20
Summer
The cool morning breeze graces my skin as we drive down the road in Eric’s midnight black Ferrari.
Eric keeps his gaze ahead of us and trained on the road. I can tell something’s going on with him. He had a faraway look in his eyes this morning when I woke up and ventured into the living room.
Last night was also the first I’d slept in my bed since… well, I’m inclined to say since we started sleeping together, but his mood today suggests he might be done with me.
I didn’t see him again yesterday and when we saw each other this morning he just told me to get ready because he was taking me to Scarlett’s. That was it. It was like I was speaking to a different person. Not the man who told me he wanted me or called me his.
Yesterday morning, he made my head spin when he said he wouldn’t leave me alone until he was done with me. He’d said it with that same possessive tone he spoke with when he told me he kept the pictures of me. Today, however, we could be business colleagues en route to work. So I don’t know if this is what him being done with me looks and feels like.
Why the hell do I even care? If he is done with me, that should be a good thing. Right?
It would mean we’d go back to something akin to how we were on day one, except he wouldn’t have that fascination with me. It would be healthier for my mind.
It’s just he’s the only guy who’s managed to crack through my ice queen exterior and cause some reaction in me. In my fucked-up mind something that resembled life unlocked when he is with me. It first happened when I witnessed that spark of desire in his eyes as he told me I didn’t belong to Robert anymore.
He wouldn’t have liked to know how free I felt in that moment, or how his touch made me feel alive.
I fight so hard to stay alive, but I never feel alive. Not in my dreams and while I’m wide awake.
He’s the only man who looks at me like I’m a person and not a thing and when he looks at me I didn’t feel like the loser I am or the broken, damaged woman who seemed to destroy everything she touches.
Maybe that was all in my imagination and I saw what I wanted to see, and believed what I wanted to believe. I’m in enough trouble already and he is trouble. A man like Eric Markov represents danger in every sense of the word. Thinking of him in any way except for what we are and aren’t could be leaning toward being the sadist again because any road I take with this man will lead to more pain.
So maybe it’s better this way.
Even if I am unclear on what’s going on with Eric, secretly, I’m glad he came with me and didn’t send me with his guards.
It also feels good to be outside the apartment, and out in the world. Yesterday it felt like he might have been concerned about how I’d feel being in Scarlett’s house, but maybe I imagined that too.
What I wish more than anything is that the circumstances were different. Or, better yet, I wish I could take this moment back to a year ago when I was in L.A. visiting Scarlett.
A chill runs down my spine when we turn on to the road leading to Scarlett’s house and I hold my breath to try and keep in the anxiety forcing to push through.
I release the breath I’m holding as we pull up outside her contemporary two-story home in Redondo Beach, but I still feel like a noose is tightening around my throat and my heart aches all over again.
I stare at the house with its burgundy accents on the edge of the roof, highlighting the cream of the rest of the house and I expect her to push open the front door and come running out to greet me.
All I’m met with is emptiness, reminding me she will never do that again.
When I get out of the car I notice a black Sedan parked at the top of the other side of the road. Since I always take note of things like that I look and wonder who’s inside the car.
“Those are my men,” Eric informs me.
I glance at him and he quirks a brow.
“They’re watching the place?” I ask.
“Yes. Can’t be too careful.”
“No, I guess not.”
He walks on ahead and I follow.
I know where Scarlett keeps the spare key so I go straight to the flower pot on the side of the porch with the mini roses that look like their wilting away. I’ll water them and the flowers in her garden before I leave. Scarlett loved flowers. I can’t let her flowers die too.