Chapter 35

On mornings like this, when Nick had taken Ambien late at night and needed to wake up before noon, rising out of the depths of sleep was a Sisyphean climb up from a pool of blackness that clung to him like thick, cold mud and made his limbs heavy. Those moments when the dream-tendrils withdrew and left him in the dark, aware that he was awake, but unable to do anything about it yet always felt like he was balanced on some precipice where he was just as likely to be dying as waking.

Awareness of his body told him his neck was stiff, his head hurt, and his eyes were gummy. It took long seconds for his eyelids to flicker open and the bright sun outside his window to register. Rising up from sleep was like swimming up through a cold, narrow well with a thin layer of ice at the top - one last bit of resistance and he was in the light and the warmth of the day.

As his eyes focused, what they focused on was Pilar. Naked and uncovered, she lay on her stomach next to him, staring at her phone and typing with her thumbs. With the chill of sleep still on him, he rolled towards her glorious warmth, nuzzling into her ribs and drawing in her scent. His fingertips traced down back until his hand rested on her ass.

Pilar turned back and smiled at him. “Did I wake you?”

“I don’t know, but I’m glad to be awake.” Nick traced Pilar’s shape with one finger and heard a little hitch in her breathing. His body stirred in response. Having her here when he woke up was a marvelous way to forget how awful he’d felt only moments before.

“Your alarm didn’t go off this morning.” Pilar placed her phone on the side table. “Was that deliberate?”

“Yeah. Max didn’t get in until after midnight and I think the flight from Kathmandu landed around five this morning. I thought I’d be a nice boss and let today’s meeting float until everybody was awake and alert. It wouldn’t do to send millions of dollars to the wrong charity because somebody mumbled the name and I misheard.”

Pilar chuckled and rolled on her side so that Nick was spooned up against her back. “And ... did you have something else in mind for this morning then?”

Nick kissed the back of her head and drew in the scent of her hair, but winced when he moved his own head. “Ugh. I did, but I feel kind of gross this morning. Sorry.”

Pilar looked back at him over her shoulder, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

Nick gave a careful head-shake. “No. I just ... drugged myself to sleep late last night and now I’ve got a monster of an Ambien hangover. Every time I move my head, it hurts.”

Pilar made a sympathetic moue and rolled to face him, then laid three slow, gentle kisses on his forehead and a slower, gentler one on his lips. Nick groaned and pulled her closer. She smiled and massaged his hip with strong fingers. When he kissed her back, she bit his bottom lip playfully. “You know, you say ‘no,’ but I’m getting decidedly mixed messages here.”

“That’s because having you this close can make me forget about everything else, including how gross I feel right now.” Nick smiled.

Pilar looked him up and down. “You don’t look gross. Maybe you should just lay back and let me see if I can’t help you feel better.”

Nick laughed and looked her in the eyes. “God, how did it take me a month to realize how incredibly sexy you were?”

“I wasn’t this sexy a month ago.” Pilar nudged his shoulder and Nick allowed himself to roll on his back. “I’m much sexier with you than I was ready to be before we met.”

Punctuating her point, she straddled him at the waist and pinned his cock between his body and her sex, moving her hips to ride the length of him without immediately taking him inside. Nick groaned and took her hips in his hands, kneading her flesh as he felt her get wetter for him.

The sex did nothing to make his headache go away. To the contrary, as he started breathing faster and his heartbeat accelerated, it sharpened and flared into vengeful life like it wanted to punish him for ignoring it, but he didn’t want to stop. When Pilar guided him inside of herself, he matched her rhythm stroke for stroke, then moved his hips more quickly, driving her to move faster. As good as it felt to be inside of her, he was eager to bring matters to a climax so he could do something about the pain. Pilar accommodated him, riding him hard, sending his body sprinting to the end.

When he’d spent himself, she rode him only a little while longer before rolling off him, off the bed, into a standing position, and walking towards the bathroom all in one smooth dancer’s motion. Nick was still lying in the same position when she emerged again with a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol. She sat on the edge of the bed and Nick struggled into a sitting position.

With a neat twist of the lid, she asked, “One or two?”

“Four.” Nick gestured for the water. When she raised an eyebrow, he added. “Trust me. This is a four Tylenol morning.”

After taking the pills, he must have dozed because he woke to the sound of the hair dryer with a head largely free of pain. Pilar sat at his desk in a gauzy white robe styling her gorgeous black hair. When she saw Nick stirring, she turned the dryer off. “Feeling better?”

“Mostly.” Nick sat up “I’ll probably be back to human once I’ve had a shower and some coffee.”

Pilar picked up her phone and typed something. “You know, you could have woken me if you needed help getting to sleep. I like being with someone who considers my ability to be exhausting an asset.”

Nick smiled. “My mind was racing last night. Physical exhaustion doesn’t really give me a good night’s sleep once that starts. I spend my night dreaming about not being able to solve the problem at hand and wake up repeatedly throughout the night.”

Pilar offered him a sympathetic nod. “You were thinking about the thing with Clive?”

“I kept thinking about what I could do to make things better for Emily.” Nick rose. “I don’t really care about Clive either way and I don’t understand why she does either, but I can’t do anything to help her until she decides what she wants to do.”

“They were together six years. Of course she’s going to care,” said Pilar.

Nick had heard that explanation last night and didn’t want to sound insensitive, so he got in the shower without saying anything. What had happened to Clive was certainly terrible, but terrible things happened to nicer people every day. Nick liked to think his circle of compassion was fairly wide, but rich assholes who got their employees killed, lied to their families, and treated their networks of high-school age concubines like crap weren’t anywhere near the center of it.

It had taken a while to get all the details out of Emily last night. By the time Nick and Pilar found her up on the roof after the performance, she was already pretty drunk and wracked with unearned guilt.

The story Nick had eventually been able to piece together was that, by the time Clive had shown up at his front door on the night of the fourth, he’d already been on a bender - one which continued for several days afterwards and brought him, for reasons still unknown, down to Philadelphia where some time around the eighth, he’d been beaten, robbed, and left in the street where he was subsequently hit by a car. Since then, he’d been unconscious in a hospital with no identification for weeks. It wasn’t until Emily went looking for him and got Zola and Tanvi to use SSCS’s network to help that the doctors knew who they had in their hands.

It wasn’t something Nick would have thought could happen to a fairly well-known member of the Stone family. He’d started to imagine the family as some sort of semi-sentient network that would know when one of its nodes was in trouble. But Clive had managed to disappear for weeks without anyone who had the resources to do so trying to find him. His wife and employees had been making inquiries, but hadn’t even been sure what country he was in. They’d still been looking in South Africa and Angola based on his last communications.

Being a Stone - even one with no money - was a matter of huge privilege. You never had to worry about health insurance and pretty much anything you wanted to learn, the family trust would pay for the training. But it wasn’t a guarantee of success or even survival.

Again Nick’s mind was going around in circles. Every time he put it out of his head, it wasn’t long before he was again thinking about how he could help Emily get what he thought she should want out of the whole situation - which was to wash her hands of Clive entirely - get him on the next plane back to his family in Australia and treat her time with him as a bad dream. Drunk and maudlin last night, she hadn’t been inclined to make that decision - or any decision really.

Nick sighed and washed his hair. Whatever his fantasies, he knew that what he’d really end up doing was pretty much whatever Emily asked him to. It was only going to cost him money after all.

It wasn’t a satisfying answer, but it let him turn his mind to other things. When he emerged from the shower and wrapped himself in a towel, Pilar met him with a cup of coffee prepared the way he liked it. As she was dressed in only one of his button-down shirts, he glanced at the pot of coffee resting on the bedroom counter. “Did you run to the kitchen for that?”

Pilar shook her head. “I texted Raoul and asked him to send one over.”

Nick smirked and sipped the coffee. It had never occurred to him to text his own kitchen. “Thank you.”

Pilar nodded and sipped from her own cup. “Jazz wants me to meet her in Milan on Thursday to scout out the location and see if we should tweak the choreography for the show.”

Nick frowned. “I thought we were all flying out together Saturday morning?”

“We were, but Jazz wants to make sure everything is perfect,” said Pilar. “She’s got a lot riding on this show.”

“All right. What do you need from me?” Nick put his coffee down and went to his closet to pick out clothes for the day.

“Nothing,” said Pilar. “I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t be here Thursday or Friday night.”

Nick grabbed a shirt from the closet. “That’s a pretty big ask. Get me totally addicted to having you here and then take it away.”

Pilar came up behind him and laid a hand on his back. “It’s just two days. And it’s for work.”

Some note in her voice made Nick turn and look at her. “Pilar, I’m joking. I’m a big boy. I’ll find something to do with myself for two days.”

She looked up. “Kiki will probably be around.”

Nick drew her into his arms and kissed her. “You and Kiki are not interchangeable, but thank you for reminding me.”

Pilar looked him in the eyes. “So, you’re okay with this?”

“Of course,” said Nick. “You’re my girlfriend, not my property. You have a life that guarantees you won’t be here with me every night. And even if none of that were true, I’d still want to come with you before I’d want to talk you out of going.”

Pilar wrapped her arms around his waist. “Do you want to?”

“Yes, but I don’t think I can.” Nick hugged her. “The board are announcing their charities today and I want to get everything in motion before we go on vacation so that we can just focus on being in Milan once we get there.”

Pilar kissed him. “Well, I will miss you while we’re apart. Being here with you is pretty addictive too, you know.”

Nick smiled. “Well, I’ll just have to make it up to you.”

Pilar’s eyes widened a little. “Oh. How?”

Nick had been talking about ‘making up for lost time’ when he saw her again, but the question dovetailed with something else he’d been thinking about. “Well ... I was thinking about what you told me about in Montana and how ... awkward it might be to try to fulfill some of those fantasies here at home. But we’re going to be on vacation and we’re going to have some separation from our daily lives, so it could be the perfect opportunity to explore one or two of those fantasies.”

Pilar gave him a wicked smile. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Nick looked her over. “So, if any of those were idle thoughts that you weren’t serious about, you should probably tell me before you leave.”

Pilar pressed herself against him and wrapped her arms around her neck again, then shook her head. “I won’t. I didn’t just blurt those things out, you know. Whatever you’re thinking of doing, it’s probably not as extreme as what I like to imagine.”

Their kiss was hot and full of need. When Nick broke it, he took a long, shaky breath. “You know, we should really get to breakfast.”

Pilar stepped back and wriggled her hips. “Where we should really get to is Milan.”

Nick laughed. “Well, that too. But I do have obligations here this week.”

Pilar nodded, stepped to his closet, and retrieved a pair of black chinos which she matched to the shirt he’d chosen, then offered to him. “So - what happens in Milan stays in Milan?”

Nick laughed and accepted the pants. “Yeah. Something like that.”

Pilar chose a belt from Nick’s new collection and handed it to him. “Do you think you’ll want to sleep with Arwen while we’re there?”

“I ... uh...” Nick took the belt. He had not been expecting that question at all. Pilar stood and watched him, waiting for an answer. Finally, he said, “I can’t assume that will be an option, but if it is ... yeah. I’ve wanted Arwen since before I knew what I wanted her for exactly.”

Pilar nodded. “Do you think I should have sex with Lev?”

“Uh ... that’s up to you.” Nick found himself blushing.

“I know it’s up to me.” Pilar pointed out. “I’m asking your opinion. If I get a chance to have sex with Lev while we’re in Milan, should I take it? I know we said we should be free to be with other people, but is that too close for your comfort?”

“It...” Nick found himself rapidly considering and discarding a lot of things it would be. He finally settled on. “It’s not too close. If you’re going to be with someone else, I’d rather it be someone I know and like than a stranger to me. Closer is better.”

“All right.” Pilar went to her own closet and started collecting clothes.

As she was getting dressed, Nick asked. “Do you want to have sex with Lev?”

“Lev is a sweet, intelligent, loyal guy with a great body who wants me, but isn’t likely to get all weird and obsessive.” Pilar said. “If you and Arwen weren’t in the picture. I would have very happily dragged him into bed already.”

“He wants you? Have you two talked about this?” Nick was surprised.

“Not a word, but there are some things you can’t hide from your dance partner.” Pilar smirked. “And it’s impossible to dance with him and not imagine what it would be like to get him into bed. It’s no wonder Arwen was so jealous for so long. I doubt your friend ever lacked for opportunity.”

Nick had often had the same thought about Lev, frequently combined with the question of why the big Israeli had chosen the one girl he was really in love with at the time. He’d never said anything out loud. It wouldn’t have been fair or helpful to do so. But he could hardly be faulted for where his mind went in the middle of the night.

“Arwen thought he was going to propose to her in Kathmandu. He probably already has.” Nick answered. “They’re not planning on getting married right away - just to marry each other when they are ready to settle down.”

Pilar turned her back to Nick to zip her up. “See? Like I said - sweet and loyal and not likely to throw away what he has to stalk me. What more could a girl ask for?”

Emily wanted to die.

Last night wasn’t the first time she’d gotten drunk, but she’d never gotten quite so drunk as that before. She’d started drinking in the middle of yesterday’s search for Clive and kept drinking as the news just got worse and worse. By the time Nick and Pilar found her, she’d been well on her way to insensate and never felt less deserving of good friends like those two. Pilar’s compassion and Nick’s willingness to voice every uncharitable thought she’d horrified herself by having had helped make her feelings manageable if not particularly less terrible.

They’d helped her get to bed and stayed talking to her until she fell asleep instead of trying out Nick’s new hot tub like they’d planned. Emily had offered to join them when they first mentioned it, but they must have sensed that her heart wasn’t in it. She felt small and vulnerable and pretty much for the first time since moving in with Nick didn’t want an inch of herself exposed to the world.

After they’d left her sleeping, she’d woken up in the early morning still drunk, but with a clear idea in her head. It was the middle of the afternoon in Sydney and she needed to talk to Clive’s wife.

Now, she wished she could remember what she’d said. All she knew was that it wasn’t the conversation she’d expected. She’d somehow imagined that she could call Brenda and tell her where Clive was, what condition he was in, and where he was being moved now that the doctors knew he had insurance and that she would be so relieved she wouldn’t even ask who was calling her. Instead, Emily remembered explaining who she was and how she knew Clive, but what they said after that was a blur.

Whatever time Dennis had gotten home this morning, he had mercifully not come looking for her. She fell asleep alone and woke alone. Pilar had helped her change into a long red t-shirt to sleep in and Nick had presumably made sure no one came to find her for today’s meeting. It was already after ten.

Dressing seemed like too much effort. Instead, she pulled on a pair of panties and wrapped herself in a big, comfy robe. Maybe she’d be able to grab a cup of coffee in peace before joining everyone in the office.

She almost turned around and went back to her room when she realized no one was in the office because pretty much everyone was in the main room. But before she could turn, Pilar had risen and come over to guide her to Nick’s table. “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty rough. Maybe...” Emily started to say, but she’d finally taken in the state of her friends around the tables. Pilar looked amazing, but Pilar always looked amazing. Simon was in a suit, but she suspected Simon slept in a suit. As for the rest of them...

Max was unshaven and wearing a tourist t-shirt from St. Martin. Arwen was in some batik-looking robe that might have been for sleeping and her hair was a mess, but it was nothing compared to the rat’s nest on Dennis’s head.

Clearly, there was no requirement that one put oneself together to join this breakfast. She put her crutches aside and let herself land heavily on the chair across from Nick who gave her an uncertain smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Stupid and headachy.” Emily accepted a cup of coffee from a staffer. “And it tastes like Devo pooped in my mouth while I was sleeping. I am never drinking that much again.”

“And this time, I mean it,” intoned Nick, Max, Simon, and Arwen in ragged chorus. Emily looked among them with an eyebrow raised.

“Sorry. Old joke,” said Nick. “It’s the ... last words of the alcoholic’s prayer.”

Emily grunted in acknowledgement. Maybe coffee would make it funny. She sipped and waited for the questions to come, but eventually realized they weren’t coming and moreover that everyone wasn’t staring at her, but rather that there were two or three conversations going on at other tables which didn’t involve her at all while Nick and Pilar seemed contented to leave her be until she was ready to talk.

For that she was both grateful and vaguely annoyed. If Nick had interrogated her, she could have spilled the beans reluctantly. Instead, she had to live with the temptation to not say anything and hope nothing would come of her actions last night until she bit the bullet. After she’d ordered a little bit of breakfast, she leaned forward. “Nick, I kind of need to talk to you about something.”

“I figured you would.” Nick buttered a piece of toast. “Do you want to talk before or after today’s meeting?”

“I called Clive’s wife last night.” Emily said.

“Or now. Now is good.” Nick said, then frowned. “How did that go?”

“I don’t entirely remember,” said Emily. “I don’t think it went terribly.”

As Nick considered her words, Emily realized that the other conversations had stopped. Now everybody was listening to her conversation. She looked around and, while people looked embarrassed to be caught eavesdropping, nobody looked away or started talking.

“All right. I guess I have to ask. Who’s Clive?” Paige piped up.

Emily winced. “I ... don’t think I have the energy to explain all this again today. Can anybody else take that question?”

“Clive was Emily’s sugar daddy for six years,” said Shelby. “He took her away from her flyspeck Australian Outback town and its weird apocalypse cult when she was sixteen and moved her to New York, then broke up with her earlier this year. He sounds like a real piece of work.”

“He is. He’s also in the hospital now and may never wake up. His family and employees were looking for him, but didn’t even know what country he was in.” Pilar added.

“The last we heard from him, he was trying to crash our July Fourth party,” Nick added.

“Yeah ... all of that,” said Emily. “He was in the hospital as a John Doe and Tanvi found him for me. At three in the morning, I had the brilliant idea that I should call his wife and at least tell her what had happened and what hospital he was in.”

“I would have been happy to handle any communication with his family,” offered Tanvi.

“And if I’d been sober, I probably would have thought that was a good idea,” said Emily.

“So, you drunk dialed your boyfriend’s wife?” asked Simon.

“Ex-boyfriend’s,” Nick corrected him.

Emily covered her face with her hands. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Low-grade idiot at worst,” offered Simon. “Far stupider things have been done at 3 AM under the influence of alcohol.”

“Simon!” Nick warned.

“What? It was, by her own admission, a poorly-considered action, taken under great stress while intoxicated.” Simon shrugged. “Such circumstances make idiots of us all. Doing something only mildly stupid should be seen as a victory.”

“That’s my brother’s way of saying ‘Don’t feel bad.’” Dennis offered.

“Uh ... ok. Thank you, Simon,” said Emily. She turned back to Nick. “I ... think I might have told her you would help her and her sons come here and take care of matters.”

Nick paused and considered her, their eyes meeting. Emily found herself holding her breath. For the first time in weeks, she was genuinely afraid of what Nick might say or do.

“Do you want his wife and sons here, taking care of matters?” He asked finally.

Emily nodded. “I feel terrible about what happened. If I’d talked to him on the Fourth...”

“If you’d talked to him on the Fourth, he’d still be a man who ruined his business and got his employees killed by ignoring safety standards, inclined to run roughshod over people who had less money and power than him.” Nick said firmly. “Nothing was going to change that.”

Emily felt a tear fall unbidden. Nick’s absolution was a sharp pain where her guilt had been a dull ache. Quietly, she said. “I know.”

Nick reached across the table and wrapped his hand over hers, gripping it firmly, an offer of human contact. “How is he?”

“I don’t know.” Emily admitted. “They wouldn’t tell me anything because I’m not family.”

“I talked to his doctor,” said Tanvi. “We can talk about the diagnosis privately if you like.”

Emily looked up. “How bad is it?”

Tanvi paused a moment and looked at her. Emily realized Nick’s assistant was giving her a chance to change her mind about asking now. She nodded faintly.

“There’s almost certainly significant brain damage,” said Tanvi quietly. “He’s not expected to regain consciousness and, even if he does, he’ll be severely impaired.”

Emily’s stomach dropped. The diagnosis was just impossible. For better or worse, Clive had always been invulnerable - a rugged adventurer and mine captain, a titan of the gem industry, and a force of nature. Emily had wanted him out of her life, but she couldn’t imagine him dead. Clive was going to live forever.

A sob escaped from her throat and she felt herself falling. A panicked thought came that she was about to injure herself again, but then strong arms were around her, burying her in an embrace. She didn’t know who was holding her, but she was grateful for it. A second person rubbed her back.

When she looked up, she saw it was Dennis who had caught her. Shelby was crouched behind her, rubbing her back. Simon hovered behind Shelby, looking concerned. Pretty much everyone was on their feet, ready to spring into action. As awful as Emily felt, she was overwhelmed by the realization that she had so many people who genuinely cared about her. It was far more than she’d ever expected.

Nick held a quick, whispered conversation with his assistant, then rose. “We’ll make sure his wife and sons can be here to address his care. Tanvi will manage the arrangements.”

“I should help...” Emily said.

Nick frowned. “You don’t need to make that decision now.”

The next few minutes were full of people offering Emily help, asking what she needed. It was gratifying and overwhelming. She let Dennis and Simon walk her over to the theater area where they sat with her along with Shelby. One of the staff brought her tea. In ones and twos, the rest of the group came over and sat with them for a while, talking to her, expressing their condolences, offering whatever help they could provide again. Even the two of the kittens, seemingly sensing the mood in the room, hovered nearby.

She couldn’t help imagining she was a grieving widow at her husband’s funeral instead of the mistress who’d failed to save Clive’s life the only time in their long association he’d ever asked her for anything after years of providing everything.

She realized there were more details she should give Nick and Tanvi, but when she looked for them, she couldn’t find them.

“Where’s Nick?” she asked.

Dennis looked around. “I ... don’t know. I imagine he and Tanvi are probably off making plans for how to get Clive’s family here.”

“Oh. Of course.” Emily nodded. She could talk to them about the details later.

Ainsley met her brother Lysander in the lobby of her new building, arriving at 10:58 herself and watching with wry amusement as he stepped through the doors with five seconds left before their appointed meeting. He was dressed in an expensive, immaculately tailored charcoal gray suit, his hair slicked back and his wingtips clacking against the lobby floor before he crossed over onto the carpeted area.

His “quintessential lawyer” look was somewhat spoiled by the broad smile that crossed his face when he spotted his little sister. He set down his briefcase and held out his arms. “Ainsley!”

She hadn’t been sure how this meeting was going to go. This was the first time she’d ever had any official dealings with any of her brothers. But she was glad to go up and hug Lysander fiercely. “LT, how was your flight?”

“Uneventful.” Lysander looked around the lobby. “This is a nice building. No time to see your new place before the client meeting?”

“Not this morning, I’m afraid.” Ainsley really didn’t want Lysander to see her apartment yet. Even with her new role, it was much too expensive a place for her to have bought on her own and she was going to have enough trouble explaining her professional relationship with Nick without discussing the unprofessional parts of it. “We’ve got a full day and we don’t want to be late.”

“Well, let’s head over then.” Lysander’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “You can explain the work on the way over.”

Ainsley hid her own smile until she had her back to him. Her brother was very proud of his punctuality, but the gleam in his eye suggested he knew she’d mentioned being late as a prod to get him moving. One of the reasons the Davenport siblings were such good lawyers was because they’d grown up practicing their people-handling skills on each other.

“We’re draining the Grayson-Stone Trust of most of his assets and putting them under more appropriate management.” Ainsley said as they reached the sidewalk. “Did you read the documents I sent you?”

“Yes - and at least skimmed most of what I could find on the Trust. There’s quite a lot of analysis of it available.” Lysander told her. “I also read what I could find on the client. There’s ... considerably less of that.”

“Of course there is. Hugh Hemmick never wrote about Nick.” Ainsley said. “It’s a shame too because the client is at least as interesting as the Trust. I don’t know what you read about him, but it would be good not to go into meeting him with any preconceptions. They’ll bite you in the ass.”

“Speaking from experience?” Lysander asked.

Stopping at a DON’T WALK sign, Ainsley turned and faced him. “You don’t want to know the half of it. I’m lucky not to be in the basement of Black and Stringer overseeing document scanning again.”

“Really?” Lysander raised an eyebrow. “That ... doesn’t sound like you, Ains.”