Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “I knew what they were doing. I tried to stay strong. I was finally taking care of my mother the way she deserved. So, I hung on because I liked the money too much, and I thought I could outlast them. I’d never lost a fight in my life. And I have fought some really big demons,” she says, and her voice is clogged with heavy emotions.

  “Wow,” is all I say, despite the dozens of questions I want to ask. Her honesty is so refreshing. I want more of it.

  “But one day, the fuck up was too big. And a partner threw an entire three-ringed binder at me from across a conference room,” she says.

  I was stunned at that.

  “I know,” she says as if she can hear the shock in my silence. “No one did anything. In fact, they asked me to clean up the papers that had fallen out when it slammed into the wall next to my head.

  “I started to think about quitting. I decided that there was no amount of money worth all of this. And if, at the age of twenty-eight, I was making nearly 200k a year, it meant I could find something like that again, right?” she posits.

  “Right,” I agree.

  “Wrong,” she deadpans. “When I leave here, I’m moving back home to Arkansas because I can’t afford my rent in DC anymore. This trip was my last hurrah. But now, I’m going to die.” Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she tries to catch her breath after that diatribe.

  I ask her the question that’s been on the tip of my tongue.

  “How could you not know that your boyfriend had someone else in his life?” I hear a voice in my head say, Not now, she’s in the middle of what she believes could be her deathbed confession. But, the woman I’m looking down at, that I’m listening to—that woman is smart and damn perceptive.

  So, I double down when she doesn’t respond right away. “Really. How could you not have known?”

  “I ask myself that every day,” she responds miserably.

  “You seem like an astute person,” I muse.

  “Then you’re clearly not,” she says with disdain.

  “Thanks, that’s nice,” I say dryly.

  “Haven’t you been listening to my story? Don’t you see the parallels?”

  “Parallels?”

  “Yes. He fucked me on the down low, but basically said I was too low class for him to be seen with in public. You wouldn’t even fuck me. And you made it very clear that even if you could lower yourself to being with me, I was too cheap to do more with than that,” she says without any recrimination at all in her voice. “I must be the world’s biggest kind of fool. I keep meeting and liking the same kind of guy,” she says.

  “Hey, I am not the same kind of guy as that asshole,” I say.

  “What says you’re not? Certainly not the way you spoke to me. I mean, you being out here on this ledge is nice. But considering how it’s your fault and all, you leaving me alone out here would make you a pretty evil son of a bitch, so … I’m not sure that I can see any real difference between you and my boyfriend of five years except he kept his sense of superiority hidden for much longer than you did.” She lays this indictment on me with the force of a sledgehammer.

  Swish would be so disappointed in me right now, and there’s nothing worse than feeling that certainty settle down on my shoulders.

  “Anyway, all I’m saying is, clearly, I have a type. With Nigel, all I lost was my job. You’re about to cost me my fucking life,” she says.

  “Don’t say they actually fired you. Didn’t you have a contract or something?” I ask, ignoring her melodrama.

  “I know you only date heiresses, so you wouldn’t know much about jobs and employment like the rest of us working stiffs,” she snarks. She’s making a joke, but a lash of shame strikes me right in the center of my chest when I remember the way I spoke to her.

  “Most of us who have jobs are what’s called at will. I can quit whenever I want, and they can fire me for any reason. They found their reason and fired me,” she says simply.

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I left. They offered me money to sign a nondisclosure, something saying I wouldn’t sue them for wrongful termination. I was tempted. That money would not have gone begging.”

  “So, you signed it?” I ask.

  “Hell no,” she says like it’s the stupidest question she’s ever been asked. “Of course not. I would dance naked on a pole in Little Rock before I took their hush money. I’ve worked too hard to let them drag my name in the mud. That is my story. And I’ll tell it if I want to,” she declares.

  “So, have you?” I ask.

  She sighs loudly. “No. Because it would destroy what’s left of my career. No one would ever hire me again. But, I hope they spend the entire three-year statutory period looking over their shoulders for that lawsuit. They’re playing games. I’m playing for my life. I have one shot to escape the future that I was born to, and I’ll be damned if they take it from me,” the lioness on the ledge roars.

  Goddamn.

  She’s sexy as fuck when she’s angry. Her voice is strong. There’s no fear. No apology.

  “Nigel made sure to stop by my office on my last day and tell me how sorry he was that things didn’t work out. He told me that I should lower my ambitions. I had a great body, a decent face and amazing hair. But my pedigree was all wrong. ‘Stop punching above your weight, find your kind,’ he said.”

  “Shit. He’s a proper asshole,” I say.

  “He’s worse than an asshole. He’s a hemorrhoid. Useless, painful, and rotten on the inside,” she says with real scorn. “My kind are hunters and trackers. We’re keepers of tradition. We’re salt of the earth. I refused to feel ashamed of that.”

  My dick gets hard. Like her words are her mouth and they’re wrapping themselves around it, sucking as hard. Just how I like it.

  Fuck. Me.

  I’m about two minutes from jumping down on that ledge with her and finding my way under that little dress and making both of our dreams come true.

  “Oh, about two weeks after I left, Nigel had what he called a ‘crisis of his conscience.’ But really, what he meant was that he wanted to fuck me again.”

  My dick deflates. “Please spare me the details.”

  “Oh, stop being a prude,” she says, misunderstanding my request. “Nothing even happened. I got home from another awful interview and found him sitting in his car outside my building. I lost it. I took my briefcase and started pounding his car. I broke his headlights and put a good dent in the hood before he drove off.”

  “Did he leave you alone after that?”

  “Yeah. He sent the police to me instead.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yup. Then, I got a call from my old partner,” she says.

  “About him?” I ask.

  “No. When I was fired, we were waiting for a ruling on a pro bono case I took on for the firm. Flood victims suing the insurance company for failing to pay legitimate claims. The ruling came back and we won. Big time. There was an appeal filed by the insurance company, and they wanted me to help with it,” she states. “Said they could get the DA to drop the charges if I did. So, I did. I could have been disbarred if I’d actually been prosecuted,” she says.

  I whistle, impressed at their nerve. “Why didn’t they just assign another attorney?”

  “I’m regarded as the foremost expert in the area of disaster relief financing for municipalities and regulated businesses like property and casualty insurance companies,” she says.

  “That sounds impressive as hell, but it’s all Greek to me. Tell me, in plain English, what that means,” I ask her.

  “Well,” she sighs. “When I was in law school, I wrote this article for a prestigious law review about the economics of hurricane disaster relief and how wrong we get it. That we focus on the bulk of the money of the issues that are sexy and headline worthy. Like helicopter rescues and helping resettle displaced people in new cities and states. But what about the people who stay? Whose homes aren’t washed away, but simply flooded. The news camer
as ignore them. It’s not sexy to sit in your house and suffer quietly. No one wants to tell stories that would force us to really think about how we treat poor people in this country. So instead, we see the people lifted out of their homes by helicopters, moved to entirely new cities, given new clothes, new lives, and that makes us look benevolent. And I’ve been advocating for the litigation of cases that will force the federal circuits to take a position. Or maybe even make it to the Supreme Court.” She shakes her head. “Gah, sorry, I could talk about this all night,” she says.

  “I could listen to you talk about this all night,” I confess.

  “Because of you, I’ll never get my Nobel Peace Prize. I had so much potential,” she cries and shakes her fist up at me.

  “Stop speaking of yourself in the past tense,” I chide her gently.

  “You’ve ruined my life,” she yells up at me. “And you know what’s worse?”

  “What?”

  “Forget it,” she says.

  “Forget what?”

  “Nothing,” she responds sullenly.

  “Okay,” I acquiesce.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you now,” she grumbles after a few seconds pass. I smile but hide it in my voice when I speak.

  “Shit or get off the pot, Confidence. Tell me or stop talking about it,” I say.

  “See? You’re rude. But, because I’m stupid when it comes to men, I like you.” She says it like it’s a fate worse than death.

  “You do?” I ask, completely surprised and pleased.

  “Of course, I do. I saw you and thought, yes, he’s mine.” She leans her head against the wall and gazes up at the stars.

  “Did you, really?” I ask. I like the way that sounds.

  “Yes. Something is very wrong with me,” she says miserably and I snort out a laugh. “It’s not funny. Every time I look up at you, I think about how much I want to kiss you.”

  Heat coils in my chest. “I want to kiss you, too,” I admit.

  “Of course, you do, now that I’m lying down here about to die,” she says angrily. I laugh. Again. God, she’s funny.

  “I should be inside eating cake, getting drunk, and taking some beautiful stranger to bed. What kind of karma is this?” She wails to the sky and slams her open palm on the ground.

  I watch helplessly from this stupid ledge. I feel like total shit.

  “I’m sorry about what I said,” I start.

  She doesn’t respond.

  I haven’t apologized for anything in a long time. I don’t even know if I’m doing it right, but her increased volume makes me think not.

  These are my “What would Swisher Do” moments. As soon as I ask myself that question, the answer comes.

  “It was shitty, and I was an asshole for no reason,” I call down.

  “Yes, it was.” She sniffles and looks up at me over her shoulders which are pressed flat against the rock. “No one’s an asshole for no reason. But, I really hope yours is good, because I want to forgive you,” she says begrudgingly.

  I laugh. “You sure about that?” I ask.

  “Only because if I get off this ledge, I’ll be able to have the night I wanted.” She scowls up at me.

  I like that scowl.

  I like her.

  Very much.

  The fearlessness of her conviction is so fucking attractive.

  It’s a very rare trait. It’s the lack of that trait that makes the saying, and there are no atheists in foxholes very true.

  But here she is. In her proverbial foxhole, and she’s not finding her faith. Or compromising. I’ve only known four other living people who are like this, and three of them are my brothers. So, I give her a sign of respect that I give very few.

  The truth.

  “I can count my family on one hand. My aunt, my brothers. To everyone else, I’m a means to an end. And that end usually has something to do with my money. I’ve stopped minding. I just wish I would meet someone who would be honest about it.” I say the words out loud that I’ve only ever let fester in my chest, and they sound as awful as they feel.

  Her voice softens. “Oh, Hayes—”

  The blare of sirens and the glowing from their flashing lights cuts her off.

  The spell is broken, and I switch to action mode. I speak quickly and urgently down to her.

  “I told them not to alert anyone inside. But it’s going to be impossible for them to get out here without that now. And people are going to come out and see what’s happening.”

  “Of course, they will,” she says dejectedly. “For once, I’d love to not make a dramatic exit.” And I feel her pain. More than I can say.

  “I’m going to go and make sure they don’t come too far, and I’ll do my best to make sure your dignity is in one piece when the night is over,” I tell her and start to get up.

  “No, you can’t leave me alone with them!” she cries out, and her eyes widen with fear. “What if they drop me? What if I fall?” she cries. Her chest heaves and arches her back off that wall.

  “No, don’t worry, and don’t move. I won’t leave until they get here, but I want to go and stand by the entrance to make sure that no one else comes out here. The last thing we need is for you to have to push through a crowd of people.”

  “I’m so scared. Please promise you’ll stay close by. I just want to hear your voice, please?” She pleads with me with such earnest vulnerability that it makes me wish I could be the one to bring her up to safety.

  “I’ll make sure you’re safe. And I’ll be just behind the rescuers, okay?” I search her eyes until she nods.

  She looks over to her left and whimpers.

  “Don’t look. Keep your eyes turned up here.”

  “It’s so dark. I’m scared, Hayes.” She hiccups my name, and my heart squeezes in my chest. A sudden gust of wind picks up her thick mane of hair and blows it wildly around her head.

  She screams! “Oh my God, are there birds?” Her hands wave frantically around her body.

  “No, it’s just your hair, Confidence,” I call. I look over my shoulder when I hear shouts and chairs scraping the ground.

  “What if they can’t find a way to get me up?” she asks tearfully.

  “It’s really not that far. It’ll be a breeze, and I’ll be right here. I’ll make sure you’re safe. I promise.”

  I’ve barely managed to keep myself safe. But I’ll be damned if I don’t excel at it for her. I hear the commotion before the back flap of the tent explodes open.

  “Down here,” I call out and start to lift off the ground.

  “Haaaaaaaayes, I can’t see you anymore!” she screams.

  “I know, but I’m here. I need to make room for the rescuers. One second!” I yell and then rush a few feet to meet them.

  A woman in a short, multicolored sundress comes dashing out. Her eyes are wild with fear. She runs at me. “When I heard a woman had fallen, I was afraid it was TB, and then I saw you.” She reaches me and shoves me in the chest. “And I knew it was her. What did you do to her?” she snarls in my face.

  Then, she crumples against my chest and covers her face with her hands. “I should have stopped her!” she wails.

  I put my hand on her shoulder and pull her back. Her green eyes are clear of anger, and I can see her distress is real.

  “Come on,” I say and start walking again. “I told her I’d be close enough to hear her, and right now, I’m not,”

  When I reach the rescue party, Confidence is shouting, “He left me!” over and over.

  “No. I didn’t,” I shout over her.

  “You did.” She sounds unhinged. “You promised me, Hayes,” she wails.

  “I didn’t leave. Your friend came down, I was just—”

  “Oh my God! Cass!” she shrieks.

  “TB, I’m so sorry, I’m right here, don’t worry,” her friend yells over her shoulder.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I ask one of the men who’s talking on his walkie-talkie.

  �
��We’re just getting anchored, Signore Rivers,” he says. “Then we’ll send Danelo down to secure her harness, connect her to the rappel, and we’ll pull her up. Once we’re anchored, it will only be a matter of minutes,” he says.

  I exhale a sigh of relief I didn’t even realize I was holding onto.

  “Why don’t you go sit there?” He nods at the stone steps where the rest of the guests are gawking. “You look very pale.”

  “No, I want to be close enough for her to hear me,” I tell him. “I’ll wait right here.”

  Chapter Five

  Turd Blossom

  Confidence

  “Thank goodness,” Cass cries when my feet touch the ground after the rappel team hauls me to safety.

  I wince at a shooting pain in my ankle and immediately bend my knee to take the pressure off it.

  The harness is heavy, and when I try to stand on one leg, it’s impossible. I sway a little until a pair of strong hands grab me by the shoulders and steady me.

  “Let me hold you up.” Hayes’s deep voice makes my heartbeat quicken. I look up from the three pairs of hands that are working to loosen the various latches and clasps on the contraption that saved my life. When our eyes meet, his are full of worry and warmth that I hadn’t seen up close. I’d been staring up at those eyes while I was sitting on that ledge. They had been my lifeline. I know he never felt fully afraid, but I did. When I landed on that ledge, it took me a full thirty seconds to convince myself that I wasn’t dead.

  “Thank you for staying with me.” I reach over the men kneeled around me and grab his outstretched forearm.

  “I’m sorry you were out here in the first place,” he says. His eyes are close and hypnotically focused on my mouth. I look at his mouth, too. One of his hands leaves my shoulder and cups my face.

  “You scared me, Confidence,” he murmurs.

  “You pissed me off, Hayes,” I say softly.

  “I’m sorry, if you are,” he says.

  “I hold grudges, so I’m not ready to accept your apology,” I say honestly.

  He smiles.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “But I’ll work for it if I have to,” he says. His hazel eyes burn into mine. I swallow hard at the heat in them. He’s looking at me like he wishes we were alone. I do, too.