“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’m here, and I need you to deliver my message. Anyway, so just as I get the nerve to approach him, I spot a pretty little Asian woman walking up to the building, a woman I recognized. She was at my conference hours before. I signed her fucking book.”
“You knew Dr. Cooper’s wife?”
“I’m the one who told her to fuck him,” I laughed bitterly. “She was all, There’s this guy, and how can I be brave like you. Stupid bitch. I told her to go for it. I just didn’t know she meant my guy. Damien and I were supposed to be together, and yet they went inside that fucking brownstone and never came out. I waited outside for hours while he fucked her. It should have been me. All of it. The ring, the wedding, his last name, they all belonged to me, not fucking sleeping beauty.”
“How did you discover Meadowbrook?”
“Ahh, yes, the best part. I left New York the next day. I brushed off the slight. He didn’t know I was in town, and there was no way Asha could satisfy him. So, I decided to wait. Went on another tour, this time through Europe. Sold a shit ton more books and came back to the states to claim what was rightfully mine. Only what did I find? He’d married the bitch. They were on their honeymoon.
“Women aren’t impulsive like men. I could wait, bide my time. That marriage was doomed from the start. I even wrote a book about how to identify toxic relationships with narcissistic assholes. Asha read it cover to cover.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I signed that one too. They were in Colorado then. I had hoped she would read it, but I couldn’t be sure until she came to hear me speak in Denver. She asked for my advice again. She was in love with two men. The cruel one she married, and the kind one who was there for her. I told her to leave him. It wasn’t entirely self-serving; she was miserable, and so was he.”
“This still doesn’t explain how you came to be at Meadowbrook.”
“This is the best part,” I grinned, leaning forward on my elbows. “I’m from Colorado. I went to Colorado State. One of my friends growing up also happened to be an acquaintance of Dr. Cooper’s.”
“Small world,” Rodgers said. His face was a shade of pale green that made me positively giddy.
“You have no idea. Anyway, my friend got drunk one night and called me, crying. He fucked up—his words—not mine. He slept with his friend’s wife, and even though his friend was a sociopath who didn’t deserve her, cheating was wrong. Reed was moral like that.”
“Why’d he call you?”
“Because I’m a slut. He wanted me to absolve him of his guilt. He wanted me to tell him it was okay because Damien was a dick and because he really loved Natasha. Those were his exact words. It hit me like a Mack truck. He was talking about Damien, my Damien. I let him vent, and when we hung up, I Googled Damien and Meadowbrook, and put my plan into action.”
Realization dawned over his face. “This was a set up all along.”
“Natasha didn’t deserve him,” I shrugged. She couldn’t handle Damien or the beast that lived inside him. No one could—no one but me. He was my chaos, I was his Anarchy, and we were going to live happily ever after. “Thanks to Dr. Reed’s loose lips, I devised a plan to get close to him. I bribed my way through intake to make sure I fell into Dr. Coopers rotation, and the rest is history.”
“If you loved him so much, why did you ruin him? Why slip the note under Dr. Lewis’ door?”
Ah, the note. The one that detailed my affair with Damien. The reason I was late getting to the lunchroom that day. “Because he kissed that cheating asshole, right in front of my face. After everything I did for him, after I waited five years for him to realize I was the one, he kissed her like it was nothing, like I was nothing. He had to pay.”
“He’s in prison! He lost his license, his wife. Everything.”
“He deserved it. I didn’t make him fuck me on his desk, or in the stairwell or the broom closet. He did those things.”
“You’re sick.”
“Well then, Damien and I deserve each other. A match made in hell.”
—11—
Order
Colorado Springs-One year later.
The Prescott Building was located in downtown Colorado Springs. The older building underwent a million-dollar renovation a few years before Natasha and I moved west. The windows and most of the fixtures had been restored, but lucky for me, the elevator was engineered in this century.
The bell pinged and the metal doors swung open on the third floor, revealing a pediatric office. I hung a right, my legs carried me down the narrow hallway to a glass door, the words Dr. Travis Reed, Psychiatry stared back at me.
I was more dragon than Damien now. I wasn’t the good guy, but I wasn’t the bad guy either. The villain in my tale wore a dress and no panties. Fire coursed through her veins, same as mine. My fatal flaw wasn’t in letting myself be seduced by the She Devil, rather in thinking that I could control her fire with ice. Fire melted ice. Fire left me with nothing but singed and tattered pieces. But I was a survivor, and I hadn’t lost. I had crawled over the wreckage inch by bloody inch, and came out on the other side born again.
This time last year I was in shackles, locked away in a cage like a beast. Forced to live day in and day out with my mistakes. Forced to see the shame in my parents’ eyes when they picked me up from the prison. Forced to begin anew. I was broken, angry, vengeful. I spent the first forty years of my life in neutral. Good or bad, Simone Boudreaux was like a lobotomy. She re-programmed my brain, introduced me to a new way of living—a new way of seeing the world. Prison changed people, it sure as hell changed me. I was still a narcissistic asshole, but I was more self-aware. Six months locked in a cage without caffeine, or coke, had that effect.
Pushing through the glass door, I stepped into Reed’s office. It was cozy, something I took for granted the last time I was there. Hell, I had taken most things for granted. Reed’s receptionist, Estell, sat behind a shiny oak desk. “Doc—uh—Mr. Cooper, Dr. Reed is expecting you,” she said, blushing at her blunder. Twelve years of schooling plus another four years of residency all flushed down the drain because of my obsession with the most vindictive bitch on the planet. “Thanks Estell.” I walked down the short hall and found Reed sitting behind his desk.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said uncrossing his legs and standing to greet me.
Some things never changed. For instance, he still sat like a bitch. The cheap print of Starry Night still hung on the wall, photo frames still littered his desk. “Why? Because you’re fucking my wife?” I asked plucking up one of the frames. Natasha smiled at the camera holding an unfortunate looking little baby boy in her arms. “I would crack a joke about the kid being mine, but this little bastard definitely has your DNA,” I grinned, turning the picture to face him.
“I was this close to feeling sorry for you,” Reed said, holding his index finger and his thumb a quarter of an inch apart. “This fucking close. Why are you here, Coop?”
A loaded question. We both knew why I was there, why I left the comfort of my New York penthouse and my cushy job consulting for the doctor who bought my practice all those years ago. “Why the fuck do you think? I’m not paying $150 an hour for you to hold me.”
“$200,” he amended, hands casually tucked in the pockets of his Dockers.
“What?! Charlatan!” I made my way over to his chaise. Since I was having a face to face with Brutus, I figured I might as well get comfortable.
“I have a family to provide for and my fiancé’s soon to be ex-husband isn’t giving her anything in the divorce.” Dark rings circled his eyes, his hair had thinned out a bit, and the handle bar mustache was gone. Fatherhood had taken its toll on my old friend. The thought did something odd to my chest. I wasn’t sure what that something was though. I hadn’t gotten use to having emotional reactions. Jealousy maybe? Pity?
I tucked it way to analyze later. “Maybe if she weren’t pregnant with this
little gremlin when she filed she’d have gotten more.” I lifted the picture once more, emphasizing my point.
Reed stomped over to where I sat and snatched the frame from my hand, returning it to its home on his desk. “Get out of my office, Damien.” His voice was stern, but he didn’t mean it. Reed was one of those altruistic since birth motherfuckers. The worst thing he’d ever done in his life was fuck my wife, and even that was an act of kindness. He was the white knight who rode in and saved the damsel from the dragon. He should win a fucking Nobel Prize.
“Nope.” I kicked my legs up, leaning back onto the lounger. “I’ve paid for the hour and I’m really fucking crazy.”
He regarded me for a moment. His head cocked to the side, the little vein at his temple pulsed. I could see his gears turning. The internal debate raged inside his brain. Prison only heightened my ability to read people, and I’d known this bastard half my life. He wanted to talk, to smooth things over. I may have been an asshole, and I may have fucked a patient and landed myself in jail, but Reed felt guilty. He told me as much the one and only time he’d come to visit me in prison. Banging my wife aside, Reed was a good man.
“I thought you didn’t like that word,” he said, sliding down into his chair. His left leg crossed over his right. Score one for team Cooper.
“It’s grown on me, sticks and stones…whatever.”
“And why is that?”
“And why is that.” I repeated, letting the words roll from my tongue. I liked the way they felt—comfortable—familiar. I bathed in that familiarity. Luxuriated in it. Those four words on Reed’s lips use to annoy the shit out of me, but now, after, they served as a reminder. Not just of who I use to be, but also who I was currently. Who I would be in five years. And why is that? “I realized that in and of itself, crazy is only a word. The true danger is in how it’s wielded.”
“And what brought you to that realization?”
“Prison changes people. Some for the better and others for the worse.” Reed’s eyes perked up. We were getting to the good part. “You’re wondering if it changed me. If spending six months locked away from the world damaged my psyche?” I asked, and he nodded, uncrossing and re-crossing his legs. I paused, mostly for affect, but also to organize my thoughts. “I don’t think so…I mean I’m sure on some level I’m different because of it, but I think what really caused me to shed my chrysalis was something far more nefarious.”
“Like what?”
“A leggy brunette who can hold a grudge, and who always collected her debts.” The unspoken Simone hung in the air like a stale room freshener. The levity from before had vanished, leaving us to choke on the bitter base notes. “Have you spoken to her?” Reed shifted in his chair again. His gaze dropped from mine to a stain on the carpet. $200 an hour and there were stains on the floor. “Et tu, Brute?”
“I just…I mean…at first I was only reaching out to make sure she was okay—”
“And then?” I asked, with a raised brow.
“And then we found out what she did, and of course I was repulsed.” He looked guilty, like there was something he wasn’t telling me, so I clasped my fingers behind my head and got comfortable. I had time. If there was one thing I learned from the She Devil, it was that it paid to be patient. It paid to wait, and strike at the right time. For months post my release, I waited. I got a job. I put the pieces of my life back together all while I watched her from afar. She wrote another book, this one entitled, Sweet Revenge, her tenth best seller. The bitch had balls, I’d give her that.
“Of course, so when was the last time you spoke to her?”
“I don’t think it’s wise to go down that road.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the restraining order,” he said as if it should have been obvious. Worry creased his brow. “Damien. Why are you in Colorado?”
“Sweet Revenge,” I said simply, honestly, “and the restraining order expired two weeks ago.”
Realization dawned on his face. “As your therapist, I advise you to let this go.”
“And as my friend?”
“As your friend, I’d advise you to let this go then drive you to the airport.” We both knew I wasn’t going back to New York without seeing this through. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A photo message. I tapped the screen, enlarging the picture. Simone sat at a familiar booth, staring at her laptop screen. A slow smile crept across my face. Blood pumped through my veins. My heart felt like it was about to claw its way out of my chest. “Damien. What have you done?” Reed’s eyes pleaded with me to reconsider. He really was a good man, too bad I wasn’t.
Swinging my legs off the couch, I hopped to my feet. My little detour to the Prescott Building was just a way to kill time. “It’s been fun, we’ll have to catch up next time I’m in town. I want to meet your little gremlin,” I threw over my shoulder as I sprinted to the door. Reed called after me, but I couldn’t wait. This was it, the moment had been a year in the making. I took the stairs two at a time. Fishing through my pockets for the keys to my rental, a Tahoe for old times’ sake.
My phone buzzed again, an incoming call. “She’s at a bar on Market.” Dick, the PI I hired to tail Simone barked into the receiver. “Her laptop is out and she just ordered a martini so I assume she’ll be here a while. Sending the address now.”
“No need,” I grinned. “I know exactly where she is.”
* * *
The parking lot at Hudson’s was empty save for a beat up old Jeep, and a white Porsche Cayman. I parked the Tahoe next to the Jeep and killed the engine. The window squeaked in protest as it made its descent. A young man with a brown baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, sat in the driver’s seat. “Dick.” I greeted. Dick wasn’t his real name. I didn’t know his real name. When we first met I had been convinced he was a scam artist. He looked like he was fresh out of high school. I thought there was no way this kid would be able to spy on Simone unnoticed, but he had come highly recommended and I was desperate. Desperate men were the most dangerous. We were the root cause of all that was wrong with the world. War, famine, poverty, and most of the time, that desperation was incited by a woman. Menelaus was desperate to have his wife back. Paris was desperate to keep the woman he loved, and those two desperate bastards went to war over a cunt named Helen.
Dick nodded. “Dr. Cooper.”
“Damien, just call me Damien,” I said. His jeep was littered with fast food containers and empty coffee cups. I wondered what he must think of me. Was I the disgraced doctor stalking his victim, or did he see me as a fool, a pawn?
“Need me to stick around?” Dick was thorough. He was tasked with keeping an eye on Simone while I waited for the restraining order to expire. It should have been easy enough, but of course with Simone, nothing was ever easy. Sweet Revenge kept my little nympho busy, and all the traveling sent my PI bill skyrocketing.
I eyed the manila folder sitting on the passenger’s seat. A Sweet Revenge of my very own. “No. I’ve got it from here, but thanks.”
“Pleasure doing business with you, Damien.” Dick shoved the Jeep into gear and peeled out of the lot.
Once he was gone, I grabbed the envelope and sauntered into the bar. I almost, almost, kicked the damned Porsche on my way, but I was practicing impulse control.
Hudson’s was dead in the middle of the day, which made finding my target easy. Lucky for me, her back was to the door. Her hair fell in loose waves down her back; it was longer than it was last time I had seen her. The urge to rake my fingers through it, to feel the silk against my palms, to yank her head back so hard her neck contorted into an uncomfortable arch, was strong. This was it. The moment nearly a year and a half in the making.
My steps were feather light as I approached. I practically floated to her booth. “I expected this reunion two weeks ago,” she said, calmly closing the laptop and cracking her knuckles.
“Don’t stop on my account.”
Her smoky gaze trailed down, as she examined every inch o
f my body, a body transformed by six months of eating simple carbs, followed by a year of taking my anger and frustration out on an over-priced kick-boxing instructor. Simply put, I was in the best physical shape of my life. “What took so long, Dr. Cooper?”
“Just Damien now, thanks to you,” I said, taking a seat.
“You’ll always be Dr. Cooper to me.” She fluttered her lashes at me. Simone was bold, I’ll give her that. Bold and crazy as hell.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t wring your fucking neck.” I returned the eye fuck. She wore a pink, silk blouse, the top three buttons undone, exposing the swell of her breasts. She was—as always—completely mesmerizing. All slender jawline and pouty lips, a modern-day siren. Only I’d already been lured to my destruction.
“More jail time?” she said biting back a grin.
“No, it would be worth it.” It would have been. I’d jizz on her unconscious body before I turned myself in.
“Because I’d like it?” she offered. Lust darkened her blues. It was hard to remember I hated her when she looked at me like that. Not impossible, but hard.
“Better, but still not quiet the answer I’m looking for.” I signaled for the bartender. Mostly to build anticipation. I even asked the kid what kinds of gin’s they had, even though I only ever drank Hendricks. After five full minutes I ordered, and the poor kid scurried away.
“Here I thought I was the dramatic one,” Simone said once we were alone again.
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