Page 51 of Beauty & Chaos

“Sorry if I upset you,” Brook says, stopping right in front of me. With no heels, she’s incredibly short.

I toss the cigar overboard and wrap my arms around her.

“Don’t apologize.” I brush her hair back off her face, the strands flapping in the breeze. “You have questions, I get that. I just don’t have anything more. But I know he was telling the truth.”

“Is that why I’m here?”

It’s a reasonable question.

“No, you’re here because I want to lick your pussy. But when I watched your show, I knew it was important to speak up. On his behalf.”

She nods and rests her head against my chest.

I like it. I like having her in my arms, knowing she’s safe.

Protecting Brook seems to have taken on a life of its own in a very short period of time. And I wonder if walking away from her in a few days, when she’s done what I need, is going to be possible.

“Do you remember his name?”

“Yes.” I kiss her forehead.

“Where is he now?”

I shake my head. “We lost contact.”

Not a lie.

The boy I once was doesn’t exist anymore. He’s gone. Forever. Wrapped up in cotton wool where he can’t be hurt anymore.

“I need to find him. To see if he will speak to me. If you won’t,” Brook says.

I expected that she’d go down this path—it’s exactly what I hoped for. The seed I’ve planted has her brain racing, wanting to find the boy.

Me.

She won’t. But she will be so far down the rabbit hole by then that she won’t be able to put this story to bed.

Plus, if she hasn’t already, she’ll soon realize I have no reason to lie. I have no skin in the game, nor am I connected to Leo Taylor in any way. Zero.

That she will find.

Any doubt or suspicion will die a quick death.

I gain nothing by telling her what I was told. I’m just the kid who met his son and was given private information.

I’m also insanely rich.

I’m not looking for a payout. I don’t want to go on record. All I’m doing is sharing something that wasapparentlytold to me in confidence.

It would take a highly cynical person to dismiss this kind of information.

What I’m doing, despite not having evidence, is demonstrating a pattern of abuse in Leo Taylor’s timeline—one that will drive her investigative mind to want to dig even deeper.

I don’t feel guilty for lying—the fuckerdidabuse his son. Me. Sometimes I disassociate from my old identity, and it’s easy to lose myself in the story of it being someone else.

A shrink would call it a survival technique.

They’d be right.