Elizabeth Finn - The Devil’s Pawn

“I, on the other hand, was no Derek. Even at twenty-five, Derek was determined, and already successful and popular at his firm in New York. He fit our parents’ mold without ever having to try.”

I look to him with wonder in my eyes. My Derek fit the mold? The once dark and terrifying ruler of my universe wasn’t always the rogue?

Morgan continues. “I was impetuous and quick to strike out at them. I might have been a bit brash in my younger years…” She trails off again with a resigned shake of her head. “Don’t get me wrong. My pursuits were noble enough, and my interest in social work was valid and true, but I didn’t always handle my family in the best way. Which is to say, we fought … constantly. Stubborn as ever, I left, or fled from them more like it. I was cut off; I had nothing until my twenty-third birthday when my inheritance would be paid out, and I had never worked a day in my life. I had already been accepted to NYU, and while Derek was happy to let me crash with him when I arrived in New York, I was just as good at fighting with him as I was with my parents. And that’s when I met Mr. Grayson.”

Her face registers the same pain we all share. She knows him, and little more needs to be said in explanation to me.

“I was waitressing at some nightclub, and he introduced himself to me. He was wealthy and tipped me more money than I had seen in a month. I took the bait…”

The lump she swallows over is painful to see. I know those memories. I know the resignation of self that she went through. My eyes tear as I see her shame. I know her shame. She is me. She didn’t belong there anymore than I, anymore than Derek.

“But as you well know, Mr. Grayson is a conniving, despicable man. Once he realized who I was, he saw a paycheck, and I don’t mean the money I could bring in to Trimbles by escorting. He videotaped me without my knowing and used the tape to blackmail me … or try to at any rate. He wanted a million dollars to keep those tapes from surfacing and destroying my father, mother, myself, everyone I knew. They were all at risk. A million seems like a drop in the bucket now, but at that time, I didn’t have it. He didn’t realize I couldn’t come up with that kind of money. Not at nineteen. But Derek could. He had already come into his inheritance. But the problem was that Derek expected to know what the money was for if he was going to hand it over, and I couldn’t tell him … I was too ashamed, too humiliated.” Her tears are falling swiftly now, and so are mine. The helplessness is so familiar to me.

“I fled. I didn’t know what else to do. I left NYU, moved to Burlington, spent the next two years in community college, worrying and waiting every day for those videos to surface. Every day was torture. I was suspicious all the time. I felt like I was waiting for a bomb to go off. But with every passing day, month, year, the paranoia faded; it certainly didn’t go away, but it did fade. Still, it took its toll on me.”

I’m watching, barely making a sound as I enter her world. Morgan and I have so much more in common than I could ever have guessed when I met her on Derek’s porch. The first time I saw her, I was intimidated, instantly. She was beautiful, and everything I thought I wasn’t, but with every passing moment, I can see that she is everything I am—threatened, blackmailed, terrified, and desperate.

“I withdrew from everything and everybody, including Derek. It took two years for me to find out what I should have figured out right away: that Derek was working at Trimbles. It was my parents who told me. They were livid, and I was stunned. When I spoke to him next, he refused to talk about it. It seemed too coincidental he was working there after I was. But at the same time, I didn’t know he’d found out about my time there … so, I couldn’t connect it together. I also couldn’t tell him what had happened to me there. Every time I asked why he would ever take a job there, he assured me he was there of his choosing. But I knew Derek, and I couldn’t understand how he would give up everything. I couldn’t recognize it at the time, but that place was already killing him. He was short, angry every time I spoke to him, never wanted to talk to me; he was shutting down little by little. But rather than worry about him the way I should have, I justified his behavior as though it were the cause of him being there and not a symptom of his time there. I was grasping for answers about why he was there, and I didn’t see that this shift within him wasn’t the reason but the result. I mean Derek’s an amazing architect. He was passionate about his work, and he was so gifted. It made no sense. Why he would walk away from it all? But, I just couldn’t get him to talk to me.”

“I couldn’t talk to you.” Morgan and I both look to Derek as he speaks. His brow is furrowed, and he’s deep in thought, and then he turns to me. He’s finally ready to talk. “When I tracked her down to Trimbles, I met Mr. Grayson for the first time. It didn’t go over well, and once I saw his … ammunition against Morgan, I lost my temper. He ended up with his jaw wired shut for six weeks, and I ended up creating the biggest enemy of my life. He wanted money, and now, thanks to me, he wanted revenge. And he got it … everything he wanted.”

His eyes slowly meet mine as I watch him, with my sadness for him undoubtedly showing on my face. He sees it and reaches a hand up to brush away my tears.

“Our mother was sick. She had been diagnosed with lymphoma and was going through chemotherapy … and the threat to my parents and to Morgan … I didn’t know what else to do. I gave him the money, and I stayed. I destroyed my career and agreed to take Morgan’s place at Trimbles for ten years. He’s a vindictive bastard, and I’ve spent every day of the last seven years wondering, dreading what form of torture would come next. I was free labor, and free entertainment for his twisted soul. He watched as my life was flushed down the drain, my career was destroyed, my family rejected me, and every relationship that ever meant anything to me fell apart. And he knew I couldn’t do anything about it. He could pull out that damn video and threaten to destroy Morgan and my parents whenever he pleased, and he did. He destroyed me.”

His eyes are begging me to understand, and of course, I do. Call us the trio of unlucky souls. How could I not understand?

“And then you showed up.” He takes a deep and steadying breath before he goes on. “I knew the moment I saw you that you would be the end of me. You were too vulnerable for that place, and it terrified me. I wanted you gone because I knew I would care, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to bear it.” Taking both of my hands in his, he continues. “I promise you, I never hated you. From the first moment I met you, all I wanted was to set you free from him. You were this living symbol of everything he had taken away from me already. You were Morgan, my family, my career, everything I loved and saw destroyed, hell, my own damn reputation. And I wanted to save you. Though hopeless and impossible, it became the only thing I wanted.” His eyes are begging me to understand, and he’s so terrified I won’t.

“But that night at Grayson’s, when he made it clear you were going to be part of his sick little deal, and he would destroy Morgan if I tried to buy your way out of Trimbles…” His head is shaking at the memory, and Grayson’s words from my hazy memory of that night pop into my head. She’s not going anywhere unless you want to see our deal broken. I’m heartbroken for Derek. Grayson has tortured him for seven years, and used me as his greatest leverage against him.

“After that, I didn’t know what to do. That was one of the darkest moments of my life. I still thought if I could protect you in that place, keep you safe during your time there, then maybe, I could eventually set us both free.” His eyes are glossed over with tears that are so perfectly restrained by his beautiful eyes.

“Then you were taken from me. I thought I’d lost you, and lost my last chance at salvation. After that, there was no other choice but to choose you completely. I gave up trying to protect my family, and after seven years, I told Grayson to go fuck himself. Might have been the most reckless thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I had allowed it to go on for too long. I loved you too much. I’m just sorry I waited as long as I did.”

I’m shaking my head at his last statement. What does this man expect from himself? He’s sacrificed everything for me, to protect me.

Morgan is again watching us with a small smile on her lips and beautiful tear-streaked cheeks, and it hits me like a fist to the stomach. I’m going to be her downfall. This wonderful woman, who has been more kind to me than I could ever deserve, will have her life destroyed because of what Derek has done for me. And as this realization dawns on me, the emotion behind it makes its way to my eyes, and she watches me carefully.

“My God, Morgan. What’s going to happen to you?” But she’s shaking her head before the sentence is even out.

“I don’t know … I don’t care. I’ve spent the past seven years of my life fearing that damn video. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in fear. I have a husband who loves me and who accepts every last bit of my past, video and all. And I have my brother back in my life. If it ever comes out, I’ll deal with it. This whole mess started with me, and it’s time for it to end.”

There isn’t an ounce of resentment in her eyes, and with a final smirk, not so very different from Derek’s, she finishes speaking. “Besides, I’d be willing to bet Mr. Grayson has just as much to hide, more if I’m guessing, than even we do. I’m counting on his own self-preservation to protect me. I’m just sorry that any part of my past hurt you … either of you.”

With nothing else to say, she stands and smiles at us both. I stand as well to walk her to the door, and as she stops one last time to appraise us both, she pulls me into a quick hug and speaks quietly in my ear. “You are everything he will ever need.” And as she pulls me from her, her tears escape again.

With Morgan gone, and Derek and I alone once again, I look to him. He looks exhausted, relieved, and maybe just a touch worried. I walk to him and pull his face close to mine. I take his lips in mine, just as sweetly as the first time we kissed. As he pulls slowly from my mouth, he looks down with concern still plaguing his eyes.

“Forgive me?”

I smile gently back at him. He’s insane, but I won’t tell him so. “Odd that you think to ask my forgiveness when I feel nothing but gratitude for you saving me from that place. When will you accept you didn’t put me there? I did, and if you can’t accept that, then accept that my father did, but not you. I’ve forgiven even him for his part in this. You don’t need my forgiveness, but I’ll give it to you anyway, every day if I need to.”

He pulls my mouth back to his own, and my body back to his bed.

“Are you going to be ready in time? They’re going to be here in fifteen minutes.” He’s smirking as I finish toweling off.

Morgan and her husband, Charles, as well as Frederick and Liz, will be arriving soon, and he’s right. I’m running late. It’s his fault of course. He’s hardly let me leave the bed since Morgan left this morning, and now with our dinner fast approaching, my body is sore, I’m starving, and I’m still nowhere near finished making up for lost time with Derek. I hastily pull my gray dress up my body and over my hips. Pulling my tangled curls over my shoulder, I bare my back to him so he can zip me up. His eyes are watching mine in the bathroom mirror. He’s content and happy, and so am I.

As he inches the zipper slowly up my back, he leans toward my ear. “I think I’d like you wearing this dress when we get married.”

I gasp, and then let out a shocked laugh. Marriage. Yes, please. “But it isn’t even white.”

“Well, nothing else has been traditional about our relationship. I can’t imagine why we would start with our wedding. This dress reminds me of falling in love with you.”

“Because it was the dress I wore when I was taken from you?” I lament at the memory. My face softens in remembrance of his pain, not to mention my own.

But he shakes his head. “No. I think I fell in love with you the moment I watched you try on this dress. It was in the fitting room the day after I first met you. You smiled. It was the first time I saw you smile, and I secretly wished and waited for that smile to return to your face every moment after that.” As a lone tear breaks free from my suddenly moist eyes, he asks, “Will you marry me, Ash?”