The first sign that I needed to pause the brakes on the trainwreck that was my situationship with Farrow Ballantine came from Natalie, of all people.
She cornered me in the conservatory, where I sat with six laptops open, trying and failing to track multiple markets on the tiny 12-inch screens. “Did something happen to your office?”
Yeah. Farrow’s in it.
I wasn’t avoiding her.
On the contrary, she’d spent the past three days since the sauna incident dodging me every time I rounded a corner.
Occasionally, she’d dip into my office and revisit our Go game, moving a stone here or there, but only when I wasn’t inside. Which, pathetically, forced me to set up camp in the opposite wing of the manor.
I didn’t look up from the screens. “Is there a reason you’re here?”
“Just concerned.”
You and me both.
Since when did I rearrange my life to suit the needs of another person that wasn’t blood related to me?
Better yet, since when did Farrow Ballantine become someone whose thoughts, actions, and emotions I considered at all?
I shot up from the chair, startling Natalie when it pelted across the room. Her jaw almost dislodged itself after I began pacing the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
I was going to erupt.
Three days.
Three fucking days.
Three days since Farrow confronted me in the sauna, forcing me to question my own sanity.
Three days since I felt her cum drip on my fingers and kneaded her ass—her flesh—without coiling or vomiting.
Three days since the tight walls of her wet pussy caged the tip of my cock inside them, squeezing it for dear life.
What would fucking her bareback feel like?
That very question consumed my days and devoured my nights.
I was a man obsessed, and I couldn’t focus on anything other than relishing the feel of her.
Suddenly, I couldn’t remember why or when I found human skin appalling. I wanted hers on mine twenty-four seven.
Which brought me to my next problem.
Farrow showed no signs of warming up the cold shoulder she’d given me since that day. I craved any sign of life from her. Any proof that she wanted my touch as much as I wanted hers.
And so, I found myself taking lengthy trips in my orchid garden, meditating four times a day instead of three, and roaming the hallways of my mansion like a haunted ghost, hunting for signs of her.
She was everywhere, and yet, nowhere at all.
In the random appetizer on my lunch tray that hadn’t changed for seventeen years.
In the extra sheet on my bed beneath the comforter when the temperatures dropped with the season change.
And in my office surveillance feeds, which I checked to make sure that she’d actually come to make her Go move.
Astonishingly, she completed her job to my satisfaction.
I’d gone through every maid in the DMV to the point where I dumped ludicrous investments into robotic cleaning equipment in hopes I never had to deal with human incompetence again.
But under Farrow’s care, the manor never looked better.
The problem? She moved things around—yet again, forcing change on me.
She put flowers in vases. Shifted furniture from one place to another. Drew back all the curtains to let natural light flood in.
I should’ve found it silly that she took pride in making my house a home. That she grinned to herself when she rearranged a fruit bowl on one of my kitchen islands or tilted a painting to the perfect angle.
She seemed completely content avoiding me, while I was on the verge of clawing my own skin off. Why weren’t we talking? Teasing each other? Touching each other?
I was like a baby who had just figured out how to walk.
I wanted to do it all the time. Touch her hair. Her cheeks. Her tits. Her pussy.
On the fourth day of our radio silence, I finally cornered her.
She was in my garden, of all places, eviscerating a white rose bush to fill my six-figure art vases.
I figured she wouldn’t take it well if I told her those roses shouldn’t be placed in urns that were essentially historical treasures, some over 600 years old. The exposure to moisture alone would eviscerate their value.
The simple black-and-white maid dress clung to her curves, highlighting every arch and bend. Her hair, like molten gold, framed her shoulders and face.
She wore earbuds in her ears, bobbing her head back and forth as she took scissors to my well-tended flowers. She didn’t hear me coming, even when I stood about a foot away from her.
Her scent drifted to my nose. She smelled of summer and sin; of the sun kissing a flower in bloom.
Since she wore clothes, I didn’t think twice before tapping her shoulder to grab her attention.
She jumped a little, staggering from the bushes, and plucked her earbuds out of her ears. “Jesus, Zach. You scared me.”
Right back at you. I am fucking terrified of you, Octi.
Instead of saying this, I knotted my fingers behind my back and pinned her with a dissatisfied glare. “May I ask you a question?”
“No.”
“I’ll ask one anyway. Why am I getting the silent treatment?”
“What silent treatment?” She dumped a pile of roses into a bucket, wiping her hands over her apron. “You have used every opportunity to tell me I’m the help. Why would I seek you out and strike up a conversation?”
She was downplaying what we were, and it pissed me off. I had to take a deep breath and count to ten backwards.
I never got angry.
What the hell was happening?
“You and I struck a deal,” I drawled, towering over her, using every ounce of my self-control not to lash out at her. I’d always pitied my colleagues and friends who succumbed to emotions at the most trivial inconvenience. “And right now, you are not fulfilling your part of the bargain.”
“And you are?” She turned back to the bushes, grabbing the shears from the muddy ground and attacking the roses in full force. This wasn’t cutting. This was decapitating. “I began fulfilling my end of the bargain, yet here I am, three weeks in, and I have no lawyer, no private investigator, and no lead to start fighting Vera with.”
So, this was why she was angry and ignoring me? Because she thought I’d forgotten about my promise to her?
My jaw tensed. I had to massage it to stop myself from barking at her. “Arrangements have been made.”
They were not, in fact, made.
I’d planned to prolong the inevitable as much as I could.
“Uh-huh. Sure. Super secret arrangements that nobody’s ever heard about.” More rose-cutting. She was relentless. At this rate, she’d leave my garden completely bare. She had no idea what she was doing. “How very convenient that you kept it all under wraps.”
“I’m working on it.” My lips barely moved when I spoke.
Behind us, the balcony doors clicked open. Mom and Celeste Ayi, no doubt. We had lunch together every Friday.
Only, this Friday, I’d forgotten on account of the fact that I’d just discovered pussy and wanted my next meal.
“I don’t believ—”
I grabbed Farrow by the arms, past caring what Mom and Ayi might think, and turned her to face me. “I’m afraid you are going to have to believe me. You have no choice. We’ve entered a business agreement. That makes us partners right now. When I said I made arrangements, I meant it. We have a meeting with my team of lawyers and a private investigator today at four. I was waiting for the stock market to close before the meeting.”
She blinked fast, her face jumping from emotion to emotion, starting with confusion and ending with hope.
And then she did something completely terrible.
She smiled.
She smiled, and I felt it everywhere in my body.
“You did that?”
“Yes,” I grumbled. “I told you I would. You should probably change into your normal clothes for the meeting.”
I did a quick once-over, angry that she’d made me explain myself. I’d never been in this situation before.
She nodded, fingering the velvety petals of a rose in her bucket. “I will.”
Pause.
I wondered if she knew my mother was watching. Probably not. She seemed deep in thought.
Farrow raised her gaze to meet mine. “Do I need to pay anything? A retainer? A…”
“I’ll take care of everything.” I shook my head. “You just have to show up and give us a rundown of what’s happening.”
She nodded. I felt desperate for something. I didn’t know what.
My fists balled at my sides.
Turn around, Zach. Walk away.
Instead, I just stared at her, hostility radiating off me in waves. Waiting for… What? A thank you?
I didn’t want her to thank me. Thanking someone was formal in Chinese culture. It signified distance between two people, and I wanted her close.
“Well?” She licked her lips, scanning my face, seeming unsure herself. “Do you need something else?”
Your attention. Your impossible words. Your sweet pussy. Especially your sweet pussy.
“For you to stop murdering my roses,” I blurted out instead, prying the sheers from her fingers. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
She laughed a little. “I finished cleaning the entire place and got bored. Humor me.”
I said nothing.
I was, in fact, humoring her. Letting her get away with things I never would anyone else.
“Zach…” Farrow frowned. “Do you want me to touch you?”
Yes. No.
Jesus, I have no fucking clue.
I felt like I was regressing—Benjamin-Buttoning myself back to high school, where I didn’t know how to think, feel, or act around girls.
I tossed the shears into a bucket of fresh roses she’d slaughtered. “You can touch me, I suppose.”
Though the kind of touching I had in mind wasn’t something I necessarily wanted my immediate family to witness.
Her lips twitched, not quite a smile. “Try again.”
My nostrils flared. “Please, touch me.”
She raised a brow, clearly amused. “Where?”
Anywhere.
Everywhere.
But I had to keep it SFW, seeing as Celeste Ayi was probably ready to break out the camcorder and offer industry tips.
“Face,” I hissed out, humiliated and elated all at once. My whole body trembled with the admission. “I want to feel skin on my face.”
It would be the first time since the accident. Since his blood dripped into my eyes, running down my cheeks like tears.
We stared at each other, and for a moment, the world ceased to exist. Birds did not chirp. Clouds did not sail overhead. My mother did not watch us with her disapproving glare.
Farrow’s chest moved with a ragged breath. She set the bucket of flowers down on the ground, her hands rising up to my face.
“Tell me something to distract you,” she instructed, her smile soft, her voice silk. “Something about the octopus.”
I shut my eyes. “It has three hearts.”
“I bet it loves big.”
Her hands almost reached my face. I could feel them hovering in front of it. I stopped breathing altogether, bracing myself for it.
“It is a tragic creature,” I countered, popping one eye open. “It can never love. It is programmed to consummate its reproductive purpose, procreate, then perish right after. It never stands a chance to live.”
“Couldn’t you call me a kitten, then?” Farrow scrunched her nose, looking annoyingly adorable. “I’d even take a bunny.”
“Kittens are a generic choice. Bunnies belong in Hugh Hefner’s mansion.” I opened the other eye now, shaking my head, resolute. “You are an octopus. Smart. Sophisticated. Tragic.”
And then it happened.
Her palms clasped my face from both sides, bracketing my cheeks. I sucked in a breath and slammed my eyes shut. Her warm, damp skin pressed onto mine.
I forced myself to open my eyes. To look at her.
Her nails grazed my skin. A shudder thundered down my spine.
“Look at me, Zach.” She smiled. She smiled. “You can do this. You can touch. Feel.”
We stood in the garden like two trees, sturdy but fragile, swaying gently with the wind, and I couldn’t bear it. How everything slammed into me all at once.
The memories. The disgust. And the guilt for wanting to feel her skin, still, even though my father was dead, and I couldn’t even remember his dying words.
“What happened to you?” she croaked.
I shook my head.
I couldn’t tell. Couldn’t repeat it for my own ears to hear, let alone hers.
“Does this feel okay?”
I thought about it. “It… feels.” Good. Bad. Complicated. “And that’s more than I can ever ask for.”
“Zachary,” Mom barked from the balcony, dousing the moment with ice. “You are late, and we are hungry.”
Farrow unclasped her hands from my face, darting a step back. Her neck flushed. “I’ll see you at four.”
She turned away from me, picking up the bucket of roses and scurrying toward the front door.
“Don’t leave,” I croaked, the voice coming out of nowhere.
She paused but didn’t turn to face me.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, and I didn’t know why, but everything felt tragic all of a sudden. Like the octopus, creating life just to end her own.
Swiveling on my heel, feeling the sting of her hands on my face, and knowing I wouldn’t try to scrub it clean of her touch, I made my way to the balcony.
Mom and Ayi sat on the marble banisters, staring at me like I’d just landed in a cornfield on a spaceship with a Spongebob propellor hat on my head. Perplexed did not begin to cover it.
They looked like they were having an out of body experience.
“You should be careful with the staff.” Mom spoke loud enough for Farrow to hear. “You don’t want a sexual harassment lawsuit.”
I didn’t answer.
Growing up, people always told me, ‘So good you survived.’
But had I really survived that crash?
I didn’t think I did. I’d lost too many parts of myself that day.
Still, I lived without living. After all—survivors are pros at going through the motions with the weight of everyone left behind on their shoulders.
And for twenty-one years, that was my fate.
Until now.
I was making progress. Slowly coming alive.
Lights were too bright. Food oversaturated with taste.
But I was no longer dead inside.
And that frightened me.
