"So tell me Suzy, when are you going to come with me to meet with Clayton and his family?"
Suzy looked up over the edge of her wide round coffee cup. She had refused to have anything to do with the Hargraves since she had met them in the lavish apartment where Ruben had made his clumsy attempt to force her into some kind of date.
"They are all so dying to get to know you Suzy. Especially Dale." She raised a suggestive eyebrow.
"How close is Ruben Mayweather to the family?" Suzy said tensely. The question was odd but Nadia let it go.
"He's like the third brother. A member of the family really."
"So you get Clay you get his family and that includes Mayweather?"
"That's what marriage usually does. And they get you too. You're about the only family I have apart from mom but she hardly knows where or who she is anymore."
Suzy didn't respond.
"I really want you to enjoy this too Suzy. I don’t get what the problem is you have with meeting Clay and Dale. I know they can seem like a breed apart with all of their money and influence, but they come from totally ordinary backgrounds, no different from ours. They just happen to have worked very hard and now they have a lifestyle that most people can only dream of."
"It's not that. Not at all. It's just…"
Where to begin? She thought. Your future husband's closest friend railroaded me into the hottest, kinkiest, most mind-blowing non-penetrative sex act imaginable in order to watch me orgasm for his dirty pleasure and now I can’t sleep an entire night through for thinking about what he did to me? Should I tell you that? Should I tell you that I can’t sleep anymore because although I hate him for doing it to me I still can’t stop fantasizing that it might happen again and then I hate myself for wanting it to happen again so badly?
She was staring at her friend, paralyzed by indecision.
"Just tell me Suzy." Nadia said. "You can tell me anything now. Anything at all. We're normal people again thanks to Clay and Dale and of course Ruben. My God, without Ruben we wouldn't even be sitting here --"
"Shut up about Ruben. I don’t want to hear that name again. Do you understand?"
Nadia sat in shock.
She put her coffee cup down and looked around; heads had been raised at the outburst. She smiled at the strangers, shrugged and then looked back to Suzy. Her friend was close to tears. For the first time she began to realize that something might be really, really wrong here.
Memories of her own experiences with Clayton flashed through her mind together with all of conflicting emotions she had felt at the time.
"Oh my God…." She said, her voice reduced almost to a whisper. "Did he…" She looked around the café again and lowered her voice even more. "Did he do something to you Suzy?"
"No." She hissed. "I mean, yes, he did. We did things together that I'm not… just not comfortable with."
Nadia's jaw dropped. It had never occurred to her until now that Ruben might be as 'unconventional' with his women as Clayton had been with her. She was okay with it now, more than okay, she was addicted to it, but that might not be the same for everyone. As far as she had been concerned Ruben had just arranged to have Suzy picked up from her home in Oregon and then brought to New York, but thinking back on her time with Clayton that would have given him more than enough time to mess with her head, rock her world, screw her up for a long, long time.
"Did you guys sleep together?" She asked.
"No. Not exactly. He talked me into doing stuff with him."
"What kind of stuff?"
"I don’t want to discuss details."
Suzy leaned back. "Okay. Of course. No details. But I can take it that whatever it was it's upset you."
"That's… that's putting it mildly. Nadia, I'm not sleeping well anymore. Not since then. He did stuff to me that I can't stop thinking about."
"Oh my God. Suzy, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. He's been so good to me and to my mom I had no idea he had this other side to him."
"He never forced me to do anything but he also didn't really give me any choice and then there's just something about him." She glanced up at her friend and saw understanding in her eyes. After all, she had said yes to marrying Clayton, her billionaire stalker after only how many day together? Maybe Clayton and Ruben were birds of a feather when it came to the bedroom fantasies.
"When I'm around him I just want to do whatever he tells me to do. It's like I trust him too much. I want to be with him and… and God help me I want him to do all those things to me again."
Nadia didn’t dare say a word. Although she had never phrased it like that in her head, Suzy had just put in words exactly how she felt about Clayton sometimes; helpless, addicted, crazy in love, but obviously it wasn't all roses between Ruben and Suzy the way it was with her and Clayton.
"I'm afraid of him." Suzy continued. "Okay, not afraid of him per se, but afraid of how he makes me feel and afraid that I'll let him do more things to me that I won’t be able to stop thinking about and that only he can do."
Nadia was speechless. Clayton had shaken her world but it looked as though Ruben had taken things to a new level with her best friend. She didn't know whether to be angry with him or jealous of what he had done to Suzy. Her friend was distraught but clearly excited by the experience as well.
"I don’t know what to say." She finally offered.
"You don’t have to say anything."
The women sat looking into each others' eyes for several long seconds.
Obviously the process of getting to know each other again was going to be a little more complicated than either of them had anticipated.
A shadow came over the table and the girls looked up.
Suzy froze - it was. Clayton Hargrave.
He nodded to her without a word, understanding instinctively that he needed to be careful around the women for a while until they had adjusted to all of the seismic change that had occurred in their lives. Hell, he was still trying to adjust to it all himself.
Suzy nodded back to him. Despite her ambivalence towards Ruben, she couldn’t help but warm to the man Nadia had chosen to open up her world to. Nevertheless, he had the same all encompassing, I-can-save-you-protect-you-clothe- you-rock-your-world-make-love-to-you-all-night aura as Ruben Mayweather and it automatically put her in defense mode.
"I'm sorry but I have to take Nadia away from you for just a little while." He said in his deep velvet voice.
Nadia looked at her watch. "I’ll catch up with you later at your place Suzy. I have to visit mom. Hold those thoughts, but don’t let them get to you. We haven't finished talking this through yet and I might understand your situation a little better than you realize."
Nadia, a true friend. Suzy nodded again and then watched the couple go. They looked so happy, so perfect together. She wished she could be just as normal and straight forward in love as those two.
If only she knew. Nadia thought as she walked away.
Chapter Five
When Suzy heard nothing back from Nadia that afternoon she began calling and leaving messages for her. They had been in constant contact since their reunion and she was beginning to get worried.
And she desperately needed to talk to her about Ruben now that the cat was out of the bag.
After four hours of radio silence she began thinking about who she should call. She had Ruben's number but he was the last person she wanted to speak to. She also had numbers for both Hargrave brothers but she was reluctant to speak to them either.
She scrolled down further in her phone's address book and came to a name she had forgotten about - Candy, Mayweather Services.
She didn’t even know the woman's last name and it certainly wasn't who she wanted to speak to the butch security professional was standing out to the lesser by far of several evils.
She jabbed the call button and waited.
"Suzy? What's going on Ms. Falstaff? Is there something I can do for you?"
"Candy, I'm sorry to bother you, but
are you on duty right now?"
"Always. Do you need me for something?"
"Have you seen Nadia today?"
"Sure. Last I seen her she was headed your way. Oh shit. Please don’t tell me the girl is gone AWOL."
"I saw her about six hours ago and expected her to be here about four hours ago."
Candy immediately went into 'situation' mode.
"Don't do a thing. I'll call Ruben, he'll get in touch with Clay. Sit tight. Hargrave will lose a nut if he doesn't know where his woman is."
There was a knock on her hotel door.
"Wait. Someone's knocking, it might be her."
She ran to the door, looked through the spyhole and breathed a sigh of relief.
"You can cancel the search party Candy, it's okay right here outside my door.."
"That's not okay. I'm calling Mayweather."
"There's no need. She's here and she's got--" Suzy bit her tongue. She recognized Nadia's mother instantly. The old lady had changed so much since she had seen her last but the essence of her was still there.
"She's got what?" Candy asked.
"She's got a lot of shopping bags. Must have stopped off to pick up some things along the way."
"Nadia? Are you shitting me? The Queen of the geeks? The nerdy nymph? Since when does she do 'shopping'? There's something screwy going on. I'm coming over there."
Nadia knocked on the door again, more insistently this time. Suzy cursed herself for having called Candy, she was an attack dog and once she was put on the alert it would be near impossible to get her to stand down.
"There's no need Candy. Really. Don't come over here. I want to spend time with my friend. Alone."
There was a pause.
"Okay. I won’t go there." Candy finally said.
"Good. Thanks Candy. I really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the call. I'll talk to you soon."
She hung up and answered the door.
"Nadia, Mrs. Komerov? What's going on?"
"Let us in Suzy." Nadia said hurriedly. "I've got to talk to you."
"Hi Suzy." Louise Komerov said with an awkward grin.
The two women entered and Nadia began talking a mile a minute.
"You said once that you would do anything to help me Suzy. Can I still count on you?"
"Of course Nadia, that'll never change. Tell me what's going on."
"I've got to get out of the country and mom is coming with me."
This was not good. This was bad. They had just barely returned to the world of normalcy and already it was being torn apart again.
"I don’t understand this Nadia. What's going on? Why don’t you tell Clayton, he can have you flown anywhere you want in the world."
"He's the one person who can't know where I'm going. Where mom and I are going together."
"Why not?"
Nadia looked pained, damaged.
"I so want to tell you Suzy, but I can't. Not yet. Things just aren't what they seem. I need you to throw the Hargraves and Ruben off the scent for us. Can you do that?"
"Sure I can, but I need to know why."
"I can’t tell you. I need your help but it has to be unconditional."
Suzy was breathing hard, staring her old friend in the eyes, desperately trying to read her. Of course she would do anything to help her but maybe what she wanted and what she needed were two different things.
"Tell me Nadia. Please. Tell me what's going on or…" it pained her to say it, "or you're on your own."
Nadia looked on the verge of tears while Louise sat on the couch smiling.
"I told you, you were wasting your time honey." The old lady said. "Come on. We don’t need her anyway."
The women held each others' gaze a moment longer and then Suzy dropped her eyes to the floor.
"If you don’t tell me I'm calling Mayweather right now." She said. "I'll tell him where you are and what you plan to do."
Nadia was shocked, speechless.
"I don’t want to call him Nadia, but I will. You should have told me what was happening to you before, when you got into this whole mess. I could've helped you. I won’t let you make that mistake again."
Louise raised her eyebrows in bemused surprise. "Well I'll be damned." She muttered. "Little Suzy Falstaff showing some backbone."
Suzy pulled her phone out and prepared to make the call but Nadia pushed her hand back down.
"Put it away Suzy. You don’t have to do that. I'll tell you what's going on, but you have to promise not to tell no-one and I mean no-one, not a soul, or I swear we won’t ever see each other again."
Suzy nodded. Her skin tingled with a mixture of fear and anticipation.
"I'm not who you think I am." Nadia said. Suzy felt a tingle of fear go up her back. Nadia had pretended to the world that she was someone else for four long years. Had she been lying to her as well all along? Lying to her one and only best friend.
"Hell, Suzy, I'm not even who I thought I was. Mikhail Boyevik is my… he's my…"
"No. No. No, no, no, no." Suzy's brain didn’t want to take in what she knew was coming.
"He's my fucking dad Suzy. That evil scum is my biological father."
Nadia was pale as the moon, Suzy was dumbstruck. She stepped back, found a chair and sank into it.
"I don’t believe it. How do you know this Nadia? How do you know this is true?"
"How do you think honey?" Louise asked with a sardonic look on her old face. "I was there at the conception, remember?" She was in deadly earnest.
"But how?" Suzy gaped. "Did he… did he..."
"Nothing like that at all little Suzy." Louise said. "Despite what you girls might think, Mikhail Boyevik wasn't always the way he is now. We were lovers he and I. We loved each other. We travelled the world together before Nadia was born but then little by little he got more involved in that dark world of his and when Nadia was born I couldn't let her be exposed to that so I ran away from him. As far away as I could get. I had to. He was still in Moscow when I got all the way to Vermillion, South Dakota, but then I heard he'd moved to Brighton Beach with the rest of the community. Of course he tracked me down and that's when little Nadia and me started moving around, living all over like homeless folk before we finally in Lincoln City, Oregon. I just gave up in the end, figured he'd find us anywhere we went and anyway he wasn't threatening us. As soon as he found us he started sending money, birthday cards, gifts but I never told Suzy a thing. How do you tell your daughter that her father is alive but that a lot of good people are dead because of him?"
Nadia watched her mother with halfway between intense hatred and heartbreaking pity. This news was still fresh to her as well; just a few hours old. After she had left Suzy earlier that day, Clayton and her had gone to visit Louise. Her mother had torn the rug out from under her world with the revelation that the vile Mafioso she hated and feared more than anyone else in the world was her true father. She had barely held it together as Clayton waited patiently outside in the corridor, but already a plan had formed in her mind.
She said nothing to her fiancé when she stepped back outside. Instead, she returned home with him, waited for him to go to a meeting and then rushed back to the nursing home to check her mother out and put her plan into action.
Deceiving Clayton Hargrave, the man who had done so much for her and who she felt closer to loving than any other man who had ever entered her world, was one of the hardest things she had ever done.
But she had to be sure about everything. She had to be sure this was true. She had to be sure she really loved Clayton and right now she was too confused to even trust her own emotions.
Louise continued filling in the details.
"When Nadia grew up and turned out to have her father's head for technology I knew we were in trouble. Then when she moved to Washington D.C. and got the job with BoyTech I knew it was all over. It was no accident you got hired there baby, he found you, he wanted you near to him and there was nothing I could do. I tried to stop you baby, God kn
ows I tried but you just wouldn’t listen to me."
"Mom… for God's sake, why didn’t you just tell me?"
"I couldn't know how he'd react. I was afraid. Once you started getting all those awards at college in Boston he got obsessed with you, watching everything you did, keeping track of you all the time. I didn’t even know about BoyTech until you told me you'd had an interview with them and that the owner was a Russian entrepreneur called Boyevik. I knew what was going on but by then it was too late, he'd already made you an offer that only a fool would have refused. And he warned me. He called me and told me that if you came to work with him then you'd would be taken care of like any child of his deserved. But he warned me that if you didn't go, if I told you the truth then you wouldn't exist for him anymore. Do you know what that means? He said it in Russian. I knew what he meant, so I let you go. I had to let you go baby."
She looked longingly at her daughter and then descended into tears.
Nadia didn’t move but Suzy couldn't hold back. She ran to Louise's side and hugged the broken woman close until her sobs began to subside. All the time she stared at Nadia wondering who this friend of hers really was, struggling to take it all on board. She seemed hardened to her mother's pain.
"So when I testified against him mom, you still didn't think it was time to tell me who he was? You let me testify against my own father?" She said.
"Your father is a criminal." Louise shouted at her. "He's a ruthless murderer and he's a traitor to this country."
Both women were breathing hard, shaking with anger, sadness and fear.
"But he wasn't always like that. You said it yourself. If you had stayed with him--"
"It wouldn’t have made any difference."
"He could have killed you any time he wanted but he didn't." Nadia shouted accusingly.
"He kept me a prisoner for four years, Nadia. Do you know the life I've lived during that time? The things I've seen? Believe me, what your rich boyfriends have done to him is too good for an animal like Mikhail Boyevik. They should have thrown that bastard out of the plane over the Pacific Ocean."
His Secret Request: Billionaire Secrets - Book Three Page 10
