The Temp (26 page)

63

It had been buried for so long-

Eve was fifteen, a shy girl with a world of promise. She had a best friend, the best of friends. They were peas in a pod; they even looked alike, like sisters.

Carra. They did everything together, until one day things changed. Nobody saw it coming.

Things changed overnight when Carra’s parents passed away in a freak accident.

Carra disappeared off the face of the Earth. One day she was there, the next she wasn’t. Social services claimed they never received the girl and Eve never heard from her best friend again. Eve didn’t know what had happened until the photos appeared. They were linked to a child porn site. And they all had Eve’s face on them, not Carra’s, Eve’s.

Only they weren’t Eve.

They were definitely Carra. It was the birthmark that gave her away.

Eve found out the hard way when the police showed up at her foster parents door as part of a crack down on child pornography. Her face had been one of the few identified in the system.

The shock of it all…and no one could believe it wasn’t Eve. There was a birthmark on her thigh; no one had believed her, not a girl growing up in a foster home with a shady past. Things were difficult for a while living with strangers until her grandmother was found to be alive and she could move away again and start anew. So Eve had moved away, started over, her grandmother having been awarded her new guardian. Those photos had been dug under the rug, an endless rug she lived with under her bed.

Carra, nothing had been heard from her except those photos.

Eve had feared the worst, even to this day.

That was ten years ago. Ten years and the past had finally caught up to her. Ten years and Eve hadn’t heard anything from her best friend. She didn’t know what had happened to Carra or whether she was even alive. Somewhere along the way Eve had buried Carra and all those memories. The police had no leads and one day the photos become part of a forgotten past. 

*

Eve slouched down on the curb.

Trigger crouched down next to her.

“Carra,” she shuddered. “What did they do to you?”

“Eve,” Trigger reached for her hand.

She snatched it away. “I swear it’s not me, I can prove it,” she stammered. “There’s a birthmark on her thigh, it belongs to my friend Carra Thornton. I don’t have one.” She pointed to the photo wishing Trigger didn’t have to see them, that he’d never looked in the first place.

Her cheeks burned for herself, for Carra. She could only imagine the horrific things subjected to a girl trapped in such a sordid filthy world. 

“It was photo-shopped with my face.”

“You say her name is Carra, so you know the girl in these pictures.”

“Yeah,” she buried her head in her knees. “I wasn’t a part of whatever she was.”
Was. Is.
Eve couldn’t bring herself to correct it.
Was.
She could be-

“What happened to her?”

“They never found her. She disappeared.”

“A birthmark is not a lot to go on.”

“Look closely,” she hated saying it.
Don’t look at all,
would have been better. “Look at the shadows, they don’t align.”

“It’s well done.”

“Please, you have to believe me.”

“I do.”

Eve snapped up. “You do?” her lips quivered. No one, not her foster parents nor the police had believed her and yet Trigger did.

“This isn’t like you.”

“My face,” Eve stumbled for words.
Oh,
how the past was racing up to her. She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve, producing Trigger’s handkerchief from her pocket.

“What about it?”

“I have the same photo; whoever did this took my face.” Of all the things she’d kept, she still had the photo somewhere among the limited things she possessed from her past. Carra had had the photo too. Eve didn’t want to consider she was behind this.

Carra was a victim,
is, was,
the tears spilled over again. Carra and Eve had been together in so many photos when they were young.

“Bring it to me and we can rectify this.”

“What do I do in the mean time?”

“Those who are doing this will know if you’re out. We need to make them believe you’re not, you need to make the first move.”

“Because I’m a pawn”-

“Go back to Roman.”

“No.”

“You have no choice.”

“I do. No.”

“Eve, if these photos make it out”-

“What?”

“Eve, these are ten years old. If these get out the whole world will think you were a child prostitute.” Her voice trapped in her throat. “There are ways they can make this stick. The world is not like it was ten years ago. Social media is big and even if you can prove the photos are fake, once the story’s out it’s all the public will think of you. Your past will really come back to haunt you.” Trigger put an arm around her shoulder. She tried to fight him, he pulled her in harder. “I know you hate me, I’m trying to help you.”

“You’re working for them.”

“Not by choice.”

She didn’t know what to do. She was facing faked child prostitution claims against going to Roman and being his mistress. Yes, he’d take care of her and what? Wouldn’t that make her another form of prostitute? Bought and paid for?

“What do I do?”

“Please Eve, don’t make me say it. You’re making me out to be the bad guy in all of this.” Was he the bad guy? She didn’t know anymore.

Eve swatted away his arm with more force this time. “Say it,” she ground out. Tears streamed down her face, smearing her eyeliner. Her make-up was hideous and her puffy cheeks pitiful, she was at her wits end.

He let out a deep breath, gritting his teeth. “You have no choice Eve. You have to go to him.”

*

“You lost her?!” Beareman threw Jenson against the wall pining him by his lapels.

“S-She disappeared. She knew we were on to her,” Jenson stuttered.

“What about where she’s working? You find her there?”

“She’s a temp. I tracked her to that big black building”-

“Which one?”

“R-R-Roman Industries,” Jenson was getting more agitated by the second. Beareman was going to kill him, he was. “P-P-Please, I tried to find her there b-b-but I don’t think she works there anymore.”

“So you lost her,” her dropped Jenson.

Jenson struggled to his feet, his hands bracing the wall behind him. If he ran he might be able to get a head start on Beareman. It didn’t matter. They knew his face all over town, he was done. His fingers scratched against the grain of the brick, his nails biting into the rock.

He had no choice, he was going to run.

Beareman turned back and threw the final punch.

P
ART  
V

The Betrayal

64

Roman woke with a start.

The door banged incessantly downstairs.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and took to the stairs, to the first door underneath, his office. Who would want to see him at this time of night?

He had a fleeting hope, a momentary lapse. A spark. Was it her? He brought up the camera shot on his computer, it loomed right above the entryway outside the front door, a precautionary measure he’d taken years ago.

The air left him in a whoosh.

It was her. It really was, here, well after midnight, come at last. He’d waited so long, dwelt longer on her than he’d wanted to, wished he could rid himself of her and yet he craved her like a depraved addict.

He opened the door.

“Eve, what are you doing here? It’s three in the morning” he took in her appearance. Her hair was dishevelled, her long coat open. Some buttons put together haphazardly and out of order. Her face…wet and glistening and pink.

Despite what he’d told her, despite how he’d pushed her away, it burned to see her like this. So broken. So dismayed.

“Eve,” he put out his arms willing her into them.

She didn’t go for it as she side stepped him and moved into his apartment.

“If I say yes to your proposal will you do something for me?” her bottom lip quivered, she was frantic. He took her in his arms this time regardless if she resisted. She needed it and he needed her. He didn’t want to admit these last few weeks he’d missed her in and out of the office. She was his. Should be.
Mine.

She clung to him so desperately, her tears releasing into him. He held her tight. He got her on the lounge laying her against him like a limp doll. This wasn’t how he’d wanted her, she seemed to be so against her will and yet he’d seen the way her breath had caught when they’d locked on each other. She was so torn, over what?

She sank against him and her eyes closed momentarily.

He could feel her breathing soften and he really took in her appearance. Her delicate marron tendrils sprawled behind her, her china doll skin. She was more beautiful than he remembered and so frail and so in need of protection. He wanted to protect her.

She was right. She did need a knight in shining armour and even if he couldn’t be that for her permanently maybe he could be her temporary knight, a fodder for the real thing, until he came along, whoever the lucky man would be. The very notion of another man touching her iced his veins.

What could he do? He couldn’t love her, not truly.

“Tell me what you need, anything,” his fingers trailed the curve of her face, her skin supple soft hinted of vanilla.

He would do whatever he could to make the pain go away.

Eve wiped away the tears with her sleeve and pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket. She smiled at the cloth as if reminiscing of a past time. She tucked it back out of sight. He didn’t ask what it was. His arm laced around her shoulder. She was cold against his skin. He drew her in further, until she lay across him.

“I want you,” Eve said.

“And it’s taken you this long to figure it out.” He should soften his tone, she was here after all. There was something so haunted and lacking in the way she’d come to him. It seemed she was here against her will and he couldn’t fathom what it was, nor understand it.

“No. It’s taken me this long to straighten my priorities. You don’t want a relationship. Fine.” He sat up. Was she serious?

“You can live with those circumstances?”

“Maybe if”-

“Maybe?” Roman blinked. “Eve, you have to be sure.”

“I am sure.”

“So why are you here in the middle of the night crying?”

“Do you want me or not?” she snapped fresh tears breaking free.

“Something’s happened.” It hurt him to admit he wanted her, not like this.

Eve rose off his lap. “You think?”

His jaw tightened. “Tell me.”

She looked away, baling her fists, scrunching her sleeves. He wanted badly to comfort her, she was resistant, hiding from whatever it was taunting her.

“Eve you have secrets, I knew it the moment I first saw you.” She didn’t move, her eyes straying to the furniture in his apartment but she wouldn’t look at him. “You’re more guarded than I imagined. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Aren’t you always?” she whispered, a bitter laugh leaving her pink tinted lips. “What do you know?” she whispered.

“I think I know enough,” he said.

She flinched back.

For a moment he thought she would run, she was a deer in headlights and he the car.

He didn’t move for the longest time, waiting, hoping she wouldn’t flee.

Eventually, Eve relaxed again, her shoulders slackening in defeat. “You don’t know,” she said. “Or else why would I still be here?”

He didn’t know how to respond to her. He wanted to know more, the way she said it had him wondering, holding back and actually questioning whether he would like it. He shouldn’t care. Yet he wanted to know.

“I need to apologise to you,” he said out of the blue.               This took her by surprise too as she blinked back her tears.

“Apologise?”

Roman shuffled his weight beneath her, “I left you in a hospital.”

“You said we shouldn’t be together.”

“We shouldn’t. Being there made me realise it.”

“What?”

“I don’t know anything about you,” it was like he was admitting a fault of his own. He rose stretching out his limbs and walked to the bar pouring a glass of water for her. He handed it to her his fingers grazing hers. The spark was instant. The only thing he could be sure of tonight. Regardless of Eve and her past, they had a connection, a pulling force between them.

“What do you want to know?” Eve blinked through her tears. “I’m an open book.”

No you’re not,
he wanted to say, stopped himself. He watched her drink. “At the hospital they asked me questions Eve, none of which I could answer.” Roman sighed running a hand through his hair. “They wanted to know you’re next of kin, who to contact in an emergency. Eve I don’t know anything about you.”

She didn’t answer for the longest time.

“I had to check the database at work. Why was Trigger’s number in your emergency contact?” Eve blanched. “Tell me. Are you two involved?” he ground his jaw.

The thought of another man, especially one he knew, Trigger was one of his closest colleagues, on another level they were even friends. Roman didn’t have many in his life he could call a
friend.

“I don’t have a next of kin. Trigger put his name in the file.” She blinked up at him with glassy eyes. “We’re not involved. He was merely,” she turned back down again. “Sympathetic.”

*

Eve hated lying, what else could she say?

She was desperate, she was at her end and despite everything Roman had put her through, her heart still accelerated around him like a hormonal teenager. She was stuck in a sea of emotion. She had to stop showing her weaknesses and start showing her strengths.

And when she’d retrieved Trigger’s handkerchief, the guilt had flooded her instantly. What was she doing with Trigger?

“Can I use your bathroom?” she blinked up and rose from the lounge, her legs leaden.

It was all she could do to get away. She needed to clear her head and stop appearing as the pathetic girl she used to be. She wasn’t
little Evee
anymore, she was strong, wilful and determined. And ready to get what she needed in life. She needed this.

She blinked back at the mirror, the state she was in.

Deceit and fear made her look so ugly, smudged across her cheeks in dark smears. Her skin was deathly pale and not geisha white as Carra’s had once been. 

Carra. Her chest rose. She let the air out.
Carra, this is for you.
She grabbed the soap and started cleaning up her face. She needed time to be someone else. Ten minutes later she left the bathroom.

Her demeanour had changed. Her eyes had dried. Her hair was tight in a ponytail against her head, so tight there was an acute pain in her skull.
Good.
It would focus her on the task at hand.

“Roman,” she stalked up to him, the very way she’d dreamt of for so long swaying her hips in her wake. “Rome.” She knew the affect once she said his name in her way, it would change the atmosphere between them, charge it full of potent electricity. It did.

“I’ll do what you want,” she smiled. “But I need you to do something for me.”