Can she really blame him for holding back?
Wouldn’t she feel the same way if their roles were reversed? She felt the same when Jonathan asked her to turn some labelless, limitless, undefined explosion of passion into a relationship he couldn’t and wouldn’t name.
Now? Really? She thinks. Now is the moment I meet a strong, beautiful man willing to give me his all?
It’s Jonathan’s voice she hears next, but he’s not whispering her pet nickname in a fiercely naughty way. He’s chastising her with that condescending tone that sometimes makes her want to pour a drink over his head. Poor little Emily, with your new Aston Martin, and your fortune-to-be and your gorgeous, devoted Navy SEAL. I just don’t know how you can stand it all…
She knows what this is, this sudden blizzard of embarrassment and regret and self-obsessions. A counselor she saw once in college referred to it as a shame spiral. If she doesn’t take action, doesn’t at least swing her feet to the floor and pace the bedroom, one self-defeating critical thought will pile on the next, and she’ll be tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling for hours, convinced that her entire life is about to fall apart as soon she utters a single word or takes a single misstep.
Have the feeds switched?
She’s so lost in thought she forgot about the sudden countdown.
Leaning over the side of the bed, she collects her clothes off the carpet in one hand. Once she’s barely dressed again, she hurries to the walk-in closet, which is half the size of her apartment and packed with designer beachwear, shiny cocktail dresses and ridiculously expensive blouses; the kind of second wardrobe that only a multimillionaire could afford to leave mostly unworn in her second home. Buried at the back of the closet is a row of silk robes. She ties one on; she thinks it’s dark blue, but it’s too dark for her to be sure it’s not as black as her mood.
Halfway down the stairs, she realizes she’s still got the earpiece in. But Marcus hasn’t spoken to her through it, hasn’t asked her where she’s going at this late hour. Maybe he’s already asleep. When she reaches the kitchen, its chrome and marble surfaces sparkling even in the pale moonlight, she yanks the earpiece out and leaves it on the marble counter. Then she hurries barefoot down the long wooden walkway over the dunes.
When her feet touch the sugary white sand on the other side, her heart starts to pound. She was so eager to punish Marcus in some small but meaningful way, she didn’t stop to think that the cameras inside the house also made her feel safe and protected. Now, with the wind tossing her hair and rippling the silk robe against her flushed body, she feels vulnerable and exposed. On the western horizon, a condo high-rise blazes, but the rest of the sky is still dark and star-studded; the beach in front of her is desolate and blanketed with shadows.
Forty-eight hours. The clock is already ticking. She has no idea who these people really are, no idea what’s in store for her, and yet, here she is, alone on an empty beach in the middle of the night in only a fluttering silk robe that barely comes down to her knees.
There’s a row of wooden beach loungers out here somewhere; she spotted them before the sun went down, and she didn’t see an attendant put them away. After a few minutes of stumbling through sand and shadow, her extended, grasping hand finds the edge of a lounger just before her chin does. The cushions have been removed, but she’s able to adjust the back to a relatively comfortable angle.
Just a few minutes, she thinks. I’m just going to sit here for a few minutes and listen to the wind and watch the waves and try to remember who I was before all of this started. Before Arthur told me about his will, before I followed Jonathan, before I ever heard those silly words, The Desire Exchange.
But soon her eyes are closing and she’s seeing a slow montage of seemingly random visuals, a sure sign that sleep is near. Some are snapshots from her day, like Marcus driving the Navigator with a stern expression and a two-handed grip or the master bedroom’s taffeta curtains billowing in the breeze.
The others are memories. Jonathan at sixteen, waltzing her across the grassy area outside the cafeteria during lunch. Spinning her, dipping her, smiling so big his teeth gleam in the sparkling sunlight, singing some stupid love song to accompany their waltz, a song she can’t remember now, his body already swelling with curvy muscles, some of which are visible under his one-size-too-small Polo shirt, the whole routine warming her heart even as it embarrasses her in front of the other kids who think the two of them could kinda, sorta be a couple but wasn’t Jonathan, you know— And why is she seeing this again?
Is it because the whole thing seemed like a parody then, and it still seems like a parody now? Because swooning over a woman, even her, is not something Jonathan Claiborne has ever done in a real, authentic way. Because a relationship with her is not what Jonathan really wants, and the only reason he might have tricked himself into thinking so is because Jonathan Claiborne still doesn’t know what it is he really wants.
She sees Marcus again, driving. That stern expression. That two-handed grip. And then the way he furtively bites his bottom lip whenever he glances in her direction. The hungry once-over he gives her when he’s confident enough to take his eyes off the road, the quick, bashful smile when she catches him looking.
When sleep finally comes, it brings only darkness with it. When she feels a powerful hand against the back of her neck, she assumes it’s a dream. Then the back of her head comes to rest against something soft, and she feels a soft blanket being drawn up over her body. Then, just at the moment when she’s sure she’s alone again, she feels two of his fingers stroke the side of her cheek, and in a whisper almost stolen by the wind, Marcus says, “Sweet dreams, Emily Blaine.”
She pretends to be asleep. Not to punish him. She pretends to be asleep because she knows he wouldn’t have touched her if he thought she was awake. So she keeps up the act, hoping that he’ll touch her again, hoping that he might even grace her with a gentle, hesitant kiss. God knows a peck on the cheek is hardly the extent of what she craves from him in this moment. But it would still mean something. A gentle kiss from a man as strong and gorgeous and dominant as him would be as remarkable and special as a single red rose in the extended fist of a Nordic god.
But he doesn’t kiss her.
Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to respect his boundary if he had. Once his sand-squeaking footsteps recede entirely, sleep returns.
When she wakes a few hours later, the first light of dawn is casting wavering orange beams through the gentle, translucent blue surf just offshore, and Marcus Dylan is standing guard several yards away, watching the sunrise after watching over her all night.
13
“You need to sleep, Marcus,” Emily says.
Her Aston Martin is several car-lengths ahead of his Navigator, and she’s listening to him through the same earpiece that got him in to trouble with her the night before. Night before? Try a couple of hours ago, dude. She’s right. You need sleep. She’s also wearing the companion microphone transmitter, which is about the size of a thumbnail and buried in her bangs. The thing’s got a range of about sixty miles, but the sound quality is so good she might as well be sitting next to him. Price tag for the microphone and earpiece together is in the low five figures; Arthur gave them four sets.
“Focus on your driving, not my sleep patterns,” he says.
“My driving?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So drive in two lanes like you’re doing right now? Is that what you’re saying?”
He corrects the Navigator with the frenzied speed of someone swatting at a bumblebee. At least he didn’t curse.
When he tries to focus on the road, the Aston Martin gleams like a solar panel in the bright sun, and the glare, along with every other object that reflects sunlight along this pine-fringed highway, sends needles into his skull.
“Got it,” Emily says. “Ixnay on the oo-lanestay.”
“Pig Latin isn’t going to get us to your breakfast meeting on
time.”
“Seriously, Marcus. Couldn’t we have canceled this so you can get some rest? Why do I need to meet with a lawyer anyway? I’m not even real.”
“If they’re already watching you, they’re going to wonder why you do nothing but sit at home alone all day trying on clothes you don’t own. You need to do normal things.”
“Lily Conran is a multimillionaire who owns property all over the world. Normal for her is airplane shopping.”
“I see you’ve been reading her file. What does it say she likes for breakfast?”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s only born once a year in the Caspian Sea and it costs them a fortune to fly it to the U.S.”
“Good. You’re getting into character.”
“For breakfast? This guy’s a friend of Arthur’s and he’s in on the whole thing. Marcus, seriously. Stop deflecting.”
“I’m not deflecting. I’m driving.”
“I know. That’s the problem. You should be slee—”
“Emily! Enough! For Christ’s sake, I survived Basic Underwater Demolition Training. Not to mention three ops I couldn’t tell you about unless I killed you first.”
“After.”
“What?”
“Unless you killed me after. Not before. If you killed me before you told me about it you'd just be killing me for no good reason. Just promise me you’ll nap while I’m in the restaurant.”
“No. And I’m not going to drink my Ensure or go for a mall walk either! Get off it already.”
When she doesn’t say anything back, the silence around him feels electric.
“I can handle a night without sleep. That’s all I’m saying.”
But can I handle you? he thinks. Can I handle the way you don’t take my shit, the way you’re always two steps ahead of me, and how it makes me want to plant a vampire’s kiss on that smooth, pale neck of yours while I slide deep inside you, cup those luscious, full breasts and own you own you own you own…
“School bus!”
The sound of a bus horn rolling across him like thunder, Marcus swerves back into his lane. When the bus flies past him, he can’t tell if the driver is flipping him the bird or just flipping out. And he doesn’t really care. It’s the letters painted on the side that grab his attention.
“We’re cool,” he mutters.
“That was cool?”
“Whatever. They’re prisoners, not kids.”
“Yeah, ’cause I was worried about them.”
“You’d choose me over a busload of school kids? That’s kinda sweet, Miss Blaine.”
“More like I’d choose a school bus over a Lincoln Navigator at a monster truck rally.”
“Monster truck rallies…you’re into those?”
“Are you drunk?”
He certainly feels drunk. Because sure, he sailed through BUD/S, did things overseas he hasn’t told anyone about and never will, but there was no Emily Blaine to deal with during any of those brutal, soul-churning moments.
Correction: there was no resisting Emily Blaine to deal with during any of those moments. He’s spent most of his life being dragged past the edge of his physical limits, only to hop to his feet on the other side and dust himself off, with ten new pounds of muscle to show for the whole experience. But now, thanks to Emily, he feels like he wouldn’t be able to hold his breath underwater for as long as he once could. He can’t tell up from down anymore, can’t tell how many strokes it would take to reach the surface or how many minutes to sink straight to the bottom.
The GPS tells him the entrance to the restaurant is a half-mile ahead.
“The Shore Club’s up here,” Marcus manages. “Turn right.”
The restaurant is a one-story stucco building that sits in a woodsy corner of a massive condo development. Beyond the pines and palm trees, he can glimpse the sea of identical-looking villas stretching to the high-rises at the beach. But the shaded valet court, with its shiny necklace of freshly parked luxury cars, might as well be in Beverly Hills.
He pulls over just shy of the valet court’s entrance, rolls to a stop until he’s got a perfect view of the young valet springing into action at the sight of a car with a sticker price equal to most people’s annual salary. For three years. Emily steps from behind the wheel, dressed the part of Lily Conran. (Or how Arthur told her Lily should dress. Marcus wonders if that info was already included in the “Lily file” Emily keeps on her iPad.) Straw hat and a flowing sundress, strappy, designer looking shoes with a low heel, topped off with an assortment of jewelry that was waiting for her in the master suite.
And then she’s striding toward the Navigator, wooden heels clacking against the concrete, silver bracelets tinkling on both wrists. Even when it becomes clear she’s headed straight for him, Marcus refuses to power down the window. He’s trying to act the part of the conscientious bodyguard, but it just makes him feel like an obstinate jerk. But still, he doesn’t move, not until she raps her knuckles against the tinted glass, and then they’re staring into each other’s eyes through the shimmering heat.
It’s the closest they’ve been to each other since he brought her a blanket and pillow on the beach that morning. Only now she’s awake and redolent with a floral perfume that has a dark, earthy edge to it, an edge that makes his neck tingle and his balls tense. And he must be delirious, must be on the verge of losing his mind, because the unreadable expression on her face seems to reduce each breath he takes to half-strength. He’s terrified of what she’s about to say.
You’ll be my employee soon, so no more late-night chats about what you want to do to my body. Got it?
“Take a nap,” she says.
“Seriously? Right here?”
“Yes, right here,” she says. She reaches through the window and gives him a light tap on the tip of his nose. “You’ve got an hour so get to it.” It’s not the smoothest of gestures, but that’s what he likes about it. He likes how she hesitated a little once her hand was through the window. As if her fingers couldn’t decide whether to bop him on the tip of his nose like he was a loud-mouthed third-grader or claw his T-shirt from his body.
When she starts back toward the restaurant, Marcus watches each swing of her hips, imagines gripping them until her smooth flesh whitens under his fingers, imagines driving himself into her, her mouth becoming a silent O and her eyes slit as her body proves a weak, shuddering cage for the pleasure he’s filling her with.
He’s still imagining these things when she pauses in the front door of the restaurant and turns.
“Nap, Marcus!” she shouts, loud enough to frighten the valet. “Now!”
He powers the window up.
He doesn’t take a nap.
Instead, he calls Frank Dupuy.
Three years before, Marcus joined Team Benoit as a full-time member of Arthur’s travel detail. Back then he spent most of his time accompanying Arthur on business trips to Asia and Latin America. But when the man’s cancer took hold two years later, travel detail meant somber stays at various experimental clinics around the world where the news was always the same; there are some things you can’t buy your way out of and cancer is one of them. That whole time, Frank Dupuy worked property security, a senior member of the cultish group that made the guardhouse at Magnolia Gate their little fiefdom of late-night card games and arguments about the New Orleans Saints.
As a result of their different contrasting career paths, Frank and Marcus have spoken to each other more in the past few days then they have in the past few years.
“All’s quiet here,” Frank answers.
“Not why I’m calling,” Marcus says.
“Everything alright?”
No, actually. I’m falling head over heels in…in… Don’t finish that sentence, Dylan. Not until you’ve had a nap. Emily’s orders!
“Where are you guys?” Marcus asks. “Can you put him on the phone?”
“Jo— Excuse me. You mean Leonard?”
“Yeah.”
“Hm
mmm. That doesn’t really seem like the rules of play here, friend.”
“They’re not supposed to be talking to each other, Frank.”
“I know, but how do I know you’re not passing a message?”
“I’m gathering information that’ll make things quieter on my end, okay?”
“No connections between the two of them until this whole thing’s over. Benoit’s orders. Remember?”
“I’m not connecting them, Frank.”
“See if it’s okay with Benoit and then I’ll be okay.”
“Dupuy. Seriously, man.”
“Hey. Speaking of serious, do we have to watch the whole thing?”
“What thing?”
“The surveillance equipment they got in this townhouse. I swear to God, I’ve never seen anything like it. Guy clips his toenails and I have to put my fingers in my ears. So I’m just asking you…this test. Are we going to have to watch the whole thing?”
“This feels like a question for Benoit,” Marcus says.
“Yeah, well, maybe you can ask him when you’re asking him if it’s alright for you to talk to Mr. Miller here.”
“What’s the matter, Frank? Watching Jonathan in the shower making you doubt your sexuality there?”
“Yeah, no. I’m still a giant homosexual who loves dick, Marcus.”
Marcus waits a beat for Dupuy to say he’s kidding.
Dupuy doesn’t say anything.
Because he isn’t kidding.
“I didn’t. I’m sorry…” Marcus tries.
“Why? I’m not. Dick is amazing.”
“I’m a fan of mine.”
“And the kid’s got a nice one, I’ll give you that.”
Marcus grips the steering wheel hard enough to whiten his knuckles. If he tells Dupuy to knock it off with the compliments to Jonathan’s anatomy, he’ll sound like a homophobic jerk. Or worse, he’ll reveal that listening to any description of Jonathan Claiborne’s body will make him imagine it all tangled up in Emily’s, resulting in flashes of jealousy as blinding as the sun.