I had watched ROTC students try to engage him on it, asking him what he had done in the service, but he always quietly, firmly, gently shut them down. The only time he’d ever made reference to the war in my presence was after a well-publicized school shooting—he commented on the tendency of the rifle the gunman had used to jam. That was it.
And I wondered if he ever considered which had been easier—the war, or a peace time career in academia.
When I finally looked down at my phone again, I saw I had two missed calls and two corresponding voicemails. One was from my mother and the other from Lori, the representative from Oxford University Publishing who had been preparing the book version of my dissertation for publication. I started to call back Lori but I decided to call my mother first.
Sometimes, family really does come first.
“Antonia O’Lowry’s office. Miranda speaking.”
Miranda was my mother’s secretary. As a partner at a big time, giant law-firm managing a group of nearly two hundred other lawyers, my mother doesn’t mess around. Fortunately, Miranda knew me and as soon as I began to speak, I imagined her stern, clipped face softening.
“Hi, Miranda, it’s Morgan. Can you transfer me to my mom?”
“Oh, Morgan, hi, girl!” Miranda squealed. We were on good terms. “Sure thing, you got it. Your mom just got out of a meeting and she should be back at her desk—yeah, there she is. Just a moment.”
The phone clicked and began to ring again. Now, my mother picked up.
“Antonia O’Lowry.”
“Hi, mom.”
“Oh, hi, good of you to call me back. I hope I’m not taking up too much of your valuable time.”
I found myself rolling my eyes, even though my mother couldn’t see them. She made a huge deal of the fact that I didn’t call her enough—in her opinion, at least. As far as I was concerned, a call a week was more than enough. I tried to tell her I was busy, and that might have worked for some people, but when your mother is the only female partner at a big law firm, pulling eighty or ninety hour weeks and working twice as hard as the boys to prove her worth, she knows a thing or two about busy.
“How’s that mess with the department?”
I instantly regretted ever mentioning any of that to her. I tried to summarize it in such a way that didn’t make it seem like things were so bad, but I still heard the dismay in my mother’s sighs as I recounted the meeting.
“That damned fool Towson…” she grumbled. “You know what you should do, is…”
“Mom!” I growled. “I’m not going to stand up and denounce him in front of everyone, or whatever it is you want me to do—that’s who you are. Not me.”
She sighed. As she had so many times while I was growing up…
“All right, all right. Fine, lose your job—see if I care.”
Her threat rang a little hollow, if only because I knew that she would care almost as much as I did if I lost my job.
“Mom, have you talked to Blaine lately?” I said abruptly, thinking back to my conversation with Anthony.
“Blaine? Blaine Stone? No, why do you ask?”
“No… No reason.”
An awkward silence met me on the other end of the line.
“He’s been in the tabloids lately,” my mother said, finally breaking that very silence. Tabloids were one of my mother’s guilty pleasures—maybe the only one she really allowed herself, since she could pick up a few each morning on the subway and allow herself fifteen minutes to tear through them before stuffing them in the recycling bin.
“The tabloids? Really? What for?”
“Some sort of messy divorce,” she replied. “I’m sure he could use a friend right now. Maybe you could…”
I sighed.
“Mom, he was terrible to me when we were kids!”
“Oh, you were kids! Kids are always terrible to each other! I bet he’d love to see you.”
“I was just curious. I don’t need a Stone-O’Lowry family reunion.”
“Then why were you so curious?”
“I…” I mumbled, stuttering and unable to come up with an excuse. “Professor Kennedy wants me to see if he would be interested in donating to the department—endowing some professorships or offering grants or something like that. Something to ease up the problems around here.”
“Well, that boy certainly has money to spend… I did read somewhere that he’s the third richest man in America under forty.”
“What? Blaine?!” I exclaimed. “I mean, I knew he was rich but not… Not that rich.”
“Oh, yes—Dominic left him a pretty penny, but he did well with it. He’s got his own private equity outfit. We tried to get them as clients but lost them to Cravath. They…”
And my mother launched into a discussion of litigation and inter-law firm politics. As with the discussion of 14th century Scottish literary conventions, my eyes glazed over. My ears only perked up when my mom chirped out: “Well, here, I found his number, so you go ahead and give him a call…”
Reluctantly, I took the number down. By this point, I was almost at my car. I said goodbye to her and, as I got into my car, I began listening to the message I had from Lori.
“Hi, Morgan, it’s Lori. Please give me a call as soon as possible. It’s about your book. We… Have some problems. Thanks.”
The message clicked off.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” I mumbled. If my mother were here, she would have smacked me for swearing. But she wasn’t here, so I could indulge in salty language as much as I want as I dialed Lori’s number rapid fire.
“This is Lori Feng.”
“Lori! Morgan. What’s up with my book?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Lori…”
“Listen, Morgan, I know your department is in bad financial straits now… And everything.”
“Sure. What’s that got to do with my book?”
“The Press is afraid to be associated with the scandal.”
“What?”
“And they’re afraid to take a risk on a new author if you’re part of a department that might be dissolving.”
“How has everyone heard about this already?” I all but screamed into the speaker, whipping around a corner as I navigated the narrow New England country roads that led to my condo complex.
“I know it’s rough, but at the very least, we need to slow down the timeline while this gets sorted out…”
“Lori, this is my career we’re talking about! If I don’t get my book published, they’ll push me out of the department anyway!”
“I know that,” she scowled. “I fought for you! Really, I did. But I’m only a junior editor and I got overruled, okay? I think your book is great. I think it’s important. And other people here think that too.”
“So what’s the problem?” I demanded, my voice all ice and daggers.
“Just what I said. In this business, it’s as much who you know… And who you’re associated with.”
I sighed, pulling into a stop at the side of the road.
“So, what’s the deal?” I said finally, leaning my head on the edge of my steering wheel. “Are you dropping me or not?”
“They don’t want to go that far yet. They want to wait and see. We’ll push back the publication of your book six months and at the end of that period, if the department is stable and scandal free, we can publish.”
“And if the department has dissolved, not getting published will be the least of my worries at that point, right?” I muttered. Lori sighed.
“Bingo.”
We said our goodbyes and I finished driving home.
In what had seemed like a totally rational and reasonable thing to do when I first got my professorship, I bought a condo at Glenwood Oaks, a luxury condominium building four miles from campus. It’s in the woods, set back from the road, and quiet, with a big, beautiful, serene pool. I love going for swims late at night, the cool water soothing my warm, anxious skin and my tired eyes, letting
my hair spread out around me as I float alone in the pool. I’m just about the only one who uses it and as soon as I got into my tasteful one-bedroom condo, I changed into my swimsuit and stalked outside.
I began by swimming laps. After twenty or thirty—frankly, I had lost count after a while—I just began to float, lying on my back and gazing up at the stars in the sky.
It was an unusually warm night for November. The pool was heated all throughout autumn, right through till the snow started falling, but it didn’t need it tonight. Tonight, I could just float and think and think and float.
My livelihood was at stake, and I was looking at a future without a career as a professor.
It hurt.
It hurt bad.
But there was a way out of it.
Blaine Stone. God, he had been such a dick when we were younger.
I remember going on vacations with him, his father, and my mother. I guess at the time, he had been my father and Blaine had been my brother, but it sure didn’t feel like it.
I remembered how we had rented a villa on Maui for two weeks, my spring break, when I really needed to study for all the AP exams my mother had me taking, while keeping up with the violin. Blaine, meanwhile, was determined to wear as little clothing as possible, and to annoy me whenever he could.
“Whatcha working on?” I remember him asking, standing over me as I lay out on the beach with a calculus study broad spread out on my pale thighs. I hadn’t even bothered to put on a swim suit because I had no intention of actually swimming. I couldn’t understand why my parents had insisted on taking this vacation, when they knew I would be studying.
Blaine, on the other hand, was on break from college. He was a sophomore or a junior at Bowdoin then, if I remember correctly.
He wore a tight speedo that hugged his crotch tight, leaving little to the imagination. He had tanned all over and his entire body, perfectly muscled and toned, all broad shoulders and legs like a swimmer’s, shone in the bright Hawaiian sun. He played some preppy sport at Bowdoin—lacrosse? Crew? Whatever it was, it had done wonders for his physique. And nothing for his ego.
Though, it was my guess that there wasn’t anything in the world that could fix his ego for him.
“Calculus,” I mumbled, trying to ignore him. He stepped over my chair, all but straddling me, his crotch in my face. The scent of his sunscreen, mixed with his sweat, his my nose and as much as I wanted to recoil, I remember being… What’s the worth? Come on, Morgan, you’re an English professor… You should have a word…
Intoxicated.
Yes, the smell of my stepbrother’s practically naked body had been intoxicating for my teenaged, hormone addled brain. But that wasn’t enough to kill my drive to succeed, my determination to study and to study my ass off.
“You don’t need calculus,” Blaine laughed, plucking the book out of my hands with the careful, practiced, precise movements of a pitcher used to winning. Or a lacrosse player, doing whatever it was lacrosse players did on the field. “You’re too pretty for that.”
“Blaine!” I wailed, kicking him hard and reaching for the book. “Give. It. Back!”
“Make me,” he said with a wicked grin.
And then he took off, running down the beach. Screaming, tears starting to stream from my eyes, I went off after him, leaving my sandals behind so the hot sand scorched my poor feet. He was faster than me and he leapt gracefully, like a gazelle in his natural element, over the beachgoers lying out on the sand, ducking under umbrellas and dodging sandcastles.
I, on the other hand, went barreling unceremoniously through a kid’s artful sand creation.
“Sorry, sorry!” I squealed as I ran past and he burst into tears.
“That makes two of us,” I remember muttering as I chased Blaine down to the water, feeling bad for the child whose sand castle I had just demolished.
“Why didn’t you put a bathing suit on?” he demanded, calling back from over his shoulders. “Come on, Morgan! Let’s see some skin!”
“Blaine!” I wailed. “You asshole! Don’t you dare get my book wet!”
“Don’t I dare do what?” he asked, stepping out into the water. I stopped at the water’s edge, glaring at him.
“Give it back! I have to study!”
“You study too hard. You work too much. You should have some fun for once in your life.”
“I can have fun once I’m in college!” I said, leaping for the book. It danced out of my reach as I went crashing into the water, getting a mouthful of saltwater and sand in the process. As I stood up shakily, I saw Blaine wading out deeper, tossing the book up and down, up and down.
“Morgan, you look great with a wet t-shirt. You should enter one of those contests! You could get a wings dinner for all of us.”
“Shut up!” I squealed, chasing after him, falling into the water again. “You’re such a jerk!”
“And you’re such a nerd!”
“At least I’m not an asshole!” I cried again as I leapt at him once more. I have no idea, thinking back now, what I had hoped to accomplish with that ill-fated leap. I crashed into him, into his strong body, my arms flying around him, grasping his firm, naked legs and pushing him over. He definitely hadn’t counted on the ferocity of my attack and he lost his balance. We both went under. So did my book.
As we sank, I realized he had gone out further than I had planned on. It was deep here, far deeper than I was tall! We weren’t in any danger, really, but I was so upset that when my feet couldn’t find the ground, I began to thrash underwater.
Blaine’s strong arms caught me. My eyes burnt from the saltwater but in the water, amidst the sand and the bubbles, I saw him looking at me.
And then… And then he had pressed his lips to mine. I kept thrashing and crying, gasping and sucking in water, and then he kissed me.
I felt his tongue in my mouth, felt him guiding me up to the surface.
As we rose up above the water’s edge, I gasped and sputtered. I realized that I was holding onto him, that my arms were wrapped around his neck and my legs around his waist, his speedo-clad crotch pressed against me.
He held me while I sputtered and cursed him, patting my back, getting me to cough.
“You… You’re a jerk…” I whimpered as he began to take me back to shore. Once I was sure I could walk on my own, once I was sure that it was shallow enough, I kicked away from him.
I didn’t even walk and wade through the water. I began to swim furiously, angrily, tears and salt still burning my eyes as I washed up on shore, like the survivor of a shipwreck, still in my regular clothes.
My mom took me to the bookstore in town to get me another prep book. I got a perfect score on the exam despite the incident.
Maybe even because of the incident. Maybe my sixteen year old self had studied so hard and done so well in order to spite Blaine?
Still, I had never totally forgiven him for the beach and he had never really apologized. Our parents chalked it up to sibling rivalry and didn’t care to listen to my side of the story.
And this was supposed to be the man who would save me now?
I hated the thought of going to him for help. No, no, no, I would not, I would NOT go to my ex-stepbrother for help… Even if he was a billionaire… Even if he owed me for being an asshole…
Even if he had kissed me.
What the hell? Where did that thought come from?
No, there was no way, no way in hell that I would bring Blaine back into my life, no way in hell I would go begging him for money…
What would Harriet Jacobs do in this situation? Clearly, my situation was not nearly so dire as hers… I had never been a slave and, in fact, had grown up pretty well off. But now, I found myself in a position where a powerful man might be my only salvation…
As I climbed out of the pool and began to towel myself off, I looked south, south to the lights of Manhattan, where I knew Blaine lived. What was he doing right now? How would he react if I called him? He was probab
ly in some fancy restaurant, gorging on scallops or escargot or caviar, some sexy little blonde waitress bending over his table, offering him another cocktail or glass of champagne, her low cut top showing him her big, bimbo boobs…
But, again… He could be my salvation.
And maybe my mom was right. Maybe he did need a friend.
Ha. Fat chance. He had enough money to buy all the friends he might ever need. If anyone needs friends at this point, it was me.
All right. I would call him. Goddamn it. I would call him.
I stalked inside, my face already feeling warm, my heart already beating heart inside my chest. I stripped off my bathing suit and hung it over the shower curtain rod in my bathroom. Making the phone call while naked somehow made me feel more confident, less afraid.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my naked body still dripping wet. Would Blaine even recognize me today? I had lost weight since high school, and toned up pretty dramatically. I started doing Crossfit a few times a week, which really worked wonders on my body. Besides that, I changed my hair totally. Back then, I could never decide if I wanted my curly red hair in braids or if I just wanted to let it do its own thing, expanding like nature seemed to want it to. But now, I straightened it, kept it under control. It was silky smooth to the touch and always, always on point.
Would he recognize my plump lips or my ice blue eyes? No, probably not. I can’t remember him ever eyeing them like… Like that in high school. I can’t remember him ever staring at my booty, or trying to cop a feel of my chest. The only time I can remember him acting strange, the only bit of weirdness ever was… Was…
The kiss.
At His Mercy: A Dark Billionaire Romance Page 3