Hot Water (15 page)

He smiles. “You’re safe with me, Cicily.”

Caden

I’m smashed. I can’t even tell you how many scotches I’ve had. Andrea would have killed me by now. But I don’t care.

I didn’t care when I asked Cicily to sit next to me. She was wearing this incredibly sweet perfume that smelled sugary, like cake, and my first instinct was that I wanted to taste her.

I didn’t care when I looked at that “professional” dress I’d bought for her and realized that what seemed chaste on the mannequin was now indescribably sexy. It bared too much of her cleavage, and the fabric was so sheer I could see the outlines of her nipples.

So all I’ve been doing is talking. She must think I’m a complete idiot because I can not shut up. She’s easy to talk to; I don’t have to censure myself like I do with Andrea. I tell her about the time I got so drunk I threw up in my limo. My lifelong obsession with everything Super Mario Brothers. My ashtray collection. All that shit about me that Andrea has been trying to bury for the longest time. I just let it out. I don’t fucking care.

It’s the one year anniversary of
her
not fucking caring, so this is my way of celebrating the occasion.

This is the fastest flight to Vegas I’ve ever taken. Soon, the pilot comes on and tells us that we’re about thirty minutes from Vegas. And I could stay on this plane, with her, forever. But I guess it has to end. I ask her, “You think we’re well set for tomorrow?”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “Your reputation is in good hands with me.”

Fuck that. “I guess that’s what everyone is so concerned about.”

 “Concerned about what?”

“Their reputations.”

She looks surprised. “Well, aren’t you?”

“Not the way my dad is, no. I know I’m supposed to carry on the Williams legacy. I’m supposed to marry the right woman and forward our dynasty. But . . . it’s a lot of pressure.”

“I thought CEOs live for the pressure.”

“CEOs, yeah, I guess. But this was Cameron’s gig. My brother. He was supposed to carry on the Williams legacy. Of the three of us, I was the fuck-up, the clown. I was Harvard only because my dad gave them a lot of money. I failed nearly all my classes. I played around. I didn’t give a shit. Cameron was the responsible one. He was top of his class, brilliant, and my dad put every moment of his life into making sure he was ready to assume the role. He lived and breathed everything Williams & Williams stands for. When he died, my father, he . . . he took it hard. And so . . . it fell on me.”

I hold out the cocktail napkin I’d been doodling on before. There’s a sketch of a gorgeous girl in profile, with a stately, swan-like neck, and her hair falling in loose tendrils around her face.

“Oh,” she says, staring at it. I can tell she recognizes who it is because she blushes adorably. “Well. You’re talented. This is what you love?”

I take another swig of my scotch. “Does it matter? It would kill my father if I did anything else.”

 “I understand. My mom wants me to go into the corporate world, like she did. But my dad was a competitive surfer. Sometimes I think that maybe I could have been amazing at that. That I just needed to tell my mom off and pursue that dream, with or without her blessing.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I see the way my mom looks at my dad. She thinks he’s worthless. She let him pursue his dream. She supported him for five years while he tried to make competitive surfing work. It didn’t. And it drove us into the poorhouse. We were homeless and had a mountain of debt when my mother finally left my dad. I think I’d fall apart if my mom ever looked at me the way she looks at him.” She shrugs. “It’s easy to say ‘fuck it, I don’t care what they think.’ But actually not caring? That’s my mother. I can’t
not
care.”

I listen to her spilling out her heart, and I mean to say something in return. Something profound. But I can’t. I can only sit there, dumbfounded at how fucking perfect she is. She finally speaks again:

“It’s sad, you read all those success stories about people doggedly pursuing their dreams and making something of themselves. But what you don’t see is that for every one of those, there’s probably ten more stories of people who tried and tried and ran out of time or money before they could get their dream to take flight. It’s a risk. And I guess I’m not good at taking risks.”

Dumbly, I spit out, “You’re not?”

She smiles. “Once in a while, my mother will look at me in that way, like I’m him, and it will scare the hell out of me. I’ve spent most of my life trying to prove I’m not. But it rarely works, because hell, I’m his. I
am
like him. And you know what? My dad
isn’t
such a bad person, after all. He loves me unconditionally, he’s loyal as hell. I should feel
lucky
to be like him.”

 I watch her make circles with her long pink fingers on the armrest, and she bites her lower lip again, and before long I meet her eyes. God, those big blue eyes, I could drown in them and be happy. “I’ve gotten that ‘worthless’ look from my father more times than I can count. Art is worthless. Anything besides the family business is worthless. Once, before I went for my MBA, I got up the courage to tell my dad how I felt. But I got the suck-it-up speech. And so here I am, sucking it up.”

“Seems like we’re both really good suck-ups,” she says. “Your dad likes Andrea?”

 “Loves her. Before I found her I was . . . like I said, I was a mess. He credits her with getting my shit together.”

She laughs. “I can’t believe that you didn’t always have your shit together.”

“Trust me, I was a wreck. Different girl every night, drinking, drugs . . . I didn’t sleep because I was always looking for the next party. For five years after Cam died, all I did was beat myself up over the fact that I wasn’t him. My father was ready to disown me. And then I met Andrea, and she doesn’t take shit from anyone. She whipped my ass into shape. I finished my MBA, proposed, and here I am.”

“Wow. So, she’s the love of your life?” she asks, raising her eyebrows so those big blue eyes are even bigger.

“Sometimes.” I laugh. “Sometimes I actually think she’s the love of Cam’s life, and I’m just trying to live that. Sometimes I think I’m so used to doing everything to please my dad, and marrying her is just one of those things. I know it’s shitty. But when you’ve been in a relationship for years, you sometimes grow apart. But then you come back together. At least, you hope to.”

 “So is this a ‘together’ or an ‘apart’ time?”

I stare at her, thinking she’s so damn cute, chewing on that lip of hers, and then I realize that I’m talking about my fiancé. With the girl I was supposed to fuck and forget, who also happens to be an intern. This is wrong. “I should probably not be talking about these things with you. As you know, I try to keep my—“

“Business and personal lives separate. Gotcha. Don’t worry about it.” She smiles at me, all sweet sunshine and smelling like cake, and her perky little tits right there next to me, and fuck, I have to shift under the tray table because I know I’m getting hard. Meanwhile, she’s just sitting there, trying to have a normal professional conversation with her boss, and I want to fuck her right here. I want to slip that grey dress down over her shoulders and suck on those perky little nipples of hers. “Let’s talk about something else. Seen any good movies?”

“Wait. Look,” I say, trying extra carefully not to slur my words, to show her I mean business. But hell, my tongue feels like it’s a sausage. “There’s something I want you to know. I’m not a player, now. I used to be, yeah. A big one. But when I met Andrea . . . I put that behind me. That’s the truth. I—“ I realize my voice has gotten louder, and then suddenly I notice that Rhys is across the aisle. Staring at us. Shit. “We can talk about this some other time.”

He smiles at us. “Hey, Cicily,” he drawls. “Nice to see you.”

“Hey,” she says, shifting in her seat.

But I want to tell her. I want to set the record straight. I want her to not be disgusted by me, to like me . . . to . . . look at me the way I’m looking at her.

Shit. Why do I care so much? This is a business trip. It’s one thing to fantasize about fucking her when I’m doing my fiancé. But that’s where it should end. Why am I allowing this girl to get under my skin?

Chapter Sixteen

Cicily

It’s so funny that the more you spend in the company of a “supposedly perfect” person, the more their little cracks start to show. When I sat with Caden on the plane, I learned so much about him. He has all these little, adorable quirks you wouldn’t expect a professional to have, and I felt honored because he shared them with me. He’s a CEO, he’s supposed to keep certain things under wraps, I’m sure. They call him the Iceman for a reason. On the plane, though, he was anything but icy. Maybe he was a little drunk, but he bared things to me that I don’t think many people know about him. One of his teeth overlapped another slightly, which is irresistibly cute. His temples are starting to grey a bit. He is a real person, too, not some flawless, robotic corporate icon.

And I thought I was turned on
before
.

That personal-business line? He
definitely
delved over it, this time. With me. There’s no mistake, this time. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. It probably doesn’t. But as wrong as I know it would be, I want it to.

My first trip out of the tri-state area isn’t much of a trip at all. I begin to think that maybe Jacinta was wrong when she said it was one big party. Yes, it is, really, but not for us. There are crazy drunk people everywhere, nearly naked- girls all over the strip, naughty shows, gambling, drinking, and pretty much every form of debauchery going on in this town, and yet, in the Venetian, we’re strangely removed from it. The only time I’d been able to catch a glimpse of it was during the taxi ride to the hotel, and while making the mile-long trek from our hotel room to the conference. It was nine in the morning, and there were people at the baccarat tables with a beer in one hand, and a coffee in the other. They hadn’t slept.

After we left the plane, Caden disappeared, leaving me to get to the hotel on my own. I didn’t mind it, though. I knew that riding in first class would probably have me fielding all sorts of curious questions from Jacinta. I didn’t need to make her any more suspicious than she already was.

But I thought I’d at least catch a glimpse of him, once or twice. Instead, I was so busy shuttling presentation work here and there, setting up rooms, and putting out fires, that I never saw him. The first two evenings, it may have been the time change, but I collapsed into bed just after eight PM. Jacinta had called me and texted me, but I ignored her messages. I was so tired, I wanted to die.

The last night in Vegas, she grabs my arm. “I am not letting you get away, this time. We are going out.”

“All right,” I say. After three stressful days, I could stand to blow off some steam. I tell her I’ll meet her in the lobby, by the concierge desk, and run to get ready.

I know exactly what I’ll be wearing. I slip a black sequin dress over my body, admiring the way it hugs all my curves. It manages to cover very little, and still be classy. I curl my hair and pin it up, letting it fall in loose tendrils around my face. I also wear heavier make-up, painting my lips bright red. When I come downstairs, Jacinta is nowhere in sight, but in only a few minutes, I manage to garner a huge amount of confidence from all the men staring at me.

Jacinta and Dax come down a few minutes later. He’s trying to hold her hand, but she swats him away. Then he catches sight of me and says, “What have we here?”

“That,” Jacinta laughs, “Is a fucking hot slut.”

I take that as a compliment.

“Please, Cicily. Tell me you have fake ID.”

I reach into my wristlet and pull it out.

“Fantastic.”

We start by drinking vodkas at the hotel bar. I don’t remember how many, because by the time we are ready to leave, I’m already on my way past buzzed. We pile into a taxi and end up at a club. Tangerine, Orangine, Clementine . . . I can’t remember what it’s called. Something citrusy. Soon we’re all dancing together, and the club is packed, a Pitbull song is playing, and we make a Dax sandwich. His hands are all over our bodies, and we’re pressing up each against each other, hardly knowing where one of us begins and the other ends, humping one another to the beat of the music as we down watery rum and cokes.

 The next thing I know, I’m alone, in a crowded room, with all of these strangers looking at me. What happened? Did I black out? I straighten my dress and I see Jacinta and Dax on a couch in the corner, making out. She has he head back and he’s nibbling on her neck, with his hand in between her thighs. I breathe a sigh of relief and try to get closer, but I’m blocked from moving forward by a crowd of men, putting their hands all over me. Panic begins to flood in, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

It takes me a moment to recognize the face as Rhys Bradley. I’m well-aware that once again I’ve had too much to drink and am in one of those
compromising positions
I’d told Caden I rarely got myself into. But I’m happy just to see a face I recognize. “Hi!” I say, leaning over him.

He just stares at me, then takes my hand and leads me up a narrow flight of stairs, to another room. It’s crowded, but not as packed as the other room. The music plays just as loudly here, and there’s a strobe light flashing, giving everything a weird, movie-like quality. “This is the VIP room. Sit,” he says, practically throwing me down on the sofa.

I’m so off-balance in my heels that it feels like heaven to sit. In fact, I could fall asleep on this sofa. Rhys leaves for awhile and returns with another drink for me. Then he sits beside me. “Cicily,” he says, over the beat of the music. “How has your night been?”

I blink as he feeds the drink to me. More vodka. I can only take a sip. “I’m a little drunk.”

He leans closer. “I know. I saw that little show you put on down there with your friends. You are so hot.” And then he’s breathing on my neck, licking and nibbling my earlobe. He moves to my chin, then my mouth, and I take in his tongue, slowly sucking on it. My own tongue is thick, my head hazy. I feel his hand fumbling underneath my dress, climbing up my inner thigh.