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"Reality is not fantasy," Chloe said. "Except for the sadist."
"Mmm," I said, and then I started talking faster, sitting up and telling her about Mark and my life in Seattle and the panicky anxiety that drove me undercover more often than I needed to go, the fear that I'd lose the ability for that specific and dangerous kind of role-playing. I told her about Jesse, without names or details, just about the way he fucked. And I told her about Mark and about handcuffs and Mark's disdain and Jesse's violence and my own confusion. And somehow or other we ended up laughing about something to do with handcuffs that by the end of the laughing jag I couldn't quite remember but it didn't matter because my ribs and stomach muscles hurt in a delightful way.
When we stopped laughing, Chloe was silent for a beat before she said, "Everybody has something in their past or their present, right?"
"I suppose," I said. "What about you?"
But she was heading somewhere with the topic and she said, "In a little while," to that and then riveted me with her next words.
"Cole's behavior, his demands and his training, his requirements and his rules. They may seem random. But I think the basis of all of them, other than the pleasure and pain of answering his needs and the ones he knows about or guesses are yours, are aimed at keeping you safe. He has Ariel – you know about her?"
I nodded.
"And you know he's struggling with what to do about Kie. Even if she is a bitch."
"Boy, howdy."
She laughed softly, not looking at me, fanning herself a little. We needed to go inside.
"But so much of it is because of Emily."
I frowned. I had a sister Emily, but that made zero sense. An ex-wife? A late wife? I opened my mouth to ask but Chloe, still not looking at me, unaware I was about to speak, said, "You know he lost his sister, right?"
26
Annie
Sometimes the sky falls on you before you figure out there's even anything to figure out.
Chloe said that St. Martin had lost his sister and my thoughts moved through the fact that he had a sister Emily and so did I, which was confusing, briefly, and probably only because the situations I found myself in were so strange.
From there to the idea of Cole St. Martin losing someone he was close to and realizing I couldn't imagine him close to someone. He'd kissed me the day that Vincent and Kie kidnapped me, just before that happened. There was no way of knowing what would have happened once we got back from the run we'd been on.
The idea that we'd have somehow become close had never really occurred to me. It felt very much like I was always going to be in the southern Nevada compound on sufferance. Or for a very distinct reason: To overcome addiction, or, in a way, to pay for that by remaining with him as his sub for however long.
Lying in Chloe's backyard, then scrambling to keep up with her as we gathered out stuff and got inside out of the heat, my thoughts turned slowly at first, and then fast to what she'd actually said.
Cole St. Martin had lost a sister.
I sat at the breakfast bar and watched as Chloe prepared smoothies. "You mean she died? What happened?"
Chloe glanced at me, then back at what she was doing. "She was his little sister. I don't know the whole story, because all I know is patchwork, but apparently their childhood left something to be desired. Their father was a doctor, a big deal in his field, top flight surgeon, magic hands, fortune in the making, you know the story."
I knew the story as a soap opera, I thought, but not as real life. Still, he had to come from somewhere and this made sense with the little he'd told me and with the medical connection.
I knew he'd been in med school though I wasn't certain if he'd simply decided that wasn't what he wanted to do or if he failed out of it or chose to walk away because something turned him against the idea.
There were plenty of doctors with amazing skills and terrible bedside manner. To take lives in hand and be arrogant enough to believe you can fix them, that took some kind of personality, and St. Martin had it as far as I was concerned. He'd taken me in, hadn't he? Convinced he knew absolutely best about everything and –
And the rainforest cure.
And Ariel, and Kie, and me.
"Chloe? What happened to Emily?"
She was rinsing her fingers off in running water and she glanced at me as she turned the faucet off and came over with the fruity drinks. "I don't know what happened to make her turn to drugs. Whatever it was, it's always seemed when I hear Cole and Claude talking that it wasn't considered sufficient to explain her giving up everything and turning to opioids. Opioids? Opiates?"
"Whatever," I said, impatient. "She died of a drug overdose?"
