Chapter seven
Harrison's Apartment, The Level
Harrison
My phone vibrates on my bedside table, startling me awake.
I lean across to reach for it, but my fingers miss, and I knock it onto the floor.
“Fuck’s sake,” I grumble, annoyed, and extract myself from the duvet to go in search of it.
Violet is snoring softly beside me, her head on the pillow, fingers curled around the soft fabric beneath her face.
Her long dark hair is splayed across the silk.
Last night was incredible. I felt more complete inside her than I have in years. It was as if the past thirteen years disappeared, and we were right back in her childhood bedroom, enjoying each other for the first time.
The buzzing continues as I search for my lost phone. After scrambling around on my hands and knees, I find it beneath the bed. “Waite speaking,” I answer louder than I intend.
“Mr. Waite, it’s Matthew. I was advised you wished to see me this morning.” I glance at the clock—six-fifteen. Shit, I’m late.
“Yes, Matthew. Meet me in the boardroom in ten minutes. We need to discuss a security breach yesterday. Someone needs their balls booted.”
“Yes sir,” he replies. I disconnect the call, still crouched on the ground beside my bed naked. As I rise to stand, Violet looks up shyly.
“Morning,” she says softly with a nervous smile. I sit on the bed beside her and run my fingers across her cheek then down her neck. I’m caught off guard when I notice the bruising at her throat. “What is it?” she asks as concern flits across her face.
“He marked you,” I snarl, and she gives me a curious look. “The bastard left bruises on your skin. I’ll fucking kill him.”
She pushes herself up to sit, and her fingers move to her collarbone. She glances at the wardrobe mirror that sits next to my bed. Her face falls when she sees the purple welts that mark where his fingers were.
“Oh…” Her voice trails off as she moves to the mirror. Staring at her reflection, her fingers trace the wounds. I walk over, stand behind her, and place my hands on her shoulders. Our eyes meet in the reflection.
“Has he hurt you before?” I ask, and she shakes her head.
“No, the man who arrived here yesterday is nothing like the one I knew. He was always distant but kind. He had no reason to be physical with me. I’d given him everything he wanted and barely asked a question.”
“That’s not a relationship,” I tell her. She drops her eyes from mine.
“Do you have a proven track record of good relationships?” she mumbles, twisting her hands in front of her. “After sleeping with me, are you going to give me dating advice?” I laugh under my breath.
“That would be useless advice.” She looks at me, once more. “I’m no expert, but I know one person holding all the cards isn’t what it should look like.”
“Have you ever been in love, Harry?” Her question takes me by surprise. I pause, unsure of the best way to answer.
“Love is a complicated emotion. Easily misunderstood. I suspect I have been.” She sighs under my touch. “Have you?”
“I thought so, but now I’m not so sure,” she says sadly. “I wasted a long time on a man who used me for his pleasure. Right now, love feels like something that will never be in my life. Perhaps I don’t deserve to be loved.”
Not knowing what to say, I drop a kiss on her shoulder then skim my fingers across her belly, a signal to her, I hope, that I am fully aware of her situation. Our situation. The secret that I am one of the few people to know. “Everyone deserves to be loved,” I assure her. “You deserve to be loved.”
“That goes for you too,” she replies.
Uncomfortable with the statement, I drop my hands from her shoulders.
She frowns in response. I care for Violet, more than I have for anyone, but love…
no one will ever love me. What we have between us is special, but that could be down to the chemical balance of our bodies, hormones that attract one another.
We are animals, after all—not everything is reliant on how we feel.
“I need to go. I have a meeting. You get back into bed,” I say, walking over to my wardrobe.
I open it and remove a fresh suit and shirt, then hang them on the door handle.
She watches me as I dress, pulling on my boxers and socks first.
“Mrs. D. will be here around nine. I’ll be home tonight, but the boys are coming around for Wednesday night drinks.”
“Okay,” she says. I feel her staring, but I don’t look at her, I can’t.
Suddenly, reality strikes. What happened between us last night was a terrible mistake.
An added complication in my life I don’t need no matter how good it was, how right it felt.
She’s heartbroken from betrayal and pregnant with another man’s baby.
What the fuck was I thinking? Never mind the fact she’s the little sister I was never allowed to touch.
I’ve been warned before. This is a dangerous game to play for both of us. Protecting her means not having her.
“We normally watch football, and have a few beers,” I tell her, braving a glance. She nods but says nothing. “Hopefully, we won’t disturb you too much.”
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she replies. “Is it only you and my brothers?”
“No, another two gentlemen are attending. Friends. Well, business associates really. Occasionally, there can be other company.”
I emphasize the word company, trying to warn her without saying the actual words.
Her eyes widen as the penny drops. She understands.
Her face twists in displeasure at the information.
“Female company,” she prompts. I don’t answer, not wanting to have this conversation with her.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she repeats.
“It would probably be best if I move into a hotel anyway. I can’t stay here after last night.”
She picks up the dress I removed from her, shrugging it on.
“I’ll go pack my things. Your message is clear, Harry, consider it forgotten.”
“Vi…”
She lifts her hand to stop me from speaking.
“It’s okay, we don’t need to discuss it. There was a lot of emotion. Things happened and were said that shouldn’t have been. It was sentimental, you and me, a chance to remember a time when things were less complicated.
A chance to be teenagers again—perhaps it was unfinished business that is now put to bed.”
“You don’t need to leave,” I tell her. “Be here when I get home, please. We can talk about it.”
She walks over to the door, pulling it open before looking over her shoulder. “Have a good day,” she says with a sad smile. “See you later.”
***
Later that morning, I’m sitting in my blue leather wing-backed chair behind the deep oak desk piled high with paperwork.
My client sits across from me. He’s in his sixties with thinning gray hair and a belly that protrudes over his belt buckle.
He straightens the red checked shirt he’s wearing again, then wipes at the coffee stain on the breast pocket.
Looking at him, you would never guess he’s a multi-millionaire media giant.
He made his money through the creation of online advertising.
“Mr. Roydon, can we go over the incident again with regards to your wife’s death?” I say. He mutters under his breath, then slaps both hands on my desk. “If we are going to fight these allegations, your story needs to be watertight.”
“Waite, you and I both know there are more holes in my story than a sieve.” He chuckles, then coughs explosively over the paperwork in front of him. It’s hard to defend a man who has admitted repeatedly to being guilty. Luckily, it’s only been to me in this room as far as I’m aware.
“Was anyone conscious of your wife’s indiscretions?” I ask him, trying to keep the conversation on topic.
“Well, the bastard whose dick she was bouncing on would be. And quite possibly her personal assistant. How a woman with no job or responsibilities needed a fucking PA is beyond me.”
He rubs his face with his hands. “When I met her, she hypnotized me with her plastic tits and incredible blowjobs. I was a goner. Fuck, when she used to sit on my face while sucking me dry, what a memory. I’ll die a happy man thinking of that. She could have asked for my kidney,
and I would have agreed.”
“Tell me again what happened the day she died.” I ignore the digression about his sex life. In our brief conversations so far, it is a regular occurrence. It’s as if he wants me to know that he still has sex. That he and his wife were still intimate, that he can still get it up.
“We were in the Jacuzzi. It was a normal Friday evening; a few bottles of wine had been drunk. I’d heard that she was fucking her personal trainer.”
He pauses, and I signal at him to continue.
“She was under the water with her lips wrapped around my dick, and my hands were on the back of her head pushing her deeper.”
He smiles darkly. “She came up for breath, and I asked her.”
“Asked her what?”
“If she was fucking the staff!” he snarls. “What else, you idiot?”
“Mr. Roydon, may I remind you I’m only here to help. I’m preparing you for questioning. We need to put our case to the jury that you are innocent and that your wife’s death was a freak accident. There is no doubt she drowned in a Jacuzzi while sitting next to you, sir.”
I widen my eyes at him. “We need to portray her death as a tragic accident. Not a murder by a husband hellbent on revenge.”
“Do you believe I’m innocent?” he asks, his focus firmly on me.
It’s a stupid question considering he already told me he held her below the water.
I don’t like this arrogant, jumped-up asshole, but it’s not my job to like him.
It’s my responsibility to provide him with the best defense I can.
Now, there is the added benefit that he has connections to Aiden Marley, who I want to bestow some much-needed karma on.
“I don’t need to believe in your innocence or guilt. It’s my job to defend you to the best of my ability, and that’s what I intend to do.”
He nods, accepting my answer. “I believe we can create a case that you were in the midst of intercourse with your wife. She was pleasuring you below the surface of the water with her mouth when her hair became caught in the filtration system.”
“That is all true,” he agrees.