Chapter 32
Lucien
We sailed north away from St. Kitts the day after my party. The day after the altercation between Blackstone and Dyson.
The day after Caroline and I…
I stood at the bow, leaning on the railing, gazing out at the endless blue stretching away in every direction. That deep blue reminded me of Caroline’s eyes. So did the softer blue of the sky above. Somehow, so did the puffy white clouds that dotted the horizon.
I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
It all started as a way for me to get under Harrison’s skin.
Toying with the woman because she was his biographer.
Flirting with her, dining with her, trying to steal her away to write my own biography.
I had never entertained the idea of having a book written about me until learning that my business partner was having one written. Then I simply had to have the same.
No matter how much money we had, no matter the immense power we wielded on this world, at our core we were little boys arguing over a toy.
But I never intended to actually sleep with Caroline. And I certainly never expected it.
I knew my reputation. I was famous for courting starlets and European princesses.
Some of it was exaggerated by the media, but much of it was truth.
I was not an unattractive man. I could have any woman I wanted, whenever I wanted, as often as I wanted.
It was a vice I indulged in often. Life was short, and sex was wonderful.
I never felt any connection with the women I was with.
For one thing, I enjoyed the pursuit more than the catch.
Once I’d attained a prize, I lost interest. For another thing, women were attracted to the idea of me.
The wealthy French Casanova who threw parties on his yacht and tossed money at investments the way little old ladies tossed bread to ducks at the park in Paris.
They weren’t interested in me, the actual man.
This was fine. Once I had accepted this, life was easy to live. The sex was enjoyable, but ultimately meaningless.
Yet something had changed since Caroline tried to kiss me that night under the stars. A switch had been flipped, and now I was different in a way I still did not fully comprehend. That change deepened when we made love on my yacht, soft moans and sighs while the music thumped above us.
I could have used this to torture Harrison. In the game of chess that was our fun little rivalry, this would have put him in check. It would have infuriated him, consumed him.
Yet when Caroline and I were done, the thought of bragging about it sickened me. What we had shared in bed was special, and pure. Telling others in any capacity would have ruined it, let alone gloating about it. She was not a sexual conquest.
She was so much more.
“Please do not tell Harrison,” I had told her there in my bedroom, the scent of sex still lingering in the air. I was just as surprised by my demand as she was. Caroline was an exceedingly intelligent woman, and she knew how this information could be used.
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
And it was completely unlike me.
We docked in Miami and I spent the next few days catching up on the mundane work that came with being an investor in the financial world. It helped take my mind off things.
But not completely.
Three days had now gone by, and I could not stop thinking about her.
The taste of her tongue on mine.
The swell of her breast beneath my palm.
The way her lips parted when she moaned in ecstasy.
This was not a scenario I was accustomed to. Women had always been a commodity, like artwork. Something to pursue and collect and, eventually, discard.
My core desire had not changed. I still wanted her to write my biography.
But now I realized I wanted more. So much more.
And I was the kind of man who got what he wanted.