Chapter Fourteen
Scarlett
I just ran away from Hudson.
Shit.
I shouldn’t have done that, but I needed to.
I’m standing outside the elevator, panting out of fear rather than the run from his office, waiting for the damn elevator to turn up.
The smart lights came on with each step I took and the ones where I am light me like I’m some escapee caught in a spotlight.
Standing…panicking…shifting like a maniac from one foot to the other on the rich cream carpet that covers the floor, that’s what I’m doing. It must cost a fortune to clean. Good thing he’s a billionaire. I almost start laughing but swallow the hysteria down with my nonsensical thoughts. And I’m resisting the urge to look back over my shoulder.
He isn’t coming. I’d know. I’d hear him and looking back makes me look every bit the crazy and guilty person I am.
I press the button again and again. But the elevator, which I know moves smooth and fast, has suddenly morphed into something super slow.
I should not have run from him when he asked that question, but what am I meant to say? That I told him a big, fat white lie that keeps bleeding bigger and bigger, not to mention sprouting new ones?
And what was that whole thing in his office where my internal temperature must have been hotter than the sun? The kiss? Those touches?
I’m not even claiming to be innocent because I took part fully. I wanted to touch him, and I did.
Apparently, I like playing with sexy fire.
Sexy fire that has influence with a capital I and bells, whistles, and parades in the same arena where my brother’s struggling to find his foothold once again. A black strike or black ball or whatever term you want to use thrown against him means he’s dead in the water, career wise. And Danny sank his money, my money, our grandparents’ money, into it when he set out with a dream.
He aligned with the wrong person and now he’s barely treading water—I don’t know where the whole watery analogy thing comes from. It’s probably because I’m in over my head and I feel like I’m drowning.
But my point is, Hudson, the man I’m attempting to run from and am thwarted by an elevator at the top of a Manhattan modern business castle, can make or break or squash people like Danny.
And I’m lying to Hudson.
Little spidery white lies that breed.
I’m lying and I’m crossing all the boundaries and I’m not sure if I’ve bitten off too much, if I can breathe under this water or deal with any of it.
But I have to. I need to keep calm and just keep going and glue all the pieces together. If I need to get gaffa tape to help, I’ll do it.
Every little, tiny bit of research on Hudson I’ve done comes crashing back. Everything he’s said. This man doesn’t make threats, he’s a martini so smooth you never realize the bite is real until you’re at the bottom of the glass. And he doesn’t make threats at all.
Hudson Sinclair makes promises.
He can destroy Danny.
These are things I know and have to keep front and center of my brain until I see this thing through to the end. I’m not in it to hurt anyone.
A dark shiver passes through me. It’s like every part of me suddenly burst into a different kind of life.
“It doesn’t come faster if you keep pushing the button.”
It’s not until Hudson speaks I realize I’m doing just that.
Those smooth, velvet tones are like whispering kisses against my skin.
“I’m in a hurry.”
“To get home?”
I don’t turn to face him. I can’t. “Yes.”
The elevator chooses that moment to whoosh smoothly open and to my horror and perverse delight, Hudson ushers me inside.
“You know,” he says, “if you keep this up, running away, hiding your face, then it’s not going to work.”
I snap around to face him. “What isn’t?”
He’s like a sucker punch.
How do I keep forgetting how beautiful the man is?
“Pulling this whole thing off.” He smiles, and it’s small and genuine. Hudson leans against the other side of the elevator, facing me, his hands behind his back as he does so. “I’ve been thinking.”
“It could be dangerous.”
There’s a spark of laughter in his gaze, and right there is why I have trouble with remembering the whole he can destroy me and my brother thing. The good guy part of him, the decent man. But just because he’s that doesn’t mean he’ll unleash his wrath if you do him wrong.
I don’t intend to. I just don’t intend to tell him the small details.
“Look, I don’t know a thing about your family. I know your cousin, but it’s not a best friends thing. You get it.”
“Our kind stick together against the great unwashed masses of the world.” I don’t even know why I say that. It just seems like something someone very rich would say. And though Sarah never said it, she’s definitely looked down on the poor. Probably looked down on me at one point. And we’re not besties, either, just friends.
An eyebrow quirks up. “That’s one very snotty way to put it, I suppose. I just mean…”
“I know what you mean. Our world.”
I don’t know at all.
Now he frowns at me and he’s looking at me in a way that makes me uncomfortable, like he can somehow see the truth inside. “No. I meant he’s someone I knew a long time ago and kept in touch with over the years on a basic level. That’s all.”
He stops.
I can’t breathe because he straightens up and comes to me and every atom in me wants him.
He slides his fingers through my hair and says softly, “Sometimes you’re like two different people in there.”
“I go to therapy.” Against all commonsense, I bring my hand up and place it against the hard muscles that lurk beneath his suit. And I have the sudden urge to see him in jeans and a T.
“Why did you run, Scarlett?” His voice is pure, soft, decadent velvet and I’m melting into total pliability. “What deep, dark secrets are you hiding?”
Those words send such a bolt of fear through me that I stop melting immediately and get the gaffa tape to hold it together. “Nothing. Just…usual family crap.”
“Well, I think we should talk.”
The elevator swishes open and we’re out in the beautiful, vast foyer of marble and steel and glass. The security guard nods to Hudson and then we’re outside in the cooling night air, the sounds of New York and its never-ending traffic rising up around us.
I’m about to say goodnight when he slips his hand under my elbow.
“Hudson, I only had the one drink. I’m not drunk.”
“I didn’t think you were,” he says, hailing a cab and scooting me over the pavement and onto it. “We need to talk.”
Those words put the fear of fate worse than death into me, followed by a desire deeper than the Grand C because he meant a chat over a drink in a small little bar nestled in Greenwich Village.
Hudson in his suit in a bar of hipsters and simple jeans and T-shirt every day folk should have made him stand out like some kind of sore thumb.
It didn’t.
At all.
Oh, he stood out, but in that way some spend years trying to achieve. The women kept stealing looks at him, men, too. And he didn’t notice at all.
This is my kind of place. No pretention. Ratty barstools from years of use in a long, thin sliver of a bar.
But I’d never seen this place before. Hole in the wall would be the term along with neighborhood.
I give him a long look.
“Not your style?” He lifts his glass of dark amber liquid and takes a sip. There’s a martini in front of me, and I take a small swallow and almost drop it. “I thought it would be right up your alley. How’s your drink?”
Like fresh apples, smooth and a kick that’s nestled all the way down the bottom. “Retro.”
“Yes, well, they didn’t have olive branches.”
An appletini does not say olive branch to me. It says sly sense of humor hidden in the dark depths of the man opposite who grows more intriguing by the minute, and more forbidden apple than anything else.
He taps a hand against the bar where we sit, very close. It’s not packed in here, but there are enough people that sitting close is a good idea. Or a bad one.
“I’ve been thinking, Scarlett.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No, I do it all the time,” he says, so deadpan I almost laugh. “I was thinking about everything you said, people knowing. I don’t like lies, but we’re telling one.”
“A big one,” I point out.
He gives me a strange look. “Yes, I know. But close to the truth is best. So we stick to our plan, get to know each other and if someone asks about us, then tell them our truth. As vague as you can.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s the same one.”
“I tell them I’m doing this to help you out?” I don’t know why I say that. I swallow. “That’s a joke. What if it’s media?”
“I’m rich, not famous. I’m not in any media unless it’s financial or something equally boring. The occasional page whatever the fuck it is because I’m at an event I can’t get out of.”
“We’ve been over this.”
“It’s worth repeating.”
Maybe. “But—”
“Scarlett. You talk a whole lot.” His hand comes down over mine and it sends desire racing through me, prickling against my senses. “That’s fine. I’m used to it now.”
His smile takes any sting from his words.
“What I’m trying to say,” he says, continuing, “is I want to be super prepared. Which is why I asked about your family tonight. No other reason.”
Half of me breathes a sigh of relief and the other, more stupid part, is offended.
I have to keep reminding myself this is a job, nothing more.
“Oh,” I say, “there’s nothing really there. It’s just…we’re not close, you know?”
That’s one way to put it. Another is I don’t know much about Sarah’s actual family because she never talked about them much, just her cousin. I know she’s an only child, though. Anyway, less is definitely a whole lot more here.
I take a breath. “So, anyway, it’s more about you and me and if we can convince the powers that be, so to speak, right?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t like how he says that.
“You don’t look happy, Hudson.”
“I want things I’ll get if we pull this off and I can’t shake the feeling someone’s waiting for me to slip up.”
“Or it’s your guilty conscience.”
If he wasn’t basically holding my hand, I’d slap it over my mouth. I’m gripping the martini glass with the other, mid air, having decided moments ago to take a sip.
“I’m not feeling guilty. Just looking at all contingencies.” Then he looks down and seems to realize he has his hand on mine. He pulls it away. “I thought we’d have a drink and relax, and I’d make sure things were good.”
If there was a mood, he’d have killed it, right there.
I go to bed that night—we wrap up after that one drink because I was adamant my bungled running away was all about wanting an early night—pleased with myself, because my vagaries have worked.
It’s not until morning my self-congratulations start to wobble, but I get out the glue and gaffa tape and bind it all together in one big ball of it’s all going to be okayness.
I work hard during the day, I’m multitasking like I’m one of my AIs I’m training and I’m into some kind of groove with micromanaging Hudson’s life.
His meetings run like clockwork and if there’s a bit of behind the scenes fixing things, I do it.
At seven p.m. he texts to tell me to go home as he’s holed up in a long-ass meeting with his brothers. And I’m feeling good, I’m feeling fine. The weather is nice and it’s not too hot either.
Thanks for everything, Scarlett, Hudson suddenly texts me. I appreciate your honesty and you going the extra distance. I’m sometimes not the easiest man.
Well…shit. My plan is working. My plan is I don’t have one, other than get through this, but it’s working. Go me.
Since it’s really lovely out, I walk from midtown West to the East side and find myself on First Avenue and East Third. There’s a cheap little bar and basic taco place that makes everything from scratch, so I stop there and eat.
There’s something in the back of my head, something that scratches at my skin that makes me itch, but I ignore it. Hudson’s probably seen the light or something and realized I’m brilliant. That’s all. I’m not used to out of nowhere praise.
And I am being honest. Sort of. In a way. I mean, he’s paying me to lie and all I’ve done is tell him a lie. Or ten.
It’s all good.
I pull out a book and get a Coke and sit back down in my plastic seat at the taco place and read.
But around nine I’m still here in Manhattan and the guilt at what I’m doing, the lies, eats at me. I’ve wandered through Tompkins Square Park. I even read about the riot back in the nineteenth century that happened there, but I only half paid attention because my brain is tallying the lies and I’m swamped.
Stupid guilt. I hate it.
It’s not until I’m walking uptown again, I realize where I’m going.
To Hudson’s place.
He might not even be there. Who knows what he’s up to with his brothers tonight. But I keep going.
I probably shouldn’t have the address. But I do, I peeked in the files I’ve access to.
All these kisses and lies are just getting to me and if something happens between me and him, happens physically—the naked, hot, sweaty kind of physically—I need it to be a clean slate, honesty. Transparency like the cleanest, thinnest glass.
It’s only really a small lie and it’s best I come out and tell him now.
That’s my plan.
It’s why I’m heading to his place.
I’m going to tell him the truth before things get more complicated.
After all, how bad could it be?