Chapter 19
Since they drove together from his house to the docks in the morning, it’s no real surprise when Dieter gives her the keys after he finally pulls himself away from his various cronies. He grins disarmingly, saying, “I’m drunk.”
He’s not that bad off, but he has a point.
Kara takes the Mercedes keys and says dryly, “And lazy .” It’s why he has a contracted driver take him places more often than not.
With care, Kara sinks into the luxury leather of the driver seat, sighing as her hands go around the steering wheel. Within moments, he’s in the passenger seat, ready to go. She would have smacked him if he got in the back and pretended she was his chauffeur.
He fiddles with the stereo, pairing it with his phone to play whatever strikes his fancy. Within moments, a dance club cover of No Scrubs blasts out of the speakers, Dieter singing along, bringing a wry smile to Kara’s face. It’s a good song, with a deep beat, and Kara finds herself singing along with him.
The sun is going down as they cruise back towards his estate.
“You had fun?” He asks her offhand, lounging in his seat, legs spread, right arm hanging out the window.
“As fun as one can have, being treated as a piece of meat between two numbskulls,” Kara replies. She gives him a look. “You didn’t need to bait Nick like that. He doesn’t-”
“Doesn’t deserve it?” Dieter finishes for her, eyebrows raised in amusement. “Are you sure? I mean. Think of how you met .”
Scowling, Kara focuses back on the road, not wanting to get into this with him. “I should have never told you that.” Maybe Nick deserves to be uncomfortable, but based on the conversations Kara heard about Dieter, he deserves some discomfort in his life too.
Tanking someone’s business on purpose? An act that ended up driving them to commit suicide? The idea of it makes her sick and uneasy. She doesn’t want to think that he’s capable of being so vindictive, but Kara knows in her heart that he is.
Like mother, like son.
She blinks the words away. Harmful speculation can’t be treated as truth in a court of law.
Dieter must be on a nicotine kick today because he starts lighting up yet another cigarette. Irritated by his earlier comment, Kara rolls down the windows as she zooms them back towards his home. “Could you not?! Blow that shit out the window, you ass!”
Laughing, Dieter does as she commands, exhaling his current vice of choice out into the dusk air.
In the distance, the grand trees loom, along with the various large estates hidden within, off the long winding road.
It’s dark when Kara parks the car in front of Dieter’s well-lit estate. The statues in the front of the opulent entrance hold out elaborate lanterns, providing a warm glow across the yawning path. As Kara turns off the car, Dieter slings his arm around the back of her seat, leaning over to-
“Don’t try that boyfriend shit on me, you reek of ashtray!” Kara wrinkles her nose and waves her hand in front of her face, as if to remove a particular stench from her vicinity.
He pauses, eyes unreadable in the shadow, near black in the dark. Dieter’s voice is low, husky. “Later? If I’m good?”
Kara glances at his mouth, bites her lip in restraint, and doesn’t answer.
She determines to wait an hour or so before driving home, knowing the traffic into the city is going to be an absolute parking lot. Leaving her bag of things in the front hall, Kara goes into the artfully pale sitting room, a space so sparkling cream and white and silver that it almost makes her afraid to sit in its presence.
Dieter is off somewhere , so she amuses herself by snooping, as she is fond of doing in moments such as these. She starts on her phone, casually searching for old interviews with Saoirse Bittinger, wanting to see her. There are various videos out there, with a very young woman with a stunning grin and bright green eyes, charming the pants off whoever puts their microphone in her face.
There’s nothing there to insinuate some monstrous, wicked woman under it all. Her mannerisms remind Kara of Dieter. The smile is nearly identical…but the eyes. There’s some off there. Something Kara can’t put her finger on.
She flicks off her phone and moves on to something else, not wanting to be caught randomly watching videos of his mother. How awkward would that be? Oh yeah. Your friends insinuated that she killed a woman, so I wanted to see what she’s like.
The large centerpiece table holds storage under its marble top, and when she peeks inside, she sees old photo albums. “Goldmine,” Kara says to herself, pulling a few out. They’re old, looking decades old without much love.
The first album appears to be images of Dieter’s father and his various estates. Grand images of beautiful homes, amazing properties, old portraits of what must be grandparents. Kara puts that to the side, finding one with images of a fey-looking boy grinning into the camera with missing front teeth. The whitest hair and the palest of green eyes. It can only be Dieter.
“I see you found some blackmail material,” Dieter quips as he enters the room, appearing unbothered by the prospect of her looking at childhood photos. “Let me know if there’s anything good in there. I quite forgot those existed.” He comes bearing a tray of deep berry-colored smoothies with gobs of whipped cream on top in big parlor glasses.
Taking one of the gigantic smoothies in the tall glass, Kara asks, “What are these?”
“Compliments of Chef Beau, the chef you did not hire for me,” Dieter proclaims as he keeps one for himself, sitting down comfortably beside her. “He makes a killer protein drink.”
Kara is hungry and eager to fill up her stomach with just about anything. She takes the first sip and sighs at the different flavors of dark berries and rich red grapes. “This can’t be healthy, that’s a lie.”
“I never said these were, in particular.” He shrugs, drinking his own, leaning over to view the various albums of a life that Kara can’t even begin to imagine. From tropical sailing trips around the world with his father, to jaw-dropping images of a much younger Dieter leaping over high fences astride a horse. Even African Safari hunts with Dieter beside a trophy kill. Kara marvels that his life is so utterly unlike her own. They are worlds apart.
There are no photos of his mother in these books of a life lived. Nothing at all to denote her existence. “No Saoirse?”
A little puff of air leaves Dieter’s mouth. “She lived a different life. Most of my childhood memories that include her are of her blipped out on drugs. The beauty industry is cutthroat. She was already a slim thing, but the cocaine kept her even thinner . When she was present physically, she wasn’t there at all.”
Kara can’t glean how that makes him feel. He sounds emotionless on the matter and for once, she doesn’t want to press. She flips into another album and is shocked to see what looks like-
“Is that Nick ?”
Dieter leans over and chuckles low in his throat. “Can’t you recognize that scowl? ‘Course that’s Nick. We spent a lot of our childhood on the East Coast with our families. Our fathers were close then. My father had another estate out there with an equestrian hunt field. A couple of families would always show up for the summer or fall. Nick lived out that way, back then.”
Kara looks on with interest, looking to see into this secret piece of Nick. There are scenes of him playing tennis, various pictures of him and Dieter grinning into what must have been an old camera. Despite a number of photos of him appearing to be a happy boy, there are so many with this forlorn, lost look on his face. Kara wonders about that, how someone like him could be so unhappy surrounded by such excess.
There are various group photos of the adults, all very well-dressed. Some pictures involving various riders astride horses with hounds. Dieter points that out. “My father would hold a mock fox hunt on the property. It was a blast to gallop the trails with the hounds and horses. Not Nicky’s thing though. I would hang back to keep him company so he wouldn’t pout .”
Kara flips more pages.
There’s a woman in her later fifties in a few of the photos, often sitting near Nick. “Who is that? His mother?” Kara squints, looking closer. They don’t look anything alike.
Dieter tilts his head and gazes down, as if trying to recall something. Or trying to determine what to say. “The Judge. Not Nick’s mother, she wasn’t a judge back then. This was the one previous to her. Very politically connected.” He pauses, eyes going half-mast. “Long dead now.”
Peering down at the various pictures of Nick, Kara tries to see what turned him into who he is today. She sees a boy with soft brown hair and big blue eyes, looking downcast and distant even then. She thinks he’s thirteen, perhaps, in the images, somewhere about that age.
There’s no confidence and arrogance. He doesn’t have that ‘brat image’ to him that Dieter seems to carry across the pages.
Dieter is playing with her hair. She swats his hand away. “Stop.”
He shifts closer, the heat of his thigh against hers. “You said later.”
Thinking about that, Kara frowns. What…? Oh . When he tried to kiss her in the car and she refused him. “I never said later. I never said anything at all.”
One of his hands falls on her thigh, his free arm along the back of the couch. His nose, nuzzling by her ear. “That’s as good as saying yes .”
Actually, it’s not.
Quick as a snake, Kara shifts and grabs him by the chin in a domineering fashion. “I’ll tell you when you’re allowed to kiss me.”
His eyes glitter with amusement, allowing her this little display. “Will you? How thrilling .”
God, he’s such a shitcan. Instead of allowing him to continue with his absurd word games, Kara grips his chin tighter and leans forward to kiss him herself, controlling the act. It’s exactly as she wants it to be in this moment with this particular man; it’s her choice, not his.
This man, who tries to control her every move and feeling, does not get a say this time.
It still feels like losing, somehow, when he grins against her mouth, eagerly accepting her domination. The fierce press of her lips against his, fought like a war with one side easily submitting. Taking all her energy and red-hot passion into himself, letting her maneuver him the way she wants.
The terribly wrong act of kissing her client never felt so good. The feeling of his body under hers as she pushes him down, the sensation of his fingers trailing a path down her spine. The heat of him, pressed between her legs-
“ Pardon ,” Chef Beau interjects with embarrassment as he politely drops off another set of those delicious smoothies. “ Est-ce tout ce soir , Mr. Bittinger?”
Kara yelps and sits away from the man under her, flushing red. Why does this bastard have so many employees wandering his damn house? At least Maria already left hours ago…
Dieter sits up and grins without an ounce of shame, lips red and bitten. “ Merci beaucoup. C’est tout. Bonne nuit.”
Kara remains sitting on the other end of the couch, pretending to be an uninteresting shroom until the amused gentleman takes his leave.
After a moment of silence, Dieter says, “Couldn’t contain yourself, could you? Assaulting me in my own home in front of the help. Filthy harlot-”
“You fucker, you instigated it!” Kara cries out, still feeling red in the face.
The laugh he emits makes it impossible to hate him. Kara grabs the new smoothie and gulps it down eagerly.
As time goes on, a warm, soothing feeling in her body begins to spread. A certain false relaxation she hasn’t felt in some time. It strikes her as odd. Staring oddly at the now empty smoothie glass, Kara asks him, “What’s in this?”
“Smoothie shit,” Dieter replies with a grin that looks like a few glasses of wine. A non-answer, eluding the details.
“Is there alcohol in this smoothie, amongst the smoothie shit?” Kara asks bluntly, making sure there’s no loophole out of the answer this time.
His jaw works briefly, as if he’s mulling over his answer. The thing is, Kara doesn’t need him to say it out loud, she can read the answer on his face. For a moment, dismay burns through her relaxation, making her want to fling the heavy glass across the room.
That would ruin the nice furniture and Kara would possibly feel bad about that.
“How could you give this to me without telling me what was in it?”
“I didn’t think it would be such an issue-”
Oh, really? No, he damn well knew. He knows how hard she’s worked to go sober completely these past few months. “When I tell you I don’t drink alcohol, I mean it. Motherfucker,” she hisses. She drank two of those drinks.
The more she thinks about it, the more she feels the effects. That woozy feeling that brings her calm, and if there’s enough, shuts off all the problems in her mind that keep her awake at night. The tool she’s used in the past to hide from her pain and her problems. In reach again, on her tongue, in her blood.
All her effort, ruined.
Red hot and vivid, her temper snaps. She dives at Dieter on the couch and snarls her fury at him for destroying all her hard work with deception. They tussle, Kara pinning him down successfully. He doesn’t put up much defense.
Instead, he grabs her hands and puts them around his throat in a damning way that makes Kara pause, squeezing only momentarily before easing off.
His eyes are dilated wide, watching her, something wicked gleaming there. “Do it,” he whispers.
The fury flooding her veins eases up, replaced by the sticky feeling of unease. She realizes the position they’re in, sprawled on the floor, albums tossed, Kara sitting on top of him, her hands at his throat. She’s breathing heavily and Dieter is excited .
She removes her hands with a sniff and dismounts his submissive form.
She grabs her bag and marches towards the stairs, heading up to Saoirse Bittinger’s museum of a bedroom. Goddammit. She’ll have to sleep with that woman staring down at her from the walls with the same features as the man she currently wants to strangle.
“Where are you going?” Dieter asks, sitting up, looking disheveled. It’s a hot look on him.
“To bed so I don’t have to look at you anymore,” she responds through gritted teeth. She’s not driving home now. It’s dark and it’s a long, long way back. “You fucked up.”
It’s not fair. She worked so hard to not touch a drop all this time. A glare blazes out of her features as she climbs up the stairs, simultaneously checking in her bag, making sure that she has her glasses to drive home with in the morning-
“I’m sorry.” His voice is small.
Pausing at the top of the stairs, Kara turns and looks down at him. Dieter is at the bottom of the stairs, his expression appearing to be terribly chastised.
Kara knows the truth because she’s closer to him than she ever thought she would be. She sees right through that pretty mask. “But you’re not . You’re only sorry that I caught you out.”
The next morning, she leaves without a word, still furious.