“Actually, that’s kind of the problem I’ve gotten into,” she said, giving me a shy look that I knew was part manufactured, but still, I had to admit it was effective. “Uhm, I’m really short on funds right now.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I mean, how short are you?”
“Well, I kinda went hog wild after a recent deal,” she told me, “and went out, buying a bunch of stuff for my friends. I mean, it was an out of the blue deal, and they promised me a huge contract, face of the company, all the stuff I could have wished for. They even cut me a check for seventy-five thousand dollars as an up-front as their cover girl. I figured it was the biggest break I’d ever had, so I went shopping, putting it on my credit cards and signing a few loans on jewelry, some swag for a guy who had helped me out, all that sort of stuff.”
The story was decent, but I could already see cracks in it. I mean, who the hell cuts a check anymore? I decided to feed her some more rope, see how long it would take for her to get to the point and hang herself. “What happened?”
“The company went belly up. I mean, even before they’d sent me the actual contract, the owner flew off to Fiji or Peru or someplace like that, and the whole place just disappeared. The check bounced, and now I’m facing a call on a lot of stuff I bought for a lot of people that I can’t exactly go around asking for it back in order to return it or even try and get store credit.”
“How much are we talking here?” I asked. “I mean, what could the damage be, five, six thousand?”
“Sixty thousand,” Alix replied, blushing in shame. “I know, I know, what the hell was I thinking, running up a sixty thousand dollar shopping bill, but I mean, if you’d heard the offer they promised me, sixty thousand was small potatoes.”
I wanted to yell at her. Sixty thousand? But then I remembered that her story was a total lie. Well, not a total lie. I could see in her face that she needed the money, and quickly. There was no other reason she’d be asking me for it. “When do you need it?”
She half winked to herself and pulled her mouth to the side, a common expression she made when she was thinking, and I had to resist the urge to want to kiss her, she looked so damn cute when she did it. “The store said they need it by Friday. Kade, I know it’s a lot to ask for, but if I went to Mom and Derek, they’d both freak out. I just need it for a month, maybe two. I’ve got some shoots lined up, and the UFC might bring me back for their next Las Vegas pay-per-view, they said the fighters really liked me. I can pay you back, I just can’t do it right away. A lot of my savings are tied up right now and I can’t get to them.”
I nodded. In my mind, I knew I should tell her no. I’d had people try to feed me lines like this before. Usually they were people who were caught up in something that they’d done to themselves and had come back to bite them in the ass. Gambling, drugs, stuff like that. Yet for some reason, maybe it was the black eye, maybe it was who she was, I don’t know, but I knew that Alix needed the money for something that wasn’t her fault. Besides, I didn’t need the money. I had a trust fund that I’d never touched, just sitting around gathering interest. “Okay,” I said with fake casualness. “I can get you the cash. In fact, when we get back to the house, I’ll go online and do the transfer. My bank will do it tomorrow morning, you should have it by Tuesday at the latest.”
“Really?” Alix asked, the final nail in the coffin of her lies. It wasn’t the sort of reply that someone makes when they get an unexpected gift, or when a long shot comes through. It was the sort of reply an untrained liar makes when they think they’ve gotten away with it. Basically, Alix was saying, I really got away with this?
Still, I kept it up. “Alix, you should see some of the crap I’ve had to bail some of my clients out of to prevent them from getting into the papers. One guy I had to forward nearly a hundred thousand dollars at one point after he’d gone nuts in Las Vegas at the poker tables. He ended up forking over his entire signing bonus to me because of it, but he stayed out of the tabloids and off the league’s trouble list. Trust me, pro sports leagues are not too keen on their athletes losing a ton of money in Vegas. Not since Pete Rose, at least.”
Alix broke out in a huge, relieved smile, and my suspicions were confirmed even more. Before I could process that, however, she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me, her body pressed against mine in a way that had me thinking less about what trouble she might be in and more about what sort of trouble she could cause for me.
“Oh, Kade, thank you so much!” she said, laying her head on my shoulder. I returned the hug semi-awkwardly, my body aware of how beautiful the woman pressed up against it was while my mind kept reminding me that Alix was my stepsister. “Seriously, I so owe you for this one, and more than just the cash.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” I replied, carefully extracting myself from her limbs. “But if I’m going to get you the cash, I’d prefer to use the internet at a place I can trust.”
“Or my place would be good too,” Alix said. “If you don’t mind, I mean. Besides, there’s a little Indian place near there that I’d love to take you to if you don’t mind.”
I thought about it. Facing the drive back from Orange County to Los Angeles, we’d get back somewhere around lunch time, and we’d had a pretty light breakfast. Still, the ocean was calling to me, and I wanted to enjoy the Southern California beaches again. Oregon has some beautiful coastline, but it wasn’t the same. “Where’s your place located?”
“I live in Hermosa Beach,” Alix said. “It’s not ocean-side, but you can cut through to the ocean in about a mile, or we could go down to the Hermosa Pier. Are you still into surfing like you used to be?”
I laughed, thinking back to my high school days. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done that, Alix. Besides, I doubt I’d find a place that would have a board for rent right now anyway. But I wouldn’t mind going over to the Hermosa Pier.”
“I’d love that,” Alix said. “Okay, so plan set. We go back to my place to park, walk over to Hermosa Pier, and then after lunch and an afternoon by the sea, we can take care of the rest. You know, Kade, you’re pretty awesome, you know that? A girl could search her whole life for a guy like you.”
“All it takes is the right circumstances to happen, I guess,” I replied, momentarily shaken by Alix’s words. I couldn’t let her see it though, so I cracked a smile. “Then again, knowing my luck, I’d end up with a total blonde like you or something.”
As we drove north along the PCH toward Hermosa Beach, my mind wandered to places that it wasn’t supposed to, places that I had set up iron-clad walls to prevent myself from visiting. The problem was, for all of the taunting I’d given Alix, the reason I had was because she was, in so many ways, the woman of my dreams. Despite her bitching toward Layla and Dad, she was normally sweet and innocent, kind to almost everyone she met. I’d once gone to an industry party she’d been invited to soon after she turned eighteen, just to see what the fashion industry was like. Despite the glamour, despite the outfits and the supposedly beautiful bodies, most of the people there were miserable pains in the ass. There was more backbiting, snippy comments, and just unhappy people than I had ever seen gathered together at once. But through it all, Alix was kind and nice to everyone, even when they were being mean to her.
I realize many of my own comments to her were just as bad as what the fashionistas said that night. And yes, I realize that makes me a hypocrite. I couldn’t help myself, and at the time I thought it was better than what the alternative was.
When we got to Alix’s house, I was surprised. I’d expected, like most young people in Los Angeles, that she’d be living in an apartment. Instead, I parked my Lexus in front of a very nice little two-bedroom bungalow. “I didn’t realize when you said you had your own place that you literally meant you had your own place,” I said as I put the car in park. “When did you get this?”
“About a year ago,” Alix said with a smile. “I was sharing an apartment with some girl
s in Torrance, near the Fashion District, but I couldn’t put up with one of them. She insisted on smoking as a way to control her weight for shoots, and every time she was booked for a runway show the apartment smelled horrible for two weeks. I tried everything, from leaving my windows open to air fresheners, but it just didn’t work. Derek gave me good advice. I picked it up as a bank foreclosure, and as long as I live here another four years, I can get tax write-offs on it before flipping it and making a profit, or I can turn it into a rental property.”
I shook my head in amazement. “You know Alix, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you give Dad a compliment.”
“Derek’s not a bad guy,” Alix replied. “You know that. And I can tell from the way he talks about you that he was a great father. I guess . . . I guess I just wish I still had my father in my life. So when I do get bitchy with him, it’s not his fault.”
I held my tongue, but it took me literally biting it to not let myself say what I wanted to say. Instead I nodded and got out of the car. “If we’re going to the pier, let’s get going. Is there anywhere nearby I can get a change of clothes though? I dressed for Dana Point, and if we’re going to hang out on the beach, I’d like to wear some shorts instead.”
Alix shook her head but then grinned. “I might have something that works for you inside, though.”
She was right. Apparently, as part of the marketing deal with Reebok, the UFC gave everyone involved a swag bag. Since Alix wasn’t into the sort of fashion that the UFC fighters wore, she had just taken a set for a friend. “A guy who I was seeing at the time,” she said evasively, and I let it go. I didn’t tell Alix everything about my personal life either.
The style wasn’t what I normally preferred, but it wasn’t as garish as some of the board shorts that I’d seen. There were no dragons, no flaming skulls or tribal designs, just the UFC logo in large letters on the left thigh. I was already wearing a blue t-shirt, so it was a decent enough match. “How do I look?”
“Better than the guy who wore that for the website,” Alix said, coming out of her room. I had to blink a few times; she’d changed into a bikini top with a gauzy, see-through cover up that didn’t in any way hide the amazing figure beneath, and a pair of board shorts that still hugged her hips before going about halfway down her thighs. I noticed they were black too, and she’d chosen a bikini top that was nearly the same shade of blue as my shirt. “I figured you wouldn’t mind.”
“We’re going to look like a couple,” I grumbled without even thinking. Alix’s face lit up, and her lips spread into a beautiful smile.
“That wouldn’t be so bad now, would it? I mean, at least that way you won’t be bugged by women trying to pick you up.”
The beach was crowded, like you’d expect on a California summer Sunday, but still I enjoyed it. The ocean breeze cut through the heat while at the same time blowing away any smog, and the waves were just as awesome as I had remembered. “This is great,” I said as Alix and I walked. “Although I have to admit that maybe I’ve been in Portland too long. Part of me wants to be up there on the beach instead, where you can smell the pine trees while you walk.”
“Anyone would prefer the smell of nature over the smell of Los Angeles,” Alix countered. “You know, Kade, Derek’s told me that I really should be investing more of my income into real estate. The thing is, Southern California is so expensive. Even with what I make as a model, it’s really hard to do more than dabble. Maybe I should look up in the Pacific Northwest, if you know anywhere I can put my money up there.”
“You sound like someone already considering their retirement,” I said jokingly. “When did you decide to become an old woman?”
“When I knew I wanted to be a model,” Alix replied openly. “You know what the average career length for a model is? Five years, with most girls starting around sixteen and ending at twenty-one. Unless you’ve made a big splash on the scene by the time you’re twenty, bookings will dry up until you only do it part-time or freelance stuff on the side. And to be honest with you, I haven’t made a big enough splash to keep going into my thirties. I’ve got maybe two years of high fashion left, then I could go into the side niche of fitness modeling for another four or five years at half pay. Unless I want to go and try my hand at acting, I’m going to be retired by thirty or so. To be quite honest, I don’t want to go into acting, and I have no real urge to go into the business side of fashion either.”
I fell quiet, stunned. I had been underestimating Alix a lot more than I’d thought. I said earlier that she was intelligent, but this was even more than I’d expected. I decided to just relax and let myself go with the conversation. “So what are your dreams, Alix?”
She turned her head and smiled shyly. “You’ll make fun of me if I tell you. You do it so often, I know you will.”
I shook my head, for perhaps the first time in the time we’d known each other chagrined by something she’d said. “No, I won’t. I promise.”
Alix looked me over for a bit, and we made our way down the beach toward the pier. It wasn’t as long as the more famous pier in Venice Beach, but it was still massive, stretching nearly a quarter mile out into the Pacific and towering over the beach itself. The asphalt topping was warm even through my shoes, but it was a good heat. I felt bad for anyone wearing thin sandals though—they’d have been baking their toes by the time they were even halfway down the pier.
Alix finished studying me and smiled shyly again. “I kind of want the classic happily ever after, you know? Husband, children, nice little house where I can devote myself to my family and to whatever the next stage is in my life. I mean, I do have interests other than modeling, you know.”
“Really? I didn’t know, actually,” I said. “Like what?”
“Well, I’ve really gotten a thrill recently with becoming more active in my investing. It’s part of what has me in trouble right now I know, I tied up everything in long term projects and don’t have enough liquidity when I want it, but I was thinking that if I can keep things up, I’ll have enough passive income from real estate investments that by the time I do step away from modeling, I’ll be set for life, but even more, I can grow more and more. Who knows? Heidi Klum made eighteen million last year with her work, maybe I can top that with my investments.”
“You’ll have better hair than Donald Trump at least,” I said, chuckling before stopping. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make fun of you, Alix. I’m really impressed by everything you’ve been saying. I guess it just surprises me all the more about the need for the money then. I mean, you seem to have your head pretty well screwed on when it comes to your finances.”
Alix nodded, and I could sense she was trying to come up with a lie on the fly again. “I know. I guess everyone just has a moment of craziness. How many twenty-one-year-olds would have acted maturely if they’d been offered a seven figure contract?”
“Seven figures, huh? Yeah, I guess I would have gone a bit crazy then too,” I said, thinking of the strain in her story. Sure, she might not like accessing Dad’s money, but the fact was she always had her own expense account. Dad had started a trust fund for her as soon as he and Layla got engaged. It was under the same conditions as mine, that we got full access at twenty-five, but before then she could access it under certain conditions. Dad wouldn’t have denied her on an issue like this. I let it go, knowing I had to talk to Vince soon.
We reached the end of the pier and watched the ocean for a while. Alix put her elbow on the railing and leaned down, trying to cup her cheek in her hand before pulling back, wincing as the pressure touched her injured cheek. “Damn, forgot about that.”
“I had something similar,” I told her. “One time, during my last year of law school, I had to argue a mock court case with an even bigger shiner.”
She turned to me and grinned, turning her arm so that her side was leaning against the railing. “Oh, I gotta hear this one. Derek never told me about it.”
“Dad doesn’t know,” I replied
. “After leaving USC and going to Stanford, I missed the beach. Palo Alto isn’t the same as down here you know, and while some guys go surfing, I found that I just didn’t have the time or the schedule to allow me to be in the surf culture anymore. It left me pretty frustrated because I wanted a way to stay in shape, and just going to the gym and lifting wasn’t enough. So, about halfway through my first year of law school, I got into boxing.”
“You, a boxer?” Alix asked. “I’d never believe it. Your face is far too good looking to risk it in the ring.”
I knew I was blushing, but I couldn’t help myself. Alix was a beautiful woman, and she was calling me handsome. That is something any man likes to hear. “Well, I did. Oh, I spent maybe the first six months, the rest of that year of law school, taking it slowly. I worked the bag, did drills with the mitts, that sort of thing. At first that was all I needed, as it let me work out a lot of stress. Trust me, if you’re ever pissed off at the world, beating the hell out of a heavy bag until your arms are lead is very, very therapeutic. But, I found myself needing more. So, starting my second year, I got into sparring. Light sparring at first, just working with guys and figuring out how to put together everything I’d been working on with the bags and mitts. By my last year in law school, though, I was pretty decent, and I worked with a lot of the high level amateurs in the area in getting them ready for tournaments and stuff.”
“So how’d you get the black eye then?” Alix asked. “Don’t tell me you caught a stiff one while sparring.”
“No, I always wore those headgears with the eye and cheek protectors, because I knew I had to try and keep my face unmarked. It was my downfall in sparring. I carried my hands far too high to adequately defend my body. Some of the guys who could get inside my punches just tore me apart in the body while leaving my head totally unmarked. But I got the black eye because I got goaded into a smoker one time.”
Dirty Little Secrets: A Stepbrother Romance Page 5