The Private Serials Box Set(34)

"Fine." I said, walking back to the chair, clutching the picture. "But I  want all the photos you have, and anything else incriminating."

"I don't want to look at your filth, Lena. You can have it all." He  pushed the paper toward me again, along with the pen. I picked the pen  up in my hand and took in a deep breath. This was exactly the ending I  was trying to avoid; the ending I didn't think I deserved. The only  comfort in all of this was knowing even though I'd lost a lot, I still  had Preston.

I exhaled, and my hand swiped the pen along the line, and I signed the  name I hated. Lena Bellows. I didn't want to be her anymore. The very  first chance I got I would change my name. I didn't want to be connected  to Derrek in any way.

As soon as I signed the paper, he slid another one my way, which he had  signed, and I signed that one, then folded it up and squeezed it tightly  in my hands.

"Here," Derrek said as he slid an SD card across the desk. "All the  pictures are on that card. There was no other evidence, no videos or  anything like that." Derrek smirked, placing his steepled fingers over  his lips. "Truly, Lena, if you'd been even one tenth of the whore with  me as you were with him, this might have played out differently. These  pictures showed me a wanton woman I've never met."

"Perhaps, if you were one tenth of the man Preston is, I would have been more receptive," I said snidely.

"Oh, right!" he said, snapping his fingers, as if he'd just remembered  something important. "That's the other piece of this puzzle."

"What are you talking about?" I was tired of listening to his voice and just wanted to leave and have this be over with.

"The other part  –  even more evidence you're a stupid whore." Derrek  laughed out loud, his head falling back against his chair. "I'm sorry,"  he said between chuckles. "It's just too good."

"Just spit it out, Derrek."

"Preston, your lover, the man you've given everything up for, the man  who you think you're going to spend the rest of your life with?" Slowly,  an evil and wicked smirk grew on his lips and his eyes began to sparkle  with excitement. "He works for me."

His words felt like a wrecking ball slamming into me. My breath stopped,  my heart exploded, my veins ran dry because there was nothing pulsing  through me except pain. Derrek was looking at me as if he'd just won the  most important game he'd ever played.

"What?" I rasped, impressed I'd managed to say anything at all.

"I've had your phone bugged for years, darling. I was just waiting for  the moment when you'd finally decided you'd had enough. When you called  that firm for a consultation with a private investigator, I knew about  it before you'd even told them your name." He laughed again and my mouth  closed, then opened again, like a guppy. I felt tears welling in my  eyes, my throat stinging with the need to cry, my body aching for the  release I knew sobbing would bring. "I called the firm right back and  told them their services wouldn't be needed, and I sent Preston in with  one goal: to seduce you."

"No," I breathed.

"Yes, dear, and you took the bait just as I knew you would. You lasted, what? A week? You dug your own grave here, Lena."

"I don't believe you."

"Think about it," he said, suddenly sounding angry. "In the beginning,  that first week, what did Preston really do for you? Nothing. He brought  you along for a stakeout, for Christ's sake! What kind of private  investigator would do that? He flirted with you, was inappropriate, and  pursued you. He was on my payroll, doing a job for me."

My mind went back to that first week with Preston, thought about all our  encounters, and the pieces started to fall into place: him telling me  not to call him at the agency, the fact he knew my last name before I'd  ever given it to him, he knew where I lived. He tried to convince me it  was because he was a P.I., but really it was because he worked for  Derrek, knew everything about me already, and had been fooling me from  the beginning.

I felt the bile in my stomach start to make its way upward and I stood,  desperate to make it out of that house, frantically trying to escape  what seemed to be the inescapable. I'd given myself to a man who was  working against me from the beginning. I'd fallen in love with an  imposter and ruined my chances at making something for myself.

I ran for the door, grabbing my purse and jacket as I left, ambling out  of the house on a sob. I couldn't see for the tears streaming down my  face, couldn't hear for the pulse thundering in my ears, and I had no  idea what happened when I ran into something hard. It gripped me, and  wrapped its arms around me, and it smelled familiar.

Preston.

Once my mind registered who was holding me, I wrenched myself from his  arms and pushed him away with more force than I'd ever used on anyone.

"No!" I screamed. I sounded, even to my own ears, like pain. There was  no other word. I was the embodiment of pain. "Don't you touch me!"

"Lena, sweetheart," he started.

"Fuck you! You don't get to call me that!"

"Please, just listen to me."

"I'm done letting men ruin my life. Done letting men control me. I  trusted you, that's the one thing you ever insisted on and I did it. I  did exactly what you wanted. I trusted you and you fucked me over.  Fucked me in so many ways, I can't even begin to list them all."

"No," he said, taking a step toward me. I stepped away from him and glared, making it clear he wasn't to come near me again.

"Answer one question, Preston. Just one. Do you work for him? Were you  hired to seduce me? To trap me in exactly the future I was trying to  escape?"

"Lena … "

"ANSWER ME!"

He sighed and I saw all the conviction leave his body. His shoulders  slumped, his eyes lost their light, and he ran a hand through his hair. I  knew his answer before the words even left his mouth. "Yes."

My hand shot out, faster than I'd ever moved before, and the crack my  palm made against his face as I slapped him was the most satisfying  sound I'd ever heard. His face slammed to the side with the impact of my  hand and then I heard my own sob ring out.

"Fuck you, Preston. You're worse than he is."

I dug in my purse for my keys, got in my car, and drove away from two  men who both had a hand in ruining my life. I had no idea where I was  going, but I knew there was nothing left for me there.





END OF PART TWO





Part Three





Private

Getaway





Chapter One

An incessant buzzing, accompanied by an irritating beeping, pulled me  out of a dead sleep, which had only been brought on by vodka and  chocolate. I groaned, but rolled over slowly, blindly reaching around  for my phone. When my fingers finally found it, I peeped one eye open,  painfully, but all I could see was the dark veil created by my raven  hair. I used my hand to sweep it aside and managed to swipe my finger  over the screen of my phone, bringing it to life.

I winced from the bright light, but managed to silence the alarm that  was blaring throughout the room. I tossed the phone onto the nightstand  and rolled back over, ignoring the aching in my muscles and the  jackhammer in my head.

That was the fourth morning my alarm had woken me up. It was a residual  alarm left over from my previous life. It used to be the alarm that  would remind me every morning to take my birth control pill. It was now  the alarm that reminded me to not drown in my current pool of self-pity  and hatred. I didn't have any birth control pills to take. I, in fact,  didn't have anything with me aside from the clothes on the floor I'd  been wearing when I fled from my life, the groceries I'd thought to buy  before I'd checked into this motel, and my purse.

I was a mess. I'd been in this bed for the majority of the last four  days and I felt it. Up until now, I'd not felt the need or want to  change my situation. I'd wanted to stay in bed forever, sleep as long as  the vodka would let me, and try desperately not to deal with the  catastrophe I'd left behind. But I hadn't left it behind; it seemed to  have followed me here and was now seeping back in. Reality.         

     



 

Reality was a bitch.

I groaned again as I moved off the bed, flinging the scratchy comforter  off my body, and swinging my legs over the edge of the mattress.

"Holy fucking crap," I whispered to nobody but myself. I rubbed a hand  over my face, my nose crinkling up at the gross condition of my skin. I  needed a shower. More than I needed anything ever, I needed a shower.

I ambled through the small motel room and found the bathroom. Switching  the faucet on, I waited for the water to heat. When it was as hot as I  could stand, I pulled the stopper up and watched the water fall like  rain.

I climbed in, letting the harsh, hot water pelt me, stinging all the way  down to my feet. I went about the business of washing the grime from my  body. The tiny bottles I'd had the thought to buy at the grocery store  weren't enough to last very long, but it was enough for now. As I washed  my body, I held my cries in. I'd managed not to cry up until now, and I  didn't intend to ever cry over Derrek or Preston. But I couldn't stop  the tears that penetrated. They were tricky and sneaky, and had found  ways to fall from my eyes multiple times since I'd walked out on Derrek,  but I wasn't crying. Not ever.