The Private Serials Box Set (22 page)

 I took a deep breath in and held it. If I let it out, so many words and insults would come with it.

 “Furthermore, it states you still agree to the hundred-thousand-dollar penalty for the adultery you committed many,
many
times over the course of our marriage.”

 “You’re more delusional than I previously thought if you, even for one moment, think I’m going to pay you a hundred grand.
You
cheated, Derrek. You have a whole other family waiting in the wings. You strung me along for years.”

 “Where’s your proof, darling?”

 “Fuck you.”

 “No, thanks. We’ve tried that and it was lacking, terribly.”

 “You’re crazy. You’ve got just as much proof as I do. Call your lawyer. We’ll deal with this in court.” I stood up and moved to the door, my hands shaking with anger.

 “Lena, you don’t want this to go to court, trust me. You might not have proof, but I do. Damn good proof, too.”

 I turned back to him sharply, my hair whipping around my shoulder, and saw him slide another paper across his desk toward me. I walked to the edge of the desk and picked up the paper, flipping it over.

 My eyes focused on the photograph and my heart stopped. It stopped, then it leapt back into action, thundering in my chest, aching and pounding. My hand came to my mouth as it fell open, and I collapsed back into the chair. My hand shook and the picture trembled. My lungs burned, begging me to breathe again.

 I was looking at a photo of Preston and me on the first night I’d spent at his house, after the gala. It was a black and white photo, grainy but still visible, and it was outstandingly damning. I was on his bed, on my knees, my hands grasping the slats of his headboard. Preston’s hand was curled around my shoulder, his other hand rested at my waist, and his eyes were looking down, watching his cock slam into me. His mouth was open and he had what looked like wonder painted across his face as he looked at our bodies joined together. My head was tilted back, mouth gaping, and I knew the instant this picture was taken, I was crying out in complete ecstasy. Derrek had a picture of me mid-orgasm, with another man. In another circumstance, in another life, I would look at this picture and think it beautiful. But in this instant, it was ugly. It represented something ugly.

 “What do you want?” I gasped, my eyes still not leaving the photo.

 “I want you to leave, with nothing, and I want you to struggle for the rest of your life trying to pay me what you agreed to. I want you to think of me every day and obsess over the fact that I ruined your life.”

 He’d reached a new level of crazy.

 “Or what?”

 “This picture goes viral and if you think this is the only one I have, you’re even more stupid than I could have ever imagined. I have
hundreds
of pictures of you being a filthy whore, and no judge would ever look at these pictures and believe you to be some jilted wife.”

 “And if I sign your paper, if I give you what you want, then what?”

 “I forget you ever existed.”

 I thought about my life, thought about everything I’d been fighting for in the last weeks, and everything I’d put Preston through. Suddenly, I understood what he’d been saying all along. It wasn’t worth it. Certainly now, when not only was I on the chopping block, but Preston too, the only sane thing I could think to do was to give it all up. To surrender.

 “Fine.” I said, walking back to the chair, clutching the picture. “But I want all the photos you have, and anything else incriminating.”

 “I don’t want to look at your filth, Lena. You can have it all.” He pushed the paper toward me again, along with the pen. I picked the pen up in my hand and took in a deep breath. This was exactly the ending I was trying to avoid; the ending I didn’t think I deserved. The only comfort in all of this was knowing even though I’d lost a lot, I still had Preston.

 I exhaled, and my hand swiped the pen along the line, and I signed the name I hated.
Lena Bellows
. I didn’t want to be her anymore. The very first chance I got I would change my name. I didn’t want to be connected to Derrek in any way.

 As soon as I signed the paper, he slid another one my way, which he had signed, and I signed that one, then folded it up and squeezed it tightly in my hands.

 “Here,” Derrek said as he slid an SD card across the desk. “All the pictures are on that card. There was no other evidence, no videos or anything like that.” Derrek smirked, placing his steepled fingers over his lips. “Truly, Lena, if you’d been even one tenth of the whore with me as you were with him, this might have played out differently. These pictures showed me a wanton woman I’ve never met.”

 “Perhaps, if you were one tenth of the man Preston is, I would have been more receptive,” I said snidely.

 “Oh, right!” he said, snapping his fingers, as if he’d just remembered something important. “That’s the other piece of this puzzle.”

 “What are you talking about?” I was tired of listening to his voice and just wanted to leave and have this be over with.

 “The other part – even more evidence you’re a stupid whore.” Derrek laughed out loud, his head falling back against his chair. “I’m sorry,” he said between chuckles. “It’s just too good.”

 “Just spit it out, Derrek.”

 “Preston, your lover, the man you’ve given everything up for, the man who you think you’re going to spend the rest of your life with?” Slowly, an evil and wicked smirk grew on his lips and his eyes began to sparkle with excitement. “He works for me.”

 His words felt like a wrecking ball slamming into me. My breath stopped, my heart exploded, my veins ran dry because there was nothing pulsing through me except pain. Derrek was looking at me as if he’d just won the most important game he’d ever played.

 “What?” I rasped, impressed I’d managed to say anything at all.

 “I’ve had your phone bugged for years, darling. I was just waiting for the moment when you’d finally decided you’d had enough. When you called that firm for a consultation with a private investigator, I knew about it before you’d even told them your name.” He laughed again and my mouth closed, then opened again, like a guppy. I felt tears welling in my eyes, my throat stinging with the need to cry, my body aching for the release I knew sobbing would bring. “I called the firm right back and told them their services wouldn’t be needed, and I sent Preston in with one goal: to seduce you.”

 “No,” I breathed.

 “Yes, dear, and you took the bait just as I knew you would. You lasted, what? A week? You dug your own grave here, Lena.”

 “I don’t believe you.”

 “Think about it,” he said, suddenly sounding angry. “In the beginning, that first week, what did Preston really do for you? Nothing. He brought you along for a stakeout, for Christ’s sake! What kind of private investigator would do that? He flirted with you, was inappropriate, and
pursued you
. He was on my payroll, doing a job for me.”

 My mind went back to that first week with Preston, thought about all our encounters, and the pieces started to fall into place: him telling me not to call him at the agency, the fact he knew my last name before I’d ever given it to him, he knew where I lived. He tried to convince me it was because he was a P.I., but really it was because he worked for Derrek, knew everything about me already, and had been fooling me from the beginning.

 I felt the bile in my stomach start to make its way upward and I stood, desperate to make it out of that house, frantically trying to escape what seemed to be the inescapable. I’d given myself to a man who was working against me from the beginning. I’d fallen in love with an imposter and ruined my chances at making something for myself.

 I ran for the door, grabbing my purse and jacket as I left, ambling out of the house on a sob. I couldn’t see for the tears streaming down my face, couldn’t hear for the pulse thundering in my ears, and I had no idea what happened when I ran into something hard. It gripped me, and wrapped its arms around me, and it smelled familiar.

 Preston.

 Once my mind registered who was holding me, I wrenched myself from his arms and pushed him away with more force than I’d ever used on anyone.

 “No!” I screamed. I sounded, even to my own ears, like pain. There was no other word. I was the embodiment of pain. “Don’t you touch me!”

 “Lena, sweetheart,” he started.

 “Fuck you! You don’t get to call me that!”

 “Please, just listen to me.”

 “I’m done letting
men
ruin my life. Done letting men control me. I trusted you, that’s the one thing you ever insisted on and I did it. I did exactly what you wanted. I trusted you and you fucked me over. Fucked me in so many ways, I can’t even begin to list them all.”

 “No,” he said, taking a step toward me. I stepped away from him and glared, making it clear he wasn’t to come near me again.

 “Answer one question, Preston. Just one. Do you work for him? Were you hired to seduce me? To trap me in exactly the future I was trying to escape?”

 “Lena…”

 “ANSWER ME!”

 He sighed and I saw all the conviction leave his body. His shoulders slumped, his eyes lost their light, and he ran a hand through his hair. I knew his answer before the words even left his mouth. “Yes.”

 My hand shot out, faster than I’d ever moved before, and the crack my palm made against his face as I slapped him was the most satisfying sound I’d ever heard. His face slammed to the side with the impact of my hand and then I heard my own sob ring out.

 “Fuck you, Preston. You’re worse than he is.”

 I dug in my purse for my keys, got in my car, and drove away from two men who both had a hand in ruining my life. I had no idea where I was going, but I knew there was nothing left for me there.

END OF PART TWO

Part Three

Private

Getaway

Chapter One

   An incessant buzzing, accompanied by an irritating beeping, pulled me out of a dead sleep, which had only been brought on by vodka and chocolate.  I groaned, but rolled over slowly, blindly reaching around for my phone.  When my fingers finally found it, I peeped one eye open, painfully, but all I could see was the dark veil created by my raven hair.  I used my hand to sweep it aside and managed to swipe my finger over the screen of my phone, bringing it to life. 

   I winced from the bright light, but managed to silence the alarm that was blaring throughout the room.  I tossed the phone onto the nightstand and rolled back over, ignoring the aching in my muscles and the jackhammer in my head.

   That was the fourth morning my alarm had woken me up.  It was a residual alarm left over from my previous life.  It used to be the alarm that would remind me every morning to take my birth control pill.  It was now the alarm that reminded me to not drown in my current pool of self-pity and hatred.  I didn’t have any birth control pills to take.  I, in fact, didn’t have anything with me aside from the clothes on the floor I’d been wearing when I fled from my life, the groceries I’d thought to buy before I’d checked into this motel, and my purse.

   I was a mess.  I’d been in this bed for the majority of the last four days and I felt it.   Up until now, I’d not felt the need or want to change my situation.  I’d wanted to stay in bed forever, sleep as long as the vodka would let me, and try desperately not to deal with the catastrophe I’d left behind.  But I hadn’t left it behind; it seemed to have followed me here and was now seeping back in.  Reality.

   Reality was a bitch.

   I groaned again as I moved off the bed, flinging the scratchy comforter off my body, and swinging my legs over the edge of the mattress.

   “Holy fucking crap,” I whispered to nobody but myself.  I rubbed a hand over my face, my nose crinkling up at the gross condition of my skin.  I needed a shower.  More than I needed anything ever, I needed a shower.

   I ambled through the small motel room and found the bathroom. Switching the faucet on, I waited for the water to heat.  When it was as hot as I could stand, I pulled the stopper up and watched the water fall like rain.

   I climbed in, letting the harsh, hot water pelt me, stinging all the way down to my feet.  I went about the business of washing the grime from my body. The tiny bottles I’d had the thought to buy at the grocery store weren’t enough to last very long, but it was enough for now.  As I washed my body, I held my cries in.  I’d managed not to cry up until now, and I didn’t intend to ever cry over Derrek or Preston.  But I couldn’t stop the tears that penetrated. They were tricky and sneaky, and had found ways to fall from my eyes multiple times since I’d walked out on Derrek, but I wasn’t crying.  Not ever.

   Once dried off, I cringed as I put on the dirty clothes I’d come here in, silently cursing myself for not having the presence of mind to at least grab a new package of underwear.  I’d never gone without underwear before – well, except when Preston had asked me to – but now, if ever, was the time.

   Once dressed, I checked out of the motel and sat in my car, having no idea where I was headed.  I hadn’t thought of a plan past the parking lot, but I was determined to make a change.

   I started my car and headed toward the nearest Target.

   I had my new carry-on bag filled with new clothes, more tiny toiletries, a few pairs of comfortable shoes, and a paperback book I’d grabbed when the cover caught my eye, and I was near a panic attack.  

   I was standing in front of a giant screen, taller than I was, listing all the flights leaving the Portland International Airport that day. My mind reeled, trying to pinpoint a destination.  It shouldn’t have been a big deal, shouldn’t have been the monumental decision my mind was forcing it to be.  I knew I needed to leave, to get away, but I couldn’t nail a location down
.  Anywhere was better than here.
My mind wanted to attach a bigger meaning to wherever I ended up, like I should be going someplace that would scream independence and a new start, but some other part of me also wanted adventure and excitement.  I wanted to go someplace I’d never been, to hopefully start living a life I’d never lived.