“His tower?”
I laughed. “That’s how I think of it. He owns a building in Manhattan, and he had the whole top floor custom built into this…just ridiculously palatial home. It’s not a condo or an apartment, though. I mean, it’s a mansion, but it’s in a high-rise. I think he must have had the building custom-built for him, because there were, like, things in this place that shouldn’t have been possible in a high-rise. Like the library. It was, and I mean this very literally, the library from Beauty and the Beast. Shelves full of books going up to the ceiling, which was easily fifty feet high. He had actual suits of armor that had been used in battle in the fourteenth century. First-edition copies of, like, Pride and Prejudice and this hand-transcribed copy of Dante’s Inferno. No kidding. Super crazy-rare books. ” I waved my hand. “That’s not the point. Yeah, he’s crazy rich. That’s not really relevant. ”
Layla gaped at me. “Not relevant? How in the f**king hell is that not relevant?”
I shrugged. “It’s just not. I mean, it was amazing. I’m not gonna lie. He did some truly incredible things for me. He took me to the opera at the Met. And get this: he had a Christian Dior gown made for me, and jewelry that must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And his personal driver-slash-bodyguard-slash-pilot, Harris, whom you met last night, flew me to a private dinner in a restaurant he’d closed down just for us. Flew me, in his helicopter. And then he took me to the Met in his Maybach. We went sailing, too. He’s this amazing sailor, and we went all the way around to Long Beach and back, and had dinner at this tiny restaurant in Little Italy…. ” I sighed. “I know I was there for only a short time, but it seriously felt like a lifetime, Layla. Everything is different. ”
“So if it was so amazing, why are you here? What happened?” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “And, more importantly, where is the Dior gown and jewelry?”
I laughed at her. “I left it all there. I mean, he did give it to me, but…none of it matters. ”
“Doesn’t matter? Are you on drugs?” Layla flopped back against the couch with a groan. “Only you would say that. After all you’ve been through, you go and do something crazy like leave behind a fortune. ”
“You don’t get it, Layla. ”
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“No, I don’t!” She sat forward again and took my hands. “I’m trying, though. Explain it to me. What am I missing? I mean, I know in the grand scheme of things, dresses and earrings don’t really matter. I’m not that shallow. Sure, it was a Dior gown, but…we’re speaking of matters of the heart here. Right?”
“You could say that,” I said, standing up. “I don’t think I can do this without more coffee. ”
Layla handed me her mug. “Fill me, bitch. ”
Returning with full mugs, I resumed my place beside Layla. “So. He went to all this effort, right? Sent me anonymous ten-thousand-dollar checks every month for a year, then collected me and told me he owned me. Blindfolded me and got me to trust him, which isn’t easy. Told me he’d been watching me for a long time but wouldn’t say why. He got to know me. Showed me bits of who he was, and Layla—this man is incredible. I can’t even tell you. He’s huge and gorgeous and domineering and just totally alpha-male, but he’s thoughtful and attentive and considerate—”
Layla leaned close to me, interrupting. “When you say ‘huge,’ what exactly do you mean?” She grinned, biting her lip, eager for all the salacious details she knew I was holding back.
I couldn’t help a blush. “HUGE, Layla. Huge. ” I grabbed her hands and squeezed. “He’s a f**king god. And I mean that very literally. ”
Layla squealed, leaning back and giggling. “I knew it. I knew you were holding out on me. Tell me more!”
I had to sigh as I tried to figure out where to even start. “He’s a master of foreplay. He spent days, actual days, teasing me and torturing me. You sidetracked me earlier. One of the first things he told me was that he wouldn’t have sex with me unless I begged for it. Who even says that? I didn’t believe him, obviously. I mean, I don’t beg. Not anyone, not for anything. But he…I’m not gonna call it seduction, because that implies a sense of underhandedness or something. He just knew exactly what to do and what to say to make me crazy. ”
I was glad for the opportunity to hide from the real issue for a few minutes. I wasn’t ready to talk about the way things had ended. I closed my eyes and relived the way he’d touched me. “I can’t even count how many times he made me come, Layla. And that’s all before he took off my blindfold. He never let me touch him. He was focused solely on making me insane, on making me come. And he succeeded. I’m still a bit sore. ”
Layla groaned in frustration. “I’m so jealous of you right now, you don’t even know. I think I actually hate you a little bit. ”
I nodded seriously. “You should. You absolutely should be very, very jealous. ”
“I still don’t get it. He sounds amazing. Sexier than Alexander Skarsgård, richer than God, hung like a horse, able to make you come with mere words…what could possibly have gone wrong?”
I braced myself for the truth. Wrapped both hands around the scalding ceramic of the mug, accepting the burn on my palms for the distraction from the ache inside me. “He…was involved in Dad’s death. ”
Layla spat coffee, swearing and wiping at her face. “He what?”
“That was his secret. That was the reason for the blindfold, for the secrecy, for the whole crazy way things happened. He thought I’d recognize him. I mean, I did, but I didn’t put things together until he explained what had happened. ”
“Wait a goddamn minute. ” Layla set her mug down, grabbed mine from me, and put it aside as well. “He told you? You didn’t, like, find out accidentally?”
I shook my head. “He told me. Yesterday morning. After the most—I don’t even know the word—after the most…earth-shaking sex I’ve ever had, he sat me down and told me he was involved in Daddy’s death. ”
Layla just blinked at me for several moments. “Why? Why would he tell you? If you hadn’t figured it out by then, what are the chances you ever would have?”
I shrugged. “The chances of me ever putting two and two together on my own were very near absolute zero. I met him once, for, like, five seconds two months before Daddy’s death. That was it. One glimpse. And I never knew his name, never knew the role he played in Daddy’s business. There was no evidence connecting him, and there still isn’t, I don’t think. The police said it was a mugging gone wrong, and they closed the case when they never found a single shred of evidence after, like, two years of looking. ”
Layla frowned. “So…what are you going to do? You found your father’s killer. So are you going to turn him in?”
I shrugged miserably. “It’s not that simple. ”
“Not that simple? Jesus, Key! He murdered your father!”
I shot to my feet and paced away. “I know it’s not simple! But he didn’t kill my dad. Not really. It was an accident. Roth was trying to force Daddy to sell his company. He had this plan for a big merger, and Daddy’s company was a key component in the deal, but Daddy wouldn’t sell. So Roth…maneuvered him so he basically had to sell. But Dad…went a little crazy, Roth says. Got desperate. Showed up in Roth’s parking garage, threatening him with a gun. Daddy pointed it at Roth, and they ended up fighting over the gun. It went off, and…the bullet hit Daddy in the heart. ” I stood at the window, staring out at the sunny summer day.
Layla remained sitting, thinking. “So he didn’t mean to. But that doesn’t change things. And…you said he maneuvered your dad into selling. What does that mean?”
I lifted a shoulder and shook my head, sniffing. “Apparently, according to Roth at least, Daddy was…not entirely legitimate. ”
“Not legitimate? He sold f**king auto parts!”
“I know. That’s what I said. But apparently he was also into prostitution. ”
“Says Roth. ”
I nodded. “Yeah, says Roth. But why would he make that up? Why would he tell me all this if it wasn’t true? I wouldn’t have ever known any of it. And I mean, I was just a kid. Growing up, all I knew was that Daddy was gone a lot. He’d come home late at night and leave early. He could have been doing anything. People lead double lives all the time. I don’t know what to think, Layla! I don’t want to believe it about my father, but…it’s plausible. ” I hesitated, thinking of a distinct memory from my childhood. “I remember, when I was thirteen, Daddy came home late one night. Super late. I was in bed asleep, and he came in to my room, pulled the blankets up over me. I woke up, and he sat down and gave me a hug. I remember…he smelled funny. Like perfume. But Mama never wore perfume, so I remember thinking it was odd. But I was half-asleep, so I just…figured it didn’t matter. I don’t know. But now? Either he was cheating, like, having an affair, or Roth is telling the truth about Daddy running a high-end escort service and…sampling the wares. ”
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“Crazy,” Layla said. “So are you gonna turn Roth in?”
“Turn him in?” I hadn’t even considered that. “I don’t see the point. It happened seven years ago, and it was, according to Roth, an accident. I’d have to…relive everything. Go through all the evidence. Testify, assuming it went to trial, and assuming there was any way to get evidence against Roth, which I’m not sure of…I don’t know. What would it accomplish?”
“Justice?” Layla suggested.
“Would it, though?” I turned and met her gaze. “I don’t know if it would be justice. I mean, all Roth is really guilty of is blackmail. Would putting him—and me—through a big legal mess be worth it? And would it be justice? Where would that leave me? It doesn’t bring my father back. ”
“It sounds an awful lot like you’re defending this guy. ” Layla stared down between her feet. “And why do you keep calling him ‘Roth’? I thought his name was Valentine?”
“It is. But Roth was the name he gave me, and that’s just how I think of him. He’s Roth. Valentine…I only really use that name for him in…intimate…circumstances. ” I rested my forehead against the glass. “And maybe I am defending him. I don’t know. I’m so mixed up. Why do you think I left?”
“You fell in love with him, didn’t you?” Layla’s voice was quiet.
I could only nod.
Moments of silence passed.
“Does he know this? And how does he feel?”
I didn’t want to answer. “He doesn’t know. And…he said…he never meant to fall for me. ”
“So let me get this straight. You’re in love with the rich, hot, powerful man who just happens to have been both directly and indirectly responsible for your father’s death? And he’s in love with you, but he doesn’t know you love him back, because you ran away. ”
“That’s about right,” I said, blinking back tears.
“That’s f**ked up, girlfriend. Sincerely and severely f**ked up. ”
“I know. Believe me, I know. ” My legs gave out and I slid to the floor, holding back sobs. Layla was beside me in an instant, holding me. “What do I do, Layla?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. You’ve got me speechless. ”
Apropos of nothing, I realized I hadn’t seen Eric since showing up the night before. I sniffled and glanced at Layla. “Where’s Eric?”
She groaned. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. ” She waved her hand. “We broke up. No big deal. ”
I frowned at her. “You were with him for, like, two years, Layla. How is it not a big deal? Why’d you break up?”
“Fine, I’ll distract you from your much more interesting problems. ” Layla blew out a breath. “We’d been fighting for months about his whole pot-smoking, pot-dealing thing. I wanted him to at least quit dealing and find a real job, you know? Aspire to something. He never wanted to talk about it, never wanted to think about it. I tried not to nag him about it, I really did. I mean, I’m not a nagger. I was never super thrilled about that aspect of his life, but he was nice and sweet and had a big penis. ”
I shuddered. “I don’t need to know that about Eric. ”
She shrugged. “It’s true. It has this upward curve to it, and he had this thing he did where he could hit me just right in this one spot—”
“OKAY!” I shouted over her. “I don’t need to know any more about Eric’s penis. For real. Stop. Please. ”
Layla laughed. “Okay, fine. But it was just that when he was high, he could go for a really long time, which is why I put up with the whole business for as long as I did. And I wouldn’t have minded him still smoking, if he’d had any kind of aspirations in life. Something. Literally anything, like, be a mailman or join the Army or wait tables, something. But he was just content to deal pot and smoke pot and play his PS4 and have sex with me. That was his life, and that was all he seemed to care about. And those things are fine, especially the sex with me part, but I wanted him to…not change, but—I don’t even know how to put it. I wanted him to want more from life. ”
“I always thought you could do better than Eric,” I said. “That’s no secret. I’ve told you that. He was…he was kind of a loser, honestly. Nice enough, and good-looking enough, but he didn’t do anything. I could never figure out what you saw in him. ”
Layla shrugged. “He was easy to be around. He was a good listener. He treated me good. My sister is with this guy who’s just like my dad, all tough and no feelings, and she’s miserable, but it’s all she knows. And I want something different from that. Eric is totally willing to say what he’s feeling, when it’s just me and him, and I like that. Plus, he was good at making sure I came during sex. That’s important. A lot of guys just don’t care. ”
“I get it. That makes sense. ” I hugged her to me. “How are you doing with it?”
She tried to shrug and didn’t quite manage it. “It sucks. I tried to explain things to him, how I still cared for him and that I wasn’t breaking up with him, I just wanted him to want things in life, for himself and for us. And he took it as me wanting him to change, to be someone else. And maybe that’s true. Maybe I did want him to be someone other than a weed dealer. But not because he was, aside from that, bad. ” She sniffled. “He wouldn’t listen to me. He got mad, I got mad. He packed up and left the day before yesterday, and I haven’t heard from him since. ”
“I’m sorry, babe. That sucks. ”
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
I sniffled and laughed with her. “That we are. I’m in love with the sexy, reclusive billionaire who killed my father, and you just broke up with your pot-dealer boyfriend who has a penis that’s curved like a banana. ”
“It’s not that curved. ” She held up her hand and angled her fingers a bit to demonstrate. “More like this. ”
“I thought we weren’t going into any more descriptions of his junk?”
“You brought it up. ” She paused, and then glanced at me. “Is he really a billionaire?”
“I have no idea. He’s got a lot of money, that’s all I know. ”
She shook herself, stood up, and pulled me to my feet. “This calls for mani-pedis and a pitcher of beer at Duggan’s. ”
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I let her push me into her room. I borrowed a maxi-dress from her, brushed my hair, and let her take me to the salon, and then to dinner and a drunken evening spent trying to forget.
Except, even when she half-carried me out of the nasty old cab that brought us back to her apartment, hammered into next Thursday, I couldn’t quite forget the burden in my heart.
Nor could I forget the sadness I’d seen flash in Roth’s eyes when I’d told him I was leaving. That look haunted me in the days that followed, even more than the memory of the mask he’d slid into place just before walking away from me.
15
GOING IN CIRCLES
A month passed. The ache never went away. I relive
d, over and over and over, every moment with Valentine. I saw him in my dreams. I woke up with panties damp from wet dreams of Valentine’s touch, dreams and memories that couldn’t compare to what the reality had felt like. I went to bed numb; I woke up crying.
I warred with myself on a day-by-day basis. I’d done the wrong thing. I should’ve stayed. I found myself on the verge of buying a plane ticket to New York, only to stop myself at the last second. Daddy had died because of Roth. My life had been unutterably and irrevocably altered because of Roth’s greedy strong-arm tactics. He’d ruined my life. But then, I’d become the person I was because of it all. I’d had to grow up fast, and I’d had to learn to be strong. It was a cycle, round and round. The kind of war that has no end. If he hadn’t done what he had, I wouldn’t have lost Daddy. But, then again, without the series of events resulting from Roth’s attempted business deal, I would never have met him. And even though I was singularly f**ked up in the head and heart over him, I couldn’t resent or regret my time with him.
And I couldn’t stop wanting him. Couldn’t stop hoping for some justification to arise that would let me go back to him. I found myself waiting for a knock on the door, for the Hollywood ending in which Our Hero, the tumultuously sexy Valentine Roth, shows up at the door. He’d be rain-soaked, and he’d plead with me to take him back, and of course I’d sob a relieved “Yes!!” and we’d tumble to the floor in the throes of desperate lovemaking.
That never happened. Roth would never beg. And I’d left him. Was I an idiot for running away? Yes. A hopeless moron. But I couldn’t get over what he’d told me. I waffled about the veracity of Roth’s claims, but I couldn’t get around my gut-deep conviction that he’d been telling the truth. Which of course begged the question as to why he’d told me in the first place.
To which the only answer was that he felt compelled to be honest with me, no matter the consequences.
After arriving at Layla’s place, I let myself wallow for three days, and then I unpacked my suitcases into Layla’s second bedroom, got up, got dressed, and began hunting for work. I began to get caught up on what I’d missed in class—which felt horribly, awfully mundane and pointless. I found a job as a counter-clerk at some office in the depths of an industrial park. I wasn’t even sure what the business was, but it paid $11. 50 an hour to answer phones and file paperwork, and it kept my mind off Valentine.
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