she still couldn’t make it stop.
Charlotte ripped the corsage off her wrist and took one last look at the beautiful red rose and silver ribbons before flinging it to the asphalt and stomping it beneath her foot. “Take that, Landon Turner.”
The petty satisfaction of destroying his gift lasted long enough for Charlotte to come up with an even better idea.
“No.” She knocked her pillow to the floor, helplessly reaching out in her sleep. “Stay in the moment. Stop.”
Pausing long enough to get her bearings in the rows of parked cars, Charlotte pulled off her glasses and furiously wiped away the tears on her cheeks. Ignoring the streaks of makeup left behind, she put them back on and brought her vision and her impromptu scheme into focus. She changed course from her aimless escape and cut through the cars, heading for the opposite end of the parking lot.
The limousine drivers hired for the night—who wanted a family employee ratting to parents about what went on in the back of the car?—were all parked on the far side of the lot, beyond the student cars. She’d find the driver Landon had paid for and have him take her home. Then she’d ask her father to double whatever Landon had paid, maybe send the driver to Vegas for a weekend on the Mayweathers, and Landon and Miss Boobalicious back there could find their own way home.
Charlotte saw the car a couple of rows away, hiked up her gown and hurried her pace. That’d piss him off. Using her first official date with a handsome guy as a joke? He’d be out more than the hundred dollars he’d just—
“Miss Mayweather?”
“Aggh.” She pulled up short when the man in the tan coveralls stepped out from behind a car. She clasped her hand over her racing heart. “Yes?”
He swiveled his head back and forth. Was he lost? Looking for someone? “Charlotte Mayweather?”
Tears squeezed between her lashes, steaming against her feverish cheek.
The man faced her again and his fist followed right after.
The blow knocked her to the ground, and her glasses flew beneath the car beside her. Her head was still spinning, her stomach nauseous when she heard the squeal of tires on the pavement and felt the rough hands on her, lifting, dragging. A white van screeched to a halt in front of her. The men who threw her onto the rusty, dirty floor inside were little more than blurs of movement and hurtful hands.
She was scarcely aware of scratching at those hands, kicking, twisting. The blood on her nose was the last thing she saw as a dark hood came down over her head. The slam of a sliding door was the last thing she heard.
The prick of a needle in her arm was the last thing she felt before blessed oblivion claimed her.
“Wake up,” she cried into the sleeve of her pajamas, fighting to make the nightmare disappear. “Wake up.”
Charlotte woke up to the jarring, concussive sounds of the men beating on pots and pans again. She’d drifted off again. She was losing track of the hour, losing track of the days. Oh, God, they were coming into her room again. “Charlotte! Charlotte!”
They yelled like that to keep her off balance, to keep her from thinking or getting any real sleep, to mess with her head.
“Don’t come in.” She tried to sit up, but she was too weak to do more than push herself up onto one elbow. She hated when they came in. It was safer when they left her isolated, alone. She was starving, but she could drink her water and pee without anyone watching.
The door was opening. They were coming in. She always got hurt when they came in.
“Come on, girlfriend.” The one with the big fists from the parking lot threw aside his pan and held up the scissors he’d been banging it with.
“No,” she begged when the other two held her down on the bed. “Please, no.”
He splayed his hand over her bruised face and turned it into the stale bedding. “I’m tired of waiting for my millions. It’s time to show Daddy just how serious we are about the money.”
He brushed aside her hair with his long fingers. When she felt the cold metal against her neck, Charlotte screamed.
Charlotte screamed herself awake. She sat up in bed, a cold sweat trickling down the small of her back as she kicked away the covers that had twisted around her legs. She tapped the lamp beside her bed three times, flooding her room with the brightest light possible.
“Max? Stay in the moment,” she chanted aloud, repeating one of the mantras her therapist had taught her over the years. Her heart was racing, she couldn’t catch her breath. She needed to think. “Max!”
A black-and-tan terrier mix that looked like a miniature German shepherd hopped onto the bed and into her lap. He licked the tears from Charlotte’s face as she ran her hands over his short, soft fur, seeking out the grounding realism of the dog’s body heat and thumping heart.
Once she was certain she was awake, once her panicked brain truly understood that this was now, not ten years ago—that she was home, not in that smelly beige room—that she was safe—she hugged the dog until he squeaked.
“Sorry, boy.” She scratched at his scarred-up ears, kissed the top of his head and pushed him off her lap so she could climb out of bed. “Sorry.”
Moving with practiced efficiency, Charlotte picked up the pillow trimmed with Battenburg lace off the floor and tossed it onto her rumpled bed. She pulled her red, narrow-framed glasses from the bedside table and put them on, already heading into the connecting sitting room. She waved her hand in front of the switch there and lit up the crowded oak tables and desk stacked with papers, the bookshelves and antique Americana rugs, the overstuffed sofa and chairs, and went straight to the locks on the door.
While she could visually verify they were all secure, she needed to touch each one—the dead bolt, the doorknob, the chain and the computerized keypad that glowed green to show the high-tech Gallagher Security Company lock was engaged. Once she was certain she was safely locked inside her private rooms at her father’s mansion, she spared a rueful thought for her father, stepmother and stepsiblings. Had she wakened anyone on the estate? But just as quickly, she breathed out a sigh of relief. One advantage of living behind soundproof walls was that the same loud noises she wanted to keep out also prevented the rest of the household from hearing her on nights like this one.
After stopping in the bathroom to check the barred window and splash some cool water on her face, Charlotte padded back into her bedroom, pulling aside the thick drapes to check that the locks and laser alarms were still all engaged. Only then did she really stop to breathe. And think.
She hadn’t completely wigged out the way she once might have, but she hadn’t been able to stop the nightmare, either—a sure sign she was overly fatigued, or more worried than usual about something. Maybe she’d been keeping too many late hours, working at the museum long after closing. Maybe she was feeling like a twenty-seven-year-old imposition to her father and his new wife. Maybe it was agreeing to install the telephone in her quarters after all those years of even refusing to answer one.
