Mistletoe’s Kiss

27. Chapter 27

“Every murderer is probably someone’s old friend.”

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

M addy sucked in a breath and pulled her hand from Nolan’s grasp.

“Please, sweetheart, let me explain everything to you. There’s no need to be scared of me; I’d never do anything to harm you. I’ll even swear on Milton’s life if you want me to!”

The reminder that this man had been emailing her for the better part of a year and that he had a scruffy rescue dog named Milton, calmed her just a fraction. She did know him, maybe not by name; but she knew his thoughts, feelings, and most definitely his desires.

Maddy looked at his face as if meeting him for the first time tonight, cataloguing his angular features, the hooded hazel eyes, and those plump lips, lips he had repeatedly said he wanted to worship her with. She noted the earnest expression, the desperation in his gaze as he pleaded for her to give him a chance.

Shaking slightly, she nodded. “Okay, but don’t swear on Milton. I like that damn dog.”

A small smile broke across Nolan’s face, a flicker of relief shining through the tension. He led the way out of the study and across the hall to the library where Jude had fallen asleep earlier. Floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, crammed with leather-bound books. A stone fireplace dominated one side, its mantle decked with garlands of holly and ivy, soft glimmering lights threaded through the foliage. Maddy glanced at the large bay window as they entered, the snow was still falling thick and fast, it looked like a winter wonderland outside, like something straight out of Narnia. The whole room was so inviting, any other day she would have done almost anything for the chance to grab one of the dusty old books and curl up by the fire to read. It was a book lover’s heaven and she couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Christmas Eve. A pity she was in this glorious room to listen to the confessions of a killer.

She took a seat on a plush sofa next to the fire, it was warm, cosy and she felt herself begin to relax a fraction.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Nolan, who settled into a seat opposite her. “I’ll tell you why I’m here and why I killed that waste of space, Scott. Feel free to ask any questions or thank me at any time.”

“Don’t think I’ll be thanking you, but go ahead.”

He chuckled, looking sheepish as he ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Firstly, I’ve got to hold my hands up and make a confession… I’ve been kind of cyber-stalking you for about a year.”

Alarm flickered across Maddy’s face, and he quickly added, “It’s not that bad. Just a quick look through your calendar now and then, following you on social media, etc…”

She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms defensively. “That’s not exactly comforting.”

Nolan held up his hands in mock surrender. “I know it sounds creepy, but I swear I just wanted to know you better. I never meant to invade your privacy. It was more about… trying to understand who you were, who you are.”

“Look, I get how it sounds,” he said, leaning forward. “But I promise you, my intentions were never harmful.”

Maddy felt a mix of indignation and curiosity. Eyes narrowed in suspicion she asked, “What’s the etc?”

Speaking almost too quickly to follow, he rushed ahead. “I may have hacked into your emails and the camera on your laptop…”

“What?!” Maddy’s heart raced. “I thought I just heard you say emails and camera? I’m hoping I misheard…”

Nolan sighed, refusing to meet her gaze. “I hacked into your emails and the camera on your laptop, but that’s beside the point. Crap, this isn’t where I wanted to begin. Let me start again, please?”

Maddy struggled to push the rising tide of fear to the back of her mind. She desperately wanted to understand what was going on, and in the end, her curiosity won out. “Okay, we’ll come back to that later. Keep going…”

“Right, okay, it all started when I was serving overseas,” Nolan began, his tone turning serious. “I was injured, stuck in a hospital on the base, and so bored. I read one of your books and was hooked.”

Maddy fought the urge to interrupt, letting him continue despite the mix of emotions swirling inside her.

“When I came back home, I started to follow you online. I only hacked into the camera because you’re so private on social media that I couldn’t figure out if you were already in a relationship. I didn’t want to physically follow you around, I do respect you, Maddy, and I didn’t want to scare you too badly. I mean, a little fear in the bedroom can be nice, but not in real life…” He shook his head. “That’s the kind of thing Daniel Scott was into.”

Maddy’s heart raced as she processed his words. It was unsettling to hear him confess to his intrusive actions, yet there was a strange sincerity in his voice that made her listen. “So, you were obsessed with me from a distance?”

Nolan’s expression softened. “I know it sounds unhealthy, but it was never about just that. It was about connection. Your books helped me through some tough times. I felt like I understood you…”

Maddy rubbed her temples, grappling with the conflicting feelings inside her. Hang on, my laptop is on my desk in my room, facing my bed! What were you watching?”

“Well, I wasn’t watching you getting pounded by another man in your bed, thank fuck! Then Scott wouldn’t have been the first murder I’d committed, that’s for sure,” he said, fisting his hands tightly in his lap, his expression darkening.

Maddy’s stomach twisted at his words and she couldn’t tell if she was more horrified or intrigued. “At first, I just watched you when you wrote or pottered about. You don’t go out much. I thought you looked a little lonely, so I sent you that first email. You write about all these wonderful characters who have that one special someone in their lives, a friend, a lover, someone they belong to completely. I just wanted you to see that you had that too…a man who was devoted, who would do anything for you.

“I saw you open the first few emails through the camera,” he continued a hint of nostalgia in his tone. “I loved seeing you read them, so from then on, I only sent them when you were sitting at your desk.”

Maddy was reeling from the revelation that he’d watched her read all of those hot as fuck emails through her laptop camera when it suddenly occurred to her that he would also have seen what she usually did after that.“I…I…shit! You’ve seen me, you’ve seen me with my…”

“…fingers and toys in your pussy? Yes baby, I have, the best, most delicious thing I’ve ever seen is when I get you so worked up you moan and cream all over your office chair for me. What I wouldn’t give to clean you all up afterward with my tongue… Sometimes your pussy was right up against the screen of your laptop and you touched yourself while I called you a good girl. The view was obscene!”

Maddy practically groaned, it was one thing for her to read those kinds of things, he was the absolute king of dirty talk in his emails, but to see and hear those words come from that plush mouth in that deep voice had her growing wet. She wasn’t one for sexting and she’d never had sex on video before, or so she’d thought, she squirmed at the idea of this man getting such a close-up view of her pussy without her knowing. Why the fuck did that turn her on so much! She seriously needed to get a grip…on her thoughts, not his cock!

“So you’ve been stalking me. How exactly did that lead to here, to tonight’s events?”

“Well, we’ve been seeing each other… um… I’ve been seeing you for a while,” Nolan said, his voice dropping slightly. “When you started to respond so beautifully to my more recent emails, I decided that I needed to meet you. I was so desperate to touch you in real life, not just in my imagination. That need was cemented when I downloaded Blood Under the Mistletoe from your files…”

Maddy felt her cheeks heat up, and she looked away, trying to hide her embarrassment. Nolan was the only one who would recognize that most of the scenes between her new characters, Hettie and Felix, were inspired by his emails. She’d modelled Felix on him, both were ex-military, fiercely possessive, ruthless, and kinky as hell. It felt like he had unearthed a secret crush she’d been writing about as if he’d found her diary and read every dirty little dream he’d starred in.

She internally composed herself, attempting to look nonchalant as she turned back to him. “You read it?”

Nolan’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “You have no idea how many times I read it. I was practically drooling over Felix, so much of him reminded me of myself. It felt like you were writing our story, you were finally talking to me, telling me through your characters that you felt the same way. You want me as much as I want you sweetheart.

“So, the week after I read it, I bought a ticket to the Bookseller’s Choice Awards. I knew from your calendar that you were attending with Sara. I was so fucking nervous all night. I planned to come over, introduce myself, maybe ask you out on a date, and then once we got to know each other, I’d finally tell you who I really was…”

Maddy raised an eyebrow, her interest piqued. “What happened? I most definitely didn’t see you.”

Nolan’s smile turned sharp, his expression hardening. “I was so close, almost there, when I saw that sleazy shit, Daniel Scott, sidle over. I listened to him pant all over you, making those disgusting comments about sleeping with him. I was about to step in when Sara ran over. After a while, you left, and I saw him approach lots of other women, trying to get them to go to his hotel room. It put him officially on my radar, and I started to look into him the next day.

“I got into his emails and cloned his phone. I’m pretty good at that kind of thing… He was one seriously messed-up bastard. There was an email in his personal account from Moira, dated a few years back, asking him to get rid of a video. She said that what happened was so long ago that both she and Priesh just wanted to forget and wouldn’t go to the police if he’d just delete it.

“Moira’s email wasn’t the only one; there were so many messages from women asking him to either leave them alone or not to show their ‘videos’ to anyone. I recognized Sara’s name from a string of messages begging him to stop.”

Nolan took a deep breath, and if possible, his face grew even grimmer. “That wasn’t the worst thing I found… He was obsessed with you, Maddy. I know, I’m not one to talk, but he literally had hundreds of photos of you on his server—pictures you probably didn’t even know existed. He saved everything: social media posts, shots from events and even some disgusting ‘deepfake’ porn videos where he used the photos to make it look like you were having sex with him. It nearly made me lose my mind.”

Maddy felt her stomach churn; she hadn’t quite realized the extent of Dan’s fixation on her.

“He’d also started to lobby the board to drop you from their publication schedule. There were numerous emails saying that by publishing Mistletoe , they were ruining Cupid’s reputation and that you were no longer a good fit. I think he was trying to set you up to be blackmailed. He wanted you worried and at your lowest, so he could sweep in and ‘convince’ the board that you were actually an asset. He’d make you feel indebted to him and welcome his advances. He’d most certainly done it before…

“The funny thing was, the board completely disagreed with him. They love your books and you as an author, they are 100% behind Mistletoe , and it was Dan who was spreading rumours about them being unhappy all over the office.”

Maddy’s whole body vibrated with disgust and anger. “That slimy little git! I honestly thought that I was about to get sacked. I even looked into other publishers who might want to take me on. But no matter how desperate I was, I never would have had sex with Dan. Just the thought makes me sick!”

“I knew he was dangerous. I saw what he did to Moira and thought it was only a matter of time before he slipped something into your drink at a party and offered to take you home. I had to do something drastic, so I came up with a plan, a plan to get rid of Scott and keep you safe. And if I got to meet you in person and talk, all the better,” Nolan said calmly.

“I thought, if I’m going to kill someone, I might as well do it in style. So I devised the idea of the book launch. Everything that happened here tonight, barring a couple of little things, was by my design. I wanted to impress you, and I thought a homage to your latest book would be a fitting end for the man who had been badmouthing it to everyone.

“I emailed Scott from Cupid’s server, pretending to be an assistant who’d come up with the idea for a murder mystery party. I sent him the location, the guest list, and even the character cards. Scott, being the greedy prick he was, took the idea from his ‘assistant’ and ran with it. I wanted the guest list to include some of the people he’d wronged, Moira, Priesh, Sara, Helen, and Jude - she was a late addition when I discovered what Dan was doing to her shop. I didn’t invite them to be suspects, I invited them so they’d see firsthand that the reason for their pain was gone. To give them some closure. I’m just so empathetic,” he said with a big grin.

Maddy raised an eyebrow, struggling to digest his twisted sense of morality.“That was rather Machiavellian of you, Nolan…”

“I know right? Devious is my middle name, and that’s not the end of it. I was at the house before you arrived, I pretended to be with a hospitality agency and got myself a job here. Made sure I was on the rota for tonight to help old Mr. Michaels with the dinner service,” he winked.

“Really? I would have noticed if someone who looks like you was putting my plate on the table,” she mumbled, half-serious.

“Oh sweetheart, I’m flattered! But you wouldn’t have seen me. I made sure I stuck to the kitchen. I planned to kill Scott and then show up pretending to be the movie guy, Kolski. He doesn’t exist, by the way; I just needed an ‘in’ so Scott’s ‘assistant’ added him to the guest list. I thought maybe you’d be up for a little trauma bonding with the hot American producer riding in to protect you from the big bad murderer. I even practiced my accent…you ever ridden a cowboy, baby?” He said in a sultry Texan twang.

Maddy fought to maintain a serious expression, her mind swirling with a mix of disbelief and intrigue. The flirtation in his voice sent little flutters through her, igniting an undeniable attraction even in the face of his chilling revelations. She had to remind herself of the gravity of the situation.

“So you somehow gave him a poisoned cocktail and managed to kill him without any of us seeing you?” Maddy asked, still grappling with the enormity of his confession.

“Yes, I’m a veteran. I’ve spent the last five years getting very good at killing people without being seen. The cocktail was easy. All that talk about Scott being a mixology expert was a load of rubbish. Michaels asked the staff if anyone had experience bartending because the host needed someone to show him how to mix a specific drink. It was fucking poetry in motion. Turns out it was the ‘Mistletoe’s Kiss’ from your book. I hadn’t been planning on the poison, but I couldn’t resist when the opportunity landed in my lap,” Nolan explained, his eyes gleaming with a mix of pride and excitement.

“He arrived early to the party, and I showed him how to make it, slipping the berry juice in when he was distracted by Adele, she was in the maid’s costume. He drank the whole thing down, thanked me for my help, and wandered back to the parlour. It was easy to kill him after that, he was so out of it. And I’ll admit, my blood was boiling with that run-in you had with him after the card reading. I enjoyed the look on his face when he realized he was going to die, it was like putting down a rabid dog.”

Maddy felt a chill run down her spine at the coldness in his tone, the casual way he described murder.

“I was covered in blood, using a knife is a messy business, so I took my time cleaning up and left through one of the doors at the back of the house, doubling back around to the front door. It was hard work getting through the snow but I couldn’t complain, the road towards the village was completely blocked by this point so I knew I’d have the whole night for our date, Maddy.

Maddy let out a shocked little whimper, Nolan’s calm description of the way he’d ruthlessly killed Dan to protect her was terrifying yet shamefully off the charts arousing at the same time. She’d never been the focus of someone’s world before. He was a killer but she’d never felt safer, completely sure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t hurt her.

“Hang on, what do you mean date?” She managed to ask.

“Oh! My plan was always twofold. Dispose of Daniel Scott…easy…and give you the best damn date night I possibly could. I thought to myself, who is Madeleine Montgomery? What does she love? What excites her?”

“And what was the answer to those questions?” She probed, half dreading the answer.

“Again, easy… murder, mayhem, and mystery. You thrive in the darkness, sweetheart. A night like tonight, where you would be confronted with the kinds of things your black little heart usually only writes about? That was my gift to you, the perfect evening where you could live out your detective fantasies in real life instead of just on paper. You rose to the challenge, baby. You investigated the shit out of this house, the guests and of course… me.”

Nolan rose from his chair and knelt in front of Maddy, his large hands resting on her knees. “I know you enjoyed tonight. You came alive when you were trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. It thrilled you, made your heart beat faster, your blood heat…your pussy wet.”

He gripped Maddy’s hands as she tried to pull away. “But I also know that you feel guilty for all of those things. You’re ashamed that you still want me, knowing that I killed a man, even someone as vile as Dan.” He dipped his head to her lap and kissed the hands he was holding tight. “You need to choose doll. Let the worry go. Put aside those thoughts and concentrate on how I’m making you feel.”

Maddy, looked down into his intense eyes, feeling her heart race and her breath hitch. “Just give in?”

“Just give in sweetheart…” he replied softly, his voice laced with a hypnotic allure that made her pulse quicken even more.

She felt torn between the conflicting emotions swirling inside her, the shock of his actions, the thrill of the night, and the unbearable pull he had on her. His words lingered in the air, heavy with promise and danger.

“Don’t you see? I’ve shown you a side of life that you’ve only ever written about,” Nolan continued, his grip on her hands firm yet tender. “This isn’t just about me. It’s about you, about what you want. You’ve been living in a world of shadows, and I’m offering you the chance to step into the light, on your own terms.”

His sincerity cut through her confusion, and for a moment, she allowed herself to imagine the possibilities. The night had awakened something deep within her, and Nolan was right, there was a thrill in the danger, an intoxicating allure in the chaos.

“I’m scared,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Good,” he said with a smirk. “That means you’re alive. Just remember, I’ll always keep you safe. Trust me.”

Maddy’s heart pounded in her chest as she weighed her options. There was no denying the spark between them, the connection that felt both exhilarating and terrifying. Perhaps it was time to embrace the unknown, to allow herself to feel everything he was offering, no matter how dark.

“Okay Nolan, I give in.”