Break Me (3 page)

There was a clatter when the flog fell to the ground. Zoey didn’t look up.

She listened to the footsteps as he walked across the room to a small sink. She heard running water. She watched as he came to her with a bowl of warm water and a towel. She managed not to flinch when he touched a cloth to the injury on her hip. She stared at him, waiting for some sort of apology or even acknowledgment that he’d hurt her, but he didn’t look up. He just kept staring at his work, studying her flesh and his hands.

Finally, he did meet her eyes. “I want you to think about whether or not that motherfucker would have stopped when you asked him to.”

It was like he heard the harshness of the words only after they escaped his mouth. He winced vividly, and the Alex she knew flooded back into his eyes like the tides. “Your hip—Zoey, I’m so sorry, I’m better at placing blows than that. I think it needs a bandage.”

“It’s fine,” she said. Her voice was mouse quiet, and she hated that. She hated being quiet.

He looked nervous for a moment, chewing on his lip, and then shaking his head. “I don’t think it really is,” he replied.

“Stop touching me,” she said, brushing his hands away. “Please. Just stop.”

The tears that she’d been swallowing all night long came with a vengeance then, releasing in a thick wave of grief that swamped her. Even though she’d just pushed his hands away, she reached out to him, making herself as small as she could and then tucking herself into his lap. She had just enough awareness to turn so that she wasn’t bleeding on him, and then she knotted her hands in his shirt and let herself scream, trusting that he would keep her safe until sanity returned. 

CHAPTER FIVE

Zoey didn
’t know how much time had passed when she lifted her head again and looked around the small room. Her body burned and ached, and her spine gave the kind of creak that implied she was going to be punished when she stood up. She was warm, though. Alex had wrapped a blanket around them, and it felt like there was something heavy on her hip, where the lash of the flog had bit into her skin.

She stirred gently in his lap, and felt his arms tighten around her, his hands return to stroking her hair. At some point, he’d turned them, so his back was braced against the bed. She hadn’t felt any of the motion.

“I’m sorry,” she said, ready to apologize for breaking down so thoroughly, but he cut her off.

“I shouldn’t have suggested playing, and I should never have considered playing that hard. I was not in control of myself, and—shit, Zoey, I’m so sorry about your hip.”

He wasn’t just saying it. She’d gotten more than her share of insincere apologies over the years, and this—this was nothing like that. His voice sounded rough, hard, as if he’d been crying too, while she was out of it.

“I should have stopped you sooner,” she said. “I couldn’t feel anything properly.”

He stroked her hair and was quiet for a little bit. “And now?” he asked, eventually.

She sighed. “I don’t really know. I feel raw.” She felt him wince. “Not just physically. I—I know what you said, I know you don’t feel like she was anything to you, but she was trying to help people, and someone killed her for it. And she was still in town because she was trying to get me information about the twins, so that we could protect them, and if it weren’t for that—Alex, if she hadn’t been trying to do the right thing, she’d be alive now.”

She felt him nod. “And if I had done the right thing, you wouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“No, please.” She pulled back from him, wrapping the blanket around her breasts so he’d look at her and see her, not just her vulnerability. “Don’t put that on yourself. I’m a big girl, and I made my choices. Even if you had gone to the cops, it’s not like she would have fled town. We all made our decisions, and now we just need to—to figure out the next step.”

“What would you suggest then?”

She gave him a smile she didn’t believe in, and only told him half her plan. “First things first. Let’s get some sleep. I imagine you need to call your lawyers in the morning, if I heard half of what you said to the Commissioner Pyramus. I’ll need to speak to people. We have to help them catch this guy.”

“Yes,” he agreed, more readily than she expected. “And I have that board meeting. It’s going to end up rather different than I expected, I think, but it still has to happen.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him a gentle squeeze. “We should sleep. What time is it?”

“Late. Early. I don’t know. Do you hurt? Massage, cold packs, medicine?”

She hurt, everything stung like crazy, but she didn’t want to ask for anything. Not right now, not while her head was spinning in circles. “Just sleep.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just sleep it is.”

***

By the time Zoey woke up, Alex was already out of bed. The sheets on his side were neatly tucked up, his pillow plump. If she didn
’t clearly remember laying down next to him, she’d wonder if he’d even come to bed with her at all.

She stretched, winced at the ache in her hip, and contemplated.

This was what it meant to be dating one of the most powerful men—if not in industry, in New York City, at least. Excellent service, stellar company, clothes that fit like a dream delivered to her bedroom—and waking up alone, because one didn’t get to be a billionaire by sleeping in.

She hadn’t longed for home since she’d come to the city, and she didn’t now. Not exactly. She’d left nowhere, Louisiana because she was convinced that getting married to some local boy and having two kids and a house with a picket fence and gossiping with the other married moms at the bus stop would kill her soul in a way she couldn’t describe. She could have had a writing career in that life. It would have looked different, but it could have happened. But the monotony of it would have broken her.

She hadn’t longed for home since she’d left Louisiana, and she didn’t now. She did, however, find herself wishing that she was the kind of person who could have been comfortable with that life. It was going to be wrenching, packing up and moving back to her hovel of a studio after two days in paradise.

Maybe I could still see him. Maybe I could still make this work.

But there were two images stuck in her mind now. Cindy’s hands, and Alex’s face as he whirled on her, furious and completely out of control. She didn’t know how to call him on it, didn’t know how to say it to him in words, but he’d lost himself in the beating he’d given her last night. It had been amazing, delightful, transformative—until it turned some kind of corner and became one of the worst things she’d ever decided to do in her life. It had been too much, too fast, and the thought of exposing herself to him again—well. She could imagine it happening again, but it was going to take some time.

She slipped out of bed and pulled the sheets up on her side, smoothing them down and plumping the pillow. She looked around for the Euro shams and decorative pillows that had graced the bed when she’d come in, but she didn’t see them.
He probably has a servant whose only job is to come in and take those away, then bring them back again later
. The snarky thought made her giggle. It was something.

Someone had brought the bag of things she’d packed at her apartment upstairs. She pulled out her own well worn jeans and a button down shirt. She tried not to notice how her butt looked so much less amazing, her breasts back to their non-stimulating smallness. It wasn’t worth it. Waking up alone wasn’t worth it.

You could just tell him to wake you up before he goes to work. You really don’t have to make a federal case out of this.

She slapped the voice down for making excuses. It wasn’t about waking up alone, not really. She owed herself the truth. As for Alex, she’d have to see how he responded to the excuse.

She got all her electronics back together, then tore a piece of paper out of one of her notebooks and wrote a quick missive to leave on the bed.

Alex,

Thank you for last night. I need to go into work, and I’m going to sleep at my place tonight. I need a little space. I’ll be in touch.

-Zoey

It sounded so much colder than she’d intended as she stared at the note, but there was no point in going for a second draft. It was a cold message. If it had felt warm, something would have been wrong.

She laid the  paper against the dark fabric of the pillow, and then bit her lip to hide the tears that wanted to spill over her cheeks. It wasn’t a good idea to cry. Crying would just make her want things she couldn’t have.

She put her laptop bag over her shoulder, and carried the duffel bag she’d taken from her apartment as she left the room. Outside the door, she ran smack into Claire, who had her hand raised to knock.

Both of them jumped, and Zoey let out a not-small shriek. She caught herself on the frame of the door, as Claire erupted into giggles. Her heart slammed in her ribs in a way that terrified her, and suddenly, she was back in that bathroom, hearing those hiss-pops and knowing what was happening, what that meant, and what was going to happen if someone found her. “Oh, shit,” she heard herself say, “Shit shit shit fuck,” and then she clamped her mouth shut, because she was going to throw up again, and bile was crawling up her throat, and she did not want to get sick. She was vaguely aware that she was down on her knees, her arms wrapped around her chest, holding the bits of her together to keep her from flying apart. 

She fought the overwhelming emotions, but they swept over her, pulling her under, and in the end, all she could do was roll with them, taking huge gasping breaths whenever she managed to get her head up above the emotional waterline for a moment or two.

When she washed up on the shore of the panic attack, she found Claire sitting beside her, gently petting her limp hand and singing softly. It was a strange moment, quiet and endearing. “I’m so sorry,” Zoey found herself murmuring, studying the girl’s hand as it stroked over the back of hers. She looked like a little old Granny as she gave Zoey a tentative grin. “I didn’t mean to fall apart like that.”

Claire gave a one shouldered shrug. “It’s fine. A friend of mine—she went through some really bad shit last year. I was there for a lot of her freak outs. At least you didn’t piss yourself.” Claire was quiet for a moment, then let go of Zoey’s hand and asked in the same quiet, measured tone, “What’s up with the duffel bag?”

Zoey cleared the thickness out of her throat. “I—um.”

Claire sighed as she stood, reaching down a hand to help Zoey to her feet. “You’re leaving. I get it. Alex is intense as hell, and then he just vanishes. He’s been in his office since before the sun came up.”

“That’s—I don’t think I’m leaving forever—” The girl was more perceptive than a seventeen year old had any right to be.

“Did you say anything to him?”

“Claire, I don’t feel right—”

The girl pursed her lips for a moment, then shook her head. “It’s your life. Whatever. I just thought we had a good time yesterday. I thought you and I could get to be friends.”

Even with her cool as a cucumber tone, the girl couldn’t hide the longing in that one word. It wasn’t just a friend she was looking for. It was a sister, a friend, a confidant, someone who was looking out for her. Something inside Zoey’s heart cracked at the ache she heard in Claire’s voice. She took the girl’s hand again and gave it a squeeze. “I am not just disappearing,” Zoey said, even though that had been exactly what she’d had planned. “I left him a note asking him to get in touch.”

“But you’re not saying good-bye.”

“If he’s got work to do—” Something that had been niggling in the back of her mind jumped to the forefront. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Claire shook her head. “Alex is all freaked out about a lady that got killed. Said he wants me to stay here until the police figure out what’s going on.”

Just a lady, Zoey thought. Interesting. She didn’t blame him for not telling Claire more about what was happening, but at the same time, informed was cautious. She’d told Claire more than she should have yesterday, and if Alex figured that out, she doubted that he would thank her, really.

“I need to get in to my office,” Zoey said. “I have to turn in a couple stories, contact some people. I need a night to clear my head from all of this.” She gestured around the luxurious apartment. Claire followed her glance, but she didn’t get it, even though she tried to put a sympathetic look on her face. Well, then again, Zoey didn’t think she would have understood at seventeen either. How it could be too much temptation to look at everything you wanted, presented on a silver platter, and how you could end up making some really horrible decisions just to keep that dream alive.

“You should invite him to your place,” Claire said. “He’s not the snob you think he is.”

Okay, maybe she’s more perceptive than I thought
.

“Two things, and then I’ll shut up, okay?”

“You don’t need to shut up, Claire, not ever.”

The girl gave her a grin that warmed Zoey’s heart. She’d never had a sister either, after all, and it was an interesting and reassuring sensation.

“Go in there and say goodbye to him,” Claire said, “And promise me that you’ll come to my birthday party next weekend.”

It wasn’t so much what Claire was asking. It was the way she asked, the way she clearly tried to tamp down the hope that Zoey would say yes. It made it completely impossible to shake her head, even though she doubted that either of these things would end well. “Okay,” she said, and Claire almost bowled her over with a huge hug.