BILLIONAIRE (Part 5) Read online

  “Yeah, I did.” Certain things were starting to make sense to me. About him. About his overdeveloped sense of protectiveness. “You spent all those years taking care of him.”

  “I tried to. Sometimes I think I fucked him up more than I helped him. Like he might have been better off in foster care. But I just couldn’t do that to him. Hand him over to some stranger who could’ve been as bad as what we’d escaped from. I was all he had. His only family. I just couldn’t give up on him like that. I had to try to make it work.” He paused here, as though debating whether or not to continue. “But Jake … he’s … missing something, I think. He’s missing an element of compassion that most people have that just never had a chance to take hold in him because of the way he grew up. I worry about him sometimes. He’s been in trouble a couple of times. He’s been accused of things. But never convicted. By that time I had enough money to settle out of court. But I worry about the way he uses women. He lacks remorse in a way that pisses me off sometimes. He’s got a real … dark side. He doesn’t think of consequences. And he’s still a hell-raiser.”

  “And you’re still helping him.”

  “Giving him a job is the least I can do for him. He’s pretty good at making money when he puts his mind to it. He can charm people easily enough. But there’s a hole in him that I … I don’t know. It’s just there.”

  “I understand that hole,” I said, without overthinking my reply. Just going with it. This was the most personal and exposed conversation I had ever had with anyone – bar none – about my past. I knew without asking that it was equally groundbreaking for Alexander. Right here, out in the open, in a lavender-walled room in the Louvre, of all places. I spoke quietly and Alexander leaned closer. “There were men that visited my mother,” I began. “She was pretty, even then. Even when it got bad. She was lonely. Even as a child of nine or ten I was barely ever home. Already I was determined to do well in school and – like you – dig my way out of that … life. Already I knew that graduating with good grades was my ticket, if only I could achieve it. I wasn’t sure I could. I had to work so hard. It didn’t come easily at first. I had to teach myself. I practically lived at school and in the bookstores and libraries. Sometimes, when I got a little older, I would take a bus to Charlottesville to the university there. I sat in the classrooms when they were empty. I touched the books, I don’t know, … like I wanted to absorb what was in them through osmosis or something. The students were everything I aspired to be, with their cars and their backpacks, their shiny hair and their laughter. That’s what I wanted. A future. A fun, bright, happy future. I could almost feel like I was a part of it when I was around them. But then I’d have to go home again.”

  This next part was harder to talk about, but I kept going. I could feel the therapeutic purge of emotion even before I spoke. “There was one man in particular who spent time with my mother. He lived with us for almost a year. When I was thirteen.” My voice had grown raspy and Alexander’s face showed the beginnings of anger. He was anticipating what I was about to say. I liked that anger there. I imagined I could use it to fend off the anxiety, as a shield where before there’d been nothing. No protection. No hope of escape. I kept the description simple but the husked edge to my voice hinted at the depth of my buried sorrow. “He used to come into my room. He would … touch me. He would make me touch him. He never took it … all the way. He never took my virginity, but he did … other things. Lots of things. All the time. Every night. My mother was so out of it. So unaware. He used all that complacency and all that grief to his full advantage.” I paused and Alexander let me. He waited for me to continue, which I did. “It was relentless. And it made me feel so dirty. Every night after my mother had passed out he would come to me. He didn’t physically beat me but the pain of it all was … just so awful. The hole grew bigger. Darker and deeper.”

  Alexander reached for my hand and held it. “Jesus, Lila. You didn’t tell anyone? You didn’t tell your mother?”

  “I thought about it. I thought about telling her. But he could read that. He threatened to kill her. He could tell I was getting close. So he killed my pet rabbit. As a warning. I was devastated. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I finally ran away. I lived under a bridge for a while. I slept in a barn. I hid in the library and got locked in for the night. I loved the sound of that lock clicking into place. It meant no one could get me. No one could get in. I slept in a chicken coop, once. But I always went to school, if I could. I kept my hiding places close enough to get there. No matter what. My teachers noticed, eventually, and I was returned home. By then he was gone. The police realized the squalor of our living conditions. My mother was put into a rehab facility, but she never got better. She died when I was a sophomore in college. I was placed in foster care, with a single woman who was kind enough but distant. She needed the money. I was grateful for the roof over my head. The electricity. The food. But we were both relieved when I left for Princeton.”

  “Christ,” Alexander said, his rage muted by a compassion that was so full of understanding it undid me. The memories didn’t make me cry. Not even the relief that my life had changed so profoundly from those horrific dark days. It was Alexander’s grasp of my damages that coiled right into my heart like a soulful, jagged knife, spilling fear and grief and loss along with my blood. Releasing all those pent-up secrets.

  Confessing all that felt more than restorative.

  It felt like solace. It felt like life. It felt like trust.

  It felt like love.

  Alexander put his arm around me and stood slowly, guiding me along with him with careful reverence. As though I was made of glass. His eyes never left me. “I’m taking you back to the hotel. I’m canceling our meeting with Etienne. We can do that another day.”

  He had made a dinner meeting with the editor-in-chief of the French edition of his magazine. I’d been looking forward to it. After all, it wasn’t every day a person dined with a billionaire and a Parisian editor of one of the world’s trendiest publications. And it would be the first time Alexander and I had socialized with someone other than each other since we’d arrived in Paris. “No, don’t cancel it,” I said. There were lingering tears in my eyes but I didn’t feel distraught. I felt comforted, if anything. I felt surprisingly calm, and light. “I want to go out.”

  “You’re not feeling up to it.”

  “Alexander, I’ve been living with these secrets for seven years. The only thing that’s changed is that now you know what haunts me. You said you wanted to know and now you do. I’m over all that. I escaped it. And now I’m with you.”

  Alexander stopped walking and stood, facing me. His hands were on my shoulders. He seemed touched by something I’d said. After several moments of staring, dazzled, into my eyes, he kissed me. The kiss was so tender it almost brought fresh tears to my eyes. “Yeah,” he said, and his voice had gone all husky. “You’re with me. And I’m going take such good fucking care of you, you’re going to forget all that other stuff once and for all.”

  “I already have.”

  He studied my face, not entirely convinced. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back to our hotel room? It’s a lot to confess. I know that wasn’t easy to do. I can meet with Etienne tomorrow. Or the next day.”

  “No. I’m fine.” More studious concern. But I felt unusually sanguine in the aftermath of my confession. I had never told anyone what I’d just told Alexander and the burden did feel lighter. Like it had happened to another person. Not entirely, but just a little. Just enough. “I want to go out. I want to eat with you. You should meet with your editor. Don’t worry about me. Rehashing old wrongs isn’t going to make them right. I just want to forget about my past and live my present.” I felt slightly more vulnerable than I was letting on, but that was nothing new. Most of my existence had been conducted through a veil of feigned courage. And in Alexander’s company, my imagined staunchness felt more empowered – more real – than it ever had. “Bring it on.”

 
This brought a half-smile to his lips. He kissed me again, this time allowing some of that wildcat eroticism to creep back into his protective concern. “Bring it on,” he whispered, repeating my words against my lips. “All right, then, honey girl. Have you had enough of Delacroix for today?”

  I nodded, and he lightly squeezed my hand, leading me out of one masterpiece-loaded gallery room and into another. He was about to ask me a question; I could tell by the little crinkle between his dark eyebrows. Already, I was learning his little idiosyncrasies and for some reason this pleased me immensely.

  “Seven years,” he said. “And you were thirteen.”

  “I don’t really want to talk about that anymore.”

  “No. I’m not. I’m just doing some basic math over here.”

  Ah. He’d figured out one of the details I’d yet to share with him. “And how’s that going for you?”

  He gave me a sideways glance. Damn, he was gorgeous. With his white cotton shirt, exquisitely made but worn to the point of being visibly-comfortable, the rich shine of his ink-black hair, the seraphic beauty of his absurdly-stunning tanned face, he was outshining the art. “You’re twenty?”

  “Nicely done, professor,” I said. “Now I get why you’re the CEO.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re not even old enough to legally drink?”

  “I am in France.”

  “Good point.”

  “And I’ll be twenty-one in two weeks.”

  He shook his head in disbelief, but he was smiling. “I know you got your degree in three years, but that would make you –”

  “I also skipped seventh grade,” I said.

  “All that library time,” he smiled gently.

  “Yeah. And the osmosis.”

  “I’m glad you told me.” His comment was quiet, almost off-hand, like he didn’t want to kick up any regret.

  “And I’m glad you told me,” I said, finding, oddly, that I was. On both fronts. I felt closer to the elusive billionaire Alexander Wolfe than I’d ever felt to anyone in my entire life. I didn’t know what that said about me, or him, and I didn’t particularly care. All I knew was that I was glad I’d survived all those dark days and terrifying nights, all that work and struggle and desperation. Because it had all brought me to this one moment of such glittering magnificence that it almost felt worth it.

  We sat at a cozy but very expensive restaurant on the Champs d’Elysee, in a corner table by the front window. The restaurant was busy but our little enclave felt secluded. We were early for our appointment, so Alexander ordered a bottle of champagne and some hors d’oevres. His command of French, like so many things about him, was impressive. He must have taught himself a couple of languages, somewhere between working those odd jobs, raising Jake, and clawing his way onto the honor roll. It felt different now that we knew each other’s secrets. Connective. Our pasts were both riddled with deprivation; we had that in common. That we now knew this about each other seemed to hinge us in a more profound way. Like the broken pieces of us somehow fit together.

  Our bond had begun with a rampant sexual attraction that had seen us forsake every consequence. And now it was blooming into something else altogether. Something equally as powerful and just as urgent.

  Studded now with the effect of our confessions, our sexual attraction was more relentless than ever. By this point, it had been many hours since we’d left the plush haven of our bed in Alexander’s hotel suite. In our ten days together – and this seemed astounding to me, that we’d only known each other for just under two weeks – we’d made love so frequently that our bodies had become accustomed to a certain timetable. Our need for each other was so ridiculously intense that this long stretch of hours of constant contact had driven us to a sort of fever pitch of foreplay and anticipation.

  I was wearing a black plunging V-neck silk-knit top, a short, flouncy black skirt, my new pink scarf and my Balenciaga boots. And nothing else.

  As we were waiting for our food to arrive, I got up to go and check my face after my gushing tell-all in the Louvre. I probably looked like a train wreck. Oddly, when I went to check my reflection in the mirror, I found I didn’t look stricken or shattered. My face was flushed along my cheekbones. My eyes were barely bloodshot, but the slight, fading redness gave my green irises an almost neon brilliance. The platinum streaks of my hair were artfully unruly.

  This newfound cocktail of love, lust, leisure and the Louvre was having an unexpected effect on my both my appearance and my outlook. I felt like I’d just lost ten pounds of existential weight. And the effect of my emotional purge apparently had left me more empowered and more courageous than ever. Like I’d just eaten a big meal of genius and it was still not only churning around in my psyche but manifesting itself into my look.

  I reapplied my mascara and lipstick, the way Eva had taught me only weeks ago. And I decided to make the most of my night.

  On my way back to the table, a gang of loud men were entering the restaurant. They were tall and Europeanly sporty, exuding youthful energy like they’d been playing soccer all afternoon in the heat. Their group parted for me, surrounding me as I walked through their ranks. Every single one of them stared at me with ravenous eyes. I still wasn’t used to this kind of reaction from men. I’d gone virtually unnoticed my entire life. Unfashionable glasses, tied-back hair, baggy clothes and a timid demeanor were as good as an invisibility cloak, which was exactly the effect I’d hoped for. But my makeover was now complete. The superficial dressing up was only half the transformation; my awakened sexuality radiated from me, and I could feel it.

  So, apparently, could they. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but from their leering, appreciative tone, I got the gist of their commentary. One of them touched my hair. Another smiled at me and blocked my path back to the table. I stepped around him, ignoring their banter, making my way back to Alexander, who was getting up from his seat.

  I’d never seen that kind of look on his face. Of pure, savage fury. I went crazy. I nearly killed the fucker. I thought I did kill the fucker. I meant to. He looked capable of that right then. Jesus, I thought. Obsessed and possessive doesn’t even begin to cover it. He’s gone mad. His fists were balled and he was taking a step in the direction of Équipe de France. There was no way I could let him to that. Alexander was a big, burly brute of a man but he was no match for ten Euro-yobs. I cupped his fist between my palms. “No,” I said.

  “Did you hear what they were saying to you?” he growled.

  “Yes. Luckily, though, I couldn’t understand a word of it. I don’t speak French. Now sit down.”

  “I’m gonna knock that asshole’s teeth in, that’s what I’m going to do. He fucking touched you.”

  I stood in front of him, blocking him. He was at least a head taller than me and probably outweighed me two and a half to one but I stood my ground. “Sit down,” I said again. If I’d paused to consider what was going on here – Alexander, my cool, sophisticated billionaire CEO boyfriend, had reverted to knuckle-dragging mode and was on the verge of starting some kind of testosterone-fueled brawl – I might have felt disconcerted by the extent of his rage over such a trivial thing as having a rugby thug’s fingertips graze an end strand of my hair as I passed him by. It was a good thing, then, that I didn’t pause to consider what was going on here. I wasn’t sure what it was but the day’s events (and lack thereof, since approximately noon) were conspiring in one forward direction.

  Madman or no, Alexander’s he-man act was turning me on big time.

  Something in the husked tone of my command got his attention. He looked down at me. Shooting one last lethal glare at the raucous men, who were now being led by the maître d’ to a large circular table in the middle area of the restaurant, he obeyed me. As he sat, he pulled me onto his lap. He scooched us further along the rounded booth, hiding the lower halves of our bodies from public view. My skirt splayed out over us, covering us. And as he moved under me, I could feel the hard outline of his burgeoning
desire rubbing against my bare skin.

  “I can’t stand this,” he rasped.

  “Can’t stand what?” I said.

  “Them. Seeing you. Thinking about what they want to do to you.”

  “What do you want to do to me, Alexander? I’m yours, remember? It’s you I want. Only you.” I wriggled lightly on his lap, stroking myself with the hard length of his cock.

  “Christ,” he breathed. “What are you doing to me?”

  I felt reckless. I wanted to please him. And I was already wet with anticipation. I could feel the throb of excitement in my juicy depths. I’d never had sex in a public place before and I was surprisingly turned on by the thought. No one would know. I’d be innocently sitting on Alexander’s lap, sipping my champagne, kissing him, talking. With him deeply, thickly inside me. As the men, and others, watched me from across the room, unaware.

  The restaurant was dimly, romantically lit. I kissed him lightly. A fond, demure kiss appropriate for a crowded restaurant in Paris. I lifted myself, adjusting. With one hand I took a sip of my champagne. With the other, I reached down to unzip Alexander’s pants. I took his heavy length in my fist, squeezing gently. He groaned, the quiet sound both erotic and pained.

  “Hush,” I warned softly, squeezing him more tightly as though to scold him. He was incredibly hard, like silk-covered stone. That scent of him, so distinctive to me, infused me with need, as though the cloud of his pheromones were drugging me. “Look at me. Tell me, very quietly, what I want to hear.”

  “I love you,” he said.