By the end of the night—or by two in the morning, I should say—Sarah was absolutely shitfaced. That might have been what inspired her to call Bastien and tell him how awesome she thought he was. He was so worried that she was too drunk to get home safely that he had Greg—the guy who escorted Laurel out of the club—to take us home. Sweet, right? Well, I’d thought so … right up until Bastien told me that he’d be informing Blake how we drank ourselves into such a state. What were we, fourteen?
I’d been geared up to tell Blake that I was a grown woman thankyouverymuch … but he hadn’t called. Not that night; not at any point over the weekend. Yeah, I’ll admit, it did bother me that he didn’t seem to care the way Bastien had. And it bothered me that it bothered me. It forced me to face something I’d been happily ignoring. I liked Blake Mercier. Liked him, liked him. A fuck of a lot.
It didn’t make sense to me. How could you like someone so much when you didn’t really know them? Maybe it was simply the case that it was easy to like someone when you hadn’t seen every side of them. Whatever. I didn’t know for sure.
In any case, I wasn’t at all comfortable with the realization that I liked him so much. Especially since it meant that it was only a matter of time before our arrangement didn’t … fulfil me as much due to it being, well, an arrangement. It wouldn’t be enough for me. And bitterness could then creep in, spoiling what little we had. Blake didn’t want emotional attachments, and I couldn’t be mad at him for that because he’d been clear about it from the very beginning.
All things considered, I had two choices: end our arrangement to save us both any later drama, or stick around in the hope that something might change on his part.
I knew what I wanted. I wanted to know more about him. Wanted to fill in the blanks. Not give up and walk away without at least trying to work out whether it was him I liked or just a fantasy I had of him.
But what I wanted and what was best for me weren’t always the same thing, which meant I had a whole lot of thinking to do. And I did, in fact, do a lot of thinking as the days went on.
When Wednesday came around, I went to visit Clear at work. She’d asked me to stop by on my way to the bar just to check in with her. I knew she was nervous about the Ricky Tate issue, even if he did seem to have done a disappearing act. She wanted to believe that he was genuinely gone—after all, his first period of harassment had been short and sweet, and it had ended rather abruptly.
“He probably got bored of trying to scare you when he realized it wasn’t working,” Clear said quietly as we stood in the computer suite of the library. The only other sounds were fingers tapping at keyboards, the whir of the printer, and the hushed talk coming from the group of students. “Or maybe he just couldn’t be bothered trying to get around your security.”
I highly doubted that either of those scenarios were true. No, I figured he was keeping a low profile in the hope that I’d think he’d backed off and I’d then drop my guard. But as I took in her pale face, restless fingers, and the skin bunched around her eyes, I said, “Maybe.”
She gave me a pleased smile, and a little of the tension left her. “I talked with your dad about it on Saturday. He agrees with me.”
No, he didn’t. But he’d told her what he knew she needed to hear, just like I had. I’d received a letter from Michael a few days ago, advising me to be vigilant and not to underestimate Ricky. “Tate might be rash and immature,” Michael had written, “but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous.”
He was probably right on that. “I have to leave or I’ll be late for work,” I told Clear.
“Okay.” She pulled me into a hug. “Love you, sweetheart.”
“Love you, too.”
As I walked out of the library and down the steps to the parking lot, the scents of books, dust, and leather were replaced by exhaust, wet pavement, and mowed grass.
“Miss Lyons!”
I tensed, recognizing the voice. Shit. Ignoring Linton, I kept on walking toward my car. Hearing the thump of heels on the pavement, I groaned. He’d obviously been sitting out here, intending to leap on Clear when she finished work.
“Miss Lyons!”
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see him almost bump into a handicap parking signpost. “Don’t waste any more of our time, Linton.”
Catching up to me, he said, “I was hoping you’d have coffee with me.”
I sighed. “You may have so much time on your hands that you can afford to sit outside a library and watch the minutes tick by, but I don’t.”
“I’m not a bad guy, you know. I’m doing my job; that’s all.”
“Good for you.” Nearing my car, I swore under my breath as I saw how close someone had parked theirs to mine.
“I suppose you’re used to dealing with people like me, wanting to know about Michael Bale and your relationship with him.”
I snatched the flyer that had been stuck under my windshield and crumpled it up. “The others were smarter than you, if I’m honest.”
“Smarter?”
“They offered incentives. Money. T.V. interviews. Stuff like that.” I tossed the flyer in the nearby garbage can. “Not that it worked. My mother and I just want to be left in peace. You say you’re not a bad guy, Linton. Prove it. Leave us alone so we can keep that peace in our lives.”
“Does Blake Mercier bring peace into your life?” It was a taunt.
Little fucker. “Now you’re just boring me.”
“Interesting that you would be attracted to a man like him,” Linton went on as I carefully opened the driver’s door, trying not to bang it into the Chevy. “Blake Mercier has a lot of personal power,” said Linton. “Lives life by his own rules. Quite the heartbreaker, too, from what I’ve heard. I know women are often drawn to emotionally unavailable men—they want to be the one to fix them. Much like your mother wants to fix Michael Bale, a man who is the definition of emotionally unavailable. The thing is, Kensey, I believe she may have done it, and I believe you helped her with that. If I could just talk to you both—”
“No. Let it go, Linton. Let it go.” Finally in my car, I switched on the engine and, not sparing Linton another glance, I drove out of the lot.
He was right that Clear wanted to fix Michael—he might even be right that she had in some ways succeeded. What was it Michael had once said to me?
“We all have a devil inside, my Kensey. You can force it into a corner, but you got to learn to live with it. It’s the only way you’ll be able to live with yourself. You’ve got to look it right in the eye and face it. Battle it. Find that inner light.” For a moment, he’d looked so unbelievably sad. “I never had an inner light, angel. Not until you and your mom came along. Without you two, my world would be a dark place once again.”
Of course, it had to be noted that Michael was very clever with words. Manipulating people was a specialty of his. He could have a long conversation with you during which you had his undivided attention. He was good at making you feel special and interesting. It wouldn’t be until later that you realized he’d replied to your questions without truly answering them. He knew how to steer a conversation and keep the subject firmly on the person he was conversing with … a little like Blake, actually.
While Linton was probably right about Clear, he was wrong about me. I wasn’t attracted to Blake because he was emotionally unavailable. I wasn’t looking to fix anyone. Wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that I could—if I did have that kind of power, Clear would be the epitome of normal by now. I was attracted to Blake for a variety of reasons. He was a smart, confident, incredibly masculine specimen wrapped up in a very pretty package. There was something flattering about catching the interest of a guy like that.
It was a shame that he was also so unbelievably evasive that he made me seem like an open book. I didn’t mind that we didn’t engage in small talk—I didn’t like shallow conversation any more than he did. But, despite having known each other for months, none of our conversations were ever remot
ely deep or lengthy. He still often brushed off my questions with ease or responded with a minimal amount of details—details he seemed to begrudgingly divulge. He’d usually then slam up a wall and change the subject so fast that it could give a girl mental whiplash. I always walked away feeling that I didn’t know him any better than I had before.
He wasn’t just emotionally unavailable, he was … unreachable. He was a man who didn’t want to be known. A man who prioritized time alone. A man apart.
A man with demons.
And yet, I hadn’t walked away. I was willfully ignoring those demons, concentrating on the rest of what I saw in him. So maybe I was a lot more like my mother than I’d thought.
I spent the next evening slogging my ass off on my book. Despite how mentally drained I was thanks to Ricky fucking Tate, my efforts paid off. Finally, the second draft was complete, which meant I could now move onto my third and final draft. After that would come the long, boring proofing stage, which I wasn’t looking forward to.
Ordinarily, I’d give myself a two-week break before moving from one draft to another, but I hadn’t been able to work at my usual pace and I was behind schedule. As such, I’d had to throw myself straight into the third draft.
I was on chapter four when Sarah turned up at my apartment, wanting to update me on life with Bastien. Unlike Blake, he considered himself to be an official Dom. They’d agreed to an arrangement of their own, but it didn’t involve keeping their outside worlds separate. They often met on weekdays at swank restaurants for dinner. Afterwards, they went to his place to ‘play.’ They also often exchanged texts, and he called her daily.
Honestly, I felt a twinge of envy—one that unnerved me—but I hid it. Sarah seemed to be genuinely excited about Bastien, and I was happy for her.
Sitting on the breakfast stool, she told me about their ‘sessions’ in explicit detail as I pottered around the kitchen after we’d eaten. “Really, it’s all been pretty tame,” she then said. “He wants to ease me into what he likes and see if it’s something I’ll enjoy. I’m not yet sure if I will, but I’ve certainly enjoyed what I’ve so far experienced.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I can tell.”
Propping her elbow up on the breakfast bar, Sarah rested her chin on her hand. “So, how are things with Blake?”
I shrugged, wiping down the counter. “If he wants to get together this weekend, I’ll probably hear from him tomorrow.”
“Has he mentioned it at all this week?”
“It’s not like with you and Bastien. Blake doesn’t text or call to check in.”
Sarah’s smile slipped away. “He doesn’t contact you for any reason other than to ask you to meet him at the Vault?”
“Nope.” Feeling the beginnings of a headache, I rubbed at my brow. “Which, in some ways, does make me feel like a booty call. But when I’m with him … well, then it’s different.” We didn’t just fuck. We laughed. We had fun. He gave me his undivided attention. At no point did I ever feel like a booty call.
Sarah’s lips pressed into a tight line. “He likes you a lot, Kensey. He really does. But some people … they just don’t have much to give, you know?”
“I know.” Grabbing the letters that I’d stacked on the end of the counter, I said, “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you about how I found my neighbor naked on the floor outside his apartment.” Sarah’s eyes twinkled. “Someone had scrawled on his back in black marker, ‘I am a twat.’”
“Really?” I asked with a smile as I tore open an envelope.
“Oh, yeah. He …”
The rest of Sarah’s words were lost. Her voice faded into the background. Because all I could focus on were the photographs that slipped out of the envelope onto the counter.
A hand rested on my arm, and I saw that Sarah was leaning forward, the image of concern. “What is it?” she asked.
“Pictures.”
“Pictures?” She took one and twisted it to face her. “Oh, these pictures are of the carnival. I wanted to go and … Hey, that’s Blake.”
“Yeah.” I put a hand to my churning stomach.
Sarah’s brow furrowed. “Who would send you pictures of Blake? And why?”
“I don’t know. I’d sure like to know who that is.” I slid a photo toward her—one that clearly showed Blake and a tall blonde. His hand was cupping her elbow as they strode toward a café. The date and time had been printed on the top right corner of each photo. “That carnival took place during the two-week period that I didn’t hear anything from him.”
Sarah bit her lip. “That doesn’t have to mean that there’s anything going on between him and the blonde.”
“He told me he was in Chicago that weekend.”
Her mouth opened. “Oh.”
Yeah, oh. “He told me he left for a long-ass business trip on the Friday, but there he is in Redwater on the Saturday.” Not all the photos were of the carnival. Some were taken of him at a coffeehouse and standing on a sidewalk—again, he was with the blonde.
Other photos were snapped of him at an art gallery, where a black-tie event appeared to have taken place. And if the date on those photos was right, the event was held on the Saturday night that Sara and I went to the Vault together because he’d supposedly had “business to sort out.” Now, okay, maybe said business needed to be addressed during the event. But considering he had a gorgeous redhead on his arm and he’d lied about the Chicago trip, I wasn’t inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Maybe this is why Ricky hasn’t been so active lately,” Sarah said. “It wasn’t because you upped your security. He wasn’t trying to make you relax. He’s been spending a lot of his time watching Blake. But why would Ricky do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t like Blake being around.” Especially since Ricky couldn’t watch me whenever I was at the Vault—not unless he could gain entrance to the basement, anyway.
Sarah nodded. “Stalkers like to isolate their victims.”
I sighed. “I don’t have a—”
“And Ricky will want all your attention, right? He won’t want to share it, so it makes sense that he’d want Blake gone. Ricky obviously thinks you’re dating Blake, so he sent these photographs to make you doubt him.”
Well, it had worked a treat. “We’re not in a relationship, but Blake said he wanted exclusivity.”
“It might not be what it seems like.” But she didn’t sound convinced of that.
“Either way, he lied to me. I never asked where he was that weekend that he was supposed to have called me. He volunteered that Chicago lie. And look at him with that redhead.” She was smiling up at him like he hung the moon. He wasn’t returning her smile, but there was a warmth in his eyes that made me feel sick.
“There’s something familiar about her. I could swear she’s been to the bar.” Sarah held up a finger. “Wait, yes, yes, she went there a few weeks back. Ordered a latte and sat in the corner, talking on a phone that had a silver diamante cover. You don’t remember her?”
“Was that a trick question?” My memory was terrible.
“She stared at you a couple of times. I thought maybe she was gay or had made the connection between you and Michael Bale. What if she heard that you have Blake’s attention and she came to check you out?”
“But how would she hear that?”
“I don’t know. I could ask Bastien about it,” Sarah offered.
“No, I don’t want to pull you and Bastien into this.”
She studied one of the pictures closely. “Is it just me, or does it look like he has a whopper of a bruise on his jaw?”
“Apparently, he does Krav Maga with his PT.”
“Ah, well, that explains it. My neighbor did Krav Maga for years. She’d come home with all kinds of injuries.”
I flipped to the latter few photos. They showed Blake walking to his car—such an everyday, inane thing … except that he was holding the hand of a boy who looked about
five or six. A sharp pain lanced through my chest.
Sarah saw them and swore. “What are you going to do?”
“The smart thing. End it. Not just because he lied, but because he now has Ricky’s attention. I didn’t want that to happen.” And because Blake’s betrayal hurt on a level that told me I was in way too deep. We weren’t in a relationship. There was so much I didn’t know about him. But my gut twisted painfully, and there was a dull ache in my chest. “And if this little boy is his kid, Blake really needs to get out of the picture for his sake.”
“Let’s not be hasty, Kensey. We don’t know for sure that Ricky sent these.”
“Who else would do it?”
“Maybe it was someone trying to cause trouble, like Libby or Laurel. Stepmother or not, she’s got a thing for Blake. Bastien said she’s been trying to get in Blake’s pants since he was a teen. Apparently, she used to offer him drugs back then too. I’m guessing she was hoping to make him dependent on her or something.”
It occurred to me that, since Bastien was so chatty and Blake was so closed off, Sarah was likely to learn more about Blake through Bastien than I ever would through Blake himself. And how sad was that?
Just as I wouldn’t expect him to bare his soul, I also wouldn’t expect him to tell me about his children, if there were any—that was personal. I just wanted to know him, and he didn’t seem interested in letting that happen.
Sure, I could be vague on occasion. Sometimes I answered his questions honestly. If they were too invasive, I’d simply state that it wasn’t something I was comfortable sharing. I never told him bullshit stories.
Sarah squeezed my hand. “Some guys keep secrets about their female friends because they have this dumb notion that women are such jealous, insecure creatures that we can’t handle it. They hide things that they think we won’t like, as if keeping us in the dark is best all round. Really, it’s just them not wanting to be held accountable, but they stupidly do it. That could be all this is. Just because he’s with those women doesn’t follow that he cheated on you, Kensey. One could be the kid’s mom. An ex. The other … well, she could just be a friend or something.” Sarah shrugged weakly.