87. Chapter 87
Chapter 87
The words were benign enough, but David saw the second they took Paige somewhere else. Her entire body stilled, and her eyes took on that thousand-yard stare, reminding him of how she’d looked in the picture on the beach with Carter … and the night of the handcuffs when she’d disassociated.
“Oh, fuck,” David muttered, just as Kim moved in to make a final adjustment to Paige’s robe, smoothing the material along her arm, and that’s when the photo shoot took a hard left.
Without warning, Paige slapped at Kim. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
Kim pulled back in shock. Rendered completely speechless from both the slap and the words—which had been delivered with deep, venomous hatred—all she could do was stare at Paige as she pulled her robe together and drew her knees up to her chest and tucked her head down.
Knowing this was the moment he’d been dreading, David quickly side-stepped around the tripod, pushing his assistant aside in order to get to the chaise as quickly as possible. “Paige!”
“What’s going on?” Kim asked, finding her voice.
David barely heard her because his focus was on Paige, so much that he ignored the voice in his head telling him to act with caution. He took her face in his hands, tilting her head so they were facing one another, hoping she would see him and come back, but instead, she shoved at his chest with unexpected strength, dislodging him.
“Get the fuck off me!” This time, her words were a wail, sounding terrified, broken, and angry, all at the same time.
“Oh, my God.” Kim’s voice had fallen to a horrified whisper. “What’s happening?”
“Stay back,” David told her, just as Paige twisted and kicked him in the ribs, hard enough to send him to the floor.
“Holy shit!” Kim rushed to his side and immediately kneeled beside him. “Are you okay?”
Stunned, ribs aching, he waved off her concern before slowly getting to his feet. “I’m fine,” he said, even though that was debatable.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong with her?”
David ignored her questions, because now was not the time to answer them. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I need you to get out of here.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you here with her like this—”
“Kim, go. It’s going to be fine.”
“No.”
“Trust me, I can handle this. Please, just go home.”
After a long, tense moment, she backed out of the room. When she was gone, David returned to the chaise, where Paige was now huddled in the corner, but this time he kept a little distance between them, positioning himself on the far end, rather than next to her. He had no idea if this was the right thing to do, given what had just happened, but letting her come back from wherever she was to find herself alone on the chair was not an option.
In silence, he anxiously waited and watched. Thankfully, it didn’t take long before she slowly raised her head and met his eyes, and when she did, he was relieved to see she was now present, though disoriented.
“Are you …” he trailed off, not wanting to ask if she wasokay, because that seemed like a stupid question. But, he needed to know. “Are you okay?”
Instead of answering, Paige whispered, “I had a flashback.”
As her face crumpled and she started crying, he immediately moved over and pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly against his chest as her body trembled. They stayed like that for several minutes, until she leaned back, sniffling loudly. When she looked like she was going to use the sleeve of her robe as a substitute Kleenex, he stopped her by pulling off his shirt and handing it to her. “Here. Use this.”
“You want me to wipe my nose on your shirt?”
“Sure, why not? I mean, you use my shirts to clean up after sex, so a little mucus isn’t that big of a deal.”
That drew a faint smile from her as she dried her eyes, then wiped at her nose, before proceeding to blow it as well.
When she was done, he asked, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
She nodded, but waited to answer until after she’d folded the shirt and laid it on the back of the couch. “I should have listened to you and Lauren.” She took a deep breath. “But I thought it would be fine, thatIwould be fine. And I was, mostly, until I started to feel like I was drifting with every click of your camera, and everything Kim was doing and saying started to feel like … an insidious echo. I was trying to breathe through it, to stay in the moment, but then Kim said the camera loved me and that was it. That was the trigger.”
He knew from hearing about previous flashbacks, that she was always bombarded with a lot of information, and he braced himself for all of it, knowing it would be ugly.
“I found myself in my bedroom in Carter’s house—the one I never slept in,” she said quietly. “It was shortly after my thirteenth birthday, and he was taking pictures of me.
“I was naked … and so was he. Part of that was because it made playing with his erection whenever he wanted to really easy, but Carter also liked me to see him naked, to know he was turned on, to understand this was foreplay for him.
“He had me laying on the bed with my legs spread, to get a shot of my newly sprouted pubic hair. I’d gotten my first period a few months ago and was going through puberty, and Carter had become extremely fascinated with all the developmental changes taking place in my body, particularly the growth of my breasts.
“After they started to develop, he began taking pictures of me more often, sort of documenting their growth in a sick, twisted way. On this particular day, he was focused on my nipples, playing with them in an effort to make them … hard … and when that failed, he started pinching and pulling on them.”
It literally took everything David had, not to get up and break some shit against a wall.
“When all that did was make me cry—because growing breasts are extremely tender and painful to the touch, even when you’re not having your nipples pinched and pulled,” she continued, “he used ice cubes, which did the trick. When he finally got the desired effect, he smiled and told me, ‘The camera really loves you, pretty girl. Almost as much as I do.’
“And then, everything faded to black.”
When she was done talking, David’s eyes were burning, and his throat was so tight, he thought he might never breathe again. He didn’t even know how to respond to something so obscene, and in the end, all he could manage was a soft, “I’m so sorry.”
She gave a tiny shrug. “It’s my fault.”
“Paige …”
“It’s true. I should have left well enough alone, but I didn’t. And because I didn’t, I put myself through this … and you and Kim, too,” she added, then glanced around, looking for the young assistant. When she was nowhere to be found, Paige turned back to David with a questioning look.
“I sent Kim home,” he said.
“You did?”
“I thought it was for the best.”
Paige knew he was hiding something from her, mainly because he was holding her gaze toosteadily, his expression trying too hard to beThere’s absolutely nothing wrong here, and you should totally move on as fast as you can. “Why was it for the best? What aren’t you telling me?”
Reluctantly, he filled her in on what had happened, and she sat there, horrified. “Oh, my God. Here I was thinking that during flashbacks, I just zoned out like I was in a creepy trance or something, but apparently I can be violent, too.”
“It’s not like you just attacked us or anything, without, you know, provocation—”
“Provocation?”
“Yeah. If neither one of us had touched you, you would’ve just stayed in your, um, creepy trance until you were done, I guess, and nothing would have happened.”
“So, Idogo into a creepy trance?”
“Sort of. It’s notsupercreepy, though. You just get really still … and stare a little bit.”
Paige closed her eyes for a moment. “I can’t believe I slapped Kim and yelled at her. Are you sure I didn’t hurt her?”
“I’m sure. She was more surprised than anything, and I yell at her all the time, so … you don’t need to worry about that, either.”
“You yell at her to get her fucking hands off you?”
“Well, no. But the other morning I yelled at her for … being late.”
He was obviously making that up, in an attempt to lighten the moment, and she shook her head at him. “Don’t try and make this less than what it was. I could have really hurt her while I was in my creepy flashback trance without being aware of it, and that’s scary as shit to me. Hell, I really hurtyou, and you’re a grown man—”
“I’m not going to lie, because, yes, it did hurt, but you didn’t hurt me that badly. And I brought it on myself. I knew you weren’t … aware … for lack of a better word, and I went in, anyway. It was stupid, because I’d seen you react to Kim, and instead of giving you space, I crowded you, and put my hands on you when I shouldn’t have.”
His words barely made a dent in how bad Paige felt. “First thing tomorrow, I need to explain what happened and apologize to her.”
“Actually, I’m still here,” Kim said from the doorway.
They both turned to look as she approached. As Kim got within a few feet, she said, “I heard everything, so there’s no need to explain. A pervert named Carter took some really fucking shady pictures of you when you were younger—and probably did worse—so you decided to have your fiancé—” she cut a glance over to David, “—who has a killer tattoo of you on his back, by the way, take some boudoir shots, only to have that kind of fall apart. Is that the gist?”
Paige nodded, and David, who was now painfully aware he was shirtless in front of his assistant, knew that short of putting on the one with snot on it, he was going to have to remain that way.
“However, there is a need for an apology,” Kim continued. “Not for slapping at me and yelling because I’m a big girl and I can handle it, especially since I know it wasn’t really directed at me and you didn’t know what you were doing. The apology should be for keeping your back story on the down low, because that was information which needed to be shared.”
“You’re right. It was, but I just wanted to be treated like a normal person during the shoot,” Paige explained softly.
“But you’renotnormal. And I don’t mean that in a bad way,” Kim said. “I just mean there would’ve been certain considerations made for you. I wouldn’t have been so ‘hands-on’, obviously, and I would’ve definitely been checking in with you to make sure you were okay. If those considerations had been made, this photo shoot would’ve gonemuch differently.”
“I know. It wasn’t fair to you—”
“It wasn’t fair toyou, either, because now you have a bad experience to deal with, and you probably didn’t need another one of those.”
“I really am sorry, Kim. For everything.”
“Apology accepted.” Kim said with a sympathetic smile. “Now then, I’m going to go home—for real this time. Paige, please be well, and try and let the worst part of this day go, and focus on the best part of it, which was getting to meet me.”
Paige chuckled softly at that.
“Boss,” Kim said, turning her attention to David, “I’ll see you in the morning … and I promise to be on time so you don’t have to yell at me.”
When she was gone, David and Paige sat in silence for several minutes, until Paige broke it. “So, are you having second thoughts, now?”
It broke his heart to see her like this, looking utterly wrecked. “About what?”
“Oh, my God, don’t play dumb. After what just happened, it’s painfully clear I’m still fucked up—”
“Aren’t we all, in one way or another?”
“Oh? And how, exactly, areyoufucked up?”
“Well …” Not having expected the question, he floundered for a decent answer. “I’m a total slob.”
“You’re the opposite of a slob, actually.”
“Okay, then I’m a neat freak.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t qualify as being fucked up.”
“Well, I leave the toilet seat up all the time.”
“All men do. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Y chromosome.”
“All right. What about my not liking sugar?”
“That’s weird, and kind of aggravating, but not necessarily fucked up.”
“All right, well, I always want to get my own way, and that’s—”
“Normal. Everyone wants to get their own way, which makes it normal. So, far, you’re really bad at convincing me you’re fucked up in some way, and that’s because you’renot. ButIam, and pretending I’m not isn’t helping.”
“Okay fine, you might be a little fucked up, but I don’t care,” he told her firmly. “And before you start arguing with me, let me repeat myself:I don’t care.” Then softening his voice, he said, “Do you remember what I said, the night we got engaged? The second time? That no matter whatever comes our way, we’ll be able to deal with it together and kick its fuckingass? Well, that includes what happened today.”