Because He Possesses Me (2 page)

But she looked so sad and scared that I couldn’t bring myself to say any of that.

“Shh,” I said. “It’s okay, you should go to the hospital. It’s always good to get checked out, just in case.”

We’d reached the bottom floor of the building now, and the stretcher bounced out onto the street and over the gravel.

When we got to the ambulance, the paramedics loaded Rose inside of it before one of them went around to the truck and started the engine while the one with the kind eyes climbed into the back with Rose.

“Adriana, wait,” Rose said to me. “Wait, please, Adriana, will you come with me?”

“What? No,” I said, and shook my head. “That’s really not a good –”

And then suddenly, Rose’s eyes rolled back in her head and she began to shake, her fingers and legs convulsing.

“Shit,” the paramedic swore. “She’s having a seizure.” He reached for a syringe, and then he motioned to me. “You,” he said. “Get up here and make sure she doesn’t move.”

“What?”
I said. “I’m sorry, I don’t –”

“Now!” he yelled, and I did as I was told, climbing up into the ambulance and holding Rose’s arms down so that she wouldn’t hurt herself. The paramedic injected something into a vein in her arm, something clear that caused her body to instantly go limp and for her to stop struggling.

The paramedic closed the ambulances door then, and returned to Rose, taking her pulse and her vitals.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Sometimes that happens with heroin overdoses. But it’s okay, it’s scarier than it looks.” He smiled at me. “You did great.”

It wasn’t true. All I’d done was hold Rose down, and I’d been freaking out inside the whole time.

“Thanks,” I said. “But you’re just being kind.”

He shook his head. “No, you stayed real calm.”

I blushed a little, then started to tell him I had to go. It was then that I realized that the ambulance doors were closed and the siren was wailing. And the ambulance was speeding through the streets of New York to the hospital, with me still in the back of it.

W
hen we pulled
up in front of New York Presbyterian, I waited for the paramedics to wheel Adriana’s stretcher out of the ambulance before I stepped out myself. The high heels I was wearing made it challenging to keep my footing, but I did the best I could.

The sunlight and the sounds of the city felt blinding after being in the back of the ambulance. There was always a certain kind of frantic excitement around hospitals, and this one was no exception – doctors and nurses wandered in and out of the revolving doors, patients in wheelchairs waited for their rides home, and visitors with bouquets of flowers streamed into the lobby.

I took a couple steps away from the main doors of the hospital and pulled up a subway map on my phone so I could find the nearest station. The only good thing about the ambulance ride was that now I was at least a little bit closer to my apartment.

But I was still going to be very, very late to work.

I located the subway station, then called Kiersten and left a message, letting her know I would be late, cringing as I anticipated her reaction.

I’d just started heading for the subway when I heard someone call my name.

I turned.

Callum.

He strode toward me in a beautifully cut navy suit and grey tie, his hair combed back from his forehead, his shoes shining, his face freshly shaven. It was shocking seeing him here, suddenly in front of me, and I felt as if the wind had been knocked from my body.

Our eyes met.

My heart clenched.

His jaw set in a hard line as he got closer to me.

“What the
hell
is going on?” he demanded.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted.

“The hospital called me.”

“How did they…”

“I’m Rose’s emergency contact.” His tone was clipped, impatient. “What the
hell
were you thinking, bringing her here?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, thrown at his tone. He shouldn’t have been annoyed. He should have been thanking me. “I didn’t bring her here, Callum, she tried to give herself an injection of heroin and she passed out or lost consciousness or… something, I don’t know.”

“And you called 911?”

“Yes, I called 911!” I shook my head. “She had a seizure in the back of the ambulance!”

“You should have called me, Adriana.” He shook his head and then steepled his fingers together and put them up to his mouth, taking in a deep breath.

“I should have called you? Instead of the paramedics?”

“Yes. Actually, no, you shouldn’t have let her into my apartment in the first place. What the
hell
were you thinking?”

I stared at him incredulously. Was he being serious? “I didn’t let her in, Callum, she had a freaking key, she told me she lived there.”

“And you let her go into the bathroom alone when she was obviously high.”

“Again, I didn’t
let
her do anything. And if you were so worried about her, then why didn’t you stay at your apartment?”

“Did she have drugs on her?” he asked.

“She had a needle in her arm, Callum, so, yeah, I’d say she had drugs on her.”

“Fuck, Adriana,” he swore. “You should have thought about that before you called 911. Now the police are probably going be involved.”

I felt the hot, burning sting of fury biting at the back of my throat. “Don’t you dare try to blame me for this,” I said. “Don’t you try to blame me for
any
of it. It’s not my fault she– ” I trailed off, realizing it was a losing battle. He was too upset. He wasn’t going to listen to me. He was obviously worried about Rose, more worried about her than he was about me. He hadn’t asked me once if I was okay, hadn’t explained to me why he’d left this morning, hadn’t stopped to think that perhaps it may have been a little upsetting for me to have a strange woman pounding down his apartment door before injecting herself with an illegal drug in the bathroom and having a seizure.

But I knew pointing any of that out to him would be a complete waste of time.

He’d shown me who he was.

And now it was time for me to show him who I was.

“You know what, Callum?” I said. “Leave me alone. Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t talk to me at work. Just. Forget. I. Exist.” I squared my shoulders. “And I’ll do the same to you.”

I turned away and he grabbed for my arm, but I wrenched free of his grasp. I took off running down the sidewalk, and as I did, the wind kicked up, cold against my face.

He called my name, but I didn’t turn around.

He didn’t follow me – if he had, he could have caught up to me easily. I was wearing sweatpants that were three sizes too big and a pair of high heels that made it ridiculously hard to make a dramatic exit.

In a movie, I would have been dressed perfectly, my hair ruffling in the breeze, my hips moving in a determined sway. Instead I was wearing Callum’s sweatpants and stumbling. I couldn’t even imagine how my hair and skin must look after what he’d done to me last night and the insane events of the morning.

But I didn’t care.

He had hurt me for the last time.

I never wanted to see him again, never wanted to talk to him again.

I was in the subway car, nestled between a middle-aged man and a homeless woman before I realized I was crying.

I
tried
to call Kiersten again to let her know I’d be late, but her phone was still set to voicemail. By the time I got to Archway’s offices, I was already two hours late.

I’d gotten there as quickly as I could, taking a three-minute shower and doing my make-up in a cab. I would have skipped the shower altogether or at least not bothered drying my hair, but there was no way I could have gotten away with it– after being cuffed to a bed last night and fucked so hard I still felt sore, my hair was in desperate need of some serious attention.

When I got to Kiersten’s office, I could see her through the glass, sitting at her desk, her hair pulled back in a loose bun at the base of her neck.

Peggy the receptionist gave me a look, one of those ‘I’m so sorry for whatever is about to happen to you’ looks.

“Kiersten?” I tried, knocking on her open door.

“Yes?” She didn’t look up from her computer.

“Sorry, I um, did you get my message?” My phone picked that time to go off in my purse. I pulled it out and silenced it, not able to miss the text message from Nessa that had popped up on the screen. ‘
U alive, party girl? Saw you leaving with Callum. Can’t wait to hear about it!’

My throat went dry. Crap. Nessa had seen me leaving with Callum? Who else had seen me leaving with him? Had Kiersten? Was that why she hadn’t bothered to answer her phone when I called? Was she going to fire me right now, not just for being late, but for being with Callum after she’d expressly forbidden it?

“Something important?” Kiersten asked, glancing up at me. She slid her glasses off and set them down on her desk. Something about the gesture was extremely intimidating.

“No,” I said quickly, shoving my phone bag into my bag. “No, nothing important.”

“Why are you late?”

“I had a family emergency.” The lie slipped easily from my lips and I instantly felt my fair skin burn bright. I had never been a good liar.

“What kind of family emergency?” Kiersten asked. Her eyes stayed on mine, laser focused.

“It’s personal.”

“That’s kind of the point of a family emergency,” she said.

“Yes, well, I’d prefer not to say.”

“You don’t really have the luxury,” she said. “You were late. You’re on thin ice here already after the stunts you pulled yesterday.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “One, you didn’t bother to read Aubrey Zane’s book. Two, you antagonized one of our top authors, an author who had recommended you for this position, which leads me to believe that maybe you haven’t been completely honest with me about the nature of your relationship.”

My heart pounded in my chest, and the room started to spin. “Kiersten,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. “I apologized for my behavior yesterday, and I want to assure you that those things will not happen again.”

“Have you read the Aubrey Zane book?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. Last night I was at the party.”

“How long were you there?” she asked, picking up her Starbucks cup and leaning back in her chair. She was wearing a cap-sleeved black dress that gathered right at the waist, accentuating her slim body.

An armful of bracelets – silver bangles, braided black leather, gold Alex and Ani – tangled together on her wrist, the light from above bouncing off the metal. It gave the impression that she’d just grabbed whatever had been in her jewelry box and thrown it on, but I knew better.

Everything about Kiersten was calculating. Even that first day, the way she’d been with me, pretending she was so laid back and cool. It had all been an act to lure me into a false sense of security.

But why? I wondered. Why would Kiersten have wanted me to think she was laid back and cool? Was it just so she could trip me up later? No, I decided. She must have had some deeper motive, one I hadn’t figured out yet. Which made her extremely dangerous.

“I’m not really sure how long I was there.” I curled my toes up in my shoe, resisting the urge to jiggle my leg.

“A couple hours?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you see Callum Wilder there?”

“No,” I said firmly, not offering any more information. With lies, the best thing to do was to keep your answers simple. Otherwise there were more chances for you to get caught up later in a detail you hadn’t remembered.

“Really? Someone said he was there.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I was with my friends.”

She sighed and pursed her lips. “We have a lunch meeting at one,” she said, “with Dean Bellingham.” She turned back to her computer. “If you don’t know who he is, then find out.” She took a sip of her Starbucks and put her glasses back on. “We also need to finalize the schedule for Callum’s tour. I sent you an email with the dates. We need to find hotels that are close to all the venues, nice places of course, and we need to make sure they’re alerted to the fact that we will be providing security for him.”

“Security?”

“Yes.” She was clicking around on her computer now, and I was making notes on my phone, trying to keep up with her rapid fire instructions. “No doubt there will be girls showing up at Callum’s hotel, looking for an autograph, or something more.”

“There will?” I imagined them all, standing outside some gorgeous hotel, waiting for Callum to come down and pick them from a crowd and bring them upstairs. Was that one of the places he’d been talking about when he said he didn’t fuck in his apartment?

But Kiersten was already done with me.

“Meet me in the lobby at twelve-thirty,” she said. “For our lunch. If you need help getting into your email, I’m sure someone from HR would be happy to show you.”

She’d obviously dismissed me, so I turned around and headed for the cubicle in the corner, the one that I’d sat in yesterday when I was putting together the prize packs. I took a deep breath and reached into my bag, pulled out the folder they’d given me in HR yesterday with my email login and password.

I was able to log in to my email fairly easily.

Sure enough, there was an email from Kiersten, and attached to it was Callum’s schedule, all laid out in a neat spreadsheet.

Okay, Adriana,
I told myself,
just forget you’re making reservations for the guy who fucked you last night, the guy you can’t stop thinking about, the guy that’s twisting you into a mess. You got this, girl.

It was time to get to work.

T
wo hours later
, I was halfway done with finalizing Callum’s accommodations. The whole thing was an exercise in extreme masochism – each hotel I called was another chance to imagine Callum with another woman.

The one in Boston would be dark and pretty, with delicate features. She’d be the kind of girl who drank pumpkin spice lattes and wore tailored pea coats to protect her from the cold New England winters.