Alone (14 page)

S
he remembered Jackson’s office, how she’d
worried someone in his on-line life might notice him missing. By
looking into the possibility she’d prepare herself and Sebastian
for problems that might lie ahead.

Serenity started across the room. Upon
reaching the door, the sensation of being watched pressed against
her back and she spun around. The room was empty.

With legs of lead,
she forced herself
to walk upstairs to Jackson’s office. Pushing open the door, the
stale smell of old beer and testosterone hit her and she cringed in
disgust. She swallowed her revulsion, crossed to the computer and
switched the monitor on.

The screen blinked to life, asking for a
password

Damn!
She should have realized Jackson
would be paranoid enough to put extra security on a home
computer.

What password would he choose? Wracking
her brain, she absently picked at the dry skin around her
thumbnail. What was important to him?

The most important thing in Jackson’s life
had been Jackson himself. She typed in his name, followed by his
surname, and when that didn’t work she started trying different
combinations of his name and added in a few numbers—his birth year,
their house number.

Password not
recognized.

Serenity sighed.

Perhaps h
er name? She tried it, but no,
password not recognized. What else? She thought about the name of
his book… She knew she should remember; the name had struck a chord
with her when he told her what it was.

The name of a plant, she was sure the
title was also the name of a plant.

Then it came to her:
Love Lies
Bleeding.

With shaking
hands, she typed the words into
the box. She was in!

P
ulling up his Internet browser, she
clicked on the drop down box to find out what sites he’d used
lately. She expected to see ‘Writer’s Weekly’ and ‘The Writer’s
Guide,’ but a whole different usage of the Internet faced
her.

Her hands trembled once again as she used
the mouse to click on the first web address. Apparently now Jackson
hadn’t been so security conscious, as the computer automatically
logged him on as ‘bigboy74’.

Serenity gulped. This was what her husband
had been up to. A message flashed in his inbox.

‘
Hey Bigboy, where are you
tonight? I’ve been imagining your cock in my throat and my pussy is
wet just thinking about you.”

Serenity read on, feeling sick to her
stomach. A number of similar messages followed, all amounting to
the same sort of thing.

She clicked out of the website and went on
another. Jackson used a different name but the messages amounted to
more smut. On another site, a woman sent pictures of her most
intimate parts and another (although Serenity couldn’t be sure it
wasn’t the same woman) sent photos of her licking her own,
extremely large breasts.

With adrenaline firing through
her veins, she left the Internet and opened Jackson’s
documents.
He’d saved pages and pages of pornographic
messages.

Furious, Serenity clenched her
hands into fists. She stopped herself from picking up
the computer and
throwing it through the window. Even though she didn’t have proof
of Jackson physically cheating, this was just as bad. She couldn’t
believe she’d been working all this time while he was getting his
rocks off to faceless women on the Internet. She felt like the
bottom had been ripped out of her stomach.

Then she opened the document for his
book.

It was twelve pages.

She stared in amazement. Was this all he’d
done? This and several hundred thousand words of porn?

“
Son of a bitch!” she
screamed at the monitor.

She’d been supporting him for the past ten
years while he did nothing. How could she have been so stupid? For
a moment, she wished him alive so she could kill him all over
again.

This time the wave of guilt didn’t
come.

S
he knew now, no one would miss him.
Whoever was into ‘bigboy74’ wouldn’t bother to log a missing
person’s record. She guessed Jackson hadn’t bothered sending his
pathetic twelve pages to any publishing houses, and if he did, no
one would be interested.

She read through the first few pages of
his ‘novel’. Despite the poetic title, the pages read like the
start of a sci-fi novel with poor grammar and bad spelling. How
could someone spell so badly when the computer spell checked
automatically?

He was nothing but a lazy son-of-a-bitch.
For years he’d taken advantage of her and treated her like the
worthless one. Anger swelled inside and Serenity thought she might
explode. Impotent, useless anger. Jackson was dead and she had no
one to direct her fury toward. Instead, she turned the anger
inward. How he must have laughed at her. Stupid, naive Serenity,
out at work all day and then back home to make dinner and take her
beating.

Y
ears wasted, and she had no one to blame
but herself?

Sebastian pushed open the
door
to the
spare room and found Serenity with her head in her hands, crying in
front of the computer.

“
Serenity?” He dropped to his
knees in front of her, concerned at the sight of her tears. “What’s
happened?”

She managed a laugh, the sound bitter and
full of regret.

“
What’s happened?” she said.
“Apart from the obvious you mean? What’s happened is I’ve
discovered my pig of a husband spent most of our marriage writing
filth to other women on the Internet instead of writing the
supposed ‘bestseller’ he always talked about.”

She lifted her face from her hands. “What
sort of idiot am I? I mean, I don’t even know why I’m so surprised
or upset to learn this is how he spent all his time? He was hardly
a good husband in any other way, why should this bother me so
much?”

He reached out, his palm made contact
with her back, gently trying to soothe her anguish.

“
Somehow I managed to tell myself
Jackson hitting me was my fault. I thought I wound him up. I
believed…” she choked back a sob, “I believed he was angry with me
because I hadn’t been able to give him a family. This proves he was
just a total, lazy pig.”

“
Then you shouldn’t be upset,”
Sebastian said, anger lodging like ice in his heart. “You should be
happy he’s dead.”

The hardness in his words
shocked her into
looking up. Her face crumpled.

“
Don’t do that,” she said,
reaching out and taking his hand. “Don’t be angry. There’s been too
much anger already.”

She touched his face, her palm rested
against his cheek. He closed his eyes, relishing the sensation of
warmth against his cold skin, and covered her hand with his own.
They sat, quietly together in the moment.

“
I was worried you weren’t coming
back,” she whispered.

He stared into her eyes, losing himself in
their liquid depths. “I shouldn’t have.”

“
Don’t say such things!” she
said. “I thought perhaps, you’d come back earlier. I thought you
were watching me.”

Sebastian frowned,
“Why would you think
that?”

“
It sounds silly,” she said,
shaking her head. “I was sure I saw someone at the window. They had
your eyes.”

Leaping
to his feet, he went to the window
and peered out into the night. “When?”

“
Earlier, about six, when it
started getting dark.”

“
What else did you see?” He
started to pace back and forth, from the window back to the
computer. The room was tiny, one not built to accommodate a
six-foot-two, pacing vampire.

“
I didn’t see anything else,” she
said, shaking her head. “It was probably just my imagination.” She
looked at him and worry creased her brow. “What’s wrong, Sebastian?
You’re frightening me.”

He remembered himself and stopped pacing.
“I’m sorry. The last thing I want to do is scare you, but I
shouldn’t be around you.” He crouched in front of her. “I’ve taken
care of everything. You don’t need to worry about Jackson’s body
being found.” She visibly winced at his words. “I’ve arranged for
the police to discover activity on his cards a long way from here.”
He took her hand. “You’re free from him, Serenity. He can never
hurt you again.”

She leaned forward and placed her forehead
against his. They rested, nose to nose, eyes closed, breathing each
other in. All that mattered was them.

Sebastian knew he couldn’t stay, no matter
how much he wanted to.

“
I have to go,” he said, tearing
himself away, his heart breaking with every millimeter of space he
put between them. Unable to let go, he leaned in at the last minute
and kissed her. His hand slipped into her hair and deepened the
kiss, devouring her. She moved closer, filling in the space between
them.

Reluctantly, Sebastian broke away. His
fingers still laced in her hair, his palm against her cheek. He
looked into her eyes, searching.

“
Don’t kiss me goodbye,” she
pleaded.

“
I have to.”

“
Please don’t leave me. I don’t
want to stay here.” Her lower lip trembled, her eyes full of tears.
“Everywhere I turn I see Jackson’s face, his expression in those
last moments, with the blood all...”

Her voice broke and she covered her mouth
with her hand, tears spilling from her eyes to run down her
cheeks.

It broke his heart to see her like this.
His soul ripped in two; he could do her no good, but he couldn’t
bear to leave her either.

“
I can’t take you with me,
Serenity. There are things you don’t know about me. Things you
don’t want to know.”

“
You have a family? Why
didn’t you tell me if you were married?”

“
I’m not married, Serenity”
he said, exasperated. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“
Then tell me what it is?
Tell me what the big secret is?”

“
People want things from me and
they’re dangerous. They might hurt you.”

“
I don’t care. I don’t care
what you’re into. Please, you can’t leave me here, not
now.”

“
Okay,” he relented. “But
just until you figure out what to do.”

Serenity threw herself into his arms,
tears streaming down her face. “Thank you, thank you. You won’t
regret it. I promise.”

He hugged her back, unable to stop the
smile that lit his face, despite the unease tugging at his
guts.

Sebastian
wanted for her to be safe. Only,
he wasn’t sure by his side was the best place to safeguard
her.

Chapter Twelve

The sight of Sebastian’s
hous
e
awed Serenity.
Though Sebastian had called them a cab to take them to his house in
the hills, a silver Audi sat on the long gravel driveway. She
stepped through the heavy, oak front door and into the extensive
hall, her mouth hung agape. Standing in his entrance hall, she
turned in a slow circle, her eyes wide.

His home stunned her. The
obvious wealth also
confirmed her suspicions about him being into something he
shouldn’t: organized crime or drugs. At least now she partly
understood his reason for being secretive with her. She’d known
there was something different about him. Normal people didn’t live
in houses like this—hell, this wasn’t a house, this was a
mansion.

Sebastian stood with his arms folded
across his broad chest, watching her. A ghost of a smile lingered
on his face.

“
What the hell are you?” she
said in amazement.

His pale face blanched further and he
asked, “What do you mean?”

“
Are you a drug baron? An
internet millionaire? Or did a rich aunt die?”

The shock melted from his face. “Oh,
right,” he shook his head slightly, as though jerking himself
awake. “I guess you could say I came into some money a long time
ago and invested wisely.”

“
Jesus,” she said, still taking
in her surroundings. “You can say that again. Care to share any
tips?”

He grinned at her but didn’t
answer.

Serenity’s astonishment at Sebastian’s
wealth made her forget Jackson’s death for a moment but suddenly
the immensity of the last twenty-four hours crashed down around
her. Exhaustion fell like a cloak over her head and shoulders, and
she slumped, shoulders rounding, back curled.

S
ebastian’s smile disappeared. He was at
her side so quickly she didn’t even see him move.

“
It’s late,” he said. Arm curled
gently around her waist, he guided her toward the huge staircase
wrapped against the back wall. “Maybe you should lie
down?”

Serenity nodded and allowed herself to be
led. The strength of his arm lent comfort and she leaned into the
curve of his bicep. Sebastian guided her up to one of the bedrooms.
The room was staged like a luxurious hotel complete with a four
poster bed, expensive lamps and one thousand thread count sheets.
But, like a hotel room, the room felt cold and unlived in. Serenity
didn’t think for a moment this was Sebastian’s room. He was too
much of a gentleman to take her to his own bed, yet the rest of the
house reflected this impersonal space. No photographs hung on the
walls or half-read books left on the table. In short; there was
nothing to say anyone actually lived here.