BILLIONAIRE (Part 7) (4 page)

For
a fleeting, dazed moment I thought maybe I’d been mistaken.  Maybe it
was
Alexander.  Maybe I’d been dreaming all along.  Maybe I was still in his bed,
wet from my shower.  Maybe it was
him
who was touching me.

I
moaned again, shifting slightly, becoming restless.  My eyelids were still too
heavy. 
No
, I wanted to say.  It
wasn’t
him.  I could tell.  By
his voice and his indecision.  “Jesus H.
Christ
,” Jake was muttering.  “If
you belonged to anyone but him …
damn
, Jake, hold it together, boy-o. 
Keep your hands off.  Concentrate.  You need to wrap her up and keep her warm, and
that’s
all
you need to do.  Keep calm.  Holy hell, keep yourself calm, man. 
Hold it the fuck together
.”

Jake
was wrapping me in something soft and thickly cozy.  I felt the light cinch of
a belt around my waist, of the robe being secured.  And a thick quilted
comforter was draped over me and tucked in.

“There
you go,” he was saying, and he sounded relieved.  “You’re all right now. 
You’re safe.”  Safe from them and safe from me, he seemed to be suggesting. 
“Can you open your eyes, Lila?  Can you hear me?”

I
could hear him.  With effort, I began to open my eyes.  At first the murky
shapes seemed covered in a veil-like gauze.  The room was dark, but the city
light from the large windows cast a subtle glow on the interior of Jake’s
apartment.  I was laid out on the couch and Jake was seated on a chair he’d
pulled up alongside me.  I concentrated and as he came into focus, his shadowed
face was concerned.

“Hi,”
I managed to whisper.

“Hi.” 
He looked at me for a long moment.  Then he smiled and shook his head with mild
exasperation.  “Shit, you gave me a scare, passing out like that.  You all
right?”

“I
think so,” I said, my throat parched and my voice rasped.

“Should
I call a doctor?”

“No,”
I said, attempting to sit up a little, but the room spun violently and I lay
back down.  “Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Can
I have a glass of water?”

“Of
course you can.”  He jumped up, seemingly glad to have a concrete task to
attend to.  After a minute, he returned and helped me sit up enough to sip at
the cool water.  It tasted indescribably good and I drank all of it.

“That’s
it,” he said.  “You’re okay now.  You’re just fine.”  I looked at his face, so
like his brother’s yet also so
unlike
him.  I pictured Jake as a child,
being comforted with those very words by Alexander, once upon a time.  And I
missed Alexander’s stoic, unique draw that seemed to fit so well with my own
layered desires.  So much.  God, how I wanted Alexander.

“I
carried you up here,” Jake said, and his tone was barely contrite, like he had
something to feel guilty about.  “You were so cold.  I put something warmer on
you, so you wouldn’t catch pneumonia or something.”

“Thank
you, Jake.  It’s all right.  I’m feeling warmer already.”  It was true.  The
burning coldness was beginning to tingle as my fingers and toes began to thaw
out.  “Did you call him?” I asked softly.

“Not
yet.  But I’m going to.  We have to let him know where you are.  He’ll be so
wild with worry he might hurt himself, Lila.  Not intentionally but he goes
into a rage when … well, when someone he loves is threatened or lost.  There’s
no telling what he might do or how he might react.”

I
thought about this, closing my eyes again.  I didn’t feel up to having it out
with Alexander tonight, but all the anger had seeped out of me somewhere along
the way of my train-wreck of a night.  Maybe I wasn’t cut out for a life of
independent fortitude.  Sure, I could crash at Jake’s tonight, insist that
Alexander be kept in the dark, and resume my quest to climb out of my hole of
debt, homelessness, joblessness and loneliness by relying only on my wits and
hard work and survive-at-all-costs outlook.

What
I felt like doing was sleeping.

In
his arms.

In
his bed.  Under his protection and with his big, powerful, passionate body
wrapped around mine. 
He
was warm, warmer than anyone I’d ever met.  And
he was beautiful.  So beautiful.  I craved his touch and his shielding
presence.  My mouth felt strangely thirsty for him, like I missed his taste.

I
wanted Alexander like I wanted air and sunlight.  Safety and life.  I wanted to
immerse myself in the haven of all that he was.

I felt
a small feathering touch on my hair and opened my eyes.  Jake had absent-mindedly
begun to finger a strand of my hair, twirling it gently as though fascinated. 
This might be another reason to call Alexander.  Jake had acted honorably in
the face of my full-blown distress.  Unfailingly so.  I also knew that he had
had a lot to drink tonight, before he’d run into me.  Alexander had said it and
I had seen it myself: Jake was a reckless soul; he wasn’t good at toeing the
line.  And the way he was looking at me now, behind the mask of his
self-control and his loyalty, there was more to the story.  He might be acting
honorably, but the thoughts flashing behind his eyes were anything but.  It
wouldn’t pay to test him.

“Please,”
I said.  “Yes.  I want you to call him.  Tell him I’m here.  I want to see him.”

Jake’s
touch went still.  My hair fell through his fingers as he pulled his hand away,
collecting himself, as though realizing his mistake.  “You sure?”

“I’m
sure.  I want to make sure he’s okay.”

With
that, Jake pulled his phone out of his pocket and called his brother.  It took
only seconds for Alexander to answer.  “Hey,” Jake said into the phone.  “I
found Lila.  She’s here.  At my place.”

Alexander

Lila
was at
Jake’s
?

How? 
Why? 
There were too many fucked up questions to ask on that
discovery to even know where to start.

The
only thing I was certain about was the fact that I was going to beat my brother
to a goddamn fucking pulp if there was even the slightest possibility that he’d
… no, it was too bizarre and downright excruciating to even fucking
contemplate.

Lila
was safe, that was the main thing.  She was at Jake’s and she was safe.

What
I needed was to get there.  Now.  The limo wasn’t far from where Jake’s
apartment was located.  But traffic was heavy and we were headed in the wrong
direction.  We were stopped at a red light.

I
jumped out of the limo and started running down Fifth Avenue like a goddamn fucking
lunatic.  I hate it when people run through the streets of New York City.  They
always look like lunatics, and they usually are.  Today, I couldn’t give a flying
goddamn fuck what I looked like.  I just needed to see her.  To make sure she
was okay.  To try to get to her before my brother’s shaky-at-best scruples
broke down, if it wasn’t already too late.

Negotiating
the crowds at high speeds as best I could without fatally injuring anyone (that
I know of), I ran the three blocks in goddamn world record time, possibly.  I
got screamed at, grabbed and even punched at one point but I hardly felt it. 
People didn’t like being shoved aside as a madman made his way to his
star-crossed and possibly compromised lover, apparently.  The throngs were
waving their fists and yelling abuse at me as I turned the corner onto Jake’s
street.

The
doorman of his building opened the door for me and it was a good thing he did;
there was no telling what I was capable of in my current state of mind.  He
even said something to me, like he’d been expecting me. 
Go right on up, Mr.
Wolfe.  Your brother’s expecting you.
  You’re goddamn right he’s expecting
me.  He’s expecting my fucking fist to connect with his fucking face, is a
thought that ran through my mind, but I didn’t bother voicing it.  I was
already in the open elevator, punching the button for the fourth floor and the
apartment that I’d helped fund.  A fact that had never bothered me.  Until
now.  Until right fucking now, as I was about to find the only two people I
cared about on the entire face of fucking Earth, together.  I could only hope
that those two people weren’t going to reduce me to a shredded goddamn mess of torment
when they made some twisted announcement, or admitted some indiscretion that
would rip my heart right out of my goddamn chest.

I
could handle it, maybe.  I
deserved
it, whatever I found in Jake’s
apartment.

All
I wanted was to see her.

I
pounded on Jake’s door and he opened it abruptly, causing me to almost fall
into the room.

I
stood there, breathing heavily from my run, getting my bearings.

It
was dark.  None of the lamps were on and the only light was cast by the glow of
the city outside the expansive windows.

She
was lying on the couch, covered by a pillowy duvet.  The blond silk of her hair
shone white-gold in the darkness.  Her eyes were open, and the green hue of
them caught the light.  “Alexander,” she said softly.

I
kneeled down next to her and took her cool hand.  The relief I felt at that
moment was indescribable.  The fizzing adrenaline pumping through my system
seemed to transform into pure, amped-up devotion. 
Fuck,
how I loved
her.  Every cell in my body was tuned into this perfect vision I thought I
might have lost forever: Lila.  Her golden hair, falling in mussed-up,
Aphrodite-like waves.  Her soft mouth, saying my name, the sound shooting an
arrow of thrilling delight into my soul like I was some twee, lovestruck
romantic.  Which I didn’t even mind being, not for her.  Anything for her.  My
senses drank in every detail of her face as she watched my reaction to her. 
Her pink mouth.  The young, flawless curve of her cheekbone.  The light dusting
of freckles across the bridge of her nose.  Her eyebrows, like feathery,
expressive blond stripes.  And her eyes, teary and bright.

“You’re
here,” she whispered.  She sounded so tired.

“I’m
here.”

She
reached out to touch my hair, smoothing a strand of it out of my eyes.  “You’re
hot,” she smiled weakly.

“I
ran to you.  As soon as Jake called.”

As
I said his name, I looked up to see him standing there, next to the couch.  My
rage had cooled, now that I’d seen her, like she fed some sort of calming
potion into me, just with her presence.  “I found her at Joe’s.  Just sitting
there, alone, soaked from the rain.”

I
knew my brother very well.  And I could detect a note of accusation in his
statement: it was
my
fault she’d been found that way.  He’d taken an
interest in Lila’s well-being and protection, clearly, and I didn’t know how
far that interest extended as yet, or what it meant.  Either way, he was
right.  It
was
my fault she’d run.  It was my fault she got caught in
the rain, alone and scared.

“You
just … ran into her?”  I couldn’t help asking the question.  I would tread
carefully but the uncertainty was burning me.

“Pure
coincidence,” Jake clarified, and I stopped myself from breathing an audible
sigh of unadulterated relief.  There’d been no prearranged meeting, no
clandestine rendezvous that might have signalled a heart-breaking development. 
I could only hope.  I channeled every ounce of self-control. 
Remain calm
,
I commanded myself. 
Everything will be fine if you keep your cool.  For
her.  For Lila.

“Jake
was so kind,” Lila said, and the pronouncement did nothing to soothe my
precarious composure. 
And you weren’t.
  She didn’t say it; I don’t even
know if she was thinking it.  But I was.  And there was something I desperately
wanted to say.  It occurred to me then that I had never said those two words to
anyone, possibly ever.  Until now.

“Lila,”
I began.  “I’m sorry.”

Lila’s
tears welled up and spilled, painting shiny lines down her face.  She tried to
sit up and I helped her.  She seemed weak and unsteady.  And I could see then
that she wore a plush blue bathrobe.

Jake’s
robe.

A
shot of ice jolted through my veins but I didn’t immediately react.  He would
have given it to her, to change into.  Her clothes had been wet from the rain. 
And I could see it there, the bunched-up, still-soaked scrap of the dress she’d
been wearing, lying across the arm of a nearby chair.

My
focus shifted to Lila as she began to speak quietly.  She sounded sad, and that
defeat in her voice cut me up.  I wanted to stomp on her defeat.  I wanted to
rip out her sadness, and make it all up to her a thousandfold.  I would fix
everything that had ever hurt her.  I’d right my wrongs and everyone else’s.  I
would to give her everything I had, to charm her and win her and enchant her so
I could see her smile again.  Her smile was the only goddamn thing I cared
about.

“It
was him,” she began slowly.  She didn’t seem to mind that Jake was listening,
too.  Some kind of trust had built up between them that I no longer minded. 
There were things they had in common – devastating things.  Maybe she could
take comfort in knowing the few details she knew about Jake’s past.  A shared
burden is sometimes easier to carry.  “It was the man I told you about.  My
mother’s boyfriend.”  She paused, and I held her hand gently, wiping her tears
with my fingers.  And I waited.  She would speak when she was ready.