Chapter Six
That party still haunted her dreams.
Half-blinded by her own tears, Jay had woven her way through the startled guests, who stared at her and her tattered dress as if she were a battered Cinderella fleeing the ball. Nobody asked if she needed help—that was what she remembered later. All those men who had asked her to dance had stood idle with their hands in their pockets, watching her run as the beads from the torn bodice scattered like hail and the women in attendance had all turned away, one by one.
It was surreal. In that part of her brain that was slowly processing all of this, and would replay it over and over again in her nightmares for years to come, she had been shocked that nobody had even cut the music. It wasn’t like the movies. There was no collective gasp, no dramatic silence. She had run from her old life while 90s elevator jazz played in the background. Someone had even laughed: a woman, brassy and high-pitched. It sounded like her mother. She hoped it wasn’t.
Danielle hadn’t called her for weeks afterwards. Her mother’s silences could feel as enduring as a harsh winter when she was angry. It must be a mistake , she had told herself. Damon must have told her another lie. But when her mother had called, it was because she was looking for her driver’s license and wondered if Jay had somehow taken it in her purse.
She didn’t seem to care about what had made her leave at all.
“Where are you, baby? You know you’re embarrassing us all, leaving like that. People are asking questions. Come home. We can fix this. Don’t be a foolish child.”
Ignoring the cab driver’s staring, Jay had held what remained of her beaded bodice in place, staring fixatedly out the window with eyes that now felt too dry to cry. But she wasn’t seeing the cracked leather interiors or the buttery yellow lights in the assembly line McMansions. All she could see was Damon’s blood smeared over Nick’s knuckles. The violence in his eyes as she pleaded with him to stop.
He’s never going to let me go , she thought. Never. He’ll destroy us both before he’ll free me.
Her belongings were already partially packed from when she had tried to book into that hotel. Before Damon had put a freeze on her credit cards. Before—she swallowed hard—everything else.
Knowing that there was a very good chance anything she left would be thrown out or destroyed, Jay packed her journal, her favorite clothes, her beloved rocks. Even the gypsum rose Nick had given her. She told herself at the time that she could sell it later, the way she planned to sell her jewelry, but part of her had known even then that this was a lie.
With her backpack on, weighed down by the cat carrier and her largest purse, Jay left the house for what she thought would be the last time and waited for the taxi that would take her to the Greyhound station. She jumped at every sound, every crunch of gravel, every rasp of the trees, terrified that Nick—or Damon—were out looking for her already, ready to march her back to that hateful house and all that it represented.
The last bus left at eleven. Jay had gotten there at a quarter to, just in time for the overnight. “No pets,” the driver said, and Jay, clutching Carbon’s carrier, had burst into tears, which had made the driver shoo her along towards the back with a look of exasperation. She spent the next eight hours squashed between an older woman doing her knitting and a solemn-faced mother and son.
When she disembarked at last, and the bus pulled away in a cloud of acrid smoke, she found herself thinking that the city looked—different . . . but the same. She recognized the smell: stale urine, rainwater and exhaust, old concrete and new steel.
She had checked into the cheapest motel she could find, which wasn’t very. With a view of the buzzing neon sign outside her window, Jay booked nine apartment tours for the next day. She had needed to sell one of her purses to afford the advance her new roommates wanted for the next month’s rent, but they had all seemed nice. And one of them—Dante—had helped her get an interview at the restaurant he worked in, where she had ended up staying for the next three years while attending night classes at the local community college for an administrative certificate.
Jay sometimes wondered if Dante thought she had slept with him out of a pathetic sense of gratitude. Part of it was that. He had taken care of her at her lowest and she went weak in the hands of a capable man. But he was also nothing like Nicholas and that had been part of it, too. She needed to prove to herself that she could get off with a normal man.
That she could be with a normal man.
But when she had asked him, on their very first night, if he could put a hand around her throat, Dante had looked at her with such sympathy that she felt like he’d shot her in the head.
“Jay, who hurt you?”
Everyone, she had wanted to respond. Everyone hurt me. You just did too.
“No one,” she had lied. “It was just something I wanted to try.”
“Well, I don’t.” And then, as if in an attempt to soothe, he’d added, “Nice guys don’t.”
Nice guys . For years, she had hated Nicholas for warping her that way. For every faked orgasm with her nice boyfriend, and the dreams that had her waking up breathless from things that nice guys weren’t supposed to want. For making her want things she shouldn’t want.
Talking with Lily had made her realize how much stock she had put into living her life according to what other people thought she should be doing. She had been the good girl, even when she didn’t want to be. Even if sometimes, she actually wanted to be bad .
Especially with him.
Jay looked up and saw that her aimless walk had led her not to BART, but the old restaurant where she had used to work. Out of sheer habit, she’d taken the same path from the apartment she’d shared with Dante and his friends.
Gill’s.
Wow , she thought. I can’t believe it’s still here .
She looked up at the peeling fa?ade and felt a vague sense of disappointment. She wasn’t sure why. Had she expected some sort of epiphany? Or that it would be completely bulldozed away? It was honestly amazing that it was still open. There had been rats in the storeroom that the fry cook had needed to shoo away and it didn’t look much more sanitary now.
Jay swayed towards the doorway, tempted. But what if someone she had known still worked there? What if one of those waitresses in the little pink aprons that they had all been made to wear still had their makeup done like it was the 90s, with their brown lipstick and blue eyeshadow, and hair that reeked of Sun In, and they looked at her, and said, “Jay, is that you? You haven’t changed at all.”
Part of her would splinter and break off.
No, it seemed safer not to go in. The restaurant, and her tenure there, could remain exactly where they were: frozen in time. Leashed safely away, where they couldn’t hurt her.
So much of her past still could.
I’m not the same , she thought, continuing down the sidewalk. I can’t go back to what I was.
The tension didn’t leave her shoulders until the buildings miraculously perked up a few blocks down, and she started to see little strings of fairylights in the fenced-off courtyards designed to shield restaurant patrons from the street traffic. Various appealing smells wafted from their cracked-open windows, to dispense with the humidity and heat of the kitchens, saturating the narrow sidewalk with the scents roasted garlic, baking bread, and cooked meat.
Her stomach growled: a reminder that all she had eaten today was bad coffee and stale cereal. She went into the nearest bistro and ordered an extremely overpriced salad: arugula topped with red and gold beets, sliced walnuts, avocado, and olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. The place was packed and looking at businessmen and -women in their smart, pressed suits.
(you belong here just as much as I do)
“Arugula salad for Jay?”
Jay jumped. “Yes, thank you.” She had thought she might eat on the patio but everything felt too close and too loud, and the traffic noises were making her ears ring.
Clutching her salad, she walked the remaining six blocks to her apartment, dodging people and sidewalk trash. When a man lunged at her, she nearly screamed—and her breath only left her when she realized that he had merely tripped over the uneven pavement. They shared an awkward, panicky look and then Jay dashed away.
She’d allowed herself to become secluded, hiding away in Nicholas’s big mansion like a princess in a tower. Every time she set foot outside, she felt as if her every step were being tracked by people who wished her nothing but the very worst.
She’d heard the rumors circulating. They all thought her mother was some kind of porn star, her stepfather an embezzler and a sex fiend. She was damaged goods, a bad seed. Just like her mother. A whore . The only reason Nicholas—the town’s new golden scion—could possibly take her back was if she was screwing him. And she couldn’t even get deny it, because it was true .
It was all true.
Safe in her apartment, Jay managed a few bites of salad before she gave up and put the rest away. She opened a dusty old bottle of cheap wine that she’d had for god-knew how long and sloshed some into a red Solo cup that she had to rinse the dust out of, frowning down at her reflection in the murky dark liquid.
Perhaps that was how Nicholas saw her, too. Not an expensive red, after all, but a cheap table wine to be pulled down and consumed, and then poured out or forgotten. He hadn’t bothered to respond to her question when she asked him how he really felt, which was just as good as an answer.
He might not want to fuck an angel, but everyone wanted to marry one.
Even men like Nick.
A sound escaped her, high and unhappy. She stood, and realized her cup was empty when she wobbled unsteadily.
Very rude of the floor to keep moving.
Gritting her teeth, Jay filled the cup again, bracing herself against the counter. The alcohol was making her too hot, so she stepped out of her pants, kicking them beneath the card table as she walked the dozen or so steps it took to get to her sleeping area.
The strap of her bra slid down her shoulder when she dropped down on her bed. Jay started to adjust it automatically and then froze, glancing at her phone, remembering—
(quid pro quo)
She set her cup of wine on the stack of hardcovers that served as her nightstand and nearly fell off the bed. Breathing a little harder, not letting herself think too hard about what she was doing, she began undoing the buttons of her blouse.
The dim orange lighting in the room was soft, shadows fuzzing the farthest corners and leaving dusky shadows on her skin. She could see herself in the cheap IKEA mirror propped up against her closet, shirt hanging open around the fancy French underwear Nicholas had bought for her and the body she had never let herself love.
She touched herself experimentally, running a hand over her torso, closing her hand briefly over her own neck before sliding her fingers down her front, all the way to her waistband.
Feeling ashamed (but not ashamed enough to stop ), she clumsily opened her lock screen and swiped through the photos until she came to the one that she had saved. Nicholas, and his swimmer’s body, with those too-broad shoulders and those lean washboard abs.
She had dreamed of him—before. God, she had hated it, because she hadn’t hated it enough. Dreams where he’d sneak into her room and tie her to her bed, torturing her with his hands and tongue— you really thought I’d let you get away? —before impaling her roughly on his swollen cock. She would wake up feeling as achy as if he had fucked her, with arousal clinging to her thighs, and she would turn and gasp to her boyfriend, “Danny, I need you, please .”
He'd thought that was so cute, that she called him that. He thought she was sweet. What would he have thought of her if he knew that she was picturing another man on top of her during those sweaty, feverish sessions where they were both still sleepy enough that Daddy could still sound like Danny, and maybe he wouldn’t notice if she lifted her hips and took him deeper , urging him to a more forceful cadence that still left her so unsatisfied that she wanted to scream.
But she had stayed with him, because she was a good girl, and he was a nice boy, and she wasn’t supposed to crave the things that would rip her apart.
(Not if that’s what you want)
Her nipples had grown painfully stiff. She plucked at one through the lace, arching into her own hand, and as she closed her eyes, she imagined it was his stern mouth against her skin. His hands dipping into her panties, rolling over the slickness of her clit— you beautiful little whore.
She shuddered violently.
Sex with Nicholas had always had the faint sting of punishment. She remembered being so surprised the first time that she had been with another man, just how little she felt afterwards.
She wanted to feel. She wanted it to hurt.
Who hurt you, Jay?
A slow, drunken smile tilted up the bitter corners of her mouth as she watched her own hand move on the screen. Watching herself fuck herself.
You did.
Nicholas never seemed to know what to do with her when she was the one in control. Just because he was 6’4” and had more money than any one person could possibly need in a single lifetime, he thought he could do whatever he pleased.
A drink and a fuck , thought Jay, pushing her hair out of her face. This time, when her bra strap slid down her shoulder, she didn’t bother to fix it. How’s that for quid pro quo?
She wondered if any of the women he’d hooked up with had ever sent him photos.
Had he ever looked at them and anticipated the long night ahead? Or was he cold and indifferent, the way he was in his business meetings?
She thrust two fingers inside herself and gasped.
He wouldn’t be cold for me.
She didn’t recognize the woman framed by her phone screen. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder in a heavy fall, hitting just above her heaving breasts, where the balconette bra was doing wonders for her cleavage. Even her round stomach and dimpled waist, which she normally couldn’t look at, seemed soft and pleasingly feminine.
She cupped herself between her legs and pushed out her chest, tilting her head down and to the side. Lift up on your thighs, Justine , her mother used to tell her. You have child-bearing hips and they make you look fat sitting down. She gave the camera lens a defiant look as she sat on her folded legs, deciding not to give a fuck if it made her stupid ass look big.
Click.
Her heart pounded as she typed out an accompanying message, one that would hit him well below the belt. She nearly dropped the phone, her hands were shaking so hard.
Oh my god , a panicky part of her brain whispered as she hit ‘send.’ What did you just do?
I don’t care, said that stupid, defiant part of her brain. Fuck consequences.
Beyond that muted flare of panic, Jay was too drunk to fully pay her alarm heed. The danger, like the wine, was too seductive. She wanted Nicholas rattled, wanted to make him feel something close to the way she did. It was only fair, when he’d kept her off-balance for nearly nine years.
The ceiling began to spin and she leaned back, setting the phone beside her. The phantom scent of citrus filled with the back of her throat and she sighed, closing her eyes, relaxing for the first time all night as she surrendered at last to her intoxicated stupor.
“Nick . . .” she mumbled. “Daddy . . . please . . .”
By the time her message finally went to read and her ringtone began to chime, she was already passed out cold.
*****
The fucking wine had given him a headache.
Nicholas dumped the bottle out in the dirty sink while the bread toasted. Jay’s cat wailed from her room upstairs and he growled under his breath as he slathered butter over the bread and doused it in sprinkles before cramming it into his mouth. As he walked up the stairs to feed the fucking thing, he wondered if the butter he’d used was starting to go off.
The cat was waiting for him. As he nudged it out of the way with his foot, it rubbed against his leg ingratiatingly. He leaned down and scratched it above its tail, the way he’d seen Jay do so many times. It purred, ears flexing as it peered up at him like it wanted something.
Nicholas had a pretty good idea what that something was.
“You know,” he told it. “I always wanted a dog.”
The cat blinked.
Leaving the creature to its meal, he went to his own room to change, buttoning himself into one of his work shirts and a tie he selected blindly from a drawer. After stepping into a pair of pressed pants, he fastened his Bulgari watch around his wrist and picked up his phone to check the time, realizing as soon as he did how fucking inane that was.
Because you see it as a status symbol , he could imagine Jay saying. Not a timepiece.
This town was all about appearances. It was why Michael was being paid out in installments instead of a lump sum. It was why he had a PI on his payroll to look into anyone who caused him grief. It was why Jay wouldn’t touch him where anyone could see.
She thought he saw her as a status symbol, too.
The morning dragged. It usually did but normally he got a modicum of satisfaction from telling old colleagues of his father “no.” He didn’t imagine they heard no very often, and the frustration on their faces when they saw how they couldn’t change his mind, even if they begged, always gave him a bit of a high.
Not today, though. As they filed out in the fancy suits picked out by their mistresses and wives, trying to hide their disappointment in an attempt to save face, he felt absolutely nothing.
Annica shut her laptop and hovered until he motioned for her to precede him. She had done nothing wrong but he was still annoyed with her. The terse responses and general hesitation to do anything but what she had been explicitly asked didn’t help.
“She’s like a fucking automaton,” he’d told Jay once. They had been eating dinner, and the talk had shifted, naturally, to work. “She doesn’t do anything that isn’t already in her programming.”
Jay had gotten a funny look on her face and told him that wasn’t very nice.
Is that what you like? he wondered grimly. Nice?
Then why do you like it when I fuck you so hard that you cry?
He raised his coffee cup to his lips and then lowered it in disgust when he realized it was empty. Arthur might be fine with his employees talking back to him, but he wasn’t.
He was getting tired of Annica’s bad attitude.
As if she had radar built into her mousy head, a ping popped up on his screen.
Mr. Beaucroft? Can we talk?
Nicholas eyed the chat log. Maybe she was quitting. God, he hoped so.
Yes, I’ll reserve a room.
Glad for the distraction, he clicked over to reserve a room. It was a shame that he’d have to hire a new secretary. HR would be all over his ass to make sure he hadn’t done anything to this one—and wouldn’t that be fun? With such short notice, they wouldn’t have time to backfill the position right away. Jay would have to split the difference and pick up some of the slack.
He missed the disapproving glares she’d level his way whenever he worked someone over a little too hard. Which he did, often—he had enjoyed showing off for her, and seeing her respond to the way he flexed his control. She may have looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth in those fitted skirts and pretty collared blouses, but she always had her legs crossed in their meetings.
Almost , he thought, with dark amusement, as if she didn’t trust herself to open them.
But he could ponder that later, when he was alone with a glass of wine and could give Jay and her thighs the proper consideration they deserved.
Right now, he had to deal with Annica and this.
Whatever this was.
She was taking her sweet time, lingering over adjusting her headphones. Nobody was that compulsive. He watched her slow approach through narrowed eyes, taking in the khakis and the preppy stewardess blouse.
She looks like a fucking J. Crew ad.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, even before she was fully through the door. She gave him a look before snapping it emphatically closed. He wanted to roll his eyes but instead, he kept his face carefully composed. Jay would have been proud.
“I want to discuss my title.”
Nicholas frowned as she seated herself in one of the chairs across from him, pulling at her pants to shake the wrinkles out. “What about your title?”
“I’ve been here for over two years. I think my title should reflect that.”
“We don’t promote people for warming chairs.” He leaned back in the seat, crossing one long leg over his knee. “Tell me about some of the contributions you’ve made lately. Any innovations you’ve come up with to improve the company’s workflow or morale. That’s what we promote on.”
Annica’s eyebrows shot downwards. “My workload has increased significantly since I was assigned as your assistant. I’ve been here twice as long as Jay and now I’m doing twice the amount of work, but we both have the same title. That doesn’t seem fair.”
“That’s your benchmark for defining your performance?” he kept his tone careful, deliberate. Inwardly, he was seething. “The work of other employees?”
“I’m not saying I think that she’s a bad employee,” Annica said, which suggested she thought this plenty in private, “but my duties are extensive, and I have seniority, so I think I’m at least entitled to a discussion about becoming a Senior Administrative Assistant—or what I need to do to get there. Since I was assigned to you, we’ve never discussed my career growth.”
I wonder why. He remembered Arthur casually asking if he had limited Annica’s lunch hours, saying that her lunch with Jay had seemed rushed. He’d forgotten to look into it, not really caring enough to dig into details that didn’t concern him, but as he watched Annica fidget in front of him, he found himself now considering other, possible implications of her behavior.
Could Annica have been the one spreading the rumors that Jay had overheard?
Still pleasant, he said, “So what you’re saying is, you’d like my feedback.”
“Yes.”
“My honest feedback.”
A wary expression crossed her face. “Yes,” she said again, though less surely. “Why? Is there an issue with my work that’s keeping me from moving ahead?”
“Meeting expectations isn’t a guarantee for promotion. It’s doing the job we pay you for. If we go by your logic, Jay should have been making more than you when she was first hired—for doing twice as much work. And if that’s the case, perhaps we do need to revisit the description of the role. But in the meantime, I’d like to see more of a team player mindset from you.”
Nicholas didn’t think he imagined the flash of anger that crossed her face. “Define team player, please,” Annica said tautly. “I don’t think I understand what you’re asking me to do.”
“You’ve told me what you’re doing to meet expectations, but you did so at the expense of another employee, whose workload and performance is, quite frankly, none of your concern. I’ve also been informed that you seem reluctant to participate in work events.”
She definitely looked angry now. “So you’re saying I have to participate in work events even if I don’t want to, or don’t find them to be a good use of my time?”
“No. I’m saying that your efforts are satisfactory but don’t exceed expectations.”
Annica let out a harsh breath. “With all due respect, I don’t think your assessment of my work is particularly impartial or fair.”
“Oh? Why not?”
Tell me. Give me a reason to fire you.
I’ll fucking do it.
She flinched when their eyes met but didn’t back down. “I think you know why.”
“I don’t.” He continued to meet her eyes levelly as he leaned forward, bracing his hands on the smooth wooden tabletop. “Tell me.”
The industrial clock on the wall ticked. Annica licked her lips before looking back down at the table, breaking eye contact at last. “I’m sorry I wasted your time with this discussion. I’ll just get back to organizing your schedule for the day before I write down those figures for Harold.”
That’s what I thought, you little sneak. He leaned back in the chair as she spun around in clear irritation, all but stomping back to her desk. Arthur had mentioned a group chat. He wasn’t in the habit of spying on his employees, but perhaps he ought to get James to monitor it. If she was playing fast and loose with rumors in the office, she might also be committing other violations.
He picked up his phone and began to scroll through his emails. Then it buzzed in his hand and a notification blocked the top of his screen, which annoyed him until he saw that it was from Jay.
After that shitshow of a conversation, he’d left her on read, unsure of how to respond and aware that the longer he waited, the more likely it would only spiral into another argument. She could have written to him , but she hadn’t, which pissed him off. What the hell was she doing up there that was so important that she couldn’t be bothered to check in with him?
There was a photo attachment. Curious and vaguely apprehensive, he tapped to open it—and then his breath left him in a rush and he dropped his phone.
“Fuck,” he growled, as he bumped his head on the table trying to retrieve it. The photo was still on the screen. With a glance at the security cameras, he thumbed it dark and shrugged off his jacket, draping it over his arm and slightly in front of himself as he walked briskly to the executive bathrooms. What the hell does she think she’s playing at?
He slammed the door behind him and locked it, leaning against the door briefly before heading towards the stall. There, alone at last, he unlocked his screen and squeezed his thigh bracingly as he took in her flushed face, and the unbuttoned blouse thrown open to reveal lingerie so sheer, it was nearly an afterthought.
The zipper track of his pants pressed uncomfortably into his erection as his cock swelled. She had a hand between her legs, inside her see-through-fucking-underwear, and though she was shielding herself from his view, he could still make out the slight shadow of her pubic hair, and the shape of her sex. And her fingers—
Her fingers were fucking glistening .
With a groan, he freed himself from his pants.
He had always held himself back with her. How could he do otherwise, when she dragged herself to his bedroom like an innocent martyr approaching the executioner’s block? But this version of Jay looked as if she could quite literally fuck him within an inch of his life.
Did you really think you could send me this and get away with it? He drew in a rough breath. I hope you’re ready to finish this game you’ve started.
He sent her a video call. She didn’t pick up.
Aware that this came dangerously close to violating his promise not to touch her in the office and far beyond caring, he sent her another message.
Pick up the phone. There are consequences for being a bad girl.
Jay didn’t respond. She also didn’t pick up the phone. The text had been received but it hadn’t gone to ‘read.’ If she was near her phone, she was purposefully not looking at it.
Annoyed now, Nicholas tried calling her, but after eight rings, he only got her voicemail.
“Hi, this is Justine Varens. I’m so sorry I missed your call. If you’d like me to get back to you, leave your name and number, and I’ll reach out as soon as I can.”
God, I wish you fucking would.
He closed his eyes and stroked himself as he called her phone again, savoring the sound of her voice. He fucking loved her voice—low and throaty, and yes, just a little cold. But he knew how to make his little snowbird melt, and she always sang for Daddy.
Nicholas fell back against the tank, fisting his straining dick in earnest now as he swiped back to the picture she’d sent him. Her skin glowed, all those curves she buttoned away now on full display for his greedy eyes. From the sharp rise of her collarbones, to her dimpled thighs, to her sweet and beautiful face, he felt transfixed. Hypnotized.
It reminded him of the video he’d taken of her all those years ago, and the way she had looked while she had gotten herself off in her room. Arching her back and lifting her hips while she touched herself beneath her clothes, unaware that she was doing so for a rapt audience.
Well, she’s certainly aware now.
Nicholas sank his teeth into his lip so hard that he tasted blood as he came, metallic and sharply bitter. Panting, he swiped off his bloody mouth with the wrist of his come-slicked hand.
“Fuck,” he said again, eyes rolling back. “ Fuck .”
He had been in love with her for his whole entire life, but it was his lust for her that had proved to be their undoing. No love, no matter how pure, could remain so in a man like him.