AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“James,” she cried out, her body clenching and shaking around mine.
“I fucking love you,” I said, and came in a torrent.
* * *
The next afternoon, I rolled off of Audrey, breathing hard. “That was brilliant,” I said. Now that we’d started having sex again, we couldn’t stop. We’d been sneaking back to our villa whenever we could.
“What?”
“Us. Together. I think we’re even better now that we’re official.” I trailed my fingers lazily down her naked shoulders, thrilled just to play with her long hair and touch her beautiful, smooth skin.
“You think?” she asked.
“I know,” I said.
“Do we have to go to dinner tonight? Isn’t everyone going to be too drunk by then?” she asked. “I wish we could just stay here.”
I sighed and flopped on my back. Our entire party had been drinking all day, again. “Unfortunately, the Prestons do not get too drunk to do anything—we’re high-functioning alcohol abusers. We should join them. Todd wants me to make an effort while I’m here.”
“Okay. But I’m worried about the way your mother’s been looking at me since we’ve been here,” Audrey said, nervously. “I’m all over her bad radar. I can tell.”
“I’ll protect you from her,” I said. “But Audrey, you should get used to it. She’s not ever going to change.”
“No,” said Audrey, looking up at the ceiling. “She’s not. And neither is my mother.”
“You’re probably right,” I said, lacing my fingers through hers. “So let’s just stay the hell away from both of them.”
She smiled, and I traced the outline of her jaw with my finger. “I meant what I said, you know. About California. You’ll love it out there. And Tommy will, too. The weather is perfect—except for the smog. And then there’s the traffic. But we have all the best restaurants.”
She didn’t say anything for a beat, and my heart was pounding in my ears.
“Tommy is really happy at New Horizons,” she said, tentatively. “I don’t know what that would be like for him to move.”
“We don’t have to do it right away. You can come out for a few days, and we can look at facilities for him—we can find the perfect place. One that’s close to my house.”
Audrey was still staring at the ceiling. “But what would I do? Where would I live? And I’m guessing you don’t want me to open the West Coast office of AccommoDating, right?” She laughed, but I could tell the discussion was making her uncomfortable.
“Audrey, you can live with me. And Elena can keep AccommoDating. But she can’t keep you.” I squeezed her hand hard.
“But I can’t just live off you,” she said, still not looking at me. “That’s not a smart five-year plan.”
“A small country could live off me,” I said. “It’s not really a big deal.”
She looked at me then. “It’s a big deal to me.”
“Is this that cowboy thing again?” I asked, feeling the inklings of a headache coming on.
“Sort of,” she said. She sat up. “It’s just that… depending on someone else for everything isn’t smart. You could get tired of me. You could get hit by a car. I have to take care of Tommy no matter what happens. You can’t be my job, James.”
I looked at her, letting the irony of that statement just hang in the air between us.
She swatted me and rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“I’ll make sure that Tommy is taken care of for the rest of his life. I know how important that is to you,” I said. If I could give her nothing else, at least I could give her that peace of mind. “And I can get you your own place out there, if that’s what you want.”
“No—that’s not what I want,” she said quickly. “But I haven’t said yes yet. I’m not prepared to ruin your life.”
“I’m going to keep working on you. With sex and booze as a large part of my strategy this week, I plan on being victorious.” I squeezed her hand again. “Listen, back to California—I know you like things to be even and fair. But I’m kind of out of your price bracket, Audrey. We can’t go ‘halfsies.’ No one can afford to go halfsies with me. You just have to accept me for who I am and deal with the fact that I have money.”
