Pleasure Payback

by Zara Cox

  He gave a half-smile, despite the pain searing in his eyes.

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She organised a lavish party for my thirteenth birthday. Bowie was on the list somewhere if I recall correctly.’

  ‘And she invited them?’

  ‘No. She had the event planners and caterers fly everything—from the dozen race-car simulators I’d been bending everyone’s ear about, to the birthday cake I didn’t want but she insisted I have—to my parents’ island. She flew my cousins and everyone I’d so much as nodded to at boarding school and their parents to Greece. Close to a hundred people turned up. Besides my own relatives, I only knew about a handful of the rest. But I bet every single one of them never forgot what happened.’

  Concern welled inside me. ‘What happened?’ My question was little more than a hushed whisper.

  ‘My mother ordered her household staff to throw us off the island. When Aunt Flo refused, she threatened to have us all arrested for trespassing.’

  My heart lurched in pain and sympathy. ‘Oh, my God.’

  ‘It was fascinating,’ Damian said, his tone almost conversational. But I heard the flatness layering it. The distance he sought from his pain. It was the same way I’d dealt with my mother all these years.

  ‘Fascinating?’

  His smile was humourless. ‘Yes. I found it fascinating that a mother could feel nothing for the children she’d brought into the world. That she would hate me so much she’d threaten me with jail just so I’d be taken out of her sight.’

  ‘Damian—’

  He pulled away, cutting me off before I could speak. ‘Save your pity, Neve. I learned a valuable lesson that day.’

  Hurt darted through me. I smothered it, reminding myself that we all needed coping mechanisms. This was Damian’s. ‘What did you learn?’

  ‘That it was stupid and pointless to get swept up in someone else’s agenda. That I was the only who controlled my path to wherever I wanted to go. Success. Failure. Happiness or contentment or whatever label you want to slap on what drives you. It all comes down to me and me alone. My mother couldn’t have made it plainer that I was no longer part of her life. Aunt Flo, as well meaning as she was, shouldn’t have swayed me into going along with her. She wanted to shine a spotlight on my parents’ irresponsibility, guilt them into loving or, at the very least, acknowledging that their children still existed. And I went along with it.’

  ‘You were only thirteen years old.’

  ‘Old enough to accept what I’d known since I was nine, or, hell, even before then.’

  ‘You had hope. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  He spiked impatient fingers through his hair, throwing me a wise up look. ‘There’s everything wrong with it when it’s useless. When your very existence is built on greed and lies. I didn’t know it then, but my great-grandfather had stipulated in his will that every Mortimer who produced an heir would receive a lump sum or shares for every child. He was very big on family. My father wanted to have six. My mother drew the line at three. They cashed in their fund when Jasper turned five. By his sixth birthday, they were gone. So you see, for me and my siblings, having hope was like banging your head hard enough against a concrete wall believing it would yield when you know all you’ll get is a fucking cracked skull.’

  Damian

  It didn’t make sense for me to expose the parts of my life that were important to me. Talk about leaving myself wide open the way I swore I’d never do. But the strange little kinship I’d felt walking her back to her little house on the hill had lingered long after I’d left Neve in the early hours of Sunday.

  I’d shrugged it off as the after-effects of spectacular sex but that feeling had only intensified with her appearance on Monday morning, along with that feeling of wanting to be with her.

  So despite my better judgment I’d commissioned a fantasy around my most precious cravings, the things I thought would bring me joy. Was it any surprise that it’d led to this...unholy confession? This unburdening that drew sweet touches and soft sympathy, even as she flinched from the horror of it.

  I hated that part. But I couldn’t look away from the sympathy. So I absorbed it, let it soothe jagged parts inside I refused to acknowledge.

  I took one breath, then another to calm the raging inside me when she remained silent.

  My relief that we were getting off a subject I shouldn’t have started in the first place was short-lived. Neve Nolan had sent me off-kilter since that first night in Boston. I suspected it was a sensation I needed to get used to.

  Still, there was no excuse for this. My parents were a subject I didn’t discuss, full stop.

  But Neve opened her mouth and I knew she wasn’t done. Just as I knew I wouldn’t be able to deny her.

  ‘You’ve only mentioned your mother. Where was your dad when all this was happening? Wasn’t he there?’

  A chill invaded my system, tingeing my bitterness with sharp icicles that defied the heat of the sun. ‘Oh, he was. But if my mother cared little, he cared even less. Aunt Flo wouldn’t have fared any better if he’d let her into the house.’

  ‘He didn’t?’

  ‘My father didn’t even come outside. He watched the whole ungodly spectacle unfold from the comfort of his bedroom window. Truth be told, I’ve never seen Aunt Flo so apoplectic as when she was shouting at her brother from the front lawn. It was positively operatic.’

  She inhaled sharply. ‘Damian...’

  I brushed my fingers over her plump lips, ignoring the curious fracturing inside me.

  ‘Shh, it’s okay. If nothing else, you turned a bad memory into a good one tonight, Neve. Thank you.’

  She blinked rapidly, as if holding back tears. Her hands framed my face, her fingers stroking my wounded places, her eyes questioning, probing. Seeing too fucking much.

  ‘What about Gideon? Is he connected to the not-drinking-in-public thing?’

  My insides froze, even as the urge to spill that too overpowered me. Was I ready to risk this...whatever had made tonight special? Sure, it was a moment out of time. But what if it all...went away?

  I slid my hand down her back to cup one supple buttock, eager to distract myself from the conflict raging inside me. Her lips were parted, swollen from my kisses, welcoming with their sweetness. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to lean in, lose myself in her.

  And yet I felt them...the dark, turbulent words of my confession rushing from its hidden place, dooming the moment I wanted to hold back with everything I had. ‘I had a bad experience the last time a woman bought me a drink.’

  She tensed, her eyes widening. ‘Who?’ she asked softly.

  ‘She was my cousin’s fiancée. I thought I could trust her. Turned out she was a manipulative bitch who’d broken his heart over and over. She turned up in the bar I was drinking in and sold me a sob story about how hard she was trying to make Gideon happy. How she was failing and needed my help. I let her buy me a drink. And I lost the next six hours of my life to a black hole.’

  Neve gasped, her fingers digging into my arm as confusion clouded her eyes for a moment before clarity dawned. ‘Are you saying...?’

  My insides clenched tight. ‘She roofied me? All the signs point to that. I’ve never been a heavy drinker, certainly not enough to black out. But it took me a while to accept that as a possibility. I’ve had investigators looking into it since then.

  ‘The night you and I met was exactly one year after it happened. I’d spent the better part of it trying to get Gideon to listen to my version. He flatly refused. And why the fuck should he? I wouldn’t listen if I found my woman in bed with my cousin either.’

  She froze. ‘Oh, my God, Damian...’

  Her voice contained shock. Sympathy. Horror.

  Icicles coated my veins as she stared at me. She started to remove her hands. To
withdraw.

  I tightened my hold on her, aware that the years’ long bitterness had been overtaken by something else. Something that skated far too close to fear of the rejection I’d experienced on a vivid green lawn on a Greek island a thousand years ago. ‘You pushed for this, Neve. Now you know, you don’t get to scurry off in horror.’

  Her breath caught. ‘I wasn’t... You...’ She stopped, drew her tongue over her lower lip. When she finally met my gaze the horror still stained her eyes. ‘I just...get you a little more now. And perhaps I’m stating the obvious but you’re not to blame. You were wronged, not the other way around. This wasn’t your fault—’

  The laughter that ripped from my throat was harsh. Acid-sharp. ‘Of course it was. She caught me at a weak moment and I fell into her trap. She knew how close Gideon and I were. She’d been around us long enough to see that he was the only person I trusted to have my back in the viper pit that is my family because his parents fucked him over too. She tracked me down with a clear agenda and I let her play me like a damn instrument.’

  Neve curled her hands against her chest, her subtle withdrawal scraping my senses. ‘What was her end game?’

  ‘She wanted to marry a Mortimer. Either Gideon or me. She wasn’t fussy about which one of us she trapped.’

  I watched her gaze sweep down, felt her tremble as she attempted to ease away again.

  ‘Neve.’ My voice emerged sharper than I’d intended.

  She tensed, lifted stormy blue eyes to me. ‘Not everyone has an agenda, Damian,’ she said, her voice wary and hushed.

  A rough chuckle squeezed out. ‘That’s bullshit. I tried, just that once, to believe that and got fucked over for my troubles. So guess what, darling?’

  She exhaled slowly before answering. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s never going to happen again.’

  She opened her mouth. I slanted mine across it, delving deep until I drew a moan. ‘No more talking. Right now, I want back inside that snug little pussy. Are you going to deny me, Neve?’

  Her gaze shadowed, but a moment later she slid her hand up my chest and over my nape. I let her draw me close, taunt me with possibilities I didn’t deserve but wanted to grab with both hands anyway.

  And as I lost myself inside her once more, I dared to contemplate reaching out. Holding on. For a while.

  Neve

  I woke up alone to a room bathed in streaming sunlight, in the wide four-poster that screamed expensive antique in every inch. The whole suite boasted the type of furniture I would’ve spent hours rhapsodising over had my attention not been directed inward.

  Very deep inward.

  To a place I’d never visited before. Simply because I’d never experienced what I’d felt with Damian last night.

  There were parts of him that remained an enigma. But his revelations had thrown him into a different light. One that made me understand him better. See past the self-assured man to the wounded soul who believed everyone had a malevolent agenda.

  I rolled over and grabbed his pillow, my heart aching for him as I breathed in his scent.

  Damian Mortimer wasn’t an unfeeling bastard. He was the product of the worst type of rejection from his parents and treachery from someone he’d trusted. Both resonated deep within me.

  It threw light on how bad the timing had been the first time around.

  The first time around?

  The path of my thoughts startled me out of bed. Even if I wanted longevity of any kind with this...thing with Damian, there was absolutely no guarantee that it was the same for him. We’d made no plans beyond a handful of days. Our only connection was via Fantasy Rooms.

  But there could be something. You can heal each other. Be partners.

  I rushed into the shower, almost afraid of a solution so simple. So...tempting. But it wouldn’t go away, wouldn’t drown under the forceful jets of water.

  Possibilities grew as I shrugged back into Damian’s shirt and left the room. Intending to return to my own to get dressed, I paused at the top of the stairs when I heard voices.

  Well, one voice. Damian’s. Talking heatedly on the phone in what appeared to be a study. The door was ajar. I had every intention of walking past, every intention of giving him privacy.

  But the raw, savage pain in his voice, echoes of last night, slowed my steps.

  ‘No. Enough is enough. Does he know what Penny did to me? Did you tell him?’

  He paced back and forth in front of a marble fireplace, the phone glued to his ear, listening. After a minute he exhaled sharply. ‘You’re right. This is between me and him. It’s my story to tell and he’ll bloody well listen to me. Why? Because someone intelligent and compassionate has reminded me that this wasn’t my fault. Gideon and I are both the injured parties here. He needs to hear that so tell him I’m on my way to see him now.’

  My heart threatened to melt into a puddle. I held it in place with a hand to my chest as I listened, hope and warmth filling me up.

  ‘I won’t let him stand in the way of my rejoining the board, Flo. It wasn’t enough that I exiled myself at your recommendation. They wanted me to hunt and gather. I’ve toed the fucking line. And if they’re not bloody satisfied with that, I’m in the final stages of closing one last venture. No, it’s not Fantasy Suites. It’s Fantasy Rooms. I’m not even going to ask how you know about it. I signed on as consultant but I won’t be for much longer. It’s too good an investment to take a back seat on.’

  My heart iced over and dropped stone cold to my feet.

  He stopped for another minute, pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a weary laugh. ‘No, Aunt Flo, don’t tell me about your fantasies. And while we’re at it, I’d like you to stay out of this.’

  He listened for another moment. Nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  I watched as he tossed the phone into the nearest chair and paced to the window, raking both hands through his hair.

  I knew I needed to move. Either towards him or far, far away. Fight or flight. But unlike two years ago, the fury building inside me felt different. It wasn’t sharp and evangelic.

  It was gloomy and sad and wretched. And when my feet finally moved, I wasn’t surprised when they retreated backwards, away from a battleground I’d unwittingly approached with no armour or strategy.

  In my room, I perched on the edge of the bed, holding the numbness inside with the utmost care. I hadn’t fully worked out what would happen if I didn’t. I just knew I didn’t want to let it spill here. It could wait till I got home.

  Home. Westport, Connecticut.

  Pack. I needed to pack.

  I staggered upright, surprised my feet weren’t leaden weight. The sound of rotor blades starting up redirected my path from the dressing room to the window.

  Damian was striding purposefully towards the helipad. With detached surprise, I watched him hop into the cockpit next to the pilot. A minute later, the helicopter took off.

  I watched until it was a speck on the horizon, until my senses screamed at me that he’d truly gone.

  Slowly, my fury sharpened, galvanising my sluggish senses awake. Part of me just wanted to leave. Put him behind me.

  Like you did two years ago?

  The mocking question sparked my fury anew.

  No.

  The other part of me didn’t want to retreat. Didn’t want another two years to pass by before I spelled out exactly what I thought of him. I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him I’d fallen in love with him and he’d broken my heart.

  I was going to take back control I wasn’t even aware I’d handed over until it was too late.

  A sob caught the back of my throat as my brain finally caught up with my heart. The clash was ugly. Mean and dispiriting. Enough to propel me from the breathtaking salon, outside and down the rolling lawn.

  I walked until I came to the stream I’d sp
otted from the chopper, followed its winding path until I reached a natural boundary. Seeing a flat rock, I perched on it, willing my churning emotions to settle. But I knew it was a futile wish. Despite all the self-warnings, I’d fallen hard for Damian, lulled in by our kindred rejection and a wounded soul too damaged to sustain the weight of my love.

  But even in the depths of my despair, I wanted to reach out as he’d reached out for me last night. I wanted to heal him.

  I gave a hollow laugh, right there on that barren rock, and called myself every kind of fool as time passed in an excruciating trickle, steeping me in my heartache.

  By the time the helicopter returned, I’d retreated into a deep state of irretrievable anguish. Which was a blessing in disguise, my brain insisted, as I trudged back to the house.

  Margret was waiting when I stepped into the living room. ‘Monsieur asked me to give you this.’ She handed over a note, and, with a curious glance at my pallid face, disappeared.

  Every instinct screamed at me to rip up the paper and toss it in the trash. But of course my foolish heart needed to know. I opened it. Read the five short lines.

  Final fantasy

  The study on the second floor

  Fifteen minutes

  No peeking

  My rules

  I crumpled it, smashed it in my fist until pain overcame hope. Because I knew deep down Damian wasn’t planning a seduction in his study.

  That spark of fury reignited, propelling my feet to its destination.

  But it wasn’t Damian who sat at the end of the polished oak table. It was an elderly woman in elegant clothes, with stylish blonde hair, sipping tea as she perused a stack of documents in front of her.

  At my entry, piercing blue eyes locked on me.

  ‘Ah. You must be the reason my nephew is bristling like a wet hedgehog. Sit down, my dear,’ she invited, although her voice wasn’t all that welcoming.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  She eyed me for a taut stretch. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Neve Nolan.’