Page 39 of The Art of Almost Losing It
I scroll through my work phone. Now that I have a lifeline, I’m not ready to give this up.
Sure, I could tell Piper to have people come rescue me. Or I could order a pizza and garlic knots—or ooh, ravioli from that fancy place on Fifteenth Street.
If Graham wasn’t threatening Lulu, I might even be able to be his fake girlfriend for all his random family events.
I click through the delivery app, getting all the food that I usually have to sneak past my almond-obsessed mother. I buy extra. There’s a microwave in the breakfast bar. I place my orders and nestle the phone in the mound of towels, then stretch out my arms.
And who really knows how long I’ll be trapped in this opulence, anyway.
Call me crazy. Call me delusional. But a girl might be able to get used to this high-end prisoner life.
An idea starts to form in my drunken brain…
I don’t realize he’s there until he’s clearing his throat in the doorway.
“Are you sober enough to talk?”
8
GRAHAM
Itake a deep breath, blow it out, then walk out onto my balcony overlooking Central Park, Lulu the little French bulldog trotting out after me.
Up above me there’s Dani—trapped, scared, alone.
“Why didn’t you run?” I whisper up to her. “Why?”
Because she loves you. She wants you. She wants to be with you.
Girls just want a man to take charge, to dominate them. That’s what women want. It is in their nature.
“Shut up!” I scream at my father’s voice in my head.
The dog barks once at me.
I stare at my reflection in the glass windows. I’m almost as old as Stuart was when he stole his first victim. Her parents would tell the news media later that it was as if she had just vanished into the night.
“I am not you.”
Dani’s not in a cellar, for one. She’s very comfortable in that suite. It’s one of the nicer guest suites.
Little love nest.
“I saidshut up.” I rage at my reflection. “God, I’m losing it.”
I’d like to blame Dani for it, but it’s not her fault. She’s innocent.
So innocent…
I don’t give it the satisfaction. I just march myself at gunpoint to my study. Grab my checkbook.
Dani is in the bathroom. I hear water splashing. She doesn’t notice me as I open the door. I stand there, the humid warmth washing over me.
The dog pants next to me.
Staring at her—how she leaned back in the tub with her head back, exposing the pale length of her throat—nothing stirs in me. She’s my unwanted houseguest. That’s all.
See, Dad? Fuck you. I’m not attracted to her. She was a means to an end—she got me through brunch, and now we’re done. It’s barely even a kidnapping. It’s more of a business arrangement.
