She Regrets Nothing

by Andrea Dunlop

  Tom emerged from the bedroom in his boxers, bleary-eyed, his skin crepey and worn. He’d never looked older to Laila. She felt the thrilling lure of freedom just on the other side of the door.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, trying to make her voice kind. “I know you have a deadline coming.”

  “How can I even think about my deadline?” he asked, his voice going up several octaves. He really ought to have put some clothes on—or at least a robe—if he was going to get hysterical, Laila thought. His knees were knobby and red, and a soft paunch clung to his lower abdomen. The effect was unsightly.

  She let out a deep sigh, trying not to let her contempt show. “I don’t want to miss my flight; we’ll talk about it when I get back, okay?” There was a lie in every part of this sentence. Simon wasn’t picking her up for hours, and there was no missing her flight to worry about. They were flying private. As far as discussing things when she returned—if she could help it, this was the last Laila would ever see of Tom.

  Tom’s eyes darted to her many suitcases. “Are you moving there? Jesus, you said you’d be gone for five days!”

  “I will,” she said as though speaking to a child on the verge of a tantrum. “But I just didn’t know what to pack. You know me, I like to have options.” She smiled and immediately knew it had been the wrong turn to invoke even the slightest bit of sentimentality. His face crumpled, and he closed the space between them in a few quick strides. All at once he was sobbing on her shoulder.

  “Don’t go.”

  She tried to laugh lightheartedly, but it was tinged with cruelty. She needed to get out of there. “It’s not such a big deal. I’ll be back in a few days, okay? I just think we need to go to our corners for a little bit.”

  Suddenly he turned angry again. “And your ‘corner’ is a private island with a billionaire. Very convenient.”

  “I’m not having this discussion again,” she said, pulling away from him and straightening her spine to make the most of her five feet and two inches. With that, she turned on her heel and left the apartment: unwieldy with all her luggage but determined in her stride.

  In the café, she collected her thoughts. She envisioned Tom receding into the distance, though she knew he was only several floors above her, pacing the apartment, panicking and plotting on how to mend what was broken between them. Poor man, he had no idea what the real problem even was.

  Frederick would be back from Europe soon after Laila got back from Mustique, and if she could only meet him—and wouldn’t he have to meet her once he was back in the city?—then she wouldn’t have to worry about depending on anyone else ever again. She couldn’t imagine that the old man would want anyone else in the family to know what Laila had discovered.

  In the meantime, while she navigated this delicate family drama, a billionaire friend could only be an asset. And Laila was convinced she could make him her friend. Liberty seemed to be able to do this so well—make men she wasn’t sleeping with care a great deal about her—why couldn’t Laila?

  Simon pulled up an hour later in the sleek black Rolls-Royce he’d told her to watch for. His driver hoisted Laila’s many bags—which she would not see again until they arrived at the villa—into the vast trunk and ushered Laila into the back seat with Simon, who had not emerged and was still ensconced in the car speaking to someone in German on a cell phone. He smiled tightly at her but did not break from his conversation as she settled in next to him and the car pulled away from the curb. He put his hand possessively on her thigh, and Laila felt very small suddenly. She moved her gaze nervously between Simon and the window. Simon looked much older than he had upon their first two meetings; indeed, she had looked him up, and he was fifty-three—more than twice her age. In the dim light of the two evenings she’d spent with him, she had not noticed the jowly neck or the preponderance of pink scalp that was visible beneath his thinning hair. As his phone conversation grew more heated, he moved his hand up Laila’s thigh. She had worn a jersey dress with a sweater for comfort and suddenly regretted it as his hand—which, gnarled with hair on the knuckles and brown age spots, belied his age perhaps more than any other part of him—continued its steady progress toward her crotch.

  As they sped toward New Jersey, Laila began to panic. Simon’s voice over the phone sounded angry, but she couldn’t tell if this was only because of the language. At last he hung up. “Pardon the phone call, darling. Bloody Germans. All ready for the island adventure, then?”

  “Yes, I’m so excited.” She pivoted her body to face him and tried to delicately maneuver out of his grasp, but he held fast.

  “Wait until you see the place. One of the grandest on the island, I assure you.”

  Laila nodded and smiled, feeling manic with dread. She thought of ways to put herself on equal footing with Simon, but the reality of her error in judgment was deepening by the minute. He was a billionaire, and she was no one. Beauty and youth were nothing compared to the power of that much money. How much stronger would her position be if she had her own fortune? But she did, or she would, she reminded herself—it simply wasn’t at her disposal right then.

  When they boarded Simon’s plane, Laila was momentarily distracted by the opulence of the Gulfstream. There were eight seats of buttery tan leather and a small sitting room toward the back of the plane where the two other couples lounged with glasses of champagne.

  The other two men looked a bit younger than Simon; the one named Alex was handsome and incredibly fit and tanned, and the other was a slightly paunchy man named Bert. Their companions looked to be in their midthirties, but it was hard to tell with Manhattanites—both women (whose names Laila immediately forgot) had those severely arched eyebrows that come from too much Botox. They gave her frozen smiles.

  “Nice of you to join us, old boy,” Alex said good-naturedly, standing and giving Simon a handshake and a hearty clap on his shoulder.

  “Sorry to keep you,” he said breezily. “Downside of flying Air Simon, I’m afraid. Subject to my schedules and whims.”

  “Oh, I think we’ll live,” Alex said. “And who might this lovely young woman be?”

  “Laila Lawrence,” she said, hoping that her name, at least, would mean something to this group, but no one seemed to care. Once they were in the air, the women chattered idly about luncheons and spas and housekeepers they’d had to fire; the men discussed business and sports. Laila was utterly marooned and buried herself in her book. She’d packed One Hundred Years of Solitude for its seriousness and its lush cover, which led her to believe it might double as a beach read. She hoped someone would notice what she was reading, ask her about it, and be impressed by it. Instead, she felt she’d been absorbed by the succulent leather and had become utterly invisible.

  When they arrived at the tiny airport—a short landing strip that seemed to materialize only as they were coming in for a landing—Laila saw that it was little more than a hut. There were two members of the house’s staff waiting with a tray of drinks. Both were short, lovely, round women with brilliant white smiles that Laila found comforting.

  They rode the short distance to the house in two little vehicles called mules, bumping up dirt roads and hugging corners, the lush vegetation skimming their shoulders. There were virtually no cars on the island—with the exception of a service vehicle or two—and everyone traveled to and fro in these souped-up golf carts.

  The house was so majestic a property that it seemed laughable to call it a house at all. It sat high upon a hill, and all of the main rooms, including the larger bedrooms, had retractable walls that could be rolled up, exposing the spaces to the mild tropical air and magnificent view of the green slopes that rolled down to the sparkling blue ocean—an unobstructed paradise.

  The group took a tour around the grounds. Laila—whose awe was becoming more akin to disbelief by the moment—turned her camera to video mode and started recording; she got no cell service, but fortunately all the other features of her phone still worked. One of the wo
men rolled her eyes. “She’s like a Japanese tourist,” she said in a loud whisper as they headed back into the house. Laila ignored her. She was giddy at the thought of recounting all of these details to Cece, perhaps even Nora if the wind blew her way again.

  They made their way back to the main house, where they ate a light meal of sandwiches and salads that the chef had prepared for them, and got settled into their rooms. Simon made a show of hefting Laila’s largest and most overstuffed bag down the hallway himself, dismissing the staff member, who looked distressed as he watched the middle-aged guest grunt as he slung the bag over his shoulder, declaring it “light as a feather.”

  “Here we are,” Simon said as they entered the room. There was a giant bed with a mosquito net over it and a pristine white bedspread. The walls were rolled up to reveal green vistas of the forest below and a vast expanse of ocean in all directions. Simon handed her a rum punch that must have been delivered by a staff member who had subsequently disappeared into thin air. It looked gratifyingly cold and delicious. She took a big sip.

  “Careful there, my darling! They make that with Sunset Very Strong Rum, eighty-four proof. It will knock you flat.”

  She smiled but considered polishing the rest off in one gulp when she noticed that Simon’s bags had already been placed in the corner.

  “Your bedroom is amazing. So where am I staying?” she asked.

  He laughed, and she smiled back nervously.

  “You’ll go in the staff quarters if you’re naughty,” he said, stepping closer and putting his arms around her waist. “Here if you’re very naughty.”

  He kissed her, and Laila felt herself recoil. She hoped he didn’t notice. Her head spun from his words and from the rum sloshing around in her empty stomach.

  “But, um . . .”

  He stepped back and looked at her curiously.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re staying together?”

  “Of course we’re staying together.” His voice was on the edge of anger, perilous and tight.

  “Well, we haven’t known each other that long. I just thought . . .”

  “You thought?” Now his voice took on a hint of dark amusement, even more menacing.

  “Never mind,” she said, kissing him lightly on the lips. She couldn’t think of a halfway delicate way out of this situation, so she stalled. “You know, I’m absolutely exhausted,” she said. “I didn’t sleep well last night; I might get ready for bed soon.”

  “Get comfortable, and we’ll have a drink on the balcony,” he said.

  Well, Laila thought, a drink could only help.

  She changed into a nightgown and silk robe, the kind of thing she wore to bed when she was with a man. Just because she didn’t want to sleep with Simon didn’t mean she didn’t want to impress him. A staff member appeared with a bottle of champagne. She was disappointed not to see more of the rum punch; as promised, it had gone straight to her head, and if she had another, she might just pass out—which would temporarily solve her problem.

  “You know, Laila,” Simon said, gazing out into the blazing Mustique sunset, “everything I have, I built. I came from nothing; grew up in a council flat. Housing projects, you call them here.”

  She wished he might just let her quietly enjoy the view. “You must have worked very hard.”

  He looked at her keenly for a long moment as though trying to determine something.

  “Ruthlessly,” he said, “that’s the secret. And you know, that night I met you, I thought, Ah, one of mine.”

  “Me?” Laila sputtered. Her heart fluttered. She nearly choked on her champagne.

  “Oh yes. My darling, you don’t think I haven’t done my research. I know you didn’t grow up in New York with your cousins. Grew up middle-class and falling in Michigan; orphaned, poor thing. And divorced at such a tender age.”

  Her heart ricocheted around her rib cage. What did he mean by bringing all of this up?

  “And?” she said, unable to disguise her bitterness.

  “Relax, my darling. It’s a compliment. You’re like me. You’ll do what you must to seek higher ground.”

  “I just wanted to be with my family,” she said.

  “Well, family matters most of all, doesn’t it?” The way he said this sent Laila back into a deepening spiral, thinking of poor, bewildered, loyal, ridiculous Nathan. About her own family and their seeming ambivalence to her very existence.

  As she finished her second glass of champagne, Laila felt something looking at Simon—not attraction, which she’d half hoped might emerge—but the flicker of recognition. If only she could cultivate his friendship, perhaps they were kindred spirits after all. She could certainly learn from someone who’d accomplished all that he had; who’d begun his life as an outsider.

  “Ready for bed?” he asked at last.

  Laila drew a breath of relief. “Yes.” She needed to sleep off this surreal turn of events.

  “Let me just go wash up,” Simon said.

  Simon headed for the bathroom, and Laila dove beneath the bedcovers. By the time Simon reemerged, smelling of cloying aftershave, she was doing an excellent impression of being asleep.

  “Laila, my darling,” he said, curling himself around her, the coarse hair of his chest scratching against her back, “wakey-wakey.”

  She let out a sleepy sigh and kept her eyes glued shut. Simon’s hands continued to creep over her, pushing her flimsy nightgown up over her hips. He jostled his arms around her, pinching her nipples from behind. Laila felt herself go rigid. She could feel Simon’s erection, which protruded from his shorts. He pulled her underwear down to her midthighs, and she felt his hands, thick and dumb like the hands of a large teenager, prodding between her legs, trying to produce some response. Laila tried to imagine he was someone else, calling back those raw flashes of her night with Cameron months before.

  “You are clean, I presume?” he asked, his breath cloying and warm on her ear, “and on the pill?”

  She could not find a voice to speak and instead simply nodded.

  “Good, good,” he said, stroking her hair and then taking a fistful of it in his hand, bending her neck forward painfully. Laila felt a shiver of revulsion as she heard him spit into his free hand—having quickly grown weary of trying to produce the genuine effect in her—and massaged it impatiently between her legs, guiding himself roughly inside her, letting out a mortifying “Ohhhhh” as he did so. He pushed her onto her stomach, one hand planted beside her, the other still tangled in her hair, pushing her face against the pillow beneath it. Laila called upon all the force of imagination to think of someone else inside her—with the softness of his protruding belly pressed against her back, it was impossible to conjure up Cameron with his lean, muscled chest and torso, but even Tom would do for now. She would have given anything in that moment for Tom; Tom who loved her and cherished her and always put her first, in lovemaking and elsewhere. For whatever else Tom had lacked in the bedroom, he was masterful and enthusiastic with his tongue, spending however long was needed between Laila’s legs to make her respond. Tom who loved the taste and smell of her. Tom whom she had traded—ruthlessly—to be here with this ogre on this painfully beautiful island.

  Those moments seemed a suspended hell in which time ceased to exist, then at last Simon pulled out of her with a strangled “Ugnnnhhhhh,” and she felt the hot ooze of semen spreading between her back and his torso as he collapsed, his unwieldy frame nearly crushing the breath out of her delicate one. At last he kissed her shoulder and removed himself to rinse off. Laila remained still, feeling the wetness on her back cool, gluing her silky gown to her skin.

  Simon returned from the bathroom several moments later and lay down without a word, disinterested in the woman beside him now that he’d had her. At last Laila swung her legs out of the bed, shaky upon them, pain radiating between them.

  The bathroom of their suite was a thing to behold: with a massive stone shower separated from the night by only a curtain, pull
it back and you were suddenly in the open air. The bathroom faced the opposite direction from Macaroni Beach, so there was no one to see you other than the occasional passing yacht. The showerhead was so massive that it felt like standing beneath a waterfall. Laila turned it on and climbed in with her nightgown on. It was ruined anyway; how could she ever wear it after this? As the water rushed over her, she slowly let herself collapse to the shower’s smooth tile floor. The pain of where he’d been inside her radiated, nearly consumed her; her body unwilling to consent to what it had been offered up for. She felt a deep and rancorous humiliation at being a woman at all. She caught her breath—only then realizing that she’d been crying—and looked out onto the calm ocean and had the wild thought that she could just escape into the jungle beneath the villa, hide here forever. After all, going back to New York was going to be a debacle. She couldn’t go back to Tom, not after she’d left with Simon. Laila’s foremost skill seemed to be burning bridges so thoroughly that there would be no hope of return—perhaps this was her way of daring herself to keep going. Onward ever. She closed her eyes and let the water stream over her face. She would go back to New York, connect with Frederick, reveal what she knew. Never be dependent on a man again. Or on anyone. At last her fingers and toes had pruned, and there was nothing left to wash from herself. She discarded her ruined nightgown and put on her matching silk robe, which was still pristine. She curled herself on the bed as far as she could possibly get from Simon, who snored intermittently throughout the night. She fell into a fitful sleep, and when she woke, she was mercifully alone. She looked around for a clock, but there seemed to be none in the entirety of the house, and she could not remember where she’d left her phone. It wasn’t as though she particularly wanted to see Simon that morning, but it still did not feel good to wake up alone. She put one of the house bathrobes on over her slinky one and made her way down the hallway.

  The other guests were just finishing breakfast and looked up at her, startled. Everyone else was fully dressed: the men in light pants and linen shirts, the women in billowing white bathing-suit cover-ups.