by C. Lymari
“Excuse me,” I said in a sweet voice. “But I think I missed the part where your last name was Remington.”
“You may carry the name, but don’t forget this company would be under if it wasn’t for the shareholders,” Mattias said as others silently agreed.
“First of all, that was a long time ago. Don’t sit there like you haven’t made back your investment five times over already. Second of all, we have the mines in South Africa, Canada, and Brazil. Let’s not forget we have the Ember. So if we were to part ways, guess who wins?”
“That’s enough, Ember!” Silas yelled.
I sent him a reproachful look. It was like he didn’t care.
“You’re right; this is enough.” I got up, not sure why I’d bothered to come in the first place. “You’re all going to do whatever the fuck you want either way.”
I started to walk away, but got pulled by my arm.
“You’re causing a scene,” Silas said in a calm voice, but his eyes told a different story. I would pay for this later.
“Take. Your. Hands. Off. Me. Uncle.” We were in a stare-down, neither of us wanting to back down.
“Let her go,” was said in a lethal tone beside me.
I closed my eyes. Ren just fucked up.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Silas growled.
“I do when you’re hurting her.” Ren pulled me away from Silas’s hold and dragged me out of the meeting room.
Actions had consequences, and mine were taking me straight to hell.
Once in the hallway, I pushed Ren away. “What part of ‘don’t say a word’ didn’t you fucking understand?”
“He was hurting you,” Ren stated, like that was answer enough.
People were staring at us, or more at him.
When we were alone in the elevator, I said, “You hurt me too.”
“The difference is, your pussy gets wet when I do it.”
I kept my mouth shut as the elevator went down, counting down the floors before we got off.
When the door pinged, I turned around, finding Ren right behind me. He looked down on me, his blue eyes bright. The shape of his lips invited me to repay him for what he’d done to mine. We were so close already; this was perfect. My knee went up fast before he could register my move. He bent with a grunt, holding on to his balls.
“Now, that made me wet.” I walked away with a smile.
“Fuck…you’re a bitch.”
Only when people push me to be one. As soon as I stepped outside, I felt raindrops on my face. I had barely tilted my face toward the sky when I heard questions being fired my way.
“Is it true your father is in critical condition?”
“Was this an attempt on his life?”
“Can you confirm this was no accident?”
“How are you handling the news?”
I couldn’t see past the reporters and their flashing cameras. The one thing I knew to do since I was old enough to go out on my own was evade reporters, and I froze. I was trying to find my way out when an arm wrapped around my waist, and I was pressed against a chest. Not just any chest—Ren’s. I closed my eyes as I pressed closer to him while he led us away from the reporters. We walked until I was sure the headquarters were long behind.
“No thanks?” Ren said once we stopped walking.
“Do you need me to praise you for doing your job?” I mumbled against his chest.
Ren didn’t say more, but he also didn’t let go of me nor push me away. The rain was starting to pick up, and with my eyes still closed, I tipped back, enjoying the sense of washing away my sins, if only just temporarily. When I opened my eyes, it wasn’t the azure of the dark sky staring down at me, it was Ren’s penetrating gaze.
In ways, he was so close when he still was too far away. My lip was sore, but I wanted to know how he kissed, without the pain of his teeth. With my eyes, I begged for him to do what I would never do with words. His mouth opened, and his tongue peeked out as he licked his lower lip. The air got thick, and the water started to come down faster.
Falling for Ren was dangerous, and I wasn’t that much of a bitch.
I smiled up at him. “Now I am wet.”
Something flashed in his eyes as he stared at me, but he didn’t comment. His lips did tip in a small grin, though.
His hand shot up, and my belly dipped, wondering what he was going to do, but when he pulled away, I noticed he called a taxi over.
“I’ll send someone for the Maybach later.”
Nodding, I followed after him, letting him guide me home. The cab ride was quiet and cold.
When the cab arrived at Hill Hotel, I took out my black card to pay. The machine in the back gave me the answer I should have been prepared to receive since my little outburst. Denied.
Ignoring Ren, I started to take off the snake necklace from my shoes.
“Here, this are real diamo—”
I didn’t finish my sentence because Ren took the diamonds away. He handed the cabbie a hundred and pulled me out.
Great. He was pissed now. Probably because he had to pay.
My long strides were too fast for Ember to keep up at a comfortable pace, but I didn’t give a fuck. There were a lot of things about today that pissed me off. None of them had to do with the way Ember had acted toward me.
“The car is at headquarters; make sure someone picks it up,” I told one of the guys who guarded the lower level.
“Look at you, bossing around.”
“Shut up,” I snapped.
Ember rolled her eyes at me but didn’t say more. When we got to the elevator, she went to the phone, where she pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She put the carton to her mouth, grabbing a stick with her lips. Then she proceeded to try and light it. All she got were sparks, not enough to make it burn. I took the cigarette from her, put it in my mouth, then snatched the lighter up. Once it was lit, I took a drag, trying to calm myself down. These feelings were unwanted. Once I was done, I put the cigarette to Ember’s lips.
“Does that happen often?” I asked, keeping my voice calm.
“What? The paps? Yeah, my—”
“No. Cutting off your cards.”
The elevator door opened, and Ember walked out. She didn’t talk until she got to the living room. She took off her jacket, grabbed a blanket, and wrapped herself.
“It’s the oldest trick in the gold-spoon book. Cut off the money, make them fall in line.”
I took a seat at the table in front of her. I cocked my head and stared at her. I could tell it made her uncomfortable because she started to fidget.
“How many times?” I wondered.
“I don’t know…more than I can count with my fingers. I mean, they did it because once after a meeting, I stormed out and threw my cards around and told people to have fun with them.”
I snickered. Of course she did. When I noticed she was shivering, I told her to go shower and change into clean clothes. I went up to my room and did the same. Grabbing my burner phone from under the bed, I brought it to the bathroom with me and waited until I turned on the water before making a call.
“I was starting to get worried about you. When’s your day off?”
“Soon,” I lied. “Listen, I need your help.”
I got straight to the point. Pam let out a bunch of Spanish curses.
“What is it?”
“I need you to dig deep into this family. I want everything. Something isn’t adding up.”
“You want me to go dark?” she asked.
“Pitch-black,” I told her before I hung up.
Jumping in the shower, I tried to figure out the easiest way to get what I wanted, but the easiest way involved Ember, and she got to me like no other. She was like lava under my skin, waiting to erupt. Once out of the shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist and stepped out of the bathroom. I was starting to feel restless. This job had its perks, but I didn’t like to feel caged.
When I heard my door opening, I grabbed the Glock f
rom my nightstand, ready to shoot.
Ember didn’t even bat an eyelash. She stood in the entrance of my room in a thick black robe, fuzzy slippers on her feet, her hair still dripping with water, but the thing that got to me was the purple bruising around her lower lip. I did that.
“I need you to set up the fire pit for me.”
“Don’t you have staff for that?”
She shook her head. “It’s their day off.”
“Can’t you do that?”
“Most people don’t want me near fire since the whole college incident.”
“Out. Now.”
I needed her to get out before she noticed she was getting my cock hard. It would be so easy to pull her into my room, push her against the wall, and fuck her so hard and deep she’d never forget me.
Ember gave me a carefree smile, and fuck me if that didn’t do something to me.
“Drop the towel, bodyguard.”
I smiled back at her, a real one this time. “Darling, you couldn’t handle me.”
“Drop the towel, and we can find out,” she teased.
Without a word, I closed the door in her face.
She screamed, and fuck my life that sounded like a fucking challenge. One thing was for sure: something was wrong with that woman. One second, she was fire; the next, she was ice. Shaking my head, I got ready, and instead of trying to figure things out, I decided I would use her mood change to my advantage.
Ember was outside, sitting on a chaise, a bottle of water in one hand and her bong in another. While she broke her weed, I got to work on her fire. Everything was neatly set up; I knew she’d have no problem doing this on her own. She was humming a song while her head nodded from side to side. It hit me then that she was lonely.
“Is that all?” I asked once the fire was blazing.
“Aren’t you going to sit down? Make sure my body is protected and all that bullshit?”
Letting her think it was her idea for me to stay, I sat on the opposite side of her. I let her take two hits before I began to ask questions. Mellow Ember was better than the bitch one.
“When was the first time they cut you off?” There were probably a few questions I should have asked instead of this one.
“I was nineteen. They wanted me to endorse a partnership we had with a fashion line, but the fashion house was big on furs, so I told the director of said house to fuck off there for disgracing my family. It was close to the holidays, so I was stuck at school.”
“What did you do?” My voice was low. Controlled.
“Diamonds are an easy trade.” She shrugged it off. “My turn.” I should have expected this. Even high, she was sharp. “Why haven’t you quit?”
“You don’t scare me, princess.” I leaned back and gauged her. “Why are you not being a bitch?”
Her shoulders sagged. “I’m tired, okay? Silas, Mattias, the board, you—I don’t have to the energy to fight the whole world today.”
“Any word on your father?” I pretended to look at the fence when I was observing her, trying to figure out why she wasn’t at his side every day.
“Nope. His body is still recovering. Who knows how long that will take. Maybe by the time he wakes it will be too late… When’s your day off?”
Jackpot.
“It was the day after the accident—”
Ember’s eyes locked with mine, and I had the urge to pull away. “You stayed home with me.”
My chest rose and fell. Hell if I know why I stayed home that day. She didn’t bring her bloody lip, and neither did I.
“The whole deal with the board?” I asked in a docile tone. My body was relaxed, or as relaxed as I could make it appear to be. “If you don’t mind me asking, how does that work?”
“Checks and balances. Back when the depression hit, we struggled. Jewelry was a luxury, one not many could afford. My great-grandfather managed to secure connections, some through marriage, most through his cunning. Remington Diamonds stopped being family-owned and instead became incorporated. Fast-forward through a lot of bullshit and a few losses, Remington Diamonds own fifty-eight percent, the board forty-two.”
Ember took another hit, and I waited for her before asking more questions.
“My great-great-grandfather was on some Costa Nostra bullshit.” She shrugged, and I snorted. “We get our trust funds when we turn twenty-five.”
“How old are you?” I interrupted her.
“Twenty-five.”
“Then why are they still cutting you off?”
“Let me finish. We get our trust funds at twenty-five unless you are a liability.”
Which she was, but that still wasn’t fair to her.
“That’s not even the part that makes me angry. I’ll wait five more years, whatever; I’m sure Mattias will find a way to not give me my money.”
“Is he in charge of your money?”
Because if he was, he just got to the top of my shit list. Ember licked her bottom lip and tried to bite it, but winced. The action had my dick getting hard.
“Yep.” She laid down and stopped looking at me. “As I said, my great-great-grandfather was on some mafia shit. The president position goes to the firstborn of the family and gets passed down.”
“You should be president right now, shouldn’t you?”
“Should, could, but won’t because between my legs is a pussy and not a dick, so moot fucking point.”
“You like it, don’t you? The diamonds and all that shit?”
“Do you know anything about diamonds?”
I shook my head.
“Let me enlighten you, bodyguard. Colored diamonds are expensive, as long as they’re not artificially dyed. Whenever we run across them, they are sold before we get them processed. Yellow diamonds are your basic bitches more commonly found, but also more in demand, since they cost less. Green and orange diamonds are at the bottom of the rare pool. Pink diamonds are in high demand and the ones that get the most invested on, which brings me to number two on the rarity scale—the blue diamonds. It’s always a battle between pink and blue, but pink is a little more basic.”
I smiled as I watched her speak with a passion I didn’t know she possessed. “And the rarest diamond?”
Ember yawned. “The red diamonds. Once upon a time, people believed that red diamonds didn’t exist.”
“There are red diamonds, darling.”
She shook her head. “You’re such a commoner; you’re probably confusing them with rubies.”
I shook my head, so she went on.
“Those are a purple red or brownish red; the rest are man-made. There is only one red and two that come close. The Moussaieff Red, and the Hancock Red, which looks reddish to the naked eye.”
My body stilled as I waited for the next part.
“The Remington Ember, or more commonly known as the Ember, is the only dark red there is. The color is dark, but the cuts shine, making it appear lighter from where the sunlight hits, giving it a burning look.”
“Your parents named you after your own diamond?” I laughed it off to change the subject.
Ember gave me a sleepy glare. “My family is on some old-school bull. When my great-grandfather discovered the Ember, he put a stipulation clause so only our family line could use it as a first name. The right belonging to a male firstborn…so here I am.”
I gave her a nod and waited a few more minutes so she could fall asleep. “Why are you nice to me?”
When she gave me her answer, I almost wished I hadn’t asked.
“Because pretty soon, you’re going to leave me too.”
My place always felt cold, not at all like a home. I sat on the sofa covered in a blanket, and I realized you could pluck me out and put someone else in and you’d never realize I’d ever lived here. The place was lovely, the decorations modern, but none of them were me. My father was still in a coma. It was fucked-up that him being chained to a bed was the only way I’d see more of him than I had my whole life.
My bong lay
lonely on the ottoman. Let out of its cage, it was now just another diamond artifact that I owned. I asked all my maids, and none of them had seen my drugs. I had my suspicions, but it was a battle I didn’t have the energy to fight.
Ren was walking down the stairs, his hair a little wet, his black T-shirt fitting perfect against his muscular frame. Suddenly I was thirsty and not for water.
“Did you fall off the bed?” he said without looking at me.
I didn’t know if it was the fact that he felt sorry for me, but we had called a temporary truce. I didn’t sleep; it was one of those rare nights when dread filled the air, and in those long dark hours between midnight and dawn, you contemplated every lousy choice that made you feel like a fuckup.
“Do you want to get fired today?” I responded.
He shook his head and went to grab a water. He was always drinking water; no pop, juice, or beer for him. When he ate, he always had non-fatty foods—all bland-looking and flavorless. He took care of his body. And oh boy, did it show.
“I can feel you staring,” he said as he sat with his back to me at the kitchen island.
“I’m hungry,” I said.
“Good for you. Eat something.”
“Everyone is off today,” I reminded him.
“Then, do it yourself.”
“I need to run a few errands. Be ready to leave in forty.” With the blanket still wrapped around me, I left to take a scalding shower, hoping that would help wash away the shitty night I had.
Once I was showered, I dressed in some jeans and a T-shirt. No fancy shit today.
Money made people treat you different. Some because they felt inferior, others because they thought you were equals, and most because they wanted to use you. It was rare when you found people who treated you like you were normal.
Maybe that was why I liked my kids at the hospital. To them, I wasn’t Ember Remington. I was just Ember, the girl who made their day a little brighter. I loved, yet hated, going to the hospital because I got attached, and not all stories had happy endings. Even with all the money in the world, I never felt as helpless as I did when I lost one of my kids. Donating my time and money seemed like the least I could do to help out.
Putting my checkbook in my purse, I walked out of the room.
