Under My Skin (Stark International Trilogy 3)

“You can’t keep ignoring me.”

Yes. I can. But I can’t manage the words. Not then. Not with the way my throat is closing up and the room is turning gray and the floor is starting to angle sideways, as if to let those horrible memories roll more easily toward me.

“We have to talk, Sylvia. We have to.” His voice sounds miles away, as if it is just a noise and has nothing to do with me. And I don’t want to hear it anymore.

I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

I’m not sure if I’m actually speaking those words or if I’m just screaming them in my head. Somehow, though, I manage to jam my finger hard against the proper button to end the call before the phone tumbles from my hand. My knees give out, and suddenly I’m on the ground, my legs pulled right up against my chest. I close my eyes and squeeze them tight and rock back and forth as I fight the panic and the memories that are rising fast to consume me.

I hate this—the terror. This sense of being lost. Of being out of control.

Of being thrust back into pain and memories without any warning at all.

If I’d known it was him, I could have prepared. Could have steeled myself.

Could you? Would you? Or would you have just hid from his words? From his voice?

My chest is tight with the weight of the truth. Because I would have hid. If I had my way, I’d hide from my father for the rest of eternity.

I take deep breaths and I tell myself to get a grip. He’s gone. It’s over. And I can handle this.

More than that, I have to handle this.

It hasn’t yet been a week since Jackson told my father what Robert Cabot Reed did to me. Not that my dad didn’t already have some idea. He was the one who’d set me up with Reed as a teen, after all. Who’d accepted exorbitant amounts of money from Reed in exchange for my services, supposedly as a model, but that damn sure wasn’t the extent of it.

And it was my father who’d ignored my pleas to stop the photo sessions.

So, yeah, my dad knew what went on in Reed’s studio, but he’d never really faced it. Not until Jackson forced him to not only acknowledge the past, but to look at the present. A present in which Reed was blackmailing me, threatening to release those horrible, ugly, intimate photos to the press if I didn’t convince Jackson to quit blocking his movie.

Since that night, my father has repeatedly called me, and I’ve repeatedly ignored him. And that’s not going to stop now. As far as I’m concerned, that man stopped being my father when he drove me to Reed’s studio the first time. And if he’s calling to apologize, I really don’t give a damn. And if he’s calling to ask for forgiveness, that’s not something I’m willing to grant.

I shake out my arms, then slap my cheeks lightly as if I’m a trauma victim who needs to be revived. Because when you get right down to it, that’s exactly what I am.

I have to get my shit together, because I cannot, cannot, cannot let Jackson see me like this. Not because I’m afraid that he won’t comfort me, but because I am certain that he will. He might be pushing me away from his problems and fears, but he won’t ignore mine. On the contrary, my pain would slide in and mingle with his own, and I can’t put this on him. Not now. Not today.

But even though I know that keeping silent about this call is absolutely the right decision, I can’t help but feel as if my silence is the first step on a dark path leading me away from Jackson. And if I don’t fight to keep him by my side, I’m going to lose him to the shadows.

two

“Ms. Brooks?”

Grayson’s voice breaks through the cotton that seems to fill my head and I sit bolt upright, my heart pounding in my chest as panic crashes over me. “What?” I demand. “Are we okay? Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be flying this thing?”

I don’t like air travel—it makes me queasy and nervous and unsettled. About the only thing I do like, in fact, is the moment after landing when I realize that I’ve miraculously survived being hurtled through the air in a giant steel canister. So when Grayson told us that there were storms over New Mexico and Arizona, I’d succumbed to pressure from him and Jackson and taken a couple of motion sickness pills. Normally, that would just make me a little bit sleepy. But at lunch Stella had brought out a pitcher of sangria, and since I was already hot and sweaty from playing in the yard with Jackson and Ronnie, I’d gulped down more than I should have.

Which meant that I was already drowsy when we’d climbed on board. Once the pills hit my system, I was a goner. And being startled awake only fed my phobia.

“It’s okay. Everything is fine.” Jackson’s voice is soft and soothing, and I force myself to relax. We’re in the jet, and I’d been sound asleep. Now Jackson eases me against him, and I gratefully comply, thinking that maybe air travel isn’t such a bad thing if it means that Jackson will hold me close and safe, his arm tight around my shoulders.