Читать книгу The Dare Collection December 2019 - Clare Connelly - Страница 23

THREE DAYS AND I feel as though I haven’t seen her in three years. It’s just like that first godawful week, after Sydney, when I had no idea who the fuck Miss Anonymous really was and I worried I might never learn. That I might never see her again, nor know the pleasure of her beautiful, sensual body.

I am beyond impatient.

I have had to fight hard not to message her, but I had the feeling when she left on Wednesday morning that she needed a bit of space, and the last thing I want is to pressure her. This is all about fun—for her and for me.

Fortunately, things exploded at work, which kept me busy. Still, I must have checked my phone eleven billion times. My bed smells like her, sweet and lightly fragranced, so I have lain awake at night and remembered everything we shared.

She arrives a little after seven and I prowl to the door, buzzing her up and waiting impatiently.

When she walks in, I groan and pull her into my arms, smiling as I kiss her, holding her tight to my body, breathing her in, tasting her, feeling her, needing her, wanting her, loving this.

‘Hey.’ My greeting, minutes later, is gruff.

‘Hey yourself.’ Hers is breathless.

I want to drag her to bed and never leave, but already the sex thing is taking over from what was meant to be a casual flirtation, some harmless dating fun.

I have to slow that down a bit, as much as that idea is akin to scrubbing my skin with acid.

‘What do you feel like?’

Her cheeks rush with pink in that way she has.

‘For dinner,’ I clarify, grinning, anticipation tightening my gut, and in all parts of me, as I look forward to how I know this night will end.

‘Oh.’ She bites down on her lower lip; I brush my thumb over her flesh, so she parts her mouth and bites the pad of my thumb instead. ‘Pizza?’

‘A girl after my own heart.’

‘There’s a great place just a few blocks away.’

‘I’ll get delivery.’ I move towards the kitchen bench, lifting my phone and loading the app. I place an order for a few different ones. When I turn around, she’s stripped down to her underwear, her eyes locked to mine with an intensity that almost bowls me over.

‘Hot tub?’

Hell to the yeah. I nod, affecting an air of calm nonchalance. ‘Go ahead. It’s warm. I’ll grab some beers.’

I hear her squawk as she steps out onto the balcony—it’s just below zero out there. I turn around just in time to see her running across the tiles and up the one step before sliding in over the edge, so just her head bobs up. The relief on her face takes my breath away.

So does the fact she’s here, in my penthouse, her smile, her eyes, her body, her laugh.

I spin away and yank out some beers, cracking the tops of them as I walk, placing hers on the edge of the hot tub.

‘Oh, thank God, it’s real beer.’

‘What did you expect?’

‘Tepid lager?’ she says with an impish grin.

I laugh, stripping out of my clothes, down to my jocks, and stepping over the edge of the spa. She’s watching me with undisguised hunger and my dick reacts accordingly.

‘It did take me a while but it turns out I’ve developed a taste for your beer.’

She sips from her bottle, moving to one of the seats on the edge of the tub. Manhattan sparkles beneath us, an array of little tiny lights that make up a thriving island metropolis.

‘Do you think you’ll miss it?’

‘American beer?’

‘New York,’ she corrects, smiling.

‘Yeah.’ I’m surprised by how deep the word comes out, and troubled seeming.

‘I can’t imagine not living here,’ she says, simply.

‘You don’t miss home?’

‘LA?’ Her face is one of disgust. ‘I miss it during the winter,’ she says after a second. ‘And I miss some people. And I guess there’s always a nostalgia for where you grew up, so that on certain days I find myself thinking about the way the light would hit my bedroom wall, and I long to go back. Not to LA but to when I was a teenager and everything was so much simpler.’

It’s a fascinating statement.

‘In what way is your life no longer simple?’

‘Are you kidding? My life is a study in clean simplicity,’ she says with a self-deprecating smile. ‘No mess, no fuss, no complications. I mean that people aren’t simple. Life is messy and complicated, no matter how hard you try to fight that. I can control only so much, you know?’

‘You sound like someone who’s been hurt,’ I prompt with curiosity, swimming across to her and taking the seat right beside her, careful not to touch because touching Imogen invariably leads to much, much more.

‘Not really.’ But she’s lying.

‘Imogen?’

Her eyes fix to mine, her pupils huge, swallowing up almost all of her icy blue. ‘I’m just speaking generally,’ she says unconvincingly, after a lengthy pause.

There’s more to it, I’m sure of it. ‘As you get older,’ I say, sipping my beer, ‘things do get more complex.’

‘Yes.’ She smiles, a little uneasily. ‘You come to understand people and their motivations better.’

We’re quiet a moment, reflective.

‘So what happens when you go home?’ It’s a clunky attempt to change the topic but I let it go. My wheels are turning, wondering what she was thinking about a minute ago, and we’ll come back to it later, when she’s a little more relaxed, less guarded.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, do you become the Playboy of London?’

Frustration nips at my heels, a frustration that’s hard to fathom. ‘No, I expect not.’

‘I can’t really see you hanging up your bachelor shoes.’

‘It’s been five years since what would have been my wedding day,’ I say with a shrug. ‘Five years of the kind of pace of life that would wear anyone down.’

‘You’re over it?’

I shake my head, surprised to realise that I’m speaking the truth. ‘I’m ready for the next phase of my life.’

Her eyes skim my face, perhaps trying to see if I’m being honest.

‘I wouldn’t necessarily be going home,’ I continue, ‘if it weren’t for my father’s demands.’

‘Demands?’ she prompts, moving to close the space between us. ‘You don’t seem like someone anyone could make demands of.’

‘His insistence, then.’

‘Same deal.’ She laughs softly.

‘He’s my father,’ I point out. ‘He holds a certain power.’

‘I can understand that,’ she says, her forehead crinkling with her frown. ‘Even when I’m someone who’s turned disobedience into an art form.’ It’s said lightly, with a curve of her lips, but I feel there’s more to it.

‘You? Miss Strait-Laced?’

‘Do I really seem that strait-laced to you?’ she points out with a slow, tempting wink.

‘Not in bed,’ I assure her. ‘But everywhere else.’

She opens her mouth but closes it again, grimacing slightly.

‘That wasn’t a criticism.’

‘I know. And you’re right. This…’ she waves from her chest to mine, inadvertently drawing my gaze downwards ‘…is the craziest thing I’ve done in years—probably since I put as much of my trust fund as I could get my hands on into the charity.’

So many questions fire in my mind. ‘So how have you disobeyed your parents?’ I ask the question in a voice that rings with amusement because I think she’s probably, at twenty-nine, beyond the point of giving too much of a shit what her mom and dad think of her. And yet, look at me. A grown man, the same age, about to leap the Atlantic to placate my father’s expectations of me.

‘In every way,’ she says simply. ‘My life is a study in parental disappointment.’

‘Surely not.’ I’m not joking now. ‘Look at what you’ve achieved. They must be proud of you?’

‘Proud?’ She shakes her head on a small laugh. ‘Proud is what they would have been if I’d married the CEO of Alpine Moor TV at twenty-three, like they wanted. Proud is what they’d be if I’d pursued the modelling career my mom desperately tried to line up for me. Proud is what they’d be if I’d stayed home in LA and troubled myself with my mom’s hospital benefits.’

‘But you’re doing something so much bigger,’ I point out. ‘Look at the business you’ve built, and the charity you’re funding.’

‘Yes, but I deal with underprivileged kids, which is definitely not the kind of charity my mom thinks I should be championing.’

‘No?’

‘Oh, no. My mom would much rather I raise money to help embattled hedge-fund managers maintain their country club memberships.’

She’s being sarcastic but I feel her resentment burning from her in waves, her hatred for wealth and society, her derision for its constructs evident.

‘A charity’s a charity,’ I say simply.

‘I used to think that too.’ Her smile is wistful. ‘I used to be so proud of my mom and dad and the work they did. Or the work I thought they did. My mom was forever organising benefits, fundraising, sponsoring events.’ She shakes her head mournfully. ‘Ironically, I probably got some of my philanthropic aspirations from Mom.’

‘Why is that ironic?’

‘Because, as I got older, I realised that my mom and dad really only cared about supporting the causes that sounded good. They wouldn’t go near domestic violence or women’s shelters, nothing to do with providing homeless women with sanitary items. My mom was mortified when I suggested any such thing.’

Her words zing with anger, despite the fact we’re talking about events that transpired a long time ago.

‘Then there was the time I tried to fundraise for a charity that buys groceries for families on food stamps. My mom honestly threatened to disown me.’ Her smile is just a tight imitation.

‘I’d like to say I’m surprised,’ I say, eventually. ‘But that kind of attitude is pretty prevalent.’

‘Yeah, only amongst the very, very wealthy.’

‘Not everyone feels that way.’

‘A lot do.’ She shrugs. ‘And I hate it.’

‘I can tell.’

She looks at me appraisingly for several beats. ‘Can I tell you something? In confidence?’

It annoys me that she even needs to check. ‘Of course.’

‘When I first built The Billionaires’ Club, I used to get a perverse kind of pleasure from taking money from the super rich and funnelling it to support a cause most of them would be embarrassed to be associated with.’

‘So the club was spite?’ I murmur, a smile on my lips because it’s so ridiculously badass I can’t help loving that.

‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘It was five per cent spite.’ And then she laughs, such a contrast to the mood of a moment ago that my insides glow with warmth.

‘I think most of our membership is actually pretty cool. Sure, there are a few people who wouldn’t know a social conscience if it grew legs and bit them on their jewelled rears,’ she says with a flick of her brow. ‘But I’ve been bowled over by some really amazing offers from some club members over the years. Chance wouldn’t be what it is without the club. I can never resent the members for that.’

‘Tell me about the charity.’

‘What do you want to know?’

I don’t really want to admit how little I know about it. I gather it’s something to do with children, underprivileged children, but that’s about it.

‘Why start your own charity rather than working for one that’s already up and running?’

‘Control,’ she answers, simply and passionately. ‘And contacts. I have access to what the charity needs and I can cut out a lot of middlemen. Plus, I like to know that there’s no top-heavy administrative board or whatever. I run everything. It’s my baby, my project.’

Her passion is overwhelming.

‘Why children?’ I prompt conversationally, but her face tightens, her eyes flashing away from me. She reaches for her beer, and I know she’s using it to buy time. I wait with the appearance of patience as she sips her drink. But I’m not letting her move on.

‘Imogen?’

She’s upset. Her features are strained, her eyes showing a depth of emotion that I didn’t expect.

Still, I don’t let it go.

‘You must care a great deal to have poured so much energy into it.’

‘Yes.’ A whisper, barely.

There’s more here. A story she’s not telling me and, for some reason, it feels vitally important that I know it.

‘Why?’

‘It’s important,’ she says quietly, simply, turning to face me once more, her eyes showing a profound pain.

‘Lots of things are important. Why this?’

‘There are almost sixteen million kids in America living in abject poverty, and that’s with an incredibly low poverty line. I founded Chance for them. Because everyone deserves a chance and it’s by no means guaranteed that everyone will get one. Our luck in life is predetermined at birth. Not just by wealth, by lots of factors, but financial security is a cornerstone of success. And there are sixteen million kids here, in the States, who struggle to get enough food to survive. Forget about books and sports, holidays, the safety of a good home and the comfort of parents who aren’t worried about how they’re going to keep the lights on.’

Her voice cracks and the passion she feels overwhelms me and makes me feel like a selfish git, all at once.

‘This is a developed country, the envy of the world, and we have this vulnerable subset of society doing it so tough. I met a girl at an event last month who cried because I gave her a double pass to see a movie. She’s never been to the cinema before.’ She swallows, her eyes filling with tears. I feel as if a cement block has been dropped right onto my heart. I didn’t expect this. And I hate seeing her upset. I hate even more that I’ve done this to her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbles, beating me to the apology I want to offer. ‘I just get so frustrated. The Billionaires’ Club enables me to pour a fortune into the charity every year, but it still never feels like enough.’

‘I bet you’re making a huge difference,’ I contradict gently.

‘Maybe. I just want more, and I want it now.’

I pull her closer, into my arms, and press a kiss to her eyelid, tasting her salty tears, wishing them gone.

‘I had this friend,’ she says quietly against my chest. ‘Abbey.’

I’m still, waiting for her to go on. It’s started to snow, lightly, so the contrast in temperatures out of the spa and in is marked.

‘She died, when I was a teenager.’

‘I’m sorry.’

I feel her expression shift and I suspect it’s a grimace. ‘We were really tight, growing up. She lived just a block away and we spent almost every weekend together.’ Her voice is grim, despite what sounds like happy memories. ‘And then, when I was fifteen, the news broke that her dad had been charged with a federal crime—embezzlement. He’d set up a Ponzi scheme and taken people for billions. It wasn’t Abbey’s fault, but her whole life went down the drain. Her mom left, hooked up with some Swiss athlete and moved to Europe, her dad was locked up.’

‘Shit. The poor thing.’

‘I did what I could.’ She lifts her face to mine, and I can tell she’s back in the past, more than a decade ago, but the pain is just as real as if it were happening now. ‘I had a credit card I maxed to cover what I could. I snuck her into our pool house to live. We did that for three months and no one ever knew. Then my dad found her.’ Fury lashes her face, her look one of utter rage. ‘And called social services. I was forbidden to see Abbey ever again. My credit card was cut up.’

Her tears are back; my heart breaks for her, and her friend.

‘She was like a sister to me, I thought she was like a daughter to them, but when she needed help, they wouldn’t do a damned thing because they were so ashamed of what Abbey’s dad had done.’

‘Jesus.’

‘She ended up in foster care, but it wasn’t pretty.’ She swallows, turning away from me, focussing on a high rise across the street. It glows like a candle on this black New York night. ‘In fact, it was downright awful. Her first foster father turned out to be a victim of her dad’s scheme. He used to hit her.’

My stomach drops. ‘I hope she pressed charges.’

‘No.’ It’s a pained sound. ‘She died.’

‘He killed her?’ My own fury is intense.

‘He might as well have. She was miserable. She drank a big bottle of his vodka then went to watch the sunrise over Malibu. She was found at the bottom of the cliffs a day later.’ A small sob escapes her and she covers it by reaching for her beer. My heart is breaking for Abbey, but also for Imogen, who comes across as so incredibly cool and professional but is, actually, very soft-hearted.

‘My parents didn’t let me go to the funeral. I think they were actually glad she was dead. They’d been worried about what kind of scandal she might drag me into.’ The fury is back and I infinitely prefer it to her grief. ‘I hated them after that. I mean, they’re my parents, so I love them too, but I don’t respect them, and I don’t like them, and I hate what they stand for—or, rather, what they were too afraid to stand for.’

‘I can understand why you feel that way.’

‘Three years after founding Chance, The New York Times ran a profile about me. It was very flattering, full of praise for what I was doing. That was the first time my parents publicly acknowledged my work. After that, they started to donate, and even got their hoity-toity friends—the same ones who helped ruin Abbey’s life—to hold benefits to raise money. You have no idea how it stung to take that cash.’

‘Why did you?’

She fixes me with a look that is simple and sad, a surrender to pragmatism. ‘Because that money could stop twenty kids from doing what Abbey did. We fund counsellors for at-risk kids—not just in-person sessions and drop-in clinics, but twenty-four-hour phone banks. The charity needs every penny it can get—I will never not accept donations, even from people who are so hypocritical it makes me sick.’

I lift a hand, running a finger over her cheek, studying her, somehow committing her and this to memory, because in the back of my mind I’m aware of the ticking of a time bomb, counting down to my future, our lives beyond this.

‘I’m sorry about your friend.’

Her expression shifts to one of sadness, and then wistfulness. ‘Me too.’ She sighs, sips her beer. ‘I wish I could have done more.’

‘It sounds like you tried.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you’re doing so much for other kids like her.’

She nods, and pushes a smile to her face. ‘Wow. I really tanked the mood, huh?’

‘I’m glad you told me.’

‘I don’t know why I did. I don’t really talk about Chance to members of the club.’

And despite the seriousness of our conversation, I can’t help smiling. ‘Is that what I am?’

‘Uh huh.’ She pushes up onto my lap, straddling me in the spa. I like her like this. Close and pliant in my arms; her body fits so perfectly with mine.

‘One of the first kids I funded, in the first year of Chance, has just graduated medical school.’ Her smile is bright. ‘She was on the brink of dropping out of school when I met her. In fact, she kind of gave me the idea. I wanted to help her—not a little bit. A lot. I wanted to make it easy for her to study. She was so bright, so bright, and she just couldn’t get a leg-up. That’s what Chance does. You have to bring the attitude and the hope, but we will make it possible for dreams to come true.’

‘I think you’re amazing.’ The words come from me before I can stop them, and I wish I hadn’t said it, because it’s the kind of compliment I usually avoid giving women, for the sense it creates of things meaning more to me than they do. I’m usually more careful.

Fortunately, Imogen doesn’t really react. She makes a little face, an expression of mock coyness, and then pulls away from me, kicking across the hot tub to the other side.

‘This is a nice touch, Lord Rothsmore.’ Her smile is back, and my heart relaxes—I hadn’t realised how much I wanted to see her smile again.

‘What’s that?’ My voice is deep and gruff.

‘The hot tub, the lights, the snow.’

‘I’ll take credit for the hot tub but the rest is just this city.’

‘It’s quite the bachelor pad.’ She looks over her shoulder to the cavernous living space. ‘I can see how you got the reputation for being the Playboy of Manhattan.’

She wiggles her brows, flirty and teasing, light-hearted, except I feel something decidedly heavy flick through me.

‘I’m really not so bad.’

‘No judgement.’ She lifts her hands in front of her. ‘I don’t care.’

There it is again. What do I want? For her to be jealous? That’s kind of petty.

And stupid, given that I’m moving home in a few weeks with every intention of turning my lifestyle on its head completely, meeting someone who I can see a future with. A future that will look nothing like this. I’m not looking for someone I can laugh with and make love to all night long.

‘Do you ever think how different your life would have been if your fiancée hadn’t…?’

‘Left me at the altar in front of our nearest and dearest?’

She winces. ‘That must have sucked.’

I laugh, just a short, sharp noise of agreement. ‘That’s one word for it.’

‘I’m serious. You must have been livid.’

‘I was many things.’ I drain my beer and place it on the edge of the hot tub.

‘Like?’

‘Livid, sure. Hurt. Heartbroken.’ I catch the speculation that sweeps across her expression. ‘That surprises you?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘You don’t think I have a heart?’ I can’t resist probing, my voice light.

‘Why would you say that?’

‘When I said I was heartbroken you looked surprised.’

She shakes her head. ‘You were getting married. It goes without saying you were in love with her.’

I give Manhattan my full focus for a minute, studying the beautiful, sparkling high-rises. Something inside me pulls tight—the thought of leaving this behind is not something I relish, even though I know the time has come.

‘I wasn’t really.’ The admission isn’t one I’ve ever made, even to myself. ‘I wanted to love her. I suppose I thought that loving her would mean my parents hadn’t masterminded the marriage. That it would have come down to Saffy and me being right for each other.’ I grimace. ‘At least she figured it out before we made it official.’

Imogen sits up a little higher, so her beautiful breasts in that lace bra float on the surface of the water.

‘Do you think you’d still be married, if she hadn’t?’

‘Probably. I didn’t love her but I liked her a lot, and I respected her. We enjoyed one another’s company. Our marriage made sense.’

‘Do you ever speak to her?’

‘No. Not for any reason—but I bear her no animosity.’

‘You’re far kinder than I would be. I mean, to leave someone on their wedding day—’

Her indignation is palpable.

‘You think she should have married me just to avoid creating a scene?’

‘Well, no. I guess ideally she should have realised how she felt before it was your wedding day.’

‘It was a hard decision to make. She thought the wedding day would come and she’d feel okay about it. She didn’t. She didn’t know until she was living it.’

‘Still.’ Imogen’s lips twist with disapproval and I want to bottle this part of her—her indignation and spark are so uniquely her, she is incredibly fiery. ‘She deserves for you to hate her.’

I grin. ‘To what end?’

‘Because she embarrassed you?’

‘I’m not so easily embarrassed,’ I say with a lift of my shoulders. ‘It sucked at the time. It was pretty shitty. So I went and got hammered. I got laid. And then I got on with my life.’

Imogen’s eyes flare wide and I feel as if she wants to say something, but then she lets out a small sigh. ‘Selfishly, I’m very glad she didn’t marry you. It’s been very nice having you as my sex toy for a while.’

It’s so completely not what I expect that I burst out laughing. I’m still laughing when she crosses the hot tub and sits in my lap, and I laugh right up until she kisses me. I stop laughing, and I kiss her right back.