Chapter 80

Nick Coyle woke with his arms around Rada and Prudence Parrish nestled between the two of them. The moment he shifted, Rada opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Good morning, Nick.”

Until last night, Nick hadn’t seen Rada really smile more than once or twice. She’d done a remarkably passable impression of a genuine smile while stripping as Charity - one that would have been entirely believable if Nick had nothing to compare it to. But he’d caught a glimpse of her expressing real happiness when they’d encountered Zuzu in Geneva, and it had been transformative. Rada just radiated solidity most of the time, but her genuine smiles softened her in a way that did not make her seem weak. They just made her sexy as fuck.

At some point during the night, Nick had added Rada to an ever-growing list of women in his life that he could easily imagine meeting, falling in love, living his entire life with only that one woman, and considering himself an incredibly lucky bastard to have done so if his life had taken its expected path. She was smart and strong, funny when she wanted to be, loyal to her friends, and unwilling to take any bullshit even from her billionaire boss.

Nick ran his hand down Rada’s spine. “Is it still morning?”

She glanced out the window briefly. “Around 1:30, I think.”

Prudence nestled in deeper to Nick’s chest. “ ... hungry...”

Nick wasn’t exactly in love with Prudence Parrish, but the immediate and intense affection he’d developed for her the first time he met her had only deepened since then. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m late to meet with my cook. I need to get a shower and throw some clothes on. You’re welcome to stick around and grab some breakfast, but I really need to run. There’s a field agent handling requests to the caterers until we get a more permanent system in place.”

A quick glance at the clock as he slipped out of bed told Nick it was 1:37 PM. He’d asked Raoul to come by at 11 AM to talk about the new kitchen space and was pretty certain Tanvi knew about the meeting. He knew a two-minute check of the messages on his phone could probably relieve the anxiety he felt at running so late, but decided to just get in the shower instead.

As needles of hot water pounded wonderfully against his chest, Nick reflected on the last two nights. He liked to think his whole life had been a slow process of learning new things about himself, but the application of enormous wealth had undoubtedly accelerated the process.

He didn’t know how much sleep he’d gotten last night. He was pretty sure he’d fallen asleep the first time around midnight, but woken up several times to the awareness of movement and arousal. Prudence and Rada were clearly deeply into each other, but had seemed eager to include Nick in their lovemaking whenever he was awake and available. His memory of the night was a series of disconnected vignettes in which he was riding or being ridden by one or both women, culminating in a clear memory of taking Prudence from behind while Rada lay on her back and the two women kissed as the sun rose over Brooklyn.

In many ways, Prudence and Rada were very different lovers. Prudence wanted to try everything and seemed like she might be keeping a checklist in her head. She asked a lot of questions during cooldown periods and watched intently when Nick and Rada fucked. A lot of her questions started with “would it be possible to...” or “do you think you would like it if...” She also gave immediate feedback when something felt particularly good.

Rada, on the other hand, knew exactly what she wanted and expressed those desires through actions and demands. At one point during the night, she had pushed Nick onto his back, mounted, and ridden him without a word being exchanged. Later, she had whispered “choke me” and “pull my hair” while Nick was on top of her. Prudence had decided she probably liked having her own hair pulled, but it needed to be at just the right time.

All of that was valuable information for Nick to store away for later, but it was what he’d learned about himself that was foremost in his mind. Over the last few months, he’d come to realize that sex would probably be easy for him to acquire for the foreseeable future. What would be both trickier and more important was sleep. Where the two concerns dovetailed was that Nick had come to discover that what really kept him from sleeping more than anything was fear of waking up unexpectedly alone. Quite often his periods of sleeplessness were immediately preceded by dreams of waking up in an empty room or house or of wandering around the Loft and finding that absolutely everyone had left.

He’d woken up to such a dream after sex with Maria, but he had also done so on nights when it had just been him and Kiki. He didn’t know if the latter would still be the case. It had been a while since he and Kiki had spent a night alone together, but he suspected he understood their relationship better than he had at the beginning. Maria he just didn’t trust and, if he was completely honest with himself, he was just as happy to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. There was something liberating about fucking someone he didn’t exactly like and definitely didn’t feel he owed anything to.

Being with Rada and Prudence hadn’t felt like that at all. As a result, he’d slept what was probably a solid five hours after they welcomed the sunrise and could not remember if he’d dreamed at all.

He hadn’t expected to sleep so well. Nick liked Rada and Prudence, but he’d thought he didn’t know them well enough to trust that they would be there when he woke up. They weren’t exactly his friends. Or at least they hadn’t been at the start of the night.

It made him think that he might actually succeed in his plan to fulfill Pilar’s Deeply Kinky Wish List. There were things on that list that just felt too emotionally risky to try for the first time with someone he cared deeply about. That was why he’d asked Rosangela to start compiling a list of women who’d expressed a willingness to have sex with him, but weren’t close personal friends. If he could try those things with women he never had to see and who never had to see him again, he should have a better understanding of what it would be like to do them with Pilar.

He tried to imagine he’d done something unforgivable and traumatizing to Prudence last night. He was starting to think that Prudence might be willing to try anything once and maybe one more time after that to make sure she really hadn’t liked it. But if she hadn’t been exactly what she claimed, if she’d felt horrible about what they did and never wanted to see Nick again ... he imagined providing the resources for her to go anywhere she wanted, for as long as she wanted, as long as he wasn’t there. He could see himself asking Tanvi to take care of it and then getting on with life, but the thought still hurt somewhere in his chest.

He decided after a minute that this was the correct response. Nick knew he got more attached to his friends than most people and would move Heaven and Earth for those closest to him, but he should still feel bad for traumatizing someone who had come to him in search of a good time.

It was harder for him to imagine sending Rada on an anywhere-but-here trip, but Nick couldn’t decide if that was because he’d grown more attached to her or because it was harder to imagine being able to traumatize her with some sexual extreme. Even though they’d barely scratched the surface last night, he suspected Rada had a deeply kinky side to her.

Nick was still considering this possibility when the shower door opened and Rada stepped in behind him. She slid her arms around his waist and kissed his shoulder. “I hope your caterers brought enough food. Prudence wants to try everything on the menu.”

Nick chuckled. “Shouldn’t you be joining her? I really do need to get ready and start my day.”

“I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to talk.” Rada pressed herself into his back as she reached for a bottle in the corner of the shower.

“Oh?” Nick asked cautiously.

Rada’s voice came out as a purr. “I had a wonderful night last night. I’d love to do it again some time.”

Nick’s body stirred at the words and the contact. “I did too and I would like that.”

Rada soaped her hands. “Clearly, Prudence had a wonderful time too, She leads with her heart, you know.”

“I noticed,” said Nick.

Rada kissed his shoulder again. “My plan has been to follow her lead for as long as she wants me to. I worry that she’s not going to stop until she exceeds her own limits. I want to be there when she gets hurt. Someone will need to help her put the pieces back together. I don’t want her to feel like she needs to do anything alone.”

Her words echoed Nick’s thoughts closely enough that he could answer immediately. “You’re a good friend to her, Rada. I couldn’t have found a better protector if I’d looked for years.”

“I think I’m in love with her,” whispered Rada.

Nick’s heart and stomach shifted in a way he couldn’t describe. He felt bad for having put Rada in this position, but was also glad for her to have found someone she cared about deeply. He said, “I hope you know that, if either of you get hurt while she’s discovering herself, you can come to me and I’ll do what I can to make it right.”

Rada hugged him fiercely from behind. “I did know that, but thank you. You’re a good man, Nick Coyle. I’m not used to meeting many good people in my line of work.”

Nick didn’t answer and, for a few minutes, they showered together in silence. Finally, Rada kissed him again on the back of the neck. “I should let you get ready. If I get back quickly, Prudence may not have looked up from her plate long enough to notice I’m gone yet.”

Nick nodded as she slid back out of the shower. Mechanically, he finished cleaning himself, toweled off, threw on a robe, and stepped out into his new bedroom.

The bed had been stripped of sheets and blankets, only covered with what had to be a fresh fitted sheet. Tanvi stood at the foot of the bed holding clothes for him. “Good afternoon, Nick. I picked out something I thought you might find appropriate for your meeting with Raoul.”

Nick groaned. “I’ve kept him waiting for like two hours. Is he pissed?”

“He’s downstairs working with our vendor system to pick out possible furnishings for the communal kitchens here. I took the liberty of asking Zola to explain your plans for the building to him, but left any discussion of his role beyond the initial planning to you. He didn’t seem displeased, so I decided to let you sleep.”

“I appreciate that. The meeting wasn’t entirely on my mind last night.” Nick reached for the clothes she was holding.

Tanvi handed him his shirt, then pants. “I didn’t imagine it would be. Should I make any changes to Prudence or Rada’s service tier?”

Nick was determined to treat Tanvi’s knowledge of his comings-and-goings as normal. He asked, “What tiers are they on now?”

“Prudence is currently receiving tier three service consistent with most long-term guests. Rada is in the system as a consulting field agent attached to Prudence and able to make requests on her behalf. She doesn’t have a service tier of her own,” said Tanvi.

Nick dropped his robe and started to dress. “I’d like to treat Rada as a field agent when she wants to be a field agent and a guest when she wants to be a guest. Can I do that?”

Tanvi smiled. “You can do whatever you like. You’re the client.”

“Great, add Rada to Tier three then, please.” Nick said.

Tanvi tapped her pad. “Done.”

As he was dressing, Nick asked, “What tier are you on, anyway?”

“I’m not, but I’m assumed to make requests on your behalf. Whatever the Service can provide you, I can ask for,” said Tanvi.

“But only on my behalf?” Nick started to button his shirt.

“On anyone’s behalf if it’s within their tiers or you’ve given me special approval,” said Tanvi.

Nick nodded. “Add yourself to tier one, please.”

Tanvi gave him a diffident smile. “That would be seen as a conflict of interest. I am still technically selling you everything you buy from the Service and receiving a commission on everything you spend.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me I can’t do it? I thought I was the client.”

Tanvi shook her head. “No, of course not. It’s just ... not necessary. I don’t need anything for myself that requires a service tier. Everything I would request, I can already justify as necessary to my job.”

Nick pulled on his boxer-briefs. “Oh, I thought you might want to do something nice for your sister and her new husband...”

Tanvi gave him her best professional smile. Nick suspected it was the closest she would come to giving him a dirty look. “I do have money in the bank for that, Nick.”

Nick turned and took her by the shoulders. “You are going to want to retire at some point, aren’t you?”

Tanvi looked away. “Maybe in the distant future.”

Nick kissed her temple impulsively. “Save your money for then. You should be rich by the time you’re done working for me.”

She met his eyes and, for only the second time Nick could remember, she looked rattled. “Nick, Pilar, Emily, and Kiki are all only on tier two. Tier one is for the inner circle - the friends you brought from Brownfield Mills.”

Nick kissed her softly. “I know, Tanvi. Pilar, Emily, and Kiki are very, very special to me. But, you are as much a part of my inner circle as the friends I brought with me from home. Do this for me, please.”

Tanvi looked down. “I do ... have a friend who needs something extraordinary. She’s my former mentor and an ex-factotum. SSCS provides phenomenal medical coverage to former agents, but she may need something experimental and expensive.”

Nick hugged her. “Oh, Tanvi. I’m so sorry about your friend. Please, do whatever you can for her. Use whatever resources you need.”

Tanvi hugged him back fiercely. “Thank you, Nick. I ... just thank you.”

Nick held her until she gently pushed against his chest. When she looked up, she was dry-eyed and, to all appearances, unperturbed. “Raoul’s brought his daughter Jacintha with him. I got the impression from their conversation that she’s supposed to be starting school today, but insists she’s not going until her father has talked to you.”

Nick groaned. “She was supposed to start school today?”

Tanvi nodded. “Yes, did you have other plans for her?”

“She made a request that I need to talk to her father about. I didn’t realize quite how time sensitive it was,” said Nick.

Tanvi took a half step back and brought up her pad. “How can I help?”

“I ... don’t know if you can until I talk to Raoul. It’s really up to him.” Nick pulled his pants up and strapped on a belt. “I should have followed up with you after I talked to Jake, but our conversation happened on the dance floor at one of the parties last weekend and then slipped my mind.”

“What did she ask you for?” Tanvi persisted.

“She wants to have her education entirely through the Loft - no more going to high school, just learning along with the rest of the staff while she works as my ... whatever her title is. We discussed the possibility of getting her a tutor,” said Nick. “Before I go down there and talk to them, can you confirm that’s at least possible?”

Tanvi nodded. “Jacintha is sixteen. She’s old enough to drop out of high school and work full time if she likes. The Service can certainly find her a tutor or tutors if she wants to pursue a GED and she can start gaining college credit from the programs we’re offering as soon as we complete the initial accreditation process, which should be done this week.”

“Okay, good. We should go talk to them then,” said Nick.

“Are you planning to have sex with her?” Tanvi asked, not looking up from her pad.

“With Jake? No, of course not. Everyone I’m with has to be a consenting legal adult,” said Nick.

“All right.” Tanvi slid her pad under her arm. “There are a lot of places in this country and around the world where sixteen year olds are considered consenting legal adults when it comes to sex, but if you haven’t discussed the particulars with your legal department, you probably should.”

Nick shot her a dirty look as he opened the bedroom door. “I’m not planning on having sex with Jake at all. I’m not planning to have sex with anyone younger than eighteen wherever I am. I don’t need the hassle.”

“All right. Only, there has been some speculation that you might have been more willing to consider having sex with Verity while you were in Switzerland because of the difference in age-of-consent laws between there and here,” said Tanvi as she followed him out of the room.

Nick didn’t immediately answer her because they were in the large main room where Prudence and Rada were eating, but once they got out into the hall, he turned to Tanvi. “I didn’t have sex with Verity when we were in Switzerland.”

Tanvi nodded. “That’s consistent with what I’ve heard, but I also understand you were sorely tempted.”

Nick rubbed his forehead as he summoned the elevator. “I was tempted. She was tempting. Verity can be very...” He gestured with his hands like he was reaching for words, but settled on the best he could get, “ ... tempting.”

“I understand.” Tanvi waited until they were stepping in the elevator to add, “I assume that means you don’t find Miss Gorostiaga at all tempting?”

Nick had been reaching for the floor button, but now he paused. “She’s very pretty, but I don’t need to have sex with every pretty girl in my orbit and eighteen or older seems like a reasonable criterion for choosing my lovers. If Jake is still around in two years and she’s even interested in me then I will revisit the question, but for now, the answer is no.”

“All right. So, I shouldn’t plan any contingencies based on the possibility that you might sleep with her in spite of your best intentions then?” Tanvi reached up to push the button to take the elevator to the floor where Jake and Raoul were waiting for them.

Nick caught her wrist. “Wait.”

Tanvi looked up at him. “Yes?”

He sighed. “It’s okay to plan contingencies for dealing with me doing any number of ill-considered things I’m not currently planning to do, but may do anyway. I’ve already done things I didn’t think I would, particularly when it comes to sex. But I’m not doing any of this out of a desire to have sex with Jake. I don’t plan to have sex with Jake. And, to be quite honest, I hope I’d be at least a little disappointed in myself if I did have sex with Jake. I try very hard to only have sex when it seems like it will be good and worthwhile to everyone involved. I don’t like to feel like I’m taking advantage of anyone.”

“I know that, Nick. But, we’re going downstairs to talk to Jake’s father and you have to be aware of what this looks like. You’re going well out of your way to help out an extraordinarily pretty teenage girl so that she can work closely with you day in and day out and there is a significant overlap between people you go out of your way to help and people that you’re sleeping with. You should be ready for Raoul to bring it up and, if he doesn’t bring it up, you should be aware that it’s probably not because it hasn’t occurred to him. It will be the elephant in the room,” said Tanvi.

Nick sighed and leaned back against the wall of the elevator. “Okay, fine. So, how do I deal with it?”

Tanvi smiled. “Well, you should probably lead with having no plans or intentions of sleeping with Jake and maybe leave out the part about re-evaluating the question once she’s eighteen. A lot of fathers don’t really enjoy contemplating their daughters’ eventually having a sex life, even a healthy adult one. And you might want to be ready to explain why you are going out of your way to help Jake if it’s not to have sex with her.”

“I don’t try to have sex with everybody I go out of my way for. I’ve never had sex with Anne Parrish,” Nick pointed out.

“Counterexamples are good, particularly if you have more than one,” said Tanvi.

Nick opened his mouth, paused for a few seconds, and said, “Does the brunch crew count? I’m not even planning to have sex with with most of them.”

“I might word that differently,” Tanvi deadpanned. “Maybe focus on what’s special about Jake that she deserves this kind of attention.”

“I like Jake.” Nick closed his eyes and considered why he was helping Jake instead of someone else. To himself, he did have to admit that Jake being a very pretty girl had probably helped her cause. But there had to be more to it than that. He spoke carefully and deliberately. “I admired that she had the audacity to ask for what she wanted, but also the compassion to ask for benefits for all the other members of the staff as well. She’s responsible for the household staff having access to all the educational benefits I’d already planned for the foundation and group staffs. Also, I really wish someone could have come along when I was sixteen and saved me from the last two years of high school.”

Tanvi nodded. “All right. Should we head downstairs now?”

Nick released her wrist. “Unless you have more to say. Is there something on your mind, Tanvi?”

“Only that I don’t think you should be too hard on yourself if you did sleep with Jake. You’re both teenagers and less than two years apart in age.” Tanvi pressed the button.

“Wait, are you suggesting I should sleep with Jake?” Nick asked.

“No, I’m just saying that, even if it turned out to be a mistake, you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it too badly. Rich men sleep with teenage girls all the time and SSCS has plenty of experience dealing with the possible fallout,” said Tanvi.

“But...?” Nick asked.

Tanvi looked at him. “But, we have absolutely no experience dealing with the fallout of a client accidentally sleeping with Threnody’s little sister. So, if you’re planning to have sex with Verity, please just plan to have sex with Verity so we can strategize about what happens around that. Don’t just have sex with her because you can’t remember why you shouldn’t.”

Nick groaned and ran his hand through his hair. “I was never in any danger of accidentally having sex with Verity. She’s very good at pushing my buttons and she got me worked up, but I’m in control of my actions and I know how dangerous such a relationship would be. Being as involved with her as I already am is dangerous enough, but it’s a conscious choice. If I thought it was costing me strategically, I wouldn’t do it.”

Tanvi looked at him. “Are you sure that’s how it really happened, Nick? Less than forty-eight hours ago, you told me you were ‘sorely tempted’ and that phrase has been running through my head ever since. If there’s something about her you find genuinely irresistible, I’d be happy to help you find a substitute.”

“I told you what the most irresistible part of her was and you’ve already helped me with that,” Nick reminded her. “I really, really like taking people away from Threnody. That’s why we’re keeping Maria.”

Before the conversation could go any further, the elevator door opened and Nick stepped out. “Should we go find Raoul?”

“This way.” Tanvi slipped past him and strode down the hall.

Nick took a deep breath and followed his assistant. He understood why Tanvi had felt the need to prep him for this meeting even though he’d sprung the topic on her at the last minute. But, he really didn’t need to be thinking about having sex with Jake. She really was an unusually beautiful girl and eighteen year-old Nick wasn’t so out-of-touch with sixteen year-old Nick that he couldn’t imagine how head-over-heels his younger self would have been for Jacintha Gorostiaga.

Tanvi led him into an apartment on the tenth floor - one of four locations Nick’s cousin Clay had recommended as good locations for larger kitchens. This particular apartment had been built to twice the size of the already generous units on the other floors. The current plan was to gut-renovate it into a large kitchen and adjoining event space that could be used for banquets and parties as well as lectures.

A few seconds after Tanvi let them into the apartment’s living room, Jake appeared from a side room. “Nick, you’re here. I thought you were going to talk to my father before school started. He’s trying to make me go back.”

Before Nick could answer, Raoul looked up from where he was sitting at a dining room table in one corner of the main room and said something that sounded chastising in rapid-fire Spanish. Then, he rose, “Nick, I’m sorry about her. She...”

Nick raised both hands to reassure Raoul and the cook’s words cut off immediately. He shifted his stance to what Nick recognized as “at-ease” from the Boy Scouts - feet spread slightly apart, hands clasped behind his back. Every other time Nick had seen Raoul, the older man had been dressed for cooking - usually in an apron that was frequently stained. Today, he wore a black suit and tie and had slicked back his graying black hair. The effect was that he looked like he was on a job interview.

Nick offered him an apologetic smile. “Jake is right. I did promise to talk to you and I should have done it before school started. I wound up staying in New Orleans longer than I expected because of my cousin’s kidnapping. But, if I’d thought to mention my plans to my assistant, I would have known school was starting today. This is on me.”

Raoul inclined his head. “That’s kind of you to say. We understand. You’re an important man. How is your cousin doing?”

Nick wanted to argue that he was not a particularly important man, just a rich one. He also wanted to protest that what he’d been doing in New Orleans hadn’t been so important that he couldn’t take a conference call or something, but that might mean explaining what he’d been doing down there. Instead, he elected to answer the question. “As I understand it, he’s doing well. He decided to continue on to New Orleans and start his senior year of college instead of taking any time to recuperate.”

“If Jesse had lived in Colombia, he would have known better than to let his guard down. All sorts of people get kidnapped there, not just the rich ones,” said Jake.

Nick thought Raoul might protest again and spoke first. “What happened to Jesse was a wake-up call to the whole family. A lot of Stones have gotten kidnapped over the years, not just the rich ones. I don’t think I properly appreciated our security team before Jesse disappeared.”

There was a moment of awkward silence that Tanvi filled by asking Raoul, “Have you had a chance to look over the catalog of kitchen items I set you up with?”

Raoul gestured to the laptop he’d been using. “I’ve started, but there’s a lot to get to and ... I’ve never built a kitchen before. I mostly just cook in them after they’re already built. A lot of these stoves and ovens require special hook-ups and I can’t really tell if this space has them.”

“We’ll bring in specialists for whatever you don’t know. I was just hoping you could tell me which stoves and ovens and sinks and refrigerators and ... whatever you would want to use here if you were starting from scratch.” Nick looked around the apartment. “I also wanted to talk to you about staffing the new kitchens and what role you see yourself in going forward.”

“But you’re going to talk about my role going forward first, right?” Jake interjected.

“Mija...” said Raoul, a clear hint of warning in his voice.

“We can talk about things in whatever order you like. But, first, have you eaten? My body thinks it’s breakfast time,” said Nick.

Raoul and Jake agreed that they could stand to eat and, after a short while, food was brought up. The conversation stayed light until they were sitting around the dining room table and eating. Nick took the opportunity to say, “Jake, why don’t you tell your father what you told me you wanted to do?”

Jake put her fork and knife down. “Well, I heard you guys talking about how you want to give all this money away, but you don’t know how to run a charity. So, you’re going to be bringing a lot of people in to teach you and like Anne how charities work for like the next few years. And I thought I could do that - learn how to run a charity and stuff. And, I could start like now. That way, I wouldn’t have to spend like ... I wouldn’t have to spend the next six years learning about everything in order to figure out what I actually want to do because helping people around the world who don’t have enough food or water or medicine is better than pretty much everything except if I maybe became a doctor and cured some really bad disease or something. And Nick said he could get me tutors like they do for child actors so I could focus all my attention on being his assistant and learning about charities.”

Nick wasn’t going to correct Jake’s recollection of the conversation with his own, but he did feel the need to interrupt here. He turned to Raoul. “What I said was that we would have to talk to you about it, but I was okay with the idea in principle. I am hiring a lot of people to learn how to run a charity along with me and I liked Jake’s initiative in coming to me. There were things I would have liked to do at sixteen that I never even thought to ask for.”