Chapter 9 #2
“You’re also … real. Well, I suppose that’s an assumption on my part.
You seem very real. Your chatty posts get so much engagement, as much as your self-pleasure posts.
It’s intimate in a way that a lot of the more hardcore content isn’t.
Watching those posts made me feel like I was …
” His words trailed off, and I realised that I was the one blushing, now.
“Like you were …?”
He shrugged, his eyes flashing to mine and then away. “Like I was your partner, having a chat at the end of the day before bed.”
“Oh.” He’d managed something that very few people could. He’d rendered me virtually speechless. I suddenly recalled fantasising about the married couple, but replacing the man’s face with his. Intimate partners. Not fuck buddies.
I cleared my throat. “Well, you take your business very seriously … Atlas is the persuasive business partner, I’m guessing?”
He nodded, scooping Trinket onto his lap. She flicked her tail and climbed onto his desk, bunting her head against his arm until he presented his hand for her to rub against.
“What would your ‘hot horse’ have looked like?”
I blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Uh …”
Abernathy chose that moment to scramble back onto the bed and deposit himself in my lap.
“I mean, if I’d whipped out a crack pipe and started packing it, what would your response have been?” he clarified. I swallowed back the memories.
“I probably would have told you to get the fuck out,” I rasped.
He tilted his head to the side, not quite meeting my eyes. “You would have tried to kick me out of my own bedroom?”
“No, not literally, of course. I just fucking hate drugs.” I focused on the warm, fluffy mass in my lap, refusing to let the past overtake me. “I want nothing to do with them … or people who involve themselves with them.”
My words were met with silence. I glanced up, finding him watching me, concentration furrowing his brow like he was trying to puzzle me out.
I held still, although the urge to squirm under his scrutiny verged on unbearable.
His pocket buzzed, and he looked away, pulling out his phone.
He sighed down at the screen before putting the phone to his ear.
“Atlas?”
Slurred shouting was audible even with the phone pressed to his face. “Where the fuck are you? You’re missing our party, and I wanna make a speech, and it’ll look weird as fuck if you’re not here when I do it!”
Henry pushed his glasses up on his head and massaged his eyelids with thumb and middle finger. “I’ll be there in five.”
“Fucking mint! I’ll give you until the end of the next song.”
The line went dead, and Henry shoved his phone back into his pocket, sliding his palms down his legs. His fingers dug into his knees over and over again.
Without thinking, I reached over and covered his hands with mine, squeezing. The clawing stilled, and he exhaled a shaky breath.
“You don’t have to go up there, you know,” I whispered.
He shook his head and leaned back, his hands sliding out from under mine to reach for his vape. Another pull, determination written on his handsome face.
“I do.”
I stood when he did, ignoring Abernathy’s vigorous complaints.
“Well, I’ll walk you up then.” I said it as brightly as I could muster, and it seemed to rally him.
He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and stood too.
With purposeful strides, he returned the vape to the drawer beside the bed, taking out a plastic bottle and tipping two white capsules into his hand.
“Pills as well as pot?” I asked. He flashed me a tiny lopsided smile.
“Chewing gum,” he explained, popping them into his mouth.
“You have a hot horse take on that as well?” He finally met my eyes for more than a blink, and I found myself looking away instead.
There was an intensity in that gaze that felt like he was peeling layers off me. Layers that I kept like armour.
“I’ll allow it,” I teased as he came to stand beside me. He was a few inches taller than me. A nice height for kissing, I thought, my fingers reaching unbidden for my lips as I watched his mouth move as he chewed.
“Thank you,” he murmured, gesturing for the door. I started walking—it was better than pressing my mouth to his to taste the mint on his tongue and see where the night took us.
Something told me that Henry Baxter was not the kind to randomly kiss a woman who snuck into his bedroom.
But when his palm rested on the small of my back as he guided me up the stairs to the main deck, and my body reacted like it was shot through with an electric current, I decided that maybe I wouldn’t have survived kissing him.
I ducked through the post-midnight crowds milling at Darling Harbour, sweat sticking my hair to my neck. And not just because the March night was disgustingly hot.
After Henry escorted me up onto the deck, he’d immediately been whisked away into the crowd by the grouchy giant who had threatened to toss me overboard earlier. The murderous glare he’d thrown at me was a silent warning to stay away from his ‘employer’.
Well, he could go get fucked …
Not that I expected Henry Baxter—rich, sexy nerd living on a super yacht—to have any real interest in me beyond polite curiosity at finding me in his space. I probably wouldn’t see him again, unless we hit the pool at the same time.
Then again, I should probably avoid places where I was easily recognised and people might start asking why I was still in Australia.
The back of my neck prickled, and I glanced behind me. Why did I feel like I was being watched? Was it possible that I was already on the radar with the Department of Home Affairs? Was it possible that they had people trailing me? Or was paranoia starting to kick in?
I reached a crossing, heading back into the city and jabbed at the pedestrian button.
The beginnings of fear swirled in my stomach, and I wiped my sweaty palms on my tiny dress as a group of revellers wandered up from the direction I’d come, waiting for the signal to turn green.
A loud, masculine guffaw made me flinch.
I didn’t want to be this way. I didn’t want to live in fear that I’d be found and removed from this place where I’d finally made a proper home for myself. From this country that felt far enough away from Romania that it felt safe.
I scanned the group, making sure I took note of faces. Not that it would help. If it were the police following me, they could arrest me. If it wasn’t the police … if it was someone who wanted to harm me, and I tried to get help from the police … they would arrest me.
I’d never felt more alone in my life. And that was saying something, given my upbringing.
The light flashed from red to green, the frantic beeping of the crossing stuttering in my chest. I practically threw myself onto the road, striding as fast as was humanly possible in the heels I’d paired with this dress.
Tugging self-consciously at the hem—my panties were still in Henry’s bedroom—I reached the other side of the road ahead of the other pedestrians.
I headed straight, rather than turning right onto Sussex Street like most of the group. Hopefully whoever was giving me the creepy feeling would veer off that way too.
And then I spotted them. ‘Gaz’ and his three pals. And they were walking straight up King Street. Whether or not they were deliberately following me, I did not want a run-in with them.
“Pizd?,” I muttered shakily and put my head down, walking purposefully towards the next cross street. Thankfully, the city was an uphill walk here, and none of them were in great physical condition, they were also messily drunk, so they lagged behind.
I could have cried when I saw the glowing red, white and green of the Seven Eleven store up ahead. Dashing inside, I made a beeline for the counter, where a very uninterested checkout guy gave me a bored once-over.
“Cigarettes?” he asked in a monotone.
“I … uh …” There was no way I was handing over my precious money just to keep him talking. I peered out the window and bit back a whimper of relief when the four of them waddled past, not even glancing inside.
“Hurry up!”
My gaze darted back to the asshole behind the counter, my relief turning me snarky. “Oh! I’m sorry, was I keeping you from your enormous line of customers?” I looked pointedly behind me at the empty shop.
“Buy something or fuck off,” he rasped. “This isn’t a women’s refuge.”
“Nenorocitule,” I hissed under my breath. I wasn’t quite ready to brave it outside in case they were smarter than I had assumed and were lurking just past the shop, waiting to ambush me as soon as I came out. So, with a sigh, I gave in, snatching up a bottle of gum and tossing it on the counter.
“Just that.”
I checked both ways before I exited the store.
The sidewalk was well-lit, and there were no alleys the men could have ducked into.
Still, I turned back the way I’d come, looping back around to Sussex Street and taking the long way back to Town Hall Station and the train that would return me to the little apartment I shared with Kat in Marrickville.
I breathed out an enormous, gusting sigh when I finally locked the apartment door behind me and crept past Kat’s bedroom for the bathroom.
Until my phone buzzed. And then buzzed again. And again.
Rumi: Living it up on a billionaire’s yacht, not exactly the best plan if you want to stay off the radar
Rumi: It would be so easy to out you to the authorities right now
Rumi: I could have police dispatched to arrest you in three minutes—you know I have contacts
Rumi: But I’m willing to give you one last chance to come to your senses. Like I said, I have contacts. I can make everything go away
Rumi: I can make Australia your home forever. I can make it so your uncle can’t ever touch you again
Rumi: All you have to do is be my wife
Rumi: Is that really so awful?
“Du-te-n pizda m?-tii, Rumi!” I snapped, heart racing as, with shaking hands, I tapped through to block her contact. My finger hovered over the button.
No. I had to think clearly about this. Blocking her might trigger her fury enough to have her carrying through with those threats. And I was almost positive that they were empty … for now.
I shoved my phone away, ran the shower as hot as it would go and stepped under the spray.
And once I was there, I let it all out. The tears, the tremors …
the trauma. I slid down the wall, hugged my knees and sobbed as silently as I could into my lap as the water cascaded over me, drowning out any sound.
I sat under the spray until the hot water went cold. And then I got out, dried myself, shoved on the softest, oldest T-shirt I could find and crawled into my bed.
I’d thought that maybe I would struggle to sleep, with fears and worries both past and present rearing their ugly heads tonight. But as soon as my head hit the pillow, my eyelids drooped and gave me what I needed so badly.
Oblivion. At least until morning.