The Offer (29 page)

We waste
little time in getting intimate. He’s inside me and instead of the
lazy, luxurious romp we had just before, this one is crazed and
desperate. It’s like he’s handing himself to me, afraid if I don’t
take it now, he’ll lose me forever.

But he won’t
lose me.

Because I am
absolutely in love with this man.

And that
realization is terrifying. Because he was so, so wrong about hearts
and buildings being different. They are the same. They are
structures that keep us safe, that shield us from the elements. And
the minute they start to falter, everything else is at risk.

A heart can be
condemned, just as a building can be.

A heart can be
destroyed by a sledgehammer disguised as rejection, by a bulldozer
masquerading as a careless word. A heart can be blasted to pieces
and ruined to the ground.

But even
knowing all that, I need to move forward. I need to take that
chance. I need to trust in Bram and trust in myself that giving
myself to him, opening myself to love and letting myself fall for
the first time in my whole life, doesn’t have to end in rubble.

It can reach
the clouds, pierce the sky. It can be that bridge from the life I
had before, from that person I knew before, to something so much
better.

I don’t
tell him this though. I don’t dare. I keep these feelings –
I love you, I need
you, I crave yo
u – and
the fears –
you’ll break me, you’ll wreck me, you’ll condemn me
– all to myself. But I let him
inside that night. I let him in deep. I want him to discover these
parts on his own, without the fanfare, without the
expectations.

And when he
comes, his eyes holding so much magic, and I think that maybe he
knows.

Maybe he
finally knows just what he is to me.

“
Hey,
fuckface,” Linden says as I answer the phone.

“Hello,
Linden,” I say politely. I’m in the middle of a meeting with the
board of directors from San Francisco’s Inner City Initiative and
even though a coffee break has been called, there’s no way in hell
I’m going to greet my brother like I usually do.

“Caught you at
a bad time, eh brother?” he says. “I’ll call back later.”

“What do you
want?”

“Just wanted
to check in with you,” he says, sounding defensive. “Jeez, your own
family can’t see how you’re doing. I haven’t talked to you since
you got back from your Disneyland excursion. Which, by the way,
thanks a lot. Now Steph is harassing me wondering why she hasn’t
been whisked off to the happiest place on earth. I don’t know how
you did it with an actual child in tow.”

His comment
makes me flinch, as most of those types of comments usually do. “I
did it for Ava,” I tell him, “as well as Nicola.”

“Fine, fine,”
he says. “I’m just saying, you’re a saint. And I never thought I’d
call you that. She must be really getting under your skin. Don’t
tell me you’re going to pull a Jerry Maguire and go all ga-ga over
the kid. I can’t imagine Ava telling you how much the human head
weighs.”

No, but she
would tell me the names of a lot of the dinosaurs from the Jurassic
period. But I don’t mention that to Linden. I don’t want to give
him any ammo.

“If it makes
you feel any better,” I tell him, lowering my voice so the people
at the end of the table sipping their water and making small talk,
don’t hear, “I am ga-ga over Nicola. She’s a shag like you wouldn’t
believe.” I had to throw that part in there or Linden might accuse
me of being a body-snatcher victim.

“I bet she is.
Why else would you still be around?”

I breathe out
slowly through my nose, trying to not let him get to me. I knew my
brother would never understand any of this, any of what I feel and
anything that I’ve been through before. There is so much he doesn’t
know about me, so much that no one knows, and lately I’ve been
feeling like it’s all boiling too close to the surface.

“You just
watch out, Linden,” I tell him. “Pretty soon Steph is going to
start harassing you for wee babies and then where the fuck are you
going to be? You’re going to be taking them little shits to
Disneyland and I’m going to be having the last laugh.” I pause.
“And yes they’ll be little shits, because you were an epic shit
when you were young and that will be your bloody karma.”

He’s silent
for a change. “I’d say the same to you,” he eventually says, “even
though I know no girl in her right mind would ever want you to be
her baby daddy.”

And again,
straight into the gut. I take another deep breath and remind myself
that Linden has no idea.

No idea.

“Is that all
you wanted to do?” I ask him, trying to sound unaffected and bored.
“Trade barbs with me?”

“Where are you
anyway?”

“Busy,” I tell
him, not about to get into the specifics. He and my family still
don’t know about the potential charity work, about my building and
ideas. No one outside of Nicola knows and I much prefer it that
way. Although tonight there is a black-tie gala for a fundraiser
that attracts some pretty important local people. If Linden
followed the news or local politics at all, he might get an
idea.

Thank God he
just sticks to flying helicopters, though that’s obviously no small
feat on its own.

“I see,” he
muses. “Well, whenever you’re not busy and you’re not shagging the
single mum, come by and we can dip in some beers.” There’s a patch
of silence. “Sometimes I miss you, brother. Just not this
time.”

“Fine,” I tell
him. I whisper into the phone, adding, “Fuckface.”

I hang up and
then realize that the people at the end of the table – Mr. Arterton
and Mr. Bayswater – have heard what I’ve said.

I give them an
apologetic smile. “Wrong number.”

Thankfully the
rest of the meeting goes well. Everyone is on board with my idea.
It’s just that no one has the money. It’s kind of the same story
everywhere I go. I guess things are a bit easier for me because the
money has already been put down – I’ve bought the building and
that’s a huge chunk of fundraising I don’t have to ask anyone else
to do. But I need to have income coming in in order to pay the
mortgage and that’s where people are always coming up short. They
believe in it – they just don’t have the means to help.

I leave them
feeling particularly despondent about the whole thing. When I get
home though and see Mrs. Williams in the hallway, the aging and
disabled woman with too much heart and not enough strength, I’m
reminded of why I’m doing this. I do want to help, to feel like I’m
of fucking use for once in my life. Maybe it’s partly selfish – I
don’t think you can make money unless you are – but it’s giving
everything purpose.

And so is
Nicola. She’s not working today since we have the gala tonight, so
before I even head to my apartment, I do what I usually do and go
to hers first. I have a key now – well, I’ve always had one – but
now I’m using it because I’m her lover and not her landlord.

Lover. It’s
not exactly the term I want to use to describe what I am to her,
but I’m not sure what else will do. It’s funny how lover is seen as
more appropriate than boyfriend when lover has, well, deeper
connotations. But Nicola has seemed a bit cagey ever since
Disneyland, which was a week ago, and I don’t want to push her.

The truth is,
I consider us together. I consider her my girlfriend, though I
wouldn’t dare say it in case it freaks her out. Still, she has to
come around sooner or later. I know I’ve not been completely honest
with her and I know I have a few skeletons in my closet that could
bite me in the arse. I know this. I just figure it will all come
out in time, and when I’m ready. I want to establish trust first, a
strong layer of it, that won’t shatter when she really gets to know
me.

It’s close.
She’s close. I’m just not sure what I can do to make her let go
with me. She’s come so far, become so open and free and, fuck, so
sexually awake. But until I really get through her defenses and her
fears, I don’t think she’ll trust me one hundred percent.

Still, when I
open the door and step inside her apartment, breathing in that
familiar smell, that combination of coffee and plastic toys and her
sweet skin, I have hope that the trust is there. That this is the
day she lets go and gives herself to me completely. And I’m not
talking body – I’ve had that all along. I mean her heart and her
soul, the rarest things of all.

“Hi,” she says
brightly when she sees me. She’s dressed in just a towel, though
her hair is all done and piled on top of her head and her makeup is
perfectly applied. Too bad all that does is make me want to throw
her on the bed, open up that towel and proceed to mess up all that
time and effort.

But I don’t. I
ignore my cock twitching in my pants and stride over to her,
grabbing her by the shoulders. That delicate shower-soft skin so
intoxicating beneath my hands then I kiss her on the neck. She
smells like a dream. I could be buried here.

“You smell
incredible,” I tell her.

She giggles,
squirming a bit. I know my stubble tickles her but that’s always
half the fun.

“Don’t get
carried away,” she warns. “It took an hour to get my face and hair
just right.”

I pull back
and inspect her. “Don’t you always look this way?”

“Ha ha,” she
says. “I need to get dressed and put in my earrings. But I’ll be
ready in about twenty minutes. Ava’s just having a nap and Lisa
should be here soon.”

“It takes you
twenty minutes to get dressed?” I ask her, as I sit down at the
kitchen table and split open a banana from the bowl.

She disappears
into the bedroom, her voice carrying. “You know me. And you know I
want to look good for this. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a
black-tie event before.”

“That’s not
true,” I tell her mid-bite. “There was Linden’s wedding. And I know
you’ll get a kick out of this, but guess where the gala is?”

“Where?”

“That same
yacht club on the other side of the bridge. Same as the
wedding.”

I look over
and I see her paused in the doorway of the bedroom, a long olive
green dress in her hands.

“You’re
kidding me,” she says.

“Nope.”

She looks
impressed as she considers that. “Wow. It’s like we’ve come full
circle.”

We’ll see
, I
think to myself as she disappears into the room.

Thirty minutes
later – not twenty – we’re in the back of a black town car and
heading across the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun is setting over the
pacific, illuminating the stray patches of fog and low-lying cloud
that clings to the downtown buildings. It’s absolutely
beautiful.

And so is
Nicola. She’s wearing a floor-length red gown with gold detail. It
has a low back that just begs for me to lick up and down her spine,
but a modest front. The material feels better than silk and thinner
than a condom between my fingers and I deduce she’s not wearing any
knickers either. I can see the outline of her breasts and it’s no
wonder that I’m hard the entire ride. She used to lament that she
couldn’t go without a bra because she had child-bearing breasts,
but she’s become a little more free in that department and I’m
grateful for it. In my opinion she has incredible tits.

Actually, she
has incredible everything. As we get out of the car and enter the
gala, everyone there dressed to the nines, the tuxedoed waiters
going around and handing out canapes and shrimp cocktails and foie
gras and truffles, there’s no doubt that she’s the most beautiful
woman around.

And to
think, to fucking think, she has
no
idea.

“You’re so
gorgeous it should be illegal,” I tell her after we grab two flutes
of champagne off a server and slowly walk around the grounds.

“You’re so
handsome, it makes girls stupid,” she says and then jabs a thumb at
herself. “Myself included.”

I know she’s
completely joking but it’s something she used to say and believe so
often, back before we hooked up, that it smarts just a little.

But I brush it
aside and we continue to do the rounds. The truth is, situations
like this have always made me a little nervous. I’m okay once I
know someone, but here I don’t know a soul. I paid for both of us
to be here and now that we are, I’m not sure who to approach. I’ve
done my research and met with a lot of people thus far, but no one
looks familiar.

It isn’t until
a bit later, when some speeches start being made about the
fundraiser and the need to further develop San Francisco into a
city that’s accommodating to all people with the emphasis placed on
jobs, that I see Mr. Bayswater from earlier today. He wasn’t the
one who invited me and I had no idea he would be here, but then
again, I was talking their ears off earlier about my plans that I
probably wasn’t listening.

To my surprise
though, at the end of the speech, he mentions my name. I have to do
a double-take and Nicola nudges me in the side. I swallow,
straightening my bow-tie, and stand up to show myself as Mr.
Bayswater has asked.

Thankfully, I
don’t have to say anything, he just mentions my project and what
I’m trying to achieve and then moves on. But when the speeches are
all done for the night, I find myself being accosted by a reporter
and a cameraman.

“Are you Bram
McGregor?” the woman with caked-on makeup and glow-in-the-dark
veneers asks. When I tell her I am, and that I’m the man that Mr.
Bayswater mentioned earlier, she thrusts the microphone in my face
and starts interviewing me.

I don’t recall
giving her permission to do so but this is a great opportunity and
I use every second of it. Actually, it feels really good to be
discussing it with the potential of it really getting in people’s
ears, all while Nicola looks on proudly in the background.