Chapter Four — Callum
“I don’t know what to do,” I say to Trent.
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” he says. “You’re torn between trying to scare her away one last time, or what, being normal?”
“I guess, pretty much,” I say.
“Okay, so if you try and scare her away, either it doesn’t work and then you know you have a keeper, or you scare her away and you don’t have to worry about the million dollars,” Trent says.
“Correct,” I say. “That’s the deal.”
Alex and I have been locked in this game, a game I have been playing for years now with women.
Technically, the game goes like this: it’s an open challenge for any woman that I find attractive enough to play.
Once she’s in, she just has to win seven games against me.
Every time she loses, there’s a punishment. They’re sexual and they escalate.
I have a list of prescribed games and prescribed punishments. I’ll admit, I tend to pick games that I’m likely to win. Not that that’s difficult, seeing as I’m better than most people at almost everything.
Alex is the first girl who’s ever come close to taking the money, though. Or my heart. Not only is she beautiful, but she’s whip-smart, almost as smart as me. Hell, maybe smarter than me. Like me, she was a chess and math prodigy as a child.
She’s also brave, resilient, and stubborn as hell. She’s not afraid to play dirty and fight back. And like me, she’s a bit dark and twisted.
No matter how much I’ve tried to escalate things to scare her away, it hasn’t worked.
If anything, it’s just made her more into it, more into me, and unfortunately, made me more into her.
Which, in any other scenario, would be a good thing.
Except I could lose a million dollars. Although, to be honest, I hardly care at this point.
I mean, I have enough money that I can lose it and be okay.
Would it suck? Yeah, but I don’t gamble with money I don’t have.
Besides, she would kind of deserve it at this point.
She’s beat me in multiple challenges fair and square, like the fire-starting one and the poker one.
The bigger risk actually is for me to, as cheesy as this sounds, give love a chance. This is the first woman I’ve actually fallen for, and it’s terrifying.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a dilemma to me,” Trent says.
“So you think I should go for it?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, obviously. But what if you scare her away?”
I nod. “That’s the price of love, my friend,” he says.
“I mean, you could play it safe and just stay in this gray zone where you keep things exciting but never feel fully satisfied. I know you, though, and you won’t last long in that area.
You’re impatient. You get bored. One day you’ll do something reckless. Might as well do it now and find out.”
I nod. As much as I wish it wasn’t true, Trent’s right. I’ve always had dark and twisted sexual fantasies. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be playing games like this in the first place.
I mean, it’s not like I have trouble getting women.
At thirty-six years old, I’m a multi-millionaire, having sold a cybersecurity company a few years ago.
I’m also good-looking, if I do say so myself.
Six-three with dark hair, green eyes, and a fairly good body.
I have women throwing themselves at me all the time, but almost none of them interest me.
And even the ones that do, their looks aren’t enough.
Sure, the looks get me in the door, but they don’t keep me there.
Because the second I see a beautiful woman, I want to ruin her. I want to break her down, push her to her breaking point, embarrass her, humiliate her, make her mine.
But the flip side to that is, the second I do that, I’m bored. The challenge is gone. The woman was weak, which just confirms my view of women. On to the next.
Alex is the first woman who, first of all, I respected enough to really want to break down.
She was the first one that was a challenge, and the first one that’s kept coming back.
I break her down for a second, but then she comes back twice as hard.
She beats me at my own games, outwits me. I hate it but I love it.
Which is why I’m scared to push her. If I push her, I could lose her. But like Trent is saying, I could also lose her if I don’t push her. Because knowing me, where we’re at now, as great as it is, it won’t be enough. He’s right. I’ll still want to push things.
I need to know once and for all if I’m too much for her, if my darkness is too dark. I’m scared, though. I’ve never admitted that, but I’m scared.
“I hate to say it, but you’re right,” I say. Trent smiles.
“I get that a lot. So, what are you gonna do?”
I rub my chin. “I have a few ideas.”