Hunted by Billionaires Box Set

by Ryan Ramsay

  Like I said. Fuck.

  **

  “Care to explain?” she insists with a queer smile.

  I hesitate.

  “It’s alright. It’s all water under the bridge now,” says the scarred one.

  “No,” I say lightly. “Best to get this out of the way.” With a light sigh, I begin.

  “I apologize to each one of you for how we first met. It was rude and unprofessional. Even if I had the knowledge that we would meet again it would not make my behavior any less couth. Are we okay?”

  The bearded one nods, his arms akimbo.

  “Yes, Ashley. We are very okay now.”

  The skinny-muscled type and his scarred counterpart both nod too, smiling cheekily. Mia clasps her hands apart and then together, beaming all the way.

  “This is fantastic. You’re already bonding. Shall we begin introductions from the men’s side, seeing as you already know the lady of the day?”

  The bearded one starts.

  “I am Peter.”

  The skinny-muscled one goes next.

  “You can call me Shem.”

  The scarred silent type finishes.

  “Arnold is my name.”

  “Now we’re all acquainted,” says Mia. “It’s time for the rules. Are you ready?”

  I nod first as the men follow.

  “The game will comprise of three players. The men will offer themselves as a sacrifice of seeking what was lost. In this haunted villa is a tale of woe. A fisherman once came to this island searching for a lost barnacle. It was in his family’s legends that the first born male of the first born son would find it and bring it home as a prize for his once chosen fair maiden. He searched for it in vain, swimming upon a sunken and flooded isle of land. For days he waited in his boat, thrusting himself unto the waters and holding out for days. He never found it. But they found the man’s skeleton years later, the barnacle stuck between the crusted palms of his hands.”

  “It is a tale of love that is woven between these waters. A man once gave his life to searching for what was truly elusive. Three men will now offer themselves to the hunt for the golden jewelry. Make no mistake. It is of pure gold. Thin as a whistle and bright as an autumn’s day, you will find it safe and tucked away in the strangest place of all. The rules are simple.”

  “The three of you will make good on your payments for this game by the touch of my phone screen. You will automatically wire ten million dollars to the ‘pot,’” she signs, “and are also signing your agreement that you will incur more costs if you break the rules, because I’ve had too many people try to get away with more than they’ve paid for before to continue going by the honor system. Simply put, if you find yourself in the presence of Ashley and are dumb enough to misbehave, a fine will be imposed. If you find yourself in your own company, and still misbehave, a fine will be imposed. If you fail to find the broach and engage in anything else other than finding it… you get the idea.

  “You are allowed to ask for help from the maiden only once, and she is allowed to deny your request if she deems it fit. Once the request has been accepted, she will take you through the entire house and assist you until you find the jewelry. Most of the money will go to her but of course the house does take a handsome fee.

  “If at some point you feel the need to give up and ask to stop, we may table it at the end of the game, where a partial refund may be given, depending on the circumstances. But I expect this to be an early Christmas present for the winner and I am not used to giving refunds when people are happy, which they always are.

  “I believe that is all. Do you have any questions?”

  **

  I had tons of them last night. It’s a wonder we’re still able to function after that all-nighter. We were in the bathroom still, in my hotel suite, and I was stitching her up. She told me to have fun, or at least try to. I kept to myself mostly, bandaging the scar tissue I inflicted.

  “How do you really benefit from all this?” I asked. “Aside from the money, of course.”

  “I told you I work for some very powerful people sis. They let the game happen and watch as it unfolds. They just want to see what will happen. Consider it an experiment.”

  I was shaken at this remark. To which she smoothly added,

  “You do not have to worry at all. I get at least one game all to myself—some kind of leave from work. I can choose for the game to be anywhere in the world as long as I’ve sorted it all out. Besides,” she said, “I have kind of earned a spell with my family.”

  Relieved, I finished the work and moved her to the bedroom balcony, where we sat down and made an order to room service for tea, scones, and a delayed order of whisky.

  “So no one will be watching this game happen.”

  “No one. I promise you,” she assured.

  The tea came. We drank slowly. The night was cool, our bodies warm. I burned hard still.

  “How many of these have you hosted so far?”

  She squinted a bit. “I would say around eight so far. On my own. Before that I had done three under supervision.”

  “Doesn’t it scare you?”

  She offers a weak smile.

  “Why would it?”

  “You’re kinda working for the shadows here, sis. I would be terrified. I mean, do you know what they really want from these games? I know they won’t be posted online or anything, but doesn’t it bother you that when you host a game, there might be some fat, inconsistently paunchy, bog-eyed gazillionare watching from behind the screen with some kind of double-tongued brunette licking his balls?”

  “Double-tongued—”

  “Don’t ask,” I chuckled. “So?”

  She cleared her throat and sipped more tea. “It never did. I’ll tell you why.”

  A pause. This time it took more than a minute.

  “It never bothered me when I started this path. It does not bother me now. I think that to me this job is all about bringing people together. What do I care if some rich asshole wants to get off to a video over three thousand miles away? It is still that: a video. They can’t really experience what my players go through. The rush. The confusion. The expedited reality. The sweetness of not knowing what is coming next. These are things money will rarely buy if you sit around at home doing nothing all day but stare at a blank screen.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I’m sorry, Ash, but you know I am right. What I offer here is a once in a lifetime experience.” She stood up straight, resting her back on the guardrails. “How many women out there believe that one man is the answer to their life’s lack of love? How many men out there believe that there is satisfaction in more than one woman? I’d say it’s a pretty thick stat.”

  She inched closer, crouching, putting all her weight on her knees.

  “Man! How many times did I wish for mum to see the light, to see that her marriage was over before it started? How many times did I want dad to be the man and let mum go? They were never really happy. All they wanted was an easy life. She, a painter. He, a writer. None of that ever worked out for them. I don’t want to see it happen again.”

  “I hear you,” I said. “But these are billionaires and virgins. It’s not like you’re cleansing the world of ethnic unhappiness so far, yeah?”

  “True,” she straightened her hair. “I am not helping a majority. That takes time, more time than I have in my lifetime to accomplish. But what I have is opportunity. Possibility. The few that I work with, the few that break the social customs and enjoy the ride, this ride that is so colorful and long and dreary, but still a ride—this ride; they get to live a life unheard of. They fall in love again and again and again with all the extremes. There is no more jealousy. There is only betterment. I may not have the messiah complex, but I know it will take shape someday, one way or the other.”

  I was in awe. She really did believe she was changing the world, splicing what we believe to be law in custom and history and making it her own. I tried, at that time, to see her sense.
In some way, her light shed onto my patch of darkness.

  “Do you keep in touch with your hosts after the games?” I asked.

  She smiled wide.

  “Some of them are my best friends now. We have brunches and breakfasts in different parts of the world when we want to.” She paused. “It is never about the money you earn afterward. No. But what you do with it, who you become after you have no more problems in the world. That’s the person I want to meet, and if I am being totally honest with you,” she said, inching closer to my face, holding my hand in hers, “I cannot wait to meet that woman.”

  “Pregnancy,” I said loudly. It threw her off.

  “What?”

  “Anything can happen tomorrow. I might fall in love, as you say, or I might have sex. I may not be too comfortable with the idea, but I really want to know what can happen. I wanna see. And that’s why I ask. I have never missed my period—never. My body is not used to all this kind of energy. School. Work. Sleep. Repeat. That’s who I am. What steps do you have that we can take for my health?”

  She put her empty cup on the wooden table and looked up at me, right in the eye.

  “I am so glad for you, you know?”

  “Um, okay. Creepy vibe, but I’ll bite. Why?”

  “You never fail to surprise me. I like that. I’m not used to that. Come with me.”

  She was upstanding instantly as though her back was not made of bone but autonomous machinery.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To my rented house. I want to show you how safe your health is in my hands.”

  Her hand was outstretched, the lines of perfect stitching and iodine swabbing not even visible under the moon’s light. I did not hesitate.

  **

  “I have a few—one actually,” says Peter now.

  Mia shifts and turns to him.

  “Please.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “The catch?” she asks, slightly confused.

  “We pay a comfortable amount of money for a game. I get that. It was not easy setting things up. But come on. There has to be something more.”

  “What would you have in mind, Mr. Angstrom?” asks Mia, her face bright with curiosity.

  He shifts lightly on his feet.

  “I’m not so sure. It just feels… too simple.”

  “Aren’t all things sweeter that way? Isn’t that how you choose to live, all three of you?” she asks. “I assure you, once the game begins you will feel your money’s worth, and it is my hope that more is achieved.”

  “Are you ready to begin?” she asks with a gentle stride across the boarded floor. The sun kisses her skin, a burst of energy waiting to happen.

  “I am,” says Arnold strongly.

  “Ready,” Shem says, his arms swinging by his side like pendulums.

  “Let’s go for it.” Peter sounds resolved.

  “Good,” she says with a pinch of her phone from the top of the high stool strategically stationed under the shade of the threshold to the house. “Place your thumb once on the screen.”

  They all go for it one after the other, a successful ding of the approved transaction ringing the air. Mia cracks a smile and gets out of the way. Her hands snap together.

  “May the odds… have fun,” she remarks gleefully.

  A swathe of bodies accosts me in the softest way imaginable. He reaches me first and politely asks for my hand to take him through the house. I meekly smile.

  “Of course, Peter. I would love to.”

  Chapter 17

  Peter

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “Anything,” she sweetly says.

  “Your hair reminds me of the rain.”

  She retracts in jest and leans on a wall. Her fingers are thin, the nails a simple nude.

  “What I’m trying to say is you remind me a lot of when I tried dancing in the rain.”

  “You mean singing in the rain.”

  “No,” I quietly reply. “I mean dancing. Singing in the rain is kinda weird, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Maybe that is the case for you,” she quickly says. “I love singing in the rain. When the raindrops drop no one can tell whether you’re happy or sad.”

  “Do you always cry when in the rain?” I ask. She goes quiet and flips a pin cushion.

  “Not here,” she says with the broach clearly on her mind. Ashley spins around, the dress loosely flapping against her knees. She looks up to the ceiling, her wonderful cheeks bulging at their ends. “This is one beautiful villa.”

  I join her after pushing a tablecloth down to the rustic dining room table, right next to her. I watch as Arnold and Shem rush downstairs past a staircase made entirely of bamboo sticks, the smell of the ocean lingering stronger across my nose.

  “The way the lights are designed is unlike anything I have ever seen before. Do you like it?”

  “I do. You speak as though you’ve done glasswork before,” she says.

  “I did. In another life.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t strike me as a man with many faces, is all.”

  “Care to explain?”

  She stands by the foot of the queen bed and flips some pillows around. She gets onto one knee and puts an arm under the mattress, carefully sifting through the light fabric. Then, she pulls it back, pushes her hair back and hunches over till her forehead meets with the wooden floor. Her search is futile.

  “You have a very bland face.”

  I guess I seem hurt to cater her next response.

  “No offense. I mean that in the most harmless way possible. I mean, okay. Don’t make this cheesy. Don’t make this weird. Promise?”

  “I can try,” I reply, curious.

  “Okay. I once sat through this course about facial expressions. I wanted to know how people lie, or when they try to cover it up. It made a lot of sense at the beginning, when they showed us the minor expressions that happen on someone’s face. They said it is harder for a woman to be seen as a liar because our facial expressions are always used. Men, on the other hand, rarely use their emotions. It makes it easier to spot them as liars. So…what I am trying really hard to explain right now is that you have no expression on your face. And that makes me intrigued by you.”

  “Intrigued is a strong word.”

  “Is it?”

  “Depends. You have a lot to say. What do you study?”

  She stops by the corridor and knocks against the wall paneling.

  “What makes you think I’m a student?”

  I exhale loudly through my nose, assisting her with the knocking.

  “You have a quality.”

  “A quality?” she asks.

  “It is in no way offensive to you I assure. You just seem like you spend a lot of time under a roof filled with books than in the sun.”

  She stops fast and holds her arms to her side, like an animal scorned.

  “Hey!” she goofs with a smile.

  I laugh. “Oh come on. I think it’s cute.”

  The woman blushes. We keep on walking through the magnificent house, each turn providing another clue leading to another dead end. By now I know her well enough. I still feel she is a mystery.

  “How did you get to know Mia?” I ask.

  “Oh, well. That I am actually not allowed to tell you.”

  “Really—why not?”

  “Some secrets are just too juicy to reveal.”

  She runs ahead, disappearing behind a red door. I push the light wood away, reveling in the smooth feel of it. At the handle is a lion’s head engraved. The door is marked by diamond markings; detailed and carved to an almost pin-size precision. She stands at the edge of the farthest wall, trying her hand at the white and gold chandelier from above. Her cute height, coupled by the immensely decent dress she has on make the sight sweeter to bear.

  The silk rides high; enough to reveal her knees and inner thigh. Her ass cheeks are bigger than my hands can han
dle, and the effort she applies in flitting her fingers through for the broach makes her rocking body sway gently like a wave. She stomps on the floor with her soles dejected and turns her weight to me.

  “It’s not here.” She meekly smiles, her eyes lowered and her finger curled, raised and dimpled at her left cheek.

  “What?”

  “Either you found the broach or you’re very excited to be here.”

  Ah. The raging boner I’ve had on since she brushed her hand against my arm.

  “We’re all adults here,” I snidely reply.

  “And?” she asks with her arms crossed.

  “And… it is simply natural. You’re not that bad to look at.”

  “Man you suck at this.”

  “I know. That makes two of us.”

  She shakes her head once with sass as the notion.

  “Just because I’ve never had sex doesn’t mean I haven’t had the chance to flirt and learn.”

  “Oh,” I remark, holding my hands out before me in feigned placation. “Perhaps I will come to learn of this today. Forgive me.”

  She tuts haughtily and makes her hips swing as she walks by me.

  “Let’s keep searching then.”

  She stands beyond the threshold, and I by the end of the door, holding the knob.

  “You know, Ashley…”

  She spins around and questions with a high brow.

  “I hope to some day call you Ash.”

  “Well…we’ll see.”

  “Thing is,” I interrupt her before she takes two more steps. “I have not spoken with a woman for as long as I have with you.”

  “Jesus man, it’s only been half an hour.”

  “I know. I just want to say thanks.”

  “What for?”

  I swallow the clump down.

  “For making me feel again.”

  We stand in the breezy corridor silent as gravestones. She looks at me with stark quality, the beam from her deep eyes questioning, unbound. Should I tell her my story? Will I come off as needy?

  She sighs and takes one stride towards me. I hold my breathing.

  “Do I still remind you of the rain?”