Provocative

by Lisa Renee Jones

  I push to my feet, grab my pants, and in the thirty seconds it takes me to pull them on, the door bell has stopped ringing and started again. Running hands through my tangled hair, compliments of Faith’s fingers, I walk to her bedroom, my gaze landing on that card on the bed, before the empty space leads me through to the bathroom. I find Faith standing in her closet, pulling a t-shirt into place and already wearing black sweatpants. “Who the hell is that?” I ask again.

  “I don’t know,” she says, shoving her feet into Keds, “but as embarrassing as this is about to get, I’m guessing it has to be one of the bill collectors from the winery.”

  “As in plural?” I ask. “There’s more than the bank chasing you for money?”

  Her expression tightens, right along with her reply. “Yes. It’s every vendor we use, and no one would stay this long, and this rudely, that wasn’t here to collect money.”

  Protectiveness, as unfamiliar as the possessiveness she stirs in me, rises in me and I go with it. “I’ll handle it,” I say, heading back to the bedroom and onward toward the front of the house, my mind processing the implications of Faith’s embarrassment and circumstances. And I come to the obvious conclusion that has nothing to do with my rapidly growing interest in this woman. No one with access to the funds my father wrote to her mother would put themselves through this with such genuine emotional response. If Faith was involved in whatever scam occurred, which I highly doubt, she doesn’t have the money now. And if she wanted to take the money and run, why put herself through this? Why not give the winery to the bank?

  “Nick,” Faith calls after me, her voice echoing from the distance. “Nick. Stop.”

  “Not on your life, sweetheart,” I murmur, doubtful she can even hear me, but my actions speak for themselves.

  The pounding grows louder right about the time I reach the foyer, as if the asshole just took his boot to the door, or his fists. I disarm the alarm, unlock the door, and right when I’m about to open it, Faith calls out from behind me, “You have on no shoes, no shirt, and no underwear, and your pants are unzipped.”

  I open the fucking door and there stand the two stooges I’d called suits at the winery two nights before. This time they wear matching khakis and white-collared shirts, because apparently khakis are supposed to be intimidating. “Mr. Rogers,” Stooge Number One says, and while I can remember his name, I just don’t care to give him that credit. “I…We…”

  Stooge Number Two tries to fill in the blanks. “We didn’t know you were personally involved in this.”

  “Card,” I demand.

  They both blink at me like I’ve just spoken another language they don’t understand any more than their own.

  “Business-fucking-card,” I say. “Now.”

  They both fumble with their pockets, and I have two cards shoved at me. I grab one, and look at it. Then the other. Both employees of a collection agency which I happen to know that the bank that holds Faith’s note hires often.

  “We both know the ways you’ve broken the law,” I say. “Don’t do this again.” And with that order, I slam the door on them and lock it. I don’t immediately turn to Faith, who is hovering nearby. I step to the slit of a window beside the door, and watch the stooges all but run to their car.

  Rotating, I find Faith standing under the archway dividing the hall from the foyer. “They won’t be back. I’ll buy you some time at the bank, but we need to sit down and talk. I need to be fully armed with information when I talk to the bank.”

  “No,” she says. “No. I can’t pay you.”

  I give her a once over, her nipples puckered under her pink tee, her hair a wild, sexy mess. Her lips are natural, and swollen from my kisses, for which I plan for many more. “I’m doing this for you, Faith. Not money.” I take a step toward her.

  She backs up and holds up a hand. “Stop. You don’t get to fuck me and then take over my life, Nick. I didn’t even invite you into my life. I invited you for one night. Hard rule, Nick.”

  “I’ve had my share of one night women, Faith,” I say, voicing what I’ve only just concluded myself. “You aren’t one of them.” I firm my voice. “I’m not leaving. You need my help, and you’re going to take my help.”

  “You don’t get to just decide that. I’m not some girl that’s gaga over you, Nick. I’m a grown woman who lives her life and makes her own decisions.”

  “Who now has help. There is nothing wrong with needing help besides not having it.”

  “You can’t bulldoze me, Nick. I won’t let you.”

  “If I could, you wouldn’t be interesting to me, Faith. And you are. More now than the moment I met you, and that’s new for me. Usually, a fuck does the job and I’m not interested anymore.”

  “There it is. The exact reason I’m reacting like I am. You basically just confirmed my thoughts. You’ll help me until the interest fades. I pay not in money, but by entertaining you and fucking you, until I have the misfortune of sating your appetite. I don’t need what you just made me feel in my life right now or ever again. Leave, Nick.” She turns on her heel and starts marching away.

  I stand there, mentally dissecting all the reasons she’s just kicked me to the door, that I don’t plan on exiting. Something to hide. Embarrassment. The something to hide might not even be about a crime, but that embarrassment. Macom. He was obviously part of her life and a bad one, and I’ve stormed into hers without giving her time to breathe or to reject me. But I don’t have a choice. I can’t let that happen. Not under these circumstances, and as it turns out, I don’t want it to happen for my own personal reasons, of which I’ll examine when the heady scent of her isn’t driving me fucking insane.

  I pursue her yet again, finding her in the kitchen, her back to me while she stares at a Keurig dripping coffee into a cup. She knows I’m here. I can sense it, but she walks to the refrigerator and pulls out some kind of flavored creamer. I want to storm around that counter, pull her to me, and kiss her until she melts for me. I want to strip her naked and fuck her right here on the solid wood island I didn’t fuck her on last night. But doing those things would only drive home her accusation that I just want sex from her.

  Clamping down on all those male urges, and a hell of an overload of testosterone, I walk to the barstool opposite her at the island and sit down. She walks to the Keurig, fills her cup with creamer, and then turns to face me, that cup cradled in her hands. “I am not your plaything.”

  “No,” I say. “You are not. And I’m not yours either, Faith. That isn’t what this is.”

  “It feels like it is.”

  “We are, as I said before, red hot together. That doesn’t make it all we are.”

  “You can’t just come into my life and try to take over,” she repeats.

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. It’s your way.”

  She’s right. It is. “Usually people are relieved when I want to help them.”

  “Aside from the ridiculous arrogance of that statement that isn’t working for you right now, Nick Rogers, have you just fucked and spanked those people?” She holds up a hand. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want you to tell me what I want to hear.”

  “What do you want to hear, Faith?” I ask, her statement speaking volumes about where her head is, and it isn’t focused on kicking me out.

  “Nothing,” she says. “I told you—”

  “Let’s talk about my hard limits with women,” I say. “They’re really quite simple. No tomorrows. No conversation. No confession over my many nannies I tell no one about. For me, I just want to fuck.”

  “Why did you tell me about the nannies?”

  “Because my gut said that you needed to hear it. Fuck. Maybe I needed to say it to someone who needed to hear it. I don’t know what this is between us, Faith, but it’s not what you’re trying to turn it into.”

  “You said that we just needed to fuck each other out of our systems.”

  “I know what I said.”

  “And now
—”

  “And now I want more. That is exactly what I keep thinking with you. I want more. What the hell does that mean? I don’t know, but I need to find out and I think you do, too.”

  “Arrogance again?”

  “Not this time. Just facts. Just possibilities. And I can’t promise where that leads, but I can tell you that for me, it’s not just sex. If it was, you’d be naked and on the counter right now, because that’s exactly where I wanted you when I walked into this kitchen.”

  She doesn’t blush. She looks me in the eye. “You said you didn’t want more.”

  “I didn’t, but I have learned in life not to run from the unexpected. And I’m not running from this and I’m not letting you run from it because of a past that I’m not a part of.”

  “The past is a part of me.”

  “But I am not,” I say, “and you responded to me like I was in the foyer.”

  She turns her head, obviously struggling with where this is leading, seconds ticking by before she sips her coffee and then sets it on the island, her eyes meeting mine. “You are very assuming, Nick.”

  “Agreed,” I say, reaching for her coffee cup. “But only about things that matter to me, and it appears you do.” I turn the cup so that my lips are aligned with the exact spot where hers were moments before, the act telling her we’re connected now, that possessiveness I’ve felt on numerous occasions with Faith back again.

  I drink, taking a sip of the chocolatey concoction that would taste better on her lips, against my lips. “I’m beginning to get the idea you have a sweet tooth.”

  “I do,” she says. “And yet there is nothing sweet about you, Nick.”

  “You might be surprised. If you give me a chance.”

  “You aren’t going to bulldoze me.”

  “So you told me,” I say, sipping her coffee again, and then setting it back in front of her. “And since you seem to need to hear it again, if I could, you wouldn’t be interesting to me.” I soften my voice. “Don’t let pride, or fear of us, get in the way of a solution to a problem you need to solve.”

  She picks up the coffee, takes a drink, and then another, and when she sets it back down, I arch a brow at her interest in drinking, that she’s called nerves. I like that she can be nervous and overcome those nerves. That makes her strong, as proven by her next smart question. “Isn’t sleeping with me and representing me some kind of ethical issue for you?”

  “Not so long as the relationship existed prior to me becoming your counsel.”

  “Frank is my attorney already. I have him on retainer.”

  “Frank’s an estate attorney on the verge of retirement. He is not going to make the bank his bitch. I will.” I soften my voice. “Talk to me, Faith. Let me help and I promise that help comes with no conditions. Whatever happens with us personally, I’m with you on this until the end.”

  “I hate airing my dirty laundry to you. And it’s not even that I barely know you. It’s that I don’t want this to be how I know you.”

  It’s an honest answer. I hear it in the rasp of her voice. I see it in the torment in her eyes. And every honest answer she gives me makes me trust her more. “We all have our dirty laundry, Faith. I told you my father fucked all of my many nannies. I don’t talk about my father. Or the many nannies.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, Faith, I don’t.”

  “You thought I needed to hear that,” she says, but it’s not a question, and she reaches for the cup again, withdrawing.

  “Why did you just try to shut down on me?” I ask.

  She sets the cup down, a few beats passing before her eyes lift and meet mine. “I appreciate that you shared that with me.”

  “But you withdrew.”

  “No. I just…I was taking in the impact of your statement. Taking stock of myself, too, and my reaction to…you, Nick. And I don’t mean to seem unappreciative of your offer to help. I’m sorry. I am embarrassed about this. And you are very unexpected.”

  “I met you while those two assholes were trying to collect from you at the winery. I knew what you were going through when I pursued you.”

  “You knew you wanted to get me naked,” she says, giving a humorless laugh. “There’s a difference.”

  “I repeat. I’m here. I’m not leaving. I’m helping you. If that makes me a bull, let’s fight about it and get past it.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you, too.”

  It’s not hard to surmise the “too” means the collectors, but my gut says it’s more, but avoiding an emotional trigger right now, I focus us on business. “If you don’t want to replace Frank, I’ll manage Frank. But I need details from you first.”

  “Details,” she repeats.

  “Yes. Details. If it’s easier, I can tell you what I learned when I was researching you.”

  “Please don’t. I’d rather not know. Bottom line, without the family drama. My father left the winery to my mother on the condition I inherit on her death. She had no will and she was apparently six months behind on a note my father took from the bank five years ago. Actually, she was behind on most things. Taxes, vendors, the bank.”

  “Has the winery been losing money?”

  “No. That’s just it. She didn’t run it. I did. All of it for most of the two years since my father died and I had a tight rein on our profit and loss. We were—are—making a net of forty grand a month before her income.”

  “But she wasn’t paying the bank note and obviously select vendors.”

  “Several months before she died, I started getting collection calls. I confronted her and she said she had it handled.”

  “Define handled?”

  “That’s exactly what I said, but she shut me out.”

  “And you have no idea where the money is?”

  “I’m locked out of her accounts because the bank keeps rejecting every executor we try to name with a conflict of interest claim.”

  I tap the table, my mind working. If her mother needed money, blackmailing my father makes sense. But she clearly didn’t use it to pay the bills. Was Faith’s mother being blackmailed along with my father? Was her mother planning to leave the winery behind and run off with someone?

  “It’s bad, right?” Faith asks, when I don’t immediately respond.

  “We’ll back the bank off,” I say. “And we’ll get you your executor and buy you some time. I can’t promise how long, but some time. Have you paid the taxes?”

  “Yes. I used what I had left of my inheritance from my father. And I’m paying the vendors for current services and then some, which worked for some. Not all. I would have taken a loan on this house, but the note is too small and I can’t sell it with a profit.”

  “How much are you behind with the bank?”

  “Sixty thousand dollars and there’s another hundred thousand owed to vendors.”

  And yet, my father wrote her mother a million dollars in checks. It just doesn’t add up. I glance at the loan papers she’s given me. “This note isn’t even close to what your property would be worth. Have you had the winery valued? Once I clear this probate issue, have you considered—”

  “No,” she says, reading my mind. “I can’t sell it. I promised my father it would stay in the family and I’d never sell it before the bank foreclosed anyway.”

  “So your mother knew that if you didn’t take care of the place, you’d inherit a disaster.”

  “Yes. She knew. But it wasn’t about the inheritance to me. This was never my life, or my dream, but she knew that my father’s wishes were, and are, sacred to me.”

  And so Faith gave up her art and her life, which to some would be a motive to kill her mother, grabbed the reins, and tried to end the hellish cycle of the past two years, but that just doesn’t ring true to me. But the ways I could fit my father into the equation are many: that he found out about the murder, for instance, doesn’t support a reason for the checks he wrote to her mother.

  “My mother has to have money th
at I can get to and handle this,” she continues. “And even if she doesn’t, which is completely illogical, I have a great manager at the winery. We’re a great team. We’re making money. As long as I stay involved, I have the tools to keep succeeding. I just need time to catch things up.”

  “You’re sure you’re making forty thousand a month?”

  “Yes. Very. Forty thousand after expenses, which means with my mother’s love of men, Botox, and clothes, she had to have savings on top of the money she hadn’t spent on bills.”

  “Men,” I repeat. “Was there some young thing she was spending the money on?”

  “There was always some young thing, Nick, even when my father was alive. At least your father’s affairs were not when he was married to your mother.”

  “The only difference between you and me, sweetheart, is that my mother left my father and I wasn’t blind, or young enough, not to know why.”

  “At least she has self-respect. My father knew about my mother’s affairs, but he wouldn’t leave. He made excuses for her. That’s why I went to L.A. for school and stayed there. I loved my father, but it hurt me to watch him get hurt over and over again. And the behavior didn’t fit what I knew of him.”

  In other words, her mother could have partnered with any number of men to blackmail my father, with an end game that might, or might not, have included a bigger plan. For instance, running off after draining the winery’s funds, and leaving Faith to suffer, which ironically is what she did, anyway.

  “Nick,” Faith pleads. “You keep going silent and it’s making me a little crazy. What are you thinking?”

  “Has there been a recent man you know of?” I ask, looking for a suspect that isn’t Faith.

  “Her attention span was short, but she also knew I didn’t approve. She didn’t bring them around me. She’d taken a number of trips to San Francisco this past year, though.”

  To see my father, I surmise, and in that moment, I wish like hell I was in a place where I could say that to Faith, but I’m not. Even if I was certain she was innocent, if she knew the truth of why I sought her out, she’d shut me out before I could help her. “You have no idea where she went or who she saw?”