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"It's inevitable that we will be uncovered," Anton said as he scrolled through yet another email, "but you may perhaps wish to do so on your own terms." He gave me an almost teasing look from the corner of his eye. "Makeup, perhaps. A
nd you might want to have your hair done."
Distressed, I patted my face and hair, but to my surprise, Anton reached out and grabbed my hand. "You look lovely, Felicia," he said before releasing me. "Don't worry about it too much."
"Easy for you to say," I snapped at him. "Not all of us were born into this world with perfect looks."
His brows twitched. "You think I look perfect?"
Oh, jeez. "Don't be a girl," I said. "You practically rolled out of bed and into your clothes this morning, and you look like you could be on GQ."
"I have been on GQ. And there's nothing wrong with being a girl."
"Yes, I know, but if they were daily they'd just show up at your door every morning and take a photo."
Anton tilted his head, and I saw that faint smile on his face suddenly bloom into... dare I say? Almost a full blown grin. No teeth yet. I'd get there someday.
"Thank you, Felicia," he said.
We stared at each other for a long moment, until the air between us crackled and sizzled.
He broke contact first and shifted in his seat, as though he had suddenly become uncomfortable. "At any rate," he said, far more brusquely than usual, "we need to talk about living arrangements."
"What?" I said. "Oh. Right. Shouldn't I just come... live with you?" Crap. I didn't know where he lived. Or what his house looked like. What if it was one of those really spare modern places with chairs you couldn't sit in? Did it have a sex dungeon? It had to have a sex dungeon. If it didn't have a sex dungeon I was going to have to question everything I knew about Anton Waters, which still wasn't much.
But every minute I spent with him taught me more.
His phone rang. Checking the screen, he cursed under his breath. "Sorry, Felicia, I have to take this."
"Sure," I said, and pretended to inspect my nails as I observed him from the corner of my eye.
"Waters," he said into the phone. "Yes. Yes. No. That's not going to work." I listened as the person on the other line burbled for a while. Anton sat with the phone to his ear and smiled that faint smile. He was like a Buddha. A business Buddha. Eventually the person on the other end of the line realized he was talking to a brick wall and trailed off. Anton waited.
He'd used this very same tactic with me, and it was incredibly effective. After a moment the voice burbled again, this time sounding very contrite.
"Yes, thank you," Anton told them, and hung up, then dialed a new number. "Arthur, I need to speak to Don Schmidt as soon as I get into the office. Yes, clear that appointment." The whole time he spoke in a slow, calm manner, his voice almost soothing, unless, I suppose, you had fucked up in some way. Then it probably sounded like a bomb about to go off. Unpredictable. And yet I'd never heard him yell, and he'd only become closed off and angry once or twice with me in private.
He had incredible control. I'd observed last night that his need for control was consuming, and could be a weakness. Say what you like about my father, but he tried to teach me—between rounds at the golf course when he forced me to be his caddy—about the business world. Some of it had sunk in, despite my best efforts, and I found myself falling back on them now, trying to decipher the enigma Anton presented. Before our ill-fated shopping trip, I'd read up on him on the internet.
Anton Waters. No known family, though he had said that his parents died in a car crash when he was young in several interviews. He got his start in real estate, flipping properties like pancakes as the bubble swelled. Money flowed from his real estate ventures into finance and manufacturing, and he was known throughout the business world as a man who made no attachments. He held no trust in others, and others held no trust in him. His only hobby, apparently, was cooking.
And crazy sex. Couldn't forget that part.
Anton hung up and turned to me. “Where were we? Oh, yes, living arrangements.”
“Am I not coming to live with you?” I asked.
“Do you want to?” His green eyes bored into mine, intense in the dim light inside the car. Outside the sky was gray with late-autumn clouds, and everything was gloomy. Strange how his eyes burned so brightly, even in this light.
“I don't know,” I said. “I don't even know where you live.”
“I have a mansion on Central Park West,” he said.
“Of course you do.”
He smiled faintly at that. “But if you would like to live separately for a while, I have no problems with that, as long as we are together for the agreed-upon number of nights as stipulated in our prenup.”
I put a hand to my forehead and began to rub little circles over my nose. “How many was that again?” I asked. “Per week?”
