Being Me (25 page)

“I already mean it.”

“I lied to you, Chris,” I blurt out. “I didn’t want you to know something about me so I just . . . I lied. I . . . told you I hadn’t had sex in five years but that wasn’t true.” His hands go to my knees, and I feel him withdrawing already, preparing for whatever I’m about to say. I press my fingers to my temples and they tremble. “Two years ago—no—that’s not true, either. Nineteen months and four days ago, I flew back to Vegas for a charity event honoring my mother. My father was a no-show and that hurt. It hurt so damn bad. Michael was there and I was alone and vulnerable and he acted like he cared, and I—”

“Wait,” Chris says, his voice sharp, biting. He rotates me to press me against the wall, his hands on my arms. “You know exactly how many days it is since you fucked him last?”

I flinch. “No. I mean yes. But it wasn’t like that, it was—”

“Do you still love him? Is that what this is about?”

“No—
God
, no! I love
you
, not him. I never loved Michael. He . . . he came to my room and I made the mistake of letting him in.” Memories rip through me, and I tilt my head down. I can barely breathe with another flashback of Michael touching me, his hand on my breast. “I let him in.” I force my gaze to Chris’s and whisper, “I let him in, Chris.”

Chris’s hands go to my face, his gaze searching mine. “Are you telling me he raped you?”

“I just . . . I did what he wanted.”

“Did you want him to touch you, Sara?”

“No,” I whisper, and the tears have faded. The cold seeps into my limbs, slithering down my spine and settling deep in my soul, settling into the space where it’s lived for two years.

“Did you tell him no?”

“Yes. Over and over I told him, but he didn’t listen.” My voice is calmer now, but strained. I still don’t sound like me but then, who the hell am I? I don’t know anymore. “And then, I don’t know what happened. I just . . . gave up.”

“Then he raped you.”

“I gave up, Chris. He told me to do things and I did them. I
did them
. I was pathetic and weak, and I gave up. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell you it had been two years. I just . . . If I don’t block it out, I unravel. We’d just met and I didn’t think you were . . . that we were . . .”

He strokes my cheek. “I know, baby.”

“You don’t know,” I say vehemently as I push to my feet.

Chris is there in an instant, his hand on the wall by my head, and he repeats what I’d said to him earlier in the evening. “I know all I need to know, Sara.”

I shake my head again. “No. You don’t see how bad it was. I woke up with that man in my bed and I have no one to blame but me. I let him put a ring back on my finger and order me back to Vegas.”

“But you didn’t go.”

“No.” My skin crawls just thinking about that morning, how Michael was touching me, acting like he owned me.

“Tell me,” he prods. “What happened?”

I drop my gaze to his chest and draw a breath, trying to calm down, but it seems to lodge in my throat, and I barely get it out.

Chris’s fingers slide under my chin. “What happened next, Sara?”

“I convinced him I was returning to California to pack.
Then I waited until I landed in San Francisco, and I called him and threatened him with a restraining order.”

“And?”

“He laughed and told me I’d practically begged him to fuck me, and that’s what he’d tell the cops. I told him I’d go public and he said he’d paint me as the disinherited daughter looking for revenge.”

“And you said?”

“Bring it on. I didn’t care about my reputation, but he did his.”

“And he stayed away.”

“Until tonight.”

Chris frames my face with his hands and he kisses me, just lips to lips, but it’s not just a kiss. It is fire and ice, and passion and heat, and love. There is love in this kiss and I lean into him, my hands going to his wrist, and I don’t want this moment to end. His lips linger against mine, and just for these few moments there is nothing else but us, no Michael, no past, no future to worry over.

“Sara,” he whispers, stroking my hair and searching my face. “It’s a testament to how much that man fucked with your head that you’d think I’d hate you over this.”

“
I
hate me for that night, Chris. I hate how weak and pathetic I was. I hate how—”

He cuts me off with a kiss, then strokes his thumb over my lip. “You are the furthest thing from weak. You were very brave and smart about how you handled what happened. And he will never touch you again. You have my word.”

“Chris,” I whisper, my hand going to his wrist. “Chris, there’s more. Tonight—”

“Later. Tell me later. Right now, you stay here. I’ll come back and get you.”

He starts to move away and panic overcomes me. I grab his arm. “No. Stop. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to deal with Michael myself.”

“No!” I say quickly. “That’s what I have to tell you. I think he knows about the club, and he threatened to ruin you with the charity. He’ll do it. He’s that much of a monster.”

Chris cups my cheek. “If you think that prick is going to destroy me, you don’t know me as well as you will one day.” He leans in and kisses me again hard on the mouth. “He will not touch you again.” He’s gone before I can stop him.

I touch my lips where the taste of him still lingers, this man who swept into my life and awakened
me
again. What have I done by telling him about Michael now? I shove through the door and head for the exit. I have to stop Chris from doing something he’ll regret.

I make it halfway to the exit of the bathroom when Gina rushes inside, blocking my path. “Oh, no.” She holds up her hand. “You aren’t going out there looking like you do. The press will butcher you and Chris. They’re vicious.”

“Move, Gina,” I order. I have never wanted to physically hurt another person before, but I do now. I want her out of the way. “I have to stop Chris from doing something he’ll regret.”

She fixes me with a determined stare. “You’ll thank me for this later. Chris called security to have whoever gave you trouble taken to their booth in the back of the museum. We’ll fix your makeup and then you can meet him there.”

“No, I—”

“Look in the mirror, Sara.” Her command borders on a bark. “Think about the kind of attention you will get for Chris and you.”

I draw several heavy breaths and do as she says. And she’s
right. My mascara is streaked down my cheeks, impossible to miss. I am a front-page nightmare.

She holds up a bag. “My miracle bag. Let me do my magic.”

My fingers trail the puffy skin under my eyes. “No amount of makeup is going to fix this.”

“I have a miracle gel for that in my bag,” she assures me. “Let’s get to work.”

I hesitate. I don’t have time for this. I don’t want to do it with her. I don’t even want her involved.

“Let me help. You have time.” She moves to the sink and sets her bag down. “It’ll take security several minutes to find whoever Chris wants found and escort him to security with any level of discretion.”

Slowly, my shoulders slump and I join Gina at the sink. “Please hurry.”

“Speedy is my middle name when it comes to outsmarting bad press.” She removes a towelette from her supplies and gently starts wiping my cheeks. “And don’t worry about Chris. He never does anything he isn’t sure about.”

My gut clenches at the hint of intimacy between them. “You seem to know him very well.”

Gina applies the cooling gel to my eyes. “Don’t start imagining something that isn’t there. We never dated, and we’d be a horrible couple. I adore the spotlight and that man acts like it’s poison.” She swallows hard, her delicate neck bobbing with the action. “I . . . my sister died of cancer.”

Taken aback, I barely manage to spare her the “I’m sorry” that I know will make her cringe. “How old was she?”

“Sixteen.” She starts to apply foundation to my face with a
roller brush. “She had all the medical care available to her but she worried that others didn’t.” Her voice cracks. “She volunteered until she was too sick to keep it up. That’s how we met Chris.”

Her words wreak havoc on my calm. Chris will lose everything he’s created with the charity if Michael paints him as some kind of freak. I can’t let that happen. No matter what that means, or what I have to do.

“I have to go,” I say, and dart around Gina before she can stop me.

“Sara!”

I ignore her shout and I’m past the other woman guarding the door before she even knows I’m gone. I dart into the main events room and head toward the back of the museum, where Gina said I’d find security. “I’m supposed to meet someone at security,” I tell the first waiter I find. “Where is it?”

He points to an archway and a set of steps, and I rush toward them and take the stairs too quickly for my high heels, righting myself from a near trip. Finally, I see the sign indicating the security offices, and any hope I had of catching Chris before he talks to Michael evaporates when I hear his voice.

“I’ll take that number now,” I hear Chris say.

“Dream on, asshole,” Michael responds. “You aren’t getting shit from me.”

“Have it your way. I can get the number myself.”

Michael snorts. “Good luck with that. Even Sara doesn’t have it.”

I hear the phone go to speakerphone and a number being dialed before Chris is speaking again. “Yeah, Blake. I need a
personal cell number for a Thomas McMillan, and yes, I’m talking about the CEO of the cable company. He’s Sara’s father.”

He’s calling my father? Why is he calling my father? I reach for the door to stop him, then I hesitate. I know how vicious Michael is. He’ll say horrible things to me in front of Chris, and Chris will flatten him regardless of later consequences. I bite my lip and lean against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut and waiting for what will happen next.

“Give me about, oh, sixty seconds,” Blake replies, and I can hear him typing through the speaker. He’ll never be able to get it. It’s unlisted. I don’t even have the damn number. Blake proves me wrong in less than sixty seconds. It’s more like thirty seconds when he calls out the number “702-222-1215. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment,” Chris replies. “I’ll be in touch.” The line goes dead and Chris snorts, imitating Michael. “I guess I’m lucky.”

Michael barks out a laugh. “Call him. He’ll bury you and your perverted self under a rock you’ll never climb out from under.”

“Will he now?” Chris asks. “I’m predicting you’ll be the one buried under a rock.” There is a pause when I assume the phone is ringing and I hold my breath, waiting to see if my father will answer. “Thomas McMillan, this is Chris Merit. That’s right. The artist who is dating Sara.” There is a silence and Chris makes an amused sound. “Really. That rich. That’s really not all that rich. Right.” Another pause. “I’m not one to throw around wallet sizes but you just won’t stop going there so I’ll go with you. Add a ‘filthy’ to the front of that rich, and that’s how rich I am. In other words, your threats to crush me don’t scare me.”

As impossible as it seems, I find myself smiling at the reference to me asking him if he was filthy rich, but it fades and burns quickly. This is my father Chris is talking to. My father, who some part of me wanted to believe isn’t a part of this with Michael but is. It’s clear that he is.

“We’re still comparing wallets? Okay, then. Yes, that’s right. I make a few million a year for my art, which you make sound like nothing. Fortunately, the charities I donate it to don’t take it for granted the way you apparently do. You should have had your boy Michael here find out more than my personal habits when he was digging around before you decided to threaten me. My banker is Rob Moore at Chase Bank in San Francisco. Call him and he’ll confirm just how much money I have to blow. And there is nothing I’d like to blow it on more than ruining you and your pal Michael here, who seems to think ‘no’ means ‘yes’ when it comes to putting his hands on Sara.” There is a silence when, I assume, my father is talking, then Chris adds, “I really don’t care what you believe happened or didn’t happen. If Michael ever comes near Sara again, I
will
ruin him and you with him. I’m sending Michael back to you now. And Mr. McMillan, I didn’t understand until tonight why Sara would walk away from her life. Now I do. She doesn’t need you or your money. She has me, and I’ll take far better care of her than you ever did.”

Frozen against the wall, I hug myself, bleeding and healing at the same time. My father . . . Chris . . . my father . . . I remember being a little girl eager to see him, hoping he’d come home. But he was never home with us.
Home
. That word still haunts me.

“Are we done here?” Michael asks.

“You were done before you ever got here,” Chris replies.

“Sorry, sir, but you can’t leave until we finish our paperwork,” I hear an unfamiliar voice say from inside the room, and I’m surprised Chris has allowed someone else in the room.

“This is ridiculous,” Michael growls. “I did nothing wrong.”

“It’s protocol, sir. All security action must be properly documented.”

My stomach twists in knots just hearing Michael’s voice and I fight the memories threatening to take shape. Why can’t they just go back in the hole where I buried them? That place where two years ago didn’t exist.