I cut, and he blames himself. And though he probably doesn’t mean to, he’s holding back, his guilt like a wall rising up between us.
And all I want to do is climb over it.
“I know it’s the girls’ birthday party,” I tell him. “But I have a present for you.” I take his hand and lead him toward the back of the mezzanine where there is a small couch in front of a flat screen television.
“A present?” he says when I turn on the television, then punch buttons until it’s set up to broadcast a video from my phone.
“Not so much a present as a possibility. I want to give this to Evelyn,” I say. “I want her to release it to the press for us.”
His expression is both confused and wary, but he nods when I ask if he’s ready. The screen blips and shakes, then goes steady on an image of me and Jamie sitting side by side on a love seat inside the bungalow. It’s a tight image, one single shot since we did it ourselves, and my phone was on a tripod.
It’s Jamie’s interview of me. And although this may turn out to be only for Damien’s eyes, if he agrees to release it to the press, then it will also be a feather in Jamie’s cap and a kick in Lacey Dunlap’s ass. Because this will be the only interview about our daughter’s kidnapping that the press ever sees.
I sit hand-in-hand with Damien as we watch the screen. As Jamie introduces me, and I tell—slowly and haltingly—the story about how Anne was abducted. About our terror and about our investigation. I don’t reveal too many details and I don’t talk about the team, but the point of the interview was never the details. It was the emotion. The fear.
Ultimately, this interview is about me, and when we get to the part where the ransom had been delivered but our daughter hadn’t been returned, I take Jamie’s hand, and I look at the camera, and I tell the world that I am a cutter. Not only that, but I talk about how I locked myself in my bedroom that afternoon, and how I pulled out a blade.
“It’s a battle I’ve fought since I was a teenager,” I say. “My husband knows that. He’s known from before our marriage. And throughout our relationship, I drew on Damien’s strength to help me battle that horrible urge. One of the reasons I was able to fight, even through the rough times, was the knowledge that he was beside me. And more than that, I knew that he didn’t judge me.”
“When Anne wasn’t returned, the urge to cut must have been overwhelming,” Jamie says, exactly as we’d planned.
“It was. Too much for me to resist. And I gave in to that need.” On screen, I wait a beat.
On the couch, beside me, Damien sits perfectly still, his hand tight around mine.
“I’m not proud of myself. Just the opposite. After so many years of managing not to cut, I felt ashamed. Disappointed in myself. And I was so afraid that Damien would think less of me. That the strong woman he’d seen fight the urge to cut had suddenly disappeared before his eyes.”
“Is that what happened?”
I shake my head. “No. No, because Damien was there for me. Not just in the moment, but there. He understands me, and he’s strong for me. I had our entire relationship to bolster me. Everything he’s said and done. Every way in which he’s supported me as I’ve fought this battle over and over.”
I watch my image blink rapidly, and I remember the way tears stung my eyes. “He’s told me repeatedly that everyone breaks sometime. And that the thing to remember is that it doesn’t make you weak. Just wounded.”
On the couch, I draw in a breath, thinking once again of the way those words have always made me feel.
“Most of all,” my screen image continues, “he’s promised me time and again that he will always—always—be there to help me heal.”
A tear trickles down my cheek, both on the screen and on the couch.
“Damien is the reason I survived this ordeal. He’s the reason I’m not wallowing in self-loathing for having backpedalled. He’s strong,” I repeat. “And he shares that strength. And part of what makes him strong is that he doesn’t stand alone. I need him more than anything, but he needs me too. Together, we were strong enough to survive. Both the kidnapping and my cutting.”
“He played a significant role in finding the kidnapper, too, didn’t he?”
“A huge role,” I confirm, then slide into the final part of the interview where I talk about the unspecified tech that Damien used to track Rory down.
We chat a bit about how well Anne is doing. How she remembers hardly anything, and that we are hopeful the ordeal won’t scar her emotionally.
Jamie wraps by asking if there’s anything I want to add. I nod, then look straight at the camera. “As many people are aware, my husband founded the Stark Children’s Foundation many years ago to help abused and underprivileged kids. More recently, the foundation created the role of Stark Youth Advocate. These advocates are adults—celebrities or others in the spotlight—who have overcome a harsh past or some sort of personal trauma. Something that adds a level of empathy to their relationship with the kids.”
I hesitate just briefly, remembering how I’d choked at the brunch. But I’m not going to choke now. “I’m proud to say that I’m joining their ranks, and I hope that my experience with cutting—and my continuing struggle to fight that urge—will help at least some of the foundation’s kids.”
Jamie thanks me, then wraps up the interview with, “I’m Jamie Archer here with Nikki Fairchild Stark in an exclusive interview following the horrific kidnapping of Nikki and Damien Stark’s youngest daughter, Anne.”
In front of us, the television screen goes dark. Beside me, Damien sits perfectly still.
“I’d like to release it,” I say. “Jamie and Evelyn can figure out what outlet would be best.”
“Nikki.” His voice is thick. Raw. “Are you sure?”
I nod, understanding that he doesn’t just mean releasing the tape. He’s talking about everything.
I slide off the couch, then kneel in front of him so that I can look up and see his face. “Don’t you know?” I ask. “Don’t you understand that every word I said was the truth? Don’t blame yourself for what I did, Damien. But do know that you’re the reason I’m still standing despite everything.”
His throat moves, and though he says, baby, no sound actually comes out.
Then he’s reaching for me, pulling me up into his arms, his lips closing over mine for a wild, delicious kiss. “The guests,” I say as he yanks my skirt up.
“Fuck the guests,” he retorts, and I laugh. Both in joy at my victory and at the imagery. Because this is one part of the party to which the guests are most definitely not welcome.
“Fast,” I say, straddling him as the echo of the doorbell rings out. “And quietly.”
He doesn’t disappoint, and soon I’m riding him, his hands on my ass as we move together, hard and deep, until I feel him explode inside of me. I start to cry out with my own release, unable to hold back, but he silences me with his mouth, pulling me close and holding me tight until my body quits shaking and I’m loose and boneless in his arms.
He brushes a kiss over my lips, then grins. “You need to pull yourself together, Mrs. Stark. We have guests in the house.”
“Funny.” I climb off him and clean myself up, then make a quick turn in front of the mirror by the elevator. Damien takes my hand, and I smile up at him.
“Ready to go see our girls?”
“Always,” I say, as we step onto the elevator and head down together for Anne and Lara’s birthday celebration.
Epilogue
Damien Stark stood in the doorway of his master bedroom, his gaze fixed on his sleeping family. On the woman he loved with every fiber of his being. Who was the reason he drew breath in the morning. The love of his life, and the mother of his children. The woman who loved him back with equal ferocity, seeing past his faults, his fears, his flaws.
As far as he was concerned, Nikki was the biggest miracle of his life, and to this day he didn’t know how he’d been so lucky as to not only find her, but to keep h
er.
And dear God, those precious little girls.
As much as he loved Nikki, he hadn’t truly understood how full his heart could be until he’d held Lara in his arms for the first time. And though he hadn’t expected it was possible, his heart had expanded even more when he watched Anne’s birth and saw her draw that first breath.
Every day his daughters looked up at him with wide, trusting eyes, and every day, he felt that punch in the gut. A fear that he couldn’t live up to the trust he saw there. That somehow, someway, he would fail them. Not in the way his own father had failed him. But in some other, fundamental way.
And it had happened.
He’d let his guard down. He hadn’t been prepared. Everything he’d done to keep his family safe, it hadn’t been enough.
He had one job as a father. One job as a husband. To protect his family.
One job, and he’d failed.
He thought of Rory. Of Nikki, huddled in the closet with a blade, blood streaming down her fair skin.
Anne, alone and scared.
They’d gotten Anne back, and he knew in his gut that Nikki was strong enough to survive this. But that didn’t change the simple, basic fact.
He’d failed.
Roughly, he massaged his palms over his face, then looked again at his girls, curled up together, safe and asleep.
Safe.
For now, at least...
But for the first time in a long time, Damien wasn’t looking fearlessly at the future. Instead, he saw the shadows. The dangers.