by C. L. Donley
Grayson’s pace was slow and prolonged at first. He plunged himself into her cavernous depths again and again.
She folded herself more and more until eventually she was bent over enough to touch her toes.
“Holy shit, Amy,” his voice quivered, his pace still rhythmic. He gasped and winced and panted interchangeably, in disbelief at her daring position, at the depths of his own pleasure.
“You like that,” she moaned, knowing the answer, knowing he was powerless to answer.
Irretrievably lost in ecstasy he began slamming into her sharply. He was getting so deep she was exploding at every thrust.
“Yeah, give it to me,” she could barely achieve a whisper through gritted teeth, she wanted to scream. She was sobbing, out of her mind with the velvety bliss he was sending all over her, all at once.
She knew instinctively her orgasm would be intense and unforgiving. She should’ve been concerned about her own safety but she wasn’t. At all. If they came at the same time she’d probably break her neck. Grayson was in the grips of primal madness, gasping and moaning with every thrust as if being dragged away by lust against his will.
Amara’s orgasm seized her entire body, and when her knees completely gave out, he loyally held her together. She gratefully focused on the intense pleasure still surging through her from his now frantic motions, his firm hands on each end of her hips clamped severely into her flesh.
For him, the end came soundlessly, jaw carelessly slack, his brow furrowed and dripping sweat down the bridge of his nose. Only the sounds of his final thrusts permeated the hallway. Their intermittent groans were staggered at first as they came down, and then their breathing and moaning gradually came in sync. He was swaying slightly and for a second he stumbled and put an arm out to steady himself.
“Fuck, I’m still coming,” he announced.
Amara ground out a curse at that little piece of news, little fireworks going off in her belly as her body still held him captive.
Finally they were free of passion’s grip on them. Amara crawled her hands back up the wall until she was upright again. Grayson withdrew and collapsed onto the opposing wall completely spent and beyond satisfied. She turned around and stood there in bare feet, still too wobbly to replace her shoes, smirking at his drunken appearance.
“Come kiss me,” he finally said between pants.
“You can’t be ready for round two,” she breathed.
“I didn’t get to kiss you at all.”
She smiled. “Yes, you did.”
“I don’t remember,” he exhaled, blankly staring towards the exit.
Amara giggled at him.
“Now, you may speak,” he sighed, taking a breath.
Now she could speak? About what?
She wasn’t expecting “I love you,” but “now you may speak” was an odd choice of words.
“What are you talking about?”
“Earlier. You asked me if I told Dale about the contract.”
Amara stared at him, giving her head a quick shake in disbelief. He was hopeless.
“Okay…did you?”
“Yes.”
Amara felt vomitous. Wasn’t there a confidentiality clause in the contract?
The contract from hell.
“When,” she said. It was barely a question.
“Malibu. After I dropped you off, I went back to the party.”
The same night. The contract didn’t even exist yet. He’d given her a night to decide.
But then… he knew what her decision would be, didn’t he?
And they’d laughed at her the whole month.
Well, Dale did, at least. Grayson didn’t laugh much. Perhaps it stopped being funny to Dale the night of the party. Or had it? Was that whole “I think he’s in love with you” speech just a running gag between them?
Oh. Now she could speak. Because he knew what would happen when he told her the truth. And he had to have sex with her before the inevitable.
She wasn’t even allowed to be outraged. She was prostituting herself after all, and he was a pragmatist. She was, however, allowed to be mortified.
Amara was done talking. She put on her heels and click-clicked slowly out of the hallway.
Grayson retreated to the bathroom and made himself presentable. He felt like an apparition. He hadn’t a single thought or an ounce of tension in his body, not even a helpful one. He’d just easily had the best sex of his life. Amara, queen of the firsts. He even felt… had she cured him? He smirked at the thought. He felt cured. The last day of the summit would be a breeze. And why was he even stressed about the contract ending again? He could no longer remember. Now he would be free to woo her. He didn’t quite know how to go about doing that, but his research skills were lethal.
He suddenly couldn’t wait to let her go.
While Grayson righted himself in the bathroom, Amara did the same and texted Bryan for the car.
She didn’t feel up to the walk.
She looked at herself in the mirror and her face crumpled at the reflection. She wept, quickly turning on the water in case he heard.
Should she have it out with him?
Why? This. Wasn’t. A. Relationship.
She had no upper hand, no bargaining chip.
All that would happen is that she would get hurt, or maybe she would land one, and he would get hurt, but that would still hurt her.
No. She wanted to leave. And she wanted to leave with nothing.
Because it was truly what she had.
Fifteen
Chapter 15
Later that evening, Grayson returned to his hotel room. Alone.
Every muscle in his body was now tense.
He paced. He panted. He fidgeted. Endlessly.
He was tired, but there would be no sleeping.
Amara had refused to come back upstairs.
The car ride had been a quiet one. When she got in the car, she looked as though she’d been crying.
Shit, he thought. He didn’t want to admit that he’d divulged their arrangement to Dale, but he wasn’t going to lie. He had every intention of making it up to her when they got back. He would draw her a bath. Maybe make love to her again, sweetly this time. Maybe even skip the first session of the summit and go with her to see the old church she’d told him about.
But then they entered the hotel lobby and he got into the elevator, startled when he turned around. She wasn’t with him.
Scanning the lobby from the elevator car he searched for her, catching a glimpse of her and Bryan talking just as the doors were closing.
He pushed between the doors just in time to exit. Amara had her back to him as he got closer but he could see Bryan looked increasingly concerned. Their eyes met.
“Amara says she wants to go home. Right now.” Bryan asserted.
Amara wouldn’t turn to face him.
“Tell Amara, that it’s pointless to fly the jet from here to LA twice in one day, and that if she wishes, we can leave tomorrow afternoon as soon as the summit is over.”
She didn’t speak, but he could see she was wiping away tears.
“She wants to book a flight back to the States tonight,” Bryan said. “She found it online.”
“Amara, that’s ridiculous. The contract will be over while we’re still in the air…”
“I’m going home, Grayson.”
Oh.
Not his house “home.” Not wherever he was “home.”
A deep feeling of dread knifed his insides.
“Amy…” he started, “I’m sorry.”
It was the first time she’d ever heard those words.
But it was too late.
She turned to look at him, her face swollen with tears.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said. “I thought for sure I’d be good at this too, but… I’m not.”
“But you are,” he protested, “you’re the fucking best at this,” he tried to dissuade her.
“It’s sucking my soul
faster than any job ever did,” she confessed.
“You want double?”
“Grayson—”
“Just… stay until the summit is over. I just need time to… stay until tomorrow, and you can double your money.”
“I can barely stand the thought of keeping the money as it is,” she said.
“No. This is not happening,” he gritted his teeth, “you cannot, fucking do this.”
Amara started backing away.
“I don’t know what sort of deal you made, boss, but surely two days—”
“Shut the fuck up, Bryan. And if I find out that you so much as held her purse on your little shopping trip today—”
“I told you he would do this,” Amara despaired.
He looked at the two of them. Bryan’s eyes were sympathetic. They hadn’t slept together. But she’d now successfully formed alliances in his every direction.
“You fucking gold digging bitch…” Grayson whispered, as if in amazement.
Amara closed her eyes and let tears run as he berated her, quietly, smoothly, with immense skill. He told her how she would never get a penny, how he would die first, how his legal team would devour that lawyer friend of hers.
Grayson’s mind forced itself back to the present.
Amara’s shopping bags from earlier that day were on a table in the corner of the room.
His open hand suddenly found the neck of a table lamp. He reared it back high above his head and hurled it to the marble floor of the penthouse foyer where it shattered. The noise replayed in his head like music. The lamp had been reborn into a constellation. It bought him about five seconds of relief.
He went behind the penthouse’s kitchen island, where he found the wine rack and mini bar and emptied them, carrying their contents to a desk in the bedroom where his laptop rested.
He opened it and started a spreadsheet.
If he started now, while the information was fresh, he could provide his lawyers a thorough accounting of the money he’d spent. The amount they’d agreed to, and why he was no longer obligated to pay it.
There was no way he would be able to sue her for damages. The contract was good.
But he could try. Litigation was a special hell.
The fidgeting got worse in front of the flickering laptop after an hour or two. He drank until he had to quickly retrieve the trash can underneath the desk. He wasn’t going to finish this tonight. Maybe ever. Hastily, he sent what he had to Amara’s lawyer friend. He suddenly couldn’t sit down a moment longer. If he could just get reality to move past this excruciating moment…
He closed his eyes and raked his fingers over his face.
Things were about to get destroyed, and he could feel it.
He couldn’t stop it. Which was good because he didn’t want to.
He sauntered over to the table and flipped it over matter-of-factly, the shopping bags tumbled around him. He situated it flat side down, grabbed one of the table legs and started to pull.
It was a damn good table. He needed more leverage. He obliged enthusiastically. The table leg snapped. The sound was soothing.
In the other meltdowns he’d had in his life, he never worried about what he damaged. But the first ones were in his shitty childhood home with the wood paneling, and anything he could’ve done to it was an improvement. The other was in the shitty apartment he shared with Dale and Bel. He felt bad that some of their stuff got inadvertently smashed, but it was nothing like this.
This was a beautiful hotel. And he didn’t know how long he would need to go this time.
There would be no attending the summit tomorrow.
The meltdown was happening, and it was happening now.
* * *
The flight home on a commercial airline was grueling. As was Amara’s grief.
He’d been right. The pain was excruciating. He was right about everything.
She was too embarrassed to call and ask Mya to pick her up the next day. Too ashamed to admit that she was coming home virtually empty-handed. She didn’t even have the packed bag that she’d originally left with. Thank God she’d retrieved the dress Amara had borrowed during her visit.
She’d had a 21-hour layover in Rome. Bryan had given her a stipend and told her that he would suffer the consequences, should any arise. It was much more than a normal person would need. For a moment she thought about roughing it Italy for a month with some of it, but after a night in Rome alone without Grayson, the idea quickly lost its appeal.
The next morning, Grayson was on the news in the airport, the anchor teasing a horrible tagline in the effort to keep the viewers glued to the set: “Billionaire Meltdown.”
Well, it’d worked. She nearly missed check-in waiting for the segment, which could only cite early reports saying that he hadn’t attended the final day of the G21 summit and that he had been arrested.
Arrested?!
The flight home was unbearable. She barely slept, she was too timid to ask anyone for help, for a glance at their laptop, if they themselves knew anything more or even cared. She noticed a few extra long looks in her direction and became paranoid that they recognized her.
The moment the seatbelt sign had shut off on the plane, Amara reached for her phone.
When she turned it on, it warbled and burped as if possessed.
Grayson Davis was a trending topic everywhere. She read and read until she had to be kicked off the plane by a very polite flight attendant.
There were a ton of rushed, speculative articles about what had apparently happened in Montenegro after she left.
Some said it was drug-fueled, others alcohol, but they all used the same word to describe it: meltdown.
Only one from an otherwise disreputable online rag had theorized that a “Gramara” breakup might’ve been the catalyst, even citing a source that had seen a tense discussion in the lobby of their hotel.
But apparently Grayson’s “people,” whom she knew was Bryan, had released a statement ensuring that their relationship had been stronger than ever and that she was supporting him through this difficult time.
Difficult time?
One report said that he’d been hospitalized.
Hospitalized??
She didn’t know what to believe. She couldn’t call, they never had each other’s numbers. They only ever messaged each other online.
Should she even try? She didn’t know if she still had access to his account.
She didn’t. The password had been changed.
Now she was afraid to even reach out to Bryan. He would’ve been the one to change his password. She understood, but she didn’t want to find out she’d been completely cut out. Not like that.
The phone rang in her hand while she was investigating and she jumped.
It was Kim.
“Girl… what in the hell…” was all she said.
“What?” Amara prompted.
“What did you do?” she accused.
“What do you mean?” Amara stammered.
Kim sighed. “Your boyfriend sent me… an invoice.”
“Invoice?”
“He says you breached the contract, so you get nothing.”
Amara choked back tears.
She was wrong; it was definitely too early to be dealing.
“I just realized that I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I’m gonna litigate his ass into the next millennium,” Kim said.
“No you’re not, no way will I help you do that,” Amara insisted. She’d been to court before, and there’s no way she would survive sitting in a courtroom with him doing everything he told her he would that last horrible night in Montenegro.
“I don’t need your help,” Kim countered.
“You need my permission; I’m the client, Kim.”
“He can’t just use you like that—”
“He didn’t. I used him.”
“You each used each other.”
“Yes, and it was awful!”
“
Then you earned that million, Amara,” Kim argued.
Amara broke down then.
“I don’t want it. Please don’t make me fight for it,” she sobbed.
Kim was silent for a long time.
“You the only person I know can turn trickin’ into some complicated mess.”
Amara managed a laugh.
“You hear he’s in the hospital?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if that’s true,” Amara sniffed.
“It seems to be. He trashed the shit out of his hotel room, apparently. He didn’t want to go, but they were going to press charges against him.”
“What the hell…”
“Yeah, looks like you dodged a bullet,” Kim said. “Rich people are crazy.”
“Straight up,” Amara scoffed dismissively.
“I’m gonna send you this invoice though girl,” Kim added.
“I don’t wanna see,” Amara said.
“Uh, no,” Kim insisted, “you definitely need to see this thing.”
* * *
Grayson didn’t want to go to the hospital, but he didn’t know much about Balkan jails. So the hospital it was.
Once he arrived there, however, he couldn’t believe he’d ever resisted going.
First of all, they wheeled him around everywhere.
There was no sound, no light if he didn’t want, and the meticulously timed intervals of constant, reliable beeps and warbles of machines were insistent enough to completely hijack his fraying mind. They fed him at the same regular intervals every day, and it was the same thing every day. He didn’t talk to anyone, and if they tried, a very scary nurse would reprimand them in Serbian. He didn’t make a single decision. About himself or anyone else.
And best of all, he wasn’t home. In that house. The house that Amara built.
He was thankful that they hadn’t elected to strap him by the arms. He didn’t know how long they planned to keep him, and he didn’t ask. Because he didn’t care, couldn’t care, about anything right now.
He couldn’t even care that Amara was gone. Good for her, he thought. She hadn’t taken a penny.
There’s no way she’d have gotten home with whatever was in her pocket, so obviously Bryan had helped her, likely with Grayson’s bank account. Bryan hadn’t known anything about the contract. But after that outburst in the lobby, he could’ve probably guessed. He thought back to Amara’s calm tear-streaked face reacting to the sound of his words. He’d humiliated the woman he loved, and the memory made him reach for his breakfast tray. He thought for sure he would be sick as the words came unapologetically back to him verbatim.
