Chapter 16
Cora
I stare at the tray after opening the door to room service.
He had to have ordered the two bottles of champagne and strawberries when I went to the bathroom to change my clothes.
I look up at the attendant as I sign the tablet for room service, thanking him before making sure the door is locked behind him.
He doesn't bother pulling his eyes from the stupid movie he picked to watch on the television, but I'd be a fool to think he isn't somehow still paying attention to me. The man doesn't miss much. I knew when I came back out in the very same robe I had on the last time that he was here that it made him more than a little uncomfortable by the way he shifted on the sofa.
If he ordered champagne and strawberries, then he must know I had them at Daydreamers. As I grab a bottle and a glass from the table, I have to wonder if he knows about that, does he know about my other menu selection?
I keep my mouth closed despite the urge to explain why I chose what I did.
Does he think I opted to add 3b to my night?
My face feels like it's on fire when I sit down on the smaller sofa and pour myself a glass of champagne .
He looks from my glass to the bottle, no doubt annoyed that I didn't bring him a glass if he had any intentions of drinking it in the first place.
Instead of complaining or getting up to get the other glass, he simply leans forward once I've poured my glass and pulls the bottle from the table, lifting it to his lips and taking a long drink.
Once I've drunk my first glass, too quickly to be considered couth, I pull the bottle from his hand and pour a second one, this action gaining me a smile.
The first bottle disappears much too quickly, and he's the one to stand and grab the other one from the service tray, opening it and tipping it over my glass until bubbles rise and fall over my fingers, making a mess on the sofa.
His eyes stay locked on me as I lift my glass to my mouth but opt to lick the champagne from my fingers rather than first taking a drink.
He swallows, and I realize that I like his reaction. I find this man devastatingly handsome, from his silver hair to the way his eyes never seem to miss a thing. The way one side of his mouth pulls up higher when he smiles draws my attention there, and I feel like I'm being manipulated past him wanting to get me drunk so he can leave without worrying that I'll go back to the spa looking for answers.
"What's wrong?" he asks as he lifts the second bottle of champagne to his lips.
"Are you trying to get me drunk?"
"Are you drunk?" he counters, his smile wide a second before he wraps his lips around the bottle.
Just seeing the quick upturn of his lips tells me that he may have also imbibed a little more than he had initially anticipated. He seems a little more laid back, and he has been paying more attention to me in the last half hour than he has to the show playing on the television.
I give him a smile of my own, feeling a zing of something spectacular run its course through my body .
This has got to be the absolute worst timing in the world for me to be thinking of anything other than my little sister, but the reprieve from the guilt is nice too.
"Tell me more about Cerberus," I say, rather than telling him I should go to bed like my head is urging me to do.
During a conversation with Mr. Anderson, he told me that Mr. Yarrow was an agent for ICE, and he was working this case with them as a favor, but not in any government official capacity.
I assume he'll shut me down and raise another wall, but he gives me a soft smile.
"I joined Cerberus right out of the Marine Corps. It was still brand new," he says, looking away as if he's pulling those memories to the front of the line in his head. "I had a buddy that suggested I fill out an application."
"Bikers have applications?"
He shakes his head. "Not anymore. They're selective on who they pick. These days, it's a whole vetting process."
"Do you think you'd pass muster if you had to reapply these days?"
He scoffs. "I'm too old for that shit now."
"I mean, if you were younger."
He looks back at me as if giving it great consideration. "I don't know."
"Why did you leave? Just grow out of it?"
He shakes his head. "I thought I could be more helpful here. I was young. I just knew I could eliminate Cerberus's need to leave the country because I'd stop all the sex trafficking from the US."
"Lofty goals," I whisper.
"I was an idiot. Things have only gotten worse. It's easier now more than ever for the bad guys to keep working. Because of private companies, they have access to all the same technology that used to be protected by the government and military. It's awful."
"Knowing what you know now, do you regret leaving?"
"Every second of every day," he says without hesitation as he pulls his eyes from me to stare back at the television screen.
There's more to it than he's saying, but I'm not privileged to that information, and I know better than to ask.
"Tell me about growing up in the shadow of a senator," he prods after a short moment of silence.
The question sends me back to my childhood, and those memories make me smile.
"My mom helped me make paper banners for my dad's first run for office. They were awful. She saved them, though. I found them tucked away in her closet after she passed."
"Tell me the stuff you don't want anyone to know," he urges. "Don't just lay the happy at my feet."
I open my mouth to argue, hearing William in my head telling me to protect the family at all costs.
"I was twenty-five when Mom died. It was painful. The most devastating blow I had ever felt, and it took me a very long time to understand that although it was hard for me, Sadie was eleven and Chris was only seven. I can't imagine what they felt. Sadie didn't have a mom during one of the most integral parts of her life, and I think that's why she started acting out. I moved back home when my mom was sick, and never left. I knew Dad needed help with Sadie. He was a good dad, but he didn't have a clue about all the girl stuff. Mom was always the one around for that." I look down at my hands as I recall what life was like all those years ago. "She was wild, already causing problems at school. I didn't know there was trouble until I came home.It's like the diagnosis just flipped a switch in her. She caused my parents a lot of grief before we lost Mom, and it only escalated after that. She was sneaking out of the house at thirteen. "
"Wow," he says, but I don't notice judgment in his tone.
"We did our best. First, it was therapy. When I found marijuana in her bedroom at fourteen, we had her admitted to a very discreet drug treatment facility. At fifteen, she was already experimenting with cocaine. Then she was sent to a second drug treatment. At seventeen, the sex tape made the news, and she claimed she was high and they took advantage. That was her third stint in rehab, but before she could get out, Dad died of a heart attack, and she left treatment. She came back home every once in a while, but she never really moved back in. Dad cut her off completely after the tape. He wanted her to press charges, to save the family name, but she knew she couldn't because it was all lies. I imagine there was further proof of her willing involvement that she knew about that we weren't privileged to."
"Shit," he mutters. "That's tough."
"The last seven years have been awful. She's a different woman each time I see her. It's like watching someone rot away right before your eyes."
"Drugs have a way of latching on to someone even when they don't want it," he says, his voice a little distant as if he has his own form of regret because of them.
"I feel responsible," I say, shaking my head. "If I hadn't made her leave that day, she'd still be around. I didn't know how much I missed her visits, even with how much her begging and stealing ripped me to pieces."
"Did you have her abducted?"
I glare at him, but he holds his hand up as if telling me to calm down.
"If you weren't involved in her disappearance, then it's not your fault. Some people can't handle loss at any age. I don't know any more than what you've told me but it seems like Sadie has been on a self-destructive path for a very long time. I don't know that there was anything you could've done to have a different outcome."
"She's hurt somewhere," I say with complete confidence. "And I'm afraid that I saw my sister alive for the last time when I made her leave her family home empty-handed."
He doesn't urge me to have hope, to keep the good thoughts in my head until it's time to replace them with hard truths, and for some reason, it makes me respect him just a little bit more.
"I always wondered if someone hurt her when she was younger and she was acting out because of it," I confess.
"Did anyone ask her about it?"
I shake my head. "I don't think so. I had a conversation with Dad about it once, but he urged against it. Sadie had a history of lying even when the truth was as clear as day. He was worried if we mentioned it, she'd come up with a story and blame an innocent person just so she could watch the fallout."
"You think she's capable of something like that."
I pull in a deep breath because it's so hard to admit such horrible things about someone I love. "I do. I had to stop trusting anything she said years ago."
"Has she ever said anything negative about William?"
I could've guessed this was going to come back around full circle.
"There is no love lost between the two of them, that's for sure. Sadie always accused Dad of playing favorites, and I guess, in a way, he did. William was the firstborn son, the man meant for greatness. He groomed and molded Will into a man worthy of holding political office, and that demanded countless sacrifices on everyone else's part. Sadie included. She tried every chance she got to ruin William's chances at success. The guys involved in the orgy tape were from the same frat William joined in college."
"Hmm," he says but he does it in a way that tells me he probably already knew that. "But you never gave up on her. "
"Until I did."
"You're not a bad person for finally finding the end of your rope. Most people would've put their foot down a lot sooner."
"It was a stripper."
"I'm sorry?" he says, his brow drawing tight.
"A stripper. At the spa. I picked a stripper off the menu."
He dips his head, incapable with the amount of alcohol we've consumed tonight to hide his grin. "I figured it was something like that."
"Why is that?" I challenge, trying to sit up a little straighter on the sofa only to discover I'm all but lying down on the damn thing. "Do you not think I'm capable of anything else?"
His eyes sweep from mine all the way down my body. "I can only bet that you're capable of many, many things, Ms. Preston."
"What did you pick?" I ask, needing him to tell his secret too.
"Cerberus created a persona for my undercover character."
"That sounds ominous," I mutter.
"A couple of decades ago, they would've probablyhad me tied up and whipped just for the fun of it, but we've matured a lot over the years." He pulls in a long breath, releasing it just as slowly, before he continues as if he's debating telling me at all. "I cuddled with a woman more than half my age."
He mentioned cuddling earlier but then he distracted me before I could question it.
"Cuddling?" I roll my lips inward, clamping them between my teeth to keep from laughing. "Where are you going?"
I snap up from the sofa, my head spinning with the effort, when he stands.
"I should go," he says, but he falls right back down to the sofa.
I plop down beside him, my hands bracketing my head as if it'll keep it from spinning.
"I'm too old," he mutters.
I look over at him, pulling his hands away from his face. Instead of backing away, I lean in a little closer, allowing the tip of one finger to sweep through the hair at his temples, while my thumb sweeps over the beard on the side of his face.
"That can't happen," he says as he pulls my hand away from his face.
Inside, I feel like a chastised child, but I've always been good at hiding my disappointment.
"Tell me about the Marine Corps," I say as I lean back on the sofa once again.