Chapter Fourteen #2
I stared at the text and humiliation burned through me before my brain snapped back into gear.
Find your clothes. I did.
Go into the hallway. I did.
Put them on. Go downstairs. Leave. I did.
I punched the disarm button on the alarm system and slipped out to the door. The burning between my legs flared up again and I'd made an ungainly trot/skip down the brick stairs of his house.
Scuttling down the street, I called Roan. "I stayed up all night, you know," he said heavily. "Don't worry. You're young, reckless, and don't care about your life. As long as you're happy."
"So, I'm getting that you didn't sound the alarm?" I said, turning the corner. "I sent you the double thumbs up emoji!"
"Yes," he agrees dryly. "The double thumbs up, a clear indication that you haven't been kidnapped and are not currently being cut up into human steaks in someone's basement.
It's all right. I am very happy that you're well.
I could not have forgiven myself if something had happened to you," he said, making sure to drive that spear of guilt deeper into my soul so it would lodge there for a while.
"Am I going to have to apologize for a really long time? If so, could you pick me up first?" I asked, turning in a circle, looking at street signs. "I'm on the corner of Acorn Street and West Cedar-"
"I've been waiting down the street since I tracked the tag I put in your purse," he cuts me off. "Since you turned off the tracker in your phone."
I stopped short in the middle of the intersection. "You tagged me?"
"It was either that or inject something into your neck." Roan was completely unrepentant. "In fact, I know a vet who'd do it for the same price as a large-sized dog or a small horse."
"Are you saying I look like a dog?" I'd asked, outraged.
"No, just that you weigh about the same as one. A Great Dane, perhaps."
"You really are the worst bodyguard in the world," I grumbled, doing my best to put myself back together before he turned the corner, so I didn't look like the wanton and sordid creature that I actually was.
Based on his frown, I didn't do such a great job.
Fortunately, he remained silent on the way back to my condo.
***
Telling Caroline about it was painfully awkward.
When she finished cackling like a witch, she said, "You shouldn't have snuck out like that.
You don't know what that text really meant, any text taken out of context, you know that.
Remember that one where I thought William was cheating on me with his stepmother? "
"Yeah, you should've waited to find out what that was about before you broke his nose," I agreed. "Though that was an impressive punch." I still vividly remember the blood streaming from her boyfriend's nose and dripping from his chin onto his nice white shirt.
"This is what gauche, immature girls do," she said wisely. "Women who are fearless and in their own power lounge like a princess the morning after, waiting to be serviced."
"I think we're past that now," I cringed. It hit me. "I didn't get his phone number and I never gave him mine. Who knows if he would've even asked for it?"
"Oh, he would've asked for it," she said. "Have you seen you? You're fucking gorgeous."
"You don't have to say that," I mumbled in a tone that meant, please, do go on. My decimated self-confidence needs to hear more right now.
"I'm not usually this nice to you, because it takes so much effort," she said. "Bitch, you're fucking beautiful, tall and sleek with killer silver eyes. You're ridiculously talented, well-educated and you're kind, devoting yourself to the Arts and cats and whatever other charities you belong to."
"It's not cats." I said irritably. "I funded the toddler Head Start production of Cats, remember?"
"Not really. Because I made sure I was out of town that weekend.
A four-year-old screeching show tunes is not my idea of a banner evening.
" Caroline is utterly shameless. She could be at her own wedding, but if she heard of something more entertaining to do, she'd crawl out the window of the bride's dressing room.
"They did really well!" I said, stung. "You should've heard Nia, our Grizabella belt out "Memories." It was magic!"
"Yeah, okay," she waves her hand dismissively. "Back to the far more interesting, current situation. Are you going to go back, maybe with a box of blueberry muffins from Yankee Bakery and talk to him like a grown-up?"
"No!" I said instantly "That could not look more desperate."
"No," she eyed me like I'm a particularly slow-witted child, "it would mean that you are a busy woman, then in the middle of your successful, high-powered day, you remembered that you hadn't exchanged phone numbers after your ferocious night of passion.
And of course, this man would be dying to get your information.
Really, you're doing him a favor. A guy named Beauford can't be getting that much action. I don't care how rich he is."
"That doesn't feel like a successful, high-powered woman," I said dubiously. "It sounds more like I would be ambushing the poor guy."
Still… What I wouldn't have given for another night like that, even though I might need a couple of days to heal up first. The next day, after a nice blowout and manicure, I bravely marched up the stairs. Caroline waited for me in her BMW across the street as moral support.
The door opened before I could knock and an older woman was standing there, looking politely puzzled. She was wearing expensive camel-colored trousers and a silk top. "Can I help you?" she said, gaze flickering to the muffin box and back to me.
"Oh…" I floundered a bit. She was definitely too old to be a girlfriend or a wife, maybe she's his mother? "I apologize for disturbing you. I was looking for Beauford?"
Her expensively threaded brows drew together. "Beauford? I'm sorry, dear. I'm not sure who you're talking about."
"Beauford Wellington? Extremely tall, blonde hair?"
The woman's polite smile was getting tattered around the edges and she made another visual sweep of me. No doubt, wondering if I was an insane person who was going to assault her with a box of blueberry muffins.
"He brought me here, two nights ago?" I stumbled on. "I just wanted to…"
She hadn't said anything and my face flushed a painful brick red. "There's no one here by that name," she repeated carefully, as if negotiating with a terrorist.
"I see," I stammered. How he could know the elaborate security system, he knew where everything was in the house, he walked around like he owned it.
Of course, he had that kind of swagger anyway- Am I insane?
Did I get the wrong house? I looked to the right and left and back.
No. This was the one, with the four huge pots of blue and white hydrangeas.
"Please excuse me," I managed a polite smile, hoping it didn't make me look crazier. "It must be my mistake." Mindlessly holding out the box, I said, "Would you like some muffins? Yankee Bakery, they're still warm."
Slowly, she reached out to take the box, looking down like there might be a bomb hidden inside, or a venomous snake. "Well. I'll leave you to your day," I babbled. "Goodbye."
I maintained just enough dignity to walk sedately back down the stairs to the BMW, where Caroline was staring at me with equal parts amusement and outrage.
"The woman who answered the door said she didn't know who I was talking about." I put on my sunglasses because I was going to cry and why let everybody at the stoplights watch me blubber?"
"Okay, that is fucked up," she snapped. "Are you sure you had the right house?"
"Absolutely certain," I said, tapping my fingers against my lap in an angry cadence.
"Did he… um…" She pulls away from the curb. "Did you take anything he gave you? Like a pill or anything?"
"No, Caroline!" I snapped. "He did not roofie me. I know that was the house, but apparently his name was not Beauford and this is now one night that I don't know whether I'll be happy or humiliated to remember."
"Well, you know what we need," she said wisely. "Something that involves a lot of alcohol."
"Yeah," I said bitterly. "All the alcohol."