Chapter Sixteen
Filth
Siena, September 2, 2011, Washington D.C./North Virginia
I lay on my bed, dampfrom my useless shower and sick with loathing. It didn’t matter how many showers I took or how much soap I wasted. I could not wash off the filth.
In the playpen at the foot of the bed, Austin nibbled on a rubbery orange ring with white polka dots, his brooding eyes green and amber, gold and blue. A spitting image of his father’s.
I stood. “Mommy is going to take another shower. A quick one, okay, buddy?”
If I ran the water any hotter, I’d have second degree burns. Maybe first. I grabbed a loofah and lathered it with the red antiseptic soap used in hospitals to fight noxious bacteria. Cheeks, chin, lips. The suds seeped into my mouth, acrid and bitter, and I poured more on my toothbrush. Teeth, tongue, palate. Rinse. Repeat.
Clean—for now.
I scrubbed my neck, shoulders, arms, between my fingers, breasts, and abdomen. Everywhere he’d touched. Everywhere I’d let him touch. Then, I flipped the loofah to the terry side, soaked it with more soap, and started between my legs. If only I could shed the skin there and grow new one like a snake. Pure and uncorrupted, untouched by Connor Reat. I moved the loofah to the insides of my thighs when the scrubbing became too much. Then, to my calves that he stroked, to my feet that walked where his slacks lay in a heap, driving my bra into his plush rug. I’d cut it into shreds the next day, along with the matching black thong, and threw the wreckage into the trash. Then, I showered. I’d been showering ever since.
My phone rang the moment I stepped out of the bathroom. Ryan called every day now, his voice growing more concerned with every phone call. I wrapped myself in a towel to hide the filth that began to seep through and tapped to answer.
“How’s it going, love?” His voice was deep and gentle, a brush of velvet against an inside of an arm. A clean arm, not like mine.
I shrugged.
“Still on schedule to finish next week?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m switching to video.”
“No.”
He pulled in his breath. “I want to see your face.”
My face was red from all the scouring. My lips chapped, possibly bleeding.
“No.”
He fell silent. “Will you tell me what’s going on?”
I cheated on you while you worked your ass off for us.
“C’mon, Sie, you know you can tell me.”
This is where you’re wrong, my love.
“Christ, this isn’t like you...” He murmured something inaudible. “Did...something bad happen?”
I got shit-faced and cheated on you. On your birthday.
I suppressed a sob. “Nope.”
“C’mon, Sie. What’s wrong?”
Tell him, go ahead. Tell him who you are.
“I’m just tired, baby.”
He exhaled. “Only another week, right?”
Two hours later, my mom came to watch Austin. As per usual, I feigned extreme lateness, rushing past her and out of the condo. Luckily, she’d assumed my unceasing emotional instability was due to the stress of working and moving and didn’t press me for details.
My heart thumped a dull, heavy drumroll as I climbed into the taxi, rattling off my canned replies to all the usual nosy questions. “Yes, that’s Senator Reat’s residence. Yes, I’m employed there.”
Please don’t let him be home today.
Following my incomprehensible bout of madness, I spent countless hours poring over the commission contract in search of a breaching loophole. There wasn’t one. But how could I go back there? Determined not to, I’d come close to hiring a contract attorney when an awful realization hit me like a ton of bricks—I couldn’t quit even if there was a way. How would I explain my sudden “change of heart” to Ryan? Would I ruin my professional reputation and jeopardize my career because I missed him? Give up on a huge paycheck I’d advocated for because I couldn’t last another month without him? Let down three kids because I suddenly found it impossible to work and take care of my baby? I’d clung to that last one for days before letting it go. Ryan knew my schedule was flexible and that mom was helping with Austin. Worst of all, no matter how tight a story I’d concocted, my tragic inability to lie would alert Ryan I was hiding something. And he’d make it his mission to find out what that was.
I stared out the window at the gray barrier walls of the highway, a familiar heaviness settling in the pit of my stomach. A prisoner returning to her cell. A death row inmate going to her execution. But I’d been living in this prison every day since my inexplicable fit of insanity.
Too soon, the Reat estate rose in front of me in all its oppressive splendor, sprawling lazily against the acres of land, green and lush with the unstoppable force of life. I sucked in my breath, then shook myself and straightened. My anxiety had no basis. Connor was never there anymore, probably not too eager to run into me either—
Eyes wide and unblinking, I clasped a hand over my mouth at the sight of his shiny black SUV parked at the wider end of the long horseshoe driveway.
I’m not going.I shrank back into the reassuring safety of the taxi’s warm leather seat.
And if he’s here next time? My hand, cold and shaky, unbuckled the seat belt, but my body refused to follow suit.
You’ll never finish if you run every time. I opened the door but didn’t step out.
One foot in front of the other. My feet landed on the pavement, heavy and numb.
Only one more week.
Chest pounding, I bolted past the security detail into the foyer, down the corridor, into the playroom. Panting like a hounded animal, I shut the door, and slumped against it. Then I stood with my eyes closed, waiting for my heart to finish its mad reel. Another week, and I’d be done with these gaudy walls, this obscene estate, these filthy memories. And I’d be with Ryan in Dallas, in the beautiful house he’d rented for our little family. And all would be well. Great even.
I blew out my breath and dipped a liner brush into a spot of gray paint, but my hands shook too much to make fine brush strokes. I put the brush aside and squeezed a small sponge into a bowl of water. Rapunzel’s sharp window ledge needed softening if she was going to climb out without hurting herself.
I froze at the approaching din of laughter, the sponge in my hand dripping muddy dabs into the bowl. It slipped from my hand with a soft splash as the door opened and Connor sauntered in with two young women in tow. The back of my neck prickled at a sudden violent recoil that surged through me like venom, filling my every corner. But it made no sense. The women were stunning and elegant: supermodel looks, smooth, blown out curls, sophisticated designer frocks. Did I know them? No, I’d never met them in my life.
Connor fixed me with a long, cold stare. “Don’t mind us, Siena.”
He was wearing fitted blue jeans, a white button-down with the top two buttons undone, and no shoes. He must have taken Friday off.
Ignoring me, the women stood beside him, eyeing the walls with the identical expressions of benign boredom.
“Cute,” said the taller one. “Though I’m hardly an expert in children’s illustration.”
Connor settled his hand on her waist. “But you are an expert in art, Candace.”
“Yes.” She gave a lazy, dismissive shrug. “In fine art.”
Connor turned to the other one. “What do you think, Taylor?”
She smiled up at him. “Do the kiddos like it?”
His answering grin held a hint of something incongruous with the question, lingering and intimate. He released the first one’s waist. “Go ahead, girls. Start without me.”
The clack of stilettos on the hardwood floor faded in the direction of the living wing, in pace with my heightening breath.
Connor padded toward me, his footfall soft as a cat’s. He stopped so close, I could smell his soap—something masculine and expensive. I drew back and came up hard against the Rapunzel wall.
He fixed me with a hard, unblinking stare, his mouth stretching into a tight smile. “You lied to me.”
I gulped down my heartbeat that soared into my throat like vomit.
“Your husband, one Ryan Casey, a special agent currently engaged in a very high-profile case at the Dallas FBI, has been the epitome of proper marital conduct.” He tipped his head to one side. “In the short time he’s been there, he’s earned the reputation of a workaholic hopelessly in love with his wife. Doesn’t even reciprocate the innocent flirting of female coworkers.” He straightened. “Has a place on his desk, where he keeps a large, framed photo of you like it’s a crucifix.”
My jeans and t-shirt did nothing to cover my denudement and the filth that oozed from my every pore.
“Quite a cocktease, aren’t you?” His eyes filled with unaccountably familiar humor. “Do you enjoy playing with men?”
“I...” I bit into the inside of my trembling lip. “It...it’s...”
He dropped his voice. “It’s a dangerous game to play, Siena.”
All blood ebbed from my face in a single tide as his humor turned to ice. “At such games, you must be prepared to lose.”
Back straight, he turned and marched out.
I stared, unblinking, at the walls, drowning in a piercing wave of déjà vu I couldn’t begin to comprehend. The murals would have to remain unfinished, which was okay. No one would notice the half-done joints in the dragon’s wings, the few missing pieces of Cinderella’s broken pumpkin, and the half-painted rope ladder sticking out of Rapunzel’s only window.
Cold all over, I stumbled past the security detail, clutching my bag.
One of them shuffled his feet and inquired if he should call a taxi.
“It’s ah...waiting outside the gate,” I lied, struck with a bone-chilling realization—I’d left all my brushes behind.
In a stunned daze, I staggered through the porte-cochere and out of the enormous iron gate. Someone like Connor Reat had the power to destroy me faster than I could say misunderstanding. Had he just threatened me in earnest or only tried to put in the last word? I walked down the manicured sidewalk, stiff as a board and incredulous at my bizarre urge to look over my shoulder. What was the matter with me? He wouldn’t come after me. What would he even want with me now?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
I released a long, cleansing breath. To anyone not looking too closely, the walls would appear completed. I was moving to Dallas in one week. The whole thing was over. We’d never see each other again, and all would be forgotten.
So, I shook myself and called a taxi.
At home, I took three consecutive showers. Then, after feeding, bathing, and nursing Austin, I lay down and closed my eyes.
“Bring it on,” I said to whoever sent the visions. “Make me forget.”