Mr. Corporate (Mister #3) (7 page)

The most ironic thing about Victoria Arias is her refusal to need anyone. Because she’s always been needy. And I’m kinda lying about the whole ticket thing. I like being needed. Most men do. But the thing I hate is the fact that she refuses to
admit
she needs me. She’s always been that way. Always.

She doesn’t wait for me to catch up, just runs down the hill, that long dark hair flying in the wind again.

I sigh and pick up my shoes, then follow her down to the little building. How the hell did things get so fucked up? Last night this was a sure thing. Twenty-four hours ago I thought this contract was a retainer.

Now I’m even farther away from nailing this down than I was when Liam said I had to compete. Wallace Arlington is probably hundreds of miles away. Hell, maybe Mysterious set me up? He’s always been weird. Maybe he’s working for someone else these days? How would I know? He barely gives us Misters the time of day. And despite helping out with Nolan’s little predicament, he hasn’t been around much as far as I can tell.

Maybe he and Match have some kind of business going, but who really trusts Match, either? He doesn’t even have a girlfriend. And the fucker runs a dating site. What kind of dating site mogul has no significant other?

That little fact has been eating away at me for a while now. I just don’t know what to make of it. Add in all the hush-hush shit that went down back when we were arrested, and that guy, Five, whoever he was. I don’t know, but I do know he was dangerous. Like Mysterious kind of dangerous. He just walked in like he was some kind of king and took over.

Do this, do that.

No one knows how to work the legal system like that unless they have experience doing it. And the guy was probably not much older than I am now. So what kind of shit was he into? What kind of life was he part of that he knew so much?

Granted, his advice was all solid. But it still bothers me.
Match
still bothers me. Where did he pick up a friend like that? I mean, Match was only eighteen years old when we were charged.

And I’ve looked into his family. I have the family histories of all the Misters memorized, even Mysterious’. And that was not easy to come by, considering he’s the illegitimate son of a big-time Hollywood movie star on one side and the blue-blood heir of a one-hundred-fifty-year-old Kentucky breeding farm on the other.

But Match’s family history comes off as very blue-collar. Custom motorcycles. And a reality show a while back. Hell, he still lives in Colorado where he grew up. Perfect lives in Colorado now too, but that wasn’t by design. It just happens to be where the headquarters to his family company is.

And that Five guy was anything
but
blue-collar. He reeked of money and breeding. So where did that connection come from?

I don’t know. And I don’t need to care about it right now. My only concern is radioing for that pilot to get his ass back here and pick us up. Get us somewhere with service so I can call Mysterious up and ask him just what the fuck.

This Wallace Arlington contract is the pinnacle of everything I’ve been doing for the past fifteen years. I’m there. I am so close I can practically taste it.

And it’s slipping away. Everything feels like it’s slipping away.

When I get to the building I realize it’s more of a house. There’s a lot of windows and I can see inside as I walk to the door and pull it open.

Victoria is sitting at a kitchen island, her head in her hands.

“What’s up?” I ask. Because I know that means she’s frustrated.

“It doesn’t work.”

“The radio?” I say, dropping my shoes at the front door. “Let me look at it. I’m good with electronics. Maybe I can—”

“You can’t, Weston. It’s smashed.”

“Smashed?”

Victoria is pointing to the counter across from where she’s sitting, and when I step a few paces to the side I see that, yes, there is a radio, and yes, it is smashed to bits on the counter. “Who the fuck would do that?”

“Someone who doesn’t want us to be anywhere but here today, West.”

West. She almost never calls me West. It’s like me calling her Tori. Reserved for intimate moments.

“Something is wrong,” she says.

Or vulnerable ones.

“Why do you say that?” I ask, walking up to the island and taking a seat next to her. She smells good. She always smells good. Always something flowery, too. Jasmine or honeysuckle. Gardenias or roses.

Today she smells like something else, though. The one I always preferred. It’s fitting. Her eyes are violet, her shirt is lavender, and her scent is lilac. She is purple.

And right now those eyes… they are stuck. On me. The past. The present.

Why is she here?

“Because we are in the wrong place.”

I get up and go into the kitchen, pulling open cupboards. Empty. I open the fridge. Empty. “Fucking great.”

“Look,” Victoria says, leaning over the island and lifting up the tap. “Water. At least we have water. That Vlad guy will be back tonight. So as long as we stay inside and hydrated, we’ll be fine.”

“Assuming he comes back.”

“Why wouldn’t he come back?”

I’m sorry I said it because Victoria’s eyes get wide with concern. “Never mind. He will.”

She goes silent and I know she won’t forget those words. It’s going to haunt her all day. She will dwell, and fret, and work herself up into a blind obsession.

Because that’s the kind of girl Victoria Arias is.

Wild. It’s her default setting.

Victoria taps her nails on the countertop and I can’t help but look at them. Yesterday they were periwinkle, but today they are the lightest shade of purple imaginable. So light, they are almost white.

“So…” she says.

“So…” I say.

“Are you doing well?” she asks.

“I am, thanks. And you?” I roll my eyes. Are we so far apart this is all we have to talk about? Are we so far apart that polite conversation is all we have left between us? “Your dad,” I say. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Oh.” Victoria sighs. “Too many things to list.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. And I am. I always liked him.

“He was talking about you the other day.”

“He was?”

“Yes. He asks about you a lot. And before you ask, it’s always good.”

“Well, when you see him tell him I said hi. And ask him if I can come by and say it in person.”

“He’d like that.”

“Me too.”

The silence takes over again. I’m actually stuck in it, I think. I want to say something. Anything to make the distance between us go away. But… I get caught up imagining all the things I could say. All the ways they could come out wrong. All the misinterpretations they might come with. And then one second has turned into thirty. And then thirty has turned into two minutes. And… Victoria gets up and goes into the bathroom.

She closes the door, then immediately opens it. “Do you think it works?”

I shrug. “The water works.”

She disappears again and I’m left here alone, my mind still trying to catch up with the fact that I’m on a tropical island with Victoria Arias. Alone. After not seeing her for more than three years.

She still looks good. Better than ever, actually.

But she’s still the same in other ways as well. That mean streak she has, that will never fade. I don’t doubt that Victoria Arias’ grandchildren will be whispering the words ‘crazy,’ and ‘wild,’ and ‘stubborn’ thirty or forty years from now.

When she comes out the bathroom I feel more stuck than ever.

I have so much to say to her and none of it should be said out loud. I want to scream at her. I want to yell insults and make threats to walk out of her life forever. This time, on
my
terms. Better than the way she walked out on me. I want to be meaner than she was. I want to throw more insults than she did. I want to make accusations that she knows to be true, just like that last night. I want to make her hate me and miss me in the same moment.

I want to…

I sigh.

Because I don’t really want to do any of that. I want to say I’m sorry. I want to say I’ve missed her. I want to say there has never been another woman in my life like her and there never will be.

I want to say… I love her.

Because I do. I have never loved a woman whose name was not Victoria Arias. And I will never love another woman. I am destined to walk this life alone because she’s it for me. The beginning and the end when it comes to love.

I had her and I lost.

I had her and I chose to leave her behind.

I had love and I chose blind obsession instead.

So there’s no use feeling sorry for myself. I made this chasm between us. I am the empty space. I am the long drop to the bottom. I am the only one I can blame.

Chapter Nine - Victoria

“It’s not even noon,” I say, after using the bathroom. West is eerily silent and contemplative as he stares out the window. It’s like he doesn’t even notice me. I dressed in these clothes to taunt him, wore this low-cut shirt to pique his interest. And all I’ve gotten so far is indifference.

He’s always been that way, right?

Big, strong, powerful Weston Conrad. Untouchable, I used to call him. And not because of his wealth or status. But because Weston doesn’t deal in emotions. He is impossible to rattle. Insults wash off him like water off a duck. He fields accusations like a major leaguer, throwing them back to home base, always preventing a score.

He is indifferent. Always uninterested.

“I know,” Weston says.

“What should we do all day?”

He’s not talking. He’s just staring out the kitchen window like there’s something magical out there.

But then he gets up and walks towards the window, leaning his hands on the countertop as he tries to see something, but can’t quite make it out. “What’s that?” he says, stepping back and walking out of the kitchen to the main living area where he stops in front of the big picture window.

“What’s what?” I ask, lost in thought. God, he looks… fantastic. I’ve seen him in magazines a few times over the past three years, and he always looked more like a
GQ
model than a businessman. But Jesus. I talked myself into believing that was all Photoshop and none of it was real.

It’s real.
He’s
real.

“Is that a storm?” Weston says, pointing out the window.

I walk over to him, trying my best not to get lost in his cologne. Weston never liked to wear cologne when we first met. He was so different back then. But then I bought him some for Christmas that first year and he’s worn it ever since.

That’s what he’s wearing now. Same brand I got him all those years ago. I’d recognize it anywhere.

“Look, Victoria. Did you catch a weather report before you left this morning?”

“It’s going to be hot in New York, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, that’s not what I’m asking,” he says, irritated. “Is there a big storm coming
out here
?”

“How would I know?” I snap. I’m letting that indifference get to me again. I always let it get to me. It makes me ragey. “I’m not from here,” I say, trying to ravel all the parts of me that are coming unraveled by being here alone with him. “So I wouldn’t know. Sorry,” I add, to try to defuse my anger.

Weston sighs, like I’m grating on his last nerve. “Well, I’m not from here either. But that purple mess of clouds looks like a giant fucking storm to me.”

I’m about to toss him another ball of insults to field when it hits me what that might mean. “What are you saying? Will we get stuck here? Is that pilot not coming back for us?”

Weston shoots me a scowl. “Don’t get crazy, Tori. He’ll come back. It looks far away still. Like it might hit late tonight.”

“He better come back,” I say, mostly to myself.

“You got a hot date with him tonight?” And even though Weston’s the master of indifference, it doesn’t quite come out as indifferent.