Page 66 of Caught Between Two Billionaires
“You’re incredible. Do you know that? You’re a goddamn miracle and you walked into my office. How could I not want you? How could I not have you?”
I’m glad I don’t have to answer those questions, because I don’t know. My lips can’t form words when he fucks me hard and fast, letting the desire from last night build, pull us into climax. His body uses mine in a way that feels primal. A sharp pain on my shoulder. He bites down hard, which sends me over the edge. Orgasm clenches my body as he rides toward his own release. In the last minute he pulls out and spills, hot and thick at the small of my back.
My body collapses, slick with sweat and arousal and come.
Sutton strokes a hand down the side of my thigh, a caress that says what words can’t. How I’ve pleased him. How he needed that and I gave it to him. There’s animal pride in me, even as I lie in a limp puddle on the lace bedspread.
There’s running water and then he’s back with a warm washcloth. He cleans my back and then turns me over, tucking me into bed. My eyes are closed when he joins me, curling his body around me as if he can protect me from morning. As if he can keep me when it comes.
His breathing evens out, and I know he’s asleep. But no matter how tired I am, I’m not going to fall asleep again. I’m wide awake in his arms, counting down the hours until I’ll slip away. It was everything I wanted it to be—sensual and mind blowing. I’m halfway in love with Sutton, lying here, but the sad part is, I’m still in love with Christopher Bardot.
Somehow I’ve only made it worse.
When I was little we had a series of condos in Beverly Hills, because Mom wouldn’t consider living anywhere else in LA. Maybe it’s because I grew up with her that I could never condemn the rich. It was taught to her the way other families tell their children to say please and thank you, the idea that you were defined by the zip code you lived in.
It wasn’t only pride. It was life or death.
I understand that survival instinct, because she taught it to me.
There would be some new husband, always. Our refrigerator would suddenly be full again. That’s how I knew it was happening. He would pay the bills that were overdue. He would pay out the lease so we could move in with him. All these things were so normal I didn’t know there was any other way to find food or shelter.
Maybe art saved me, because talent is the great equalizer. There’s no way to pay for more of it. No way to trade a roll of cash for the hours spent late into the night, working and tearing your hair out. It was the whisper in my ear that there’s something else that mattered.
In the end even art could not defy that survival instinct.
Those paintings supported us after Daddy died. They paid for the two-bedroom condo in Baldwin Hills. There are ceramic picnic tables in the courtyard with mosaics of palm trees etched into them. Our window overlooks the parking lot.
Absolutely no one from our old life would speak to Mom if they knew she lived here. But then, they never spoke to her again after the public humiliation of the will came out. It was as bad as we thought it would be. Worse, because of the memes and public jokes that came after. We were a spectacle for a couple weeks, before another rich person did something crazy.
“You look skinny,” she says, puttering around the small kitchen. Nothing that tastes like food has ever been made there, but we manage to eat well enough on premade bags of salad and delivery from the Korean restaurant down the street. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
“Not hungry,” I tell her, dropping my luggage in the middle of the living room. I left Sutton warm in my hotel room and took the first flight out of the airport, that’s how desperate I was to leave. Then I caught a connection to LAX. “Besides, I should be the one making you something. Tell me you’ve had more than smoothies.”
She comes and sits down by me, holding a glass of green sludge. “I think it’s helping. I haven’t felt this good since the treatment started.”
I peek at her through one eye, but she looks serious. And peaceful.
It’s a little ironic that the will reading was probably the best thing that could have happened to her. She lost everything that mattered to her that day. But once we picked up the pieces, she didn’t have that frantic edge.
And she never again had to sleep with some new husband to fill the fridge.
