Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (165 page)

She
rolled
her eyes.
 
“That’s just ridiculous.”

“So, you think you’ll lose then.”

“Okay.
What do I get if you can’t do it?”

Hunter
smiled.
 
“If I can’t do it in under two minutes,
I’ll pay to have a real mechanic do the job.”
 
He held out his hand.
 
“Do we have a deal?”

Kallie
shook
his hand, and if they both held on longer than necessary—well, she
wouldn’t tell if he didn’t.
 
A
moment later, she’d pulled out her cell phone and gotten her timer ready.
 
“Okay, on three.”

“Yup.”
He looked focused and confident, his hands
on the wheel, relaxing.

“One,
two,
three,” she said, and pressed the start button on her cell phone’s digital timer.

Hunter
quickly
went into his pocket and grabbed his own car keys.
 
She couldn’t imagine what he was going
to do with those.
 
Start her car
with his keys?

Seconds
later,
he’d taken a key and jammed it into a tiny little slot near the bottom of the
shifter.
 
Then he waited a brief
moment, put his hand back on the shifter and pulled it into drive.
 
“And we’re done, in record time,” he
said.

“So,
I
guess I just have to drive with your keys stuck in that little slot?” she
asked, trying to cover up just how impressed she was with his performance.

“There
are
other things you can stick in it,” he said.
 
“I don’t think you need me to come up
with a list, but I can if you want.
 
Besides, we can take my car from here.
 
You owe me a date.”

***

Nicole
wasn’t sure just
when she’d gotten suspicious of Red again.

She
was
used to being physically close to him, to having him inside of her, and to
knowing how much he loved her by way of that kind of intimacy.
 
And she knew how important it was to Red
as well—he was a man who thrived on sexual conquest--they’d built a
significant part of their relationship on it.

Her
insecurity
had begun when he’d become slowly less and less interested in the things that
had been staples of their sexual diet—spanking, tying her up, pulling her
hair, blindfolding her.
 
Slowly,
over the months of her pregnancy, the sex had become more and more predictable,
with less and less of that spicy variety that she’d grown accustomed to from
her husband.

And
although
she’d accepted his claim that he’d simply grown less needy for that sort of
activity, Nicole was uneasy with the change.
 
She didn’t trust it.

She
thought
of his mother’s subtle digs about Red not being able to handle a real
relationship with a woman who got pregnant and showed her age.
 
Maybe there was more truth to it than
she liked to think.

Now
that
she could no longer have any sex due to her health condition, Nicole was
growing more and more concerned by Red’s lack of interest in her.

And
she
couldn’t help but feel that maybe having a nubile young blond girl living in
their house wasn’t exactly a recipe for a successful marriage.

Nicole
had
been frankly relieved that it was Kallie’s day off.
 
Although Kallie did great work, was
diligent about cooking and cleaning and pleasant to be around, she made

Nicole
uneasy.
 
She was so gorgeous, her body was so
ridiculously toned and tight, sexuality just about oozed from her pores.

How
could Red not notice and be tempted by it?

Nicole
had
also seen that Kallie was frequently checking her phone.
 
She seemed sometimes distracted,
especially when Red was around.

Was
it
too much to assume that perhaps the girl was crushing on her handsome,
celebrity boss and that Red might even feel some urge to respond to that crush?

Nicole
hadn’t really thought so, beyond a few
fleeting glimmers of jealousy.
 
Not
until today.
 
She’d been able to
quell her own fears, most of which she honestly believed were a product of too
much time on her hands.

But
only
an hour or so after Kallie had left the house, Red told Nicole that he needed
to take a meeting in the city.
 
“It’s kind of an emergency,” he’d said.

“But
that’s like two hours each way—at
least,” she’d complained.

Red
had
explained that he’d be using a helicopter service that transported executives
back and forth from Manhattan to The Hamptons, like a bus, day and night. “Will
you be okay if you’re alone for a few hours?” he asked.

She’d
said she would.

In
truth,
she felt pretty much fine, physically.
 
Her blood pressure had gone back to normal, and the edema was almost
gone, too.
 
Dr. Rosen had been happy
with all the reports they’d given her, and even suggested that Nicole could cut
her bed rest in half, as long as they kept an eye on everything.

It
wasn’t
being left alone that concerned her so much.
 
It was how vague both Red and Kallie had
been about where they were going and for how long.
 
It simply was too much of a coincidence,
Nicole decided.

Kallie
leaves
the house on some unnamed trip doing god knows what, and suddenly Red gets a
phone call and mysteriously has to go away at the exact same time as her.

It
had
the strange ring of something that had been planned in advance, she thought.

She
had
a feeling that something was very, very wrong.
 
It was a feeling that she couldn’t
explain to anyone, but she knew it just the same.
 
Something bad was on its way.

***

“You’ve
never been in a helicopter?” Hunter asked
her.

Kallie
shook
her head nervously, as they buckled into their seats on the tiny aircraft, and
the pilot welcomed them aboard.

They
each
had headsets to wear, since apparently the helicopter would be very noisy.
 
“Good afternoon and welcome,” the pilot
said.
 
He had that confident
authority that surgeons, pilots and police officers all seemed to have in
common.
 
His hair was silver, and he
wore a white collared t-shirt with logo of the company embossed on it.

“We
will
be flying about twenty minutes all-told, and I’ll be pointing out some of the
sights along the way,” the pilot continued, in almost a sing-song patter, his
voice tinny
in Kallie’s headset.
 
“Please let me know if you’re
experiencing any discomfort or

have
any questions.
 
We can land the helicopter in short
order if you’re having any concerns.”

“Sounds
great,” Hunter responded.

“Also,
please
do keep an eye out as we fly these friendly skies, and if you notice any
unforeseen air traffic, I’d appreciate you pointing it out to me.”

Unforeseen
air
traffic? Kallie thought, her throat constricting with sudden fear. She wasn’t
used to the idea that she needed to help a pilot do his job.

Hunter
seemed to sense her nervousness, and his
hand gripped her hand as the helicopter blades began to spin quicker and
quicker and suddenly they’d lifted off the ground and were hovering in the air,
just a few dozen feet above the pad.

Soon
the
trees were receding further and further below them, and Kallie was marveling at
the view of the sky and the clouds—the sun partially hidden from view as
they shot towards their destination and the ground moved beneath them.

In
the
end, she was in awe of this machine taking them wherever they needed to go, and
she didn’t feel nervous—just excited.
 
She was in this little flying
contraption with Hunter Reardon.
 
Hunter Reardon!
 
It didn’t
seem possible.

It
hardly
seemed real, even now, as he sat right next to her, his leg touching hers, his
hand holding her hand, smiling at her as she looked with a wide open mouth at
the passing scenery and tried to remember this moment.

She
wanted to remember it for the rest of her
life, if possible.

The
ride
was over seemingly almost as soon as it began, and she was surprisingly
reluctant to disembark from the craft.

The
pilot
thanked them for coming along, and he had a few words with Hunter, who apparently
used their service all the time.

“To
show
our appreciation for a valued customer,” the pilot said, “we’d like to present
the two of you with a little gift.”
 
He handed Kallie and Hunter two small champagne bottles, each held in a
fancy white bag with a blue bow and the logo of the helicopter service on the
side of it.

“Oh,
that’s so cute,” Kallie said.
 
“I love it.”

“We’ll
drink
these straight away,” Hunter told him.

Kallie put her baggie in her purse.

They
had
been deposited at a small airfield, and Hunter had told Kallie that he had a
car waiting for them.

It
wasn’t
just any car.
 
It was a brand new,
black Mercedes.
 
It even smelled
new, and she could tell it hadn’t been driven more than a handful of times.

Hunter
had
told Kallie that he wanted to bring her someplace special today, but she still
wasn’t sure exactly where he was taking her.
 
She both liked and feared the unknown
quality of their time together.

He
wasn’t
forthcoming with many details about his own life or even about his opinions.
 
Instead, he tended to ask her a lot of
questions about herself.

“Five
brothers?”
he said, for like the twentieth time since she’d told him that about herself
earlier.

“Yes,
five brothers.
 
All of them very protective—so
watch your step.”

“I
feel
protective of you, too,” Hunter replied, as the car hugged a turn on a back
road that cut through a dense forest.

Kallie
laughed
and shook her head.
 
Yes, her heart
thrilled when he said these things, but she reminded herself that he’d said nice
things that first night and then nothing.
 
He’d disappeared.
 
Only luck
had brought them together again.

She
debated
asking him about his writing and telling him that she’d just coincidentally
been reading his book, Blue Horizon.
 
But something told her that it could spoil the moment.

He
hadn’t
even mentioned his writing or left any opening to discuss that sort of thing,
so despite her desire to talk about it, Kallie didn’t say a word.

“What’s
your family like?” he asked.
 
“Do you miss them?”

Kallie
thought
about it.
 
“Yeah, I miss them a
lot.
 
But then again, after awhile,
living so close to them was becoming stifling.
 
Everyone in my family is in each other’s
business.
 
I wanted to get away from
that and find out who I am when I’m not with them. Does that make sense?”

Hunter
nodded, glancing at her.
 
“It does, Kallie.
 
A lot of sense.”

He
turned
onto a wider road and then pointed up to a large hilltop.
 
There was a really strange castle-like
structure sitting a top the hill, as if surveying everything below.

“Wow, that is one of the coolest buildings I’ve
ever seen,” she said.
 
“Is that
where we’re going?
Like a tour or
something?”

Hunter
laughed.
 
“Something like that.”

They
began
driving up the road, which winded its way slowly along the hillside, climbing
higher and higher.
 
The castle was
directly above them now, and below them was an incredible view of the entire
region.