If I delay a second longer, it will be too late.
Chapter Ten
I WHIRL AROUND EVENas my mind is reeling, and my body still feels like it's under attack. I'm already expecting the worst, thinking Jerry only pulled away to reach for a weapon to hurt me more, or maybe even he's started to take off his clothes because he knows no one's around to hear my cries, and so it's only a matter of time that he...that he...that...
Mr. Everford?
I can't believe what I'm seeing. Behind him is his gang. His, oh, I don't know what to call the men in dark suits that go wherever he goes. All I know is that they're there, and they have Jerry with them, and the reason he's not making any noise is because he's unconscious. How that happened I can't even try to comprehend.
My eyes catch the bottle of beer rolling on the linoleum where Jerry must have dropped it. I can't stop watching it roll.
Then I look up.
And I see him.
Mr. Everford is standing in the doorway of the stock room, and the first thing I register is that he's furious. Not loud-furious. Not yelling-furious. The quiet kind. He doesn't have to raise his voice. He doesn't have to. His tie is undone, his jacket is open, his hair is not where his hair usually is. He's breathing hard. Like he's just run.
He ran.
This billionaire who has people open doors for him and people drive him around and people stand back when he comes off a lift. This man ran up the stairs to get to me.
He's still breathing hard.
Still gorgeous like I don’t want to remember.
And ready to kill.
His eyes haven't left me since the moment he came through the door. They're moving over me. Top of my head down. Then they snap back up to my face and stop there.
"Nicole."
Mr. Everford says my name in a tight, fierce voice.
"Are you alright?"
He's already crossing the room to me. The men in suits don't move. They know. He gets to me in three strides. He's tall. Taller than I'd registered when he was on the other side of a hotel hallway, taller than Sandy, tall enough that I have to tilt my head back to keep his eyes. The first thing he does is take my face in his hands.
Carefully.
His hands are warm. They're also shaking, which I don't understand at first because nothing about the rest of him is shaking.
He turns my chin one way then the other, checking my face for marks. “Did he hit you?”
I manage to shake my head, but it’s getting words out that I struggle with—
“H-He...”
—because it’s forcing me to relive what...happened.
“Did he get to...touch you?”
I want to say ‘no’. I want to tell him I’m fine. I just want to make sure that I’mnota victim. That I’m not...I’m not asking for this even though every time Mr. Everford sees me, it just happens to be when I am that. Victimized. First by my own husband, and now, Jerry.
But when I finally manage to choke something out—
"Y-You must really think I'm stupid."
I actually find myself trying to make a joke of the whole thing, but it's just the biggest mistake ever because somehow...the words have me laughing, and then I'm crying, and then I'm laughing and crying and I can't seem to stop. Even when it starts getting hard to breathe, I'm just laughing and laughing and crying and crying and—