by T L Swan
I pull out of Josh’s embrace and turn to Adrian. “Are you ok honey, I overheard you being annoyed with someone?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It seems I just got dumped.”
“Dumped?” I’m shocked. Who in their right mind would break up with gorgeous Adrian? This Ross must really be a dick.
“Yeah, I was going to break up with him anyway, it seems he beat me to it.”
My eyes flick to Joshua and I catch him make eye contact with Ben. I bet any money Josh had a fight with Adrian’s boyfriend today. What is going on here? Everyone falls silent as they wait for Adrian to say something. My experience tells me he needs to be distracted.
“I’m going shopping—want to come too?” His eyes flick to Josh for approval.
“Don’t look at him, look at me. I asked you if you will take me shopping,” I murmur.
He smiles and shrugs. “What do you want to buy?”
I shrug. “Don’t know, maybe lingerie or something. I thought I would give Rodeo Drive a run for its money.”
Josh and Cam both smile. They know exactly what I am doing.
“Go Murph.” Josh pats him on the back and then looks at me. “Show him how hot lingerie is—on the mannequin of course.” He does wide eyes at me.
Adrian frowns. “Eeww, are you that stupid you think I would want to look at your girlfriend in lingerie?”
Josh shrugs. “You’re only human.”
“Tash,” he whispers in my ear from behind. “I need to show you something.” I smile into my teacup, knowing exactly what he wants to show me.
“In a minute,” I whisper back.
“Now,” he growls into my ear, sending goose bumps scattering down my arms. He pulls me out of my chair by the hand. We have just eaten a beautiful three–course dinner and I am quite exhausted from shopping with Adrian all day. I have acquired some very naughty little outfits and Adrian has vented all day about hating men. Of course, I have made him come and stay with us, who knows what a scorned boyfriend could do? It seems I was right. Joshua told me the whole sordid story this afternoon. Adrian’s boyfriend is totally a dick. Josh grabs my hand as Adrian and Cam grab their beers and head out to the pool.
“I want to give you a tour of the house.” Josh smiles. Oh he really did want to show me something—that’s unexpected. We walk through the kitchen and he opens a door and a staircase is down a corridor. We go down two flights and Joshua flicks a light switch. Shit, a massive wine cellar is lit up like a Christmas tree. He gestures his hand around the room. “Wine cellar,” he announces and I smile. It seems Joshua is proud of his wine cellar.
I nod. “Very impressive.” He kisses me quickly on the lips and heads back up the stairs. We head down the corridor to the left of the kitchen and walk past the dining room and the lounge room. This house really is stunning. Joshua’s decorating style is a little sterile but the house looks too beautiful to be real. The high ceilings combined with the polished concrete and the amazing light fittings give the house a luxury feel.
“It looks like a resort, Josh,” I remark.
“That’s the look I have gone for.” He winks at me. He opens a door on the left, “Games room.” A massive pool table and bar complete with twelve bar stools are in here, complete with three big–screen televisions. My eyes flick back to him as I remember our night of movie making and he smiles, knowing exactly what I am thinking of. We continue walking down the hall and he opens a door on the right. “Part…pool room,” he murmurs. Why did he just correct his speech? He was going to say party room but he corrected himself. He quickly closes the door as if he doesn’t want me looking in. Hmm, mental note, I need to investigate this room tomorrow and find out why he’s uncomfortable with me in it. We continue down the hall and we get to a huge glass wall. “Gym,” he smiles. Ah he’s proud of this room and I mirror his smile. There is a huge flat screen on the wall and every damn machine I have ever seen. I just know I am going to end up hating this torture chamber. Now I won’t even have an excuse not to get to the gym—how annoying. We continue down the hall and it occurs to me to wonder why he wants to leave this house when he is so obviously attached to it? “
“Josh, why do you want to move?” I ask.
He stops dead in his tracks. “I want you to be happy, Tash, and I want you to pick the house you want to live in.”
I smile and pull him close for a cuddle and I kiss him on the lips. “Josh, I just want to live with you…in your house and if that’s a humpy in the damn desert then I will be happy. I don’t need a new house, Josh. This house is amazing. What is it about this house that makes you think that I won’t want to live here?”
He frowns as he considers my question. “It’s not that you won’t want to live here Tash…it’s me. I have been single a very long time and,” he’s trying to articulate his thoughts, “everybody in LA knows this house as a party house. I would like to live in something that…I don’t know. You and I are the only ones that see…certain parts of the house.”
I give him a sad smile. “You want to move so I’m the only one that has seen your bedroom.” He bites his lip and his eyes drop to the floor. I hit the nail on the head; he has too many memories here. Memories of other women. I pull him into an embrace.
“Josh, I’m not afraid of your past. It can’t hurt me unless you let it. I want to stay in this house for a while. At least until…I don’t know…down the track when Cam moves out and then if we find an amazing house we can move then. I have enough to worry about moving here than making you sell your beloved house.”
He smiles and nods. “I wasn’t going to sell it. I was going to give it to Cam.”
My mouth drops open. “You are going to give a house worth…what?”
“Twenty mil,” he cuts in.
My eyes bulge from their sockets. “Twenty million. This house is worth twenty frigging million dollars?” He nods and smiles. “And you are going to give it to Cam?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, why not, unless you want to keep it for guests and stuff.” This man has lost touch with reality. I shake my head as he continues pulling me up the hall to the end door and he opens it. “Garage,” he smirks. My mouth drops open, holy fuck. This room is like a caryard dealership. A massive hall with two rows of sports cars that are all black or white. I frown at him.
“I collect cars,” he smiles.
“No shit, Sherlock,” I whisper wide–eyed. He pulls me down the huge walkway through the centre of the cars and my jaw is on the ground. Ok, I am getting the feel of his money now. This is extravagance…extreme extravagance.
“Aston Martin,” he points. “Corvette,” he points again. “Lamborghini,” he smiles. I stop dead in my tracks.
“You have a Lamborghini?” I smirk.
His eyes light up as he nods. “Yes,” he smiles. And sure enough, a beautiful black Lamborghini comes into view.
I laugh. “And here I was thinking you were my Lamborghini,” I whisper.
He smiles again and kisses me as he places something in my hand. I frown and look down and there in my hand is a silver engraved keyring with a single key on it. I hold the keyring up to inspect the inscription:
Always Joshua
X
Huh? What is that supposed to mean? I turn the keyring over and the initials:
N M S
What do the initials stand for? He kisses me.
“Welcome home, baby. This is your housewarming present.” He can’t be serious. “Joshua, you’re giving me a Lamborghini as a housewarming present?”
He smiles and nods. “Not just any Lamborghini, this is my most prized possession apart from Jasper.”
I frown again. “Who’s Jasper?”
“My horse,” he whispers as he does wide eyes at me.
“Oh, of course,” I mutter. I cringe that I didn’t remember that important piece of info.
“When I first made real money I bought this. It’s very sentimental to me. So when you started calling me your Lamborghin
i…” He breaks into a fullbeam smile and I swoon at the sight of him. “I knew I wanted to gift it to you because it was sentimental between us,” he whispers.
My eyes drop to the car. “It’s beautiful Josh, very black.”
He laughs out loud, “I give you a Lamborghini and you tell me it’s very black.” I smile as I bite my lip and shrug my shoulders. I walk around the car. It looks like something from space. I don’t even think I have seen one in real life before. My eyes drop to the gold number plates:
N M S
Oh shit, Natasha Marx. He has put my initials on it but, hang on, what does the S stand for? I frown as I look at the numberplates and I break into a full smile.
“You put slut on my numberplates?” I ask in mock horror. He laughs out loud again and then goes silent, so silent that I look back up at him to see what he’s doing.
“The S stands for Stanton,” he whispers. Did he just say that or is my overactive imagination playing tricks on me?
“Natasha Marx Stanton,” I whisper. He nods and gives me a nervous smile.
“Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” he says as he grabs my hand and kisses the back of it. His eyes searching mine. My heart has starting beating out of control and I think I have stopped breathing all together.
I shrug. “I would probably drop the Marx,” I say as I bite my bottom lip.
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “You would drop the Marx?” he questions.
“In an instant,” I breathe as my eyes tear up. “A millisecond,” I murmur.
We both stand still in silence, staring at each other. I wish I could freeze this moment in time. If I could just bottle this feeling I would. Then he is on me, kissing me like his life depends on it. His hands are in my hair, pulling me closer to him. “Natasha…I fucking love you,” he murmurs and the emotion in his voice nearly breaks my heart. This man is perfect and he loves me. Daggy Natasha from Sydney who loves McDonald’s fast food. He nearly rips my arm out of the socket as he pulls me towards the door and up the staircase. “I am taking you to bed for a very long time, Miss Marx…saddle up.”
True to his word, we have hardly left our bedroom for two days. Joshua has put himself on a self–imposed sex ban. I winced this morning at breakfast when I sat down and the look of horror on Josh’s face when he realised I was sore was priceless. I got the giggles, much to his annoyance, and he announced that we wouldn’t be having any sex for at least two days. Yeah right, I will believe that when I see it. He has gone out to meet up with his friends for lunch and Cameron has gone to the hospital. Josh tried to get Adrian to babysit me but I insisted that I need to get used to being at home alone if I am going to move here. What a joke…home alone. Birgetta is in the kitchen. Max my bodyguard is in the garden talking to two other security guards. A couple of gardeners are roaming about and there seems to be some activity in that room Josh didn’t want me looking at the other night, painting or building or something. I head down the hall to investigate. I open the door and am relieved to see that the workers are not in here. I walk in and pull back the curtains to get some light. This room is massive. To my surprise it opens with massive bfold doors onto the pool area. Another huge bar and stereo speaker system line the walls. Seriously, how many bars can one house have? I look around at the room and it seems…off. A huge space but only one leather lounge against the wall. This room is different to the rest of the house. What is it? I look at the floor and I realise that except for the bedrooms this is the only room that is carpeted. That’s odd for a room that I imagine would be used for parties. Hmm and I can smell wet paint. Why is it being repainted? A young blond painter comes through the bifold doors from outside. He is about twenty and quite good–looking. He is wearing a singlet and work shorts and he is tall, probably six foot two and very well–built. His eyes scan down my body and he looks shocked to see me. I look down at myself, oh shit, I’m in my swimmers with a towel wrapped around my chest. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in here. I thought they had left for the day.
“Hello.” I smile.
He smiles back. “Hello.” Oh he’s English…I do love an English accent.
I look around the room. “Nearly finished the work?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Yeah, I suppose, just a patch–up job really. Not as urgent as I was told, god knows why it was a priority job.” Hmm, that’s interesting.
“Why was it priority?” I ask. This guy might just be dumb enough to tell me.
He shrugs. “Don’t know, my boss got a call from Australia saying this room had to be remodelled in three days and he is paying my boss, like, five times the quoted price.”
I nod and act uninterested. “When did your boss get the call?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know, last Wednesday night I think.” Hmm, that’s about the time Josh and I sorted our shit out and made arrangements to come here.
“So you have nearly finished the work?” I question. He smiles and nods.
“Yeah we just had to patch the ceiling and carpet and repaint the room.” My eyes flick to the patched wet paint on the ceiling.
“What was on the ceiling?” I ask innocently.
“Don’t know. It had all been removed by the time we got here, but there was some pretty massive holes where some big screws had been taken out.” He points to where the screws were. “And we patched the carpet in the same spot.” I nod as my mind races.
“You’ve done a good job on the paint.” I smile.
“Yeah, all five frigging coats of it.”
My eyes widen. “Five coats…why five coats?”
He frowns as if I’m stupid. “Black walls are hard to cover with white paint.”
I frown again, not understanding why this room would have been painted black.
“Can I help you?” Joshua snaps as he enters the room. His eyes scan down my body in the towel and I instantly feel uncomfortable. He throws me a dirty look and I shrivel under his glare. “I’m paying you to work, not chat up my girlfriend!”
“Joshua,” I stammer. My god, how embarrassing, this poor guy was just returning my questions, not chatting me up.
“Um sorry, Mr Stanton,” blond guy stammers in shock. Joshua glares at me again.
“I will see you out,” he gestures toward the door and poor blond guy walks out with his tail between his legs. I stand with my hands on my hips as I sum up the situation. So there was something on the ceiling. I walk over to the wall and notice four large indents on the carpet in a huge square. What leaves a mark like that on carpet? And then it hits me. This is bad, really bad. The only thing I know of that leaves a mark like that is a massive bed. I walk over to the scrap pile of carpet and pick up the piece that has been cut out. A hole has been cut with two screw holes either side of it. What screws to the roof and the floor? Think, damn it, think. Oh my fuck. A pole, the kind that strippers use and I know what’s been removed from the ceiling… mirrors.
This is Joshua’s fuck pad.
Chapter 28
Joshua storms back into the room. “Why the fuck are you in a towel?” he growls. How do I explain this?
“I was walking past and I thought that the workers had left for the day and I came in for a sticky beak.” He glares at me.
“Joshua, what was in this room?”
His face drops and he pulls me by the hand out of the door. “I’m hungry. We are going out for dinner. Go and get some fucking clothes on,” he growls. “If you want Cameron to live with us, not to mention my fucking staff, you will goddamn wear more clothes around here.”
“I asked you a question…answer it!” I repeat as I pull my hand out of his clasp.
He scratches his head in frustration. “Don’t ask questions that you don’t want to know the answer to Natasha,” he snaps.
“This was your fuck pad, wasn’t it?”
He stills and turns to look at me. “It is in the past—it doesn’t matter what this room was for. I never professed to be an angel Tash,” he says in monotone.
&nbs
p; I glare at him and fold my arms. “Just how many girls have you slept with, Joshua?” I ask in a sarcastic voice.
He swallows and looks uncomfortable. “Don’t start your shit, Natasha! I’m not going there, I’ve told you before,” he yells.
I storm down the hall in front of him and I turn and point my finger in his face.
“You… asshole are taking me house–shopping tomorrow. There is no way in hell I’m living here.” I turn and stomp off and I hear him yell after me.
“Like I said…you raving bitch. And put some fucking clothes on.”
Four hours later we are on our way home from dinner, our fight long forgotten, when his phone rings in the car. He presses a button on the steering wheel to answer it.
“Stanton,” he says, void of emotion.
A woman’s English accent sings through the speaker. “Darling, you’re back…I’ve missed you.” Joshua immediately picks up the phone so I can’t hear what is said. Bastard. I sit still as I watch him squirm. It’s obviously Amelie on the other end of the line. She’s missed him…what in the hell is that supposed to mean?
“Hi Am,” he smiles. Am now, is it? Give me a break, I want to puke. His eyes flick nervously to me. “Yes, I’m back. I brought Tash home to pick out a new house…no, we have to go back for two more weeks,” he replies. Hmm, so she knows about me. I frown as I sum up the situation. He isn’t acting guilty—is this all in my head? He laughs out loud, “Yeah probably,” he answers. Hmm, how annoying. He’s laughing and carefree with her. I’m green with envy. “No, I’m glad you rang. I was going to call you tomorrow.” I bet you were, asshole. I sit still, nearly craning my neck as I watch him. He’s happy to hear from her, in fact he’s acting like he missed her. Stop it, Natasha, you jealous psycho, you haven’t even met her. I rub my eyes in frustration. He frowns as he listens to her. “Yes, and then what happened after you gave her the antibiotics?” He nods. “Yes,” he answers and then listens again. “I will come down tomorrow to check it out.” His eyes flick to me and I give him a deadpan look. “I will bring Natasha to meet you.” He smiles, “Yeah me too.” She just told him she can’t wait to see him…I just know it. “I’ll see you tomorrow Am, bye.” The tone in his voice is the same tone he uses with me: gentle and cajoling and I have never heard him use it with anyone else. Ok, I can handle this two ways, either do what I want to do and scream and demand he sack her and look like a neurotic jealous girlfriend that I am or I can play it cool and pretend I am not threatened at all by an English veterinarian who has spent every weekend with my boyfriend for the last five years. Who he obviously has feelings for and has feelings for him. I hate her already but I pretend to know nothing. He gives me a megawatt smile and does wide eyes at me.