Anyway, I liked the place even with all its weirdness, like the penis-shaped tree in the front yard and the shower that needed a spanner to turn on and the paintings in various stages of construction around the house.
Chad emerged from his room. Whoa, that guy needed to put some clothes on. An itty-bitty singlet top and a pair of jocks was not nearly enough fabric. He was really trying to flaunt that body, which was even better scantily-clad than it was covered up.
I explained to him about the money he needed to pay while keeping my eyes focused on the TV. I did not like this guy enough to have pervy thoughts about what I wanted to do with that line along the ridge of his thigh muscle.
He handed me the wad of cash.
“Now, there are a few other ground rules we need to get clear. You do not follow me around like a creep. You do not take notes on my behaviour. You do not manhandle me. Do you understand?”
Chad grinned. His grin was so annoying. For all the hot, muscly goodness of the man, he was actually totally infuriating. I felt flushed and agitated and those were pretty unusual feelings for me.
“I work for your grandmother, not you,” he said. He was trying not to laugh at me and that just made me angrier.
“Yeah, about that. What Grandmother doesn’t know, won’t hurt her. It must be awfully tiresome for you anyway.” I smiled at him. Working the charm would be the best way to deal with him.
“So, you are suggesting I lie to my employer?”
“Hells no, just if things aren’t seen by you, that’s okay. You might want to have some kind of life of your own. You obviously can’t be around me all the time.”
“That’s okay.”
Crapola. It totally was not okay. How could he think it was okay?
“No, see it was funny today and we all had a bit of a laugh but we can’t keep doing this for the next three months. It’s going to get tired really fast. I have a life. I have school, I have a ton of work to do after school and I have a part-time job so it’s just not going to work out for me.”
I folded my arms but it didn’t work so good without the glaring eyes and I couldn’t look at him without my mind going to places it shouldn’t.
Chad nodded. “Okay, tell your grandmother that and we call the whole thing off.”
“What does it matter to you? Just take it easy, collect your pay cheque from Grandmother and everything is cruisy.”
Chad gave a throaty laugh, his eyes twinkling. That kinda got me worried. What was going through his beefcake brain?
“Your grandmother didn’t give you all the details then? Did she tell you my side of the arrangement?”
I was getting really frustrated, in more ways than one. What the hell did I care what his side of the arrangement was? She must have been paying him a heap to do this but it was her money.
“You get a nice, juicy trip to Italy, all expenses paid if you keep the agreement. That’s a whole ton of money, for that fancy apartment and living expenses. But here’s the killer: if you fail, if I have evidence of your failure, I get to keep all that lovely money. So, you see, my motivation for catching you screwing up and screwing around is very high indeed. “
He looked mighty proud of himself but my heart sank. I could not do it. I’d have to call the whole thing off.
CHAPTER SIX
“You are kidding me, right?” Jayne stared at me in disbelief. “Your grandmother is nuts. She is living in some crazy world. No one makes deals like that. So, you not only have creepy stalker guy following you around all the time but he gets a truckload of money if he catches you screwing? That sounds like opening the door to crazy stalkerville and inviting them inside.”
I sighed and pushed my muffin away. I had a pain that baked goods couldn’t heal.
“It’s totally true. I called her this morning. Told her about that oaf making an idiot of me in the bar last night. She didn’t care. She said he was only doing his job and to let him do it his way.”
Jayne threw her hands in the air. “What the hell, Lucy? Can’t you just tell her to stick the deal? Stick it where the sun don’t shine. That’s what I’d say. What’s to stop him from manipulating you into a sex situation then taking photos?”
I screwed up my mouth and shook my head. It was never that easy. I picked a bit off the side of the muffin, not eating it but just crumbling it with my fingers.
“I won’t need to manipulate her.”
I’d been trying to forget that Chad sat beside me. Even talking about him as though he wasn’t there didn’t faze him. We’d headed down to the café on the ground floor of the art building where Jayne, Tristan and I almost had a permanent table. It wasn’t the best café on campus but it beat walking five minutes to any of the others.
“He has this weird moral thing going on. He thinks he has to do the ‘right’ thing.” I rolled my eyes and picked another crumb off my muffin.
“Are you going to eat that or are you just going to play with it? Because I’m starving.”
I didn’t look at Chad but held up my hand.
“Don’t speak. I told you. You do not speak. I can’t stop you from coming to school with me. I can’t stop you following me around and I apparently can’t stop you living in my house but you know the rules. No talking. No acting like you know me. You can sit at the table with me and my friends but you cannot ever join in the conversation.”
Jayne sighed.
“Is this going to work?” she asked. She glared at Chad.
I nodded. “Not much else I can do. Just don’t look at him. Pretend he isn’t there.”
“What if I want to talk to you about my periods or, I dunno, tell you I have thrush or a big boil on my butt? What if I had really hot sex and need to tell you all the details?”
“To be honest, I’d prefer you didn’t tell me about hot sex at the moment. Pretend I’m on a diet, a sex diet. You don’t want to flaunt your sex in front of me like a big, melty chocolate bar. There will be no sex talk at all.”
Chad sniggered. He’d also taken my muffin even though I wasn’t truly sure I didn’t want to eat it. I wasn’t going to grab it back off him though. Not now he’d put his hands on it.
“Well what about other personal stuff? Also, you realise Tristan will talk about sex. There is no holding that back.”
“It’s not like I listen to him. Hey, Chad, can you get me another coffee?”
Chad raised his eyebrows but didn’t move.
“I can’t hear what you’re saying but this muffin is tasty. Continue on with your unheard conversation.”
He followed up with that annoying grin again. Seriously, The Chad had to go. I couldn’t even make plans with Jayne for getting rid of him without him being around. Maybe I needed to get him some noise cancelling headphones.
“Hey Chad, aren’t you going to lose conditioning on those big, beefy muscles if you don’t have time off to train. I’d hate to see you get out of shape.”
Chad swallowed his mouthful of muffin.
“I can take time off when you’re working. Your grandmother thinks you will be safe then. Although if I find out you have skipped out on work, I will follow you and I will get evidence.”
“Creep,” Jayne said under her breath.
“She’s right. You are a bit creepy.”
Chad just shrugged. This whole idea of ignoring Chad didn’t work at all. Even if I didn’t look at him or talk to him, I was fully aware of him beside me the whole time. I could practically sense his facial expressions and feel his body heat. And that was just plain stupid.
“Anyway, if he’s going to get the cash if you slip up, why did he cart you out of the bar last night? If he’d left you there, you’d have surely picked up and he’d have had his evidence and – game over.”
I turned to Chad. Jayne had a point. It would have been easy money for Chad.
“I was tired and wanted to sleep. And I figure she’ll screw up soon enough anyway. It’d would’ve broken her old granny’s heart to know her granddaughter coul
dn’t keep her legs together even for a couple of hours.” Chad shrugged and kept eating my muffin.
I wanted to respond but all the smart answers had been shaken out of my head. How dare he?
“Wow, that is totally judgemental. Are you trying to slut shame Lucy?”
Yeah, way to tell it, Jayne.
“No judgements here, just telling the truth. Anyone else want another muffin?”
He got up to go to the counter.
“Let’s skip out of here,” Jayne said, turning to watch Chad walk away. “Shit, he’s watching us. He’s not taking his eyes off you. You are so screwed. Wait, Rebecca is talking to him.”
I span around ready to tell that skank to get her hands off my bodyguard. Even if he was a pain in the butt, he was my pain in the butt. I didn’t want Rebecca putting her slimy hands all over him.
But Jayne grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the cafeteria barely giving me time to get my bag. We ran down the hallway, almost running into a guy carrying a giant caterpillar sculpture. We kept running to the lifts.
“No, he’ll go here first,” said Jayne and she dragged me to the fire escape. We ran down the three flights of stairs and out the fire escape into the campus car park, which nearly killed me. I wanted to stop for a rest when we hit the outside but Jayne grabbed my arm. She ran behind a car and pulled me down.
We both squatted against the car, trying to get our breath back. Then she popped her head up to peer over the bonnet of the car.
“Can’t see him,” she panted.
“He might be hiding, ready to pounce.”
He could probably track me just from the sound of my heartbeat. I was so unfit.
“We have to take my car. He’ll know yours.”
Jayne’s car was at the other end of the car park. I started to rise so we could make a dash for it but she pulled me back down.
“Stay hidden.”
Jayne did a squat walk to the edge of the car, glanced around to make sure the coast was clear then waved for me to follow. I tried to copy her squat walk then we both did a huddled over run to the next car in the lot.
Jayne squatted back down and waddled some more.
My legs burnt and we’d only gone the distance of two cars. I estimated there were about 30 more car lengths to go. If I kept this up, I wouldn’t need Chad to make me give up sex. I’d be physically incapable of ever spreading my legs again.
“Keep up,” Jayne hissed. “Do you want him to catch you?”
I took a deep breath and thought about all the good this would do me – I’d have the tightest butt you could imagine by the time we got to Jayne’s car – then I waddled along some more.
We got halfway there without any sign of Chad.
“Maybe he’s given up?” Jayne said.
“Maybe he’s found a prime viewing position and is laughing his arse off at us waddling through the car park?”
I’d started to develop a technique though and picked up speed. I started to outpace Jayne, figuring the sooner we got to her car, the sooner this embarrassment would end. Hells, what if someone saw us doing this?
I tried to sprint waddle to the next car when Jayne grabbed me, making me jump.
“Chad?” I hissed. But it wasn’t Chad, it was a huge great truck heading towards me in the car park. Shit. I could’ve been killed.
Finally, we made it to Jayne’s old bomb.
“My thighs will never be the same again,” I said. “That was a major workout.”
“I thought you’d have strong thighs from all the…” She did a sex sign with her fingers.
“Not as much as you’d think.”
Jayne started the car up, spinning the wheels as she backed out of the parking space. She got to the boom gates.
“Quick, grab the swipe card. I can see him coming.”
“Where?”
“Over there. Quick. It’s in my handbag.”
I grabbed her handbag. How much shit did Jayne carry in that bag? Hair brushes and sketches on envelopes and a bunch of pencils in various chewed states.
“Where…”
“Here, let me.” She snatched the bag from me and waved the whole thing in front of the sensor. I could see Chad running towards us. He ran fast and didn’t even look like he’d broken a sweat. Maybe because he hadn’t been waddling all over the car park.
“Hurry up,” I said when he was within metres of the car.
“I can’t leave until the arm goes up, I’ll knock the top off my car.”
“Why the hell don’t you have a convertible? We’d be out of here by now.”
Jayne nudged the car forward then planted her foot on the accelerator but the car jerked then spluttered to a stop.
“He’s almost caught up, get this car going,” I bit my nails.
She turned the key and we took off. As we headed out to the main road, I waved at Chad.
He didn’t look too disturbed by our getaway, to be honest.
“So, what’s the plan?” I said.
“To escape from Chad.”
“Yeah, but after that. I mean, we’ve escaped so what do we do now?”
“I hadn’t really thought of that. You got any ideas?”
“Nope and I really needed to go to class today.” I sighed. I couldn’t go back there now. I had to show him that he had no control over me, otherwise I’d have to put up with his stalking and his stupid smug face. I pounded my fist on the dashboard. “Fuck my life. Why is this happening to me?”
Jayne sighed.
“Because you let your grandmother have control over you. Seriously, she is only able to do this because you let her.”
“Yeah, but Italy. Also, I really want Rebecca to not go to Italy. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Jayne didn’t look at me but focused on the road ahead even though neither of us had any idea where to go.
“You have the rest of your life to go to Florence. On your own terms. You can tell Chad to fuck off and tell your grandmother too. Wouldn’t that be better?”
I scrunched up my face to think about that. She had a point, even if it did mean stupid Rebecca would win. I could just walk away, a free woman. No obligations. And that would mean I could have sex with anyone I damn well pleased. It was so very, very tempting but somehow, I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t do this. I needed to think of a better plan. I needed to outsmart Chad.
I noticed something in the rear view mirror – a familiar car tailing us.
“Shit, Jayne, he’s behind us. We need to get rid of him.”
My heart pounded. How had he gone back for his car and been able to catch up to us?
“Is it going to be like this the whole time? It’s not good for my nerves. And I seriously do not have enough fuel for a high speed car chase.”
“Yes, yes, just keep driving. We have to lose him.”
As I watched the car behind us try to keep pace, a wicked thought came into my brain. It just might work, better than I even expected.
“I should sleep with Chad,” I said.
Jayne almost swerved off the road.
“You can’t. With him? That creepy stalker?”
“He’s not bad looking and, if I charm the pants off him, I can get him on my side.” I grinned. “He can hardly go running to Grandmother with stories about me when he’s the one doing the screwing, can he.”
“That’s the stupidest idea you’ve ever had.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I figured the seduction plan would be pretty darn easy considering Chad lived with me and had to be around me 24 hours a day. I couldn’t just do a 180 into seduction mode though. You can’t be sitting on the couch, hogging out on pizza one minute than become a sex kitten the next. I needed much more subtly and finesse than that. Of course, if Chad thought it was all his doing, that would be even better. He’d have all that guilt to deal with. And I’d cry. I’d cry like a little bitch because crying makes the guilt all that much blacker.
“I’m just going to meet the
girls for drinks,” I called out. “You don’t need to come with me. It’s going to be a quiet night.”
Chad appeared in my bedroom doorway as I slicked a layer of gloss across my lips.
“Dressed like that, I doubt it’s going to be quiet.”
Yeah, he checked me out. The super tight black dress with plunging neckline and the pendant nestled between my boobs. He would be so mine with minimal effort.
“Well, come along if you like but don’t blame me if you’re bored or grossed out by our conversation. And, for fuck sake, do not offer your opinions on anything.”
“Do I ever?” He leaned on the door frame, his muscles bulging from his t-shirt.
“You have facial expressions,” I yelled at him. “Facial expressions that contain judgement. Also, that outfit is not going to work, sorry. Don’t you have something a bit more hip?”
Okay, maybe my seduction technique was a bit off-kilter but I figured once we got out and started drinking, Chad would be putty in my hands. I’d already seduced his eyes, judging from the looks he gave me, I just had to seduce the rest of his body.
“So, Miss Fashionista, what do you suggest I wear?”
I got up and sauntered to his room. He had to have something in his wardrobe that wasn’t a t-shirt or tank.
Wrong. He had nothing else.
“Don’t you even own a shirt?” I asked.
“Do I need one?” He grinned back at me.
Then I realised he’d probably not even moved most of his stuff in. It was a job for him, not a permanent place to live. He must have had all his stuff stored somewhere else. Some mysterious place where the real Chad resided. Not that I cared. He could hurry back to that place and leave me in peace. But first I could use his body for fun.
I pulled out a t-shirt that could pass for ironically cool and threw it at him.
“This will do,” I said and stood, hands on hips, waiting for him to change.
“Do you intend on standing there, watching me change? I do have my modesty, you know.”
I grinned at him.
“No privacy around here,” I told him. “If you are going to spy on me then you don’t get those privileges yourself.”
Hands Off! The 100 Day Agreement Page 4
