by Donna Alam
His eyes are darker as his head appears above mine. ‘Because I wanted to thank you for looking after me. For giving me that night.’ I inhale sharply at the flex of his hips. ‘And because I couldn’t get you out of my head. Perhaps I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t forget me.’
As if that were even possible.
‘I’m nothing special.’
‘You’re ridiculous. And ridiculously beautiful.’
When was the last time anyone but Remy said that to me? I mean, I know the things said during sex only contain about five percent truth; five percent truth and ninety-five percent gibberish. But he’s the only man who has made me swoon in a long time. That’s not to say I haven’t been paid compliments from time to time.
I love your eyes. You’re hot.
That ass is like the North Star. Can you blame me for following it?
Girl, you’ve got a rack to die for. Feel free to smother me with those things anytime.
But nothing with such sincerity. Such beauty. Such promise.
A realisation washes over me, my skin immediately cold yet clammy. Oh, man, I’m not worried about losing my job. I’m worried I’ll fall for him. Fall hard.
‘You don’t like compliments.’ His expression is playful and completely oblivious to this insane internal chatter.
‘Who doesn’t like compliments?’ I retort, my mouth working of its own accord as he suddenly cages me in with his body, his lightly furred legs on either side of mine and his hands at the sides of my head.
‘People who don’t know how to receive them.’ His words take on that velvety quality of his, the inflection of his accent only adding to the aural thrill. ‘I could paint you in such adoration.’
His thumb finds my mouth and strokes my bottom lip, my panic ebbing away. He dips, pressing his lips to mine once more, turning my insides molten as his hand moves between us, reaching for the buttons of his shirt. One, two, three tiny hindrances worked loose, he pushes the sides of his shirt open, exposing me to his trailing fingers and his gaze.
‘Tu es très belle,’ he whispers, his words pressed to my lips. ‘Once in English. Once in French, because you deserve to hear it twice. You are very, very beautiful.’
‘You can say that to me in any language you like.’ My words are just a rush of breath as I absorb the weight of his body over mine and the feel of him pressed between my legs.
‘Mmmm.’ The vibration is more growl as his mouth engulfs my nipple briefly, his words whispering against my skin. ‘You know, that could be dangerous.’
I push up on my elbows, watching as he works his way down my body. Circling my navel with his tongue, a sucking bite pressed to my hip, his hand sliding under my thigh. We’ve been in bed hours, kissing, tasting, fucking. Surely, he isn’t going to—
‘What are you doing?’
There’s a challenge in the way his eyes rise to mine. ‘Je veux te bouffer la chatte.’ Even with my very little understanding of the language, I know instinctively what he just said.
I don’t need a translation, my body surging from the bed with an inarticulate sound as Remy’s fingers part my oversensitive flesh. As he sucks my clit into his mouth, I’m sure the weight of him over me is the only thing stopping me from floating away.
20
Remy
‘Remy.’ As I turn, a hand is proffered along with my name. ‘Long time, no see, man.’
‘Gunnar. How are things?’ As we shake hands, the man shrugs and smiles the kind of smile that still makes him sought after to graces magazine covers long after his football career is over.
‘Can’t complain. I haven’t seen you around lately. What can be keeping you away from these things?’ He gestures to the melee going on around us. A charity function. Though there was nothing charitable in the look of a thirty-something passing blonde as her gaze lingers over me. Nothing charitable and nothing subtle, because she’s still giving me the eye as she reaches the side of her elderly husband.
‘You know how it is.’ I take a sip from my glass, pleasantly surprised by the quality of the wine on offer this evening. Usually, it’s as insipid as the company, most people in attendance using this type of event as a means to be seen.
Wine. Champagne. Canapes. The yacht show. The Grand Prix. Art showings. The opera. Charity auctions. Corporate functions. Night after night of double air-kisses, tinkling laughter, and pleasure as faked as the orgasms they make for the benefit of their husbands. As the head of Loup Industries, my attendance is sometimes necessary. As a man, I’m so fucking bored of it all.
And I can’t believe I gave up a few hours with Rose to be here.
‘So, what’s been keeping you away? The lure of your yacht and the Caribbean, or the willing arms of a certain someone?’
‘Just the usual,’ I reply, lying through my teeth. ‘Work, work, and more work. I’m sure that’s a familiar refrain.’ Though I’m not truly sure he does; what exactly does a Portuguese football player retired at the height of his fame do when he moves to Monaco? Apart from fuck around and set up a charity, I suppose. Merde. ‘This is his function?’ I hiss to Everett as Gunnar turns to greet someone else. ‘How the hell could I have forgotten that?’
‘Probably because you’re functioning on about three hours sleep a night.’ He’s right; I can’t get enough of Rose. Even when I’m with her, I can’t get close enough. I feel like I want to be under her skin.
‘Is see Carson Hayes is here.’ He tips his head inconspicuously to the space behind me. ‘Boring holes in the back of your head.’ He raises his glass to his mouth, then asks, ‘Did you read the file I sent on him?’
‘Ex-military. Only came into the business when his father died.’
‘The older Hayes is as hard as nails. And about as crooked as one pulled from a lump of wood.’
‘He would be, as a long-term friend of Emile’s.’ I use the term friend loosley.
‘And that’s why another one bites the dust, right?’
That’s not quite what the takeover was about. Or maybe it was. Partially.
‘It was a mistake moving her into the building,’ Rhett adds in an undertone that I’m certain I’m meant to hear, but his attempt at nonchalance falls flat.
Not only does his feigned disinterest fall flat, but he’s also wrong about Rose. While she’d made it abundantly clear from the start that she didn’t want to risk being seen out with me—she doesn’t want to be judged by her colleagues and is obviously wary of our relationship’s life expectancy—our living arrangements suit me very well. They provide for complete privacy. No one would think anything of seeing either of us in the building and no one but Everett is aware of our relationship. And that’s the way we’d like it to stay. For now, at least.
I look down at the glass in my hand, absently rubbing my calloused finger against my thumb as a snapshot of last night flashes in my head. I was lying on my back with Rose half draped across my chest, her hair wild and her fingers linked with mine.
‘You must be the only billionaire I know with workers hands.’ She’d lifted our joined hands closer, rubbing a long-ingrained callous on my index finger.
‘Do you know many billionaires?’
‘Not personally, but I have passed all manner of shopping and gifts into the lily white and manicured paws of many a Wolf Tower resident.’
‘Mere millionaires.’
Pressed together as we were, her laughter vibrated through my body pleasantly. ‘I do beg your pardon,’ she’d replied, her accent modulated and drawn out for effect. ‘But even the peasant millionaire classes don’t have hands like these. Or a watch that looks like it needs retiring.’
‘Are you insinuating I have ugly hands? And an ugly watch?’
‘There’s nothing ugly about you.’ Dark hair fell across her brow, and I smoothed it back. ‘What’s with the sad smile?’
Nothing but my soul, perhaps. If she knew about the lies I’d told, she wouldn’t be looking at me as she did. ‘This watch belonged to my grandf
ather.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was suddenly as soft as her gaze.
‘Don’t be. I never met him.’ But by all accounts, he was a good man. ‘It’s an Omega, though not very fashionable or worth a great deal. I only began to wear it to annoy my father. A habit that seems to have ingrained itself.’
‘Wearing the watch or annoying him?’
When I didn’t answer, she turned her attention back to our hands. ‘Well, this is not an ugly hand. But it is a hand that’s seen manual labour.’
‘Subtle, ma Rose.’
‘So sue me.’
‘I’d rather screw you.’
‘What, again?’ She’d lifted the sheet lying low on my waist, peering beneath it comically. ‘Hmm. Not yet.’ She dropped the sheet. ‘In the meantime, you can tell me why the richest man in Monaco has the hands of a carpenter.’
‘Maybe I have a hobby.’
‘I thought your hobby was sexing me?’
I laughed. ‘You’re not a hobby.’ You’re an obsession. I caught myself before adding that. ‘This life, this role of CEO wasn’t always mine. My father made it very clear that I wasn’t up to the job and that the business would go to my cousin. When he died, I think we were both heartily disappointed at how things turned out. I was enjoying myself, living a life with no responsibilities and no consequences.’
‘Were you one of those international playboys? Yachts and Cristal, girls in bikinis and partying like you were Jay-Z?’ she’d teased.
Little did she know that’s exactly how I spent my years post university. My father supplied the money, and I just lived for ruin.
‘For a little while,’ I’d answered eventually. ‘Well, for long enough to make myself sick. Bored with my own company. I sold the yacht for something a little less ostentatious, then navigated my way to Indonesia where I bought a little bit of paradise.’
Her hand paused in stroking my chest as her head lifted. ‘So they’re sailor’s hands, not carpenter’s.’
‘They’re hands that have seen a little bit of everything.’ Hands that find a little heaven in you. ‘I designed a house and set to work building it.’
‘By yourself?’
‘No.’ I’d laughed. ‘I was a spoiled rich kid with no skills. But I learned on the job, so to speak. And yes, I developed a taste for carpentry. You might say I’m good with wood.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ Her smile was reluctant.
I’m losing my mind over you, I almost replied.
‘All that stopped when Emile died suddenly two years ago.’ I was devastated, though not about my father.
‘If you didn’t want the business, why come back? Why put yourself through it at all?’
‘Sometimes, I ask myself the same question.’
‘Do you ever find the answer?’
‘He said I’d never amount to much. He was a self-made man, and never shied away from proclaiming it. He came from nothing and pointed out often that I had everything—everything given to me on a silver platter, yet I’d never be the man he was.’
‘He sounds like he was an unhappy man. Jealous, even.’
‘He loved Monaco, yet it has never felt like home to me.’
‘Really?’ She pushed up on her elbow and stared down at me. ‘Because, to me, you look like you own it.’
‘I was bundled off to boarding school at the first opportunity and was never in any hurry to come back.’ I’d sighed and dragged my hand down my face, almost as though cleansing myself of the memories. ‘Listen to the poor little rich boy complain.’
‘No, don’t do that. Don’t depreciate your experiences. You can be rich in the pocket and poor in other ways.’
‘What about you, Rose? What were you poor in?’
‘Cash,’ she replied with an unhappy laugh. ‘Permanency.’ My conscience tugged at me. Not because my existence was more than hers but because of all I’ve hidden from her. Here she lies in my bed, counting her blessing of a job and stability when what’s due to her is so much more. ‘But my house, my home, in whichever apartment, town, or county we were living in at the time, well, it was always rich in love. More so when there was just the two of us together. When she wasn’t dating, I mean.’
‘And your father?’
‘He died before I was born. It was a whirlwind romance followed by a pregnancy and a hasty court-house wedding. It probably never would’ve lasted, but Mom’s Irish bad boy was killed in a car accident before they had a chance to find out.’
‘I’m sorry.
‘Thank you.’ She sighed deeply, her chest expanding against mine. ‘You never miss what you never had. But being a single parent couldn’t have been easy on her. She always seemed to be looking for a man to give her stability.’ Her attention turned inward before she seemed to rouse herself. You know what my home was rich in?’ she’d added, angling her head. ‘Ass whoopings.’
‘We’re you a naughty girl?’
‘Ha! You wish. But we were talking about you and your workman’s hands.’ She’d reached for me then, intertwining our fingers once more. ‘And how you were going to prove your father wrong.’
‘He’s dead. He doesn’t get to see what I’ve become.’ My words were intentionally dismissive, but dismissive was better than betraying my annoyance.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. But the world does. They say Wolf Industries has almost doubled in size in the past two years. Since you’ve been in charge, right?’
‘I do what needs to be done,’ I responded, silently adding my intention to discover exactly who the woman was in my arms. The woman I’d become so dependent on, the woman with no idea of the depths of my need. My need for her. My need to know where she’s come from. I’d started on a path there was no return from.
‘I’m sure your father would be proud. I mean, I haven’t been here long, but it looks like you own kind of a lot of Monaco.’
‘We do have a number of projects,’ I’d replied.
‘I heard they crowned you the king of the South of France.’
‘It sounds like someone is trying to get me sent to Prince Albert’s dungeon.’
‘You know there’s a t on the end of that guy’s name.’
‘Not in France, there isn’t.’
‘Yet his mother was American. Albert.’
‘More and more, it sounds like you want to get me in trouble.’
‘Ha! The authorities would take one look at my google history before deciding I framed you.’
I tilted my head. ‘You’ve been googling me?’
‘Hmph. Here, let me help you scratch that big head of yours,’ she retorted, her words dripping with faux irritation as her fingers wiggled in the air at least a foot from my head. ‘It was an article about you in the local newspaper, if you must know. I was trying to better my language skills. I hate not understanding what people are saying around me.’
‘Hmm. That is a shame. Especially as you missed what I said when you did that thing with your tongue. I could translate, I suppose. All in the interests of educating you.’
‘I think you’ve educated me plenty.’
‘I do what I can,’ I replied, rolling her underneath me once again. ‘It’s time for a little woodwork again . . .’
With memories like these, who would fault me for agreeing we need total privacy. Can I be blamed that privacy also provides me a shield? I want her more than I’ve wanted any other woman, but I’m still cognisant of the fact that I still don’t know how she comes to be in my life. Or why.
Digging into someone’s past takes time. Meanwhile, Rose and I don’t dine out, and we don’t attend public functions, which means there is neither sight nor sound of our relationship beyond the four walls of our respective apartments. A state of affair that suits both our purposes. But that’s not to say we haven’t had fun. What we have is more than just sex.
We might not have dined out, but we’ve dined in our meals prepared by some of the leading chefs in the region. We’ve watched movies and go
tten a taste for the other's likes and dislikes, and it turns out we’re both a fan of thrillers. Rose loves a jump-scare, and I enjoy how they result in her almost always crawling onto my knee. We’ve indulged in cocktails out by the pool and champagne under the stars, talking about everything and nothing. I know she worries about our differences in station, and the fact that I’m her boss. I know she has little more than a few hundred dollars in her checking account without her ever saying so. She worries she’s walking a fine line between affluence and poverty; if only she knew the truth. I suppose I should feel some form of guilt for not telling her she’ll one day be a wealthy woman in her own right. But I can’t allow myself to feel those sentiments because if I do, if I tell her before I’m ready, then this will be the end of things between us.
When we’re together, there is nothing else but us.
It’s when she’s not around that my mind begins to wander.
Who is she? What is the damn connection? It’s like a puzzle I cannot fix.
She told me once she has trust issues. If only she knew what that really feels like.
‘No news from the investigator yet?’
I’m pulled sharply back into the present, to murmuring voices, the delicate chime of glasses, and to a voice that isn’t hers.
‘You’re here on your own tonight?’ I turn to the sound of Gunnar’s voice, my mind a step behind his question, occupied by other things.
‘I’m his plus one tonight,’ Rhett says, beating me to an answer as he holds out his hand for the other man to shake. ‘All the gorgeous women in Monaco and he has my ugly mug trailing him around.’
‘He must’ve been wicked in a past life.’ Gunnar’s eyes gleam over the rim of his glass.
‘Past life?’ Rhett scoffs. ‘He’s a bastard now.’