by Shelly Ellis
“In exchange for meeting your needs?” The blood drained from her face. “Evan, what . . . are you asking me?”
“What does it sound like I’m asking?”
“It sounds like you’re asking me to have sex with you!”
He paused. “Well . . . yeah. Yes, I am.”
Leila stared at him, struck speechless.
He removed his hand from her knee and sat back in his chair, looking annoyed. “I can tell from your reaction that it wasn’t what you expected me to ask. But before you say no outright, seriously consider my offer. I should add that I’m willing to sweeten the pot a bit if my terms aren’t suitable. In addition to talking to the bank, I’ll offer you one hundred thousand dollars outright for your time and effort.”
Time and effort? Why, you smug son of a bitch, she thought. He was propositioning her, actually propositioning her like some two-dollar ho! Make that one-hundred-thousand -dollar ho!
“So this is what you thought you could get done in fifteen minutes or less? You thought you could get me to agree to be your mistress? You thought you could . . . you could buy me like some . . .” She sputtered helplessly. “How the hell could you even ask me something like this, Evan?”
“Oh, please!” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t get on your moral high horse! You’ve done a lot more for the people you love, haven’t you? Compared to that, this is a small price. Besides, at least with this deal, we both get something out of it. I’ve let you use me one time too many without getting something in return.”
“Fuck you!” she barked, jumping up from the sofa in outrage, letting her napkin fall to the floor.
Is that how he saw their relationship? She had thought it was a mutual friendship. All this time, he had thought she was using him?
“Whatever,” he replied, also rising from his chair. “Play the drama queen if you want. Either way, my offer still stands. You can say yes, or you can say no. It’s up to you. But it’s the only way you’re getting me to talk to that bank. Those are my terms.”
“Terms? Terms? Ev, would you listen to yourself! You’ve been stuck in this office for too damn long if you honestly think you can bargain sex like some . . . some contract! I don’t care how shitty of a marriage you have or how horny you are.... Stuff like this between a man and a woman can’t . . . it can’t be worked out like ‘Terms of Use’!”
He squinted. “Why not? People do it every day.”
“With prostitutes! But I’m not a goddamn prostitute! I’m not gonna spread my legs for a man just because he offers to do me a favor or shakes a hundred grand in front of my face!”
“So what would you do it for?”
“What?”
“What else would you need to agree to something like this?”
She was struck speechless again. What had Evan changed into in the ten years that she hadn’t spoken to him? She didn’t recognize this man anymore.
“Come on, Lee. I already told you that I want you. I’m a businessman. I’m always open to negotiation . . . within reasonable boundaries.” He took a step toward her, making her take a step back and almost bump into his coffee table. He gazed into her eyes. “Tell me your terms.”
“I told you, I don’t have any goddamn ‘terms’! I only have sex with someone I care about. I only have sex with someone I’m attracted to and have passion for. I’m not a professional. I can’t fake something like that, Evan! I can’t—”
He suddenly closed the divide between them. She didn’t have the chance to pull away before Evan abruptly lowered his mouth to hers.
The kiss caught her off guard, but the enticing feel of his full lips against her own sent her heart racing, even when she thought it couldn’t possibly beat any faster. When her lips parted, he slid his tongue inside her mouth and lowered his hands to her waist, drawing her even closer to him. She momentarily forgot about his “business proposal.” Instead, she focused on the feel of him: his powerful arms around her and his lean body pressed against her own, the warmness of his touch and the searing heat of his kiss. Evan—the man whom she had once considered a brother—now sent her senses whirling.
She closed her eyes and linked her arms around his neck. She stood on the balls of her feet and tilted back her head to deepen the kiss, meeting his tongue with her own. Her nipples hardened against the silk fabric of her blouse. The blood in her veins pounded wildly in her ears. His hands lowered from her waist to her bottom. She grinded against his pelvis and felt him harden. The junction between her thighs started to dampen in primal response.
When Evan drew back a minute later, they were both panting.
“Either you’re a better fake than you thought,” he whispered with a mischievous grin as he ran his thumb over her kiss swollen lips, “or you’re just as attracted to me as I am to you, Leila. I think we’ll do just fine.”
Leila grimaced. She stepped out of his embrace, recoiling at the realization of what they had done. What had gotten into her? She had been trying to prove a point to Evan that he couldn’t treat her this way. She wasn’t some high-priced hooker. Her body wasn’t up for negotiation, no matter what spark he ignited.
Leila grabbed her purse and shoved past him. She strode toward his office door.
“You’ve got until the end of next week,” he called after her, making her pause as she gripped the door handle. “If you don’t let me know by then, I’ll assume your answer is no.”
She whipped around and faced him, blinking back tears of anger. “You know, Evan, when I heard your father had died and that you were the head of your family now, I’d hoped that Paulette and Terrence were in good hands. Your father was a cynical, manipulative asshole who tried to make all of you his puppets. I’d hoped they’d have a better chance with you. But now I know I was wrong! You’re a bigger son of a bitch than George Murdoch ever was! Because unlike him, you know better! I thought you were better than this!”
“Next week, Leila. That’s your deadline,” he said coldly before she opened his office door and slammed it closed behind her.
Chapter 11
EVAN
Evan killed the boat’s engine, adjusted his Ray-Bans and walked a short distance. He then flopped down on the leather padded seat beside his brother, Terrence, who was currently examining his reflection in the chrome panel beside him. “Would you take a break from staring at yourself, pretty boy, and hand me a soda?”
Terrence instantly leaned down and reached into the boat’s cooler. He handed Evan a chilled can of cola before grabbing a beer for himself.
“All right,” Terrence said, adjusting the brim of his baseball cap. “What’s on your mind?”
It was one of Evan’s rare afternoons off and he had decided to enjoy the warm summer day by driving to Baltimore and taking his twenty-five-foot power boat on the Chesapeake Bay. The family owned a schooner they kept docked in the Virgin Islands that sat empty most of the year. They owned a yacht called the Black Pearl that they docked in Annapolis, Maryland. But the Murdoch boys had always preferred boating on something smaller that didn’t require staff, that they could handle themselves.
Evan had invited Terrence to come along on this day trip under the guise of enjoying a scenic boat ride, then some steamed Maryland crab at Fell’s Point, but the real reason he had invited Terrence was because he wanted to talk. He had considered inviting their half brother, Dante, along for some brotherly bonding, but bearing in mind the nature of this conversation, he wasn’t sure if he wanted Dante around.
Evan had been replaying his “lunch” with Leila over and over again in his mind, and every time he thought back to the last thing she had said to him, he was flooded with anger and frustration. She had compared him to George, even claiming that Evan was worse than his old man, which was a joke. Evan had at least treated her like an adult, like an equal partner in this. His father never would have done the same. But still, her words nagged at him. This was the third time in the past week someone had compared him to his father and he didn’t like it
at all. He needed to talk to someone who had known their father just as well as he had. What better person than Terrence?
“Do you remember Dad’s mistresses?” Evan asked suddenly after taking a drink.
Terrence’s caramel eyes widened. “Whoa, it’s like that, huh? This is a mighty heavy way to start a Saturday afternoon!”
“I’m serious, Terry.”
Terrence sighed, turned the brim of baseball cap to the back, and nodded. “Yeah, I remember them—vaguely. I remember Mom wasn’t too happy about them either.”
“She died of a broken heart,” Evan said quietly, gazing at the water that lapped along the side of the boat.
His mother had died five years before his father at an age that many would consider young—a mere fifty-seven.
“No, she died of a pulmonary embolism. That’s a big damn difference!” Terrence slowly shook his head. “Ev, where are you going with this? Why are we talking about Dad’s mistresses and Mom?”
“Did I tell you one of them came to my office?” Evan took another sip from his soda, still lost in his own thoughts.
“One of who came to your office?”
“One of his mistresses. She came about a month after he died—some chick who was way too young for him. She couldn’t have been more than thirty . . . maybe even twenty-five. She just showed up out of the blue one day asking to speak with me. The receptionist had seen her go to the C-suite a few times when Dad was alive, so they let her in.”
“Why the hell did she want to speak with you?”
“She said that Dad had promised he would take care of her.” Evan took off his sunglasses and lowered his eyes. “He had been taking care of her for the past five years. She knew I was the executor of his estate and she wanted to know who was going to pay her rent. Would I continue to pay the car note for her BMW?”
“Damn,” Terrence said in a slow exhale. “That took a lot of gall.”
“I guess she didn’t have many options. She said she didn’t have a job and she had quit school years ago because she thought Dad was always going to handle her bills for her. She wanted to know if he had included her in the will. But he didn’t. He didn’t mention any of them. I had to break the news to her that she was one of many, and he didn’t set money aside for her or any of his other mistresses.” Evan took a deep breath. “She broke down in tears right in my office, Terry. I felt bad for her. Even though I know how women like her made Mom’s life so fucking miserable.”
“So what did you do?”
“I wrote her a check for twenty grand. I told her that was all I could give her. I haven’t heard from her since.” He paused. “But why would Dad do that? Why would he make these women believe something that wasn’t true? He had no intention of taking care of them for the rest of their lives. Why keep telling them those lies?”
“Hey,” Terrence said, raising his free hand, “I’m not one to defend Dad, Ev, but these chicks weren’t exactly babes in the woods either. They should have known nothing was promised to them when they hooked up with an old married man, no matter what he may have said.” Terrence took a sip of Corona. “So what’s with this trip down memory lane? That woman showed up to your office months ago. Why are we talking about it now?”
Evan closed his eyes. “I guess because I made a similar offer to Leila a few days ago, and I’m trying to convince myself that, despite doing that, I’m nothing like Dad.”
Terrence stared at him. “Wait! Wait! Back up! When did you talk to Leila?”
“I told you . . . a few days ago when I invited her to my office. I asked her out to lunch.”
“Why the hell did you invite her to lunch? I thought you hated her guts! You damn near lost your mind when you thought you had to share a reception room with her.”
“I . . . well, I . . .” Evan took a deep breath. “I found out that Leila needed help with her mother’s mortgage. She wanted me to talk to Murdoch Bank, to see if maybe I could get them to stop her mother’s foreclosure. So I invited her to lunch to talk about it. I told her that I would discuss it with the bank and help them out with a hundred grand in exchange for her giving me . . .” He paused. “If she would give me something I wanted.”
Terrence gazed at his brother as if he was the dumbest man in the world. “And that something you wanted was her, right?”
Evan hesitated again then nodded.
Terrence chuckled. “Shit, Ev, you don’t do anything halfway, do you? You couldn’t just have an affair with some cute honey you met on a business trip. Instead you had to hit up your ex-best friend of twenty years and offer to buy her!”
“I didn’t offer to buy her! Don’t say it like that! It’s not like she was up on the auction block.”
“Fine, you offered to lease her then.” Terrence shook his head again. “And I can only imagine what she said, knowing Leila. Did she tell you to go to hell and how to get there?”
“Pretty much. But, Terry, I was just being honest with her! I didn’t lie to her like Dad lied to those women. I’m a man of my word. I was going to talk to the bank and give her the money. She just wouldn’t hear me out! She acted offended . . . like she’s some angel, when I know for a fact that she isn’t! She got all sanctimonious about it and—”
“Ev,” Terrence said tiredly, holding up his hand, “just stop. Rewind the tape. Play it back, man. You’re trying to rationalize how it was okay to offer Leila a check to fuck you! You went all Robert Redford on her, making this indecent proposal, and you wonder why she got pissed?”
Evan leaned forward, crushing the now empty soda can in his hand. He angrily tossed it to the deck. “You’re making me sound like an asshole!”
“Not an asshole . . . just really, really misguided.” He clapped his brother’s shoulder. “Ev, your marriage is messing with your head and making you miserable. You tried your best to make it work.”
“Terry,” Evan said tightly, the warning in his voice.
“Come on, man! Why don’t you just end it already?”
Terrence was one of the few people who knew about the real state of Evan’s marriage. He knew not only that Charisse had a drinking problem, but also that Charisse and Evan hadn’t shared a bed in more than a year. He knew about the four miscarriages that had led the couple to give up trying to have a baby. He knew about the arguments and that Evan suspected his wife may be cheating on him. But he also knew that Evan would never, ever walk away from his marriage because he wouldn’t sully his reputation or the Murdoch name.
If their parents had managed to stay married for more than thirty years despite all their drama and misery, why couldn’t Evan do the same? But his brother kept bringing up divorcing Charisse, annoying him.
“I won’t end it because I stand a lot to lose in a divorce: money, property, and maybe even our company. I won’t end it because don’t have the same approach to marriage that you have to all your relationships,” he snapped, shrugging off Terrence’s hand. “I don’t throw in the towel after a month or two when I get bored with a woman.”
Terrence narrowed his eyes. “No, you just try to make a hundred-thousand-dollar down payment on a side piece so you can pretend you’ve got a happy marriage!”
Evan’s lips tightened. He turned away and glared at a boat sailing in the distance.
“Okay, fine,” Terrence muttered. “Forget about Charisse. Forget I mentioned divorce. Let’s focus on Leila instead. She’s who you wanted to talk about, right?”
Evan nodded, finally turning back to his brother.
“Judging from her response, I don’t think she’s going to have an affair with you, big bro. You’re gonna have to let that dream die.”
Evan had come to that conclusion already. That fantasy had gone up in smoke when he’d watched her slam his office door behind her.
“Would you be willing to help Leila anyway . . . with no strings attached?”
Evan contemplated his brother’s question. He didn’t want Leila and her family kicked out of their house and tossed on
to the street. Leila had done stupid, reckless things for love in the past. She had hurt him long ago, but should he hold that over her head forever?
“I guess I want to help her,” he answered softly. “I’d at least do it for the sake of our old friendship, but there’s so much shit that’s gone down between us. I can’t just shrug my shoulders and move on. We’ve got a lot of stuff to hash out.”
“So hash it out. Don’t yell at her. Don’t try to seduce her. Just talk to her.”
For once, Terrence was right. Evan had been clinging to his anger for almost a decade, never confronting her directly, never telling her just how much she had disappointed him. Maybe he should finally do that.
“Maybe I will,” Evan said.
“Good!” His brother clapped him on the shoulder again. “Now enough with this heavy shit! Get the engine started again. I’m ready to eat some damn crabs!”
Chapter 12
PAULETTE
Paulette looked around the crowded pizzeria while drumming her fingernails on the Formica tabletop as she waited. She couldn’t believe she was in this place again. She couldn’t believe it was still here, seemingly frozen in time. Along the wall sat an ancient glowing glass jukebox that offered a selection of mid-nineties hits that had already been out of style by the time she had been a teenager. Fake Tiffany pendant lamps still hung from the water-stained, drop-panel ceiling, though now the lamps were covered with considerably more dust than she last remembered. The booths hadn’t changed either—dark wood paneling with green leather cushions. Paulette sipped her Diet Coke as she checked the time on her cell phone. The drinks were served in the same clear plastic beer mugs and the sodas were just as watered down as she remembered.
None of these things ignited in her a sense of nostalgia or longing. What she longed to be was far away from this place, but that was impossible thanks to the note she had received in the women’s locker room at her gym earlier that day.