The Mentor (Necessary Lies Book 1) (12 page)

He hadn’t said much after that. Part of me wondered if I should let him explain. Maybe there was a reason. Maybe a misunderstanding.

But that was me trying to see things as I wanted them to be and not as they were. I couldn’t be that person. I had to be smarter. Besides, he’d sounded like he meant every word of that conversation on the phone.

Sex was what happened, but that’s all it was.

That’s what killed me the most.

I’d pushed past him to go downstairs. My pea coat still lay on the couch in the living room. It had been there the entire trip, just waiting for me to put it back on and get back to my real life.

Not that I knew what that meant anymore.

The Uber driver was right on time. As I walked out the door with my bags I could hear Nolan finally call to me again. His voice was calm but his words were anything but.

“None of what you heard was true,” he said. “I know you don’t believe me. But I haven’t lied to you, Camilla. And I never will.”

I turned to look at him one last time. He was beautiful in the light of a full moon. The beams reflected off the snow and onto his body. He stood shirtless, even though it was freezing outside. But as usual, it didn’t seem to affect him at all.

Did anything?

“I can’t risk believing you,” I said. “Even if I wanted to.”

And with that, I was gone.

********

The driver must have thought I was insane. I sobbed all the way to the airport. At a stoplight he’d turned to me.

“Ma’am,” he said. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head, “Nope. Not even a little bit.”

I’m sure he’d never been so grateful to drop a passenger off at Departures. Once I was on the curb with my baggage (both literal and figurative) I realized- I didn’t even have a flight. I sat on my largest suitcase and scrolled through my iPhone, but I also didn’t have a charge. The phone flickered and died.

Well, fuck.

I dragged my suitcases inside the terminal. It was deathly quiet. I realized it was now just past 4:30 am and the earliest flights probably were just leaving in an hour. I hoped to God I could somehow be on one of them.

I rummaged through my purse, trying not to cry again. I needed to find my charger.

Concentrate on one task at a time,
I thought.
Try to forget about the last 72 hours.

A large part of me kept waiting for him to run through the automatic sliding doors looking for me. To see me struggling to find my cell phone charger and an outlet, and I wanted him to sweep me up into his massive, strong arms and kiss away my doubts and fears. I needed him to unbreak my spirit.

But real life isn’t the movies. Especially mine. He never came through those doors.

And I never stopped thinking about him. Not even for a second.

The flight back to Virginia was something I wouldn’t be able to tell you a single thing about if you asked me now.

I imagine I must have looked like a zombie sitting in my coach seat, huddled next to the window, staring out at nothing. I don’t even recollect how I got off the plane and back to my room in Charlottesville. It’s all a depressing blur.

But not one time did he call me. I’d even kept my phone on during the flight, hoping to feel a buzz against my leg. I disembarked and stared down at my now fully charged iPhone.

But nothing. Nolan Weston didn’t seem very interested in making me understand anything. Which told me everything I needed to know.

********

How could I go back to normal life? My father was dead, my heart was broken, and there wasn’t anything to be excited about. Before Nolan I’d looked forward to the possibilities ahead of me. The freedom. I belonged to no one, I was my own woman. Finally. After all this time doing what was expected of me, I would finally have the beginning of everything in front of me.

I’d made a list of all the cities I would visit. London. Paris. Rome. Florence. Prague. Berlin. Oslo. Then jump over to Jerusalem. Cairo. Take a flight to Phuket. Lay on a beautiful beach with a beautiful man who had been faceless all this time.

Now that face would always be filled in by Nolan Weston’s. I would never be able to see anything beautiful and not think of him. And I hated him for that.

I was also furious with myself for letting myself get this emotionally invested in a man who I had only known a week. A man who had started our relationship by lying to me about my father’s death. A man who was cold to me one moment and warm to me the next.

He’d shared things with me though. The man had been inside me! He’d whispered all of his deepest desires into my willing ears.

His mouth… I missed it.

His hands… I missed them.

His voice, his body, his everything.

How could I function? The love had been quick, but the heartbreak would last forever.

One person did call me.

It was the Monday after I’d arrived back in Virginia. I was about to leave for my Renaissance Literature class when my phone buzzed on my desk. I’d considered walking away from it, but at the last second I answered it without even looking at the Caller I.D.

“Hello?” I said. Part of my stomach still got nervous hoping it was him. Even though I’d told myself I would hang up.

“Yes, Camilla Hunt?” It was a woman’s voice. I looked at my screen to see the number she was calling from but it said Unavailable.

“And who would be asking?” I said.

“Sorry, I’m Jessa Ladson. I work for the Hunt Group. I’m also handling your father’s estate. I am truly sorry for your loss, Camilla. Your father spoke so fondly of you every time I saw him,” she said. Her voice was genuine and kind. But I was confused.

“I thought Nolan Weston was handling probate,” I said. “I just… Saw him. In Tahoe? I’m confused.”

“Yes, sorry,” Jessa replied. “Mr. Weston
was
handling the estate but he has very suddenly resigned his position at The Hunt Group.”

An awkward silence sat between Jessa and me.

“He no longer works for the firm?” I asked.

“Oh, he does… It’s not that simple to resign from the actual company,” Jessa said cryptically. “But he’s resigned from his position. We are actually all very much at a loss as to why that is, but I assumed you might have an idea of why?”

“Nope,” I said, flatly. “I was stuck in a house with him for 3 days. I found out what my father’s firm does, but I didn’t get into any details of what that has to do with Nolan.”

“I see,” said Jessa. I could tell she didn’t believe me.

“Anyway,” I said, hoping my voice sounded more assertive. “I am the sole owner of the Hunt Group now, yes?”

Jessa cleared her throat, “You are. Which is why I’m calling. It’s very important that the board meets with you. Tahoe ended up being a disaster, none of us were able to fly in due to the weather, so we were thinking we could set up something this week? We would send a plane for you, of course. Meet somewhere warmer? We have offices in the Bahamas.”

“Jessa, right? I don’t know if you’re aware, but I have a life outside of my father’s. As a matter of fact, our lives barely intersected, and though I have an idea of why that is, I am still not willing to interrupt my life again. I graduate college in 3 months. I don’t want anything to prevent that from happening, it’s been too long a four years, and I’ve worked too hard to delay that goal. Were you aware my father has been dead almost two weeks?”

A long pause. It was the only answer I needed.

“Right,” I replied. “We’re on my time now. I have no interest in meeting with the board or anyone else until I graduate. I have classes, exams, things to prepare for. So run your business as usual. Otherwise, close down shop for all I care.”

“It’s not that simple and I’m sure you’re aware of that,” Jessa said, her voice more assertive now, very different from the chipper, sweet girl I had first spoken to minutes before. “We have very powerful men and women who depend on our services.”

“Well, then figure it out without me,” I said. “I wouldn’t be a lick of help anyway. So just pretend my father is on vacation until June. I’m sure that happened sometimes, right?”

“Yes,” Jessa said. “If that’s what you wish.”

“It is.” And with that, we both hung up.

The next three months were a blur of classes, exams, sleep, carbs, and wine. I was a girl who ate her feelings at times, and the wine washed all the pain away.

But it worked. I made it to graduation in one piece.

I hadn’t heard from Nolan or the firm since my call with Jessa. I was grateful for it, sometimes trying to trick myself into believing it had all been a weird fever dream, something I made up in my head.

But the pain in my heart reminded me of how real it had been.

I would dream of him. His face, his body, and the way he looked at me when I came for him.
Mr. Weston, please
. I would beg him.
Another one. Another one. One more time.

No one would be coming to my graduation. My Aunt Beth had met a new man and when that happened, nothing else existed. Including me.

But I was used to being alone.

I’d half-heartedly bought plane tickets to Europe. First stop, Salzburg, where my father and I had spent the best week of my life as a teenager. Nolan had done one last good deed; he’d made sure my father’s urn was sent to me. So now I had his ashes on my desk next to my old English lit papers. I hadn’t known what to do with them, but I’d decided I would spread them all over the world, in every place I went. So in a way, he could be with me.

Part of me hadn’t even wanted to go to the graduation ceremony. But I knew it was a once in a lifetime memory, even if it was one I would have alone. I’d donned the black robe and matching mortarboard. Listened to the commencement speech from former United States President Castleberry. A cruel twist of irony. His wife sat in the seats behind the mic stand, a plastic smile plastered across her face. I thought of the dossier of secrets and wondered if she knew my father’s firm had photos of her. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and for a moment it brought me out of my funk.

Afterwards I sat in my chair for a while, watching as happy fellow graduates trailed off, exchanging hugs and high fives, shedding tears of joy, moving on to their new lives, to trips, to parties, to families.

I wouldn’t cry. Not there. Only later in my hotel room.

But just when I was ready to stand up and leave, another surprise.

“Camilla…” Nolan’s voice.

My stomach sunk. My palms started sweating and my heart raced in my chest at the sound of him saying my name. I turned, half hoping I’d imagined it, and half hoping it was true.

But it was him. Nolan Weston.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. Seeing him again was both what I wanted most in the world, and what I’d dreaded most.

He stepped toward me. He looked sexier than I’d ever seen him in a heather gray tailored suit. I wanted to strip him down right then, right there, in front of everyone. I would have sunk to my knees and serviced him if he’d commanded it.

“I needed to be here,” he said. “To explain things. And to see you graduate. Someone needed to be here.”

“Ha,” I scoffed, walking away from him and back toward the parking lot. “Poor me, right? Little Orphan Camilla with no one left to love her. Well, it’s a story I’ve gotten used to, Nolan. I don’t need your fucking pity. Go. Leave me alone.”

His hand reached for my arm. I wanted to push him away but it was impossible. I
wanted
him to touch me. Even just being near him, as angry as I was, made me feel that familiar heat again. I missed the heat of his body near mine. I missed his voice saying my name.

I missed everything. And he’d sent me away. He’d killed my heart.

“No,” he said, the familiar authority of his voice making me stop. “You have to hear me. You
will
hear me, Camilla.”

I looked up at him. His voice was stern but those hazel eyes were pleading. For the first time I felt like I had a lot of power. I could wield it if I wanted to. If it was more important for me to bring him to his knees, I felt like I could have done it in that moment.

But the power he held over me was so much stronger. It would always be.

“Come back with me,” he said. “To my house.”

That’s right. The home he’d lived in my entire matriculation at college. That’s where he wanted me to go with him. To his house of lies and deception.

I shook my head, “Not there. It’ll just make me angry. Or weak. Or both.”

He sighed, “Where can we talk?”

“I’m still in my dorm until tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll take you there. Tell me what you need to, but promise to go. Promise not to let me…” I didn’t finish the sentence.

“I’ll promise to eventually go,” he said. “But I promise nothing else.”

********

My dorm room was pretty barren. I’d packed up almost everything, even most of my bedding. I hadn’t planned to stay there the night; I’d rented a room at the Omni downtown. From there, I wasn’t sure what would happen next.

Three months ago, I would have said the day after I graduated I would be on my way with just a backpack and my phone to Europe. Then Asia. Then every other continent and country I could reach. I’d had adventure on my mind, a longing for places I’d never been or even heard of before.

But the greatest adventure would never compare to Nolan Weston. And there was a disappointment in knowing I had tasted the greatest thing I would ever taste, and never have a chance to taste it again.

Yet he was here now. Despite what had happened. I couldn’t lie- a small part of me was thrilled to see him, thrilled to know he was close by. Seeing him was like a shot of the best drug on the market. It instantly revived me. I’d been practically asleep emotionally the last few months.

I walked in front of him the entire way to my dorm, not daring to look back to make sure he was following me. I knew he was. I had to try my best to be cold to him, to not crumble like I wanted to.

When we entered my room I had to grope around for the light switch.

“Wow,” Nolan said, stepping inside. “So this is where you live.”

I shrugged, “You act you didn’t spy on me for four years.”

He laughed, “I would hardly call it spying. For instance, I’ve never been inside this building.”

I walked over to my bed and sat down, still in my graduation gown, clutching my black mortarboard in my hands.

“So what do you want to tell me?” I asked.

He was pacing now and for the first time since I’d known him, Nolan Weston looked nervous.

“First off,” he said. “You look beautiful. I mean, stunning. I saw you across the lawn and… I could barely breathe at the sight of you.”

I looked at him, surprised.

“Thank you. I guess,” I said, already feeling my guard going down, something I couldn’t allow to happen.

“Second,” he said, as he knelt in front of me. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for how I treated you.”

Tears stung my eyes. His face was genuine and kind, just like it had been our last night together, before the morning that everything changed.

“You hurt me so bad,” I said, my lip quivering. “I still don’t understand why.”

“Because I was terrified,” Nolan said, taking one of my hands. He made circles on my palm with his thumb. “Terrified of how I felt about you. And what it could mean. And I was covering my tracks. The person on the phone… It was a client. Someone I was trying to hide the truth from. Camilla, being with me puts you in a lot of danger. I can’t allow that to happen.”

“What could it mean?” I asked. “I was just sex to you. You said that.”

He grimaced, “I know. It was fucked up. Because it’s not true. Of all the lies I’ve had to tell in this line of work, there’s never been a bigger one than that.”

He leaned forward and put both his hands on my face, his mouth inches from mine. He was still on his knees, but I was the one who was at his mercy. As always.

“Tell me the truth,” I whispered, staring into his eyes.

“The truth,” he said. “Is that I love you, Camilla.”

There was a long silence between us. I had no idea how to respond.

“Why couldn’t you tell me that?” I asked. “Before? And why did you have to be so fucking cruel? What kind of game is this,
Mr. Weston
?” I spat his name back at him, knowing how it would hurt him.

But I deserved a shot too. After what he’d done to me.

“It’s not a game,” he said, quietly. “You don’t understand this, but my love is not a safe thing to possess. The things I love are used as weapons against me. Weapons that can also be destroyed, in order to get to me. Loving you is the worst thing I could do for you.”

The tears were falling now. None of it made sense.

“How can that be?” I said. “Your love is the only thing that makes me feel like I fucking matter. It’s the only thing that I have ever truly needed. You knew that too. You knew I loved you, and you still chose to obliterate me. And I hate you for that. I hate that you’re this important to me, this vital to my soul. Fuck you, Nolan!”

I was sobbing now, angry at myself for letting him see me like this when I had always promised myself I would never allow anyone to see me vulnerable again. I had been sure I could cut that part of my heart off, like a limb I could no longer find use for because it was covered in gangrene.

But Nolan Weston retained that part of me. It wasn’t mine to cut off. Because it would always belong to him.

He wrapped his arms around me then, and I was too exhausted to pull away from him. The smell of him and the feel of him held a power over me, even now.

“Camilla…” he said. “There’s no way you could ever hate me as much as I hate myself.”

Okay, now I could pull away. Because now I was just pissed.

“It’s all about you!” I screamed standing up. “What did you come here for? Forgiveness? Well, guess what? You’re never getting that. I’ve already given you way too much. I refuse to give you anything else. I want you to go.”

He stared at me, dumbfounded.

“I didn’t mean for it to come out like that,” he said. “I just wanted you to know the truth. I didn’t expect you to forgive me. I’m not worthy of shit. But I couldn’t keep the truth to myself anymore. I get paid to keep a lot of secrets, but that was the one I couldn’t take to my grave. And maybe that makes me a selfish prick, putting this on you. But what would be worse? Never knowing?”

“Well, if nothing can come of it, that would make it worse,” I retorted. “Great. You love me. And you can never be with me, for your own reasons. Where does that leave me? In the same place I was before.”

He shook his head, “You’re acting like I have a choice. If I had any kind of choice do you think I would actually choose a life without you?”

“You act like you sold your soul to the devil, Nolan,” I said. “You work for a company. Not God.”

“It might as well be,” he muttered. “Selling my soul to the devil would be a much easier contract to get out of. I’ve pledged my life to my job. And I had no problem with that. I pledged my allegiance to your father. And he trusted me with the one thing he loved… Not realizing I would love you, too.”

“And now he’s dead,” I said. “So who the fuck cares? You don’t owe anyone anything. Except me. But I don’t count for shit!”

I walked away then, for good. He’d said what he needed to say. And dammit, I had to leave before he said anything else. I had to leave on my terms for once.

“Camilla,” he said as I opened the door. “There’s more. You need to sit down.”

“Stop telling me what to do,” I said. “You’re not my mentor anymore. I graduated. From college, from you. I’m serious, Nolan. Just leave me the hell alone.”

“It’s about your father,” he said. “You need to know this.”

“It’s pretty shitty to bring him into this,” I said, turning around. “Just to get me to stay.”

“You and I both know I wouldn’t need to use your father to make you stay,” Nolan said.

I rolled my eyes and leaned against the threshold of my door.

“Fine,” I said, exasperated. “What do I need to know about my father?”

“Your father,” Nolan said. “Is not dead. Your father is very much alive.”

THE END OF THE MENTOR

It’s cruel to leave it there, but trust me… It will be worth it. Nolan and Camilla are coming back! Look for the next book THE MOGUL this June. On the following pages enjoy an excerpt of my new novel, REVEL, coming out May 8
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