A Sorrow of Truths Read online

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  A Sorrow Of Truths

  Truth and Lies ~ Book 3

  Copyright ©2020 by Charlotte E Hart

  Cover Design by MAD

  Formatting by MAD

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of those trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Chapter 1

  Gray

  One week later.

  M anhattan traffic appears endless again.

  I sneer at it and back away from the windows, dismissing the night along with it and heading into shadows of my own. Night. It seems only a few hours since I got in the jet and left somewhere I’m still longing for, clear blue skies leading the way back here. It isn’t. It’s a week. A long week of days that are monotonous and dreary in comparison.

  Frowning, I look around the desolate apartment and watch shadows play over objects and art. She called me that. Or my suit, anyway. Called me dreary in comparison to her and her dress. It’s true. Was then. Is now. The dark is descending again, bringing more thoughts that don’t belong to me anymore and memories I would rather dismiss than keep considering as relevant to my life and it is becoming irritating.

  I sip at the red wine and wander my way back through the halls, occasionally swaying to music that isn’t actually here with me. It’s loud to me, though. Sensual. Rolling and cascading. Painful to tolerate. It’s an overture that should be appreciated. Listened to, revelled in, remembered and imagined in its full glory. Dark hair. Dark lips. Dark words. And the beat is so strong. Heavy and powerful, as if overriding all other music that has ever been played.

  My hand slips into my track pants of its own accord, pulling the gold chain out so I can twine it around my fingers again. It should be easier than this. Easier to dismiss. Easier to forget. Easier to discard. It isn’t, and for the moment I can do nothing other than keep feeling this chain in my hand as a reminder and hope that eventually it will become easier to discard.

  Nothing is changing.

  I look into the dusky confines of each room, barely seeing them for the images still circulating in my mind, and let the memories come without counter. I hope she still hurts as much as I do. She should. I left enough on her, and in her, for her to remember for weeks. My lasting possessive gift to something I don’t own in any way.

  Chuckling lowly at that, I start heading for the study, both amused and glad to have her squirming for as long as she will. She deserved it, and I wanted what she asked me for. We were good together like that, and bound for a time by something other than the drugs and the lust that place causes.

  I sigh at the thoughts, as I wander into another dark room and look over the stacks of files and the low, dim light casting my usual gloom around. With any luck she’ll keep staying with Malachi for a while longer, assuming she’s still there, and let the memory of me dissipate as she loses herself in whatever hedonism he offers to distract her. It’ll give us both more time. Time for me to fall back into normal mundanity and research, and time for her to realise that I am not anything more than I was for the few nights we had.

  She’ll evolve passed me then. Grow and find her new life without me in it. Maybe then she can come back to the apartment I own and choose to leave it rather than torment me with the floors between us, because those same floors are already tempting me. They seem to creak and groan beneath me, as if they’re in my bones and blood even though I know she’s not in the apartment yet.

  Leaving will be best when she gets here.

  Her leaving will be easiest.

  I eventually sit at the desk and open up spreadsheets and data files, correlating the specifics into manageable details for analysis, and let the chain drape the desk beside me while I do. It glitters under the low light, distracting me from my task just like it has done all the time I’ve been back here. But I can’t seem to let it go. Don’t want to. I want it close, as if the torment of the memory is needed. Hours go by in here. Real hours. Hours that are managed by time and clocks that tick through minutes. I should be lost in them – working. I miss the sense of nothing the chain provided, though, and I miss the sense of everything she gave me in that nothing.

  More time passes and I end up rubbing the bridge of my nose, pushing the pads of my hands into the corners of my eyes to ease the tension of looking at screens and data. Still no useable results. I’m not surprised. I haven’t concentrated on anything successfully. It’s just been a process. An ongoing, unfruitful, and entirely unproductive process.

  And it’s my own damn fault.

  The thought makes me lean back and stare at my phone, damned fingers itching to pick it up and call him, ask about her. I shouldn’t. I know that. But it’s eating me up not knowing where she is. Maybe she’s left already, headed to see family rather than come back here. I shake off the thought and stare back at the screens, a long breath pulled in. Data. Work. I’ll see him soon enough anyway. Can’t avoid that. It’s the one event he manages to get me to, or has done for the last few years at least. I could avoid it, I suppose. Maybe I should this year.

  Chapter 2

  Hannah

  I don’t know how long it’s been. As always, hours and days seem to blend into each other here. No clocks on the walls, no alarms to get you ready for the day to begin. I roll onto my stomach and look out through the window, eyes gazing at the storm outside. No clear skies today. It’s raging out there, wind and snow howling passed us in this place. No one cares, me included, but it is calling me out into it, tempting me to walk in it so I can feel the chill it offers. I’m too warm here. Too languid and, now I’m thinking about it, bored.

  The sound of the door into my room opening makes me look over at it and watch as Malachi wanders in and heads for the chair in the window. I say my room. It’s our room really, mine and Gray's, or maybe just Gray’s, but he’s not here with me. I’m alone, regardless of all the offers I’ve had since he left. No one else but him. I don’t want anyone else but him.

  Including Malachi.

  He sits and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table, raking me up and down with his gaze. “Why are you in here?”

  “It’s quiet,” I reply.

  “You didn’t come here for quiet. Quiet is out there in the other world.”

  “Where Gray is.”

  He frowns and slowly looks outside rather than at me, huffing. “We’ve discussed this already. Find something else to fuck.”

  “I don’t want anything else. And you said you’d help. And then you stopped helping and told me to go play with
things until I was ready for your help.”

  Silence. No looking at me. No talk about hunting the truth like he did at first. The game he offered seems stalled, as if he’s changed his mind about it. I don’t know why. Nothing’s changed that I can see or feel. I’m still me, and he’s still him, and the debauchery continues around us.

  I gaze at him, taking in the black covering his skin and the bracelets around his wrists. “What are those for?”

  “What?”

  “The bracelets.” No answer. “Do they mean something? I wore a chain while Gray was here. Are they something similar?”

  “No.”

  I groan at the blatant display of annoyance with me about something and get up off the bed, walking to him. My robe gets pushed out of the way, as my legs drop around his hips, and I settle into some sort of fluency with him. I’m not sure how it’s happened, but we’ve become close since it’s only been me and him without Gray. Not sexual. Not really, anyway. Sexual is a bond I don’t have with him, but we’ve become familiar in a way that tunes me into him.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask, turning his chin to me. He tugs it away from me and glares at the storm, his hands refusing to touch me. “Have I done something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you being an ass?”

  “I’m not.”

  I chuckle quietly at that and lean my body onto him, tucking my head into his chest at his neck. He feels cold, as if he’s been outside in that storm. I can smell it on him. Frigid air and ridged body under me. Nothing like Gray’s, though. Flatter. Weaker in some ways I can’t process. Darker, too. Dark skin, darker hair. Comforting, though.

  Familiar.

  “I miss him,” I murmur.

  A sigh comes out of him, his fingers slowly travelling to the small of my back. “I miss what he was to me. Nothing else is him, Malachi.” Another sigh, his hand spreading and rubbing slightly. “He’s still in here with me. In my mind, in my thoughts, inside me.” Those thoughts mingle with the bruises still on my skin, the aches still bedded into my heart. “And I want my answers. There aren’t any here and even if there were you wouldn’t tell me, would you? Should I go home?”

  His chest heaves in another breath, as he grumbles something to himself about something only he could understand. I don’t care what it is. I would rather lay here on him, keeping him close even at arms-length, than go into the hoards and masses downstairs anymore. It’s become tedious. Lacking something. My fun has gone. It seems to have disappeared the moment Gray did, no matter the pills I took to try recreating the vibe. And now I’m alone and pining. It’s irritating.

  Irrational even.

  I snuggle my cheek in deeper and look out at the storm with him, eventually feeling his chin rest on the top of my head and his fingers gently trailing through my hair. Maybe this is what Faith gets out of him. Gentle touches. Patience. Tolerance. Love. My thighs squeeze him tightly. I want that again. I want someone to share it all with, relax with and snuggle on cold winter evenings. Alone and being bitch-filled is fatiguing without company.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he mutters.

  I rub my cheek again, letting the emotions swell inside me, and tap at his chest.

  Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

  No thud under me like before, no ground to hold on to or beat that’s strong enough to cling to. My rhythm’s gone. Left. Dissolved into nothing but a chase I can’t chase down. Tears threaten. I can feel them building somewhere deep inside me. Not for Rick. Rick has become as dead and buried as he is, almost as forgotten as he needs to be, but Gray? Gray is alive and out there somewhere waiting for me to find his truths.

  “This, Hannah,” he says, tapping my spine. “Is not who you need for your quest. Where’s the bitch gone?” She’s there, just dimmed of her sparkle for a while.

  I sigh and lift my head, a soft kiss pressed to his cheek before I get off him and wander to the wardrobe. Dimmed of sparkle. Frustrating. No man should dim me of anything, and yet here I am waning and letting him control me from wherever he is, govern my thoughts.

  My neck stretches around at the thought, eyes narrowing at the selection of clothes I’ve been gifted from someone. Lots of colour. Reds, blues, greens and purples. Sexy outfits. Dubious outfits. Rubber and leather ones, satin and lace ones. Dresses, all dresses. I sweep them all to the side. I want black. Nothing but black for Hannah the bitch.

  I look down at the heels lined up, crystal embellishments on the heels or jewels decorating them, and pick out a pair of high black ones. The robe falls from my shoulders, exposing me to Malachi entirely, and I grab a tight fitting shorter one.

  “Would you mind?” I ask, slipping into it and walking back to him.

  He stands and looks me over, spinning his finger for me to turn. “Attractive.”

  My spine shivers as he drags his finger over it, the feeling reminding me of someone else’s touch, and then I smile as gentle lips touch my shoulder. “I could just fuck him out of you,” he says. “Rid you of the bruises you still have and create new ones.”

  I can feel the temptation of that bare down on me, but it won’t work. I know it. He probably does, too, because he isn’t the man I want bruises to come from. No thuds. No rhythm other than one he’ll force.

  Still, I angle my neck a little, letting him drag his teeth slowly, and think about the possibility for a while as he does the buttons up on me.

  No.

  “No, you couldn’t,” I murmur, walking away from him towards the door. “Are you coming?”

  He chuckles and joins me, opening the door. “After you, Ms Bitch.”

  We walk in companionable silence, weaving corridors and halls that have become so familiar I hardly need to look anymore. Left and right mean something now. All the rooms here do. He showed me them, talked me through their meaning or use. It was strange for a time, as if I was being welcomed to a new side of him after that breakfast he made me eat, but then everything began to change and relax.

  Normal conversations occurred about why he’s here, who he is, what makes him do what he does. Not money. Money is for fools, he says. Made to be spent and nothing else. No, this place is for living when life outside of it isn’t worth living for. I understood that, even if I didn’t truly understand why. But what he hasn’t done, for the entire time I’ve been here alone, is move on with his game to help me understand Gray.

  “Was he fucking someone else?” he asks, as we turn into the formal lounge. I watch as he heads for the drinks and pours us some, not understanding the question, and then watch as he brings it back to me. “Your husband?”

  I nod and take the drink from him. “Several. My whole life was a lie. And then he died and I couldn’t get any answers. Gray told me about the affairs, after two gossiping women already had told me about one at his wake. I was in the toilet – wracked with grief.”

  “Hmm. Trust shattered.”

  I tip the vodka to my mouth and down it. “Yes. I don’t do grief now.”

  I shrug and move towards the drinks tray again, gazing at the array of selections available. It is what it is. Nothing more or less. I’ve evolved because of it, found new meaning in things I never knew existed. I’m a new me, unbound and free of lies and deceptions. I pour another shot, downing that as fast as I did the first, and then hold my hand out to Malachi for pills because only Gray proves a challenge now and even I know I should let that go, move on from him.

  “But you are doing, Hannah. You’re grieving more for Gray than you did for your husband.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I warned you.”

  “Asshole.”

  My fingers waggle, annoyance forcing me into trying to forget. I’m not accepting that argument or my apparent grief. I’ll try again, become stronger, more resilient, and then leave when my own battle has been won. I’ll go back, pack the apartment up that has barely been used, and move. Another state, another country even? I could go anywhere. See anything. Live anywhere. T
here’s enough money in my account for anything I want, anywhere I want thanks to Rick’s death. Just not for anyone I want. Money is not going to make that happen.

  Sadness sweeps through me again, faltering what was trying to harden up. “Why won’t you tell me what he’s hiding, Malachi?” I ask.

  “Because you won’t like what you find, Hannah.” He tips some pills into my hand inattentively, not caring for the spill of colours that land. “And I’ve grown to like you enough to care.”

  “What happened to better to go too far than not far enough?”

  “Sometimes not far enough is far enough. For both of you.”

  I swallow some pills at yet another non answer, unwilling to choose colours and not caring for their affect anyway, and walk into the hall. What does it matter? I’ll fly for a while, get lost and discover new images to linger in. The dark will come then to tow me under it. Care will abandon me. I’ll connect with something, anything. Dirty, shadowed corners will become my refuge, and time will disintegrate again and minutes will turn into hours and hours into days and days into weeks, until there is no Gray Rothburg. I’ll be truly alone then.

  As barren as the landscape around us.

  The coloured flashes come hard and fast in my mind. They whirl and spin around me, as I keep moving to the elevator, making me stagger and spin slowly under them. “No, I won’t be, but I am here now.” It repeats over and over and over in my mind, soft words tempting me in to opening my eyes for him. “Be here with me.”

  I was. I was there and I felt and I let everything in me fall into him, as if one night was manageable. Stupid. I should have stayed closed off, closed down. I should have kept him away, knowing I couldn’t stay the course when it came to him not being there.

  Something moves above my head, as if following me – monsters. I look up sharply, then sideways, sneering at what might be coming. There’s nothing but this dark old cavern and these brittle old walls. Still – I back up to the elevator door, chin held high and eyes focused on the dark – I will not be scared of it if it does come. I will grow. Be strong again.