by Annie Jocoby
“You’re very good at that, right?”
“Yes. Because I’m an empath, I can usually feel the emotions of the people on that jury panel. I know who’s being sincere and who isn’t. Generally, I do.” I was still a bit upset that I had let Malcolm slip in under my radar. I had no idea that he was diabolical, and that stung me. Thus far, though, Malcolm was the only person who had completely fooled me. I usually was able to peg just about everyone else around me.
I had also found that I had an easier time “reading” strangers than people who I knew well. I guessed that was because I had no pre-conceived notions about strangers, and I hadn’t yet allowed them to influence me. That was always the problem with trying to get a perfect read on people I knew, because most of the time, they wore a mask that they showed to the outside world. It was this mask that complicated things for me. Sometimes, I had a hard time reconciling what was roiling beneath a person’s exterior with what was being shown to the world.
“Well, then, good. Your expert seems to know what he’s doing, and I know that she’s going to be in excellent hands with you.”
“Hmmmmm, speaking of excellent hands,” I said as I gripped Slade’s hands in my own. “You have the most amazing hands I’ve ever encountered.”
He smiled. “I could say the same about you.”
He picked me and carried me to the bed. I put my hand on his crotch, and his manhood was standing at full attention. I massaged it lightly through his pants, and then I unbuckled his belt and unzipped his fly. I pushed him down on the bed, and got down on my knees. I freed his enormous cock and put it into my mouth greedily. I sucked and licked the length of his shaft, and he groaned. My lips and tongue where working the head of his manhood, while my fingers massaged his jewels. My tongue made its way down to them, and I lightly bit and sucked each one. His groaning became louder and louder in my ears. I could feel that he was about to climax in my mouth, so I swallowed some pre-cum and abruptly let up. I didn’t want this to end so soon.
I stood up, and stroked his chest some more. He put his arms around me, and brought my face to his and kissed me tenderly. His lips soon became more insistent and raw and passionate, though. I felt as if his mouth was devouring my own. I pulled off my shirt and pants, and our two naked bodies were melded together on the bed. He pushed me over so that I was on my back, and then he hovered over me for a few minutes. I sighed as he kissed my breasts and neck and then plunged his cock hard into me. I felt the familiar sensation of being filled, and, as he slowly and surely made his way in and out, I felt myself peaking. I groaned and cried out, my head shaking from side to side. I felt him come inside of me, and I felt complete.
Chapter 15
We left for Luke’s wedding on a Thursday, after I dropped my two precious babies off at their doggie hotel. I knew that they loved being there, because they got to play with all the other dogs during the day.
Margot’s trial was looming, and I was getting nervous about it. I didn’t want to show Slade that, though. I was determined that he and I were going to have a good time in New York. I was genuinely happy for Luke, of course, and thought that he deserved all the happiness in the world.
Slade and I boarded his private plane, and shared a bottle of champagne while we waited to take off. As I sat there next to him, though, I could tell that there was something on his mind,. He didn’t quite seem to be his usual exuberant self – in fact, he seemed rather quiet and reserved.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?”
“I can sense that something is just a bit off with you. I don't know what it is, though.” I couldn’t quite put a finger on his emotions, but I felt that he was just a bit scattered. His emotions were right there on the surface, and I wondered why I was feeling that he was extremely anxious.
“There’s no hiding things from you.” He made that statement and it seemed that he was unhappy. “I wish that I could hide things from you sometimes.”
I cleared my throat. “What are you trying to hide from me?”
“I didn’t want to say anything. After all, we’re going to New York to celebrate the wedding of your brother. The last thing that I wanted to do was to put a wet blanket over the proceedings.”
I felt alarmed and I had no idea why. “A wet blanket? I don’t understand. Is there something going on with your case that you aren’t telling me?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing like that.” He bit his lip and looked out the window of the plane. Then he turned to face me again. “Charlotte is…”
“Charlotte is – what? What is she? She’s a psycho-woman. That much is for sure. But what are you trying to say?”
“Give me a chance, and I’ll tell you.”
I waited for him to speak. I didn’t try to fill the air with the sound of my own voice, because there had to be some pressure on him to tell me what was on his mind.
“Charlotte is…concerning me these days. She knows that I’m going to release things about her that would destroy her career, if she makes a move against you. She’s been calling the shots, as much as she can, because I have everything to lose if she decides to call off our agreement. I apologize for that, too.”
“You’re protecting me, and that’s what’s important.”
“Yes.” He shook his head. “I’m protecting you. And I’ll always protect you. You can count on that, and you can count on me.”
I took his hand and looked him in the eye. “Slade, I know that. I know that you’re always interested in my welfare, and I love that about you.”
He looked at his glass of champagne, and then took a sip. He looked up at the ceiling, and shook his head again. “It’s just that I can never quite get a decent read on Charlotte. She’s a hard one to figure out, just because she’s certifiably nuts. That’s the worst kind to deal with, because you aren’t dealing with rationality.”
“So, what are you saying?” From the look on Slade’s face, I knew that there was something amiss with Charlotte. I didn’t quite know what that “something amiss” was, though.
“Well, I don’t actually know quite yet. I’ve been in touch with her, which is a necessity, because I need to keep trying to get a read on where she’s at. She’s been blowing smoke because you haven’t lived in your home for all of these months, which negates the reason why she had Derek move in next door to you. She is also upset about the fact that Derek has not really been harassing you at the workplace. She apparently is getting progress reports from Derek about what’s going on.”
“What does all this mean?”
“It means that I don’t quite know where she stands. I’ve been standing up for you, of course, every time she gets on her high horse about how her plan isn’t working the way that she wants it to. Even so, I get the feeling that she’s losing patience with the whole arrangement. And that makes her extremely dangerous, as far as you’re concerned.”
I lay back on the leather seat of the plane and took a sip of my champagne. It was a dry champagne, evidently extremely high-dollar. It had a long French name that I hadn’t heard of, but I could recognize expensive champagne when I tasted it. And I was definitely tasting expensive champagne. “She won’t make a move. She has too much to lose. I saw the write-up she got in Variety this week, and there’s a lot of Oscar buzz around her new role. I can’t imagine that she would give all that up just to get her revenge on me for stealing you away.”
“If I was dealing with a rational person, I would say that you are absolutely correct. She has a lot on the line, as far as her reputation in Hollywood.” He made a bridge with his hands and stared at them. There was something else that was on his mind, and I had to find out just what that was.
I put my arm around him and threw one leg over his lap. “You aren’t dealing with a rational person, though, are you?”
He sighed and lay back on the seats. He spread his legs in front of him and put his hands behind his head. “No. Well, it's not even that.” He shook his
head. “She’s seeing, with me, the power of good PR. The power of a good spokesperson, which is what I have with Jackson. She’s seeing that the media is starting to come around in their coverage of me and what I did. And she’s starting to think that she’s impervious herself. That, even if the reports about her craziness and her connection to the murder were to get out to the press, she might be able to spin it in a way that actually helps her.”
I started to feel the icy tendrils of fear creep into my veins as I looked at Slade. His face was definitely worried, and when I closed my eyes to tune into his vibrations, I felt it from him. I felt more anxiety coming from him than I ever had. He wasn’t this anxious when he was accused of Jordan’s murder. He wasn’t this anxious even when he was determined to serve his time for that murder. This was an anxiety that was almost palpable. It was something that I felt that I could reach out and grab if I really wanted to.
“I don’t even want to ask this, but I will. What happens if she decides to take the chance? What if she decides just to tell you to release that report, and she’ll deal with the fallout?”
When he looked at me with those beautiful green eyes, I knew that I was possibly in trouble. “What do you think will happen if she decides to take that chance? Right now, the only thing that is stopping her from putting out a hit on you is the fact that I have that report, and she doesn’t want to slow her momentum in Hollywood. If she decides, in her sick little head, that my releasing this report won’t kill her career, then she’s dangerous. She’ll have nothing to lose.”
Nothing to lose. Those were the three worst words that I had ever heard. It’s scary to hear that somebody has nothing to lose, when that somebody has the power to make you become dead. “Okay, well, let’s go over this scenario. Charlotte decides that she’s okay with you releasing damning information about her to the press. What happens next?”
He shook his head. “Dammit, I need to protect you, no matter what I have to do. I wish that there was some way that I could just take your place, and that Charlotte could put the hit on me, not you. In fact, I’ve asked that of her – to take me, and leave you alone. She won’t do that, though. In her twisted mind, she and I still have the possibility of a bright future together. She won’t ever give up that dream. She won’t give up that dream.”
“I don’t understand. She tried to put you in prison for the rest of your life. That would have put a kibosh on that dream, wouldn’t it have?”
“Of course.” He paused. “Your mistake is assuming that Charlotte is thinking like a rational person, which she’s not. She’s sick in the head, therefore, her thinking doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t make sense to me, either, to be honest with you. I suppose it’s not supposed to.”
“Well, if there’s a hit on me, then we can run, right?”
“I wish. No, her family had tendrils everywhere. I couldn’t ever chance that, anyhow. I would like to think that I could protect you, 100%, but I need to be realistic. It’s very difficult to run from a mob hit. Look at all the people who are in witness protection – they still have to spend their entire lives running and hiding, and looking over their shoulders. They still end up dead a lot of the times, even when they’re protected by the FBI. No, running isn’t a good option.”
“Then what is?”
He swallowed hard. “I’m trying to formulate a good plan, but I keep hitting road blocks wherever I turn.”
“Well, then, I can do one thing. I’ve been meaning to do it, anyhow. But I’ll move back to my home. I can live next to Derek. I’m starting to feel stronger when I’m around him at work. I’ve stood up for myself against him. If Charlotte is making noise about backing out of your deal with her, partially because she wants me to be stuck living next to that sociopath, then okay. I’ll go back there.”
Slade appeared not to hear me. He was staring off into space, the glass of champagne still in his hand. Then he finally looked over at me and I could see the worry. “I hate to say it, but that would help. It would buy time, anyhow. It’ll buy time until I can figure out what to do, and how far to go.”
“How far to go?”
“Yes. How far to go. So far, I only have the threat to her career in my back pocket. That’s still a powerful threat – she’s seen other rising stars who were derailed because they had a bad reputation with their peers and directors. That’s keeping her in line so far. I just don’t know how long it’s going to continue to work, and that’s what scares the living crap out of me.”
“Back up. What did you mean by how far to go?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
I closed my eyes and I felt some degree of deception coming from him. It was a vague, unsettling feeling, but I got the unmistakable impression that there was something he wasn’t telling me. Something huge that he wasn’t telling me.
“Slade, if you’re thinking of doing something drastic, then I have to advise against that. Let’s just say that you decide to somehow do Charlotte in for good. Don’t think for a second that you can get away with that. Her mob family will literally kill you, and then they’ll come after me, because I was the original target. All that will accomplish will be to make both of us dead.”
“Believe me, I’ve been tempted to do just that. Turn the hit around on her. But you’re right about one thing – doing that would start a war. There’s not much chance that I could do that without her family finding out that it was me, and then I’ll be in danger and you will too. So, no. That won’t work.”
“That won’t work, but what will?”
He shook his head. “We’re just going to have to keep doing what we’re doing for now, and I do think that it will help her frame of mind if you were living back in your old house. As much as I hate to ask you to do that, it’s the only thing that I can think of working right now.”
“Does she really think that she can be revealed as a murderess, and that she can be revealed as having borderline personality disorder, and there won’t be any damage to her career? I don’t get that at all. Young actors are revealed to having had a wild past all the time, but none actually killed somebody when they were young.”
“No, that’s true. But Mark Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder for an unprovoked attack on a Vietnamese man. You hardly ever heard about that, and that incident hasn’t exactly affected his career.”
“Charged with attempted murder is much different than being guilty of actual murder. I still can’t believe that she got off with such a light sentence. I know that she was a juvenile at the time, but still. She’s lucky that she only had to serve time in juvenile hall, and that her record was expunged when she became of age.”
Slade rolled his eyes. “Do you think that her family’s influence had something to do with that? And you’re right – anybody else who would be convicted of such a crime wouldn’t get the preferential treatment that Charlotte has undoubtedly received. That’s what makes her dangerous, too – she’s always been able to get away with her bullshit, because her family is so powerful. I get the feeling that she thinks that she’ll beat this too. That if I went to the media with her record, she’ll just be able to spin her way out of it with the media and her adoring fans. I think that she’s delusional, especially because her current reputation is that of ‘America’s Sweetheart.’”
“Well, I don’t really know what to do or what to tell you. What I do know is that there’s very little that we can do about all of this right now. All that I want to think about, for the next few days, is you and me in New York City, and how happy I am for my brother. I’m anxious for you to meet the whole family, too. Including my father’s new wife. We all had an issue, at first, with him finding somebody to spend the rest of his life with, just because none of us has really gotten over losing mom in the way that we did. But she’s pretty cool, and so is the rest of my family.”
“Does your father’s new wife have any kids?”
“She has two daughters, both a few y
ears younger than me. Bailey is one of the daughters, and she’s a pretty girl with purple hair and black fingernails. The other one’s name is Rayanne. I think that they’re identical twins, although they don’t really look like it. Rayanne is a bit more conventional than Bailey.”
Truth be told, I had an affinity for Bailey. She reminded me of myself at that age – purple hair, nose ring, tattoos and a fuck-you attitude. I got the feeling that she didn’t take much shit from anyone in her life, and that made me admire her all the more. I didn’t know much else about her, though.
From what I understood about Bailey and her sister, they were somewhat like my twin brothers Christopher and Mark. Chris was a rock star, or at least he played a rock star in his mind, and he was extremely troubled. I knew why – he was only alive because our mother sacrificed her life for him. He also saw her dead, as well as seeing all the other people in that McDonald’s massacre dead. That affected him immensely, I knew, although I didn’t quite know the depths of darkness that was in his soul.
I took Slade’s hand and looked him in the eye. “Whatever happens with Charlotte, we’ll deal with it. We can run.” I knew that he had a house in Lake Como, Italy, and I had to think that there were worse things in life than having to live in a gorgeous resort town like that one. Living in a place that was surrounded by water and the Italian Alps, while also being close to quaint little towns, was something that sounded like heaven to me right at that moment.
He shook his head. “We can run, sure, but I really don’t want us to be looking over our shoulder for the rest of our lives.” He paused while he stared at his hands pensively. “And Serena, I can’t lose you. I don’t think that you know what a difference you’ve made in my life. Since I met you, I’ve had a reason to get up in the morning. I mean, I’ve always had a reason to get up in the morning before, but that reason was not fulfilling for me. I was all about the business and getting ahead. Discovering new drugs to bring to market, making enormous profits quarter in and quarter out – those were the things that gave me a high before. Now, it’s different. I feel that I’ve finally found the one thing that matters.”