Authors: Grace Marshall
‘Kendra, I can’t believe –’
‘You know –’ She gently pushed him away and extricated herself from his embrace. ‘I think I’ll take a rain check on that shower if you don’t mind. I saw a nice big bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. My flat only has a shower. Would you mind if I have a wallow?’ Before he could respond, she laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I need some time to think and plan our next move, and let’s face it, Garrett –’ she gave him a salacious raking with her eyes ‘– you’re very distracting.’
She left him standing at the kitchen sink, aching with an ache he’d never felt before, one that was sharply defined in the space inside him, and shaped very much like Kendra Davis.
There were lavender and geranium aromatherapy bubbles in the cupboard in the guest bathroom. Kendra wondered if they belonged to one of Garrett’s romances that hadn’t worked out. It surprised her to feel the pang of jealousy at the thought. It wasn’t that someone else might have had sex with Garrett on the kitchen floor in the middle of preparing a meal; after all, the man had been married to Stacie at one time. What she was really jealous of was that Garrett had had romantic relationships, that Garrett had taken the wild risk of marrying the woman he was crazy about. She was jealous that Garrett had somehow felt it was worth the pain to try again when the marriage fell apart. That was a bravery she couldn’t understand. ‘More like a stupidity,’ she whispered beneath her breath. But then he hadn’t had her parents, had he? No doubt his views on romance would have been very different if he had.
She squeezed a generous amount of bubbles into the tub and turned on the water, stepping out of her rumpled clothes, inhaling deeply the pungent scent Garrett had left on her body, in her body, and the scent that was her body’s hungry response to him. She was glad she hadn’t bathed it away too soon. His body fit hers so well, and God, did he know how to make that fit work for her. She shook her head, not wanting to think about that right now as she stepped into the hot summer scent of the tub and settled into the rising foam. She should have never had sex with him. No matter what he said, they both knew he
was
Tess Delaney. And Tess Delaney made her feel things she’d never felt before, made her ache more deeply than she thought possible, made her fantasies wild and uncontrolled, and sex was only a part of it.
They were stupid, teenage fantasies, she scolded herself. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t Tess Delaney who had made her feel all those things; it was Garrett Thorne, the man downstairs cleaning up in the kitchen, the man she couldn’t get enough of. The man she should ultimately be running away from. She was beginning to suspect he was far more dangerous than any of the ghosts from her past could ever be. What the hell had she gotten herself into? She’d learned her lesson long ago. She’d learned by example, and her parents were the very best example as to what a lie it was, the fantasy of romance and happy ever after, what a lie it was that giving up control of your heart to anyone else could ever lead to anything but pain.
She turned off the water and sank to her neck into the bubbles, eyes closed, relaxing, drifting, remembering the beginning of the end of her illusions about happy ever after, about romance. The memory came unbidden, something she hadn’t allowed it to do in a long time. She remembered because it was just before her 11th birthday.
It was the crash that woke her up that night, and the sound of something shattering. At first she thought she’d only dreamed it, but then she heard her father’s voice, and she held her breath to listen.
‘Marianne, stop it. Shshsh! Sweetheart, you’ll wake up Keni. Now hush! We can deal with this. Downstairs.’
‘Deal with it? Like we always do, Aaron? Hmm? You’ll say you’re sorry and I’ll believe you and forgive you until the next one of your little whores comes along?’
‘Shshsh! Marianne, shush now, shush.’ Her father’s voice had been so even, so calm, as though he had been the reasonable one, as though he was calming an angry child or soothing away a nightmare. Her mother’s voice was only slightly less than hysterical and, for a split second, Kendra was frightened for her, frightened that something serious had happened, that her mother was sick or injured. She had slipped from her bed and peeked around the edge of her door. She could hear her mother’s muffled sobs. She could just make out her back, wrapped in the lilac chenille bathrobe her father had gotten her for Christmas. Her father was still dressed in his suit. He still looked immaculate, like he always did. And so handsome. She remembered how handsome her father looked, how powerful. She remembered because that was the night she stopped thinking of him as handsome. On the floor in shattered bits, Kendra could see the Tiffany lamp that had always sat on the hall table.
‘Please, Marianne, sweetheart, I know you’re angry, and rightly so, but let’s discuss this downstairs. Let’s not do this here.’ Even as he spoke, he slid a powerful arm around her mother’s shoulders and guided her down the staircase. And Kendra knew then that he had won, no matter what her mother said from that point on.
Quietly, on tiptoe, Kendra had eased herself outside her room and into the hall, careful to avoid the shards of glass on the carpet. They were so caught up in their discussion they hadn’t even thought she might eavesdrop. She’s followed silently down the stairs, holding her breath, listening, not wanting to hear and yet not able to turn and run back to the safety of her room. What was the point? There was no unknowing what she now knew. From the foot of the stairs just around the corner, out of their line of sight, she listened, hands clenched in tight, painful fists at her side.
‘It was Sadie, wasn’t it?’ her mother was saying. ‘Sadie Myers. I know it was, I saw you with her, and people talk. God, Aaron, I’m not stupid. You used to try to hide it, so at least I wasn’t humiliated in front of all our friends, all our neighbors.’
From around the corner in the stairwell, Kendra watched as her father stooped to kiss her mother. ‘I’m sorry darling. I’m so sorry. I’m not strong like you are. I’ll make it up to you. I promise. It won’t happen again.’
But it did. Of course it did.
‘Mom, why do you let him do it?’ she’d asked once when the bastard had actually had the balls to bring one of his bimbos home and pass her off as a colleague. ‘Why don’t you leave him? You’ve got a degree, you can find work. You don’t have to put up with it.’
Her mother had pulled her into her arms and offered the sad little smile she always did. ‘He’s a good provider, Keni, and he loves his family. He just needs a little extra, that’s all. More than I can give him. Someday when you get married and have children of your own, you’ll understand, sweetheart. It’s not always as simple as what you read about in those novels.’
Simple? It had never been simple. Kendra always knew that. Kendra always knew who had the power and who was willing to sacrifice what. It was like a game of advance and retreat. There was an endless stream of women, and Kendra and her mom got things – a new car, holidays in Spain, nice clothes, new furniture. There was never a lack of things. Ever. And Kendra knew, as well as her mother did, how to manipulate her father for a new outfit, a new computer, new boots. It was control. The only control she had, and she used it. Even when there was nothing she needed, even when she had her own money from her after-school jobs, she never, ever let him forget he owed her, he owed both of them.
As for her mother, well, Kendra was always apathetic toward people who didn’t stand up for themselves. Her mother was weak. Her mother was willing to settle. Kendra promised herself early on that she never would. Kendra promised herself she would always be the one in control. And she had always kept that promise until last year, until she’d been forced to sell the Ryder Agency and flee. Even as terrifying as the whole situation had been, it was still the loss of control that bothered her more than anything else. It was the memory of walking away when she didn’t want to, of being frightened, truly frightened for the first time ever, and not being brave enough to stand and fight, that tore at her. For a moment, for a dark, despairing moment, she had been her mother’s daughter, and it had been the worst moment of her life.
Garrett always wrote when he was frustrated or when he was suffering. And as much as he hated to admit it, Kendra Davis was making him suffer – much more so than if she had simply bitch slapped him. But then again, it wasn’t all about him, was it? And whatever had happened at the table, whatever had started out as a simple discussion about why he wrote romance, had turned inward to a place that Kendra was clearly not willing to share, a place that clearly caused her pain.
Outside, he could still hear the shuffling and mumbling of the press, now spurred on by the scent of a hot story about Tess Delaney’s stalker. Christ, he wished he knew how word had gotten out. Even more, he wished he knew if there was any truth to it or if the email from Razor Sharp was just a prank. He’d certainly been happy to believe that, until Kendra came into the picture. He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her because of him. Perhaps he should just come clean, just confront the press while she was still in the bathtub and tell them that he was the real Tess Delaney and Kendra only worked for him. He could be finished and the whole thing over with before she even finished her bath.
And he’d do it in a heartbeat if he could only be certain that it really would be over, that Kendra could walk away clear and clean and safe. OK, he had to admit he didn’t like the idea of her walking away from him. But that didn’t matter as long as she was safe.
He kept writing. Battling with the problems of Jessie and Amanda, who were now huddled together under a blanket in the boathouse, kept his mind off his own problems, off sharing the tight confines of his house with a woman he could barely keep his hands off of. Writing had always been Garrett’s way of dealing with his emotions, and at the moment if he didn’t write, he feared he’d shove his way into the bathroom, drag Kendra out, and make her finish what she started. She ran away, damn her! She ran away, and he wasn’t finished with her. How could he let her walk away believing romance wasn’t for her, believing love wasn’t for her? If it was ever for anyone, it was for her. How could she not see that? He wanted to prove it to her, he wanted her to feel it, experience it for herself, understand how much it mattered. And yes, if he were honest, he wanted to be the one to take her there.
He found his balance in front of his laptop, and even he had to admit the story seemed to be flowing much better since Kendra had arrived, since he knew she was in the very next room. And now, strangely, the Amanda in his head looked like Kendra and Jessie, well, clearly that was him. And when Jessie wrestled Amanda down onto the floor of the boathouse, when he positioned himself and pushed into her, and when she wrapped her legs around him and met him thrust for thrust, Garrett knew that it was really himself with Kendra he was writing. As the scene unfolded it felt as though there was some nearly mystical connection between the woman lounging in his bathtub and the creative process going on in his head, a process that suddenly seemed to be going on in his body in equal measure.
Jesus, why did he torture himself this way? And even as the story flowed, even as it gained momentum and power that it hadn’t had since he began it, it was no less torture. He didn’t really want to lock himself in his bedroom and rub one out. What he wanted was Kendra, but he wanted more than just to be inside her body again, and he wanted to give her more than just sex.
He heard the bathroom door open and felt his shoulders tense and his pulse accelerate, knowing that she was so close. But then he heard the door to the guestroom close, and there was silence. Was she still thinking and planning? Was she sleeping? Or was she simply trying to avoid him?
Kendra slipped into Garrett’s robe, the one she had worn – was it just this morning? It seemed a long time ago. It smelled like Garrett, and the scent of him caused little tremors low in her belly. How could she have gotten so used to his smell, almost addicted to it, in such a short time? She jerked the sash tight around her waist and slipped out of the bathroom. In the hall, she could still hear the press outside. Now that Barker Blessing and the web reporter had given them the scent of fresh blood, they weren’t going anywhere until there was a new and better story to pry them away. Just down the hall, she could hear the tap-tapping of Garrett’s laptop, and she resisted the urge to see if he was in Tess Delaney mode, to watch Tess at work. No doubt that would only muddy the waters further, and they were already muddy enough.
Instead, she moved quietly down the hall to the guestroom. She had some work to do and some research of her own. But even if she didn’t, she still needed a bit of space before she faced Garrett again. She needed time for him to forget about their ill-fated conversation, time for her to feel a little less exposed. And even though a huge part of her wanted to linger, wanted to be close to him, she went into the guest room and closed the door behind her.
She dug the iPad from her bag and stretched out on the bed with it beside her. Then she closed her eyes. Just for a few minutes. It was never her intention to do more than that. She certainly hadn’t planned to fall asleep.
She woke with her heart juddering madly, feeling as though each serrated breath was turning to ice in her lungs. The afternoon light had gone, and the street lamp from outside bathed the room in garish red-black shadows. The rest of the house was dark and silent. She was just about to call out for Garrett, when she sensed more than saw that she wasn’t alone. The red blackness was thick and heavy, like a bloodied mist floating in the room. It was the flash of a cell phone camera and the voice that brought it all back to her in one horrific moment. She hadn’t heard that voice in over a year now, but there was never any mistaking it.
‘Come on, Bird Woman, let me see what you’ve got. I know what a show you can put on when you feel like it.’ He moved out of the shadows and came to sit on the edge of the bed next to her, the tattoo of a cobra coiling around a skull practically pulsing from beneath his tight black muscle shirt and over his biceps. He reached out and opened the top of the robe until her breasts were mostly exposed. She shoved him and fought back the urge to scream. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she managed before his hand settled around her throat, big enough to choke off her airway, big enough to leave bruises in a circlet along the line of his thumb and up to his index finger. He had huge hands.
‘You can’t stop me, Bird Woman. I’ll do what I want. You couldn’t stop me then, and you can’t stop now.’ He moved in so close that his face was practically touching her, and there was nowhere for her to go, nowhere to back away from him. His breath was hot and wet, and she fought back the urge to gag. He only laughed and kept talking. ‘Really, it doesn’t matter what I do to you.’ He took another picture of her exposed breasts and then shoved the robe open further. ‘It doesn’t matter who I share you with, since you don’t even exist.’ He moved in closer still, his thumb pressing hard against the soft spot where her pulse hammered like a warning bell. With a deft move, he slipped the knot on the robe and the camera flashed again. ‘We both know Bird Woman won’t even exist in a few more days. She doesn’t even have a name, does she? You never gave her a name because you knew how short her life would be.’ His gaze felt abrasive as it raked over her body.
She wanted to move, she wanted to scream for Garrett, she wanted to run away, but he held her there effortlessly, the hand around her neck now moving down to grope and stroke and make way for the camera’s accusing eye.
‘Leave me!’ She managed to push the words up through her raw throat. ‘Go away and leave me alone. You’re not here. You can’t be!’
‘Aren’t I?’ His face was suddenly scant inches away from hers, his eyes obsidian black in the poisonous light. ‘When Bird Women is gone, when you have no further use for her and you discard her like you did all the others, just remember, I know who you really are, Kendra Davis. I know what you do, what games you play. I knew you couldn’t give it up. Does he know? Does Garrett Thorne know who he has playing his Tess Delaney? What a sickening, whoring coward she is? What a liar she is?’
He brought the camera close to her mouth, so close she thought he was going to force it down her throat, but instead he took a picture of her lips, then, with his thumb and forefinger on either side of her jaw, he forced her mouth open and the camera flashed into her mouth. ‘Ah, the pit of lies, the pit of evil. This mouth –’ He brushed his lips against hers then took another picture, the lens up close to her teeth. The pressure of his fingers on her jaws was bruising and the nail of his thumb drew blood just below her cheekbone. ‘This mouth knows nothing but lies and deceit. This mouth deserves no tenderness. This mouth is a pit, deserving nothing but to be filled by the vilest of cocks.’ The camera phone kept flashing photo after photo until the after-image of him was like a dark and gaping wound.
‘Kendra Davis, I know who you are. Kendra Davis, you’re not fit for anything else,’ the cobra on his arm hissed.
‘Kendra Davis, you don’t deserve anything else.’ The mouth of the skull moved in agreement.
The camera flashed, and she screamed and drowned out the sound of her name, her name he was never supposed to know. Kendra, Kendra, Kendra …
‘Kendra, goddamn it, wake up! Wake up!’
She woke with a gasp of blessed air. It felt like an eternity since she had breathed, and she found herself sobbing, folded tightly in Garrett’s arms.
In an effort to free herself from the last vestiges of the nightmare, she threw her arms around his neck in a near stranglehold, and he returned the favor around her waist. ‘It was a dream,’ she managed between efforts to breathe. ‘A dream.’
‘I got that,’ he said, smoothing her hair and reaching with one hand to turn on the bedside lamp and bathe the dusky room in welcome light. ‘Must have been one hell of a nightmare. You nearly raised the roof, and I thought you were going to flatten me before I could get you to wake up.’
‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry.’ She pulled away slightly and looked into his eyes. ‘Did I hurt your?’
He offered a wry chuckle. ‘Not this time. Though I’m not sure you’re rendered any safer when you’re unconscious. Is there any time when you
are
safe?’
She managed a weak laugh that sounded more like a kitten mewling. ‘I’m never safe, Garrett. Don’t you know that yet?’
He dropped a warm kiss onto her ear. ‘I have nerves of steel, Kendra. You can’t scare me, so you might as well stop trying. You want to tell me about it?’ His voice was velvety soft against her ear.
‘What I want is to get out of here. Don’t get me wrong, your house is nice. I love your house, but being cooped up like this with the press out front is driving me nuts.’ She pulled away enough that she could look him in the eyes. ‘Do you dance? I mean, I know you do ballroom, Dee told me, but can you – you know, dance?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve talked to Dee about my dancing abilities?’
‘It came up in one of the conversations we had, yes. One in which she was being a good future sister-in-law, trying to convince me you weren’t the total asshat I thought you were.’
‘Bonus points for Dee,’ he said, offering her a pout she could have happily eaten off his face. ‘And yes, I can dance any kind of dance you want to dance. What did you have in mind?’
She smoothed the lock of unruly hair back away from his face. ‘A night out incognito that I think we could both pull off without ever being missed or found out.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘You’ll need to wear a tracksuit – preferably a ratty dark one with a hood.’ She ran a hand down the lapel of his shirt. ‘Or is everything you have designer?’
He stood and pulled her to her feet. ‘I can look as ratty as you need me to look, Kendra. Trust me.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ she said. She looked at the clock on the nightstand. ‘Timing’s perfect. We’ll go in early, and we won’t stay too late. But we should have plenty of time to burn off a little energy, you know, let our hair down, relax a bit, blow off a little steam before the crowd descends. And we’ll be back home before anyone even misses us. You go get changed and give me about a half an hour.’
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
She was already shuffling through her bag for what she needed. ‘Ever been to the Boiling Point?’ she called over her shoulder.
‘No.’
The chuckle she offered him was practically evil. ‘Then you’re in for a real treat.’ She shooed him out with a wave of her hand. ‘Now go get ratty, Garrett. I would guess that’s something a chick magnet like you isn’t used to, so it may take you a while. Better get to it.’