The Sordid Promise (33 page)

I gasped. And people would once say that I was heartless. “He was—“

“No good for you. He was weak. You were nothing to him but a temporary bridge. He isn’t worth it, and he never deserved you.”

“I know you saw him,” I sobbed. “You’re probably the reason he killed himself. What did you say to him? Did you screw up his head like you’ve screwed up mine?”

He crouched down and abruptly grabbed my thigh, squeezing it. “Does that hurt, Nik?”

“Yes!” I sniffled.

“But, it’s what you want, right? It’s what you always want.” His grip tightened.

“Eric…stop.”

“If there is any pain to be inflicted on your body, it will be by my hand. Don’t you ever fucking do this again, am I clear?”

“Then, give me back my drugs. It wasn’t up to you to take me off them,” I rasped.

He cupped my head in my hands and gently kissed my lips. “No. You need to feel. The prescriptions just delayed the inevitable and made you numb. Made you someone other than who you are. You don’t need them. You
never
needed them. Think about how you felt before you knew they were placebos.”

He touched my head. “There was never anything wrong with you, Nik. You are perfect the way you are. I wanted you to see it. You let too many people get inside your thoughts. They made you think you were crazy. You know why you thought you were on a prescription?” He pressed his fingers against either side of my temples. “Because, I’m in here. I’m inside there so deep, I can manipulate the way you feel. I
am
your drug, baby. You think you’ve seen withdrawal? You haven’t begun to. Just think about the fourteen days you were without me and multiply it a thousand times. You owe me for forgetting your promise to me. We’re going to take that vacation we keep teasing each other about. Tomorrow night we’re taking a flight to Colorado, and I’m going to remind you of whom this body belongs to.”

I slept through the entire flight to Aspen. Whoever said you can’t catch up on sleep was correct. When I woke up, I felt more exhausted than ever.

The log cabin wasn’t too far from the Rio Grande Trail and was surrounded by densely packed trees. The five-bedroom house contained a copious amount of ten foot windows, detailed archways, vaulted ceilings, and modern fixtures. The basement had a temperature controlled wine cellar. Mahogany wood floors were throughout with Persian rugs scattered here and there.

I’d been to the cabin once with Angie and my mother. It was at time in which my mother worked tirelessly, taking business meetings while skiing the slopes with her business associates. Angie and I had as much fun as we could on our own; which was not at all. Angie shut me in my room while she tended to the other things she wanted to do.

When I wanted to visit the cabin with my mother again, she emphatically declined. She said my father soiled the aura of the property for her. I never really knew what she meant until much later; Angie fucked my father here.

I slumped on the couch. Taking the faux fur throw, I wrapped it around me.

“Firewood?”

“Back of the house,” I said, having my first language exchange with Eric since we left New York. I gazed at the massive dark brick fireplace. It seemed every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same horrific sights; Trent’s death, Maisha as she bled out, my mother’s face as she slipped away inside the hospital, my father…

I was tired of recalling the same images on a constant loop. I used to be so fascinated with death, even my own at one point. Now, I was sick of being surrounded by it. Pain, it seemed, wasn’t enough to eliminate what I was feeling. I couldn’t be numb, I felt every ounce of everything. It overwhelmed me.

Eric came back and threw a few logs in the fireplace. As he ignited the fire, I looked around the cabin, marveling at how clean it was kept with a house manager who only tended to it once a month. My mother wouldn’t dare rent it out to anyone. She was very protective of her property and extending its use to strangers. It made me question how she could make a deal with someone like Eric. He must’ve made quite the impression on her. Question was…did the impression she received come from the slightly charming Eric, or the evil one?

Eric leaned against the brickwork of the fireplace. “Tonight, we’re going to act like normal people. As normal as people like us can be. Go out on the town. Something. And when we come home tonight, I’m going to make love to you my way.” His eyes darted to mine. “Don’t even think about picking an argument with me. I’m done repenting for when you think I fucked up—not since you’ve fallen back on old habits.”

“What about
your
old habits?” My eyes lifted to his with accusation.

He slipped out of his wool pea coat and neatly laid it against the back of the tufted leather chair. “Since you want to be pious, let’s talk about what really happened to your father.”

I moved to leave. He grabbed me and sat on the sofa with me, pulling my legs until they were trapped on his lap. He placed his palms against my back, forcing me to come forward and maintain eye contact. He asked the question again in a slower drawl with a dead inflection.

“You don’t tell me anything. I don’t have to tell you everything.”

“We’ll stay here all night until you tell me what really happened to him.”

I crossed my arms and crinkled my brow. “Why are you pushing this?”

“You know why.”

I shook my head in awe. I couldn’t believe it.
My mother told him? What really was the deal between the two of them?
“So, you know. We’re both killers. Happy now? Do you feel some kind of camaraderie with me? Unlike you, I don’t get off on it. Unlike you, he was my only one. I’m not a serial killer. Because, that’s what you are, Eric, a serial killer. Is that what drew you to me? Did you think that you and I were alike?”

His gaze held me coldly. “Last time I’m going to ask nicely.”

“You don’t have to ask again,” I relented solemnly. “Let me go, and I’ll tell you.”

He slipped back, removing his hold on me. I swung my legs around and stared at the fire. Memories of an event that happened on the eve of my seventeenth birthday sloshed around my mind with a painful ache. “He was a playboy. A con artist. A man my mother fell in love with, and thought she could change. He loved me, I think. As much as a man like him could love me. I just wasn’t as important to him as the money, or his other women.

“He held out long enough to receive alimony, parts in her business…everything she worked hard for. He…broke my mother’s heart. She wasn’t going to back down without a fight. And fight she did. She got the best lawyer, who made sure his affairs came to light. He wasn’t going to get a cent. He delayed the divorce and preyed on her feelings for him. He tormented her by blatantly sleeping with other women and parading them around her. Angie…was one of those women.

“That night, he…he was choking her. I don’t remember what was in my hands. I just remember that it was heavy and when it hit his head…the blood—so much blood. My mother wasn’t upset with me. She was….relieved. She told the cops that he fell in a drunken stupor. She made me promise to tell no one what I did. She said if it ever came back that he was murdered, she would take the blame.

“Luckily, because of who she was, most people believed her. She was loved…my father wasn’t. I…got away with it because of her. We grew closer. But I couldn’t take the new mother, so I moved away. It was the biggest mistake in my life.” I slid off the couch and crawled closer to the hearth. As I felt the heat rush against my face, I closed my eyes, letting the tears stream down my cheeks. “Are you happy now? I killed my father. You killed your uncle. But we both know you’ve killed so many more.”

“Nik, stop it,” he said through a throaty tone. “You aren’t going to do that with me. As you can see, I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.” Rubbing his forehead, he stood, looking as though something perplexed him. He joined me on the floor and pulled me close. His lids drew heavy for a moment, before regarding me with palpable annoyance. “Did you tell me that as you remembered it, or did you tell me what you thought I needed to hear?”

“It’s your turn.” I changed the topic, despite the fact I was a little irritated that he thought I wasn’t telling the truth.

“You were right. Your mother gave me stake in her company. Can’t you think for one second that your mother gave me a piece of her company for something that had
nothing
to do with our deal?”

“Why else would she give it to you?”

“For the record, I only got three percent. Someone else on the board got the rest of it. My uncle wasn’t exactly rolling in it. And my father…it took a while before I got that money, and by the time I got it, it wasn’t enough. How do you think I paid for med school? I read your mother’s books. Changed my financial life.

“She gave me those things because I deserved them. That’s all. Giving her peace? I did it because you asked me to, not because your mother did. When she asked me, I declined. I wanted to be with you because…shit your mother was so damn good at impersonating you. Thought I knew what to expect. When I met you…you threw me. She was right about one thing; she knew you better than you knew yourself. Wasn’t sure how I felt about you until I met you. The woman I met, is the woman I fell in love with. The woman I met in Pullman.”

“W-what?” I nearly stood on his news, but sank back down to my knees.

He grinned as he contemplated the fire. “You were so far in your own world, it was easy to stalk you. It took one day of watching you before I knew. I wanted you, and I didn’t care about your issues or what you’d done.” He embraced the side of my face.

I thought back to the day I had a panic attack after I forgot to refill my prescription for a week. A kind stranger took me home after I had a meltdown about the overcrowding of the only two coffee shops in close proximity to my duplex.

I pretended to be unconscious through the entire ordeal; however, I awoke the second he placed me inside his car. He was incredibly nice and gentle with me. He even bought me coffee and left it on my doorstep. He was the reason I began to like black coffee in the first place. He was the reason I liked a particular scent of cologne. He was the ‘nice’ stranger I always remembered. “That day—I suspected and asked if you’d ever been to Pullman. You didn’t say anything.”

“I never exactly said it wasn’t me, did I?”

“I can’t believe it was you. As cocky as you are, why didn’t you ever admit to it?” I asked incredulously.

“You were hard to get to as it was. If I told you, you would’ve dismissed me a crazy stalker, and my chance with you would’ve been fucked.”

I slowly smiled. “It would’ve been your way in.”

“Is that so?” he sneered. “You threw me into unknown territory, Nikki.” He knelt down and embraced me, pressing his body against mine. “You may be imperfect according to the world, but you’re perfect in my world. So…can we cut out the bullshit and just enjoy the weekend here? Can we, for two days, forget the shit that has gone on in our lives and enjoy each other without the pomp and circumstance?”

Remembering everything that occurred, I couldn’t smile anymore. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Try,” he pushed. “Because it’s time to start acting like you’re still alive.”

I studied Eric’s face, as he sat across from me in the dimly lit restaurant, Elevation, bantering with our server about their specialties. Well dressed in a button-up and slacks, the dim lighting illuminated the bronze tones in his skin. I was slightly mesmerized. It rang truer now than it ever had; he was too beautiful to not be a little damaged. I knew he’d yet to fully show me the severity of his damage. It scared me. It excited me. It…concerned me.

I started to notice the crowd around us, and felt slightly ill. The creeping sensation of an elephant sitting on my chest began to increase.

“Nikki?”

I tried to catch my breath as I regarded Eric. “Yes?”

He reached across the table and took my hand, squeezing it. “I asked if you liked the red wine.” I nodded. “Really? Because, you haven’t touched it.”

I nodded again, my eyes darting to the crowd in the restaurant.

“Nik, look at me.”

“No,” I quavered, “because you don’t help anymore.”