Still a Bad Boy: A New Adult Romantic Suspense

by Scott, Ada

  “Oh, sweetie,” said Lucile. “Don’t feel bad, it’s just different here in the big city. Not everyone can cut it. The boys where you’re from just flirt differently. Probably.”

  I wanted to shout from the rooftops that Jace Barlow had fucked me halfway through a wall last night, but knew that would sound even stupider in real life than it did in my head. He did more than flirt with me.

  He even… liked me, I thought. He saw something in me worth standing up for, worth defending. He saw something sexy. When I was with him, I had let myself believe it too.

  I realized that last night was the first time I’d felt really good about myself for a long time. All my life, when somebody noticed me at all, I usually saw indifference or disappointment. Last night, I looked up at Jace and saw that I was the center of the universe for a moment. What a feeling.

  That fleeting illusion had come at a price though. The way Mr. Kinsley was talking, I might be looking for a new job or moving home to my parents once he had the paperwork in order.

  The thought of doing either made my heart sink, the latter far more than the former. If I went home, it would be humble pie for dinner for the rest of my life. I was given a golden opportunity and all I had to show for it now was a sore pussy, and even that would fade with time.

  The sound of scraping chairs startled me out of my day-mare and I saw that the meeting had apparently come to a close. Without making eye contact with anybody, I crawled around retrieving my notes for reasons I couldn’t have explained, useless as they were.

  As I grabbed one piece, I saw the note “group home from 6 years old” and had a flashback to the momentary crack in his expression when I had asked him about that over dinner. My breath caught in my throat as I felt a ray of hope shining through the clouds.

  This was the first thread of a story. This was where he came from. All I had to do was get another meeting with him and I would at least know where to start. I’d already, technically, had two meetings with him, so I was already ahead of anybody else in the journalism world, so I had a better chance than anybody. How hard could it be?

  Three hours of telephone hell informed me about how difficult it really was. It started with the tall blonde receptionist stonewalling me and finished with me trying every number I could find for any companies remotely linked with Jace Barlow. I vowed that even if he was the hottest guy I’d ever met, if I got another meeting with him, I’d get my story out of him just to see the look on Lucile’s face and so I wouldn’t have to see the looks on my parents’ faces.

  Suddenly, as I listened to terrible hold music in one ear, the background noise of the office changed completely. Rolling like a wave from the direction of the front desk, animated conversations on telephones changed to hushed whispers with whoever was close enough.

  The wave swept past me, but I didn’t look up, I didn’t have time for anything except tracking down the most heavily tattooed businessman in the city. My finger was hovering over the button, ready to hang up and dial the next number when my search abruptly ended.

  I smelled him before I saw him. Cologne, money, the faint essence of him under it all. I hung up the phone as I spun around in my office chair, and there he was, leaning casually on the wall of my cubical as if he owned the place. Oh. My. Gosh, he smelled good.

  Mere minutes ago I’d been vowing to keep it all business if I was ever face to face with him again, but something about Jace Barlow seemed to break my mind.

  All at once, it felt like there were invisible ropes tied around each knee, pulling my legs apart. Sore or not, there were parts of my body that absolutely cried out for him.

  That wasn’t the only battle waging inside of me though. I wanted to run and hide. That was a more familiar sensation.

  Standing right here in front of me as I failed to come up with even a “hello” let alone a comprehensive interview was the first guy I’d had sex with. The previous night. He’d seen me, he’d felt me. I felt exposed all over again, except this time it was in front of the entire office.

  I blushed and folded my arms across my chest, trying to make myself small enough to disappear completely. That primal, sexual, part of me that had been so utterly satisfied by Jace last night called me crazy from whatever dark room of my brain it called home.

  Jace was taking his time giving me a full body scan and it felt like he had x-ray vision. Maybe it was because out of everybody in the entire world, he was the only one who really knew what I looked like under these clothes.

  “Hi Jace… er… Mr. Barl-”

  “You can call me Jace, Kendall, it’s fine, remember,” he said, calm as the eye of a hurricane.

  “Right. Right. Uh… hi, Jace.”

  “Hi. Sorry to drop in unannounced, but I was in the area and-”

  “Mr. Barlow!”

  Mr. Kinsley was striding across the office wearing his suit jacket for the first time I’d noticed in weeks, buttoning and smoothing as he went. He looked like he might have fallen off his chair when whoever it was had rushed in to tell him the most sought-after interviewee in the city had walked through the doors.

  A bodyguard, standing silently behind Jace watched Mr. Kinsley’s approach like a hawk, looking ready to spring into action at the slightest misstep. My boss put on his most disarming smile.

  “Sir, it’s an honor to meet you!” said Mr. Kinsley, whose enthusiastic expression only faltered for a moment when Jace didn’t accept the outstretched hand. “On behalf of The Weekly Enquirer, I just wanted to apologize for sending such an inexperienced staff member yesterday. I understand that Kendall here didn’t really perform to the standard we expect from all our journalists, and I hope that her conduct hasn’t left a sour taste in your mouth. If you’d be willing, I can have the boardroom cleared out and one of our more senior employees can…”

  Jace held up his hand to cut off Mr. Kinsley, lip curled in mild disgust. “Man, who the fuck cares what you have to say about anything? Seriously.” He turned to me. “Who is this guy?”

  “Um… Jace, this is my boss. Mr. Kinsley. Mr. Kinsley, Jace Barlow.”

  Mr. Kinsley held out his hand again.

  “Really,” said Jace, dubiously, still ignoring the handshake. “Well, I was just coming in here to apologize for having to leave the interview early due to some unexpected business coming up. I was hoping to reschedule so we could finish.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Kinsley. “I can have Lucile Norris reschedule to suit any time you’d-”

  “I’m not talking to anybody but Kendall.”

  Mr. Kinsley faltered for a second. “Are you sure? I mean-”

  “What did I say?” asked Jace.

  “OK, sure, of course. Kendall is free any time. Right, Kendall?” urged Mr. Kinsley.

  I looked from one man to the other and back again. “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m free on Saturday. I’ll have a car pick you up at nine a.m. to make up for the... inconvenience last night. Nine o’clock, sharp. The driver will be in touch to get your address for the pick-up.”

  “OK. Thank you, Jace!”

  “I’ll look forward to it, Kendall. Goodbye.”

  For a split second he fixed me with a look that made me blush and pulled at those invisible ropes around my knees again, but then he turned to leave.

  “Thank you for giving The Weekly Enquirer this opportunity, Jace,” said Mr. Kinsley.

  “That’s Mr. Barlow to you,” said Jace, not even looking at him as he began to walk away.

  Halfway to the front desk I saw Lucile waiting for him to pass with the hugest flirty smile on her face. Even from this distance I could see her top button was undone, revealing the stuff of wet dreams for a lot of the men who worked here.

  “Hi,” she said, twirling her hair around one finger.

  I could have sworn he muttered something along the lines of “get the fuck out of my face” without slowing down and I sighed dreamily like a schoolgirl staring at a boy band poster. If I had a set of pompoms I would have
cheered.

  Chapter 11

  Kendall

  On the night I spent with him at Luc Monette’s, Jace had arranged a car to take me home. It was nice, some black Town Car with a driver who said not the slightest word about the way I looked and kept his eyes on the road as if his life depended on it.

  On Saturday morning, when the driver called to say he was downstairs, I was expecting something like that again. Instead, when I walked out the front door, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a full stretch limo parked at the curb, behind the old rust bucket up on concrete blocks that belonged to my noisy upstairs neighbor.

  The driver, definitely a different one than the one who’d picked me up previously, looked up from something on his phone and quickly put it away.

  “Ms. Brooks?” he asked.

  “Yes?” My disbelief drew the word out to an absurd length.

  “Good morning, Ma’am! I’m Thomas, I’ll be your driver today.” He opened the rear door and gestured inside with a gloved hand and a smile.

  I stepped towards him as if he might squirt me in the face with water from a fake flower in his breast pocket at any moment. This had to be a trick.

  “Good morning,” I replied on auto-pilot, stooping down to look inside the luxury car.

  Inside was like Jace’s office in vehicle form. It oozed class and anybody could tell that no expense had been spared in even the most minor of details. I briefly owned a car back in Woodville before I sold it to help fund my move to Port Magnus, and it was probably worth less than one of the armrests in here.

  There was a bottle of Champagne sitting in a bucket of ice, but no Jace sitting in any of the seats. I stood up straight again.

  “Where’s Jace?” I asked.

  “Right now your guess is as good as mine, Ma’am. That’s above my paygrade. All I know is that I’ve been instructed to pick up a VIP, take them to the AquaVell Spa, be at their service for the rest of the day when they’re finished there and to take them downtown at seven sharp.”

  “Oh. That’s like ten hours from now. What am I supposed to do all day?”

  “There’s plenty to do at AquaVell, I’m told, so that will eat up a big portion of time, I’m sure. I’ve heard people say they could spend a lifetime there. Other than that, your wish is my command and you’ll have to use your imagination, I suppose.” Thomas’ professional smile was unwavering.

  “I… see.”

  I’d been up late the last few nights, working hard to make sure that the next time I saw Jace I was prepared to get the story I so desperately needed, and at the top of my game. This was throwing me off what little game I had. I felt like a sprinter poised at the starting line, only instead of hearing the starting gun, I was hearing that I was going to a health spa and being driven around in a limo with a bottle of Champagne for ten hours.

  Unlike the hypothetical sprinter, I didn’t have any athletics commission to appeal to for unfairness. If I wanted to be in this race, I had to play by the ever-changing rules of the host nation.

  Plus, at the end of the day, there were worse ways to spend ten hours. I stepped inside the lap of luxury and Thomas closed the door behind me.

  We drove to the edge of town smoothly, the only hiccup being when the cork from the Champagne smashed one of the lights and spilled on the floor. Thomas consoled me through the intercom and said it happened all the time. I didn’t believe him, but I did down that first glass faster than I normally would have and felt a bit better.

  I was only a sip into my second glass when we arrived at AquaVell. I remembered reading an article about it once, but there hadn’t been any pictures. Even if there had, I didn’t think pictures would have done it justice.

  Set well back from the road with strategically placed water features, trees and other greenery, it was easy to forget just how close to the city we were. The facility had the outward impression of some southern mansion with a vast swathe of land around it, and I stared out of the window in awe.

  As the limo circled to the front entrance around the most elaborate fountain of them all, avoiding the relatively small parking lot, I saw a red carpet laid out like I was arriving at a movie premier. Standing there waiting were a man and a woman wearing loose light-colored clothing and smiles bigger and more relaxed than Thomas’.

  Thomas opened the door and I stepped out like Alice through the looking glass.

  “Ms. Brookes, welcome to AquaVell. My name is Sonia, this is Sven, I’ll be your primary relaxation coordinator today,” said the woman.

  “Hi. Where is everybody else? I read this was the most sought-after health spa in the state.”

  “It is, but the venue has been hired out for the day, so there will be nobody here except yourself and the staff. We’ve never been hired out before, it’s not something that’s officially available, but I was told you made an offer we couldn’t refuse. So, it will be my absolute pleasure to get you started!”

  “It wasn’t me,” I said.

  “Well, somebody likes you! Follow me, please.”

  “Can I take your bag?” asked Sven.

  “No, I’m OK, thanks.” All I had in there was interview preparation stuff anyway.

  Sonia led me through the doors that Sven held open for us, and then gave me a brief overview of the facilities.

  “Through those doors are the changing rooms. Once you’ve showered, you can put on one of our bathrobes and exit on the other side, which will take you out into the area just on the other side of those doors. That’s essentially the main hub of AquaVell in there. From there you can choose from over twenty different relaxation rooms and spend as much or as little time as you’d like in any of them. If you come back through these doors, you can have anything you like from our onsite café over there, or down that corridor you can have a private massage. I’ll be at your beck and call if you’ve got any questions or requests, and nothing is too much trouble for you, Ma’am.”

  I wasn’t used to anybody, let alone anybody older than me, calling me “Ma’am.” It was kind of surreal.

  “Thank you. Can I… um… have a towel?”

  “There are stacks of them in the changing room.” Sonia beamed.

  “Oh, good then. Well, see you on the other side I guess.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  After showering and dressing myself in an AquaVell branded bathrobe, I entered what Sonia had called the hub. She was standing halfway between myself and a table sporting a pile of strawberries, a giant chocolate fountain, an assortment of light snacks and a fresh bottle of Champagne in a fresh bucket of ice, with a man behind it ready to serve it up. Dreamy music played over speakers I couldn’t spot anywhere and Sonia took a couple of steps towards me.

  “Help yourself. Normally, food isn’t allowed in this part of the spa, but you can come and go into any of the rooms with anything you like. Personally, I’d recommend just drinking water. Some of the saunas are pretty hot and you’ll be sweating. The last thing you want is a hangover when you’re trying to relax.”

  “Thanks, good thinking.”

  I approached the table and the man picked up a kind of long fork in his immaculately-white gloved hands, which he offered to me. “Good morning, young lady. Can I recommend a chocolate-dipped strawberry? The chocolate is very fresh this time of year.”

  “Oh my gosh! Yes please!”

  An unsuspecting strawberry near the top of the pile was mercilessly impaled and drowned in chocolate within a few seconds. I let the excess drip off for a second before bringing it to my mouth and biting down.

  “Mmmmm.”

  I closed my eyes and savored the taste. The chocolate was rich, the strawberry was the freshest and tastiest I’d ever had, it practically burst with flavor in my mouth. When I opened my eyes, the man was nodding knowingly and was already holding out a new fork.

  A second strawberry fell to my onslaught before I thanked him, picked up an ice cold bottle of water and let Sonia take me on a quick tour around the room where she
described what I would find behind each door. At her recommendation, I started off in the Balinese Multi-Steam room.

  As I breathed in the humid air and smelled the various aromas, I did my best to concentrate on the direction I hoped to take the interview in later on. Despite my best efforts, every breath I took only made me unwind more.

  This room, with its randomly glimmering and wavering lights, was like a little world unto itself, where nothing outside even existed, let alone mattered. Eventually, I stopped fighting it and let myself stop worrying for the first time in the few years since I’d first hatched my plan to get out of Woodville.

  I wasn’t pretty, I wasn’t popular, I was going to fail and end up back with my parents, I’d never escape the small town again. Each one dropped away like a stone rolling off my shoulder and I let myself enjoy the silence in my mind, free from the self-doubt, the internal bickering.

  By the time I ventured into the ‘hub’ again, I thought I might have looked halfway stoned, but the table of food didn’t entice me so much as sampling more of what AquaVell had to offer. I made my way to the Finnish Sauna and promptly drank the entire bottle of water, before exiting with sweat pouring off my face and a bright red flush.

  Sonia laughed and led me to the ice fountain, where loose ice flakes that smelled faintly of lemons were piled up.

  “Grab a handful and rub it all over yourself, there’s nothing like it after the Finn!” she said.

  “Serious?”

  She nodded sagely.

  “OK.”

  I scooped some up and took several deep breaths to pump myself up, before rubbing it on my neck and upper chest with a yelp. The contrast was insane, I could feel a bunch of ice flakes leaving cool trails between my breasts and heading lower.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I gasped.

  “One more for the back!” said Sonia with another laugh.

  I half screamed and half laughed with her when I dumped a load of ice flakes on the back of my neck and did a little holy-crap-now-I’m-freezing dance. My heart was racing when I took her next recommendation of the Turkish Hammam room.