I tighten the sash around my kimono robe and take a deep breath before doing just that. Holt is standing behind his desk. I wonder if he was in this position before I knocked, or if he rose to his feet for the sole purpose of confronting me.
Either way, my heart hiccups at the sight of him. Truly, he has changed. After Lydia’s death, and after moving back to Jamaica for Barron’s sake, I made the decision not to keep track of him online or anywhere else.
He’d been in bad shape the afternoon he visited me in Blue Hills, the worst I had ever seen him. For a while, I assumed the next time I saw or heard of him would be in a news story about his untimely death.
But the man standing before me doesn’t look like he belongs in a sad news story. Like, at all. Gone is the sleepy demeanor I’d grown used to the summer we were together. Now, Holt’s expression is clear and alert despite the late hour. He is also much bigger, and not in a bad way.
I can see his broad shoulders and muscles beneath his white dress shirt, and I imagine he must look like a model for all the expensive things rich men like when he is dressed in a full suit. The patchy beard is also long gone, making his piercing blue eyes that much more intense. In fact, his gaze is even more focused than I remember and I swallow hard beneath it.
“Yes, what is it?” he asks, his tone one of barely checked impatience.
I blink and reset, reminding myself why I came here and what I must do. “I would like to discuss the job contract your assistant sent me,” I answer.
His expression doesn’t change, but his voice stiffens as he says, “I looked it over myself. The terms are very generous.”
“Yes, that’s true. The salary and vacation days are difficult to find fault with,” I say carefully. “But in my experience, most contracts have an end date. This one, however, does not.”
His eyes harden. “So what’s your ask?”
I clear my throat and take another tentative step forward. “I was speaking with Wes’s therapist after yesterday’s appointment. She agrees the ideal nanny for Wes is someone with a psychology background. Someone who can give him the tools he needs to better regulate his emotions.”
“You can’t do that?” he asks.
“Holt, I am an early childcare specialist. That means I am very good at keeping children in line and getting them to do right, as my mother would put it. But I am not trained to support the needs of an emotionally challenged boy like Wes. When he is with me, he stays in line. But he needs more than the discipline and boundaries I provide. He needs someone who can teach him how to cope when his emotions become too big. Speaking of, have you discussed your mother with him?”
Holt’s head jerks back as if my question has not only startled, but also offended him. “No,” he answers, his voice clipped in a way that makes me wonder if he has talked to his son about anything at all lately. When I asked Wes how dinner went earlier, he said, “Okay,” then asked if I’d play Marco Polo with him. As if dinner with his father was a trial he endured and should be rewarded for.
“Maybe you should speak to Wes about her. It might help him to know he’s not the only person in the family who has struggled with emotional issues.”
“Okay, thanks for the feedback,” Holt replies in a voice so flat I know there will be no father-son talks anytime soon. Then, before I can have another go at convincing him, he says, “But you still haven’t answered my question. What’s your ask here?”
I swallow hard. The time has come to make my real request. “CIT has a special program for non-traditional students. I have been thinking about pursuing my college degree for a few years, and now that Barron will be going to college, it seems like the right time and circumstances for me to go as well. This is why I need an end date for our contract. I promise you I can find Wes a nanny more skilled than I am, and I know he will thrive after I am gone. But I will not be able to remain in this position past the fall semester when I hope to begin taking winter classes at CIT.”
I stop, waiting to see how he will respond to what I’ve said. At first, he says nothing at all, and his eyes drop down to the hard surface of his massive brown desk. I’m wondering if I need to prompt him when he says, “You left me,” his voice low and feral as a dog’s growl.
My throat instantly dries. But I refuse to pretend I do not know what he is talking about. During the past few weeks, we have not spoken about our shared past. And we have only seen each other in passing. But our past is there. It is like an enormous sleeping elephant lurking between us every time we are in the same space together.
But now the elephant is awake. And the past burns like fire in Holt’s blue eyes as he says, “You left me to die ten years ago, and now you expect me to give a fuck about your college dreams?”
“No…no, I do not,” I answer quietly. “But I also did not ask to come here. If you are still so angry at me about the past, you should have left us in Mexico—”
“But I didn’t, did I?” he says with a sneer. “My kid wanted you as his nanny. You specifically. So I got you. And now that’s what you are. A traitorous bitch who happens to be so good at her job—someone I hired in spite of our history.”
He punctuates his point with an ugly smile before continuing with, “Now, I know you wish things were different. You’re probably thinking, ‘Hey, this is a reasonable request.’ But all I see and all I hear when you open your mouth is you telling me to go away before pretending I was some random drug addict you just met on the street to your mother. So no, Sylvie. I do not give a fuck what you want. And I don’t care if I’m being an asshole right now, either. Just like you didn’t care when you left me in that room to die. Am I getting through to you or do I need to prove how little choice you have in this matter by making a donation to CIT and ensuring that you never get accepted into their special program?”
I blink hard, refusing to let my rising tears have their way. I tell myself to be strong. Because what I suspected between packing up my belongings in Mexico and boarding Holt’s plane is now very obvious.
Holt Calson has become a monster in the years since we fell apart. Just like his father. Just like the man he never wanted to become.
You didn’t get your wish, I think to myself. And for a moment, I mourn the boy I used to love. Because he is gone. So very gone.
I come around to his side of desk and stand beside him, reminding myself of the stakes and willing myself to make the next move in this game of chess he has forced me to play.
“What are you doing?” he grits out, his blue eyes narrowed to slits.
I take a deep breath…and undo my robe to reveal my naked body beneath. “This is what you want, right?” I ask in a trembling voice. “What you really want?”
He doesn’t say a word. Just stares, eyes blazing. As if I’ve gone mad, which maybe I have.
But I say it anyway, exactly as I coached myself before making my way to his home office. “If you give me what I want, I will give you what you want until it is time for me to leave.”
Chapter Seventeen
HOLT
If you give me what I want, I will give you what you want…
I stare at her naked body. She’s actually thinner now than she was that summer. But she has a little tummy and hips that have spread wider than her slender upper half would suggest.
Unlike the women I usually fuck, she is not perfect. Not even close to the nine women in Della’s slide deck.
But I become painfully hard in an instant.
And it takes everything I have to keep my voice ice cold as I ask, “You thought this would work? You really thought I would agree to your terms like I’m still that fucked-in-the-head boy you suckered ten years ago?”
My words hit their target. Sylvie looks away like she’s been slapped, her eyes widening with shame as she yanks her robe closed and grabs the sash to retie it in a knot.
That’s when a bomb of triumph goes off inside my chest. Because after too many years of struggling with what she did to me, of thinking about her o
bsessively to the point that I wondered if I really was as crazy as my mother…I have won.
In my mind’s eye, I see her walking out of my office as humiliated by me as I was by her all those years ago. I see myself making her stay on as my son’s nanny well into my second marriage, forcing her to witness the life I’ve built without her, until I get sick of punishing her or Wes goes to college. Whichever comes first. That sweet revenge plays out so beautifully in my head that for a moment—an entire blissful moment—I think it will happen.
But then that moment passes, and before Sylvie can retie the belt, my hands are on her. The robe falls open as I set her on the desk, giving me a full view of her heavy breasts and a tiny glimpse of the pussy I used to feast on for hours.
“Open your legs,” I growl as I yank my wallet out and extract a condom before tossing it on the desk beside her.
I can see the questions written plainly across her face, and her eyes follow my hands as I pull my hard, heavy length out of my pants, and roll on the condom. But instead of asking questions, she simply spreads her legs.
“Touch yourself,” I command, my voice raw with hate. “Fuck yourself with your fingers until you’re ready for me. I’m not going to touch you like that again.”
These are contemptuous words meant to disguise the truth. I do not trust myself to touch her. I’m afraid I will lose all control if I do.
More hesitation, but eventually her hand drops down to her pussy, fingers moving in and out with an expertise she definitely did not have when she was an innocent who needed to be taught everything.
The sight of her doing this should have turned me off, but instead, my dick pulses so hard and painful that I have to work myself over the condom just to get some relief. But that doesn’t solve the problem. Not by a long shot. Especially when her eyes lower and she watches me hand fuck myself as I watch her. We are in a hypnotizing loop, and I soon fall into a trance that’s only broken when she breathlessly says, “Okay, I’m ready…”
I once did a feature with a bunch of other CEOs, including Go Gutierrez, for a male fashion magazine. We all got labels and mine was “The Cool CEO” because I’m like James Dean compared to other CEOs my age.
But I don’t feel very cool right now. As soon as Sylvie says ready, I come at her with all the reserve of a rabid pit bull, pushing into her with a sick desperation I wish I could say I have never felt before. But yeah, it all comes back to me as soon as I get inside her sweet, tight cunt. How it used to be between us. How I would make love to her for hours, feeling like I was under a spell.
“Fuck you!” I whisper coarsely in her ear. I hate the way I feel. I hate that after ten years of losing myself in my work, she can still make me feel at all. “You fucking bitch. You fucking…”
I want her to curse me back. I want her to do to me what I cannot do to her. Push me away, reject me, make me stop.
But she…hell…she draws me into her arms and wraps her legs around my waist. She hugs me with her whole body like she used to and whispers, “I’m sorry, Holt. I am sorry. So sorry.”
“I hate you…hate you…hate you…” I chant back, my voice little more than a coarse wheeze of rage.
“I know you do, baby. And I’m sorry. So sorry,” she croons as I pound into her with ruthless strokes meant to punish, not please. But Sylvie keeps me sheathed inside her and pours soothing words into my ears. And though I refuse to give a fuck about her pleasure, she soon cuts off her apologies, clenching me tight before her whole body starts to tremble around mine.
She comes so hard I can feel her sex pulsating. But she does not let go. She holds me tight until suddenly, despite myself and despite all the hate, I explode into the condom with one last choked, “Hate you so fucking much!”
Chapter Eighteen
SYLVIE
I don’t think I ever truly understood the word “ravish” until Holt took me on his desk. I had seen the word used many times in books, but I did not know what it really meant until I found myself receiving his release. Clinging to him so tightly it felt as if his climax was mine, as if I shared his hate, as if his release was my own all over again.
Technically speaking, things had either gone to plan or completely fallen apart. In those fast breathing after moments, I couldn’t tell which was which. There was a chance—a very big chance—this had been a spontaneous act and not him agreeing to anything. What was that term I once heard to describe the scene in the second season opener of Insecure? “Hate fuck.” Yes, there is a chance the thing that just happened between Holt and I was nothing more than that.
As if to illustrate my point, I feel Holt stiffen inside my embrace. “Let go,” he says, his voice as flat as it was when he responded to my suggestion about talking to Wes.
Shame washes over me and I do as he commands, unwrapping my limbs from around him. Holt, in turn, moves away from me. Scrambling backwards like I am a snake pit he accidentally fell into.
I disgust him. I wish I was as disgusted by him. But losing our skin-to-skin contact makes me feel instantly bereft—even more needy and insecure than I was ten years ago as a severely cloistered, fool of a girl.
I concentrate on retying my robe, thinking there are questions I should be asking. Questions like, what did that mean? do you agree to my proposal?
But as it turns out, coming in here like this took me to the very bottom of my bravery reserves. And despite being older and more cynical, I still do not have the ability to negotiate sex as if it were a business contract.
“I’m guessing your hotel manager boyfriend was shitty in bed. I haven’t seen a woman your age come that fast in…” he pauses as if he is actually making calculations and eventually comes back with, “ever.”
I regard him for a deliberately calm second, then say, “I’d forgotten that about you, Holt. How mean you can be sometimes. Lashing out whenever you feel something you don’t want to. Like a child.”
Fury flashes across his face. But perhaps because he doesn’t want to prove me right, he says nothing. Just puts himself back together, tucking in his shirt and rolling his sleeves down as if these two actions will erase what just happened on his desk.
“You can go now,” he says when he is done, an expression of irritation flashing across his face as if my dismissal should have been obvious and he is annoyed I’m still there.
I head to the door like a trained dog, accepting his final answer and hoping to make it out of his office before any of the intense emotions I’m feeling start leaking from my eyes.
But just as my hand finds the door knob, he says, “Hold on.” His voice is as quiet as a lion’s footstep.
When I look over my shoulder, he is still where I left him. But now he has both hands splayed across his hip bones, arms crooked like Superman in a button-down. His eyes lock on mine, assessing me like I am a problem he is trying to solve on the fly.
Then he says, “No more interruptions while I’m working. My bedroom is at the end of the hall. From now on, you can go there, get naked, and wait for me. Every night for the remainder of your contract.”
I stare at him, my heart beating in my throat.
He must mistake my surprise for incomprehension, because he shifts and asks, “You’re getting this, right?”
I’m getting it. I understand but I can only nod mutely in reply, not trusting coherent words to come out of my mouth.
He gives me another up and down look before saying, “Tell Allie when your school year starts and she’ll get you a new contract by the end of next week.” Then he jerks his chin toward the door. “Now go.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I rush out so fast, it feels like my heart is beating inside my head by the time I get downstairs. It worked! I can’t believe it actually worked.
And though the sex I agreed to is my only means of escape from the ruthless billionaire who has roped me into coming here, there are butterflies in my stomach. The same as when I was a girl, too stunned to believe an everything boy like Holt could real
ly be interested in a nothing girl like me…
I rush outside and I don’t look back. I don’t dare look back. But somehow, I can sense him at his office window. Watching me leave like he used to ten years ago.
And as I dash barefoot across the lawn between his house and mine, a Killers song he once put on a playlist for me sounds in my head, “When You Were Young.”
Chapter Nineteen
SYLVIE
My phone is vibrating on the cottage kitchen table when I walk back in through the side door. I pick it up quick, afraid it might wake Wes and Barron in the other room.
But when I see the number at the top of the screen, my heart freezes. 501… an Arkansas area code. And I remember the last time I took a call from that area code less than an hour after Holt left my home in a cab.
“Hear my son paid you a visit. That ain’t part of our agreement, girlie…”
“Yes, but…”
I can still remember telling Jack Calson with certainty that I would not see his son again. Ever. And I absolutely believed that would be the case…until two weeks ago. But now—now someone is calling me from an Arkansas number. Again.
I pick up with a small, “Hello, this is Sylvie?”
“Hi, Sylvie! Kyle Drinnen here, calling from the Arkansas Sun with a few questions about your recent move to Connecticut.” a friendly male voice with a strong southern accent answers.
It is not Jack Caslon. But my relief soon turns to confusion because I’m not sure why a reporter in Arkansas wants to know about my move back to Connecticut. “Ah…what?”
“Is it true Holt Calson had you fired in order to force you to take a job as his son’s nanny?”
I frown, wondering aloud, “How did you come by that story, Mr. Drinnen?”
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