It is beautiful on this ledge of the world. The house sits on the edge of a stiff drop, looking down on the city below. It is a city that sleeps with lights on, skyscrapers announcing their greatness with uplights and a blatant waste of electricity, dotting the landscape with colorful dots all hours of the night. I turn to the house, following the simple, modern lines of the architecture, the house designed to make an impression, from the front as well as the back, the floor to ceiling windows disappearing into the night sky. The house is dark, any lights in Nathan’s room hidden by blackout curtains. It is as if the entire house is dead, and the only life is outside.
I wonder where Drew’s bedroom is. Which part of this colossal house he occupies. I wonder if he came for me tonight. Earlier, I put a note on the glass. On it, I wrote only ‘No.’ I figured that would be clear enough for Drew, yet cryptic enough that—if seen by someone else’s eyes—wouldn’t rat out our affair. I’m not ready to see Drew. Not ready to accept the fact that he may be involved in a plot to cause me harm.
I pull my t-shirt over my head and slide my pajama pants off, leaving them both in a pile on the pool deck, standing naked on the edge of the pool. I stare into the ripples of water, the lights constantly changing the color of the water, making the transition from cool to warm, from icy to red-hot. I dive when it is the color of blood, needing to see the color change while underwater, needing to feel transformed, from blood red to relaxation blue. When blue steals over the space, I close my eyes and start my laps.
I have memorized this pool, every inch of it, my mind and body knowing exactly how many strokes, how many kicks, how many breaths to take before I reach the edge. Before it is time to tuck, roll, push, and return back in the direction I came. I go. Back.
Forth.
Back.
Forth.
Twenty laps. Thirty laps. Forty laps. I try for fifty, my legs weary at lap forty-two, my chest aching, arms shaking, strokes slowing until I stop, in the middle of the pool, in the middle of lap forty-three. I roll over and float on my back, keeping my eyes closed, my chest heaving as I fight to slow my gasps.
When I finally open my eyes, it is to an orchestra of stars—thousands of identical specks. And under them, on my back, I feel so small. Small and tired, my eyes heavy. I right my body, my feet standing, moving sluggishly through the thick water to the steps, my gait quickening as I leave the weight of the water and enter the heat of the night. I ignore my clothes and pull on the slider, shivering slightly when I step into the cool room, my weary arms pulling the door closed and locking it.
I wrap a towel around my body, and crawl into bed, pulling the comforter over my body and closing my eyes. And finally, without argument, my mind goes to sleep.
***
Something is wrong. The first sign came this morning, when Nathan called my room personally and asked me to come to the house. Asked. Physically said the words, ‘Will you come to the house?’ I don’t think the words ‘Will you’ have ever left that gorgeous mouth of his.
When I walked in, prepared for his hands, his mouth, his cock, Drew and Nathan stood in the kitchen, their eyes on me, watching me closely. An arrangement of flowers sat between them, roses and lilies spilling out of an arrangement that stood four feet high. I walked carefully toward them, my eyes flicking back and forth, trying to read the serious look on their faces.
“These are for you,” Nathan said stiffly, stepping to the side and gesturing to the flowers.
I looked at them in confusion, staying in place. “Are we expecting guests?”
Nathan flinched. “No. I ordered them for you. You like flowers, right?”
I stare at the flowers, trying to figure out what was going on. “Why?”
Nathan mutters something to Drew, something that sounds like, ‘Take care of it’ and turns, calling for Mark, the man appearing from a side hall and walking out with him. I turn, watching the front door close and the blurred images of the men leaving.
Nathan’s personal call of beckoning, a flower arrangement fit for a queen, and the turnover to Drew. Three signs that point my mind in the direction of crazytown.
“Is it not big enough?” Drew’s tight voice causes me to turn, my eyes noting several details at once. His tight grip on the bar stool before him. His green eyes intense and sharp. The way his polo hugs the muscles of his chest tightly, emphasizing the cut of his build.
I step forward, approaching the arrangement with trepidation. Take care of it.
“The flowers are fine. What are you supposed to be taking care of?”
“You,” he says shortly.
I can feel a tremor moving through my hand and I quickly move it, grabbing a stem and leaning forward to smell it. I try to laugh, the sound coming out wrong. “Why do I need taking care of?”
He steps forward swiftly, gripping my wrists and turning me to face him. “Are you unhappy?”
I bristle, yanking my arm away from his and stepping back. “Does it matter? I wasn’t aware that anyone cared about my personal happiness.”
“It matters if you are planning on killing yourself.”
His voice is so quiet, so deadly serious, that I pause in my exit, turning to face him. He stares at me, his face grim.
“Killing myself?” The thought is so absurd, the idea something that has never crossed my mind. “Why would I do that? To save you both the trouble of dirtying your hands?”
He blinks, confusion stealing over his face. Oh … he was good. Wide eyes, an innocent face. He has the whole act down fucking pat. I continue on, my words spilling out uncontrollably. “I know everything, Drew. How you came to the Crystal Palace specifically for me. How you knew everything about me before you ever stepped inside. How you’re planning on killing me!” I finally run out of words, gasping for breath, tears starting their embarrassing run down my face.
His face is pale, eyes distraught. “Candace … that isn’t … you think we’re going to kill you?”
“Don’t give me that innocent face,” I hissed. “Did you guys think I was stupid? Did my low GPA put a giant ‘Here is a Dumbass’ sign above my head?”
“So … you’re not suicidal?” He seems stuck on this topic, ignoring my questions, color beginning to return to his face, an improvement that irritates me. He shouldn’t be comfortable; he should be at least half as inconvenienced as I am.
“No, I’m not suicidal!” I snap. Part of me is pissed that they place enough self-importance on their own impact to think it would drive me to take my own life.
He pulls out a stool and sits, pressing his palms to his forehead before looking up at me. “The questions you were asking Nathan … about your father’s care … it was because you thought we were going to kill you?”
I raise my chin defiantly and cross my arms, saying nothing.
He shakes his head, bewildered. “Why?”
I don’t want to answer his questions. I want, for once in this fucking life as Jennifer Dumont, to get some answers. “Why don’t you start by telling me the truth? Just once, Drew. Don’t ignore my questions or drill me.”
He deflates before my eyes, his eyes taking on a haunted look. “I can’t.”
“Bullshit!” I yell the word, startling him, and he shoots me a stern look, anger stealing over his face.
“No one is planning on killing you. I can promise you that. We wouldn’t have brought you here to kill you. What even gave you that thought?”
I don’t answer, biting my lower lip and considering my options. Is this the moment? The time when I show my cards? The danger in showing all of your cards is that it gives your opponent the opportunity to craft a lie around the evidence. It is too early for that gamble, especially when I can’t figure out his involvement in this mindfuck of my life. I feel like I am at the precipice between a good decision or a disaster, one road taking me to the truth, the other closing off Drew to me forever. I take a gamble, wiping leaked tears from my cheeks and pull out a bar stool, climbing atop it and staring into Drew’
s eyes. “Drew, I am about to walk out that door and say ‘fuck you’ to any agreement I have made with Nathan. I need you to tell me right now what is going on and why I am here.”
He looks at me with a look that causes my stomach to drop and my heart to fall. The look is filled with such despair, the look of an animal who has been beaten until they have lost the will to live. “You asked me once why I am here. You have your father. I have my sister.”
I inhale. That is not the question I need answered right now, not at a time when so many other, more pressing items such as my personal safety are at stake. But his words, combined with his face, make me shut my stupid smartass comments up and listen. “Is she sick?” I ask quietly.
He chuckles. “That would be the best case scenario. No one knows where Cecile is. She disappeared, four years ago. From this house right here.”
I still, my thoughts trying to connect the dots. Nathan. Drew. Cecile’s disappearance. “Did Nathan do something to her?”
“Trust me, if I thought he had something to do with her disappearance, I would have strangled the truth out of him by now. No, Nathan wants to find Cecile as badly as I do.”
“Why?”
“When Cecile disappeared, she took two things with her. One was Nathan’s heart. The other was thirty million dollars of his money. Which, at the time, was all he had to his name.”
Drew explains. The thirty million had been Nathan’s inheritance, advanced to him early, so that he could pursue his passion in real estate development. Cecile took all of his liquid assets, straddling him with debt, almost five million dollars in outstanding notes that would need to be covered in order for him to finish Casa Mar, a six hundred-room resort in St Thomas. Nathan refused to go to his family, not wanting to mar their opinion of Cecile, his broken heart believing that she would return to him. He approached his younger sister instead, asking her to loan him ten million dollars—enough to cover his debts and float him until Casa Mar was sold.
His sister readily agreed, and after Casa Mar sold out, Nathan set up an offshore account in her name, transferring fifty million dollars into it—his repayment for the loan, plus his gratefulness in interest. His plan was to give her the account number on her twenty-third birthday, which was less than three weeks away.
“She died four days before her birthday,” Drew says flatly. “In a fire at his parents’ home. You ask why we picked you? Why you are here—in this house?”
I raise my eyes to meet his.
“Nathan’s sister was born on June 6, 1984. Her name was Jennifer Ann Dumont.” He pauses, letting the information sink in. “You’re here for one reason. The day you were born, and that passport that is coming in the mail. You will be, as far as that bank in the Bahamas is aware, the owner of that account, and Nathan is planning on using you to make one hell of a withdrawal.”
CHAPTER 8
I process the information, the pieces clicking into place. I look up and find Drew watching me, his eyes wary. “I want to speak to Nathan.”
He looks down at the floor, then back at me, his eyes troubled. Then he shrugs. “I’ll give him a call.”
I wait on the couch, a place I have never sat. I have always been ushered in and out of the main house, only stepping inside when there is a place for me to go—to the gym, to the kitchen, to Nathan’s bed, to his cock. But somehow, in the course of minutes, things have changed. Drew is on the phone, and I am making myself at home, settling into the soft white leather of the sectional, listening to Drew as he speaks. Yesterday, I would have moved to the guesthouse and waited for a summoning. Today, with my newfound knowledge, I feel a bit of power—enough power to sit on the couch and risk Nathan’s wrath.
“She is asking to speak to you.”
“No, she wasn’t suicidal. I can’t explain it all now—when can you come home?”
“Yes, sir. See you then.”
Drew ends the call, walking over and stopping before me, his hands on his hips, eyes still troubled seas of green. “He’ll be back in a few hours. He has to wrap some meetings up first.”
“Why didn’t you tell him that I know the plan?”
He grimaces. “That isn’t going to go over well. I thought it better I do it in person … after his day is done.” He steps to the side, leaning on the glass and looking out to the city. “What are you going to do, Candace? Leave us?”
I cross my arms, hugging my chest, my mind trying to find an answer that I don’t yet have. “I’d rather talk to Nathan about that.”
He turns and studies me. “He still loves her, Candace.” At my questioning look, he smiles slightly. “Cecile. He is still madly in love with her. It is why he is so cold with you.” He glances out at the view and I stiffen, the slight hurtful in its truth.
“He’s not cold,” I whisper. Not always. There are times, when his hands are in my hair and his tongue is soft against mine, that he is fully and completely engaged. It is a female’s right to be possessive of those things that are hers. And he, as my husband, is mine.
Drew glances at me; his green eyes ice cold. “I just thought you should know. For Nathan, the moment he saw her—he was done for. It’s one of the reasons he’s still looking. She still, even four years and thirty million dollars later, has complete control of his heart. He will never stop loving her.”
I look away, not interested in drowning in his emerald depths, my mind trying to decipher what my heart feels for this man before me. He’s speaking of Nathan, but I feel this is about us. And I don’t know what he expects from me. I don’t know what I expect from him. All I know is that I want to speak to Nathan.
The tension in the room grows; I can feel the air physically thickening with it. I push to my feet and leave, ignoring Drew as I tug open the slider and return to my room.
***
The understanding of why I am here brings enormous relief. First, in the form of safety, my mind back-flipping happy they are not plotting to kill me. Second, it illuminates my escape. I am here for a reason. If I perform as expected, I should be allowed to leave without penalty. I am in the new position of being able to negotiate my release. At this moment, I have hand.
***
The sound of Nathan’s voice in my room is so foreign that it takes me a moment to place it. I turn from my place at the dresser, seeing him in the doorway, his tie loosened, shirt untucked. His hair looks like he has been running his hands through it all morning. I realize, with a start, that I am already looking at him differently, my glasses rose-tinted with the new information that I now know about him.
It is the romantic side of me, the side who devours love stories, the side who still believes in soul mates and tragic love. That side of me is enamored by the fact that this man can still pine for the woman who crushed his heart. The man with the body of sin, who at the moment is scowling at me like I have taken his favorite toy and tossed it off a bridge. “Drew has apparently been overly talkative.”
My mouth twitches, a smile fighting to break free. “I didn’t give him much of a choice. I’m sorry for worrying you; I didn’t realize that you would take my questions as an indication of suicidal thoughts.”
“I didn’t realize that you thought I would be capable of murder.” His wry voice doesn’t match the hurt in his eyes.
I bite back a sharp response, thinking of the ways this man has demeaned me over the last two months. It is a little late for him to be playing the part of angel now. “I have a proposition for you.”
He raises his eyebrows. “We went through that already. Two months ago. Our business arrangement has already been settled.”
“I’d like to renegotiate.”
“With what?” He moves closer, his eyes sharp on mine.
“With my name. According to Drew, I have sole control over the funds in that account. I am happy to help you access the funds, but I want something in return.”
“And what would that be?” He moves another step closer, and I forget how to breathe for a moment, the scent of him
too familiar, bringing to mind too many memories of slick, bare skin and a hard, demanding cock.
“I want out. A divorce, or annulment, or whatever is appropriate. But I need you to continue providing for my father. And I’d like a little bit of money to start fresh, somewhere other than the Crystal Palace.”
He frowns. “That’s asking for a lot in exchange for less than three months of your time.”
“What was your original plan? After you got back the money? Dump me with ten grand? Send my father back to the city hospital?” My body tightens in sudden anger. “You wanted to fuck with my life for three months and then toss me aside? I think that’s taking a lot considering what you were getting in return.” I reach forward to poke his chest and he grabs my hand, his grip tight on my skin.