Page 125 of Enthrall
“I dropped Sheppard in hope of distancing myself from...” He gestured the rest.
Leaning forwards, I took his hands in mine, curling my fingers around his.
He squeezed my hands. “This is why I pushed you away. Not because I don’t care about you but because I would never want to expose you to my past. I’ve been trying to protect you. I let Emily down terribly. I’m responsible for her death. She was so fragile.”
I rose and made my way around to his side and settled into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and hugging him.
He kissed my forehead again and again, his affection unrelenting. We stayed like this for what seemed like an eternity. It was hard to remember him not being in my life and I didn’t want to go back to the time he wasn’t. I planted soft kisses upon his lips.
Richard rested a finger beneath my chin and tilted it upward. “Until I met you I didn’t believe I could ever feel another emotion.” His eyelids fluttered. “I don’t want to scare you away.”
“Never. I love you.” And life pre-Richard was an empty, desolate land without love.
“I’ll always love you, Mia, always.” He sealed his promise with a kiss. “I will never do anything to hurt you.”
“I’ll do anything for you,” I said. “Richard Booth Sheppard.”
He gave a smile. “Be happy. That is all I’ll ever ask of you.”
I snuggled into his neck, his steady heart beating against my chest, wanting nothing more than to stay here forever.
I WROTE MY NAME in pencil in Enthrall’s appointment book and secured myself an 11:00 A.M. with Richard.
Soon he would arrive, and just as I’d done each morning since I’d begun working here I’d hand him the book. There came little doubt that in Richard’s arms I’d feel safe when taken down into Enthrall’s depths. Thoughts of what might unfold there caused tingles of excitement to unfurl, sending a thrill between my thighs.
“I have so much pleasure to show you.”
Blushing wildly, I tucked my Frederick’s of Hollywood shopping bag farther beneath the desk, barely hiding it behind the glass fronted panel. I took a moment to check email. There were several of them and all of them routine.
Half in a daze, I opened my Google browser and entered Richard Booth Sheppard. In stark contrast to last time I’d searched, there were literarily thousands of results. By merely dropping his last name he’d successfully removed himself from any listings. I clicked images. Richard stared back in numerous photos. There he was with his father, or so the tag indicated, and in another, strolling out of a restaurant after an evening of fine dining in Manhattan. In the one beneath, Richard huddled with his two older brothers, their similarities startling, their gazes upon their father hinting at happier times. There were quite a few of him beside a pretty, smiling blonde, and as I ran the mouse over one of the photos I confirmed this was his fiancé, Emily Oren.
I clicked the link.
Baron King, a New York Times journalist who’d written the article on Richard, confirmed what I now knew. Emily’s suicide note had been the only evidence keeping Richard from going to jail. The homicide detectives had quickly authenticated that Emily had indeed committed suicide, as had the on-call coroner lending his expertise on the matter. I felt terrible for Richard, losing his fiancé like that and almost being accused of her death. It must have been what sent him over the edge.
Throat dry, I read on, and a wave of guilt washed over me because I was able to have this love affair with him due to some terrible event that had wiped his life off the map.
Emily had used one of Richard’s razors to cut her wrists according to Baron King, who had an indifferent way of writing, as though merely dissecting a set of experiences and not a man’s spiraling life or a woman’s death. Upon the screen I followed King’s words, trying to grasp them. Emily had been three months pregnant when she’d taken her life.
A moan of sadness escaped my lips.
With unsteady legs, I made it through the staff room door and ran into the restroom. There, I splashed water onto my face, my chest shaking with sobs. A terrible sense of loss tugged hard and thoughts of that baby dying inside her wrenched at my insides. I imagined how Richard coped with having lost his child.
Cameron had alluded to this when he’d taken me with him to that restaurant Chez Polidor, providing a slither of insight that someone had eviscerated Richard’s heart. The fact Richard might believe the blame still rested on him made me wonder how he’d carried on at all. I grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and dapped my face, haunted by this startling realization.
I froze.
I’d left the screen up. I flew out and along the hallway, pushing the door open to the reception and almost tripped over my own feet.
Cameron sat in my chair with his stare fixed on the screen. His gaze found me. “It’s best to delete your search history. That way your subject won’t feel stalked.”
“I know what happened.”
“All of us here do our part to protect his privacy.”
I gave a nod, wanting Cameron to know that was important to me too.
“We don’t want a client seeing this now do we?” he said firmly.
