Chapter 23 #2
I don’t even read the NDA, just sign it and ask that she have legal send me a copy of it.
Then I’m looking back up, hoping Petra’s still onstage.
She is. She’s reaching down to her chair, collecting her flash cards as she chats with the woman she just interviewed, and when she stands and turns toward the back of the room, we lock eyes.
I know she sees me because the look of recognition is there—the way her eyes widen and her lips part for a split second before she turns her attention back to the woman she’s speaking with.
They exchange a few more words and a hug, and then Petra is making a beeline toward me.
Other people around the studio are starting to notice me too.
There’s a low murmur as people look at me and then at Petra as she walks toward me.
Her face is stony as she approaches. Knowing how much she hates surprises, I didn’t expect her to jump into my arms, but I also didn’t expect her to look like she’s on a warpath.
She walks right by me and shoots a “follow me” over her shoulder.
Jolene looks at me and shrugs, and I take off after Petra.
We wind through the same long white hallways back to her dressing room.
She holds the door open for me, and when I follow her through into the dressing room, she turns and shuts the door with an eerie silence.
The only sound I hear as she turns slowly toward me is her breath, she’s inhaling and exhaling like she’s trying to calm herself down.
“What are you doing here?”
“I found myself with a free weekend and an intense need to see you.”
The hard lines of her face soften and she rubs her palms against her thighs. “I thought I told you not to come.”
“You did, and I know you hate to be surprised. But Petra, it’s been too fucking long.” I cross the room in two steps and stop right in front of her. “I couldn’t wait until you came back to New York to see you.”
She leans forward, resting her forehead against my sternum and looking at the ground. “I missed you, too, but I’ll be in New York in a couple weeks. I needed this time to focus on this new phase of my career.”
“I don’t want to take away from that by being here. I just want to see you. Even if it’s only to have dinner with you and hold you while you fall asleep.”
The hot breath of her exhale is a balm across my chest. Then she tilts her head up and looks at me as I slide my hand around her neck, reveling in the feel of her hot skin on my palm.
“You’re in luck, then. Tomorrow’s filming is canceled.
Without saying too much, because I can’t tell you who she is, my guest had to fly to the Middle East to negotiate some sort of situation. ”
“Does this mean you now have the day free?”
“It does.”
“And what were you planning to do with your extra day off?”
“Sleep?”
“Hmm.” I nod, as I trace the line of her jaw with my thumb. “I’m sure we can negotiate some sleep in there somewhere.”
Her eyes dance and her lips curl into a predatory smile. “I don’t negotiate.”
I take a small step closer to her, so our bodies are touching. “Is this like when you told me you don’t ask, yet you ended up begging?” My voice is so low I almost don’t recognize it, but the longing flowing through my veins and what it’s doing to my body is achingly familiar.
“I let you make me beg, remember?”
“Like you’re going to let me win these sleep negotiations?” I dip my head and slide my lips across her forehead.
“Exactly,” she says as she tilts her face up, her lips begging for a kiss. And who am I to deny her?
From the top of the hill, Los Angeles spreads out before us in all her hazy glory. It’s clear enough to see the tops of the skyscrapers downtown, but the sun hasn’t quite burned through the smog.
“I don’t hate this view,” Petra says, taking a sip of her drink, then leaning back on her elbows. Her long legs stretch out across the blanket and her smooth shoulders shine at the edges of her tank top.
“Just the climb to get to it?” I tease.
“I did hate that climb. It reminded me so much of the conditioning we used to do before the snow fell to get in shape for ski season.”
“Except you were walking up a gentle path in the hills of LA, not climbing the Alps.” Petra’s body is all slim, graceful lines now and she clearly is not in the same athletic shape she used to be.
This hike wasn’t hard, even for someone carrying around as much muscle mass as me. It should have been easy for her.
“Yes, but it’s been a week since I was taken to the ER for exhaustion, remember?”
Oops. “Okay, I’ll stop teasing you about it. I’m sure once your energy levels are back to normal . . .” Her energy levels were just fine last night in her bedroom and this morning in her shower.
“I think my legs are just tired from last night.” She winks and a laugh bursts out of me so quickly I don’t even have time to consider holding it in. And then my body reacts to the memory of her riding me in the cool darkness of her bedroom with the moonlight flooding in through the windows.
“You can tell me if this is too personal,” I say, not sure where the question comes from but desperately wanting to know the answer, “but who was your first?” Given that she was still a virgin when I left her in Austria, I’m expecting her to say that it’s someone she met at boarding school, or even later while she was skiing on the World Cup circuit.
“You don’t want to know,” she says and glances away, gazing into the distance like I’m going to forget I asked the question.
“What if I do want to know?” I ask. I lean back on my elbow so I’m resting next to her, but she still hasn’t looked at me. It doesn’t matter, with those movie star sunglasses, I wouldn’t be able to see her eyes anyway. All her emotion lies in her eyes.
“Trust me,” she says. Her voice is as flat and cold as a sheet of ice as she turns her head back toward me. “You really don’t.”
I turn on my hip so I’m facing her. “Why don’t I want to know, exactly?”
“Too close to home,” she says.
What the hell? I furrow my brow as I try to think about what she could mean. Who the hell would be too close to home? “Not Niko?”
She laughs. “Oh God no. Definitely not Niko. I never so much as looked at your brother.”
“Good. I was too old for you back then, so he was really too old for you.”
I can’t read the look that passes over her face. “Petra”—my voice is soft but insistent—“tell me.”
“No.”
“Why not.”
“Because once you know, you can’t un-know it.” She looks away again, as if downtown LA is the most interesting sight on the planet. Meanwhile, I can’t take my eyes off her in that maroon spandex tank top that’s barely containing her cleavage.
“You can’t say shit like that and expect me not to be even more curious.” I reach over and tilt her chin back toward me. “Tell me.”
“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She pauses and waits for me to nod in agreement. “Felix.”
“Who the hell is Felix?” I ask, but she doesn’t say anything. Then it hits me. “Not the fucking gardener?”
A slight nod of her head is all the response I get.
“Are you kidding me?”
Her forehead wrinkles above the top rim of her sunglasses. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“He was ten years older than you!” A shiver runs up my spine at the thought of sixteen-year-old Petra being mauled by the attractive but creepy gardener.
She gives me a curt nod and takes another drink from the can she’s holding with a look of utter indifference. Does she really not see why this is such a big deal?
“Was it that summer before you went to boarding school?” I ask.
Another nod. “After you left.”
“Did you sleep with him because I left?” My voice is loud, even to my own ears. I need to get a fucking grip. This was over a decade ago. Why am I so upset by it?
“In a way, yes. I was just so sad, and he was there and paying attention to me. It felt like . . .” she says, then trails off for a few seconds. “Like it would help me get over you leaving.”
“And did it?”
Her derisive snort is her answer.
If I’d have known that my breaking off our friendship like that would lead her straight into the arms of that perverted asshole, I never would have done it, even though my father demanded it.
In trying to protect her from a truth and a marriage she didn’t want, I led her to seek comfort from someone with the power to hurt her.
As much as I’ve thought about it over the years, I don’t know what I could have done differently—but I really wish I’d tried harder to figure out a different solution.
“Was it any good?” I don’t know what makes me ask this. Maybe a morbid sense of curiosity, or an instinct to make sure she wasn’t hurt.
“It should have been. He should have been.” Her nostrils flare, but I can’t tell how she’s feeling because of those damn reflective sunglasses covering her eyes.
“Petra, look at me,” I say, and she moves her head a quarter-turn so she’s facing me. “Without the sunglasses.”
She shakes her head, a tiny movement back and forth.
“Did he hurt you?” I ask, reaching my hand over and resting it on her forearm. Her skin is soft, but the muscles beneath them ripple with tension.
“What do you want me to say?” she asks, her voice thin and sad.
“What happened?” In my mind, I’m calculating how long it’ll take me to track him down, and how I can kill him with the least chance of getting caught.
“He didn’t hurt me physically.” Her sigh is enormous, and the part of me that wants to tell her she doesn’t have to tell me anything she doesn’t want to is eclipsed by the part of me that needs to know what happened to her.
In the end, I stay silent and she continues.
“Except that it was my first time, and I really wasn’t ready, but he was incredibly persistent and persuasive.
And in the end, he wasn’t exactly gentle—with my body or my feelings. ”
“Bastard,” I spit out. “Wait, you had feelings for him?”