Chapter 6

Becka

Ethan’s words echoed in my mind as I threw my clothes back in my bag, forgetting about the bar, forgetting about the guys Lisa and I had been connecting with. The only thing on my mind was Oliver and the sound of Ethan’s voice. There’s some stuff going down here, and if you’re curious about it, I suggest you get over here. Simple and easy. That’s what he’d said. I could hear his words with the rhythm of the pounding of my head. I had the worst hangover, and I was hoping against hope that Lisa didn’t, because one of us needed to drive us back home. I thought if I ended up driving I might get sick.

“Lisa!” I called. “Are you ready to go?” I could hear her banging around in the kitchen, tossing the remaining bottles of wine and booze into the bags we’d brought, along with the food we hadn’t yet eaten.

She was, and we loaded up the car, got in, and drove out of town. I had to give Lisa credit as a friend; she hadn’t asked a single question about what was going on when I’d told her we needed to leave immediately. She’d nodded and said that she would pack up the groceries and her bag, and I just needed to focus on packing my bag.

“I’ve got everything else,” she’d assured me.

As we drove, Lisa at the wheel and me in the passenger seat, my head was spinning. I really hadn’t talked to Oliver since we’d made love on his desk after his fight with Ethan. Nothing substantial. I felt guilt move through me with the memory of how I’d tried to avoid him by turning off my phone and not telling him goodbye. What if something had happened?

“Do you think I should call the police?” I asked Lisa suddenly.

She glanced at me. “You haven’t told me a ton about what’s going on,” she said carefully. “Which is fine, I’m not asking you to. But, I think that’s a better question for you to ask yourself. Do you think you should call the police?”

I did. I knew that I would feel better if there was a cop on his way to Oliver’s house while Lisa and I made our way back to town. But, I took a deep breath as a warning jab of anxiety pressed through my ribs. The investigation. If Oliver and I were being investigated for anything, calling the police would lead them right to his door and give them all of the probable cause, motive, whatever it was they needed, to break into his house. What if they were able to arrest him based on what they found? Then it would be my fault that he went to jail, and he’d never forgive me. I’d never forgive myself.

“No,” I said miserably. My voice, even to me, said that I was lying. “I think we just better get there as fast as we can.”

“I’m going about as fast as this car will go,” Lisa said, her voice calm as she tried to reassure me. “But, we’re in a little bit of a jam because we’re almost out of gas. Did you see the last sign? Is there a town coming up?”

I hadn’t seen the last sign, but I shook my head and put my head in my hands. “No, no, no,” I said. “We’re in that stretch of, like, sixty miles where there’s no town, no rest area, no nothing. We cannot run out of gas right now!” I scolded myself yet again for thinking of my packing and not that we needed to have a full tank of gas before we left Rockell.

“Unless we get to a station in the next twenty miles or so, we will,” Lisa said. “We’re in the red. Once we get to the red, I think I have twenty-five miles before I’m on fumes.” She let off the gas. “I’ll try to conserve as much as I can.”

“Do you have AAA?” I asked hopefully.

“I let it lapse,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But, we can call my insurance if we do run out, not that we for sure will. I think I have a clause in there or something that says that they’ll come get me if I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere.”

We continued to drive. I looked at my phone and willed Oliver to text me to let me know he was okay. I tried to calm myself down. Ethan was Oliver’s brother; he wasn’t going to do anything to harm him. Ethan needed Oliver, and Oliver needed Ethan. They had existed for years that way, in a weird parasitic relationship where they both required energy from the other. Not to mention, Ethan could be a real jerk sometimes, but he wasn’t physical. The fight he and Oliver had had in Oliver’s office was mutual combat, and neither had done any significant damage to the other.

Still.

When the car began to sputter and jerk, I closed my eyes. This could not be happening. Lisa slowly guided the car to the side of the road and cruised on our speed alone to a stop on the shoulder.

“Well, shit,” she said, her hands still gripping the wheel at ten and two.

“Call your insurance,” I demanded, taking her phone out of the central console and handing it to her. She clicked her password in and looked at me, her eyes wide.

“Do you have bars?” she asked, holding up her phone. “I don’t have any bars here.” I looked at her phone and, sure enough, she was out of range. I looked at the phone in my hands, hesitating to even click it out of sleep. I did it without looking and, wincing, I looked down.

I heard my exhale and it sounded exactly like it felt; endlessly deflating. I didn’t have any bars. I couldn’t have called the police, Oliver, or even Ethan if I’d wanted to. We were stranded.

Ethan

I hung up the phone with Becka and sat at Oliver’s kitchen table, a bottle of wine open in front of me. The same bottle of wine, in fact, that I had shared once upon a time with Becka. Her voice had sounded so sweet on the phone, so concerned. Did I feel badly about worrying her? Luring her back to Oliver’s house? A little. But, she wasn’t answering my calls, emails, or texts. It pained me to admit it, but the only way to get her to respond was to bring Oliver into it.

I thought about how beautiful she was; her jet black hair that seemed unnatural against her brown eyes, yet there’s no way it wasn’t her natural color. It was a little shorter than what I liked, but she made it work; she had a way of making it look both professional and tousled as if she’d just gotten out of bed at the same time. Her curves, her body, sexy and full… I had wanted to kiss her so many times, but we were always getting interrupted.

I cursed Oliver for all of the things he had told Becka about me, all of the ways he had tried to turn her against me. She was such an unexpected part of this entire process. I thought back to the first night I’d gone to sit in on her class at the college. I knew her name, of course, but I hadn’t seen her. For some reason, I had in my mind a much older woman, someone in her fifties or even sixties, stodgy, with no sex appeal at all. A true stereotype of a scientist. But when I saw Becka, and, more importantly, when I saw her look at me, the connection we had, it had changed my game plan completely.

I took another sip of wine and glanced at my watch. It had been about twenty minutes since we’d gotten off the phone. I knew she was hours away, but I also knew she’d rush to get here, worried about her precious Oliver. I winced as a streak of jealousy shot through me like heartburn. I knew I had some work I could do while I waited. I strolled around Oliver’s house and felt, for a moment, regret over what could have been. Brothers can have a very close, unique relationship. Unfortunately, both Oliver and I chose paths that necessitated a lot of independence and, at times, had required us to sever ties with the other. We’d never talked about it, of course, but it was ironic to me now that, after everything we had been through, the future for both of us rested on a woman. A woman that we were both drawn to, and who was attracted to both of us.

I walked back into the kitchen and made myself a sandwich, then headed to the pool in the back yard. I ate my sandwich, and then I cranked up the hot tub and stripped down to my shorts, easing myself into the warm, bubbling water. I sighed as the water began to work at my muscles. I had been spending extra time at the gym the last few weeks, partly to keep my mind occupied, and partially to keep myself in shape. If Oliver was going to attack me again like he had in his office, I realized bitterly, I’d need to be able to defend myself.

I stretched out and sighed again, making a mental list of things to do in my head. Becka was at the top of that list. I thought about the layout of Oliver’s house and I entertained the fantasy of taking Becka in every room. Feeling her soft lips against mine, then feeling those sweet lips move down my body, Her fingers on my flesh, my hands cupping her breasts, her ass…

My phone rang; it was one of my business partners updating me on the police investigation into Neurotova. I looked around, realizing that it was entirely possible that Oliver’s place had cameras or microphones. It would be just like him to do that.

“I can’t talk now,” I said as I answered. I listened to my partner’s concerns, all of which were relating to the investigation and aspects that were arising that we hadn’t considered. The media involvement had happened faster than we’d anticipated; that’s the internet at work, my partner had said. I had also needed to deal with some ramifications from my fight with Oliver. I had known in the moment that it would cost me to lose control like that, but the heat of the moment got to me. His righteous attitude, his cockiness, it was all just so Oliver I couldn’t take it anymore. But, I’d reminded myself later, short term satisfaction often costs more in the long term. “Just handle it,” I said quietly into the phone after he went through a laundry list of things that needed to be done as soon as possible. “I trust that you’ll get things done to meet the goal that we all have. We know the destination and we’ve laid out the map.”

I reminded him that I was going to be busy for the next several hours, possibly, if I had my way, even into the next day, and that I was not to be disturbed under any circumstances. “If there’s an emergency, handle it,” I said firmly, and I turned off my phone. I leaned back in Oliver’s hot tub and put my feet up on the bench across from mine. Oliver’s house wasn’t bad, I thought as I looked around. His pool was a good size, and the hot tub and sauna were incredibly state of the art. After I felt myself beginning to sweat, I got out of the hot tub and jumped into the cold water of the pool. The water shocked my system, a sensation I loved, and I felt my breath spasm in my lungs. I got out of the pool and wrapped a towel around my waist, then I headed back into the house and upstairs to one of the bedrooms. I had some clothes in here somewhere, I knew; even if I didn’t, Oliver and I were close enough in size that I could pick out something of his.

I walked by the bedroom that was the stage for my night with Becka, checking it over again. Candles, roses, lingerie. We would talk during the evening, of course. Mental foreplay. We’d drink wine, she’d drink too much, and we would talk about the attraction that we have to one another. I smiled as I saw the entire scene play out perfectly in my mind. Though I’d spent the greater portion of my adult life getting things that I wanted, Becka was something truly unique. A beautiful, intelligent woman… and she was just as drawn to me as I was to her. It was perfect.

Becka

“What the hell are we going to do?” I cried. “I have to get home! We have to get home!” I got out of the car and leaned against the trunk, trying to get some air. Lisa followed me out and leaned against the trunk with me. She put her arm around me.

“We will, we will,” she said. “I promise.” We considered our options. We knew we could stay put and eventually someone would come along. Though being stranded is never good, it wasn’t like we were in the plot of a horror movie, stranded in a storm or in the dead of night. The road we were on was the main road into Rockell, though Rockell was fairly far away. Trucks traveled the road often. That meant we could hitchhike.

“And be killed?” Lisa said. “I think we’d be better off to just borrow someone’s phone.”

“If we don’t have bars out here,” I pointed out, “who will?”

“Fine, then we’ll flag a truck down and use his CB or whatever that thing is. Either way, we are not ending up dead. That was so not the point of this girls’ weekend.”

I finally cracked a smile through my hangover, my worry about Oliver, and my stress about running out of gas. The whole situation was so ludicrous, and it was made more so by the idea that the entire reason we were here in the first place was because we’d wanted to get away from our stress.

“Do you think Dex will go by this way?” I asked, a sly smile on my lips.

Lisa smiled dreamily, no doubt remembering her tryst from the night before. I still couldn’t believe I had watched, had almost participated, and I knew it was something that Lisa and I would definitely need to talk about at some point when we were safely back in our apartment.

“Actually,” she said thoughtfully, “he might. The entire bachelor party will be coming back through this way. In two days.”

“Damn,” I said. I looked at my phone again, as if staring at it would build a cell tower behind me. “How is it that in this day and age we can’t make a phone call from a road? There should be a law or something.” I began to pace. My nervous energy was getting the better of me.

“Hold up,” Lisa said. She had begun to walk away from the car. She continue to walk, holding her phone above her head and looking up at it, squinting as she brought it closer to her face and further away. “Hold up, I think I might have something.”

“Reception?” I asked, taking out my own phone and holding it. We must have looked like two people trying to contact the mother ship, but it worked. Lisa walked to a place about a half a mile from the car and got a single bar.

She dialed her insurance company, who agreed to send out a roadside assistance person to help us out. The estimated time was a little over an hour.

We killed the time by talking about Dex and the guys at the bar we’d met in Rockell, though my head was only about ten percent in the conversation. I kept glancing at my fitbit, which had a watch, counting the minutes roll by. I imagined Ethan, how angry he must be at me not showing up immediately. Would he take his anger out on Oliver? Or, would he call the police and add more to the investigation? I couldn’t take the chance on him doing either one, and I willed the roadside assistance person to get here even faster.

To the credit of Lisa’s insurance, it took less than an hour for them to get to us, with a red container of gas and a tow truck.

The tow truck driver pulled up behind us and got out of the truck. Lisa and I exchanged a glance. He was movie star hot. Bulging muscles pulled and strained at his plaid shirt, and it was obvious from his quads pressing against his jeans that he worked out both his upper and lower body regularly. His hair was in need of a haircut, but still sexy. It blew in the warm breeze lightly.

“Hi there,” he said. “Which one of you is Lisa?” He consulted the order sheet, then looked up and glanced at each of us.

“That would be me,” Lisa said, and I bit my tongue to keep from rolling my eyes. She was flirting already, sure enough. She really ought to come with a warning label; no man under the age of thirty-five was safe in her presence, especially if they worked out and had eyes like emeralds, like this guy did.

“Can I get into the truck?” I asked, and the driver nodded, barely glancing at me. He was too busy listening to Lisa regale him with tales of how much dancing she’d done at the bar in Rockell that weekend, that she’d been sooo hungover this morning she’d completely forgotten to gas up the car.

“Plus,” I heard her say, “my best friend, Becka, needs to get back to her boyfriend. She misses him.”

“Ah,” the driver said, nodding toward me. “She’s got a beau. Do you?”

“Not at the moment,” Lisa said coyly, and I did roll my eyes, safe behind the windshield of the truck. As they flirted and the driver took his sweet time getting the car loaded up, I started to get frustrated and anxious, nervous about all of the time we were wasting, all of the time I wasn’t getting back to Oliver and whatever was happening at his house. Finally, the driver got the car loaded on, and he towed us to the closest town, which was almost ten miles up the road.

“You should text me,” Lisa said as she and I stood on the side of the gas pump as Dane, the tow truck driver, lined our car up to the pump before he released it. “It would be super fun to hang out the next time we come up to Rockell.”

“When do you think you’ll be up next?” Dane asked, all business in front of me, but still with a touch of flirt to his voice.

“As soon as you text me,” she said, with her trademark wink and hip pop that suggested she meant business.

Dane blushed and turned away so he could concentrate on finishing the job without messing up in front of Lisa. She turned to me and winked, giving me the A-Okay sign.

“I’ll pump the gas,” I said. While I did, Dane and Lisa exchanged numbers.

Once we were back in the car, I turned to her. “What is it with you and guys whose names start with D?” I asked.

She giggled. “I don’t know, but I’m sure glad we got stranded. How hot is he? He makes Dex look like dog food.” She started the car and waved to Dane, who was watching to, undoubtedly, make sure we got safely onto the road.

Then, we were back on our way. I was silent in the car and Lisa turned on the radio, sensing that I didn’t want to talk. My worry and anxiety had overtaken me, and the only thing that I wanted was to see Oliver in one piece.

“I’ll drop you off,” she said. “Where does Oliver live?” I told her, and she arched her eyebrows at the sound of his address. “Oh yeah, that’s right; we’re dealing with billionaires, here.” She smiled and shook her head at me, still stunned that I could have two men fighting over me at all. At least, that’s what I thought she was probably thinking.

The gates to Oliver’s mansion opened as soon as Lisa’s car pulled in. After telling her several times that I was fine and I didn’t need her to come in with me, she finally pulled away. I knocked, but only out of courtesy. As soon as I knocked, I opened the door and stood in Oliver’s entryway.

It was bigger than I remembered it, and there was a strange energy in the air. It was too quiet. I was used to hearing some sort of noise, a clock ticking, someone’s footsteps on the tile, something. But, there was nothing.

“Hello?” I called out. My voice was tiny in the huge room, and I took a deep breath. I knew I wasn’t in any danger; Ethan was as attracted to me as I was to him. But Oliver… if he’d hurt Oliver…

“Becka!” I heard a voice and turned, hoping to see Oliver’s face before me. Of course, it was Ethan. He walked to me quickly and put his arms around me, embracing me.

“Get away from me,” I demanded, my voice harsh with the emotion and frustration of the day. “Where’s Oliver?”

Ethan looked hurt. “Becka, I was hoping you would be happy to see me or at least not angry. I’m so sorry about everything that happened in Oliver’s office. I tried to apologize, but you didn’t take my calls.”

I looked at him, my confusion growing. He seemed so genuine. I looked into his eyes and saw only compassion and caring in them. I felt my anger toward him begin to melt as the heat of my attraction to him began to flare up. The energy of his arms around me a moment ago still lingered; I could feel their echo still on my shoulders and arms.

“Where’s Oliver?” I asked. “I’m worried something happened to him. You called from here, he didn’t. You wouldn’t let me talk to him. You said I needed to get here immediately if I wanted to know what was going on. If you knew the morning I’d had, you would understand how annoyed I am. Please, just tell me Oliver is safe.”

“He’s safe,” Ethan said, smiling. “Of course he’s safe. I would never do anything to harm him.”

I looked sharply at him. That was an outright lie and he knew it. His cheeks flushed pink.

“You heard us threaten each other’s lives in the office,” he explained. “That’s what I meant. I meant that those threats were empty. We’re businessmen, not animals.”

“Where is he?” I asked. I was trying to make sense of Ethan’s words, but my worry about Oliver was overtaking my ability to understand.

“He left the country,” Ethan said, quickly holding up his hands. “And before you ask, I don’t know where exactly. He did say he would call you when he could, if that helps.”

“Left the country!” I exclaimed. “When? Why?”

“The news media has found out about the investigation,” Ethan said. “Didn’t you see the photographers when you came in?”

I hadn’t, but I knew that the only thing I would have seen on my way in was Oliver, if he had been there. Everything else had been tuned out into a non-Oliver white noise.

“Come here,” he said, grabbing my hand. I felt my fingers flex in his grasp, acting much the same way my stomach did when he looked at me, a small spasm of excitement at his touch. He led me into the kitchen, where I noticed an open, half empty bottle of red wine on the counter, and an empty glass. He ignored it and focused instead on the television mounted to the corner wall above the breakfast bar.

He clicked it on. “Look,” he said, nodding at the tv. I stared, my mouth open. News crews were swarming Oliver’s office and, on a split screen, the college. “It’s only a matter of time before they find out where Oliver lives and show up here. He needed to get out of town while he still had a chance of escaping without being bombarded by photographers and questions. This thing has blown up.”

I looked at Ethan, who seemed genuinely upset by what was happening. I took my phone out of my pocket and looked at it; the screen was still blank. No texts. Why hadn’t Oliver texted me? I felt sadness and a little worry, a voice lacking confidence sounding in my head that he must not have texted because he didn’t want me to know where he was. Or, because he was done with me and over it. He didn’t want what we’d had together.

“Have some wine,” Ethan said, getting a second glass from a cabinet and pouring some of the red into each glass. For being Oliver’s enemy, he sure knew his way around Oliver’s kitchen. But, there would be time for me to figure that out later. He held out the glass of wine to me, and, in spite of my lingering hangover, I took a huge drink from the glass. “That’s better,” he said. “It’ll help clear your head.”

He sat across from me at the breakfast bar, sipping his own wine, and watching me. His expression seemed so genuine, I found myself beginning to believe him. For one thing, the news was crawling all over Neurotova. That was fact; Ethan couldn’t have manufactured that. And there were reporters on the college campus as well, which meant that my relationship with Oliver was out in the open.

“What do you suggest we do?” I asked, curious as to what he would say and, honestly, desperate for any advice on what to do next.

“I think you and I should stay here tonight.” He held up his hands when I began to protest. “Hear me out. You should stay here because it makes the most sense; it’s the safest place for you to be. What are you going to do if there are reporters waiting outside your apartment?”

I nodded; he had a point.

“I’ll stay with you and keep an eye on things. If reporters come to the door, I’ll send them away. If Oliver calls, you’ll be here to answer. It’s really the only logical thing to do.”

Logical or not, it was what happened. “Should we make some dinner?” I asked. I thought about ways that we could pass the time. The oppressiveness of the house was weighing on me. It was startling; it was as though the house missed Oliver and was sad. I felt okay in the kitchen because it was light and the television was on, not to mention that Ethan was in the room with me. I had no desire to go into any of the other rooms, though.

“We could always get a pizza delivered,” Ethan said, smiling.

“Are you fucking kidding?” I burst out, my voice angry. “You want to invite someone over with all of this madness?”

“Relax, Becka, I was kidding.” Ethan came up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Look at me,” he said, as I shivered under his touch. I moved my eyes to his, deep pools of concern and sensuality. “You need to be calm. This is going to pass. It’s come up before. Every few years, an investigation into Neurotova and other companies like it surfaces and gets a lot of attention. Something else will happen within a few days and the news will be on to their next story. That’s how it works. It’s not worth getting all bent out of shape about. Don’t forget, you haven’t done anything wrong.”

At that moment, I didn’t know what I would have done if Ethan hadn’t been there. He was exactly right. I hadn’t done anything wrong. The only thing I’d done that was vaguely questionable was get involved with a college professor. And, I reminded myself, Oliver had been a guest lecturer. He wasn’t a professor anywhere; he was a CEO. And that made him not technically off limits, though it was probably crossing a line. Other than that, I had been on the side of right, trying to research all the avenues I could find to determine the truth. I thought about my bag with my laptop and all of my research. I wondered if I should show my research to Ethan.

No! A voice rang out in my head. I shook my head; of course, no way could I show Ethan my research. Though he was being nice now, a lot of this had happened because of his actions.

“No what?” Ethan asked. “You’re shaking your head…”

“Oh,” I paused. “Just that you’re right. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You haven’t,” he said seriously. “And, we still need to figure out dinner. Why don’t I just whip something up for us?”

I thought he would put together a salad or burgers or something, but Ethan made a lasagna from scratch, complete with a salad and garlic bread. I watched him whistle as he formed the noodles and layered the cheese and pasta sauce with the noodles, one on top of the other. The wine was making me warm throughout my body… but so was Ethan. I knew I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t credit him with some of the energy moving through me as I watched him. His fingers worked deftly as he created the meal; it was obvious he really enjoyed cooking. He made several trips to the fridge, each time pulling several ingredients off of the shelves with flair and adding them to his recipe.

When he’d finally put the lasagna in the oven to cook, he joined me for another glass of wine. We sat watching tv; another update about what they were calling the Neurotova Scandal was on, and the reporter was saying that Oliver Weeks had not been sighted, nor had there been any sign of his girlfriend, his personal assistant Becka Jasper.

“Oh Christ,” I moaned. “They know my name.”

“Of course they know your name,” Ethan said evenly. He put his hand on mine and I didn’t bother to move it. The warmth of his palm on the top of my hand was reassuring. It felt nice. “Dinner is almost ready; let’s set the bar and I’ll grab another bottle of wine. By the time we get the salad and bread together, the lasagna will be ready and then we can eat.”

He had thought of everything, and by the time the lasagna came out of the oven, the breakfast bar was set with two plates, two new wine glasses and water glasses, cloth napkins, and candles. “In case the electricity goes out,” he’d said with a wink.

I began to realize that Ethan’s motivations for staying at the house were not entirely as he’d said. He was definitely flirting with me. I was, as I always seemed to be, torn. On one hand, I was in my boyfriend’s house with his brother. On the other hand, my boyfriend had fled the country without bothering to tell me or to take me with him. And he hadn’t even called.

“Oh my god, this is delicious,” I said as I put a forkful of the lasagna in my mouth. The cheese and sauce pushed out through the noodles and I felt and smelled the fragrance of the sauce hit all my senses at once.

“Thanks,” he said. “I went to culinary school for a few years. Dropped out, but not before I learned to make a mean lasagna.”

“Culinary school?” I asked, surprised. “Another piece of the Ethan puzzle, right in its spot.”

Ethan reached for my hand and took it in his. I set down my fork. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Becka. A lot of things that would very pleasantly surprise you, if you knew them. I’d love the chance to show you more of who I am.”

He leaned in toward me, his lips glistening with just the tiniest bit of olive oil. I wanted to brush my fingertips across them.

“I’d like that,” I whispered.

Ethan

When Becka arrived, I knew that I would be able to have her that night. She was worried for Oliver, of course, but she was also longing to trust me. To trust someone. I told her what she needed to hear, and I turned on the tv to show her that the world was on to Neurotova and to her relationship with Oliver.

When she asked about dinner, of course I put together my favorite dish. When the news mentioned her name, that was just the stroke of luck I needed to push forward. I took her hand in mine. I felt my arousal immediately, and I sensed it in her as well. I knew that what I’d wanted from the moment I first saw Becka was going to happen.

“I forgot to make dessert,” I said, my voice low. I nodded toward the freezer. “I think there’s ice cream in the freezer, though.”

She was looking at me, her lips in a playful, flirty smile. “I suppose ice cream could work,” she said. “Or, you know, whatever.”

I nodded. “Whatever happens to be my favorite dessert,” I said. Her fingertips were cool in my hand, but the rest of her hand was warm. I imagined feeling her warm hands on me and being able to caress her soft skin. For a moment, Oliver crossed my mind. Well played, Brother, I said to myself inside my head. You always did know how to pick the perfect woman.

Becka wasn’t the first woman we’d shared. All the way back to high school, women had been equally entranced by both of us. More often than not, we’d also been drawn to the same type of woman. I thought back to the first time I’d found out that Oliver had stolen my girlfriend. Senior year of high school, I was over at my girlfriend’s house. I found her dress for the prom. When I asked her about it, she said that we needed to talk. She’d gone with Oliver instead.

I took a deep breath and pushed the past back into the past where it belonged. The only thing that mattered now was right in front of me, and, right now, Becka was all mine. I pulled my hand from hers and we continued to eat while we watched the Neurotova Scandal, my partner’s idea, unfold. I had to hand it to the media; they sure knew how to blow a story out of proportion to an epic degree. They were focusing entirely on the least important elements, which was great for me, because they happened to be the most titillating. Who cares about animal experimentation when a CEO is getting banged by his personal assistant, an up-and-coming researcher with a prominent reputation at the local university?

I leaned in, pushed her plate out of the way, and I kissed her.

Becka

His lips on mine were both a complete surprise and the most right thing that had happened that day. I found myself kissing him back, feeling my guilt and my arousal battling each other in an all out war that I truly wasn’t sure who would win. I stayed on my chair, but I leaned in toward him as our kiss grew deeper, and he put his hands in my hair, partially on the back of my neck. His warm hands sent shivers up and down my spine, and I felt the space between my legs come alive and begin to grow wet.

He pulled back. “Is this okay?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

“Yes,” I said, my arousal winning the round.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the night I first saw you in your class,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve never held out so long on something I wanted.” He looked as though he was almost saying that as much to himself as he was to me, and I felt my heart reach out to him a little more.

“I noticed you in class that first night,” I said, remembering how all of the women had fawned all over him not just in my class, but at the restaurant he had taken me to. I shook my head. “What do I have that all of the other women who chase you don’t have?”

He had an expression on his face like twenty answers had all flown into his head at once and he wasn’t sure which to choose.

“You didn’t chase me,” he said finally. “And that intrigued me.”

Nothing about Oliver. Nothing about competing with his brother. Not that he would necessarily tell me, but… the look on his face was sincere.

“Should we finish dinner and then go have our dessert?” I said. The wine had made me bold, even more bold, perhaps, than I had been in the bar with Lisa. I had no doubt that spending time with her this weekend had influenced me and that influence would come in handy with Ethan tonight.

We finished our dinner quickly, then Ethan washed the dishes while I went to check my phone. Still no message from Oliver. I felt a now-familiar pang of worry, but I brushed it off. Ethan had told me what had happened, and he had been mostly honest with me so far. I reminded myself that Ethan’s problem was with Oliver, not with me, and he wouldn’t hurt Oliver. At least, I didn’t think so. But, the fact that Oliver hadn’t tried to contact me was getting a little alarming. Even when we had fought, he had texted me several times. Now, he was out of the country and he knew that the world was crashing in on itself around here… but he didn’t care to text me?

Unless he can’t, a voice warned in my head.

Stop it, I told myself. You’re not in a movie. This is real life. Real people. I brought my phone with me and walked back to the kitchen. Ethan was there, drying off the countertops with a towel.

“Ready to go upstairs?” he asked, picking up a fresh bottle of wine and two fresh glasses.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, which may have been the most honest thing I’d ever said in my life.

He nodded and I turned, walking ahead of him though I didn’t know which bedroom we were going to. I tried to ignore the strange energy I was feeling emanating from the walls of the foyer and the staircase as we climbed the stairs to the first guest room. I’d never been in this room before, and I shook my head when Ethan opened the door.

“What?” he asked.

“Is every room in a wealthy person’s house modeled after a museum?” I asked.

“You can come see my condo sometime,” he said, smiling. “Not a painting or piece of old fabric in sight.” I imagined Ethan’s place and believed him. I saw his condo as a stainless steel, impersonal abode with all of the luxuries of money but none of the personality or warmth of humanity. I looked around. There were a dozen roses each in two vases on either side of the bed, and a third vase on a table. Candles burned throughout the entire room.

“Come,” he said, interrupting my thoughts. He led me over to the table at the side of the room and we sat down.

“You planned this whole thing,” I said slowly, watching his reaction. I expected him to deny it, but, to my surprise, he grinned.

“Of course I did,” he said. “You wouldn’t be here any other way, would you?”

He had me there. And, before I could say another word, he leaned in and kissed me again. This time, he stood up and stood me up with him, pulling me close to him. I pressed my body against his and felt myself melting toward him. I snaked my arms up his torso and around his shoulders while his hands found their way to my ass. He squeezed me toward him, then he picked me up. I put my legs around his waist and I giggled. I opened my eyes and looked down at him; he looked up at me. Then, he threw me onto the bed, somewhat forcefully. He climbed on top of me and pinned my hips between his knees.

“I don’t like looking up at a woman I’m about to make love to,” he said, looking down at me with an expression of superiority.

“I like this position just fine,” I said. He smiled and began to kiss me again. This time, his lips found their way to my neck and my collarbone. I pulled my shirt away from my neck, stretching it, wanting to rip it off of myself to give him access to my chest and stomach. He paused and looked at me, then pulled my shirt off in one motion over my head.

“That’s better,” he said, and kissed the space between my breasts as he reached for my bra with his hands. He pulled my breasts out of their cups and began to massage them, his warm hands drawing out my already hard nipples.

He slid my pants off and, for a moment, let his hand linger between my legs. My body responded to him before my brain could, dropping my legs open to him. He pulled off his jeans and smiled, continuing to kiss me, then he sat up and yanked off his shirt. I gaped at his beautiful, hard chest. Chiseled muscles already glistening with sweat in the candlelight. The shadows played on his body and his face, and I felt absolutely overcome with desire, blind to anything around me except for Ethan and his body on mine.

He leaned in to kiss me again. His tongue found its way into my mouth and, just as he dropped on top of me, pressing himself against me, his phone buzzed on the night table.

“Fuck,” he said. “Hold on.” He sat up and moved to the edge of the bed, looking at his screen. He glanced at me. “I’m sorry, honey, I have to take this. It’s really important.”

“No worries,” I said as he answered. I got up and opened the armoire, not surprised to find a fluffy, white spa robe inside. I slipped it on.

“I’ll go get us some more wine,” I mouthed to him. He nodded at me, an expression of frustration on his face and… maybe anger? I left the room quickly, closing the door behind me. I didn’t want him to think I was eavesdropping on his conversation. I tried to listen through the door for a moment, but there was no sound. Either the door covered the sound well, or he was being especially quiet to make sure I didn’t hear.

I walked into the kitchen again and turned on the light. The wine was in a separate room off of the kitchen in the opposite direction from where the breakfast bar was. It was a wine cellar that wasn’t a wine cellar, but it had been designed to have the look and feel of an underground, castle cellar. I opened the door and turned on the light. I scanned the bottles for something that didn’t look like it was a million dollar collectible—I figured the less dust the better—and selected a bottle of pinot noir. I turned… and it was then that I saw the blood.

“What the…” I muttered, setting the bottle down and looking at the floor. There were drops of blood that seemed relatively fresh, meaning they were dry but still mostly red, on the tile floor. I followed them to the door and saw a bloody handprint on the door jamb. I gasped and stepped back.

I listened for any noise but didn’t hear any. My head was pushing a thousand miles a minute. Ethan hadn’t had any bandaids on, and this was too much blood for a minor cut anyway. The blood… could be Oliver’s. I felt nauseous, the lasagna from dinner suddenly a rock in my stomach working to excise itself. I was torn between wanting to search the house for Oliver and wanting to run away. Clearly Ethan was lying—again—and I’d almost gone all the way with him! I shook in disgust and wiped my mouth with my hand, though there was no way to rid myself of the memory of Ethan’s lips on mine.

I slowly turned the light out in the wine cellar and turned back to the kitchen, moving as quietly as I could toward the foyer. My phone was upstairs along with my clothes, but that was a problem I couldn’t think about right now. Right now, I needed to get out of the house, and I needed to do it while Ethan was still on the phone and didn’t know I had seen the blood.

I turned out the kitchen light and made my way through the dining room toward the foyer. The dim lighting and moonlight shining through the windows gave me enough light to walk by. I could run next door, I figured, or flag down a car. I needed to get to the police, even if that meant essentially turning myself in.

I was about to open the door from the dining room to the foyer when it disappeared in front of me. My heart jumped into my throat and I felt a scream working its way into my throat. In place of the closed door stood Ethan.