Claim Me: A Novel Read online

  “I saw my reflection in the mirror. I was going to break it with that,” I say, nodding toward the gooey mess on the floor.

  “You were going to break a mirror in a public restaurant instead of talking with me?”

  I graze my teeth over my lower lip. I don’t answer.

  “I see.”

  “I didn’t want to make it worse for you. But I guess I did that, anyway.”

  “But you’re okay now?” He is speaking very carefully.

  “Yes. Just a momentary glitch. System completely reset now. It was just that woman. That horrible woman.”

  “All right,” he finally says. He takes my hand; his is warm and reassuring. “Let’s go. We’ll let the janitors worry about the mess.”

  I nod and follow him. Already I feel better, just knowing that Damien is at my side. In the restaurant, I search for Jamie, but I don’t find her anywhere. “I’m worried about Jamie,” I tell him. “She was a mess.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “No, she was just—oh, shit. Is that who I think it is?” I point into the crowd, and Damien’s low whisper of “Well, hell” tells me I’m right. Bryan Raine is at the event, too, and he’s arm in arm, lips to lips, with a svelte, sexy blonde.

  “That’s Madeline Aimes,” Damien says.

  I remember Evelyn’s words. “A movie star? On her way up?”

  He gives me a quizzical look. “When did you start paying attention to Hollywood?”

  “I don’t. Lucky guess.” I look around the room again, suddenly worried. “Now I really want to find Jamie.”

  I find Ollie, but he hasn’t seen Jamie, either. Whatever detente we’d reached earlier when Susan Morris attacked me seems to have shattered, because he is quiet and distant and keeps shooting Damien angry glances. I, however, am too worried about Jamie to call him on it.

  It takes another twenty minutes before we learn that Edward took Jamie home.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark,” Edward says when we meet him in the parking area behind the restaurant. “She assured me that she’d cleared it with you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Damien says. “How was she?”

  “I understand there was some trouble with a young man she’s been seeing. You might have to restock the limo’s supply of Scotch.”

  Damien grimaces. “Shall we go check on her?” he asks.

  I nod. It’s already after midnight, and now that Jamie’s gone AWOL, I’m ready to go home. I start to move toward the limo, but Ollie’s words hold me back. “Raine was just stringing her along.”

  I turn back to him. “Well, yeah. Obviously.”

  “Obviously?” He jabs a finger toward Damien. “He’s doing the same thing to you.”

  I grab Damien’s hand, as much because I want his touch as to keep him right here beside me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He keeps you around, but it’s not real.” He holds up his hands and flexes his wrists. “It’s just kink and fun and when he’s tired he’ll toss you aside.”

  “You little shit,” Damien says.

  “I’m wrong? Really? You know damn well it’s just a game to you. That’s why you never tell her shit. That’s why you haven’t even told her that you’ve been indicted in Germany for murder.”

  23

  Murder!

  I look from Ollie to Damien. Ollie looks smug. Damien looks confused.

  “There’s no indictment,” Damien says.

  For a moment, Ollie appears scared, then he rallies. “No, apparently they were just stalling. The indictment came in just a few minutes ago. You didn’t know?”

  “Wait,” I say. My head is spinning and I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what I’m feeling. Anger? Hurt? Fear? Confusion? They are all jostling for position inside me, and at that moment, it feels a bit as though my head is going to explode.

  I think about those ceramic shards, and I wish to hell I’d pocketed one.

  No. Just breathe. You can do this.

  I take a deep breath and turn to Damien. “All this time I’ve been assuming that the German indictment is some business violation, and it was actually a murder investigation?”

  His hesitation seems to last a lifetime, and throughout his silence, his eyes look only at me, as if he’s trying to find the answer to the question hidden deep inside me somewhere.

  “Yes,” he says.

  And there it is. The biggest secret of all, and one I gave him about nine billion opportunities to reveal. I think about the times I mentioned German regulations. About the times he let me go on believing that it was just a business thing. Just Stark International dealing with the kind of problem huge corporations deal with.

  “I thought your company had broken some regulation about zoning codes or paid too little in taxes or something. This is—”

  “Worse,” Damien says. “Much worse.”

  I wait for him to say more. To explain. To lie. Something. Anything.

  He stays silent.

  I suck in air through my teeth, then press my fingers to my temples. I need to think. Mostly, I just need to be alone. “I’m going,” I say. “I need to check on Jamie.”

  “All right,” Damien says, his voice a little too calm. “Edward and I will drop you at home.”

  “I’ll get home on my own. Thanks.”

  “I’ll drive you,” Ollie says.

  “The hell you will,” I snap. With Damien, I’m lost in a maelstrom of anger and sadness and confusion and God knows what else. With Ollie, I’m just plain old pissed. “I’ll take a taxi.”

  I turn once as I walk away, and my eyes find Damien’s. I hesitate, expecting him to call after me, but he doesn’t, and I fight the urge to hug myself to ward off a coming chill. Slowly, I turn my back to Damien and I continue toward the street. I’m hurt and I’m confused, but right now I just need to focus on one thing. I just need to get home.

  It’s an easy shot over the hill from Beverly Hills to Studio City, and I’m home in no time. I hurry inside, expecting to find Jamie in tears on her bed.

  She’s not home.

  Okay, okay. I just have to think. Where could she be?

  I know Jamie well enough to know that she may try to soothe a bruised ego by banging some other guy, and I mentally start running through the single men in our complex that she hasn’t already gotten horizontal with. That’s one thing about Jamie—she rarely goes in for repeat performances.

  As if to underscore the brilliance of my thinking, a series of moans and groans floats in from next door. Douglas, once again getting lucky.

  At least I can cross him off my list. Although Douglas has made it clear he’d be up for round two, Jamie has repeatedly said no.

  I pace the apartment, wondering where she could be. I call the divey bar on the corner near our condo, but she hasn’t been there in days. I call Steve and Anderson, but they haven’t talked to her. They give me the names of a few other mutual friends. I call them, but nobody’s heard from her tonight.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Even though I know it will do no good whatsoever, I call the police. I’m coherent enough to forgo 911 and call the station directly. I speak to the officer in charge, explaining that my roommate came home plastered, but she’s not here now and I’m worried that she’s dead in a ditch somewhere.

  He’s nice enough—but he’s also not sending anyone to help. Not until she’s been gone for a hell of a lot longer than a few hours.

  I close my eyes and think. Maybe she said something to Edward? That she was going to change and go clubbing? That she was going to visit a friend? That she was going to LAX to splurge on a red-eye to New York?

  I don’t have a number for Edward, and my finger hesitates over Damien’s name. I’m not ready to talk to him, but I have to know. I suck in a breath, count to three, and call.

  He answers on the first ring and, damn me, I can’t even get the words out because of the tears that are clogging my throat.

  I’m still on the
phone with him, choking out the story, asking him if I can speak to Edward, when he walks through the front door. I blink in confusion as he walks to me and very gently takes the phone from my hand and ends the call.

  “How did you get here so fast?”

  “Edward is parked at the end of the block. I was planning to come over anyway, but I was giving you time.”

  “Oh. Did you ask him?”

  “She didn’t say anything to him,” Damien says. “And he walked her to the door and heard her lock it after he left. He assumed she’d be asleep in minutes.”

  I press my hand against my forehead. I need to figure out what to do next, but it’s all blank. I don’t know what to do. I am completely lost—and I’m scared to death.

  “She’s drunk and she’s pissed and she’s going to do something stupid.”

  “Did you check for her car?”

  “Dammit,” I say. “I didn’t even think about it.”

  “She could have taken a taxi or had a friend pick her up, but if it’s still here, it’s a start. I can get one of my security guys calling the taxi services to see if there was a call, and then—”

  I’ve been sprinting for the front door as he speaks, ready to go look at her parking space. I yank it open—and freeze at the site of Jamie standing there, her clothes askew, her hair a mess, but otherwise looking none the worse for the wear.

  “James!” I pull her into my embrace, then back off long enough to inspect her for hidden injuries. “Are you okay? Where were you?”

  She shrugs, but for just a second her eyes dart to the wall we share with Douglas.

  “Oh, James,” I say, but she looks so damned miserable that I don’t say anything else. The lecture can wait. Right now, I need to put my very drunk, very upset best friend to bed.

  “I’m going to go help her,” I tell Damien. I hesitate for a moment, then add, “I’ll be right back.”

  He nods, and I help Jamie to her room, then out of her clothes. She slides into bed in her bra and panties. “I fucked up, didn’t I?” she asks.

  “Bryan Raine is the fuck-up,” I say. “You just need to sleep.”

  “Sleep,” she repeats, as if it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.

  “Night, James,” I whisper. I start to leave, but she grabs my hand. “You’re lucky,” she says. “He loves you.”

  I close my eyes tight to keep the tears at bay. I want to tell her everything, but my best friend is only half-conscious, and the man who might love me—but who has most definitely lied to me—is waiting for me in the living room.

  I’m not ready for this, but I leave Jamie’s room and return to Damien.

  He’s ending a call as I return. “That was Edward,” he says. “I’m sending him home. I’m staying here tonight.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I’m staying,” he says. “In your bed, on the couch, in the goddamn bathtub. I don’t care, but you’re not getting rid of me. Not tonight.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” I can hear the exhaustion in my voice. “But I’m going to bed.” I eye the bed that fills the living room—our bed—and the sadness that washes over me is almost enough to bring me to my knees. “The bed in my room,” I clarify. “There’s a spare blanket in the hall cabinet. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.”

  And then I turn around, go to my room, and shut the door behind me.

  Five minutes later I’m in bed, eyes wide open, when there is a soft tap at my door. I could pretend to be asleep. For a moment, I consider it. But while part of me is still hurt and angry, the other part craves Damien.

  It’s that other part that wins. “Come in,” I say.

  He enters with two mugs of hot chocolate. I can’t help but smile. “Where did you find that?”

  “Your cupboard,” he said. “Okay?”

  I nod. I am not in the mood for wine or liquor, but chocolate comfort is definitely welcome.

  He puts mine on the bedside table, then sits on the edge of the bed. Silence hangs heavy between us. “It’s Richter,” he finally says, breaking the stillness. “I’m being charged with Richter’s murder.”

  I try to process this information, fitting it in with what I know of Damien and what I know about Richter’s death. “But it was suicide,” I say. “And years ago.”

  “They’re relying in part on the fact that I inherited his money.”

  “You did?”

  He nods. “My first million. It was kept out of the press. I paid Charles a good portion of that money to make sure it stayed out of the press. My enemies will argue that a million dollars is a strong motive.”

  “That’s what they’re arguing? But you were just a kid.” Everyone in the world heard the story at the time it happened. Young tennis superstar Damien Stark’s coach committed suicide by leaping to his death from a Munich-based tennis center. “And you were already making money.”

  “Most people with money want more.”

  “It’s still a ridiculous argument,” I say. “He probably left you the money for the same reason he killed himself. He felt guilty for being an abusive slimebag.”

  “I’m not sure Richter ever felt a moment of guilt in his life,” Damien says. “At any rate, I believe they’re putting more stock in the witness than into the money.”

  “So who is this witness?”

  “A janitor. Elias Schmidt. He actually came forward right after Richter died, but my father paid him off and he disappeared before he said anything to the police. Evelyn was around during all of that. So was Charles. There was a tell-all book in the works that was going with the hypothesis that I’d killed my coach. They got it shut down and the rumors locked up tight.”

  I’m trying to follow all of this. “So the janitor was paid off, but he came back?”

  “No,” Damien says. “He didn’t come back. The German police found out about him and they went to him.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” Damien says calmly. Everything about him is calm, and I realize that he’s gone into corporate mode. He’s relating the details of the transaction, but he’s not getting emotionally involved. “But I think my father tipped them.”

  I am beyond shocked. “What? Why? Why on earth would he do that?”

  “To punish me for not giving him any more money.”

  I can’t help the shiver that rips through me. My relationship with my mom is fucked up, but this is out in the stratosphere.

  The truth is, I’m scared. “But they’ll cave once you put on your defense. It’ll be fine. I mean, it will cost you a boatload of money, but you have about a billion boats of money, right? And you’re innocent, so eventually they’ll drop the charges.”

  “Money helps,” Damien says, “but it’s not a guarantee. And innocent people get convicted all the time. And besides,” he adds, his voice as level as I have ever heard it. “I’m not innocent.”

  24

  I stare, certain that I could not possibly have heard his words right. “No. No,” I say. “Richter killed himself. He jumped off a building and committed suicide.” If I say it enough, it will have to be true.

  “He fell to his death, yes.”

  I stare at Damien’s face, this man that I have fallen for so completely. Does he have it within him to kill a man?

  The answer is not long in coming—I know that he does. He would kill to protect me, I am certain of it. And he would kill to protect himself.

  Suddenly, I no longer doubt his words. I shiver, but not because I am horrified. No, I tremble because I fear that I will lose him. That he will be convicted for protecting himself against a man who was truly a monster.

  “Nikki,” he says, his voice infinitely sad. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.” He starts to get up off the bed.

  “No.” The word seems ripped from me, and I grab hard to his hand and pull him back down. “Don’t leave me. You did what you had to do. What your father should have done, the bastard. I swear if I’d been around back then and knew what that son
of a bitch was doing to you, I would have killed him myself.”

  Slowly, Damien closes his eyes. I think that it is relief that I see on his face.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” I say gently.

  Damien lets go of my hand and stands up. For a moment, I’m afraid that he is leaving anyway, but then I realize that he just needs to move. He walks around the bed, then pauses in front of the Monet. Haystacks in a field and the splendid colors of sunset.

  Sunset.

  That is our safeword. The word that Damien told me to pick that very first night that I was his. Mine to use if he went too far.

  I look at him, and I hope that he will not invoke the word now. I know that it must be hard to go back, to tell me what happened that night. But I need to hear it. More, I need for Damien to tell me. And I fervently hope that the secrets he is so used to keeping won’t tie his tongue now.

  “Damien?”

  He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t even move. But I hear his voice, low and steady. “It started when I was nine. The touching. The threats. I won’t tell you the details—I don’t want those memories in my head, much less in yours. But I will tell you it was horrible. I hated him. I hated my father. And I hated myself. Not because I was ashamed—I was never ashamed. But because I had no power to stop him.” He turns to me. “I learned how important power is. It’s the only thing that can truly protect you, and back then, I had none.”

  I barely nod, afraid that if I speak or react too much, he will stop talking.

  “It went on for years. I grew bigger and stronger, but he was a huge man, and as I got older he added more threats to his repertoire. He had photographs. And there were—” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “There were other things that he threatened.”

  “What changed?” I say gently. I don’t want him to relive all those years. I just want to know what happened the night that Richter died.

  “All that time he never—he never raped me.” His voice is so low and monotone that it gives me chills. “When I was fourteen, we were in Germany at a tennis center in Munich. I went up to the courts on the roof one night—I don’t remember why. I couldn’t sleep, I was antsy. Whatever. He came up, too. He’d been drinking. I could smell it on him. I tried to go back down, and he blocked me. He tried—for the first time he tried to take his sick games further.” Damien meets my eyes. “I didn’t let him.”