Nemesis (Enemies-to-lovers Standalone)

by Maya Rose

  “What stupid girl?”

  “The one that turned you into a woman-hater.”

  I chuckle deep from my chest at her choice of words, tracing circles on her braless back under the shirt. “I’m not a woman-hater.”

  “Yeah you are.” She says, turning fully to face me, spreading her legs to sit astride me. “I’m the only one you like.” She asserts smugly, then loops her hands around my neck. “So what did she do? Cheat on you?”

  I wait for the flash flood of humiliation, hurt and regret from my youth, to come spiraling at me, but all I get is calm nostalgia. I don’t understand it, but I chalk it down to the million little things I don’t understand when I’m with her. “It wasn’t just one girl.” I tell her. “It was a string of them. Cheating on me, stealing from me, getting me to pay their bills...one who dated me to get closer to dad.” I cringe at the distaste in my mouth. “She had a thing for older men, she said, when I found out she’d been emailing him nudes.”

  She licks her lips. “I should be grossed out, except I can’t judge her.” Then moves her hips on my lap until my cock is lined at her entrance, constrained by my slacks. “Older men are pretty hot.”

  Slacks. I’m wearing fucking slacks. What-the-fuck-ever. They’re easier to get out of when I want to be inside her. Like now. I tug at the elastic hem and slide it down my hips just enough for my rod to spring out like a pussy-seeking missile. Hers. Only for hers. “Is that right?” I drawl, lifting and impaling her soaked pussy slowly down on my erection.

  She tosses her head back and grips my shoulders tight. Her moans are going to be the death of me, I think, as I teach my pretty princess to ride my cock. Not surprisingly, she goes to pro level in under a minute. She bounces up and down, fucking herself on my cock, and when she smiles coquettishly at my groan of desire, I rip the shirt on her open, and nibble and suck on her tits, playing them like a symphony, feeling her get slicker on my dick. When I need more, I grab the flesh of her thighs hard, and start thrusting up. She moans louder and louder, her expressive eyes hooding as I keep pounding up into her until we find our way to a climax together.

  Scotty comes over almost every other day, sometimes even staying overnight, and I get a Ms. Pac-man pinball machine installed in the spare bedroom when I see them both playing it online on her laptop. They brag about their scores until I defeat them in record time, causing Scotty to scowl, and her to fix an open-mouthed kiss on me right in front of him. We can go back to my condo, I know, but for now neither of us brings it up, and Scotty doesn’t ask. Instead, we bask in the sound of laughter and in idle banter, and in the implicit notion of a family.

  Ariel invites Selena over one such evening. And Selena looks on agape when Ariel and Scotty start loading the dishes into the dishwasher post dinner.

  “Why won’t you just get someone to clean up for you full time?” She asks me out of their earshot as we stand at the window watching them, as if I’m complicit in abetting this teenage labor.

  “You think I haven’t asked?” I grunt. “She won’t have it. She likes to do it herself.” I look at Ariel guiding Scotty at using the self-clean setting of the oven. “She likes to do everything herself.” I mutter.

  Shaking her head, Selena breaks into an impressed smile. “She’s…” She pauses.

  “Yeah.” I finish, because I know she’s not going to find a one word description. I know because I’ve been there. I’m there every day.

  Selena’s eyes narrow on me, inquisitive and watchful. “I got the contract with me.” She says, and for some reason I have a vivid visual of the Titanic heading for that iceberg. She probably catches my drift, because she sighs. “It’s okay, you know.”

  “What’s okay?” I ask.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want it anymore, Eli. It’s okay that you trust her.”

  I don’t tell Selena that the contract was never because I didn’t trust Ariel. It was because ever since that first day in Ariel’s apartment, I’ve never trusted myself around her. But now...I like it. I like her annihilating all my boundaries, and worming her way inside my cynical, practical, colorless life. Filling it with something I hadn’t even realized was missing, or was what I needed. I like it because I know that even though directly and indirectly, she pushes me to be better and more, she wants me the way I am. And because she does, I feel capable of a lot more than I ever have. Of anything and everything. With her by my side, I feel damn near invincible.

  So I tell Selena to table the contract for now. Because I know that Ariel won’t take anything away from me. If anything, she’s the gift that’ll keep on giving. She’ll take what I give her, no questions asked, no demands made. And because I like this bubble that we’re in, where everything is as close to perfect as it has ever been in my life.

  That, is when Warren calls.

  Chapter 20

  Ariel

  ◆◆◆

  “Why can’t he just tell us what he wants on the phone?” I grumble, inserting my index finger between the band on my wrist, and my skin.

  Eli puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me to his chest. Paired with a sexy half-smile, his smoldering stare hits me full force when he dips his face to linger over mine. “You seem tense. Need some stress-relief, princess?”

  It doesn’t fool me anymore. The fact that he uses sex and innuendo like a weapon when things get too real. And usually I’m not complaining, but my stomach turns at the possible reasons why my father might have called Eli at 5.30 am and told him that he wants to see us both in the next two hours. The call lasted forty five seconds because that’s all he said. I know because I was right next to Eli in bed. Naked. Now as Xavier drives us to the creepy Walton mansion, I remember that the last time I needed to use my band was in this exact situation. In this car, little over a month ago, on the way to my father. Then I almost used it again, inside the house, when he told us what he wanted from me and Eli. Not that long ago, but a lifetime has passed since. What does he want from us today?

  “You know we’ve been avoiding talking to him about our...living arrangements.” I glare at Eli. Apprehensive, I add, “It’s been over two weeks since that reception...I think it’s time I had my own place like he said.”

  “Yeah, not happening.” He coolly states, then hitches my head back with a tug on my hair, and grazes his teeth across my chin and jaw.

  The partition is up, so Xavier can’t hear or see us, but it doesn’t stop my nervous glance going to the front of the car, before I push Eli back until we’re facing each other. My breathing hard, I ask him, agitated, “Why? Are you planning on telling him that we need to live together so that we can keep doing...this?”

  A shadow looms over his face. “Is that why you think I want to live with you? To get laid?”

  All the weird wariness that has been piling up within me comes crashing in. I have him. Eli’s mine. But it’s...I don’t know exactly what it is. He doesn’t feel mine. Not entirely. I can’t get rid of this insecurity that he’s with me because he gets to keep the hotels too. We made a deal behind my father’s back, but is that still what I want? I want Eli, and for now, I don’t care as long as I get to keep him, but what about him? Faced with mom and his wife, my father made a conscious decision. It broke mom but at least she knew where she stood with him. I don’t know where I stand with Eli. That if things were different, more...complicated...maybe if someday I want more of Walton hotels than we agreed, will he let me have it? Will we still be together?

  It’s ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t even matter, because what difference does it make how we ended up here or who has more money or hotels? But that stupid restless voice won’t go away. A fear stays in front of me, dangling at the horizon. That one day, faced with an impossible choice, will Eli still be mine? And if I don’t know that, am I just delaying the inevitable? Me where mom is? God, I hate this broken record in my head that won’t let me savor whatever time I have with him. Disgruntled with myself, I take a page from his book, hurt
ling toward him and seizing his mouth with my lips. I’m no better than him at using my body for avoidance. But I need to shut that voice that won’t let me be free of mom.

  We stand outside my father’s door an hour later, after the grouchy hundred year old lady lets us in the house.

  “It’ll be fine.” Eli tells me, squeezing my hand, holding it hard before letting it go. He can’t hold it in there. Or touch me. “He probably just wants to talk through details of the will.” He builds on, and I’m not sure whom he’s trying to reassure.

  But I nod as he opens the door.

  Warren doesn’t smile when he sees us. He’s sitting at his desk, and all he does is command brusquely, “Sit.”

  But he’s not looking at me. Only at Eli. “How long?” Warren asks Eli in a tight voice before we’ve fully settled into the chairs.

  Air sails out of my chest and my heart drops to my feet. He can’t possibly know. He can’t.

  “How. Long. Eli?” Warren bites every word out acidly.

  “Warren, it’s not like that.” Eli says fixedly, a quiet energy radiating off of him. No fear, no stutters. It’s like the way I’ve always seen him responding to my father. Placating, trying not to antagonize him.

  But Warren’s mouth contorts in distaste. “So you’re not fucking my vulnerable, 19 year old daughter?”

  There’s a silent pause the expanse of the Atlantic.

  Then Eli’s stiff response, “That’s not what this is.”

  “Then what is it, Eli?” My father demands viciously, without raising his voice. “What should I call you making my daughter one of your whores?”

  “Don’t call her that.” Eli breathes out through clenched teeth while I cringe. Shit. He’s trying to keep himself calm.

  “You made her that!!” Warren screams hoarsely, the room echoing with it’s ferocity. “You did!! I told you to take care of her and instead you took advantage of her!!”

  Eli’s jaw flexes, and some of the rage is replaced with something else. Guilt?

  That’s freaking it. “He didn’t take advantage of me!” I tell Warren. “Whatever happened...I wanted it.”

  My father’s glance on me is unfettered fury. “You,” He points a finger at me, “are not allowed to talk.”

  The shift in me is cosmic. Because all that anger--it wouldn’t have been unless he cared deeply. And now I’m crestfallen that I’ve somehow displeased him. I’m already a source of depression for mom. And now I’ve managed to disappoint my father too? After everything, why does it matter? The man was never around. But he is now.

  Eli speaks to him again. “Warren, I like her. I respect her. I’m not fucking around. I’m serious about her.”

  I can’t tell why, but I’m explicably afraid. Suddenly. Terrified.

  While Warren snorts a scoff. “Like? Respect? Serious?” He gives Eli a sneer, spitting the words out like they’re poison. “What does that mean exactly? Are you planning on marrying her?”

  Oh my God, this conversation is not happening.

  “She’s 19.” Eli replies on a staggered note.

  “That’s what I thought.” Warren jeers, like he’s vindicated.

  “You’re twisting my words.” Face hardening, Eli elaborates, impatience starting to seep into his tone. “All I’m saying is that she’s too young to get married right now.”

  “But not too young to be another notch on your bedpost?” Warren counters with hostility.

  “I told you--she’s not one of them.” With every word, I see and hear Eli’s calm slipping.

  “No--she’s worse off--at least they know what to expect from you! But her?” Warren cocks his head my way. “How long were you going to string her along before you broke her heart?” Then he delivers the lowest blow. “It’s the money, isn’t it? You want all of it.”

  “That’s not it. And I would never hurt her.” Voice gravelly as hell, Eli’s chiseled face is darker than a thundercloud.

  “You. Already. Have!” Warren thunders each word with effect. “I trusted you with her!! I fucking trusted you to take care of her! And you--”

  “And I did!!” Eli gets up and leans over the table, slamming his palm on it, startling me, and surprising the shit out of my father, evident in the way he goes wholly still. “I can’t not take care of her!!” Eyes fiery, veins swelling on his temple, voice tumultuous, Eli blazes violently. “You left me with this incredible fucking girl! Have you seen her? Have you met her, Warren? Do you know her? You don’t! Because if you did...because if you knew her even a tiny fucking bit, you would not have left her alone with any man, let alone someone like me! Because it is impossible to not want her!! And now you’re asking me how dare I fall for her? Look at her--just fucking look at her—she’s everything!! She’s 19, but she’s more than you ever were or I ever will be!”

  I’m numb, every emotion under the sun--shock, elation, angst, heartache--coalesced in my chest, no space for air or blood. I can’t sense anything except Eli’s heat engulfing me in. He fell for me? Fell? As...as in...love?

  It takes Warren several seconds, but he reinstates his forbidding, inflamed expression. Picking up his desk phone, he clicks three numbers and speaks, “Edna, get in here.” When he hangs up, he finally turns to me. “I hate this house. I hate it. How needlessly big it is...how endlessly empty. It reminds me every day of how royally I screwed over the lives of three people. But it is my prison and I did not want it to be yours. And now...now you’ve left me no choice.”

  What is he...he wouldn’t.

  My mind in turmoil, I face Eli, my fingers scrambling to grasp his arm, instead of my band. “Take me home. Take me home, please.”

  His blue, unquiet eyes try to keep me in the harbor, and he places his big palm over where I grabbed him. When he talks to Warren, he has modulated his voice to a low, fierce tenor. “Warren, she’s not--”

  He stops when the door clicks open and we see the crotchety woman stroll in. “Mr Walton?” She asks, disinterestedly.

  “Take Ariel to the room I asked you to keep ready.” Warren orders her, and it is only when she looks at me that I’m in blind panic.

  “I’m not living here. And I’m not going anywhere with her.” I tell all of them, my riotous gaze shuttling between the three people in the room.

  Warren purses his mouth and starts, “I’m not ask--”

  “You never do!!!” I go nuclear at what he’s about to say, terrorized that he’s stripping me away from the only man I feel safe with. I won’t. I won’t let him. “You never ever ask, Mr Walton!! You simply decide and expect everyone to fall in line with your demands and decisions!! Why? I want to ask you--why? Who do you think you are to have earned that right? A miserable old man with a lot of money to throw at your regrets? Trying to wrong your rights so you can go with a clean ledger? Well I got news for you--father! That ship has sailed!! There is nothing, nothing you can do to erase what you did!! Nothing you can do to make me love you! Because I never will! You want to know the only thing you did right?” I point at Eli, keeping my combusting gaze on Warren. “Him!! You gave him everything he deserved but then you ruined it by saddling him with me! And what did he do? He paid attention when nobody ever did! Took away all my nightmares. Taught me about your business like you wanted when he had every selfish reason not to. Gave me a home...a family. And maybe...maybe someday he will break my heart! But he can do whatever he wants with it--you know why? Because it is his!!! So NO--I’m not going to live without him! And I’m one hundred percent not going to live with you!!”

  Warren’s eyes on me are pained and softening, his face oddly loosening, as he clutches his left arm. He was rubbing his chest and that arm towards the end of my tirade and now he’s pressing it hard, like it’s hurting. And it is only now that I hear him breathe through his nose, short of breath. His fingers go to swipe the glisten on his forehead, and then I watch, horror-struck, as his eyes fall shut and he slumps in his chair. I go immobile as people spring into action around me.

  �
��Get the nurse, Edna! Call the doctor!” Eli screams. “Now!!”

  Scurrying footsteps. Eli rushing to Warren’s side. “Stay with me, Warren--you hear me? Stay the fuck with me!”

  A lady in scrubs trotting in. More people. Transferring Warren to his bed. More agitated noises, more talking. More people. More instruments being used on Warren. Then Eli at my side, “Ariel--let’s go wait outside.”

  I look at him blankly. “Did I just kill my father?”

  His strong hands lift me out of the chair. “You listen to me, princess. He’s weak and sick. More than he told you. You did NOT cause this. But right now, I need you to come with me so we can let these guys do their jobs and make him better.”

  He must have carried me out because I don’t actually feel myself walking. We wait for what seems like hours. Eli gets me food, water, a blanket. I can’t seem to open my mouth though, and he gives up, finally just covering me with the blanket and laying me on a couch somewhere, my eyes wide open but unable to focus on anything in particular.

  “He’s asking for Ariel.” I hear someone say after who knows how much time.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dr Hershman.” Eli tells them, and I sit up.

  “I want to see him.” My mouth spurts.

  They all turn to look at me. Eli and two women. The doctor and the nurse?

  “Ariel.” Eli pleads with his eyes and words. “You’re both in no condition to face each other right now.”

  “Then when, Eli? After he dies?” My voice cracks and Eli’s face is raw ache. Like my heart feels. But we need to hurt. We should hurt. My father was trying to do the right thing, and Eli blamed him for what happened between us, and I told him that I would never accept him as my father. We deserve all the gut wrenching agony we can get.

  “Do you want me with you?” Eli asks, the underlying gloom tugging at me.