by Sara Forbes
We breathe heavily at each other.
“I can help you,” Felix says grimly.” Once I get him on the fucking line. The line’s busy.”
“He being...?”
“Egan, of course.”
“Right.”
With his mussed up blond hair, and dressed only in boxer shorts, Felix looks like a fallen angel crossing the river of Styx. My own personal fallen angel. I want nothing more than to pleasure him so that he loses himself again.
I clasp my hands around his neck, letting him bear my weight. He puts his hands on my hips. With ease, he hoists me up. My legs grip around his waist, clasping for dear life.
He walks three steps to the bed and releases me. I fall onto the soft sheets on my back. He dives so he lands alongside me with one leg draped over mine. I feel its weight and muscle tone and I know I’m overpowered.
Then he kisses me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. It’s so tender I lose all ability to think. My troubles float away.
Then his phone blares out, It’s The March of the Valkyries.
“Are you serious?” I groan.
Felix groans. “Egan.”
He rolls off me and reaches for the phone. He rises, and goes into the bathroom, like that’s going to offer any privacy.
As he closes the door behind him, I tiptoe over and stand listening.
14
FELIX
“ABOUT TIME YOU CHECKED IN AGAIN. What’s up?” comes Egan’s impatient voice.
“Well I found out who she represents. It’s a guy who holds futures on Bitcoin.”
“Specific dates? Prices?”
“Date. Today, nine a.m. They want it to be as high as possible. Which is why—”
“Okay, hang on. I’m getting Paul in.” There’s a dead line signal and then he’s back. “Okay, Paul’s in.”
“Hi,” comes another voice, deeper, rougher around the edges. Paul, I suppose. He didn’t talk enough in the meeting for me to recognize his voice.
“Oh yeah, that one’s on my radar. I’m gonna make the price drop in… one hour and fifteen minutes.”
“Any other dates, Felix?” Egan asks. “I don’t think one contract is going to crush this guy.”
“Egan,” I say, “Listen. It’s not that simple. Paul, don’t drop the price. Please.”
“What?” they say in unison.
“This guy. He’s not a whale. He’s a small-time investor representing lots of small time investors. Show some mercy, man. They’re just pensioners.”
They both laugh.
“Come on. It’s true. Please.”
“Oh, it’s true, is it?” Egan says in a bemused voice. I can picture myself smashing my fist into his smarmy face. “Look, why don’t I get Jack to call you and talk some sense into you.”
“I don’t need you to fucking tell Jack to call me. I need you to stop putting small investors out of business. I thought your plans were loftier than that.”
But the line’s already dead. I sink down onto the toilet seat and stare at my toes.
I storm out of the bathroom and crash right into Cara who’s been standing there the whole time, I suppose. Not that it matters now. I hold her at arm’s distance. “I’m not saying one more word to anyone until I’m wearing pants,” I growl.
“Oh.” She shrinks back. “Okay, I’ll just be out here.” She cocks her head toward the balcony door.
“Yeah.” I tug on my pants. Midway through buttoning up my shirt, Jack’s Axel-F ringtone goes off which I’m so tempted to ignore. But old habits die hard. I take the call on the seventh ring.
“Felix, Egan just called me. What the hell is going on? Has Cara been getting to you? That’s what they’re saying. Don’t let her use you.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It is. I can tell it from your voice. You’re smitten. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s there with you, prowling around in the background naked. Am I right?”
I let out a low grumble. “Look, you had some dealings with her, but that doesn’t mean you know her, okay?”
“Maybe, but I do know this. For her, it’s not just a job. It’s more like a vocation. She’ll grab on and she won’t let go. Egan thinks you’re about to screw up, and—”
“Hey, hold on a second. Who says anything about screwing up? I gave Egan information that I expected him to do the decent thing with.”
“Felix, we agreed to certain parameters when we joined the Bitcoin billionaires.”
“Parameters?” I hiss. “Joined? What are you talking about? This isn’t a scientology cult, Jack. We can get out any time we want if it doesn’t suit us. And right now, it’s not suiting me very much.”
“This is your chance to be involved in something bigger than yourself for once.”
He’s sounding more and more like a convert to the earth-shattering teachings of L. Ron Hubbard or similar. “Yeah, all the more reason to want to be sure that’s it’s not a bunch of blood-sucking vampires. Aren’t you even a little curious, Jack, or has the thought of fifty billion dollars obliterated your sense of right and wrong?”
“I trust Egan,” my brother says stiffly.
“Whoa, that’s a hell of a lot of trust in someone you’ve only met twice. Mom always told us that money corrupts morals. That amount of money is bound to have corrupted theirs.”
“I’d trust him far sooner than I would your little friend, Cara. Given her track record, you’d be a fool to even let her buy you a drink.”
I guess now is not the time to let him know about the sleeping drug. “Then I’m a fool.”
He sighs. “Get a grip, Felix. Pump her for info. Find out what else her client is up to in the Bitcoin space. Be useful for God’s sake. That’s all you have to do. Don’t make it complicated. You can have fun at the same time at if you really must.”
“That reminds me, I kind of wrecked the car.”
“The lambo? Christ Felix.”
“Do you think there’s some kind of insurance on it?”
“How should I know? What happened?”
“I …car chase…totaled.”
“Who the hell was chasing you? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“It’s a long story. Suppose I better tell Egan.”
He sighs. “No, leave it to me. I’m the primary contact for the two of us. It’s better this way. He’ll cut us off, you know. Both of us. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers.
“So?” I say.
“I want to belong, Felix. This is huge. This is a chance to change the world.”
“Jack, Jacky, listen,” I say, trying to sound calm and reasonable. “She represents a group of investors. Ordinary folk who are going to get ripped off tonight if the price dumps. She suspects us whales of manipulating the market and putting these folks out of pocket. It’s changing their world—negatively. Jack, I’m not sure we’re on the right side here.”
He’s quiet for a full minute. “And you’re so sure she is? How do you know it’s really moms and pop investors and not some greedy bastards who are going to pump the money into drugs and crime syndicates?”
“Why would she lie to me?”
He laughs. “That’s a question I’ve asked myself ever since I’ve known her.”
“It’s different.”
“Oh, because you’re fucking her? This isn’t just about the moms and pops. You’re doing this for her. If her client was Hitler, you’d still be on her side. And I gotta say, it’s not a good look, turning around and trying to interfere with the way the money is made, especially after totaling a goddamned lambo.”
I rub my hand down my face. “This is going nowhere.”
Jack pauses. “Look man, you’re my brother, I’m on your side. I just don’t want to see you get fooled by someone who left me stuck on an island with no food and not enough water. That’s all.”
“Are you still sore about that? It worked out fine for you if I recall correctly.”
“That’s not the point.”
&n
bsp; “Well, I really don’t know what the point is anymore,” I say stubbornly. “Bye, Jack.”
I sit staring into space, reeling from the conversation. I love my brother but sometimes he gets so pigheaded about stuff that he can’t see things in any other way than the way he’s decided that they are. Maybe it’s a good quality for a movie director or a writer. I’m so used to trying to read other people’s minds, putting myself in their shoes, that I just can’t fathom being so one-track minded. Maybe that’s why I never achieve anything worthwhile.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up.
“Hey,” Cara says. “Are you okay?”
I rise from the toilet seat and kiss her. “Did you hear all that?”
“Yes, but it’s not clear what’s happening.”
“I didn’t manage to persuade Egan, or anyone.”
She backs away, out of the bathroom, into the bedroom area and clutches the back of the armchair. “Oh God.”
“I’m sorry.”
She searches the ceiling. “Whoa. Okay. Did you really try to persuade them?”
I unclamp my jaw enough to utter, “I did. You heard me.”
For once, I can’t read what’s happening behind those dark, intelligent eyes. “Then all we can do,” she says slowly, “is wait until 9 a.m.” Her voice is dead.
“I’m so sorry, Cara.”
She shakes her head. “No. Just as long as you tell me this is not your decision. That it’s really out of your hands. That you really did everything in your power to change it.”
“Yes, yes I did.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
“I can understand if you don’t want me to hang around until then.” I buckle my belt. “I can understand if you want to be well rid of me.”
“Felix.” She comes over and clasps her fingers around my neck, searching my face with a serious expression. “Don’t you see? I need you now more than ever.”
15
CARA
I DON’T HAVE TO WAIT until nine a.m. to know what’s going to happen—those bastards are going to dump a shit ton of Bitcoin. The price will sink to God knows what. Goodman’s clients will be wrecked when they’re forced to sell for much lower than they bought at, bringing the price down even lower. Then the bastards will swoop in again buying up all that lovely cheap Bitcoin at a bargain price before the average investor even knows what’s happening.
Everything’s going to be different from now on. Goodman is going to drop me as his PI, he’s going to pull his cronies with him. I’ll be starting from zero. I may have to sell the office—the office Dad left to me. His legacy.
But still, with a gambler’s desperate sense of hope, I open the Bitcoin app and watch the price. There is a slight chance, no matter how infinitesimal, that the bastards relent and show some goddamn compassion. It’s $13,765 at the moment—only the digits and tens are moving but that could change in a millisecond.
“Are we just gonna sit here and stare at that thing for an hour?” Felix asks. “I, for one, can think of better things to do.”
I let my hand drop into his lap. We’re sitting together, spines against the headboard, staring into my phone like teenagers. “You know what? I want to get outside. I want to go for a walk with you. It’s my last evening here.”
His face falls when I say that.
“Let’s try to enjoy it.” I add, patting his forearm.
He nods bracingly. “That’s an excellent plan, even if I prefer the option of getting hot and bothered with you here.”
“I need to get out of this room. It’s tainted now. I feel the investors are watching us.”
“You sound almost superstitious there, Cara, I wouldn’t have pegged you as irrational.”
“It hasn’t been a rational day.”
“No, it hasn’t,” he says. “Fuck Bitcoin.”
“Fuck Bitcoin.”
We both take quick showers. I change clothes and ask Felix if he wishes to go pick up fresh clothes from his hotel.
“Are you kidding? No way am I wasting time when we’ve so little left. If you can stand the smell, that is.”
I sniff at his chest. As before, he smells wonderful. He looks suave and sexy. I don’t know how the hell he manages that. “You’ll pass,” I say.
We take a walk by the seafront. The morning sun sparkles on the Mediterranean and boats bob in the waves. It’s beautifully romantic. And yet, every time my mind slips away into fantasy, I’m suddenly wrenched back to reality.
“I’m so fed up of it,” I say to Felix, “of futures, of all this malarkey. At least with cards, it’s good honest gambling where people have to show up and be seen if they want to participate.”
“I’m fed up too,” Felix says kicking a stone out of the way.
I sigh and take another glance at my phone. $13,564. And the time is 8:48. My life has been reduced to worrying about two numbers. This is why I never wanted to be a stockbroker. “Just when you think you can change something for the better…turns out you can’t.”
“It’s all in the hands of the people with power. The invisible ones.”
“And yet it’s only the small guys getting hurt.” I squeeze his hand in mine. “I’m determined not to let this prevent me from seeing you again. If that’s what you want.”
“Cara.” His voice is low and soft and his face is alive, glowing in the sunlight. “That’s what I’d like more than anything in the world. I won’t let them stop us. I want to see you again, no matter how this turns out. This is not our doing. It’s not our problem. I just want to see you again.”
“You mean it?”
He dips his head and captures my mouth in a soul-warming kiss that answers the question.
We kiss for a long time. I’m going to remember this moment—the glow of his face, the gentle whoosh of waves against the shore, the feel of his stubble grazing my lips, the taste of his mouth, every little detail, probably for the rest of my life because it’s one of those perfect moments which, when strung together, lend life its meaning at the end of it all.
I’m addicted to this man. I could no longer give him up than he could give up his cards or all these Bitcoin idiots could give up their Bitcoin.
When we finally surface for air and I check the time, it’s 8:59. Time’s up.
“Ok-ay.”
Fumbling with the controls, I switch to the Bitcoin app.
$7973.
I stare at the number, my stomach in freefall. It even has the audacity to blink in red to an even lower $7966.
Holy shiiiiiit.
“That’s not good,” Felix says quietly.
I shake my head. “Nope. That’s really not good.”
He takes the phone from me and switches the app off. He hands it back to me. “It’s not going to change in the next minute.”
“Not much,” I say wryly.
We walk on. I inhale a ragged breath and my eyes fill with tears. Angry tears. I’ll get over this, whatever’s coming, but it just makes me so mad that people are so damn greedy.
“Are-are they friends of yours, these Bitcoin whales?” I ask, unable to keep bitterness from my tone.
“No, Cara. I don’t know them. They just speculated for us, for me and Jack, way back when, without even telling us the details. Then it blew out of all proportion because they have some whiz kid who speculates on all kinds of coins, not just Bitcoin. You can make tenfold, hundredfold, profit in a single day if you know what you’re doing. It’s the wild west and he seems to be head rancher. Now Jack’s all caught up in it though. I’m something of a pariah.”
“Okay,” I say fiercely. “As long as you keep it that way.”
His gaze is solemn. “You better believe it.”
That’s the thing. I do believe him. He’s not the type to follow orders, anyone’s orders. And it’s this belief in him that’s the only thing keeping me going. The world has so much darkness, I need to embrace what light is there and to me, Felix Palmer is a source of a light that shines s
o brightly.
Time seems to accelerate as my remaining hours in France with Felix come to an end. I have to be at the airport at eleven a.m. We vote to return to my hotel room. I turn off my phone. I’m not letting Goodman’s anguish ruin my last hours with Felix. There’s nothing I can do to help him. I’ll deal with his hysterics when I land in LAX later today.
16
FELIX
SAYING GOODBYE TO CARA at the airport is hard, but I have to stay here and finish the tournament if I’m to have any income at all once I turn my back on the Billionaires. I’ve never seen a woman off at the airport before, nor been the one left behind. It’s always been the other way around—me flying off, leaving the lady with poignant tears in her eyes. Thing is, I never believed those tears were genuine. Maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong. I believe it now. While I may not have salty drops coursing down my cheeks, there’s a terrible sadness in letting her go
We’re standing at the passengers-only entrance, delaying the inevitable moment. I should be going with her. She’s going back to a version of hell—an angry client whose business is important to her.
“I’ll see you soon,” she says, clutching the lapels of my blazer. “This isn’t the end. After all, we’re both based in LA. We’re both mobile and capable of travelling.”
“I know. I just don’t like you dealing with this one your own.”
“Finish the tournament. Don’t let them deny you that. I want you to finish Belkov off for me. Whup his ass good.”
And then, with a final kiss, she’s gone.
I get my ass back to the tournament to fulfill that request. I can’t let myself be distracted. To win the pot, I have to be on top of my game. It’s exactly what the other players want—for me to be distracted and to make mistakes. I don’t have that luxury, especially now that I’m probably going to have to pay for those stupid lambo repairs myself. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if Egan refuses to take up the bill for that.