“Go back to the party, Alexander. I already told you. I’m not interested.”
“You did,” he agrees even as he snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me into his side. “But you didn’t sound very convincing.”
I grab his hand from where it’s sliding toward my crotch and pull it away from my body. If I bend his fingers back a little in the process, well, we’ll just call that an accident. “Maybe that’s because you were too busy checking yourself out in the mirrored doors to actually listen to me. But I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. For old times’ sake.”
“In case you forgot, the old times weren’t all that great.”
“Sure they were. You’re a wildcat in bed.”
“Yeah, well, these days I’m pretty boring.”
“Maybe you just don’t have the right partner.” Geez. The ego on this guy is unbelievable. It would be funny if it weren’t so damn annoying. And when he leans in once more and tries to kiss me, I decide enough is enough.
“Look, Alexander, we had fun for a while. But I try really hard not to make the same mistakes twice. Especially when it comes to men.”
“Are you calling me a mistake?” Outrage brings out the British in his accent.
“I’m calling you a lesson learned. Let’s leave it at that.” Thank God the elevator comes to a stop and the doors whoosh open. I smile at him as I step out, pausing just long enough to push the button to return the elevator to the roof. “Have a good rest of the night.”
His mouth actually drops open. “Are you actually serious about not sleeping with me?”
“I am absolutely serious about not sleeping with you.” I give him a little wave as I step back, then watch in satisfaction as the elevator doors slide shut before he can say anything else.
“The douchiness is strong in that one,” I say in my best Yoda voice as I make my way back to my condo. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little ashamed about the fact that I let that guy stick any part of himself inside any part of me. There’s a part of me that wants to dwell on the bad decision making of my past—that wants to brood on it—but I take a deep breath, tell myself to just let it go. I’m not that girl anymore and I’m never going to be her again. That’s enough, isn’t it?
I kick off my Loubis, then sigh in relief as I sink onto the couch and kick my feet up. I think about getting up and searching through my DVD collection for 10 Things I Hate About You, but the idea of moving again is completely unappealing. Instead I reach for the remote and start to surf my DVR.
As I settle on one of my favorite episodes of Scandal, I tell myself once more that this new Tori—this new me—is enough. She has to be, because right now, she’s all I’ve got going for me.
Chapter 4
Miles
I watch the elevator doors close on Tori and that blond jackass and decide to hell with it. I’ve stayed long enough to be polite—I can head home now and finally get back to work.
I hadn’t wanted to come in the first place—I’ve still got too much work to do on the desalinizer I’m working on—but Jim and I are good enough friends from work that I felt I had to at least show my face. Chloe keeps reminding me that I need to at least pretend that I’m a well-rounded human.
So I came and now I’m regretting it. Not that I care who Tori takes downstairs to fuck—after all, it’s none of my business if she wants to sleep with the biggest asshole at the party. It’s just that I have work to do.
After excusing myself from the very tedious conversation I’m having with a very pretty woman with very boring hair, I say a quick goodbye to Jim and his fiancée, then head for the elevator. If my luck holds, I’ll be back in my workshop in under fifteen minutes. And then, with the whole, uninterrupted weekend in front of me, maybe I can actually work through the latest problem that’s crept up in my desalinizer.
Normally, I’d be able to work for days on end without interruptions—part and parcel of being the resident mad genius. But now that I’m at Frost Industries—after walking away from my family’s company when I found out what my parents had done to Chloe—I don’t get to play the mad genius nearly as often. Partly because Ethan’s IQ rivals mine and he manages to behave in a totally rational, respectable manner ninety-nine percent of the time and partly because he keeps heaping non-project-related responsibilities on me whenever I’m not looking.
Chloe keeps teasing me, telling me if I’m not careful, I’m going to end up being second in command of Ethan’s company. Not that I think there’s a chance in hell of that happening. Chloe has forgiven me for my part in her nightmare, but the people who love her aren’t so quick to forgive—or forget. Tori may be meaner than Ethan, but it’s not hard to tell that he’s reserving judgment for a while.
Not that I blame him. I’ve hated myself from the minute I found out about our parents selling Chloe out and using the money to build a company around my inventions. She’s tried to tell me that it isn’t my fault, but how can it not be? How could I have been so fucking blind when it mattered most? How could I have not seen what they were doing?
These are the questions that keep me up at night, and the fact that I don’t have satisfactory answers to them—even after all these months—eats at me like few things besides my projects can.
I didn’t join Frost Industries because I wanted a shot at the CTO’s office, no matter how lucrative that position might be. I joined Frost Industries because I want a chance to get to know my sister again—and to make up for what my parents did to her. To make up for all those years when she had no family, when she couldn’t come home even if she wouldn’t tell me why.
Oh, I know she has a family now—Ethan and the baby and even Tori adore her. But she was my little sister long before she was Tori’s honorary one and I want that relationship back. So does she.
So here I am, working on my biggest project yet for a man who doesn’t know whether to trust me or despise me. And until he does, I know he—and his subordinates—will continue to watch me like a hawk.
And I’ll continue to put up with it because I know—after everything that’s happened—that I deserve it, even though I have only his and Chloe’s best interests at heart.
The elevator doors finally slide open and I start to step on, only to realize that the car is still occupied by the blond douchebag who hadn’t been able to keep his hands off Tori. Judging from the scowl on his face, he hasn’t gotten nearly as lucky with her as he thought he would.
The knowledge makes me grin like a hyena. I know it shouldn’t matter to me one way or the other, but for some reason it does. I like that she didn’t sleep with him, like even more that she’s a better judge of character than I’ve ever given her credit for.
Then again, I’m not sure what that says about me, considering she hates my guts…
It’s a nice night, and though the walk home from Tori’s building doesn’t normally take more than twenty minutes or so I dawdle a little. Instead of walking along the most direct route, I take off my shoes and walk in the sand instead, just close enough to the water that the ocean occasionally laps over my toes.
It’s been a little over a year since I reunited with my sister, and almost a year since I moved to San Diego. And now that I’m here, I can’t believe it took me so long to make the move. I love the ocean, love the mountains, love pretty much everything about my newly adopted city. And that’s not even mentioning how much I like being close to Chloe and Violet. Or that I never would have had the idea for my latest invention if I hadn’t moved to California. And since I’m pretty sure that this baby is going to be a huge game changer—for Frost Industries, for California, and for the environment—I’m extremely grateful.
When I’m only a couple of minutes from home, I drop my shoes on the sand and then walk a little farther into the ocean. I pull three test tubes out of my pockets and—ignoring the way the water drags at the bottom of my pants—I bend down and wait for a fairly decent-sized wave to roll in. Once on
e does, I fill each of the tubes with ocean water, then cap them.
Depending on how tonight’s tests go, this might not be enough. But lucky for me—and if I have my way, lucky for California—there’s always more salt water where this came from.
After sliding the test tubes back into my blazer pocket, I make my way up the staircase to the main road, and then walk another couple of blocks until I’m home. As I head up the driveway, I can’t help turning back and looking back toward Tori’s building, can’t help wondering what she’s up to now that she sent Mr. I’m-A-Movie-Star So-You-Should-Kiss-My-Ass packing. Then I’m annoyed with myself for thinking about her when I know she’s not thinking about me. But it’s not my fault she’s so goddamn hot with her heart-shaped ass and her bedroom eyes. Not to mention her mouth. I’m not even sure I like the woman—and I know she doesn’t like me—but that hasn’t stopped me from having any number of fantasies about that drop-dead-sexy mouth of hers.
I may be a geek, but I’m still a man and I’d be lying if I said my dick wasn’t twitching right now at the thought of those gorgeous lips anywhere near it.
As I key in the gate code, I think about taking a dip in the pool, just to clear my thoughts and help me focus. Once I’m in my workshop, Tori’s lips—or any other part of her anatomy—are pretty much the last thing I need to be thinking about.
But then I press the button on my key fob and open the door to the climate-controlled garage that doubles as my work area. Once I’m in, with my research and tools and gauges all around me, I forget about Tori’s mouth and pretty much everything else as well. I forget everything but the project I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into for several long months.
After taking the test tubes out of my pocket and laying them gingerly on my lab table, I pull off my jacket and tie and drop them on the nearest chair. Then with my pant legs still wet around the cuffs, I roll up my sleeves and get down to work.
I made some tweaks on the desalinizer this morning—nothing major, but enough that I want to see what it does to this round of seawater. I need to figure out how much salt it strips out on the first, second, and third passes. While my ultimate goal is to deliver purified water after only one pass through the system, right now I’ll settle for almost purified after three. At least then I’ll know that these new changes are taking me in the right direction.
Time slips away as I work, and it’s not until my laptop craps out—and takes my dictation software with it—that I even look up. I get up and start hunting for a charger, but I can’t find any of the four I usually have in here. Which is utterly ridiculous. The main reason I have so many chargers is so that even when I misplace one—which, I admit, I do a lot—I’ll have backups. And considering I charged the damn computer in here this morning, I don’t know how all the chargers could suddenly be missing now.
Muttering to myself, I make my way into the house to search for one of the damn things, and it’s not until I glance out the wall of windows that I realize dawn is breaking over the water. Once again, I’ve worked all night without even being aware that time was passing. No wonder my whole body feels like somebody took a hammer to it.
With the onset of dawn comes fatigue—I’ve been up over twenty-four hours at this point—and I decide to hell with the charger; I can find it when I wake up. I’m fairly satisfied with the work I got done today, so taking a few hours to sack out won’t hurt.
I strip off, then climb into bed with my tablet. I’ve got some vague idea of playing a mindless round of WordBubbles as I settle in for sleep, but as I scroll through Yahoo, a picture of someone I’m pretty sure is Tori catches my eye. Her photo is side by side with one of Alexander Parsons, aka the blond douchebag, and they’re both under the salacious headline: IS ALEX AS HOT IN BED AS HE IS OUT?
I almost scroll past it, considering I’m not the least bit interested in whether or not he’s good in bed. But there’s something about its key placement in Yahoo’s news stream—and something about the fact that they aren’t using a joint picture of the couple—that has my spidey senses tingling.
More than a little disgusted with myself, I click on the piece—then wish I hadn’t when a well-known gossip site comes up, along with the opening shot to a video and a link promising a sex tape of actor Alexander Parsons and socialite Tori Reed.
Fuck. Shit. Goddamnit.
Looks like she doesn’t have good taste in men after all. How the hell could she be this stupid? Making a sex tape with that asshole? What the hell did she think was going to happen?
He’s totally the kind of guy to post something like this just to build up his own name and brand recognition. Especially considering the fact that he’s got nothing to lose. His reputation isn’t at stake, after all. If it’s a good tape, then he gets to play the stud while she’s forced into the role of the slut. It totally sucks, but that’s how the world works. How it’s always worked. We just like to pretend that we’ve moved forward, gotten more civilized. Gotten more equitable. But the sad fact of the matter is the woman will always take the brunt of the heat in situations like this.
Goddamnit.
I click away from the site, then Google Alexander Parsons sex tape. Close to a million hits pop up and we’re only four hours into this debacle. Then I Google Tori Reed sex tape. Only half the number of hits come up—since he’s the main news here, not her—but half a million hits is still nothing to sneeze at. And once morning fully hits and America wakes up…this story is going to go through the roof. She’s the daughter of one of the country’s most in-the-limelight businessmen and he’s the star of the biggest action movie of the summer. There’s nowhere for this story to go but everywhere.
I scroll through one of the more popular articles, making sure not to hit the PLAY button on the video. Sure I’m curious about what the tape is like, curious about whether Tori looks as hot going down on a guy as I’ve fantasized for the last year, but this is definitely not the way I wanted to find out.
When did this even happen? It’s only been about six hours since Parsons came back to the party looking completely disgruntled. Unless I’d totally misinterpreted the look on his face. Which I admit could have happened as it’s not like I spent a lot of time or effort trying to figure that jackass out. Not likely, but it could happen…
It’s only as I get to the second half of the article, which mentions that he and Tori dated a couple of years ago, that things click into place. Including the fact that the opening shot of the video—the one frozen on the screen for the world to see—shows Tori with very distinct, very bright blue hair.
So not taken tonight then. Not taken anytime that I’ve known her, in fact.
I don’t know why the knowledge settles me, but it does, even as it makes me wish I’d plowed my fist into that bastard’s face when I’d had the chance. Makes me wish I’d done a better job of watching out for her. Because now that the details are falling into place, I’m getting a much clearer picture.
This was revenge on his part, pure and simple. Sure, he probably also saw it as a way to cement himself as the perfect Hollywood stud, but the primary motive here was petty schoolyard bullshit. He wanted to sleep with her, she said no, and this is how that shallow, pathetic bastard gets back at her.
Jesus. It takes a real man to throw a woman under the bus just for exercising her right to say no.
An image of Chloe flashes into my head after that long-ago night when she’d been raped. Broken, shattered, ruined, just because some asshole thought he had the right to take what he wanted. To do what he wanted.
Parsons might not have raped Tori, but this whole sex tape thing is just as much about power and control as rape is. See what I can do to you? See how powerless you are?
Well, fuck him. No way in hell is he getting away with it. No. Way. In. Hell. I couldn’t stop Brandon—and then my parents—from hurting Chloe. But this? I can definitely do something about this.
Throwing back the covers, I climb out of bed and do what I should have done an
hour ago. I find my damn laptop charger. And then I get to work.
Chapter 5
Tori
I wake up to a pounding on the front door of my condo. Not a gentle knocking, but a pounding that shakes the whole door and has me stumbling off the couch even as I tumble into wakefulness.
I grab my phone off the coffee table and crack my eyes just enough to read that it’s seven twenty-seven in the morning. Considering I didn’t fall asleep until close to three A.M. it still feels like the middle of the night to me. Obviously, whoever is on the other side of my door doesn’t feel the same way.
“Who is it?” I call, even as I fumble with the chain.
I don’t unlock the dead bolt, though, at least not until I hear my father answer, “It’s me, Victoria. Let me in.”
“Dad?” I swing the door open as panic races through me. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
He never shows up at my condo unannounced, never shows up at my condo at all, actually. In fact, most months I never even see him unless it’s for some engagement that’s been written on both of our calendars weeks in advance. “Is Mom—”
“Your mother is fine. She’s in France, on a shopping trip.” He says it brusquely, which tells me that “shopping trip” is a euphemism for the fact that she’s on vacation in Paris with her lover. Not that he has any room to be upset—he’s got his own codes for his own leisure time with his lovers. Of which there are legion.
The whole thing is very civilized between them—and something I’ve known about for as long as I can remember. Oh, my parents were—are—very discreet with their side interests, and when they’re together no one who isn’t in the know would ever guess that their marriage isn’t totally, one hundred percent genuine. But the fact is, the two of them gave up caring about each other—really caring about each other—years ago. That they also gave up caring about me around the same time is something we don’t talk about at our mandatory monthly family dinners.