At Any Price (Gaming The System) (40 page)

I stopped so abruptly that he almost ran into me. We were standing on the roadside along an empty lot. I ducked through the ranch-style fence into the field. Of course, he followed me.

“What has you so freaked, Emilia?”

I kept walking, this time, not trying to outpace him but the words were rolling around in my head so that I could hardly round them up to form a coherent sentence.

Then I turned on him. “
You
tell
me,
” I ground out.

He shook his head, utterly confused.

“Why do you have paperwork in there declaring yourself as my mother’s secret investor?”

His mouth set. “You went through my papers?”

“I knocked them on the floor because I’m a fucking clumsy housekeeper. If you didn’t want me to find them, you shouldn’t have left them sitting out there like that. It not like they were locked in a document safe.”

He shifted his stance, looking away. I could tell he was pissed. So the fuck what if his secret was out? It was just another one in his long string of secrets. “I set them down there because I just got them today, in town, from the lawyer. I had no idea you’d be going into the room.” He looked back at me with narrowed eyes. “You were never supposed to see those.”

I tried to breathe while gesturing wildly with my hands. “I don’t get—Why did you—how could you have known—when—?”

And I would have continued on like that if he hadn’t put his hands on my shoulders, pulling me to face him. “Take a deep breath and calm down. You are shaking like you saw your own ghost.”

And I was. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t control it.

“Emilia,” he said again, this time quietly and I looked in his eyes.

And then I scowled and smacked his chest with the back of my hand. “You tell me everything now, Adam Drake, or… or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

He caught my hands and held them inside his easily. And then, he pulled one of my curled fists to his mouth and kissed it.

I yanked away from him, tears immediately springing from my eyes.

“I’ll tell you everything,” he said in an even voice. “If you promise me you won’t flip your shit when I do.”

My voice was as shaky as the rest of me. I grabbed the insides of my elbows. “I can’t promise you that.”

He swallowed and looked away, actually looking afraid. Definitely an emotion I had never seen cross his face. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair.

“Even though we only physically met two months ago, I’ve known you for over a year. I told you in St. Lucia that—that you meant something to me. I read your blog all the time. I liked your articles, your insights. You’re very witty, and I looked forward to my blog feed updating with your articles, even when you were mocking my game or lauding the competition.”

He shook his head, remembering some past frustration. “Sometimes you really pissed me the fuck off and other times I laughed so hard my sides felt like they’d split open. But—beyond that, I really felt I knew you. Especially when we started spending so much time together in game. I looked forward to those times. It was like a bright spot during a dark day smothered in work and responsibilities. I couldn’t wait to log in and share laughs with the group. I enjoyed them all, but with you—” He took in a deep breath and exhaled. “It was different.”

He shot me a look. “But then you wrote the Manifesto. You already know how much I hated it because I argued every single point of it with you for hours. The whole idea of the auction offended the hell out of me. You know the reasons why I feel the way I do about women resorting to selling their bodies.”

I looked away and he hesitated. He released my hands and cleared his throat. “And I just had to know, you know? What would drive you to do this? I had this image of you in my mind as this self-possessed, funny, mature, very intelligent, modern woman and then you put up the Manifesto and I just.…” He blew out a breath, shaking his head.

“In my gut I knew it had to be something else—that you were desperate for a reason even though you never told me that there were financial issues behind it beyond the cost of medical school.” His gaze sharpened. “So I had you investigated.”

Those words hit me like a blow. “What do you mean, ‘investigated’? You mean like a PI walking around with my picture asking questions about my past?”

He looked long and hard at me. “No. I just had a buddy run some financial history on you. And your mom. And I figured it out. So I set the wheels in motion for a charity organization I’m associated with, Golden Shield Group, to help her out in a way that would have absolutely nothing to do with the auction.”

Thoughts were writhing inside my head. My interior had transformed into a howling gale that threatened to tear at my soul. I swallowed a sob, turned from him and began walking.

For two steps, he let me go, then he followed. “Emilia—”

I stopped, putting my head in my hands, and began to pace in front of him. “How many more secrets are there, Adam? It’s like you’re a fucking onion with layer upon layer of lie. First you win the auction, but you don’t bother to tell me you never want to have sex with me and so you drag it out between us, leading me to believe it would happen even though you had no intention of it ever happening. Then I find out that we’ve actually known each other way longer than I thought and now
this!
” I could hardly get it out. The betrayal threatened to suffocate me.

Adam followed my movements, his eyes dark with worry. “This is it. You know everything now.”

I shook my head. “Why did you bother with this entire charade?”

He rubbed his jaw. “Because I couldn’t help it. I never wanted you to go through with this. I told you—I never intended for it to go so far. But—” He hesitated and took a step toward me, but I could tell he really didn’t want to say any more.

“But what?”

He steeled himself and when he spoke, his voice was quiet. “But I lost control. I couldn’t help it.” He closed his eyes. “I’m not proud of that fact. But whatever this is between us got a lot bigger than me very quickly. I couldn’t stop thinking about you from one time to the next and I kept telling myself that I’d cut things off the next time and the next time never came because every time I was with you I discovered I wanted you more. And not just in my bed, Emilia, though that part was driving me crazy.”

I stopped pacing, my arms folded in front of my chest. I listened to him but could not look at him. He spoke again. “I wanted
more
and I’ve never wanted that from any other woman
ever.
I wanted to spend all night watching movies with you or taunting you with irrelevant hints about the game or arguing over which version of the first
Star Wars
trilogy is better or having you taunt me about how my taste in music is exactly like your mother’s.”

He paused and I finally looked at him. I wish I hadn’t. Emotion was written on every feature. His eyes pinned mine down, dared me to look away. “Every minute I spent with you made me want a hundred minutes more.”

I extricated my gaze from his. My eyes stung and emotions threatened to bubble up from my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath. He moved to stand in front of me and, slowly, carefully, he placed his hands on my shoulders. “I’m going to say something right now that I know is going to scare the shit out of you because it scares the shit out of me. But I have to say it.” He paused, waiting for me to look at him. But I knew what he was going to say. And I didn’t want to hear it. Finally my eyes met his.

“Please, don’t,” I whispered.

He closed his eyes, clearly disappointed. When he spoke, his voice was shaky. “I love you, Emilia. I love you so goddamned much that I can’t breathe when I don’t know where you are or how you are doing. This last month has been torture. I wonder if it’s possible to have room in my heart for anything else but these feelings.”

I couldn’t respond, just shook my head. I wanted him to stop talking and I wanted him to never stop.

He cleared his throat and continued. “If this past month without you has taught me nothing else, it’s shown me what I want. I want—I
need—
you in my life. If I have to, I’ll wait as long as it takes to get that.”

I put a hand to my forehead, tears coating my cheeks now. I’d never cried in front of him before, but now my barriers were so brittle, so fragile that I seemed near tears at every moment.

Anger burned at my cheeks, the base of my throat. I was so pissed at what he was doing to me. With those words he’d seized control again—like he always did—declaring what my future would be. He’d wait as long as it took but that meant that, ultimately, he’d get what he wanted. And he was a man who didn’t settle for anything less.

I stepped back from his hold, my fists balled. “Fuck you, Adam Drake,” I hissed. “I never asked for you to come into my life and arrange things. I never needed you to save me!”

His head tilted in that way he had of studying me, his eyes calculating. This outburst had not been a surprise to him. He swallowed, squared his shoulders.

“No. Probably you didn’t,” he said so quietly I could barely hear him over the raging, wild twister of emotions swirling inside of me. “But I sure needed you to save me.”

And with that, he turned and walked away. And every part of me wanted to throw myself after him, wanted to wrap my arms around him with all of my strength and pull his body against mine.

Instead I doubled over and sobbed, pain wracking me from forehead to ankle. I sobbed so hard that my head felt like it would split open. I sobbed so hard that I could barely catch my breath, gasping like a diver on an empty tank. The hurt was too much, too intense.

Those words. Those words every woman dreamed of hearing from a wonderful man like Adam had made me sob instead. Because I doubted I had what it took to ever live up to them. To ever be able to return those sentiments. Because Adam wasn’t the one who was empty inside.
I
was.

***

By the time I made it back to the house, it was well after dark. Adam’s car was still in the driveway. Mom had made and served dinner—to which she had apparently invited him, because they sat at the table over their empty plates, talking and sipping wine.

I tried to file past the dining room unnoticed but Mom stopped me. “Mia, I made you a plate. Come eat!”

I stood in the doorway, aware that I looked like complete shit. I had dust and tear tracks all down my cheeks, swollen eyes and nose and dried snot all down the front of my shirt. I refused to look at Adam, who was apparently fascinated by his own empty plate.

“I’m just gonna go take a shower and hit the hay.”

Mom frowned. “Are you—?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I cut her off with a significant glance at Adam’s bowed head.

She didn’t look convinced. “Oh, okay. Well, Mr. Drake let me know that he had some business come up. He’s going to have to check out early in the morning.”

My eyes shot to Adam’s and we held each other’s gaze for a long moment. My heartbeat came with increasingly sharp, stabbing twinges.

My voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry to hear that.” I cleared my throat. “Excuse me.” And I withdrew, heading straight for the shower.

I turned the water temperature up as high as I could tolerate it. I needed it to wash away the numbness, the painful emptiness inside me. Tomorrow he’d be gone and this time I’d likely never see him again. By rejecting him, by allowing him to go, he’d know that I wanted him to get on with his life. Without me.

I thought about his accusations, about the reasons why I couldn’t let him in. I knew it was because I was certain he’d hurt me. He’d leave me. All men leave. And he would too. Just like the Bio—Just like Gerard.
Every single man you look at for the rest of your life is tainted by him.
I was agonizingly aware of the truth in his words. Adam was not Gerard. Adam was not married, was not using me. Adam wanted more. Had just told me he was in love with me and, for all that meant, I honestly felt he believed it.

Adam was not Gerard. And there were many men in the world who weren’t. And I had to stop believing, in my childish way, that because one didn’t want me—because Gerard had rejected me before I was even born—that everyone else would, too. I had to find the courage to believe it and follow a path to happiness according to that new belief.

I stayed under that pulsing hot spray until it ran tepid and Mom banged on the door in protest because there was no hot water for the dishes.

“Mia,” she said when I got out, wrapping my robe around my dripping body.

“I’ll be fine, Mom.”

“Our guest…Mr. Drake—”

I panicked, heart racing. “Did he leave already?” I grabbed her arm with my urgent need to know.

Mom wrested it free from my grip and frowned. “No. I told you—tomorrow morning. You two already knew each other, didn’t you?”

I pulled back, turned and walked into my room. Of course, she followed me. “Mia, is he the guy you’ve been seeing?”

I stopped, that same old muscle knotting between my shoulder blades. I sighed. “Yes.”

“You know I’m a shitty judge of character, so you shouldn’t trust me as far as you can throw me, but—”

I turned. “Stop blaming yourself, Mom. Stop doubting yourself. You made one mistake and you shouldn’t beat yourself up for it for the rest of your life.”

Her face set into grim lines. “Wise words that
you
should live by. You shouldn’t be basing your entire life on my mistake, either.”

I slumped onto my bed and looked at her. I took in a shaky breath. “I’m scared.”

She sank onto the bed next to me and put her arms around my shoulders. “Growing up is a scary thing. I think I know why he came up here and I think I know what decision you are scared of making. And the only thing I can tell you is that the decision is yours and yours alone to make. But consider me. I’ve been alone for a long time by choice and I’d rather you found someone who makes you happy. Mia, if you love him, don’t choose to be alone.”

If you love him…
I rested my head against her shoulder and closed my eyes, that pain throbbing deep inside me again. I sighed, knowing the truth of her words.