THERE WILL BE NO MORE CLIENTS.
LEAVE, IF YOU WISH; THERE IS MONEY ENOUGH IN THE ENVELOPE TO ALLOW YOU TO GO WHEREVER YOU WISH. BUT IF YOU DO CHOOSE TO LEAVE, YOU WILL BE ON YOUR OWN. I WILL NOT CHASE YOU THIS TIME.
OR, YOU MAY TAKE THE ELEVATOR UP TO THE PENTHOUSE. BUT IF YOU CHOOSE THIS, YOU LEAVE EVERYTHING IN THIS APARTMENT WHERE IT IS, AND COME TO ME AS YOU ARE NOW, NAKED, WITH ONLY THE NAME YOU CHOSE FOR YOURSELF THAT DAY IN THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART.
~CALEB
Folded on the cushion of the chair is a dress. Deep, dark blue. Of course. A shade of blue that seems to be a defining feature in my life . . .
Caleb Indigo.
Logan’s indigo eyes.
And now this dress . . .
Indigo.
Except this dress is not new. Not beautiful. It was, once, perhaps. I lift it, and I am strangled by ravaging emotion. I do not recognize this dress; it is ripped, torn. From neckline to hem, it is torn open. Ripped in half and stained with blood. There is another rip, this one on the side, low, on the right.
I touch my right hip, where there is a scar.
There is blood staining the dark blue fabric at the neckline, all over the shoulders, down the back.
Why, I don’t know, but I lift it, step through the gaping hole. Fit my arms through the sleeves. Tug the ends together.
It is too small. Even undamaged, it wouldn’t fit me. I am too large in the bust and backside for this dress. Too tall, as well, perhaps.
Six years.
I would have been around eighteen or nineteen when I last wore this dress.
I remove the dress; I feel as if phantoms of the past cling to my skin, seeping into me from the fabric.
The tag says Sfera. Even the style is strange to me. So short, coming not even to midthigh. Sleeveless, intact the neckline would have been high around my throat, but the back gapes open to midspine. I stare at the material clutched in my hand, a useless clue to who I used to be. An empty fragment of my past.
The girl who wore this dress from Sfera . . . who was she? What was her name? Did she have parents? A sister? What did she like to do? Did she have friends? Did she sketch hearts on notebooks? Did she have a crush on a boy? Did she speak Spanish? If she did, I have forgotten it.
This dress can tell me nothing. I cannot even wear it, and if I could, if I could sew the ends together . . . would I?
No.
So this choice of yours, Caleb?
I see through it.
It is a way of retaking what you feel I took from you last night.
Naked, hesitant, I enter the elevator, twist the key to the PH.
The doors close, and the car rises.
The doors open, and now I see the penthouse, whereas the last time I was here, I didn’t, not really.
Expansive space, thick white carpeting, a wall of windows with a commanding view of the city. Black modern furniture. I recognize the sectional in front of the elevator as the one Caleb had me over. It is one of a set: an L-shaped couch, a modern minimalist chair, a small round silver table, and another chair, forming a small square to block off the space in front of the elevator.
In the distance, in the farthest corner of the penthouse, the kitchen, and near it a small eating nook in the corner where two walls of glass merge. You are there, sitting at the table, leaned back in a chair, elegantly casual in blue jeans and a white crew neck T-shirt. A mug in your hands, a rectangular electronic tablet on the table in front of you.
There is a place setting beside you. A saucer and a cup. A plate, with a bagel neatly presented, sliced into halves, one half laid facedown on a just-so angle atop the other. Precise, perfect.
“Come, sit.” Your voice is very far away: The penthouse is enormous; it suits you exactly.
I cross the space hesitantly. If there is anyone in the buildings across the street, they can see me, and I am still naked.
You smile as I approach you, set down your mug of coffee.
You stand. Pull off your plain white T-shirt. Settle it onto my head, tug the neck opening over me, and I feed my arms through the sleeves. Clothed, somewhat, I feel more confident.
I glance at the cup of tea—I can see the tag: Harney & Sons Earl Grey—and the bagel, plain with light cream cheese spread thin. “You knew I’d come.”
Your eyes are still impenetrable, but I am starting to see glimmers of something. Perhaps I am finally learning to read you. Or perhaps you are learning to let me.
“Of course I did,” you say. “You are mine.”
And this, from you, is a truth I cannot deny.
The question is: Do I want to be?
Continue reading for a sneak peek at the second book in the Madame X trilogy . . .
EXPOSED
By
Jasinda Wilder
Coming soon from Berkley Books!
I am drowning in an ocean of darkness. The sky is the sea, dark masses of roiling clouds like waves, spreading in every direction and weighing heavily on me like the titanic bulk of Homer’s wine-dark seas. I lie on my back on the rooftop, leftover heat from the previous day still leaching out of the rough concrete and into my skin through the thin T-shirt that is all I’m wearing.
I want to see the stars, someday. I imagine them like a spray of salt on a black table cloth. Like a handful of diamonds against silk.
There are four small black speakers planted in unobtrusive locations around the rooftop, and music floats from them in serene, soothing waves.
Debussy, you said it was: Clair de Lune. A piano, creating a light and airy atmosphere in this lonely evening.
You’ve left for the evening. Business. Nothing I would enjoy, you claimed. Listen to music, drink wine, you’ll be back and we’ll go somewhere.
Things have changed, but then again, they haven’t, really, have they?
Perhaps I doze.
I sense a presence as I wake up, but I don’t open my eyes. Perhaps your business didn’t take as long as you’d thought. I feel you sit beside me, and your finger touches my hair, smooths it off my forehead.
But then I smell cinnamon and cigarettes.
I crack my eyes open, and it isn’t you.
“Logan.” I whisper it, surprised. “How are you here?”
He shrugs. “Bribes, distraction . . . it wasn’t hard.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
He fits a cigarette to his mouth, cups his hands around it, and I hear a scrape and a click. Flame bursts orange, briefly, and then the smell of cigarette smoke is pungent and acrid. His cheeks go concave, his chest expands, and then he blows out a white plume from his nostrils. “No, I shouldn’t.”
“Then why are you here?” I sit up, and I’m self-conscious of the fact that all I’m wearing is a thin short white T-shirt, and nothing else.
“I had to talk to you.”
“What is there to say?”
His eyes flick shamelessly over me. A breeze kicks up, and my nipples harden, my skin pebbles. Perhaps it isn’t the wind so much as Logan, though. His eyes, that strange and vivid blue, his proximity, his sudden and unexpected and inexplicable presence on this rooftop, in my life.
“There’s a lot I could say, actually.” His eyes certainly speak volumes.
“Then say it,” I say, and it is a challenge.
Smoke curls up from the cigarette between his fingers. “Caleb, he’s not who you think he is.”
“And you know that, do you? Who he really is?”
“Certain things, yes.” He takes a long drag on the cigarette, holds it in, blows it out through his nose again.