All He Asks 2

by Sparrow, Felicity

  Raoul leans against the counter beside me as I work, arms folded across his chest. It stretches the shoulders of his suit in a most appealing way. “Where were you last night, Christine? I went back to Erik Duke’s house to pick you up for dinner and you weren’t there.”

  “I told you, I was working.” I keep my coffee beans in the freezer. it’s not as good as a fresh roast, but I can’t afford the luxuries that Sylvia can. When I turn away from the freezer, Raoul is blocking my path back to the coffee maker.

  “You didn’t respond when I came to the gate,” he says. “I was worried about you.”

  “Mr. Duke’s bell rings in the front room. We were working…” I swallow hard. “We were working elsewhere. I didn’t hear it.”

  Raoul seems to know I’m not telling the whole truth. Worry has crimped his brow. “I don’t think you’re safe working out there alone.”

  “I agree.” The words escape me before I can think to stop them.

  He’s surprised. “Really? Has he done something that makes you feel threatened?”

  I open the bag of coffee beans and measure a scoop. The grinder is loud enough to give me a few precious seconds to think. “I don’t think I’ll have much time to drive all the way out to his lake house if I’m dealing with the fallout of Sylvia’s machinations. I’ll need more time to focus on her.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I have no reason to think that Erik would hurt me.” Even if I happen to resemble the wife he may have killed.

  Raoul still looks suspicious, but he drops the topic. A major relief.

  “There’s a party at Durand-Price tonight,” he says. “It’s the kick-off of a promotional blitz for Sylvia Stone’s spring release.”

  “I’m aware of it.” I fill the coffee maker and start it.

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “Oh, Raoul. I wasn’t planning on going. I don’t think that Sylvia would like to see me there.”

  “You’re her assistant,” Raoul says. “You have every right to attend. I could even argue it’s your responsibility.”

  I rearrange the coffee mugs on the counter, even though they were fine the way they were. Easier than looking him in the eye. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be her assistant. In any case, even when we’ve been on good terms, Sylvia prefers to keep me at arm’s reach in public situations.”

  “It’s not public. It’s a company event.” His smile is so charming that it burns the cold places out of my heart. “My brother will be there.”

  “Carlos?” A smile touches my lips. I haven’t seen Carlos in years. We were never close the way that Raoul and I were, but he was always kind to me, as though I were a little sister.

  “I’m not sure you’ve heard, but he bought a large portion of the company’s stock shortly after I got hired.” Raoul rolls his eyes. It makes him look so young. Family has a way of stripping away the armor of adulthood we gather around ourselves. “He’s everyone’s boss now. Just like he always dreamed.”

  “I’m sure he’ll love that.”

  “The parties? The meetings? The ability to hold it over my head? You better believe it.” Raoul pushes his jacket aside and hooks one hand in the pocket of his slacks. “I know he’d like to see you.” The way he says that makes me melt, as though he’s actually said something romantic. He’s always had a way of wielding tone like a weapon against me.

  “I’d love to see him, too. I just don’t think this is the time.” I manage a weak smile. “I don’t even have anything to wear for the party.” Sylvia’s launch parties are always black tie affairs. Very swanky. Tickets to attend are often bartered with other publishers and vendors for favors.

  “That won’t be a problem,” Raoul says. “I think I can still guess your size. I’ll have a dress ready for you by the party.” He whips his phone out, thumbs flying over the screen.

  I haven’t really stopped blushing since he arrived, but that makes my cheeks burn even hotter. “You don’t have to do that. In fact, you shouldn’t. I shouldn’t even be going.”

  “I’m the lead editor now.” Raoul chucks my chin gently, just like he used to do when we were young. “You can go anywhere I say you can go. And I insist.”

  “But—”

  “I insist,” he says again, more firmly than before.

  He withdraws his pocket watch and checks the time. Apparently, he determines that he’s in no hurry, and strolls through my apartment with his fresh coffee cup. His body language is clearly dismissive of any other argument I may bring against him.

  I am going to this party and I have no choice in the matter.

  The only consolation is that a Sylvia Stone launch party should be focused primarily on Sylvia, which is her favorite kind of party. It should be trivial to fly under the radar. As long as I can avoid her sight, I’ll likely go unnoticed entirely.

  “I like your apartment,” Raoul remarks. “I’m surprised to see you living somewhere so small, though.”

  It’s generous to describe my apartment as small. Four hundred square feet is good for the city, particularly considering my budget, but it’s difficult to make such a small space feel homey. My decorations are limited to the walls. My furniture is spartan.

  “I don’t spend too much time here,” I say.

  Raoul peers out my window. It looks straight out to the wall of the building beside mine. “I expected your father to have left you his condominium.”

  My cheeks heat. I stare hard at my coffee. “He did. I just…the upkeep and taxes, and…”

  “You sold it?”

  “I didn’t have much of a choice.” I feel strangely defensive about it. It’s not like I wanted to sell off the few remaining pieces of my father’s legacy. “I like living somewhere like this, though. It’s cozy.”

  Raoul makes a noncommittal sound. He strolls to the bathroom door and peers inside. “Do you remember the stories your father used to tell us?”

  “All of them.” Fletcher Durand was a great author; he’d had millions of stories to tell.

  “What about the one with the angel?” Raoul asks.

  I’m startled. I haven’t thought of that particular story in a long time.

  My father used to tell me that he’d send an angel to look over me if anything happened to him. I hadn’t known at the time, but he had been preparing me for the news of his fatal disease. I suppose it was his attempt at gently warning me that I would soon be alone.

  Raoul continues prowling through my living room. He is looking at everything I own as though any of my photos might be hiding treasure maps.

  “What about the angel?” I ask.

  “Just thinking about what you’re going to write,” Raoul said. “The books you’ll need to produce once we’ve got the contract in place.”

  “I don’t know that there’ll be a contract yet.”

  “You’re a great writer, Christine. You’ll have a contract.” He pauses in front of me and lifts a hand, as though thinking of brushing my cheek. He stops himself. “When will you be done with your current work in progress?”

  “Well, I can’t finish the Sylvia Stone book that I was working on just yet,” I confess. “I misplaced my laptop. I have backups, but none so recent that it won’t require a few days of work to catch up.”

  Raoul tweaks my nose. “We need to get you a better backup method. Bring you into the modern era.”

  “You’re probably right.” I toy with the handle of my mug, trying not to catch fire from blushing so hard.

  Fortunately, he continues wandering before I can spontaneously combust, peering around my apartment with great interest. I have to wonder what he’s seeing, what my living space says about my life. He seems so interested in it.

  He peeks into my bedroom. “I thought you said you misplaced your laptop.”

  “I did.”

  I peer around Raoul’s broad shoulder to see what he’s talking about.

  My fingers go rigid. The mug slips from my grasp, crashing o
nto the floor. Hot coffee splashes over my feet.

  The missing laptop—the one that I assumed I had forgotten at Erik’s house—has returned to its cradle, plugged into my keyboard, waiting for me to write.

  The only way that it could have been returned to me is if Erik had been in the apartment while I was sleeping.

  Just like I’d dreamed.

  Four

  “Christine!”

  I don’t feel the coffee scalding me until Raoul seizes my arms, whirling me around to face him, safely away from the puddle that I’ve created.

  “Oh, ouch!” I grab a towel off the counter. He snatches it from my hands, dropping to his knees to dab gently at my feet. Tears sting my eyes. My skin is rapidly reddening.

  “Here, sit down,” Raoul says, guiding me to a chair at my table. I lean back against the wall with my eyes shut as he cleans the coffee off.

  His strokes become slow. His fingers trail up my ankle.

  “Are you okay, Christine?” he asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  It’s possible that he’s not too far off.

  Erik Duke was in my bedroom the night before. He was really there. He returned my laptop and then took my body, leaving me breathless in bed.

  “I have to tell you something, Raoul,” I whisper.

  He sets the towel down. “Anything.”

  I struggle for words. The sight of Raoul here, in my kitchen, after all this time… It almost makes me forget why I was so afraid. His fingers resting on my feet—though I have long since been dried off—are breathtaking.

  The way that Raoul kneels in front of my chair reminds me of girlish fantasies I frequently entertained years ago. The fantasy that, one day, Raoul might kneel before me in such a way with a ring, asking me to be his wife.

  Thoughts of wives drag me toward the dark corner of my mind reserved for my discovery about Erik Duke’s past. The one I haven’t allowed myself to dwell upon just yet.

  Now cold fear claws at the inside of my breast.

  It’s hard to swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. But I must speak to him. I must tell him the truth.

  “Erik Duke snuck into my bedroom last night while I was sleeping,” I say. “He put that laptop there.”

  Raoul gazes at me expressionlessly, his face an opaque wall preventing me from making out his emotions.

  And then he laughs.

  “Funny, Christine, very funny.” He strokes my scalded skin one more time and stands. Extracting his pocket watch, he checks the time. “I should go. Don’t make any more coffee while I’m not here to clean you up.”

  My jaw drops.

  After all his concern about leaving me at Erik Duke’s lake house, I was certain he would have responded to my pronouncement with alarm. I have no idea how to handle being laughed at.

  “I’m serious, Raoul. Erik came into my bedroom through the window last night.” I raise a shaking finger to point at it.

  “Is he a wall-crawling spider, then?” His tone is frustratingly light. He still thinks we’re joking. “Can’t do anything with those horror authors. Always creeping around.” He checks his pocket watch again and angles for the door. “My driver will pick you up for the party at six.”

  “No—but—”

  “Until later, Little Christy.” He drops a kiss onto my temple. The brush of his lips, the intensity of his cologne, the gentle scrape of stubble—he’s still something out of a dream.

  But I feel as though I’m caught in a nightmare.

  -

  I approach my laptop with the same caution I might use if dropped into the cage of a hungry tiger.

  The logo on the lid is glowing. The intruder into my bedroom thoughtfully plugged it into the power source and monitor, as well as my various peripherals. I’m almost impressed. The tangle of cables isn’t well-organized. It would take someone who knew what he was doing to connect it.

  Someone who knew what he was doing…or someone who had watched me connect my laptop to its workstation before.

  Man accused of murdering bride on wedding night.

  I can’t shake the mental image of that wedding photo. A young Erik Duke married—and for all appearances, happily married—to a woman who looks identical to me.

  And he’d sneaked into my bedroom while I was asleep.

  It terrifies me, and yet…

  My bed is rumpled from where I was sleeping. My body aches at the sight of it, remembering how it had felt to have his fingers inside of me and how satisfying it had been to climax wrapped around him.

  When I turn my laptop on, I find files on the desktop that don’t belong. They’re the kind of files that my word processor will open.

  The name of the first one is “Christine.”

  My laptop is password protected. It shouldn’t even be possible for Erik to have gotten inside. Yet there are files I haven’t made, and there’s no denying what they mean.

  I click on the first.

  It’s all the stories I’ve written at Erik’s behest, including his notes. I’ve seen all of this before, but I’m surprised that he still had the files to give them to me again. He’d never seemed too invested in our lessons. Aloof, one might say.

  Part of Erik’s deception, I now suspect.

  The second file on my desktop is entirely new. It’s also password-protected.

  I prop my chin on my hand, considering the options. If Erik has given me a protected file, then he wants me to be able to get into it; the password will be something I can easily guess.

  It’s not my name, nor is it his. That’s too obvious.

  After an instant, I type in, “Clara.” The name of the heroine in the book he’s writing, the name he’d given me while tied to the hooks in his basement. And a name that nobody else could yet know, since he hasn’t turned a draft of his book into the editor yet.

  The file opens.

  I skim the first few lines, and my heart speeds when I realize that it’s Erik’s work in progress.

  He’s left a comment at the top for me: “I look forward to your feedback.”

  A smile creeps across my lips before I remember that I’m supposed to be bothered by all of this. I shouldn’t feel flattered that he’d go so far out of his way to give me his book. I definitely shouldn’t read it. Erik and I can’t work together anymore.

  It seems that he feels differently.

  The files for Sylvia Stone’s book are still in place, apparently untouched, aside from a few snarky comments added to the outline by the very same author whose incomplete novel is on my desktop.

  I find my smile growing as I read his notes.

  “Concept is nonsensical yet trite. Trust Moonlight Sonata to appeal to the lowest common denominator.”

  “Alliterative character names are literary abominations that should be abolished via napalm.”

  “Storytelling with flashbacks? I cut better material out of my books in grade school.”

  I can’t bring myself to delete any of them. I share his exact same thoughts where Sylvia’s material is concerned, even though I’ve been the one fleshing out all those trite concepts.

  But once my gaze strays to my rumpled bedsheets again, my smile fades.

  A week earlier, I would have killed for such familiarity with the inner workings of Erik’s mind. Now that he’s allowed me a brief peek, I find it as charming as it is frightening—and I find myself wishing that I could fall in. Yet if I do, I’m certain that I’ll never return.

  As a safer alternative, I fall into my work. I resume writing the next Sylvia Stone book. Not the most logical choice, maybe. There’s a reasonable chance that there will be no more Sylvia Stone books. It entirely depends on Grosvenor Lateen and which bestselling hive of bees he wants to poke.

  Nevertheless, it’s cathartic to write and think of nothing else. Not contracts, not Raoul, and definitely not Erik Duke’s basement.

  The sun falls. The shadows grow long.

  My doorbell rings.

  I startle with
a jerk, nearly knocking my mouse off of my table.

  A delivery man waits outside my front door. He’s wearing a tailored suit and carrying a dress bag—obviously an employee of a company catering to much more expensive clients than FedEx.

  “For Miss Durand,” he says, presenting the bag to me.

  I don’t take it. “But I haven’t ordered anything.”

  “It’s a gift from Raoul Chance.”

  I’d almost forgotten that he’d planned to send that to me.

  A quick glance at my clock tells me that it’s only been four hours since Raoul’s visit. He must have already had the dress and tailor selected in order to have it delivered so quickly, which means he’d already decided that I was going to be attending that launch party.

  “Thank you.” I accept the dress and take it inside.

  I’m still not entirely sure I want to go to the party. No, that’s wrong. I know I don’t want to go to the party. I don’t want to watch the entire publishing company bend over to kiss Sylvia’s massive ass.

  More accurately, I’m not sure whether my desire to avoid the party is stronger than my desire to please Raoul.

  I could look at the dress, if nothing else. Just a quick peek.

  I’m expecting to find a traditional little black dress when I unzip the bag. Instead, I’m surprised by a strapless navy blue sheath. It’s floor-length and tight. The skirt has multiple layers to it. If it’s not fitted properly, there’s no way I’ll be able to walk in it.

  It’s also definitely a designer piece. Raoul must have spent the equivalent of one of my paychecks on it.

  “Oh, Raoul,” I sigh.

  This isn’t an attempt to buy my affection. It’s simply how the Chances think. If you’re going to buy something, you might as well buy the very best. The Durands used to live under a similar philosophy—back when my family had money.

  There’s no way I can accept such a gift.

  Still, I can’t keep my hands off of the gown. It’s breathtaking.