Madame X (Madame X #1) (15 page)

A
full month passes.

I do my job, pretend to be aloof and untouchable, snap at and insult rich young boys and correct their grammar and their posture, push them to the edge of their tolerance. And then, just when they start to think ill of me, I allow them to guide the conversation, pretend to care when they speak, encourage them, let them test out their charm on me. Pretend to be charmed. Pretend to be
almost
seduced. Pretend to be flustered when they get too close. It’s all a game. It’s always been a game. But now, it seems even more a game. I am numb within, and the burden of playing pretend is heavy.

Alone, I wait. But my bedroom door is not darkened again. No deep-of-night visits.

What is this thick, curling, yet somehow weightless feeling within? Is it hope? Relief? Should I feel relieved that the visits seem to have ended? I owe my life. My self. My past and my future.

It is a heavy debt.

Something changed, and I cannot pinpoint the precise moment when, or how, or why. Or even what. Something to do with Jonathan, oddly. Seeing his transformation, perhaps the only true success I’ve ever had, watching him unfold and be reborn out of his cocoon, become a man worth knowing. It made a lie of what I do, for the alteration was all of his own doing. I provided the impetus of seeing the need for change, perhaps, but that at most only. I did no changing.

Now I wonder what service I provide. I once thought I did something worthwhile. But now I wonder. These young men who pass through my life, what do I do for them? And what payment do I receive for doing so?

How have I existed—somehow the term
lived
seems too strong, suddenly—for this long, having asked no questions?

I’ve been floating along, doing as I’m told, blinded willingly.

Now I see more clearly, but all I am able to make out is outlines of absence, the shape of all that is missing. I see how much I do not know.

And then, one day six weeks after the charity auction event, my door opens, and my heart ceases to beat.

I sit on my couch, sipping tea, waiting for my last client of the day. Oddly, I have received no dossier, no contract. Only a notice stating that the final time slot of the day—six forty-five in the evening—has been filled at the last minute. The client will provide all necessary materials at the time of service.

I sit, leg hooked demurely over knee, and wait. Smooth my dress over my thighs; it’s a white dress with a square neckline, the hem falling to an inch above my knees. Blue peep-toe wedge heels. Hair in a deceptively complicated knot at the nape of my neck, the sapphire pendant at my breastbone.

Ding.

Watch my door handle twist, watch the door swing inward.
Shrug my shoulders, square them, let out a breath, force my posture to appear relaxed, my expression blank, indifferent. Tug the hem of my dress closer to my knees, so as to not bare too much flesh.

Saucer in my left hand, cup in my right. Plain white china, gold lining the edge of the saucer and the rim of the cup. Harney & Sons Earl Grey Imperial, a touch of milk.

These details are seared onto my brain.

Watch over the rim of my teacup as the door swings open, a male frame fills the opening. Steps through. Closes the door.

My heart freezes. Lungs halt midbreath. Teacup at my lips, paused. Eyes wide open, unblinking.

It is him.

Logan.

Dark blue denim, tight around thick thighs, a rip at the left knee, right thigh. Rectangular outline of a cell phone in the right hip pocket. Black T-shirt, V-neck, hugging ribs and his powerful chest, sleeves taut around golden biceps. Mirrored silver-frame aviator sunglasses hanging at the apex of the V. Wavy blond hair swept back, hanging around his jawline, a strand across his too-blue, almost purple eyes. Jawline so hard, so strong it could be hewn from seaside cliffs. High, sharp cheekbones. Lips curved in a knowing smile as he meets my gaze. Lips that kissed me, lips that stole my breath and with it my life.

“Found you.” I shiver at the intimacy of his warm rumbling voice.

It seems a voice I’ve always known, a voice heard in unremembered dreams, the dreams you forget upon waking, dreams you wish you could return to as you surface to wakefulness.

I gently set my teacup and saucer on the coffee table, so as not to betray my shaking hands. I cannot take my eyes off Logan. I also cannot speak, cannot offer so much as a polite hello.

He moves toward me, eyes on me the whole while, and sits on
the coffee table, a sturdy thing of thick black wood and polished glass, an antique map of the world under the glass. So close. Knees brushing mine.

He leans forward, into my space. Smiles. “What’s the matter . . . Madame X? Cat got your tongue?”

I breathe in, and my eyelids flutter and I am shaken out of my paralysis. Cinnamon and cigarettes. His jaw moves, rolling, lifting, compressing; gum, the source of the cinnamon.

“Logan. I—what are you doing here?” I sound suspicious, worried, upset even. “How did you find me?”

“Once I had your name, it wasn’t that hard. Getting an appointment this soon was, though. You are in high demand, it seems.”

“Why are you here?” I have to remember to breathe, force each breath in, each breath out.

“I’m your six forty-five.” He moves nearer. “I’m here to learn, Madame X.”

Every lungful is full of his scent, spicy cinnamon, faint acrid cigarette smoke clinging to cotton. Other scents, too faint to identify. The smells of a man who’s gone through the day after a shower, life smell, city smell.

“So. How’s this work, Cinderella?” He pinches the handle of my teacup in a big thumb and forefinger, lifts the cup, and examines the contents. “Tea, huh? Got any more? I could use a cup of tea. Or something stronger, if you’ve got it.”

I take the welcome excuse to move away, to find somewhere I might find my breath, my equilibrium. “I have tea, or scotch.”

“What kind of scotch?”

“Laphroaig. Single malt, eighteenth year.”

“Ah. The good shit.” He moves to take my spot on the couch, my teacup still in hand. “I wouldn’t mind a tipple, then,” he says with a lilting fake accent, eyes twinkling.

“How would you like it?” I ask this faced away now, decanter in hand, tumbler turned upright.

“Neat, please.”

I pour a single finger, and then some instinct has me add a second. Replace the crystal stopper. Turn, and watch as Logan puts his lips to my teacup, his lips matched to the pale red imprints of my lips left by my lipstick. Tips back the teacup, drinks my tea, replaces the cup in the saucer. Why does that cause me to shiver, from bones to flesh, scalp to toes?

I hand him his scotch, and his fingers brush mine. My skin burns where his touched me. Tingles. I withdraw my hand, curl it into a fist. Still it shakes, scorched by a momentary glancing touch.

I cannot turn away, cannot look away as he now lifts the tumbler to his lips, and I cannot help but watch as he tilts the glass, the thick amber liquid slipping between his lips, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

I feel a jealousy for the scotch, touching those lips.

And then I feel stupid for thinking such a ridiculous thing.

I blush.

Me.
Blushing.

I duck my head to cover my embarrassment, but then he’s laughing as he swallows and sets the tumbler down. “What?”

“Nothing.”

I’m standing in front of the couch, to the side of the coffee table. Close, but a polite, appropriate distance away. Yet he is able to reach up, brush my cheek with his thumb. “You’re blushing.”

“No.”

He laughs again. Stands up, crowds me. “You are. I can tell. Why are you blushing, Cinderella?”

“I’m not blushing. And my name isn’t Cinderella.”

“You are, and I’ve decided it fits. I like it.”

“You’ve decided.” There’s a sharpness to my tone.

So close. Too close. A foot remains between our bodies, but it’s too close. The air fairly crackles between us.

He grins, a cocky tilt of his lips. “I’m just teasing, X.”

“Why Cinderella?” I hear myself ask.

“Well . . . you showed up, all belle of the ball, mysterious and sexy as hell. Everyone wanted to know who you were. You left in such a rush, you all but left a glass slipper behind. You wouldn’t tell me your name. And that dress?” He lets out a deep breath and shakes his head, as if overcome. “That dress. Jesus.” He shrugs. “Seemed like a fairy tale to me.”

“I see.” I move away, stride to the window, and I feel his gaze on me as I walk.

Do my hips always sway so much when I walk? Do my thighs always brush so deliciously against each other with each step?

I watch a man and his wife walk hand in hand together, thirteen stories down. I cannot think to invent a story for them. I can almost see myself down there, walking hand in hand with a blond man. Neither of us talks. We just walk, fingers twined, moving in sync. I don’t know where we go, the blond man and I. It doesn’t matter; we’re just going, and we’re going together.

I shake my head, turn around—freeze, gasp. He’s there, somehow behind me and I didn’t hear him move or sense his presence. Scotch left on the table, hands loose at his sides. Indigo eyes knowing. Seeing. Piercing.

“Who are you, X?” Voice like a bow drawn across a cello string, the lowest, deepest, most soulful note. Caressing me, shivering my bones, making my skin pebble, just his voice. It’s like a touch, somehow intimate.

How do I answer? I feel tightness in my throat. “I don’t know.”
My capacity to lie is snared and discarded by the openness in his eyes.

“You don’t know who you are?” Disbelief.

I find myself defensive. “And who are you, Logan Ryder? How would you answer such a question?”

He blinks slowly, stuffs both hands in his hip pockets, gazes at me for a long moment. “I am Logan Ryder. I’m an entrepreneur, an angel investor, and a philanthropist. Unmarried and unattached. A semireformed troublemaker.”

“That’s
what
you are, Logan. Not
who
you are.” I press my back to the window, needing space.

When he’s close, I can’t breathe, but not from panic. From something else. A chest-tightening anticipation. Memory. Fear of what I might do if he presses in again, the way he did in the bathroom. I have no control when he’s near. He short-circuits me, and I am unnerved.

“I was born in San Diego. Grew up poor. Surfer kid. Spent my days on the beach, on the waves. Skipped more school than I attended.” His eyes are distant, seeing the past. “Got into trouble. Fell in with the wrong crowd. Did some bad shit . . . saw friends die, and I realized I had to get out of that life or I’d end up either dead or in jail. Seemed to me at the time that the only way out for someone like me was to join the army. So I spent the next four years wearing army green. Never saw combat, but I did get plenty of training in how to work hard and party hard. Got my GED, so at least some good came of it.”

“That’s your past, not who you are.” My palms are flat against the cool glass.

“It’s more than anyone else knows about me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah . . . oh.” He smirks. “I’m getting to the part that starts to
define who I am. After I phased out of the army, I was bored shitless. Had some money saved and nothing to do. Bummed around a bit, started getting into trouble again. I’ve got a knack for trouble, you see. It follows me, and I follow it. We’re very closely intertwined, trouble and me. I met this guy at a bar in St. Louis. He was a private security contractor. Talked a good game, got me to sign up for a tour in the desert. One tour as a defense contractor turned to two, turned to three. Good money, bad shit.” He shrugs. “Got out after the third, took my money and ran. I’d seen enough. Done enough. So I took what I had, bought a bar in Chicago, redesigned it, rebranded and restaffed it. Sold it. Did it again. Made good money, discovered I had a good head for that kind of thing. And I liked getting my hands dirty, ripping the places apart and rebuilding them. Then I had this investment opportunity . . . over here, in Manhattan. A big money investment, big risk, big return. It . . . didn’t pan out. Let’s just say that and leave it there.”

I sense a major plot hole. “You’re skipping something, Logan.”

He nods. “Yes, I am. That’s a story I’m not interested in telling just yet. It’s a big part of who I am, but it’s still hard to talk about. Still sort of learning how to move past it, you could say.”

“But you ask me who I am. Not so easy to answer, is it?”

He merely shrugs, a Gallic lift of one shoulder. “Is it fair to ask a question I find difficult to answer myself? No. Of course not. But how you answer that question, it tells me something. You, for instance, didn’t answer at all. You merely turned the question back around on me. You’re defensive. Private. Impossible to know. Who are you, X?” His eyes are deep, and sharp. “Make me an answer. Something. Anything.”

I’m not supposed to talk about me. It’s never been said outright, out loud. It’s an unspoken rule. Don’t talk about myself.

But how can I not? He’s looking at me, looking
into
me, eyes like
the deepest seas, turbulent and roiling and fraught with chasms of such impenetrable depths I could get lost and crushed and devoured.

“I am Madame X.” It’s an answer, isn’t it?

“More.” A quiet demand. A command.

“I . . . I don’t know.” I turn away, desperate, rest my forehead against the glass and fog it with my breath. “You should go.”

“I have fifty minutes left, X.”

Ten minutes? That’s all that’s passed? An eternity, stretched thin and twisted into a loop, all within the space of six hundred seconds.

“Tell me one fact about yourself. It doesn’t have to be embarrassing, or a secret. Just . . . anything.”

“Why?” I whisper it.

This should be a simple conversation, but it isn’t, and even the why of that is beyond me. He confounds me, sets all I know of how my life works upon its head.

“Because I’m curious. I want to know.”

“I’m Spanish.”

He’s too close. Leaning in. Breath on my ear. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“What happened? With the investment?” Why the hell am I asking him this?