Thirty Nights with a Dirty Boy: Part 3: A Heroes and Heartbreakers Serial (5 page)

I had just lifted the glass to my lips when I heard the pounding at the door. I went to the hallway. It was Alice’s day off, and she was in her quarters, so there was nobody to answer the door. And who in the world was knocking, anyway? I didn’t get visitors. There weren’t that many people around, and I had gone out of my way to make sure that none of my neighbors knew me well enough to come by. I discouraged that kind of thing.

I glanced around the foyer, a nervous sweat slicking my hands. There was a heavy metal statue on the carved Queen Anne table near the door. I picked it up and walked over. The alarm system was armed, and it gave me some measure of comfort. I glanced through the judas hole, and who I saw on the other side left me so shocked I dropped the sculpture. It hit the floor with a heavy clang, and I yelped in surprise.

Through the door, Sean said my name. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “Ella, open the door. Now.”

He didn’t sound happy.

Still, my heart lurched at the sound of his voice, and my hands shook just the slightest bit as I dealt with the alarm system and unlocked the door.

“Sean.” Bewildered, I stared at him. “What are you doing here?”

He advanced on me, and the stormy look on his face had me instinctively backing up. “We need to talk.”

For one mad second, I thought maybe, just maybe, he had missed me.

But then, reality hit. The look on his face wasn’t the look of a man who realized he had been missing a woman. He was furious.

“I thought we had already done that.” I wanted to reach up and brush his hair from his face, it had grown out longer, but his foreboding expression stopped me. Instead, I tucked my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. He shut the door behind him and flipped the lock.

“You alone?” he asked.

“What? No. Alice is here somewhere. It’s her day off. She’s probably having a
House
marathon. Is everything okay? How’s Darla?”

“It didn’t take you long to bring her up, now, did it?” His eyes narrowed down to slits, and the look he gave me was so full of venom it almost hurt.

“I’ve been thinking about her.”
And you.
“Is everything going well…?” I almost messed up and said
with you obtaining guardianship?

“When did you meet her, my sister?”

Uneasy now, I circled him and reset the alarm system before going back into the sitting area. My bourbon was waiting for me, and I picked it up and had a sip as I tried to puzzle my way through that question. “It wasn’t too long after I met you. I didn’t know you two were related, not until she showed me a picture of the two of you on her iPad.”

“Yeah, funny, that. I knew you got that for her. Dropping gifts around like an angel, you are. But you didn’t meet her until after you met me.”

A bad feeling settled in the pit of my gut. I was starting to figure out what this was about. “Sean, look…”

“Here is what I’m thinking. You decide that you’ve got your sights set on me. I’ve been reading up on you, Miss Ella Cruise. You are a powerhouse in the business world, I’ve learned. You stormed onto the scene six years ago and pretty much started turning everything on its head. It’s like butter won’t melt in your mouth. I’ve heard that you’ve been called the Ice Queen.”

I flinched. “Yeah,” I muttered. “I’ve heard that one, too.”
And worse.
“But I don’t know what any of this has to do with anything.”

“Oh, I’m getting there, don’t worry. So you come in to my pub, all nervous and shy. I never would’ve thought it was an act. But the Ella I thought I knew doesn’t seem to line up with the Ella all of them know.”

The look on his face was cold. Cruel, even. But it wasn’t unfamiliar to me. I had seen the same look that first night, when that guy kept trying to force himself on me at the pub. My heart was hammering even harder now, but it wasn’t from the rush of seeing him. This was fear. Not of him—even as angry as he was, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. But that part of me that had learned terror so long ago was taking control.

I hated how my voice shook when I said his name. I stopped and cleared my throat and tried again. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, it’s wrong.”

“So you didn’t smooth things over with some high-priced lawyer you know.” He held up a hand and ticked off a finger. I flushed. But before I could argue or explain, he continued. “You didn’t threaten anybody at the hospital for them not to transfer her out to University.”

Another finger. “You didn’t offer up a plum job—one, mind you, that would get me out of my … particular lifestyle. Just as you told me I should do.”

How could he look at any of that as something wrong? I knew he didn’t want anybody’s help, but he was going to be getting guardianship of his sister. He had a job that a lot of people would kill for, and it’s not like he wasn’t earning the money he was making. And most important of all, Darla hadn’t been put into a group home.

“What was I supposed to do? I adore your little sister, Sean. Knowing what could happen to her, if she went back to a group home, as sick as she is…” I lifted up my hands, feeling helpless. “I had to do something. I’m sorry if you see it as something so terrible. I just wanted to help.”

“Help. Help? You wanted to
help?
” He moved my way so fast that I dropped my wine in stunned surprise as I backed away from him. My bare heel hit a shard of glass, but I hardly noticed. The backs of my legs hit my chair, and I ended up half falling onto it. I felt trapped, and panic started to beat inside of me. He never noticed. He bent over me, bracing his hands on the arms of my chair. “What did you do that was so
wrong?
” he snarled. “You used her to get to me.”

“No, I…” Shaking my head, I stared at him, stunned. “How can you even think that?”

“She’s just a little girl.” He reached up and cupped my face, but there was no gentleness in the gesture. “She’s asking me when you’re coming to see her again, asking me if we’re going to get married. You made her love you, Ella. You used her to get to me. How could you use a child like that?”

The panic that had been struggling to break free overwhelmed me as those words tripped a switch in my mind.

No.

No.

No.

Chapter 5

I don’t remember how old I was the first time I lost myself.

I don’t even remember what set it off.

To be honest, I don’t even remember the episodes at all. It took years for me to realize that I was losing time. Losing time, losing myself.

And I don’t remember that night at all.

Nora explained it to me years later, after I’d been going to therapy—unsuccessfully, I thought—she told me about how she’d found me in the wide-open yard of her home once, right after she’d first brought me home. Probably the first episode, the first time I lost myself.

Like a little ghost. You were so pale and still. You just stared at me.

I wouldn’t talk. Barely blinked. I’d scared her. She hadn’t told me that, but I knew. When she couldn’t get me to respond, she’d called for Paul, and he’d gone to lift me.

I’d exploded. Went from a little ghost to a miniature demon in the blink of eye. I’d bloodied his nose and broken his glasses. When I asked him what had happened to him the next day, he’d told me that he’d scared something small and ferocious.

It had taken me years to understand that he’d been talking about me.

You’re letting them win, Ellie,
Nora had told me.
You have to understand that. As hard as it is to do it, you have to learn to push the monsters out. When they come into your head like that and take control … they are winning.

For years, my struggle had been to push the monsters out.

But their claws were deep.

Even though I couldn’t remember what they had done to me, I could still feel their hold.

*   *   *

“Does Daddy’s little girl want a treat?”

The little girl was small, more like a doll than a child.

She wore her party dress.

She hated the party dress. The party dress meant …

*   *   *

“I fookin’
told
you! You are not jabbing some drug into her, got it?”

Drug. No drugs …

“Mr. Lachlan, you will have to leave. This doesn’t concern you!”

Paul. I heard Paul.

Something small and ferocious.

Ferocious.

Me.

Paul had meant me.

You’re letting them win, Ellie.

Nora’s voice.

It’s time to put on your party—

“No!”

This time, the enraged growl came from my throat as I threw the memory onslaught aside.

I was back inside myself.

I had no idea how much time had passed, but something told me it hadn’t been that long. My head wasn’t aching as badly as it normally did, and my clothes weren’t drenched in sweat. I cowered on the couch, my hands fisted in my hair.

Dimly, I knew they were staring at me. All of them. Paul, Alice, and Sean.

Humiliation tried to suck me under, but I was too tired, and for once, I didn’t even mind that everybody was staring at me.

Alice was the first one to rush to me. “Ellie. Are you okay?”

“I…” My voice was barely even there, my throat raw. I’d been screaming, then. I knew the aftereffects. “Can you get me some water?”

“Of course. I’ll have Paul get it.” She flitted a look off to the side.

My brain tried to process it, and bit by bit, I began to make sense of things. Sean was there. I’d seen him earlier, yes. But he was there, and staring at me, his eyes still hard. A moment later, Paul pressed a glass of water into my hand. I smiled at him gratefully. He patted my shoulder and moved to stand next to me. A silent wall of strength and support.

I sipped the water, pressed it to my brow. The coolness felt good on my aching head, and the clouds began to fall away.

She’s just a little girl,
Sean had said.

In an eerie, distant echo, I could hear Nora shouting those very words.
She’s just a little girl.

I had been in my party dress.

Sean was staring at me. I could feel it. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to his, and the hard, cool set of his gray eyes should have chilled me to the bone. But I was already so frozen. These attacks did that.

“Alice, why don’t you get back to … well, whatever you were doing?”

She started to protest, but I caught her hand. “I’m fine. Really.”

She studied my face, and I saw the flicker of surprise in her eyes. Slowly, she nodded. “I’ll be around, darling.”

“I know.”

Once she left, I looked up at Paul. “Nora left information.”

The shock on his face was almost enough to terrify me into silence. Before she died, Nora had asked to speak to Paul and me. She’d told us that there was a file that held information about everything that had happened to me—at least as much as she had been able to find out. She’d been there during the trial, had attended the parole meetings, had fought to hold on to the company for me. She’d done everything to protect me after she’d found …

“Miss Ella?” Paul said gently.

“Go get it.”

His jaw tightened, but he nodded.

Once we were alone, I stood up. My legs were wobbly, an aftereffect of the adrenaline overload that came with my attacks. I could feel Sean looking at me, but I couldn’t handle looking at him while I did this.

“You’re wrong,” I said, my voice flat. Emotionless, even.

I knew I’d hurt him when I accused him of playing up to people in the hospital. But he had no idea what he’d just done to me. Granted, I had never given him any idea.

“You have no idea how wrong you are,” I said. Shaking my head, I moved over to the window and stared outside over the grounds. Nora’s home. Mine, now. She’d left this place to me when she died, giving me a sanctuary yet again. “I guess it really was a fairy tale, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t answer, so I turned to look at him.

“I have reasons for not trusting people. I think you do, too. Maybe that’s why I felt so drawn to you. I don’t know. But it was a fairy tale.” Maybe I should be glad he’d shattered my illusions.

“I’m not really sure I’ve the patience for this, Your Highness,” Sean said, his voice clipped and short. “Why don’t you just say what you need to say?”

“Say what I need to say…” I laughed, although the sound was so tight and unpleasant, it hurt even my ears. “Sure, Sean. I’ll do that.”

Paul appeared at the door just then, and I waved him in, but I didn’t stop. “I have next to no memory of my life prior to my ninth birthday.” I gestured at Paul to place the box on the table. It was heavy and wooden, the kind that came with a latch and an eye, in case one should want to lock it.

I’d thought about it. I’d thought about locking it and throwing away the key. I never had. Maybe after this, I would.

Glancing up at Paul, I gave him a smile. “You can go now.”

“Miss Ella…”

“Please.”

He nodded and shot Sean a grim look.

Sean didn’t notice. He was staring at the box.

“On my ninth birthday, I met Nora. She’d shown up at my parents’ house looking for me after I called her by accident. I’d hurt her husband, you see. He’d come to my birthday party. He’d spilled something on my party dress—nothing was allowed to get on my party dress, and I panicked. When he tried to touch me, I shoved him. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the look in his eyes … I don’t remember exactly what he did, but whatever it was … he…” I stopped for a moment and blew out a breath as I fought another wave of panic. “He died before he could be taken in for questioning. We’ll say it was under interesting circumstances, but nothing was ever proved. Anyway. I know he tried to do something. I remember bits and pieces … fear, panic. Him … falling. I was small, underweight … underfed, really. But a panicked child can surprise an adult, and he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. He slid and fell, hit his head. He blacked out. His phone fell out of his pocket, and I grabbed it and ran. I was off hiding somewhere. I remember that, sitting in the dark, staring at the phone. I was tutored at home, watched very little television. But once, I’d seen something about how you could call 9-1-1 if you were hurt. I didn’t even know how to do that. I was playing with the phone. I accidentally called Nora and when she answered, I asked her how to call 9-1-1.”