At the Brink Read online

  “Well, um, perhaps...maybe I felt a little something.”

  “A little something?” His eyes sparkled with a hint of amusement. “At least now we’re making progress. I want you to know you have a choice.”

  “A choice?”

  “Yes, a choice to accept or reject my proposal.”

  “Nothing feels like it’s really a choice to me lately.”

  “Oh, but it is,” he said. “In fact, you’ve already made some choices, some significant ones, if you ask me. It began when you told Martin. Then you came here, of your own free will. I’m glad you came, very glad.”

  I blushed so hard my face hurt.

  “Now, look at me, Lily. Yes, that’s good. You’ve got a proposal to consider and a third and final choice to make. It’s similar to Martin’s proposal. It involves him, WindTech, you and me. But it’s my proposal. If you don’t want to hear it, or if you say no, we’re done. I’ll stay away and I’ll never bother you again.”

  I’d spent all of twenty minutes with him and yet parts of me grieved at the possibility of his absence. I’d miss his voice’s soothing tone, even if it was somehow disconcerting to my senses.

  But I couldn’t even think about negotiating with Josh Lane. Could I? I’d been brought up right. I knew right from wrong.

  However, if Josh Lane had any consideration for my objections, he bulldozed right over them. “When you agree to my proposal,” he said, “you’ll need to abide by all of my terms and specifications.”

  When? I tried to swallow the stone stuck in my throat. “What do you mean?”

  “It means that I get to call the shots and you do what I say without exception.”

  “What are you, some kind of a control freak?”

  “I don’t expect any of this will be simple or easy, but compliance is non-negotiable and failure to comply is a deal breaker.”

  He was speaking legalese.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m not very good at getting bossed around, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You’d have to try very hard then,” he said. “If this is going to work out, you’ll need to follow my instructions at all times.”

  I clung to my wits by a pure act of will. “Maybe this whole thing makes business sense to you,” I said. “But I still don’t get why I’d want to go through with it.”

  “Why did you say you came to the gala on Saturday?” he asked.

  Because if Martin’s business went well, my life would get better. We’d pay our bills and I could breathe easier and have peace of mind. With a little luck, I might even get to paint more often. And maybe, if Martin did very, very well, he wouldn’t need me anymore. Freedom. The mere thought quickened my heart. It was the kind of hope I could cling to, the type of argument that made me sit tight and focus on Mr. Lane.

  “Okay, I get why it might solve some of my problems,” I said. “But why would you want to do it? Why get involved with this, with me?”

  He flashed me the strangest look. “We all have our dark side, Lily, and you just happened to wander into mine.”

  My body dissolved under his stare. I tried sucking in air, but it trickled into my lungs as if through a straw. I couldn’t even begin to sort through the mess in my head. When he looked at me like that, my ideas scattered like bees.

  “I should warn you,” he said. “I can’t stand indecision and I don’t really have a need for a quick tryst with you.”

  Relief washed through me like a tidal wave.

  “What I want from you is not a one night stand,” he said. “It’s a sustained period of companionship.”

  My lips couldn’t even pronounce the word. “Companionship?”

  “Sexual companionship,” he said. “Specifically the kind of unconventional practices I prefer, provided on my terms and to my specifications.”

  “Say again?”

  “Lily, I want to fuck you. I want to fuck you a lot, whenever and however I want to.”

  Chapter Four

  Lily

  I expected Mr. Lane would burst out laughing any time now, but he did no such thing. He just sat there, looking like a modern interpretation of a Greek god, like the famous statue of Pythian Apollo, chiseled from pure marble, perfect, beautiful and wild, staring at me with those implacable eyes of his.

  This couldn’t be happening to me. And yet I sensed no apprehension coming from him, no wavering, no great commotion to rival the upheaval taking place in my mind.

  “Sexual companionship,” I said when I finally managed to speak. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Totally serious,” he said. “Focus, Lily. You look like you’re about to faint.”

  Yes, faint, a plausible option, very possible at the moment.

  This had to be a dream, or better yet, judging by the way my body churned under his glare, an all-consuming erotic nightmare, unleashed by my disturbing meeting with Mr. Lane at the gala, fueled by the powerful impression he’d made on me, and sustained by my pathetic longings. I closed my eyes and tried very hard to wake up.

  “Lily?”

  I opened one eye. My throat closed. I couldn’t speak. My voice took leave of my body, hijacking my brain in the process. I knew what was happening. I didn’t want it to happen and yet I had no way of stopping it now. I bent over my arms and leaned my forehead on my knees.

  He was at my side in an instant. “Can I get you something? Water? Juice? Something a little stronger perhaps?”

  I couldn’t manage a word.

  “What’s going on?” he said. “Are you having a panic a—?”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Don’t say what?” he said. “Panic attack?”

  I started to wheeze. My heart fibrillated out of control and I unraveled before him like a freaking skein of yarn. I’d wheeze some more and then I’d pass out. For the longest moment of my life, he was but a profane voice dashing at the edge of my shrinking peripheral vision. Then he came back.

  “Look here,” he said, thrusting a picture before my face. “What color is this?”

  My eyes refused to focus. My brain wouldn’t start. The black spots bobbing before my eyes danced a polka.

  “Breathe, Lily. Breathe.” He placed his hand over my heart and began to breathe with me. “Come on, girl, breathe.”

  I tried, but the air was gone from the room and no amount of sucking worked to refill my lungs.

  “Let’s try this.”

  His lips landed on my mouth, soft and yet commanding. His tongue parted my lips, sharing his mouth’s vital moisture. He exhaled into me, heating my cold airways with his warm breath, imbuing my world with his scent, crisp rainfall wafting with fresh ozone, fragrant earth with a hint of leather, a punch of wholesome maleness.

  His breath startled my lungs into action. The contact transformed into something deeper and more intense. My starved body wanted more of him, air, scent, tongue, lips. Along the way, my lungs relaxed and my throat loosened beneath his fingers’ caress.

  Oh. My. God. He was kissing me now, and his kiss was everything that a kiss ought to be—question, answer, light-infused canvas, an entire painting dedicated to blues and yellows, a portrait of my body in heat.

  His entire body was committed to kissing me. I responded to him as if my next breath depended on his touch. My nipples sharpened and my sex ached, clutching at the emptiness inside me. My heart pounded a million beats per second. When he finally broke off the kiss, he seemed breathless, too, and I wondered if together we’d burned up all the oxygen in the room.

  “Lily,” he said, lifting up my chin, trapping my gaze with his stare. “Make it stop. Slow down your heart. You can do this. I know you can.”

  The way he said my name, the authority in his voice, those kisses, something worked. Beneath his hand, my heart still beat
too fast, but air flowed through to my lungs. I capitalized on that. The black dots grew smaller.

  “Can you see the picture now?” he asked.

  I could see him and only him. My portraitist’s eyes fixed on his face, noting the little straight line that formed between his drawn brows and the raised edges that defined his appealing mouth. The perfectly formed phylum below his septum shaped the indentation in the center of his upper lip into a flawless “V.” Below the defined set of his brows, his eyes tracked my reflection as I leaned toward him and let him kiss me all over again.

  After a little while, he pulled back and, holding my hand gently, rubbed my fingers over the canvas. “The picture,” he said. “What do you see?”

  It was still blurry, but it was a small ten by ten, a mountain and lake scene with a little cabin to the side, painted with blunt, untrained strokes, childlike but beautiful.

  “L-lake?” I mumbled.

  “Good. Keep looking. What color is this?”

  “Alizarin yellow?”

  “What’s this one?”

  “Blue, I think it’s blue.” I straightened in between breaths. “The blue is a mix, cerulean and cobalt. Cobalt is my favorite.”

  I didn’t tell him that he sparkled like cobalt glass to me. I was in shock. No one had ever managed to talk me out of a panic attack, not even Mom. I rubbed my lips. They were moist, swollen and sensitive from all that kissing. How had this man, this stranger I’d just met, had that kind of an impact on me?

  “You had me worried there for a bit,” he said, brushing his knuckles against my cheek. “I was afraid I was going to have to call an ambulance.”

  “Believe me,” I said. “I was worried too. But I can’t help it. I do stuff like that all the time. I’m a mess. This whole arrangement you’re proposing? It won’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t do it,” I said. “And you won’t like me. I’m no ‘extraordinary reward’ to your efforts. I’m a lemon, a defective model, really. If you knew me, you’d know better.”

  His remarkable brows arched even higher on his forehead. “Are you trying to talk your way out of this?”

  “Maybe,” I said, wondering myself. “But it’s the truth. I freak out easily and I’ve got more quirks than an old house. Ask anyone who knows me. Ask Martin if you want.”

  His lips curled in disgust at hearing Martin’s name. “I’d prefer to find out on my own.”

  “Look, Mr. Lane—”

  “Call me Josh.”

  “Okay, fine, Josh...” Why did his name sound so natural on my lips? “I don’t want to be a part of Martin’s scams and I wouldn’t want you to be the losing party in this deal.”

  “I appreciate your honesty,” he said, “but your husband can’t con me.”

  “And so that you know, I’m not very good at—well—you know. I’m terrible.”

  He actually smiled, an expression that lightened his eyes and smoothed his face’s harsh lines. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? You liked it when I kissed you, didn’t you?”

  Good lord. If I blushed any hotter my face was likely to explode.

  “You can’t lie.” He stared at me with wonder. “It’s the blush. You’re lying impaired.”

  I sighed. “I’m a cardiovascular disaster.”

  He laughed, a rich, soothing sound completely incoherent with the person I’d known so far. I couldn’t help the crooked smile that spread across my face.

  “I don’t like lying either,” he said. “I prefer the straightforward, honest approach.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “There’s such a thing as too blunt, you know.”

  “No way around that. It’s who I am.” His fingers tickled my face as they traced the line of my jaw. “Lily, I know this is hard for you, but trust me, if you take me on, you won’t get any lies or fakeness from me.”

  “If I take you on?”

  He nodded earnestly. “It’s not very often that I meet people who are willing to be real. I really like that about you.”

  “You’re really weird,” I said. “You know that?”

  “I’ve been told.” His lips turned up at the corners. “But you’re not your average run of the mill gal either. The way you pulled yourself back together was impressive. You’ve got some excellent qualities to your character. Do you want to continue this conversation?”

  “The truth?” I took a deep breath. “You scare the hell out of me.”

  “We’re even, then.” He stared at me for a moment and then surprised me with his stick-to-it-ness. “So is it a no go at this point?”

  Dear God. “You’re not done yet, are you?”

  “I think you could do this, Lily. I think it could work, for you and for me, but I don’t want you to have another—”

  I raised a warning finger. “Don’t say it.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  My ears were at it again. They were transmitting caring nuances from a man who didn’t have a single reason in the world to care for someone like me.

  “I’m okay,” I said, aiming at completing this conversation without falling apart.

  I forced myself to think. I had an opportunity to break free. Okay, it was a wild one. I was scared, but I had to admit to an extraordinary connection with this odd man, and something else, something that blew my mind: Deep inside, I was also secretly excited.

  I cleared my throat. “This, um, agreement that you propose, how long would it last?”

  He seemed to think about that. “I don’t suppose you’ll go for open ended, so it’d have to last at least until WindTech’s prototypes work. Let’s talk about the schedule.”

  My heart tripped. “Schedule?”

  “I’ll need you with me five days per week, Wednesday through Sunday.”

  “But I work.”

  “You won’t have time to work anymore.”

  “I can’t do Wednesday,” I said as forcefully as I could manage. “I teach on Wednesdays.”

  “All right,” he said. “I like a gal with negotiating grit. Let’s agree on Thursday through Monday. I think that’s fair. The rest of the time, you can be on call.”

  “On call?”

  “On call.”

  I stared at him. “You mean as in drop everything you’re doing and come to me?”

  “Exactly.”

  My God. “But I have commitments and expenses...”

  “You’ll need to get rid of any commitments that interfere with your functions.”

  Functions? Is that how he thought of it?

  “As to your expenses,” he continued, “I’ll be taking care of your bills, paying your rent and all other expenses for the duration.”

  “All other expenses?” I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.

  “I need you to be able to focus on me and my needs.”

  It was hard to ask, but it had to be done. “Define needs.”

  “Good question, Lily. My needs comprise anything I wish to do with and to you.”

  “With and to?”

  He nodded.

  Holy smokes. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “I’m being honest.”

  “What if I don’t like something you do? What if I despise it?”

  “We can talk about it. I won’t force you, but I’ll try to persuade you.”

  Another shiver rattled the length of my spine. “Persuade me how?”

  “That’s up to me.”

  “What if it hurts?” I said. “What if I get sick or something?”

  “I swear to you, Lily, you have nothing to fear from me,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. “You’ll always be safe with me. You have my word and I always stand by my word.”

>   His bluntness had me reeling. His honesty made me dizzy. The whole conversation was so surreal I had trouble believing it.

  “Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking?” he said.

  “I’m a little...overwhelmed.” The understatement of the century. “I need time to think things through.”

  “You’ve got this week,” he said. “I need an answer by Friday morning.”

  “This Friday?”

  “This Friday,” he said. “WindTech is out of money and your husband is out of time. God only knows what he’ll do next and I need an answer.”

  I gulped even though my throat was scorched dry.

  “One more thing, before you go,” he said. “You must understand that our agreement is private and confidential. I’ll need a concrete, enforceable instrument to assure that you—and especially Martin—will act in good faith for the duration and thereafter.”

  He spoke in legalese again. “You mean you want me to sign a contract or something?”

  “Your husband and I will execute a detailed business contract that will tie him irrevocably to Phoenix Prime,” he said. “But a contract would be worthless if you decided to misbehave.” He placed a brand new, state-of-the-art smart phone on his desk and pushed it toward me. “Let me explain.”

  Chapter Five

  Josh

  The rest of my Monday flowed slow as molasses. Tuesday wasn’t any better. Wednesday, as I sat in my office working through a heavy load, the hours turned to days. Although Martin kept calling my office, I hadn’t heard a word from Lily. At times, I was afraid for her. She’d looked frail and delicate when she left my office, shocked, shaken, but brave.

  I felt guilty about everything I had asked of her. It was a hell of a lot. But, as our conversations had revealed, she was too proud, wary and self-reliant to accept help and I needed time to figure out what Poe held over her. WindTech had a month to live, maybe less, before its creditors descended on it like wolves. Martin knew it. But if I had WindTech, I had Martin. If I had Martin, I could keep Lily safe.