by Amy Brent
“You want to check?” He turned the computer towards me, and I reached for it. Even though I trusted him, I wanted to check it for myself. It just couldn’t be that easy. I headed over to my bank, entering my details, and checked my balance. Right enough, there it was.
“Don’t you have to get a special permit to move that kind of money around?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“I made sure I had it ready to go when I left the advert,” he explained. “You might get a call from your bank, though, to make sure you’re not funding some terrorist group or something.”
“As long as you raise this baby right, I think I should be safe from that,” I grinned in his direction, my head still spinning as I tried to make sense of the number I had just seen in front of me. It was so much money. So much. I couldn’t even imagine what I would do with that amount of cash, and that was still only half of what he owed me for all of this. In a year’s time, I would be walking out of here with double that. And he had given it to me like it was pennies.
“How the hell do you afford this?” I cocked my head at him. “Not just the money, I mean. All this, too?”
I gestured around the cabin, where I had woken up early this morning. I was still a little nervous about being here, but he hadn’t taken the opportunity to murder me in the night so I figured I was alright. It had taken me a moment to remember where I was when I came to – I hadn’t had much of a chance to check the place out, it had been so dark when we arrived, but I had wandered around my room that morning trying to take the place in in a daze. It looked like the kind of place that a fancy lawyer might have owned on a TV show, all crisp, minimalist design and expensive details. The rest of the place was the same – lots of high windows allowing the light to stream beautifully through, and light wood buffed to a shine. My room had an ensuite, and it was one of two bedrooms, his being the other. I had peeped around the door when I had been looking for him that morning and wondered if I would ever get to sleep in here with him. The thought was more exciting than I would have cared to admit.
“That’s not important,” he shook his head, and my stomach dropped. Had I just walked out of one criminal’s life into another? I had done my fair share of lying and covering-up for Richie, and I didn’t want to have to do it for Cormac, even if we weren’t going to be involved romantically.
“It’s legal, right?” I demanded at once, glancing down at the contracts on the table opposite us. We were sitting in the living room, where he had gotten a fire burning in the modern, marble-clad fireplace, and he had arranged all the contracts for me to look over. I hadn’t signed anything yet, though, and I knew that I could still get out of all of this yet.
“Yeah, it’s legal,” he grinned, raising his eyebrows at me. “What, you think I’m some gangster come to hide up in the woods with all my spoils?”
“Hey, I have no idea what kind of guy you are,” I pointed out in protest. “You could be a high-level criminal, for all I know.”
“Not much good being a criminal living all the way out here,” he pointed out. “Difficult to have meetings with my gang if they can’t find me.”
“Fair point,” I conceded. “You want to get those contracts over? I think I’m ready to sign.”
“Sure thing,” he got to his feet and went to grab the papers, and I watched him as he moved across the room. He looked even better this morning than he had the night before, when I had been lost in a haze of panic and hurry to get out of the city. He had been working out when I’d gotten up, in a small gym room that was attached to his bedroom, and I had walked in on him all shirtless and sweaty with messy hair, looking like an ad for something I would totally buy. He was dressed now, freshly showered and smelling sweet, but I couldn’t shake the image of the way he’d looked in that room out of my head. He was more muscular than I’d imagined, the muscles in his arms moving as he walked across the room and stretched slightly. He was hot. Seriously hot. The kind of refined, expensive hot that I had never come across before, at least not in person.
I had read through the contracts that morning while he was in the shower, making sure that there was nothing in there that we hadn’t already covered. And really, if I was being honest, I was checking to see that that natural conception thing was for sure in there. I knew we wouldn’t be hooking up that much, if I managed to get pregnant quickly enough to make the year a viable timeframe, but I had to admit I was already excited at the thought of going to bed with him. Nervous, yes, because there was no way a guy like this didn’t have a bunch of experience when it came to the bedroom, but excited. I wondered if I should tell him the truth, that I had never been with anyone the way the two of us were going to be together, but I figured that for the time being it wasn’t relevant. He didn’t need to know. It might put him off if he knew that he would be taking my virginity, and I had already set my heart on losing it to him. Maybe this was the way it was always meant to be, without too much emotional attachment so it didn’t end up getting all wound up around my feelings for him too.
As I read the contract again, my mind strayed over the fact that I was still a virgin. I was surprised I’d made it to twenty-three without losing it to someone; Richie had tried often enough, running out of patience with me about two years ago and getting pretty fucking tired of waiting. He had pushed and pushed for me to give it up to him, so much so that I was worried that he was just going to dump me as soon as it happened, so I clung on to my virginity tight in the hopes that it would keep him around. I was pretty certain he had been hooking up with other girls on the side, and I tried not to let it bother me, but it made me even less inclined to give myself to him the way he always wanted me to. I wasn’t a romantic in many ways – I didn’t have time to be – but when it came to my virginity, I guess I wanted to lose it with someone I at least trusted and liked. And, as I snuck another look up at Cormac as he tended the fire, I guessed attraction really helped matters along too.
“There,” I announced as I took the pen he had attached to the top of the contracts and signed my name with a flourish where I needed to. There I was – here for a year, to try for, carry, and birth his baby. I felt a thrill of panic and excitement wash over me. I had no idea if this was the worst decision I’d ever made or the best one, but either way it was made now. He straightened up and smiled at me, reaching out to take the papers from me.
“Great,” He glanced down at where I’d signed my name, and I noted the same expression pass over his face as had just passed over mine – that mixture of fear and enthusiasm, like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening either.
I got to my feet again, trailing my hand over the back of the couch; it was soft under my fingertips, sweet and soft and deep red. The light of the fire flickering over the fabric looked so homey.
“How long have you lived out here?” I asked, glancing up at him; he was shuffling the papers and glanced up at me, looking surprised. Had he really expected me not to ask? For a guy this insanely and obviously rich, the choice to live in the middle of nowhere was a profoundly strange one.
“A year or so,” he replied abruptly, getting to his feet. I watched as he moved across the room; the way he walked, all confidence, ignited something deep in my stomach that I wasn’t sure that I’d ever felt before.
“And where did you live before?” I pressed. I wanted to know everything about him; if I was going to be living here for the next year, then I would find it all out at some point, anyway. Was he hiding as much as I was? Surely he knew that I would uncover all his secrets.
“The city,” he replied, short again, like he didn’t want to have to answer me.
“And why did you move?” I went on, leaning on the back of the couch. The fire was lighting him from behind, casting shadows on his face, bringing out the sharpness of his jaw. I wanted to run my fingers over it and my heart looped in my chest knowing that soon I would be able to touch him the way I wanted to.
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, and his voice was almost a little sharp; I raised my eye
brows, taken aback, and he let out a long sigh.
“Sorry,” he murmured, turning back to face me. His eyes were soft and I could see that his apology was sincere. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not used to having people in here, huh?” I remarked, and he shook his head.
“Not really, no,” He replied. “Is it that obvious?”
“Pretty obvious, yeah,” I teased lightly. But I decided it was best to lay off the questioning for now; it wasn’t much getting me anywhere anyway. Once we knew each other a little better, maybe then I would find out the truth about why he lived all the way out here.
“I’m going to file this paperwork,” he held up the papers, as though they were some business contract and not an agreement for us to conceive and raise a child together. I almost giggled at how professional he was being; it was clear that at some point in his life he had worked in business, because he was treating this like it was nothing more than a transaction.
“Okay,” I nodded, and stood there awkwardly for a moment more. I still didn’t feel quite at home in this place, as though my obvious discomfort was coming off me in waves.
“Feel free to make yourself at home,” he nodded towards the open-plan kitchen a few feet away. “There’s food in the fridge. Help yourself.”
“I will, thank you,” I replied, and he made his way out of the room and towards what I assumed was his study; he closed the door behind him with a click, leaving me with nothing but the sound of the crackling fire for company.
I made my way slowly around the room, taking it all in. I knew I could have done this in front of him, but I still felt like somewhat of an intruder in this place, and I was going to have to get over that if I was going to be living here for the next year. Fuck. A year was a long time to commit to anything, especially when I’d just come out of a relationship that felt as though it had eaten up most of my life to date.
There was a carpet on the polished wood floor, and I wriggled my toes in the white shag and closed my eyes. This was the kind of luxury that I never in my entire life thought I would have access to. Would I be able to afford a place like this of my own, when this was all done? This cabin had to cost more than a million – hell, this room alone was probably twice that. But there was something appealing about living in the middle of nowhere, so far from society, even if he didn’t seem to know how to deal with people anymore. I had come here to get away from people. Maybe I would get a taste for it.
I went to the kitchen, which was all gleaming metal and discreetly branded products that I’d only seen in the windows of luxury department stores before this moment, and grabbed some fruit from the fridge. Despite the fact that I had slept for a long time in the car, but I had been up late unpacking the scant clothes and toiletries that I had managed to pack the day before. Had that really only been a day ago? It didn’t feel possible; only twenty-four hours ago, I had been terrified, fleeing a life that I had never really wanted in the first place. And now I was here. It was so peaceful and quiet, so different from the city.
I ate the fruit, mangos and some pineapple, straight out of the small plastic container they were in as I headed back to my room. The flavours were sharp and enticing on my tongue; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had fresh fruit like this. I wondered how he managed to get it up to his place, considering he was all the way out here, but I supposed that was what money could get you in you wanted it enough.
Money. That was where all of this had started. Not the money he was giving me for this – no, I was pretty sure that I would have run away with him even if he was offering me twenty dollars. But it was money that had started this all the way back in the city, started this mess that I had to flee from, and the thought of it now was enough to make my stomach clench with fear.
I mean, I knew what Richie was doing. I knew that he was dealing drugs. There was no way a guy like him, a high-school dropout with no ambition to his name, could support himself and live the like he felt as though he was entitled to without dealing drugs. And I saw the people he thought he was so cunningly sneaking in and out of his apartment. But he himself was clean, and I just decided that it would be easier to ignore everything about that side of his life. What was I going to do, confront him about it and get him to stop? Yeah, that was a good one. I knew he was always going to be involved with that life one way or another, and I just figured it was safer for me to play ignorant. That was certainly the way he liked to have it. I pretended that I didn’t see the little bags on the table in the living room when I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom in his apartment, and he pretend to me that his life was going somewhere. I’m not sure how long I would have allowed that to go on had it not been for what happened the week before.
I had dropped by his apartment unannounced; that was my bad, I guessed, but I had done it plenty of times before and nothing had come of it so I had supposed that it was safe this time to. He didn’t answer his buzzer but one of the neighbours had let me up, so I headed to his apartment and found that the door was unlocked. That should have been my first warning.
When I walked in, I knew at once that something was wrong. The smell of stale cigarette smoke was hanging in the air, and Richie didn’t smoke. Not around me, at least. Someone else was there, someone who didn’t give a shit about his rule about not smoking in the apartment. I made my way through to the living room, clutching hold of my bag, as though that would make any difference.
“Look, it’s not what you think,” Richie’s voice came drifting through the door and I froze. He sounded scared. He didn’t often sound scared.
“We gave you the product, now you give me the money,” A man’s voice replied. It would have sounded like a reasonable request had his tone not been laced with menace. I didn’t move a muscle, wondering if I should just walk away now, but worried that the neighbour might tell Richie that he had let me in and that he would figure out what I had heard. So I stayed.
“You just need to give me a few more days,” Richie begged him. He sounded pathetic – more pathetic than usual, that was. I realized that my hands were trembling.
“We’ve already given you more than enough time,” the voice went on, completely in-control, completely calm. I knew the voices of most of Richie’s associates and clients; they would come by the big, grubby parties he would throw, the ones where he would hold me close to him all night as though he was showing me off. But that voice didn’t belong to one of them, I knew that for sure.
“Look, I don’t have it,” Richie snapped back. “What the fuck are you doing to do? I’ll have it to you as soon as I can, but until then-”
Suddenly, there came the sound of the click of a gun. It was unmistakable. I had had a friend in high school, when I first fell in with the bad crowd, who liked to wave around his dad’s gun whenever he got the chance and I would have recognised that blood-curdling sound anywhere in the world.
“Woah, what the fuck is that?” Richie demanded at once. His voice was shaking a little, and that just scared me more. For all his big talk, I knew that he had entirely lost control of this situation. He was small-time, nothing special, but that gun had just kicked things into a gear higher than either of us were used to.
“I’m telling you that you need to have the money right now,” The voice went on, angrier now, less controlled. I held my breath, knowing that if I went for the door again now that they would know at once that I was there. I needed to stay where I was and hope they didn’t-
My foot slipped behind me, and the floor creaked loudly beneath me.
“What the fuck was that?” The voice demanded. “Did you call the cops?”
“No, no, of course not,” Richie assured him quickly. “I just-”
“Go out there and tell me who it is,” The man ordered him. I took a deep breath and walked to the door; I knew I had to show myself. It wouldn’t be long till I was exposed, either way. I made my way into the living room, and when I saw the scene laid out in front of me
, I swear my heart stopped in my chest.
Cocaine. That was what this was about. A bunch of it, sitting on the table, in bricks. Richie, he was just weed and maybe a few party drugs here and there. This was bigger in amount and intensity, more than I’d ever seen him with before. The man with him in the room, standing a stocky six foot, was holding the gun by his side. The tension between the three of us crackled intensely and I fought the urge to pass out; my vision was blurring around the edges, threatening to take me down.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Richie snarled, marching over to be and grabbing me by the wrist. I had no idea what he was planning to do with me, but he got like this sometimes, when he felt as though someone else was in control and was trying to reclaim it for himself – pushing and grabbing me, as though that would establish that he was the one in charge.
“I just wanted to come by and see you,” I burbled, looking between the gun and the drugs and Richie and back again, eyes feeling as though they were going to roll straight out of my head.
“Who’s she?” The man rounded on me. “What does she know?”
“She’s my girlfriend,” Richie snapped back. “And nothing-”
“Well, she knows something now,” the man remarked, almost casually, and turned to me slowly. He looked me up and down and my stomach curdled with fear.
“I’m going,” I snatched my arm away from Richie. “I’m leaving, now.”
“No, you’re not,” The man replied, and looked to the door as though planning to slam it shut behind me. What was he trying to say? I wasn’t going to hang around to find out.
“You don’t need to-”
“Yes, I do,” I cut him off and backed out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I left quickly, hurrying back to my tiny, shitty apartment that I had barely been able to afford with the last of the wages I had from that holiday waitressing job I’d picked up. My heart was pounding, my mouth was dry, and the look on that man’s face when he had turned to me was forged on to my memory. I would never forget it. I needed to leave, right now, and that’s when I turned to my laptop to find something to get me out of here. That’s when I found Cormac.