by Tiffany Sala
I thought I could see the hole. But you’re going to be bigger one day. He didn’t rush in to contradict me. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? You’re going to become the big guy around town, and when you do… maybe I’ll be waiting for you. No smart remarks still. So… maybe you’d better watch what you do to me.
You won’t be a bother to me by the time that comes around. I was still trying to come up with a comeback to that when his next response swept that discussion right off the table. So what’s your answer to my proposal?
Again, my answer wasn’t the flat-out no I thought a lot of people would have expected of me—what I would have expected of myself. That felt like something I should be worried about. Was I going to just roll over in the face of one of Lucas Starling’s bad boys like my friends had?
When I examined my impulses, I was sure it was more than that. Yes, Axel Bennett was attractive, and there was a certain feeling I was getting from the idea that he’d gotten so caught up on the idea of my body he was willing to take dangerous chances to see more. But more than anything I wanted to make a point to him. I wanted to show him that trying to make this thing between us personal in that way wasn’t going to throw me the way it might some other girls under similar circumstances. That might be the only way to really get rid of him.
I was pretty sure everyone including my dad would say I was being an idiot, playing a dangerous game. But when your opponent was willing to start that sort of game, I didn’t see that you had any choice.
But if I did this, I was absolutely going to make sure I ruined any enjoyment Axel could get out of the experience.
I’m willing to accept your terms. I had my next message typed out before I sent that one off, so I could give him no chance to interfere with my intended course of action. We’re going to sort out that meeting with my dad first, though. I don’t want you to blurt out something in front of him that he’s going to recognise as you being familiar with what’s under my clothes.
It was hard to tell, but the amount of time it took him to send back, Is he very familiar with what’s under your clothes then? suggested a bit of dismay.
We have an interesting relationship.
Well I’m happy for you two I guess. Are you going to screw me once we’re done with the patent business?
It was intentionally provocative wording, and I remained stubbornly innocent. I’m willing to go ahead with the deal as you see it.
Brilliant, nothing more needs to be said then. I’ll see what you have to offer me when I see you at school next.
And then he really did just stop talking to me. I lurked around the chats I was in for a while and spotted him trading jokes with a few people, complaining he had to go out with his dad and his dad’s new girlfriend to a restaurant he didn’t like that evening. Poor boy.
Well, it was the kitchen for me, specifically the microwave because I hadn’t had time to do a proper shop and Dad didn’t eat proper food anyway. We couldn’t all be so fortunate as to be destined for a shitty restaurant for dinner.
Chapter Ten
I brought up the subject of Axel over breakfast the next morning, a bright Saturday when I actually had the time to wait for Dad to shuffle out of his bedroom. His zen night had taken the edge off his rage over Marcia leaving, to the point where he just waved me off and said he didn’t want to talk about it. It seemed like the perfect time to get my own issues aired.
At first Dad took in what I had to say sitting stiff in his chair, too rigid to even continue eating, but he relaxed a lot when I started talking about money. If there was one thing I knew about Dad, it was that he had no issues being shameless for cash. He’d accepted financial support from the mothers of all his children in his time, after all. If I fired him up enough before arranging this meeting, he would make sure he got what he was owed.
Once he’d heard as much of the story as I was going to be able to tell him, he was surprisingly thoughtful. I hadn’t expected talk of the patent to snap him back into that frame of mind where he seemed like he could actually be functional.
“This boy, Aileen. Are you sure he didn’t steal my idea from my patent in the first place and is trying to scam the both of us?”
“Obviously it’s possible, technically,” I admitted. “But in my opinion, he definitely didn’t do that. It wouldn’t be his style, like he’d want to have the ego boost of knowing he was entitled to that idea and I don’t think he’d be able to convince himself without reason. It’s very important to him to be right.” I didn’t know exactly how I had all that insight into him, but I was certain it was correct. “Besides, I don’t know how he would even find that patent, let alone connect it to us. I don’t talk about it at school normally, never have.”
Dad frowned. “You don’t, huh… I always thought maybe you’d be proud of my having that.”
I’d just told him I had a classmate half his age working on actually starting a company, and he thought that. “It’s just too complicated to talk about it all over the place, Dad. Axel is the only person I’ve ever told who understood what I was even talking about.” Better than I did, no less.
“Great,” Dad said. “You know what, I’d love to talk to this young bloke. I bet I can teach him a few things about the entrepreneurial process. Some nuances you only really come to understand through years in the business.”
I barely managed to keep my grimace to myself. Dad was only going to be setting my project to put Axel in his place back, like, a hundred steps.
Dad was up and clearing up the table, even though he didn’t seem to have finished eating. “We should invite him around for dinner tomorrow night. Make a real event of it the way we used to when Marcia was here… start around five o’clock with canapés and build up to a sumptuous dessert.” He edged close to me so he could elbow me. “We won’t even have to fuss with getting the kids in bed.”
It set my anxiety off just thinking about those dinner parties we used to have. Marcia would take care of everything including the guest list—her friends would bring their husbands along so it looked like Dad had guests too—and Dad would start preloading at around three o’clock and take credit for all Marcia’s work, not that anyone was asking. I’d had Callie and Tamara over once but I’d been worrying the whole time they would see something that made me look like my life was secretly out of control, so I didn’t repeat the invitation. There was no way Dad would be able to do even a quarter of what Marcia had done for ten guests for one, and it was unlikely I would be able to step in and make up for it.
“Maybe something a bit simpler would be better, we’re talking about a guy after all. He’s pretty rich too, expensive tastes probably, so I’m not sure trying to show off will play so well anyway.”
“You think we can’t compete with what he’s used to, huh.” Dad fingered the moustache he didn’t have any more because it had been too much for him to keep it tended.
“I know we can’t. Let’s be realistic, shall we?”
Fortunately he was feeling cheerful enough to laugh. “You’ve convinced me. Let’s go low-key with things and offer our copious apologies. From a good family, is he? We’d better not let him think we’re too well off here or he’ll be less inclined to give us the figure we want.” He let out this awful criminal mastermind cackle. “Or maybe I should just go into business with him.”
Axel inserted into my life indefinitely: it sounded like a nightmare for both of us. “Remember he’s a…” I realised that any of the things I could safely tell Dad about Axel that wouldn’t have him wanting to knock his block off were not going to be helpful. Dad would probably love to be a rich bastard with too much of an eye for the ladies and more money than brains to know what to do with it. “He’s a challenging guy.” That was as far as I dared go. “If you can come to an arrangement with him that works well for you, great. But don’t take your eyes off him for a second. He won’t hesitate to screw you over.”
“I’ve screwed over some big boys in my own time you know,
Aileen,” said Dad with all the confidence of a man who hadn’t even been able to come to a satisfactory arrangement with women who had presumably loved him at some point in their lives.
I was the one who was screwed here; I could see it already. I’d reached way over my head with this one. But I was committed now; I would just have to see it through.
The best part of the planned hook-up with Axel was also the worst part: I had work on Sunday evening, the only time the takeaway shop seemed to give me shifts any more that aligned with my own availability, so I wasn’t going to be able to stick around and poke my nose into Dad’s negotiations with Axel.
I was already dressed up for work and on my way to being on my way out the door when Axel arrived, wearing an absurdly well-cut suit that seemed like it was basically part of him, and carrying a folder under one arm. That folder seemed like a big warning somehow, and the way he grinned when he saw me staring at it was all the confirmation I needed.
He shook hands with my dad, who I could tell was already primed to offer Axel anything he wanted. Then he put that folder front and centre right away.
“Before we start, Mr. Anderson, I’d like to clear the air on something that’s been bothering me.”
The page at the top of that folder’s contents when he opened it was very familiar to me now, although I’d yet to see it in printed form.
There were my fake boobs. My fake vulva. Well… they weren’t mine, that was the point. For someone else, excepting a few digital touch-ups, those parts were no doubt incredibly real.
And now Dad was staring at them, thinking…
“That is the worst photo editing job I have ever seen. You think this is going to impress me, kid?”
Axel was clearly about as thrown by this response as me, but he recovered as quickly as he needed to. “Not at all, sir. Honestly I just wanted to clear the air. That picture was something I did up as a joke, not meant to be seen by anyone… and of course it got out. It’s all over our school right now.”
Dad was shaking his head. “Common-sense rules, boy. If you don’t want anyone to see it, don’t let it exist at all.”
I was pretty sure Axel’s rueful little headshake was a calculated move. I was pretty sure Dad didn’t see it that way, either. “I just hope you understand I didn’t mean Aileen any harm. I’ve apologised for creating it.” Well this was the first I was hearing of that apology. Did it count if you learned about it through the person who’d wronged you lying about it to someone very important to you? “All the blame for this is on me, and I hope you’re able to see just how sincere I am.” Was that just his second lie for the day, or second and third?
“It’s very inappropriate,” said Dad, thoughtful like there was some world in which making that sort of image was forgivable. “But if Aileen is willing to accept your explanation, it’s not for me to go all vengeful dad.”
And just like that, he’d nullified any chance I had of getting justice through official channels for that trick. How could I pursue him for it now when he could get my own dad on his side?
I didn’t want to reveal any frustration or think too much more about this situation at all, so I took a step towards the door. “I’d better be off now. Got to get to work on time.”
Axel surveyed me with that look of pompous interest that had to be my least favourite of his expressions. It made me feel like I couldn’t keep going on with my day until he was done with his assessment. “Ah yes, the burgers won’t flip themselves, will they?”
“We can’t all be enterprising every minute of our lives, Axel. Someone has to flip the burgers.”
“Oh, no.” There was a flash of something close to anxiety on his face. “Just making conversation. I would never think to denigrate any job anyone is taking on.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected after all Callie had told us about Lucas wigging out over her old job—and her old job had been better than any job I’d ever had.
“Well… good to know, I guess. I’ll see you at school.”
“And I’ll see you, Aileen.”
It was an innocent enough response under any other circumstances, but I knew Axel was trying to remind me of the other part of our deal. Apparently making my dad think about how I didn’t look naked wasn’t savage enough for him.
“Okay, Mr. Anderson.” I couldn’t help listening to him getting to work right away as I finally fled out the door. “I familiarised myself with the details of your patent before coming over here, so I think we’re well-placed to just get to talking.”
Work was a disaster. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Axel would be saying to my dad, going over and over different scenarios. I ended up giving someone a burger with two patties, and she had the nerve to be all outraged about it even as I was making up a new one, launching into this rant about how she’d go to one of the big shitty chains if she wanted that sort of abomination. Well I had worked in one of those shitty chains before I moved up in the world, and the way some of these premium customers carried on I really missed those days.
I was tired and ready to get into my bed, no passing Go or anything—and then when I walked into the lounge at home, Axel was sitting in the chair I usually dropped into at the end of the day, making erotic faces at a mug of coffee. I didn’t think anything we could produce with what we had in our house was capable of impressing a guy who probably had two separate pod machines in his house to make the exact kind of premium coffee he felt like on any particular day. Maybe caffeine really was just caffeine at the end of it all.
When Dad saw me, he jumped out of his seat and was halfway towards his bedroom before he even spoke. “I’ll let you see Mr. Bennett out whenever he’s done with his drink, Aileen. You can even make him another one if he’s interested, don’t feel like you have to shove him out the door straight away.”
He winked at me before he disappeared. I spent a moment fantasising about hurling his empty cup at him before I turned my attention to Axel. “Thought you would have already been off somewhere creating a hot new set of implants for me to celebrate your success.” The only thing I could do was play it cool, but I was pretty dismayed. Dad had just basically given him licence to stay as long as he liked, and when I’d warned him Axel was not the kind of guy you gave any licence to, as well.
“I prefer the original,” Axel said.
“Funny, you haven’t even seen the original yet.”
Axel leaned forward and set his cup down on the coffee table, then he picked it straight back up again and leaned back. “That’s why I’m still here. Time to get the second half of our agreement sorted.”
I grabbed onto the wall to support myself. I’d always thought our house was a really comfortable size, especially compared to Callie’s place, but now the walls were closing in around me. It wasn’t that I even had an issue with carrying out the second half of our arrangement: I figured it would be a bit weird, but my mental image of getting one over him while I was giving him exactly what he wanted was too good to pass up. But just because I’d agreed to do it didn’t mean I was mentally prepared yet for the idea of… well, actually doing it. “It’s late, Axel. I’m not in the mood to play your games right now. I just want to get to bed.”
He put that damn coffee cup down long enough to clap his hands together. “Perfect, we can retire to your bedroom and you can get changed.”
I didn’t even know what he’d arranged with my dad. I didn’t dare just throw him out… but there was no way I wanted to do this right now. And no way I wanted him to realise how much I didn’t want to do it right now either.
Unfortunately I thought from the way he was cocking his head at me he already knew. “Ah, Aileen, I know you won’t see it this way, but I’m making this offer for your sake. Do you really want to have to arrange to meet me privately elsewhere, another day, to take care of this?”
I would happily not do it at all, but that couldn’t factor into the discussion now.
“This feels like the best way to proceed for both
of us,” Axel said. “We’re both here, nobody around, but it’s a safe place for you. You could do a lot worse.”
The nerve of this guy, manipulating me into doing something I would never have offered to do and then making out the circumstances were a gift to me. The worst thing I could possibly do was go into my bedroom with him and take off my clothes.
But if I did, maybe it would finally be over, one way or another. He couldn’t possibly come up with anything more to throw at me, he’d know I wasn’t someone to mess around with as he pleased… I would even have kept Tamara and Callie happy, for whatever that was worth. In a way, we would all win.
I turned away, gesturing to him to follow me. “Don’t make a racket, I’m not sure how my dad will feel about this.”
“Oh, he loves me,” said Axel… and the thing was with him, it might not be bullshit.
“If what you really want is to watch me in my bedroom, I’m surprised you haven’t just gotten one of your contacts to hack into my webcam, see if you can get in some spying without the inconvenience of talking me into it.”
Axel shrugged. He was walking far too close to me, almost like he was planning to link arms with me or something. One thing I was certain of: absolutely nothing about this was likely to be an old-timey romantic movie. “Not my style. If I want something, I’d rather drive a hard bargain for it, get it fairly.”
“You have some very strange ideas about fairness, Mr. Bennett.”
His laugh was a little shaky. “Now if you’d called me that a few times while we were doing our negotiations, maybe you’d have gotten a lot more of what you wanted.”
It just figured that what got him off was being made to feel more powerful than he actually was. I turned to him as he shut the door, realising that little extra piece of information was making me feel even more nervous. Maybe it was entering my bedroom that had done that. With Axel in there too it was a lot smaller than I’d realised. I wouldn’t be able to get a whole lot of distance from him as I did… what we were there to do.
