What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 4)

by Selena Kitt

  He barked a laugh. “Shit, if I was worried about who was talking trash about me, I’d have quit this business a long time ago.”

  “So, how often do you play? Do you group up with other players?”

  “Once a week and of course. You know you can’t get any of the good stuff done without a large group.”

  “Why?” I puzzled. “Why would you want to play when you know all the secrets—all of the quest chains, all of the back story? Wouldn’t that be boring?”

  He shrugged. “I playtest my own product. It’s being thorough. I’m always very thorough.”

  He seemed to be saying something to me, a weighted double entendre, but I didn’t get it. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” he said suddenly.

  “Character?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t rat me out on your blog.”

  I shook my head. “Of course not. I’m under an NDA, am I not? With no expiration date. If you want to know so badly, couldn’t you just look me up under my account information? My real name is on that.”

  “I could. I’d rather you told me.”

  “Her name is Eloisa.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Maybe I’ll add you to my friends list.”

  “And you are…?” I raised my brows at him.

  He looked at me and hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Magnus.”

  Of course. Magnificent. And parts of him truly were magnificent. And other parts seemed dark, shrouded, and brooding. I never knew what Adam I was going to get from one moment to the next.

  During the latter part of the flight, he’d managed to take a nap and I watched him sleep, utterly fascinated. But it wasn’t until we’d landed that I remembered the cell phone he’d given me in Amsterdam. I reached into my jacket pocket and handed it to him.

  “Here’s your phone back.”

  “Actually, that’s yours. I have my own…an irritating one that tends to ring at the most inopportune times,” he said with a grimace.

  “But—”

  “You said yours wasn’t working. I want to be able to get a hold of you, so I arranged for that one and I don’t need it. Keep it and keep it charged. I want to be able to reach you.”

  “Ah, I see. Is this part of that whole thing? You’re keeping tabs on me until this transaction is complete?”

  He shrugged. “If you want to think of it that way.”

  I glared at him, tempted to cram the damn thing down his throat until he spoke again. “Besides, you can use the web feature to respond to comments on your blog from wherever you are.”

  Now that I liked. “Hmm. Well, I can keep it until we are…through with each other. But then I’m giving it back.”

  The expression on his face was enigmatic. “If you must.”

  When he dropped me off from the airport, he walked me to my door, insisting on carrying my ratty bag. We stood at the door staring at each other for a long, awkward moment.

  “So, I guess I’ll see you this Friday?” I said.

  “Yes. I’ll text you.”

  “Not sure my old car is allowed on the road in Newport Beach amongst all the glittering Bentleys and Beemers. I might get pulled over the minute I cross the city limit.”

  He laughed. “I’ll arrange for a car to come get you.”

  “Fancy. Don’t suppose I can persuade you to turn off your phone that night.”

  “I might be very tempted.” He grinned that boyish grin that made my heart flip.

  “Remember, the early dinner will be before. I’ve invited some friends, so bring your best manners.”

  I crinkled up my mouth. “I’ll try to find some by then.”

  He took a step closer to me, reached up to brush the hair away from my face. I looked up into his eyes and a jolt of heat shot through me, remembering the feel of his mouth, his hands on my body that brief night in Amsterdam.

  Now the magic had followed us home, and swirled around us as we stood on the tattered, rubber mat on my doorstep, likely with my landlady watching through her vertical blinds.

  “Until Friday, Emilia,” and he dipped his head to drop a chaste kiss on my lips before pulling away, turning to walk down the steps and back to the town car. I watched him the entire way, my mouth slack in surprise. I was at least hoping to get a little tongue.

  It was Sunday afternoon and I was exhausted, of course, but I knew I had to call Heath right away—on his strict orders—and let him know how the whole weekend had unrolled. “What?” he shrieked when I got to the part about the phone call, but for a minute I couldn’t tell whether it was his concern over the near-crisis with the game patch or that he couldn’t believe Adam had delayed the entire thing on account of business.

  “He had you on the couch stripped to the waist and playing with your girl parts and he answered the phone? He’s gotta be gay.”

  I laughed. “Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. It was very obvious that he was turned on and very reluctant to answer the phone. Apparently the guy was warned not to call unless it was an emergency.”

  “Shit. So what’s the upshot? He gonna pay you? He had his night.”

  I cleared my throat, fidgeting from one foot to the other.

  “Hello? You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So…?”

  “So I think he might have been cool with doing that except I had a big mouth and joked about doubling my money by running another auction.”

  “There’s no fucking way I’m doing another one, doll. Your favor debt to me is epic as it is.”

  “It was a joke. I was trying to be funny—ha ha. It was awkward, he was acting all cold and distant, not like the night before.”

  “Okay. So you joked around…and then what?”

  “Well, then he gets all weird and starts saying I don’t have the right to sleep with anyone else but him until the contract is fulfilled.”

  “Uhh.”

  “Is that true? Is he right?”

  “Doll, you can do whatever you want…it’s not like he can sue you for breach. The money has yet to be transferred into your account.”

  “What if he’s planning to never pay me?”

  “Oh, I made sure the agreement states that the NDA goes bye-bye if he doesn’t pay you. If he goes through with it and doesn’t pay, you sell your story to the press and he’s fucked.”

  I took a deep breath. “But what about the other? That I can’t be with someone else until…”

  “Were you planning on it?”

  “No.”

  “Does he intend to drag this out for six months and not pay you?”

  “That’s what I asked him. He made arrangements to get together Friday night and…do the deed in international waters on his yacht.”

  “Hmm. Okay. That works. Can’t help but wonder why he didn’t just get ’er done the morning before you left.”

  I shrugged. Maybe he wanted it to be more romantic? But I couldn’t help but wonder at that. The day we were touring around Amsterdam and Adam had asked me about my dating habits, he’d admitted to me that he didn’t do romance. That he’d never been in a relationship before and had little interest. Yet another thing in which we coincided.

  “Well,” said Heath. “As long as he has a backup plan…but you gotta call me before you leave and when you get back. I don’t like the thought of him strangling you out there and dumping you overboard.”

  I huffed. “Gee, now that’s reassuring.”

  “Mia, I don’t think he’s a bad person, but he had a pretty shitty childhood.”

  Now I sat up, interested. “What do you know?”

  “I did a background check on him. Mostly public record stuff, really. His mom was an alcoholic and he was placed in the child protective system as a young teen.”

  “Yeah, that I know. He told me as much.”

  “Yeah, well, when he got here and started at the new high school he apparently was the victim of one of the most notorious bullying cases in the county.”

  I tried to picture any
suicidal idiot trying to take down six-foot, exquisitely ripped Adam. I’d touched him—he was solid, athletic, strong. My heart bounced at the memory of his body under my shaking hands. Then I remembered what he’d told me when I’d been teasing him about those muscles…that he’d chosen to bulk up as a deterrent to being bullied.

  “What happened?”

  “Track team. I guess he was a runner—” He was a runner! “One of the better members of the team, but he was the new guy and some of the older kids singled him out. I found several old newspaper clippings at the library from the OC Register. A whole group of them beat the crap out of him and then duct-taped his hands, legs and mouth and shoved him in a locker overnight. He was in the hospital in critical condition for over a week. There was a lawsuit filed against the district, the perps were arrested and thrown in juvey.”

  The air hissed out of my lungs. “That’s horrible.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s going to strangle me and throw me into the ocean.”

  “I know. But I’m just saying. It doesn’t matter how rich or powerful a person is, they’ve all got their demons.”

  “Do you know who Sabrina is?”

  “Huh?”

  “He has a tattoo, just above his heart. It says ‘Sabrina.’ Was that his girlfriend?”

  “Nothing I ever saw written up on him ever mentioned a relationship or girlfriend. I have no idea what the tattoo means.”

  “Maybe it was his dog.”

  “I took him for a cat person, actually.”

  We chatted for a few more minutes before I begged off with exhaustion and hopped into the shower. In spite of that, I did manage to cram in about three hours of studying, interrupted briefly by the usual bang at my door.

  “Password,” I shouted from the couch. She heard me through the open window.

  “I aim to misbehave,” Alex said and then opened the door and bounced across the room like the Tazmanian Devil on caffeine and landed right beside me with a plop. My old couch groaned down to its wooden frame in protest.

  “Studying again?”

  I held up my Gray’s Anatomy by way of answering.

  She huffed. “Why don’t you just watch the TV show instead of reading that big fat book?”

  I feinted throwing it at her and she lurched back, holding up her hands, laughing. “Mom wants to know if you’ll come down and eat dinner with us and I want to know who is that hot man who dropped you off this morning.”

  Yep, her mother had definitely been peeking through the blinds.

  “Ah, being a chismosa?” I said, teasing her with the Spanish word for a gossipmonger.

  “Always. So give me the chisme,” she said, leaning forward and pinning me down with her large, dark eyes.

  “He’s just some guy I know,” I said, shrugging it off and twisting to set the heavy book down on a side table made from a wooden telephone cable spool.

  She looked askance. “In a town car with a driver?”

  Shit. How was I going to explain that? I took a deep breath, deciding to go on the offensive. “Alejandra Carmen Arias. Are you grilling me?”

  “If that’s what it takes. Are you dating him?”

  I sliced a glance at her and then away, shrugging. I was keenly aware that I was the worst liar ever. But better she think we were dating than know what was really going on. Alex went to mass with her mom every week and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t approve—feminist ideals or no. “Kind of.”

  “Mom said he was really good looking.”

  I suppressed a grin. “I’m glad she approves.” Just how long had she been peeking at us through those blinds?

  “Come on, Mia! Spill! You are killing me.”

  I stood up and brushed off my jeans. “Not yet. But soon, okay? I don’t want to jinx anything.” I hoped that threw her off. Alex had a bit of a superstitious streak in her. Before she could ask me another question I went to the door and motioned her out with me. Who was I to turn down a free, guaranteed delicious dinner? “Can you do my hair for Friday night? I have a date and I want to wear it up.”

  Mischief sparkled in her dark eyes. “I’ll do it if you tell me his name.”

  I grabbed her hand and shook it. “Deal. Now let’s go eat. I’m starving.”

  Chapter Seven

  The week dragged on and I muddled through hospital shifts and blog posts and studying a little more grudgingly than I had before. The dream of Amsterdam was a distant memory, like the glitter falling off a cheap knockoff souvenir brought back as a memento of an otherworldly vacation. I’d only been out of the country for forty-eight hours, including travel—but I knew I wanted to go back, and very soon.

  I continued taking the birth control pills and bought a few back copies of Cosmo to read up on their “great sex” articles, all the while realizing how ridiculous it was to use pop culture as sex education. Until the trip to Holland, I’d never been concerned with having to please a partner. But now, I was determined to make him feel as good as he had made me feel in those few moments when we had been kissing and touching.

  Two days before the dinner party, a box arrived from the Netherlands. I opened it up to find all three gowns that were hanging in the wardrobe in my room in Amsterdam. I gasped. The card inside said only, Wear one of these Friday.

  Since he’d already seen me in the breathtaking black, I chose the long crème-colored one. It had a halter top that looped around my neck and it, too, was backless. This dress, though long, felt like it exposed me more and I couldn’t explain why. It was an extremely feminine dress, with a full, creased skirt of gauzy material—the kind that Marilyn Monroe wore when her dress famously blew upward over the air grate in The Seven Year Itch.

  There were also matching shoes for this dress and the selection of lingerie. Since a bra was again not possible, I selected a tiny pair of lace white panties and left everything else in the box.

  My landlady, Lupe, came up with Alex and together they tried to pry my secrets out of me while they worked my hair into an elegant updo.

  At one point Alex whispered to me that her sister had seen my mystery guy too, and labeled him “totally yummy.”

  I agreed with her. I had tasted him. And he was, indeed, delectable. But there was a dark edge that I had no idea how to describe. Like the bitter cocoa powder sprinkled on the outside of a rich chocolate truffle. Perhaps it just brought nuance to his flavor. Or maybe it threatened to ruin an otherwise scrumptious dish.

  As the week had worn on, I couldn’t stop thinking about that bullying story. For it to have been so severe, so brutal as to merit a lawsuit, multiple arrests and a couple of write-ups in the paper made it serious in the extreme. My heart went out to him. I was unable to even imagine what that must have been like.

  Except I could. After my assault, I’d feared the possibility of being bullied if I stood up and spoke out for myself. I’d never found the courage to do it.

  I examined myself in the mirror, avoiding my own eyes and that whispered word at the back of my thoughts that sounded a lot like coward.

  With the dress, the updo and the careful application of makeup, I’d spent more time on my appearance that night than I usually spent getting ready for three days in a row combined. I studied myself in the cracked full-length mirror on the back of my front door for the full effect. I looked like an old-time movie star. I twirled around again and again, watching the skirt spin up around my hips and giggling like a little girl.

  I almost fell over when someone knocked. Adam’s driver stood at the door. And he walked me to the town car, opening the door. It was four thirty in the afternoon and in spite of that, the 55 freeway was clear going southbound. We sped down the carpool lane and I watched the relentless parade of expensive hotels, billboards and mile-high palm trees speed by. The northbound side of the freeway was, of course another story, as it always was at this time of day. Cars were packed end-to-end and moving inches at a time.

  I was grateful that wasn’t us,
because I didn’t want to be late for the big night. I watched carefully as the driver headed straight down the freeway until its very end. So my guess about Adam living in Balboa was right—either on the island itself or the equally impressive peninsula.

  A thin finger of land stretching across the harbor, encapsulating the opulent Newport Bay, Balboa housed the county’s glitziest homes and their wealthy inhabitants. I wondered why the driver was heading down the peninsula instead of approaching the island from the north, where there was a bridge. From this side, he would have to take the tiny ferry across to Balboa Island and there was often a long line at this time of day.

  But blocks before the turn-off for the ferry, the driver hung a left and headed toward the bay. I was now completely perplexed as to where his house was, unless he lived in the middle of the bay.

  And then the driver parked on a tiny street near a small walkway that led to what appeared to be the smallest island I had ever seen.

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re going over the bridge to Bay Island, Miss. I’ll take you. But we have to park and walk across the bridge. There are no cars allowed on Bay Island.”

  It was a tiny island, sitting smack dab in the Newport Back Bay. I’d been down in this area many times but had never noticed it. This area was a popular tourist destination in the summer and Mom often drove the two hours down to soak up the sun and ambiance when the heat of Anza grew too much for the both of us.

  Who even knew this place was here? There was no more densely populated area in all of Orange County than the Newport Bay, with houses crowded along the shores like soldiers lined up for inspection. Nevertheless, in the middle of it all was a private island.

  The briny smell and clean ocean breeze hit me first, when I stepped out of the town car. I glanced toward the late afternoon sun, still hours from setting, my heart pounding faster with each step I took over that bridge.

  Bay Island was like no other place I could imagine. About twenty houses ringed the sandy shores, central tennis courts and a private park. The island even had its own caretaker. The driver keyed in at the gate and led me to one of the golf carts waiting nearby. I wondered why we didn’t just walk. How far away could his house truly be on this tiny speck of land?