She picks at a hangnail, her mouth turned down into a frown. “I’d already seen you in the tabloids by then, of course, and I was so pissed at him. Another girl in his bed, I’d thought. Another girl, but the one he really wanted was me. Then he told me about the cutting, and that’s when I realized the truth. This time he had a reason for fucking some woman.” She looks straight at me, her eyes bright. “He was holding you up as an example for me. He thinks I’m all scarred because of what my daddy did, but he’s wrong. I know how to turn it around.” She shrugs. “But that’s all you are to him, you know. Just a stone on the path of my journey. An object lesson for me to follow so that I can get my shit together and be with him. He loves me. He has always loved me. And I was there first. So now you need to move out of the way.”
Move? Her words throw me, and I realize with a start that she isn’t here to hurt me. No, she’s playing a much different game.
“You want me to break up with Damien.” I say the words levelly, but inside I’m cheering. I can work with that. I can pretend to agree. I can get out of here. Away from her and to Stark Tower. He’ll be back from Chicago soon, and he’ll know what to do. How to handle her.
“No,” she says. “You want to break up with Damien. Because you know that if you don’t, what I’ll release to the press will destroy him. And isn’t that what love is all about, Nikki? Isn’t it about protecting the ones you love? Just like the way Damien protected me from my father.”
The cold that had begun to recede presses against me again. “You wouldn’t release those photos.”
She shrugs. “Why not? It’s not like anyone can tell it’s me. Only Damien is identifiable.”
“Why not?” I repeat. “Because you’re sitting here telling me you love him. But that would absolutely destroy him.”
She shakes her head. “You’re destroying him. You’re keeping him from me. If you don’t let go, I don’t have a choice. How can you not see that?”
She takes a deep breath, then says brightly, “Well, I guess that about wraps things up here.” She stands, then nods at the desk and the photos scattered across it. “You can keep those. Like a souvenir. And, oh, I forgot about this.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small leather case. “I get that this situation is hard on you, I really do. So I thought this might help.” She puts the case on the corner of my desk, then hikes the purse back up on her shoulder. “And don’t even think about calling your security guy. Those friends I mentioned? I told them to release the photos to the press if I didn’t show up or if I got arrested or any silly shit like that.” Once again, she flashes that smile. “Nothing personal. I just like to be thorough.”
And then she’s sweeping out the door, leaving me frozen behind my office desk staring down at an array of photographs that have the power to destroy the man that I love.
I am frozen, I think. That’s why I can’t move. Why I am so cold, so goddamn cold.
But I don’t want to move. I want to sit here forever. I don’t want to see the world outside my office door. It is destroyed. A wasteland. Harsh and desolate.
How could it be anything else now that the bubble has finally shattered and the nightmares have swooped in?
I do not want to see, and yet I cannot help but glance down at the photo on top of the pile. Damien. His beautiful face distorted by a grimace that could either be pain or pleasure. The girl, legs wide, head back, back arched in a mockery of passion. She is unidentifiable, but I do not doubt that she is Sofia.
He’s mine. He killed for me. He’s mine.
With a violence that surprises me, I lurch to my feet, at the same time sweeping my arm out wide, sending the photos, the papers, the pens on the desk flying across the room. All that remains is the small case in the corner, the leather gleaming in the rays of afternoon light seeping in from the window. Reflections from passing cars make the light shimmer so that it blinks out a pattern on the innocuous case. I stare, mesmerized, as if those flashes of light are a message. As if they are calling me, urging me close, trying to lock me inside this new hell into which I have tumbled.
I hear a strange noise as I snatch the case, then realize it is my own whimper. Part of me doesn’t want to know, but the other part is too curious to be contained. I unzip it—then stare in horror at the gleaming set of antique scalpels.
A wave of thankfulness so potent that it almost knocks me over sweeps over me. Yes, I think. Thank God, yes.
But then sanity returns and I back away as if in horror. Only when I reach the wall, do I realize that the case is still in my hand.
Do it.
I tighten my grip and stare down at the blades.
I need to do this. I need it.
Slowly, as if sleepwalking, I return to my chair. I sit. I spread my legs. I yank up my skirt.
And then I press the tip of one shining, beautiful blade to my thigh. Immediately, I draw in a sharp thread of air as a bead of blood oozes from beneath the point of the blade. I shiver, mesmerized. I had not yet meant to cut, but the blade is so sharp, so perfect, that just that simple contact was enough to draw blood. And what now? A quick flick of my wrist? A slow, deliberate cut? Both are so sweetly tempting. Both would ease the maelstrom of ice and fear burning inside me.
Do it.
Do it, do it, do it.
I press down harder, feel the sting of cold steel against warm flesh. I moan from the ecstasy—and then I hurl the scalpel across the room, my cry of “No” echoing in the small space. The scalpel slams against the far wall, then drops to the floor with an unsatisfying metallic ping. I snatch up the case and hurl it, too, then leap to my feet and kick the chair, rip out a drawer, and slam my fist into the wall. I want to destroy this place, me, everything. I want to get lost in chaos.
I want the pain.
I want a way out.
I want Damien. Oh, dear God, I want Damien.
And then I collapse onto the floor, curl up in a ball, and cry.
Because Edward is not back from Malibu when I emerge from my office, I call a taxi, then step out into the bright sunshine, surprised to find that the earth is still rotating and that people are still going about their daily lives. Don’t they understand that the wheels have stopped turning?
I feel as though I am sleepwalking, and when I arrive at Stark Tower, I come in through the street level doors and move in a haze through the ornate lobby toward the security desk. I drift past the guards, and hear Joe call after me, “Ms. Fairchild, are you okay? You look a little under the weather.”