Bartered Betrayal - The Billionaire's Wife 08 Read online

  Huge lumps of cold gray clay came up in my hands, and I began to knead them together, pushing and pulling, squeezing and pounding. The rhythm relaxed me, putting my head into a soft space, a place where it was okay that I wasn't thinking, or eating, or sleeping, or crying. I just was. The smell of clay filled my nose, sweet and earthy and familiar.

  I worked for a while, not letting myself think or feel anything, just letting myself build and move. I didn't have an armature to work with, but that was okay. I didn't have a plan, but I could always scavenge something from the dumpsters to use. I mean, I'm not picky or anything. An old kitchen chair is really solid. A lot of my pieces are kind of weird looking because I used whatever I could find to support the clay while I built my work. It's rare I don't start out with a plan and have to adjust to what I can afford, but right now I didn't have any kind of a plan. No plan for my life. No plan for my art. I was betting they would work out with equal degrees of success.

  When I finally let myself surface, I found I had a huge lump of clay that looked like... well, like a huge lump of clay. My arms ached. My normal spate of activity is twenty or thirty minutes with the clay. I'd been at it almost an hour. Exhausted, I sat down on my mattress and stared at the piece.

  It hunched in the middle of my floor, heavy and cold. Lifeless. But inside it, I knew, there was something waiting to emerge. The promise of something sweet and beautiful, just waiting for me to find it. Perhaps that was what I had been thinking when I'd first become involved with Anton. I mean, yes, we coupled out of convenience and necessity—at least, I thought it had been necessary—but no matter what I have in front of me, I know something beautiful can come from it. It just takes a little time and patience.

  Maybe that's why I trusted my father. Not stupidity, but sheer, dumb optimism. Which can be remarkably like stupidity, but perhaps is a more charitable interpretation of my motives. I'd wanted to save my mother. I've always wanted to save my mother. Save her from her own dumb decisions, from her bullheaded devotion to a terrible man. I've always wanted a father who I could trust, who I could have secrets with. Dumb little secrets, I mean, like who actually ate all the peanut butter straight from the jar, not secrets like keeping my mouth shut about his latest secretary sneaking out through the utility room window, or secrets like marrying a man I didn't even know to save his ruined ass. And maybe that's why I let myself fall into Anton. Because I thought I could make something beautiful from it.

  And it had been beautiful in its own way. His touch, his mastery of my body, his locked heart, his iron control... they were all beautiful, like an old chipped china cup is beautiful, all the more lovely for its flaws and its history. Anton's history was a mystery to me, but I saw the scars of it on him all the same. I knew that when we fucked, he found something approaching catharsis. I knew that he wanted me to be happy with him, and he'd done what he could to facilitate that with the only thing he had that he knew I needed—money. I knew that he didn't understand family, or much about interpersonal relationships.

  He was kind of a goon, to be honest. A really fucking sexy goon, with oodles of magnetic appeal and just the right amount of distance from humanity to make him a force to be reckoned with in the cutthroat world of business, but he was a bit awkward, to tell the truth. And I liked that about him. It made him human instead of a sociopathic sex god. I'd seen my way into him from his very isolation.

  I rubbed my hands over my face, no doubt leaving streaks of clay over my cheeks. Now, all that was well and good, but what did it mean?

  It meant I had to get over being angry with him before we could move forward. It meant I had to show him that I did want love in our marriage, even if he didn't. It meant I had to show him that I could be the one he could trust with his heart and his feelings. He'd been hurt very badly—anyone could see that—and he'd channeled that into an obsessive need to control his own life, and anyone that messed with that was an enemy to him. I was his companion, not his enemy. I wanted him to know that he could count on me. He really, really could.

  But words are words, and actions are actions, and I was pretty bad at both. There wasn't really anything I could do to show him how I felt if he kept himself locked down so tightly no light could get in.

  I stared at the lump of clay in the middle of my floor, then got up and began to pace.

  I passed in front of the windows several times before I realized that the photographer might still be down there, snapping photos of me in my apartment. I paused, then looked down into the street.

  He was still there, watching the door, waiting for me to come out. Christ, didn't these guys have anything better to do? What would they do if I started rooting through the garbage as I went in search of armature supplies?

  A slow, bitter smile spread across my face, completely at odds with the misery inside me.

  Why not find out?

  *

  All right, I'll be honest. It is a little embarrassing to know that some guy is photographing you as you hit every dumpster from your apartment to Queens. No one wants to be seen doing that. But when I found a huge dining room table that someone had decided was just too splintered to be usable any more, it took me about three seconds to decide what to do.

  Rubbing my freezing hands together, I looked both ways and crossed the street, walking straight up to my trailing paparazzo.

  "Hey," I said when I got near enough to him to be heard. A panicked look crossed his face—I don't think he realized I was specifically approaching him, and he'd probably assumed I'd gone mad with grief or something. I was sure someone was gossiping about my marriage and everyone was sure to have heard about it by now. Why else would I be moping around in my old apartment? So I got quite close before he realized he should probably have been bolting down a side-alley.

  I put up a hand. "Wait! Don't go anywhere, I need your help."

  "Yeah?" he said. He gave me the sort of look I'm sure lambs like to give wolves, which was pretty fucking funny given my history with the paparazzi. But I forced a smile on my face.

  "Yeah," I replied. "I need you to help me break the legs off this table. You think you can do that?"

  He squinted across the street, peering into the alley where I'd been ineffectually tugging at the dining room table for several minutes. My hands were so cold that any touch sent little spears of pain through my fingers. Meanwhile Mr. Paparrazo Moneybags had a pair of thick gloves.

  "Why?" he asked.

  I shrugged. "Does it matter?"

  He grinned without humor. "Yeah, it matters if you're gonna knock my block off with one of those table legs."

  I arched an eyebrow. "Is there a reason I should?"

  "Oh. Oh, no. Of course not. I'm just saying..."

  I was certain now that he was one of the photographers that took pictures of Anton and me during our more intimate moments. But whatever. I had worse things to deal with now. "I'm going to use it to make a sculpture," I said. "I need it to hold up my clay."

  He looked faintly surprised. "Oh, you're an artist?" he said.

  "Starving," I told him. "Didn't you read all the profiles on me in the papers?"

  He shrugged. "Nah, I just take pictures."

  "Right. So. Want to help?"

  He appeared to consider this for a moment. It probably sounded an awful lot like work to some guy who spent all his time hanging out around famous people's apartments hoping to catch a shot of them in their skivvies. But after a second he nodded. "Yeah, all right," he said.

  The work went a lot easier with his help. His name was Jake and he was a skinny guy, but he could kick like a mule, and in less than ten minutes we had the legs off the table and I was moving on to the next dumpster. He fell in beside me, since we were apparently friends now.

  "So," he said after about half a block, "what are you making?"

  "A sculpture," I said.

  "Yeah, I know that," he told me. "What kind?"

  "I'm not telling you," I said. "You'll just tell whoever writes those little
blind items or whatever and then it won't be a surprise."

  "It's a surprise?"

  To more than just you, I thought. "Yeah, it's a surprise," I told him. "A nice surprise for good little paparazzi who take pictures of me naked."

  He blushed red at that. "Hey, I never took pictures of you naked," he said.

  "But you have taken pictures of me?" The spanking pictures maybe?

  "I plead the fifth."

  I shook my head. The damage was done. And it didn't really matter now anyway. "Well, stick around. Maybe you'll see what I'm making."

  "Can I take pictures of it?"

  I slowed down. I hadn't thought about that. An idea started to form in my head.

  "Yeah..." I said after a minute. "You can. You can take pictures while I'm making it, even."

  "Do you sculpt in your underwear?"

  I pursed my lips. "I'm sure I can make it worth your while. Maybe it'll be a nice juicy tidbit for the tabloids. Recently Estranged Wife of Billionaire Businessman... I don't know... Goes Mad or whatever."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "How would I know if I were crazy? Crazy people never know they're crazy." Like Anton. He didn't really seem to think of himself as a crazy person, but he kind of was. Maybe I was crazy, too.

  ...Yeah, probably.

  Jake scratched the side of his nose. "Yeah, okay," he said after a minute. "That sounds like it has a good hook. Give someone an exclusive deal for the photos, move a ton of copy. How long do you think it'll take you?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know. My big pieces take at least a couple months, but if I really work on it... maybe three, four weeks?"

  “Good,” he said. “That's good, a good amount of time. A month. Long enough to be titillating and drag out the suspense, but short enough to hold their attention.”

  I stopped and tucked the table legs under my arm before sticking my hand out. He stared at it like it was a snake waiting to bite.

  “Shake on it,” I said. “You get the exclusive photos, and I'll act like a crazy person to make them worth selling.”

  “So you want the world to see you acting crazy?”

  I shrugged. “No such thing as bad publicity, right?”

  “I'm not so sure about that,” he muttered, but after a moment he grabbed my hand in his gloved one and gave me a good shake, nice and firm. I squeezed his fingers as hard as I could.

  “Ow,” he said.

  “I know your face, now,” I said. “Don't forget that.”

  He grimaced, and I smiled, feeling good for the first time since I'd walked out of Anton's house.

  *

  Sculpting takes a while. A long while. Clay is a very warm medium, very responsive. Every interaction you have with it is preserved. Even when you're beating it to death with a two-by-four.

  I worked naked except for a pair of panties. A little nod to Anton's command, telling me never to wear underwear again. Well, I'd goddamn wear underwear if I felt like it, and I did feel like it. More specifically, I didn't feel like getting clay stuck in my snatch.

  But I still thought of Anton while I worked. Not necessarily the beating of the clay, but the sheer physicality of the task I'd set before me put me in mind of other physical activities. Wet clay slithered under my hands as I smoothed it out. With every pound and hard push, it responded to me, the way Anton did.

  Every time I had to climb on top of my sculpture, I thought of Anton. I thought of riding his face, of riding his cock. I thought about him when I had to straddle my creation and push it into new shapes, my clay-covered ass in the air. I'd presented myself to him this way, and he had taken me without thinking twice about it. I remembered the feel of his hands on my hips, his cock in my pussy. I remembered how raw and animal we were, and I channeled it. Slowly, surely, my work began to take shape, and I knew even before it became recognizable that it was the best work I'd ever done.

  I left my blinds up and turned the lights on in my apartment while I pounded clay. Not my favorite way to work, but definitely the only way to let Jake take pictures without alerting everyone that we were in collusion. I leaned out the window when I became so hot and covered in sweat that I couldn't take it any more, my body burning with effort and memories. I didn't bother to put clothes on. The world had already seen me. It wasn't like I was giving anyone a show who didn't want it. Besides, I worked mostly at night so Jake could get the best light from inside my apartment, so it wasn't like I was walking down the street with my tits hanging out in broad daylight.

  I slept on my mattresses when I was too tired to work any more. I washed my mouth out with water, ate blocks of dry noodles, and stared into space, reliving the past three weeks.

  Anton invaded my head even when I wasn't thinking about him. I'd stretch out, trying to work the kinks from my back, and I would remember the way his hands felt as they massaged away my tension. It didn't matter what the tension was over—even if it was over him and his insatiable needs—just his touch calmed me. I'd been addicted to him, and now that I was doing my detox, I started to see how unhealthy we had been.

  And yet I still missed it.

  It's hard to work with a hole in your chest. Inside me, there was a void, an aching sadness that I couldn't chase away. No matter how hard I kicked my sculpture, no matter how hard I pounded it, it remained. More than once I rained my fists down on a particular lump of stubborn clay only to find myself sobbing, my hands bruised as tears ran down my face. I was a hole with a woman wrapped around it, and it felt like that would never change.

  *

  I lost track of time. The tabloids must have come out, because people started knocking on my door and ringing my bell, asking me if they could have a few words with me. Sadie came by, and even though I knew she had a key, she didn't barge in. Instead she knocked on the door until Mrs. Andersen told her to go to hell and die, and I heard her audibly sigh and shove some money through the crack under the door. When I opened it later that night I found a garbage bag full of my old work clothes sitting on my doorstep with a few blankets, soap, my toothbrush and toothpaste, and some shampoo and conditioner. It made me smile. Good old Sadie. She knew what was really important to an artist. Sleep and a shower.

  Anton didn't show up.

  But I didn't expect him to. I had to call him to me. I had to let him know it was okay.

  I worked harder.

  *

  A knock on the door, again, sometime during the second week. I looked up from my meticulous detail work and wiped sweat from my face. I was starting to get so lost in my art that I now didn't jump immediately when someone knocked on my door. It felt strange, but also freeing. No, I thought, I don't have to get up and answer the door for you. Go away.

  They kept knocking. And knocking.

  An unpleasant sense of deja vu swept over me. That was how this had all started, hadn't it? My father knocking on my door, refusing to go away until he tricked me into saving him from his own stupidity. The knocking increased in intensity.

  I was decently dressed at least. Detail work is less strenuous, and my apartment was cold. I still hadn't bothered turning on the heat. That would dry the clay out too quickly, and I needed it to remain pliable. Standing up, I stretched and told myself that I still didn't need to hop to. I could just walk casually across my floor and check to see who it was. I did just that, pressing my eye to the peephole.

  It wasn't just deja vu. My father stood on my doorstep. Again.

  Full circle. Here we were. I opened the door.

  My father stood there, hand raised, a look of incredulity on his face, as though he hadn't expected me to open the door. Truthfully, I hadn't expected to do so either. I'd told him I'd never wanted to see him again, and that was the truth.

  Yeah, well, we all do things we don't want to do. Might as well get them out of the way, right?

  "What?" I said.

  He lowered his knocking fist, but didn't seem to know what to do with it afterward. He seemed awkward, as though he didn't know where to
start. His hands floated uselessly in front of him, without purpose, until he finally shoved them in his pockets.

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  "Okay," I told him, and started to close the door.

  Then he knew what to do with his hand. His palm slapped against it, preventing me from shutting it all the way. I made an annoyed noise and paused, waiting for him to tell me whatever was on his mind.

  "That's it?" he said. "Okay?"

  "What do you want me to say?" I asked him.

  His lips thinned. "That you forgive me?"

  "Oh," I said. "Well, I don't. Now go away."

  "Felicia, please!" The desperation in his voice sent a little tickle of suspicion through me. I was getting cynical. Actually cynical. At least when it came to him. Bout damn time.

  "What?" I said. "What do you want? I mean, really? What do you really want?"

  His hands found each other, began pulling and plucking at themselves. "I... I need you to talk to your husband."

  I almost laughed in his face. I wasn't talking to my husband for myself. What made him think I'd do it for him? "Why?" I said. I couldn't keep the amusement from my voice.

  The look of dejection on his face was comical to me now. "He's taken over the company. Kicked me out. I'm... I'm not on the hook for the debt any more, but I have nothing."

  I quirked an eyebrow. "And?"

  He blinked. "And what? I can't rebuild my life without that money, Felicia. I have a car and some clothes to my name. That's it."

  I smiled. "So?"

  A scowl crossed his face. "Your mother married me to avoid a life of poverty," he said. "She's in her sixties. She can't start working now, and her sobriety... this will threaten her sobriety."

  I must be an idiot, because I considered his words for more than a fraction of a second before actually laughing. "Dad," I told him, one of the few times I'd ever called him that, "I can't help you. And I can't help mom. I have my own problems right now.

  "But your inheritance!" he said as I started to close the door. "I know your prenuptial agreement leaves you nothing! I would give you everything."