Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance Boxed Set (10 Book Bundle) (25 page)

I sat up, too, turning toward him and putting my elbow on the side of the tub. “You guys are like some kind of screwy Shakespearean family. Right down to you trusting him enough to give him control of the company.”

His lips thinned. “He's like my brother.”

“You are fucked up. He's a fucked up brother. You know what you do with people like that in your life? You cut them off. You never talk to them again.”

His brows rose. “If I recall correctly, you acted horrified when I suggested you cut me off.”

“Yeah... because you're not batshit insane and trying to destroy me.” At least... I didn't think so. I didn't feel particularly under assault, and I knew what that felt like so I was pretty sure his talk of going to war with me over his ultimate fate was just that—talk. I'd never seen a guy with more unresolved business in the world, and given his perfectionist nature there was no way he was going to off himself before he set it all right. I was as good as victor in our 'battle.' “Cutting people off who become toxic, who make you feel like shit all the time? That's fine. That's
good.
Healthy.”

“But...” His face was pained. “When we were younger, we'd band together against my father. We'd trick him into thinking one or the other of us had won whatever stupid challenge he'd put before us.” I noted his use of the word 'stupid' to refer to challenges. “We looked out for each other. Saved each other's asses all the time. I don't know what happened...”

Again that lost look on his face, the one that came whenever I'd made him think of something uncomfortable, something so at odds with the way he had accepted the world that it caused him physical pain.

I could see it, too. A kid alone in a house with a frivolous mother and a father who thought of the world as a place to be sectioned up and sold off, piece by piece? I would have leapt on the first person who presented themselves as an ally, too, and I probably would have clung to them in exactly the same way. The only difference between Malcolm and I was that I'd never found someone as desperate as me to latch on to. I'd always been alone.

I moved across the hot tub and extended a hand to soothe the lines from Malcolm's brow, but abruptly he stood and got out of the tub.

I watched him walk away.

* * * *

“I'm tired, Sadie. Nothing ever comes out right except fucking you.”

“I thought you were good at everything.”

“I don't think so any more.”

“Then maybe you should adjust your expectations.”

* * * *

"Where are we going?" I asked one day.

"I don't know," Malcolm said. "Away."

"Surely we'll have to stop for fuel at some point."

He just smiled at that. "Surely we will," he said, and leaned in and kissed me. We were naked, lying in his bed, and his hand came up and stroked the inside of my thigh, lazily. "Have you ever seen the sculpture of the lovers?" he asked me.

"The Rodin?" I said. "Of course. I mean... in books, I guess."

He leaned in, pushing me onto my back. "It is extraordinary in person. The flesh gives way so easily in stone." And he put a hand to my breast and squeezed lightly, as though to emphasize his point.

I laughed, an old, familiar self-deprecating thing. "Oh, sure," I said, "if I had any flesh there to give way."

A scowl passed across his features and his grip tightened, sending a sharp pain shooting through me and I gasped and wiggled. "Your breasts are fine," he said. "Stop speaking so poorly of them."

I still wasn't used to submitting. I never would be. My customary rebellion welled in me. "But then I'd have to listen to other people speak poorly of them. You know, I'm just putting it out there. Laughing at yourself is a pretty good way to get other people to laugh, and then the jokes already over with." I managed to scoot back and his grip eased.

He wasn't happy with my answer. He tied my hands to the bed and lashed my breasts over and over again as he pumped his hand in my pussy, hot and hard and demanding, until I came with a scream and a tearless sob.

*
* * *

And then one day Malcolm said, “We have to stop for fuel,” and just like that it was over.

Chapter Thirteen

Time came back. The sun was setting on the horizon, turning the sea purple. We were sailing with purpose now, but I was still in a stupor. I couldn't have told you how long we'd been at sea, but I knew it had been a while. Sometimes the motors had cut out entirely and we drifted, but I knew we needed to get more fuel soon, or be in trouble.

“Where are we going to get it?” I asked.

Malcolm stood at the railing. We were on the highest deck, and he leaned back against it. His hair had bleached out almost white, and his face had tanned to a rich golden-brown. His fine linen shirt hung open, fluttering in the breeze over his white linen pants. He was barefoot. He looked more like an underwear model than a troubled billionaire, but the lines around his eyes that only I knew about gave him away. “I doubt we are going to even have a chance to land,” he told me. “We're off the coast of Turkey and the captain has been in radio contact with the police on the land.”

I raised my eyebrows. This was the first I'd heard of this. “And?”

“We'll probably be boarded by the coast guard. Don has alleged that there are large numbers of weapons aboard this boat. Protestations to the contrary are met, obviously, with suspicion.” He sighed. “He really is one step ahead of me. I don't deserve to win against him.”

I rubbed my eyes. I felt sleepy. Drugged. The sun had baked my brain. “That's not true,” I said with a yawn. “He's only one step ahead of you because you don't want to stoop to his level.”

“But that's how you win, Sadie.”

I sighed. My god, he frustrated me. “It's not about winning. Stop thinking like that.”

“I can't. It's a disease.” He tossed his head and looked behind us at the water churned white by the engines of the yacht.

For a terrible moment I had a vision of him throwing himself into those turbulent waters and going under, never to surface again.

A hard knot tightened in my stomach and I hugged myself, sobering.

“Anyway,” Malcolm said, breaking the spell. “Prepare to be boarded.”

“Said the pirate to the pretty maid,” I joked, though I didn't really feel it. The reality of the situation was starting to sink in. The big question hovered over us, and I was afraid to put voice to it.

I was lying on one of the deck chairs. One of the three thousand dollar deck chairs, and I realized I hated it. It was a nice deck chair, but it was just a fucking chair. In fact, I hated this boat. Malcolm talked a good game about enlightenment, but he wasn't even close to it. Giving up one's worldly possessions was supposed to be part of it. I stood up, abruptly feeling gross and confined by the tiny world of the boat, by the threat of Malcolm ending it all. How could I have hoped to convince him the world was worth hanging around in if we were on such a gaudy boat?

“It'll be thirty minutes before we're out of international waters,” he said after a second. “Would you like to have one last fuck, for old time's sake?”

“Are you going to kill yourself?” I blurted.

He turned his face from the white-churned wake and stared at me. “I haven't quite decided yet,” he said.

My heart suddenly felt lighter. “Is that so?”

“Of course, if I don't, that means you win...” The tone was grave, but his words were flippant. I couldn't get a read on him... but I allowed myself to hope.

I took a deep breath, sucking cool sea air into my lungs. “Malcolm Ward,” I said, “you are one dumb motherfucker.”

To my surprise he laughed. “Only you could make 'dumb motherfucker' sound like a term of endearment.”

“It
is,
you dumb motherfucker.”

“Come here.”

I went to him willingly. He was so fine and good, and he made me feel things I had never thought possible. When he bent his head to mine and captured my lips in a sweet kiss, I tried not to think of it as goodbye.

We were so used to fucking by now that it came easily, quickly. Heat built, spreading through me like a flower taking root, and my clit stood at attention as he guided me to the deck chair I'd just vacated. We had done a lot to devalue those chairs, and this time was no exception.

Grasping my hands lightly, he turned me over and held them behind my back and forced me to kneel down. The deck bit into my knees, but it was a good pain, so familiar by now that it made me gasp with anticipation of what was to come. His grip was loose on my hands, but I knew that if I attempted to break free it would tighten like a vise. A gentle binding, as severe as any chain.

His other hand went to my ass and he moved the shirt I wore up over my hips. I no longer put on his boxers—it was too much trouble to take them off when we decided to screw—so when his cock slotted snugly into my slick core it was swift and sweet. I breathed in, my face smashed into the cushions as he picked up a gentle, rocking rhythm, pumping his shaft into me, his hips smacking against my ass.

My toes curled as he leaned over me, tracing his mouth across my back, touching the tattoos there through the linen, and I closed my eyes and let him drive me over the edge. My breasts scraped over the canvas beneath my chest, rough against my nipples, and when I came it was a whole-body orgasm, every inch of skin shivering and shimmering with pleasure.

When it was over, we knelt there for a long time, sweaty, gasping, and my heart in my chest was a cold lump. When Malcolm slipped out of me, he replaced the linen shirt, and I heard him adjusting his clothing so he was decent. Making a pretty corpse, or, perhaps, a pretty prisoner?

I swallowed my hope and turned over, letting myself collapse against the deck. I leaned back against the deck chair, pulled my shaking knees to my chest, and hugged them close.

To my surprise, Malcolm did the same, copying my posture.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes.

“I hope there's no cameras,” I said finally, just for something to say that wasn't
please,
or
don't,
or
I want—

He looked at me funny from the corner of his eye. He didn't seem quite so tall when sitting next to me...

“I doubt there will be cameras,” he said. “Don't resist, I'm sure they've been ordered to shoot first and ask questions later.”

I bit my lip. “All right,” I said. “I only meant... after... you know? When they're dragging me on my perp walk. I'm not going to make a very pretty perp.”

“Yes you will,” he said. “You will be amazing.”

I shook my head. “You know, you already got me into bed. You can stop the sweet-talk. It kind of makes me uncomfortable, to tell you the truth.”

Malcolm sat up straighter. “Why shouldn't I sweet-talk you?” he said. “Why shouldn't I try to make you feel beautiful?”

“Because I'm not really beautiful?” I said. “I have no idea what you see in me, but it can't be that. Don't worry, I have no use for illusions. I'm an
artiste—”

“Stop it!”

The shout cut me off. It had been so loud it echoed across the water. I turned and stared at him.

His face was dark and thunderous. Dangerous. There was violence in his eyes.

“Excuse me?” I said. It was all I could think to say.

A muscle in his jaw leaped. “Fucking
stop,”
he grated out. “Stop acting so modest. It makes me sick.”

My stomach clenched harder. Nausea swept over me.

Malcolm. Cool, calm, collected Malcolm. Yelling at
me.

I hate to be yelled at.

Abruptly I stood and backed away. He followed me. “No, don't run away from this, Sadie.”

“Don't yell at me,” I said. “I'm just telling you how I feel.”

“And it makes me sick to hear you talk about yourself that way! Why do you think I bought you at that auction? Why do you think I wanted to take your picture, use you as a piece in my art? You don't think you're worth it, but you are!”

He stalked me across the deck, and I froze as he reached out and grabbed me by the upper arms. I could have twisted away, but I didn't. He was angry. But not violent.

“Why do you value yourself so little?” he shouted at me. “Don't you understand how astonishing you are?”

“No!” I wanted to hit him. “No, I fucking don't!”

His hands around my upper arms bit into the flesh there, hard and bruising. I set my teeth, trying to suppress the urge to smash my forehead into his nose.

“Your strength,” he said at last. “You are so strong. Your scars, your wounds. You cover them up, act like they are nothing. Don't you get it? I want that. I want to be like you, and I can't. You just forge ahead. How do you do it?
How
?”

Frustration balled my hands into fists. “You just
do,
okay? You just
do
because if you don't you might as well give up!”

“Well, why not give up?” His face was terrible to look at, lost and afraid, as though he had never known anything beautiful at all.

I stomped my foot. “Because it's not all terrible, dammit! Why can't you see that? You lost a friend? So fucking what? It happens to everyone. You made a mistake—a thousand mistakes—but so what? So
fucking what?
Who the
fuck
doesn't? Stop feeling sorry for yourself and
do something.”

Abruptly he let go of me. “Who gave you your scars?” he said. “Tell me. I need to know.”

I clenched my teeth. I wanted to tell him it was none of his business, but I had been betrayed, too. I had been betrayed, too.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, reaching down inside me, searching, seeking out the threads of emotion and thought that connected me to that buried past, that life I had covered up with art and color and all things beautiful and fierce.

“It was my dad, okay?” I said at last. “He gave these to me.”

Malcolm was silent. “Your father?” He sounded slow and stupid, as if he'd never heard of child abuse or schizophrenia.

He made me so angry. Perfect, pretty Malcolm Ward. The best at everything, the king of the world. But one minor setback and he'd collapsed like a house of cards. I wanted to punch him. “He was crazy. Straight up bugfuck crazy. Not like you, I mean... he was fucking nuts. He thought everyone was out to get him, thought that our house was bugged, that my mom was an alien in human skin. He thought I had evil inside me and he had to let it out.”

I shoved my arm in his face. “See this tattoo? The lily? It covers the first one. I think it was the first one, anyway, because I was too young to remember. He'd slice me up and my mom would take me to the hospital, and then to the vet, and then to one of her old friends who was a nurse to get me patched up, and it was only when her friend told her she was going to call CPS that she kicked my dad out.”

“Why?” he said. “Why did it take so long?”

“Because she wanted to take care of him. To
save
him...” I trailed off, the blood draining from my face.

That was exactly what I'd been doing with Malcolm. I was just like my mother...

I'd always taken care of my mother, but until now I'd never realized it was because she had spent all her time pouring her efforts into my father instead of me. A beautiful, fine woman, and she had chosen the wrong vessel for her love.

Oh my god,
I thought.

Malcolm's voice brought me back to the present. “Sadie?” he said. “Sadie, are you okay?”

I shook my head. “No. No, I don't think I am.”

Warmth enveloped my hand, and I looked down to see his palm covering mine. “Sadie...” he said.

“No,” I told him. “No, I've told plenty of people. So she kicked him out and got a boyfriend and then... then one night he came back.”

I lifted my head, exposing the tattooed scar on my throat, the one covered with the final line of Dorothy Parker's poem
Resume
. Suicide is too much trouble, she said.
Might as well live.
“Right there,” I said. “That's where he tried to kill me. And he got my mom. Fucking slaughtered her like a pig. And then he killed himself.”

To my shock, there were tears in my eyes. Angrily I swiped my arm over my face. All that was a long time ago. It was pointless to cry about it...

“Sadie...”

“You asked me why I'm always looking for a bedside table even when I'm asleep? What I'm always reaching for when I wake up? That's my gun. I've kept one by my bedside for years. He's dead, and I still keep it with me, because
what if he comes back?”

And then I started to cry.

I hate to cry. But I couldn't help it.

For a long moment, interminably long, I sobbed, harsh and ugly and loud. Hideously loud. So loud that I almost didn't notice the sound of a plane passing over us and helicopters in the far distance. When I did realize what I was hearing, I cried harder. The time for choosing was here, and I couldn't stand it. If Malcolm decided to be a complete idiot, there was nothing I could do to stop him. I'd put everything I had into convincing him I was worth sticking around for, and if there was one thing then there must be other things, but now I thought that maybe I had no business telling him what to do. I was a mess.
We
were a mess.