A Jade's Trick (Lilly Black's Jaded Series Book 1) (51 page)

The weekend was wonderful but over far too soon.  Cain and I spent every minute together.  He took me out to some amazing restaurants, and we gambled at tables where the minimum bet was more than I would make in a week at Prometheus.  It's Monday morning now, and after seeing Cain off to work, I fell back asleep, woken up again to the sound of the room phone ringing.

"Hello?"

"Evan?" The caller's voice is familiar, but I can't quite place it.

"Yes."

"Hi.  How've you been?"

"I'm sorry.  Who is this?"

"Rain."

"Rain?  Oh, my God!  Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine.  I'm here in Vegas."

"Cain has been so worried about you.  The police are looking for you back in San Diego."

"Cain is worried about me?" she asks, strangely not reacting to the fact that the police are looking for her.

"After we found out about Elizabeth, we couldn't get a hold of you..."

"Sorry, I've been tied up," she says then abruptly shifts gears.  "Listen, I have to catch a flight in a couple of hours, but there's something I need to talk to you about before I go.  Can you meet me for coffee?" 

"Sure.  I just need to get dressed.  Do you want to come here?"

"Can you come to me instead?  I'm pressed for time, and I still have to pack.  There's a Play Bar at Luxor..."  She gives me directions through the casino.

"I can be there in about half an hour."

"Perfect." 

Not bothering to call for the limo, I throw on a some clothes, grab my purse, and go downstairs where there's always a taxi waiting.  I could probably walk there in less than ten minutes, but I didn't think about that when picking my shoes.  The cab takes just about as long in the traffic on the strip.

In the casino, I follow her directions until Rain waves to me from the back of the bar by a poker machine. When I get closer, I barely recognize her.  She's wearing a oversized sweatshirt that makes her look like she's put on twenty pounds, and her hair is a complete mess.

"I know what you're thinking," she says as she pats the seat beside her.  I sit down.  "I look like shit."

"Where have you been all this time?" I ask, trying to mask the shock on my face with my genuine concern.

"I ran into an old friend the night Liz died.  After what Cain told Sunny..."

"He is really sorry about that.  He didn't mean to cause you any problems."

"It's okay.  Sunny had every right to be mad, but once she heard about Liz getting killed, she realized that there were more important things even if I was being petty and bringing up high school shit."  What she says strikes me as odd, but although this isn't how she came off the first and only other time I've seen her, I guess fifteen minutes in her company in a ladies' room doesn't make me an expert on her behavior.

"So," she continues.  "When Sunny called to tell me about Liz, she asked me for a favor.  She wanted me to break into Liz' apartment to take something she didn't want the police to know about.  I called an old friend to help break in, and I ended up leaving San Diego with him that night.  We've been here ever since."

"But you didn't even answer your phone,"  I say, confused by her story.

"Okay, here's the thing.  Cain doesn't even know this about me," Rain begins, and she's looking around the room like she's paranoid as she talks.  "I used to be a junkie, and the old friend who came to help me break into Liz' place brought a mutual, old friend, if you know what I mean."

"Heroine?  You're on heroine?" I hiss, looking around, a little paranoid myself now.

"Not right now, I'm not.  I'm getting on a plane in a few minutes to go check myself into rehab back in California, but that's why I disappeared."

"Do you not want Cain to know?"

"You can tell him and the police, too, but I don't want anyone else knowing that I'm in rehab, okay?"

"I understand," I say.

"Thanks."

"Is that why you wanted to see me?"

"No.  It's what Sunny had me steal from Liz' apartment that I wanted to talk to you about.  There's something you don't know about Cain."

"What do you mean?" I ask, a jolt of adrenaline hitting me like an arrow to the chest.

"I don't want to cause problems for you, but you seem like such a nice girl. I hate to see you being deceived like so many others." 

"What are you saying?" I demand, going over a hundred scenarios in my head.  None of them prepare me for what comes next.

"Maybe I had better just show you," she says, and from under the waistband of her sweatshirt, she pulls out a long, narrow, diamond-studded, black leather implement of pain, handing it to me.  It's a riding crop exactly like mine.  I'm dumbstruck.

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, Evan, but you deserve to know.  There are at least a ten more just like this one.  Liz had one...Victoria...Lourdes..."  She trails off on the names, not that it makes any difference.  After hearing that Elizabeth had one, I have heard all I need to hear.  "Sunny knew about this one because she had a ménage à trois with Cain and Liz."

I feel the bile rising in my throat as my nipples tighten painfully at the thought of the Cain doing what we've done with other women...him dressing them in long, black leather gowns to be his mistress...him bowing down to them...presenting them with the diamond-studded symbol of so-called equality.  Suddenly Earth's gravity feels tenfold as the riding crop slips from my hand and rolls to the floor.

"She said Cain insisted on recording the whole thing to insure that Sunny would keep his secrets, and she wanted me to steal this to protect Cain from the cops since cops always seem to think having a fetish makes people deviants."

"This isn't happening," I say, only vaguely aware of the sound of my own voice as Rain's words begin only partially registering.  I think I hear her say that all of the women who cornered me at the club were his former Dommes, or maybe she said most...I'm not sure, but I distinctly hear her say the word "Domina". 
Did she say he called Liz that?
  Everything has become surreal.

"I hate to leave you this way, but I have to get going or I'll miss my flight," Rain says as she rises  "And again, Evan, I am truly sorry to be the messenger of this news."  Before she goes, she picks up the riding crop and places it in my lap as I sit there, frozen, overcome by a dream-like sensation as if I'm not quite in phase with my surroundings, the sound of the blood rushing in the my ears louder than the slot machines all around me.

Wake up, Evan.
  This isn't happening.

When I finally find the strength to stand, I feel like a zombie with a single purpose; to get back to the suite before the inevitable breakdown overtakes me.  Hiding the crop vertically under my arm, I stagger out the front door and into a waiting cab as tears pierce the corners of my eyes.  For the ten minutes it takes to get back to the hotel, I dig my fingernails into my palms until the physical pain exceeds the emotional, and when I'm safely back in the room, mercifully, denial takes over.

I examine the riding crop closely as I contemplate the motivation behind Rain giving it to me.  Maybe Sunny somehow knew about my riding crop and set Rain up by asking for her help.  Though this crop looks exactly like mine, with no telltale marks on it to suggest use, I pray that it is a brand new fake as I breathe on the stones like Nicole did to prove to me that the diamonds on mine were real.  When the stones resist the fog, my denial is weakened, but I don't give up hope just yet.

First I call Lucy to make sure my crop is safe.  I say I'm worried about it being stolen with so many construction workers in and out of our apartment this week, but when she assures me that mine is safe in her possession as she had the same concern, I can't lie to myself anymore.  I close the call as she promises to keep it safe for me until I get back...

...but the thing is, Lucy, I'm not sure I'm coming back
, I think as I contemplate the knife in my suitcase.  I always keep it close to serve as a reminder that I am not the girl I was when I used to cut myself, but right now, I just want to regress.  Needing the logic and reason my mind can no longer provide, I call Nicole.

"Evan, are you okay?" she asks, knowing something is wrong just from hearing me say hello, and I try to explain it to her in fractured, scattered thoughts.

"So maybe Lucy showed it to someone," she suggests.

"No.  Even if she hated me, she would never betray Cain."

"What about the jewelers?"

"Apparently they've been making these for him for years," I snap.

"That's not what I meant, Evan, and why would Elizabeth have thought he bought her a ring if she knew that the jewelers made riding crops for him?  Don't you think she would have assumed..."

"I seriously doubt it would have ever crossed her mind that he was buying a riding crop for the whore he was fucking to get it out of his system before marrying her!"

"Stop it!  Stop it right now!" Nicole shouts like a mother.  "Before you jump to any more conclusions, let's make sure this one isn't a fake."

"So what if it is?  It doesn't have to be real to mean that Cain gave it to someone else before me.  He could have switched a fake for the real one before he broke it off with Elizabeth."

"Evan, listen to yourself!  Who thinks that like?"

"I do," I argue.

"Because you're hardwired to think the worst of people," she says, and with an enduring patience I lack, Nicole talks me back to reality and hope.  With a plan, we hang up, and she calls back a few minutes later having procured the services of a jewelry appraiser who is willing to come to me.

"So what if it turns out to be real?" I ask stubbornly.

"I don't know, Ev.  We'll cross that bridge if we come to it." 

"I'll call you back after the appraiser leaves," I say, hanging up, and I sit on pins and needles as I wait, trying to convince myself that I will find that this is a fake and somehow, like how Elizabeth got her hands on the same dress as me, Rain got her hands on a knockoff of my riding crop.  Maybe Rain isn't my friend.  Maybe rescuing me at the country club was just to earn my trust so I would believe her when she brought me the riding crop.  I realize that sounds totally insane, but I can't help it.  I'm hardwired to think the worst of people.

The appraiser comes, and as he examines the stones, I pace around the room until he gives me his verdict.  Just like mine, the diamonds are real and perfect, and although he would need to do a more thorough examination in his shop to give me an official appraisal, his quick and dirty estimate is over $150,000.  The high appraisal doesn't even faze me.

This riding crop is real.  Mine is in San Diego.  Cain is a liar.

I stay in the room alone for the remainder of the day.  Though I talked it through with Nicole, from the minute I received the appraisal, I already knew what I was going to do when Cain gets here after work no matter what she advised.  I made her promise not to warn him, then I stopped answering my phone altogether.  I had to ignore Cain's calls because if I heard his voice, especially closing the message with
I love you
as he does now, it would only weaken my resolve.  I can't let that happen.

He has lied to me before about his sexual past, but this is different.  This lie alone is too big a fissure in the foundation of our relationship, and though my personal issues may be as much to blame as Cain's lies for making me feel this way, I cannot escape the total humiliation in front of the universe at large.  Everything feels dirty now and not in a good way.

I should have known better. I did know better, but he tricked me.  He tricked and manipulated me, and now it will be a million times harder to leave him than it would have been if I had known the truth about him from day one.  I've been so pleased with myself, and as I relive every minute of every encounter with him, all I can hear is laughter at how pathetic I am.  I'm embarrassed by every prideful thing I ever said to him, every assertion that he was actually mine, every
Domina
I heard and loved, and every
I love you
I heard and said.

For hours I cry, squeezed between the wall and nightstand, trying to fade into the darkness around me and never have to face Cain or anyone else ever again.  Part of me wants to pack up and go wait at the airport until the next flight to San Diego even if it takes all night, but that's not me.  I'm a fighter.  I won't fight for Cain, but I will stay here and fight to make him acknowledge his lies so I can give him what he deserves.  I want to see him cry and feel humiliated, but the main reason I'm staying is for that little girl deep inside me whom I like to pretend is lost forever.  Her name is Hope.  She's the one who convinced me to save money and prepare to run away from home when all I wanted to do was slit my wrists, and now she whispers that somehow Cain can fix this.

I look up at the clock.  4:35.  I have to pull myself together because he'll be here soon.  I go through the suite busting out all of the light bulbs, even the globes when necessary, keeping only one light - a lamp with its shade turned upside down to make a spotlight.  I don't want Cain to see me, but I want to see him.

Lastly, I pull the curtains tight together then smash the remote that opens and closes them.  When there isn't the tiniest sliver of light anywhere in the suite, I sit in the corner of the living room to wait, the riding crop in my lap, the spotlight beside me, my anger a raging fire that tears cannot extinguish.