The next thing I know, he is lifting me onto the edge of the sink. And I am unbuttoning and pulling open his tuxedo jacket and shirt because I want his skin. I want him more than I have ever wanted anything or anyone before.
It would seem Holt wants me, too. His rough hands push up the skirt of my dress before retreating to fumble with the buckle of his trousers. I feel him long and heavy against my now bare thighs. Then he breaks off the kiss just as suddenly as it began, and his hand reaches into the side pocket of his tux, eventually coming back out with a condom.
This would be the time. The time for me to tell him to stop. The time to realize how crazy this whole situation has become. But I am mute with all-consuming need. Unable to utter a single word as I watch Holt sheathe himself in thin rubber latex. And then my throat goes even more dry when he reaches between my legs and pulls the crotch of my panties aside…to push a thick finger into my canal.
However, this is not foreplay. I soon realize this when he swirls the digit around inside me instead of pushing it in and out. No, this is a test to see if I am ready for him.
And I pass it easily, lubricating even more at just the pressure of his wide knuckle scraping against my vaginal walls.
“Sylvie,” he whispers my name like a prayer. But a prayer for what? I don’t know.
Then I feel the heat of him, thick and heavy against my crotch. Familiar, but also not. It has been so long since he took me face to face that I was beginning to wonder if I only imagined us doing it that way when we were young. But this time is not like all the other times we have shared in his mansion bedroom. This time, instead of him motioning for me to turn around, he pulls my hips forward.
And this time, I moan his name loud and long when he pushes into me. My sex receives him with a hungry clench. Remembering how it used to feel between us. Like nothing I had ever known. Before or after.
Maybe this is how it feels for him, too, because he drops his forehead to mine and with a wounded growl, his hips start circling hard between my legs. The bathroom soon fills with the sound of his body slapping into mine. Faster and faster, his breaths becoming coarser and coarser until…I cry out and he yells as we explode together. Really together for the first time since we started this arrangement. Us again for the first time in ten years.
We stare at one another in tender wonder. And for one moment, things are good between us…like it used to be. But only for a moment. Because eventually, my ears stop ringing and the lovely euphoria fades. Eventually, I realize exactly where I am. Who I am. And why we both came to this restaurant in the first place.
Holt must be coming down with a similar case of reality check because his tender look vanishes. Then he pulls out of me and begins putting himself back together in a blur of tucking and buttoning. All I have to do is hop off the sink and pull my skirt down, but I still feel strange and uncomfortable as we emerge from the bathroom.
As I should.
Waiting right outside the door is the manager, who went out of his way to clear out the restaurant for Holt and his date, Glen, and Holt’s stunning date.
They are all staring at us, aghast.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Something tells me neither Holt nor I will get a second date. I am right on both counts.
Glen and Holt’s date storm off after several huffy and, frankly, well-deserved “how could you’s!” and “I cannot believe this!” Meanwhile, the manager threatens all sorts of things, claiming he does not care who Holt is and informing him he is not above the law and he plans to call the police.
Holt stops the manager’s tirade with one raised finger and pulls his phone out of an inside pocket.
“Hey, Della. We have a PR emergency…” he says to the person who answers after he puts the phone to his ear. “Yeah, the date didn’t go as well as we hoped. I’ll fill you in on the details later, but right now I’ve got an angry restaurant manager threatening to call the police. I need you to handle him.”
He hands his phone to the manager. “You can keep it,” he says and walks away like the latest—and according to some claims online—“best ever “iPhone is disposable as paper.
“Sylvie, you’re with me,” he commands when I hang back, gaping open mouthed between him and the manager.
The manager who already seems to be mollified as he nods along with whatever the woman on the other line is saying.
I follow Holt out, not sure what else to do.
And I instantly regret not calling an Uber. I wouldn’t say I’ve been avoiding Holt outside the bedroom since I moved back to Connecticut. But Wes eats nearly every breakfast and dinner at my place. Also, entire weekends go by when Holt’s son doesn’t even set foot in the main house.
So, maybe I should not be surprised by the shocked look on the face of Holt’s Slavic bodyguard and driver when he gets out of the car to find me standing beside Holt rather than the stunning brunette he drove here.
“Hi, Yahto,” I say, remembering our very awkward introduction in Ixtapa. I am also deeply aware that I reek of the sex I just had with Holt.
Holt adds, “Ms. Kent took an Uber home. It’s just Sylvie and me.”
Ms. Kent. Even her name sounds rich and beautiful! A pang of guilt hits me hard as the car pushes forward into the heavy Friday night traffic on Greenwich Ave. This isn’t me, I keep thinking to myself as we make the ten-minute drive back to Holt’s estate. Ruining first dates? Having sex in bathrooms? Trading sex to get an end date to my contract? Who has Holt turned me into?
When the car slows outside the main house, I push on the passenger door before the vehicle comes to a complete stop. And when I manage to open it and jump out of the car, it feels like I have burst out of a coffin. I run to my little cottage, ignoring Holt as he calls out my name behind me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I don’t go to him that night.
Or the next.
And things might have gone on like that forever. With me serving my time and pretending my employer in the main house doesn’t exist.
But the following Monday as I jog down the school steps after dropping Wes off, a large man steps in front of me. He is swarthy and olive-skinned. Definitely not a black man. But for some reason, he reminds me a lot of Javon. Other than the difference in skin color, their overall vibes feel the same. This guy is big and bulky, with a suit so tailored, it somehow reads like a uniform.
I freeze, my throat filling with fear.
And then, as if to confirm my suspicions of whose payroll he’s on, the man says, “Got someone who wants to talk to you.”
I blink, not understanding. Also… “Um, I am expected back home in ten minutes.” Which is sort of true. Barron only has a single afternoon lecture today, and I was planning to stop at Starbucks, but now I really, really want to go straight home.
“Won’t take long,” the man says, cupping my elbow and leading me to an idling Bentley.
I would like to say I am surprised to find Jack Calson waiting for me in the back seat when I climb in, but I am not. The truth is, I have been expecting him to show up ever since I stepped foot onto Holt’s estate. And if we are speaking truth, I’m only surprised it took him this long to make an appearance.
“This ain’t what we agreed to, girlie,” Jack says after his guard shuts the car door behind me.
There’s no small talk or even a hello, how are you doing since the last time I threatened you?
But again, I am not surprised. There wasn’t any small talk the first time we met, either. Just Javon all but shoving me into a car a few hours after I came down in Holt’s apartment elevator, screaming for help.
Holt’s father had been in the backseat of that car, too. Along with a lawyer in thin black glasses who repeatedly wiped the sweat from his forehead as he walked me through the contract Jack Calson wanted me to sign. It was one of the hottest summers on record in Connecticut. And even that fancy car’s air conditioning couldn’t keep up.
But this time, Jack Calson sits alone. Th
is time, I am not a scared girl whose would-be fiancé just overdosed. And this time, it is chilly in the car, with a fall wind swirling dead leaves outside the car windows in an ominous reminder of how easy it is for beautiful things to die.
“I am not in breach of contract,” I answer. “I still haven’t told him what really happened that night and I won’t.”
Big Jack gives me a look so assessing, I’m instantly reminded of Holt. “I’m talking about our verbal agreement.”
I shake my head. “I stayed away from him. Holt moved on and married like you wanted. I had no idea Wes was his son when I met him.”
“And how about fucking him in that restaurant bathroom?” Jack asks. “Is that what you consider staying away?”
I take a deep breath, not interested in or feeling capable of explaining my very complicated sex life with Jack’s son. Instead I say, “I am leaving in January. I won’t be a problem after that, and he will never find out.”
Jack’s jaw tightens and though I don’t smell tobacco on him, it sure looks like he’s chewing on a wad as he considers my words. “What’s keeping you from giving your two-week notice today?”
“Holt is,” I answer. “He poisoned the waters at my last job so I would be forced to accept his offer to become Wes’s nanny. I am still not sure if he really needed the childcare or if this is his idea of revenge.”
“Probably both, knowing my boy,” Jack answers, his Arkansas accent as loose-jawed as Holt’s is Connecticut tight. “You shouldn’t never let yourself cross paths with a Calson twice, if you escaped the first time. And that boy of his is a handful. Which is why I ain’t none too happy about you ruining his chances with my first-round pick for his next wife.”
I am not happy about it either. And I also wonder if Holt realizes his father was part of the vetting process for Holt’s most recent date.
I fold my hands in my lap and quietly wait to hear what Jack will say next. There’d been a big speech ten years ago.
“You’ve got a choice, girlie,” he told me. “Holt will be all right without you, more than all right. But if you stay with him, I will not hesitate to ruin the lives of those you care about the way you will ruin his future if you continue with this relationship. You are young and might not think you need money to be happy. But let me tell you, your mama does. From what I have found out, her and your sick daddy are swimming in bills. Bills I can pay, nice and discreet. A charitable donation from a Christian organization that heard her story and wants to help. After your daddy dies, she’ll be sad but she won’t have any more money worries. Not like the kind she’ll have if I decided to punish her for her daughter’s crimes.”
Jack, as it turned out, had been the answer to repairing the rift that had driven me straight into Holt’s arms in the first place. I showed up with a check at my mother’s door just as she was coming home from the hospital with the worst news of her life. Daddy could not survive any longer without a ventilator, but in a moment of pride she had no idea he had been keeping in reserve, he refused to be fitted for one. So instead of sending him home with a ventilator, Daddy was sent to a hospice where he would die. Sooner than any of us expected.
My mother needed me and the check I told her I’d secured from a Christian organization. And Holt…well, he didn’t. The paramedics who attended to him had said he would recover, and in the few minutes I had to consider Jack Calson’s offer, I realized the truth of things.
Not only did Holt not need me, I had cushioned his freefall into drugs by not insisting he go to rehab. It was because of me that he was vulnerable to an overdose. Back then, I didn’t have a word for how I felt about myself during those four hours after receiving the news that Holt would make a full recovery. But in the years that followed, I encountered it time and time again as I attempted to parse what had happened that summer.
I was an enabler. I had enabled him, and this meant Jack Calson was right. Holt and I were bad together. Then and now. All we do is ruin each other.
So, though I loathed Holt’s father for always being the devil in the backseat offering me impossible choices, I found myself nodding at him and asking, “What do you want me to do?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I see here you worked as the program director at The Tourmaline for a number of years, but now you work in Connecticut?” the director of CIT’s on-site childcare center asks me two weeks later.
The woman on the other side of a very messy desk reminds me a lot of myself asking the same type of leading questions when I used to interview candidates for childcare positions. Except this interview is in person, while most of my interviews took place over the phone. Like many international resort chains, the Tourmaline Ixtapa put a premium value on diverse, international hires. Oh, and now I am seated in the candidate chair instead of behind the desk.
“Yes, that’s right,” I answer smoothly. “I was commissioned to come here by a client. But I am unable to disclose his name due to an NDA.”
“Oh, I suspect I already know who he is considering Jack Calson recommended you for this job,” the woman says with a wink. “But despite working for this VIP client, you want to take a step down and work for the CIT Center Daycare?”
“My son attends CIT as an undergrad. I would like to combine his opportunity with my own and pursue a degree…”
The woman tilts her head, confused. “But CIT doesn’t offer any Early Childhood Education or teaching programs. What degree are you planning to pursue here?”
“Oh, ah…psychology,” I answer haltingly. “I think my background in childcare will make me a good candidate to become a child psychologist.”
It feels weird to say this to her. I have never spoken this particular dream aloud. Not even to Barron. Or Holt, the boy who first put the idea in my head ten years ago.
But lest she mistake my discomfort for something it’s not, I rush to assure her of the many other reasons I am the perfect fit for this daycare job.
By the time the interview is over, the daycare director is glowing like she just won the lottery. “We’ll see you in two weeks, Sylvie!” she says, giving me a warm hug after she walks me out of her office.
Barron, however, is not nearly as happy when, later that day, I show him around the Stamford apartment we’ll be moving into two weeks from now.
“I know it’s not as big as the guest cottage, but it is sunny and bright,” I say as I watch Barron sullenly shuffle around the apartment with its beige carpets and even beiger walls. “It’s a bus ride to CIT, but the stop is very close, and like Greenwich, there are plenty of places we can walk to in this neighborhood.”
“Yeah, but…” Barron’s looks out of a window that holds a far-off view of the Long Island Sound, rather than a waterfront view of Indian Harbor. “I still do not understand why you have to switch jobs. Wes and me like things the way they are. And I know you don’t like his dad, but he is never there.”
My heart squeezes. I guess I hadn’t been able to keep my conflicted feelings about Holt a secret. But of course, things are more complicated than my feelings about Holt. Barron is much, much smarter than the average child. But he is still a child. Too young to understand what is really going on here. And I wonder, not for the first time, if he would reject me like my mother did if he knew what I’d done, the secrets I continue to keep in order to return our lives back to normal…
For that reason and more, there is a sigh in my voice as I answer his “do not understand” with, “Barron…”
“I’m just saying we can move out of their house but you don’t have to change jobs.”
I sigh and give him the same line I gave the daycare director. “Wes is a great kid, but I like to work with groups of children. Plus, if I work at the daycare I can take classes at CIT for free. This is important because I will need a lot of schooling to get both my undergraduate and Masters degrees.”
Barron rolls his eyes. “Seriously, you want to get a Master’s degree?”
I pause, not only because I d
o not appreciate my son’s dismissive tone, but also because I am just now realizing he has no idea who I was before he was born. That when I was younger, I had hopes and dreams, same as him.
“Lydia wasn’t the only smart one in our family,” I tell him now. “I got into college, same as her. I just did not go.”
“Why not?”
I shrug and shake my head. “Life,” I answer, as vague as I can possibly be without frustrating my genius son. “But if I work for the CIT daycare center, I can figure out a way to make my long-delayed dreams come true. And you know, I believe it is even better to complete my schooling now. Back when I first got into college, I had no real idea what I wanted to do with my life. Now I do.”
Barron’s eyes stay sad as he looks out the window, and instead of trying to convince him how nice our life will be when we are no longer living under Holt’s thumb, I come to stand beside him.
“I know you will miss Wes. He is your friend in a way the older kids at CIT cannot be.”
“It’s not just that…” Barron answers, his voice flat with disappointment. “If I lose access to Wes, I can no longer track his emotions. That means I won’t be able to help him.”
“Ah…” I screw up my face, not quite understanding how his bioHelmet could help Wes.
“I read his father’s Wikipedia page,” Barron explains off my confused look. “Wes could have emotional problems all his life, and I was thinking maybe the bioHelmet might help with stuff like that, too. It could do more than read brain waves. It could help him—I could help him! But now…I won’t be able to.”
“Oh, Barron…”
He is ten now. A ten-year-old college student and nearly as tall as me besides, thanks to the long genes he inherited from his father. But I hug him anyway, like I used to when he was a little boy and all I had left in the world. Because just when I start thinking we could not be any more different, I realize we do have something in common. Our over-the-top empathy that makes us abandon our own life plans so we can go overboard for a Calson we’ve just met.
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 17