by Liv Bennett
I reach out and hold her hand. “You’re a dream woman. You have everything a man can wish for. Just take a look at you. Is there a man in this restaurant who isn’t taken by your beauty?” She raises her eyes and looks directly into mine. A shy smile curls up her lips. “But, you are not just that. You’re smart, talented, and sweet, too. It’s wrong and unfair to waste your life for me. I wish I could give you the love you deserve.”
“Why, Adam? Why can’t you love me anymore? You loved me before, or was it just a game for you?” Her hand loosens around mine, but I hold it.
“No, of course not. My love for you was real.”
“Then, what changed?” She is begging with her eyes, and I’m afraid soon they will be full of tears. Damnit, Adriana, why can’t you keep your nose out of my life for once?
“Is it Taylor?” she asks when I don’t speak.
I stare at her, frozen to the core. Is my interest for Taylor that obvious? Has she known it all along?
Her mouth pops open, and she shakes her head in disbelief. “I should have known it before. You kept acting so weird around her. Did you cheat on me with her?” She bites her lips and wipes away the tears that are sliding down her smooth cheeks.
I look around to make sure no one is taking our picture and lean in to whisper, “No, I didn’t cheat on you with anyone.”
“How can you love Jack’s wife? He was your best friend. After what he’d done for your mother, how could you even think of his wife that way?”
“I go to hell and back everyday for that. These last years were nothing but torture for me.”
“Do you love her so much? But, why? What does she have that I don’t?”
“If only I knew the answer.”
“Come back to me. I don’t care if you love another woman. I’ll mend your heart.” Her eyes are now glassy with more tears, and her cheeks are red. She is one of the few women who look even more beautiful crying. Do I have the courage to resist such an innocent and generous request? Maybe I’d have given in to her, if last night hadn’t happened.
What kind of spell has Taylor put on me, to chill my heart against Pat, the woman I shared my bed with for four long years?
I want to tell her to forget about me, but would I be able to do so if Taylor demanded me to forget her and move on? I only give a small shake of my head. Slowly, she lifts my hand to her lips and places a gentle kiss on the back of it, before she stands up.
“You’re choosing sadness with chasing after Taylor over one hell of a good time with me,” she says and leaves, without looking back at me.
When Adriana comes back, she asks me about Pat. I don’t even have energy to tell her to shut the fuck up. Why did she have to put her nose into my life? Ignoring her question, I stand up, throw two one-hundred dollar bills on the table, and make my way to the car.
I don’t answer Adriana’s questions about Pat in the car, even though she persistently corners me for details. Finally, she gives up and lets me be. At the airport, she gives me a tight hug before she departs. “I apologize for whatever I did, but everything I do is to make you happy. Please, forgive me.”
“I do forgive you, but for next time, mind your own business.” I hug her again and wave at her as she leaves.
***
On Monday, I arrive exactly at four-thirty at Four Seasons and find Taylor drinking wine with a blond man in his fifties. After introducing myself and awkwardly shaking Taylor’s hand, I sit and order white wine. Taylor’s eyes wander around my lips and chest whenever possible, making my blood boil with lust. If she wasn’t having her period, I’d yank her to the restroom to bury myself inside her at the first opportunity.
But for now, I try to keep my hands and eyes in front of me and focus my little attention on Mr. Hawkins, the new owner of the Berenson Country Club. He talks about his dream of building a water-and energy-efficient residential area surrounded by gardens and trees. And, from the details he mentions, it’s clear he’s knowledgeable in environmentally-friendly constructions, too, and isn’t just a dreamer with millions in the bank. It’ll be huge for the company, if we can get the project and successfully carry it out.
“Adam Garnett.” I hear a familiar voice behind me and turn to see Zachary Schulberg, one of my colleagues at the marketing company I work for. I stand up to shake his hand and introduce Taylor and Mr. Hawkins. Zachary bows and takes Taylor’s hand to kiss. A part of me wants to snatch his sneaky hands away with my angry fists and show him she belongs to me.
“Now I understand what keeps you from becoming CFO,” Zachary says, without taking his eyes away from Taylor.
Fortunately, Taylor pulls her hand away quickly and turns to me. “Were you offered the CFO position?”
“Indeed, he was,” Zachary answers for me.
I shoot a fuming glance at him for leaving me no time to explain. “It’s not what you think, Zachary.” I glare at him to shut him up. If he’s clever he’ll take my cues. I don’t want Taylor to feel uncomfortable in front of Mr. Hawkins, otherwise I’d know how to deal with Zachary.
“I hope it’s not,” Zachary says and faces Taylor again. “And, I hope I’ll see you again, very soon.” I watch him from the corner of my eye, as the waiter shows him his table at the back of the restaurant.
“Is it true?” Taylor’s voice is firm, but her expression is puzzled and even a little disappointed. Does she expect me to tell her everything about my other job?
“Let’s talk about this another time.” Forcing a smile, I sit back in my chair and focus my attention back on Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Hawkins talks eagerly about the reasons why he wants to close down the country club and use the vast area for building kids-friendly homes surrounded with parks and lakes, and gives details about the designs and the construction materials he wants to use. He’s planning to hold the bidding in two to three months, but will invite only a select group of five construction firms, all with excellent ratings, including us.
I try as much as I can to convey to him the details of the projects our firm has carried out successfully and in time, while trying to ignore Zachary’s furtive glances directed at Taylor from across the room. She’s not even wearing a mini dress or showing cleavage as an excuse for a foolish man like him to be checking her up and down. I’m torn between punching him in the face and putting my arm around Taylor’s shoulder to show everyone that she’s mine. I can totally understand why Arabian men want to cover up their wives. But, even all covered up, Taylor would manage to intimidate men with just her daring blue eyes.
What am I supposed to do? I am cursed with equal amounts if Taylor loves me back or if she doesn’t.
Mr. Hawkins stands to leave before the desert, with a promise to meet with us again, together with the architects who designed the homes. I walk him to his car and hurry back to the restaurant only to find Taylor standing beside our table, chatting with none other than Zachary. That asshole will use every opportunity to get a beautiful woman.
I approach Taylor and wrap my hand around her shoulder, while giving Zachary my fuck-off glare. Taylor looks up at me, her eyes scowling. “Zachary was telling me about the joke they did to you on April’s fool day.”
“I’m sure he was,” I say, seething between my teeth. I’m only a few seconds before punching him in the face for telling Taylor about that embarrassing day and for raising his hand to touch her when he laughs. “If you’ll excuse us, Taylor and I have work to do.” I pull Taylor back to our table, watching Zachary nod his head to Taylor and wish us a good day before heading back to his table.
“Please, stay away from him. He’s an opportunist and a liar.” I clasp Taylor’s hand between mine on the table.
“Look, I won’t date him or any of your colleagues. I can promise you that. But, that’s the only thing I can promise you.”
“Do you mean you’ll date other men?” I ask, hating every word of my question. I try hard not to cringe at the thought of another man touching Taylor between her legs, making her co
me, sticking his… Fuck, I should stop that before I end up doing something stupid.
“Didn’t you say that you didn’t mind the twenty-six men before you?” A flicker of a smile plays around her lips.
“I didn’t mean it, really. I was just trying to be a man about it. I don’t want to share you with anyone else.”
She regards me as if I’m a poor street child, asking for money to buy food. “Look, I’m not over Jack, and I don’t know whether I’ll ever be.”
“But, Saturday night? Please, don’t tell me that it didn’t mean anything.” I squeeze her hand, hoping she’ll squeeze mine back and tell me she’s all mine.
“I don’t know what it meant, but one thing is certain; you make me feel like a woman again.” She blushes as she averts her eyes to our hands. “I didn’t feel anything sexually until that day you licked my fingers.”
I grin proudly. I wish Zachary could hear her revelations. I wish each and every man in the world could see how I make her blush. Then, a disturbing thought takes over. “Are you telling me that I just paved the way for other men to enjoy you?”
She eyes me with an ‘enough with the bullshit’ look through her long eye lashes. I can’t do anything but melt and forget about my jealousy. When I relax my hands around hers, she begins stroking my palm with her fingertips. I close my eyes and enjoy the tingling taking over my body.
My eyes still closed, I begin speaking, “Was it a love at first sight with Jack?”
“No, not at all.”
I fling open my eyes to see if she is messing with me. “Jack told me it was for him.”
“I had more worries at that point in my life than flirting with one of my instructors. And anyway, Molly Kaufman was after him. She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Tall, blonde, and slender like a ballerina.”
“Yeah, right, unless you hadn’t looked in the mirror.” With her beauty? Someone more beautiful than her? No way.
“Well, thank you.” She grins as if she needs my assurance for her incredible looks. I don’t understand women. Mirrors tell the truth better than men. Why do even the smartest ones need to hear about their appearances from men rather than just look at their reflections?
The waitress comes with our long-forgotten deserts; chocolate mousse for Taylor, raspberry pie for me. But, she starts with mine anyway. I watch her place a spoonful of pie into her mouth, working hard not to think how she was going to suck my cock on Saturday night.
And how I stopped her. Shit!
“If it wasn’t love at first sight, then how did it happen?” I ask.
“He forced me into a date.”
“I see you cave in easily to men coercing you into dates,” I joke. Never mind the nearly three years I’ve been running after her. She swallows another spoon full of the pie. “Will you tell me how he did it?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“I have all the time in the world.”
“So, Molly Kaufman and I were both taking the class he was giving that summer quarter. We were the only ones who didn’t have a partner for the final assignment, but neither of us wanted to work together.”
“He convinced you to work together on the assignment?”
“Yeah. He said that if we agreed to work together, he’d date one of us when the classes ended.”
I laughed heartily. “That was probably the only time he got cocky in his entire life. I can assure you that.”
She nods enthusiastically. “I know, right?”
“And, what happened next?”
“I told him I wouldn’t date him, even if he gave me an A right away. Not because I thought he was repulsive or a jerk. I’d decided I wouldn’t date anyone until I finished my studies. I didn’t want any distractions. But, later, Molly promised to help me get a job at the university library if I pair up with her for the assignment. And, I desperately needed a job inside the campus.”
“Stupid girl. She just helped Jack get you easier.”
“Kind of. When the classes ended and we submitted our assignment, Jack apologized to Molly because he said he’d wanted to date me since the beginning.”
“Oh, you just made yourself an enemy,” I point out.
“You can say that. And, of course I didn’t get that job at the library.”
“I can imagine.”
“Still, I didn’t want to do anything with Jack,” Taylor continues.
“How did he convince you, then?”
“He did something very special that I’ll always be thankful to him.”
“Will you tell me what he did?” I find myself leaning in closer toward her with interest, feeling glad Jack hadn’t got her with ease, either.
“It goes back to the times before my conception.” She eyes me as if to ask whether I still want to listen to what she’s about to say.
Nothing can stop me from learning more about the woman who stole my heart mercilessly with no promise of giving it back. “I’m all ears.”
“You see, my mother and my aunt were identical twins. Even after they married, they bought houses next door to each other to stay close and they arranged their pregnancies so that my cousin, Tina and I were born only a few weeks apart so we could become best friends, like my mother and my aunt were. Then they planned their next pregnancies with the same idea in mind. But, my mother died while giving birth to my sister and my father committed suicide three months afterwards because of depression. So, my aunt took me and my sister in and raised us as if her own. My sister, Alice, still calls her mom, because she’s been mom to her, and to me as well, ever since our mother’s death.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.” My poor beauty in pain. No wonder she’s been taking so long to get over with Jack’s death. I wish I could ease her suffering. Yet, for having gone through so many heartbreaking experiences, she’s still more determined and stronger than many people I know.
“Yeah, thank you. Well, just like my mother and aunt had wanted it, Tina and I were inseparable. We couldn’t have been closer if we had been twin sisters, really. During the last year in high school, Tina started dating a guy from the high school’s football team. He was good-looking, didn’t hang around with girls, and cared a lot about Tina. One evening, Tina invited him for dinner to introduce him to my aunt and uncle. He made a good impression on my uncle particularly, I guess, because he’d been accepted to UCLA Medicine. After dinner, they left for the movies and that was the last time we saw them.”
“What do you mean that was the last time you saw them?”
“The two disappeared and never came back. The police didn’t work very hard to locate them because they were both eighteen. Long story short, Jack found them, well, their graves. It turns out they were killed by gun fire that took place a few blocks away from the movie theater they’d gone to. The police never cared to mention the shooting or we’d have gone deeper into the case. But the private investigator that Jack hired found out that the gang members hid Tina’s and her boyfriend’s bodies in the woods a few miles away from our home. All the years we were looking for her, she was just a few miles away from us. Finding out about Tina’s death was devastating, but that was also the best present I’ve ever received. At least, we now know what happened to her.”
She casts her eyes down to the table and bites her lower lip, playing aimlessly with the fork, and I can tell she’s working hard not to cry.
I reach over, grab the fork, and pull her hand to my lips to shower it with kisses. I have to do something to lighten up her mood. “Did you know I was supposed to give that lecture where you met Jack?” I risk a brief smile, hoping she won’t think I’m being a heartless jerk. “Because of that, I’ve always thought Jack stole you from me.”
She raises her glassy eyes, and a smile creases her lips. “You’d have no chance with me unless you pulled off something special like Jack did. Honestly, I doubt anyone else would think of something so selfless.”
“You may be right.” I’m all about insistent pursuits, nothin
g in the creative area, like Jack’s idea.
“If you think about it, you wouldn’t see me anymore after the course, if it wasn’t for Jack,” she points out. I’d never thought about it that way but, maybe, my best friend might have helped me get the woman of my dreams.
If only he didn’t have to die.
When she finishes both of the deserts the waitress brings the bill. Taylor skillfully snatches it before I can lay my hands on it. “On the company.”
I don’t want my time with her to come to an end. Not when I’ve just discovered I didn’t know a whole lot of things about her. Not when my heart, and not just my over-enthusiastic cock, is swelling for her. As she reaches for her handbag, I lean in and whisper in her ear, “Spend the evening with me.”
She glances at me with an alert expression on her face. “I don’t really like doing it when I have my period.”
I give her an amused smile. There are so many pleasures she can give me without using her sex, but for once I want her just for herself and to talk. And maybe the blow job she was supposed to give me if I can get her into the mood. “Does that mean you’d let me fuck you if you didn’t have your period?”
He eyes go glazed in a split second. Have I turned the innocent lamb into a wild tiger? The sight of her swaying breasts plopping out of the tight nurse uniform fills my mind, making my mouth water.
“Fuck?” Taylor imitates my tone, with an edge in her voice. “I’ll remind you later who fucks whom.” Her eyebrows are knitted together, her lips squeezed shut, and her chest is rising up and down.
I love how hot she looks, when she’s pissed off. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Barely keeping her anger to herself, she leaves her credit card and waits for the waitress to collect it. As soon as the waitress comes back with the card, Taylor is on her feet, pacing toward the door. I think she’s really angry. Maybe that wasn’t the right way to go, right after she talked about the tragic events of her past.
“I was kidding.” I run after her and grab her elbow. “Let’s go to a club where we can dance.”