Lose Me: (New Adult Billionaire Romance) (Broken Idols)

by M. C. Frank

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  @wesspencerforpresident reblogged page 133

  from @spencerstumblr and added: You guys, he’s added a tag #ari at the bottom of his post do you know who/what that is does ANYONE know please I’m DYING here anyone know anything pls pls pls who is that ari thing I have NO CHILL

  nine

  I’ve never felt like this before. I panic, clawing at the sand, looking for something solid to hold on to, but it feels like I’m falling endlessly. My heart is beating wildly and darkness dances at the edge of my vision. I can’t catch my breath, no matter how many gulps of air I take in. This is how I get before I pass out. Lovely.

  Water splashes at my calves and its coldness takes me by surprise. When did I get in so deep? A wave crashes next to my cheek, and it almost covers my head, the salty taste of the sea reaching my lips. Cold sweat breaks on my forehead. What is happening? I try to breathe once more, but my throat has closed up. Just as I’m about to give up, I hear steps splashing through the shallow water. A voice calls my name in the darkness and in a second Wes is there, kneeling next to me. He grabs me and pulls me out of the water, dragging me onto the rocky beach.

  “I can’t breathe,” I try to tell him, but nothing comes out of my mouth. Everything starts going black.

  “Ari?” His voice is tense. “Look at me.” I’m sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness. “Sweetheart, you’re. . . ” His voice is coming to me as though from a great distance. “Come on, Ari. Ari!” He swears as he turns me around, so that we’re face to face, and he cups my face in his hands. “Hey, hey, come here.”

  The next minute I’m tasting the bitter taste of alcohol on his lips as they circle mine. He gives me his breath until I get enough air in my lungs and then I push him away and gasp, trying to get my breathing under control.

  “Can you look at me, love?” he still sounds freaked out. I turn my eyes to his. “That’s it,” he says, keeping his hands at his sides, but ready to grab me if I fall. “That’s it. Better now, yeah?”

  Then I remember.

  A sob breaks out of me.

  He’s next to me immediately, crushing me to him, kissing my hair, rubbing my back. “You had a panic attack,” he tells me calmly.

  “What. . . what the hell happened to me?” I murmur. “I don’t even. . . I’ve never felt like that before.”

  I feel his breath on my hair as he chuckles, leaning his chin on the top of my head. “Well, join the club. I’ve been having them since I was six. I used to pass out all the time because of them, but you learn to handle it. Although I’ve never had one as brutal as this.”

  A hiccup of a sob escapes me and he tightens his hold around me. “No, don’t, it’s over now,” he says. “You’re okay, you’re fine. Let it all out, Ari.”

  “I’ll never stop falling,” I whisper against his shirt.

  He gasps as though he’s in pain. “I’ve got you. I’ll be here always, I swear.”

  “But I won’t,” I murmur.

  He draws a shuddering breath and then his lips crush mine again. This time it’s a real kiss though, and I abandon myself to it as is my life’s depending on it.

  I can feel my bones melting as he runs his hands around my back and then cups my neck between warm palms.

  The time he kissed me in Drops, aggressively, almost violently, doesn’t count. And that day on the surf boards he was Darcy. But this kiss is all mine.

  Wes moans softly as my hands travel to his tapered waist and I feel every delicious inch of muscle beneath his damp T-shirt. He presses closer to me, deepening the kiss. His lips are on mine, and he’s teasing my tongue with his until I’m sure I’ll go crazy, and then he lifts me to him carefully, turning his head so that our mouths fit perfectly.

  A slow burning sensation begins from the pit of my stomach and sends electricity bolts to my limbs. I raise myself on my knees and Wes imitates the movement exactly, pressing me against his chest, folding his arms around me. His hands start sliding to my waist, and I lift mine to the nape of his neck, playing with the wisps of hair, teasing it, curling it around my fingers. A low moan escapes him, and he sinks against me. He turns his head the other way, exploring my lips, and I stop breathing. Only now it’s a different kind of not breathing.

  Our knees sink in the sand, our bodies parallel to each other, until we are a tangle of limbs and panting breaths and shut eyelids. I remember what he’d told me the other day in my room, about how it was ‘torture’ for him when we were walking so close in the kantounia. We’re even closer now. It doesn’t get much closer than that. He lifts his leg, curling it around me, and drawing me to him, until I’m totally encircled by his body.

  My limbs melt, they become honey, electricity, fire.

  Finally, we part and stare at each other, not daring to move. His eyes keep studying me in the darkness, glowing like a pair of coals. His lips are swollen.

  “I want you to know something,” he starts saying, his gaze sober, clear, although I did taste alcohol on his tongue. “That night at Drops, the girl I snogged after I kissed you.” He looks away. “I was picturing it was you the whole time. I’m sorry. . . I couldn’t help myself.” He draws a shuddering breath.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  “I’m not drunk,” he says suddenly. “I mean, I was. But I’m not anymore. As soon as Ollie said he’d lost you I started running, not thinking. I’m sorry I broke my promise to you.”

  “I broke mine to you too. I promised to help you and I left you.” I hung my head in shame, but he takes my chin in his hand and makes me look at him as he shakes his head firmly. He lifts a strand of hair away from my burning cheek, his eyes not once leaving mine.

  “Can you stand, baby?” he asks me in a minute. “I won’t let you fall.” I nod and he helps me up, one arm around my waist. Then he starts brushing the sand off my wet clothes, catching me as I almost fall on wobbly legs. “Come with me?”

  I hate the uncertainly in his voice as he asks me that. I hate knowing that I put it there.

  “Anywhere,” I tell him and the sun comes up in his eyes.

  ◊◊◊

  My mom, or ‘she’ as I call her, is Christina Taylor, the famous Hollywood actress of big screen hits such as Princess of Mesopotamia and What You Should know about Women, as well as the most recent hit Rebecca’s Side, which is based on a novel, Rebecca, retold in Rebecca’s perspective. She has received many accolades for this role—the protagonist, which belongs to a ghost, how appropriate—and people keep writing about her that she’s ‘a Hitchcockian heroine’, whatever that means. It also won her an Academy Award. Anyway, yeah, that’s my mommy.

  Only I’ve never seen her.

  Apparently she had a summer ‘thing’ with my dad in Athens many years ago, when she was there for a brief holiday, and she got pregnant with me. My dad had had no idea about her pregnancy until he received me, about a year later, all bundled up and handed over to him by an assistant in the airport. Lovely, right? Christina wrote and told him he could do whatever he wanted with me.

  My dad was a twenty-year-old university student with no money, and no plans to settle down for years to come. He’d thought she was a sweet, gorgeous tourist, and had been waiting for her to call ever since she’d gone back to America. What he got, instead of a call, was me. In a bundle. (And the realization that she had been a really good actress and nothing more, but anyway.) He took the bundle and then took a look at me and he was a goner. At least, that’s how the story goes.

  He raised me on his own.

  He got us a small apartment in the city while he finished school and then we came back to Corfu. Grandma and grandpa lived nearby and so were able to help while he was at work, but he refused to let anyone else do the parenting but him. Dad wanted my childhood to be perfect, he wanted me to miss nothing. Except my mom, of course—that couldn’t be helped.

  We both wrote her thousands of letters throughout the years. Actually I did the writing, he just never told me no when I asked him if I
could add kisses and hugs from him. I don’t think she even read them. They probably ended up in a bin somewhere in the office of the assistant of her assistant.

  That time when I caught a really bad case of pneumonia and almost died, my dad lost his job because of all the hours he had to put in at the hospital, but she never gave a sign that she even heard his frantic pleas for help.

  Growing up, I decided I would never ever ask for anything from her.

  Two years ago, when she sent me Coach, along with a note—a note!—telling me that she’d been told this was what I wanted to do with my life and that she wanted to do something for my future, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. She only ever contacted me once more, to tell me she got me a part in a new film. And that was it.

  I don’t think she will even care when I die.

  ◊◊◊

  I tell all of this to Wes, brushing over the worst parts and, of course, leaving the last part—about me dying—entirely out.

  I watch as his face turns pale with anger, but he doesn’t interrupt me.

  He has taken me to the L&H. Man, is this thing larger than a house. He gives me dry clothes to wear—his clothes—and as I put them on he laughs at how big they are on me. I envelope myself in his scent and we sit in this massive living room slash restaurant. The yacht’s chef—chef—has prepared us a ‘light snack’ which is in fact the equivalent of a four-course meal in a five star restaurant. Wes keeps talking about the ‘meat-thingy souvlaki’ we had the other night, and threatening to ask the chef to scrap everything and make us two of those.

  But then he asks me if I want to talk about her and I do.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says when I finish, his eyes clouding. “That bitch wouldn’t deserve you if she lived to be a hundred. She lost out on the most amazing person. You’ve missed nothing. You know that, right?”

  “Okay,” I say quietly.

  “I’m serious, Ari. She’s the one that missed out on the most amazing, gorgeous human being. . . ” His phrase trails off as he turns to pass a hand over my hair. “Stupid cow,” he spits under his breath.

  I burst out laughing.

  “What? It’s true.” Then his eyes soften. “How are you feeling?”

  “Freaked out.”

  He nods. “Don’t think about her, she doesn’t deserve it. You have a new brother, though. Ollie is the greatest guy. I am so jealous of you being related to him.” He sweeps his gorgeous eyes all over me. “Although,” he adds as his lips curl around a smile, “if I was too, I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

  His head comes down and he fits his lips to mine, kissing my breath away.

  “So it’s good,” he smiles into my mouth.

  “It’s just. . . a lot to take in,” I tell him.

  “I know. He only found out about a week ago, you know. By bloody email she told him. Can you believe her?”

  “Really?” I ask, taken aback.

  “Yeah,” he says. “He was pretty cut up about it. Took me hours to put him back together. And then he began worrying that you would hate him too once he told you.”

  “He really did?”

  “He kept watching you for days. Drove me bloody mad.”

  I love how he goes all British on me when he’s feeling some strong emotion. I can tell just by how British his talk gets. At the shoot, he talks to Tim in this sexy accent that melts my freaking bones. Then, as soon as the cameras start rolling, he goes into drawling, thick American mode. Talk about an on and off switch.

  “About Ollie, I need some time,” I say and he nods.

  “I already texted him not to come here. He knows you do. All he wants is for you to give him a chance, to realize he’s there for you. I mean he was so excited, he—well, I’ll let him tell you himself.” He smiles. “I was murderously jealous of him for a while,” he adds softly, to himself.

  “I sort of wish this had all happened in a normal way? But I guess that wasn’t possible, with all of you being in the industry and everything.”

  We fall silent for a while, listening to the sound of the waves gently lapping against the boat’s hull. Wes’ long fingers are absently playing with my sleeve, which belongs to a light blue and black striped sweater of his. The sleeve is slightly longer than my arm, so that only the tips of my fingers are visible.

  I shiver at the slightest brush of his fingers and he lifts his eyes to mine.

  “The part that bothers me most about. . . her, the part that makes me not be able to breathe—” I stop to swallow and a muscle in his jaw jumps.

  “Yes?” he prompts.

  “You know she arranged for me to be in this film, right?”

  “I didn’t,” he replies, his eyebrows meeting. “But now that you told me I’m starting to think that I owe her a huge debt.”

  “Well, anyway, she felt she had to do this for me, I don’t know exactly why, since she’s never. . . ” my voice trails and he grips my hand, squeezing it in his. “So I was wondering if you knew about her and me. And if that was the reason you. . . ”

  “No,” he stops me. “No. Is that what’s been bothering you? No.” He frowns, looking at our joined hands, and brings them on top of his knee, drawing me closer. “That day I jumped after you in the water; that was the first time I saw you. I mean, I’d seen you before, but this was the first time I looked at you, properly.”

  I look down in embarrassment, remembering that awful day, but his voice goes on, bringing it vividly to life.

  “I see it every night,” he says. “It’s there before me, every time I close my eyes. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”

  He swallows hard, his jaw clenching.

  “You were sinking, your hair floating around you like a mermaid’s. I kept you in my sight, as I swam towards you, scared that you’d get dragged further by the current and I’d lose you. You looked so small and lost, and still you were turning away from me, trying to tell me not to bother. I reached you, took your face in my hands to drag you up, and that’s when I saw it. Your eyes, they were so scared, so desperate, but there was still fight in them. And I knew right then that if I couldn’t save you, if. . . I let go, I would have lost something infinitely precious.”

  He smiles. The city lights from the window are playing with the highlights in his hair.

  “And then,” he says, half-laughing, “when I was trying to call an ambulance on the yacht, and you said. . . I wonder how I didn’t go crazy that day. You asked me if I was hurt.” He stops and presses his lips together. “I had never met anyone like you. No one had ever made me care so much. I didn’t know then what it was about you that had touched me so—so profoundly. I sensed it that moment when you asked if I was hurt. So brave, and compassionate, so. . . you. I was a lost man after that moment.”

  I stare at him. His lips, his eyes, his hair. His fingers.

  “You said I was stupid.”

  “I believe the word was twit,” he replies, his eyes fixed on mine. It sounds like a caress on his lips right now. “Lost cause, like I said.”

  I laugh and his entire face lights up.

  “So, no,” he says. “It had nothing to do with Christina. I didn’t even know then. It had everything to do with you. And the fact that you turned my world upside down.”

  I’m afraid to ask him what that means—if it means anything. I’m afraid that he’ll tell me it does and I’m afraid that he’ll tell me it doesn’t. I’m so sick of being afraid. “I’m just so scared,” it comes out in a whisper before I have time to hold it back.

  “Why?” he frowns.

  “That’s the scariest part,” I reply. “I have no idea.”

  “I’d take it all away if I could,” he answers quietly.

  I study him for a second. “You’re a good person,” I say impulsively. “You care about others.” I don’t know why that needs to be stated right now; maybe I need to hear it. I, more than he.

  He’s shaking his head even before I finish talking. “Wrong again,” he says. “I didn’t c
are about anyone but myself—not before you. But saving someone’s life. . . it’s this immense thing, you know? Of course you know. How could I be the same afterwards? It changed me, I think. Or maybe not.” He shrugs, but I can see from his expression that he’s been thinking about things a lot. “Anyway, your first impression of me was the right one. ”

  “Would you. . . ?” I hesitate.

  “Anything,” he replies quickly.

  “Can I stay with you tonight?” I ask him, shyly, looking away from him.

  “Look at me,” he says, waiting until I do. “Ari, I have never wanted anything as much as I want you. I’ve wanted you since that first day.” He sighs. “When you showed up for our first date, and yes, it was a date, in those leggings, I thought you’d take one look at me and know what I was thinking. Those damn legs. . . seeing you run and dive and swim all day for weeks. . . It’s been killing me, Phelps.”

  I smile up at him, feeling my cheeks grow warm. “Then I’d better not tell you how badly I’ve wanted to do this.” I trace my fingers over his bicep and he shudders, sighing in pleasure

  His eyebrows meet suddenly. “Gosh, have you ever even. . . ?”

  “Even what?” I ask, defensive.

  “Had a boyfriend before?”

  “Nothing serious, no.”

  “Well, now you do,” he says, leaning in to kiss me breathlessly on the lips. My spine melts as he tips my chin up with his thumb, and places his other hand lightly on my hipbone. He sighs against my lips, the breath leaving his body with a whoosh. I did that to him. He can’t breathe because of me.

  I press myself against him, tasting him once more, leaning into his hard chest, letting him support my weight. Nothing exists beyond this room, this sea, this moment. I shove my misgivings to the back of my mind.

  I won’t hurt him, I can’t do it.

  He takes his lips away from mine for a second, lifting his eyes to look into my face. His hair is a golden mess, and he can’t stop touching me; his hands are everywhere at once: across my collarbone, down my arms, on my shoulders.