Killing Time: The Bonus Collection (26 page)

The air was frigid and crisp but felt great against my skin. I looked up at the trees from a bench I sat on in Central Park. It was a beautiful day with a pale blue sky and white clouds. It was supposed to snow later that night. We were only a few weeks from Christmas though the holiday season had officially begun.

From the outside, one could judge my life to be perfect. I was sitting on a park bench in Central Park with an expensive wool coat to keep me warm, designer jeans and a vicuna sweater underneath, my stupid Birkin handbag and my even more outrageous Ulysse Nardin phone that buzzed incessantly to notify me I had a call.

I struggled with the bag, opened it and took out my phone before I looked at the number. It was a French number but that meant nothing. I answered it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Aurélie? It’s Nicole. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said as my heart thundered in my chest. “How did you get this number?”

“Oh, it’s a bit complicated,” she began in French. “I called Grayson and he gave me the number to the Waldorf Towers where you are staying, I spoke to Rory and he finally gave me your mobile number after twenty questions. I suppose he didn’t believe we were best friends especially after…” she trailed off.

Yes, Nicole and I were best friends but she was also the woman who had married the ex-love of my life, Renaud, and therefore we weren’t exactly on speaking terms though that did not end twenty-eight years of friendship.

“You didn’t mention—”

“I didn’t realize you hadn’t told him.” She cleared her throat. “Listen, I know Rory and that is probably why it took him by surprise. He probably didn’t think
my
Renaud was…well, at one time, had been
your
Renaud.”

“Speaking of, how is my beloved?” I inquired and it felt good I could honestly ask without wishing his death.

“He’s good. He’s really busy at his job—Papa has him working crazy hours as he’s just landed a promotion that has come with a lot more responsibility.”

“That’s nice to hear. Still no little Renaud or Nicole yet? I thought you two would have at least one new addition to the family.”

“Nah, I don’t think it is for us.” Nicole sniffed lightly before she cleared her throat again. “What the hell, if I can’t tell you then who can I tell? We have been to all the best fertility specialists and I can’t have children. Non-specific ovarian failure. Renaud and I are…not a good match…for making babies.”

“But…can’t you harvest your eggs and Renaud’s sperm and hire a surrogate?”

“Yes, we could but I don’t think it’s for us at this juncture. We aren’t ruling it out but…I don’t want another woman to carry our child, Aurélie. How do I make myself okay with that while not trying to feel like an utter failure? Am I being selfish to Renaud?”

“No. He loves you, Nicole. He was always one who could take it or leave it when it came to children. You two should be okay.”

“Anyway, I didn’t call you about that and I hate we started discussing my problems at all as that is just so tacky. Rory told me you two are coming into town and we should get together for dinner—all four of us. We can go shopping and hang out again. Of course, I realize why you are coming and though I feel the circumstances are particularly cruel, I can’t say I haven’t missed you like mad for all the years you have decided to call the States your home.”

I smiled though I knew my best friend couldn’t see it. “I missed you too. More than you could ever know. I really need you right now and I am just glad you called. I know…why we stopped speaking in the first place but…I just want you to be happy and I hate I let my stubbornness come between us. You didn’t steal Renaud, he didn’t want me and that has taken me a long time to get over. I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. All these years I know you weren’t jealous of us or the situation but what he did to you. I suppose I helped him as he ended up with me but…I was so naïve at the time. I truly thought I could marry him and it wouldn’t change the friendship between you and I. What a fool I have been all this time,” Nicole explained.

“Let’s agree to allow bygones to be bygones and begin again, shall we? Just promise me we won’t go this long without speaking again.”

She laughed on the other end. “Of course we won’t especially now that you are in a relationship with Rory. You do realize what kind of…predilections he has or is he hiding them? He’s always been upfront with the women he has made his lovers before in the past so I find it hard to believe he would leave you in the dark.”

“Yes, I am aware of what he likes. My sister was found locked in a cage in his Upper Eastside Penthouse apartment wearing a specially designed chastity belt and a black leather mask covering her eyes before she supposedly stripped it off, remember? I am very much aware what he and Severin are like,” I replied though I hated the way my voice instantly became guarded. If I couldn’t be honest with my best friend then who could I be honest with and tell the truth to? God knows I didn’t want to start a damn journal.

“Well, it is nice you are so…accommodating. I had a relationship with Severin for a while…if you call what he did to me normal relationship behavior but what he subjected me to, I can’t undo and now I won’t be in the same room with that monster. He’s a sucker for blondes you know but…something makes me feel like he would find you very special.”

I laughed at my best friend this time. “Now I know you are deluded. The man hates my guts, Nikki. I don’t know what to do about him, exactly, and I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop with Rory. I don’t like how much control Severin has over him and something tells me whatever exists between them and binds them together is…I don’t know...intense.”

“He controls Rory because the man can’t live without control. He’s like that with everyone in his life. Control is power, is it not? Either way, I don’t know if he was Marquis de Sade or Machiavelli in another life—I’d like to think he was both—but after being with him, he made me a believer in religion. I never read Dante Alighieri until we broke up and I never wanted someone to experience the nine circles of Hell more in my life than
him
. Stay away from him, Aurélie, he can’t be trusted.”

“Well that is going to be hard, seeing as Rory and I are together. He doesn’t exactly leave us to our own devices and I have a feeling he will show up in France soon after we have left so there is no getting away from him,” I began in a frustrated manner.

“So, this is serious? Rory and you, I mean.”

“Yes, we’re very serious. Not marriage serious as I don’t think he is the settling down type but…serious enough that I am living with him.”

“Promise me something,” Nicole began on the other line in a voice so soft and low I had to strain to hear her. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself and no matter what happens, you won’t end it because of
him
. Severin enjoys inflicting pain, not just on those who he loves to hurt but everyone around him. I’ve seen him push women out of Rory’s life. I’m not calling him a murderer because honestly, I don’t think he had anything to do with Trésor’s—what did the Police call it?—death by misfortune.

“He takes too much pleasure in the torture part to kill and he never liked getting his hands dirty, hence the psychological games. You know one of his slaves killed herself just because he commanded her to? That is what I am talking about when I discuss control and power, Aurélie. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch but he’s too smart to get himself caught and thrown in jail. It just wouldn’t be his style to do what happened to Trésor. If anything, it looks like a crime of passion but I still don’t think either of the Krieger twins were involved.”

“Neither do I,” I confessed, “but I still think it could easily be someone in their circle and that is going to take a lot of digging. I need to convince Rory to let me write the book but I am still going through with it. I just won’t tell him.”

“Please don’t tell me you are seriously thinking of blowing this wide open with a book. Aurélie, you have been in America too long and think you can do anything with impunity. Once you get here, it won’t work that way and the person who murdered your sister will make a go for you,” Nicole explained in fast-paced French.

“I’m not afraid. I think one of the first lessons being apart of this lifestyle has taught me is that there are much greater fears than death.”

“Like what?”

“Like desiring a person so much you don’t want to be without them ever again. I promised myself after what happened between Renaud and I that it wouldn’t transpire again. I would never fall in love, never cede control, never be a victim and what do you know? I’m right back in the shit and I hate it, Nikki.”

“
Mon Dieu
,” my best friend said softly. “There are worse fates in life than being in love but if you feel that way, tell him and never let go.”

“I can’t do that. He might use it against me and then what would I have? The best thing about our relationship is my ambivalence because if he knew what he had, he would just take advantage like every other man would.”

“That’s bullshit and we both know it but…alas, I will let you decide for now and we’ll talk soon.
Je t’aime
.”

“I love you too, Nikki.”

“Goodbye for now but I will see you soon.”

“Not soon enough for me.”

Our call ended shortly afterward. I stood and began to walk back to the Waldorf Towers in the frigid cold.

Chapter Sixteen

I OPENED THE DOOR WITH
my card key and stepped inside the suite.

I wanted to call out for Rory but I decided to surprise him instead. It was me who got the surprise when I walked into the kitchen to find my beloved cooking. I suspected he knew how to cook but I never thought I would get a homemade meal out of him.

He was hard at work and I stood in the doorway and just watched in awe. He seasoned a pan of thinly sliced potatoes marinated with garlic, onions and bell peppers. From where I was standing, I could see fish in the broiler. I could barely believe it but it also looked like he set out a dish of sauerkraut, one of my favorite ways of consuming cabbage.

I whistled and he turned toward me and smiled. “You didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about going out so I thought I would cook for us on our last night in Manhattan.”

“You make it sound like we’ll be gone forever and will never return, not even for a visit,” I began softly.

His blue-green eyes were filled with barely hidden lust and I realized my whole body tingled. There was barely a night that went by we didn’t have sex but still he was capable of sending my body into a frenzy. I was spoiled, I knew that. Most relationships didn’t start off with mind blowing sex the day after you met someone. This was usually referred to as a one night stand and it usually was awkward and best forgotten about.

However, we had bonded, beaten the unbelievable odds because a romance like ours only existed in fiction. He would have never given me a second look and yet…somehow it had turned into something more. I never wanted him to look at me any other way because behind that lust was shock and awe. He’d bottomed out to me and I had all the power even if we played games in the bedroom.

Was it no wonder why the poor man was afraid of me? He didn’t give of himself and like his brother, didn’t treasure the loss of control but he’d done it for me all the while making me think it was I who constantly gave in to him. It was a brilliant game plan and one no less than a master could have pulled off but he had and I had no wish to give his game away, least of all to him.

“You look like you want to eat me alive,” I whispered to him.

He’d read my lips over the sizzling of the potatoes and turned the stove top to the off switch. “I do. Suddenly I am not very hungry for food at all but you in my bed…now.”

“This spread looks awfully delicious.”

“We can eat it later. Take your clothes off. Now.”

I knew he meant right there and then. I slipped off my coat and let it fall to the floor. My vicuna sweater clung to my body and teased my achingly hard nipples.

“Faster…or do you need help?”

He talked about the removal of my clothes like most people would have discussed the weather.

“I don’t need help but I desperately want some.”

He slid the potatoes to the back of the stove and popped the lid of the pan over them before he strode over to me and before I could say anything, his mouth devoured mine in a soulful kiss which had my arms wrapped around his neck immediately.