Chapter 4

Fae

"Okay," I whispered to him.

I realized then that I had trusted him for as long as I could remember. Even though he was friends with Carl, he wasn't stupid or reckless. When they talked about his misdemeanors, they were just mischievous shenanigans, natural to young, precocious men. If not for his brooding looks, he was more agreeable than any guy I had ever met.

Even more than Carl.

Why didn't I like him instead?

I closed my eyes as he took me from the bar stool into his arms, clinging to him while he lifted me like I was just a sack of cotton.

And I liked it. It felt good being taken care of and loved like a little kid. My tears kept falling. Feeling so pitiful and heartbroken, I hid my face on the side of his neck. I raised my eyes when it became quiet around us, only to see we had reached the elevator. I lowered my head, feeling ashamed.

"Hey...? You awake?" he asked in a soft voice. I made a tiny sound. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"You..." I replied, head low. "You know everything... but never... you never judge me. Or... at least, I don't feel like it."

"Oh." He secured his hold on me, then he sighed. "There is nothing to judge."

I raised my eyes again and noticed something. I giggled.

"What's so funny?" he asked, smiling slightly.

"A few things. You stalking her as if she's going to do something silly. Tom's face when you told him to fuck off. And my girly purse straps... on your very manly shoulder. It's silly."

When I peeked at his face, he was looking up at the floor counter that slowly counted up, and he was smiling. Then he noticed my look and lifted the culprit shoulder, acting coy and batting eyelashes at me. "Strike a pose?"

"Nooo! I want to unsee that!" I giggled as I heard his soft laughter.

Then we went silent for a moment.

"Thanks... for rescuing me there. I never liked Tom," I said.

His smile died, and he looked down at me. "Did he do something you didn't like?"

I shrugged. "It was a long time ago. Just irritating. It's nothing."

"Tell me," he ordered.

I blinked at him. But the elevator stopped. The doors chose to slide open right then, so he carried me out. He still didn't let me down on my feet.

"I can walk, you know..." I reminded him. The walls still moved a bit out of order unless I squinted my eyes at them. But I could speak better, if a little slurred, than when we were at the noisy bar.

He snickered. "You couldn't even sit up straight downstairs."

I winced, then added gloomily. "I would have been dancing right now... if it had been another wedding."

"What did Tom do?" he insisted.

I frowned, trying to remember. "College... second year of pre-law. He wanted to take me out on a date. I said no, and that I was already interested in someone else. But I was single... no... I am still single..." I raised my forefinger, connoting the number '1' in the air.

"What did he do?" he insisted again.

So persistent, sheesh. "He said the guy I liked didn't even want me, but he could replace Carl. That we two could like each other."

"He's a big piece of shit."

"I don't do casual sex," I said quickly before he could get angrier, wanting him to know I knew exactly what Tom really wanted from me. "I don't. So don't be angry, huh? See? He and Sarah ended up liking each other," I said, as if that proved a point.

But I got really quiet because now, Sarah was Carl's bride.

And even though I saved myself for Carl, he was now Sarah's groom.

So, what I said about Tom and Sarah didn't prove even a shade of a point.

He opened a door with a key card, carried me inside, and carefully lowered me onto a big couch in the living area. It wasn't my hotel room. It was probably his living quarters here in his hotel, as I spotted a large painting of Lola Leah on the opposite wall.

There were none of his parents, though.

I tried to remember what happened to them. Ah, yes. They were still alive, unlike Carl's parents and mine, thank you very much. They divorced and had other families now, leaving Jigo with his paternal grandmother.

In my drunken opinion, that was no less tragic. Carl and I got to be with our fathers before they left us, at least. But, as far as I knew, Jigo's parents divorced when he was very little, and brought him back here to live with his grandmother before they, to each their own, married other people and started different families. Everyone knew Lola Leah loved her grandson to pieces, but I didn't know of anything that could replace the loss of parents. There was nothing you could stuff inside the empty spaces in your life where instinct said a mother and a father should have been with you.

I wanted him to bring me here because I needed to be with someone, talk to someone. I didn't want to be in my empty hotel room.

Where it was quiet.

And I could only think of Carl.

I wanted to be here with him. Jigo already rescued me, and I got him to smile, didn't I? And I wanted to drink more. He said he would drink with me. He promised.

And Jigo was sexy. That helped a real lot when the one you wanted had completely abandoned you.

He wasn't just sexy. He was hot, I reminded myself as if I had to.

All the girls on campus drooled over him. He used to find panties in his locker when he still went there. Carl's female cousins all had big, fat crushes on him. His pictures on I* posted by his family's publicist always got thousands of reactions. He was in the top ten of the list of most eligible and gorgeous bachelors for three years straight since he became CEO and a public persona as a result, even though he wasn't an actor or model.

Even Sarah wanted him, was so excited when I told her I could introduce her to him, way back.

But Jigo didn't even pay any attention to her.

He treated her with contempt, deliberately didn't look at her while she talked to him. When she tried getting really friendly the way Sarah could get friendly, he stepped back as if she smelled something bad, and then left.

Sarah had been a little drunk because she was nervous about meeting him. She really liked him. I didn't know why he snubbed her like that because everyone was drunk one way or another at a frat party and she wasn't even that drunk yet.

It had been painful to watch. He was so snooty. Sarah told me later that he must have heard how poor she was. His family was extremely rich.

But I didn't think so. In all the years I knew him, I'd never seen him act intolerant of the inferior. I knew he frequently worked with other volunteers on his grandmother's charity projects for the indigent, and it started when he was really young. Carl also sometimes went when they became friends.

"You didn't like her," I told him, as if we were continuing an existing conversation. He sat there and watched me, worried. His eyes had stayed with me since he dropped me on the couch, as if he didn't know what to do with me. "You're only a snob when you don't like people," I clearly enunciated, proud of it. I could talk clearly if I was careful and slow.

He sighed, then shrugged his shoulders as if quietly telling me I could think what I wanted. That he didn't care about that.

But his entire focus was on me, as if he wasn't interested in anything at that moment but me. He even frowned slightly, as if what I said about Sarah wasn't relevant at all. A nuisance.

Those eyes... his voice... the familiarity with the way he had acted around me since he approached me at the bar.

Whatever could I think of?

Sex.

Heat.

I closed my eyes because his molten gaze burned me. Why was he staring at me like that? Why me? He could hook up with any of the beautiful female guests downstairs. Women stumbled over each other to get his attention. They said he never had a girlfriend, but beautiful girls on campus gossiped about how good he was as a kisser, or how good he was in bed. Clearly, he was giving some of them his willing attention. I could imagine this continued going on in business school up to now because, honestly, Jigo just got hotter and hotter over the years.

Quiet but barbed. Canny. Just like what Daddy warned me about when I was thirteen when we used to visit Lola Leah's house and Jigo would be his usual, lanky, lurking self.

Trouble.

But he liked me.

He treated me like someone he actually accepted. He had always been kind to me. Never been a snob. Too many times, he had nodded to me appreciatively when I knew I dressed well. If others would say I really looked good, the acknowledgment he would make was an actual smile. Maybe it was because of Carl that he never tried getting any closer. And, well, I was one of his grandmother's favorite debutantes.

But here I was now in his suite... just the two of us. And I had his undivided attention. I was a virgin but not naïve. The only reason I was this way was that I saved myself for Carl.

But he didn't want me.

I wanted to cry. Again.

He and Sarah had flown away to their honeymoon, and tonight they would have sex on a marriage bed.

Sarah would sleep and wake up in Carl's arms—one of my fervent dreams forever lost to me.

I couldn't think of Carl in Sarah's arms right now. It hurt so badly.

So instead of Carl's name, it was Jigo's that I cried out for as I closed my eyes, trying to brace myself...

And he was there, next to me, taking me into his arms. I now knew why he just stared... waited.

Because he knew I was about to explode.

And I sobbed, loud and gut-wrenching, within the steady support of his quiet arms.