“Before what?”
“You turned it into a challenge,” he grinned. “The more you deny me, the more I want it. Dreadful how we humans are wired that way.” He indicated that I get on the treadmill first. Using a remote, he turned on a music channel playing more songs with a beat.
And of course they were all sexual.
“You only have one arrow in your quiver, don’t you, Caz?”
He grinned. “When you find something that works…,” he trailed off before he showed me a few of his dance moves. When he ran his hand down his chest, I got an instant visual of what he had looked like naked. My head snapped back as I tried to focus on the exercise.
He chuckled as he set the machine and then watched me as I began the pre-set program. He then got on the machine behind me, locking me into the confined place with his arms on either side, grasping the bars.
“What are you doing?”
He was walking just behind me, to where I could feel his body against mine. He leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “Only one machine. We’re going to have to share.” He reached around me to increase the speed and the incline, until we were practically jogging uphill. My pace quickened, until I was panting lightly. I could feel my back press into his chest. I felt that legendary member between his legs press into my ass.
“Why do you do this?” I mumbled at last.
“Because you like it,” he said in my ear.
“Fuck you,” I spit. “I tried to put an end to all this if you remember.”
“Yeah. Tried to tell you that wouldn’t work out the way you had hoped. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me. Because of you, Devlin probably ended up fucking her again.”
I turned to get off of the moving belt, but it was impossible. He just kept increasing the speed.
“Not so fast, Mrs. Masters. Workout’s not done.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
He kept up the torture for thirty whole minutes. I ended up running the equivalent of over two miles. I was covered in sweat as I stumbled off of the treadmill. He was quick to catch me. He held me a beat longer than necessary, so I pushed him away before I headed for the elliptical. There was only one of those too, but this time he let me do it on my own. Instead he sat one of the other benches, shamelessly watching me. It made me feel even more self-conscious than the times I stripped for Dev. “You’re just going to watch me?” I finally said when I could stand it no more.
“I like watching you,” he told me softly.
I took a deep breath, steeled my spine and glared forward out the window at the ocean beyond.
Afterwards we did a couple of resistance machines, on my upper body, my legs and my core. His hands lingered on my body as he showed me the proper way to lift the weights or repeat the reps. Every single time he touched me, I fought not to vomit right in his hateful face.
Finally he led me to a punching bag that hung from a hook in the corner of his gym.
“Here. Have a go at it.”
I was so irritated I didn’t need to be asked twice. I reared back and hit the bag until it swung back against him. He caught it with a smile. “Not bad, pussycat. Not bad. Now do it again.”
I punched again, first with the right hand. Then with the left.
“Good,” he encouraged. “Now use those legs, girl. Kick this bag just like you’re kicking me in the balls.”
That needed no encouragement. Within minutes I was punching and kicking that bag with all the resentment, anger, confusion and frustration that had dogged me ever since we got back to Los Angeles. “Good,” Caz nodded. “Don’t be afraid to use your elbows and your knees. Come on. Let me see what you’ve got, Mrs. Masters.”
I worked on that bag until I was so tired I could barely stand. Caz stepped around it to capture me before I swooned to the floor. “Good job,” he told me as he sat me down at one of the machines. He grabbed a bottle of water from the mini fridge he kept close by.
“Probably not a good idea for you to teach me how to kick some ass,” I warned. “You manhandle me again and I might just have to kick yours.”
He chuckled as he sat on the machine opposite me. He easily hoisted the weight with his sculpted arms. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said as he worked out himself through a series of reps, likely to show me what I was missing by not succumbing to his charms.
Despite all the games, he really did work hard sculpting his body. And his hellacious workouts were definitely changing mine. It was just a damn shame he was such a contemptible asshole.
I sighed. “You know, you’re not half bad when you behave like a human being. Why do you have to be such a jerk, Caz?”
He huffed and puffed with exertion. “I have a reputation to maintain,” he replied with that shit-eating grin I loathed.
“Being an asshole work that well for you?”
He replaced the weights and sat up to look at me. “Look around you, CC. You tell me.” He grabbed my water bottle from my hand and unscrewed the cap, then guzzled it while his eyes studied my face. He handed it back to me with a grin, as if he knew what kind of intimate liberties he had just taken.
I shook my head. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Nope,” he announced cheerfully. “Why should I? The way I figure it, we’re all hedonists deep down. We all constantly think about the stuff we’re not supposed to, those things you’d never admit in polite company. But we all have those moments when we pass a stranger on the street and instantly wonder what it would be like to fuck them. We all have those moments where we talk to someone, and suddenly we fixate on their lips, imaging what it would look like on our bodies, or taste like against our mouth. We’ve all had that moment when we wanted to just have fun without consequences, like fucking a stranger you don’t even know, in every raunchy way you could imagine. So why not just do it? Take no prisoners. Make no apologies.”
I didn’t say anything, so he went on. “Sure there are people who, when they think these thoughts, feel like they’re some kind of weirdo. An oddball. A deviant. And a few are. But most of us are just normal human beings, hardwired to enjoy sex for pleasure. We’re supposed to want it. We’re supposed to love it. The problems only arise when we’re told we shouldn’t want it, or that we shouldn’t have it. That there’s something wrong with us if we love it the way that we do. It’s everywhere all the time, yet our society wants to pretend like it doesn’t exist. That it’s improper, or obscene. It’s all bullshit, CC. All this perceived purity? I’ve seen the truth every time someone paid me to fuck them. And the things they want to do,” he crowed with a chuckle. “We’re not pure at all. We just lump lust behind other, more obscene sins like wrath, gluttony, envy or greed, simply because that helps us sleep at night. Like we can forget we’re all animals deep down, happiest when we’re allowed to roar. Look at what happened to you. You can’t honestly tell me that you were happier when you were following all those bogus rules of propriety.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. “No.”
“There you go. If there’s anything I teach you in these next few months, I hope it’s that. Because that means so much more than how much you weigh or how you look. Some of the best lays of my life have been ugly women who just knew how to take what they wanted.”
I scowled at him. “Way to ruin a moment, Caz. Why do you have to be such a pig?”
He shrugged. “Just being honest, pussycat. But I can see how you might not be used to that.”
I stood from the training machine and headed down the spiral staircase. He sauntered easily behind. I didn’t even pause in his bedroom before I made my way to the first floor bathroom, where I shut the door between us and locked it. With a sigh, I peeled off my clothes and turned on the shower.
Dev still hadn’t arrived by the time I emerged from the bathroom. It was about ten before eight, so I sat on the sofa and waited.
Caz brought me some kind of green smoothie. I regarded him cautiously as I smelled it. He chuckle
d. “Don’t worry. I don’t need to resort to roofies to get a woman into bed. Usually they jump right in and pay me for the privilege.” To prove his point, he took a sip of the smoothie before he handed it back to me, and then he sat on the other end of his sofa. “So will we be training next week or will you be too busy preparing to go overseas?”
My eyebrow arched. “Does it matter? I thought we had a long-standing engagement with these phony workouts.”
He appeared genuinely offended. “Excuse me, but these workouts are not phony. Have you looked at yourself lately, CC? You’re turning into a bona fide babe by the day. How much weight have you lost?”
“Does it matter?” I snapped.
“Only to your dad. And the press. And your precious Cabot’s,” he answered.
I fumed as I stared at him. “I’m honestly surprised you won’t force me to fly back every Wednesday just to keep up the ruse.”
He laughed. “You could just take me with you. I’ve never been to France.”
“Sorry. Two’s company. Three’s a crowd.”
“Depends on the three,” he murmured softly.
I rolled my eyes. “You really can’t take anything seriously, can you?”
“I take my survival very seriously,” he said.
I thought about the big payday he expected come December 31. “Yes. I suppose you do. You know you really are a decent trainer. You don’t need all this other stuff.”
He leaned his arm across the back of the sofa. “You already think you know what I need? You don’t know me at all.”
“And whose fault is that?” I shot back. “You’re the one making these stupid little sessions about sex.”
“I already told you. Everything is about sex,” he reminded. “I’m just more open about it.”
“You hide behind it,” I corrected.
He chuckled as he leaned close. “And trying to psychoanalyze me, too. Why pussycat, I didn’t know you cared.”
“Forget it,” I hissed before I turned away from him.
He edged closer on the sofa. “Don’t be so touchy. We’re not curing cancer here. We’re just having a little fun.”
I glared at him. “This is not fun for me, okay, Caz? This has been the exact total opposite of fun. I hate this. I hate you. I hate Suzanne Fucking Everhart. I hate that I can’t just be happy with my new husband, or dream about the future, without some gigantic cloud always hanging over our heads, threatening to ruin everything all the time, like we have some kind of time limit on bliss. I didn’t ask for any of this, Caz. I don’t want it. I just want everyone to leave me the fuck alone already so I can get my goddamn life back. Okay?”
He studied me for a moment before he sat back in his corner of the sofa. “Okay.”
I waited for the other shoe to drop. He never made anything easy. Before either of us could say anything, headlights flashed across the window facing the street. It was likely Dev, showing up at eight o’clock on the dot.
“There’s the ball and chain,” Caz said as he stood. He walked towards the stairs, stopping just at the last minute to turn back to me. “Take off next Wednesday. We’ll pick up again when you get back from France.”
My eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch. You’re right, CC. You deserve a break. And I really want you to enjoy your month in France with your new husband. You might want to make it count, because whether you want to believe me or not, it’s going to be your last.” He turned on his heel and headed upstairs.
I practically exploded as I shot up off the sofa and stomped out of the house, nearly mowing down Devlin in my path. He followed me to the car. “Everything okay?” he asked as we belted ourselves in.
“No,” I snapped. “Nothing is okay. Just take me home.”
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t mean the luxury apartment downtown.
I was over all of it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
That night I didn’t let Devlin touch me. I curled as tightly as I could on my side of the bed and kept my back to him. I didn’t even tell him why. For once I was the one that demanded to be trusted, no questions asked. And he couldn’t do one damned thing about it.
The rest of the week he was busy dealing with Suzanne for their big fundraiser that Friday night. I conferred with Darcy via video chats to discuss the dress she was making just for me. It was a formal gown, with an empire waist with a lace and sequined overlay covering a mauve skirt of the softest silk. The top was a more stretchy fabric in a deep aubergine color that cut across both breasts and gathered in the center for a dramatic, but tasteful, cleavage. It was a stunning piece, worthy of Darcy’s debut with Cabot’s.
Suzanne also got a Darcy original. The idea, they told me, was that everyone woman could feel like an original in these new designs, so they wanted different types of women in different types of dresses. Hers was black, a mermaid design that hugged her hourglass figure, including the new boobs she’d bought for herself within the last few years. Her cleavage was a little more pronounced as a result, and framed by dazzling rhinestones.
Even Aubrey got hooked up, with an edgy black and white dress with sparkly silver strands woven throughout the checkerboard design, and a train of flowing ruffles towards the back, and a short fitted skirt that ended just above the knee.
“I wished you could be here to see everyone gush over your work,” I told Darcy that Friday afternoon. She merely dismissed it with a shy shake of her head.
“They don’t want to see me. They want to see you.”
“Trust me. They’re going to want to meet you. You’re about to become the talk of the town.” She gulped hard. I could tell that freaked her out a little bit. “You’re going to be okay, you know? Dev and I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
It was a flimsy promise that she clearly saw right through, which was why she quickly changed the subject to what types of shoes I’d be wearing.
I left that up to my stylist, Jorge Navarro, who was scheduled to meet me at my office by three o’clock. That he agreed to come at all had been a miracle. When I told him what I needed his services for, he was wholly uninterested. “I don’t mind making you look good, but there’s no way I’d help the likes of Suzanne Everhart. She’s bananas.” He spelled it out for emphasis.
But he showed up on time and worked his magic. By the time Devlin picked me up at a quarter to five, I had transformed into everything my father always wanted me to be. Thanks to my grueling workouts, and my stressed out life, I had lost a good fifteen pounds since Vegas, which meant I had shrunk miraculously into a size twelve.
Father was so pleased with the results he couldn’t wait to introduce me to every member of the press. “You know my daughter, Coralie. This is her husband, Devlin Masters.”
“You look amazing, Coralie! Is that a Cabot’s design?”
To which I would obediently nod with a fake-ass smile plastered across my face. “It’s from a brand new line we’re creating called Youniquely Cabot. Every woman. Every size. We’re putting the ‘you’ back in fashion.”
I suspected that our pitch was successful, since I got stopped a dozen times down the red carpet leading towards the club. Devlin played his part well, his arm around me like the proud husband that he was, deferring all credit towards the Cabot’s family, which now included him and his sister.
“When will we get to meet her?” reporter after reporter asked.
“Fashion Week will be here before you know it,” he promised with a smile.
By the time we reached the party, I was already exhausted. Dev handed me a glass of champagne to reward my performance. “That was perfect, Coralie. You should be very proud.”
I just nodded but said nothing. My entire system was thrown out of kilter. Knowing I would see both Suzanne and Caz at this party had me so tightly wound that my tightly-drawn nerves practically played a song when I walked across the room.
And of course the mingling wasn’t done. We were p
assed from very important person to very important person, each of whom wanted to talk about all the great work Harvey and Suzanne would do in the White House.
Some of the patrons believed that. Some just came for the open bar.
As for me, I simply grabbed another glass of champagne and kept my mouth shut.
When the music began to play, I allowed Dev to pull me onto the dance floor just so that I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. He swung me around to an elegant waltz, which attracted a group of admirers. I tried to focus on his face, but every time I looked in his eyes I saw him with that black widow Suzanne. I just knew that she was going to do something, anything, to rub my face in the fact that she could get to my husband.
The only upside was that Margot arrived on the arm of another man, one closer to her own age, with a little notoriety of his own. He was a producer for a popular show on TV, and an ardent supporter of Harvey and Suzanne. They fit right into Father’s close little circle surrounding the Everharts.
Thankfully, Dev kept me on the other side of the room.
Maybe he was as scared of what Suzanne would do as I was.
She didn’t make her move until after dinner was served and the party began in earnest, when she brought a horde of reporters over to our table so she could introduce the man who had created her look for the evening. She pulled Devlin up to stand next to her, threading her arm around his. “He is a marvel, truly. He knows just what we women need and he delivers, like any perfect man,” she added as she smiled up at him like he belonged only to her.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, she dragged me up by the arm to show me off to the press. She kept me on one side and Dev on the other, a not-so-subtle move that inserted her right in between us for the world to see. “This is Coralie. She is the real proof of Devlin’s prowess. She pulled out her phone, which was cued up to a photo of me in the puce nightmare from Lucy’s wedding. “This was what she looked like three weeks ago. Look at her now,” Suzanne gushed.
When our eyes met, I knew that she had just used the opportunity to humiliate me. Her face curved into a sadistic smile. I answered as few questions as I could get away with, before I had to duck away from everyone and fetch another drink.
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