Didn't I Warn You (3 page)

FOUR

T
HE
VERY
LAST
dying rays of a low-hanging sun cast a faint halo on the roof of Emma’s Barina by the time I arrived in my driveway. With everything that happened this afternoon, I’d forgotten there was a party we’d committed to tonight. I bypassed the front door, going directly to the back entrance closest to my room. Even in the cab I barely made it back before zero hour—the time at which those who worry get shitty. The hum of voices filtered from the closed door across the hall. I groaned. My bag suddenly felt twice as heavy. I slipped it from my shoulder. Seriously, it was my own fault for being late.

And what had I achieved besides adding “he lives on a superyacht” to the list of reasons why today had to be a product of my fractured mental state.

I pushed open my bedroom door. “Hi, Mum.”

My mother glanced up from my single bed, where she sat next to Emma.

“Nice of you to show up,” Emma said, giving me a slow smile.

“How did the interview go?” Mum stood. “Did they love your article?”

“They said my writing was great.” I tried to muster a smile and leaned against the door frame. “But they’d like me to try something more...commercial.”

Definitely not entitled how-to-stalk-mysterious-hot-men.

Her hands dropped to her sides. “You’re not going to write one of those trashy—”

“Mum.”

Emma smirked, and pressed her fist to her mouth.

“Fine.” My mother held up a palm. “But you know how your father feels about—”

“Mum.”

“Fine, but next time, call us to pick you up if it’s getting dark. You’re lucky Dad’s not here.”

Heat spread across my neck into my cheeks.

Emma made a slight coughing sound. Oh, she no doubt found this hilarious. She’d call it adorable.

“I caught a cab.” For the love of god, this would go on until I was thirty, possibly fifty.

“A cab?” Her jaw went slack. “Honey, for Pete’s sake, don’t tell your father.”

I kept my eyes straight in my head. Managed to keep them from rolling back like the teenager they were determined to think of me as. It didn’t matter. Soon I’d have my own job. My own place. My own life. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

“Sorry, love.” She placed a hand on my arm. “You know how he feels about protecting you—after everything...”

Emma’s hand slipped from her face, her complexion blanching.

A sharp drop slammed down my middle—cleaving me in two.

I’m never getting out of here.

“Dad and I thought it might be time for you to start driving the Mustang. It’d be safer for you to get around.”

“Notachance,” I said, so quickly that it came out as one word.

Her green eyes, so like my own, widened. I felt mine do the same. I might be the dutiful daughter my parents needed me to be, but it’d been a long time since they’d pushed me to do something I didn’t want to. There were some things that duty and guilt wouldn’t budge, and not wanting to drive
that
Mustang was one of them.

We stared at each other, both knowing the other’s stubbornness, both knowing we could stand there all night. My heart raced. I’d spent my life longing to be seen by my parents, but now that I stood at the center of their goddamn universe, I just wanted to slip back into the shade of invisibility. I wanted to push back against their affection, tell them it wasn’t fair. They should have given me their attention from the beginning. It shouldn’t have taken disaster to make it happen. But it wasn’t their fault, not really, and at some point, I’d have to forgive them... At some point, I’d need to find a way to forgive
myself
.

“Fair enough. You can speak about how you intend to get around, like an adult, with your father in the morning.” Mum brushed past me, her perfume a pungent, musky bouquet, reminding me of when I was a child and used to sit on her knee. Reminding me that if I didn’t find a way out, I’d always remain folded and squeezed into this place where I just didn’t fit anymore.

She turned back to me. “Be home before midnight, girls.”

* * *

I
MAY
HAVE
lost the desire to party, but Emma’s enthusiasm rubbed off onto me, and made trying on the outfits in my closet somewhat of an adventure. It made me forgive her for cozying up to my mother before the ambush. Not that I could begrudge Emma loving my mother when I was blessed enough to have one, and she wasn’t.

We settled on a dark blue dress with pleating at the bust, and ruching at the waist. For herself, Emma pulled a tiny, floaty pink dress from her bag, which went beautifully with her platinum locks and baby blues.

“Guess what I did after work?” she whispered with a sly smile.

Emma worked at her favorite clothing store, the kind of store only genetically blessed people such as herself shopped at, while finishing university. She’d studied science, and as much as she hid her intelligence, her smarts were dazzling—just not quite as dazzling as her lack of inhibitions.

“What?”

“You remember Luke from the party last Saturday?”

I nodded and rummaged through my jewelry box for earrings.

“Well, he stopped by at work, and we went to his place for a bit...”

“And?” I asked. For a smart girl, her decisions regarding men were rarely sensible. Not that I could make much claim to sensible today, either.

“And—” she made a gesture with her fist toward her cheek “—it was fun.”

“Oh, lovely visual—classy.” I shook my head at her in the mirror and laughed. I knew why she did that. She wanted to get me talking about sex. Hopefully doing the sex. That would probably be healthier than what I had going on now.

She flopped down on my bed. “I was going to let him do me doggy, but I had to come here and get ready.”

“Really?” I dropped my earring, shock not quite winning out over the morbid fascination that came with vicarious living.

Emma’s tinkling laugh filled my room. “No, I’m messing with you. I promise I do have principles. Well,
some
principles.” She grinned broadly. “I’d have totally made him buy me dinner before letting him give it to me doggy.”

I tossed a pillow at her from my bed, hitting her square on. She dissolved into hysterics. I couldn’t help joining in. This was why I loved Emma. She could make me feel the way we did when we were sixteen—before things changed. I finished with my earrings and tried on the shiny blue heels Emma insisted would make my vertically challenged legs look awesome.

They did.

“Thanks, Emma.”

I caught her eye in the mirror, and my humor faded. A wash of concern filled me. I knew how it was with girls like us. Girls with a gaping emptiness inside that demanded to be filled. With food, drugs, or—as in Emma’s case—cock.

Not me, though. I nursed my hollowness. I starved it, molded myself around the gnawing pain of it. Maybe I was just a nasty little masochist, or maybe I knew this emptiness was bottomless, and attempting to fill it would kill me.

“You know I love you?” I didn’t say the rest.

Come to me, not them.

Emma’s gaze dropped from the mirror. I watched the top of her blond head. “I know...”

I turned and placed my hands on her shoulders. We both knew what it meant to crave distraction. “I don’t want you to get hurt... Is everything okay at home with your dad?”

Emma tossed back her head and blinked heavily, looking up at the ceiling. “We really need to get a place together. Now I’m finished Uni, I’ll get a better job soon. It’d be good for both of us, you know.” Emma looked back to me. “I need it, and you need to get out of your parents’ house. You’ll never be able to move on here.”

“I want to.” I swallowed, a thickness coating my tongue at the reminder of that-of-which-I-shall-not-speak. “I’m just not sure I’ll actually be able to.”

“Maybe it’s time to start living your own life, and stop asking permission?”

I exhaled heavily, my cheeks puffing out. “Wait and see if I get this job, then we’ll
talk
about it.”

She gave me her every-tooth smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Emma stepped closer. We wrapped our arms around each other in a brief hug and then pulled apart.

“I love you, ho-bag,” I said, then flinched at my choice of words, considering what I’d been up to.

“I saw that. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing.” I spoke too fast.

“Quit holding out on me. I tell you everything—spill.”

There was no negotiating with Emma when there was gossip to be had.

“I kind of met someone today—had an encounter—or something.”

“I said
spill
, babe.” She gave me her eager-and-undivided-attention face.

No use fighting it. I knew that look. So I told her the whole sordid story as we got ready. Most of it anyway.

* * *

T
HIS
IS
WHY
I hate parties.

For one thing, they were generally populated with asshats and sleaze buckets. And hadn’t I hit the jackpot with Chris, the guy who came up and draped his arm around me in a move that proved he was both asshat and sleaze bucket rolled into one. His arm clipped me to his side, and he used his superior height to look down the front of my dress.

The only thing stopping me from putting my elbow to his midsection was the group of people surrounding us. Watching eyes had power over me, made me feel kind of like a marionette—moving stiffly to choreographed movements, doing and saying what they thought I should do and say. Instead I shot him a look that should have had him backing away slowly.

How had I let Chris catch me alone?

We’d kissed once, two months earlier, and that one time had been enough for me. I couldn’t have made myself clearer in that regard. “Stay the hell away from me” seemed pretty direct, to me—impossible to misconstrue. He’d called me “pretty for a chubby girl,” and I just don’t take my kisses served with a side of insults.

The fact I’d lost a few kilos might make me feel a little more confident, but if it made me more “palatable” to him, he could kiss my hot-then-still-hot-now ass. I pulled away and muttered something about going to the bathroom. Pushing through the throng of people, I searched for somewhere, anywhere to hide. I found sanctuary in the kitchen’s walk-in pantry. I tugged at the hem of my dress and lowered myself onto a box of tinned tomatoes.

How long did Emma plan to stay? Luke had come, so she’d probably want to hang around longer than I could stomach. I leaned back and rested my head on the wall, then smiled. It didn’t matter anymore what Chris or anyone else thought. I’d seen the way Haithem looked at me, I’d felt the way he touched me. A heavy sensation flowed down my chest. Why had I run? The most spectacular man I’d ever met wanted me, and I ran after he’d kissed me in a way that fried my panties right off. Just because he was a little, well—intense? I should’ve gone after him, article or no article. Should’ve taken the chance to take things further.

I wiggled on the box of tomatoes, and the rims of the tins dug into the backs of my thighs. So what if all he wanted was to get laid?

I knew what I wanted. I wanted to leap. Do the things I’d missed out on. I wanted to sleep with him. No—scratch that. I wanted to fuck Haithem. I wanted to get skin-to-skin sweaty and dirty with Haithem. I wanted to get on my knees for him, do everything I’d never done because I’d been too scared, or too sad, or just too damn uninterested.

But instead, I ran and hid. Both things I was good at.

But what if I’d stayed?

My skin crawled with blossoming need. I could still go back to the dock. Who knew when he’d leave but he might still be there now...

It hardly mattered about the article anymore. I mean if I had to choose sex or article, then there were other jobs.

There was only one Haithem.

That didn’t stop the excruciating curiosity to find out exactly who he was. Maybe I was cut out for the job after all. The door to the pantry flung open with a crash. I leaped to my feet. Chris stepped inside. I groaned. He was dressed in pale blue skinny jeans and a white T-shirt that showed off his slim build, but it was the smug expression he wore that made his twenty-one years seem more like twelve.

He ran his gaze over my face and smiled more deeply. I touched my cheek. It was hot—
I
was hot. But not for this boy.

“I knew you wanted to be alone.”

He reached his hand into his back pocket and pulled out a foil packet.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

It took ten minutes to convince Chris I didn’t want to “hook up.” Ten minutes of my life I’d never, ever get back.

I searched for Emma, heading down the hallway to where a friend had seen her disappear into a bedroom. I raised my fist to knock on the closed door. A low, throaty moan reached my ears. I suppressed my own, different kind of moan and glanced back down the hall toward the front entrance.

I needed to get out of here. Pity Emma always had to be the driver. I pulled out my phone and texted her. She’d kill me for sneaking off, but I’d risk her wrath. I slipped out of the house and into the night.

FIVE

S
TEPPING
ONTO
THE
PORCH
, I sucked in a breath as the night air chilled the bare skin on my arms. It’d been more than warm when we arrived, but this was Melbourne. Emma’s car nestled against the curb in front of the house. I rubbed my arms and walked over to peer in the driver’s-side window.

Yep, there was my jacket. I wouldn’t be interrupting Emma to get it. Didn’t need any more mental scarring, thank you very much. My phone told me it was quarter to eleven. I knew what was supposed to happen now—me calling Daddy to ask him to come and rescue me from the big, bad, wild party. Me sitting in his car for twenty minutes, listening to commentary about how my dress might give men the wrong impression.

Because god forbid I give the wrong impression.

Mere weeks until I turned twenty-one, and in the past year, I’d regressed back to infancy as far as my family was concerned. Surprising how quickly dynamics can flip. I crossed my arms and walked onto the sidewalk toward the tram stop.

A car door thudded.

“Angelina?”

The sound of my name resonated in the night. I halted, spinning around to face the speaker. A figure strode toward me. I stepped back, stumbling into the fence behind me. My fingers curled into the heavy metal links.

Jesus, the first time I step outside at night by myself, and strangers approach me in the street.

“What do you want?”

The man stopped on the footpath. Like some kind of cat burglar, he wore all black. Black suit, black shirt, black shoes—even his hair and skin were dark.

Like night.

My chest squeezed. He seemed familiar. A beaky nose, a narrow forehead. But I didn’t know him. He knew me.

The music from the party thudded dully in the distance.

“Don’t be alarmed, Angelina. I have a message from a friend.”

My name again.

From the lips of a stranger who’d somehow managed to find me—at night—in a street I never visited. I glanced down the footpath. The man stood between me and the party, between me and safety. My gaze flickered to his car. I’m no good at recognizing makes and models, but this oozed luxury.

He probably wasn’t going to rob me, at least.

“A friend? I don’t think you and I run in the same circles.”

He smiled, teeth standing out against his skin in the darkness. “Oh, but we do. Someone you met today, in a coffee shop, perhaps? In fact, I was there also, but I don’t think you had eyes for me.” His accented voice spoke with familiar inflections. My hands dropped from the fence, and I studied him again. I
did
recognize him. He’d been sitting next to Haithem, and he was right—I’d only had eyes for one man.

“Haithem?”

The man closed the space between us. “Yes, he would like to invite you to join him on his yacht tonight.”

My mind almost melted, and I blinked slowly. Hadn’t I just been longing for another chance? Hadn’t I just decided I wanted to do what I’d never done before?

I could go to him.

Have an experience I’d never forget. A distraction that could occupy my mind not just for minutes, hours or days—because something told me a taste of Haithem would stay with me forever. And here it was, what I’d yearned for, handed to me by fate.

“So, what do you say? Will you come with me to Haithem?”

I looked at this stranger. Fate wasn’t handing me anything. Even fate couldn’t have placed him here, exactly where I was. “How did you find me?”

He stared at me, not shifting, not giving away a thing. No hint of guilt, no sign of discomfort or that he’d done anything creepy. “I followed you here from your house and waited.”

“So, you’re telling me that at some point this afternoon, Haithem decided he wanted to see me, had me tracked down to my house, then followed to a party and snuck up on when I was alone in the street?” I shook my head, the absurdity only beginning to settle in.

“Your address is public record. I only followed you because you had company. Discretion is absolutely essential.”

So says a serial killer.

I brushed my hair back from my face. “Dude, you know this is all kinds of creepy, right?”

His eyes widened. Probably because I’d just called him dude. Most likely, he didn’t get that too often. Either that or he took offense at me calling his actions creepy...

“It’s all kinds of necessary.”

The comeback, spoken in his formal tone, was all-kinds-of-hilarious. A soft laugh escaped me.

He gave me a tight-lipped smile.

“Okay, that’s a little creepy too, though. That
discretion is essential
, I mean.” Exposé-wise, it could be excellent... Questions already rushed through my brain. Who was he, and what was he up to? He was probably a diplomat, most likely secret prince. That would work for me. I could run with that angle. Just maybe in daylight. “I’d love to see Haithem again. But it’s late, and this is all too much.” I gestured around us to the dark street. “Why don’t you give him my number, and if he really wants to see me, he can call me like a
normal
person?”

He shook his head. “This is a onetime invitation. Haithem leaves the city in the morning. If you want to see him, now is your chance.”

Haithem leaves in the morning?

A deep and bitter disappointment washed through me. I shouldn’t feel that way, but I did. The memory of his kiss tingled on my lips.

Didn’t I owe it to myself to at least try to get his story?

Or something
.

I already had far more regrets than I could live with.

I looked the man in the eye. “Take me to him.”

* * *

M
Y
FRIENDLY
STALKER
had a name. Karim. He held my hand as he escorted me on board the yacht, helped me, because I couldn’t have done it myself. My legs moved as if they’d gone hollow. A dream-like quality settled over me, convincing me that at any moment I’d wake up and not be there at all.

Hiding on the dock hadn’t prepared me for walking onto his yacht at night. Three floors high and big enough to host a town. A floating castle, pale against black waves and white moonlight.

Definitely running with the secret prince angle.

Karim ushered me across the deck and up a narrow flight of stairs to the top. A stiff breeze whipped my hair around my face and my dress around my knees. But I wasn’t cold anymore.

“Wait here,” he said, and he strode across the deck alone.

I nodded, but I couldn’t help drifting to the railing and wrapping my fingers around the cool white steel. My god, I’d never seen Melbourne from this vantage. It
glowed
. So warm and vibrant. Hard to believe I’d lived here all my life and never seen it this way.

Footsteps padded behind me, but I couldn’t turn around. I gripped the railing tighter, as if I might blow away. Hands clutched my waist, and a hard body made contact with mine, heating me from my calves to the back of my skull.

Haithem—I knew the scent of him already. Amber with something else, something intoxicating. He leaned over me, and his rough cheek brushed my ear, prickling in a way that made my skin shiver, made me want to feel that delicious friction all over.

“You’ve been bad, Angelina.” He growled the words into my ear, but the growl contained a hint of purr.

Apparently, I was in trouble. The kind of trouble I had a feeling would end with my own purrs. His hands slid from my sides to wrap around my middle. He pulled me tighter against him. I opened my lips but couldn’t form words. The movement of my blood had gone from rapid dance to outright chaos.

“You ran from me today. Tormented me with a taste and ran before I’d had my fill.” His teeth caught my earlobe, nipping it gently.

I made a sound, a tiny squeak that was lost on the breeze. Pleasure shot from my ear through my body, sensitizing my skin, hardening my nipples, sending blood coursing between my legs.

“For that, you’ll beg before you come.”

Moisture flooded the fabric of my panties, as if his voice alone could compel my body to do just that.

Beg.

I should’ve been offended, but there was no pretense. No pretty words to sugarcoat what he wanted from me, just raw honesty.

I licked my lips. I would—I’d beg. Did he want me to beg now? I didn’t care, I’d do whatever he said if he’d just save me from this feeling. There’d be time for sleuthing later. My head lolled against his shoulder, and his teeth moved to my neck, scraping skin before branding me with his mouth, sucking hard enough to let me know he intended on marking me.

I’d
never
been so excited, so expectant, so goddamn terrified.

He shifted, and I felt it—what I’d done to him. The hardness at my back rivaled the steel under my fingers. My hands slipped from the railing, and I lifted my arms above my head to find the soft hair at the back of his neck and grip it.

“Please,” I whispered.

Haithem tensed, then rocked his hips against my backside. “You’re begging already? I haven’t even started.” He grasped my breast through the fabric of my dress and plucked my nipple. It hardened at his command, tightening painfully.

Holy shit, he was going to fuck me now.

Not make love—fuck. I could feel it coming. One movement and he’d raise my dress, and I’d be nailed up against the railing. My first time on the deck of a yacht...

Just like that.

I lowered my hands. He stilled then released my breast and took my hand.

“Come,” he said, and led me across the furnished deck, through double doors and into a large cabin. His cabin—his room, I knew, because the first thing I saw when I stepped inside was a bed. The biggest bed I’d ever seen, with three rows of pillows across the top. A square of lights, inlaid in the sleek veneer roof, illuminated bed linens I guessed were higher in threads per square inch than anyone could count.

A beep accompanied by a flickering red light emanated from a phone attached to the wall. He released my hand. “Excuse me, this is urgent, but help yourself to something.”

I tore my gaze from the bed to the small table laden with cheeses and wine. Haithem walked to the console and answered the phone.

Wine, now that’s what I needed.

I took a glass and filled it to the brim. Bubbles foamed at the top, and I sipped them off. I turned the bottle and read the label—champagne, not wine. Not that I knew the difference, really. I only cared if it gave me courage. I gulped and coughed. Bubbles fizzed down my throat.

Haithem rested a hand against the wall and spoke. His words weren’t English. They were harder sounding, more clipped. There was something about seeing him standing there in his pants and shirt, bare feet, dark hair slightly tousled, speaking in a foreign tongue, on a goddamn yacht, that made me feel as if I’d just stepped into another world.

A world that was about to get a whole heap more fun.