by Hamel, B. B.
“Deal,” she agrees, sipping her drink again.
She looks so fucking sexy, sitting in my kitchen like this. I know she’s dressed up for a special occasion, which means she probably put this all on for me. There’s a reason she’s here and I probably won’t like what it is, which is why she doesn’t want to tell me.
I like that she doesn’t want to lie to me. I find myself trusting her, even though I probably shouldn’t. There’s something else going on here that I need to know about, but I can’t seem to care about it all that much.
Fact is, I’m just happy she’s sitting here with me. I’ve missed her, I realize with a start. I haven’t gotten to spend a lot of time with her these past few days and I’ve really missed flirting with her, laughing with her, kissing her. I’ve missed her skin and taste and it’s taking all my willpower not to fuck her right here and now.
I need to do something to get my mind off sex. “I want to show you something,” I blurt out suddenly.
Emma perks up. “What is it?”
“It’s out back, down by the harbor.”
“Harbor?” She laughs a little. “I didn’t know you had a dock-side property.”
“I do,” I say casually. “Come on. I think you’ll like it.”
I head back toward the stairs, drink still in my hand. She follows as I head down and through the back, passing some storage space. We head out through my garage, down a side pathway, and end up walking along a path that leads directly to the harbor.
I bought this house specifically because of this feature. I’ve been working on a project for a while now, and I think it’s going to help change the world. Emma catches up with me and sips her drink as we head toward a small dock with several boats anchored around it.
“I didn’t know you were a sailor,” she jokes.
“I’m not,” I admit. “I hate the water, actually.”
“Why do you own three boats?”
“You’ll see.” I grin at her as we head toward the largest of the three, a big white thing called The Santa Mario And Luigi. I really am such a fucking nerd sometimes.
I help her onto the boat. She watches as I untie the ropes holding it onto the dock before I follow her up, ignoring the minimal rocking under me. The Mario is a pretty big boat, so I don’t have to worry about getting seasick or anything.
“Okay, so we’re on a boat,” she says. “What’s so special?”
“Right this way.” We head up around the back and into the main command room. I thumb the keypad next to the wheel and the boat roars to life. I hit a few buttons and sit back on the chair as the boat slowly starts to maneuver itself out of the mooring.
“Holy crap,” Emma says when she finally figures it out. “Self-driving boat. Are you kidding me?”
I laugh and nod. “Yep. It’s really good, too. Can you imagine a world where shipping is perfectly optimized and boats don’t need crews? We’d save so much money and use less fuel.”
“Wow,” Emma says. The boat slowly chugs along as it heads out toward open water. I keyed in a simple route that takes us a couple miles out and back, maybe a two-hour trip all told.
“Nobody knows about this,” I say to her. “I don’t want it to get out, not yet at least.”
“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” She laughs a little bit, shaking her head. “How’s it work?”
I launch into a technical and nerdy explanation, which she seems totally enraptured by. I shouldn’t be surprised, since she’s such a big autonomous car fangirl. Autonomous boats and trucks and planes and everything else are basically just one step away after we get the car stuff buttoned up, so she shouldn’t be surprised about this. But still, it’s a huge step in the right direction. It’s the sort of thing that can change the world all over again.
She follows me down below to take a look at some of the machinery. The below deck is relatively small and bare bones, but it’s enough living space for a couple of people at least. The machinery is in the back of the boat, and she fawns over it for a little while, laughing when I tell her that I built it all myself from spare parts I stole from the Mark 2 upgrade.
“Well, I’m impressed,” she says finally, sitting down on one of the benches. “This is amazing. How long have you been working on it?”
“Since we started the Mark 2,” I say. “The first version wasn’t so great. I actually sank a boat.”
She blinks. “You… sank one?”
“Wasn’t my fault,” I say. “Radar malfunctioned and it hit a reef. Cost me a bunch, though.”
She looks a little nervous and I can’t help but laugh. I sit down next to her, hand on her thigh. “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Really, we’re totally safe.”
She nods and lets out a breath. “I trust you. Just got a Titanic flashback for a second.”
I wave my hand at that. “We’d both fit on that door,” I say. “Idiots didn’t even try.”
“I know, right? Rose could’ve just, like, moved over.”
“Not like Jack was a huge guy. I’m probably bigger.”
She laughs a little bit. “I definitely think you’re bigger.”
I watch her for a second, and I can tell she wants me to kiss her. Instead, I stand up and walk across the small space. I toss back my wine and grab a bottle of whisky from under the sink. It’s already opened, so I just pour a little measure into my wine glass.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” I say, leaning up against the counter.
“Okay,” she says. “What’s up?”
I hesitate. “Let’s go on deck.”
She cocks her head. “Is it serious?”
“Not really,” I say. “But I’m afraid of how you’ll take it.”
“Maybe I’ll jump into the water,” she jokes. “Probably best if we stay down here.”
I take a breath and let it out. I’ve been thinking about Julie a lot these past few days, and why I’m doing this whole thing to begin with. I need to know if that’s my daughter, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever really be able to figure it out.
I know I can’t just ask her. If she hasn’t told me yet, there’s a reason she’s keeping it to herself. She doesn’t want me to know and doesn’t want me involved for whatever reason. I have to work around that, figure out a way to spook it out of her.
I came up with something a few days ago, and suddenly I’m feeling like this is the time. Maybe it’s stupid since we’re trapped on this boat together, but I have to give it a try.
“There’s a clause, in the contract,” I say to her slowly. “I’m not sure if you read it very closely.”
She goes very still. “Okay, what is it?”
I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Basically, the language is such that if you have any living children that are already mine, then I retain custody over them when the contract is fulfilled.”
For a second, anger clouds her face, but it quickly passes. That split-second tells me everything I need to know, and my heart starts beating faster. She watches me without saying a word before slowly standing. “I don’t remember that clause,” she says finally. “And I don’t know why it would matter anyway. Julie’s my only daughter, and she’s not yours.”
I flinch. I didn’t expect her to lie to blatantly about it, but I guess I shouldn’t be shocked. “I just thought you should know,” I say. “I’m sure it doesn’t matter, it’s just an odd little detail I didn’t notice until I was going through it recently.”
“Right. I see. Thanks for bringing it up.” She hesitates a second. “I’m going above deck.”
I watch as she walks away and heads up the stairs. I curse to myself and drink back my whisky. I shouldn’t have been so obvious about it, that was so damn clumsy. She knows that I know now, and I have no clue what kind of game we’re going to play from here on out.
I head back up to the top deck and I find Emma sitting in one of the chairs, looking out over the sea. “Take me back,” she says.
We ride in silence for a bit, the wind whipping through my hair. This isn’t what I wanted to happen but I should’ve known it would upset her. Shit, I did it to piss her off, just to see how she’d react.
But now I regret it. I hate making her upset. I’m such an asshole. I want to just ask her the truth and tell her that all I want is to be a part of her life. I’m not going to take Julie away from her.
The words sit heavy on my tongue. I want to say it so badly. I won’t try and take her, but I might try to take care of both of them.
“Olivia sent me here tonight,” Emma says suddenly. She looks over at me. “She knows about the contract. Sorry.”
I meet her gaze and sigh. “Guess that was just a matter of time.”
“You’re not mad?”
I shrug. “I’m not mad.”
“Good.” She looks back out over the ocean, and we ride the rest of the way back to shore in silence.
15
Emma
He fucking knows.
I should be concentrating on work, considering I’m involved in the most important project of my career, but I can’t seem to focus on anything. I keep thinking about that night and what he said to me.
He fucking knows Julie is his daughter. I don’t know how, but he knows, and maybe this whole contract was his way of taking her from me.
And it might work. For a while, I was letting myself have some fun with him, letting myself get lost with him, but not anymore. He’s my fucking enemy now, because he knows the truth, and I think he’s going to use it against me.
I’m not going to run away or back out of the contract. No, I still need that money, but now I’m going to be careful. I won’t let him seduce me, now that I know what he is.
He’s a thief, and he wants to steal my daughter.
I’m so angry I can barely explain it. I don’t know what he was thinking, saying that to me down in the middle of that boat. Maybe he was looking for some kind of reaction, I don’t know, but as soon as we were back on dry land, I put a smile on my face again.
And I’ll keep smiling for the next five months or however long we have left. I’ll keep smiling and fucking him until this is all over and he gives me my money.
Then I’ll disappear with my daughter and he’ll never see us again.
Three days after that night on his boat, Olivia shows up at my desk. She frowns down at me like I’m some disobedient child, and she hates children. I lean back in my chair, trying to give her a calming smile, but I can only do so much when all I really want to do is get up and strangle her.
“David needs you tonight,” she says finally. “Charity gala. I assume you have a suitable dress?”
“Uh,” I say, surprised at how rude she’s being, “I think so.”
“I’ll have one sent to you.” She frowns a bit deeper. “Size six?”
I wince. “Four.”
“Right.” She makes a note on her phone. “Be ready by six tonight.”
“What about Julie?” I ask.
Olivia looks at me like she’s never heard the word “Julie” before in her life.
“We’ll send Maudette,” she says finally. “Any other questions?”
“Just one,” I say, smiling sweetly. “Are you always this pleasant?”
She rolls her eyes and walks away without another word.
I sigh to myself and turn back to my computer. Mel wheels herself out of her cube and stares at me. “You… have a date… with David?”
I groan. “It’s not a date.”
“Sounds like a date.”
“It’s for work.”
“He’s sending you a dress, Emma. It’s a date.”
“Olivia’s sending me a dress, and it’s not a date.”
She leans forward and meets my gaze. “If you fuck him, I’ll be the most jealous girl in the world.”
“I’m not going to fuck him,” I say, and realize that’s probably not true. “Anyway, aren’t you with Monk?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes. Mostly not though.”
I sigh and can’t help but smile. Mel is just about the most liberated person I’ve ever met and her love life is about as complicated as the entire freaking Mark 2 code base.
“Get back to work,” I say to her.
“Aye, aye, captain,” she says, saluting me. “Just make sure you give me every gory detail.”
“Go,” I say.
“I’m talking length, girth, amount of pre-cum, that sort of thing.”
“Ew,” I say, making a face. “Amount of pre-cum? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she says. “Nothing sexier than some pre-cum.”
“Get out of here,” I say, waving her off, although now I’m thinking about David’s big, perfect cock.
She giggles to herself and disappears back around the divider, and I’m left worrying about tonight for the rest of the day.
I half expected things to end between David and I after that night on the boat. I’m angry with him, maybe even hate him a little bit… but I didn’t want it to end. And it’s not just because of the money, although that’s what I’m telling myself.
If I’m honest though, the thought of not seeing him anymore makes me more upset than anything else. Just knowing that he wants to take me out tonight is a huge relief. I know it’s a big gamble, keeping this game going now that I’m pretty sure he knows about Julie, but I just can’t help myself.
It’s all about the money, I keep saying, over and over, although it’s a pleasant lie.
After work, I pick up Julie and Maudette sweetly tells me that she’ll be seeing me soon. I thank her and head back home, and as soon as we get outside of my apartment, I’m welcomed by a big box leaning up against the door.
I sigh and bring it inside. I get Julie settled and her dinner started before I risk a peek inside.
It’s long and it’s black, and that’s about as much as I can see before there’s a knock at my door. “What now?” I grumble as I answer it.
“Hi, sweetie,” Maudette says, bustling into my apartment.
“Hi,” I say. “I thought you weren’t coming until five-thirty?”
She gives me a look. “Sweetie, it is five-thirty.”
I look at the clock. “Shit,” I say, and then look at Julie. “Julie, baby, Maudette’s going to watch you, okay?”
“Okay, mommy,” she says without looking up from her coloring book.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Maudette says to me. “I can watch the little baby. You’d best get to dressing.”
“Thanks,” I say, and practically run back into my bedroom with the dress box.
I manage to get stripped down, cleaned up, and dressed in about twenty minutes, leaving about ten for my makeup, which obviously isn’t enough time. The dress itself is beautiful by a label I’ve never heard of before, something French and hard to pronounce. I’m guessing it costs more than my whole apartment, but it fits me beautifully, hugging my hips with a single strap and an elegant flare down around my calves. I can barely walk in the damn thing, especially in heels, but I look pretty. I look really damn pretty.
Ten minutes fly by and I hustle out. “Bye, bye!” Julie says as I run past, kissing her head and thanking Maudette on the way. There’s a car already waiting for me outside and I jump in without thinking before I realize I need to compose myself.
David looks up at me. “Glad you came,” he says, a genuine smile on his face.
My breath catches. I wasn’t expecting him. I don’t know why but I thought the car would be empty and we’d ride over separately.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He shrugs. “You didn’t have to.”
“I guess not.”
“I mean, after the other night, I could tell…” He trails off, looking a little bashful.
“Look, I was mad, okay? But I’m not anymore.”
<
br /> He sighs, and I know right away that he can see through my bullshit. “Okay,” he says anyway. “Let’s try and enjoy this.”
I look him up and down and I have to admit, he looks damn good. His black tux fits him perfectly and he obviously cleans up really well. We make small talk, mostly about work, until we arrive at the venue, this big, old theater that’s been turned into a banquet hall for rich people.
I walk in on David’s arm, and instantly we’re assaulted by people wanting to talk to him. He’s smiling the whole time, greeting person after person by name, and I’m genuinely impressed by how many people he seems to know. He doesn’t skip a beat with any of them, he just greets them all like old friends, and introduces me just as easily.
“You’re good at this,” I say to him when I get the chance. We head over to the bar together.
“Good at what?”
“Mingling,” I say. “People seem to like you.”
“Helps that I’m so handsome and charming.” He gives me a grin.
I roll my eyes but can’t help smiling. “Maybe,” I admit. “An ass, though.”
“Honestly, they all just want to get a better look at you. Do you know the last time I brought a date to something like this?”
I shake my head. “No clue.”
“Never,” he says, and then orders us both champagne.
Sipping my drink, I’m thinking about that as we step away from the bar. He introduces me to a few more people, and at least one of them has a famous name but a forgettable face.
David’s the kind of man that could easily get a date to anything he wanted. So it confuses me that he wouldn’t bring anyone with him, and confuses me even more that he would want to bring me. I feel like he’s showing me off somehow, but I don’t know why.
It’s not like we’re together or that I’m anything special. Some of the women here are genuinely beautiful, and probably a lot of them are models, trophy wives for rich old men. David doesn’t seem to look at any of them twice, and he really only smiles when I say something.
“You look perfect, you know that?” he whispers in my ear as we step away from one group.
I nudge him a little bit with my elbow. I wish I felt more annoyed. “Keep your eyes on the road,” I say to him.