Plain and simple—if I never again trusted, I never again got hurt.
—
When the plane landed at a private airport on the outskirts of San Francisco, my initial reaction was that I wanted to escape. The curious—even hostile—stares from Liam’s associates made both my stomach and heart hurt. These men looked down on me, judged me, when they knew nothing about me. My clothes and hair made me feel self-conscious—especially when I stood next to the self-assured and glowing flight attendant who’d opened the cabin door and lowered the steps.
The woman who’d introduced herself as Stephanie was nice to me, but I suspected only because she was paid to be nice to everyone Liam brought aboard.
Outside, the air smelled different.
A light breeze carried a hint of brine and a rich, earthy peat scent I found invigorating. It was chilly, but not cold enough that I’d need anything more than a sweatshirt to stay warm. What I wanted was Liam’s old red plaid shirt he’d shared from what felt like a hundred lifetimes ago.
From across the tarmac, four vehicles approached. All sleek sedans, all shades of gray, navy or black.
Liam and his businessman posse huddled while Willow and I stood there feeling like idiots. Well—I couldn’t speak for her, but I know I wasn’t feeling like a rock star. The situation was beyond strange.
“What’re we supposed to do now?” Willow asked.
“Run?” I managed a halfhearted smile.
“Not until you get your cash.” She pilfered through her Yorkie-shaped purse for gum. “Want some?” She offered me a stick of Juicy Fruit.
“No, thanks.”
She put two sticks in her mouth, crumpled the wrappers and tossed them into the wind.
“Willow…”
“What? I’m sure your Mr. Fancy Pants has someone to clean it up.”
“He’s not mine.” And by his own admission, never would be. I was initially bothered by this statement, but now, I suppose I respected his honesty. I’d been upset about his lying about his ride, too, but he hadn’t so much lied about it as let me assume his mode of transportation was a car. I’d been stupid to think any guy who requested wasabi mustard from a Wal-Mart snack bar was a dirt-poor drifter.
“Don’t lie. I know you probably fucked him six times in that little airplane bedroom.”
“Really?” I elbowed her hard in her ribs. “Remind me why I brought you?”
She batted her fake eyelashes. “My charm?”
Garrett whistled, then called to Willow—like she was a dog. “Ready?”
“Oh, hell, no…” She spit out her gum on the tarmac.
I held my breath while waiting to see her next reaction.
“Listen up, Legal Eagle, that shit might fly with some girls, but not me.”
He strode her way.
He was a giant of a man and his dark sunglasses hid his eyes, but not his frown. “How’s this?” As if he were performing a football tackle, he hefted Willow kicking and screaming over his shoulder.
“Put me down!” she wailed a little too enthusiastically for me to be concerned—not that I thought the man’s treatment of her was appropriate, but Willow wasn’t exactly a model finishing-school candidate. Maybe they’d teach each other a few lessons?
Liam chased after them to intervene. His voice carried. “Christ, Garrett, do you have to be such a thug?”
“You told me to handle the situation, which is what I’m doing. If you don’t like my style, handle her yourself.”
When Willow pinched Garrett’s ass and he roared, Liam turned his back on both of them and strode toward me.
At that moment, time froze.
I felt like I was living one of those slow-motion movie montages when the hero is supposed to look all drop-dead gorgeous in his Ralph Lauren suit and mirrored aviators. I had no clue who’d designed Liam’s suit, but I couldn’t deny how good he looked wearing it. My mouth went dry and my pulse raced. And I hated myself for having that reaction. The man contracted me to be his thirty-day whore. Could I sink much lower?
Behind Liam, his other two friends drove off, as did Garrett and Willow.
Ground crew swarmed the jet.
“Sorry about all that,” he said.
“No worries. Willow can take care of herself.”
“That, I don’t doubt. Where do you want to go first? Shopping? Salon?”
I glanced at my ragged nails. My even worse Lucky Charms T-shirt that I’d picked up for a buck at the Salvation Army thrift store. I looked like hell. I knew it. He knew it. But the thing was, I wanted to look this way. The less attractive I looked, the less attention I would garner, meaning the less likely Blaine was to find me. Back when I was dead, my looks didn’t matter. They still shouldn’t have mattered. But enough of the old me had awakened to make Liam’s politely phrased suggestions about altering my appearance cut to my core.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Ashamed to be seen with me?”
He took longer than I would have liked to answer. “I shouldn’t be. Back in Rose Springs, issues like looks didn’t matter. But here, in my world, you can wear jeans and a sweatshirt every day. The only caveat being they have to be designer.”
“What’s the point?” He’d placed his hand on the small of my back, guiding me toward his car, but I moved just out of his reach.
“Of what?”
“Getting me all dressed up, only to parade me around, then let me go.”
“Quit dwelling on the time portion of our arrangement. It’s irrelevant.” His charcoal sedan turned out to be a Rolls-Royce. I wasn’t impressed.
“Your car’s boring.”
“So’s your outfit.”
“Touché.”
He opened my door for me.
I climbed in, being careful not to touch him, because if I touched him, I’d remember how delicious it had felt lying beside him, or pressed against him, kissing him, wanting him. He was a riddle wrapped within a mystery, and if I had to undergo a makeover, maybe he should, too. Maybe he needed to drop this whole Richie Rich routine and get back to the roots he supposedly so diligently avoided, yet had spent the weekend trying to recapture.
Liam got in beside me. The ground crew had already started the vehicle and turned on the climate control to a comfortable 75.
I readjusted it to 95.
“What’re you doing?” He fixed it.
“I want you as out of your comfort zone as I am.”
“Point of fact—I spent the weekend out of my zone. Now, I’m ready to be home.”
“Take me there.”
“To my house?” His narrow-eyed glance didn’t exactly fill me with the warm and fuzzies—not that anything about the situation particularly did, but the thought that after all we’d been through together he wouldn’t even show me where he sought solace at the end of tough days depressed the hell out of me. For a girl who already feels dead—not a good thing.
“What’s with the tone?” I asked. “You act like I’m going to infest your place with bedbugs.”
“It’s not that.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t take anyone there.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.” He steered the vehicle out of the lot and onto a busy feeder road.
“Why not?”
“Mr. Stone,” a sultry female voice said from out of the ether, “you have an incoming call from Thomas Darhart. Are you available to speak?”
“Yes.”
Way to make me feel special. Only I wasn’t special, so why would he even try?
As he droned on about forecasting cost estimates, I focused on the view. The rolling hills were similar to the landscape in Arkansas—or, even back in Tennessee—but the vegetation was different. Not nearly as lush. Homes rose in stacks, and every so often I caught glimpses of dazzling blue.
Despite my frustration with Liam, the farther we drove, the more disconnected I felt from Blaine. It was a strange notion—knowing I was so far away from hi
m that he couldn’t touch me. The sensation was heady. Look at me, a dead girl all the way from Tennessee, actually contemplating smiling…
Then, as if I weren’t even in the car, Liam hung up and made another call.
The only part of him even recognizable as the man I’d first met was the familiar lock of hair that had fallen over his left eye.
I wanted to brush it away, to force him to train his hypnotic emerald stare on me—only me—but what was the point? Even though I’d flown thousands of miles from where I’d been, essentially, nothing had changed. I’d escaped Blaine only to become another man’s property. My life would never truly change until I was controlled by no one other than myself.
19
Liam
I hid on the phone for the rest of our drive, because I didn’t know what to say.
In three days, Ella had turned my life upside down. Only, she didn’t know it, and at thirty-two, I was still too much of a pussy to tell her. There, I admitted it. When it came to business, I was King of the World. In the past, my dealings with women had been about as thick as the paper on which their contracts were written. Feelings weren’t part of the equation. Now, Ella had me exposed and raw and at a loss as to how to even compose thoughts, let alone words.
By the time I parked in front of the salon Carol had told me about, I wasn’t just doubting my decision to bring Ella home with me, but to ever have stayed behind in that goddamned town. If only I’d gone with Garrett and the guys to Little Rock, my life would now be normal. I wouldn’t be in need of a dozen antacids and feeling like a lecher when all I wanted to do was sit down and have a proper conversation with this girl—and then bang her.
With the engine killed, I covered my face with my hands. It’s official. I am a lecher.
“You can do all you want with my hair,” she said, “but fancy hair won’t make me fancy on the inside, Liam. I’ll still be the same old screwed-up me.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“I’m not reminding, but keeping it real.”
“Duly noted.”
I exited the car, opened her door and ushered her inside this cathedral to outer beauty that my assistant promised would transform Ella from a Wal-Mart snack bar clerk into a lady. I wished Carol would have just handled this whole thing. It made me beyond uncomfortable.
I couldn’t imagine how Ella must feel.
If I’d had her best interests at heart, I would have handled this in a more discreet manner. We could have booked the whole place for a day, ensuring her privacy. As it was, parading her through the starkly elegant lobby with its black marble floor, black columns and couches and an abundance of curious stares, I felt more like a father bringing his unruly teen in for a makeover rather than a man bringing a woman he saw as a potential lover.
“Mr. Stone, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” The male salon owner sported an impressive blond mane and an open-throat shirt reminiscent of Don Johnson in Miami Vice. He looked Ella up and down in a slow appraisal. “Could I bother you to remove your…” He gestured toward her ponytail holder as if to say the words would be beneath him.
She took off the band to slip it around her wrist. She then shook out her long, dark hair.
Her discomfort manifested in my chest with a sharp pang.
“Lovely bone structure and complexion. Great volume, but I’d envision highlights. We’ll, of course, also assess her nails, brows and any of those special areas that may need waxing.”
The longer poor Ella stood there, soaking in this stranger’s appraisal, the more she seemed to harden. Her gaze turned steely, as if no matter what this guy said, she’d go along with it, because that was what she was being paid to do. That made me sick inside, along with the realization that far from me helping her feel better about herself, I was making her feel worse.
“Thanks,” I said, taking Ella’s hand more because I needed her support than she needed anything from me, “but this isn’t what I had in mind.”
The salon owner turned desperate. “If you envision her as a redhead, we can do that instead. Really, any vision you have, Mr. Stone, is the perfect vision for me.”
With the man still rambling, I dragged Ella from the salon.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked outside to not only me, but an audience of two model types exiting a silver Ferrari. “I did everything you asked.”
“Get in the car.”
“No.” Up went her stubborn chin. “Not until you tell me what I did wrong.”
I looked to the still watching women, then back to Ella. Keeping my voice low, I practically growled, “Please, get in the fucking car.”
Fortunately, she did. My stomach couldn’t take another scene. But she wasn’t about to let me off without further explanation. “First, you want my hair done. Now, you don’t?”
I smacked the heels of my hands against the steering wheel.
When she jumped, I sunk even deeper into asshole quicksand.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m just so…”
“Mad at me?”
I turned to her. Pain glistened in her blueberry eyes. Pain that I’d once again caused.
I cupped her cheek, brushing newly fallen tears with my thumb. “I’m mad at myself, okay? This thing—whatever we have going between us—it’s going all wrong. I wanted…Hell, I don’t know what I wanted, but this isn’t it. I’m sorry I put you through that. I had no right. I’m sorry.”
She bowed her head.
I gunned the engine and got us the hell away from this place.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
—
By the time I pressed the entry gate’s remote, Ella had been asleep for an hour.
Even in her sleep, she looked pained. More than anything, I wanted her to one day wake up and smile—genuinely smile from her eyes to her toes. And I wanted to be the reason why.
I had a house in Palo Alto and an apartment in the city, but my home—the only place I felt right in the world—was on a rare, two-hundred-acre Pacific Coast land parcel near Big Sur that I’d purchased with my first real money. If traffic was in my favor, I could make the trip in a little over two hours from where company headquarters was located in Palo Alto. The trek took much less time if I helicoptered in.
The blacktop drive leading to the house was long and wound through a forest of ponderosa, Torrey and Monterey pine, redwoods and oak. The majesty of this place never failed to put life in perspective. The landscape was so large that it made me feel small in comparison—but in a good way. As if the towering trees and sweeping views from the jagged coast nurtured and protected me from the outside world.
After ten minutes’ more driving, the structure, which had taken two years to build into the cliff, and car-sized boulders popped into view. The sight of it never failed to stir me. The glass, stone and redwood home stood three stories, and each room offered commanding ocean views.
Rather than pulling into the detached garage that I’d had placed a short distance from the house, I parked in the circular drive. I wanted Ella to wake to the place that was my greatest joy.
I opened her door, then gave her shoulder a nudge. “Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty.”
She stirred, looked at me, then looked beyond me to the wind-tossed sea. “Wow…It’s…”
“Yeah.” Even though Mother Nature had done the heavy lifting, I stood back to allow Ella to take it all in. The home’s Frank Lloyd Wright–clean planes. The way it might have emerged organically from the landscape, as opposed to it just having been dropped there.
While she’d been sleeping, I’d called the caretaker to stock the fridge and freshen the linens. Harold’s wife had brought Ella toiletries and clothes. It had been over two months since I was last here—far too long. I had meetings stacked like jets waiting to land at SFO, but as far as I was concerned, they could keep right on waiting. All that mattered was Ella and coaxing out her smile.
“Liam, it’s beautiful…”
She emerged from the car to put her hand visor-style over her eyes to help with the sun’s glare. For her, the Pacific put on a diamond-strewn show. “You live here?”
“Sometimes. Not as often as I’d like.” Hands tucked in my pockets, I looked to the flagstone drive. “At the airport, you asked me to take you to my home. Well, this is it. Besides the caretaker’s wife, you’re the first woman to step foot in this place.” The admission felt strange and my words had emerged stilted, but that was okay. Above all, I needed to be my authentic self with this woman. The gift of her presence was every bit as special as this sacred place.
Poised at the redwood-topped rock half wall that provided the only barrier between the parking area and the two-hundred-foot drop to the shore, Ella closed her eyes, tipping her head back to soak in the sun.
In that moment, I was so happy to have taken her away from the salon. She was lovely as is. I wouldn’t change a thing—except for the way she felt about me. If ever I could take back moments of my life, it would have been last night when I tried impressing her with my worldly goods, only to come across looking like a first-class dick.
Approaching her, I wanted so badly to ease my arms around her so we could share the view, but it was too soon. During our last aborted attempt at lovemaking, I’d promised not just to her, but myself, that I wouldn’t put any moves on her until she begged. Who knew, maybe that day would never come. Or maybe she’d surprise me by approaching me sooner?
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