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“Yeah. He suicided and killed his family on a Monday. They kept it covered up according to the news until three days later. You were taken on the Wednesday.”
“Oh.”
“If I’d known,” he set his mouth in a line, “It would’ve made no difference. Except I would’ve thought you callous. It was the sexual allegations that made him suicide. He wrote a note, and a journalist as nasty as you leaked it in a story.”
As nasty as me.
My heart thumped slowly, painfully. Everyone likes to think they are good deep down. Making someone want to die, and to kill their family... I’d heard what his father had said, and swept it from my memory. Because I didn’t want to be that person. Besides, what had been done to me had cancelled it out, right?
Wrong.
“I never wanted him to die. Or his kid or his wife. I was just doing what I do.”
It was never worth this. I was stupid. Vengeful. I’d hated that I was only some bit on the side for him, and not even worthy of intimacy. Being scared of sex had only made me think about it incessantly.
“You were bad and you lied to me about it. Were you planning to write a story about me?”
I did not want to answer this. Ever. I’d thought he’d plumbed the depths of my soul with what he’d already made me confront. He had no lie detector – not that they worked. But people made the best readers of body language. As an ex-cop, he’d know that. I was afraid and the fear was overriding my instincts. In a way, lying had been my life. The best way to get ahead. It always was.
“Pieter, I mean Sir. I...”
My forehead was pounding from the strain of trying to second guess him.
“Tell me. From the length of time you’ve taken to reply, I already know.”
I slumped. “I was, at first, but then I wasn’t.”
Pieter snorted. “And when did you change your mind?”
Late. Way late. Shit.
“In the taxi. After you found me, I felt guilty.” And how silly was that, considering what had happened since?
“Uh-huh.”
Then he sat, with his hands between his knees, obviously thinking. I waited. I could do nothing else, except wait for his judgment.
After a while, he focused on me again. “What you did was terrible, and so was what his father ordered done. But you’ve paid. Too much if anything. As for me, I’ve already punished you for lying.
“From now on, every day, you’re going to tell me more about yourself, until I have all of you, up here.” He tapped his head then he tugged on the leash and beckoned me to climb into his lap.
Oh, that appealed. I always did like his hugs, once I had them. Though it’d taken a while to see that.
He tugged again.
Feeling like a penitent soul pardoned by a benign king, I climbed up and rearranged my legs when he urged me to, until I curled there. The similarities to a cat struck me yet again, especially when he began petting me.
For a few minutes I tensed. I was damn well never going to purr. Then the stroking wore me down and I breathed out, relaxed into him, and closed my eyes. Exhaustion flooded in.
When he spoke again, I was half asleep.
“There, meisie. Consider this your new life and today the first day of that life.
My last hazy, crazy thoughts drifted in like clouds on a warm summer’s day. I’d always been the one who looked in on other’s exciting lives but now I was the one looking out. Eyes closed, I snuggled up to the warm man under me. Funny how good this felt.
Chapter 31
Jazmine watching was my favorite occupation. I sat on the sand, with a baseball cap pulled low to shade my eyes.
