23. 23
Iexcuse myself as soon as we’re back in the condo after dinner. It’s a strange sensation not to have my phone or my laptop, like I’ve walked out of the house without my shoes.
But it’s somewhat freeing. It’s been years since I haven’t felt the need to be connected to work, to have my finger constantly on the pulse of things. To be ready to make decisions at a moment’s notice.
The only decision I have to make here is what cocktail I’ll try from the list.
I leave a lamp on for Max and burrow into my side of the bed. The bed is insanely comfortable, with cool, soft sheets and the mattress just the way I like it. The pillows are perfect, and the temperature is cool, with the fan spinning gently overhead.
I can hear the boys talking and laughing, the odd clink of glasses.
They may be older than me, but I think of them as boys. I’m sharing a bed with a boy and I have no idea what to expect.
I tell myself it’s the noises that keep me from sleeping, not the way the room seems to close in on me.
I don’t want to be alone.
I don’t want to be with anyone, but I’m… lonely. I am alone. I’m here in a beautiful place and I’ve barricaded myself in my room instead of having fun.
Not only my room—our room. Max will be in here with me soon.
I throw off the blanket and stalk to the balcony door, stepping out into the night air, the warmth kissing my skin after the cool air conditioning.
I can see the moon hanging low in the east, out of the corner of my eye. Sunsets are beautiful but there’s something about watching the moon rise to take its place in the sky. For six or seven hours, the moon reigns supreme in the sky as the sun sleeps, missing out on so much.
I’ve always been a night person.
I’ve shared beds with men before, but I’ve always known what to expect.
If it was a client, I would know upfront what he expected—sex, or like Noam, physical closeness. There were a lot of clients who only wanted someone to feel close to.
Those made me lonely, for them and me.
Not as lonely as I feel now.
“So, Cady,” Nick says. “What’s going on there?”
I suck in my breath. The boys must have moved to the balcony overlooking the beach, only a few feet from where I’m standing.
Close enough that I can overhear their conversation.
“I have no clue. Nothing. I don’t know.” There’s a pause and I can picture Max rubbing the back of his neck. “She makes my head spin.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Dexter asks.
“Maybe?”
“It’s good if you’re ready to move on from Caroline.”
“It’s about time you move on from her.” There’s a harshness in Nick’s voice that I’ve never heard before, and there’s a stab of anger toward the mysterious Caroline.
And then guilt, because I shouldn’t be hearing this. I’ve always considered information to be the most precious of commodities, but it’s not business with Max. It’s…
I don’t know what it is.
If I make his head spin, he makes me feel like I’m on a roller coaster—the highs racing into the lows, leaving me sick to my stomach.
Maybe that’s the tequila in that last cocktail.
Who is Caroline?
And why do I care?
If I had my phone, all it would take would be a quick text to Travis, and he’d find out whatever there was to find out about her. But Tana made me leave it at home and I agreed, which is so unlike me. Maybe I like the freedom of being suddenly unconnected, but this is frustrating, this wanting to know something.
Telling myself I don’t, why should I care about a woman Max used to love—maybe is still in love with—I back quietly into the room.
She makes my head spin.
I hope Caroline isn’t still in the picture.
Despite the thoughts and questions racing in my mind, I managed to fall asleep. Max is quiet enough that I don’t stir until he slides in beside me.
As far away as possible.
“Goodnight, Max,” I whisper when he switches off the lamp.
“Sorry I woke you.”
“It’s fine.”
“Everything okay?”
“I like the bed.”
A low chuckle. “I like it too. Goodnight, Cady.”
I drift off again.
When I wake up, the room is in total darkness, without even a line of light from the curtains or from under the door. It disorients me, and I sit up, trying to remember where I am.
Who I’m with. Someone is breathing beside me, but not touching me. Is it Noam? Is he—?
“Cady.” Max’s sleepy voice drifts from beside me.
Max. Max is with me. I draw a shaky breath.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” Another shaky breath and another until my heart slows its breakneck pace. “Bad dream.”
“You probably didn’t know where you were either. Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Want to try to go back to sleep?”
Instead of answering, I lie down on my side, flip to my back, and back to my side. Very conscious of Max an arm’s length away.
Not that I’m uncomfortable with him being there, but…
I don’t like uncertainty.
“Was it about Tate?” There’s something in his voice and I roll over to face him. “The bad dream?”
“I, I think so.” The absolute quiet of the room, the heavy body over mine… “Who’s Caroline?”
“Who told you about her?” he asks with surprise.
“I was out on the balcony and overheard the three of you talking. I came back inside after that,” I admit. “But I heard her name. It sounded like…”
“I was in love with her.” Max shifts, moving closer. “Once upon a time.”
“Did she hurt you?” I hear the nod, rather than see his dark head moving on the pillow. “I don’t like her.”
“I don’t like her much either,” he says. “She ended up with my father.” I suck in my breath with surprise, but Max keeps speaking. “We weren’t together long, but my mother introduced us and I thought she was perfect for me. Smart and classy, beautiful. From a good family.”
Everything I’m not.
“My mother liked the idea of us together. So did my father, at first, and that’s why I moved so fast. We dated for a bit and everything was going great and I thought, why not?”
“You asked her to marry you.”
“And she said yes, so I thought she loved me too. I thought she wanted me. But it turned out she was already in bed with my father. Literally.”
“What about your mother?”
“She left him as soon as she found out, but because of the prenup she signed, she got nothing. She gave up her career for my father, and he threw her away like she meant nothing. I hate him for that.”
“Why do you keep working with him?”
“For him,” Max corrects, a note of despair in his voice. “He never lets anyone see me as his equal. I’m always the son, doing his bidding.”
“Why do you stay?”
With a heavy sigh, Max rolls onto his back. “My third year at school, I got into some trouble with the betting sites.” Another deep breath. “Dex and Nick too. Marcus tried to bail us out, but we were in too deep. These guys kept coming around.”
“I knew guys like that.”
“Yeah. I finally told my parents, because I really thought they were going to kill us.”
They wouldn’t have killed them because then they would never get their money. But I’m not about to tell Max that. I picture him as a scared frat boy, running home to his father at the first sign of trouble.
But that goes against how I see him now.
“My father paid them off. All the debts, mine and Dexter’s and Nick’s.”
“That was… good of him.”
“You’d think, right? Once it was all finished, he made me sign this contract. I was basically an indentured servant for as long as it took to pay off the debts.”
“Nick’s too? He’s a baseball player, and could afford to pay it off.”
“I never told them,” he says. “It was too—like how could a father do that? I would have paid him back, but he didn’t give me a choice on how he got the money. He wanted me in the company, under his control, because I was the only one left. My brothers want nothing to do with him.”
“Have you paid it off yet? How much money did you owe him?”
“It’s paid off now, but I renegotiated things after Mom was left with nothing. He gave her a nice settlement; I keep working for him.”
“Max…”
“Yeah, yeah, poor little rich boy. I know what you’re thinking.”
“Your father was a client of E. I have a list of all the women he bought and paid for over the years.”
Max huffs a laugh. “That’s not what I thought you were thinking.”
“I can give it to you if you think it would be helpful.”
“I don’t know what it would be. It feels like I should tell Caroline, though. Do you know if he still…”
“I sold the app, but I’m sure my people… they’re very good at finding out information for me.”
“I imagine they would be. Is that what you did for Noam Tate, or did he have his own people?”
I stiffen at the question. “Noam advised me in my business dealings, but I didn’t do anything for him.”
Except for being a proximate body at night so he could fall asleep.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You meant it in the same way as everyone does. They see me, they know how I started and they can’t imagine me being as successful as I am without Noam’s help. He helped, but I…” Now it’s my turn to heave a sigh. “He helped a lot. I’m not sure I could have done it without him,” I confess.
“That’s not true. I think you could do anything you put your mind to.”
“He’s the one who gave me the idea to buy the club. I was happy with the app; it was going well and I was making money from that so I didn’t have to dance, or the men…”
“I think the app was a big success for you, wasn’t it? When you sold that—wow.”
“The clubs help.”
“But you did it yourself.”
“This was supposed to be about you telling me about this Caroline person,” I complain.
“You wanted to know, did you? Curious about little old me?”
“About the man who needed a date to a wedding in a Caribbean country? Definitely curious.”
“Is that it? Nothing about being curious about just how I manage to completely satisfy every woman I’m with?”
With a shake of my head, I flip over. “Goodnight Maximus.”
“Goodnight, Cady.” A few minutes pass and then, “I think you’re a little curious.”
“Maybe.”
It doesn’t take me long to fall asleep.