Authors: Kelly Favor
And quickly on the heels of those thoughts, were the words of her mother, still ringing in her ears.
“What kind of life is that, Nicole?”
***
The ride to Connecticut was long. Nicole was in her own world, quieter than she normally tended to be.
Red didn’t seem to mind. He alternated between listening to music (mostly rock music) and talking on his Bluetooth. The calls were innocuous stuff; him making little decisions, telling someone how to best approach an important pitch for a big campaign, talking company strategy.
She tuned most of it out, assuming that this was just part of his typical routine.
But there was one call midway through the drive that seemed different than the rest. His voice took on a different tone. At first, he seemed to be discussing something very dull…a company in Germany. She didn’t remember the name of it. And then suddenly his manner changed and became very intense.
“Why would you say that?” Red asked, his eyes staring at the road in front of him as he talked into his headset. “No, no no. That’s not the case at all. We’re heavily leveraged in that market and we absolutely need them to be on board.” There was a long pause while he listened. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and she could see his lips press together. “No, John. No. That’s not how it is at all and you can tell them. Tell them they better not fuck with me on this one or so help me God…”
For a moment, Nicole felt afraid of him. He was so intense, so full of a dark rage and she thought that it could somehow be directed at her.
“We need this deal to go through,” he said. “It’s not a little thing, John. It’s a big thing. We’re talking millions and millions…the stock price will go into the fucking toilet otherwise…and you know what that would mean.”
The conversation seemed to downshift from there, and Red made some small talk before finally getting off the phone.
When he was done, Nicole looked over at him. “Everything all right?”
He smiled tightly. “Just the usual business bullshit.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Well, some things are shittier than others. This thing is particularly shitty.”
“You seemed angry at whoever you were talking to.”
“That’s John Peterson, our CFO. He’s involved in a pretty important deal with a company we’re looking to acquire in Germany. It’s a very complicated deal. I can’t go into the details.”
“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t expect you to.”
His shoulders were hunched and he seemed distant. “It’s just business,” he said, as if trying to convince himself.
A short while later, they arrived at Nicole’s new home.
She’d tried to prepare herself for a shock, but really nothing could prepare her for what was in store when they approached the gate of Red’s Connecticut property. She couldn’t even see his home from the gate. All she saw were rolling hills, a large lake (or maybe it was a pond, but it was a huge pond), and trees fading into the distance.
The private road was well lit by street lamps, but this time of night it was hard to tell just how big the property really was.
At the gate there was a security booth with a young, fiercely serious man inside, sporting a military crew cut.
Red put down his window and smiled at the young man peered into the car and looked directly at Nicole with cold, green eyes. Then his eyes flicked back to her fiancé.
“Good evening, Mister Jameson.”
“Evening, Dan.”
“Is everything good, sir?”
“Better than good, Dan. Thanks.”
The gate clicked and hummed as it opened electronically. The guard watched them as they drove slowly past and now they were on the private road.
Red glanced at her. “Overwhelmed?”
“Very.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. The pond was on their left now.
“It’s absolutely breathtaking.” She saw a family of ducks swimming leisurely in the still water. A quaint bridge, strewn with tiny glowing white bulbs extended over the narrower portion of the pond. In the distance, a little house lay nestled close to the water’s edge.
“We’re on about seventeen and a half acres of land,” Red said. “It’s quite a lot to maintain. Over there is the caretaker’s home, and he and a small crew keep up the grounds year round. They’re good people, you’ll get to know all of them well.”
Over the crest of a tiny hill, she caught sight of a full-sized basketball court on the left, and just next to that, tennis courts. They looked beautiful, as if they’d only just been built a day or two before. “Do you play on those?” she asked.
“I do,” Red told her. “A few times a week a tennis pro comes to the house and gives me lessons or we play a set together.”
“When you say, tennis pro, do you mean like one of those club pros that they have? The ones that give lessons to little kids and beginners or…”
Red laughed. “I mean, one of the guys ranked in the top hundred in the world.
I’ve had Roger Federer our here to play, John Isner, Andre Agassi. Andre’s back isn’t so good these days. Oh, Pete Sampras…”
“They give you lessons.” She shook her head in disbelief.
“A lot of them are friends. I’ve done campaigns with most of these guys. But yeah, they give me lessons and play with me. I don’t exactly provide much of a challenge, but the pay is good and afterwards they might stay and have a lovely meal.”
The private way stretched on and on. They came over another rise and the house appeared in the distance, sprawling and magnificent. With the lights on both inside and around the house, it looked like something from a dream Walt Disney might have had. It literally took her breath away. The entire house and property was glowing magically, as if enchanted.
“It’s a bit on the large side,” Red admitted, glancing at her reaction.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s got twenty-five bathrooms and twenty-three bedrooms. Fifty thousand square feet.”
“Why…why would you need any of that? You could provide room and board to a small village with that much space.”
He chuckled at her astonishment. “I suppose I don’t technically need the space.
But one day I do hope to have a family, and I like the idea of having plenty of room for guests; mothers and fathers, uncles, grandparents, little kids. And everyone has their own privacy, nobody’s on top of each other.”
“Nobody can even find each other,” she said.
His expression became serious. “Maybe it’s because of how I grew up,” he told her. “We had no space at all. Me and my brother and mother, in a little apartment together, always on top of each other. I didn’t have any privacy, I had to share a room with Bryan until I was seventeen and finally went to college. I know it could have been worse, but something about it just ate at me.” His eyes were hard and she could feel the tension radiating off of him. She sensed that Red hadn’t exactly had a happy childhood.
Nicole put a hand on his leg and felt him instantly relax. “I think it’s wonderful that you’ve been able to build a home that is exactly what you want. Sorry if I poked fun.”
“I know it’s a bit much,” he said. It was the first time she’d ever seen him embarrassed of his wealth and opulence.
“I think it’s amazing.”
“Wait until you get inside,” he said.
But even before they got inside the house, there was a fork in the road, and Red turned right, taking them past an incredible Olympic sized pool, the blue waters lit from lights beneath the surface. As Nicole craned her head to look at the crystal clear water, imagining herself taking a dip on a warm summer day, Red parked the car next to the house and turned to her. “Last stop, my beautiful bride-to-be.”
“This is like some kind of fairy tale.”
“Come on, Princess Masters, your castle awaits.”
Out of the car, she took a deep breath of fresh air and smiled. She could walk for hours and hours out there, over the bridge of the beautiful pond. She imagined herself stopping and watching the wind ripple across the surface of the water.
Everything here is partly mine, now, she told herself. It still didn’t feel real to her.
Red took her by the hand and pulled her toward one of the entrances. He flipped open a little box and punched a very long sequence of numbers into a keypad. There was a series of little beeps and then a clicking sound. “Come on inside,” he said, opening the door and letting them into the foyer.
It was too big and grand for words, she thought. No description would do it justice, and nobody she knew would believe her if she told them.
There were light marble floors as far as the eye could see, and a grand staircase that stretched above their heads. The foyer was so open that you could actually see across into the other rooms that continued on and on, like reflecting mirrors.
“Is that an elevator?” she asked, pointing to the right, where a large cylindrical tube with darkly tinted windows ran from floor to ceiling.
“We can’t be expected to take the stairs,” Red joked. “That would be criminal.
You want to get in and see the second floor?”
“I’d like to stay on this floor and see some of the other rooms first,” she told him.
“Absolutely. Right this way, I’ll give you the grand tour.”
He showed her the dining room, with the enormous candelabra hanging over the giant, ornate dining table. And then onto the living room, which somehow felt presidential to Nicole, with its immaculate white walls, blue furniture and gold curtains.
There was a beautiful fireplace and hearth, above which a very expensive looking plasma TV screen had been mounted.
“I think you’ll enjoy this kitchen,” Red told her, as they made their way into the wide-open space with rich hardwood floors, beautiful granite countertops, two giant islands and breakfast nook. There were double stainless steal ranges, built for professional cooking and entertaining large groups. The refrigerator was big enough to fit a couple of full-sized cows if they’d wanted to do so.
“I’m speechless,” Nicole said, gawking.
“It beats the little kitchenettes in Manhattan and Brooklyn by a country mile, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It sure does.”
He turned and pulled her to him, staring into her eyes. “And it’s all yours now,”
he said. “I want you to feel at home here, because it’s your home.”
“I might need some time to get used to the idea.”
He kissed her then, in the middle of that spectacular kitchen, and she kissed him back with everything in her. “Come on,” he said, smiling devilishly, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her as he started to run.
“Where are we going?” she cried, giggling.
“The master bedroom!” he shouted, tugging her. She could barely keep up with him. They ran to the foyer and took the stairs all the way up.
The master bedroom was itself as big as most luxury apartments, Nicole thought.
Decorated tastefully in whites and browns (white carpet and walls, brown dressers, curtains and trim), it was actually split into two levels. “You realize your bedroom has a staircase?” she asked him.
“Where else would we put the hot tub but the second level?” he replied. When she gave him a look of astonishment, he laughed. “What can I say? I like the modern touch.”
Aside from just the sheer size of it, the bedroom also had a desk, a couch, coffee table, chairs, a beautifully large bed, and windows overlooking the entire property.
“Hold on, let me light the fireplace,” he said, moving gracefully to the hearth—
she hadn’t even seen it at first—and picking up a remote control. A moment later, a bright flame kindled and he set it to the perfect level.
He turned to look at her. “You’re freaking out,” he said, more a statement of fact than question.
“Just a little.” She walked to the bed and sat on it. It gave way beneath her, soft and luxurious.
Red smiled. “All of this is nice. The beautiful scenery, the pond, the marble floors and kitchens and every amenity a person could dream of. But in the end, without you here, this place is just empty—a museum.”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
He crossed to the bed and kneeled in front of her. “It’s true, Nicole. I’ve lived here an entire year, and most of the time I only use a few of the rooms. It gets lonely in a big, expensive palace with nobody to share it.”
“You could have brought dozens of women back here. Any of those lovely ladies that you took back to your apartment in the city would have come to this mansion.”
“I know that,” he said. “But I didn’t want any of them the way I want you.”
Her heart started to beat more quickly now. “Why me?”
Red put his hands on her knees and then her thighs, sliding beneath the silky material of her skirt. “Why you? Because, when I look in your eyes, you let me see you.
You don’t hide from me,” he told her. His warm hands began to slide further and further up her legs.
“That feels nice,” she said softly as he warmed her with his sensual touch.
His eyes darkened. “But I like that you don’t always want nice.”
“That’s true,” she said.
“Sometimes you want to be naughty, don’t you?”
She nodded at him, smiling in a way that implied more than words could ever do.
He stood up and walked to the closet. Seconds later, he came out with a jet-black blindfold and handcuffs dangling from his hands.
She crossed her legs and waited for him, that part of her getting hot and slick with anticipation. He was looking at her now with intense hunger, desire, and his wanting her made her hotter still.
“Stand up,” he said, commanding her now.
“Yes, sir.” She got to her feet instantly—standing tall, chin up, like a good little soldier. This made Nicole smile a little for some reason. She was in Red’s army now.
“What’s so funny?” he asked her, his eyes darkening.
“Nothing sir.”
“You’ll be punished for your glib attitude,” he said, and his nostrils flared. “Your backside’s going to be hot pink before the night’s over.”
She nodded at his statement, pictured her bare bottom as his palm crashed against it while her flesh shivered beneath his magnificent, firm hand.
Nicole controlled her expression, remaining calm and composed on the outside, even though her thighs quivered in anticipation of his touch. There would be some pain—just a little bit—and then there would be pleasure. Red doled out pleasure and pain as if he was a chef with a special recipe; Hot and sweet, sweet and sour. Red mixed the ingredients to perfection.