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“I love him,” she whimpers, her lips wobbling, and a single tear drops down her cheek. “I just want him back—don’t you understand that?”
There’s a moment between us. I pity her, and I sigh to show that I do. I know she loves him.
“Sometimes we love what we shouldn’t,” I say, then I slam the door shut and walk back across the driveway, debating between the house and the Range Rover. I won't be able to endure food now—not after this—so I go back inside the house.
On autopilot, I make a cup of coffee, desperately trying to switch off mentally, but I soon realize coffee is a bad idea. I won't be able to sleep if I drink coffee now. So, I pour it away down the sink and take the laptop from the kitchen table up to bed; study into the small hours as a distraction. I try to put what happened out of my mind by focusing on Russia and what's going on in the news, and because I can't—that woman keeps popping into my head, the things she said, how random her arrival was—I search for a book that I love to read. It's working, my idea of a distraction. I manage to get lost in the story of a queen consumed with guilt, my eyes racing back and forth reading the novel on the glowing laptop screen.
“Does he strangle you to enhance an orgasm?”
“Belt you so hard that you can't walk for days?”
I must've fallen asleep because the next thing I know, a hand pushes my hair back out of my face. On alert, I lean away from that hand, and when I look over the edge of my bed, culpable blue eyes smile at me.
“You're back?” I say to Charlie under my breath. Putting the laptop aside, I sit up on one elbow.
Charlie nods, crouched down beside me with his elbows on his knees, all gorgeous in jeans and a black round-neck t-shirt, his black hair a little longer and unruly. “Thought I'd come check you're still here.”
“Of course I'd still be here.” I rake my hair back over my head, squinting through the sunrise. I've been out for hours but it feels like I've had barely an hour’s sleep. “Why have you come back early? I thought you were leaving for the entire weekend?”
His eyebrows shoot up. “After what happened, youwant toknow why I've come back early?”
What happened...“Does he strangle you to enhance an orgasm?”I hate knowing this. It doesn't bother me that he obviously has sadist tendencies—it's not like I'm unfamiliar with men who are like this. I just hate the idea that I've met someone he's shared this with. It's the most fucked up, annoying emotion, bubbling under the surface. I don't get it.
“Don't worry about it, Charlie.” I force a sleepy smile at him, endeavoring not to let this come between us. “Did... did everything go okay?” I want to know if he saw Maksim but I'm not quite sure how to ask.
“Like clockwork,” Charlie says softly, winking at me, and then there's an odd moment between us.
Silence.
He's hesitating to tell me something, I can sense it.
“What's wrong?”
“What she said...” he studies my eyes, pausing again, “I would never do anything like that to you. You know that, don't you?”
A weird tightness forms across my chest.
“You don't have to explain yourself to me,” I say, sounding oddly cold, “I'm not your girlfriend.”
He sighs, tipping his head to me. “I just want you to know, Blaire, that's all.” He sounds very sincere, like he really wants me to know this. “I knew she was in Europe but I never anticipated she'd come to my fucking house and confront you. I wouldn’t have left you otherwise.”
The phone calls... I remember him on the phone a while back, wanting to know who helped ‘her’ leave The Site.
Maybe her visit isn't so random.Just have to take better note of what's going on around you, Blaire,I tell myself.
“I thought you said you didn't have a girlfriend?” I say, wanting to know the facts. “I asked you and you said-”
“She's not my goddamn girlfriend,” he seems illogically insulted. “I've fucked her a few times and that's it. She's always known the score.”
“Perhaps you didn't make your relationship status with her clear enough.” I scoff, lying back in bed, confused for why I even give a shit. Maybe it's because I'm tired; wired from the night's events.
Charlie gains height on his feet and sits on the edge of my bed, looking down on me. “Is this gonna cause a rift between us?”
I turn my head to him, glowering. “No. Why would it?”
He doesn't answer my question. He wants to know what she said to me before he called her back.
“Why did you call her back if you want nothing to do with her, Charlie?”
