“Is the plan to find Asir and talk to him for just a little while, before we leave to get me home on time?” I ask Prin as we walk down the golden hallway, me trailing slightly behind her. I am asking as a reminder to my best friend, but also to calm my own nerves.
“Yep,” Prin answers. “One hour and we’re out of here. Your mom won’t suspect a thing.”
Guilt rolls over me twofold. I love Prin, but I do not like how she acts as if lying to my parents is just fun and games. Or the way she only refers to my mother. My father is not dead. Yet.
“And the way Daddy looked at me. He can’t talk, but Sylvie it felt like he was screaming at me as loud as Mommy.”
My sister’s sob-filled words float into my mind as we walk down the hallway. Guilt hangs over me, heavy and uncomfortable as a wet dish rag. I told Lydia it would be okay because I believed our happy family could withstand anything without falling apart. But it wasn’t okay. My parents—not just my mother—sent her away. Now Lydia is back in Jamaica while I am here trying to prevent my best friend from making the same mistake she did.
We stop in front of a double set of black doors overlaid with a geometric design etched in gold foil. Small knobs are embedded smack in the middle of each door. I wince, surprised to find them closed. Because if the music is this loud in the hallway, I can only imagine what it is going to sound like inside.
I tense with anxious hesitation, but Prin pulls open the door with the boldness of hip-hop royalty. It is as obvious as the sequins on her dress that she is ready to live up to the potential of her full name and get her happy ending with the charming Arabian prince who finally noticed she was alive a week ago.
The music is as bad as I suspected it would be. It hits my ears with an aggressive blast, and for a moment, everything is drowned out: my guilt, my hidden mission, and all sense of equilibrium.
“One hour, I swear!” Prin’s voice yells directly into my right ear.
And then she’s pulling away. Leaving, I realize a second too late. “Prin, wait, hold up!” I call after her.
But of course, she can’t hear me over the music. She disappears into the thick crowd before I can stop her, leaving me with no choice but to follow her retreating back into the den of iniquity.
And it’s a literal den. I discover this when my eyes adjust to the dim lighting. The front room is a sunken square filled with beautiful people highlighted by swirling purple and blue lights. It is dark, but I can see this is not the kind of party I am normally invited to by family members and church friends.
Music plays, but nobody is dancing. Several men and women laugh uproariously like they can actually hear one another, but none of them look truly happy. Everyone is dressed beautifully, but they don’t seem to notice anyone but themselves. And absolutely no one else is wearing a borrowed sparkle dress from the early nineties.
I am half afraid someone will take it upon themselves to throw me out because I so obviously do not belong here. But nobody seems to pay me any attention as I push my way through the thick crowd, head bobbing and eyes straining as I look for Prin. I feel silly for dressing up at all and I wonder if Prin will even find her Arabian prince in this chaotic mess of people.
When I still cannot find Prin anywhere, I follow a set of steps up to a hallway lined with doors. Without thinking, I open the first door and call out, “Prin?”
It is much brighter in this room, and my eyes need a few seconds to adjust. This turns out to be a few seconds too long because when I stop blinking, I see a guy with dark hair perched on the edge of the bed. He is wearing a polo and khakis, and I might have thought he was fully clothed if not for the naked girl bouncing up and down on his lap.
“Yeah, Luca, fuck me. Just like that! Just like that!” Naked Girl says, her voice grateful even though from where I stand, it looks like she is the one doing all the work.
The boy she is bouncing on looks up at me. And despite the crude tableau, I cannot help but notice how gorgeous he is. Dark hair, olive skin, pale blue eyes. He regards me with a lazy smile over the bouncing girl’s shoulder.
“Heya, what’s what?” he says as if I’ve walked in on him sharing a glass of tea with a friend. He has an accent, American but like the men who come into my aunt’s beauty salon once a month to collect a white envelope with “protection” money inside.
“You watching or joining?” he asks me with hooded eyes.
The girl pauses and looks over her shoulder at me. Instead of screaming in shame, she giggles and says, “Oh, yay! I’ve never done it with a black girl before.”
Like I am a new and exciting flavor of ice cream.
There is no question now. I must find Prin. I back out of the room and yank the door shut behind me.
I try the next room and find two girls in cut-out dresses leaning over a mirror. Another door slam.
More doors open and shut after glimpses into rooms filled with examples of what my mother would definitely call, “them indecent behaviors.”
Which is why it is such a relief when I try the very last door at the end of the hall and open it to find a large but otherwise empty room. At least I am relieved until a blast of cool spring air hits me and my eyes follow it to its source: to the balcony’s open French doors. My heart stops…
A person with long blond hair stands on the wrong side of the balcony’s wrought iron railing with both hands gripping the banister. Like she’s about to jump.
At first I think I am hallucinating because Christina Worthing-Calson is already dead. She fell from this very balcony, if the room’s large size is any indication. Is this her ghost? My mother’s ghost-demon stories knock around in the back of my head.
But no, that’s not it…I walk further into the room, my eyes squinting as I try to figure out who or what I’m looking at. I am beginning to think the figure on the wrong side of the balcony is not a woman at all. He or she is lean and tall with long hair, but the proportions are all wrong for a woman; not willowy like Christina Worthing-Calson in the wedding photo that ran with her obituary. A gust of wind tears across the balcony as I reach the open door, whipping the person’s long hair to the side to reveal a shirtless back covered in wiry muscle. I can see the thin ligament lines in his forearm as they work overtime to keep his hands wrapped tightly around the banister.
No…definitely not Christina. It is her son, Holt! The host of this party. I briefly recall his visit to the school last year for opening day of the new gym and auditorium complex his family donated. All eyes, including mine, were on him but aside from his participating in the ribbon cutting ceremony, he seemed to be someplace else, his gaze directed into the distance as if the students and staff weren’t even there.
Holt Calson had struck me as privileged and aloof—you know, standard Beaumont boy issue. But right now, he looks all too fragile as he leans forward into the void. My heart catches.
“No, don’t!” Without thinking, I drop the purse Prin loaned me and close the distance between us. “No, don’t jump!” I call out to him, wrapping both hands around the Cal-Mart scion’s arm.
Chapter Two
HOLT
“No, don’t jump!”
At first, the numb haze doesn’t lift. There’s only a voice coming from somewhere below, then a dull squeeze pressing into my arm. I glance down to shout at whoever the fuck thinks they can just waltz into my room and onto my balcony and grab me…but when I do…
The world abruptly comes back into focus and I see her: brown worried eyes, a kind, round face. I see her. And instead of feeling like she grabbed hold of my arm, it feels like she grabbed hold of my soul.
“Please, do not jump,” she says, her eyes imploring.
I’m not going to jump. I was never planning to jump. Standing outside my balcony rail is just a thing I do. For shits and giggles. You know…
But there’s a dense fog in my head that won’t let me form words. Or maybe it’s her rendering me speechless? Dark braids circle her head like a halo speared through with a
golden comb. Is she a goddess? I want to ask but all I can manage is to shift my eyes to where her warm hands still grasp my arm. Her dark skin offers a sharp contrast to my pale arm.
“Please, don’t,” she says again. There’s noticeable tremble in her voice, but she doesn’t let go.
I can’t…I can’t talk. I shake my head, trying to remember what the fuck I took. Some new designer drug Luca scored on his last trip to Ibiza. He said I’d feel like I was fucking on a cloud.
But that was a lie. All it did was numb me even more with a side of cottonmouth and an unquenchable thirst. I figured Luca would eventually send some girl in here to suck me off—you know, a gift for the party host.
This girl, she’s definitely a gift—no question about that. But she doesn’t look a thing like anyone Luca would know.
“Who are you?” I want to ask. But between the cotton in my mouth and the fuzz in my brain, my words do not stand a chance.
“Please come back over here,” she says, tugging on my arm.
I give in to the pull even though it feels like my legs are made of fucking lead. Just to please her. Just to get closer.
“Okay, okay…good…good…” she says as if I have done something award-worthy by climbing back onto my own balcony. “Let’s go inside. I do not think we need to be out here any longer.”
We…she says. Like we’re a team.
I let her lead me into my room, still marveling at the feel of her hands on my arm, somehow firm, warm, and gentle at the same time. I’m pretty sure the Fuck Cloud drug was a downer, but my heart is beating as fast as a Formula One engine. And as for my dick…
Earlier, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get it up enough to have sex with one of Luca’s many female friends. But now…
“I wasn’t going to jump.” The words suddenly appear in the air between us, as if the relay between my thoughts and my speech have been delayed by several minutes.
“Oh, okay, then you will not mind if I close this door behind us then.”
She doesn’t believe me. I can tell. And I don’t care, as long as she is still here.
But then she lets go of my arm to close the French doors and I don’t like that. I reach out to her, but all my hand does is kind of knock against her arm as she moves away.
“Who are you?” Another brain delayed question slips out as I watch her slide the door closed and lock it.
“Oh, I am only a plus one,” she answers, her eyes casting about. “As you can probably tell, I was not invited.” She waves a hand in front of herself with a self-deprecating smile. “But I am glad you were not trying to jump, and I am sorry I interrupted you.”
I stare. Wondering about her accent. But this time my response comes a little faster. “I’m not.”
“You’re not…?” she repeats, her cute face screwing up in confusion.
“Not sorry you came in here,” I answer. “I’m glad. You…you make me feel…wanna fuck on a cloud?”
She visibly startles, then squints and tilts her head to the side as if she’s not hearing me correctly.
I clarify, “I’m glad you came in here. Wanna have sex with me on a cloud? I’ve got another pill I can crush up for you.”
“Um…no thank you,” she answers with a distressed look. “I do not take drugs, and you should lie down.”
“Where are you from? Like your accent,” I watch her walk over to my messy bed and start pulling the bedding straight, like it matters.
“Jamaica,” she answers, turning down the sheets on the bed she just made. “But I’ve lived in Hartford for many years. I have not lost my accent.”
“Hartford. I went to high school near Hartford.” Full seconds tick by as I pick through my brain fuzz for the name of the place. “Beaumont.”
“I know. I went there, too. After you. I was on a scholarship. I just graduated.”
“So that means you’re legal.”
I don’t realize I’ve said this aloud until she throws me another distressed look. “You should…please lie down. I must find my friend but I don’t want to leave you in this room with these bad thoughts in your head.”
I get into the bed. Because she wants me to—not because I am remotely ready for sleep.
But even after she pulls the covers up to my chest, she continues to look down at me, eyes worried. “I will get you some water before I go. Are you okay with tap from the bathroom?”
“Yeah,” I answer, my voice husky for a few reasons. “I’m okay with anything you get me.”
She throws me a disbelieving look before disappearing into the en-suite bathroom. A few minutes later, she returns with some water in a Solo cup that was probably filled with beer before she got to it. My suspicions are confirmed by the faint yeasty taste of the water. But I swear it’s the best fucking cup of water I’ve ever had. Because she got it for me.
She watches me drink every last drop, then disappears back into the bathroom to get more.
This time I drink it slow. I don’t like the way she’s eyeing the door. Like she plans to bolt as soon as she is sure I’m not going to pass out from dehydration.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask her.
She hesitates, a guilty look passing over her dark face. But then she bends down beside me, like we’re exchanging secrets as she says in a low voice, “Yes, I know who you are. But I will not tell anyone about any of this, okay?”
Her voice is like her eyes: soft…lilting…like a really good song I’ve never heard before.
I reach out to touch her face, wondering if her skin is as soft as her deep brown eyes and melodic voice. But I never find out. Before my fingers can even graze her skin, she jerks back. “You are… very altered right now, Holt. You do not know what you are doing.”
But that’s just it, I do know what I am doing. Despite the drugs, I don’t feel numb at all. Not like I’m looking at another of the dozens of women who’ve come through this apartment since I moved in to attend Yale. I didn’t try to touch her because I’m “altered.” I tried to touch her because of her eyes and her voice and the way she laughed at herself when she admitted she hadn’t actually been invited to my stupid fucking party.
“Don’t laugh at yourself,” I mumble. “I would have invited you if I’d known you.”
Another disbelieving look is followed by a soft smile. “Get some sleep, please. I must go find my friend.”
“No, stay,” I tell her.
She shakes her head, eyes firm, yet soft and gentle like her touch. “I must find my friend, and I must return home. But truly, I am glad you did not jump. Your life is a blessing and you should treat it as such.”
Your life is a blessing. Seriously, it was like a Jamaican Hallmark card walked into my room. Nevertheless, her words warm me and fill me up with something I vaguely recognize as hope.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It really does not matter. I am only here for a friend.”
“It matters to me.”
“Because you are in an altered state. On drugs.”
This is a frustrating argument that I’m ironically too high to defend myself against. “So, you want me to call you Jamaica? Because that’s what I’ll have to call you if you don’t give me your name and number.”
“You don’t have to call me anything,” she points out.
“No, I don’t, but I want to,” I answer. “I want to fuck you on top of a cloud and feel your skin on mine while I’m calling you by your name.”
I’m not trying to scare her, really, but I can’t help what I’m saying. The drugs push the words out in a thoughtless jumble with no thought to how she might feel about them.
Her eyes widen and her mouth falls open in a way that makes me want to kiss it shut. I start to lean forward. But then a voice calls out, “There you are!”
We both look up to see another black girl in the open doorway. “I’ve been looking all over for…”
She trails off when she sees me on the bed with Jamaica
bent down next to the mattress “…you,” she finishes, blinking at both of us.
Now this girl looks like a friend of Luca’s. She has a Jersey accent and she’s tall and thin with her hair pulled back into a slick puff that goes perfectly with her vintage dress. But unlike most of the girls Luca sends in here, she seems more concerned about her friend than the young billionaire on the bed next to her.
“Are you okay?” she asks Jamaica.
“Yes, I was just…” Jamaica rises to her feet. But instead of breaking her promise not to tell anyone what happened here, she asks her tall friend, “Are you okay? You look upset.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, I guess. I just…” Jersey Girl glances around angrily. “Can we go? I really don’t want to be here anymore and I’m your ride home.”
Before Jamaica can respond I say, “Stay here, and I’ll have a car drive you home.”
“No,” Jersey Girl answers before her friend can say a word. “You think I’m just going to leave her with you? She’s coming with me.”
I tilt my head. “Why are you at my party if you’re not comfortable leaving your friend with me?”
“I don’t know,” Jersey Girl answers with an irritated sigh. “I guess because I’m a idiot. A straight up idiot. But whatever…” She turns to Jamaica and says, “Let’s go.”
“No, wait,” I say, sitting up in bed. “You can stay. How about if I—?”
Jamaica cuts me off with an apologetic shake of her head. “I’m so sorry. But of course I must go with her. She is my friend.”
I pause, stymied because I’ve got nothing to counter that with but, “Yeah, she’s your friend, but I’m Holt Calson.”
I don’t realize I have said this aloud until Jamaica’s head jerks back and her friend says, “Oh wow, you did not just say that!”
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 2