One Night to Risk It All(36)

She knew about his past, but the only thing that felt real, the only thing that had seemed as if it was connected to a real emotion and not just a cold, hard fact about the way he’d grown up, was his honesty about the pizza.


They didn’t know each other. He didn’t know her. But then, as he’d already pointed out, no one really did.

And here she was, having just shared herself with him in the most intimate way, pregnant with his baby, no less, holding tight to shame that was so deeply embedded in her, trapped beneath that layer of steel.

“Do you know what I used to love?” she asked, because she was naked anyway, so there was no reason not to say it.

“What?” he asked.

“Driving really fast. I was...such a jerk behind the wheel. Really dangerous. Alana and I used to cruise around a lot when we were in Greece. We didn’t really get the chance to drive in the city so when we were here...? All bets were off. I had this great car. It was red and sleek, and it went...well, it went fast, let’s just say that. And we’d cruise with the top down and flirt with guys at stoplights. It made me feel like I wasn’t Rachel Holt, this big disappointment to her mother. I hated all the things she wanted me to do. I just wanted to do something I wanted. And for a while, I just wanted to...forget that I cared and...drive fast.”

“That’s normal...isn’t it? I don’t really know since I didn’t have what you’d call traditional teenage years, but even so, I think I’ve seen things like that in movies.”

“Sure, I suppose it’s normal. But that doesn’t make it smart or safe. Especially not when you’ve been drinking. Which...we did. It was stupid. I was stupid and I...I don’t know what I was doing. Rebelling against a life that was too...sedate, I suppose. A life I didn’t feel like I was excelling at. I just wanted to feel something. Something exciting and dangerous. The wind in my hair, bubbles fizzing through my blood... I liked to flirt, too.”

“You were an innocent, so it’s not like—”

“There is a lot of ground between innocence and not having had intercourse, Alex. I would think a man like you would realize that,” she said tightly.

“Oh.” He looked...unhappy with that.

“Does that bother you? That you aren’t the first man I’ve been intimate with? Though I’m not really sure you can call a quick blow job in the back of a car intimate. But I make very poor decisions under the influence of drugs and alcohol, let’s put it that way.”

“This has never been in the papers. Everyone talks about you—”

“Like I’m the sainted Holt Heiress who spends her days sitting on a cloud playing a harp? I know. And it’s not by accident. My father... He covered for me. He paid off every cop that pulled me over, he bought any incriminating club photos. He kept me from being exposed. And then...” Her throat tightened, a sick sense of shame pouring through her, choking her. “I did something...really stupid. That seems to be the only descriptor I have for that year of my life. One year, Alex. Out of...twenty-eight. I acted out and I almost lost everything. I almost changed the way people saw me forever. I...I know I did change the way my mother and father saw me.”

“What happened?” he asked, his posture suddenly stiff, something in his stance deceptively, unnaturally still. As though energy were building in him, coiling tightly beneath the surface of his skin, ready to pounce at any moment on an imagined enemy.

Too bad the only enemy was her. The things, the desires, in her.

“Everything kind of came to a head—bad choice of words, you’ll see why in a second—when I met this guy at a club. Colin. I really liked him. We met up and danced a couple of weekends in a row and he asked if I wanted to ‘get out of here,’ which, you know, means that a guy wants something from you. I was drunk and feeling like giving it because he was hot and I liked him. A lot. He was handsome, and he had a nice smile. He thought I was pretty.” She rolled her eyes then looked down at her hands. She didn’t want to look at Alex right now.

This reminded her of standing in her father’s office, sweating and shaking, about to embarrass herself fatally, because she didn’t know what else to do. Because if she didn’t expose herself to her father, she would be exposing herself to the whole world.

“Anyway, I ended up in the backseat of the car with him. Which... You know what that means. We parked at the beach. At least it wasn’t a back parking lot somewhere—that makes it less sordid. Kind of. He got out his video camera. Pre the days of cell phone recordings, and thank God because the whole thing was much more concrete back then, not this nebulous digital web that could have had it in a thousand places immediately.”

“What did he do?”

“He filmed me. He asked and I thought, why not? I thought it was hot that he wanted to commemorate the event. I was drunk. I was seventeen. And right when he asked me to do it I thought maybe I even loved him, because being drunk and seventeen is basically all it takes to feel like you love someone. He wanted me, and I... Well, what I really loved was being wanted. For me, you know. Because, clearly, my blow job skills were the essence of me as a woman.”

“He videotaped you...”

“Going down on him. Yes. And the next morning I woke up with a raging headache and very little memory of it. Until he came around the villa the following evening looking for things to go further. I said no because...I didn’t feel ready for sex yet. Which maybe doesn’t make a lot of sense but...I just knew I wasn’t. He got mad and he threatened me. Because he had the video and he was going to send it out. To the media, to the internet. And I was...so afraid that he would. That...that would be out there. Me...doing that. Thinking about it makes me panic even now. I just...can’t imagine anything more exposing or humiliating. Though telling my father about it and begging him to bail me out was a close second.”