The Lion's Den(59)
“Or you could just get a job,” I suggested. But she was already shaking her head. “If you were at Heaven, you’d make at least a couple hundred a night.”
“I told you, I’m not doing that again.”
I gathered my script pages from the bed and the floor, irritated. She had no problem with me working in a club to pay for the apartment she crashed in, but she was too good to do it herself. And yet I was too freaking nice to kick her out.
“I’m gonna get some rent money. I swear!” she promised to my back as I stomped down the hallway to finish my work in the living room.
A few days later I came home early from a soul-crushing Tinder date with a handsy wannabe director to find the door to my bedroom closed, sex sounds coming from within. The blood rushed in my ears. I wanted to scream.
After the afternoon I’d shared with Eric, he had the audacity to fuck her in my bed not two weeks after? And she was yet to give me a dime of the rent she’d promised. Screw them. I had half a mind to throw open the door and kick them out. I stood with my hand poised above the doorknob, listening to the grunting as my headboard slammed against the wall. It was all male. I heard nothing coming from Summer. And it didn’t sound like Eric. Not that I knew what his sex noises sounded like.
I quietly backed away from the door, unsure what to do. I wanted to leave, but it was 10:00 p.m., and besides the fact that it felt wrong to vacate my own apartment so that Summer could soil my bed, I didn’t have anywhere to go. But I also didn’t want to be sitting in the living room when she and whomever she was screwing emerged from their tryst. Especially if it was Eric.
The porch would have to do. I’d have a clear shot of the walkway below, so I’d see him when he left and know when the coast was clear to return to my apartment and rip Summer a new asshole. I grabbed a hoodie from the hall closet and stepped onto the balcony, leaving the curtains drawn across the French doors so that I wouldn’t be visible from the living room. God, I hoped they’d finish up quickly; it was freaking freezing outside. I sat in the uncomfortable iron chair hunched over my ereader, but I couldn’t concentrate and kept having to reread pages of the novel that had been so gripping until now.
Eventually, after what seemed like eons but according to the clock in the corner of my device was only ten minutes, I heard footsteps in the living room, then on the stairwell, and finally spied a man emerge from the building. It wasn’t Eric. This man was tall and balding, wearing a sport coat, and there was something familiar about him. I sat up and watched while he loped down the walkway with the carefree gait of a man who’d just bedded a hot blonde, toward a town car idling at the curb. As he climbed into the backseat, he cast a glance toward the building, his face illuminated by the streetlight.
It was Three.
Immediately I ducked, praying he hadn’t seen me. Summer was fucking Three. My God. What the hell?
When I heard the car pull away from the curb, I emerged from under the table and slid open the door to the apartment. I stepped through the curtains to find Summer curled on the couch, staring at me with red eyes. “Was that Three?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
She nodded, then burst into tears. I sat next to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “What happened?”
“He said if he was going to be paying the rent, he wanted to come see the place.” She suppressed a sob. “So he came up, and when we got in the bedroom, he shut the door and he…he…” She broke down.
“It’s okay.” I hugged her. “Did you tell him no?”
“At first. But…” She wiped away tears. “I didn’t know what to do. I needed the money, and he…” She buried her face in her hands. “He made me call him Daddy.”
My heart plummeted. “Oh God.” I stroked her hair as she cried into my sweatshirt. “I’m so sorry. That is so fucked up. I’m so, so sorry, Summer. If I’d had any inkling this might happen, I would never have asked you for rent…”
“It’s not just you.” She pulled away. “I’m out of money, and my mom hasn’t been working. She’s staying with a guy she’s been seeing who treats her like crap…” She shot to her feet abruptly, cutting off the tears. “I need a shower.”
“Wait. You shouldn’t take a shower before we go to the police,” I said.
She emitted a short bark of a laugh. “I’m not going to the police.”
“But he raped you—”
“So? What good is going to the police gonna do except to stop him from sending me the five grand he promised?”
“But, Summer, he—”
“It’s my decision,” she snapped. “At least he paid for it. I’ve been sleeping with Eric for over a year and he won’t give me a dime.” She slowly moved down the hallway, but paused when she reached the bathroom door and turned. “I’m not gonna live my life like this.”
“No,” I said, going to her. “You deserve so much more.”
She met my gaze with steely resolve. “Let’s never talk about it again.”
Day 5
Wednesday evening—Golfe de Saint-Tropez, France
The monstrous boat looms above us, silhouetted against the bright-blue sky. This one’s got to be twice the size of ours, and she does have a helipad. We bob in the cool of her shadow, her shiny black exterior so close I can see our reflection as our tender slowly makes its way around the back of the yacht into the full glare of the low sun, where TYGER is etched in gold script across her stern.