Villainess (10 page)

“Would you, Doc? Would you think I’m worth it?”

“No.”

“I think you’re lying.”

I needed to get control—control over myself and of Leila. Things had spun out and I was a hairsbreadth away from ruining my career. “Tell me more about your relationship with Theo. We’ll start there today.” I lifted my gaze in challenge, daring Leila to defy me.

Her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched. “All right. What do you want to know?”

Too easy
. She’d acquiesced too easily. But I had no other course of action for the moment. I had to push on and do my job to the best of my ability, even if my dick disagreed with that option. “You decide. Just as long as it’s about him.” I just needed to keep her talking.
Do your job. Do your job and stop thinking about how sweet it would be to fuck her on your desk. Or against the wall. Or anywhere really.

Leila stood, eyed me warily, and then flopped back down on the couch. “Did you ever hear of that poem…you know…the one about people being in your life for either a reason, a season or a lifetime?”

“Sounds familiar, but what does this have to do with Theo?”

“I’m getting there.” She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. “Anyways… People come into your life for a reason, season or a lifetime. When someone is in your life for a reason it’s usually to meet a need you’ve expressed. They’ve come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, spiritually or emotionally. They may seem like a godsend, and they are because they’re there for the reason you need them to be.”

Leila stood, moving to the window, staring out into the rainy day. “Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to make a stand. What we must realize is that our need is met, our desire fulfilled, which means their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it’s time to move on.”

She fell into silence as she continued staring out the window. The rain was coming down harder, pinging against the glass, seeming to mirror the tumultuous emotions emanating from the both of us.

“Are you saying Theo was in your life for a reason?”

“Maybe.”

“And what about the season and lifetime?”

She turned to me, a small smile tipping up her full lips. “You curious about the rest of the poem? I’m sure I’m fucking it up somehow. I’m merely paraphrasing the best that I can remember it. You’d probably be better off Googling it.”

“I want to hear you tell me.”

She gazed back out the window, trailing her fingers down the blinds. “Okay, fine. So…the season…right. Some people come into your life for a season because it’s your turn to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something new and they usually bring you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it because it’s real, but only for a season.”

She paused to clear her throat. “Lifetime relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you’ve learned into use in all other areas of your life. It is said love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.”

“Sounds like a great coping mechanism for loss.” I fidgeted with my tie.
Why do I have to wear these stupid things?
An image of Leila secured to my bed attached by my tie skittered across my brain, and I stifled a groan. That damn
Fifty Shades of Grey
book, I didn’t even have to read it for the damn idea to infiltrate my subconscious via pop culture. In other words, that shit was everywhere.

“A coping mechanism?”

Leila’s voice snapped me back to the present. I shifted uncomfortably, pretty sure all the blood in my body was racing towards my cock.
What is it about her exactly?
I just couldn’t figure it out. Sure, she was attractive, and sure she was an enigma that I itched to unravel, but there was something else…something more. Scholars say there are just some people that are charismatic—that their mere presence enthralls and enraptures. That these people seem to have some kind of power over others. There was a psychology behind it, a combination of a million different things done both subconsciously and consciously by these people… they were just master manipulators, but no matter what I knew intellectually, my body still responded. I wanted Leila, and beyond that, I wanted to help her. I knew who she was, what she did, and none of it seemed to matter. I was drawn to her beyond reason.

“Hello? Doc? Anyone home?”

I tipped back in my chair, startled at how close Leila was. I’d obviously zoned out.
Not good
. I had to stay on my toes with her at all times if I wanted to get out alive. “Back up, Leila.” I didn’t need another unscheduled trip to Ella’s office to erase anything today.

“You seem so angry, Doc. I can’t decide if I like it or not.” She perched on the edge of my desk, smiling down at me. “Are you pissed because of Matt? Does it bother you that he’s been fucking me and you want to but know you shouldn’t?”

“I don’t want to fuck you, Leila.”

“Liar.” She laughed.

“I’m your—”

“You can have me. And all to yourself if you want.” She leaned back on her elbows, head tipped back. “I’m bored with Matt anyways. I thought he’d be a good person to have in my corner but…” Her voice trailed off as she turned to look at me. “I think you might be a better person to have in my corner.” She pursed her lips. “Plus, you’re so much sexier. All that raw anger and passion.” Her cheeks flushed. “Yeah, I bet I wouldn’t get bored with you.”

I stifled another groan. I was playing with fire, and it had a name…Leila. No matter how much experience I had dealing with people like her—
well shit
—that was the problem. I’d never dealt with anyone remotely like her before. “Yesterday isn’t what you thought, Leila. I wanted to help you. I got caught up in the moment. It won’t happen again. I still want to help you though, but you have to stop with the games. Just talk to me, okay? Please.”

Her eyes narrowed and her face pinched. “I refuse to plead insanity. I’m not. It would be—”

“Maybe I’m in your life for a reason too, Leila. Let me help you.”

Leila

“I’m your reason, your season and a lifetime, Leila baby. I’m your everything. You’d be absolutely nowhere without me.”

“Reason this.” I raised the handgun up, pointing it at Theo’s head.

He laughed as he stepped closer, staring down the barrel. “You’re not gonna shoot me, Leila.”

“Wanna bet?”

I blinked my surroundings back into focus. It seemed as if Theo, although dead, continued to haunt me. It was true, without him, I’d probably be off still staring at my computer, resigned to my pitiful life of not doing anything. Instead, I was about to face the death penalty. He’d taught me that it was better to die for something noble than to live for nothing. He’d been a reason, and maybe even a season. Of course, I’d been the one to end his lifetime. Putting Jonah in the same category as Theo seemed wrong somehow. The two men couldn’t be more different.

“You know, I really don’t think there’s a point to these sessions anymore. Maybe it’s time to just face the music, so to speak. Maybe it’s time for my lifetime to come to an end.” A world-weary tiredness seeped through me, dragging me down, making it feel as if it was a labor just to pull oxygen into my lungs. I was alone—completely and utterly alone. The relationship I’d had with Theo was tumultuous, but he’d known me. All of me. I could fuck Matt, seduce Jonah…make them all love me. Or rather, make them love the image of me. None of them knew the real me. I didn’t want to die, but the effort living had become was almost too much, even for me.

I flicked my gaze up to take in Jonah’s face. His dark eyes were angry as they stared at me, a look of determination etched into the hard lines of his face. “I’m going to help you, Leila. It’s obvious you need it.”

“You can’t help those who don’t want to be helped, Doc. And I don’t.”

He sighed heavily, rising from his chair to approach me like I was a skittish wild animal. He paused about a foot in front of me, his eyes searching my face. “I don’t want you to die. I want to help you. Please let me.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to help me? Or does he want to help himself to me?” I nodded in the general vicinity of his crotch, chortling.

“There’s a reason why you use sex the way you do, Leila. I can help you figure everything out. I’m really good at my job, if you just let me do it.”

“I use sex because I’m horny, Doc. And I enjoy it. I don’t just fuck around with any man. The number of men I’ve been with can be counted on one hand. I know it doesn’t seem that way because of Matt, but…” She snorted. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. I really would have gone insane if I didn’t have him.”

I watched as Jonah ground his teeth together and settled back in his chair. “I just—I just don’t know what to do with you anymore,” he muttered, causing me to grin. Indecision I could work with, it made people easier to control.

“I have a few ideas.” And my mood was up again. The longer I was forced to stay in this environment, the closer I really did come to losing it. At least Matt had moved the Banana Lady to a different room. My new neighbor was blissfully silent.

“You have a way of getting things off track. Tell me about Theo, more than you think he was a season. Why did you kill him? You said—what was it? That you loved yourself more than him? Please expound upon that.”

I sighed. He was like a bulldog. Just when I thought I had him where I wanted, I realized he was still latched onto doing his damn job. He’d kissed me. He’d hidden the evidence. He was jealous of Matt. I thought I had him. But it was obvious I’d jumped the gun with that assumption. “He was a reason, and then he forced my hand. I loved him, but I loved myself more. It came down to either him or me…”

A year earlier~

“It almost doesn’t look real.”

“But it is. It is, baby.”

Theo pulled me against him, his muscular chest pressing into my back. His feverous lips blazed a trail down my neck causing me to shudder, but not in pleasure. There was a dead man on the floor in front of us, and I wasn’t exactly feeling frisky because of it. “No, stop. I—I can’t do this here.” I struggled to pull out of his grip, but it only tightened in response.

“Ignore it. Ignore all of it. You need to learn to compartmentalize. Don’t allow yourself to feel anything for that man. He’s dead—gone. We did the world a favor by offing him. I think we should celebrate.”

My eyes were riveted on the gore in front of me. It really didn’t look real, like the body was a part of a movie set or a haunted house, not flesh, blood and bone. I let my eyes slide shut as Theo’s fingers dipped under the waistband of my pants. I let my head drop back against his shoulder, reveling in his touch. It was just us. I’d only let myself feel Theo in that moment, nothing else.

Present~

I shuddered as I tried to lock the box on my memories of Theo. “I don’t want to talk about Theo anymore, Doc. I told you, I was for shit at vigilante justice. He tried to teach me—but I just didn’t have the stomach for it.”

I lifted my gaze to meet Jonah’s, his face stoic. “Did he do that often? Use sex to replace your negative associations with positive ones?”

“Yes. But don’t think I didn’t know what he was trying to do. It was kind of obvious.”

“And you still let him?”

“I didn’t—I didn’t really have a choice.” I knew how my and Theo’s relationship must look to someone on the outside. The thing was—Theo meant well. He was only trying to give me what I thought I wanted. His methods were just less than stellar. In the end, he still helped me find my way, even if it had resulted in his death.

“You always have a choice, Leila.”

We stared at each other for a few moments before Jonah cleared his throat. “So how did you make the jump from a wanna-be vigilante to…a villainess? For lack of a better term.”

Him calling me a villainess made me grin. I suddenly felt like a comic book character. “As I’ve said, I didn’t have the stomach for the vigilante stuff. It was too hands on, and I’m a shitty shot.”

“Okaaaay…” he drawled.

“That’s how I finally figured out I was a bad guy, you know. Because I was a shitty shot.” I giggled at the blank look on Jonah’s face. “You know…all bad guys in movies always seem to have the crappiest aim. I used to joke and say that’s how someone can test if they’re a good or a bad guy. Go to target practice. If you can’t hit shit…boom…bad guy.”

“This is real life, Leila.”

“I’m well aware.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Are you?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, I see. Now you’re going to try and label me delusional. You going to claim I don’t know the difference between fantasy and reality? It’s not a bad plan, especially with me being an aspiring author and all. In the end it won’t work though.”