WITH THE END of the flight nearing, I nursed the disguised bottle of Vodka in my left hand, pondering how it wouldn’t look good for word to get back to James and have him point a finger in my direction. I could only imagine the things he would say to me if he knew I wasn’t at the top of my game. He trusted me to babysit his daughter, while little did he know, I was nursing somewhat of my own broken heart. Or as much of a heart that could be broken for a man not in love.
Bringing the bottle to my lips, I pried the cap open with my teeth and tossed back the last of its contents. The liquid burnt as it hit the lining of my throat–a welcome pain, unlike the one in my chest. I’d never experienced a feeling, or a circumstance, sad and satisfying both at once.
I squeezed the air from the bottle and hid it behind my back, turning back to face Blue beside me, who was beginning to wake as the plane made its descent. She still had her head on my shoulder. As I expected, she hadn’t woken up once. Not for some food. Not to use the bathroom. And not to sass me with her pretty mouth.
Feeling my eyes on her, her own opened, glancing up at me under her eyelashes with a look of contemplation on her face. My brows lowered because I wasn’t sure what she was contemplating.
Did she know?
Nah, she couldn’t.
She raised her head from my shoulder, and then, as if had never been there, the moment was lost. Perhaps it wasn’t the past but I’d let my mask slip when thinking of my future and where it was headed, giving her a moment’s glimpse into my state of mind.
“That was fast,” she said, surprising me. Then she shook her head and covered her mouth with a yawn, prompting a chain reaction from me.
I rubbed my eyes. “You almost slept the whole ten-hour flight.”
“That was the plan. I hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours before this in preparation. I’ve had so much caffeine in the last two days that I’m surprised I slept at all.”
I only wished I had the option of the same luxury. Sleep was hard to come by these days, even with liquor in my veins. Pills, on the other hand, weren’t worth the daytime drowsiness.
The plane hit the runway, and not five minutes later we were unfastening our seatbelts and standing from our seats. My eyes were on the large lady on the end seat as she shuffled into the aisle, but my words were intended for Blue. “Your father cancelled your accommodation at the university halls a few weeks back. You’ll be living with me for a while.”
“Living with you?” Her voice raised an octave, which earned her some strange looks from other passengers. Then she turned to face me. “He cancelled my accommodation? What the fuck? I don’t want to live with you.” She rushed out the last bit in a whisper, but seemed to be shouting.
“Well, you don’t have a choice.”
“The whole point of me moving here was for the sole reason I could do things on my own without him coddling me,” she groaned. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, despite what he might think. Despite what it is he’s arranged.”
She turned away from me with a roll of her eyes, then stepped out into the aisle where the passengers from the back of the plane had already made their descent. I followed after her, standing tall behind her petite frame as she stood on her tiptoes, reaching into the overhead compartment to seek out her bag.
Her rebellious attitude was edging closer to pissing me off more than it had previously amused me. I was too tired for this shit. Although perhaps her lack of understanding and the vodka strumming through my veins had only intensified the situation.
I had one job. One job that happened to be more intricate than I was comfortable with. And I didn’t have a fucking clue how I was supposed to handle it.
My hand came down to her hip, grounding her, and then I let go, my front touching her back as I reached for her bag myself. Pulling it from the compartment, I pushed it against her chest and watched over her shoulder as her hands came up to take it from me.
The alcohol I’d consumed wasn’t doing anything to control the aggravated energy coursing through me. And with that, I didn’t let go. Not when she tried to pull it from my grasp. Not when she huffed in frustration. Not even when the flight attendant told us we were the last on the back of the aircraft and they were waiting for us.
I leant down and placed my lips against her ear as though I was sharing a secret. “Like I already said, kid, you don’t have a choice.”
She probably wasn’t used to people telling her no in a way that was so hands-on. She might not have known it, but whatever she hoped for in London was likely nothing she’d expected. Suddenly, I didn’t give a shit how fragile she was. She’d have no choice but to harden up pretty quick if she wanted to survive in the world I lived in.
“I know women like you. I’m sure you have people kiss your feet back home; cater to your every want and need just because you know how to pull someone’s strings. But it won’t be like that with me. Do as your fucking told, and we won’t have any problems.”
I’d been walked over enough for the last twelve months. Fuck, the last eleven years. Nothing I did was ever good enough. Sophia never stopped wanting more. I didn’t need another woman, let alone a fucking kid, testing the boundaries on top of everything else in my life.
She yanked her bag from my grip and turned around to face me, our bodies a fraction apart, her bag barely keeping us at a distance. Eyes were on us. The staff on the plane were quite possibly on the brink of calling security. However, James may have paid them a hefty paycheck too. Who was I kidding? Of course he had.
It was his fucking plane.
They were his fucking staff.
Fuck them, I thought. They didn’t have to put her up in their homes. They didn’t have to force her self-indulgent attitude into submission. He asked me to take care of Blue for a reason.
He’d put his trust specifically in me because he could trust me, even if it didn’t make sense to anyone but him. Even if it made no sense to me.
Blue looked up at me, more awake than she was five minutes ago, only now with anger in her eyes and an ugly scowl on her otherwise pretty face. A contrast to the timid smile from ten hours ago.
“You don’t know me,” she said.
“I don’t.”
We stood there quietly, bathing in each other’s features until she raised her chin a fraction higher to sass me. “For someone who’s been hired to look after me, chauffeur me, be my maid, or whatever else you’ve been paid to do, I think you’re a total dick, FYI.”
She dropped her bag with one hand and pushed the other against my chest. I didn’t move an inch. I leant into her, forcing her backwards. “Say what you want about me,” I grit, reaching over her shoulder for my rucksack. “But your father asked this of me, so if you want to take it out on anyone, take it out on him.”
Even with one arm caged between us and her fingers brushing my abs through the material of my hoody, there was no mistaking the frustrated exhale that came from her mouth or the warmth of her breath against my collar. It was equally as pleasurable as it was uncomfortable. We were in too close proximity, given our current state of affairs. I mentally shook myself. She wasn’t Sophia. She was my boss’s juvenile daughter, for fuck’s sake.
Before I could lower my rucksack and step back, she’d squeezed herself under my arm and took off down the aisle, looking so smug that she’d gotten away from me. I did the only thing I could do and followed after her, though it didn’t take me many strides to catch up. She was still nearly a foot shorter than me in those heels, even with her toned sun-kissed legs looking a mile long in her dress.
With us being the last to leave the aeroplane, we were also the last to go through passport control. And after Blue’s far from quick trip to the bathroom, we were also the last to collect her luggage. She didn’t have just one suitcase, but two. After watching her struggle to pull them along, I snatched both handles from her and pulled them alongside me instead.
“I was managing just fine,” she said, keeping up with my strides as her red-bottomed boots hit the floor in small bursts behind me.
“Sure you were.”
I wouldn’t see her struggle just to be a prick. There were other ways to abolish her fragility without allowing her to sprain her ankle. Still, irritation loomed over me like a rain cloud, and my knuckles whitened as I clenched the handles of the suitcases.
As soon as my vodka buzz had worn off, I’d be on the blower to her father.
This wasn’t my forte.
No amount of money was worth this shit.
The booze was talking more than it was me. Because it was worth it. I knew it was all worth it. Every single detested second. It wasn’t a rain cloud above my head; it was a rainbow. And unlike most rainbows that folks said led to a pot of gold, mine led to a goldmine. And that goldmine was The Lagoon.
Still, I couldn’t fathom explaining to James why I was in such a shit state of mind. And why Sophia wasn’t currently in the picture, helping me out while we, what, parented his fucking daughter?
“Thank you, I suppose,” she mumbled, barely loud enough for me to hear.
“So you do have manners hiding under all that brat.”
She scoffed. “Except I’m not a brat. Not even close.”
Choosing to ignore her, I walked through the airport’s automatic doors and into the dark, glacial British weather. And immediately, the noxious smell of London assaulted my senses. Blue followed in tandem, almost bumping into me when I slowed to a stop in search of Finley, my driver. I spotted him outside the arrival hall of our terminal as requested, which happened to be just across from where we stood. His tired eyes met mine, and the wrinkles on his face stood out under the orange streetlight he’d parked under.
“Get in the car,” I said to Blue as I walked across the road. “And don’t fight me on this with all that yolo juvenile shit you preached on the plane.”
“This is so fucked up. I don’t even know your name,” she squealed. “And please, none of that shit was juvenile.”
My eyebrows dipped. “You know my name.” But when I stopped in the road and reflected, I realised she didn’t. Why would she? James had decided to keep me from her. I meant no more than any other man who worked for her father in her eyes.
“Nate–Walker,” I corrected quickly, glancing over my shoulder to check she was still following me.
“Nate Walker,” she repeated.
“Walker to everyone that knows me. Only my brother calls me Nate.” I felt the need to clarify. Not James, not even Sophia, called me by my first name. So I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d given it to her–another thing I could perhaps blame on my current mindset.
I led the small distance across the road and handed our luggage over to Finley with a nod, who placed it in the car. When Blue appeared beside me, I opened the vehicle’s back door for her to slide in. She was a little hesitant, so I placed a hand on her head and gently pushed her down.
“Quit fucking about,” I said, closing her door to muffle her response before rounding the car to slip in beside her.
Finley fell into his seat a second later. “Where to, boss?”
Blue was looking out the window when I met Finley’s eyes in the mirror, giving him a subtle lift of my chin. “Kensington.”
It was a thirty-minute drive to my penthouse. Blue sat in silence, but I could tell how her mind was racing by the stiffness in her body. The soft hum of the engine and the swish of passing traffic were barely a distraction from her presence. I wasn’t used to sharing a car with anyone but my driver. Even Sophia had her own means of transport. Guess our relationship could have been read from that alone to anyone who cared to look outside the lines of our marriage.
My vision was recognisably fuzzy, but even in the fucking dark, I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from the girl beside me. The last time I’d seen her in a car was when she was a child. Her sitting beside me now brought an uncomfortable memory of that night.
My eyes observed every detail I could make out with whatever light hit her through the window. Like the small scar on her collarbone and the dusting of freckles over her nose. I hadn’t realised how intensely I was staring until she turned to face me.
When her voice finally broke through the silence, moulding the tension into something less than it was, I practically bathed in the sound of her voice. I had no idea how to handle a situation as unique as ours. I wasn’t sure what I thought of her not knowing who I was–that I saved her. That I saved her yet harmed her.
What a head fuck.
“I’m not going to jump out of the car or anything ridiculous, so you can quit gawping.”
“I’m not gawping,” I replied. Except I was, just not in the way she understood. Perhaps not even in a way I did.
I relaxed my elbow against the car door and leant my chin on my fist. “Tell me, what’s London got that Miami doesn’t?”
“Haven’t we already been through this?”
My eyes didn’t leave hers. “Talk me through it again.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like him.”
Him as in James.
It was dark in the car, but her eyes were still vivid even in the minimal light. I doubt I could ever forget them, even if I’d wanted to. Everything about her was different now, except for them.
“I was a dick on the plane,” I stated.
“I said you were,” she bit back, no hesitation in insulting me. I wondered if that was something she did often or if it was purely just her father and me that she had an issue with.
Something possessed me to reach up to the roof and click on the interior light. She looked from the light to me with intrigue, her eyes floating across my face.
The tension in her body was more noticeable with the light on. She’d knotted her fingers together on her lap, showing off their lack of blood supply. Her shoulders hunched up like she was on the edge of her seat.
“You’re a lot different from what I imagined you to be,” I said, my eyes moving from her hands back to her face. Up until today, I still had this image of her in my head. One of her as a child, her big Bambi eyes full of suffering.
“People tend to build a perception of me before getting to know me.”
There was something flawed with the way she said it. Something equally offended as it was sad.
“And that offends you?”
“Wouldn’t it offend you? People judge me,” she said matter-of-factly.
“That’s the way we’re wired, isn’t it? We’re all guilty of barring judgement on others.”
She turned to face the window, pressing her forehead against it as she looked out. Her breath fogged up the glass pane as she spoke. “If you want the truth, I never expected to hear back from The University of Duke. Especially with me living in Miami.”
“Then why did you apply?” I wondered. “If you wanted to go to college, why not choose something closer to home?”
“I’m afraid you’ll think my answer is juvenile.”
I could see the subtle roll of her eyes as she threw my word choice back at me. “Is it another ‘you only live once, so fuck the world and be damned response,’ or does this one hold more merit?”
She glanced a look at me over her shoulder. “I thought about it. All summer, I thought about not leaving Miami. But I guess… I guess I had a point to prove, okay? I wanted to piss off my father as much as I wanted to leave.”
Her eyes searched mine for something. Understanding, maybe? The judgement she just spoke of? Who the fuck knew? This was as unusual for me as it was for her.
“I thought he would have figured out I’d applied and wavered my application before it had arrived in Duke’s mailbox. I didn’t expect to receive a confirmation of my place. I definitely didn’t expect him to give in and let me go. But I also didn’t expect this,” she said, untangling her hands and waving a finger between us. “The night I told him… I assumed he was calling them to toss my application. I didn’t think he’d organise something this crazy.”
“Well, you succeeded in pissing him off, and you’re still here. What would you have done if he hadn’t?” I asked.
“Hadn’t pissed him off?”
“Hadn’t let you go,” I clarified, trying to read into her.
She turned back to the window, pressing her fingers against the glass. “I can’t answer that,” she said after a beat. “But I know he’ll soon realise that I’ll be just fine without someone holding my hand.”
“Maybe, kid.” My line of sight fell to her hands as she dropped her fingers from the window and clung on to the material of her dress for dear life. “Then again, maybe not.”
She whipped her head back in my direction, her gaze following mine as I took note of her confused expression before I dropped it back to her stiff fingers.
She was giving away more than she realised.
“Would it make it better if we pretended I wasn’t holding your hand and you were holding mine?”
I smirked in spite of myself.
I never regarded myself as the type of man to use sarcasm to mask my problems–and to a kid, no less. But as it went, there was a first for fucking everything.
BLUE
MY BROWS PINCHED TIGHT. Despite the sarcasm I detected in his tone, I couldn’t help but feel as if there was some sincerity in his words. It was hard to believe the asshole sitting beside me would ever need someone to hold his hand. Regardless of the little sympathy I felt for him, I threw it to the wind when I found myself growing defensive. If he was going to continue to be a dick, then he didn’t deserve my kindness.
I licked my lips and gave him a hard stare. “Somehow, that sounds even more tragic, don’t you think?”
A frown replaced his smirk as he hit the light off in the car. I got the impression I may have offended him—my comeback not entertaining him as it had me. Though it hadn’t really entertained me as much as I’d hoped. I didn’t like being mean. I didn’t like having to put up a front. But as it went, it was easier than confessing the truth. Nobody cared to understand the broken girl. The silence resumed then, weighing heavily on my bones. I suppose it was expected with what we didn’t have in common and how little we knew of each other. I’d been in some strange situations before. And being my father’s daughter, I’d walked into them blindly. But this was up there with being one of the most abnormal situations I’d ever experienced in my life so far. I’m not sure I’d have been here if I had known the plan he’d made behind my back.
It felt like a long drive, but the time on the car’s centre console said it had been less than thirty minutes since we’d left Heathrow Airport. Still, I was itching to exit the vehicle.
Noticing me staring through the windshield, Walker’s driver’s eyes briefly met mine through the mirror before finally slowing the car to a halt.
I turned away, looking out my window to see a large white building lit up like a palace with wraparound glass windows. Walker’s arm reached over my lap, opening the car door from inside. Startled, I’d reached out to grab it.
“We’re here,” he said, looking down at my fingers tightly grasping the sleeve of his jumper.
I caught the faint whiff of his breath before he’d moved away, my grip on him loosening. And then I stepped out of the vehicle, looking between him and the building in front of me.
I was about to go into this man’s home. And based on the scent I just inhaled, he was intoxicated. I failed to understand my father’s logic. Why he thought Walker housing me was the better option. Why he believed I was safer with a practical stranger than with people my age? It’s not like I was a complete hermit, despite his efforts to keep me locked away or within a reasonable distance of what he perceived as anything dangerous. He’d never admit it, but I believed his issues were worse than my own.
Of course, he’d never known the extent of my experiences. He’d assumed the parties I attended over the summer were the slumber kind. Sexual encounters–non-existent. And as for drugs–prescription only. I was an angel in his eyes. The truth of my experiences may have just pushed him over the edge. His little princess was not entirely as sheltered as he’d hoped for.
If he’d had known what happened on the days when he let me out past my curfew, he’d have had a lock on my door. When you combined rich kids, alcohol, and narcotics, it made for one big happy family. And my father was no clean-cut man. He attracted women like flies to shit. He owned controversial businesses that had more write-ups than Disney had Dalmatians. He fucked twenty-year-olds in our backyard without regard for those watching.
And if that was grief, I didn’t want it.
It was probably why he didn’t like Ebony. She did what she wanted, just like he did. Not that we were related, but if I took after my father like she did her mother when her father died, I’d probably be more like her and less like me.
Walker chose not to be conscious of me as we made our way through the attended lobby. I’m not sure if he’d intended it for the presence of the pretty young woman on the night shift, sitting behind the tall desk, but he nodded at her as we passed by. She returned his nod with a dimpled smile, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. She didn’t look too much older than me–and she was unquestionably flustered as he walked past her. I briefly wondered if there was something between them or whether they were sleeping together. No strings attached. Walker struck me as the type of man with a revolving door of attractive women to fulfil his male fantasies. The chances are he did, considering he was close with my father. I just hoped I didn’t have to bear witness to the sounds of slapping bodies and porn star moans as I did at home.
We walked the length of the room and into the elevator, where I hiked the strap of my bag over my shoulder and stared up at Walker like, dare I say, a lost puppy dog.
He stared ahead, swiping his elevator key across the keypad without looking. Before I knew it, we were heading up, and as quick as the doors had closed moments ago, they were now gliding open with a smooth transition. We stepped out and straight into his apartment, the doors closing automatically behind us. Walker touched a button on the wall, and a few lights came to life, illuminating the expansive place.
“You can take the master suite for now,” he said, sliding his elevator key into his pocket.
His words didn’t register. I was too busy taking in everything. Inside was more than just your typical London apartment. It shouldn’t have surprised me since he worked for my father and had a personal driver, but he lived in a penthouse boasting panoramic views of the famous Hyde Park. Though unlike the outside–bright white and vibrant–inside was moody and black.
I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking in the views of the city before twirling around and decidedly falling onto the couch that stood facing the view. “Do you own all this?”
“The view?” He smirked. “No.”
I turned to give him a condescending smile.
He sighed. “It’s leased. Ellis and Frey real estate own the building.”
As he left the room and wheeled my suitcases down the hallway, I allowed my eyes to survey the layout. A large TV was attached snuggly to a wall between two of the windows, and a small rounded table stood off to the side of the couch beside an armchair. There were no walls between the kitchen and the living area. The space was large enough to remain completely open. Barely any boundaries, except for the hallway leading to other rooms.
He came back into view a few minutes later, arriving at the charcoaled granite of the kitchen island. He watched me as I relaxed back into the couch, letting out an instinctive moan when the cushions moulded to my back like a hug. The tension from my body seemed to ease, and I found my eyes begging to close. It didn’t seem to matter how much sleep I’d had already. Perhaps the exhaustion stemmed from so much happening in my life at once. Things I didn’t think possible.
It was crazy to think the impossible was… possible–sort of.
“Take the master suite,” he instructed, ruining my Zen.
I glared. “Isn’t this my home now too? Can’t I enjoy a few minutes on the couch without you telling me what to do? Do you think my dad would be comfortable with the way you’re speaking to me?”
My words lacked the conviction I’d hoped for, but I was trying to make a point. I didn’t care how much my father was paying him. The man really had no power over me.
“You ever tire of being privileged?” he bit out, stepping away from the kitchen. He raised a thick eyebrow but tore his eyes away from my face, staring through the window at the city below us instead. But it didn’t matter where he looked. Not when he’d made it obvious he was still waiting for my response.
In all honesty, I didn’t have one.
I guess I hadn’t truly known anything but privilege. But being privileged wasn’t me. It was the second reason I wanted to leave Miami if anybody would bother to listen before making their assumptions. But why waste my breath?
The drop lights above Walker illuminated half his face, so I could only see some of him, including the lustre of his green eye. I wondered if he knew just how handsome he was, if he knew the effect he had on the girl downstairs, or whether he was oblivious to both. Though how could he be when he looked the way he did? He was undeniably good looking. And not like the most popular boy in school kind of way. But in a grown-up, I bet I can show you all kinds of things, kind of way. Like a teenager with a crush, I couldn’t stop checking him out every chance I got. And how was it my brain wavered back to how handsome he was instead of how much of a dick he was acting?
His eyes sought me out, pulling at something inside me and making me retreat into myself. I hated when people tried to read me so obviously. Out of habit, I reached onto my head for my sunglasses but came up empty-handed.
“Shit.”
“They’re in your bag.”
When I stared at him, dumbfounded, he finally turned back to look at me head-on, sliding his hands into the front pockets of his sweats. “Your sunglasses? You fell asleep with them on your lap. I asked the air hostess to put them in your bag on the plane.”
My head dropped to the side. “Why would you do that?”
“I told your father I’d take care of you. So that’s what I’m going to do.” He took a breath, removing a hand from his pocket to swipe over his jaw. “Go to bed.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I said, growing just as agitated as he looked. “Any part of it.”
“I know.” He nodded. “But this is the way it is. And while you’re here with me, it’ll make it easier for both of us if you just fucking listen.”
I debated telling him I’d done most of what I was told my whole life, but he clearly preferred dictating over listening. And just as I’d felt with my father back in his office, I knew it wasn’t worth the fight, especially when I’d only just got here.
Instead of arguing, I climbed to my feet and snatched my bag from beside me, fleeing to find the room he’d assigned me to. He said something behind me, but I chose to let it go through one ear and out the other, making a show of tossing my hair over my shoulder.
Screw him.
Screw my father.
And screw whatever arrangement they’d assembled without me.
