Haze(21)

"There are security cameras," I think aloud. "I've seen Wallis watching the footage when she caught a shoplifter. There aren't any in the rooms but they do give a view of who goes in and out of them."

"I was just about to suggest that." Cicely turns towards the door. "I remember Wallis mentioning those. We can review them right now to prove what really happened."

"I need to go." I don't make eye contact with either of them. "I have customers waiting for me."

I brush past Cicely, twist the doorknob in my hand, and walk back to the front of the boutique knowing that as soon as I can, I'm leaving this f*cked up circus behind me for good.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Gabriel




The water pounds down on me. The heated spray beating a path along my back. My eyes are closed. My mind is too awake. It's near three in the morning and I haven't slept. I can't quiet my thoughts.

The full day of work I had planned ended abruptly as I watched the security tapes in the Liore boutique. I'd called Wallis to the store from the corporate offices to assist me. She'd been in a meeting, an important meeting, regarding the men's line.

My better judgement was swept aside by my insatiable, unexplainable need, to see who had f*cked who in that change room.

When Cicely had showed me that condom package and the refuse of what had transpired in the cramped space, I'd been hit with images of Isla bent over the bench, her dress hiked to her waist, her panties pushed aside as a customer pounded his dick into her from behind.

I'd imagined his hand bunched in her hair, pulling her neck back as he rode her fast and hard. The sense of rage I felt with those thoughts invading my mind was palpable. It wasn't rational but it was real and stifling.

She'd looked different when her eyes met mine in the boutique. I saw a need and a desire there that I hadn't before. It may have been nothing more than my remembrances of how she looked in the club. She was so ripe, willing, and waiting to be taken.

My intention when she followed me into the office was clear. I wanted a simple explanation. I wanted her assurance that she wasn’t the one who had taken a man into that space. I needed to know that. It had nothing to do with her job. It had everything to do with my selfish need to slide my cock inside of her.

I felt relief wash over me when Wallis spotted the culprits on the footage. The cleaning crew had granted themselves carte blanche in the boutique hours before the store opened. The man and his female counterpart, hired to clean the store, had instead f*cked like rabbits in the corridor leading to the change room before they fell out of view and into the room.

Cicely's explanation for not finding the evidence of their misdeeds when she did her required check of the rooms before the store's opening was far reaching. She'd been interrupted mid-check she claimed at first by a customer knocking on the door, wanting early access to the sales items.

As Wallis ran through the security footage one final time, Cicely's story lost all merit. It was clear that she'd strolled through the corridor before the store opened, unlocking each of the change room doors before pushing them open with a brush of her foot as her eyes were cast down at her smartphone. She was blissfully unaware that cameras were even in place.

When I finally walked through the boutique on my way out two hours later, Isla's back was turned to me. I'd stopped to thank her for being so cooperative but the only response was a faint nod of her head before she walked to the left to adjust a row of stockings that had been knocked astray by the greedy hands of bargain hunters.

She's pissed. I don't blame her. Cicely f*cked up and I was pulled into that.

That's not who I am.

It's not who I want to be.

I don't care if a woman I'm interested in f*cks someone else. I'll find another.

I don't care if a woman I want tells me to go to hell.

I move on. I find someone else. I f*ck her until I forget everyone else and then I walk away.

That's who I am.

It's who I want to be.

The only difference now is that I know Isla Lane exists and I can't get her out of my mind.

***

"You can't possibly be mad at either of them, Gabriel." My mother hugs me gently taking care not to allow her face to touch mine. From the looks of it, she's spent hours in someone's make up chair. "Caleb and Rowan were waiting for me. I wanted to look my best."

She looks stunning.

I'm not surprised. Whenever there's a spotlight to be had, or a red carpet to stand on, my mother will be front and center. Tonight she's wearing a striking royal blue dress from one of our boutiques. It's cut just low enough to show off a stunning diamond necklace. I'm not about to ask where it came from. We'll have that discussion when her credit card bill crosses my desk in a few weeks.

"I'm not angry," I say quietly hoping to diffuse her. If the cameras aren't pointed at her, she'll do whatever is necessary to draw them towards her. Once, three or four years ago, she burst out in song during a press event for the Berdine line. It took months of negotiating, manipulating and subtle coercion to get the gossip rags to finally move on to another story.

At the time, my mother viewed their ongoing attention as flattery. I knew better. They would follow her in hopes of catching her in another moment of desperation. Things have calmed now, but I work hard to keep her in the background, out of the way of any stray microphones or cameras.