“Said the Dragon to the witch,” she said softly, a small twinkle in her still-teary eyes.
“There’s my girl,” I said.
She smiled softly and pulled away. My arms suddenly felt very empty. Kira sagged down onto one of the balcony chairs and I sat down in the other one, a small round table between us.
“Will you tell me about what happened with you and Cooper?” I asked.
She leaned back in her chair, sighing. For a moment I thought she’d say no, but then after taking a deep breath, she said, “I met Cooper at a charity event hosted by my father. I was home for the summer from my first year at college. My father had taken Cooper under his wing and was grooming him to win his first judgeship.” She bit her lip and looked away for a moment. “Although my father’s not in politics anymore, he’s very involved in the San Francisco court system.” Her eyes darted to me for a quick second and I wondered if she was thinking about my involvement with the San Francisco court system. Thankfully, though, I’d never come in contact with Frank Dallaire. She was quiet for a few moments. “Anyway, Cooper and I started dating and my father was so damned happy about it.” She looked out at the horizon, seeming to be lost in memory. “It was the first time in my life I felt like I was pleasing him. It felt…well, I felt wanted. It was a heady feeling. Almost addictive,” she mused, shaking her head dejectedly. “I wanted more.”
“Was that it?” I asked. “Or did you love Cooper?” I hated the tiny stab of jealousy at the mention of Kira with another man—even one who was mostly in her past.
“Oh, I thought I did, I suppose. He was all polish and country-club manners. My father thought we were a brilliant match and we’d perfectly balance each other. Cooper would finally tame me, and I would offer the Dallaire name to his campaign and his future career as a judge.”
“And then?” I asked, a feeling of dread settling in my stomach at the empty look that had come into her eyes.
“We were engaged around Christmas and I, well, I gave him my virginity.” She frowned and looked away for what seemed like a long time. My muscles were tensed and I consciously focused on relaxing. “I only tell you that because it relates to the rest of the story.”
“Okay.”
Kira cleared her throat. “I planned to come home that summer and start wedding planning. Cooper was heavily involved in his first campaign and his team was working out of a hotel downtown.” Kira picked at her fingernail for a few seconds before continuing. “I got out of finals early and instead of going straight to the apartment my father kept for me here, I decided to surprise Cooper at the hotel.” Her frown deepened. “Cooper had always seemed…displeased with me in bed. He never said it exactly, but he communicated the message clearly enough. I thought maybe if I surprised him, wore something…you get the idea.” A blush rose in her cheeks. “Anyway, I went to his room and a member of his campaign opened the door, obviously expecting room service. He tried to stop me from going back to the bedroom, but I wouldn’t let him, and I walked in on Cooper with…women.”
“Women? Plural?”
Kira nodded. “There was one under him and one behind him using some sort of…” She shook her head and closed her eyes, obviously trying to shake the image from her mind. “God…” She put her face in her hands for a brief moment, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t need a full description. I get the gist,” I said. Jesus. What a pig.
She let out a breath. “There were lines of what looked like cocaine on the coffee table, half-empty liquor bottles everywhere.”
“Fuck,” I said, moving my hand through my hair, picturing Cooper, the golden boy in his tennis whites this afternoon.
“Cooper…disengaged when he finally noticed me, but he was drunk or drugged or both. I don’t know. He started off apologizing, but it deteriorated into him screaming at me about how he didn’t want a whore for a wife. He had actual whores for that. I tried to leave, but he pulled me and I fought him. We tumbled to the ground and he hit me, but I got away. Only as I turned to leave, he caught my ankle and I fell on the glass coffee table, breaking two of my ribs, banging up my face even more, and slicing my arm. It had happened so fast, but I was a mess. There was blood everywhere. Members of Cooper’s campaign team who had been in the other room came running. They got me out of there and called a doctor when we arrived at my father’s home.”
“Kira,” I said, my voice raw, my guts churning. I now fully understood why she’d been so insecure about sex. It wasn’t just about her father and his dismissal of Rosa Maria. It was even more personal—she’d basically been told her passion in bed was somehow inappropriate and disgusting. And she’d believed it. And who could blame her? It’d been her first experience.
Kira looked off into the distance again. “When my father got home and learned what happened”—her face screwed up as if she was going to cry again, but she regrouped with a deep breath—“he told me I’d ruined everything. And then he went into recovery mode: contacting the hotel staff, putting out the story that I’d gotten into trouble with drugs and went wild in case anyone else had seen me leaving the room or in case other staff talked about the cleanup. Of course, he wouldn’t hear of me calling the engagement off, but I was very final about that.”
“He threw you under the bus.”
She nodded. “Yes. Cooper’s campaign and status was more important than his own daughter. He suggested a trip to Europe to make it look as if I were in a recovery program and then upon my return, we could turn the story in our favor, making me look like a success. Can you see the headlines now? ‘Heiress turns to drugs, ruins life, but thanks to the love and devotion of selfless fiancé, turns life around.’ What a perfect love story. Of course, Cooper would look even more like a hero. His current campaign, and all future campaigns, would be even more successful with a story like that attached to him. And me, I’d be the fall girl, but all for a good cause.”
“Fuck,” I repeated, staring in disbelief. I could hardly wrap my mind around that type of public betrayal. How did she come to terms with it?
She sighed. “Well, as you can imagine, I wasn’t going to go along with my father’s plan to send me to Europe on a shopping expedition, but I did need to go away. Even returning to college here in California seemed too close. I wanted an ocean between us—very literally. I was devastated and needed to heal both physically and emotionally. I needed time to come up with a life plan. I remembered Khotso’s invitation to help with his hospital—an invitation I hadn’t been able to accept originally—and cut myself off from my father and Cooper. I took an extra day to have a full STD checkup and then flew to Africa using the very last of the money I had in my bank account.”
She paused for a few moments and I watched as her expression turned thoughtful. “When I got there, I felt so empty, so grief-stricken. But see…” Her eyes suddenly brightened, and my heart thumped. There it is, that light. “I worked with these women who had lost so much—they were rejected by their villages and their families because of the stigma of something they had no control over. Many of them had lost their babies. They were sick and traumatized and grieving. They had lost so much more than me. And yet…despite their circumstances, they were so strong, Grayson, so committed to healing, to hope, to moving forward. They inspired me to find that same courage within myself. People suffer all over the world every day. But people triumph all over the world every day too. And those beautifully brave women helped me reach for triumph as well. And though our situations were very different, I healed along with them.”