“I love you,” Henry whispers.
“I love you, too,” I say, kissing him softly on the forehead.
“I love you more,” he says louder and with more confidence.
I laugh.
We gaze into each other’s eyes and I find his lips with mine.
10
Henry
“That was amazing,” she says. “I forgot how sexy you are.”
“You did?” I ask, propping myself up on my elbow and scrutinizing her face.
“No, that's not what I meant.”
“I hope not.”
“I just meant that I forgot how good we are together and how good you are at this.”
“You're not so bad yourself,” I say, smiling at the corner of my lips.
We lie here for a long time, just enjoying each other's company. I listen to the steadiness of her heartbeat and the quietness of her breaths. She plays with my hair, twirling a strand around her index finger over and over again.
I want to stay in this moment forever but I can't. It's fleeting and in a few more minutes, she’ll have to get up and go back to her normal life.
“I want to think of this as our wedding night,” she says quietly.
I squeeze her gently and kiss her neck.
“It can be,” I say.
“No, it can't. I'm already married.”
“It's not like your marriage is consummated,” I point out.
“Lucky for me, I guess,” she says.
I see the pain in her eyes and I will do anything to make it go away.
“Don't go back to him,” I say. “Let's just run away together.”
“Where would we go?”
“California? Hawaii? Alaska? Paris? Buenos Aires? Anywhere you want.”
“Tell me about it,” she says. “I want to see what our life would be like.”
“We will get a small apartment, right in the middle of the city. I will get up early and buy you some freshly baked scones and piping hot coffee. We will eat breakfast in bed and stay in our pajamas all day. In the afternoon, we will take a stroll around the city, I'll buy you fresh flowers and we’ll go to the farmers market. On weekends, we will do picnics in the country or by the beach.”
“That sounds marvelous.”
I look at her as she loses herself for a long time in this other life that we could have. I've never been to Rome but I have seen plenty of postcards and movies and I imagine myself walking down those cobblestone streets holding the hand of the woman I love.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask. “I'll take you anywhere.”
“I wanna go everywhere,” she says. “Just not now. I can't leave him alone to do what it is that he's doing. I can't let him ruin Tate Media. I can't let him kill my father. I have to stay here and fight for what's mine and you do, too.”
I give her a slight nod, disappointed.
“Your mother needs you. We can't leave right now. She has to get better and you have to be there for her.”
She lets out a deep sigh and shakes her head.
“In that case, let me tell you about what Jackie found out,” I say.
I haven't brought this up earlier out of fear of ruining the mood. She was waiting for me and she wanted me and I wanted her and I didn't want anything to stand in our way. But now, I have to tell her the truth.
“Franklin is a lot more dangerous than we thought,” I say slowly.
She gives me a nod and signals for me to keep going.
Jackie had sent me the video that he recorded and instead of telling her what is on it, I just hit play. Aurora shakes her head as she watches, burying her head in her hands. She glances up at me a few times, her lips quivering.
“I can't believe this,” she says over and over again.
“What do we do now?” she asks after I turn it off.
“We need more proof,” I say with a heavy heart.
I don't want to put her in anymore danger than she already is but we need to gather more evidence. It's not that no one will believe the girl, it's that Franklin is a very powerful man and it will take a lot more than us to bring him down.
“I don't want to tell you to do this,” I say quietly. “This is the last thing I want.”
“What?” she asks.
“I worry about you and I don't even want you staying in the same house as him but if you want this to come out and if you want him out of Tate Media, you'll have to set up some recording equipment and try to catch him in the act.”
11
Aurora
I don't know how to process what I've seen on that video. The girl was so small and the story that she was telling was so big and frightening that it just consumed my whole life.
Franklin is not a good person but I didn't realize that he was evil. I didn't realize that he was capable of such devastation. The girl cried for her friend and I cried along with her. On top of that, I felt incredibly guilty for practically attacking her in the elevator and forcing her to talk to me. Naturally, she was horrified when I tried to make her talk to me. She was traumatized and I just made it worse.
The guilt and regret consumes me as I meet up with Henry at another nondescript hotel room. When I knock on the door, Henry opens it and gives me a warm hug along with a kiss on the lips. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone sitting on the couch and quickly push Henry away.
“What's wrong?”
With my heart pounding out of my chest, I nod in the guy’s direction.
“It's okay, that’s Jackie. He’s a PI. You can trust him.”
I hesitate but step from one foot to another. The fewer people that know about this the better off I'll be.
Jackie comes over and shakes my hand.
“You really have nothing to worry about,” he says.
Still, it would be better if you didn't see us kissing, I say to myself.
“Henry and I have been friends for a long time and his secrets are safe with me.”
I give them a slight nod, feeling a little bit of relief.
“So, what am I doing here?” I ask.
Henry leads me to the table at the far end of the hotel room and points to all of the equipment that they have laid out.
“Jackie brought all of this today and he's going to show you how to use it.”
I glance at the camera, the wires, and the lenses, shaking my head.
I thought that I'd be able to do this but now I'm not so sure. It's not the technology that’s scaring me, it's something else entirely. Whatever Franklin is doing is very wrong and he knows it.
What would happen if he were to catch me?
“I know this is really scary,” Jackie says, “but this is going to be the only way that you can find out the truth about your husband.”
I already know the truth in my gut, I want to say.
“It’s possible that nothing has happened,” Jackie says. “There's a chance of that.”
“No, there isn’t,” I say.
Jackie shrugs.
“You weren't there to see that girl’s face. I rode down in the elevator with her. She was traumatized. He did something terrible in there and we all know it.”