The Virgin: Revenge (3 page)

He didn’t even respond, just continued to watch me.

After a moment, he said bluntly, “I lost four assistants in fourteen months before I

finally found Mai. You will have no social life. I’m being honest here. I pay well for the

sacrifice, but there is a sacrifice. My work is my life and there’s no getting around it. Since I

need a full time admin, you’ll have about as little time for a life as I do. If that’s a problem, you should let me know now. It’s possible we’ll have another position for you in the company.”

“I applied for this one.” I glanced past him, my gaze lingering on Mai for a moment.

She’d managed to find time to get married, even if he did work people into the ground. I

thought about pointing that out, but didn’t bother.

He rose from behind the desk, came around to study me. “You won’t be disappointing

a boyfriend, a husband?”

That wasn’t very subtle of him. Letting a faint smile curve my lips, I said, “Perhaps it

would be a girlfriend I was disappointing.”

That
caught him offguard.

Mai chuckled. “Well, regardless of your significant other, they won’t see a lot of you.

You need to keep that in mind. The hours are the reason I won’t be returning after the baby is

born. Consider this carefully, Ms. Crosby. He isn’t exaggerating on the hours.”

He recovered smoothly, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a gleam in his eyes,

something curious.

I wasn’t so sure I wanted him to be curious, at all. At least not until I had an answer.

Did he remember me
? Glancing away, I shrugged. “I was being facetious. There’s no significant other, male or female.” With a vague smile, I looked back at them. “I keep my life

uncomplicated. It’s far simpler that way. Rest assured, Mr. Gallagher. There is nobody to

disappoint.”

Especially not myself
.

♦

I had a week to move. The apartment I had wasn’t close enough to Gallagher

Enterprises, so I was given a temporary until something else became available. It’s true enough

that I hadn’t particularly wanted to spend ninety minutes one-way commuting, but I also didn’t

want to stay in some furnished apartment for an indeterminate amount of time, either.

I wasn’t attached to the little condo I had.

There was nothing in Philadelphia I was
attached
to, per se. I didn’t
allow
myself to get attached. Not to anything. If you weren’t attached to anything—or anyone—it couldn’t be

taken away.

I had a few friends, , but I didn’t need to live close to them in order to stay in contact.

And those friends were few, indeed. I’d learned to live without attachments. It was no lie

when I’d told them I kept my life uncomplicated. It was far simpler than way.

Far, far simpler.

However, as simple as I preferred my life, that residential styled hotel where they had

me living for now was a bit more basic than even
I
liked. Gallagher Enterprises had offered me a larger, much more luxurious home, one they offered to visiting executives and I could have

used it for a few weeks.

Something about living in a home that Drake would pay for rubbed me the wrong

way—and he
would
pay for it—it didn’t matter if it was him, or his company, in the end, the

dollar was his.

I’d convinced them that the hotel would suffice until I found a place of my own, but the

four walls of that simple suite-styled hotel were driving me mad. Made me feel trapped,

pushing me back to a time I tried hard not to remember.

Finding someplace else was at the top of my list, but I still wouldn’t accept their offers of

help. Seemed counterproductive when I was here for revenge.

Revenge
. Closing my eyes, I pressed my head to the cool glass of the window and

wondered. Was I looking for
revenge
?

Or just myself?

Just what did I hope to accomplish here?

I don’t fuck naïve little virgins
.

Naïve.

Yes. That had been me.

The very first time I’d seen Drake, that summer on the beach, I’d had that whimsical

feeling of love of first sight. Seven years older than me, but really, what was seven years, in the

scheme of things?

If he’d ignored me, if he’d flirted with the women more his age, if he hadn’t

been…
kind
…the word hurt, even now…if he hadn't been kind, though, it would have been

easier to wipe that schoolgirl crush out of existence.

He still would have destroyed my life.

I still would have lost everything.

The events that unfolded over the coming months
still
would have happened. But

would I have drawn into myself so completely? Been so angry?

Perhaps I wouldn’t have fancied myself in love with him, wouldn’t have spent the

course of a summer talking to him, trying to befriend him. Maybe the pain wouldn’t have been

so devastating, the sense of betrayal so deep.

And
what-if
s were a waste of time. I
had
befriended him and there was nothing to be

done, nothing that would change what had been.

“Befriend him,” I muttered, my voice echoing in the silence of the suite. What a laugh.

I’d thought he was
lonely
. So I chased after him, the way I tended to do. I talked him into silly, naïve little pursuits…fishing, crabbing, swimming. What I couldn’t understand was why he’d

even bothered to spend any time with me at all.

He’d enjoyed it, I’d thought, at first. Who wouldn’t enjoy a lazy swim in the ocean? Or

fishing. That was
my
thinking.

Crabbing…well, that was a past time that perhaps wouldn’t appeal to everybody, but

he’d certainly seemed to enjoy, and he’d definitely had fun enjoying the fruits of our labor.

The afternoons of swimming, though, that had been the best. Followed by an evening

just lazing on the beach, the few times he’d let allowed himself.

I could still see the way he’d looked coming out of the water, trunks slung low on lean

hips, the muscles in his belly rolling as he strode through the waves.

I’d looked at him and wanted.

I’d looked at him and needed.

I’d looked at him and loved. Or so I thought. I’d been a foolish girl of seventeen and

when you’re seventeen, I guess something that turns your heart hot and bright would feel like

love. One night, with a fire built on the beach, I’d tried to give myself to him.

Perhaps it was a kindness on his part that had spurred him to speak those cold words.

I don’t fuck naïve little virgins
.

But kindness wasn’t what had pulled his body on top of mine. Kindness hadn’t driven

him to kiss me, in ways I’d never been kissed before. Kindness wasn’t what had guided his

hands to untie the bikini top or pull it away and kindness certainly hadn’t been the motivating

factor when he rolled to his back and let me drag my hands down the hard, muscled wall of his

chest.

I was a virgin, yes. Naïve. But so desperate to please.

It wasn’t until I’d slid my hand down, tried to touch him that he’d changed.

Naïve little virgins
…

Humiliation had driven me away from the beach that night.

I hadn’t seen him for another three days.

And when I did see him, everything changed.

He looked at me then with pity in his eyes. Pity, while I sat in the office of the hotel and

listened to what my parents had to say. Pity, as I surged up and took off running.

Everything I loved was going to be taken from me.

And he had the nerve to
pity
me, because he’d known, all along.

Now he looked at me with no recognition.

There was something else, though. Behind that cool, careful mask, I’d seen it. A glint of

hunger, in the depths of those beautiful green eyes.

He’d never act on it, I already knew that.

But it was enough that he wanted.

I wanted to believe that was enough.

Of course, here I was, my overheated face pressed to the cool glass, and I wanted, as

well.

Even now, ten years later, I still wanted.

The phone rang, shattering the stillness of the room and I pushed back, turned my head

to look at the Samsung HTC Mai had given me before I’d left the office earlier.

Two days of all the foolishness that new employees had to do. Orientation, security,

paperwork. It ate up sixteen hours of my life that I’d never get back.

Tomorrow, I started training with Mai.

And now Drake Gallagher was calling me.

“Hello.”

“We have a breakfast meeting at 7:30. Ready for the address?” He didn’t say hello.

“Yes.” I continued to stare out the window.

He recited the address. I recited it back, not bothering to write it down. My memory

was often a curse, but it came in handy, too. “Don’t be late,” he said.

Then he hung up.

I programmed my alarm, set it 4:30. I’d have to get my run in early. If I was going to be

around him all day, I needed to get the frustration out sooner rather than later.

I dreamed of the beach.

And Drake.

I was seventeen again, and stupid.

The sand was smooth against my back and his hands were rough against my skin as he

pulled the bikini top away, palmed one breast. His thumb circled my nipple and excitement,

fear, tangled inside me.

His teeth nipped at my neck and I shivered, nervous and needy. As he arched his hips

against me, I gasped. His mouth came back to mine. “This is fucking crazy,” he whispered, his

tongue rasping over my lower lip. His finger and thumb pinched my nipple. “This is insane. I

have to…”

I slid a hand down his chest. I knew what he wanted to say and I didn’t
want
him to say

it. When I felt him through the thin material of his board shorts, I closed my hand around him,

stroked. I knew enough to know that guys liked that. Now, he’d stop talking, right?

He rolled to his back, his arms clutching me to him, one hand tangling in my hair while

his mouth all but savaged mine. His hips drove up against me and I gasped, felt him between

my thighs. The material of his shorts, the denim cut-offs I’d dragged on, they might as well not

even exist. Pleasure slammed into me and I cried out, twisting against him just to feel it once

more. I could feel myself, slick and needy, the material of my bikini bottom slipping against my

flesh as I moved.

“Shan…” he muttered.

It was that sound that woke me.

The sound of his voice.

Sucking in oxygen, trying to calm the need raging inside me, I closed my eyes and drove

my head back against the pillow. I woke up.
Now
.

Of all the dreams I had, of all the nightmares that held me trapped, I had to wake up

from that one. “Why?” I muttered, flinging my forearm across my eyes and blowing out a

breath while I lay there, my heart racing.

My breasts throbbed, tingled, pulsing in time with the need that all but wrenched

through my cunt.

Groaning, I rolled onto my belly and shoved my face into the pillow.

If I thought it would do me any good, I would have slid my hand down, brought the

climax that seemed to dance just out of reach.

It was a lie, though.

The first, and only, orgasm I’d had was that night on the beach, as Drake dragged me

back and forth against his cock.

I’d tried to recreate it, capture that amazing moment.when it seemed like my skin had

dissolved and my soul tried to escape, while his mouth ate at mine and his body was the only

thing that kept me anchored to this world.

But it eluded me. The more frustrated I became, the harder it was to climax and the

harder it was, the more frustrated I became.

The frustration had bled over onto every relationship, tainted the way I saw every man.

It didn’t help that there were…shadows. Other things that bled into my life and kept me from

letting myself connect the way I could have, the way I’d wanted to.

Just as even now, the shadows of my past with Drake were creeping up on me. Keeping

me awake, burning.
Yearning
.

“You have to stop this,” I whispered. “You need to sleep.”

For nearly two years, I’d visited a therapist after my father’s murder. I couldn’t sleep

and when I could, I’d been plagued by nightmares. There were tricks she’d taught me, ways to

coax my mind into relaxing and if I ever I needed to do that, it was now.

I had to sleep, because if I wanted to be on my toes around him, I couldn’t afford to be

tired.

Forcing him out of my mind, I thought back to the beach. Before him. The waves

crashing against the sand, the sound of the water. I’d always loved the sound of the water…

Cool blue light surrounded me.

Blue light. Water.

Blue light…

The moments between wakefulness and dreams can be such fickle things.

One moment I was concentrating.

The next, I was in the dark and there was no blue light, no soothing crash of the waves

on the ocean.

There was just fear.

Cruel hands.

A fist in my hair as I was dragged up.

“
Get up.
”

My father’s voice. “
Please don’t. I’ll—”

The words was cut off as a fist slammed into his face. My mother’s scream.

The clock went off.

And I was no longer in the bed. At some point, during the nightmare that had come and

gone in a blink, and yet lasted forever, I’d climbed out of bed and hidden myself in the corner.