Alex watched us go and when I looked back, she waved her hand in front of her face to fan herself—a clear indication that she found him hot. Then she put her hand to her ear, mimicking holding a phone and mouthed an exaggerated Call me.
We hit the road and I breathed a sigh of relief. That had been a close call. The more I kept Adam separated from my friends, the fewer awkward questions I’d have to answer later. When I glanced over at him, he had a grin on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve told her all about me, huh?”
I looked away, cheeks heating. “She’s a hopeless liar,” I muttered.
The day was truly beautiful. I was convinced there was no more gorgeous weather on this planet than what we enjoyed in Southern California in May. The smells of the white jasmine bushes that were planted everywhere combined with the blossoms on the orange trees and imbued the air with a honey scent. It was too early for the June Gloom, where mornings were overcast until they burned off into hot afternoons. In May, every day was fresh, crystal clear and sunny.
And in his convertible—a dark blue vintage 1950s Porsche—we zoomed down the freeway in the carpool lane, bypassing Saturday beach traffic.
I’d bundled my long hair as best I could into a ponytail band, making a messy bun. Still errant strands of hair whipped around my face and into my eyes as I squinted through my cheapo drugstore sunglasses, tapping my foot in time with Depeche Mode’s “Pleasure Little Treasure” on the stereo. So he liked his music like he liked his cars—classics. I was beginning to realize that Adam was the rock star of computer geeks. And apparently a lot of the tech magazines agreed with me.
Adam parked at a small underground garage a few blocks away from the bridge and we walked the rest of the way—he insisting on carrying my bag, which wasn’t heavy at all. I resisted at first, but he practically yanked it out of my hands.
“Your mama raised a very nice boy,” I said and then immediately regretted my words when I saw his jaw tighten. How could I have forgotten? I stopped, placing a hand on his rock-hard bicep. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “No worries, Emilia.” But those dark brows creased over his sunglass-veiled eyes.
I cleared my throat, still feeling terrible. Taking a deep breath, I started walking again. I decided to ease the awkwardness by talking about a subject I hated as well. “No, I know how it feels whenever someone brings up my dad or asks me about him. I never had a dad. I don’t even know his name so I call him the Biological Sperm Donor because that’s all he is to me.”
He glanced at me sidelong. “You were never curious to meet him?”
I shrugged. “He didn’t want me so why would I want him?” And we kept walking, past the park gardens of Bay Island, alive with bright pinks, vivid yellows—all of spring in a flowerbed. “He was married with a family and he never bothered to reveal that little detail to my mom before he got her pregnant. When she told him she was going to have a baby, he paid her a big sum of money to shut up and ‘go take care of it.’”
“Ah. A right bastard, then.”
“Yep. So I don’t give a shit who he is.”
He glanced at me again. “But he’s well off. You could have, you know, tried to get the money you need from him.”
Now it was my turn to tighten my jaw. “Why ask from him what I can do for myself?”
And I could tell he wanted to say more but cut himself off with a slight shake of his head, his grip tightening on my bag. Was he actually angry?
I paused, watching him carefully. This wasn’t the first time I’d gotten the impression he had torn feelings about the auction—this entire arrangement. I remembered the insults he was slinging around when we first met—and some of the other offhand comments he had made during our brief time in the Netherlands, always questioning my judgment and reasons for entering the auction in the first place.
If he didn’t approve, why had he even bid?
Though I wasn’t about to question him now. In truth, I was glad he did bid. But I was getting this weird tight feeling at the pit of my stomach. It felt like a cold rock sitting there and never moving. It had something to do with the fact that I was allowing feelings to get involved. As much as I wanted the money, yes. As much as I wanted him, yes. I found myself not wanting this to be over yet.
There was too much to find out before that. I wanted to know what drove him. What his fears were. What his goals were. Had he already arrived at the ripe age of twenty-six or was he striving for more and if so, how much higher could he go? And what about a personal life? Why was he driven, after being so successful, to still spend ninety hours a week in his office and half his life on airplanes and in hotels?
Then there were the personal details. Had he ever been in love? Who was Sabrina? Why did he have her name permanently inscribed on his heart?
These were things that I would never know, ever, if we slept together tonight.
But there was another voice inside my head, along with the one dying of curiosity to get to know him better. The logical one. The one that said that a man like Adam would only hurt me in the end if I opened up to him. Just like the Biological Sperm Donor had done to my mom. He’d crushed her and she’d never been able to move on. And if I let just one weakness in my fortress show, Adam would do the same to me.
With new resolve, I swore to carry out the original terms of our agreement, no matter what I was feeling inside.
***
The boat was gorgeous, of course, like all of the other things he surrounded himself with. A one-hundred-foot yacht appointed with the most glamorous details, all chrome and marble countertops, wood paneling and recessed lighting. It looked nicer than the nicest home I’d ever been in—besides Adam’s. There was a large kitchen, called a “galley” from which Adam’s chef/housekeeper worked. She had come along with the captain and they were the only other two aboard besides us, which left us a great deal of room to move about.
Adam told me he often had team parties on the yacht for his employees and used it for other business, about which he was vague. As we talked, I got the impression that his business interests were diversified—he had investments in the hospitality industry and technology hardware beyond just his own company. Draco Multimedia, particularly Dragon Epoch, was his main source of income, but he was beginning to branch out.
We ate a gourmet lunch straight away—poached salmon over a crisp bed of greens. Then Adam showed me the rest of the boat. And I don’t know if was by design or by happenstance, but the last room he showed me was his. A room almost as big as my studio, with a lush king-sized bed.
We stared at each other awkwardly in the doorway and he looked almost embarrassed. “I really didn’t mean for us to end up here. Not yet, anyway.”
I laughed. “I bet you say that to all the girls you bring on your yacht.”
“Actually you’d be the first one.”
I shot him a teasing look. “New yacht?”
He shrugged, sheepish. “It’s not old.”
“So you never brought Lindsay here?”
He looked at me sharply, “Lindsay? No…no. No.”
I laughed at his vehement protest. “It’s okay. I realize you two have a history that I know nothing about.”
He shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. “Lindsay and I go way back.”
I couldn’t resist. Not with it dangling out there in front of me like that. “How far back? And was there a bedroom involved?”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and affected nonchalance, putting his hand in his pocket. “We had a history as sexual partners.”
“Interesting.” I folded my arms, leaning back against the doorjamb. “You don’t use the term ‘lovers.’”
He snorted. “Love had nothing to do with it.”
“Was she married then?”
And Adam’s expression grew so horrified that I almost laughed. “God, no. It was like ten years ago.” That meant he’d been just a t
een.
I wrinkled my nose. I was a like a dog with a bone with this, unwilling to give it up. “Dare I ask if she was your first?”
He actually blushed and that’s all I needed to answer my question. He gave another one of those fake shrugs. “You can always ask.”
I ignored the evasion because I already had the answer to my question. Lindsay had popped Adam’s cherry. “So, does she always act like that with you?”
He frowned. “Like what?”
“Like you two are still a couple?”
He looked at me like I was an alien. “First of all, we were never a couple. We got together and we fucked and that was about it. We didn’t date. She was too busy with her career and I didn’t really care about relationships. I was too young for that. We’re friends now. She’s a partner in my uncle’s firm.”
I was not convinced, wholly, of Adam’s cluelessness. He was far too perceptive a person not to have noticed Lindsay’s flirtatious behavior. And beyond that I was a little shaken by how strongly I felt about it. Why did I even care who Adam had slept with in his past?
He knew my sexual history—well, most of it, anyway. Shouldn’t I have a right to know his?
A grin flickered on his lush mouth. “So why all the questions? You’re not jealous, are you?”
I widened my eyes, “Oh, no. No, no. God no.” I blathered, flustered. Now who was overdoing it? “What’s there to be jealous of? You and I have a business deal, nothing more.”
But when I talked, my voice was a little too shaky and his handsome face was completely devoid of any emotion. He turned and moved to an inner doorway. “There’s the bathroom if you want to change into your swimsuit. I’m going for a swim once we stop.”
“Out—in the middle of the ocean?”
He shot me a puzzled stare, as if I’d just spoken Mandarin. “Yeah.”
“But aren’t you going to freeze your ass off? That water is cold.”
He shrugged. “We have a Jacuzzi on board. We get too cold, we get out and hop in the hot water.”
I bit my lip. “Maybe I’ll just watch from the edge.”
He picked up my bag from where it sat on the table and tossed it to me. “Get in your suit.”
I grabbed it and went into the bathroom and shimmied into my trusty one-piece. It wasn’t the fancy bikini that I’d posed in for the auction, but it was still a nice suit. And it was his favorite color, too. Blue.
When I went to open the door, I heard him moving around out in the bedroom and realized he must be changing out there. Not wanting another awkward repeat of that first afternoon in Amsterdam, I tapped on the door and he told me to come in.
He was shirtless with his trunks—long board shorts—hanging off his hips. I smiled and walked into the room and he ran an appreciative eye down my form, giving a mock wolf whistle. I couldn’t help but devour the sight of his body again. He had a narrow waist and solid shoulders, every muscle clearly defined from firm pecs to rock-hard abs. He wasn’t as tan as I’d expect of an inhabitant of Newport Beach, but of course he spent most of his life under fluorescent lighting in an office in Irvine, so that was understandable. His finely chiseled chest was covered with the slightest dusting of dark hair, with a narrow trail leading down to his navel and beyond.
I looked at the tattoo again. He wasn’t attempting to hide it but he didn’t say anything when I studied it, either.
“Are you ready to go?” he said.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He led us on deck to the ladder that took us down to the waterline. He shot me a boyish grin and then dove in headfirst. I hung my feet off the side and dipped my toes in, the shock of cold shooting up my legs. I squealed when he splashed me.
“Come in. Just jump in fast. Get it over with. It feels great after a minute.”
“I’m not diving. How do you know there are no sharks out here?”
He laughed, watching me as he treaded water. “I don’t. Come on.”
And we swam for the next hour or so and it was wonderful fun. Adam pointed out the distant spouts of humpback whales. I saw a pod of dolphins jumping out of the water in the distance. When it grew too cold to stay in the water, my entire body shivering uncontrollably, Adam shot up the ladder first and, still dripping himself, reached into a cabinet where a stack of towels were warming and extracted one, holding it for me to walk into when I climbed the ladder.
It felt wonderful and I thanked him while he stooped to grab one for himself. “Let’s go warm up in the Jacuzzi.”
On the back of the middle deck, open to the sky, we soaked in the warmth of massaging bubbles while the chef brought us champagne and appetizers. The captain turned the boat around so that we could watch the sunset over the ocean.
We talked and stuffed ourselves on Chef’s amazing appetizers: bacon-wrapped scallops, baked brie, and all kinds of great munchies. So much so that our appetites were ruined for dinner. Graciously, Chef told us she would pack a cold picnic for us to take up to the top deck when we were hungry.
And then we were alone watching the sunset paint the sky in deep reds and oranges reflecting out onto the ocean. “So this is what you do in your copious amounts of spare time?”
He smiled. “I’d like to take the boat out at least once a month. Maybe over to Catalina, down to Mexico or just out on the water.”
“Taking your work with you, of course.”
He kept his gaze on the horizon “Perhaps.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Uh huh. With your satellite Internet—I saw that big old office you have belowdecks. It’s not for bringing women out here.”
“I told you I don’t bring women out here.”
“You brought me.”
He glanced at me. “Yes, but you are an exception.”
“Have you ever had a long-term relationship?” I asked.
His dark eyes darted to the ocean once again. “No. I never had the time.”
“Ah. So you just have…fuck buddies.”
He was amused. “If you want to call them that. And what about you? No fuck buddies obviously, but you don’t date, either.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Tried it. Didn’t like it.” I shrugged.
He watched me carefully. “How old were you when you made that decision?”
“Sixteen.”
He cursed under his breath.
“Anyway, let’s talk about something else!” I said brightly.
He shook his head. “No, I want to talk about this for a few moments longer.” I shook my head right back. His gaze hardened. “Don’t get like that, Emilia. I think it important that I know if anything painful happened to you. I want to do everything I can to make you comfortable. What happened in Amsterdam—”
“It won’t happen again—no need to worry. I did a lot of therapy.”
“I disagree. I should worry.”
I sighed and glanced off to the side. “I had a boyfriend in high school. He was a football star, a senior, and I was a stupid little sophomore with stars in my eyes. He treated me like shit. One night he got drunk and assaulted me. I broke up with him. The end.”
Now his face was grim. “He assaulted you…sexually?”
My breathing froze. I had never talked to many people about this. Heath knew it all. So did my therapist. Mom knew some of it but I refused to say any more about it after she started talking about going to the police. It was dropped and she got me the therapist to talk to instead.
I took a deep breath and took a leap. For some reason, those dark eyes compelled me to do so. Sometimes I was a coward—most of the time I was. But I could be brave today. Just for today. And speaking of this took pretty much all the courage I had.
“He wanted to have sex and I said no. He got pissed and slammed my head into the steering wheel—we were parked up on the Ridge—up in the foothills. I’d been driving because he was hammered from the party we’d gone to. I got out of the car and took off running. He caught me and—”
My voice trembled and c
ut off. Adam watched me, his expression grim, but did not move, did not say a thing, waiting patiently for me to collect myself. I took a deep but shaky breath.
“He grabbed me by the hair, pulled me on my knees and made me go down on him.” Eat it, bitch, he’d slurred while I sobbed. Remembered fear closed my throat. I didn’t mention the scars on my scalp, where he had pulled so hard on my hair that he’d torn small chunks of it out. Hair wouldn’t grow on those spots for years afterward.
“I hope he got a long time in jail for that,” he said and my chest tightened.
I avoided his eyes. Here’s where Mia showed herself for the gutless wuss that she was. I swallowed. “He didn’t go to jail.”
Adam scowled. “What?”
I swallowed. “I didn’t press charges.”
Silence. He said nothing and didn’t even move. I knew what he was thinking. Because I thought it of myself every day. Coward. Mia is a coward.
“I know you are wondering why…”
He slowly shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me.”
But I couldn’t stop. It was like a valve had swung open on a dam. “I was too scared. He was popular and the quarterback on the football team. Everybody worshipped him. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.” My voice trailed off and I was disgusted by the whining in my own voice. I straightened.
He glanced away for a moment, as if trying to collect himself. “I understand.”
And I knew he did, given his history with being bullied.
I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Thank you for not judging me.”
His eyes fixed on mine again, holding my gaze as firmly as a physical grasp. “I don’t have the right to judge you.”
We sat in silence for a several long, weighted minutes. Then I cleared my throat, gathering courage. “Now will you tell me something?”
He took a deep breath, almost as if he was bracing himself. I had the sudden urge to scoot up next to him. I suppressed it.
“Who is Sabrina?”
He swallowed and looked away. “My sister.”
My jaw dropped. That was so not an answer I was expecting. And I couldn’t describe the reaction welling up inside of me. Surprise, relief, puzzlement. Who tattoos their sister’s name on their chest? “Oh. How cool. I didn’t know you have a sister.”
At Any Price (Gaming The System) Page 14
