counted them.”
“Fine. How many from your father?”
“None. We didn’t celebrate holidays at my house. Father said it was frivolous and I could buy what I wanted with my allowance. If I needed something there was no reason to wait until December twenty-fifth to buy it for me.”
“What about Victor and his mother?”
“They had huge Christmases. Father hated it. I could tell. He accepted gifts and bought things for Victor’s mother, anyway. She and Victor gave me things. He gave me jewelry and…” I feel myself blush.
Alicia’s eyebrow quirks up. “And?”
“Other things. Sexy underwear.”
“People call it ‘lingerie’, Eve.”
“Whatever,” I say, sullenly. “What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d hear what Victor had to say.”
“He hates me now.”
“No, he does not. You sound like a twelve year old. Didn’t you hear what I told you? That man was not looking at someone he hated. He wanted to take you with him. He wasn’t there to hurt you, Eve. He was there to rescue you, even if he doesn’t know it.”
“I don’t know how to reach him.”
Alicia sighs. “I can find out. It is my job. Where’s there a place where you could meet him?”
“Far away from here. If I do this, Father will find out.”
“Find out, and hit you again, you mean.”
I flinch.
“It’s a ways from here. It’s a drive. We should go get one of the cars.”
“No, we’ll take mine,” Alicia says.
I’m not used to being contradicted. It’s a long drive. First, we stop at the house. Alicia goes inside and comes back with a bag of my clothes, puts them in the back of her van. I listen while she talks to her husband, who is displeased that she isn’t coming home tonight, at the very least. Their conversation is so domestic. I curl up in the seat and hug myself and Alicia drives, and drives, and drives. It’s almost a three hour trip, all in silence. City gives way to suburbs, suburbs give way to open fields and the swampy hinterlands of the Delmarva peninsula. By the time we arrive I’ve been asleep for an hour and it’s almost dark. One of the advantages of my wealth is I don’t have to worry about the cost of booking a room, but in November all the fine waterfront hotels are closed. Alicia takes the company card and books two rooms, one for each of us.
I sprawl out on the bed of a Motel 8 and stare at the popcorn ceiling as if the tiny little swirls and bumps could give me some kind of answers. Alicia is in the other room, making phone calls.
Just past midnight, there’s a knock at the door. Wearily, I get up and trudge over, and pull it open. I expect Alicia.
Victor stands in the door, soaked to the bone from the driving rain that kicked up while I was lying on the bed in half-sleep. Water has glued his thick black hair to his head and drips from the tip of his nose, but he holds his head high like it’s nothing and stares at me with his clear, piercing eyes.
“Hello,” I say, softly. “Come in.”
I step back. He walks into the room and sloughs off a rain soaked jacket onto the floor, takes a towel from the bathroom and dries his face. The rain slashes the windows, drums on the heater built into the wall beside the door. I bolt the door and slide the chain lock into place and stand there, trying to make my hands stop shaking, but I can’t.
“Your assistant called me,” he says, dully. “She says you want to talk. Said to meet you here.”
“Yes. I want to talk.”
I sit down on the edge of the bed, facing him, but I can’t look at him. Just seeing him stirs up all these emotions, like a storm brewing inside me.
“What did you want to talk about?”
I swallow. “Victor.”
He’s still silent. His eyes are hard.
“Do you hate me?”
He doesn’t answer.
I pull my legs up under me and fold them, and hug myself. I still can’t look at him. “When your mother was in the hospital, she made me promise to pass a message to you, but I never did.” I’m surprised how even my voice is. “She told me to tell you she was wrong, and you were right, about everything. She told me to tell you she believed you were innocent.”
“Is that all she said?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make her any less dead, Eve. She died while I was in prison. I wasn’t allowed to see her.”
I swallow. “She asked me something else.”
“What?”
“She asked me to give you a chance. To hear you out.”
“What makes you think I should hear you out?”
My eyes snap up to look at him. The words are like a dagger in my chest.
“I thought…”
“I gave you everything, Eve, and the first time we were tested, you believed the worst about me and wouldn’t let me defend myself.”
“Your reputation preceded you.”
His teeth pull back in a sneer and his fists clench. “That ended with you, Eve. I never touched another girl since I met you.”
“She said-“
“She lied,” he snaps, and pounds his fist on his thigh.
I flinch and his expression softens.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, but God damn it, Eve. It makes me mad. I’m angry with you.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No. Not you. Never you.”
“I’ll hear you out, if you want to talk to me.”
He gets up and walks to the window. “Why’d you come here?”
“We were always happy here.”
“We never stayed at this motel.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t mean here, here. I mean at the beach. I still remember that first trip. I was like a little kid. Nobody ever did anything like that for me before, ever.”
“It was always fascinating to watch,” he says, watching the rain streak the window. “Everything was new to you. Little things brought you such joy. Cotton candy and stuffed animals and the silly little rides at that park.”
“Funland,” I correct.
“Funland.”
“I know now why Father wouldn’t let me see you.”
“Wouldn’t let you?”
“He kept me away at first. After a while he didn’t have to. I stayed away on my own. When I saw you what, yesterday? It was…”
“You said you’d hear me out.”
“Yes.”
“So stop talking, and hear me.”
I slide back up the bed to sit against the wall. Victor continues to stare out the window.
“I was never happier than when I was with you. You know, I became a real son of a bitch after I lost my father. The way only a twelve year old can be. I was a little shit to my mother. I hurt a lot of girls. Emotionally, I mean. Not physically. Then when you were around it didn’t hurt anymore. Not like it used to. It wasn’t so bad, and the more you were around the better I felt. I started to think I could have a future with you. The other shit never really mattered to me. I guess I didn’t know how well off I had it. The money and the house and all didn’t matter to me. It was just there.”
I look at his reflection. His eyes are distant, locked on nothing.
“Five years,” he said. “Five years with nothing but time. I could have survived that, if I thought you’d be waiting for me. I thought I’d lost you permanently. I thought you’d been poisoned against me. I thought he won. Nothing was worse than that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, dully.
“If you’d believed me,” he sighs. “No, it doesn’t matter. I was going down no matter what. I was so stupid. He set me up. Your father. It was a trap and I fell for it, hard. Completely. He beat me.”
“Tell me what happened. The truth. All of it.”
He turns from the window and falls into a side chair. His hair is still wet when he slides his hand through it. In short sleeves, the feathery tattoos on his arms shiver. I remember being wrapped in those arms, tracing my fingernails over those designs. My touch excited him. Would it excite him now, or disgust him? When he sees me biting my lip his nostrils flare and his whole posture changes. A little quiver of fear flutters through me, flavored with excitement. He looks away, his jaw set.
“You want the truth?” he says, and his voice never wavers. “I love you. That’s the truth.”
“What about the girl?”
Brittany. Her name is Brittany. I won’t say it, I won’t give it voice.
“She was lying.”
“About the sex, or all of it?”
“All of it. I should have seen it coming. I was set up.”
“You said. Set up how?”
“Your father played me,” he says, coldly. “Played on my one weakness, too. He was very smart about it.”
“What weakness?” I’m about to say redheads but I bite my tongue.
“The possibility of freeing you from him forever. I thought I had a shot at taking him down. This is what happened.”
Chapter Fourteen
Victor
I never knew what happiness was until I woke up with Evelyn in my arms. When she slept she would curl up in a ball and press against me, the tip of her nose pressed into my chest, the soft feathery touch of her breath on my skin. She always tucked her arms under mine and half the time she’d throw a leg over me, too, like she was trying to wrap me up so I couldn’t get away. It was our third year together. Soon I would be graduating from college. She had another year if she chose to continue her studies. I was pushing her to declare a new major. She could do whatever she wanted and I’d pay for it. She didn’t need her father’s approval, and she didn’t need him. I had her, I would take care of her. This was the best day of my life. The school year would end soon. We’d decided that after sneaking around for the last two summers we’d be open this year. Eve was ready to confront her father.
Once I graduated, everything would be mine. All of it. The company, the house, the estate, the fortune.
The first thing I was going to do was accept Martin Ross’ resignation from the position my mother had secured for him. I’d make sure Mom was well taken care of. If she wanted to take care of her husband in turn, that was her business. I hadn’t spoken with her about it yet, but I think she knew. She refused to believe me about the abuse, and I couldn’t very well tell her I’d spent hours with Eve with both of us in the nude, tracing the ridged scars on her back. I never imagined he’d left permanent marks on her until she disrobed for me in the light for the first time. I wasn’t sure what the marks were that first night when it was dark in the room and she wouldn’t come out from under the covers. When I saw, I knew. Scars. From the edge of a belt biting into her skin. They were old and faded, just lines in the way old scars are, but that’s what they were. He’d whipped her until she bled.
I wanted to kill him. Twist his head right off his skinny little neck. For Eve’s sake, I didn’t. I’d just send him far away from her and keep her for myself. I won. I saved the virgin princess from the monster. In a couple of months everything would be perfect.
We’d even talked about the idea of children a few times. Not really talked, like a serious conversation, but once in a while one or the other of us would drop a line about the kids we were going to have, here or there.
Eve stirred next to me. I always woke up first. I liked watching her sleep. She looked so peaceful with her head pillowed on my arm, her pale hair tousled around the bed. Her eyes fluttered open and she stretched, and put her arms around my neck. Bare under the sheets, she pressed her chest to mine. Her nipples were hard and it wasn’t from the cold. Late March, so it was cold in the room but we were piled up in blankets. She had a roommate and a dorm of her own but she might as well have lived with me. Her hands slipped under the covers and I rolled her onto her back and kissed her. She giggled into my mouth and wrapped her fingers around my cock. I was already hard for her, I woke up ready as usual. After our first few months together we were committed, so she went on the pill and we stopped using protection.
Nothing was so sweet as entering her. Eve was wet and ready, her hot silky walls gripping me as I moved on top of her and entered her in a slow, gradually building thrust that made her let out an anxious, throaty moan that ended in a breathy little gasp. She was shivering and there was gooseflesh on her arms, so I pulled the blankets up a round our necks and warmed her with my breath. She felt so small and fragile beneath me, delicate in a way that made me move slowly, savor the sensations of moving inside her. Every gentle thrust made me shudder, and then she dug her heels into my thighs and urged me on, faster, harder. She only seemed fragile, it was an illusion. She’d been whipped into something harder than that. When it’s cold enough, ice is harder than steel. Eve melted in my arms, but the strength didn’t.
Her nails clawed into my back and she bit my shoulder. It stung, it hurt, and it only made me want her more. Rocking the whole bed with my movements. She slid her arms around my neck and bucked her hips under me.
I rolled onto my back, taking her with me. It felt so fucking good when her weight pressed her down in my lap, driving my shaft deep inside her. She sat up and let the blankets fall away, and wriggled her hips in a circle, eyes closed, biting her lip in concentration. Eve had confessed to me that she thought she was ugly. I had no idea where that idea came from. She thought her nose was too long and sharp, I thought it was cute. She thought she had a weasely face, I thought she looked like some exotic fox. She thought her hair was dull and lifeless, I thought it was like burnished silver and felt like silk. She thought it was ugly the way the veins stood out under her skin when she was cold, tracing a road map across her skin. I thought it made her beautiful and strange. I held her by the ribs as she moved her hips in rolling thrusts, her face pinching in an adorable mask of pleasure as she rode me.
Eve doubled forward and I grabbed her hips to stop her movement, made her go still. She sat on me with my cock buried inside her until I gently pushed her off and rolled her onto her side, and pressed against her back. I guided myself inside her from behind, lying against her, and cupped her breasts in my hands and buried my face in her sweet smelling hair. She smelled like lilacs, from her favorite shampoo, and she smelled like Eve. There is no other smell like that. Eve just smells like Eve. I moved one hand down her stomach, slowed my own movements. It was agony to hold back. By now I knew her body perfectly. She grasped my wrist in one hand, clasped the
other to her chest over mine. With my cock inside her and my fingers working her stiff little clit, she started to pant and tighten up almost instantly, her moans turning into little squeaks as she squeezed my wrist. I started to thrust harder as I could feel her getting close, let myself go. It was tough to time it this way but I had practice. When she started to shudder and her body tensed like coiled springs I knew it was coming. She was so hot and tight. I wrapped my arms around her body and exploded inside her as she thrashed against me, kicking her little feet, bucking in my arms, the little noises she made almost pained. After a while she went limp, lying sideways on the bed. I didn’t draw out of her.
“I have a class,” she sighed.
“When?”
‘Ten.”
“It’s nine. Let’s do it again.”
She smiled softly and disentangled herself from my arms.
I had a suite to myself in the upperclass dorm. I could afford it, after all. That meant I had my own bathroom and was treated to the sight of Eve traipsing naked through the room to pluck a cleanish towel from the pile by the bathroom door and step inside. She started the shower and steam poured through the door. Eve liked hot showers more than anything. After lying there for a few minutes to catch my breath I got up and followed her in, slipped into the shower behind her and started soaping up her back. She had her hair in a wet cord, thrown over her shoulder. After she stood under the water, shivering from the chilly air despite the scalding steam, it was my turn to soap up. She did my back first, and she pressed against me and wrapped her hands lightly around my cock.
“I thought you had class,” I said.
“I do, but I don’t want to leave you like this.”
She pressed her cheek against my back and stroked my cock in her hands. I could almost feel her smiling. It never took her long this way. Soon I was fully hard and not long after that I was leaning on the wall while she quickly, lightly stroked me off. I groaned loudly as I lost in her hand, cupped around the pulsing tip of my shaft. She let the water sluice her hands clean, leaned against me to kiss my cheek, and stepped out.
When I was actually washed up, I stepped out after her. By now she was dressing, already wearing a pair of sweat pants and a bra as she dried her hair. I went over and flopped on the bed. I had no classes until noon. Eve pulled on a t-shirt and then a hoodie I gave her last year. She always left so damned early for class, but she liked to be the first one in the room for whatever reason. I stood up to kiss her before she left, and gave her butt a squeeze while I was at it. She giggled and batted my hand away and gave me a look that said later, and then she was off.
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