I sipped the water and it did help to dull the sweet. “Thanks.”
“My mother killed herself.”
I dropped the glass, and the water rushed all over the table. In a second, I was up, grabbing my napkin to dab at it. “What? I’m sorry. Shit. Is it going to ruin the wood?”
Zeke grabbed my wrist. “It’s water, Layla. Not lighter fluid. It’ll be okay.”
Two of his staff rushed from the kitchen, somehow alerted to what was happening, and wiped up the mess quickly. I sank back into my chair, staring at him.
“Note to self, don’t startle Layla when she is drinking water.”
I threw my napkin at him, and he grinned wider. “You told me just as I was drinking it, and I’m all jittery from that delicious mess.”
“Mousse, not mess.”
Now he was kidding? He dropped a bombshell like that and then made jokes? “I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Yeah…it sucked.” That might have been the most inarticulate I’d ever heard him. Sucked? Yes, I bet it did. In a massively terrible way. And maybe his own nonchalance about it was why he thought he could just ask me the way he had? Really push at it? Did he think we had that in common?
Did he want us to?
I knew very little about him. There were the press releases and the bio on the website. I’d looked at both of them at one time or another. He was from Michigan. He’d gone to a prestigious business school and competed in three different Iron Man competitions. That was all I really knew about his background.
Mother committed suicide… I could add that to his background now, only because he’d chosen to share it. That wasn’t public knowledge, and considering the fact that my brother and sisters and I had to share a ton of ourselves for the sake of the company, it seemed a little off he hadn’t had to do the same.
Except that Zeke had always been the man behind the man. My father made the money, and lost it so it seemed, and that put him out front. The genius. Zeke was the one who told him he was that. He sold the product, my father, to the world.
And didn’t have to share himself in the process.
Only he just had. With me.
“How did she do it?”
He took his fingers, and in the shape of the gun, held it to his temple. “Quickly.”
I winced. The imagery was enough. I didn’t need to think about that. “Do they… I mean, not that there has to be a reason per se. But do you know why?”
“She owed a lot of money to a man who was going to do terrible things to her. Seemed like a good idea, I guess, to get out of the way.”
That left him behind, and even if my mother hadn’t been purposeful in her exit from this world, I knew what it was like to be the one left there afterwards. “How old were you?”
“I was eight. And I didn’t have siblings. It was just her and me. I think she thought that my neighbor who we were close with would take me in. She didn’t.”
I’d had my father. He was absent and sometimes mean, but we’d wanted for nothing. “What happened to you?”
“What happens to kids in the United States who have no one? Foster care until I aged out at eighteen. Feels like it was a million years ago, not just two decades.” He finished his wine. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Layla. I decided the day they picked me up to take me into the system that I’d never need anyone to take care of me again. It’s a great feeling. From the moment I became an adult, I’ve controlled my own destiny. That’s what you can do, too. You’ll see what I mean. I promise.”
I leaned forward. “Why did you tell me?”
He held my gaze so long that my cheeks heated, but I refused to look away. Not until he answered me. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll never tell a soul.” I meant that to the depths of my own.
“I know, and I don’t know how I know that either.”
Well, at least I wasn’t alone in my confusion.
Chapter Eight
“Hey, Layla,” Zeke called to me on my way up the stairs to go to bed. I kept trudging upwards. I shouldn’t have been tired again, but I was. Had I ever felt this old before? Ancient, really.
Finally, I got to my room, and I turned from the door to regard him from where he watched me from the top step. Despite my being tired, I knew I wouldn’t sleep. Too much had happened in one day, I had too much to digest in my brain. Not to mention, I really wasn’t used to that much food. My body might outright reject it.
“Yes?”
“You have security, usually, correct?”
I nodded. “Yes, but my dad took it away.”
“My feeling is that we are probably paying for that through the company, so he can take it away, and I can give it back. Why did you have it? Stalkers?”
I shook my head. “It was never about me. Dad has people after him. He assumed that they might come after us to get to him. But I guess now that he’s done with me, he figures he won’t pay my ransom anyway. So why bother trying to keep that from happening?”
Zeke narrowed his gaze for a second, but I couldn’t read his thoughts. I wasn’t sure what he was considering. “I’ll speak to Michael Li, and I’ll see if he thinks you need security. He isn’t going to let you get hurt because your father is being an ass. If you need a detail, you’ll have one.”
“I’ve never had a detail. I had one person who used to follow me around. It changed all the time. Michael stays with my dad, but he sends others out with us.”
Zeke nodded. “Let me know if you need anything tonight. Otherwise, sleep well. We start at nine.”
“Right.”
Tomorrow, I would go to work—be his girlfriend until it made my father crazy enough that he gave up all his secrets to the people Zeke had trying to get that information.
In the meantime, I managed to put away all my clothes, since it looked like I’d be staying for a while. My clothes that would work for a beach vacation I would not be taking. I smiled. I could go romping around in my bikini if I really wanted to make a splash. For a half a second, I considered looking online to see what kind of write up I was getting after today, but I left it alone. There would be time for that pain and angst tomorrow. Better to not scroll before bedtime.
I washed, scrubbed, and moisturized my face before I dressed in a nightie I’d bought because I thought it might be sexy on my honeymoon. I remembered shopping for it online and thinking it looked like something a person should wear for such an occasion, not that I had wanted it. Always with the should.
Grabbing my phone before I plugged it in next to the bed, I shot off a message to Hope and Bridget. We used to have a group text going all the time, but lately, it had been silent. Were they talking to each other and just not me?
I wasn’t going there tonight.
Hope you got home okay. Did I make a terrible mistake?
I shot off the note and then silenced it. I’d read their responses in the morning. I didn’t suppose it mattered. It wasn’t like I could hit rewind and undo anything. Potential terrible decisions didn’t work like that.
The bed was comfortable. Someone had come in and made it while I’d been eating. Zeke’s silent staff. It was weird that he was just down the hall and even stranger that I didn’t find it odder than I did. He was a big presence. Always thinking, always circling back around, looking at angles. Then all of a sudden, he’d be funny or quirky. Followed by a mean remark.
Oh, and he was physically beautiful.
Alone in my room, I let myself dwell on that. The first time I’d been aware of him in the way that women noticed men was when I was thirteen. He’d been with my dad on the boat we were spending a week on for vacation. We’d hardly seen my dad. The nanny must have suggested the trip. She liked to fish and was trying to teach us how. Bridget had taken to it in the way that she did everything. Hope wandered off to read on the deck under shade, Justin was sleeping all the time, and I had spent the night getting sick because it turned out I suffered from sea sickness when on a boat. Having never been on one before,
I’d had no idea, and it seemed no one particularly cared that it was happening to me.
They’d thought it would go away eventually, and fortunately it had, one day before we had left the boat.
Dad worked the whole trip. The yacht’s Wi-Fi was being sketchy, so he kept going and coming from the boat. One of those times, he’d come back with Zeke. I tried to picture him how he’d looked that day. I’d made my way upstairs, hoping the sunshine might settle my stomach. It hadn’t. They’d been seated on the deck together, drinking what I think had to be whisky. And they’d been laughing.
Things must have been very different between them then. Neither of them had looked at me as I’d sat miserably on the lawn chair watching them. I couldn’t stop staring. Zeke had been…magnificent, just in the way he existed. In the way he sat. Took up space. Sipped the adult beverage I had been too young to consume.
I’d felt young, stupid, and ugly in my pink bikini that somehow hid more than it showed, and I hadn’t wanted him to look at me in it. The words the previous nanny had slung at me about my weight the year before still resonated in my head—a weapon I would now wield at myself.
But then I hadn’t cared about that, because something happened to me as I stared at him. I was suddenly uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with how self-conscious I was. No, my breasts were heavy, and there was a throbbing that started between my legs.
I hadn’t known what was happening, but the longer I stared, particularly at his hands and the way his back muscles moved, the worse it had gotten. I’d run from the deck, sliding on some water that accumulated near the stairs and nearly killed myself slipping down them before I caught myself on the last one. By the time I’d made it to the bedroom I shared with my sisters on the yacht, I was out of breath and my heart raced.
No one had noticed my near death or maiming experience. Why would they? I was invisible. But oh, so alive in that moment. With my back pressing to the door to stop anyone getting in because there was no lock, I’d touched myself. The trouble had been I had no idea really how to do that. I still wasn’t that great at it. I’d rubbed myself until it hurt and not achieved completion.
Orgasms were a constant problem for me. They didn’t come easily or often, most of the time a frustrating endeavor that left me annoyed and feeling inept at something others were able to get in a matter of minutes, if they were to be believed. When I was finally over trying to relieve the need that wouldn’t be fulfilled, I’d stepped back outside into the main sitting room just as the nanny had come down the stairs.
What was her name? I’d known it then, but not now. Couldn’t remember. Not for the life of me.
“Hope, where have you been? I’ve been calling you.”
She couldn’t tell us apart. It really was a joke. She’d been with us a month and didn’t have a clue which one of us was which. We didn’t even try to look alike. How did she not know? I ignored her. If she wanted me to speak to her, she had to get my name right. It wasn’t my problem she wanted Hope. If she’d wanted me, I’d have answered her.
“Answer me.” She stomped her foot. I wished she were the first nanny to stomp her foot at me. It happened often. We must have been frustrating as hell to deal with. I mean how many adults stomped their feet?
“Well, she might, if she were Hope.” Zeke leaned on the side of the stairs before he walked toward the bathroom. “But I don’t think Layla is responsible for answering for Hope.” He rolled his eyes and headed on his way.
The nanny breathed heavy, her cheeks red and her gaze angry, not at Zeke but at me. As though that whole thing had been my fault. I didn’t care. Let her be furious and embarrassed. He’d known which one of us I was.
That had been huge.
In the current time, I rolled onto my stomach. What did I know now? That kind of physical reaction to someone would be very unusual for me. I didn’t throb easily, and I mostly shied away from too much physical contact. It was hard enough to protect myself emotionally without someone touching me in my most private of parts.
But Zeke could still do it for me. He had great hands I wouldn’t mind on my body. And I’d never get over the fact that he had hardly ever seen me in his whole life, and yet he’d known I was Layla and not Hope.
Beautiful, infuriating man.
I fell asleep thinking about that.
With the sun coming through the shades, I woke up fast. Disorientation hit me, and for a long second, I had no idea where I was. But then the day before rushed at me like a movie playing in my head. I’d run from my wedding, and I was staying at Zeke Scott’s house. I sat up, putting my face in my hands.
It was eight-thirty in the morning. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. I never slept this late. Ever. And I was due to be ready to leave with Zeke in half an hour. First day on the job, I couldn’t be keeping him waiting.
I checked my phone. My sisters had both answered me. They’d gotten home, they were fine, and no I hadn’t made a mistake. Bridget had gone so far as to tell me that Kit was a stupid asshole and she was glad to never have to see him again. I smiled at that. When Bridget got mean, she really got mean.
I stepped down on the floor and groaned. Yep, my feet still hurt. That was the trouble with foot injuries. They lasted, and I couldn’t forget about them. I limped into the bathroom and abruptly stopped. Next to the sink were bandages and pads as well as antibacterial lotion and an ace bandage. That had absolutely not been there when I’d gone to bed. Had it?
I really didn’t think so.
I stared down at it for a second. Had I slept through someone bringing it in here? I wasn’t a heavy sleeper, usually. I woke up to any small noise in my apartment, and sleeping in the same bed with Kit had been next to impossible because he snored. But I had not heard anyone come in and leave these supplies here.
Had I been snoring when he came in? Did I snore? I shook my head. Well, if he’d come in when I was asleep, again, then there was nothing I could do about if I were sleeping loudly. It was actually really nice of him to think of this stuff, and I was absolutely going to need them. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, stuck my hair in a messy bun because I didn’t have time to deal with it, and brushed my lips with a little bit of lip gloss. I was barely presentable, but it would have to do.
I had two pairs of yoga pants with me that I’d intended to use as my get up and eat breakfast attire at the resort in Bali. I shoved on the black pair and covered it with a long T-shirt I sometimes slept in. It was white and plain.
The final step was to doctor up my feet. They looked worse than yesterday. The bruises I’d gotten were changing colors as bruises were apt to do, and I’d destroyed my pedicure. When my feet healed up a bit, I’d go get that fixed. I bandaged where I could, padded where I needed it, and shoved my sneakers back on.
I got out into the hall just at the same moment Zeke came out of his rooms. He was dressed in a pair of jeans that were darker than the ones he’d been in yesterday and a black T-shirt. His boots were what caught my attention. They were tall, like he might wear on a motorcycle.
“Morning. Sleep okay?” He closed the door to his bedroom behind him and took a step toward me. The fresh scent of the shower was on him, and I breathed in deep through my nose, hoping he didn’t notice but not able to stop myself from doing so.
“I did.” I smiled. “Thanks for the stuff for my feet.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome. I didn’t want to wake you. I knocked and waited, but you were out cold, so I just left it and didn’t disturb you.”
“I usually wake up. Guess I must have been exhausted. What time did you come?”
He motioned toward the stairs. “About midnight when I thought about it. I was closing a deal when it dawned on me that you might need more stuff for your feet. So I went out and grabbed the stuff for you and came back. Glad I didn’t wake you.”
Like everything else with this man, I should feel weirded out that he was in there while I slept, but I didn’t. My reactions to Zeke weren’t
what I would have expected.
He stopped on the stairs. “I debated about whether to bring it in. You were sleeping, but I wanted you to have it in the morning. I was in and out. I didn’t look at you or anything. Believe it or not, I do know what privacy is.”
I laughed, his words surprising me. “Okay. How about next time you knock louder and wake me? But I don’t mind that you did it, even if I should.”
“I can’t imagine I’ll have another reason to come in your room while you’re asleep.”
That was actually disappointing. I could think of some reasons I might like him to come in. My memories from the night before felt fresh. He had been pivotal to my life, and he didn’t even know it. I was never going to tell him. Some things like those kinds of memories were the kind you took to your deathbed and kept to yourself.
“We’re going on my motorcycle. Unless you object. I prefer it this time of day.”
“I’ve never ridden on one.”
He tilted his head. “Well, this is a morning for firsts then.”
I followed him to the garage, which was outside the guard house and impressive on the inside. He hadn’t parked his Porsche himself yesterday, so I hadn’t seen that he had ten cars and three motorcycles before. I smiled. This was such a guy thing to do. Lots of money and lots of fun things to drive. But there I went gendering. There were women who would do this, too. I just wasn’t one of them.
What did I spend money on? I supposed clothes, but that wasn’t a choice. I didn’t love clothes or even want that many around. It was more like a necessity. Truthfully, I had no idea. I didn’t really spend on things.
That was funny. I’d never thought about that before.
“Come on.” He handed me a helmet. “Let’s go. Put your arms around my waist and hold on tight. When I lean in a direction, you lean that way, too.”
That sounded easy enough.
I did just as he said, and soon we were on the road. Although there was some traffic, he seemed to know where to go to avoid it, and I could see why he loved this. I leaned against his back and held on, squeezing him if I got nervous. The wind was fantastic as it whipped at our bodies, and by the time he pulled into a space, my heart raced, and I wanted to keep going. Was it possible to just ride like that forever and ever?
Redhead On The Run (RedHeads Book 1) Page 9