by Portia Moore
“Come on,” I tell Erin, seeing her still staring at herself in the mirror, her face glowing. I can see her confidence growing by the second, which helps ease some of my anxiety. Even if all of this today is too much—far too much—it’s worth it to help build Erin up, to make all the worry and trauma she’s gone through at least a little better.
“You look amazing,” I tell her honestly as we get into the car. Erin gives a flip of her hair as she sits down next to me, a brilliant smile on her face.
“I think getting a guy like Vincent might be easier than I thought,” she says, grinning.
My heart clenches in my chest. I’ve never felt so awful in my entire life.
15
Zach
I’m excited as shit that I get to tell Davidson at our next meeting that I’ve finally made some progress. I tell him about the brunch with Sonya and the upcoming trip to Italy.
“She mentioned Vincent by name,” I tell him. “So it looks as if I might actually make firsthand contact with him.” I peer closely at him. “This is good news, right?”
“Very good news,” Davidson confirms. I can tell he’s impressed. “This is a step in the right direction. You’re doing really well with this assignment, Rostov.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, trying not to sound too thrilled, but it’s good to feel like I’m doing my job again. This is what I want—to be a part of things, not shuffled off and pimped out to distract one of the players in the organization.
“How is everything else going?” Davidson asks bluntly.
I hesitate, a little confused. “What do you mean by ‘everything else’?” I ask, making air quotes.
“How are you doing with keeping your persona straight with Sonya?” he asks, looking at me directly. “Are there any issues? Any…overlap?”
I know exactly what he’s asking, and it irritates me.
“I’m making it work,” I tell him firmly, my voice a little sharper than it should be. “I know who Sonya is, and I know the job.”
“Tell me, she has to be a good fuck, right?” Davidson jokes, grinning as if he’s one of my bros and not my handler. I know what he wants me to do. It’s a test; he’s trying to see if I’ll be offended that he’s talking about Sonya that way, which would be proof that I feel something for her.
Instead, I just shrug. “Hey, there are worse jobs than fucking a pretty girl for information,” I tell him with a smirk.
“She’s an astute woman and a criminal,” Davidson says. “That all might be the case, but still, the Bureau wants you to start seeing a therapist in between our meetings. These sorts of things can get rough, mentally and emotionally, and it’s good for you to have someone to discuss it all with.”
“I’ll pass,” I say dryly. “I hardly have enough time to take a peaceful shit these days, with everything Sonya has me running around doing. I don’t need another thing taking up my time.”
“It isn’t optional. You’ve got your first appointment in an hour.” He pushes a white business card across the table to me. “And don’t even think about blowing it off.”
I’m beyond annoyed, on the verge of being straight-up pissed off. I just want to do my job. I don’t want to think about having to talk about feelings or anything else that’s happened in the last couple of months…hell, in my life at all. I passed the psych evaluation at the academy, where I had to talk a little bit about my family background. I figured that would be the end of that.
I was wrong. An order is an order, so I do as I’m told.
The therapist’s office is in a lower-income neighborhood, a few blocks from my apartment, which is in keeping with my cover story at least—if Sonya somehow finds out, I won’t have to explain how I can afford or even be interested in some swanky counselor in downtown Chicago. The receptionist who greets me looks like she hates her job as she checks me in, and I’m sure I don’t look much happier to be here.
The lobby is half full as I sit down and start filling out intake paperwork. I wonder if everyone else here is undercover agents too, or how many of them are. I don’t recognize anyone, but I don’t even know everyone in my department by face.
“Chase West?” I’m directed down the hall to an office, and when I step inside, I see the therapist sitting in a plush armchair looking through a file.
She’s a pretty, older woman, maybe in her late forties or early fifties. She smiles at me when I sit down on the sofa, pushing a lock of auburn hair that’s started to turn faintly blonde in places behind her ear as she looks at me. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. West,” she says in a friendly manner.
“Just call me Chase, please.” I wish I could ask her to call me Zach, but I suppose that’s probably against the rules.
“Chase, then.” She leans back in the seat. “Of course, that’s not your real name.”
“Of course,” I agree.
“Chase, I want us to talk about how you’re feeling about all of this today. You’ve gone through a lot of changes in the last month.”
I shrug. “I’ve gone through changes all my life. I’m used to it.”
“But now you’re in a new relationship, too.”
I laugh. “I guess you could call it that, but it’s not real. Not even close.”
“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. You seem very sure that you can separate your cover as Chase from who you really are. Do you find that being Chase makes you feel less conflicted about being with this woman?”
She’s hit it right on the nose immediately, and it makes me more than a little uncomfortable. “She isn’t someone I would date in real life, so that makes it easy.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she’s a criminal,” I say as if it should be obvious.
“But if you weren’t FBI, you wouldn’t know she was a criminal.”
“She’s not the type of woman I’d go for, normally.”
“Let’s talk about that. What about her makes you say that?”
“She can be mean. She’s arrogant. She’s stubborn. Her job, wealth, and position in society will always come first, and I come second. I’m not her equal. I’m there to adore her.”
“And do you?”
“Do I what?” I’m starting to get annoyed.
“Adore her?”
“No.” I let out a long sigh. “I don’t have feelings for her.”
“But you don’t hate this job, either.”
I laugh at that, a short, sharp sound that makes the therapist’s eyes widen a little. “No red-blooded man could hate this job. I haven’t slept in my own bed in a month.”
“Let’s talk about that, then. Is it difficult for you to have sex with her? Do you find yourself having trouble with arousal?”
I stare at her. “Have you seen the woman I’m ‘dating’?”
She smiles a little. “So, no. How often do you have sex?”
“As often as she wants it,” I say with a smirk. Now I want to make her uncomfortable because I’m tired of this digging. I don’t care if it’s her job; I don’t like being poked at like this.
“You never initiate?”
I hesitate at that. I have no doubt that this isn’t confidential. Davidson and anyone else at the agency for whom it's pertinent will see it. “I have initiated sex, yes. I think she would get a little suspicious if I didn’t.”
“But it’s typically her?”
“She doesn’t usually give me a chance to be the one to start something. As Davidson said, I’m her type.”
“And what do you do in bed?”
“Everything a man can do to a woman,” I say impudently. The therapist doesn’t flinch, and I sigh. “Look, what do you want me to say? The sex is good, alright? I don’t hate fucking her. It’s not a chore. But I don’t love her, and I know I’m not the first man on Earth to enjoy a good roll in the hay with a woman I have no feelings for and sometimes actively dislike. My dick has different feelings about it, alright?”
“So, there’s no worry of attachment.
”
“None,” I tell her firmly.
“What about your mother? What is your relationship like with her?”
I blink, momentarily startled at the quick shift from Sonya and our sex life to my mother.
“We don’t talk anymore. Not since I left at eighteen.” I look at the therapist with plain annoyance on my face now. “I don’t like to talk about her. And I already have once, with the counselor at the academy. I don’t want to do it again.”
I expect her to press me on it more, but she doesn’t. Instead, she taps her pen against the clipboard in thought. “Have you ever been attached to anyone?”
Immediately, as if summoned, Rain’s face fills my thoughts. I can almost smell her perfume—that too-sweet, sugary scent of cheap vanilla lotion she sometimes wore when we hung out together. Sonya always smells expensive, like money and luxury distilled into a perfume. Still, I’d rather breathe in that cheap drugstore lotion any day if it meant being that close to Rain again. I don’t want to talk about her. I don’t want to even speak her name. But I know the sudden wave of nostalgia and painful memories are evident on my face. The therapist almost looks triumphant that she’s gotten something.
I try to force down the ache in my chest at the thought of Rain. “There was someone,” I say reluctantly. “But it was a long time ago. She’s long gone.” The truth of that hurts. Rain has been lost to me for a long time. It’s part of what makes this thing with Sonya so easy—no matter how long I’m in her bed, no matter how long this goes on, I won’t love her. I’m not capable of loving her because the only woman I could ever love is Rain, or someone like her, and with the life I live, I could never have a woman like that.
“What happened to her?” the therapist asks softly.
I shake my head. “Just life,” I say quietly. But I can’t help the thoughts that spiral out from that—about how different my life could be if things hadn’t played out the way they did on that awful afternoon, if my childhood hadn’t been so goddamned shitty, if life hadn’t played my mother and me such a shit hand of cards. If my father hadn’t been an abusive asshole, I wouldn’t have gotten into that fight with him. I’d have gone to work at the warehouse and got my GED, and right now, Rain would be waiting for me in some small shabby house or apartment somewhere—maybe Indiana, maybe not. Maybe she’d be pregnant now, or we’d already have a kid. I know she’d be my wife.
Stop it! I tell myself angrily, almost screaming it in my head. I can’t think like this. It only leads down a dark path, one I stopped wandering down a long time ago.
What happened is done and over with. I can’t change it.
And I’m sure as hell not going to talk about it with this stranger today.
16
Rain
Vincent is already at the house when Erin and I walk in the door, standing in the living room talking with Andrea. I feel the anxiety twist in my stomach again. Erin looks beautiful, but who the hell knows what Vincent thinks will look cheap or tacky to him on a sixteen-year-old.
But as the door shuts behind me, I hear Andrea say warmly, “You look so beautiful, Erin! Absolutely lovely.”
“Stunning. Just incredibly stunning,” Vincent adds in that smooth, rich voice of his as I step into the room. Erin is beaming, basking in the attention from both of them. Vincent glances up at me, and the smile doesn’t fade as his eyes skim over me and then returns to Erin. “The two of you really did win the genetic lottery,” he says with a laugh—one that actually sounds sincere, for a change.
To my surprise, Erin runs to Vincent and hugs him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I’m so glad you’re letting me come to Italy with you and my sister,” she says happily, looking up at him with a glowing smile. “I felt like a princess today. Thank you so much. And you too,” she adds, turning back to me. “Thank you so much, Rain. This was a really special day.”
Vincent is practically glowing by now, his face radiating pleasure at Erin’s appreciation of him. As she hugs him again, he looks at me over the top of her head, and although his smile looks completely natural, I think I can see a hint of triumph there. My heart aches despite the happy expression I’ve plastered on my face because all I can think is that I desperately wish he were the old Vincent I knew, the one I fell in love with. This scene could be so different, so happy for all of us if Vincent were the man I thought he was. I could have been so happy, seeing the kind and generous man that I loved lavishing affection on and spoiling my sister, who’s never had a father who would do that for her. But that Vincent, the one I’m imagining and the one I loved, probably never existed at all. And that’s the hardest thing for me to accept. With this Vincent, I can’t enjoy or trust this. I get anxious at what his ulterior motive is, when the other shoe is going to drop. What he’s going to demand of me in exchange for his kindness.
“You’re going to be breaking hearts in no time,” he tells Erin with a fatherly grin, and as she smiles at him, he glances at the expensive watch on his wrist, the one I gave him last Christmas. Not the one that I found in the apartment, the one “Daisy” gave to “her Gatsby.”
It’s another harsh reminder of the reality I live in.
“We need to get going,” Vincent says, his voice switching over to the businesslike tone I know so well. “Someone will get your bags, girls. We should go ahead and go to the airport.”
“Are we taking the jet?” Erin asks excitedly.
Vincent smiles indulgently at her. “Of course we are.”
She squeals with delight, bouncing up and down on her toes as she looks at him and then at me. “We’re taking the jet, Rain!”
I smile as if I’m as thrilled as she is, but my stomach feels as if it’s in knots. It’s the memories on that jet, the way the thrilling trips turned to Vincent demanding sex, which he seems to love more than sex on the ground. Thank God that won’t happen, with Erin on board, I think with relief. It’s the fact that it’s become just another thing to hold over my head—see what I do for you, what I give you, the luxuries you have. And on top of all that, it’s the way he’s looking at Erin now, like she’s the daughter he hasn’t yet had. The ache for what might have been only intensifying. We might have had a daughter like Erin, someone Vincent could spoil endlessly and look at in that way. But even if we had a child now, it could never be the family I want.
If I have my way, I’ll be long gone before that can ever happen.
My nerves don’t settle on the flight even though I have time to myself. Erin has her headphones, and Vincent is typing furiously away on his laptop. The jet is insanely comfortable as always, but I can’t stop the racing of my thoughts or the nervousness that makes me feel fidgety and jittery.
What will Vincent’s dad be like? Is he anything like Vincent? The thought of two Vincents makes me feel almost nauseous.
What about his mom? Will she like me? Will she think I’m good enough for her son? Are they old-fashioned?
And then the question above all of them, the one I keep scolding myself with every time the worries surface—why do you even care? I don’t plan to go through with marrying Vincent. I intend to get away long before that happens. And why would I care what the people who raised a man like this think of me?
But the thought still lingers in my head.
I could sabotage the visit, the small voice in my head whispers. For a second, I consider the idea. If I make a scene, disappoint his parents, maybe Vincent won’t want me anymore. Maybe he’ll send Erin and me back to Indiana—she’ll be upset, but she’ll understand when I explain everything to her. For a brief moment, I feel a flash of hope at the idea.
And then, just as quickly, it dies. It could easily backfire. I’ve seen Vincent’s anger, and with his mother sick…I don’t know this woman. For all I know, she’s perfectly lovely. I can’t cause drama in this kind of situation; it’s not the kind of person I am. And there’s still my own father to worry about.
Vincent closes his laptop. At first, I think he’s going to snap
at me or say something about how worried I look. Instead, he only moves closer to me, his body pressing against mine in a sweetly intimate way as he takes my hand and leans over, kissing me gently on the side of my neck.
“I’m so glad you’re here with me,” he says softly.
I close my eyes, that old confusion about who the real Vincent is flooding back all over again.
I must have fallen asleep because I’m awoken by Erin squealing, “Oh my god, it’s so beautiful!” as the jet starts to make its descent. Vincent isn’t sitting beside me any longer; he’s sprawled out in one of the other luxurious leather seats with his feet propped up in front of him, reading through a newspaper with a breakfast of lox on a bagel and yogurt next to him. Erin also appears to have been eating breakfast, although hers seems to have consisted entirely of junk food.
I look out the window as I sit up, my curiosity overcoming my anxiety. Erin is right. It is indescribably beautiful, the lush countryside bright under the hot Italian sun. I can see the vineyards in the distance and the shimmering tarmac just below us.
“Welcome to my home,” Vincent says, setting down his newspaper as he turns to take in the view as well. I see something soft in his face, the first time I’ve seen him like this in a very long time. I can see, for a moment, a hint of the boy he once was as he takes in the countryside. I feel that now all-too-familiar ache, the one that wishes things were different, that he was a man I could still be in love with.
There is a convertible waiting for us, the Ferrari logo bright and gleaming on the hood. Vincent smiles at us as our bags are carried to the trunk. “There’s nothing like driving an Italian sports car in Italy,” he says with a boyish grin and opens the door for Erin so she can slide into the back. “Come on, let me take you to my home.”
He looks at me when he says it, and I can see in his face that he is home—that none of the places we’ve lived since I’ve known him have really felt like home to him. Not Chicago or New York, not the penthouse or the luxurious brownstone we live in now. He’s glowing as he starts up the car and pulls out onto the highway, gesturing as he tells Erin all about this new place. He’s charming and effusive, and I can see the genuine joy on his face.