The Couple who Fooled the World

by Maisey Yates

Then he straightened, pushing a finger inside her. “Ready for me?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She could hear him tearing open a condom packet, could hear him undoing the buckle on his belt and a pause while she assumed he was applying the protection.

  Then he was pushing inside her, impossibly deep, filling her to the point of discomfort for a moment, before her body acclimated and pain gave way to pleasure.

  “Good?” he asked, his voice rough, his movements slow.

  The only response she had was a deep moan as she lowered her head and held on to the bed for all she was worth.

  He thrust into her hard, one hand braced just beneath her breasts, the other on her hip, as he found his rhythm. She could feel the moment his control started to shred, when each thrust brought a short groan from his lips, his movements becoming more desperate, harder, faster.

  Finally she had to look. Had to touch. Had to taste. She turned and captured his mouth with hers.

  When she broke the kiss, she looked at his eyes, blank, bleak. A man haunted. A man possessed. He moved his hand to cup her breast, shifted the other one so that it was between her thighs, stroking the source of her pleasure.

  And then that was all she could feel. All she could think about. The release that was building in her, drawing her body so tight she was sure it would break her.

  But just as she reached her limit, its hold broke, the tension unraveling, sending her into a free fall as endless waves crashed over her, flooded through her. He moved his hands to her hips, stiffening behind her, a harsh growl signaling his own release.

  He lay down, bringing her with him, keeping her so that her back was to him. He held her close, saying nothing, his heart pounding heavily, so much so she could feel it echoing in her own body.

  He was still dressed. His shirt was scratchy on her back, his belt buckled digging into her butt. “Could you scoot?” she asked. “Or, why don’t you just take your clothes off.”

  She turned over and kissed him, but he didn’t kiss her back. “Ferro?”

  He sat up and she thought maybe he was going to get undressed. But then he stood and removed the condom, redoing his belt buckle on his way into her bathroom to dispose of the protection.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m leaving.”

  Panic clawed at her, and she tried to calm it down. Because it was useless to get all worked up. Useless to show her pain and her worry over such a simple statement. Except she felt the deeper meaning in it. What he was really saying.

  Still, she tried to ignore it. Tried to play it down.

  “If you’re worried about not having a toothbrush, you can use mine. And before you say gross, I’m pretty sure we’ve swapped enough germs to…”

  She trailed off when she looked at his expression. At his eyes. So detached. Unfocused. He wasn’t even looking at her.

  “Ferro, don’t do this,” she said.

  “Don’t do what, Julia?”

  “You know what you’re doing, don’t pretend. You’re trying to put distance between us, that’s what all of this has been about. All of tonight.”

  “I don’t have to try to put distance between us. That’s all there has ever been between us. Our bodies have been close, we have not been.”

  “That’s not true. It’s not.”

  “It is. I’m sorry if that’s a hard truth for you, Julia, but it is.”

  “You are such a coward!” she said, screamed, really, because she couldn’t believe what he was doing. Couldn’t believe that he was standing there in slacks and a button up shirt, perfectly pressed still, ready to walk out the door like nothing had happened, while she was naked and rumpled and completely altered by what had happened between them.

  “A coward, Julia? Is that what you think? You attribute far too much emotion to me, cara mia.”

  “You hide so well, Ferro, you even manage to hide from yourself. But you can’t hide from me. I know you.”

  “You think you know me because I told you some stories about my past? Because we slept together?”

  “No, I think I know you because I understand how those things made you feel. I understand that you don’t feel all blasé and whatever about your past. I know that it hurts. I know you won’t let yourself move on because you feel dirty. Because you’re so scared. Of what, I don’t know. But you cling to your past like you need it to protect you. To remind you.”

  “Look at you pretending you have it all figured out. You’re hiding, too, Julia.”

  “I was. You’re right. But…I’m not going to now. I can’t now. I was so afraid to ever trust. How could I trust anyone? Ever. How could I show I was vulnerable? Look what happened to me when I tried. My mother, my own mother, chose a date for me who tried to rape me. Of course I had trouble with it. Of course I hid. But you made me see how great it was to just come out and be me. I trust you. With everything. Everything I have, everything I am. I love you, Ferro. We both deserve more than we’ve given ourselves. Who cares what anyone else thinks? Who cares about the past? We have a present. We have a future, why should the past get all the play?”

  “You don’t love me, Julia. You’re just a girl who got introduced to sex and thinks an orgasm is the same as feelings.”

  The barb hit its mark, sinking in deep, the pain in her chest radiating outward. Again, she’d shown herself, all of herself, to someone, and again she had been rejected.

  “You don’t get to tell me what I feel,” she said, anger propelling her forward rather than letting her hide. “I love you.”

  “Dammit, woman, where is your sense of self-preservation? You were better off with your armor than you are showing off all your emotion for the world to see. To use against you. Do you know how easily crushed you are?”

  Julia sucked in a breath. “Does my emotion frighten you?” she asked. He said nothing so she pressed on. “I’m sorry my passion and enthusiasm and human emotion make you uncomfortable, Ferro. I am.” She paused, focused on what she felt, on all the emotion that was coursing through her. And she realized how much she’d held back, for so long, in order to please others. She was done with that. Starting now.

  “No, you know what? I’m not sorry. I’m done apologizing for being me. I’m done feeling bad for being who I am. I’m a geek. And I laugh too loud, because when I think something is funny, I think it’s really funny. If I like a game or a movie, I really like it. Like, dress up in costume like it. I will never fit in. I will never be normal. And when I love someone…I love with everything. With all of me. Ferro, I love you. If that bothers you, fine. But I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to sublimate it, or play it cool. I’m going to shout it, and feel it, breathe it, live it, and no one is going to tell me I can’t, or it’s wrong, or it’s embarrassing. Yeah, I’m through apologizing. I’m done hiding. I love you. I’m not sorry. So it’s your move now. You have to tell me no if that’s what you want, but you can’t pretend that I don’t know my mind, that this is somehow not real. If you’re going to reject me, you have to face what it is you’re rejecting.”

  When she finished, she was breathing hard, but she felt more alive, more her, than she had for years. If Ferro was going to reject her, he had to reject her. Not some polished version of herself she’d created to seem more powerful, more capable. But the version of herself he’d brought back to the surface.

  The girl who had had unreserved enjoyment in life, who had cared about everything, from games to prom, so much. The girl she’d stuffed down and hidden to avoid getting hurt. Well, now she was standing with everything out in the open, vulnerable, easily destroyed. But she had to do it. For him. For them.

  “This has been an enjoyable arrangement for me,” he said, his voice monotone. “I hate to see it end. However, it’s clear to me that it must.”

  She wanted to scream at him. she bit her lip, a tear falling down her cheek. He was hiding. Hiding still. Behind a mask. Behind his scars.

  “You know we ca
n’t really go back,” she said. “We’ll never go back to how things were. We were stupid, Ferro. We thought we would control it, but it controlled us.”

  “I’ll go back,” he said, his voice hard. “Like it never happened, cara. Because that’s what I do. Sex is nothing to me. Nothing.”

  “You don’t mean that. Not with me.”

  “As you’ve been such a good lover, I would like to increase your payment.” Another tear fell and she shook her head, begging him, internally, not to do this. But he continued. He bent down and picked up the computer bag he’d brought with him, pulled out a folder. “Everything I have collected on your company over the past five years. Some of it I haven’t even looked at yet. It was for use at a later date. After our peaceable term ended. But I’m giving it to you. With the promise that I will never make an attempt at bringing Anfalas down. You’re safe from me.”

  He extended the folder to her, as if he expected her to take it and thank him for it.

  “I don’t want it,” she said.

  “That’s not how this works, Julia. You gave me sex, I’m giving you payment.”

  “I gave you my damn soul, Ferro. You can’t buy that.”

  “But I didn’t ask for your soul, my dear.” His special endearment for her, in English for the first time. “I only asked for your body, so it is all I will pay for.”

  “You have to cheapen it, don’t you? Not so you’ll understand it, but so you can put it with the rest of the things in your life you’re ashamed of. Because you like shame, don’t you? It keeps you insulated. Keeps you from having to move on. Protects you from your feelings.”

  “I don’t have feelings, Julia. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

  “Tell me you don’t love me,” she said, because she was perverse, because she had to hear it. “Tell me, and I’ll take your ‘payment’ and I’ll let you go.”

  “I don’t love you.”

  Another tear rolled down her cheek. “Great. Then it’s really over.” She bent down and took the folder from the bed, held it over her bare breasts, needing cover now. Ashamed of her nudity. She wiped a tear from her cheek and lifted her hand, treating him to her best Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper. And get the hell out of my house.”

  Ferro nodded once and then turned around, walking out of her room, closing the door firmly behind him. Julia sank onto the bed, her legs trembling, her stomach threatening to rebel and release its contents.

  She swallowed hard. Then she lay down, still holding the folder tight against her chest, and cried.

  Ferro stormed out of Julia’s house and to his car, the engine roaring to life with the push of a button on his phone.

  It was done. What he’d needed to do was done.

  He couldn’t stay with her. Couldn’t indulge himself any longer. The woman was too destructive to him. She was too adept at reaching inside him and making him feel things. It was like she was hot-wiring his soul, reconnecting wires that had long ago been cut. Sending jolts of emotion and need and pain through him.

  And what it had done to his control was unacceptable. Unprotected sex first, and then his outburst in the meeting. And tonight he’d come to prove that he still had the power in the relationship. That he was in charge. That he was not at the mercy of one skinny blonde who should, by all rights, drive him completely insane.

  But when she’d kissed him, kissed him with all her heart, emotion pouring from her, forcing him to feel, he’d known he had lost. And so he’d deferred to his backup plan.

  Draw a line beneath the relationship. Make it a transaction, like every sexual encounter that had come before. Make it so she wasn’t different. So she wasn’t essential.

  And she had cried. Every tear a drop of acid inside him, burning away the scars, the protection.

  He felt like hell. He had betrayed her, like so many other people in her life. He had let her down. He had hurt her.

  He had never hated himself more. Not even as he’d stripped down for women he didn’t even want and followed their every command. Not even then.

  He got into his car and threw it in Drive, going too fast down the winding driveway that led out to the main highway. He needed to forget. Needed to figure out how to pull emotion from his chest as he’d once done.

  To once again separate his desires from his needs. His mind from his body.

  But the scent of Julia was on his clothes. His skin. He had a feeling it went down deeper than that. That she had a mark on him, in him, that would not be so easily removed.

  The need to do that wasn’t about preserving his business. Wasn’t about preventing outbursts in meetings and undoubtedly costing himself major accounts.

  It was just about survival. He had to find a way to survive.

  Suddenly the pain in his chest was so blinding he had to pull his car off the road. He sat and waited, trying to breathe, waiting for the feeling of loss, the feeling of emptiness to pass.

  But it didn’t. It just kept crashing over him, wave after relentless wave, and with it, images of Julia. Julia, excited about a project. Julia, rambling about a game. Julia, as she looked when they made love. Julia, crying.

  It took him a moment to realize his cheeks were wet, too, like the Julia in his mind’s eye.

  He couldn’t remember the last time emotion had had so much control over him, the last time the pieces of himself had felt so united, all of them crying out in pain over the loss of her.

  And it was his own fault. He had pushed her away. Because he had been afraid of this. This pain, this loss of his protection. When everything was fragmented, it was easy enough to deal with it all. Emotion went to its own place to be dealt with later, as did the needs of his body.

  But since Julia it was all out of his hands, a jumbled up mess inside him.

  Just like it was for normal, everyday people.

  So this was what it was like to be normal. This was what it was to feel. He hit the steering wheel, hoping the pain on his hand would deaden the pain in his chest.

  It didn’t work.

  She was right about him. He was a coward. Clinging to the past to protect himself against anything that might happen in the future.

  But she’d taken the choice from him. He was stripped bare. Too late for protection, too late to keep himself from feeling.

  He would find it again. He had to. He would find a way to rebuild the walls that had been around his heart. He just needed time away from Julia.

  And then things could go back to the way they’d been before she walked into his life. All he had to do was forget.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EVERYTHING IN HIS house was hideous. Ugly and gaudy, a testament to money. Money that meant absolutely nothing when the house was empty of everything but horrible artwork. He’d been trying to forget for five days. It was two in the morning and he was well on his way to being drunk, but he still hadn’t forgotten.

  She haunted him. His bed was cold. His heart was cold. It was a cold that ran deep. No night on the street had ever felt so bad. No stripping of his pride in the bed of a woman he despised had ever left him feeling quite so sick.

  Losing Julia showed everything he’d built up in his life for the false facade it was.

  He had not changed. He was still a scared boy with nothing and no one at the end of the day. Money hadn’t changed that. And it wouldn’t.

  The only thing that could change was him. Even thinking about it scared him. Because if he opened himself up, he might remember. Might have to deal with the full force of his feelings, feelings from the past twelve years that he’d blunted. He’d blocked it all out to avoid the pain.

  But without it, he would never have her. Without emotion, he could never have joy.

  He looked around. At all the ugly, bloody artwork on his walls. On pedestals. Such opulent, pristine surroundings that meant less than nothing. He hated it all. What it represented. The type of man it proved him to be. He’d sold his soul for marble and plaster, for canvas and paint. For money. And no
w he was empty inside, while his house and bank account were full.

  A damned sorry trade.

  He walked over to a pedestal with a bust of an emperor on it and looked the thing in its white, hollow eyes. Eyes that probably had more substance than his own. Then he pushed it over, watched it shatter like dust on the floor. And he did the same to the vase beside it.

  Meaningless. All of it. Without her, what did it mean?

  He went down to one knee, the pain in his chest crippling. Ferro lowered his head and pressed his palms against his eyes. He felt it all crash in. The darkness, the shame. The hatred. For himself. For the women who’d used him. He felt like he was sinking in the mud, shrouded in darkness.

  But in his mind there was one spot of brightness. One bit of sunshine.

  It was Julia. She was reaching her hand down to him, offering to pull him out. Offering to free him. And he had turned her away.

  Damn him to hell, he had turned away his salvation.

  Julia exited the bathroom adjacent to her office and put her head down on her desk. The cramps she’d been dealing with all day had now been explained by the timely arrival of her period. Which was great, because it meant she wasn’t pregnant. But she honestly didn’t feel like throwing a party about it.

  It just confirmed that her relationship with Ferro was going to be over, well and truly over, soon. There would be no link between them. No evidence of their time spent together.

  Except maybe their GPS for Barrows. If that deal went through, then they would have that. But she really wasn’t holding her breath on that score. Not right now.

  No. That wasn’t true. She wasn’t going to let there be nothing. She lifted her head and punched the intercom that connected her with Thad’s desk.

  “Thad? Order one of those big, obnoxious life-size soldiers from Cold Planet.”

  “A real one or one from a novelty store?”

  “The novelty store will do just fine,” she said, cutting him off. She was going to put it in her living room. Because she liked that stuff, and she didn’t let herself have it. Because it was weird and geeky and she’d been trying so hard not to be. Because it revealed too much of her unsophisticated self. Of her real self. The self that had been battered, taken advantage of. Ridiculed.