Chapter 12 Delilah
Delilah
Ispent the entire weekend functioning only at the superficial level, every ounce of my mind spent wondering how, once again, I had gotten into a precarious situation with Adrian.
I could no longer pretend that what I had experienced was just an accidental encounter, an interview with a subject that had gone a bit too far.
I wasn’t sure that I’d ever pretended that, but the first meeting in Adrian’s office had a level of plausible deniability to it.
I’d gone to interview him; it had gotten personal; he’d gotten the wrong message, made a move, and I’d removed myself.
But this?
This was different.
I’d had that first encounter in the back of my mind, and I’d gone over to his place anyways.
I’d known how I felt in Adrian’s presence, and I followed him to his penthouse anyways.
I knew that drinking wine would lower my inhibitions, that it would lower his, and that something was far more likely to happen.
And I went along with it anyways.
It had been milliseconds before I’d kissed him, and if I hadn’t turned my cheek, who knew what the fuck else would have happened?
I’d have fucked him, that was for sure. Whether I would have caught my senses with him deep inside me or in the foreplay or only after the fact…
did it really matter? No one was going to argue, professionally, that any of that would be appropriate.
But I wasn’t even sure if I wanted my professional self to take the place of my personal self anymore.
I always wondered how I’d react the day this might come to be.
I was in my mid-thirties, not past the ability to have kids by any stretch, but an age at which fertility mortality became more real.
In my twenties, I could have pushed Adrian away, if for no other reason than on idealistic and future-thinking grounds.
Now?
Did I really want to insist on being a professional journalist at the expense of romance and maybe more? Bold to think Adrian would want children with you. Bold to think that it would go anywhere that far. He just wants to fuck you.
That was also an easy thought. I wasn’t sure it was right.
My head spun with these thoughts for the whole weekend, and by the time Sunday evening came, there was only one clear solution.
I needed a girl’s brunch.
Of course, because I waited until Sunday evening, “a girl’s brunch” quickly turned into “a girl’s dinner” on Monday night.
That was always a bit more precarious for me than brunch, because life happened much faster on weekdays than weekends, even in Vegas.
As much as I was debating the place of my professional and personal lives, I wasn’t going to quit my job cold turkey.
But fortunately, as Monday night came, and I walked into Naked City Pizza, one of my favorite pizza places in all of Vegas, I had little concern that any news of importance was going to break.
All was quiet on the casino fronts—they usually were on Mondays—I hadn’t gotten any requests to do interviews, and I didn’t get any metaphorical tea leaves warning me of something critical about to happen.
Granted, it went without saying that I always had my ears perked up for something from Adrian. If he called, I had to pick up. I had to hear what he wanted to say. I’d have to control the conversation, to guide it in a manner that was suitable to my needs, but I still had to take it either way.
Immediately, I saw Bridget and Talia already seated. Sarah said she would come after she spent time with Cassius—an amusing fact that was not lost on me.
“Hello!” I said as I sat down.
“You’re awfully cheerful,” Bridget said with concern. “You texted us begging to meet, and now all sounds good? Is everything OK?”
“She’s just trying to be in a good mood, what’s wrong with that?” Talia said as I hugged them both.
“I’ve got a lot running through my head,” I said, “and I suppose it might be good to lay it out before Sarah arrives. What with her and Cassius.”
That drew raised eyebrows from both, and before I could think twice about how I wanted to present the information, I laid it all out.
I explained all my encounters with Adrian and how conversing with him felt like friendly yet intense mental sparring, a game to see who could outwit the other.
I went into the “diamond” metaphor and how it seemed to be an apt description for both my job and our dynamic.
And, most importantly and most honestly, I explained how I’d come inches—less than that, really—to kissing Adrian Vale.
“I think I can’t lie to myself anymore,” I said. “I’m immensely attracted to him, but I know going down this path would be stupid. So it’s not really about that. It’s more about trying to make sense of being professionally on point while being aware of how I feel about him.”
Except that’s not true and you know it.
“That doesn’t sound like you mean it,” Bridget said.
Damn. She was good. She was a therapist, after all. We had different roles, yet we had the same requirement of listening closely to people and asking the appropriate questions. She just did it on a much deeper and more personal level.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you really need us to explain how to be professional? We’re not journalists,” she said. “I think you’re attracted to him, and you want permission to go further.”
“I—”
“The therapist in me would listen and let you continue to talk, but the friend in me needs to say something first,” Bridget said.
She barely drew a breath; this was obviously getting under her skin.
“Cassius and Sarah, whatever. I’m not really convinced that’s good for Sarah, but they have history, they have talked it out, and she’s a grown woman who’s made a sober choice.
So be it. You have no history with Adrian, right? ”
I shook my head no. Not any more than the past couple of weeks.
“Adrian, the Vales, all these billionaires. They’re not that different from the bikers.
They’re manipulators. They’re control freaks.
They’ll present as being too cool for it or being above it, but actually, they get off on the dominance they have.
The clamps they can put down on you. Adrian?
He’s luring you into his game, and he’s winning. ”
“I—”
“Of course you’ve gotten quotes out of him, Delilah. That’s the point. They give just enough to make you think it’s an even trade, when actually you are falling right into their hands. If they just took, well, you’d be their hostage or prisoner. Sort of like how Brianna was.”
Both Talia and I grimaced. If we thought Bridget was upset now, getting her to go off about Brianna marrying her biker man—Crush, a name Bridget refused to acknowledge—was a fast way to see a volcano erupt.
“You do what you need to do professionally,” Bridget continued. “But stay the fuck away from him otherwise. Only meet him in public places. And never go anywhere private with him, not even his office. Otherwise, you are his.”
She leaned back, took a sip of water, and let out a long sigh.
Wow.
I knew of the four of us, Bridget had the strongest feelings about men of power and influence. Her sister being affected by it was obviously a factor, but Bridget in general was a skeptic. Maybe being a therapist had actually hurt her ability to give the rich and powerful a chance.
Or… or maybe she was right, I was in denial, and she was also right about Sarah. Time would only tell on that one.
“Talia?” I said, at least certain that an employee of the Morrils was less likely to be as furious, if just as biased against Adrian.
“I agree that he’s manipulating you. He wants to sleep with you. But if you keep your wits about you, that’s something you can use to your advantage.”
True. But to what extent?
Then I thought about her statement more, especially since she didn’t seem to have more to say.
Adrian hadn’t taken me the first chance he got; he seemed to be playing a slow-burn game, leaving me in the warming pot until it was too late for me to see it was boiling over.
I hadn’t seen Adrian in action before, but I couldn’t imagine a man as handsome, wealthy, and powerful as he played games of patience with many women.
I didn’t want to know the details, but it wasn’t too far-fetched to imagine that he’d probably had a few women he’d slept with after hardly enough effort.
“And now here’s the experienced voice,” Bridget said, nodding over my shoulder.
I turned to see Sarah walking in. Truly, of all of us, she wore the biggest smile and had the most relaxed demeanor. She had the least stressful job, admittedly, but she’d been relaxed before she met Cassius. This was different, though.
This was the calm demeanor of someone riding the high of new love, of a new engagement, and who didn’t seem to have any second thoughts about the matter.
“The experienced voice?” Sarah said. “What’s going on?”
Once more, I found myself repeating what I’d said earlier, albeit in a slightly more condensed version. The only parts I added were to summarize what Talia and Bridget had said; Bridget added her own words at the end to say how bad of a situation she thought I was in, but Talia added nothing more.
“So,” I said, “your thoughts, Sarah?”
Sarah nodded, looked down at her hands in thought, and then nodded again.
“Adrian and Cassius are brothers, but they’re not as similar as you’d think,” she said.
“Not to mention, we had history, and you don’t.
Cassius was a man driven by control and power largely for its own sake; he didn’t get into games of comparison that much.
Adrian—and this is coming from my perspective and Cassius’—is driven by comparison.
He’s constantly measuring himself against his brother.
I suspect a part of him wants you to prove to Cassius that he can seduce someone like he did. ”
“So it’s just a dick measuring contest,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I entirely agreed. I got the idea that Adrian was annoyed with Cassius is some ways, but I didn’t think he was trying to fuck me just to prove a point to Cassius.
Not consciously, at least.
“I just think Adrian is much more control-oriented,” Sarah said. “I also think there’s no guarantee that your love story will end the same way mine did. In some ways, the odds are worse for you since you don’t have your previous memories to fall back on.”
But I also wasn’t in the car that killed their brother, I thought. For obvious reasons, I did not voice the thought.
“Just be careful, I guess is the big takeaway,” Talia said.
“And be aware this isn’t like what she has,” Bridget said, drawing a subdued but annoyed glare from Sarah.
Mercifully, the conversation shifted to art shows and events coming up at Allure and at The Red Court, conversation topics I was happy to pretend to listen to while quietly processing everything that had just been said.
Bridget clearly had her opinions, not invalid ones but biased ones. Yet other than that…
The advice was pretty consistent. Be careful, be aware, I was in a game of control, and the odds were not in my favor.
And.
I had leverage with Adrian too.
Adrian thought he could control me, and I’d let the heat of the moment get to me.
But why couldn’t I put some pressure and heat on myself? Why couldn’t I be the one to dictate how things went, not him?
Yes, I thought, that sounded much better than letting myself be dragged to his penthouse and pressed against the wall. I was doing the investigation into the Vales and the Morrils. I would do the digging.
I would be the one in control.