Mr. Corporate (Mister #3) (10 page)

I let out a long breath and mutter, “I hate you.”

“I know,” he says, good-naturedly. “But I’ll still take care of you if you’re alone, Tori. Don’t worry. I won’t check out until you’re safe.”

He swims past me and covers the short distance back to the beach before I can even work out what those words might actually mean.

He’s mad, I know that. Maybe because I thought he was lying about the lobsters. Or maybe because I pretty much accused him of being lazy. Or maybe because I don’t think I’m safe here on this island and he’s taking it personally.

It doesn’t matter. Any and all of those reasons are good ones. And it just shows me that I was right to walk out on him three and a half years ago. I was right. I know what’s coming. An entire day filled with Weston Conrad’s caveman protection. Hours and hours of him insinuating that I’m helpless, or careless, or stupid. Or all of the above.

West is already walking back towards the little house when I get back to the beach. I pick up my shirt and skirt and carry them as I follow the little footpath.

My eyes are on West’s back, his rippled muscles and his broad shoulders.

I have lots of reasons to hate him. I do. But only one matters. Weston Conrad is sexist.

He believes women should stay home and raise children. Not have both a career and children, mind you. But literally stay the hell home and raise children. When he told me that a few weeks into our relationship I thought he was kidding. I actually laughed.

But he was serious. And we fought over this all the time.

If West and I had stayed together I’d be a stay-at-home mother. My life would consist of children, having dinner on the table when he got home from work, and running the household.

This wasn’t a guess on my part. I’m not making this up. He said this to me. Face to face, one year into our relationship. We had been fighting more and more about where we were heading as a couple. West was becoming distant and I challenged him. Accused him of cheating.

He denied it—I believed him—and said this was his major hang-up with me.

He wants a wife who is comfortable in her role.

Role
.

That word still burns me. The moment that came out of his mouth I seethed. I saw red. I threw plates at him. I threw my stilettos at him.

I never actually
hit
him with the plates or shoes. But I did dump all his shit out on the lawn and make a scene in front of the neighbors.

The cops came—Weston was pissed off over that. And I don’t blame him. Those charges were still hanging over him at that point in time. He was taken to the station and questioned. I had to go down there and admit that it was mostly me making the scene. They wrote me a ticket.

God.

This is what happens when Weston Conrad and I spend too much time together.

I’m not interested in fulfilling anyone’s prescribed role. I’m not interested in being someone’s subordinate. I’m not interested in marrying my boss.
I’m
the boss. I have my own company, failing though it is. I’m the boss. Not him. And I won’t get caught in his trap again. Not even for an afternoon.

I’ll keep you safe, Tori. I won’t ever let anyone hurt you. You will never have to worry about that kind of stuff from me
.

No. He’s right. I wouldn’t. Because I’d be his little trophy wife. Locked away in some fancy house with no real friends, only the awful girls from the country club to keep my mind off going mad. I don’t even know girls from a country club, but I’m assuming they’d all be good little Stepford Wives as well.

I’d rather die than live that life.

Die.

Chapter Twelve - Weston

God, why do I let her get to me so badly? Why do I care that she thinks I’m some privileged rich bastard who needs to get his way at every turn in order to be happy?

I’m not like that.

I sigh as I pull open cupboards looking for a pot to boil the lobster in. There’s no oven here, otherwise I’d just broil it. I find one in the last cupboard and drop it into the stainless-steel sink with a loud clang, then watch it fill up with water as I study the cuts on my hand from the lobster’s spines.

The pain that comes with my prize feels good. It takes me back to all those summers I spent on the boat. I was only a little kid when I started harvesting lobsters and I didn’t have a boat. No one hires a kid that age to help with their business. So I caught my own lobsters. I got busted for selling them the second summer. I didn’t know it was illegal. I didn’t even have a permit that first summer. I didn’t know anything about harvesting lobsters. I just got lucky.

But the second summer I got caught and had to appear in court. My father was pissed off. But the judge liked my entrepreneurial spirit and told me to go find a guy named Rusty down on the docks near my house.

So I did. And I got hired. I was in charge of icing the lobsters once they were caught. I’d take the catch and dump it in the huge chests filled with ice water, dunking them until they stopped moving.

My hands were filled with the little pricks from spines that summer. Someone gave me a pair of gloves a few weeks in, but by then I’d learned how to avoid the spines and I didn’t care for the gloves in the hot summer sun.

I liked that job. I liked the way it made me feel. Like I was independent. Like I was in control of my future. I still like work for those two reasons.

I spent seven summers working on that boat. Right up until I went away to boarding school in the eighth grade.

Victoria comes into the house, clutching her silk shirt and her short skirt in her hands. She looks at me, then my hands, which are still out in front of me, palms up.

“You’re bleeding,” she says.

“Yeah.” I turn back to the pot and shut off the water. “They have spines. But don’t feel bad for me, Victoria. I’m sure in your head I probably deserve the pain.”

“Don’t be a dick. Please. If we have to spend this day together, just don’t be a dick.”

“How am I being a dick?” I ask as I place the pot of water on the stovetop. “I’m not doing anything but being nice.”

“I don’t want to hear your pitch, Weston.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” I go looking for salt to put into the water but come up empty.

“‘I won’t check out until you’re safe, Tori,’” she says, mimicking my voice in an unflattering way. “You never checked in, Weston Conrad. So you can’t check out.”

“OK,” I say back. It’s no use having a domestic fight with a woman like Victoria Arias. I cannot win. Ever.

She huffs some air and mutters, “Patronizing asshole,” just under her breath.

I choose to ignore that. I will not take her bait. I will not be the lobster in her pot. I will not have this fight again. Not ever. I’m so sick of it. And I probably should’ve given her this contract. Bowed out of the competition and just given it to her. Then I’d be somewhere else right now and we wouldn’t be stuck here together all day.

But I can’t afford to give it to her. She has no idea what losing this contract would mean to me. None.

Victoria disappears in the bathroom and the next time I look over at the pot, the water is boiling. So I check my watch and take this opportunity to plunge the lobster in the water headfirst, capping it tightly with a lid to avoid any splashing. I should’ve gotten two, I realize. One is not really enough to feed us both. But Victoria was screaming my name like she was in a panic when I came up and I forgot to go back down. It’s just a snack, right? That pilot will come back in a few hours. We will get through this afternoon of uncomfortableness. And I can grab dinner after I get back to my hotel and reassess my strategy.

I could just ignore Victoria for the rest of the day. Let her spew her shit. But I’m not going to. Her insults are… well, insulting. So fuck her.

“Is it almost done?” Tori asks, reappearing. I check my watch and realize five minutes have gone by.

“We don’t have any butter, or salt, or pepper, or whatever you like on your lobster. So yeah, I guess it’s done.”

She watches me as I take it out and do my best to cut open the shell with the dull knife I find in a drawer. Once the meat is exposed, I hand her a fork and she digs in.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Tori asks, when I don’t join her.

“I’ll go back and get another one later. I’m not hungry.”

“Gotta feed the women first, right?” she says, the sarcasm not absent from her tone.

I look at her for a moment. A long moment.

“What?” she asks. “That’s how you operate, right? Mr. Big Strong Man has to protect the weak little woman?”

“You know,” I say, “I get why you’re like this. I probably understand it better than most. But you’re a real bitch, Tori. I don’t know why you think I’m such an asshole, but that’s your prerogative. So you’re welcome to your opinion.”

“Come off it, Weston. You know you hate that I’m here. That I’m making you fight for something you thought was owed to you. You know it burns your ass to have to compete with a woman.”

“Right. I got all that the last time we fought. I’m a pig, you’re a victim—”

“Fuck you,” she says, almost choking on her bite of lobster.

“Hey, you’re the one who wants it to be this way.”

“You’re the one who said I’d be your little stay-at-home wife if we continued to date.”

“So?”

“So?” she sneers at me. “So I don’t want to be someone’s property.”

“I called you property?” I laugh out loud, a real nice guffaw that echoes off the high ceiling. “I offered to take care of you and you practically spit in my face.”

“I don’t want to be taken care of,” she snaps.

“Yeah, because you do such a good job taking care of yourself.”

She slaps my face. Hard. She goes to do it again, but I grab her wrist. She tries to knee me in the balls, but I turn to the side, grab her other wrist, then walk her over to the couch and throw her down.

“Don’t fuck with me, Tori. I’m not gonna put up with your shit. I’m not your fucking punching bag anymore, you understand?”

The tears well up in her eyes almost immediately. Not because I hurt her when I grabbed her wrists. Because I hurt her with my words. “I hate you,” she whispers.

“I know,” I say in a low voice. “You’ve made that abundantly clear over the years.”

I walk to the door and I’m just about to pull it open when she says, “You loved it, didn’t you?”

I don’t even turn to look at her. “I loved
what
?” My shoulders tense up. My jaw clenches as one fist balls up hard and the other grips the door knob like I want to rip it off.

“The fact that you were right and I was wrong. You loved it because it fit into your stupid worldview that I couldn’t take care of myself.”

Now I do turn. Because I’m
pissed
. I point my finger at her face, look her straight in the eyes and say, “If you really think that I felt… vindicated, or triumphant, or whatever the hell it is you think I felt when I found out you got attacked, well”—I force a mean laugh—“then I’ll just take this opportunity to walk out of your life and never come back.”

So I do. I walk out, slam the door behind me, and keep going until I get to the beach.

I know there’s an island with more structures than this one a couple miles away. There’s three or four little cays between this one and that one, so it’s not even going to be hard for a guy like me who grew up in the ocean.

I’m going to abandon Victoria Arias.

Leave her here to fend for herself, just like she wants.

Who am I kidding?

That bitch. She has a fucking hold on me that I can’t seem to cut.

And besides, I reason, looking to the north, it’s starting to rain and maybe that big storm isn’t here yet, but the front of it is. And just as I think that thought, the sky opens up, the rain pelting me in the face.

Bitch.

I
know
damn well I’d never leave her alone, even if she doesn’t.

Chapter Thirteen - Victoria