Falling Into You (33 page)

We jump into the elevator, and
Hallie
grabs my hand excitedly.
“I know. We’re going to see
Cats
.”

“
Cats
closed years ago,” I say, chuckling.

“But it’s been my lifelong drea
m!”

“I think you’re just going to have to wait for the revival.”

She mock-pouts, but gasps when w
e get into the lobby and I usher her outside to the limousine. “Your chariot, my lady.”

“Chris, you are too
ridiculous
.
Do you know I’ve never even been in a limousine?
”
She grasps at my arm. “Ok, this is a surprise I can handle.
”

The driver opens
the door for
us
and there’s a b
ottle of champagne waiting, which I grab and pour into two glasses
.

“I’m starting to think that the only thing that New Yorkers drink is champagne,”
Hallie
says, giggling and toasting me.

“There’s an occasional tequila shot thrown in there, too.” I remember the party and that little red dress and think that whatever Sophia had been planning might have worked after all.

“Don’t remind me! I’m never going to drink tequila again.”

“That’s what they all say until the next time someone shows up with tequila shots.”

She laughs at that, but the
key
to the hotel suite is lying
on the table in the back of the car, and
Hallie
toys with it.
“You really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.
Limousines and hotel suites. It’s really too much.
”

“You love hotels.” It’s a piece of information that I’ve managed to wheedle out of her, and despite her total unwillingness to accept anything else I’ve tried to give to her, it’s that small fact that makes me confident that this is the right plan
.
She kisses me, curving her body into mine.

“I do love hotels. Enough to make me forgive you for spending all of this money.”

“How many times do I have to tell you…”

She hushes me by lacing her fingers through mine. “What I should say is thank you, for the car and the hotel and the last week. I can’t imagine…” Her voice trails off. “So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

As we pull up in front of the hotel, she
clutches my hand in excitement before the driver comes around to let us out. I rush her
through the lobby,
eager to see her face when she sees the flowers
.

“Chris, this is too fancy. You’re being absolutely crazy.” She’s
looking at me with big eyes, and
I kiss the top of her head.

“You deserve some spoiling.”

We get to the elevator and I insert the key and press the button for the top floor. I think she’s going to protest again, but she instead turns to me and kisses me passionately. “I don’t want to waste our last night fighting about money,” she whispers.

“About
it being our
last night,
Hallie
…”

But she’s kissing me everywhere and my words trail away as we reach our floor. I reach for the key, holding her hand behind m
y back. Her eyes are wide as she takes in the grandios
e suite
.
Find some courage
, I think to mys
elf
.
Prague. Her and me. Maybe forever.

Chapter 21

HALLIE

Chris picks me up and carries me into the room because I’m staring at the lavish suite, unable to walk in the door. “Chris…”

He hushes me before I can protest again about the money. “Trust me. I can afford it. I really have you to thank for softening Alan up anyway. And the press conference is tomorrow. I wanted us to have one more perfect night before I become James Ross for good.”

He’s kissing me and I’m kissing him. “I suppose you were hoping for a reward, then.”

“The thought may have crossed my mind.” He grabs me and twists me into his arms and we’re kissing each other desperately.

In a flash, a
ll of our clothes
are gone and we’re
nothing but sk
in locked together as we knock
into every surface of the hotel suite, tables and chairs and couch and minibar, hands entangled and pushing and grabbing
.
His lips
are
in my hair and on my skin
and everywhere and he whispers
nothing and eve
rything and that he never wants
me to leave.

He’s pushing into my thigh
insistently, kissing my breasts and neck and hair and moving his fingers down my stomach and to the meeting of my legs. He release
s
a low groan and
we’re
never going to make
it to the bedr
oom
; I need
his hands and eyes and skin everywhere, all over me
, now
.

“
Promise me that you’ll never leave me.”
His
words are soft, but his hands are hard and insistent and he’s grabbing my face and forcing me to look into his eyes. “I know you don’t want
to talk about it, but I can’t handle not knowing anymore. I want you with me. I want you to be mine. All mine. No one else’s. And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

He’s holding
out a black box and opening it. T
here’s a single diamond
pendant
on a long silvery chain and it’s beautiful and gleaming,
but
I’m st
ill trying to process the words
.

“C
ome with me to Prague.
”
He loosens
the clasp
on the necklace and reaches to put it around my neck and I feel the cool metal on my skin and it makes me shiver
.

I can’t help it; I’m
falling into his arms
.
I can’t find my voice to tell him all of the reasons why I can’t go to Prague or be with him forever. I try to open my mouth, to take the necklace off again, to tell him that it’s been a perfect week but it’s time for me to get back to my own life, but all of that seems silly and meaningless and all I want to do is to stay right here, in this moment, forever.

“Say yes.”

I’m curled against him, and I’m looking into his face and I can tell that he’s serious and I still haven’t responded, but I touch his face gently, and in it, there’s a kind of answer.

“
You smell like heaven,” he murmurs.

Those words.

I had heard them before. T
he
re’s a
memory
there, deep inside and locked away. O
ther hands, other lips
.

I
t’s pl
aying a movie in my head.

I jerk away from him. H
is eyes are on me, huge and sad and disappointed, but I can’t look anymore and I’m trying to hide from it, but
it’s
flooding my system. A long pained sound escapes my lips and I put my head in my hands to try to stop it, to turn it off.

The memory, undaunted, long suppressed but never confirmed
, shoots through me.

***

It started with a party, as these things always do. My first real high school party.
I had begged Ben to bring me, to get me out of the house where the person who had once been my mother curled further and further into her own skin.

The house where pictures of my father were the closest thing I was going to get to seeing him again. Seeing my face and knowing that I needed a night of normal, he had reluctantly agreed.

Of course, Ben
left me to chase af
ter some long-haired blond girl.
I was alone. I watched him from the corner of
my
eye and the tiny hope that lived somewhere deep inside
me
shriveled up
.

But t
here was
dancing and
I loved dancing
,
so I lost myself in music.
I feel the cool air hit my skin and I move with total abandon, spinning
around
and aroun
d, switching partners and moving amongst the crowd
.

Ben is watching with amusement and he raises his beer to toast me
. Maybe
the dance lessons were finally
paying off
, I think. Maybe he’ll see me and decide that he wants me.

I take another long sip of the too sweet cocktail that was pressed into my hand
by someone on the dance floor and another and another.
I’m dizzy
and my brain no longer belongs
entirely to me.
A thick-chested someone
comes and moves
his body next to mine, on top of me, his breath sickly swe
et and hot on my face as he bends
to kiss my face, my neck, anywhere but my mouth. I should stop him, I
think
, I need to leave.

I’m dizzy.

His hand flutters over my drink and I take a swig again and the dizziness is overwhelming.

I try
to push back,
but he let
s
out a
deep-throated laugh and covers
my mouth with his, smothering my words and my protests.

This is where the memory has always stopped before. I’ve ne
ver been sure of what happened, whether I said no or yes or something in between.
I’ve never been sure.

Chris’s words, the wrong
words
,
play
in my head
and they’re new
, locked away in some deep recess of my brain that I’ve never been able to access before
.
It was ages ago and yesterday all at the same time.

“You smell like heaven.”

The movie keeps playing. W
e’re
on someone’s couch
now and it’s
stained with grease and covered in dirty cl
othing
.

From somewhere below, the
endles
s pulse of a techno beat drums
on
.
He’s
reaching, grabbing at my dress, pulling my underwear down and his pants off in what seemed like one movement.

“No,” I say
,
again
and again
and again.
He’s grabbing at my clothes, a nameless, faceless blob, and I’m saying, “Stop,” in a tiny-little-girl voice that wasn’t quite my own.

I’m still a little girl, I want to scream. I need to flee, but my limbs are heavy and I can’t do it, it’s all falling apart around me and I don’t know what to do
.

He didn’t hear me,
couldn’t hear me
, didn’t hear me
. His face
is
a monster’s
hovering over mine. I could throw up or sc
ream or run but I’m
frozen
instead. I do
none of those things.

I can’t feel my fingers, I think. I can’t feel anything.

There was something in my drink.

He’s
on top of me, pushing his half-hard penis into me, groaning and moaning, and still I did nothing. I wanted him to stop, but my voice wouldn’t come from my throat
and I’m pushing back and we’re fighting and he’s scraping and clawing at my leg and he hits it with something and I scream out in pain but no one is there to hear me
.
Something, warm and wet and sticky, oozes down my leg.

He
reaches resistance
but
keeps pushing harder and harder. I think it hurts but I can’t feel my body.

“A virgin,” he says. “Heaven.”

“Stop. Stop STOP.” I say it over and over but he doesn’t stop, ramming into me again and again
while
shoving his tongue inside my throat.

He
shoves himself back into his pants
after a minute that feels like forever.
He’s
wiping the couch with a shirt and I’m frozen in agony.

“Someone will find you,” he says, satisfied.

I was covered in grime, the sweat and fluid pooling around me. I was drowning.

Blackout.