Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
Zane
I pull out of her, my cock still spurting into the condom, twitching with release.
I turned her over so I wouldn’t have to see her face, but I still want to be done as quickly as possible. Bringing her home was a bad idea, and in the middle of the day, no less, but she came on to me at the bar, and I thought, what the hell.
Only, now the scent of her perfume makes me gag, and the musk of our sex mingling with it shames me. I’ve turned into someone I don’t recognize, and I need to get my shit together, but I can’t stop thinking about the news clip, the plane sinking into the Atlantic Ocean, the people who died.
The funeral.
A wave of grief hits me, and luckily, I’m already down on my knees. The woman looks at me over her shoulder and wiggles her white ass. “Do me?”
I can barely hear her over the music I play to drown out my loss. I think about being rough, taking my pain out on her, but I don’t. She would tolerate it too, for the privilege of being in my bed. Brag about it later. Instead, I step off the mattress and throw her dress at her. “Get dressed. You should go.”
She pouts, and Christ, I can’t think of her name. Maybe I never knew it.
I pull off the condom, throw it into the wastebasket near my nightstand, and tug on a worn pair of jeans that has holes at the knees. I need a drink in the worst way, but I would only be trading one vice for another.
She slithers into her dress, peering at me out of the corner of her eyes, trying to entice me into letting her stay, and she shoves her panties and bra into her bag. She shows me her back, and I do up the zipper, wondering how she dresses at home by herself. If she lives alone. Our conversation never got that far. It never went anywhere at all, except for her panting, “Fuck me” every five seconds as I pumped into her.
She rocks unsteadily in her heels, and I help her down the stairs.
I hope Zarah doesn’t see.
I shouldn’t have brought her here. I should have had the patience to drive her to the hotel I use where I pay to keep everyone’s mouths shut and I can leave and not look back.
The woman’s lips are smeared with lipstick, mascara is crusted under her eyes, and her dirty-dishwater blonde curls give her a thoroughly fucked look.
Zarah would be disappointed. She’s been steadier than me, though she’s not in charge of the company, I am, and at twenty-five, I am not prepared.
Just before his death, Dad had started prepping me, and I had my first real taste of what it would be like to rule the world. But instead of Superman, I feel like a little boy in his Halloween costume begging for candy. Begging for his parents back.
The blonde tries to kiss me, but hiding a grimace, I dodge her lips and jab the button for the doors of the lift to open. I want to give her some cash, but I don’t know if she’d be offended or pleased. She’ll walk through the lobby to leave the building, and the cameras will catch her face. If she works in an office around here, or hell, even for Maddox Industries, the facial recognition software will tag her. I’ll ask security to pull her name, and I’ll send her flowers.
She’ll be impressed.
It’s how I roll.
She wiggles her fingers in goodbye, my bad manners not affecting her at all. The doors close, hiding her too-sharp features, and when I don’t have to see her anymore, my muscles relax.
Unsatisfied, I prowl the living room, and nearing the kitchen, I hear voices.
Laughter.
It seems almost a crime to hear it so soon after our parents’ deaths, but I shouldn’t resent whoever can bring a smile to Zarah’s face at a time like this.
We need all the help we can get.
I push one of the swinging doors open, the frosted glass obscuring my view. We used to eat dinner with our parents in the formal dining room—Mom insisted on us learning proper etiquette—but lately we’ve been eating in the smaller, cozier room. After they passed away, sharing a meal with Lucille, our jack-of-all-trades housekeeper, made both of us feel not so alone.
Zarah and a girl I’ve never seen before sit at the island, a bottle of red wine and a half cheesecake that has little bites taken out of it, the marks of the fork tines grooved into the creamy cake, positioned on the marble between them.
My sister’s smile lights up her eyes, and the blonde covers the lower half of her face to keep me from seeing her mouth full of food.
She meets my stare, and my belly dips.
Her blue eyes sparkle, and her high cheekbones give her an aristocratic look. She’s slim, like Zarah, but her cleavage pops out of her blouse. Her dainty feet are perched on the stool’s rungs next to her, and sheer pantyhose encases her lean legs.
My gaze travels from her delicate ankles, up her shapely calves, to her slender thighs, and I imagine them cradling my hips as I sink into her.
My cock stiffens, even after it already had its fill, and she blushes.
She knows exactly what I’m thinking about.
“Hello,” I say, stepping into the kitchen.
Zarah stops laughing and stares at the counter. Now I feel bad I messed up their party. I should have stayed away, but I wanted to be part of whatever’s going on because I’m scared and lonely. I have to keep it together for Zarah and the company, but I’m tired, and I need something.
Someone who will make me smile, too.
“Don’t stop.” I kiss Zarah on the top of her head, and she slaps my chest, reminding me I’m half naked. “I want to know what’s so funny.”
“Stella was telling me some stories about payroll.”
That’s her name. Stella. It fits her. I’m sure she’s heard the line “stars in her eyes” a million times and I won’t be so tacky as to say it now, but it’s what I think when I search her bright cornflower blue eyes, the blush still staining her cheeks.
Exquisite.
“Stella? From payroll? It’s nice to meet you, Stella from payroll,” I say and hold out my hand. She places her hand in mine, and an electric zing travels up my arm. I can’t help it. She’s like no one, no woman , I’ve ever met before, and I feel a physical loss when she pulls away.
“Is that where you spent the day, then?” At first, I thought my sister was crazy for taking my idea seriously and sampling every department of the company. I almost tried to talk her out of it—it had just been a joke—but I realized it would be good for her to figure out what she wanted to do and finally enroll in school. Instead of moving away after high school graduation and jumping right into more classes, at Mom’s urging, she’d waited, and they’d been discussing universities before the plane crash. I’m proud of my sister for trying to move on, though how she ended up in payroll I have no idea.
I can’t tell you where payroll’s located in the building, nor did I ever care. Our employees need to be paid, but I never knew how my father went about it. It will be my responsibility now, whether I like it or not.
“It was my last stop,” Zarah says. “Quit being rude. Stella Mayfair, this is my brother Zane Maddox, Zane, Stella. She’s been with us for six months.”
I use the introduction to hold her hand again, and Zarah misses nothing. We’re on one side of the island, Stella on the other, and Zarah kicks me, her toes poking painfully into my leg. “How do you like it?” I ask.
“It’s been pleasant so far,” Stella says, her mouth empty of cheesecake. I want to kiss her, taste the wine my sister served them to complement Lucille’s heavenly dessert. Lick Stella’s mouth clean, devour her like a starving man.
I can have any woman I want, but somehow this one has captured my attention. To think she’s been in the building for six months. Had we met before my parents died, had she been by my side when I heard news of the crash, how would I have handled their deaths? Would I have went on my drunken spree ending up in a ditch twenty miles outside of the city having no recollection of how that came to be? Or would she have grounded me, this angel, to earth?
I’m being too poetic.
Her voice sends shivers quivering around in my belly, and for the first time since Mom’s and Dad’s deaths, I feel a flicker.
“I should go,” Stella says and slips off the stool. She stumbles, and I dash around the island to steady her.
Zarah gives me a look, but tersely, I shake my head. This isn’t just to touch her. She’s had too much wine.
“Sorry. Just a little tipsy. Not used to drinking so much.” Stella giggles, and the musical sound tickles my ears.
I should have majored in creative writing instead of business. Stella brings out the romantic in me.
Zarah scoffs, believing no such thing. “You barely had any. You need more tolerance.”
Stella doesn’t need anything. She’s perfect the way she is, and I purse my lips and glare at my sister. “Will you get home okay?”
I want to know everything about her. Where she lives. What she does when she’s not at work. Who she’s dating. She could be married for all I know. Her ring finger is bare, but I’ve fallen into that trap a time or two. A ringless finger doesn’t always mean availability.
“I’ll be fine. I always ride the train. It’s no big deal.”
The train doesn’t sound safe on a Friday night if she’s tipsy. “I should drive you.”
Stella leans away. “I’ll be fine.”
“Leave her alone,” Zarah says, jumping off her stool and rounding the island. “She’s not one of your whores.”
That quiets me. I don’t have a reputation as a ladies’ man. On the contrary, I choose my women very carefully. Or at least, I did before the accident. The past few months have been hard on me, and I won’t deny I haven’t sought solace where I could. Usually, that means between the legs of a woman I pick up at the bar, but that isn’t me. That’s not who I am underneath the grief. Zarah knows this, and her words cut me.
She must like Stella if she’s protecting her from a man who, under normal circumstances, would never hurt anyone. But Zarah’s right. These aren’t normal circumstances, and it’s best to leave Stella alone. I step back. “Be safe.” That’s the only thing I say, and I leave the kitchen, pushing the doors open, the music I didn’t turn off thumping in my room upstairs.
Their laughter is gone, and all I hear are murmured goodbyes and the elevator doors gliding shut.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Zarah pads into the living room and wraps her arms around me. “But I like her. She doesn’t care. Or didn’t seem to, anyway.”
I know what a gift that is. To be liked for who you are, not what your parents can do for them or who you’re connected to. Being invited along because it’s expected you’ll pay the bill at the end of the night. It’s why rich kids hang with other rich kids. But money can’t buy you friends, not true friends, and if Zarah has found a friend in Stella from payroll, I won’t interfere.
“I’m happy for you. But...you know she doesn’t come from money, don’t you? The suit she wore, the earrings.”
“I know, and if she doesn’t care I have money, then I don’t care she doesn’t. She listened when I spoke. Not to see how she could kiss my ass, or how to use what I say against me. She listened and replied, and I listened and replied. We had a conversation between two people, two women.”
She rests her head against my chest, and I hug her to me. We look over the city, and the sun bathes the buildings and rooftops in pinks and oranges.
“I’m glad, Zarah. Really glad. She seems like she knows what she’s doing, where she’s going. Maybe she can help you figure out what you want to do.”
Zarah steps away from me, and I let her go. It’s Friday night, and she may have a date to get ready for. I had several offers myself, but I declined all of them. I need a shower to wash that woman off me, and to force myself to think about something other than my parents, I accepted an early squash game in the morning.
“It won’t be payroll, whatever she says. There’s way too much math.”
With that, she runs up the stairs, and a moment later, my music cuts off.
In the abrupt silence, I sink onto the couch and stare at the unlit fireplace. I feel displaced, out of sorts. It’s common for me, not knowing where I belong or what I should do. I’m about to go up to my room but the elevator dings, and I look in that direction, frowning. No one should have the code to use the private lift, and security changes it every Sunday evening as a precaution.
There have been rumors spreading since the crash, and I’ve upped our security. I haven’t told Zarah. I don’t want to worry her, but until things are resolved, I’ll keep my ear to the ground and my eyes open.
The doors slide apart and to my surprise and—unfortunately for Zarah—delight, Stella stands in the elevator, shoes dangling from her fingers and a hand over her heart.