by C. L. Donley
Amara froze.
God. He knew about the contract.
“Don’t look at her,” she heard Grayson’s voice break in.
Amara’s heart shifted into high gear, and for once it was not a good feeling.
“Dude…relax,” Dale said exasperatedly.
“I’m fully relaxed, Dale. I’m saying don’t look at her.”
Dale looked at Grayson. The other girls at the table looked at Amara. The tension at the table rose, but Bel looked cool.
Dale was confrontational now. “What are you doing?”
“You gonna be her protector now?” Grayson suddenly blurted.
“Someone should,” Dale retorted. Dale’s girlfriend Avery bristled. Amara was mortified.
Yep. He definitely knew about the contract.
Grayson smoothly got up from the table and sauntered back toward the house.
“Jesus,” Bel said.
Dale looked over at Bel, a thousand words in his eyes. Bel shook his head with a snicker and took a sip of his drink.
“What on earth was that about?” Dale’s girlfriend Avery wondered.
“Nothing. Just… Grayson,” Bel said.
“Fucking Grayson, dude,” Dale repeated, galled.
“He’s gotta do it, bro, just let him,” counseled Bel cryptically.
“No,” Dale simply defied him, taking a drink.
The girls at the table had no idea what they were talking about, but Amara got yet another brief glimpse into their relationship.
She wondered how Dale wasn’t married yet and she was beginning to see that Grayson took up a great deal of his attention.
It stayed quiet another moment before Bel decided to take advantage of Grayson’s absence.
“Bro, would you have guessed in a million years…”
Dale tried to catch on as Bel seemed to be secretive about his drift.
“You mean…” Dale nodded in Amara’s direction.
Bel just smiled, and Dale continued cryptically as if no one else was there.
“Yeah, never in a million years.”
Bel laughed with an intriguingly wicked sense of irony.
“Oh geez,” Amara groaned, combing her fingers through her locs.
“You should’ve seen him at headquarters that day, dude.”
“I heard about it,” he said.
Amara’s cheeks got warm. She was still floored that she could’ve been so memorable, but she wasn’t hiding her face anymore. She shook her head as Dale continued.
“He was… creepy stalking her, like within the hour dude.”
Bel laughed with his eyes shut tight.
“Wait, what?” Amara stopped.
Dale just gave her a dismissive head shake as though it was too ridiculous to go into.
“He asked her ‘do you wanna keep working here,’ and she was like ‘no thanks,’” Dale crudely summarized.
“That is not what I said,” she assured Bel who gave her a playful jaw drop.
“That was pretty much all she needed to do, bro.”
“And then you made me pretend to be dating you!!” Amara exclaimed.
Bel was wide-eyed at that, and he looked over at Dale, who had taken a drink from his whiskey glass, just at the moment he realized he was desperate to recall the story. He was nodding wildly and huffing a laugh, squinting and pointing as the liquid burned his throat.
His girlfriend Avery gave him a disappointed groan.
“So I brought Amara to Malibu, right? His faaaaaaaaaace…” Dale ground out, and Bel was cracking up again at the visual.
“I paid Amara a thousand dollars right there on the spot,” he added.
More laughter.
Amara was smiling as she broke in, “How is this funny, he is really pissed in there.”
“That’s his natural state, Amara,” Bel broke the news.
“So I’ve noticed,” she offered. She looked a little defeated.
“Listen, Amara; you remember what I told you on the plane?” Dale began.
That he’s secretly a basket case and I shouldn’t get my hopes up?
“Yeah,” she simplified.
“Well, I was wrong. You seemed like a nice girl, and at the time, I didn’t think you could handle his…moods. But now I think you might be the only one.”
The statement tore her in two. It made her stomach flip-flop with hope, and yet it made her mentally cringe.
It was the same language her mother’s in-laws used to keep her staying with her dad because the Rileys didn’t do divorce. She was dismayed to find it just as persuasive to her own ears.
“Hardly,” she answered Dale. “I know about the 80/20, and honestly I support it. His moods at 80 will be way worse than his shriveled up penis.”
“He won’t make it to 80 in his current state,” Dale said ominously, with naked concern for his friend.
A shiver went through Amara’s blood. What was he talking about? The party atmosphere threatened to change.
“It’ll pass, they always do,” Amara shrugged, trying to lighten the ambiance.
“This isn’t a mood. I think he’s on the verge of a meltdown. He’s overdue…” Dale foreshadowed.
Then he lowered his voice to a whisper as if he knew Grayson had been listening but before now it had been of no consequence.
“I think he’s in love with you, and it’s freaking him out,” he said.
The statement should’ve caused a heart attack, but instead, it felt like finding out you had a terminal illness. She loved him that was true, but if he loved her then why did it feel like she was in jail? And if his love felt like jail, then there’s no way this was the guy for her. She was worried about herself.
“Aww,” Avery cooed, an encouraging hand shot out to touch Amara’s wrist.
“And if that’s the case then Amara,” Dale continued, “I will pay you another five thousand dollars, every day, forever, if you stay with him,” he bargained seriously. The table laughed.
“Dude that’s like…” Bel began calculating, “she’ll be a billionaire in ten years.”
“Hmm, a billionaire??” Amara stroked a fake beard. “I don’t know; he can be a real asshole.”
“Please,” Dale insisted. Amara laughed.
“Save us, Amara,” Bel joked.
* * *
“While you were pouting in the kitchen, Bel offered me a job,” Amara began after a wordless flight home in Grayson’s jet.
Silence.
She was removing her pearl earrings, and black spaghetti strap evening gown in her closet, safe from his gaze.
“You do know that I’m not attracted to Dale in any way,” she continued, trying to start an adult conversation.
“Doesn’t matter,” Grayson replied. It was the closest she’d ever get to an admission of jealousy. She waited to see if he would continue. He didn’t.
“Doesn’t matter because you don’t care, or doesn’t matter because—”
“Exactly what I said,” he clarified tersely.
“Babe, what you said doesn’t make sense,” Amara tried reasonably.
“It doesn’t matter, because in a week this will be over and you’re free to do what you want,” he said resolutely.
“Good. Because you are insane,” she sighed.
“You’ll be a hot, sexy, millionaire, Amy. You might make even the cover of Jet.”
“What the fuck, Grayson!”
“They’ll probably give you an award.”
“Are you drunk right now?”
“No, but it’s an excellent idea.”
It was suddenly silent in their room. He had indeed retreated upstairs while she was undressing. Amara appeared in the kitchen in a flowy silver negligee. He was drinking something brown and clear, pretending not to see her.
Really? Her having a job after their affair was over is driving him to drink? For some reason, the idea that she’d be of use to someone other than him seemed to send him over the edge. Was he angry that he may have to shar
e a social circle with her now?
“For God’s sake, Grayson, he’s allowed to see something in me,” she said.
“You’ve spent, what, an hour with Dale in your life? Jesus,” he said, shaking his head, pouring himself another drink.
“I was talking about Bel,” she corrected him.
“Oh, your other new best friend!”
Bel had taken to her as well he noticed, and the untamed vines of jealousy were now black and suffocating around his heart at the news he had offered her a job. He was completely irrational, he knew. Did he really expect her to never have another boss? Shouldn’t he prefer that she worked for someone he knew and trusted? Or was it that he wouldn’t be the one to explore her untapped potential?
“But back to that hour I’ve known Dale,” she challenged. It was unsafe territory, but as he’d said, she only had a week left and didn’t care anymore. “I’d love to give you some context, but you refuse to let me talk about that hour.”
“I don’t want to hear about how he paid you to blow him in business class,” he said.
“That’s right,” Amara sarcastically conceded.
“I mean, the head is…spectacular, so I don’t blame him. I don’t blame you either, I blame myself, for not qualifying the virgin story fully.”
“Nothing gets by you, Grayson,” she deadpanned, turning to leave.
“What exactly is this magical position that you’re so qualified for, I’m dying to know,” he wondered aloud.
No way would she actually tell him so that he could crap on that too.
“Oh don’t worry about that, it’s nothing related to your boring snoozefest company.”
“Oh, more blowjobs then,” was the best he could come up with.
“You’re not the only billionaire that can see I might actually be good at something,” she stopped at the entrance to his downstairs bedroom.
“The only thing Bel can see that you’re good at is draining my balls, and that I’m not in the mood to share,” he replied.
She didn’t want to say anything, because the abuse would continue. She also didn’t want to be silent, in case he would try to sleep with her and bring up that stupid contract again, which she honestly couldn’t wait to be free of. She decided to push him away with the truth.
“Maybe you should tell Dale that you resent him down to your core, instead of drinking yourself into a stupor.”
“Foreshadowing!” he said enthusiastically. Grayson took another drink. “I love gothic literature, you know,” he raised the tumbler to his lips again.
“Is this the part where you give me all your Aunt Jemima wisdom after you’ve slept with me for a month?” he said before taking another drink.
Amara’s pulse quickened. She would not be deterred. This dude was serving her some serious bullshit, and she fucking loved tennis.
“Yes! And then this is the part where you ignore very simple and obvious warnings, because you’re a prideful clueless asshole, and then everyone looks on while you ruin your life with your own hands,” she explained matter-of-factly.
He laughed, throwing his head back with a snort. He poured another drink. “You may very well be my soul mate, Amy. For another week at least.”
“I’m going to bed, please don’t try to touch me,” she requested. She waited with bated breath for a retort that never came.
That night he didn’t come back downstairs, and when she awoke that morning, she found him upstairs sleeping, still dressed, on the couch.
She woke him up unceremoniously.
“Wake up,” she said. “We leave for Montenegro in an hour.”
Thirteen
Chapter 13
Grayson’s third mistake in as many weeks was the nail in the coffin.
He was starting to make love to her on a regular basis.
He looked into her eyes. He twirled her hair around his fingers, he gave her nicknames. And generally tried to make her feel like she was his and only his.
It started out as a concession because as a rule, he didn’t apologize.
He tried to express instead whatever negative emotion he felt in the moment about himself, and even then only when forced. He liked it that way because apologies tended to draw lawsuits.
When he was younger, he felt sorry for nothing, even when he was exploding in anger and destroying things. Every harsh word or gesture was a necessity of survival. He never apologized to Dale either, and they sometimes came to blows.
Now that they were older, they had an understanding.
But honestly, for the second— no third— time in Grayson’s life, Dale had almost driven him to murder.
Did he really try to accuse Grayson of not protecting Amara? Fuuuuck you, Grayson thought.
The contract was Amara’s idea, not his. He couldn’t have laid the danger out any more clear than he had, the moment he agreed to sleep with her, and practically every moment after. He uprooted any attachments like weeds, but two would grow in its place. He’d tried to be a dick to her when it counted, but it only seemed to work when he wasn’t trying. He was obsessed with protecting her.
Someone should, Dale had said.
God. He almost got his head ripped off.
The prank at the Malibu party had been personal. And the ninety minutes Dale had known Amara ahead of Grayson childishly ate away at him continually. At the party in Malibu it had looked like 20 years to him, and even after the countless hours they’d spent together over three weeks, it infuriated him to see that same mysterious ninety minutes still existed between them. The first time he’d had an inkling that he had hurt Amara, it was their first night together. The best day of his life, by a longshot.
Then she’d brought up Dale.
Dale who’d always had the best of both worlds. Dale who was valedictorian and homecoming king. Dale who could talk to computers and women. Dale who didn’t bother about being good at sex because he was already good at love. Dale who could talk to Amara when Grayson could only cut off the impulse in order to survive.
Dale. The subject had caused him to shut her down, with restraint. At first.
Then he’d hurt her. And he wanted to hurl himself right out of his panoramic window.
He didn’t even know how he was doing it; he was just doing all the wrong things, all the time. It just snowballed.
And every time she’d handled it with dignity or made light of it.
He tried to remember when he was so awful to a woman, but in his recollections of them, he didn’t have any where he even talked to them. Aside from “Are you having a good time” or “More wine” or whatever else that made him sound like a waiter.
Paradoxically, there wasn’t another woman he’d ever spent more time not talking to than Amara. And he looooved that about her. That she could just be, there.
It was just his luck that he was incapable of wowing a woman that he actually liked.
Also, the fact that she felt contractually obligated to endure him made him want to vomit about, oh every five minutes.
It was only Amara herself that could make him forget.
So he made love to her.
Gave away pieces of his heart, the sorry consolation prize that it was. It seemed it was all he had left. She wasn’t much interested in the money.
The fact that the more he’d done it, the less impressed she seemed to be, didn’t help matters.
She couldn’t even relax until he put on a condom, as though getting pregnant by him was a fate worse than death.
Not that he wanted a family, but he started to get clear visions of Amara as a mother, and in his mind, she was a good one.
No doubt it was all the lovemaking that caused his mind to take this perilous journey.
It was as though all her best qualities seemed to culminate in the office of motherhood. Whatever progeny he was destined to have would be neurotic and spoiled and never know hard work, but with Amara as their mother, well. They just might have a chance.
What, did she think he woul
d leave her destitute, to go through it alone?
Is it any wonder, the way she’s treated, his inner voice protested.
Did she really think she could be more cautious about this than him?
She didn’t trust him, and it hurt. He’d given her no reason, then again.
Clearly, the contract had been a terrible idea, one that hardly worked in his favor. He’d made a bad deal. Blinded by the sweet promise of poontang.
He was neither the first nor the last.
Yet if not for her quick thinking on the beach that night, he would’ve never had the best day of his life.
That is, before he royally ruined it.
While they were in the air on the way to Montenegro, he sat across from her, looking for traces of joy.
Things had indeed died down by then, and now they were jet-setting, like she wanted.
He couldn’t find any traces of joy, however.
He could see the arch of her expressionless eyebrows slightly above the dark sunglasses she loved wearing, and her hair was kind of half up-half down and messy.
He’d flown in her best friend Mya to re-twist her hair before the party at Dale’s, and he’d paid her handsomely for it.
Mya was darker than Amara and almost more striking. She was compact, small and petite, and seemed to float instead of walk like most professional dancers. She definitely still hated him. He was intrigued to find that he wasn’t attracted to her at all, though he’d perversely tried to be.
Dancers were his first indulgence when he became successful, and Grayson sat through many a boring ballet until he found that he actually liked them. Then he would go backstage and treat an entire troupe to dinner while he tried to decide which one(s) he wanted.
He’d never seen a black ballet dancer before; he had to be honest. Yet the closest he could get to an obscene thought about her was setting her up with Dale.
He didn’t know what the attraction experiment was for, and the results were equally as inconclusive.
He treated them to lunch, but it’d been so awkward that he left the two girls to catch up.
Within earshot of course.
They were indeed very close. They were coiled up in a chair together, and they each helped with the task of re-twisting each individual strand of Amara’s smooth dainty locs, which still took several hours even with the help of twenty nimble fingers. He knew because he periodically found excuses to bother them, during which all chatter unapologetically stopped.