by Force, Marie
“How did the five of you come together to form the company?”
“I’ve worked with Hayden from the beginning. We’ve made six films together and produced five others. Marlowe was in two of our early films and was interested in getting into producing. Jasper, who’s a cinematographer, and Kristian, a producer who came along later, were a good fit for us because we share a similar vision about the kinds of films we want to make and produce. It sort of happened organically.” He tops off both our glasses. “This is a tough business. It’s nice to work with people I trust and who trust me.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting Jasper and Kristian.”
“You’ll fall in love with Jasper’s British accent. We call him the Panty Dropper.”
“Dare I ask?”
“We joke that panties drop every time he opens his mouth.”
“The British accent is extremely sexy.”
“Oh jeez. Spare me. My sisters are positively smitten with him. Last year at Christmas, Ellie asked him to read ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and then made a flaming fool of herself panting and moaning over the accent. The kids thought she was having a stroke or something. It was mortifying.”
I’m laughing so hard, I nearly choke on my wine.
“You know,” he says, swirling the wine around in his glass, “I love talking about my friends and my business, but I’d much rather talk about you and your family.”
Just that quickly, my stomach knots and my body tightens with tension.
“Nat?”
“Yeah?”
“Look at me, sweetheart.”
I force myself to meet his intense gaze.
“I want to know you. I want to understand you. And more than anything, I want to protect you so nothing can ever hurt you again.”
“Not even you are that powerful.”
“You’d be surprised at what I can do when someone I love is hurting.”
“You’ve already shown me what you’re capable of.”
“I’ve only shown you the start of it.”
I can’t put this off any longer, not if I hope to have a meaningful relationship with this amazing man who has repeatedly revealed his heart to me and shared his truth. He deserves nothing less than my truth in return.
“Tell me about who you were as a kid. I want to know everything.”
“My name was April then. They named me that because I was born on the fifteenth of April, and the joke was that I was destined to work for the IRS because I was born on tax day.”
“Ugh, nothing funny about taxes. The joke in my family is I single-handedly support the Pentagon with what I pay in taxes.”
“Aww, poor baby.”
“I know, right?”
“Back then, before everything happened, I was really into dance, gymnastics, cheerleading. All the usual stuff.”
His eyes widen with interest. “You were a cheerleader?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you, you know, sometime…”
I hadn’t expected to laugh while talking about my past, but Flynn makes it easy. “If you’re very good.”
“I’m going to be so good.”
“Anyway, growing up, Oren Stone and his family were a big part of our lives. My dad and Oren had been friends since they were kids. According to my mom, who grew up with them, Oren always had an odd influence over my dad. I didn’t realize that when I was a kid, but with hindsight, I can see that their relationship was bizarre. My therapist said Oren was a classic narcissist. It was all about him, and my dad was his chief enabler. Whatever Oren wanted, Oren got… jobs, money, women, power. My dad helped make it all happen. Oren’s wife, Stephanie… She was a really nice lady who had no idea what went on behind the scenes. My parents used to fight about the things my dad did for him. He always said he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to keep his job. My mom would cry and beg him to get another job, but he’d say Oren needed him and he couldn’t desert him.”
“Were they into illegal stuff?” Flynn asked.
“They were into everything. It all came out during the trial. My charges were the tip of the iceberg. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” I take a deep breath. “Even though my mother didn’t think too much of Oren, she loved Stephanie. We kept up the pretense of our families being friends. When Oren became governor, they traveled a lot, and they asked me to travel with them during the summer and on vacations to help with their kids, who were much younger than me. I hadn’t been able to find a summer job, so I took them up on their offer. My parents were thrilled. I remember my mom saying how happy she was that I’d be working for friends, people we knew and trusted.”
When he strokes my face, I realize tears are spilling down my cheeks. Flynn takes my glass and puts it next to his on a nearby table. Then he gathers me close to him, holding me and caressing my back. “Take your time, sweetheart.”
“I’m okay. It was a long time ago now. It’s so long ago that sometimes it’s like it didn’t happen to me, like I saw it all in a movie or something.” I take a deep breath, summoning the fortitude to get this over with so we can move forward together. “I spent a lot of weekends with them, helping with the kids while they attended events and other things he had to do as governor. So it wasn’t unusual for them to call me to set up a weekend babysitting gig. It was unusual, however, for Oren to make the call. But I knew Stephanie had been sick with the flu and had lost her voice, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
My hands begin to tremble and my stomach aches. “My mom dropped me off at the governor’s mansion after school on Friday. She said she’d see me Sunday and to keep a close eye on the kids. All the stuff she always said. We’d done this a hundred times before, so it was no big deal. Except… When I went into the house, the only one there was Oren. He said Stephanie and the kids would be home soon.”
“Take a deep breath, sweetheart. That’s it… If it’s too much, you don’t have to tell me.”
That’s when I notice there are tears in his eyes, too. This is killing him to hear as much as it’s killing me to recount it. Knowing Flynn is right there beside me, that he feels this almost as deeply as I do, gives me the courage to continue.
“He was drinking when I got there. After about an hour, he told me Stephanie and the kids were in New York visiting her parents for the weekend. I was confused. I made the mistake of asking him why I was there. He… He slapped me hard across the face and said I knew exactly why I was there, that I’d been ‘coming on to him’ for years, that I was ‘hot for it’ and all sorts of other things I didn’t understand at the time.”
“Son of a bitch.” Flynn’s voice is a low growl. “It’s a good thing he’s already dead, or I’d kill him with my own hands.”
“He tore my clothes off. I tried to fight him, but he was so much bigger and stronger than me. The whole time it was happening, I was in a state of disbelief. That this man I’d known all my life, my father’s closest friend… I couldn’t believe he would do this to me. He hit me and choked me and told me he’d kill me if I made so much as a sound.”
“Motherfucker,” Flynn whispers as he wipes away tears on my face and his own.
“The first time happened in the family room. It hurt so badly, I passed out from the pain. I think he drugged me at some point, because I was in and out of it for what I later discovered was two days. Every time I came to, he was inside me, hurting me.”
“On the plane,” he says haltingly, “when I woke you up that way, did it make you think of the attack?”
“No. You had me so turned on. I didn’t think of it.”
“It would kill me if I did anything to remind you of what happened then.”
“I know.” I squeeze his hand and take a deep breath before continuing my story. “When I tried to fight back, he would hit me. He restrained me, beat me with a belt… I thought it would never end. And when I thought it couldn’t get worse, he shoved it down my throat, and I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe.”
“I’m okay, and I want to tell you the rest so we can never talk about it again.”
He shudders and draws in a deep breath. I can feel his agony, and in that moment, I’m absolutely certain he loves me every bit as much as he says he does.
“On Sunday afternoon, he told me to get up and take a shower. I hurt everywhere. He came into the shower and scrubbed me, violating me all over again as he washed himself off me. After, he grabbed a huge handful of my hair and brought his face down close to mine. He said if I told anyone what he’d done, he would fire my father. He said my dad would go to jail for the stuff he’d done and our family would be homeless. He said no one would believe a fifteen-year-old slut over the governor, and that if I breathed so much as a word to anyone, he’d kill me. I’m not sure what exactly came over me, but I had this vision of him doing the same thing to my sisters. When he told me to get my stuff and get out, I walked straight to the police station, which was half a mile from the governor’s mansion. I was so scared because of the things he said he would do to me and my family if I told, but I knew I had to protect my sisters or he would do this to them, too. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“God, Nat. You’re incredible. That you could be so clearheaded after what had been done to you.”
“I stayed focused on Candace and Olivia when I told the cops what’d happened. I was afraid he’d go after them or other young girls, which is how I was able to report him. At first, I could tell the cops didn’t believe me. I mean, when you think about it, here I was, this fifteen-year-old nobody accusing the governor of Nebraska of raping me—repeatedly. But he’d left bruises that forced them to take me seriously. They took me to the hospital… That was almost worse than what Oren had done. They gave me something in case I’d gotten pregnant, and the exam… It hurt so badly. I cried the whole time. I had to have stitches and… it was horrendous.” I take the napkin he hands me and wipe my face and blow my nose. “Except when I saw Dr. Richmond the other night, I haven’t been to a doctor again since.”
“And here I am asking you to go on birth control. I never would’ve asked you to do that if I’d known.”
I comb my fingers through his hair, needing to touch him, to comfort him. “You’re hearing this story for the first time. Don’t forget it’s old news to me. I don’t think about it every day anymore.”
“It’s going to be a very long time before I don’t think about it every day.”
“Is it going to change everything between us?”
He raises his head off my chest. “What? No, of course not.”
“If you treat me differently now that you’ve heard the dirty details, that will hurt me.”
“Nat… Christ… If anything, I love you more than I already did.”
“There’s more.” I’m determined to get through this and be done with it, so I press on. “The cops called my parents. They came to the hospital, and with my permission, the detective in charge told them what’d happened. My father looked at me like I was insane. His exact words were, ‘Are you out of your goddamned mind?’ He absolutely refused to believe that his precious Oren could’ve done what I was accusing him of. He also looked really scared. I found out later why. He’d been up to his elbows in all sorts of shit for Oren, and he had to testify against him to keep from going to jail himself. Somehow, I can’t imagine how, he managed to hang on to a job in state government.”
“What about your mom?”
“She believed me. I could see it in her eyes, but she was completely under my father’s control. He was in charge, and she did what he told her to. He said if I went forward with this, if I pressed charges, I was dead to them.”
“How could he do such a thing to his own child, especially when you’d been so badly hurt?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never understood the dynamics of his relationship with Oren. The cops told him it was no longer up to me. Oren had scrubbed me clean, but he hadn’t removed every trace of himself from me. They had DNA evidence and were moving forward with charges. ‘As we speak,’ the lead detective said, ‘Stone is being arrested.’ Hearing that, my dad dragged my mother out of the ER, and I’ve never seen or talked to them or my sisters again.”
“Good God, Natalie.”
“The sad part is, I wasn’t even surprised that he chose Oren over me. At least he was consistent.”
“What did you do? Where did you go?”
“I got really lucky. One of the detectives took me into his family while we awaited trial. They were incredibly good to me. In many ways, they saved my life by getting me into therapy and helping me finish high school with tutors. The worst part was losing my sisters. I’ve always wondered what they were told and what they know. I wonder if they miss me or think about me, or if my dad poisoned them against me. Candace is in college now, I suppose, but I’ve never been able to work up the courage to reach out to her. If she hates me, I’d rather not know that.”
The sadness is still so pervasive after all this time. “It was a really tough couple of years, but I got through it with the help of the family that took me in and the financial support that flooded in from anonymous donors who hated Stone and wanted to help me bring him down. That money paid for my new identity and my first two years of college. The other half… Well, I’m not sure what I’ll do about that now that my contract has been voided.”
“I’ll take care of that. Don’t worry about it.”
“I will worry about it, and I’ll take care of it, not you.”
“Are you kidding me right now? Why are you in this mess to begin with?”
“I’m in this ‘mess,’ as you call it, because Oren Stone raped me when I was fifteen. I’ve been dealing with it on my own ever since, and I’ll continue to deal with it.”
“You’re not alone anymore, baby,” he says softly, so softly I almost don’t hear him. “Everything is different now, and the last thing in the world I want you worried about is student loans that I could pay off for you tomorrow without even feeling it.”
I’m shaking my head before he finishes speaking. “I don’t want you to do that. I’ll figure it out the way I always have. I’ll get another job.”
He starts to say something, but then shakes his head, pulling away from me.
“What?”
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“Okay.”
He gets up and walks into the house without looking back. Watching him go, I’m fearful that despite his assurances to the contrary, hearing my story is going to change everything for us.
Chapter 6
I want to punch something. I want to kick the shit out of Natalie’s father and shake sense into her pathetic excuse for a mother. I want to dig up Oren Stone and kill him all over again for what he did to her.
The shower in Hayden’s downstairs bathroom is big enough for six people. Standing under the pulsating water, I try to contain my rage, but there’s no containing the despair I feel after having heard what happened to my precious Natalie. I slam my fist against the tile wall. When that doesn’t make me feel better, I do it again.
And then she’s there, pulling me back and wrapping her arms around me. I realize I’m sobbing. I can’t remember the last time I cried before I met Natalie, but my heart is literally breaking for the girl Natalie once was and for the woman she is today, thanks to her own grit and determination.
“It’s okay, Flynn.” She runs her hand over my back in a soothing caress.
Why is she comforting me? I should be comforting her, but I’m reeling. I can’t seem to get control of myself or my emotions, which is all new for me. I am always in control. Always.
“I’m okay. It was years ago, and I’ve put it behind me where it belongs.”
I want to follow her lead, to put it behind me and move forward with her, but I don’t know if I can. How will I not thi
nk of what happened to her, what was done to her, every time I touch her? What if I can’t control myself? What if the overpowering desire I feel for her makes me forget, even for a moment, what she’s endured in the past? I won’t be able to live with myself if I harm her in any way.
Every sexual encounter we’ve already had runs through my mind with new context. Have I already pushed her too hard or too far? Have I frightened her with my desire? My entire body is trembling from the fear and the rage that pound through me like a jackhammer.
“God, you’re bleeding.” She raises my injured right hand to the water.
The sting of the hot water on my split knuckles snaps me out of the stupor. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. You’re hurt.”
I pull my hand free of her hold and shut off the water. “I need… I’m going to go for a run.”
“Don’t run away from me, Flynn. Please don’t.”
“I don’t trust myself to be what you need right now.”
“You are what I need. I had no idea how badly I needed you until you forced your way into my life and made me fall in love with you.”
“Nat…” She slays me with her sweetness and her light. How can there be all that light when she’s endured so much darkness? I admire her as much as I love her.
Her arms come around me, and she guides my head to her shoulder. “You’re exactly what I need. Please don’t run away. Stay with me. Be with me. Hold me.”
I’m shaking like a tree in a hurricane. “I’m afraid to touch you.”
She takes hold of my arms and wraps them around her waist.
We stand there in the lingering steam from the shower for long minutes. I have no idea how much time goes by, but I feel myself begin to relax ever so slightly. The trembling subsides, and in its place a deep, lingering ache settles in my bones.
Natalie leads me out of the shower and wraps a towel around me. I go through the motions of drying off. She ducks into the closet and emerges wearing an oversize “I♥︎NY” T-shirt that’s another reminder of what she’s lost thanks to me.
She takes me by the hand and leads me to the sink, where she rinses the blood off my knuckles. I’m so numb I can barely feel the throb of pain coming from my injured hand. She shuts off the faucet and takes me into the bedroom. “Sit.” She points to the bed. “I’ll be right back.”