Chapter Three #2
Truman didn’t hide his hunger as he took in the sight of my pedicured feet.
“Very good.” He grasped my left foot in his chubby hands.
They were rough, and if I hadn’t known from a Google search that he’d made thirty million in compensation and bonuses over the last year, I would have sworn this guy spent his life outside, working his palms into an early grave.
I stifled my inner recoil from his touch, a preamble to what I knew he wanted next.
I had a role to play once again, and goddamn it, I would do it well.
Earn that money, Lila. And that video proof…
“May I?” he asked.
“Of course, you can,” I replied, thinking of the twenty-five grand this little hour would earn me once Alexi got what he wanted. “I want you to enjoy yourself.”
With a satisfied grin, Truman lifted my foot to his mouth. He held my hand in one hand and my arch in the other. As he kept his eyes trained on me, he inserted my big toe into his mouth. “Mmm,” he said as he slurped around it. “Mmm.”
At least this time didn’t include food. Somehow, a nerdy finance genius with a foot fetish felt infinitely more tolerable than a brooding Russian oligarch with a food obsession.
On this night, I wouldn’t have to choke down a meal that I would never have allowed myself to eat in my old life. Also a win, in a way.
I maneuvered on the bed to allow Truman better access to my toes. Soon he moved on to my middle ones, which he licked and nipped with abandon, as if each were more luscious and plumper than the last. While he did so, he also massaged my ankle and arch.
There were harder ways to make a living. I’d certainly considered many of them.
“Oh, oh…oh…” I murmured, then allowed my head to hit the fluffy hotel room pillows. “Hmm…don’t stop…”
Truman mumbled a pleased reply and when he moved from my second toe to my third, I closed my eyes, shutting out the sight of him and his bizarre kinky tendencies. He seemed to take that as a sign I was enjoying myself.
But as I lay on the bed, I found myself back in the lobby again, gaping once more at the shock of running into Adam Greene.
In that moment, he’d looked so trim, cut, and polished in his navy sport coat and linen slacks—a far cry from the way I used to see him, in shorts and a light blue polo, an outfit meant to tell everyone who saw him that he worked on my father’s property.
The subsequent years had been good to him.
They hadn’t been so good to me.
Adam looked like a man who’d found his way to success, enough of it to bring him to Palm Beach in January, which took a hefty pile of money.
He’d said he was here on business, and that made sense.
He was probably a lawyer, or a financial advisor, someone who made his living serving the super-rich from some sky-high office in New York or Philadelphia.
The Adam I knew had the intelligence to do that, and I was sincerely pleased for him.
He deserved all that success, and more. Wouldn’t it have been nice to catch up with him further?
But I couldn’t do that. Given my current situation, I didn’t want to do that, either. I had enough to deal with without reminiscing the past. Those memories needed to stay dead.
Truman made a sucking sound as he finished my last left toe, and I opened my eyes.
He still had the hungry needfulness in his expression, and I still had thirty-five minutes of this interaction before I could sneak into the bathroom vestibule and retrieve the camera hidden behind the soap dish.
When we were out of toes, I’d have to allow Truman to move on to my ankle.
But he wouldn’t get higher than my kneecap.
I would at least keep my dignity.
Adam
The balmy sea air permeated my Bentley’s interior and filled my nostrils, but I wouldn’t allow myself to enjoy it.
I wouldn’t enjoy the sweeping seascape that came with driving on Ocean Drive, either.
The views blurred together and faded into the background as I focused on Lila Montague and that moment in the lobby, an interaction that had lasted what—three seconds? Three freaking seconds?
I slammed a fist on the leather steering wheel.
No. Fuck no. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, wasn’t how things were supposed to be.
I was the conductor of this symphony, and by God, the first movement wasn’t going to be defined by three seconds of nothing in a crowded hotel lobby. Try again, Adam.
Try again.
I guided the car through the north end of the island and tried to work it out in my head. The next time I saw Lila, I wouldn’t let my voice betray my heart. Wouldn’t allow my expression, the…the…feelings I still carried for her. I would remain poker-faced and secede none of the power to Lila.
No. I’d stick to my plan. Make enough noise, throw enough fireworks around, pop enough bottles of champagne, and she’d find her way there, to the trap I’d set for her, where I’d finally reveal just how much I’d succeeded, and how I was finally at her level, and how much we belonged together at last.
The military had trained me on the finer points of how to keep myself together, how to hold the line when no one else could, or would. Four years in the Army had taught me well. Lila Montague wouldn’t see me defenseless again.
There you go, Adam. There you go.
I punched the button to open the moonroof and turned up the volume on the stereo.
Kendrick Lamar rapped a track, and I jammed right along with it, spitting out the lyrics as I put more distance between myself and that fucked-up reunion in The Breakers lobby.
When I arrived at the tip of Palm Beach, I turned the car and headed back to the house on Ibis Isle, that exclusive strip of land jutting out into the Intracoastal that came replete with a guard shack and manicured hedges at the entrance.
By the time I pulled the car into the garage, I already felt better. But I still thought about her. Her close-knit eyes. Her luscious black hair. And the regal way she’d carried herself.
Goddamn it.
Adam
17 YEARS OLD
I didn’t like being a pool boy.
It was stupid and boring. Menial labor at best, but at least it got me outside, in the mild Floridian winter weather.
I certainly could have found worse things to do with my time than working on the house staff of James and Rachel Montague.
The Montagues were some of the most well-known and generous people in the Palm Beach County.
Every year, the Montague Scholarship gave one “at risk” teenage boy in the county a full ride to the University of Florida.
It might have been one of the hardest awards to get, but by God, I was going to get it.
Truth was, this was my one shot.
I needed scholarship money—desperately. It would bring freedom, opportunity, and a chance for a brand-new life, starting with college in Gainesville.
My first seventeen years on earth had been anything but good.
They had been horrible—a bounce from one foster home to the next, always with the knowledge no one really wanted me, and that I was alone in the world with no parents who truly cared about me.
However, if I wanted to move forward…I couldn’t dwell on that. I had to shove the memories away, hide them in my heart, and dismiss my pain.
I picked up the long skimming net and ran it across the pool.
It caught remnants of bougainvillea flowers and stay fern leaves in its grasp as I guided it from one end of the in-ground pool to the other.
I did this every day and hated it. At least tomorrow would be better.
Tomorrow, I’d give the pool a chemical shock treatment, and that would take actual effort on my part.
“Okay, now let’s go back over our basic pronouns.”
A crisp, authoritative voice floated across the covered patio and made me raise my head.
Lila Montague and a woman I didn’t recognize sat in two of four club chairs that ringed an elegant table made chiefly of blue and white painted tiles.
I hadn’t noticed their arrival on the patio.
Lila had a notebook in front of her, and the woman wore a black dress that seemed too heavy for this balmy winter afternoon.
“What is the present tense, first person singular of the Latin verb for to be?”
“Sum. I am.”
“Very good. And the second person?”
“Es. You are.”
The woman slapped her hand on the table. “Good. Now, what about first person future perfect tense?”
“Fuero. I will have been.”
“Much better than yesterday. You’ve been studying.”
I moved a little closer to them, careful to make sure I still seemed to be fastidiously cleaning an already immaculate pool.
How lucky for Lila, doing extra assignments during her boarding school’s winter break, instead of working.
Still, in the three days since her return, I hadn’t seen her enjoy any downtime, not like what I would have expected for other high school kids, what I would have liked for myself if I’d been able to manage it.
She always spent her time in scheduled activities.
Maybe that wasn’t a good thing.
“Okay, you’ve done well so far, but I’m going to see how much you really know.” The woman peered at Lila. “What about second person plural, perfect tense?”
“Um”—Lila stared at her for a moment—“fuimus?”
The woman shook her head. “Fuistis.”
“Right.” Lila sighed. “Fuistis. I hate Latin.”
“I know you do, but your parents hired me to help you on the SATs, and I promise, even a cursory knowledge of Latin will help you with the vocabulary section. Plus, you can put it on your college applications—you know at least a little bit of the language.”