Until now.
Melody demands nothing from me, and she would never lie to me or even hurt me. She’s so honest and open and free, much like I was at her age, before the world and time changed me. Before Sylvia.
I must not think of her. Melody is here with me now, and she genuinely likes me. Not for my money or my power or my connections, but for me.
And that’s something I cannot give up. Not now, not since I finally realised what I am missing.
It may be selfish and naive, but I don’t care. I must have more than this one nightstand.
She smiles at me with that perky smile she always has, and my heart melts. Her eyes are so trusting and warm, set into that beautiful face, with those red pert lips that beg me to kiss them again.
She glances at me silently, and I’m lost in her gaze. There’s nothing else I need in this world except her.
But that’s ludicrous. I cannot let myself feel this way.
It’s wrong to keep her for myself.
So why do I feel so conflicted?
“Chase?”
I break from my daze. “Hmm?”
“The way you’re looking at me - is something wrong?”
I reach out and cup her cheek in my hand and she falls into it instinctively. Less than a day together, and we already have our own coded affections.
I stroke down to the nape of her neck, my fingers lightly dancing over the swell of her ample breasts under the shirt.
She lets out a short gasp and bites her lip.
And I kiss her again. Her silky sweet lips caress my own, sweeping us into another passionate frenzy. Everything about her screams for me to take her, to want her and have her.
I can’t give her up. Not now - not when I feel this way.
I stand up, grabbing her in my arms. I push her against the wall and kiss her ear.
She writhes beneath my touch, and my fingers find the buttons on her shirt. I undo them one by one, until the shirt drops to the floor, exposing that perfect naked body to me.
Her head leans back and I kiss her neck, my fingers all over her body, and before I know it - her fingers untie the sash of my robe and it drops to the floor.
And then we’re on the priceless Persian rug and I’m inside her and our naked bodies undulate against each other in the fit of lovemaking.
And that is how we spend the rest of the day; making love in every room in my penthouse, against every surface and in every position imaginable. And each time, it ends the same way; we’re in each other’s arm, embraced in the silent haze of blissful calm that always follows. Together.
***
It is five o’clock in the morning when I wake in my master bed. Melody is beside me, sleeping like an angel with a trickster’s grin a mile wide across her lips.
I’m so exhausted - we fucked so many times, I’ve completely lost count. But it was like I had no choice - every time I had her, the longing and desire to have her again coiled up in me more and more. Every time I thought it would be the last, but it never was.
Until now.
Our weekend together is over. I kiss her on the cheek and she stirs.
“Mmmmm...”
She’s fast asleep, but her mouth opens like she’s about to whisper.
“Mmmm.... Chase....”
My name.
My heart skips a beat, and a feeling of warmth fills my chest. But almost instantly, it’s replaced with a deep pang of regret and guilt.
She’s falling in love with me.
Damn it. I knew this would happen. I knew bedding a virgin and expecting her to separate love from sex was impossible. It’s always the same - every virgin is naive and innocent and consumed with a desire to be wanted.
And Melody deserves to be wanted. She’s a remarkable woman; so vibrant and interesting and warm. She deserves someone who can give her the love which she deserves. Someone not broken and wrong and empty. Someone actually capable of love.
She deserves someone better than me.
I stare at her naked body with a faint sense of longing for something I can never have, and the desire to have her again fills me.
Frustrated, I wipe the sweat from my brow and turn to sit on the bed.
The icy breeze of the September morning brushes against my naked body and I shiver.
Through the window, I see the first rays of sunlight beaming across the skyline and bouncing across the waters of the Hudson like gold bullion floating to the surface.
What the hell am I doing?
And why the hell is it making me feel so damn old? I’m only twenty-nine, for God’s sake, but compared to her I might as well be a corpse. Maybe that’s why I desire her so much - because she reminds me of me before life got in the way. Maybe through her I’d be able to experience life like that again - so bright and beautiful and warm.
Or maybe I’d damn her; I’d take her into those dark soulless pits where I belong, and she’d be consumed and turned inside out until there was nothing left but a husk.
“Chase?”
I turn my head to the sound of her voice and see her large eyes staring back at me.
“What is it?” she says. “Is something wrong?”
I shake my head. “Nothing is wrong, my princess.”
“You say that, but you’ve got that look. That something-is-up-and-I-don’t-like-it look.”
“It’s not important.”
She swallows and darts her eyes down to her chest. “It’s me, isn’t it?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“You regret this, don’t you? All these things we’ve done?”
I brush my hand in the air. “No. Melody, please. You don’t have to worry.”
“Then it’s Mercedes, isn’t it? You’re thinking about her.”
A pang fills my gut.
I don’t want to think of Mercedes. Not now. Not in the company of this vibrant beauty.
“Please, Chase. Tell me,” she says, her eyes wide and so full I could swim in them.
“It’s just a business deal, I’ve got on my mind. The factory I’m buying out in Taiwan, I’m worried the deal will be screwed if the owner discovers the truth-”
I stop suddenly.
What the hell did I just do?
I was so concerned with allaying Melody’s fears and worry that I blurted out about the Taiwan deal. That deal is beyond secret. It’s only known by me and my board of directors. I’d lied and told the current owner Shan Tsung that I’d keep his current workers on at the current pay, in order to smooth over the deal, but I couldn’t help shake the feeling that he didn’t trust me. I needed that deal to corner the CD buying market is Asia, but if Tsung didn’t sell, I’d be screwed. Or worse, if the workers found out the truth, I could have a riot on my hands.
Melody stares at me intently, waiting for the rest of the sentence.
“...Of how much I’m willing to undercut the competition. Can’t have my enemies think I’m desperate,” I say.
Melody nods, believing my bullshit. And I feel sick to my stomach.
But at least she is unaware of how near I came to imparting such sensitive information.
Melody raises her hand to my head and traces my temple with her fingertips.
“It’s always so busy up there,” she says. “Is that how you got to be where you are?”
“It helps,” I say. “And sometimes it’s a curse.”
She smiles wanly. “I wish I listened less to my brain. Maybe then I’d be actually be somebody.”
I take her fingers and kiss them. “You are somebody, my princess.”
“A failure maybe.”
“How can you think such things?”
“Because I am. I came here to do the whole big singing career thing - a life in the stars. I’ve got the talent - I know I do. At least, I think I do. But when push comes to shove, I listen to that brain of mine and bottle it. Every time. Hell, maybe I listen to my heart too much as well.”
“Don’t say that,” I say. “You’re hear
t is a wonderful thing - it’s why you’re so open and willing to accept others.”
“Maybe. But I wish I was more like you.”
I frown. “No. You do not.”
“But at least then I wouldn’t be so scared of...” She looks over her body. “...Of excuses to not sing. No one would want me on their label, anyway.”
“I would,” I say. “If my label suited your classical talents. But I’m afraid your voice is...”
“What?” she asks.
“...Too beautiful. Like yourself. Not to mention, it would make my starlets envious and unwilling to co-operate. Some of them might even leave for my competition.”
“I understand,” she says, her face crestfallen.
“But one day, you’ll find the right person for your talents. When the time is right, the world will be yours. And you won’t run away because it’ll be everything you ever dreamed.”
“You really think so?” she asks.
“I went through a lot of failures before I became a success. But with every one, I strived harder to succeed. I grew up poor and alone, an ill mother to take care of and a dead asshole father whose only inheritance was debt. But I wasn’t going to let life screw me over like that anymore. I wasn’t going to let it make me feel so powerless. So when I saw an opportunity, I took it. And no matter how many times I fell to my knees, I picked myself back up and tried again.”
“What did you do?”
“I dropped out of college, for a start. I took menial jobs but the medical bills kept piling higher and higher. So rather than pay them, I took the meager sums I’d made and invested it in managing some brain-numbingly awful band. They failed, but others liked what I did. So I managed another. Then another.”
“And then you became the billionaire CEO of one of the largest record companies in the US?”
I chuckle. “Not quite as simple as that. But every time I failed, I tried again. And eventually it worked. You’ll find out the same is true for yourself, I have no doubt.”
She sighs.
I stroke her head with my palm and bring her face to look at me. “Nothing worth having in life comes easy.”
She nods. “I just get so afraid. I guess that’s why my father thinks so little of me.”
“Your father?”
“Yeah, before I left Iowa, he wanted me to marry one of his senior managers. Some old guy, seriously, like three times my age. He said he was going to disinherit me if I didn’t.”
“Disinherit you?” I ask, incredulously. “You come from a wealthy family?”
Melody bites her lip. Her eyes dart away. “No, not at all. I say inherit, but it’s nothing more than a couple of music shops in the surrounding towns.”
“I see.”
“After my mom died, the things I wanted in life suddenly became clearer. I said to my father that I didn’t want his business; I wanted to move to New York and be a singer. That was a big mistake.”
“He wasn’t supportive?” I ask.
“He told me point blank that I’d never be a singer because I wasn’t pretty enough.”
A pang of anger rushes through me.
The bastard. How could he say that? And to his own daughter?
“I know the pain of fathers,” I say, trying to comfort her.
She glances at me with those large eyes, expecting me to continue. But I can’t.
How can I tell her about my father, William Strong? A desperate gambler who married a dying woman for her life insurance. It makes me sick how he treated her; how he left his terminally ill wife and infant son when he was struck off as a beneficiary. And then came crawling back with sorrow in his eyes and empty promises, a month later forgotten as he beat me and shout at me and got drunk and knocked my mother around. And then leaving again when he discovered the insurance company wouldn’t pay out.
He was a disgusting pig; a lothario who spent he time preying on innocent virgin girls like it was a sport. Fucking them knowing they’d fall in love with him, and then getting them knocked up and giving me all manner of bastard siblings. A few have come out of the woodwork since I became a successful businessman, but I find it funny that I heard from no brother or sister before I was worth billions.
They deserve nothing. I built my business with my own two hands, and these bastards think they’re entitled to handouts? The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.
“Ah son, one day you’ll realise you and your old man are one and the same. My father was a violent prick, and now looks at me. Sins of the father, my boy. Sins of the father.”
His last words still haunt me.
I will never become like him. Never. I’d rather die first.
Melody strokes my cheek, almost as if sensing my inner anguish.
“But none of that stuff matters, anymore,” she says. “You’re here with me, and that makes me feel like there’s nothing to be afraid of. You make me feel like I can do anything.”
A wave of deep guilt lurches through my stomach.
She’s falling in love with me. Even already, after one night. I never should have taken her virginity - I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to have her.
Maybe my father was right.
I’m a hypocrite, and a monster.
A cool breeze pours in through the open window and my skin prickles. The sun peeks its head over the horizon and floods the room in a dull light.
It’s almost dawn.
Time is up.
I must cut Melody loose, like I promised. Better she leave here thinking I’m a heartless bastard than become an empty vessel poisoned by my darkness. I can’t do that to her. She deserves so much better.
It’s the right thing to do.
“God,” she says, teary eyed. “This has been the happiest moment of my life. And though you’ll move on and forget me, I’ll never forget you.”
I shake my head. “My princess.... Melody, I could never forget you.”
She grins from cheek to cheek. But there’s a sign of somberness. “It’s almost over,” she says.
I nod.
“I want you to know something,” she says. “Being here with you... it sounds silly to say, but I have to say something or I’ll hate myself. Chase... I think I’m...”
I can see in her face what she’s about to say. I lean in to kiss her, to stop her from saying those words that will damn us both.
“Shhh,” I whisper. I cup her face and we kiss with passion and tenderness. Her lips taste so sweet, her scent like roses. I want to burn it into my mind - I want to never forget the taste and smell of her body; the feel of her skin against my own; the beautiful sound of her voice as she calls my name.
She looks at me with such joy and longing and hope, a look that screams of her delusion that I’m a good man.
A look that will haunt me forever.
“Let us enjoy the dawn,” I say.
And we make love for the final time.
CHAPTER SIX
Melody
My stomach lurches as I sit in the empty conference room. Through the four transparent glass walls, I can see the rest of the workers busying themselves, probably trying to ignore me. Instead, I look around to the adjacent window. The view up here on the 22nd floor is breathtaking, almost rivalling the view from Chase’s office upstairs.
I feel sick again.
It’s been over five weeks since we slept together and I haven’t heard a word from him. Not even a peep in one of the three moments we’ve actually been in the same corridor at the same time.
It’s understandable - I woke up to an empty bed later that morning. I shouldn’t be surprised that Chase did exactly as he promised and never contacted me again. I’m a fool for entertaining the possibility that something might happen between us, that he felt the same way about me as I feel for him.
I dry swallow and feel the hard plastic of the chair dig into my back like an old war wound.
Why summon me to this conference room if I was going to be left alone with my own
desperate thoughts? My manager read a memo and then told me it was of the utmost importance I leave my filing duties that minute and head upstairs, but refused to tell me why.
The dread is killing me.
What if something terrible has happened? Maybe something has happened to my brother. Or my father. A death?
No. Impossible. No one here at Harmony Records knows my true identity. And even if my father were to die, I’d be the last one to hear about it.
Screw him.
The door swings open and a line of six smartly dressed men and woman in designer suits file into the room and take the chairs opposite me. They open their file folders and peruse the thick clump of documents held within.
The one in the centre adjusts his reading glasses and looks up at me.
“Right, Miss Watts. I’m glad to see you’re here. We’ve been reviewing the paperwork and we can assure you of our gratitude for your open co-operation.”
I feel light headed.
What the hell is he talking about? Did I miss a memo?
“Uh...” I mutter.
He ignores me and flips through the pages. “Ah yes. This here, now this clause is a contractual obligation, but we’re willing to wave it for any of the unseen circumstances found in 2B, which I think you’ll find is very generous.”
“Excuse me,” I say.
Again, he doesn’t hear my squeak. “Of course, any remuneration and recommendation is the least we can do, but I’d like to stress that it is entirely a gesture of goodwill and has no bearing on our decision as Harmony Record’s legal department, of course, if you wish to bring your own legal representative...”
“Excuse me,” I say, louder than I expected. They shush. “This may sound silly, but what are we actually talking about?”
The man in the glasses looks at me quizzically. “You’re not aware?”
I shake my head.
“Miss Watts, we’re discussing the terms of your voluntary resignation.”
A shudder of nausea rushes through me. “You’re... you’re firing me?”
“Voluntary resignation. It’s come to the attention of the company that your skill set isn’t an appropriate match for what we desire as a business due to the trending marketplace.”
This is insane. He’s firing me. Chase is actually firing me.
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