by Virna DePaul
“Oh yeah?” He reaches over to the coffee table, picks up his sleek laptop, and holds it out to me. “Take a look at this.”
I take it gingerly. He’s got an email open. I scan it.
“What’s this?”
“Some shit I got from an old pal.”
I look through the intel. If this shit is real, God, we’ve got a case and a half against King. I’d worried that our info might not be enough. Or that I’d incriminate myself in the process of taking King down. No matter how careful I was to cover my tracks, the fact remained that all my info on King was either hacked, or obtained through all the highly illegal shit I’d done at his request. But this intel . . . this wasn’t even linked to me.
“This is more than enough to put him away.”
“It certainly is,” Slate confirms. “So you tell me, Davis. You want to sit on this? Or do you want to go to the cops and get this fucker out of our lives for good?”
I slowly set the laptop down, heart pounding. This is my chance. My chance at freedom. But taking it would mean giving up Bella’s presence in my home and my bed. Her beautiful body. The soft, sweet sounds she made when she was close to coming. The brilliant mind that I still wanted to explore, to find out how she’d hacked her father’s accounts. And mine.
What if she can’t convince him to go straight? What if he became angry at the suggestion and started pissing on more trees, getting involved with progressively more dangerous people, until Slate and I weren’t just owned by King, but by some far more powerful ringmasters? She’s wrong that King liked me best. I’m not sure King “likes” anyone. He’s a madman with an ego the size of my apartment building. Bigger. And I don’t want to admit that there’s anything there. That I ever used to imagine that he was my father. That I used to take solace in coming home from school after being shoved into lockers or trash cans, getting on King’s computer, and training myself to do the most incredible things. Then showing him.
“Nice work,” he’d say, staring at the screen, his voice a low rumble. “Davis, kid. You’re a fucking genius.”
Davis, you’re pathetic. You owe this man nothing.
But Bella . . . I owe her something. For not being there for her. For letting my insecurity get the better of me. For never telling her how much I cared about her.
I look at Slate. “I need one month. And all I can tell you is I have my reasons. Important reasons.”
Slate looks right back at me, eyes blazing, and I can tell he wants to tell me to fuck off. But he doesn’t. Instead, his jaw clenches before he finally nods.
“One month until we’re taking King down. And then you better tell me what the fuck this is all about.”
Chapter Nine
Bella
I’ve told Davis I’m staying with a friend, but Stacey is more of an acquaintance than a friend. I knew her in high school. She’s a little spacey for me. Spacey Stacey. But, since she’s my only friend here and she’s always going on about her dating life, I don’t feel all that weird about stopping by her place to have lunch with her and blurting out my question.
“Have you ever slept with someone you shouldn’t have?”
She groans. “Every goddamn night of my adult life. Why?” She peers at me over her sandwich. “Bella! Did you bang a married dude or something?”
“Not exactly.” I take a half-hearted bite of sandwich, since I’m still full from Davis’s pancakes. “He’s sort of a colleague.”
Stacey frowns. “But you don’t work. I mean, you don’t, like, work in an office. So, is he another painter?”
“We worked together a long time ago.”
“Huh. What’s the problem now?”
This kind of chitchat is making me uncomfortable. I wish I’d never initiated it. These past two days have confirmed I’m only at my best when alone at my easel and steering well clear of people.
“I guess I just feel we’ve changed too much. We both have very different goals.”
“So just bang him and go your separate ways.” She shrugs. “No big deal.”
Right. No big deal. That was, after all, my original plan. So why am I thinking so much about Davis? About what will become of him when I’m gone? What will he do when he’s free of my father? Put his club back together? Invent some new software that makes him the next Bill Gates? I do want to live to see that.
Against my better judgment, I want to be there for it.
“What’s wrong?” Stacey asks. “You look sad.”
I am sad. I think a part of me has always been sad. And I don’t know what to do to fix it. Before I go, don’t I want a chance to be happy?
I give her an inscrutable stare. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Like what?”
Stacey’s got that morbid curiosity I’ve seen in a lot of people. If someone’s house was on fire, she’d be on the sidewalk watching it burn. If she passed a wreck on the freeway, she’d slow down to stare. If I were any good at opening up to people, she’s probably the last person I’d choose. And yet . . .
Maybe I’m exhausted or maybe my night with Davis fucked with my head, but suddenly I want to keep her rapt attention.
So, I ask, “Do you ever worry—if something bad were to happen—about what you’d leave behind?”
She frowns again. “What do you mean?”
“Loose ends. As in, what would you want to make sure of before you died? That your family was happy and healthy? That your funeral arrangements were taken care of? That you’d made some sort of impression on the world?”
She wrinkles her button nose slightly. It suddenly looks weird to me, a woman in her twenties having such a girlish nose.
“Is this some kind of artist crisis thing? You’re worried people won’t remember you when you die?”
“No,” I answer a little too quickly. I hadn’t really been thinking about that. But now that she mentions it . . . what will people think of my paintings after I’m gone? This got heavy fast.
“It’s just hypothetical,” I tell her. “What do you value? What do you want to leave behind when you go?”
“Well, God, you’re being morbid, Bella.” She pauses for a second. “I guess I hope I’ll leave behind a reputation as a kind person. Someone who was always there for her family and friends. Who made people feel loved.”
Well, that’s something I’ll never leave behind—a reputation for kindness, for warmth. I’m cold inside and out. Long ago, I killed that naïve girl inside me who thought the best of her father and loved Davis Young. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and in doing so provided the world with a target.
I stand up. “I should go.”
“You’re being so weird today,” Stacey protests. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” she presses.
I’ve said too much. Shouldn’t even have hinted anything is wrong. Sometimes I get so lonely.
Not last night.
Unbidden, my mind flashes right back to Davis. To being bound and sightless on his huge lush bed while he teased me with the crop.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I lie. “I’m just dealing in hypotheticals.
She pops the last bite of sandwich into her mouth. “Weirdo.”
She’s right. I’m a total weirdo.
But, I have some damn good reasons why.
Chapter Ten
Davis
I’m nervous as hell, even though I shouldn’t be. I’m Davis fucking Young. For Christ’s sake, I’ve handled far more daunting situations than dinner with a beautiful woman.
Sitting at my usual table at The Bell Tower, however, none of that matters.
All I can think of is Bella, and how things have played out so far. How they might play out again. And I can barely keep myself from shaking, I’m so damn worked up.
I glance out of the massive window at the city’s sparkling lights. The restaurant is forty floors up, making the view of the skyline and the harbor spectacular.
I remember coming into the city as a kid, on a few Thornbridge outings
. We did some touristy stuff, like museums, historical sites, souvenir stands. As for me, I was mostly fascinated by the buildings. Those massive skyscrapers and spires, crammed with people. Thornbridge was outside of the city on an awkward little spill of land with scraggly woods.
But, I wanted to be in the city. The thrumming, pulsing city. Preferably in one of those tall buildings, looking down on the world.
And now here I am. A successful, affluent man with his very own princess on her way to see him.
Jesus, I’m still sweating balls and wondering if the car I arranged to pick up Bella made it okay. I ended up thinking some space between us would be good rather than going back to the apartment, but now I wonder if I should have picked her up myself. Driven her in one of my vehicles or even on the motorcycle. At least ridden with her in the backseat of the hired car, sneaking discreet caresses, trying to arouse her without the driver noticing.
Instead, I’d come here on my own and arranged to have her delivered to me. Maybe she’ll think it’s all part of my master plan. I don’t want her to hate me. And I don’t think she does. But I guess I worry that, with an arrangement like this, there’s a lot of potential for her resentment to build.
This morning, I used an app to share with her my medical records that show I’m clean. She’d sent me back a message: Good to know. She also agreed that, since she’d had an IUD put in a couple of years ago and I was clean, we could have sex without condoms.
What a geek. I try to imagine Street or Axel or Jericho having that kind of conversation with their women. I grew up in an environment where boys struggled with the concept of masculinity. With learning how to be the kind of men who just take what they want. Men who give ultimatums, rather than having conversations. Add to that a father figure who was literally a crime lord, and well, toxic masculinity at its finest. The kind of man I was growing up to become would have simply told Bella I was clean and expected her to believe it. I would have just told her if she couldn’t trust me, then the deal was off.
But that’s not who I really am. Honestly, that’s not who the other guys are, either. We’ve all made an unspoken commitment to try to be good men. Or, at least, better men than we were raised to be.
When I suddenly see Bella, all my thoughts about trying to be a good man fly out the door. The sheen of her blond hair catches my eye from all the way across the room. The host takes her coat and gestures demurely towards my table.
She wears dark blue tonight, a tight stretchy dress with a high neckline and a hem that ends just below her knee. The way it both conceals and reveals her body is driving me particularly crazy. Her navy heels are spotless, and her calves are smooth and strong looking.
I shift uncomfortably as she pulls out the seat across from me. She wears a diamanté necklace that sparkles in the restaurant’s dim lighting. She busies herself dismantling her napkin swan and smoothing the linen over her lap.
“Hello, Davis.” Her tone gives away nothing.
“Bella.” My own voice sounds surprisingly smooth.
She briefly glances around before lifting the wine menu. “Nice place.”
“A favorite of mine.” For a second, I distinctly remember how it felt the first time I walked in here. To be wealthy enough, powerful enough, to afford a place like this. “I come here for the view.”
She just nods woodenly, without even taking it in.
I barely contain a sigh of frustration. Every time it seems we’ve made a step forward, we end up right here again. Bella with her walls up, and me not sure whether to break them down or wait to be invited in.
“Did you have a good day?” I ask, with an exaggeratedly formal politeness that I privately hope will irritate her.
She doesn’t seem to notice. “It was fine.”
The waiter comes over with a bottle of Cabernet and opens that outlandishly expensive bottle in front of us. Lets us try it. Then pours us each a glass and leaves.
I wait to see if Bella will speak more about her day. She doesn’t. She sips her wine.
“I ran into an interesting problem at work today,” I tell her.
She raises one eyebrow and sets her glass down, dabbing at her lips with her napkin. “Oh?”
I tell her about the computer problem I dealt with. I was trying to create a false database that I could build a universal calendar around, a calendar that could have contributors all around the world. It’s a silly project. Something I do when I’m bored, not likely to be useful to me.
As I explain, Bella leans in, her attempts to remain nonchalant and distant forgotten. Just like she did as a teenager, she loves talking shop apparently. She can’t help herself. She takes in everything I’m saying. Then, she leans back and fires off a set of suggestions, too fast for me to follow.
I sit there for a moment, and then grin. “Haven’t lost your touch, have you?”
After a brief hesitation, she grins too. A wide, gorgeous smile that feels like a gift. “I told you. I’m even better at this stuff than you now.”
I lift my glass. “Bold claims, Miss Prince. Bold claims.” I drink.
“Bold but true.”
I laugh and take another sip.
“It doesn’t seem fair.” I set my glass down and lift my napkin to dab at my lips. “You being a genius at painting and at computers. You should only get one spectacular talent but you have so many.”
She blushes furiously. I’m surprised. She doesn’t strike me as the type to blush. Ever. But a memory sweeps over me of her at sixteen. The flush rising in her pale skin as she kissed me. The warm sweetness of her body against mine.
I tell her all the reasons her suggestions won’t work. She fires back with a number of counterpoints I hadn’t considered, and, for a few minutes, the years fall anyway, and we’re two teenagers on a bed. She’s brilliant and sly and beautiful, and I’m nervous and awkward, but more and more, I forget my own anxiety as we’re drawn into a conversation about computers and code.
My heart aches a little. She was my friend. Not just my make-out buddy, but my friend. I’ve missed her, and I’m glad to have her back.
“Earth to Davis?”
She’s looking at me, slightly flushed again, this time from laughter. Tilting her head inquisitively, she looks and sounds more like her old self than she has since she came to my door. There’s a hint of the teenager in her tone, in that impatient, playful “Earth to Davis.” I grin broadly, but can’t make myself speak, not even to answer her question.
She ducks her head slightly. “I didn’t know you’d ever even seen my paintings.”
“Of course, I’ve seen them,” I reply.
This time, when our eyes meet, there’s a hunger in hers that has nothing to do with computers. I feel the swell of my chest, the urgent, compelling need for her, but just then, the appetizers arrive.
The spell broken, we dig into Moroccan spiced salmon and crostini. We sip our wine. And I try to deal with the heat spreading all through me. I try to find a way to look at her that doesn’t instantly recall a thousand memories from the past two nights. Her high up on my bed. Silk restraints pulling tight. Her neck and back arched, her chin pointed up to the ceiling, her lips parted.
We return to our chatting. She tells me about some of the websites she’s hacked over the years. She also anonymously yanked the rug out from under a Paris art world conspiracy.
“There was this gallery that claimed to support new artists.” She shakes her head. “Seriously, that was their thing. Every three months, they selected a new unknown talent to feature. Well, that felt shady to me. They weren’t picking random struggling artists. Instead, they’re picking the nephews or daughters or second cousins of important rich old white men who were in the habit of buying anything they wanted. So, I looked into the gallery’s accounts. And sure enough, they had set up their own little network. A good old boys network.” She reaches for her glass of wine. “Bribes as far as the eye could see.”
“So, what’d you do?”
She
takes another sip and shrugs. “Oh, I may have accidentally leaked some of that information.”
I laugh, taking a drink too. I’m having a great time talking shop with her, even though it keeps dragging up memories of my visit with Slate today. Of that information just sitting there, waiting for us to bring King down. But I can’t. I promised Bella.
“What’s wrong?” she asks quietly, forehead furrowing as she watches me.
I didn’t mean to steal the laughter from her eyes, but she’s guarded once more. She can sense I’m up to something. She was always very, very good at reading me.
I smile. “Nothing. I just can’t believe I’m here with you, after all this time.”
Her expression softens slightly. “It is strange, isn’t it? But good, I think? I mean, I like seeing you again.”
I can barely breathe. She likes seeing me again.
“I like seeing you, too.” I’m glad my voice comes out more confident than I actually feel.
She lifts her menu, as if to hide her smile.
“Mmmm,” she says, perusing. “Everything looks good.”
“It’s a four course meal. You can’t go wrong. But if you need any recommenda—”
“I know what I want,” she interrupts, blue eyes flashing up at me.
“All right, then,” I say quietly.
Who is this woman? Seriously, who is she?
She bursts out laughing. A couple of heads turn. I’m more surprised than anyone.
“You’re too easy, Davis,” she says.
I laugh too, relaxing a little.
“Do you think you’ll stay in the city?” I ask as she sets her menu aside. “Once you’ve completed your mission, I mean? Or do you plan to head back to Paris?’
I see her shutters slam down.
“I haven’t made plans to return to Paris.” Her voice has returned to that drone-like tone.
I try gamely to win her back. “I’ll bet the art scene there will miss you.”
“I suppose.” She studies the menu again.
I sigh. “Don’t do this again.”
