Page 35

Twenty-Two

Maddie

I picked a nice little bistro that serves upscale soups and sandwiches in a quiet environment.

I make the goons sit at the other end of the restaurant where they have a clear sight line of me but can’t overhear our conversation.

And I managed to get us seated in a booth away from most of the other patrons.

It helped when I gave the name Stryker to the hostess. Aidan’s family name may not be known the world over, but in this city, it carries a kind of power Prescott never had.

“I can’t believe Aidan let you off the leash,” Erica says.

“You call this off the leash?” I say, nodding at my security detail who should be happy I had the good grace to feed them and not make them stand out in the sweltering sun.

Though I know there’s no reality where they would be willing to be anywhere where they couldn’t keep direct visual contact the entire time.

I’m not sure if this is because Aidan “has enemies” or if it’s because they suspect I’ll try to run away. It may be a bit of both.

“I just thought he’d keep you in bed all day,” she says.

I roll my eyes at this because I desperately want that idea to be eyeroll-worthy.

Once I explained about Aidan in the alley, Erica flipped on me and became Team Aidan.

She was there the entire time when we were growing up while Aidan felt like this malevolent presence who was constantly my shadow.

So she knows . And yet, apparently all it takes for her to switch teams is some well-placed tattoos, general purpose brooding hotness, and about the same amount of money as God.

“You know he’s dangerous. Sure, it starts out with him as some hot anti-hero rescuing me from gross predators in the alley but where does it end? You’ve seen as much as I have in our world… you know he’s not safe.”

She sighs. “I know. But maybe you could just… see what happens?” she says hopefully.

I sip my raspberry iced tea and think this over for a few minutes. Isn’t this the bargain I was already making with myself?

“I was going to try to slip my security detail today.” But even as I say it, it already feels like I don’t really mean it. I don’t think I yet have the proper motivation to flee. Besides, I already tried getting away during the wedding planning.

“Where would you go?”

I sigh. I have no idea.

“You need a plan. You know he’d find you.”

He would, and I don’t want to live on the run, hiding out in motels, working odd jobs to get by.

Between being his captive bride and the alternative option of living like a stray cat…

captive bride is somehow more appealing.

Besides, he hasn’t even done anything bad enough to warrant all that yet. Yet, is the key here.

Erica’s hand closes over mine. “Listen, you know I’ll help you if you need it, but you need an actual plan that will work. You need to build up a cash reserve and an escape plan.”

“I have a credit card, but no actual cash. I could do cash advances but that would look suspicious.”

“I could just give you some money. Or you could pay me back later.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to take your money. And before you offer, I can’t stay with you. It’s the first place he’d look.”

Erica is thoughtful for a moment. “You could shop at high end places and then I could sell it on eBay and we could start building money that way?”

It’s a solid plan, but the more we discuss it the more it becomes clear that I actually don’t want to go anywhere. And Erica can see it as well. You aren’t best friends from Kindergarten onward without figuring out each other’s tells.

“Maybe he’s changed,” she says.

I mean we know he’s changed. He’s changed from a weird awkward stalker kid to a hot stalker man with power and wealth and an inexplicably appealing snake tattoo on his neck.

“Do you think I’m shallow?”

“One hundred percent!” she says happily. “And don’t you dare ever change. Men are way too much bullshit for us not to demand the absolute highest price for dealing with them.”

“I just… you remember how it was. And even how it was during the wedding planning. It’s not okay for him to do this!

And it feels so… weak to just reward this bad behavior by stupidly falling into it.

You know that’s his plan. He’s trying to buy me.

I’ve never been that girl who gives a guy chance after chance or makes up some imaginary sad childhood story about him that lets me delude myself into thinking his emotional unavailability signals some sort of depth or something I can fix or heal.

I expect men to act right from day one!”

“Has he hurt you?”

And I know she’s not asking about anything like hitting.

We both know that usually isn’t the very first step.

She means… sexually. Has he made me do anything gross or weird or hurt me or made me feel used?

Has he forced himself on me? Though honestly, short of something truly gross or weird it would be hard to argue anything he did to me would be force the way my body lights up like a Christmas tree when he touches me.

I shake my head and tell her about what happened on the wedding night, including how I tried to kill him, which honestly…

was half-hearted. He’s too pretty to kill.

I’d have to be in extremely dire circumstances to be able to slit that man’s throat.

And he knew it, too. He was way too confident he was going to survive that altercation, which just pisses me off more.

Erica’s eyes practically bug out of her head as she pumps me for all the gory details.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” she says a little too dreamily after I tell her about how he used the knife handle to get me off. “Did it hurt? The actual sex, I mean.”

Erica is the only person in the world who knows I’m still a virgin. I made it my full time job in high school and college to pretend I’d “done that already, and that it was super lame.”

“We haven’t…”

“What? It was your wedding night. He practically purchased you like some prize cow at the county fair, and then he didn’t take what was his ?” She uses air quotes and a fake man voice for that last part.

“I mean… it’s only been two days,” I say, helpfully.

“But still. Oh my god, Maddie. He’s a gentleman. He’s trying to woo you.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts.” But I’m not sure I can last long enough to see how long that lasts. If Aidan’s self-control is stronger than mine, I’m not going to get any useful data out of this experiment.

When the check comes, Erica takes out her wallet to pay her half, but I wave her away and hand over the black card.

She whispers, “He gave you his black card ?” as the waitress walks away.

“Better,” I say. “He made me an authorized user. That card has my name on it.”

“Keep him. Keep this man,” she hisses at me.

Erica is absolutely no help. She has no survival instinct, and clearly I don’t either.

But neither one of us can convince ourselves that Aidan is currently a big enough threat to try to escape this lux life he’s whisked me away to.

I just hope the option to run still exists if and when the threat becomes more clear.

Erica and I scrap the shopping plan and instead go to a day spa for a full day of treatments…

mani-pedis, hair styling, mud mask wraps, hydrotherapy, facials.

It takes the rest of the day. We’re served cucumber sandwiches and Caesar salads along with cucumber lemon water in our fourth hour of treatments.

“It’s exhausting relaxing this hard,” Erica says, and I swear it’s possible one of the spa staff is going to take her out back, shoot her, and neatly dispose of the body.

I tip them extra well to avoid this tragic outcome. When we finally get out of there it’s nearly six-thirty. I invite Erica to sleep over at my house because we haven’t had a slumber party in something close to a million years. I don’t think late nights at the sorority house count.

When we get to the house, I let Claude know we just ate something and we’ll order pizza later tonight when we get hungry.

Claude is horrified by this suggestion and says he’s going to make us some proper pizza and some popcorn balls for our late night movie binge. Well, okay then. I think he likes having someone to take care of, and it’s so refreshing to be able to receive that care again.

I give Erica a full tour of the estate and take her through the hedge maze and show her the Medusa statue and the Jane Austen garden.

We spend a good half hour trying to sort out all the questions around that, and I’m reassured to know Erica is as confused as I am.

I tell her all about the novels he has from his mom.

“On display,” I say. “ Like he doesn’t even care if other men see he has Victorian romance novels on his bookshelf. Just, totally unbothered. And he quoted the opening line of Pride and Prejudice to me.”

“Clone him. I want one,” Erica says. “You can’t keep this modern marvel to yourself.”

“Remember the stalking? The creepy weird vibes? The nightmares?”

Erica makes a face. “I know , but… I think we like him now. Can’t we just like him, now?

This is real effort, Maddie. Like, way above and beyond 99.

9999% of all men on the earth planet. Even most men with money aren’t going to be this generous with it, or…

sentimental about their dead mother. That’s so sweet.

Can’t we just… cut him some slack? Please ? ”

She begs like Aidan is the last puppy at the pound about to be put down if I don’t rescue him in the next twenty minutes.

“Cut him some slack? For the stalking? And the forced marriage?”

“Yes! I know it’s not feminist or whatever, but… come ON. Let me live vicariously through you.”

“You have your own wealth.”

“That’s not the point. It’s the principle of it all.”

It’s clear Erica is going to be absolutely no help on my quest to escape this probably not a nightmare situation.

We watch scary stalker movies late into the night on a big screen in the home theater room and eat the pizza Claude made us. Honestly I don’t know how this tastes so much like “gourmet food” while also feeling completely like pizza at the same time. And the caramel popcorn balls he made are divine.

“If Aidan doesn’t let me keep Claude full time, you’ll help me run away, right?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she says, her mouth full of popcorn.

I don’t show her the secret passage or the drawings of the dress.

It feels like something that should stay private, and like I’d be betraying Aidan somehow.

I also don’t tell her about the gun hidden under the mattress that she sleeps on for the night.

I just hope she’s not like the princess and the pea or we’re going to have to have a bigger conversation.