Bella
I should have dug deeper. Asked him how he found me and why he brought me here. It certainly wasn’t for my expertise in interior design.
God, I’m such an idiot. Here I thought that this successful man saw my portfolio and was impressed with my skills and actually wanted me to work on the scheme of his hotel. I thought this was my big break. Freedom from the chains that hold me down. My guilt-free escape from a small town where you only grow as big as your parents.
Unless? Unless Cal was searching for a designer and just happened to come across my info at the job agency and he was impressed, only to learn that I was a blast from his past. Maybe he wants to rebuild the friendship we once had. Or maybe he wants more.
He’s a godly form of man, that’s for sure. I’m not sure I’ve ever even talked to a guy as sexy as him. I’ve always been a pretty forthright person, but Cal stole my breath away and left me unable to comprehend a sentence, and that was before I realized it was him.
My best friend grew up fucking hot as hell, and filthy fucking rich.
Stop thinking, Bella.
A beam of light casts through the glass doors that lead to the balcony, reminding me that it’s now morning and I haven’t slept. I’d credit it to being in a ginormous castle that’s been desolate for forty years, but that doesn’t even faze me.
It’s him. The way he looked at me like I was a stranger who came on his property uninvited. He barely spoke, yet when he did, goosebumps danced across my skin.
Tugging the comforter aggressively, I curl into a ball on my side. My eyes wide open as I stare into the closet. He bought me dresses. Cal knew how much I loved them, and he bought them just for me. Why?
I know that I never forgot about him, but I was certain he’d forgotten about me. We spent four short years together at The Webster House. Four years compared to the twenty-six of his life. So why now? Why me?
Tossing back and forth, I try to drown out the pounding at the door, hoping for just an hour of sleep. When it continues, I drag myself out of the bed and pull on my robe that’s lying on the footboard.
When the knocks become more forceful, I pick up my pace as I make my way across the room. “Coming,” I holler. Turning the crystal knob of the Victorian door handle, I pull it open. “Peter. Good morning.”
Peter graciously folds his hands together in front of him. “Good morning, Ms. Jenkins. Mr. Ellis has requested your presence in the dining room.”
“Really?” I rub a fist into my tired eyes. “What time is it?”
“Six a.m.”
I nod. “Six a.m.? Okay. Please tell him I’ll be there shortly.”
Why are we up this early? Surely, this won’t be the normal business hours?
Everyone is so formal here and I can’t help but feel inferior. I’m not fancy, proper, or even well-mannered. I use informal words and have the mouth of a sailor.
Peter leaves and I close the door behind him. I could really use a shower, but I don’t want to keep Cal waiting. Besides, more than anything, I need answers.
I quickly throw myself together with my hair twisted into a bun on the top of my head. I opt for a black skirt and a cream-colored, knitted sweater. Hopefully it’s appropriate for the occasion. Then again, it’s six o’clock in the morning, so Cal shouldn’t expect much from me.
I make my way down the hall. I remember passing a dining room on the way in, so hopefully I’m able to find it on my own.
There’s a chill in the air this morning, but I’m not sure if it’s due to the weather, or the ghost of my past lingering around me.
Two minutes later, I find myself looking into a large sitting room. The one that has the piano. It’s been at least five years since I’ve even played. There was a time my fingers danced across the keys for hours a day. Cal would sit beside me while he wrote stories in his notebook and most of the time, we never spoke, we just enjoyed each other’s company.
Once I left The Webster House, I took lessons for a couple years. Even played in a musical during freshman year, but I was never a fan of the attention. Slowly, the passion fizzled out and was replaced by school and friends.
Tiny hairs on my neck prick when someone comes up behind me. Not just anyone. It’s Cal. I can feel him standing there. Stray strands of hair hit my face with each exhale he makes. “Do you like it?”
I don’t turn around as I gaze into the room. “It’s beautiful.”
“Steinway 1942. When I got her, she was pretty dinged-up. A few coats of lacquer and she’s as good as new.”
My jaw drops open and I turn around to face Cal, not realizing he’s so close. Our noses almost collide and I take a few steps back. “Is it… Did you—”
Cal nods, knowing exactly what I was going to ask. It’s the same piano I used to play as a kid.
“When The Webster House was shut down by the county, everything was auctioned off. I was able to get a few priceless things out of that mess.”
I knew Mrs. Webster was convicted of sex trafficking about five years after I left. Apparently, the older girls were forced to “work” on the weekends. I only knew of one girl who was placed there at the time and my heart broke for sweet Bibs.
I look up at Cal, tears threatening to break free. “I wish I could have done something to help those girls.”
Had I stayed, maybe I could have protected them. Bibs was eventually placed in another home until she was old enough to leave two years ago. I reached out to her last year. She’s having a hard time with life but getting by. I promised her we’d keep in touch, but time sort of got away from me.
Cal holds his stare on me. “Maybe you could have.” He steps around me and walks into the room, hands in the pockets of his black dress pants. “But you chose to leave and now you have to live with that choice.”
He’s right. I did make the choice to leave. A few steps forward bring me into the room. There’s a large window that overlooks the mountains on the island. “You would have done the same thing.” He can lie and tell me he wouldn’t have, but he’d have left too.
His fingers trail featherlike over the closed lid of the piano as he walks around it. Finally stopping, facing my direction. “That’s where you’re wrong, Bella. I made a promise and I keep my promises.”
One hand still in his pocket, he waits for a reaction from me. But I don’t even know what to say. I decide to go with the response he’s likely waiting for. “I’m sorry, Cal.”
“It’s Callum. No one calls me Cal.” No smile that tells me he’s fucking with me. No wink, no flutter of his lashes.
What happened to the boy I used to know?
“But, I’ve always called you Cal.”
“You called your friend Cal. I am not your friend.”
Like a knife straight to the heart, my hands fly to my chest as I try to catch my breath. “Are you angry with me?” Chances are he’ll lie and say he’s not, but he’s distant and cold. It’s apparent he’s harboring some bitterness toward me.
As he should. No matter how I feel about the choice I made and no matter what my reasoning was, he’ll never understand because he didn’t have to make the choice. I did. I was the one in that position because Cal was reckless and troublesome. If I’d left it up to him, we’d have been in that home until we were eighteen years old. I would have been sold to the highest bidder on the weekends. Not him.
“How can I be angry with someone I don’t even know?” He stalks toward me and when I think he’s going to stop and elaborate, he keeps going. Leaving me standing in the room alone.
I pivot around and watch him walk away, but not before hollering at him over his shoulder. “You got a good life, Cal. Look at all this.” My arms wave around the room. He doesn’t even acknowledge me. Just keeps walking until he disappears down the hall and into a room I take to be the dining room.
He did get a good life. Cal has anything anyone could ever dream of. If anything, he was better off without me.
My black flats traipse across the floor as I walk briskly down the hall. Following the same path that Cal did, I find him taking a seat at the head of the twelve-foot, oblong table. The room looks like something out of a magazine. There’s an entire row of windows with stained-glass panels. A large crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling. A dozen cream-cushioned chairs organized perfectly around the table.
I stop in the doorway, cross my arms over my chest, and lean against the doorframe. ‘What did you mean when you said you don’t know me?’
Cal jabs his fork into a perfect triangular piece of pancake and stuffs it into his mouth, watching me intently as he chews. ‘Sit down. You need to eat.’
Taking a stance, my feet stay planted. ‘I’m not sitting anywhere until you tell me what you meant.’
‘Suit yourself. Your hunger only hurts you, Bella.”
‘My name is Isabella. Only my friends call me Bella, and if I remember correctly, you’re not my friend.”
The corner of his lip tugs up as he looks down at his plate and bites back a smile. Maybe he’s human, after all.
He may be human, but he’s still stubborn as an ox. Against my better judgment, I walk into the room, my eyes glued to him as I lift the lid on the tin platter and grab a pancake with my hand.
Cal looks from me to the tongs sitting beside it and I, ever so gracefully, drop the pancake onto a plate with a smirk. Lathering it up nicely with syrup, I scoop some scrambled eggs and a few pieces of bacon, then sit down about four chairs away from him.
As much as I’d like to return his stubbornness, this food smells damn good.
Once I’ve taken a couple bites and my hunger begins to subside, I try again. ‘Why do you feel like you don’t know me?’
Cal pats around his mouth with a cloth napkin, then sets it back in his lap.
‘Should I know you?’ He sticks another bite of pancake into his mouth.
‘Well, yeah. It’s me, Cal. We spent every waking minute of the day together for four whole years. For the longest time, you knew me better than anyone.’
It’s true. Cal knows my dreams, my secrets, the lies I’ve told. He’s heard the stories of my harrowing childhood. And, I know his. Cal has always been quiet, but he let me in and, in some ways, it made me feel special.
Granted, it’s been twelve years, but to say he doesn’t even know me is crazy. We weren’t just friends who shared the same house. We were so much more than that.
‘Four years that meant nothing.’ He drops his fork on the plate and pushes it away from him.
‘What are you talking about? It meant everything. Just because I left, doesn’t mean I didn’t care about you.’
‘Well, thanks for clearing the air, Bella. Everything is fine now.’ His chair slides back abruptly as he gets to his feet and attempts to leave.
Oh no, he doesn’t.
I jump up, almost tipping my chair over. With syrup still on my lips, I round the table and step in front of him. ‘You’re not walking away again. Not until you tell me why I’m here. How did you find me? If you’re so angry with me, why not just let me live my life as if…’
‘As if what, Bella?” He steps into the space between us. ‘As if I didn’t exist?’
‘No,’ my head shakes, ‘that’s not what I meant.’ My shoulders drop in defeat. ‘I just want answers. Yesterday I thought I was meeting an older man with a beer gut who fell into money. Thought I’d be fixing up a hotel and making my own money. Then I come here and find this extravagant room made up for me with ball gowns, shoes, and the piano. This wasn’t a coincidence, was it?’
‘Well, you got one thing right. I do have money. Lots of it. But, I certainly don’t have a beer gut and most definitely didn’t fall into it. It was earned. I bled for everything I own.’ His lip curls, brows dipped into a tight V. ‘In response to your previous statement, just because it looks like a good life, doesn’t mean it is. The light you see on the outside only shines because of years of darkness on the inside.’
His chest is heaving by the time he finishes. I can tell I’ve hit a nerve and dammit, I don’t want to. I just want to make things right. No matter what he thinks, I do care about him. Probably more than he will ever know.
‘You’re right. Perception is everything. Maybe it’s time you consider the fact that I left because I wanted to avoid the darkness. Why does that make me such a bad person?’
‘I never said you were a bad person. You wouldn’t be here if I thought you were.’
My breath hitches as I search for the answer to the question that’s been lingering since last night. ‘Why am I here?’
‘To work. For me.’ Cal’s cold fingers brush my cheek before tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Now eat.’
“What happened in the last twelve years that made you this way? Why are you so bitter?”
Cal drops his hands to his sides and bares his teeth as he speaks, “If you even have to ask that question, then you’re more of an idiot than I thought you were.”
“Oh, so now I’m an idiot?”
His eyebrows elevate, the tension between us coiling with each breath. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
I do get it, but no matter how I explain my reasoning, I know it’ll never be good enough. “I messed up, Cal.” My chest rises and falls quickly as I confess my own sins. “I was scared that you’d just keep getting in trouble and we’d be stuck there forever. I had no time to think about it, so I reacted.”
“Without even a goodbye? Was I that insignificant to you?”
“It would have been too painful. I was worried I’d change my mind. You were the only person in the entire world who ever gave a damn about me and no explanation at the moment felt fitting. So, I just left.”
I never even packed my things, just grabbed the photo of my mom and wore the stringy dress I’d put on that morning. There was nothing in that house I wanted to take with me—except Cal, but that was impossible.
“Then maybe you should try and see things from where I’m standing. Because you were the only person in the entire world who ever gave a damn about me, and you left me. You may not have been the one to deal me this shitty hand called life, but you stretched that hole inside of me and because of it, I entered a new world of suffering. A world that you now get to live in.”
A tear falls from the corner of my eye, and I sweep it away. “So, what? You want to own me? That’s impossible. You can’t just keep me here.”
Cal’s breathing becomes heavy, his eyes glowering at me. “Want to?” he grinds out. “I already do own you.” Two hands grab me by both arms and slam my back against the wall, stealing my breath. “You see, this was no accident, Bella. I brought you here and I will keep you here.”
For the first time ever, I’m scared of Cal. Like really fucking scared. “Why do you want to hurt me?” I choke out.
“Because you hurt me.” His gaze dips downward and he lets out a low grumble. “For the past twelve years, I’ve wondered what you look like, what you smell like, what makes you smile, and most importantly, what it feels like to be inside of you. Your tight walls clenched around my cock.”
Bile rises up my throat, and I swallow it down. “Please move.”
His eyes ride back up to mine as he positions his hand between my legs, trailing his fingers up my inner thigh under my skirt. “Tell me, Bella, have you been fucked in the last twelve years?”
I don’t answer when he blows out a menacing laugh. “Of course you have. You’re what, twenty-three now? A body like this doesn’t go untouched for that long.”
Without denying or confirming his assumption, I roll my eyes and look away from him.
Cupping my crotch, he presses his fingers against my entrance through the fabric of my panties. “Please, Cal. Don’t do this.” Tears fall carelessly down my cheeks and I swallow hard.
Warm lips graze the shell of my ear. “You want me to stop?”
I nod repeatedly in response.
His head comes back up and he looks at me while I continue to cry silently. “Then why are you so wet?”
My heart begins racing as tingles trickle through my entire body. Pressure builds inside of me and it’s burning hot. I’m disgusted with myself for being partially turned on by his forward behavior. “I…I’m not.”
Cal pushes my panties to the side and begins rubbing circles feverishly at my entrance. His eyes skate down to my mouth and he leans forward, darting his tongue out and licking a tear off my lips. I’m completely caught off guard when his mouth collides with mine. I squirm and try to pull back, but it does no good. I might as well be shackled in chains and handcuffed to this wall.
The taste of syrup and salty tears seeps into my mouth when his tongue enters. “Mmm,” he hums, “You taste better than I ever could have imagined.
“Stop,” I whimper into his mouth. “Just stop.”
He finally pulls back, looking at me, and it’s like he’s had an epiphany of some sort. His eyes are suddenly full of awareness, and perhaps, guilt. He drops his hand from beneath my panties and they fall back in place. He goes to speak, but says nothing, before turning around and storming out of the room.
