BILLIONAIRE (Part 7) (3 page)

And
she’d be upset, about whatever it was I’d done.  What
had
I done, that
was so fucking bad she’d had to run away?  Yeah, I’d gone to my office for a
while, but so what?  She knew there was stuff I’d had to take care of.  I’d
told her she could start work on Monday.  I’d given her every assurance she’d
asked for.  I’d talked to her and fed her and protected her in every way I
could think of.  I thought she’d been appeased by all that, not to mention the
handful of orgasms I’d given her by … ah,
fuck
.  I couldn’t even think
about that.  I was going to go fucking insane.  I was going to lose my shit completely
if I didn’t find my Lila.

That’s
all I wanted to do: just
find her
.

Before
someone else did.

I
ran down the stairs, almost breaking my neck in the process.  I ran into the
kitchen to find Claude listening to some inane music station and baking
something like a fucking idiot.  Usually I didn’t mind Claude’s presence.  He
was a benign character who fit into his surroundings with a shadow-like
unobtrusiveness.  I’d hired him about five years ago at the recommendation of a
colleague of mine who’d taken a job in Hong Kong.  Claude was looking for work
and I’d just bought the penthouse apartment that adjoined my office.  I’d taken
him on, a couple days a week.  He kept the place clean, the food was good and
we barely saw each other, which worked just fine for me.  I needed a
housekeeper and a cook, and one that stayed the fuck out of my way.  And Claude
was good at doing that.  He was artfully, meekly gay, like he’d been raised as
the youngest runt son of a big family of burly farming Midwesterners and still
felt the compulsion to hide his sexuality like it was a defect.  He’d loosened
up on that front over the course of his six or so years in Manhattan and was
borderline flamboyant at times, wearing weird outfits and becoming increasingly
effeminate in the presentation of the dishes he prepared.  Like now: he was
making frosted fucking cupcakes.  I didn’t give a fuck either way.  I’d never
asked him about his past and didn’t plan to.  What I
did
plan on fucking
asking him was why the fuck he’d allowed Lila to waltz out of my apartment
without fucking calling me.

I
grabbed the front of his shirt with my fist.  “Where is she?”

Claude’s
watery eyes rounded with fear.  His hair was thin and straight and so blond it
was almost white.  Everything about him suddenly annoyed the fuck out of me.  “Miss
Lila?” he gasped with a southern lilt to his accent I’d never noticed before. 
Not that I’d spent much time analyzing these things.  Maybe he wasn’t from the Midwest. 
Maybe he was a choirboy from East Buttfuck, Alabama.  Who gave a fuck?

“Yes. 
Where is she
?” I repeated, my aggression gaining momentum.  “Did you
unlock my door?  Did you let her out?”

“Y-yes,
sir,” he said.  “She asked for some champagne.  I –”

“Do
you know where she went?”

“No,
sir.  I – I thought she was waiting for you in your bedroom, sir.”

“She’s
not
in
my
fucking
bedroom.  She’s gone.  Did she say where she
was going?”

“N-no,
sir.  I was in the kitchen.  I didn’t hear her leave.”

“You
didn’t think to fucking
call me
?”  Even as I said it, I knew I was not
only being an asshole but a complete goddamn psycho.  I’d not only locked my
girlfriend in my bedroom but was now going ballistic all over my cook because
she wasn’t
still
locked up.  But I couldn’t seem to stop myself, or to
care.  All I cared about was finding Lila.

“She
asked me not to, sir,” Claude said.  “She begged me not to.”

This
piece of information hit me right in the middle of my goddamn gut.  Or maybe it
was my heart.  If I even had one.  “She
begged
you not to call me?” I
repeated stupidly.

“Yes,
sir.”

I
found myself glaring at Claude for several seconds.  My fist was still clenched
around the bunched-up fabric of his shirt at his neck.  I released him so
suddenly he stumbled.

I
grabbed a fistful of my hair.
  Fuck fuck fuck.
  Lila was gone and it was
my fault.  I’d driven her away by behaving like the lunatic that I was.  “
Why
?”
I asked.  Like fucking Claude could answer that question.

Claude’s
fear took on the slightest edge of compassion, which pissed me off even more. 
That was some twisted shit: this little imp
getting
some element of this
clusterfuck.  The element
I’d
missed.  “She seemed very agitated,”
Claude said.  “She was extremely …
relieved
when I opened the door.”  He
spoke like he was wary of me, which I guess he had a right to be at this
point.  I could not only pummel him into next week but also fire him.  Or both. 
If I hadn’t felt so fucking crazed I might have almost admired his nerve and
his honesty when he admitted the next part.  “She’d been … pounding on the door. 
Trying to get out.  It was the lock, I think.  She seemed very upset by it …
like she couldn’t handle being trapped like that.”

Lila
had told me about her past.  She’d carefully shared a few of the most painful
memories.  Her words burned inside my chest like they’d been branded there. 
He
used to come into my room.  Every night.  It was relentless.  And it made me
feel so dirty.  The pain of it all was … just so awful.

Something
had set Lila off.  I knew all about triggers.  I understood because my own
brother carried the same scars and so did I, by association, through his memories
and his vulnerabilities.

There
had been times when I’d convinced myself that I didn’t remember all the details
of that scene.  But I did.  It was etched there, devil-clear.  I’d nearly
killed our uncle after I’d walked in on it.  And Jake had never been quite the
same.  Things would set him off.  Random things that would evoke recollected
anguish.  We never talked about the memories but they swarmed around us both,
tainting everything.  Abuse is like that: it colors your entire world, even
when you try to paint over it.  I did my best to calm Jake down and mostly
succeeded.  The days got easier.  But the nights were jagged, broken by routine
nightmares.  Sweat-soaked and screaming.  For years and years and years.  Even
now Jake takes on a haunted look from time to time, when things bubble up.

And
I suddenly didn’t feel like beating up Claude, or anyone else.  I just felt
like finding Lila and holding her close to me until she forgave me.  Until she
wasn’t afraid anymore.  Until her sweet face smiled at me.  I’d almost
forgotten that Claude was still standing there until his voice broke through my
haze of regrets.

“Go
find her, Alexander.  I’ll wait here and if she turns up, I’ll call you
immediately.”

I
didn’t hesitate.  I left without a backwards glance, pulling my phone out my
pocket as I took the stairs down to the street.  I’d keep Claude – if he didn’t
quit – and give him a raise, maybe, if I ever returned to this apartment, or
this company, or this life.  I didn’t fucking care about any of it.  I felt
strangely, entirely numb.  My rage had settled into an eerie, awful sense of
desolation.  I didn’t care about anything at all, save one shining, damaged
beacon in the dark daylight.

Lila.

I
wanted her so badly it almost scared me.  Here I was, a billionaire with a ten-fucking-million
dollar penthouse and a goddamn publishing empire.  A gargantuan investment
portfolio that was bullet-proof, recession-proof and practically tax exempt. 
Two Maseratis, a limo, a Maybach, a Ferrari, a Ducati, two Lamborghinis and a
Gulfstream.  A hotel in Paris, a house in the Hamptons, an island in Maine, a
studio apartment in Key West, a city block in Houston, a bungalow in Malibu
with a vineyard and a view of the ocean.  A yacht christened “Honey”: a
coincidence that occurred to me only now and that just about broke my fucking
jaded heart at the realization of what I’d let slip through my fingers.

None
of it mattered.  I’d have given it all to the first beggar on the street for a
glimpse of her.  A touch of that silken hair.  A kiss from those pink, candied
lips.  A chance to tell her I was sorry.

Had
it been something she’d told me about?  That I’d forgotten about or
overlooked? 
Goddamn it all to hell.
  This was all
my
fault.
 I’d
done this.  I’d driven her away with my obsession.  It was
me
who’d
scared her and trapped her and tightened the noose of my own obsession until
she’d broken.

It
was
me
she was now trying to escape from.  Hiding from.  Going to
dangerous lengths to try to avoid.  Where would she go?  Who would she run
to
? 
My mind whirled with the painful possibilities.  I’d check out the friend –
what was her name?  Eve, or Eva.  But Lila was smarter than that: if she was
running from me, she’d go somewhere I wouldn’t think to look.  Did she
have
anywhere to go?  Old friends or acquaintances she hadn’t mentioned to me?  Ex-boyfriends? 
My stomach curled grimly at the thought.  She hadn’t had many boyfriends before
me, she’d said.  None that she’d felt any real connection to.  None that she’d
wanted to
give herself
to, as she’d given herself to me.

So
incredibly sweetly.  So beautifully. 
Oh, fuck.  So irresistibly.

God,
I needed her.  More than I’d ever needed anyone or anything in my entire
miserable fucking life.

I’d
blown it.  I’d fucked everything up.  I had to find her.  I
had
to.  Or
I would lose my fucking fucked-up mind.

I
could’ve taken one of the cars, parked in a locked fortress-like garage in the
basement of my building.  I could have walked the streets or called the police. 
Greased fingers.  Scoured every inch of this crowded, lonely island.  But no. 
I needed to think of Lila.  I didn’t want to hunt her down like some criminal
or teenage runaway.  I wanted her to trust me.  And want me.  I needed to
earn
her trust by thinking of her, of what she might have wanted me to do.

I
needed to get my shit together and act like the man she’d want.  I was going to
win her back if it was last driving ambition I had.  I’d take the limo.  That
way, if I found her –
when
I found her – I could offer to take her
wherever she wanted to go.  She’d have every choice, every freedom.  I wouldn’t
push her.  I’d listen until I understood everything about her.  Every fear,
every trigger.  I’d fix her and heal her and comfort her.  I’d make the deal so
sweet and so complete she’d wouldn’t be able to resist.

My
driver pulled up in front of my building and I gave him a few addresses.  A
place to start.

The
streets were crowded.  It was the hour before dusk on a Saturday.  Early
October.  These details seemed arbitrary, strangely unimportant.  I poured
myself a drink, hoping it might take the edge off, and scanned the crowds as
the silence of the cab throbbed with emptiness.

Please,
Lila.  Please don’t disappear on me.  Please let me find you.  Please.

Lila

I
couldn’t see, or think.  My awareness was enveloped in a thick, invisible fog.

From
somewhere far outside the buffering layer of my unconsciousness, I could hear
vague sounds.  And I could feel.

Hands
on my body.

Warm,
strong hands against my wet, frozen skin.

Touching
me.

“Lila,
I’m going to take these wet clothes off you, okay?”  A man’s voice was speaking
to me.  “I’m going to wrap you in a warm robe, and blanket.”  I recognized this
voice.  It was familiar to me yet not the voice I craved.  “You need to get
warm.”

Jake.

Jake
Wolfe, Alexander’s brother.

Touching
his fingers to my skin.  Stripping the clothes from my body.  Slowly,
carefully, deliberately.

On
some deep, irretrievable level I knew this was not right.  Jake shouldn’t be
undressing me, and seeing me like this, undressed and passed out.  With his
hands on my body as he peeled off my skimpy outfit.

I started
to protest but his hands were so warm.  I sighed and shivered.  I was so cold
my nipples were almost painfully beaded.  When Jake’s hand skimmed my breasts,
I gasped at the ice-scalding sensation, moaning softly as I began to wake up. 
My eyelids were still too heavy to open, but I could hear him clearly now.

“I’m
not going to hurt you, Lila.  I just want to get you warm.”  He was untying the
tie that wrapped my dress, easing the prickly fabric away from my icy,
sensitive skin.  I could hear his breathing coming in soft bursts, and I could
feel the warm puffs of air on my breasts as he revealed them.  I tried to say
something, to tell him to cover me, but my request came out as a gentle moan. 
He was removing the dress from my shoulders, unwrapping it from my hips,
adjusting my body to pull the garment free.

Until
I was completely naked.

I
felt him touch me again, with a soft cloth.  A towel, rubbing gently across the
strands of my hair and my face.  Tentatively down my neck, across my bare breasts. 
“I’m going to dry you off a little, okay?  You’re soaked to the skin.  He
continued to speak but seemed to be talking as much to himself as to me.  “I’m
not looking.  Keep your cool, man.  Holy fucking
hell
.  You are one
incredibly beautiful girl, Lila.  A knockout.  Alexander’s scored the fucking
jackpot.”  The towel rubbed across my stomach.  Lower.  Along my hips and my
thighs.  He was gentle, so gentle.