Chapter 13

Thirteen

Cold panic crashes against me, and I yank my legs up as I scramble backward until I'm scrunched against the headboard. But he's still there, his lips glistening in some sick perversion of satisfaction, and all I can do is scream and scream and scream until Rory disappears.

Until the hotel room disappears.

Until the entire world seems to disappear around me, shifting and changing until Rory is only a shadow haunting me from the grave.

But I don't stop. I keep screaming until my throat aches, until my head feels like it will explode.

Panic rises like bile. I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to make it stop!

Bree! Bree!

I feel hands on my shoulders shaking me. Another shake, then another.

Bree! Bree! Bree!

Nothing gets through until I feel a sharp sting across my cheek. Then I fall back, my skull slamming against the headboard. I cry out, then look around, trying to make sense of what's happening.

Aria is right there. Sitting close, but not touching me. "You're okay," she says. "It's me. It's Aria. You had a bad dream."

And just like that, I'm in my bed. My familiar, comfortable bed. I'm in Burbank, not an airport hotel. The storm and the airport hotel happened four months ago.

I never went to Ash's room. I'd chickened out, and I didn't see him again after he gave me his key. Not until he showed up beside my car window yesterday.

And Rory…I shudder as I look down at the tangle of sheets that have trapped me. Rory was—and is—long dead.

"It was him," I tell Aria, my voice gasping. "It was Rory. It started out as Ash, but then it was Rory."

"Shh. Hush. It's okay. It was just a bad dream."

I want to argue. To say it was more than a dream. It was need and want and passion.

And, oh, how I'd liked it. I'd wanted it. I'd so desperately wanted it.

I want to say all that, but I'm ashamed. Because it was Rory touching me. Rory turning me on. It was him, not Ash. Not the man I'd believed was touching me.

"Hey, hey. It's okay," Aria continues as I try to breathe through my gasping sobs. "It's just a dream."

Except it's not just a dream, and I can't tell her the truth. It was Rory. My ex. My kidnapper. It was him.

And I liked it.

Worse, it's not the first time.

After the kidnapping, my mind had been filled with nightmares of Rory touching me. So many nightmares that I'd finally worked up the courage to tell my therapist. Teresa had told me it was normal. That it was my mind working through fear and grief. My fear of getting close to someone warring with my desire for physical comfort.

Maybe she's right. Maybe it is normal. But now I can't help but wonder if my subconscious equates Rory with Ash. If deep down I know that Ash is just as dangerous as Rory, and by asking for his help, I'm walking straight into the lion's den.

Beside me, Aria strokes my hair the way our moms used to. "Rory is dead. He's not here. He'll never, ever hurt you again."

I take a deep breath, then another. "Ash," I finally manage to say. "He was Ash. And then he turned into Rory."

"You were dreaming about Ash?"

I nod, then scrub my hands over my face. "I'll be right back."

She tugs on my fingers, keeping me from walking away after I've swung off the bed. "Where are you going?"

"To the bathroom. I want to splash some water on my face."

I can tell she doesn't want to leave me alone even for that, but finally she nods. "I'll make you some cocoa," she says. "Meet me in the kitchen?" She looks me up and down as if she's afraid I'm going to flush myself down the toilet to escape. But I'm back now. I'm myself again. At least, I think I am.

"Really. I'm fine. Just a little shaken. I'll be okay."

She hesitates a moment longer, then releases my hand. She follows me to the bathroom, and I think I'm going to have to push her away to keep her from coming in. But when I step over the threshold, she hesitates only a moment before continuing to the kitchen.

I sigh, then close the door. I stare at myself in the mirror, wondering who I am. It's not the first time I've wondered that since the kidnapping. I don't know why, but I haven't quite felt like me since it happened. Teresa said it was because I'd been stripped of my autonomy. That I didn't have any will of my own, and even though it wasn't a long kidnapping, it still messed with my head.

She prescribed time and therapy, and the truth is that I am better. Not perfect, but better. I know my triggers. I understand what to avoid.

I should have avoided Ash.

Of course, the fact that some maniac is harassing me about the kidnapping and gaslighting me with video from those horrible days, could have something to do with it. But that's not what I want to think about, even though I know that I should.

I look at my reflection one more time. "It's not going away," I tell myself. "You know that. You have to think about it. You have to do something about it. And you need to ask Ash for the money."

That's the kicker, isn't it? That the only person who can help me is a man I don't really know. A man I'm wildly attracted to. A man I stood up. A man who just today told me flat out that he wants me even though for months I'd been sure that he hated me.

And why wouldn't he after the way I ghosted him at the hotel?

Except none of that matters because he's also a man who will give me the money. I'm certain of that. But I'm equally certain that he'll want something in return. And whatever it is, I'll have no choice but to agree.

Since that's not something I want to think about right now, I splash water on my face, ignore the fact that I've drenched the front of my sleep shirt, then pad barefoot to the kitchen where Aria's made cocoa for both of us.

She's perched on one of the stools that sit at our pass-through bar. Or what will be a bar after I finish studying YouTube videos to figure out how to finalize the wooden frame of this project that was abandoned by the previous owners. After that I'm going to have to figure out how to tile the whole thing.

Right now, that's really not high on my to-do list.

Aria takes another bite of her bagel as I take my first life-giving sip of cocoa, then put a bagel in the toaster for myself. As the bagel heats, I gulp down a bit more of the warm treat, then top off my mug with what's left in the saucepan.

Aria watches me silently through the ritual. She knows me well enough to wait until I've had a few sips before engaging in any social niceties.

"You're talking to Ash today?" she asks as I rummage in the fridge for the cream cheese. "Also, I had the last of it."

I poke my head out. "Seriously?"

"There was barely a tablespoon left. I'll make a grocery run later. Have butter or jam and don't change the subject."

"Fine." I pull out the tub of margarine and a jar of strawberry jam.

"Bree…"

"He's crashing my interview. Of course, I'm talking to him."

She cocks her head. "I mean about the money."

"I know what you mean."

She looks at me.

I don't answer.

"Fine. Whatever. But if you don't ask him, you better have a Plan B in place. Can you talk to your parents?"

I gape at her, my bagel only an inch from my mouth. "Are you nuts? You know they don't have that kind of cash."

"They could get it."

I grimace. She's right. My parents aren't cash-rich, but they do have a ton of equity in a very snazzy Manhattan brownstone which has been updated to the hilt. It's worth a fortune… but it's also my parents' only asset. No way am I asking them to take out a loan. They'd do it—they'd justify it by saying that one day it will be mine—but I can't ask.

"I'm not going to ask them," I say. "Even if I wanted to let them know about all this shit, you know I can't ask them. They need that money."

"Hopefully not," she says, her voice gentle.

I stare into my mug and shrug. My dad's been showing signs of Alzheimer's. It's not bad yet, and the doctors are optimistic. But if he needs special care, that equity is what will pay for it. And even if it weren't a health issue, I want my parents to be comfortable in their old age. And that equity is the bulk of their retirement.

That's not all of it, though. As important as it is to me that my parents are comfortable as they grow older, it's even more important to me that they never learn the truth. They know I was kidnapped. Hell, the whole world knows that, though it's the Stark name that really gets the attention, leaving me—thankfully—in semi-anonymity.

But they don't know about the rest of it. The touching. The drugging. The things on that tape. Things I've been dreaming. The dreams that I now think are memories.

"You should talk to them," Aria says when I remind her of that. "They love you. They won't judge you. And you quit talking to Teresa. You have to talk to someone."

"I talk to you," I say, ignoring the elephant in the room. The one that's painted with Aria's mantra that I should go back to weekly therapy. But I don't want to. Teresa's on my speed dial for emergencies only now, and she'd agreed that if I was comfortable with that, it was a good step.

My bestie isn't so sure.

"Talking to me is great," Aria says. "You know I'll always be here for you. But I'm not a shrink."

"Neither are my parents. And I don't want to tell them. It was hard enough telling you. And there is no way on earth I would ever ask them for money without giving them a reason."

"Say you're starting a business."

"Dammit, Aria!"

"Fine. Sorry. I get it." She puts her mug down and sighs. "They probably couldn't help, anyway. I mean, the money's in the real estate, not a safe. They'd have to get an equity loan, and that takes time."

"Yes," I say, relieved she's taking my parents out of the equation.

"But that leaves you with only one option."

Ash.

Neither of us say his name, but I can see it hanging mid-air between us in a crazy neon font, like the focal point of some thirty-second ad spot for a really crappy new soft drink.

I sigh. "I'll ask him for the money," I tell her. "Just as soon as I figure out how I'm going to bring it up."

I look up from my bagel to see her frowning. "Oh, what now? You're the one who just said he's the only option."

"I didn't actually say?—"

"And the clock starts running in less than an hour," I add, cold fear rushing through me with that pronouncement. "Noon, remember?"

"Of course, I remember," she says, as I look pointedly at the clock mounted on the wall in the kitchen. Eleven-fifteen.

Seventy-two hours and forty-five minutes.

That's all the time I have to gather three million dollars.

I look to Aria with panic. "What am I going to do if he says no? I can't raise three mil by myself. It's impossible. It's?—"

"He won't say no." Her words are firm. As if she's giving an order to the world.

It's ridiculous— Aria has no more insight or power than I have—but her certainty calms me.

"You'll talk to him after the interview," she says firmly. "You'll commiserate about what a bitch Maggie is, and you'll ask him for this one teensy favor. Then it's like we already said—if he's innocent, he'll help you out because that's who he is. If he's guilty, he'll help to hide his guilt and keep you close so he can watch you squirm." She shrugs. "Either way, you'll have the money."

Somehow, that doesn't make me feel better.