BOUND: Together

by Cynthia Dane

  Everything around me softened. Maybe it was the jetlag. Maybe it was being surrounded by family I barely knew I had while the family I chose welcomed me back to the table and kissed me on the cheek.

  “She would never,” I said as the waiter served us our first courses. “My mother has been on a diet since the day I was born. That ice cream was all for me.”

  “Mango-flavored ice cream, huh?” Erica chuckled. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  ***

  I collapsed onto Erica’s bed the minute we returned to her rental. The jetlag and shock from the whole day was too much for my poor body to handle.

  “Are you mad at me?” That’s what I muttered, eyes closed, when Erica sat down next to me. Nick shut the bedroom door, giving us privacy for the rest of the night.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said. “I really sprung your dad on you.”

  “I’m not mad. Just shocked, I…” A huge yawn interrupted me. “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

  “Get some sleep, then. It takes a while to adjust to this kind of time difference. I was out the first week I was here.”

  “Did you miss me?”

  She leaned down and gently kissed my forehead. “Every damn hour. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and how pissed you probably were.”

  “I was pretty pissed, yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.” She nuzzled the nape of my neck and gave me space again. “Get some sleep, Nat. We’ll talk some more in the morning. I’m tired too.”

  Falling asleep was the easiest thing in the world. Within five minutes, I was off on a mango-flavored haze that wrapped warmly around my body and introduced me to all of the people that would be a positive – if not occasionally infuriating – part of my life for the next many years.

  I don’t remember changing my clothes. I choose to believe that Erica removed the red dress from my body while I slept, and I was so conked out that I barely noticed waking up naked with her own skin wrapped around mine.

  For a few precious minutes, that sliver of the Singaporean morning was absolute Heaven. Since that day, I’ve compared every morning to that one. The scents. The warmth of the sunshine. The beautiful moments bursting between Erica and me.

  Any morning less beautiful than that one isn’t worth remembering.

  Chapter 55

  ERICA

  The dinner could have gone better. While Natalie and her father (and her aunt, who appeared in formal clothing as both her brother’s bodyguard and her niece’s familial confidant) got along amicably, things turned sour when it was revealed that Lewis’s newborn daughter shared the same “baby” name as Natalie. I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of these traditions. All I knew was that Natalie grew upset and halted our dinner. She didn’t come back to the table until her aunt coaxed her with some explanation that was never passed on to me.

  Her father, at least, gave us his blessing. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, but having his daughter beside me made it feel more real.

  Yet Natalie was shaken for a couple of days. She was shocked that I had been in contact with her father, like I was shocked she had taken the initiative to find me in Singapore. As much as I wanted to believe it was purely because she loved me, I knew there were other reasons. Like informing me that my intern Aiden Webb was a plant from the local media.

  And, it turned out, my brilliant Natalie had formulated a plan to help me “come out,” so to speak. Not that the idea gave me much confidence. It could’ve been fool-proof and I still would have been filled with chagrin.

  “Don’t you think it’s time?” Natalie asked, sitting cross-legged on my bed. “Apparently more people know the truth than you can imagine. Some of the people you’re hiding it from probably know.”

  I looked away from the scenic skyline outside my window. Not that I could do much beside bristle in the windowsill. I shouldn’t have even been sitting in it, honestly. What if somebody saw me? “Don’t put that in my head,” I said. “I’m already resigned to spending the rest of my life wondering who knows and who doesn’t. This huge security breach happening beneath our noses already has me on edge.”

  “So it would be a huge weight off your chest, hon.” Natalie could call me hon as much as she wanted, but when the subject of outing my identity came up, nothing but anxiety penetrated me. “People don’t need to know the truth about your brother’s death. Only the truth about who you really are.”

  “It would ruin everything,” I snapped.

  “I don’t think so. Maybe when we were kids, but the world is a different place today.”

  The look I bestowed upon the rest of the bedroom almost brought the whole building down.

  “Look, Erica,” Natalie eventually said, “we can blackmail Aiden into secrecy for the rest of his life, but what about the other people who will follow his lead and sniff your ass until they detect your lack of a Y chromosome? Wouldn’t it be better to control how the world learns the truth? Your story, your way.”

  My toes curled against the windowsill as I imagined a world in which I announced, “I’m a woman. And I have a girlfriend.” What would happen? Worst case scenario, I lost everything, because the world really isn’t ready to deal with that kind of shock. Let alone most of my old, conservative investors.

  On a personal note, would I be able to handle the demands for interviews, the invasive questions, and the think pieces about nature vs. nurture? The public would want words. Words I never had to describe myself in any satisfactory way.

  “One day…”

  Natalie was relentless. “It’s not only about you now, Erica. I want the world to know who we really are. I’m not the kind who can be content to spin falsehoods all day. It’s not my style. I want to proudly talk about my girlfriend.”

  I hopped off the windowsill. How in the world did that simple movement make Natalie blush? No wonder it was so easy to get in her pants. All I had to do was flex a little muscle and her panties came off. “I should hope that I will be more than a girlfriend one day, Natalie.” How long did the word girlfriend work, anyway?

  “Fine.” Natalie squared her determined shoulders. “I want the world to know how wonderful my wife is.”

  Speechless, I had almost forgotten how nice it was to have someone who loved me so much. “Never heard a woman potentially call me that before.”

  We were both thinking of the same person. “Has Sherman figured out where Brooke is yet?”

  “Not yet. She learned from me a little too well. When she wanted to disappear, she made damn well sure it would be difficult to find her.”

  “So that means she’s not in America?”

  “No. She’s obviously not here, either. She could be anywhere in the world. God knows I pay her enough to make that happen.” Seychelles, Monaco, Barbados… hell if I knew.

  “Have you asked Adam?” Natalie asked.

  “Of course. He is not the most forthcoming man in the world.” I snorted. “I don’t think he likes me much.” No idea why! Not like Brooke worked for her former fiancé or anything. A fiancé with a billion dollars and a huge house.

  “Something Brooke told him?”

  “Who knows what Brooke ever told him? That’s between them.”

  “But it has to do with you.”

  “Lovely,” I said, bridging the gap between us, “that’s in the past. I’ve moved on. She’s moved on. I’m a fan of leaving my engagement to Brooke where it belongs.” In the past.

  Natalie didn’t have to say what was on her mind. We had been together long enough by then that I could read certain looks on her face. “But she was poisoned, Erica.” It practically echoed in my head.

  “We’ll find Brooke,” I said. “It’s a small world, after all. She can’t hide from us forever. At some point she’ll come out of hiding. Until then…” Enough thinking about Brooke. Enough talking about exposing any part of myself to the world. Why did we have to talk about these things when we should be taking advantage of our privacy? I’d ra
ther get on top of her – something she never had a problem with me doing. “Let’s assume we have bigger things to worry about. Like what we’re going to do with the rest of the afternoon.”

  She squeaked in surprise when I ended up between her legs. It wasn’t the first time that day.

  ***

  Brooke became my top priority. If nothing else, I needed to know that she was all right. As a friend. And as her employer, I suppose.

  Sherman’s research and phoning his few connections related to Brooke turned up empty. We only had one other choice, and we both agreed that it would require a little… well, what my team did best.

  We sent everyone but the bare bones of my security home ahead of us. I put Nick in charge, and Sherman went over with him what was expected and how it was to be done. Natalie was kept in the dark about my plans. While she was as eager as anyone else to find out what happened to Brooke, she didn’t need to know about the upcoming intimidation tactics.

  On the night before we were scheduled to return to America, we gathered around the television in the living room. I was assured that everything was set up and good to go.

  Nick appeared on the screen, standing in Brooke and Adam’s living room. Every time I saw Brooke’s insistence on putting pillows on everything, from the sofas to the couches to the damned breakfast nook, I shook my head. To think, I almost let her redesign a whole wing of my house. The amount of geese that would’ve been killed…

  “No signs of forced entry, sir.” Nick readjusted the earpiece in his head before continuing. “Mr. Lovett is sufficiently scared enough to cooperate.”

  “Do tell me you didn’t do anything illegal,” Sherman said. “I don’t want any trouble with the law. You know how Brooke can get when she’s pissed at us.”

  “I’m fine with him being scared so shitless that he’s emptied the entirety of his bowels,” I muttered.

  Nick pointed to something off screen. The camera turned until we had a clear view of Adam Lovett sitting on his couch, surrounded by the brunt of my security. All of whom were receiving bonuses for a job well done.

  Adam Fucking Lovett. The man has never deserved Brooke, and looking upon his weaselly, freckled face reminded me of that. I swear to God, if he had anything to do with Brooke’s poisoning…

  “Good evening, Adam!” I bellowed with a smile. “We’re coming to you live from Singapore. That’s how much we care about finding Brooke right now.”

  “Ah, well…”

  “You know where she is,” Sherman said. “My men know how to get information out of people. Now, unless you want Brooke to come home to find her fiancé a little worse for wear, then go ahead and keep quiet. Otherwise, tell us where she is. Now.”

  Adam squirmed in his seat. Natalie likewise shifted in her seat. Did she finally see what I did? A weak-willed asshole who got off on having dominant women like my ex-fiancée push him around? I’ve seen them together long enough to discern how their… balance… works.

  “At least tell us if she went of her own volition, or if someone forced her.” I lost my fake smile. “Although if someone forced her, I’m sure you would’ve told somebody, right, Adam?”

  “Okay, okay.” He held up his hands. “She’s long left the country. She made sure everyone at work thought she had gone to Singapore with you.”

  “No shit. Tell us something we don’t know.”

  “She’s in Paris.”

  I leaped up and took a heated step forward. “Paris? Why the fuck is she in Paris?” Of all the cities in the world… she went to the one that defined us the most?

  “Erica.” Sherman held me back. “Let him finish.”

  “I don’t know why she’s in Paris,” Adam continued, “all I know is that she checks in every couple of days through text. She told me what hotel she’s staying in. I can give…”

  “Tell us. Now.”

  Adam sighed. “The Seine Hotel. Not to be confused with Hotel de Seine.”

  I returned to the couch with a scoff. “She seriously went back there… and has been there this whole time?”

  Nick stepped in front of the camera. “We’ll get the details, sir.”

  “We’ll make a change of travel plans,” Sherman said. He was already on the phone. At least I didn’t have to tell him to change our flight from America to France.

  Natalie came to me as soon as the live feed was off and my skeleton crew made last-minute arrangements. “What is it?” She took my hands into her lap. “Isn’t it a good thing to know she’s okay and where she went?”

  “It’s great,” I spat. “Just… Paris. She would have to go to fucking Paris.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s best to leave out details of former relationships with your current lover. I certainly wouldn’t have told Natalie about Paris if I ever took her there, for business or pleasure. She doesn’t need that hanging over her. Brooke is… intimidating, isn’t she? She wasn’t only a woman Natalie idolized when she began working for me. She was also my ex, the woman I had been in love with, and the person Natalie would always compare herself to. Yet I knew I had some explaining to do.

  “That was ‘our’ city.” I squeezed Natalie’s hand. “It’s where we first solidified our relationship and where I proposed to her. We were going to get married there.” Everything had been arranged. The venue. The caterer. The parade of local and international media that would swarm us the moment Brooke debuted her wedding dress.

  Before she broke it off, anyway. Since then, Paris has always been a bit of a sore spot.

  Natalie glanced at Sherman in the corner of the room. “I’m coming with you guys, right?” she asked.

  “Don’t suppose I’d be able to stop you,” he said. “Not with the Taiwanese military at your call.”

  “Good. Because I have a feeling you’re really going to need me.”

  I hated how right she was.

  Chapter 56

  ERICA

  We touched down in Paris thirty-six hours later. A car awaited us on the tarmac, and I couldn’t have been inspired to get into that vehicle more quickly than I already was. Brooke was somewhere in the City of Lights, and I was determined to find her and discover what the hell her deal was.

  “Our local intel claims there have been sightings of a blond American woman hanging out around the bridge,” Sherman said in the front seat.

  The bridge. He didn’t have to specify which one. Because, out of every bridge in Paris, there was only one that mattered to Brooke.

  “I hope she’s received quite a trip from this sabbatical,” I grumbled. “A fortnight in Paris, staying in our hotel and going to our…”

  Natalie cut me off with a pat to my knee. Right. I was venting, when I should be focusing on what I would say to Brooke when I confronted her.

  Lord. Confronted?

  Maybe that was the effect Paris had on me after Brooke ended our relationship. I hadn’t lied when I said it was our city. I asked her to be my girlfriend while we enjoyed a view of the Eiffel Tower. I proposed to her on the Ponts des Arts bridge, for fuck’s sake. It had been Brooke’s idea to get married in Paris. I daresay it meant more to her than it did to me.

  So I was both surprised and nonchalant that she would run to Paris the moment she met upheaval. But did it have to be in my face?

  “I’ve got two of our men scouring the location for her,” Sherman said. “You’ll be the first to know once I get word.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” I said through clenched teeth.

  The drive was agonizingly quick. That’s how it works when you’re not in a hurry to power through something. As much as I wanted to find Brooke and get some answers out of her, I was also content to never see her again. How about that? The woman I had loved so much that she had changed my life for the worst – and the better – was now the woman I was ready to wash away from my soul if it meant finally, truly moving on with the new love of my life.

  My ire softe
ned when Natalie smiled at me. I squeezed her hand and prepared to exit the car as soon as we pulled up to the Ponts des Arts, where couples once left locks of their love until the local government deemed it a structural hazard and cut them all off the bridge. Where were they now? I had no idea. I had stopped caring after Brooke broke up with me. That lock could be at the bottom of the Seine for all I cared.

  I didn’t want to think about what happened after Brooke and I added our lock so many years ago. I had knelt on one knee to propose to her. Her tears were real and the people around us taking pictures ended up on half the social media sites within the hour. That’s all it took once people recognized us.

  It felt like a lifetime ago. Ever since Natalie became a staple in my life, everything was a lifetime before her.

  “We’re looking for a woman,” I said to a street artist at the end of the bridge. “American. Blonde. Tall.”

  “Oui.” He wiped off his brush and nodded to his right. “A woman like that comes by here every day. Down there.” He pointed to the other end of the bridge.

  “Merci.”

  The bridge was wide and a good walk across, but I knew it wouldn’t be hard to spot Brooke if she were around. As my description of her implied, she was tall, blonde, and tragically American. My powers of observation were born from my father’s business training – and from my tutors making me hyper-aware of how I conducted myself in public, both as a man, and as an American. A certain slouch of the spine or cock of the head would make anyone stick out in a Parisian crowd, let alone a tall blonde woman.

  I didn’t take ten steps across the bridge when I spotted her. There, leaning against the bridge, her hair swept up and a pink scarf wrapped tightly around her face. My heart sank. No matter my true feelings for her, Brooke would always be a heart-stopping beauty. One that would never fail to remind me of what we once had before it was yanked away.