Chapter Fourteen PHILLIP
Chapter Fourteen
PHILLIP
I’m pacing on my balcony, annoyed by the heat and the shitty signal I get out here. Already, I’ve tried and failed twice to connect with my team back in the States. Now, I have them on the phone for the third time, but I have no idea how long it’ll last.
“Do they not have fucking cell towers in the Dominican Republic?”
To say I’m pissed would be an understatement. I’m on the phone with Angela Carew, my personal PR representative, and Gary Marshall, head of Woodmont’s legal team.
Neither of them replies to my question, choosing to let it go. Wise, I think. I’m ready to chew someone’s head off, and I don’t really care who it is. It might as well be them.
“How do we kill it?” I ask, wanting to handle this problem quickly and efficiently. I want this off my plate so I can move on to more pressing matters, like finding Casey Hughes .
Neither of them responds right away. Gary clears his throat, only infuriating me further, before he replies with a weak tone. “I’m not sure we need to.”
I didn’t hear him right. Bad connection and all. “Excuse me?”
Angela speaks up now, sounding just as spineless as Gary. “Yes, actually, Phillip ... I’ve read through it, and I had Laura take a look too. It’s not so bad.”
I squeeze my eyes closed and rub the bridge of my nose, trying to ease the tension headache forming there.
“I’m sorry. I thought I made myself perfectly clear here. I don’t want this story to run. Casey Hughes took journalistic liberties that I don’t agree with. Delving into my life. Bringing Vivienne into this, for Christ’s sake—”
“You’re looking at it from the wrong angle, taking it too personally.”
No shit, Sherlock!
It’s about me . What’s more personal than that ?
“Laura and I both think something like this has been a long time coming,” Angela says, sounding more resolute in her recommendation now that Gary is on her side as well. “We’ve held off on taking interviews with larger publications, but Forbes or Newsweek would have eventually produced a story of a similar ilk. They’ve been contacting our offices off and on for months. Something would have eventually gone to print, with or without our backing, and I have no doubt their writers would have been a lot more ruthless about it. This piece from Ms. Hughes is soft, I assure you.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Gary cuts in.
“I have to agree; you’re getting off relatively easy with this, Phillip. I don’t think it’s worth coming down on the magazine and making a stink. Especially considering you were aware of the story. You did participate to some extent. So she fleshed out the rest of the interview ...” His tone says Big deal . “You know they were going to discuss your relationships. It’s just fodder. Bon Voyage is not the New York Times . This could have been much worse. In fact, I’m confident, in time, you’ll come to appreciate the article for what it is—a puff piece, really.
“I think we should allow Angela to send approval and—”
His sentence gets cut short when the line goes dead. The connection’s lost again.
My anger threatens to boil over.
I have half a mind to chuck my phone off the side of the balcony, but fortunately, I come to my senses. Since Aurelia is equipped with exceedingly good Wi-Fi, I pull up a new email on my phone and type quickly, responding to Angela and Gary.
You do not have my approval. Do not reply to Bon Voyage yet.
There.
I’ve pumped the brakes for the time being. It feels good to regain the upper hand, exert control over my life again.
Casey’s email surprised me when it popped up on my phone this afternoon. I was in a meeting with Tyson and the engineers. I wasn’t even going to check my phone when it buzzed, but something compelled me to pull it out of my pocket. When I saw Casey’s name flash across my screen, I excused myself and walked away from the group, opening the email to see she’d mimicked my style—no text in the body, just a lone attachment at the bottom.
I knew, no matter which way Casey sliced it, I wasn’t going to like what she had to write about me. You’re either someone who delights in seeing your name in print or you’re not. I don’t want to be the subject of public scrutiny. I don’t want anyone prying into my life and poking around as if it’s their right to do so just because I come from a prominent family.
Even still, I wasn’t prepared to read Casey’s personal take, and that’s exactly what the article was—mostly Casey’s opinion about me. Things she has no business discussing, namely my desperation for privacy and my struggle to connect with others. Casey doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a man in my position, to live life inside a fishbowl. When I first met her when we were young, we were able to escape that for a bit. She knew nothing about me or my past. As middle schoolers, we shared lunch together just like two normal kids. We saw and accepted each other for who we were, separate from any outside influence. In my world, that’s a rare gift.
Keeping people at a distance has always been my preference. Money is so compelling, too compelling. I have a hard time trusting people, especially their motives. I’ve experienced enough moochers and leaches, sycophants and users to understand that most people are best kept at arm’s length.
I never made it back to the meeting with Tyson. I took the stairs up to my suite and reread the article a second time, deciding I hated it even more than I first thought.
I was on the phone with my team ten minutes later. We’ve talked on and off for the better part of the afternoon, and now, after everything, I still don’t really care what they have to say about it. So they have degrees in public relations and twenty years of experience in the field and a huge company backing them— big whoop . They’re not the subject of the article; I am. If I don’t want to give my consent, I won’t. Simple as that. Bon Voyage will be slapped with every lawsuit I can throw at them.
Casey is the one who’ll be fucked in all of this.
Casey.
My feelings for her are as complex as they come. I want to shield her from my wrath and unleash it on her, all at once. Freud would have a field day with me. My mother, too, would love to know that a woman has gotten under my skin in this way. She’s always said it would happen eventually. I laughed her off. Now who’s laughing?
Not me!
The morning after Casey and I slept together, I convinced myself of all the reasons to stay away from her for good, and yet as the hours ticked by, I felt more and more desperate to see her. I would have taken any measly excuse to talk to her, but she was off the boat most of yesterday and nowhere to be found today. She’s been busy, apparently.
I should have pressed her last night, asked her what her plans were moving forward with the story, but I wasn’t thinking about any of that when Tyson and I bumped into Sienna and her on the dock. Casey in her sundress, her long hair loose and a little tangled from the wind. Her lips plump and pink and tempting enough that I thought of kissing her in front of Tyson and Sienna, just laying one on her like a damn fool.
I’m no one’s fool, though. Least of all hers .
Now, I have had a member of my staff hunt her down and issue a summons for her to come to my suite, and I feel a little like a dickhead dictator demanding she present herself for her royal beheading.
I pace on the carpet, trying to decide what punishment fits her crime. I dream up ludicrous ways to get back at her for what she’s done, but none of them stick. It just feels good to imagine them for those few fleeting moments.
When I hear her knock, I flinch.
Then I close my eyes, inhale deeply. My goals and priorities haven’t changed. I want this voyage to go smoothly. I want to go back to life the way I knew it before ever laying eyes on Casey Hughes in her adult form. Vivienne is my future. That’s that.
Then I grab the door handle and whip it open to see Casey standing there, her bottom lip between her teeth, worry lines etched in her forehead, and all that shit flies right out the window.
I can’t even speak to her, I’m that worked up.
I merely step back and wave my hand for her to come in like a pompous asshole.
“I’m surprised you wanted to talk to me today,” she says, stepping forward with a healthy amount of reluctance.
“Are you?” I ask, my tone sharper than I intend.
She makes it into the living room, then turns around to face me. Already her worry is starting to melt away, her brow relaxing. When she speaks, she sounds mildly annoyed. “I take it you read the interview.”
“ Yes . I read it.”
She doesn’t give anything away. Those demure features—the ones I thought of as I jacked off in the shower this morning—stay perfectly stoic as she asks, “What did you think of it?”
“What did I think of it?” My head might explode, it really might. “I should let my lawyer tell you what I thought of it.”
She hums, sounding bored. “So ... you’re not happy. That much is obvious. Is that why you called me here? Just to tell me off? Because when that attendant stopped me in the hall to tell me you wanted to see me, I was headed straight for the all-you-can-eat dessert buffet happening downstairs. That chocolate fountain is calling my name.”
I step toward her. “You’re not going to that buffet.”
I’ve lost it, truly.
I’m forbidding her from a buffet? What next?
I never talked to Vivienne this way, not once. If there were ever any issues, we’d have proper sit-down discussions. She once invited me to a Google Calendar event titled Thermostat Temperature Meeting that she thought we should have at 8:45 p.m. the following Tuesday. I was so levelheaded with her, so even keeled. I barely recognize the man standing in front of Casey, blocking her from her chocolate fountain.
“Should I read you my favorite parts?” I slip my phone out of my pocket and proceed before she can argue. “Cantankerous. Rude. Stubborn. Prideful. Controlling.” I take off my reading glasses and glare at her. Those were all words she used to describe me. Never mind that she also used charming , handsome , and enigmatic —I’m stuck on the negative adjectives at the moment. We’ll get to the nice ones in due time.
Casey has the audacity to look proud of herself as she cocks her hip and crosses her arms. She’s not scared of me, not even a little. She raises her brows as she asks, “Where’s the lie?”
“I gave you answers. I played your little game.”
She laughs like I’m completely delusional. “You never gave me answers! I never even got to ask you questions! Those were your questions, and they were absurd. You lobbed me softballs.” Her tone is mocking and condescending as she continues, “ Who inspires you in business? What motivates you to work? You really thought my editor would lap those up? Why’d you even send them to me?”
“I felt guilty.”
Her eyes spark as her eyebrows shoot up. “There. Honesty. For once .”
My jaw ticks. “Yeah, that’s right, Casey. I woke up the day after I slept with you, and I worried about how you were feeling. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to take advantage of you.”
She rears back, looking absolutely offended. “I wanted everything that happened.”
“I was in a position of power over you,” I press.
“You were in a lot of positions over me, true ...”
God, she winds me up.
“Power?” She shrugs. “So what? I wanted it as much as you did. And I didn’t try to use our night together against you. You did that all on your own.”
We go silent for a spell, just long enough for me to acknowledge how heavily we’re both breathing, how much tension fills the room right now.
“I felt blindsided,” I say, wondering if I’m still talking about what she wrote or if I’m just talking about her in general.
She takes it in reference to her work. For the first time since she waltzed in, she looks contrite over what she’s done. Her pride has fallen away, and she stares at me with sad eyes and a deep frown.
“What would you have done in my position? Let the chance of a lifetime pass you by because of one night with a man? A man, I should add, that you’ll never see again as soon as this cruise ends? I don’t feel bad for you.”
A last vestige of anger bursts forth, and I spit venom. “I should kick you off this boat.”
She meets my challenge head on, her chin lifting with the challenge. Her words are slow and precise. “So kick me off this boat.”
I don’t know who moved first. We’d have to review the tape to see whether I took a step forward or whether it was Casey who came toward me, but those were the last words uttered before I have Casey in my arms, my mouth claiming hers. There’s no sharp slap. No. She lets me kiss her, and god, I enjoy it. Possession spreads through my veins, heating me from the inside. My hands go to her waist. She clutches the front of my shirt. I ache for her, and the feeling must be mutual. She leans into me as if needing more, to feel what I’m feeling, to take whatever I’m willing to give her.
Her lips part, and our tongues touch. Tangle. I shift even closer. Wanting to be as close to her as possible.
Her hands smooth down the front of my shirt, and then she impatiently untucks it from my pants.
I feed off her impatience as I grab the hem of her dress. “Take this off.”
I step back and help her remove it and then toss it over to the couch. She’s wearing a cream-colored bra, lavender panties. I don’t know where to look. Everywhere. I want everything I see. I go to her and kiss her mouth, then her neck, her collarbone, her chest. I rain kisses all over her body as her fingers toy with my hair.
I kiss her sunshine tattoo, and then I stand back up, my hand finding its way between her thighs as I do it.
Her eyes are hooded and glazed when I meet them again.
I draw one of her nipples into my mouth, and she clutches the back of my head so tight it almost hurts. I move to her other breast and make her pant. She squeezes her eyes closed as if wanting to focus on just my mouth on her skin.
God, she’s beautiful like this, with her skin on fire, her lips slightly swollen and red, her legs trembling.
I’m inexplicably drawn to her, so much so that I can’t make it to the bedroom. Yet again, I use that couch, only this time, I lay her down on it and come up and over her. Her hair fans out around her face; her eyes are wide and innocent, looking up at me as I undress the rest of the way.
We don’t say a word, scared to break this spell. Despite the day, despite her email, I want her with a fierceness that scares me.
A niggling voice in the back of my head wonders if I really had that much of an issue with the article or if it was all just an excuse to get her here, to demand she come and see me again. I know my anger was real, but its origin is murky. Loss of control has never sat well with me, but what exactly am I losing control over?
She smiles up at me, tiptoeing her fingers up my thigh. Apparently, I’m taking too long with the condom. She’s impatient. I rip the foil open just as she reaches out to cup my hard length in her hand. She lifts up so she can take me in her mouth. I watch her lips glide over me, and I feel my heart beat like it’s a separate creature inside me, fighting to get out. Oh fuck. I cup the back of her head. My fingers tangle in her hair. I want her so badly. I want her to lick and taste me, and she does, eagerly.
I don’t have the willpower to stop her from sliding lower on the couch, angling herself so it’s easier for her to keep me in her mouth. I rise up and tip my length past her lips, and she moans around me. I start to gently thrust my hips, and she matches my rhythm, taking me deeper. Shivers race over my skin, and she continues, making it so damn good I know I won’t last. This is too perfect, too everything .
I can’t let myself have it. I abruptly break away from her and reach for the condom again. Once I have it in place, I settle over her, trying to hold my weight off her as I part her thighs, but she pulls me down, wanting to feel me pinning her. Her nails bite into my skin as she clutches my back, and I sink into her with a guttural groan.
Her name falls from my lips in a hoarse exhale.
It’s a handful of thrusts before she detonates—squeezing me so tightly I follow right after her.
Casey.