by Bec Linder
“I didn’t tell her your name!” I said defensively.
He let it go, but I knew I would be hearing about it later. “Yes. Anyway, this is my brother, Will. He’s going to sit in the living room and cause you no trouble whatsoever while I speak to Sasha for a few minutes.”
“Is that so?” Yolanda asked, very mild, and I tried not to grin. Turner had met his match.
His jaw moved to one side, a quick jerk, and I could tell he was frustrated. “If you don’t mind,” he said.
“Hmm,” Yolanda said. She finally took her hand out of her purse, and glanced at me again. I nodded, trying to tell her that everything was okay. She nodded back, and said to Turner, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll even make him a drink.”
Turner opened his mouth, but his brother beat him to the punch. “I’d be grateful for a glass of water,” he said.
I watched Turner as he closed his mouth and made that strange motion with his jaw again. Something had him all worked up, but I didn’t know what, and I still couldn’t figure out why in God’s name he had brought his brother to my apartment.
“Right,” Turner said. He took a step toward me and wrapped his hand around my upper arm. “Thank you. We’ll only be a few minutes.” To me, in a low voice, he said, “Where is your bedroom?”
I led the way. Before I closed the door behind us, I glanced back to check on Yolanda. She had led Will into the living room and was smiling at him as he said something, his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders up around his ears, looking sheepish. Okay.
“They’ll be fine,” Turner said behind me. “Will is harmless.”
I shut the door and turned to face him. “If he’s anything like you, he’s anything but.”
“I wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Turner said, which was a blatant lie if I’d ever heard one.
But I didn’t want to get distracted from the real reason I was mad at him. I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at him, doing my best to look menacing, and said, “You have three minutes to explain what the fuck is going on here or I’m calling the cops.”
“You would do better to threaten me with your roommate,” Turner said. “Was that a gun in her purse?”
“Two minutes and forty-five seconds,” I said.
He rolled his eyes at me. “Fine. My brother was just released from rehab. Alcohol. This morning, actually. He needs a place to stay for a few days.”
“Yeah, what about your apartment with the two empty bedrooms?” I asked.
He held up one hand. “You’re interrupting me. The Turner Group is in the middle of a very sensitive, very complicated buyout. We’re signing the final paperwork on Friday afternoon. The sellers are nervous and looking for any excuse to get out of the deal. Will is concerned that he could be seen as a liability. As long as he was safely in rehab, it wasn’t an issue. Now that he’s out, though…”
He trailed off. I frowned at him. “This sounds really stupid. If you don’t want anyone knowing that he’s out, why don’t you just stash him in your apartment for a couple of days?”
“The doorman has been known to report on me to various gossip purveyors,” Turner said. “I can’t risk it.”
“What the fuck is a gossip purveyor?” I asked. Jesus Christ, Turner. Nobody talked like that. “Do you mean, like, TMZ?”
“More or less,” he said.
“So just put him in a hotel upstate where nobody knows or cares who he is,” I said. “You’re making this way more difficult than it needs to be.”
“Well, that’s the other thing,” he said, and sighed. “I need someone to keep an eye on him.”
“Or what, he’ll end up at the closest bar before you can say lickety-split?” I asked.
“I do indeed detect your sarcasm, but that’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he said. “He has a disease. He’s fought very hard to overcome it, but there’s a very real possibility that he might backslide. So you see, Sassy, you’re the perfect solution. We have no discernible connection. Nobody knows who you are. You won’t betray me, because you want the rest of your money. And, to be honest, I think Will would benefit from being browbeaten by you for a few days.”
“I don’t browbeat,” I said.
“You do, but we’ll let that pass,” he said. “At any rate, I was under the impression that you lived alone. I was mistaken, and so this is no longer a tenable solution. I’ll find somewhere else for Will to stay.”
“I think that’s probably for the best,” I said. “And maybe you can call ahead next time.”
He ignored that comment. “Speaking of your roommate,” he said, “what exactly did you tell her about me?”
“Look, I had to tell her something to explain why I’m not going to work anymore,” I said. “I just told her I have a month-long arrangement with one of my clients. That’s all. I didn’t tell her your name or any details. So if you think that voids the contract, then go ahead, but I don’t like lying to the people I care about.”
“Christ, you’re mouthy,” he said. “I should take you over my knee.”
I stiffened. Our eyes met, and I felt a charge of electricity pass between us. Oh. Here we were, alone in my room with the bed only a couple of feet away, and Turner looking at me like he had just realized it too. It had been more than a week since the last time he touched me, and my body was hungry for him.
But Yolanda was right outside, and Turner’s brother, and we couldn’t.
Turner took a step toward me with a fierce light in his eyes like he was the Big Bad Wolf and I was about to get gobbled up. “Sasha,” he said.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, even though it was what I wanted most in the world, to hear my real name on his lips.
“Sasha,” he said again, more insistently, and took another step. He slid his arms around my waist and pulled me close, my thighs pressing against his, and he bent down to kiss me.
Oh, I remembered this: the feeling of his mouth pressed against mine, and the way his hands slid down my back to cup my ass. I went up on my tiptoes and twined my arms around his neck, trying to get as close as I could and losing myself in the moment. He smelled wonderful and felt even better. I never wanted it to end.
He tore his mouth away from mine and gasped, “We can’t,” but then immediately kissed his way down my neck to nuzzle at the soft hollow between my collarbones. I moaned and threw my head back, giving him better access.
It was so, so tempting to just pull him down onto the bed and let nature take its course, but Yolanda was out there being forced to entertain a stranger, and I felt guilty. I couldn’t abandon her while I had furtive sex with Turner. His hair was too short for me to get a good grip, so I grabbed his ears and tugged gently, easing him away from me. “We really can’t,” I said.
He exhaled slowly and then straightened up. He let go of my ass and took a step back. “You’re right,” he said. “Christ. You’re right. I need to get Will out of here.”
“Sorry I can’t take him,” I said, because Turner was an asshole for making assumptions and showing up without asking me ahead of time, but it seemed like he cared about his brother and wanted to keep him out of harm’s way, and I respected that. I knew what it was like to worry about your family.
He gave me a crooked smile. “You see, that’s why I brought him here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He just shook his head and said, “Let’s go see if he’s utterly terrorized your roommate.”
He followed close behind me as I opened the door and went out into the living room, and I felt his hand settle at my lower back for a moment, brief as a kiss.
Yolanda and Will were sitting on the couch together, leaning close and laughing. The creaky floorboard outside my bedroom squeaked as I stepped on it, and Yolanda sat back and looked over at me—a little guiltily, I thought.
Hmm. That was interesting.
“Will, we’re going,” Turner said.
“Hold on a second,” Yolanda said. “Will explained the situation to me. If he needs
to stay here for a few days, that’s fine with me.”
That was really not what I was expecting her to say. I glanced over my shoulder at Turner, who had come to a stop behind me. His face was doing something complicated, like he wasn’t sure how to react. I looked back at Yolanda and tried to gather my thoughts. “Don’t feel obligated, Yo,” I said. “They can buy him a secret penthouse with like three hours of notice, okay? It’s not like he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I know,” she said. “But all the same. We bought this nice sleeper sofa and nobody’s ever used it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Will said, “but I can’t allow you to inconvenience yourself on my behalf. If Alex had told me the details of his plan when we got in the car, I never would have agreed to come with him.” He looked at me and smiled. “Although I have to say, it was worth it just to hear you yell at him. Nobody ever talks to Alex like that. I think it’s good for him.”
“I sort of have a bad temper,” I said, a little embarrassed, but not too embarrassed, because Turner had definitely deserved it.
Behind me, Turner muttered something that was probably rude. I ignored him.
I didn’t know Will, or really anything about him other than that he was Turner’s brother and a recovering alcoholic, but Yolanda obviously liked him, and I was willing to trust her judgment. I liked his smile. My gut told me he was a good guy, and I’d learned over the years to pay attention to my first impressions of people, because I was usually right. “Yolanda, if it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me,” I said.
Will made a few more token protests, but Yolanda had made up her mind and she wasn’t having any of it. She started asking him if he had a toothbrush and what would he like to eat for dinner, and I looked back at Turner and said, “Guess you get your way after all.”
“Thank you,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder and then, after a moment’s hesitation, bent to kiss my cheek.
“Come by tomorrow for dinner,” I said impulsively. “Around 7. You can check up on him.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That would be—nice. Thank you. I’ll do that.”
Turner, being polite? Wonders would never cease.
Everything happened very quickly after that. It was like Turner didn’t want to give us time to change our minds. He reminded Will not to cause any trouble, told him he would be back tomorrow for dinner, and bailed.
The front door closed behind him, and the three of us looked at each other in silence.
“Well,” Yolanda said after a moment, “ordinarily I’d say we should get drunk and share all of our deepest secrets, but that might not be appropriate under the circumstances.”
I shot her the evil eye, totally appalled that she was making jokes about booze, but Will just laughed.
“It would certainly have the happy side effect of making Alex very, very unhappy,” he said.
“You don’t like him much, huh?” Yolanda asked. “I can see why. He seems a bit uptight.”
Will shook his head. “It’s not that. Alex is a good egg, and he’s not usually quite so wound up. He’s just worried about this buyout. But I’m the kid brother, so it’s sort of my duty in life to torment him.”
I grinned. Him and every other younger sibling in the history of the world.
Just then I heard a rustling noise from under the couch, and Teddy waddled out, twisting his head this way and that to make sure the scary yelling was over.
“Holy shit,” Will said, “you have a parrot?”
“Here we go,” Yolanda said, laughing.
Will, it turned out, was a genuinely decent person. Yolanda gave him a quick tour of the apartment while I soothed Teddy’s ruffled feathers—both literally and figuratively—and then he sat and played fetch with Teddy for way longer than I would have tolerated. When it was time for dinner, he insisted on cooking for us, and somehow whipped up an elaborate meal out of the condiments and sad vegetables in our refrigerator. He even set the table and found a few stubby candles buried in a drawer somewhere. Yolanda and I usually ate hunched over our laptops, but we could pretend to be civilized for the evening.
“This is incredible,” Yolanda said, after taking her first bite, and I nodded my agreement, my mouth full of the enormous forkful I had just shoveled in.
“Oh, it’s nothing fancy,” he said, but I could tell he was pleased.
I swallowed and said, “How did you learn how to cook like this?”
“I’m a chef,” he said. “It’s sort of an occupational hazard.”
“Huh,” I said. “I’m surprised you aren’t involved with the family business.”
He shrugged. “My parents don’t care. They always told me I could be a garbageman as long as I was happy. Alex is only taking over the company because he wants to. I hate finance and love food, so my path seemed obvious.”
“Did you go to culinary school?” Yolanda asked.
He shook his head. “I started working as a dishwasher when I was still in high school, and worked my way up. I love it, but it’s hard to be an alcoholic in the restaurant industry. Everyone goes out drinking after the restaurant closes for the night, and it’s easy to give in to temptation.”
I nodded. It was the same way at the club: most of the dancers hung out at the bar after closing and drank until dawn. I’d turned them down so many times that they had stopped asking me, but if I liked alcohol more than I did… Well, I could see how it would be hard to say no.
“I have an uncle who’s an alcoholic,” Yolanda said, and I looked at her in surprise. I hadn’t known that. “He’s been sober for twenty years now. I could get you in touch with him, if you’d like some moral support.”
“I would really appreciate it,” he said, and smiled at her.
She smiled back, and I watched them for a moment as they sat there and beamed at each other across the dining table, and decided I was going to do everything in my power to encourage this fascinating development. Yolanda could use a little romance in her life.
“Wait a second,” Yolanda said. “Turner. And you said finance—the Turner Group?”
Will grimaced. “I’m afraid so.”
Yolanda whistled low and said, “Sash, hold on to this guy.”
“What, why?” I asked. “He’s kind of a jerk.”
“He’s rich as Croesus,” Yolanda said. “You’ll be set for life.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
Yolanda waved a dismissive hand. “Ancient Greek guy. Not important.” She turned to Will and said, “I really don’t think she knows who your brother is.”
“I’m getting that impression,” Will said.
“I know who he is,” I said, annoyed that they were talking about me like I wasn’t there. “He told me. He’s a rich businessman, so what?”
“The Turner Group is one of the biggest private equity firms in the world,” Yolanda said. “He’s beyond rich. The company is worth billions.”
A quick glance at Will’s face told me that Yolanda wasn’t exaggerating. I sat there, fork frozen in midair, considering her words. Well, that was why he hadn’t balked at paying me a quarter of a million for one month of moderately kinky sex. “He’s still a jerk. I don’t really care how rich he is.” I looked at Will and said, “No offense.”
“None taken,” he said. “I agree that Alex can be insufferable at times.”
I looked down at my plate. Insufferable maybe wasn’t the word I would have chosen.
“The point is, you’re on the gravy train,” Yolanda said. “Take full advantage.”
“Are you encouraging her to use my brother for his money?” Will asked, smiling like he thought Yolanda was amusing instead of incredibly crass and inappropriate.
“Sure,” Yolanda said. “Why not? He’s got enough of it, doesn’t he?”
They started talking about the ethical obligations of investment banks, or something, and I stopped paying attention. I didn’t care about money unless it was in my bank account. I picked at my dinner and
wondered why I wasn’t trying to milk Turner for everything he was worth. It probably wouldn’t be that hard to make him fall in love with me. And then I would be set for life, like Yolanda said—wouldn’t I? All of my problems would be solved.
But he would never fall in love with Sasha, and I didn’t want to be Sassy for him anymore. I couldn’t.
Something in my heart wouldn’t let me.
I hated having feelings. It was a waste of time and energy, and it clouded my judgment.
If I had any sense, I would fall for someone like Will, who had his own demons but seemed to be coping with them, who was kind and mild-mannered and careful with his hands. You could build a life with a man like that.
But Turner lit a fire in my belly, and I didn’t want to move away from that heat.
I just had to wait it out, that was all. Three more weeks, and then I would be free of Turner forever. And free of New York; free of any reminders of him. I would be home with my family, where I belonged.
I just had to keep my head above water until then.
Well, easier said than done.
PART TWO
Alex
11
I hailed a cab outside Sasha’s apartment, cursing myself, Will, Sasha, and goddamn Bywater and Reginald Martin for good measure. My life was a goddamn mess, at least for the next forty-eight hours, and Sasha’s smart mouth hadn’t helped. Kissing her had helped even less, because now I couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened if I’d thrown all caution to the wind and fucked her on her bed, Will and Yolanda and even the buyout be damned.
She always seemed to get the best of me. I went into every interaction feeling utterly sure of myself: Alex Turner, ladykiller, force of nature. And then by the end, she was usually yelling at me.
The only woman who I tolerated yelling at me was my mother.
And yet.
Sasha was such a goddamn pain in my ass.
“Broadway and Liberty,” I told the cabbie, and he peeled away from the curb.
I didn’t even attempt to take out my phone and get any work done. I needed a few minutes of quiet to gather my scattered thoughts. It had been a long and aggravating day, and it wasn’t over yet. I’d spent so many hours dealing with Will that I was desperately behind on the work I needed to complete before Friday, and I knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.