Complete Me (The Stark Trilogy)

her chair and nods approval. “Very good.”
    “And this is you in these photos?”
    She nods.
    Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. I am hyperaware of the air, of my breathing. Of every tiny movement and every small sound. It is all deafening and foreign and I want out of this nightmare.
    Damien said he never wanted me to see these, and though my heart breaks for the boy he was and the childhood that was stolen, I cannot help but agree. I do not want these images in my office, much less in my head. “Why are you showing me these?” I demand.
    “Because you need to understand that he’s mine. You don’t exist to him at all. Not really. He sacrificed for
me
. He killed for
me
.”
    I stare at her, confused. “Killed for you?”
    She blinks her huge brown eyes. “My father,” she says evenly. “Damien killed him to protect me. Ask him if you don’t believe me. That’s not something you walk away from, Nikki. You’re smart. You should know that.”
    “How did you get the first note to me? The one before the trial with the Los Angeles postmark?”
    Her smile starts slow, but grows wide. “See? I knew you were smart. I have friends all over the world. I sent something. Asked them to drop it in a mailbox. Easy.”
    “That spiel you made about Jamie and The Rooftop bar. Was it true?”
    “Other than that I’m one hell of an actress? No. You learn to be patient in the kind of places I’ve lived. I wait and I watch and I plan.” And then, in what seems like a total shift, she blurts out, “He told me about you, you know.”
    I just sit, watching her, trying to think. Trying to figure out how to get out of here before the fuse that has been burning down on this girl reaches the end, and we both get hurt in the explosion.
    “Oh, yes he did,” she says without missing a beat. “He came to see me not long ago. All the way to London. He told me he met someone who got through the pain. Who cut and who battled it back. He didn’t tell me he was fucking her or that it was you, but it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
    My mind is moving too slowly.
There must be a way out of this
, I think, but it’s as if the answer is hidden by some dark, impenetrable mist.
    She picks at a hangnail, her mouth turned down into a frown. “I’d already seen you in the tabloids by then, of course, and I was so pissed at him. Another girl in his bed, I’d thought. Another girl, but the one he really wanted was me. Then he told me about the cutting, and that’s when I realized the truth. This time he had a reason for fucking some woman.” She looks straight at me, her eyes bright. “He was holding you up as an example for me. He thinks I’m all scarred because of what my daddy did, but he’s wrong. I know how to turn it around.” She shrugs. “But that’s all you are to him, you know. Just a stone on the path of my journey. An object lesson for me to follow so that I can get my shit together and be with him. He loves me. He has always loved me. And I was there first. So now you need to move out of the way.”
    Move?
Her words throw me, and I realize with a start that she isn’t here to hurt me. No, she’s playing a much different game.
    “You want me to break up with Damien.” I say the words levelly, but inside I’m cheering. I can work with that. I can pretend to agree. I can get out of here. Away from her and to Stark Tower. He’ll be back from Chicago soon, and he’ll know what to do. How to handle her.
    “No,” she says. “
You
want to break up with Damien. Because you know that if you don’t, what I’ll release to the press will destroy him. And isn’t that what love is all about, Nikki? Isn’t it about protecting the ones you love? Just like the way Damien protected me from my father.”
    The cold that had begun to recede presses against me again. “You wouldn’t release those photos.”
    She shrugs. “Why not? It’s not like anyone can tell it’s me. Only Damien is identifiable.”
    “Why not?” I repeat. “Because you’re sitting here telling me you love him. But that would absolutely destroy him.”
    She shakes her head. “
You’re
destroying him.
You’re
keeping him from me. If you don’t let go, I don’t have a choice. How can you not see that?”
    She takes a deep breath, then says brightly, “Well, I guess that about wraps things up here.” She stands, then nods at the desk and the photos scattered across it. “You can keep those. Like a souvenir. And, oh, I