Heartless Lover by Faith Summers

20

Summer

The cool morning breeze graces my skin as we drive down the road in Eric’s midnight black Ferrari.

Eric keeps his gaze ahead of us and trained on the road. I can tell something’s going on with him. He had a faraway look in his eyes this morning when I woke up and ventured into the living room.

Last night was also the first I’d slept in my bed since… well, I’m inclined to say since we started sleeping together, but his mood today suggests he might be done with me.

I didn’t see him again yesterday and when we saw each other this morning he just told me to get ready because he was taking me to Scarlett’s. That was it. It was like I was speaking to a different person. Not the man who told me he wanted me or called me his.

Yesterday morning, he made my head spin when he said he wouldn’t leave me alone until he was done with me. He’d said it with that same possessive tone he spoke with when he told me he kept the pictures of me. Today, however, we could be business colleagues en route to work. So I don’t know if this is what him being done with me looks and feels like.

Why the hell do I even care? If he is done with me, that should be a good thing. Right?

It would mean we’d go back to something akin to how we were on day one, except he wouldn’t have that fascination with me. It would be healthier for my mind.

It’s just he’s the only guy who’s managed to crack through my ice queen exterior and cause some reaction in me. In my fucked-up mind something that resembled life unlocked when he is with me. It first happened when I witnessed that spark of desire in his eyes as he told me I didn’t belong to Robert anymore.

He wouldn’t have liked to know how free I felt in that moment, or how his touch made me feel alive.

I fight so hard to stay alive, but I never feel alive. Not in my dreams and while I’m wide awake.

He’s the only man who looks at me like I’m a person and not a thing and when he looks at me I didn’t feel like the loser I am or the broken, damaged woman who seemed to destroy everything she touches.

Maybe that was all in my imagination and I saw what I wanted to see, and believed what I wanted to believe. I’m in enough trouble already and he is trouble. A man like Eric Markov represents danger in every sense of the word. Thinking of him in any way except for what we are and aren’t could be leaning toward being the sadist again because any road I take with this man will lead to more pain.

So maybe it’s better this way.

Even if I am unclear on what’s going on with Eric, secretly, I’m glad he came with me and didn’t send me with his guards.

It also feels good to be outside the apartment, and out in the world. Yesterday it felt like he might have been concerned about how I’d feel being in Scarlett’s house, but maybe I imagined that too.

What I wish more than anything is that the circumstances were different. Or, better yet, I wish I could take this moment back to a year ago when I was in L.A. visiting Scarlett.

A chill runs down my spine when we turn on to the road leading to Scarlett’s house and I hold my breath to try and keep in the anxiety forcing to push through.

I release the breath I’m holding as we pull up outside her contemporary two-story home in Redondo Beach, but I still feel like a noose is tightening around my throat and my heart aches all over again.

I stare at the house with its burgundy accents on the edge of the roof, highlighting the cream of the rest of the house and I expect her to push open the front door and come running out to greet me.

All I’m met with is emptiness, reminding me she will never do that again.

When I get out of the car I notice a black Sedan parked at the top of the other side of the road. Since I always take note of things like that I look and wonder who’s inside the car.

“Those are my men,” Eric informs me.

I glance at him and he quirks a brow.

“They’re watching the place?” I ask.

“Yes. Can’t be too careful.”

“No, I guess not.”

He walks on ahead and I follow.

I know where Scarlett keeps the spare key so I go straight to the flower pot on the side of the porch with the mini roses that look like their wilting away. I’ll water them and the flowers in her garden before I leave. Scarlett loved flowers. I can’t let her flowers die too.

Eric watches me as I open the door and when we go in the scent of her envelopes me. That scent like honey and hope fills my nostrils and tears sting the backs of my eyes.

The floor boards creak against my pumps when I walk deeper inside and look around.

There are boxes in the living room and most of her stuff has been packed away. There’s not a lot out like there usually is to show anyone lives here.

“I have a group of people who have been packing up her things,” Eric says. “They’re doing it room by room and leaving the boxes so you can take them when they’re done.”

“Thank you. That’s really helpful,” I reply.

“They haven’t done her bedroom or upstairs yet if you want to start there.”

“Yeah, sure.”

As I walk into the hallway my gaze lands on the same picture I have of Scarlett and me with Grandmama. It’s on the wall. I stop and look allowing the memories to flood my mind. I look at Scarlett and remember how happy she always was. That day happened so long ago. We were six years old, but I remember the excitement we both felt. Grandmama being there was also what made it memorable.

I walk over to the picture and reach out to take off the wall but my hand stills and hangs suspended in midair. I want to take it down but I can’t do it.

Instead I press my hand to the cool silk of the wall paper and I only remember Eric is with me when he places his hand over mine.

Warmth fills me as his skin connects with mine, and a spark of something I can’t quite describe reaches deep inside me and soothes the pain.

I keep my tears at bay and chance looking at him. My eyes lock with his deep blue ones and I try to find strength.

“Leave it,” he says. “Start with her clothes. I’ll grab some boxes from the car.”

“Okay, thanks.”

He releases me and I make my way upstairs to Scarlett’s room which looks exactly the way it did the last time I saw it.

It looks like a little boudoir with all the trimmings to match. She has a wardrobe with her normal clothes and another with her clothes for the play. She loved being in character all the time so she would take her costumes home to practice.

I walk over to the wardrobe with her costumes for the play and open it. I can’t help but smile when I see the beautiful white long flowing elegant dress she was supposed to wear to open and close the show.

Lover’s Purgatory is set in the 1940’s and is about a Hollywood starlet whose lover went to war. They argued before he left and they broke up because she thought he didn’t love her. The play begins with her waiting to see if he made it out alive in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and proceeds to show memories of how they met and what they went through. Then it ends where it begun with him meeting her and proposing.

Scarlett’s character, Michaela St. James, feels to me like a mashup of Blanche Dubois from a Streetcar Called Desire and Scarlett Ohara from Gone with the Wind, both parts were played by my all-time favorite actress, Vivien Leigh. Next to Grandmama, Vivien was who I channeled whenever I acted.

The play opens in a few weeks and Scarlett won’t be there.

I’m sure when the director and anyone who knows her doesn’t see her turn up for rehearsals or see her around, that’s when people are going to start talking.

I haven’t asked Eric about that yet.

I take out the dress and hold it against me. It too smells like her. I close my eyes and I think of my favorite line from the play. It’s the end. The very end. Michaela asks her love, Ryan Montblanc, how much he loved her and his answer is one of my favorite quotes.

“I love you more today than yesterday but not as much as tomorrow.”

I mutter the words and think of how the play will end with the music and people cheering because Nick Fairchild plays are always amazing. But Scarlett won’t be there.

When I open my eyes I’m stunned to see Eric watching me.

I’m not sure how long he could have been standing there. I lost track when I saw the dress.

He’s carrying an empty box. He walks in and sets it down near me. When he straightens up he looks at the dress in my hands and the other costumes in the wardrobe.

“I’m guessing that’s a costume,” he states.

“Yes. It’s for the upcoming play. She was excited to wear it.”

“Suits you.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.”

“The closest I came to wearing anything like this was when I was in high school.” At my last performance.

“For the prom?” he smirks.

When he says things like that he makes me forget reality for a fleeting moment. I look at the beautiful design on the dress and guess it would definitely be suited for the prom or the red carpet at the Oscars. I wish I could have done either. The Oscars is a dream for every actress. The prom is another dream, every girl should have. I didn’t have that dream though. Instead, I fell down the rabbit hole and landed in the infernal hell I’ve been in since.

“I never went to my prom,” I tell him.

“Really? Don’t tell me no one asked you because I won’t believe it.”

I wish it was that. “No, I had stuff going on so I couldn’t go.” He knows about Mom but he doesn’t know the horror that happened after her death or that I couldn’t finish high school properly.

“That’s a shame. Come on, let’s start packing.” He hands me a box and I take it.

While he goes over to Scarlett’s main wardrobe, I stay here and pack away her costumes.

We spend close to three hours in the room packing everything with care and cleaning before his phone rings.

Every time his phone rings or he gets a message I think it’s something to do with Robert. When he pulls it out from his back pocket and answers, speaking in Russian, he gets that dark look in his eyes which confirms I’m right.

I don’t understand a word he’s saying, but I don’t think I need to, to know he’s talking about Robert. Whenever he talks about him, I catch glimpses of the man Eric is underneath the charm.

He hangs up and his hands tighten around the phone.

“Sorry, Babydoll. We have to go,” he says.

“Oh. Okay.”

“Don’t worry we’ll come back another day. Take what you have there.”

“Has something happened?”

He holds my gaze when he reaches out to touch my cheek. The warmth of his touch soothes me again and I realize I shouldn’t be seeking this.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But—”

The words are stolen from my mind when he plants a soft kiss on my lips. The kiss is too soft for him, or maybe it’s better I say too soft for us. And not the sort to give to someone like me. It’s the sort of kiss I’d imagine him giving a woman he loves as they took a leisurely lover’s walk through a beautiful garden or meadow.

When he pulls away, he looks like he even surprised himself.

“Don’t worry,” he says again. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now let’s go.”

I grab the box and we leave. He said don’t worry but now I am because just now he was so unlike himself. So now I think there must be something to worry about.

I won’t lie to myself. I’m scared of Robert. I’m scared he might still try to kill me and I don’t want to die.

I never want to die. But, maybe one day I won’t have a choice.