by Julie Kriss
I thought he might kiss me again—maybe I just hoped it—but he only looked at me, the corner of his mouth smiling again. “Wear something easy to take off,” he said, and then he turned and left the room, and was gone.
Fourteen
Devon
You want to know the truth? I didn’t think she’d show.
She had a good job in a nice office. Wearing a stylish blouse and skirt, a little bit of makeup. Low, pretty heels. She looked like one of the stream of office workers you see leaving the bank buildings at five o’clock every day, except she had that sexy body under her clothes and those dark curls I wanted to see spilling over the backs of my hands. She was working her way up, trying to get out of Shady Oaks. So maybe she wouldn’t show.
But she did.
She showed up right on time at seven o’clock, wearing a blue dress. Just a simple blue dress that hugged her body, that had a V neck and fell demurely to her knees. Her legs were bare and her hair was down, and she wore low-heeled sandals. Her toenails were painted dark purple.
I had to look away for a second to get a grip. I should turn around and leave her alone. But I wasn’t going to.
I’d spent my Saturday taking care of business. Billionaire business, as it turned out. I’d called the number of the banker Ben had given me—it turned out even bankers worked on Saturdays when it was for a client with as much money as me. The same sort of principle that had Olivia working Saturday at an ad agency, I supposed.
The banker, whose name was Jack Lawrence, had met with me at the bank’s offices. He was a gray-haired guy in a suit who might as well have worn a sign saying YOU CAN TRUST ME WITH MONEY. He’d brought an assistant with him, a young brunette with Veronica Lake-style hair and glossy lips. I had no idea what she was doing there, but I enjoyed the view.
“What is it you’d like to know, Mr. Wilder?” Jack Lawrence had asked me. “I’ll answer any questions you have.”
I thought about it. “I’d like to know how much actual money I can get my hands on,” I said.
“You mean liquid capital.”
“If that’s cash, then yes.”
Jack nodded. He went on to babble about bonds and index funds and dividends. I let him talk for a bit, because I realized I made him nervous. Then I said, “You’re not answering my question.”
“Mr. Wilder, I’m trying to explain that your portfolio is made up of many moving parts.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’d like my portfolio to be made up of money.”
Next to Jack, the assistant’s face twitched, but then it went back to its glossy lack of expression.
“Investments are money, Mr. Wilder,” Jack said. “They’re just money in a different form.”
I nodded. “I’d like my money in money form.”
“That is a complicated request,” Jack insisted. “It’s also inadvisable. Cash doesn’t earn interest, Mr. Wilder. In short, right now your money earns money.”
“It’s a billion dollars, Jack,” I said. “It doesn’t need to earn more money.”
I was playing stupid, but I knew the game. My money didn’t just earn me money—it earned him money. Him and his bank. Lots of it. I may have been born on the streets, but I knew when someone was making money off me. It was easy enough to figure out.
Jack tried again. “Your investments fund your retirement, Mr. Wilder. They’re also the legacy you leave your heirs.”
“No one needs a billion dollars to retire,” I said. “Anyone who thinks they do is an asshole.” The assistant’s mouth twitched again. “With the life I lead, forty is old age. And as for heirs, I just got out of prison. I don’t have any fucking heirs. I’d pity the poor kid who got me for a father, anyway.”
The assistant looked down at the papers in her lap and scratched her nose.
“Well. We can certainly discuss this further, Mr. Wilder,” Jack said. “But if you insist on this move, it won’t be immediate. Investments take time to liquidate.”
“How much liquid cash do I have right now?” I asked, emphasizing his banker language.
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
He hemmed and hawed. Why a guy whose job was money had so much trouble talking about money, I didn’t know. Finally he said, “It’s spread over several accounts, but likely in the realm of twenty million.”
Twenty million. In cash. More than I’d ever imagined having in my life, but only a small sliver of what was now mine. “Okay,” I said, trying to stay cool. I picked up my car keys and spun them around my finger, a habit I always had when I was thinking. I calculated for a minute. Then I realized the pouty assistant was staring at my No Time tattoo, hypnotized by it, so I put my keys down. “Twenty million is fine for now,” I told Jack, “and I’ll think about the other shit. But I want to sell the LA house.”
“Are you certain? The property is worth quite a bit, and your grandfather liked it.”
“I’m glad he liked it,” I said, “but he’s dead now. He doesn’t need it anymore, and neither do I.”
“It’s convenient as a base in Los Angeles.”
“I’m never going back to LA,” I said. “Not ever. I’ll be dead before I go there.”
He blinked in surprise, but he sighed, willing to give this one concession. “I know several realtors in LA,” he said. “I can make some calls. Do you want to go through the house first and take the things you want?”
“I don’t want anything of his,” I said. Jack looked shocked, so I explained, “I don’t hate the guy, but he knew who I was and he never contacted me. Not even to say hello. I don’t blame him, because in this world it’s every man for himself. But he’s dead now, and there’s nothing sentimental to me about that. He had his life, and now it’s done. I want the house packed up and sold.”
Jack paused, looking at me. Then turned to the woman next to him for the first time. “Jennie, can you make some calls?”
“Yes, Mr. Lawrence,” she said.
That was all it took. I left the bank and went shopping.
I bought food for the house. I got a haircut and a shave. I bought clothes, deciding I needed to look less like a recently released inmate and more like a normal person. Now I was wearing dark gray pants with a dress shirt of soft blue tucked into them, the sleeves rolled up to my elbows. I traded in my work boots for nicer shoes and added a belt, but I couldn’t buy a tie. I just couldn’t do it. In my mind, ties were for funerals and court appearances, not dates.
I made myself look back at Olivia, who was coming toward me through the restaurant lobby. Her dress, I realized when she came closer, was the wraparound kind, which meant there was a tie just over her left hip that would open up the whole dress. I realized too late that dress pants were a bad idea when you’ve been in prison for two years and you’re meeting a woman who makes your dick hard.
“Hey,” she said, coming closer. She looked me up and down. “You look nice.”
I smiled. My rolled-up sleeves showed the tattoo on my left arm, I knew. There was only so much nice I had in me. “This is as much as I clean up,” I warned her.
“Yeah, well.” She glanced down at herself. “This is as much as I clean up.”
She wasn’t wearing much makeup—it didn’t seem to be her thing—and no jewelry except a couple of small silver rings. But that dress. And that hair—that fucking hair. Curling down over her neck and shoulders, some of the wayward curls brushing against her skin. I’d looked down at it as she was on her knees for me in her kitchen, run my hands through it as she took me in her mouth.
On impulse, I took her hand and kissed her palm. “You look beautiful,” I said. I owed her for this. She should have told me to get the fuck out of her life the minute she saw me in her office. But she hadn’t, and now she was here.
I felt her shiver, and I let her go.
We walked into the restaurant and got seated at a table. It was a nice place, specializing in Italian and seafood, with big windows overlooking the streets and the water beyo
nd. I ordered a beer and Olivia ordered a glass of wine, and when the waiter left, I said, “Okay, since you’re going to be wondering about it, I’ll tell you up front. While I was in prison, my grandfather died.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
It took me a second to figure that out. Was she sorry I’d inherited money? No, she was sorry my grandfather was dead. “Listen, don’t worry about that,” I said. “It’s fine. I didn’t know him. My point is that he left me some money.”
“Oh, I see.” She smiled. “Well, that’s nice, right? Getting a little money when you get out of prison. It means you don’t have to rush to find work.”
“It’s more than a little,” I said, “and there’s a house, too, which is why I said I have somewhere to stay. But I’ll get into that later. I just wanted you to know so you understand this.” I indicated the restaurant around us, the date. “Okay?”
“Sure,” she said, shrugging. Our waiter came with our drinks and she raised her glass. “To good luck,” she said when I touched my glass to hers.
God, she was sweet. So sweet. I was going to take her to bed later and make her so happy she’d beg me to stop. But I smiled and toasted with her. “Have you always lived here?” I asked. That was what people asked on dates, right? I needed to try and be civilized instead of my usual dirty fucking self.
She shrugged, sipping her wine again. “No. I grew up in LA.”
“Your mother is an actress,” I said. “From that show. Avery’s Place.”
Olivia looked surprised. “Yes, she is. I thought you didn’t know it.”
“I’ve seen a few episodes.” In fact, when she’d told me her last name two years ago, I’d had no idea. But there was a TV in the prison common room, and the inmates liked to watch it. Avery’s Place was in constant reruns. I’d sat there bored out of my mind, and then I’d realized the actress playing Avery looked like Olivia, even though she was blond. Then I’d seen the name, and it clicked.
But she didn’t need to know that I’d only seen her mother’s show in prison.
“The show was a big hit at the time,” Olivia said. “Actually, during season two, she was pregnant with me. The screenwriters covered it by making the season about Avery’s trip to a fat farm.”
I’d seen that, too, on TV in prison. “So you were technically on TV before you were born,” I said.
“I was.” She smiled. “My one and only TV appearance. I don’t have the acting talent, but my sister Gwen does. She’s a natural.”
“She’s an actress?”
“No, she’s a strip-o-gram girl.” Olivia sighed, and her cheeks reddened. “We’ve tried to talk her out of it, Mom and me. She insists she likes it and the money is good.”
I drank my beer. “I didn’t know anyone still ordered strip-o-grams,” I said.
“They do. Birthdays, bachelor parties, retirements, that kind of thing. Gwen shows up, does a routine, strips, and leaves.”
I thought about that. I knew a few strippers, and none of them would say they liked their job, especially if they had other options. The sister was lying about that. I filed that away for later. “You don’t seem like an LA kind of woman,” I said.
She gave me a wry look. “I guess you would know.”
“Since I was born there, too, yeah, I’ve met a few.”
“I’ll admit I like it here better,” she said. “Especially the art galleries. This city has incredible art. Have you ever been to SFMOMA?”
I stared at her. I vaguely knew what that was—the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—but going there had crossed my mind about as often as going to Venus. “No.”
“I go all the time,” she said. “You can’t see everything in just one visit. That’s what makes it so great. I practically live there on my days off.”
Jesus. I was out of my league with this woman. “I know who your mom is, but where is your dad?” I asked.
“He died right after Gwen was born. Car accident. He was an actor, too, but he never made it as big as Mom did. He was trying to break into movies, but he’d only ever gotten bit roles. He never had his chance.”
“Jesus, that’s shitty,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Olivia looked at the tattoo on my left hand. “That makes me think of him a little,” she said, indicating my ink. “My father never got enough time.” She looked at me, then sipped her wine again. “I think you understand that. Like you know someone who didn’t have enough time.”
She had no fucking idea how right she was. I’d promised her once, I remembered, that I would tell her what the tattoo meant. But I found that right now, in the moment, I couldn’t say it. It was too hard. It wasn’t personal to Olivia, either. I never talked about the real origin of my tattoo with anyone. Ever.
While I was figuring out what to say, the waiter came, and we gave our orders. When we were finished, I had some words ready. “This is a lesson I learned early,” I said, brushing my fingers over the back of my hand. “I grew up in LA too, but on the streets. I saw a lot of people die young. My father split, and my mother died when I was sixteen. My brother ran away after she died. I’ve always felt like life is an hourglass that is running out. I got this to remind myself not to waste time, to be ready.”
Our meals came, and Olivia looked steadily at me over her plate. “That’s a hard way to live,” she said.
“Is it?” I dug into my steak. It felt strange to know I could now afford a proper steak. Every day, if I wanted. I looked at my hand again. I had to remember that money didn’t matter when you were dead. “I don’t mean to be depressing. It’s just how I am. Most people never learn how to make the most of their time. It’s easy to forget. So I had it put on my hand, where I can see it, and not on my arm, where I can cover it up.”
She looked at me for so long I finally gave in. “What is it?” I asked her. “What did I say?”
Her cheeks flushed a little, but she looked me in the eye. “I just realized I’m going to sleep with you again.”
I put down my fork. Thank fucking God. “Good,” I said, keeping my voice even. “You’re going to like it.”
She took a breath, and then she pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes briefly and shaking her head. “I’ve been trying to talk myself out of it,” she said. “But it hasn’t been working, so I stopped. I already have an overnight bag in my car. I don’t know how you do this to me.”
It was my turn to look at her so long that she squirmed in her seat. “Finish your dinner,” I said at last, my voice rough, “and I’ll do plenty of things to you. You’ll see.”
Fifteen
Devon
We took my car from the restaurant, leaving hers there after she took her overnight bag.
She still didn’t have the full picture of how much I’d inherited, but as I crossed the bridge, the city fell away, and we drove to Diablo, she started to understand. I watched her look out the window, the elegant line of her neck, the dark curls resting against her skin. Neither of us said anything until I pulled into my driveway.
It had started to rain lightly, and she looked through the gloom at the house in front of us. “Devon,” she said finally, her voice quiet. “This is Diablo.”
“I know,” I said.
I watched her throat move as she swallowed. “I’ve never been to Diablo.”
“Neither had I, until yesterday,” I said. I was doing this wrong—I wasn’t making her feel better about this. “It’s nice,” I said. “You’ll see.”
She looked at me. “This place is yours?”
In answer, I pulled my key ring from the car’s ignition, held it up, and spun it around my finger, showing her the keys on it. When her mouth twitched, I smiled at her. “Let’s go in.”
She followed me inside. My grandfather’s old place wasn’t imposing—there were plenty of imposing mansions in Diablo—but it was nice. Olivia could see it was nice. I turned on some of the hall lights, but then I stopped, letting her go ahead. At the end of the hall,
I could just glimpse the kitchen, the counters and the stove empty and dark, the windows beyond. I could see the wide staircase in front of us. The large front sitting room. The rain pelted softly against the front windows.
Olivia pushed her hair, damp from the walk from the car, back from her face and looked around. She kicked off her low heels, and I watched, taking in the taut muscles of her bare calves beneath the modest hem of the blue wraparound dress. The arches of her bare feet. She glanced at me, and then she walked forward into the hallway, treading softly as if there was someone she didn’t want to wake.
I kicked off my own shoes—unthinkingly following her lead—and walked after her, trailing behind as she walked down the hall to the kitchen. I wasn’t looking at the house, not looking around me at the windows or the furniture or anything. I was still getting used to this place, but somehow after only one night here, lying in that big deep bed that was so different from the cot in my cell, it was already starting to feel as familiar as skin. It was starting to feel like mine, and it had nothing to do with lawyers or inheritances and money. It had to do with blood. Like my blood recognized this place.
Maybe that was a load of shit. I didn’t care. I’d always gone on instinct anyway. Instinct rarely made sense. It also rarely led me wrong.
So I followed Olivia, and I watched her instead. I didn’t look around me. I looked at the elegant columns of her legs, the supple way her ass moved beneath the thin, clingy fabric of the blue dress. I watched the unconscious sway of her hips and the equally unconscious straightness of her spine. The things that made Olivia pure class, the things she didn’t see about herself. I watched the way her curls fell between her shoulder blades and I felt like a monster stalking its prey. That’s right. Come a little deeper into my lair. A little deeper still.
She didn’t notice. She walked into the kitchen and stepped close to the big windows, looking out at the small back deck and the expanse beyond in the rain. At the scum on the pond. She made no comment about it and turned right, past the eating space that looked out at the cold, wet deck, and she passed into the big back sitting room, filled with matching sofas and coffee tables and a brick wall that held a fireplace. She wound her way through the furniture as if she were looking at a fascinating display in a museum.
