Uncovering You 6: Deliverance Read online

  “Dammit, Lilly! Don’t go there,” Jeremy warns.

  “Or what? Or you’ll leave me in the dark again? Let’s see how far your sentiment of affection really goes, Jeremy. You say you love me? You say you trust me? I say, ‘Prove it.’” I turn my head and stare out the window. I catch my own reflection in the mirror. I can’t believe how angry I look.

  I’ve never had a temper. I’ve never been overly emotional. I’ve never succumbed to tears on the spot, or exploded after seeing red, or had anything trigger me past the level, collected woman I once was.

  Somewhere along the way, with Jeremy, that’s changed. And I hate how susceptible I’ve become to my emotions. These types of mood swings are starting to mirror Jeremy’s personality shifts. That, in itself, is enough to piss me off. The fact that I am helpless to stop it, that I don’t even know why it’s happening, makes it worse.

  What happened to the college undergrad who prided herself on understanding people? What happened to the girl who knew how to tackle all the bad shit that inherently came with the territory of having an alcoholic mother? What happened to the determined, ambitious, fresh-eyed, young woman ready to tackle the world?

  Jeremy Stonehart happened. That’s what. Around him, I’m unable to control my emotions. I’m unable to control my body. I should feel nothing but repulsion and hatred and disgust for the man. That would make things simple. That would help me act the part I need to take him down.

  But I don’t possess any of that indifference. In fact, even angry as I am right now, I don’t feel any of that rage directed towards him. It is channeled more toward the situation in which I find myself. A situation that I’m helpless to change

  “Lilly …” Jeremy says. His voice has turned soft. Mellow. It kindles unwanted feelings of warmth in my stomach.

  I try to shut them off. But, I can’t. They mix with all the other emotions I’m feeling to create a scrambled cacophony that I’m too weary to dissect.

  “Just drive,” I say. My voice hitches. I do not look at him. “Please, Jeremy. Just get out of here.”

  ***

  We arrive at the hotel after getting stuck in traffic for nearly an hour. Apparently, a single accident is enough to stall movement on the roads when there isn’t a viable emergency-response system in place. We spend the entire wait in silence.

  If being delayed like this annoys Jeremy, he doesn’t let it show. I guess, technically, he is still on vacation. He has dedicated the time to spend with me.

  For that, I should be thankful. I know who he is. I know how important and busy he is. In spite of all that’s happened, in spite of the circumstances of our lives crashing together, I am aware of how valuable his time is.

  Am I taking it all—the money, the clothes, the lavish hotel suites and private jets and expensive cars—for granted? Would somebody be justified in saying that I’ve been spoiled?

  No. Not if they knew of the circumstances that brought me here.

  Jeremy parks the Bentley underground and escorts me up. We use the normal elevator, just like normal people. In fact, at one point, a couple much like us—an older man with a younger woman—enters the elevator and shares the enclosed space for a few stories. I notice the man shamelessly eyeballing me, his wife or girlfriend in total oblivion. Jeremy sees it, too, and tightens his grip on my waist. Then he steps between us, breaking my line of sight. He doesn’t say anything. But the expression on his face must be enough to scare the man off because he—too casually—hits the button for the next floor and pulls his woman off in advance of their original destination.

  “Escort,” Jeremy says under his breath when the doors close. “And he probably thought you were one, too.”

  You’ve paid $180,000 to fuck me, I think to myself. Clearly, my sour mood has yet to dissipate. Is there really that much of a difference?

  We reach our level. The doors open. It’s just a few short steps down the hall to the suite. Jeremy swipes the entrance card, and the cool air-conditioned air crashes into me the moment I walk in.

  “Damn! That’s cold,” Jeremy grumbles. “I should have adjusted it before we left.”

  I don’t respond. Instead, I break away from him and head towards the bedroom. All I want to do is lie down.

  “How is your shoulder?” Jeremy asks.

  I sniff. “I’m surprised you noticed.”

  “I notice everything when it comes to you,” he says.

  If this is his attempt to get back in my good graces, he’s got a long, hard road ahead of him.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” I announce.

  “Now?” Jeremy asks. “This is our last full day here, Lilly. We leave tomorrow. I was hoping to spend it more productively, with you.”

  “Yeah, well I’m tired,” I retort, plopping a pillow over my eyes. “You’re free to fuck me while I’m asleep if you want. You had no qualms about doing it before.”

  “FUCK, LILLY!” He roars. The full sound of his voice makes me jolt upright. “What has gotten into you? I’m trying, goddammit, to keep myself in check. But, you’re making it damned difficult.” He paces away from me, to the doorway. He holds himself against it for a second or two, and then turns back. His face is a mask of icy calm. But, his eyes are storming.

  Shit! I think. Now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve pushed too far. I’m an idiot for taking too many liberties around him.

  “I am trying, Lilly,” he stresses, “to act the way I’m supposed to. Tell me—” he takes a controlled, deep breath, and finishes on the exhale, “—what I did wrong.”

  “Nothing,” I say quickly. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m being stupid. Bratty. You were right before.”

  “You’re lying,” he says. “I know when you don’t tell the truth, Lilly. I’ve had years of experience reading people. Don’t play games with me. Tell me what’s really wrong. Is it the café? Is that really what had you so amped up? Or is something else? Something I told you this morning?”

  “It has nothing to do with this morning,” I concede. I bite my lip. “It’s just… you had the café watched, Jeremy. Doesn’t that strike you as a little extreme? Doesn’t that strike you as somewhat odd?”

  “So, it is about that.” He sighs. He comes over and sits at the foot of the bed. His back is straight and his shoulders wide as he twists around to look at me. “Look, Lilly. Nothing about who I am or what I do can be considered ‘normal’. Not in the sense that you see it. Things that are normal, expected, regular for everyday people hold no meaning for me.

  “My life has been built around privacy. I told you that. I told you about the stalkers. What I didn’t tell you about, what I never wanted to tell you about, at least, not until you were ready, are the attempts that have been made on my life.”

  I sit up, giving him my full attention. “Someone tried to kill you?” I ask.

  He laughs. “More than once. It comes with the territory. When you’re in a position of power, as I am, there are always going to be threats that regular people never face.”

  “When?” I ask, almost breathless.

  “Last time? Nearly two years ago. No, wait—less than that. At the start of March, 2012. I was on a trip to Brazil to visit some real estate developments Stonehart Industries had a share in commissioning. The problem was: that same land previously belonged to a powerful drug cartel. They were using it as a secondary base for their operations. Obviously, I did my due diligence and knew about the threat. But I didn’t expect them to strike in public.

  “I was being chauffeured together with the mayor when a Jeep rammed into us. A gang of bikers surrounded the car. They started firing automatics in the middle of a busy street.”

  I look at him with a newfound respect. “And you survived?”

  “Survived, and had every one of those mother fucking bastards killed,” he says. I scoot away. Jeremy, ordering a hit? I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. But, I thought he said he wasn’t a murderer!

  Maybe it’s different when you have somebody else
do it for you.

  He notices my sudden trepidation. “Not like that, Lilly,” he hedges. “I provided additional funds to the police force to track the members of the cartel down. They were all... how should I put this for you… highly unsavory people. There was a bust. A gunfight broke out. There was military involved, and the national force and… well, I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that justice was ultimately done.”

  “But back to the first shooting. As I said, I wasn’t alone in the car. The mayor of the city was there with me. His presence should have been enough to deter the incident. Going after government officials is a sure-fire way to rocket to the top of the priority list.”

  “I survived, Lilly, because I was inside an armored car. Couple that with some quick-thinking from the driver, and the rapid deployment of my own security force, who’d been tailing us the whole time. The end result was: both the mayor and I got out alive.”

  “Wow,” I breathe. “I never . . . Jeremy, I never expected . . . ”

  “I know you don’t,” he says. “There’s a dark side to every business, Lilly. When you’re at the top of the totem pole, all those below you will try to bring you down. What you hear about in the news—aggressive mergers, stock buyouts, lawsuits and counter suits over indefinable intellectual property . . . that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s just a hint of the kind of hostility a conglomerate like Stonehart Industries attracts. And, by extension,” he smiles, “those are the hostilities that I attract.”

  “You said there were more?” I ask.

  He makes a flippant gesture. “Nothing to rival 2012. A few left-wing nut jobs decided to take offense at some trumped up environmental transgression they accused my company of. All baseless, of course. But, that doesn’t stop them from trying to take out their anger on me. ‘Cut off the head’ they think, ‘And the rest of the body will crumble.’”

  He laughs. “Even if one of them did manage to kill me, Stonehart Industries would continue operating without a hitch. I have capable men in place ready for my succession, should the need arise…” He twists his lips. “…prematurely”

  I swallow hard. He has contingencies in place in case of his death? What chance do I really have, then, of bringing him down?

  He mistakes my pallor for concern. “Don’t worry,” he assures me. “None have gotten close enough to do me any serious harm. In fact, the only person that I need to watch out for…” his eyes gleam at me. Within them, I see a spark of that brilliant intuition that got him where he is today, “… is you.”

  Chapter Five

  Jeremy looks at me from over the screen of his laptop. “We need to talk about Fey,” he says.

  We’re high in the air in one of his private jets, heading back to California. Our time in the sun is over. Tomorrow—or heck, maybe today—signifies Jeremy’s return to the real world, and to Stonehart Industries.

  Our final day in the Caribbean was spent in a similar fashion to the last few days we had on his private island. That is, the entire time, I had only Jeremy.

  I’d loosened up a bit after hearing him speak about the attempts on his life. Maybe it helped me understand, just a little bit, some of his personality quirks. Maybe it helped—inadvertently, subconsciously—for me to emphasize with him just a little bit more.

  We’re never going to get to the point where I feel pity for Jeremy Stonehart. Not after the things he’s done to me. In my eyes, he will remain forever irredeemable.

  But he doesn’t have to know that. He can suspect it—and I bet he does. But, I will never stonewall him so much that he thinks his cause lost.

  What cause is that? I don’t know. There seem to be two conflicting, rivaling desires at play. The first is his reason for picking me, for stalking me, for abducting me and submitting me to all the horrors that entailed.

  The second is his new pronouncement of affection for me. The “L” word. I haven’t had enough time or distance from him to process all the implications of that yet. It’s some heavy shit. I need to think long and hard about how I might use it to my advantage… when I get a break from Jeremy.

  That break might come as soon as tonight, or as early as tomorrow. When we land in America, he will undoubtedly have business to attend to. Despite all the new freedoms I’ve attained over this trip, I don’t think he’ll want me leaving the house. So, starting tomorrow, it’ll be Lilly Ryder back in that glorious, enormous mansion… with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

  Except think. And maybe talk to Rose. I have to find out what her relationship with Jeremy is. She said she’s known him for almost twenty years. How did they first meet? I know more about Jeremy now than I did when Rose told me that. Twenty years ago, he’d be twenty-three and still living in his father’s shadow. That was about the time he’d started Stonehart Industries and begun to build himself into the man I’ve experienced so intimately over the last six months.

  But he wasn’t Stonehart at the start. He was still Jeremy… Jeremy something. He never did tell me his true last name. That means that Rose knows him from before. She’d seen him grow, mature, and conquer.

  If I can talk to her--really talk to her–that might give me my first true insight into Jeremy’s past.

  I glance at him past the pages of the book I’m reading. Most of the flight has been spent in productive silence—him working away on his laptop and tablet, me reading a book I found tucked into my bag, no doubt courtesy of Rose.

  “What about Fey?” I ask.

  “I assume you’ll want to continue communications with her. If you drop off again, it might raise suspicions.” He closes his laptop and looks hard at me. “And you must know we want to avoid that.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m listening. Tell me what you have in mind.”

  “You have to understand that I cannot grant you unfettered access to your friends,” Jeremy begins. He smiles in a way that could almost be seen as apologetic. “I do trust you, Lilly ... in most regards. And I will do my best to continue to demonstrate that trust, until we either reach the ultimate level that I desire or…” he pauses, and his sharp eyes glint at me, “…you do something to make me reconsider things.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I begin.

  “And yet you still might,” he finishes. “You recall I mentioned having gifted a cell phone to you?”

  “Yes,” I say, my heart starting to beat faster in anticipation.

  “What number do you think I punched in to Fey’s phone?”

  “I assumed it was yours…” I say, hesitating.

  “No.” Jeremy reaches into his jacket packet and pulls out a sleek, black rubberized case. It looks a little like a glasses holder, but much thinner, and much more refined. “I told her the truth. It was yours.”

  He extends his hand to me. I reach for the case. As I take it, I realize that my whole arm is shaking.

  “Open it,” he whispers. “Look inside.”

  I glance up at him, and then turn my eyes down to the case. I trail one finger along the edge. It has that smooth, premium feel of new electronics.

  I take a breath, steadying my nerves, and pop the clam shell open. Inside is a phone unlike any I’ve ever seen before.

  For one, it’s all screen. The bezel around the edge is so subtle, so minute, that it might not even be there. I dip a nail under one side and lift it up.

  It’s light. Surprisingly light, in fact. Most of the weight I felt when holding the case must have come from the case itself and not the phone. In my hand, the backing feels smooth and glossy. It’s black, every single side of it, so much so that it’s hard to see where the screen ends and the rest of the phone begins.

  “Turn it on,” Jeremy suggests.

  I brush my fingers around the side, looking for the power button. I find it and press down.

  The screen immediately lights up. A silver ‘Stonehart Industries’ logo flashes as it boots. It looks exactly like the one I remember decorating the Stonehart Industries’ website when I looked it up,
all those months ago, after first receiving Jeremy’s all.

  “It’s a prototype,” Jeremy announces. “A proprietary design using some of Dextran’s best silicon and ZilTech’s new operating system. They tell me they can make it cheap enough, fast enough, and sexy enough to rival anything Apple or Google might come out with in the next three years. We’re launching the phone this March. What you have in your hands is the very first consumer model that’s been allowed out in the wild.

  “Wow,” I say. “Jeremy, thank you.” I don’t want to get ahead of myself. But, already, I feel an excitement building. A phone signifies access to information. Access to the outside world. It’s my own piece of technology. It could grant me previously-undreamt-of liberation.

  Eventually. I’m sure this one comes heavily modded to restrict all but the most basic functions.

  “So?” he leans back. “Tell me what you think.”

  “It’s really mine?” I begin. “I mean, I—”

  “Of the design, Lilly. Do you think it has what it takes to compete with the best? To win over Apple fanatics? Show me that zest you demonstrated so well for understanding consumer desires in your time at Corfu Consulting.”

  “Oh. Okay. Let me think. Um…”

  I look the phone over. “It certainly has the sexiness you were talking about,” I say after a moment. I bring it closer to my eyes and examine the screen. “And the display is amazing. It’s like one of those infinity-edge pools. I feel like I’m holding something out of a futuristic thriller.”

  Jeremy smiles. “Good. I’m glad you’re able to pick out its most distinctive features.”

  “It’s also marvelously light,” I continue. I feel myself stepping back into the consultant role Jeremy—though I didn’t know it at the time—hired me for. “And the backing is so smooth, yet sturdy. Cool, like metal, but it can’t be, can it? That would be cost-prohibitive on a mass production scale… especially if you are to compete on price.”