The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) (12 page)

“I don’t want to get to know you. I said that, didn’t I?”

Sucking in a breath, he touched his chin to his chest with a Cheshire grin. “You could’ve ended the conversation at anytime and went inside. But you’re still here, chatting with me. You’re curious about me.” He gazed at me in a way that made me feel like I was naked. “I know exactly what you’re curious about—my ways with Estelle. You’re wondering if she really asked for it, or if I took what I wanted from her.
 

“I am whoever the woman wants me to be. Whether I like being that person or not, it’s about her pleasure, never mine. If you think I enjoyed putting my hands on Estelle, you are sorely mistaken.” He shook his head. “She wanted it. She enjoyed it. She came to me, because Eric would only take it so far. As he always does. He gives only enough to get you hooked and takes it away when you need it the most.”

Releasing a long sigh, I closed my eyes. “There are so many things wrong with what you said, I don’t know where to begin. I think it’s all a line of bullshit spoken from a well-seasoned and experienced man-whore. I’m not falling for it.”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” he asked, pointedly eyeing my trembling hands.

I set my gaze to the overcast and graying sky. “If I am uncomfortable, it’s because it sounds like you’re hitting on me, but I’m not sure.”

“Mentioning giving a woman what she wants is considered a flirt or a line of bullshit? I’m not advertising myself to you. Maybe you think a little too highly of yourself, Mrs. Brenton.”

“No, I don’t. You really don’t know me at all.”

“I know this—you have a preconceived notion about me. I’m not the asshole you think I am. I shouldn’t be surprised. It was mentioned more than once, by more than one person; Eric got inside your head. He’s talented when it comes to women. Eric makes a woman believe what he wants is what she wants. While I like to help her find what it is she
really
wants.”

He truly did sound like an advertisement in the sleaziest of ways. My discomfort reached an even higher level. “Were you around when Estelle died? Was watching her die your way of doing what she wanted you to do?” I was correct in my assumptions. I wasn’t sure if the truth of it all panicked or appalled me. “Preston? Were you hitting on me earlier?”

“What if I was?”

“Goodbye.” I turned on my heels.

“Let’s not play this game, Mrs. Brenton,” he said after my back.

I temporarily halted my mission to leave.

“I know you’re curious about the many things you don’t know about Eric, aren’t you?”

He’d successfully awakened my interest, but I couldn’t give him the courtesy of turning around and showing him I was even mildly curious.

“I’m sure you’ve been warned about Eric before. Nothing I’ve said to you so far should be a revelation. You’re in denial about him. If you ever see past it, you will see this for what it really is. You’re a part of a cycle that never ends. It will never end.”

I turned my body sideways, glowering at him. “I thought you married someone while making Estelle think you were going to marry her. I thought you did this while she was pregnant with your child. Why would I care about anything you had to say?”

“My current marriage is one of strategy, not love,” he responded with impassivity. “I barely know, nor see my wife. We have an understanding either way.”

“And Estelle? Why did you up and marry someone behind her back while she was carrying your baby?”

He arched a brow at me as his face turned down. “I’m beginning to wonder what she told you about me. Did she say we were in love? Did she say I did things for her, to be with her? None of it is true. Eric and I play the game together. I’m very serious about that. So serious I’m willing to endure whatever pain he decides to dish out and appear weak to make sure the game is always in our favor. The answer to what you’ve been wondering is no. I never loved Estelle. I did pretty well to make sure she thought so. She didn’t know the truth until just before she took her own life.”

I shook my head, staring down a man who went to the ‘Dr. Eric Brenton School of Manipulation and Psychotic Behavior.’

“Can you invite me in, Mrs. Brenton?” He darted his hand out in invitation.

“I-I d-don’t want to invite you in.” I rolled my neck, hoping to alleviate the sudden tightness. I wrung my hands, trying to will them to stop their persistent trembles. “I don’t want to be social. I’ve closed your client account, you can leave now.”

“You would scrap nearly sixty billable hours of work for what? Pride?” He glanced at my hands. “Am I making you nervous?” he asked again as if he was expecting a different answer than before.

“I don’t have any familiarity with that word. Pride. I don’t have a friendship with it. I don’t truly know what it is.” I shrugged. “Goodbye, Mr. Wilcox.”

“Estelle was pregnant with Eric’s child once. Did he tell you that? If you’re thinking your pregnancy holds you above her, you’re wrong.”

His words generated an uncomfortable feeling inside my abdomen. I didn’t care how he knew I was pregnant. I surely didn’t want to find out the how and why. I did, however, want to believe it was above Eric to talk about me with Preston. I also wanted to believe Estelle never cared to mention anything about me to Preston in any sort of way.
 

I wanted to stand firm in the belief this wasn’t the continuation of a cycle from a man who got off on breaking women. I wanted reassurances the cycle ended with Estelle, and Preston simply had a problem letting go of the game he and Eric played together. In having it shut down, Preston was seeking revenge by filling my head with lies like his ex-girlfriend before him.
 

“Why can’t you leave us alone?” I asked, keeping my tone placid.

He paced over to me with a self-assurance that shook me and blocked my path to the patio doors. “What am I doing? I’m only trying to tell you the truth. I’m only dismantling the dozens of lies I know Eric has told you. Are you wondering why I’m doing this to you, when I’ve never done it with any other women before?” He rolled his shoulders. “You’re…different, Nikki. I can say it with the utmost confidence, because I know things about you—things Eric doesn’t. As for the rest? It’s not an answer I’m prepared to give you…yet. I would think you should be grateful for this. I’m doing something to help you, while desiring nothing in exchange.”

“That is such shit,” I balked. “You want something. It’s rare for a man to do a favor for a woman he finds attractive without wanting something in trade.”

He lightly smirked. “You think I find you beautiful, do you?”

I shot my glance back to the door. “I didn’t say that. Move away from the door.”

“Nikki.” He abruptly snapped his fingers, his tone calling my attention to his face. “I have nothing to gain by doing this. Nothing to gain and everything to lose. I’m trying to help you.”

I gazed at him, startled by the way his demeanor suddenly changed. “I don’t believe anything you’re saying to me. Why would you bother unless you were getting something out of it? You can thank your deceased ex for teaching me a very valuable lesson. She tried. Tamala tried. They all failed. You will not break me and Eric apart with the guise of trying to help me, or pretending to know things about me. It’s not going to work.”

“She was never my fiancée,” he retorted. “And your version of events is very, very wrong.”

“Then, what do you want? To fuck me? I’m not Estelle. Eric would
never
share me with you.”

The expression on his face threw me further from finding my easiness. “You think I’ll need his permission to have you? When I want you,
if
I want you, the decision to share won’t be up to him. You, Nikki, will soon know the true nature of the man you married.”

“I know him very well,” I rebutted, my tone throaty and deep with a warning.

“Nikki, you don’t. You really, really don’t. He’s just begun with you.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know a thing about Eric and me.”

“Can I tell you what I know?” he asked, his eyes glittering. “He’s been pushing you away, hasn’t he? If a tragedy ever befell your pregnancy…” He took in a breath and let it slowly unfurl. “If it ever happens, Nikki, you will see everything everyone has tried to warn you about. You will get a firsthand experience of what he’s done to the women in his past. I see your hard exterior, but I know what I see in your eyes. Could go either way. It could make you see and leave him as you should, or it could bring you into his rapture without a way out. And you’ll do again what you did the night Estelle lied to you, and told you that she and Eric were still married.”

“H-how…how did you know that?”

“I’m very good at forging Eric’s handwriting. And Nikki…” he leaned closer to me, a smirk appearing on his face. “I really do know things about you that Eric doesn’t. I’ve kept quiet about those things. Would you like me to continue to keep quiet?”

I closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling. “You’re an evil person.”

“Maybe. But I promise you, I’m the less evil of the two.”

“I don’t know you,” I sobbed. “I don’t want to know you. I don’t care what you think you know about me. Consider yourself released as a client. Are we done now?”

He slowly smiled. “Not by a long shot. Not sure you want to release me as a client. I could make or break your career, Nikki. I have a network of connections. You might remember some of them from the mistake you made with Nation X. Do you remember Red X? The hacker whose dare got you into quite a bit of trouble? You were extended an olive branch, but…it would take so little to burn it to ashes. If you want me to keep quiet, we should be friends, don’t you think?”

I kept my eye steady on the patio doors, unwilling to look at him, nor recall the incident his words were bringing back into my memory.

“Are we good, or should I search for another graphic designer? I’d really prefer not to. You are quite talented in what you can make a computer do.” His annoying smile turned sinister. “Well, you did get caught, but that has nothing to do with your creative skills.”

I roughly wiped the tears from my cheeks and nodded. “Fine. I’ll keep you on as a client.”

His smile turned up at the corners. “Good. Glad we agree. By the way, the changes I needed were simple. Darken the color scheme. I prefer black and white over differing tones of gray. Change that, and all should be agreeable.”

His words served to further annoy me. Had I agreed and visited him, I would’ve been livid. The entire interaction through IMs was all a setup. He definitely could’ve conveyed his needs through other means. I should’ve expected no less from an associate of Eric’s who had a penchant for hitting women and getting his face pummeled into the pavement repeatedly by Eric for whatever reason.

Turning apologetic, he stepped forward with his hands drawn down. “I’m sincerely sorry I made you cry. It wasn’t my intent. Do you forgive me? Or should I seek a grander method to convey how sorry I am? Flowers? A heartfelt sentiment? A gift card? What would you prefer, Nikki?”
 

I shook my head. “A-apology accepted.”

“Thank you,” he sighed in relief.
 

“I-is that all you want from me? To remain a client?”

“For now.” Moving to the side, he allowed a clear path back inside the house.

My concern was palpable, because the record amount of time in which Preston fucked up my head won out over Eric’s slow and arduous process to bend me to his will.

“DR. BRENTON? CAN you consult with the patient in bed six?” Callie, the triage nurse, asked me while I was busy signing off on a patient’s chart.

“You see that I’m in the middle of something, right? You see that I’m the only fucking doctor on the floor again, because Aimee and Baxter are in trauma, right? I’ll get to her when I get through my rounds.”

“She’s been waiting for six hours.”

Scrolling through my tablet, I checked her patient status. “You tagged her as green, and she shouldn’t have come to the E.R. for a simple fucking headache.”

“Dr. Brenton?”

“What,” I snapped at now another person wanting something from me.

The nurse from intake, whose name I never thought to remember, looked close to falling apart if I so much as touched her. “Th-there is someone here for you.”

“Tell them to come back at another time,” I said.