Chapter 15
Noah
It wassix thirty in the morning, and the running trails in Griffith Park were still mostly deserted. Thanksgiving was looming on the horizon, and before the sun came up I could faintly see my breath in the air as I pounded over one of the park’s trails. This kind of chill was considered unacceptable by most Angelinos, but I was born in Chicago, where the winters could make you wish you were never born. I let my stride devour this morning’s four-mile loop as I sweated through two layers of shirts.
I’d been busy since I returned from New York. The work had piled up, and strangely, my usual good mood had dried up over the last few weeks. I’d turned down the social invitations I’d gotten, choosing to stay home and work in the evenings instead. At the same time I felt like I had energy to burn—lots and lots of energy to burn. Running was part of my normal routine, but I’d ramped up the runs I did, making them longer, more frequent, and rerouting to some of the hillier trails in Griffith Park.
I couldn’t say what was wrong, exactly. I couldn’t say that anything really was wrong. I was doing my best impression of a guy going about his business. A guy who wasn’t thinking about Emma Riley at all.
She hadn’t called me. Honestly, the woman was a fucking puzzle. I’d flown across the country and solved her sexual problems in one shot. I couldn’t get a text that said How are you?
I could have called her, and I nearly did a dozen times, but each time I resisted. This was Emma’s move, her decision to make. She knew that if she called me, I’d answer; if she texted me, I’d reply. She had to know that. I’d never played games with her. I wasn’t so sure she wasn’t playing some sort of game with me.
I wasn’t interested in games, even with Emma.
Then again, maybe she’d just forgotten me.
I still thought about her, though. A lot. And it wasn’t just the images I had in my head of Emma blindfolded, tied up, on her knees or tied to the headboard that went through my mind. It was how bold she was, how seemingly fearless. She could behave, but deep down, she didn’t really give a shit what anyone thought of her. If I pursued her now, it would look like I was trying to get her to do what I wanted. Trying to sell her. But I wasn’t a salesman, and I already knew that no one sold Emma anything she didn’t already want to buy.
I was nearing the end of my circuit, getting closer to where I’d parked my car. The sky had gone from dark gray to light gray, and was lightening by the minute. More people were coming out on the paths, because Californians are health nuts. This was the land of vegan smoothies and two-hundred-dollar yoga classes.
A woman came from the other direction, wearing skin-tight jogging shorts and a complicated top with a sports bra under it. Her hair was in a high ponytail, and her breasts—definitely fake, but expertly done—bobbed tightly as she ran. She had earbuds in her ears, but she noticed me coming toward her, and as sweaty as I was, she broke her practiced blank expression and smiled. It was a quick “Hey, you’re hot” moment, and normally I would have at least turned to watch her perfect body jog down the trail away from me, but I only blinked sweat from my eyes and kept going.
I slowed to a walk to cool down, and when I stopped to stretch, touching my hands to my running shoes, my phone rang in my pocket. It was nine thirty, east coast time. Whoever was calling me either didn’t know about the time difference or didn’t care. I pulled out my phone and saw the caller was my mother, and I knew the answer was both: She didn’t know, and she also didn’t care.
I answered the call as I straightened to standing again. “Hello?”
“Noah.” She sounded businesslike. My mother always sounded businesslike. “I need to speak to you about something.”
“You’re speaking to me now.”
“Your father and I met with our accountant yesterday,” my mother said. “He says there is an issue with your trust fund.”
An issue? Of course there was a freaking issue. My trust fund was completely gone. “Mother, it’s six thirty in the morning here.”
There was a pause, which meant she definitely hadn’t known that. But as was her usual pattern, instead of apologizing she dug in. “Well, I’m sorry. I believed this was urgent.”
I started walking toward the car, staying in motion so that my muscles wouldn’t freeze up. “Fine. What’s the problem?”
“Apparently some of the cash has been drained from the fund,” my mother said. “A lot of it, actually. And the investments have been liquidated. Your father and I don’t know how this could have happened. Do you know anything about this?”
Her tone was accusing, as well it should be. My trust fund was supposed to come to me when I was twenty-one, but because my parents detested me—trust me, there were reasons—they fought to deny me access when I came of age. Of course, at twenty-one my friends and I sold Dane’s genius database program for forty-six million dollars, so I could afford lawyers on my own.
I was in the right, but the process is slow, and we went to court for years before I finally got access to my money. It was another few years while I accessed what money I could while I petitioned the court to be able to withdraw more money at a time. And now, at age 35, I had finally done what I had set out to do—I’d withdrawn all of the money earmarked for me by my parents.
I know, I know. I didn’t need that money. I was plenty rich on my own. So why the hell did I fight so hard to access it?
Well, let’s see. Because my parents were assholes. And it turned out I was petty—seven million dollars petty, to be exact. If I hadn’t taken that money, my parents would have kept it. It would have gone to yet another red Porsche for my father or another country club membership for my mother. Maybe they’d take another vacation to the Cayman Islands while stiffing the maid out of her Christmas tip. They were those kinds of people, and it had felt very, very good to relieve them of seven million dollars.
“I know plenty about it,” I told my mother now as sweat grew cold on my drying shirt. “I ordered my lawyers to do it. You can see it right there on the letterhead.”
“Those investments were valuable. If you hadn’t cashed them out, they could have gone up another thirty percent. They were set up to be long-term.”
“They were set up to be mine, which is why I can cash them out whenever I want.” I was enjoying this. There was nothing—nothing—that got to my parents like money did. Money was the only weapon I had.
“But what did you do with it?” My mother’s voice was climbing. “You’re already wealthy. Why did you need so much cash right away? What did you spend it on? What have you gotten into in Los Angeles? Drugs? Women?”
Ladies and gentlemen, my mother. A woman who thinks I can spend seven million dollars on drugs and hookers. “You have me confused with Scarface,” I said.
“I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what you could have spent all of that money on. I don’t know why you behave the way you do. I don’t know why you’ve never been a proper son.”
This kind of thing used to hurt a long time ago. Now I got into my car, slammed the door, and said, “Well, you’ve never been a proper parent, so we’re even. It’s my money, and I spent it. Where I spent it is none of your business.”
She didn’t even answer me. She just hung up.
I started my car and drove home. I showered, changed, then got back in my car—because hey, Los Angeles—and drove to a place called Shakey’s, a cool little neighborhood joint that sold every kind of smoothie. Nelson, the owner, came out of the back when his employees told him I was there. He gave me a smoothie on the house and he sat down with me at the front counter to shoot the shit. Finally, when the sun was high and the morning had turned hot, we both reluctantly decided we should get back to work.
I felt better after that. My mother’s call had receded from my mind. But as I often did, as I drove to the office I thought about Emma. I wondered what she was doing right now. If she ever thought about me. If she was dating anyone else.
If she’d found someone else to solve her problem instead of me.
I didn’t like that idea at all.
I could find a woman to go out with. I had invitations on my phone, texts and emails I hadn’t returned. Finding a woman—a beautiful, sexy woman—to see wasn’t a problem for me. The problem was that none of them were Emma.
I’d never had a woman stick in my system like this. Apparently I had a weakness for sexy redheads who liked to be blindfolded. And tied up.
And damn, I was thinking about that night again.