“Are you busy, Daddy?” I could hear the distinct call of fore in the background.
“Nope. Just getting in the cart to drive to the next hole. Is everything all right? You don’t usually call out of the blue like this.”
“Everything’s fine. I just had a question for you.” I propped the phone on my shoulder with my chin so I could open up the wrapper on my plastic fork. “What can you tell me about Edward Fasbender?”
“Edward Fasbender?” He was understandably surprised. I’d never shown much interest in Werner Media and it was unlike me to ask about people associated with the business. “Why, he’s the owner of Accelecom. That’s a company in—”
“Yes, I know what Accelecom is. I wanted to know specifically about Fasbender.” With my father mid-game, I knew his attention was limited. I didn’t want to waste the time he was willing to give me to get information I already had.
“Well, he’s a scoundrel, that one. A real devil. Ruthless, unethical, shady. Corrupt.”
Devil. That was a description I could get behind.
That wasn’t what stood out the most in my father’s answer. Perhaps it was because I’d played my own game so long, but I had a habit of zeroing in on the dirty laundry in a person’s background. “What do you mean by corrupt? I get that he’s a rival, but does he actually engage in unscrupulous behavior?”
He chortled. “I’d say. Wouldn’t trust that man as far as I could throw him. Zero credibility.”
My father said the same thing about half the business associates he talked about and every politician. “Like, has he done anything illegal? Has he broken the law?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it if he had.”
Helpful, Dad. Real helpful.
“Does that mean you don’t know of anything specific that he’s done or gotten away with?” I needed details. I needed cold hard facts. I needed a lead.
“Of course I know specifics.” He was starting to bristle, the way he did anytime someone pushed him in a direction he wasn’t interested in going. “He did that…well, for one, he was involved in that… You know what, Ceeley, it’s all complicated business stuff. Hard to explain, and you wouldn’t understand all the jargon anyway. Leave these sorts of things for the big boys. Just trust me when I say he’s not a good guy.”
It was strange how I could both feel and not feel the sting of his condescension. I knew it was there, sensed the lash of his words and what they meant, what they suggested he thought about me, but they didn’t actually hurt me anymore. Not like they once did.
There were benefits to being nothing.
More strongly, I felt the disappointment of having learned absolutely nothing. Whether my father didn’t know anything solid about Edward Fasbender or he wasn’t willing to tell me, I wasn’t sure. Either way, he wasn’t useful.
“Why are you asking about this guy?” His tone was suddenly suspicious.
“No reason. Just curious.”
“No, no. This guy’s name doesn’t come up out of nowhere. There has to be something that put him in your head.”
I speared my fork in my salad then picked it up and jabbed again. “He wanted to meet with me, is all. To discuss a design project, I think.”
“He, what?” I’d only had half his attention before, but now he was completely present. “That bastard! Have you met with him yet? Whatever he says, it’s a ruse. He’s probably trying to get intel about me from you.”
“Actually, I don’t even think he realized who I was when he called in. And, no. I haven’t met with him.” Lying was my thing, but I didn’t necessarily enjoy lying to my parents. They were good enough people, and I’d already lied too much to them over the years. Lies of omission. Outright falsehoods.
So why was I doing it now?
I stabbed again at the spinach.
“Good! Don’t. Whatever you do, don’t meet with him. Do not have any further contact with him.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on it.” At least that was the truth.
“And I don’t believe that crap that he doesn’t know who you are. He knows.”
“It probably wasn’t even him who reached out. More like someone on his staff that had no idea about the connection between the Werner name and Lux Designs.” I didn’t know why I was defending the devil. He most definitely knew who I was.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, honey.” Again, his tone was subtly patronizing. “He’s very clever. And a menace. I don’t like him one bit.”
That was why Edward’s plan was flawed from the outset. My father considered him an enemy. If I tried to marry the guy, I’d likely be disowned.
Which was fine, because I wasn’t considering it.
And I wasn’t getting anything useful from my father, which meant it was time to end the call. “I’m sure you’re right, Daddy. That’s why I called you as soon as I realized who he was. I wasn’t about to get involved with one of your competitors. Like I said, I was just curious.”
“Smart girl. I’m at the next hole now. If there’s anything else you need, we can talk later.”
We hung up, but instead of diving into my lunch, I stared at it, thinking. If I were really smart, I would have told my father the truth. I would have detailed my entire encounter with Edward Fasbender, would have told him about the outrageous scheme he’d concocted and how he desperately wanted control of my father’s business.
But, for whatever reason—be it that it had ended so humiliatingly or that I didn’t want to confess that I’d met with his rival in the first place or some other motive I wasn’t ready to admit to—whatever the reason, I didn’t want my father to know.
So the lengths Edward was willing to go to get what he wanted remained a secret.
Four
Even though I didn’t live for my work the way my father did, I loved my office. One thousand square feet on the third floor of a building in Chelsea, it was one of the few things I’d acquired with my own means, and by my own means, I didn’t mean with money.
I’d found the place when I’d been hunting for a location to open my business almost seven years ago. The real estate agent had shown me another space, an awkward unit with an extra thousand feet that I had no need for, that backed up to the spot I eventually acquired. My office hadn’t been for sale at the time, but we’d been fortunate enough to run into the owner while looking, and he’d been kind enough to show us around.
Kind enough wasn’t really the correct term. Interested enough, was more like it. Scott Matthews had been a forty-something-year-old accountant who enjoyed flirting with the twenty-three-year-old darling he’d seen poking around on his floor. He’d explained how his own business had grown too big for the small space, but he wasn’t yet ready to part with it, in case he needed to downsize one day.
He was married; his ring was firmly lodged on his finger, his skin puffing out around it like he’d gained a few pounds since he’d last taken it off. He gave no indication of wanting to engage in anything that would break his marriage vows. He was simply talking to a pretty lady. No harm in that.
Except I was more than a pretty lady—I was a dangerous lady, even at that young age.
It had been easy enough to dismiss my realtor and then it hadn’t taken much persuasion to get Scott to take me out to dinner. I’d been playing The Game by then for a couple of years, and while most of the schemes I’d pulled at the time were with Hudson, I’d decided to conquer Scott all on my own.
The thing was, I’d really loved his unit. It was the perfect size, the perfect location. It had the perfect vibe and wouldn’t require much construction to make it what I envisioned. But even more, I’d loved the idea of convincing him that the space should be mine.
It really hadn’t been as hard to seduce him as it should have been. After dinner, he’d taken me back to the very unit, and I’d let him fuck me against the front door and again on the counter of the office kitchenette. It was the second time that I’d gotten him to let me take the pictures. Filthy, naughty pictu
res. Pictures that showed everything and left nothing to the imagination.
If I was to believe him, and, in this case, I actually did, this was the first time he’d ever cheated on his wife. That should have been considered a victory in itself, and in another situation, I would have let it go there.
But I’d been ambitious, and I’d wanted that space.
All it took was threatening to show his wife the proof of our infidelity and the place was mine. Oh, he’d cried first, and begged. Even offered large sums of money, which I didn’t give a shit about. In the end, when I’d told him I just wanted the office, he’d almost seemed relieved. Especially when he assumed that meant we could keep screwing around. Which, it didn’t. Once I was done with a mark, I was done, but he didn’t learn that until long after the deal was made.
The surprising part of the whole thing was how long I’d been able to keep the lease. I’d figured I had a year or two before he’d get tired of the looming threat, but he’d been desperate to keep his dirty little secret, and I’d been happy to benefit from the indiscretion.
I couldn’t say for sure if I would have actually told his wife or not if Scott hadn’t agreed to my terms. The best threats are the ones that will be followed through, but I hadn’t planned on really telling her, in the beginning. I’d only set out to see if I could do it, if I could get what I wanted with just my body and a few hours of my time. Since I’d only wanted the space, there would have been no use in actually ruining his life, but, if it came down to it, I might have. Just for fun. Just to see what would happen next.
I should have felt bad about that. If I still felt things, maybe I would have.
In the meantime, I didn’t have to worry about what I would or wouldn’t do because the space belonged to me.
It was a simple layout with a reception area, an office for me, the kitchenette, and a consultation room. While the consultation room was intended for clients, I also used it when meeting with Renee. I’d designed it to feel casual with cushy couches and an oversized coffee table that could hold models for presentation.
Then, at the window, I’d installed a seat with plump pillows. I liked to sit here while Renee ran down production schedules and product information for our current projects. I’d lean my back against the curve of the alcove, my body lengthwise along the glass, my knees bent, my feet flat on the seat cushion. Three floors up was high enough to not be particularly noticeable to pedestrians and still be the perfect height for people-watching. I could lose long hours to surveying the passersby below, studying how they moved, how they interacted. Wondering what they thought, what their motives were. Wondering if they saw all the nuances of human behavior that I did.
That man there, does he realize his companion is irritated by him?
Does that young girl notice the businessman leering at her from across the street?
Is the smile on that woman’s face genuine? Or is she empty and hollow inside?
Today, though, while Renee gave me a detailed rundown of the quality inspection procedure for a client residence—our only client, at the moment—I wasn’t watching the people below the window. Instead, as I had so often in the week and a half since I’d met with him, I was thinking about Edward Fasbender. Thinking about the things he’d said to me.
Your flat is owned in your father’s name. You have one degree, in an art field. Your business barely runs in the black... The lack of customers knocking at your door confirms that. You’re almost thirty-two years old, unmarried, childless, living off your trust fund... Your good looks might have gotten you through most of your life so far, but how much longer is that going to last?
They were words that carried bite, but the more time that passed, the easier it was to repeat them in my head. I’d said them to myself enough now that it felt like recovering from a sunburn. After the initial sting, the dead skin peeled away, exposing new skin underneath.
It was startling to discover that beneath this particular sting was arousal.
It took awhile to figure out what it was, the feeling was so foreign. That wasn’t exactly true—my body got aroused all the time. I actually found sex enjoyable on a very base level. My skin reacted to human touch. My pulse quickened. My pussy got wet. I had orgasms.
But arousal was always confined to physical reactions. My mind and heart remained separate and unaffected. Disinterested. Nonconcordant.
This time, though, after I got past the harshness of Edward’s words, I was turned on. Completely. With every part of me, and I couldn’t help but want to examine that more closely. Maybe I had some humiliation fetish I hadn’t discovered before, a very real possibility that I should possibly explore more thoroughly, but there was more to it than that.
I reacted to him, I realized, because he’d seen me.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had truly seen me, the last time anyone had even tried to look behind the pretty face, the well-cared-for physique, the expensive clothes, the prominent name. Those superficial aspects were more than enough for most. That was why it was so easy to play people the way I did.
Edward, though, had looked past all the bullshit, and while it was embarrassing that he’d seen me for the failure that I was, it was also a relief to be acknowledged.
Relieving and arousing.
What would it be like to go to bed with a man like that? To relinquish control, be stripped down bare...
I sat up suddenly. What about sex?
Renee broke off her instructions mid-sentence. “Uh, what did you say?”
Shit. I’d said it aloud.
“Nothing. My mind wandered. Go on.”
She gave me an inquisitive stare and then went on. We weren’t close enough for her to probe further. I wasn’t close to anyone.
Later, when I was alone in my office, I rung her desk. “Can you get me Edward Fasbender’s contact information?”
“Certainly. Are you following up with him? Would you like me to get him on the line?”
I considered. “No. Just get me his number.”
I wrote down the number she provided and hung up. Then I retrieved my cell phone from my purse and dialed from there. I didn’t want the company name to show up on the caller ID, and, while I knew my cell didn’t show my name when I called out, I wanted him to have my number, for some reason I couldn’t quite identify.
“Celia,” he said when he answered.
My breath caught. He’d saved my number in his phone. I hadn’t expected that and it almost threw my train of thought.
But I recovered. “What about sex?” I asked.
“Hmm.” The simple sound reverberated low in his chest. I could sense an air of amusement. “Are you asking about sex in our marriage?”
It was hard not to be distracted by his voice. How had I not noticed how bewitching his timbre was? His accent was absolutely panty melting.
I shifted in my seat, crossing one leg over the other to press against the ache that had crept up unexpectedly. “Yes. I wondered. That.”
God, I sounded like a complete imbecile.
“A perfectly natural question. I’d planned on discussing it the other day, but you ran out so suddenly.”
The reminder of our previous meeting’s events was all I needed to snap out of it. “You’ve got me on the phone. Get to the discussing now, will you?”
“Awfully eager, aren’t you?”
Jesus, I didn’t need this. “I’m going to hang up…”
“No obligation.” It took me a second to register that it was the answer to my question.
No obligation. Oddly, it made me disappointed.
“No obligation, but it might occur?” Please let that not have sounded as desperate as it felt saying.
“No obligation because it won’t occur.”
A beat passed.
“Interesting.”
“Sounds like you’re thinking about it?”
“I’m not,” I said quickly. Too quickly, and I wasn’t even sure if I meant I wasn’t thinking
about the silly marriage proposal or wasn’t thinking about sex with him. One of those, at least, was a lie.
“I’m not,” I said again, more certain.
“That makes one of us.” Then we were talking about the marriage, because why would he be thinking about sex with me when he’d just said it wouldn’t occur?
I hated this, hated how unbalanced he made me. It was a simple phone call and he still had the ability to shift my world off-kilter.
And that was stupid. I’d been in situations more uncertain than this and managed just fine. I stuck my chin up and channeled that confident persona. “I hope you’re used to disappointment, then.”
“Quite frankly, Celia, I’m not, and I don’t see any reason to plan for it now. You should understand something fundamental about me—I don’t accept no as an answer.”
I was still stammering for a comeback when he went on. “Good day, Celia. We’ll talk soon.”
Then the line was dead. And I was, once again, reeling. Once again, rejected.
Once again, aroused.
Five
Hudson hadn’t called it a game—that was my term. He’d called it experiments. He’d been conducting them for years before I learned about them, before he used me as one of his subjects.
I didn’t realize until much later that they actually were experiments for him. He wasn’t out to play people, though that was the ultimate outcome. He was studying behavior, trying to discover what made them work, what made them feel. What made them love. He was attempting to understand fundamental human emotions that he was certain he lacked in himself.
He didn’t lack them, of course. He was the Tin Man come to life, searching for a heart that he hadn’t realized he’d possessed all along.
Back then, I was just as unaware of his capability to love as he was. I saw him as he’d appeared—callous, cold, and cruel.
I’d envied him.
I’d suffered pain after pain after pain, some of the more recent injuries at his hand, and I’d wanted nothing more than to be numb. I’d wanted to be empty and void. I’d wanted to stop feeling.
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