by Cherry Kay
The people on the island didn’t see him at all, he kept mostly to himself. They just knew that he was some young “internet guy” who was too eccentric for his own good. David’s buddy, Mr. Ellison, had assured him of his safety, even selling him a sizeable plot of land to stay in, just so he could be away from civilization, but not too completely off the grid. He had a company to run, after all.
“David, dinner’s ready,” his mother called out while he lounged underneath a frangipani tree.
“Yeah,” he shot back, watching his mother lean against a pillar. “You don’t have to wait for me you know.”
He walked beside the infinity edge pool, enjoying the moonlight shining on the still waters. His mother held onto his arm as he walked in the house. “You know I’ll always wait to have dinner with my eldest child,” she told him.
David smiled a little, just a little. His father was watching television, while his siblings were squabbling over the dinner spread.
“Well, mom, you’ve outdone yourself,” David said, looking at the table, filled with his mother’s home cooking. They had the ingredients flown in, together with his family, aboard a private jet.
“We haven’t had a family dinner in so long,” she said blissfully, then she looked up to her husband, “Peter, stop watching TV, it’s time for dinner.”
The eldest sister, Daphne, picked up a grape from the salad. She popped it in her mouth with a grin. They all took their seats, with the second sister, Charlotte sitting beside him, and their youngest, Cody, sitting down as well. All his siblings had blonde hair and brown eyes, except him. His parents had the same features, too. It didn’t matter that they looked different from him, what mattered was that he had family.
His father, Warner, was a burly looking man, he had been an NFL quarterback, and was tough on the field, but a softie at home. His mother, Jane, was a retired doctor, she had been a premier cardiologist, a rare feat for a woman in her time. His two sisters were considered ‘celebutantes’, a title they abhorred, as Charlotte was studying law while modeling part time, and Daphne owned a successful, high-end bag line. Cody was still in high school, but veering towards the path that David had taken years ago. David hoped Cody wouldn’t drop out of college like he had done so years ago, just to set up a company.
His first company had been a wild dream that had paid off, only for it to be cruelly snatched away by greedy ‘friends’. That was why he didn’t have any friends as of late. All his college buddies (who were coincidentally once part of his company), had betrayed him. His family was his refuge in a sea of traitors, and no one else came close to this.
His former girlfriend, whom he had dated since high school, had begun dating a former colleague of his, and for David, that was the worst thing that had happened- far worse than a corporate takeover. He sighed and continued eating, listening to his family’s banter about work and life in general. His parents needn’t work anymore, thanks to his income, but they were self-sufficient, even if he forced them to take vacations sometimes. He owed it to them, Warner and Jane were the kindest human beings he had met, apart from his loud-mouthed siblings.
“Eat some more,” Jane prodded him, seeing his nearly empty plate. She dumped a ladle of mashed potatoes, along with some roast beef and gravy.
“You’re going to ruin my regimen,” David told her.
Jane smiled. “That’s why I’m here.”
*
It was past eleven in the evening, when David decided to take a walk along the shoreline beneath his house. His parents were deep into their wine glasses, reminiscing about their children as children, and his siblings were asleep, tired from the day’s excursions. They would be leaving tomorrow, and he didn’t want to dwell on the fact that he was going to be alone again, but it was probably for the best.
The moon shone brightly above, and the waves were gentler this time. He enjoyed nights like these, it gave him time to think of better thoughts, and it gave him ideas. Long walks at night made him feel better, it allayed his anxiety issues, and boosted his ego. He felt the sand underneath his feet, soft and cold; relaxing him. His company was better off as a private entity, going public at the moment spelled disaster. It was what his former colleagues had done. They were going to regret it in a few years, he knew that.
Maybe I should get a dog, he thought, looking out into the ocean. He heard the shuffling of feet on the sand, noises that weren’t his. Then he looked up and saw her.
*
Caryn couldn’t sleep, as usual. Her dinner had been a disaster, but she finished her meal anyway, knowing that she couldn’t afford to waste food. She had only begun to flesh out her personal novella, when the breeze from outside compelled her to stop. She needed to take a walk, her usual long, and quiet lonesome walk. Staring at her laptop for too long proved disappointing. It was only hurting her creativity. Despite years of writing, writer’s block was still evident. She blamed it on her anxiety issues, blamed it on her ugly childhood.
She was already grown up. Hang-ups weren’t needed, she told herself. But it still weighed on her, in those quiet moments of unrest. She walked barefoot down the steps, feeling the roughness of sandstone underneath her feet. There was a full moon shining across her, illuminating the sea with a soft glow, and her heart almost skipped. She hadn’t seen a moon like this in so long, and it calmed her a little.
Caryn took her time, enjoying the feel of the sand underneath her feet. She suddenly wanted to take a dip in the water, knowing no one would see her even if she skinny dipped. She would stay close to shore, just to make sure…
Smiling to herself, she stripped off of her day dress, placing this on a rock. She walked towards the water, and the water felt lukewarm as it splashed up to her ankles. This was definitely better than seeing a shrink…
All of a sudden, she heard a noise, like someone breathing and treading quietly on the sand, and her eyes snapped open and she gasped.
Staring at her was David James Pierce.
*
“What in the hell-?” she began, stumbling to grab her dress. She felt her cheeks heat up, and her heart hammer. This was beyond embarrassing, it violated her most private moment, and she should have known better- “Look away, asshole!” she cried out, quickly pulling her dress over her head, and then pulling it down.
“Jesus,” the man breathed out, quickly stumbling back, almost falling on his butt. “Why in the hell would you stand there naked ?!”
“Step back, step back, or I’ll scream,” she breathed out.
“Scream what?” he snapped at her, seemingly regaining his senses. “Scream assault? You’d have given me a heart attack, standing there--”
“Naked!” she interrupted him.
“Well then, why the hell are you naked? This isn’t a private beach!” the young man said.
She was breathing in and out heavily, ready to fight back if need be. “I thought I was alone--” her voice trailed off.
“Public beach, ergo, anyone can come here.”
“I thought this was a private beach. I had my own set of stairs, and you probably have one too.”
He almost laughed, she could see it in his mouth. “You thought? You must be new here,” he said shaking his head. “I saw you earlier- that was you, right?” he asked her, changing the tone of their conversation.
Caryn found it difficult to nod. Yes, that was her, staring at him like she had never seen that kind of specimen up close. “When did you move here? You moved into the old Kahele place?”
She nodded. There was something about him that made her not want to lie. “Just yesterday.”
“Why move here?”
He sounded suspicious, like he didn’t want to welcome in neighbors, even if her new place wasn’t exactly as close to his. She took in a breath. “I needed a quiet place to write.”
He nodded, albeit grudgingly. “Yeah, this place is quiet. How long will you be here for?”
“Just a month or so, until I get something written.”
“About what?”
“I’m working on something personal.”
“You’re an author?” he pressed on. Then he took a breath. “Sorry, I’m not very good with introductions. I’m David,” he said, extending out his hand.
“Caryn,” she said, taking a few steps forward to shake his hand. It was a warm handshake, and Caryn felt a bit of shock run down her spine the moment their hands touched. “Yeah, working on a novel.” It was a white lie of sorts, wasn’t it? A write-up was still a novel, after all…”
“David was it? David what-?”
“Just David,” he told her.
She nodded. “Alright, call me Caryn.”
“Caryn what?”
“You won’t tell me your full name,” she said with a grin, trying to make light of the situation.
“I just met you,” he said.
She could see he was annoyed by her quip, but she didn’t care. “Where you from?” she asked him.
“Why would I tell you?”
“We could be neighbors,” she said.
“I have no neighbors. That’s why I picked this place.”
“Well, technically, I’m your neighbor. My house is just over there,” she said, pointing towards a small cliff. “And I’m assuming that that’s your house right there,” she said, looking at the contemporary house, where the cantilevers jutted off a cliff.
“When you say assume, it makes an ass out of u and me,” he said, “I should be getting back to my place. Tonight’s not a good night for swimming,” he added as an afterthought, “the current gets real bad here during this season.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Good night,” he nodded at her, turning around to leave.
Her heart didn’t stop beating fast, even long after he had left.
*
It unnerved him, truly it did. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, the thought of seeing someone naked, smack dab in the middle of the beach, in the middle of the night, when he was just supposed to have a leisurely walk. That leisurely walk ended with him gawking at someone naked, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen a naked woman before. He and Sharon had been living together for two years before she dumped him for Bill Waterson…
He shook his head and decided to sit down on a rattan chair, staring out into the ocean. The moon shone brighter than ever, and the air grew colder, but he didn’t mind. He sighed and relaxed, propping his feet up a table, contemplating about what he had just seen.
Why couldn’t he stop thinking about it? He didn’t need another relationship to mess him up, but seeing a stranger, a completely naked stranger in front of him, made him think of those urges that had laid dormant for so long.
He hadn’t given her much thought, when he had seen her stand on the beach at noon. He was just having fun in the water, and decided to move closer to shore. She wasn’t bad to look at, but that might have been because of the glare from the sun. Her features were a far cry from the few women he had dated, but he found her overall attractive, to say the least. She just had to be damned naked with the moon shining in front of her, casting that weird, immoral glow on her body. Damn it, he thought, knowing his thoughts were far from work now. In a few weeks, he had to fly back to mainland, specifically in California, so he could finish the case against his former colleagues. It had taken two years and millions of dollars, but he didn’t care, as long as he won.
Now, a naked woman on the beach was an excellent distraction, but that wasn’t enough to completely distract him from more pressing matters. She was just a neighbor, a neighbor he had recently met, a neighbor he didn’t want around. Anytime someone was close to his property, his suspicions became heightened. Of course, he couldn’t be blamed for it, traitors were everywhere, and one had even slept in the same bed as he had.
He hadn’t dated anyone since that breakup, and had regained the callousness he had prior to dating her. Charlotte had once told him many would have wanted to date him, he was prime commodity, good-looking, rich and most of all, smart. He didn’t care. He had given her his all, and it wasn’t enough. He didn’t generalize women, though, but he avoided women who wanted to get to know him better. He could smell that off Caryn, Caryn whatever her family name was. It was obvious she wanted to know him better.
He saw the look on her face when he came close to shore on his Jet Ski. Her mouth was half-open, and he couldn’t help but laugh afterwards as he drove away. He didn’t want to generalize women, but the women he had met in the course of his lifetime, they all had issues he didn’t want to accommodate. He had had enough of that already, anyway.
He walked towards the veranda that hung above a cliff, and he saw the little hut that Caryn rented. All the lights were on, and he saw her make her way onto the little wooden porch she had, with a mug in her hand. She sat on a chair, with a rustic looking lamp hanging above her, carefully placing the mug down, and then a notebook and a pen beside it after.
She wrote. Wrote what? Young adult fantasy novels? Erotica? She started to write, pausing once in a while. So, she wasn’t that dependent on technology, was she? His interest in her piqued as he quietly looked at her. She was content in being alone, like he was. They could have been friends, had they met a couple of years ago.
Why are you alone? Why are you here? At the back of his mind, an idea played on. Nah, can’t be, he thought. He was being too suspicious. No one knew he was here, save for his family, and his attorneys, and his trusted informants. Majority of those who knew him thought he was in Honolulu, or in California, holing up in his parents’ house. He had hired private detectives to keep tabs on those who had hired private detectives.
David disliked the intrusion to his privacy. He didn’t commit a crime, but the others did, thus his heightened suspicions. Everyone had a motive against him, everyone wanted to use him. He wanted no more of that.
He shook his head and walked away from the edge of the veranda. He didn’t want to become some sort of stalker. She was her own entity, and he had no intention of bothering her, but the image of her body in all its naked glory was stuck in his mind, even long after he fell asleep.
Chapter3
She woke up at ten-thirty. This surprised her, knowing she had slept at five in the morning. What was it with this island that ruined her beauty rest? She blinked, blearily looking around her. Strong rays filtered through her open window, and she sighed, knowing that lack of sleep meant terrible writing.
She barely wrote anything last night. She had wanted to elicit some strong emotion out of herself, knowing that the article she needed was still not within her reach. She had met him once, and she had acted like half an idiot. Just half an idiot, she told herself. She had regained her composure, anyway.
The pictures she had seen of him didn’t do him justice. Those were old photos, where he dressed in casual college t-shirts and sneakers. It was that cool, young billionaire effect. She rolled her eyes, remembering the photos. What was it? Some ploy to make it seem like he was relatable?
The important thing here was, she had finally introduced herself. The media had been searching for him for years on end, and only she had been able to use her resources to track him down. The editor’s niece had slept with one of his managers, and the manager had casually mentioned that David Pierce had employed private security. That took another 6 months to track down. It was through her personal efforts that she had been allowed to leave the US mainland for Hawaii.
In Honolulu, she had spent another two weeks, observing the goings on of his estate. She only saw maids or gardeners. It was by chance that she had heard of a billionaire who had bought an island, a billionaire that wasn’t David Pierce, but someone who had been acquainted to him. She took her chances, and the budget left of all those months of tracking down. Was this going to be worth it?
She didn’t want to write on it immediately, but she had been given two months to observe, lest she lose her job. Her editor had put good faith in her, knowing Caryn never failed an assignment. This was
going to be her first big story, a story she wanted to delve into deeper. She didn’t want the scandal, but she wanted the man behind one of the most controversial tech happenings to ever hit the country.
Media was always savage, but David had created part of the current media that everyone enjoyed. He was a tech god of sorts, not that she was the tech savvy one. He wasn’t a robot, that she knew, but she found him to be stiff, almost unwelcoming, even if he tried to be nice. It just didn’t work. He had guarded himself against strangers, or people in general.
But, he had family. That seemed like a big deal. The Pierce family were socialites in California, and David had equally glamorous siblings, even if he didn’t have the same features. He had no pathetic background story to make him relatable. He had been born rich, and he grew up rich, sent to Harvard for further studies. He had dropped out of the university soon after, to prove to the world he was a genius, way ahead of his time.
He had worked with the bigwigs of the internet kingdom, was friends with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the Google founders. He was a megalomaniac nerd, if that was even possible. But no nerd could have had that kind of body. It wasn’t muscular, but he was lean, and it was obvious he worked out. He had that boyish charm in him, if he didn’t give that aura that he was a snob. He did shake her hand, at least he wasn’t germophobic. She had begun profiling him. It was part of her journalistic skills, but she didn’t like what she had experienced so far, except for his physical one.
She shook her head, taking a deep breath as she boiled some water for coffee in a stainless-steel thermos that looked like it needed some polishing. What she was going to do today? She was active at night, she wrote mostly during the darker hours.