HurtMeHealMe Read online

  But fuck, she was incredible.

  Really, who could blame Ivan if he was doing—whatever it was that he was doing with this girl.

  Bastard.

  And Ivan had kept whatever it was a secret. Thomas hadn’t even heard her name until he read the part of Ivan’s will that was to remain confidential. Only Thomas and the never-before-mentioned Ms. Caitlin Bennett were to ever know about it.

  “Ah, Ms. Bennett. May I call you Caitlin?”

  “Yes, of course.” She looked at him with huge brown eyes that were sad and red-rimmed, and more than a little wary. He suddenly had an overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms and plaster his whole body along the front of hers. For a platonic hug of course.

  Yes. Right. And he was the queen’s uncle.

  He cleared his throat. “Caitlin, may I meet with you, perhaps tomorrow if that’s convenient? I need to speak to you regarding Ivan’s will.”

  She looked surprised. Genuinely surprised. If it were possible, her eyes got even bigger. It was really bugging him not knowing what kind of relationship she’d had with Ivan. She didn’t even seem to expect anything from the man after his death. Maybe it was all innocent, and she was just his long-lost niece. Who happened to have a thing for older men. Five-foot-nine men, with dark eyes. English ancestry. And graying hair.

  “Um, yes, sure,” she said quietly.

  He wished she were saying “Yes, sure” to the gray hair. “I’ll find you after the service and we can talk.”

  She nodded. She was crying, trying futilely to wipe away her tears with a handkerchief.

  He touched her arm, ready to give her some words of consolation, but the words stuck in his throat. He was usually so very exceedingly clever with words. Nothing ever caught him on the back foot. No matter the situation, he always had something appropriate and impressively eloquent to impart. He wrapped juries around his little finger. He was a lawyer, goddamn it—verbally challenged, he was not.

  He had…nothing.

  Absolutely bloody nothing.

  The skin on her arm was like velvet. It was all he could do not to pull this fragile little creature into his own arms right there, in front of all the mourners and God and whoever else was looking. He wanted to give her comfort. He would love to take her home, and there he would comfort her for a good long time.

  The funeral director tapped him on the shoulder and whispered that they were about to begin.

  Thomas nodded, not taking his eyes off Caitlin. “Ah, Caitlin, why don’t you take a seat? The service is about to start and I need to go up there to deliver the eulogy.”

  She sniffled and nodded again, wiping her eyes ferociously as she walked toward the area where most of the guests were already seated.

  While Thomas delivered the eulogy he had painstakingly prepared for the friend he had known since college, he searched the sea of faces for one face in particular. He expected her to be in one of the front rows. He scanned the room, seeing people crying at the poignant parts of his speech and laughing at others. And he finally found her in the very last row at the back of the room, looking small and utterly devastated.

  He completed his address to the congregation as if he were on autopilot, not once taking his eyes off Caitlin. And he watched as, little by little, she fell apart.

  Caitlin listened as Thomas stood at the front of the room describing the life of Ivan Zadrevec—the life of a stranger. A man well-loved and respected. A man who was friendly with all his colleagues, who was down-to-earth and put his clients at ease. A man who gave freely of his time to those in need. There was even a slideshow to illustrate the point. Photos of Ivan in ratty old clothes, helping build a community playground. Pushing a couple of laughing children on the shiny, newly built swing set. Working in the kitchen at the Center for Abused Children. Smiling as he served food to a bunch of kids who had been abused and neglected. Laughing, wearing one of his perfectly tailored suits, shaking hands with a client.

  Goodness, Ivan looked handsome when he laughed; his face lit up and he got crinkles in the corners of his eyes. Caitlin had spent hours every evening of almost every day for the past six years with the man, and she had never, ever seen him laugh.

  She hadn’t even thought he was capable.

  Apparently he was, but his friendship and all his smiles and laughter were reserved for everyone else but her.

  Caitlin felt gutted.

  She looked around. All the well-to-do mourners were at the front of the room with their impeccable suits and stylish designer dresses. Toward the back were the scruffier, not-even-close-to-impeccable-or-stylish garments, haggard faces, unwashed hair. People from all walks of life who knew Ivan and respected him.

  All these other people knew the man Thomas spoke of. Ivan had spent time with these people. He’d had friendly conversations with them, shared meals with them. He gave freely of his time—and his money, apparently—to these people.

  And all he had reserved for Caitlin was the pain and humiliation.

  That was all he had to give her. Not because he wasn’t capable of anything else, but because that’s what he’d decided she would have. That and that alone.

  Oh, he’d been friendly to her at first, so caring and kind and supportive.

  Right up until the moment he’d started fucking her.

  “Why?” she wanted to scream out, while Thomas was extolling Ivan’s virtues. Why had he been so kind to everyone but his lover? So much cruelty for the one person who gave herself up to him, who tried so desperately to be everything he wanted and needed, who bared her soul for him, who tried to love him. Why?

  Caitlin felt ill and couldn’t bear to be there a moment longer. She got up and went to the ladies’ room, where she locked herself in a stall, sank down onto the floor and just cried.

  Ivan had known her. Every damn thing about her, every fear, every little secret. He was the only man she had ever known. And what had she really known of him? Only Ivan of the cold, lifeless eyes. Ivan the controller. Ivan the dominant. Ivan the sadist.

  Ivan the fucking terrible.

  “I hurt you and I fuck you. I use you.”

  In-fucking-deed.

  * * * * *

  She was sitting in the seat across from his desk. The mysterious Ms. Caitlin Bennett. Who had starred in a particularly vivid dream of Thomas’ last night. She was looking even more beautiful at nine this morning than she had yesterday at the funeral.

  She was wearing a deep, almost midnight-blue shirt-style dress, with buttons that went from her knees to her breasts. The vee of the neckline was low, but given the way the dress was styled, he could only catch a glimpse here and there—just a flash of pale skin, a smooth swell of breast, before it got covered up. And it was driving him round the bleeding bend.

  At the end of her shapely legs—long for such a petite woman—were ivory peep-toe heels. And the two toes that peeped out of each shoe had candy-pink painted toenails. All of a sudden Thomas decided he had a thing for candy-pink painted toenails.

  He cleared his throat. “So, Caitlin, as I was saying, if you require any assistance looking for a residence, I’d be more than happy to oblige.” And if you’d like any assistance taking that dress off, I’d be extremely ecstatic to oblige you there also.

  She brushed a wayward tendril of hair from her face. She was wearing it down today. Beautiful. Even if the pink-toenail thing was a surprise, Thomas had always had a penchant for brunettes with long, thick hair.

  “Um, thank you. But how do I know how…?” She turned her hands palm up in an imploring gesture.

  She sounded so unsure, as if she were embarrassed to ask the question. Who was this woman?

  “Do you want to know if there’s a price range specified in the will?”

  “Ah…yes.” A hint of pink flushed her cheeks. Gorgeous. She studied the top of his mahogany desk as if the answer were hiding there.

  “Look, Caitlin, Ivan specified that he wanted you to purchase an apartment in a safer area than whe
re you currently reside, and in addition, he suggested a location closer to your place of business. There is an upper limit that I’m not at liberty to divulge, however, honestly, I don’t believe you’ll have any problems finding something within the price range. When you do find a dwelling that is suitable to you, all you have to do is inform me. As the executor of Ivan’s will, I’ll need to approve the residence and its purchase price. If everything is satisfactory, I will then be free to complete the relevant paperwork.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Okay.” She took in a deep breath and sighed it out. “Thank you.”

  She managed a small, tremulous smile. God, she was so beautiful it made his chest hurt. Even though her eyes were still red-rimmed from crying and she looked exhausted, with visible bruising underneath her eyes from lack of sleep, she was still spectacularly gorgeous. She was the kind of woman a man would do anything for, fight for, start a war for.

  Thomas began to understand the whole Helen of Troy debacle.

  “Caitlin, may I ask you a personal question?”

  She tensed up immediately, clasping her hands tightly in her lap.

  “Um, I guess you can ask.” She gulped. “If I answer, it will be the truth. But if I can’t give you the truth, I’ll tell you that I can’t answer.”

  She was honest and forthright. Good. He liked that. Unusual in his line of work—but good. She also obviously had things she wanted to hide.

  “How did you know Ivan?”

  She stared at him for a moment before she spoke. “He was originally a friend of my father’s.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “I can’t remember. I was a little girl. When I was young, he would come to our house to visit every couple of years.”

  Thomas cleared his throat. “Were you in a relationship with Ivan?”

  She laughed, but it was without a trace of humor. She looked rather desolate. “I suppose it depends on your definition of the word relationship.”

  Mysteriouser and mysteriouser. Righto, it was time for the sledgehammer approach. “Caitlin, do you know what Ivan had in his basement?”

  She blinked and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She looked down in an attempt to hide her reaction, but he could plainly see she was struggling to stop herself from crying. God, he wanted to leap over the desk and haul her into his arms. She really triggered his protective instinct. It had been pretty dormant all his life and here was this little woman, poking at it with a pointy stick.

  “How do you know?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Ivan bequeathed his home to me.” Yeah, he’d walked into Ivan’s—well, now his—basement yesterday, and almost followed in Ivan’s footsteps and died of a flipping heart attack.

  He’d been Ivan’s friend and business partner for so long, but he’d had no clue of what the man was into. God, the things in that room. Ivan was either seriously into giving or receiving pain, that was for sure.

  He really couldn’t imagine fragile little Caitlin being a Dominatrix, so that meant…

  Bloody hell!

  Caitlin must have seen the exact moment he realized. Thomas saw her flinch at the look of horror he knew was on his face.

  “I can answer your question now. Since you look like you already know,” she said quietly.

  “Which question?”

  “Was I in a relationship with Mast— Um, I mean, Ivan. You see, I was Ivan’s—basement girl.”

  She smiled a broken smile. It was the most fucking heartbreaking thing he had ever seen.

  “That’s all I ever was to him.” She shook her head almost imperceptibly and whispered, “That’s all I was.”

  “He hurt you.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “All that—equipment?” Thomas grimaced at the thought.

  “Yes, that was for me. All of it.”

  “God, Caitlin. How…?” Jesus, he was speechless. How could Ivan hurt this poor girl? Fucking sick, fucking arsehole bastard.

  She was so fragile, so perfect, so bloody beautiful.

  With a jolt, he remembered the whip on the floor covered in dried blood. Dried blood on the bed sheets. Her blood? Christ, he was going to throw up. He was going to cry. Neither of which he’d done since he was about ten years old.

  Ivan had whipped this girl until she bled. He broke her perfect, smooth skin and made her bleed.

  Thomas sat in stunned silence in his chair while Caitlin made her apologies for having to leave. She picked up her handbag and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Thomas slowly walked to the attached bathroom in his office and promptly did both of the things he hadn’t done since he was ten years old.

  Chapter Three

  Caitlin listened as the future Mr. and Mrs. Jonathon Miller discussed the pros and cons of five different styles of her homemade wedding invitations. She had been trying to help them narrow down their choice to, oh, say, one for the past forty-five minutes. The lovely couple had been fawning over each other, staring into each other’s eyes, holding hands and touching each other under the table—as if Caitlin were blind—for the past forty-four minutes and thirty seconds. Bleh. But who was counting?

  Caitlin wasn’t in the mood for fawning lovers right now. She hadn’t been in the mood for them for a long time.

  Ever since five months ago.

  Since Ivan’s funeral, to be exact.

  Caitlin stared up at the ceiling, noticing a cobweb dangling in the corner. Must get to that later, she thought, making a mental note. She was proud of her little homemade card shop, having spent a lot of time trying to get the look just right. Professional yet cozy and inviting was her aim. And she believed she’d achieved it.

  Myriad white shelves held examples of all her hand-decorated cards—for every occasion from bon voyages to bar mitzvahs—printed invitations, wrapping paper, ribbons and homemade paper. The walls were covered in a floral print in dusky pinks and green. The floors were a gleaming polished timber. Huge white urns held large, lush potted plants. And on a rug in the corner were four comfy armchairs around a circular white table, where Caitlin could sit with her clients and show them her ranges of matching invitations, RSVP cards and place cards.

  Caitlin sat there now, wondering if she could surreptitiously give herself a life-threatening paper cut and be rushed to the hospital.

  Anything to get away from the soon-to-be-joined-in-holy-matrimony Millers.

  The soon-to-be-joined-at-the-pelvis-the-moment-they-got-home Millers got the hint it was past closing time when Caitlin got up to clear away the teacakes and coffee things.

  Thank you, God.

  And they finally chose the pearlescent champagne card with seashell motif. For a winter wedding—in Boston, Massachusetts.

  Not. Judging.

  After closing up the shop and walking two blocks, Caitlin arrived at her apartment. It was on the fifth floor of an old red-brick building that had been given a total internal overhaul.

  She sighed as she walked in, and the tension in her shoulders immediately ratcheted down a few levels. Her new place had that effect on her. It was calming, light and airy. And Caitlin loved it. She especially loved that it came totally furnished with gorgeous stuff she probably would never have been able to afford otherwise.

  Caitlin kicked off her shoes and promptly threw herself down on the sofa. Her plush, feather-filled, heavenly sofa. Geez, she was exhausted.

  She was exhausted most of the time these days. Being spitting mad for the past five months could really take it out of you.

  She’d spent months being angry and cursing Ivan. She had thought he was emotionally and psychologically damaged. She had seen the vicious scars on his body. Early on, when she saw those scars, it had broken her heart and she’d cried for him and asked him to tell her about it. He told her matter-of-factly that they had been inflicted by anti-communist guerrilla fighters in Croatia. And that it happened a long, long time ago.

  Then of course he punished her sever
ely for asking personal questions. After that, she never asked.

  And he never told.

  But she had tried so very earnestly to be everything he wanted. Thinking that if she was good enough, if she cared for him and gave him what he needed, he would eventually come to love her.

  Although after months of analyzing the situation, Caitlin decided he could have been her friend if he chose. He could have talked and laughed with her, as he had before their relationship turned physical. Taken her out. Let her get to know more about him. Given more of himself. Anything more than the crumbs he deigned to toss in her direction.

  Caitlin was angry about that—and so many other things.

  She was disgusted with herself for putting up with Ivan’s shit for so long. For what she had let Ivan do to her. For what she had let him turn her into. For being so naïve and thinking she was helping Ivan, by letting him take out his pain on her. For thinking she owed it to him. For believing she could heal him. She felt like such a gullible idiot. How he must have been laughing at her as she jumped through his hoops.

  She was mad as hell when she thought of how she’d found out about Ivan’s death and funeral. She had read it in the papers, for heaven’s sake. What a shock that had been. No one had informed her. She had known none of Ivan’s friends or colleagues. And no one from his other life had known she even existed. Ivan’s dirty little secret.

  Now, however, she knew Ivan’s business partner, Thomas Carter.

  Thomas was a good man. Caitlin liked and respected him—as a friend. Thomas, on the other hand, wanted to be more than friends. Much more. But she knew a relationship with him couldn’t go anywhere.

  Thomas was the kind of man who would wine and dine her, kiss her, and then lie on top of her and make love to her—probably in the missionary position—only to find that he could never make her come.

  Thomas couldn’t give her what she needed. Years of Ivan’s training had made sure of that.

  The few times she and Thomas had touched on the subject, he had been horrified. He couldn’t comprehend that she needed the pain to reach her pleasure. He didn’t seem to understand that she couldn’t have one without the other.