“She definitely has,” Peter said, eyeing me suggestively. If there had been a way to punch him without our parents noticing, I would’ve done it. He was coming on too strong, but if Frank or my mother noticed, it didn’t show. They were too full of each other, too excited by this strange mystery of my career that had made itself apparent.
“Did you realize that it’s Gemma’s birthday today?” my mother asked. “She almost had to miss this little get-together because of an event you asked her to attend.”
“Mother, please,” I hissed from between my teeth as Peter fondled me under the tablecloth. I was torn between squeezing my legs tightly shut or throwing them wide to afford him better access. I was a bundle of nerves and arousal, which couldn’t be a good mix for this reality I had to maintain. This was something I never could’ve imagined happening. Peter seemed to be taking it all in stride.
“I do like to keep Gemma here busy,” he said, “but when I found out it was her birthday, I told her that she should definitely come to dinner instead of the event.” He laughed. “Now, little did I know it would be the same dinner I was attending. It’s much like work, unfortunately, isn’t it, Gemma?”
“A lot of work,” I managed to say as he drew patterns over my upper thighs, kneading the muscles there with practiced ease.
“So, what part of France will you be going to?” my mother asked, her eyes lighting up when our food was brought out and placed in front of us. I didn’t remember ordering, realizing that Frank and my mother must’ve done so before I’d arrived. It was much like Peter ordering my drinks for me last night. In fact, a lot of things were happening now that had happened last night. I was so aroused that my face was flushed red.
“Are you all right, Gemma?” my mother asked. “What’s embarrassed you about that question? I was just curious about France.”
“Nothing,” I yelped. “I’m just — maybe it’s the wine.” I took a purposeful swig of a glass I hadn’t touched yet. “I feel it’s maybe a little dense in here, the air.”
“Let me help you with your blazer, then,” Peter said smoothly. “It is a bit stuffy in here.” His fingers grazed my bare shoulders, down my arms as I had no choice but to oblige him, undressing me right there at the table.
“That’s better,” I said, fanning my face and smiling for effect. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
I crossed my legs so that he would be obstructed from continuing to make a fool out of me in front of our parents, and he made a sound in his throat that fell somewhere between disappointed and amused.
“France?” Frank prompted. “You were about to tell us what part of France you were traveling to for the new acquisition.”
“Can you believe him?” Peter laughed, directing the question at my mother. “My old man can’t let the company go. He has to be involved in every single facet. Don’t I have it well in hand, Dad?”
“I was the one who made that company,” Frank said mildly, cutting the meat on his plate. I swiftly remembered such a thing called eating, and moved fast to pantomime the actions so I wasn’t simply sitting there like a dummy.
“Yes, but you retired and put me in charge,” Peter said, jocular, stuffing his mouth with a bite of something I only belatedly realized was filet mignon, which was also on my own plate. “You’ve got to step aside and let someone else earn the billions, Dad.”
As Frank chuckled and responded, a dull roar built in my ears. Why hadn’t I realized it before? What was perhaps even more of a pressing issue than the fact that I’d slept with my impending stepbrother was that I’d slept with a billionaire.
Peter. Was. A. Billionaire.
He’d been wearing nicer clothes than anyone I’d ever encountered at my bar. He’d taken me to one of the city’s newest nightspots and had no trouble getting in — or getting us seated at the nicest table in the place. He’d footed the bill for all of our dozens of drinks, the total probably well in the hundreds, judging by the quality of the spirits and the atmosphere of the establishment. And we’d departed Citrus Meridian for a stay in a luxurious hotel, in a room that he’d continued to pay for just to let me sleep in.
I felt duped for some reason, lied to, cheated, but none of those emotions made sense. It wasn’t as if I’d asked him to his face if he was a billionaire. Peter hadn’t been under any obligation to reveal that fact about himself. But I should’ve asked more questions, should’ve at least asked him what he did for a living, but all I could do was blather on and on about my pathetic life, which had somehow become even more of a tragedy.
My mother was marrying into serious money, and I was wearing an outfit that had been put together partially from the contents of a dumpster.
“Gemma?” Peter asked gently. I blinked quickly at him, then looked around to see Frank politely staring at me and my mother all but glaring.
“Sorry, what?” I noticed that I hadn’t so much as cut into my filet mignon, and hurriedly stabbed it with my fork to do so. “I didn’t hear you — I was miles away.” I stuffed a huge bite into my mouth to give myself a little more time to get over my shock at recent revelations.
That I’d slept with my soon-to-be stepbrother, who was a billionaire.
“I think we work Gemma a little too hard,” Peter said, giving a sympathetic glance to my mother. “She is so very dedicated to the job.”
“She’s always flying off to one meeting or another, or an event in the evening,” my mother complained good-naturedly. “She barely has time to call her own mother. Half the time, I can tell she’s rushing around, her mind in some other place.”
“How’s this?” Peter suggested. “A week’s vacation, paid, of course, and I’d love to suggest a wonderful hotel for you, Lydia and Dad, to stay in the city and sightsee with Gemma here. I think it’d be a marvelous way to get reacquainted with one another, and you could think of it as part of my wedding gift to you all.”
My mother gave a rapturous gasp. “Oh, Gemma! What do you think? We could start wedding planning and see all of New York! I haven’t been to see the Statue of Liberty since I was a girl!”
I’d never been to see the Statue of Liberty because if I wasn’t at work, I wasn’t earning money. That had been one of my fibs to my mother, though, to assure her that I was having a smashing good time in the city. I hadn’t seen any of the major attractions the Big Apple had to offer since I’d been here.
“I think that’s too generous,” I told Peter. “We’re awfully busy at work. I don’t know if I could take the time off.”
“I insist,” Peter said. “Really. A wedding is something to be celebrated, and you should really reconnect with your mother.”
I stamped on his toe under the table. “Aren’t you going to need me to be at work? A whole week seems excessive.” If my mother was going to be in the city for an entire week and I wasn’t able to be at work, I’d not only lose out on a whole week of wages and not be able to afford rent, but I’d be forced to entertain my mother, including but not limited to showing her my apartment, which was definitely not as high quality as I’d led her to believe. I could imagine her shriek of horror at the shared bathroom. It was a horror we would share. I’d practically trained my body to only have to go while I was at one of my two jobs.
Peter smiled placidly at me, as if I hadn’t just crushed his toes. He used my distraction to slip his hand back in between my legs.
“I think a week would be perfect,” he said. “We’ll work out all the details. Don’t you worry.”
“I just think that’s fantastic,” my mother said.
“You should stay right here, in this hotel,” Peter suggested. “Dad, would you like to take Lydia inside to make the arrangements? I’ll order us some dessert.”
“Good idea,” Frank said, standing and offering my mother his arm. I knew where Peter had learned his chivalry from. He’d made the same gesture toward me when we left the bar last night.
As soon as our parents were out of sight, I launched into my
attack.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, whirling to face Peter full on.
“Like your mother said, my dear,” he said, grinning and shaking his head. “It’s an awfully small world, don’t you think?”
“I don’t even understand what’s going on,” I moaned, gripping my scalp with both of my hands. The small world he was talking about had turned upside down for me.
“Well, when two people love each other very much, they get married,” Peter offered wryly. “It seems to me that, somehow, our parents have fallen in love. And now they’re getting married.”
“How in the hell did we find each other last night?” I demanded. “Out of a city of millions of people? Why was the sex so good?”
Peter guffawed. “Why are you so accusatory about the good sex? Most women would just say thank you.”
“I don’t know what the hell I’m saying,” I mumbled, burying my face in my hands.
“The sex was good, then?”
“The best I’ve ever had,” I said, still unsure of why I was so painfully honest with him. None of it made sense. Not my compulsion for the truth with Peter. Not the fact that he was sitting here beside me right now, our parents getting married. And certainly not the fact that he’d helped me fabricate the reality I’d been feeding my mother for most of my time in the Big Apple.
“I told you I lied to my mother about what I did for a living,” I said, poking him in the shoulder with an angry finger.
“Yes, you did.”
“But I didn’t tell you details,” I said. “At least I don’t remember saying anything about that last night.”
“You said many memorable things about everything under the sun last night,” Peter said, grinning as he captured my angry finger and kissed the tip of it.
“Stop it!” I whispered, jerking my hand away. “What if our parents saw?”
“Ooh, a secret love affair,” he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “It is a lot of fun when they’re secret.”
“If by secret you mean non-existent.” I looked nervously at the entrance of the hotel, but neither Frank nor my mother emerged. “Whatever we had before…whatever could’ve been…it can’t be now. We can’t do this anymore, if there was going to be a ‘this.’ An us.”
He cocked his pretty blond head at me. “Why not?”
“You know why not.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“We’ll be related,” I said, rolling my eyes extravagantly at him. “Step-siblings.”
He all but howled with laughter. “You really believe that makes sex wrong?” he whooped. People were looking at us. “Gemma, my dear girl, it’s only a piece of paper, marriage. It doesn’t change anything between you and me.”
“That’s beside the point,” I said, my face hot with shame and anger. “How did you know all of those details about what I’d been telling my mother? I wouldn’t have told something like that to you.”
Peter looked chagrined for the first time in this entire debacle. “Ah, yes. That. Your purse spilled its contents on the carpeting when we arrived at the hotel early this morning, and a journal fell out.”
I paled. “You actually read it?”
“It opened when it fell out.”
“That’s not a good reason to read it. That was private. Not for anyone to read but me.”
Peter cleared his throat, loosened his tie a little bit. “I understand that, and I apologize. I recognize now that it was private, but I was fascinated.”
“Curiosity still isn’t a good reason to read it.” I was fuming, but it was tempered with horrified shame, which seemed to be the feeling of choice of the evening. I’d written that journal to keep track of my lies, and it wasn’t something I was proud of, or that I thought should be broadcast to everyone I knew.
“Gemma, I’m sorry. I just… I wanted to know more about you. You captured my… Well, more of me than I expected you to.”
“What are you saying?” I peered at him, suspicious. He knew so much more about me than I did him. He had that much more power in this situation because of it. I was at his mercy, and I hated the idea of it. One word from Peter and the world I’d built to satisfy my mother would all come crashing down.
“I mean that I went out that night for one reason and one reason only, and you seemed to have given me more reasons than I probably deserve to be happy. Excited. Thrilled that we’ll be closer than ever, now.”
“What?”
“Well, our parents are getting married, for one,” he reminded me, laughing. “And now you’re going to have to come and work for me.”
“I don’t have to do anything for you,” I informed him, feeling cornered and not liking it one bit. “I don’t owe you anything. You’re the one who owes me. You meddled in something that you don’t understand. Don’t you see? If my mother spends an entire week in the city, she’s going to want to know where I live.”
“Ah, the shoebox,” Peter mused, and I hated myself, hated my strange need to be upfront with him about each and every little detail of my life.
“Yes, the shoebox,” I snapped. “And if I don’t work at all this week, I won’t be able to afford to even live in that rat hole.”
“Gemma, I want to make it up to you,” he said, spreading his hands in front of me, looking helplessly handsome. “I’m sorry for imposing on you, for taking a peek into your journal.”
“You did more than peek at it,” I muttered. “You recited whole pages.”
“I have a very good memory. Anyway, you can still make the best of this situation if you just let me do a few things for you.” He captured my hand in his, and I shuddered as I remembered sucking on his fingers just a handful of hours ago.
“What kinds of things?” I asked, suspicious.
“Let me break the lease on your shoebox,” he said. “Quit your jobs. Come work for me, at my office. I actually have a secretary position open at the moment. It’s quite perfect timing, if you think about it. Maybe even fate showing you the best way forward.”
I shook my head. “Where would I live? And how would I live with myself knowing that I owe everything to you?”
“I’d set you up in the hotel — I still have that room we stayed in last night,” Peter reasoned. “Did you enjoy yourself in it?”
I blinked at him. “I can’t live in a hotel.”
“Why not?”
“It’s…it’s too expensive, for one,” I spluttered. “And I won’t be your kept woman.”
Peter laughed at my indignation. “You’re nobody’s kept woman,” he agreed. “But what I’m telling you, and what I understand might be hard for you to understand, is that I have more than enough money to do everything that I want to do. I am a very successful businessman. And what I want to do right now is to make some things right for you.”
“I don’t understand.” I really didn’t. Peter wasn’t some fairy godmother who had dropped out of the sky to address my suffering. We’d met, by chance, at a bar, and it just so happened that we’d made a connection. Was that all it was? Pure, dumb luck?
“You’re working hard,” Peter said. “And you’ve been working hard. I want to make it so your hard work pays off. I want to give you the job — and the life — that you want for yourself. Because don’t you want it to be true, Gemma, the story you’ve been telling your mother? Don’t you want to be successful?”
“Of course I want to be successful,” I sighed. “But I don’t want to be beholden to anyone. I don’t want to have to owe anyone anything.” I couldn’t be indebted to Peter. That wasn’t how I operated.
“You won’t owe me anything,” he said. “Tell me the truth, now, Gemma.”
“I haven’t told you anything but the truth since we’ve met,” I admitted, giving a laugh. “It’s the damnedest thing.”
“Then would you say that we had a connection?” He held my gaze for several long moments. “As in, a real connection? Not one just forged on a drunken night at a couple of bars
? Something real? Something worth pursuing?”
I swallowed hard. “I can’t see into the future, and I can’t predict how it might work out, but I’d have to say yes. That we did — we do have a real connection. Physical and otherwise. I don’t know what it is about you, but I can’t lie. I don’t want to lie to you. And for me, that’s kind of a big deal.”
“Then why can’t we give this a chance?” he asked. “What’s holding you back from letting all of your struggles go and letting me help you?”
“Because they’re my struggles,” I said, my voice falling to a whisper. Peter had to lean in to even hear me. “It’s the life I’ve struggled to create. It’s my survival. If I give it up, if I turn my back on it to let you help me, then what does that make me?”
“Savvy,” he offered. “Realistic. A dreamer who knows which one to follow when it presents itself to her.”
“Is this it, then?” I asked him. “Is this my dream to follow? How do I know that this is the one?”
“Just close your eyes and fall,” he said, smiling at me, his eyes tracing the shape of my mouth. “I’m there to catch you.”
My eyes fluttered closed, and he kissed me, softly, unexpectedly, then pulled away.
“Mom and Dad are coming back,” he said, laughter in his voice. “We’d better be good.”
My eyes opened, and I smiled. “You’d better be good — and keep your hands to yourself.”
“What?” he asked, his blue eyes wide but in no way, shape, or form innocent. “I thought it would help you relax.”
“You have a lot to learn,” I said, smiling as Frank and my mother sat down at the table, both of them beaming with excitement. I knew just how they felt.
Chapter 6
I walked into one of the tall, glittering buildings that I had admired since I’d moved to New York City, feeling, for the first time in a long time, hopeful about the future. There was still a lot to figure out, and still a lot of things that I wasn’t sure about, but at least I wasn’t plucking dog turds from the grass at Central Park with only a plastic bag to protect my hand.
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