by Vi Keeland
I nodded. “Good to know. Thank you.”
After Kate disappeared, I sat down in my chair and stared out the window. I’d never dipped my pen in company ink. In fact, I didn’t get involved with anyone in the goddamned industry. I liked my private business kept private. Yet here I was inquiring about policy and procedure, ready to rewrite it if I needed to, just to keep my fantasy about getting in Ireland Saint James’s pants alive.
Fuck. I dragged a hand through my hair.
That thought alone could probably get me in hot water. Though, like my sister said, federal and state laws only pertained to unwelcome advances. And Ireland had been clear that my previous advance—before she knew who I was—hadn’t been unwelcome. Now all I needed to do was to have my employee welcome further advances—like telling her I can’t stop thinking about her wicked mouth wrapped around my cock.
***
Two days later, I’d managed to get my head back in the game and get some actual work done—work that didn’t involve Ireland Saint James. I’d just finished a conference call with our London attorneys when Millie knocked and opened my office door.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. But you have a visitor.”
I looked at my watch. “I didn’t think the meeting with Jim Hanson was for another hour.”
“It’s not. Arlia is here.”
I tossed my pen on the desk and leaned back in my chair with a sigh. I should have texted her back earlier. Better yet, I should have taken her to dinner and broken things off. The last thing I wanted was a scene in my office.
Millie saw my face. “I told her you were in a meeting, so I can let her know you’re going to be a while, if you want.”
I seriously considered it. But I liked loose ends even less than confrontation, so I might as well get it over with.
I shook my head. “It’s fine. Just give me a minute to clean up my desk.”
Millie nodded, and a few minutes later, she showed Arlia in. Arlia was dressed in a body-hugging black mini dress that showed off a mile of tanned legs. I stayed behind my desk to avoid an intimate greeting.
“I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”
I smiled. “Just busy.” I motioned to the chair on the other side of my desk. “What brings you by?”
Arlia Francois was a beautiful woman. A professional model, she knew exactly how to play up her best features. With long legs and two different-colored eyes—one bright blue and the other deep brown—she captured everyone’s attention. Though when she took a seat and very slowly and purposely crossed her toned legs, neither my dick nor I got too excited.
“I have to leave for Paris this weekend, and I’ll be gone for two weeks. I thought maybe we could get together before then. I’m free Thursday night.”
Thursday night was the fundraiser. “I have a work event Thursday evening.”
She pouted. “I have to work Friday, but maybe a late supper?”
I wasn’t the type of man who ignored women and blew off their invitations as a way of ending things. I preferred direct, and in the long run, most women did, too. Though sometimes they didn’t appreciate being dumped in the short run.
I leaned forward. “You’re a wonderful woman, Arlia. But we’re in different places, and I think it’s best we stop seeing each other.”
Her flirty, pouty mouth twisted to angry. “What?”
“I was upfront when we started seeing each other a few months ago. I’m not interested in a relationship right now. Things were casual at first, but I don’t think we’re looking for the same thing anymore.”
She raised her voice. “So you just wanted to fuck me, then?”
I thought explaining that I didn’t want a relationship before we went out the first time had clarified that whatever we might have was physical and for companionship. But apparently in the future I needed to spell it out even more.
“Please keep your voice down. I was clear about my intentions from the beginning.”
Tears flooded her eyes. Shit. I should have taken Millie up on the offer to pretend I was still on my call and done this in a public place where I had an escape route.
“But I thought we’d grown to more…”
And therein lay the problem. Some women say they’re good with casual—but they aren’t. They think they can change what I want and then get pissed off at me for only wanting exactly what I’d said I wanted at the beginning.
“I’m sorry if you misunderstood.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.
Her entire face contorted. “I didn’t misunderstand. You led me on.”
I hadn’t led her on one bit. But I knew when it was best to eat crow. “I’m sorry if I did that.”
Her face softened, and she sniffled. “Fine. We can keep it the way things were when we started. No strings attached.”
I could’ve ended this more easily if I agreed to that and then avoided her in the future. But leaving no strings attached still kept a string between us. And I didn’t want to be tethered to her anymore.
“I think it’s best we just end things here completely.”
Her eyes grew wide. She wasn’t used to rejection. “But…”
“I’m sorry, Arlia.”
She recovered by shifting from upset and shocked back to pissed off. Abruptly, she rose to her feet.
I joined her in standing.
Arlia surprised me by smoothing out her dress. It looked like she was going to leave without too much of a scene after all. Thinking we were good, I made the mistake of walking around the desk to escort her out.
But apparently, her composure was only the eye of the storm. Once I got near, her fury reignited.
“You’re a user.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
She raised her voice again. “Your apartment is as dull as you are. The only thing interesting about you is your dick.”
Okay, I’m done. I put my hand behind her back, careful not to touch, but to guide her to walk toward my office door.
She practically spat at me. “Don’t touch me.”
I pulled my hand back and raised them both in the air. “I was just going to show you out.”
She reared back and slapped me across the face. The impact was so unexpected and hard, my cheek turned from the momentum of the connection.
“I’ll show myself out.”
I stayed put until the door opened and slammed shut. It had been a long time since I was slapped. A long-ass time. Only now, I was smarter and would be keeping far away after that shit happened.
Chapter 10
* * *
Grant - 14 years ago
“I don’t want to go back.”
I rubbed Lily’s shoulders. “I don’t want you to go either.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s just going to happen again. My mom is fine for a while, and then she stops taking her meds and disappears. Eventually someone realizes I’m living alone and calls the cops, who then call Social Services.”
Lily had been with us for more than nine months. She’d told me how when her mom would disappear, she had to steal food from the grocery store and sell shit from their apartment just to eat. She’d stopped going to soup kitchens because they asked so many questions about where her parents were.
“Listen, I want you to take this.” I held out an envelope with five hundred bucks stashed inside. “Just in case she disappears again.”
The tears she’d held back began to stream down her face. “I don’t need it. You’re going to come see me all the time, right? If she disappears, I’ll just tell you, and you can bring me something then.”
“What happens if she makes you move again, Lily?” They’d moved dozens of times over the last fifteen years. Me showing up at her apartment one day and finding it empty wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“I won’t go. How would you even find me?”
“If you move, you’ll write to me. Do you know the address here?”
Lily
nodded and rattled off the house address.
I smiled. “Good. If you ever have to move, you’ll tell me in a letter. And I’ll come see you every week on Sunday—even if you move all the way to New York. I promise.” That probably seemed crazy, but I knew I’d find a way to do it. Lily and I were meant to be together. “Take the envelope. It’s not much. But you might need it for stamps. Or stuff for school.”
She hesitated, but took it. Once she figured out how much I’d shoved inside, she wouldn’t be happy. But she’d be back at her mother’s, and neither of us was going to be very happy anyway.
My mom knocked on Lily’s bedroom door. “Lily, sweetheart? Are you ready? The social worker is here.”
The look of terror on her face killed me. It freaking killed me. I knew from personal experience that going back home once you’d been removed rarely worked out. Yet the damn judges always wanted to put you back—as if mothers and fathers were entitled to have children, and they had to prove to the guy in the black robe why they were incompetent. Birth parents usually had to screw up a half-dozen times before they’d stop sending you back. The system sucked.
I motioned toward the door with my head and whispered, “Tell her you’re getting dressed, and you’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Lily did, but her voice broke. Mom said she’d meet her downstairs.
It was only a matter of time before my mother noticed I wasn’t around. Lily and I had kept our relationship a secret. We were afraid my parents would think it was a bad idea to keep two fifteen year olds who were in love in the same house. I mean, it was…but they didn’t need to know that. They also didn’t need to know that I snuck into her bed every night after everyone was asleep. That would most certainly freak Mom out.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Lily sobbed quietly.
I cupped her face and wiped away her tears with my thumbs. “Don’t cry. You’re never going to lose me, Lily. Not ever. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We held each other for a long time. Eventually, though, we had to let go.
“I’ll write to you every day we can’t be together.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to write back. I know you don’t like writing stuff. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll write to me if you fall in love with someone else, and tell me all about her so I’ll know you’re happy and I should stop writing. Otherwise, I’ll never give up on us.”
I grinned and kissed her nose. “You got a deal. Works out pretty good for me. Because I’ll never have to write one damn letter.”
***
I’d never met anyone who had hallucinations before. My mom had been an addict, and she would sleep for hours on end, sometimes days when she was on a binge. But even when she was at her worst, she never heard voices in her head.
This was the second Sunday I’d visited Lily since she moved out, but the first time her mother had been home. Rose had a job waitressing on weekends, so she’d been at work last week, but apparently this week she was incapable of going. I understood why now. Rose was lying on the couch smoking a cigarette so small that I couldn’t imagine it wasn’t burning her fingers. Her mouth kept moving as she spoke quietly to herself, but I couldn’t figure out what she was saying.
Lily tugged my hand when she caught me staring and told me to come to her room. “But…” I leaned and whispered, “What about the cigarette?”
Lily sighed and walked over. She slipped the cigarette from between her mother’s two fingers and dropped it into a half-full glass of water on the coffee table, which already had a dozen other tiny remnants of filters. Her mom didn’t even seem to notice.
I took a seat on Lily’s bed, and she hopped onto my lap.
“I guess she stopped taking her medicine?”
“She ran out a week ago and didn’t refill it. I hadn’t been checking, so I didn’t notice right away. But I called the pharmacy, and I can pick up the new one later.”
“How long will she stay like that?”
Lily sighed. “I don’t know. But she was doing so good.”
Things had been normal for me for more than ten years now, but I still remembered the constant disappointment of my mom sleeping all the time—not to mention all the scary guys who hung around our apartment. It was easy to forget my life had once been like Lily’s.
“Maybe we should call someone. Like CPS?”
Lily’s eyes widened. “No!”
“I thought you wanted to stay with us. If they see her like that, they’ll remove you again, and you’ll probably come back to our house.”
Lily frowned. “I do want that. But now that I’m back with her, I can’t leave her like this. She needs me. They drug her up too much in the hospital.”
“I know. But she doesn’t look so good.”
“The medicine will make her better. I swear.”
I didn’t like it, but I understood wanting to take care of your mother, even when she should’ve been taking care of you. I sighed. “Fine.”
Lily wrapped her arms around my neck. “Did you get my letters?”
“I did. You really don’t want me to write back? I couldn’t do it every day like you. I wouldn’t know what to say. But maybe I could write once or twice a week.”
“Nope. If I ever see a letter from you in my mailbox, my heart’s going to be broken, because it will be your goodbye.”
I wasn’t going to argue, considering I hated writing anything, especially letters. Plus, I had better things to do. I brushed Lily’s hair from her shoulder and leaned in for a kiss. “I missed you this week.”
“I miss sleeping with you at night. I haven’t been sleeping well without you. I got used to the sound of your heartbeat lulling me to sleep.”
“Well, you might not hear it at night anymore. But it still belongs to you.”
Lily and I hung out in her room until I had to go. My mom was picking me up, and I wanted to wait downstairs so she didn’t come up and see the condition of Lily’s mom. Reluctantly, we untangled our bodies, straightened our clothes, and headed back to the living room. Lily had slipped out a few times over the last few hours to check on her mom, but I hadn’t seen her since I came in hours ago.
Rose wasn’t spacing out on the couch anymore. Now she walked back and forth from one side of the living room to the other, pacing. When you spent a good chunk of your childhood around junkies and addicts, you learned to read how stable a person is from just a quick look into their eyes. And Lily’s mother looked the opposite of stable right now. Noticing me looking at her, she stopped pacing and stared at me. Her face twisted with anger, and she walked toward me with purpose. I stepped in front of Lily.
Rose’s eyes looked crazed. “I know you told them.”
My brows furrowed. “Who?”
“The doctors. It’s your fault.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harrison. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
Before I could register what the hell was happening, she wound up and slapped me straight across the face. “Liar!”
Lily jumped between us and pushed her mom back. “Mom! What the hell? What are you doing?”
“He tells the doctors.” She wagged her finger at me. “He tells them everything.”
“Mom.” Lily put her arm around her mother and guided her to the couch. “You’re confused. You stopped taking your medicine, and it made you sick again.” They sat down. “I’m going to go get it from the pharmacy.”
Her mom started to cry. All of the anger in her face was gone, replaced by sheer sadness. It was the craziest transformation I’d ever seen. It took Lily a few minutes to calm her down, but eventually she got her back into the position she’d been in when I walked in: lying on the couch, smoking a cigarette in an almost catatonic state, and whispering to herself. Lily walked me to the door and waited until we were in the hall to speak.
She reached up and stroked my cheek. “I’m
so sorry. Are you okay? She…sometimes gets hallucinations, and they always seem to center on the doctors.”
Jesus. “Yeah, I’m fine. But I don’t think you should stay here.”
“No. I can’t leave her like this. She needs me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Lily. That was fucked up. How do you know she won’t hurt you?”
“She won’t. I promise. Please don’t say anything to anyone.”
I hated to leave her, but a part of me did understand the need to help a screwed-up parent, right or wrong. I used to cook mine dinner at five years old.
“Okay. But get her back on the meds tonight. And if she isn’t a little better by next week, we need to get you out of here.”
Chapter 11
* * *
Ireland
I wondered if he’d be here.
I was mid-conversation with some former colleagues I hadn’t seen in a few years when I got my answer. The sight of him made me lose my train of thought.
On the other side of the room, Grant Lexington stood wearing a classic black tuxedo. He was talking to an older gentleman, which gave me the opportunity to really take him in—tall, broad shoulders, yet not overly bulky, a narrow waist with one hand resting casually in his pants pocket. Even from a distance, his confidence registered. There was something about the way certain men held themselves that showed they were in charge, and that really worked for me. It could take a man who was a seven and make him an eleven in my book. On the other hand, a handsome ten with a meek personality could be reduced to a five.
Mr. Confident held a drink in his left hand and raised it to his mouth, but he stopped before drinking. He seemed to sense something and looked around the room. When his eyes caught mine, a slow, wicked smile spread across his face. He excused himself from the conversation and strode toward me.