Seeing him scanning my face, I made myself smile.
“Nothing. I’m just tired; that’s all.”
Suspicion flickered amid the black of Carter’s eyes. Then, he ran a hand through his blond hair and, extricating himself, rose.
“You’re right. It’s time to go. I’m late as it is.”
As I accepted his offered hand, I couldn’t resist an interested, “Oh?”
Carter tossed his answer over his shoulder on his way to the door. “I have company. You can let yourself out. I’ll text you details about the work trip later. Goodbye, Donna.”
The door shut behind him, and I stared miserably at its stupid, perfectly cut, too-tall frame. A few minutes ago I had been worried about leaving it for the last time. Now, I was sure that doing that would have been the right thing, that I had just lost my last chance of getting out of this confusing mess unscathed.
Chapter Eleven
Carter
“I lied.”
Those were the first words out of my mouth as Donna hopped into my black sports car.
Though, really, that was a lie too; after seeing Donna’s reaction to my mention of the work trip, I’d decided to switch it out for something more spontaneous. But I couldn’t have her knowing that, have her suspecting that this might be more than just a nice release. Because it wasn’t. It couldn’t be.
Even in the dark, I could see Donna’s big blue eyes were narrowed already, so I wasted no time in telling her.
“We’re off to somewhere different tonight—in town. Just for the night.”
She still wasn’t looking at me. Although our latest meeting in my office had only been two days ago, I would’ve thought that she would’ve been more pleased to see me. As least as pleased as I was to see her.
But all she said was, “Okay.”
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“That’s it?”
Her answer was immediate. “I thought I’m not supposed to talk, that you didn’t want me to.”
Different answers jousted in my head: “Of course I do, babe,” “Donna, what’s the matter?” and “You misunderstood me; that was just for fun, for sex.”
“Okay,” was the one that came out.
The rest of the ride was one long, tense silence. Donna said nothing, just kept her head twisted determinedly to the window.
“You know,” I said finally, “I’m not paying you to talk, but it wouldn’t hurt.”
Again, another immediate and cold answer: “How was your appointment the other night?”
As I weaved past a particularly slow minivan on the road, it took me a minute to process what Donna had said. Our last office tryst had been three days ago. She must have been referring to my excuse for leaving. It had been a lie, of course, but she didn’t know that.
My glance at her confirmed it. With the hard line her mouth was in, there was no denying it. This cute, ridiculous girl was actually jealous.
“As good as could be expected. My brother isn’t one to be dislodged easily.”
Now, she turned to look at me head-on.
“You have a brother?”
I nodded.
“Not many people know, because I don’t want them to.”
Silence, then, “Why?”
More lies swam through my head, but it suddenly seemed easier to just tell the truth.
“I don’t like him, I don’t get along with him, and he reminds me of painful parts of my life that I don’t like thinking about.”
Donna was looking at me strangely, in a way she never had before.
“Oh,” she said. She opened her mouth again, then, as if thinking better of it, closed it. In a soft voice, she finally asked, “Why?”
I kept my gaze on the road ahead as I said it, concentrating my eyes on the long stretch of highway ahead of me so I wouldn’t see it in my mind again.
“My mother killed herself, and I found her. I was 14.”
The silence was the same as when I had found her, but at least I was doing good focusing on the long strip of gray road amid the swath of navy sky ahead of me and not seeing Mom’s gray, lifeless face.
“Oh, Carter, I’m sorry,” Donna said, putting her thin fingers atop my tense claw.
“It’s fine,” I replied tersely, focusing on the view ahead of me—the gray and the navy. “She wasn’t happy.”
Another shocked silence. Donna was probably contemplating how to respond to the most inappropriate of responses.
“But finding her, losing her like that…that must have been so hard for you.”
The gray and navy were unending, the same road, the same sky, the same drab colors for this drab day. Donna was expecting an answer from me, some show of something. She was going to be disappointed.
My words came out cold. “We’re almost there. Ten more minutes.”
This next silence was disappointed or expectant or some combination of the two.
Finally, Donna said, “I can’t stand it when you get like this.”
“Like what?”
“When you just—I don’t know—shut down. Like you don’t feel anything, like you’re…” Her voice trailed off, her gaze following mine to the horizon.
“Like what?” I asked again, and she didn’t say anything.
“Like what?” I questioned once more.
“Like you’re just how people say—a sociopath who’s incapable of feeling anything.”
At her words, a smile twisted onto my face. Turning to look her in the eye, I said, “Be careful what you hear, Donna. It just might be right.”
I didn’t react as her defiant eyes scanned my face for a crack in my expression, an uncertainty, anything. Too bad for her, I was more practiced at this than she was.
Finally, with a muffled sort of sigh, Donna turned to the window without another word. I returned my gaze to the horizon, where, in the dark distance, the tall structure of where we were heading loomed, just visible.
Donna didn’t understand. The rumors were right. I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t afford to. If I let out the tidal wave of emotion surging within me, I would be engulfed by it entirely.
Chapter Twelve
Carter
The rest of the ride, I was as good as alone. Donna kept her whole body twisted toward the window, as if she wanted to jump through it, join the trash strewn on the side of the road.
As I drove, burning in her quiet contempt, I realized just what I had always liked about her. From our first conversation, she had never treated me how other people did, like an unfeeling jerk who’d already done them wrong. No, she had treated me with compassion, with an implicit belief in my goodness, even as I had pushed her away. And now? I took another glance at her turned-away, tense back.
Now, I had confirmed her worst fears, proven all the rumors correct. Tonight, she would give me access to her body, but not her heart. No, I’d lost the right to that.
I returned my gaze to the parking lot I was pulling into. I turned off the car, went over, and opened Donna’s door. She got out without a word.
By now she must have seen the huge “Elitch Gardens” sign, but she made no comment on it. Or on anything else. No, she stood there outside my car as quiet as I had ordered her to be the last time in my office.
Taking her hand in mine, I asked her, “If I order you to talk, will you?”
As I led her to the ticket booth, she gave her sarcastic answer to her shoes, a shiny black pair of ballet flats.
“Sure.”
“Good,” I said, “Do it then. Tell me about yourself.”
As I nodded to Todd—the friend of a friend who was manning the ticket booth and who, upon seeing us, got out and opened the gate—she did, rhyming off things as if they were a speech she’d memorized.
“My full name is Donna Carlene Whitburn. My favorite color is blue, though my ugly house’s door is purple. My parents and I lived and worked on our family ranch, which had been in our family for generations. We raised and sheared sheep and sold the wool. We
were happy until we were kicked off our land by—”
I raised my hand.
“That’s enough. Talk about something else.”
As we approached the large enclosure of the merry-go-round, Donna continued her diatribe.
“As a result, I now work at a café in town called Blue’s, where all the furniture is red, and I spend my time serving people coffee and avoiding my boss’s advances.”
She stopped, her face reddening. Clearly, she hadn’t realized what she was saying until she’d said it. Opening the gate of the merry-go-round, I put my other hand on her arm.
“We’re here. Let’s ride?”
Donna nodded sullenly, and, taking her by the arm, I led her up to and onto the still, ornate structure. Each exquisitely sculpted horse looked prouder and nobler than the last. When I spotted the two white horses with their golden-harnessed heads tilted together, however, I knew I had found the winners.
I helped Donna up onto hers, got on mine, nodded to Todd (who had followed us from the ticket booth and would accompany us and man the rides tonight), and then held on as the merry-go-round creaked into motion.
As my horse rose and fell along with the jubilant music, out of the corner of my eye, I watched her. How the gauzy skirt of her periwinkle dress flowed around her legs. How her head swiveled, taking it all in: the picturesque scenes on the center of the merry-go-round, the pale-lit surroundings of the abandoned theme park. How, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t stop a small, pleased smile from coming onto her face.
“You’re beautiful, you know,” I said softly, and the smile fell. “You haven’t said anything about the park, the trip. Would you have rather gone on the vacation?”
Turning to face me, Donna’s eyebrows knit together, rose, and then fell.
“No. I…” She turned to face the park past me. “I’d rather have gone with a man who actually cared for me, actually cared for anything, wasn’t just using me as a pleasant distraction.”
Her gaze flicked to me before returning ahead of her. I frowned. There she went again, expecting something she wouldn’t get.
“You’re being well-paid for being used,” I said coolly, and that settled it.
As soon as the merry-go-round creaked to a halt, Donna was off it, striding out the gate and waiting, arms crossed, by the food stand that was alight and manned by Todd. As if she knew.
Nodding to Todd, I strode over to it. Stopping at its window, I held out my palm to receive the brown package. When I brought it to Donna, however, she wouldn’t even look at it.
Growling “do you want our deal to be off?” did the trick; grudgingly she unfurled the thing. Once she saw what was inside, her dark scowl became a delighted smile.
“You didn’t!”
I shrugged.
“I might have.”
Slowly, Donna turned the intricately detailed cookie in her hands, speechless before the expert swirls of water lilies and water, all done as an exact replica of Monet’s Water Lilies paintings. It had cost me over fifty dollars at a cookie boutique, but she didn’t have to know that.
Donna’s shy gaze was probing my face.
“But why?”
Another shrug, a half-smile.
“A lady’s gotta eat.”
Donna smiled her own half-smile. Taking a bite of it, her cheeks full, she declared, “You do like me—only secretly.”
I took her arm and led her to the bumper cars, because I didn’t know what to say to that.
After we had chased, attacked, and smacked into each other’s bumper cars, it was time for the next food booth. Although this one smelled of cotton candy and was even filled with great pink and blue clouds of it, I instead received an iris-patterned paper-wrapped package from the boy inside it.
Turning the purple and white package in her hands, smiling wide, Donna remarked, “You couldn’t possibly top the last one.”
As it turned out, she was wrong. After she unwrapped the package, as soon as her eager blue eyes landed on the shimmering fabric underneath, I knew I had hit gold.
“Oh, Carter,” she said, her face alight. “It’s beautiful.”
And, as she took the dress out of its wrapping, it was. Made of thousands of sparkling white sequins, it reflected light and color from all directions. It was one sea of magnificent, multicolored shimmers.
“You want me to wear this now?” Donna asked me.
No sooner did I nod then, letting out a little whoop, Donna disappeared in the direction of a nearby bathroom. As she left, Todd, still in the food booth, watched with something like envy on his young face. He was right. Right now, I was the luckiest man in the world—and a fool.
By the time Donna came back, she was a vision. A sparkling, stunning vision.
I couldn’t tell her that, however. No, all I could do as I took in the gorgeous woman before me was take her hand and lead her to the next ride—the swings. When we stopped in front of the hanging-down metal seats, Donna shot me a dubious, sidelong glance.
“You sure I should wear this here?”
In response, I kissed her cheek before getting into a swing. I couldn’t explain it to her, not really. That, as the swings creaked to life, as they soared through the clear night air, she had to wear it here, on the swings, because this was how I saw her: an impossible, sparkling beacon of light in the night—an ever-changing, ever-delighting surprise.
When we finally touched down, Donna poked me.
“You’ve sure been silent lately.”
I took her hand and squeezed it.
“I… It’s nothing. You’re just…you’re beautiful, you know.”
This time, when I said it, her eyes shone with tears. This time, I knew she just might have really heard me—the words behind my words.
We hadn’t even gotten to the grand finale yet. As we climbed onto the Ferris wheel and Todd got to work at the booth, a quick glance confirmed that Donna had no idea what was awaiting us at the top. Slowly, the Ferris wheel ascended, our hands clasped, my excitement growing as Donna peered all around us and wondered at the view.
“Carter, oh, can you see it? It’s beautiful.”
I nodded without turning. I hoped this was going to work out; I mean, I was paying the guy $5k for it after all. At a light hit on my chest, I turned to see Donna, with a peevish look on her face, gesturing out into the night.
“Carter, I mean it. Look at it—really look at it.”
All the way up here in the night air with all of Denver below me and a pretty girl holding my hand beside me, for some reason—maybe it was the pretty girl—when I turned and looked at it, I really saw it. I saw it how she must have been seeing it: the far-off buildings with their symphony of lights, this play of illumination and darkness, this incredible, man-made, yet pure sort of beauty. Donna squeezed my hand.
“It’s…”
“Beautiful,” I whispered.
Our gazes met, and, for the first time, I understood her—this easily hurt, easily awed girl with the big heart and the big blue eyes, who saw goodness and beauty everywhere she looked. The only thing to do next was to kiss her, to take this glistening beacon of a face in my hands and press my lips to hers and let our bodies do the talking.
I had forgotten about the helicopter until I heard the whirring. Pulling away and seeing it, Donna screamed. Laughing, I clasped her hands.
“It’s mine,” I said, and, her eyes still bulging out of her head, Donna nodded.
As the helicopter lowered beside us and the pilot, Steve, waved, I helped Donna out of her lap bar.
“Be careful,” I cautioned her.
I held her by the waist until she’d stepped into the helicopter. Then, it was my turn. As I stepped from the Ferris wheel compartment to the helicopter’s ladder, grabbing onto Donna’s hand for support, it occurred to me how precarious this all was. How, with one push of a certain billionaire, Donna could end all her and the other protestors’ problems for good. But the next thing I knew, I was inside the whirring thing,
which was lifting off, and in the arms of the woman who could’ve ended me. She was laughing.
“You’re crazy.”
Grabbing her neck, I said, “You like it.”
Her kiss on my lips seemed to indicate that she did.
For the ride to the forest, our hands picked up where they’d left off, mine snaking over the sequined dress to that ass I loved so well, while hers unbuttoned the first button on my shirt and then the second. We continued feeling each other up, shedding clothes until the helicopter started descending. Frantically, we scrambled back into our clothes just as it finally touched down.
“You’re crazy,” I told Donna, and she laughed.
Peering his head around, Steve asked us, “You two all right?”
I nodded, taking Donna’s arm so I could help her step down onto the ground.
“We sure are. Thanks, Steve.”
Climbing back into the cockpit, Steve nodded and gave us another wave.
“You two enjoy yourselves,” he said, and then the helicopter was roaring once again, lifting up, and he was gone.
Donna took a look around, squinting in the dark at the black of the nearby trees.
“Where are w—” she asked, falling silent as I pressed a finger to her lips.
“Fewer questions, fewer clothes.”
I unzipped her dress, and Donna frowned.
“What—you don’t want me to talk again?”
I shook my head.
“No. I like it when you talk. It’s just now, here”—I took hold of her dress—“I want to fuck you.”
Then, with one motion, her dress was off and she was revealed to be naked underneath, a cheeky little surprise for me, this thin bare body amid these wide trunks of trees.
Donna was working away at my buttons, murmuring, “It’s only fair…”
Grabbing her by the neck, I growled, “It’s not about being fair.”
After she’d scrambled to undo more shirt buttons and I’d scrambled out of my pants and slid them and my boxers off, pressing myself into her, I declared, “It’s about giving me what I want.”
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