by Leigh James
“One night Danielle came over, and my parents were horrible to her. Really vicious. They told her that she was breaking our family apart by trying to get me to follow her to Brown. Which she wasn’t—that’d been my idea. But knowing my parents the way I do, I just sat there. There was no use fighting them. Danielle became hysterical and left.”
He paused for a beat. “She got into a car accident that night, Audrey. On her way home. And she died.”
Audrey sat there, holding my hand and looking white with shock. “I’m so sorry.” She looked as if she was going to cry for me. “But you can’t blame yourself for that. She got into an accident. You didn’t cause it.”
“I did nothing to defend her that night. My parents told her she was unacceptable to our family. It was like they’d gutted her. And then she left, sobbing. I never heard someone cry like that before.” The memory of it still haunted me.
“There was a thunderstorm, and the police said the visibility was bad. She hydroplaned and went off the road, into a guardrail. That never would have happened if she were calm—I know that. And she had her whole life in front of her. I took that away.”
“James.” She took my face in her hands. “You can’t carry that guilt around with you forever. It was an accident. Yes, she was upset. But it wasn’t your fault. Your parents must feel horrible about it, though.”
I looked out the window again, trying to calm the sharp edges I felt inside of myself. It was like this every time I thought of Danielle. There was so much regret it physically hurt.
“My mother said it was fate.” My voice sounded dead to my own ears.
“She did not,” Audrey said. “Please tell me that’s not true.”
I shrugged. “She was appropriately mournful to begin with. She went to the service, said all the right things. She donated an obscene amount of money to the scholarship fund Danielle’s parents set up in her memory. My mother is a master at putting on a show.
“Still, I knew she was relieved. And at Christmas that year I drank myself into a stupor and accused her of as much.”
“And?” Audrey asked.
“And she told me that I was lucky. That Preston luck and fate had given me an out.” The memory’s sharp edges of pain dulled to a flat hate.
“And I thought my mother was bad. Celia’s fucking unbelievable,” Audrey said.
I laced my fingers through hers. “She sure is,” I said.
* * *
“Did you love her?” Audrey asked me a little while later. We were still sitting on the couch. The only thing we’d done was send the paperwork in and then settle back down, holding hands.
“It was a long time ago, but I know that I did. It was first love. Nothing else is quite like that,” I said. “Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded slowly, her gaze directed out of the window. “I do, James. I do.”
* * *
“That’s enough doom and gloom for one day.” Audrey sat up straight. My head was in her lap, and she’d been playing with my hair. I couldn’t remember the last time that sitting with someone, talking to them, and having them play with my hair qualified as an event for me, but this did. And this particular event had stretched past lunch.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“I’m always hungry.”
I sat up and smiled at her. “Me, too. Why don’t we just go down the street? Sit outside, have a late lunch, and drink some wine?”
“That sounds perfect.” She kissed me on the nose and went to get up but I stopped her, grabbing her hands.
“Thank you for listening to me today,” I said. “I’ve never spoken about what happened before. I never even told Cole. It’s something that I buried a long time ago. You’re the first person I ever felt comfortable with enough to talk to about it.” I tucked her hair behind her ear.
She smiled at me, flushing with pleasure. “Thank you for everything you did for me today—even though I’m paying you back—and thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about Danielle. You can trust me, James.” She laced her fingers through mine. “You’ve shown me that you’ve got my back. I have yours. You need to know that.”
I leaned up and kissed her then, tasting her sweet mouth. It was as if nothing else mattered to me anymore. My business back in California was a blur—it was like that was someone else’s life. All those worries, that rhythm, were far from me now. I hadn’t even called in to yell at my assistant Molly today. All I cared about was Audrey in this moment. As far as I was concerned my family could be damned, except for Todd. And I could already tell he knew what she meant to me.
“Let’s go eat. It’s a beautiful day out.”
“Wait,” I said, not ready to let her go. “I need something from you first.” I kissed her again, our tongues connecting.
I got hard as soon as that happened.
This was uncharted territory for me. Not the erection, obviously. It was just that sex wasn’t all I needed—I needed her, and I didn’t know what to do with that. I couldn’t articulate the need any further. I didn’t know what to ask her for.
But Audrey knew exactly what to do. She showed me that she needed me, too.
She climbed onto my lap and straddled me. She said nothing, but she removed her shirt and mine swiftly, kissing me with an urgency I hadn’t felt from her before. She stood and pulled off her leggings and then undid my pants, lifting my ass up and pulling them off, not saying a word.
She knelt on the floor below me. I ran my hands down her beautiful, smooth skin, and she took my cock in her mouth, licking and sucking. I leaned back, overwhelmed with the sensation. She took me all the way down her throat, sucking hard.
“Oh my God, Audrey.” I threw my head back against the couch. I almost exploded in her mouth right then. I moaned, just wanting to fill her with me. She swirled her tongue around my tip and cupped my heavy balls. “Oh, fuck yeah—that’s good.” I fisted my hands through her hair, caught up in the moment. I almost came like that, hard in her mouth, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted her. I wanted to give her pleasure.
I wanted her to scream my name.
“Audrey,” I said, my voice thick, “Come here.” She sat up and straddled me again, taking my now-enormous cock and rubbing it against her wet slit. She threw back her head, like it felt good, as she rubbed against me.
“Baby, I need to be inside you,” I said. “Now.” She positioned herself above me, and all at once, took me in her, hard. We both cried out. Then we started rocking against each other. It felt so good. I was in so deep. I grabbed her ass and bounced her on my hard length, up and down, over and over.
“Oh my God, James. Oh my God.”
“Tell me I’m the only one,” I said. The sensation of having her on me like that, of being inside her so deep, was making me crazy. I squeezed her ass. “Tell me you’re mine.” Her breasts bounced in front of me and I buried my face in them, licking and sucking her nipples. I wanted to own her body. I wanted to leave my mark on her like a brand, so that no one else ever touched her.
I fucked her harder.
She moaned as I thrust into her again and again. “I’m yours. There’s no one but you,” she cried out. She arched against me, close to her release.
“Come for me, and say my name.” I was about to explode. I put my fingers on her clit and stroked it relentlessly.
She arched her back and cried out, her body wrapped around me like a vise. “James, oh my God. James. Come in me. Come in me, baby. I need to feel you.”
I fucking love you, I thought and came in a torrent.
Audrey
James had literally fucked my brains out. Good thing I’d sent that paperwork in while I was still lucid. Now my mother couldn’t take any more funds from New Horizons. At least there was one less thing to worry about.
I couldn’t have forced myself to worry about anything right now, anyway. James held my hand as we walked down Newbury Street in the early afternoon heat. We were lazy and loose, and I swear to God, we
were in love. That’s what it felt like, anyway. I was in love with him, my billionaire in his jeans and T-shirt, his sexy steel-colored hair mussed up from our recent lovemaking. I was in love with him, and I was positively drunk on it.
We went to Stephanie’s on Newbury and he ordered a bottle of Chardonnay. I looked at the menu. “Would you like some crab cakes?” I asked him, and he started to laugh.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“I hate crab cakes,” he said.
“You ate them the other night!”
“I only did that for you,” he said. “You were trying to take care of me, and I wanted to be… nice.”
“Well, you suck at being nice,” I said. The waitress came, and I ordered a beet salad, a blue cheese burger, and a side of macaroni and cheese.
“I’ll have the same,” James said, not even looking at the menu, and handing it back to the waitress. He squeezed my hand. “You always get the good stuff.”
“Except for the crab cakes,” I said huffily.
“Don’t be mad at me.” The sunlight played on his face and I saw how relaxed and gorgeous he was right then. Well, he was always gorgeous. But relaxed? Not so much.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy,” he said.
I looked at him again. Tears came quick to my eyes, and I mentally retracted them. I’ve never been this happy, I thought. That warmed me and burned me all at the same time. “Me neither,” I said and smiled at him bravely.
“We have to be at the rehearsal relatively soon,” James said, still holding my hand. “And the wedding’s going to be an all-day affair tomorrow. But then I get you all to myself—well, almost—but I can’t wait to go to the Bahamas now. I was dreading it before. Now I can’t wait. I get to hang out with you in a bikini.”
“I’ve never been to the Caribbean. I’m really looking forward to it.”
He reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’re going to love it.”
“It’ll be interesting to spend a whole week with your family.” I was dreading that now more than ever.
“We’re getting a villa on the edge of the resort,” James said, “so everyone can leave us the fuck alone.”
“Do you promise?” I asked.
“I’ll promise you anything, Audrey.”
* * *
We went to Trinity Church for the rehearsal. James was wearing a light-grey suit with a lavender tie, and I was wearing a pale lavender dress. “You look stunning, and we match. It’s perfect,” James said. He held my hand as we walked through the church doors.
“It is perfect,” I agreed. I’d seen his tie and picked out my dress right afterward; we looked as together as I felt like we were. We walked into the main chamber of the church, and the beauty of it took my breath away. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, and the ceiling soared high above us. It was fit for a fairy-tale wedding. I could imagine Evie coming down the aisle in a pouffy princess dress, her pale face behind a veil.
Thinking about it made me sad.
James leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. I looked up at him, flustered. Being in the church with him like this was making me feel an uneasy longing, followed closely by dread. “What?” he asked, watching my face.
“This is just stunning,” I said, turning away from him. “I’ve never been in here.”
“It’s something, isn’t it?” Celia Preston asked, coming toward us. She eyed us suspiciously, taking in our clasped hands and coordinating outfits. “You two are looking very… matchy,” she said, and she didn’t sound pleased. Celia was wearing another Chanel suit, this one black-and-white checkered. Her face looked as if it had de-puffed nicely.
“Mother,” James said icily, giving her a slight bow.
“Hi, Mrs. Preston,” I said in what I hoped was a casual, friendly way. I was trying to balance out James’s formal coldness. After what he’d told me, I didn’t blame him for how he felt about her. But now more than ever, I needed to step up my performance. He’d helped me, and I wanted to help him. I needed to make this easier for him. “You look so pretty.”
“My swelling from the filler went down, just as expected,” she said.
“I have to go up front,” James said to me, nodding toward Todd and the rest of the wedding party. “Will you be okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. I smiled at his mother bravely. “Your mother and I can watch.”
“Great,” James said, giving his mother a warning look. “This shouldn’t take too long. I hope.”
“James—it’s your brother’s night. Let it take as long as it needs to,” Celia said. She motioned for me to follow her to a pew closer to the front, and I obeyed. Of course I obeyed—I wasn’t about to argue with her. I sat down next to her, careful not to get too close.
“So,” she said, arranging her skirt and turning her unnaturally smooth face to me. “James seems more enraged with me than usual. I assume you told him about our conversation about grandchildren at tea.”
That, and he told me you made his high-school girlfriend cry so hard she hydroplaned her car into a guardrail and died.
“I might have mentioned it to him,” I said carefully. “But I had no idea how upset he would get.”
“Did he talk to you about the trust?”
I did not care for Celia Preston, but I did admire her ability to be direct. I didn’t want to tell her the truth, but I didn’t see a way out. “He did,” I admitted.
She sighed and sat back a little. “He’s never understood my perspective—he takes moral offense to it. But that is limited thinking on his part. What James doesn’t understand is that having a family requires an enormous sense of duty. One must put one’s family before oneself. You have to protect it. Your family is all you’ve got in life, Audrey.”
She gave me a quick look. “Oh—sorry dear, I forgot that all your family’s dead.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
She gave me a terse smile. “You’re right. I didn’t.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at her but I didn’t dare. We sat there in silence for a minute, watching the priest discuss the ceremony with Evie and Todd. James stood behind his brother, his arms crossed tight against his chest, glaring at his mother.
“James doesn’t approve of Evie,” Celia continued. “But what he sees as a lack of a personality and good judgment, I see as an opportunity.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“She has the proper family and the proper pedigree—her parents met at Tabor Academy. She has a trust fund. She registered at Shreve, Crump & Low, and I didn’t even have to tell her to. She’s an appropriate addition to the Preston family.”
Everything that Evie had, I didn’t. Celia was telling me in no uncertain terms that I was an inappropriate candidate for the Preston family. And she didn’t know the half of it. She’d thought Danielle—of the full-boat biology scholarship to Brown and the poor but respectable family—was bad. Next to me, Danielle was like the Patron Saint of Louis Vuitton.
“I know everything there is to know about Evie,” Celia said.
I looked at her doubtfully, and she raised an eyebrow at me. Her filler had absorbed enough so that it actually lifted a little. “Oh, but I do—I know that she tried to sleep with James.”
I must have looked shocked, because Celia looked triumphant and patted my knee. “Todd tells me everything, dear. Unlike James.”
“So—why do you want them to get married?” I asked bluntly.
“Because she’s easy to control, of course.” She smiled at me. “Evie loves money more than anything. She and Todd have signed an airtight prenuptial agreement. If Evie cheats, Evie gets nothing. If Evie tries to divorce Todd, Evie gets nothing. If Evie wears a blouse I don’t like, Evie gets nothing. Just kidding about that last one. But close enough.” She watched her son holding Evie’s hand, still talking to the priest.
“I think Evie loves him,” I said. I was surprised to hear myself defending her, but still.
&n
bsp; “You’re a funny one, Audrey,” she said. “But I agree: Evie does love Todd, at least right now. Right now she’s a bride, and they’re the center of attention, and they’re having wild sex. She’ll get bored eventually. In a normal situation, that could be a problem. But I’m here. And I can take care of her.”
“Don’t you think Todd’s capable of taking care of her? And himself?” I probably shouldn’t have been so blunt, but I was following her lead.
She shook her head. “Not Todd,” she said. “Todd’s too nice. He needs to be with someone that I can take care of for him. I haven’t told her yet that I know about the incident with James, but I can dangle it over her head if and when I need to.”
“But if Todd already knows, who are you going to tell?”
“Everyone else,” she said and smiled. “Their children. Her cousins. Her mother. Her friends. And I’ll tell them all that James refused her and said she was a bony, disgusting whore.”
“Well, hopefully you won’t ever have to do that,” I said, mildly appalled.
“We’ll see,” Celia said and shrugged. She sounded as if wasting that information might be a disappointment.
“Mrs. Preston, I appreciate you being forthcoming with me… but why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I don’t want you to take this personally,” she said. “I can tell that James has feelings for you.” I started to protest but she held up her hand to stop me. “You might not see it, but I’m his mother, and I know him best. Even if he wishes that weren’t true.
“Now, you’ve been very direct with me, and I appreciate that. So I’m doing the same for you. Your relationship with my son can’t go on past the trip to the Bahamas. You have to call it off with him after that. I can tell that you’re good for James. But that isn’t the only thing that matters in my world. I have an enormous responsibility to my family. James’s children are going to be some of the wealthiest people in the country. They have to be able to handle the duties that come with that sort of privilege—and their parents have to be able to help them do that.
