The apartment looks awesome. It's a very decent place to live. Fancy even. It has three bedrooms, just like the little flat we had back in Summerlin, the one we lived in before I came into contact with the handsome devil who snatched my joy, leaving me with more thirst for pleasure, and hunger for new excitement in my deadened life.
I fucking hate him. Yet all I desperately long for is him.
In the living room, there's abundant sunlight filtered through the large Industrial windows. The tall walls made of rough red bricks, paired with white stucco plaster on some parts, make it look bigger and evenly spacious. I love every detail of the interiors, especially the newly refurbished kitchen with so much space for new kitchen utensils and amenities.
"What do you think, pumpkin?" I ask Isla; she literary jumped when she saw her supposed bedroom, a cheeky space built in the attic.
"I like it! Are we going to live here, Ara?" She gazes upon me with hope, and I sigh, still considering. "And there's a park there! I can go play with Thor and Loki," she adds, her voice rife with elation.
Yes, there's what they call Central Park, and we can see it from up here. I think I'm okay with the apartment, but I know it's Camila's, and she's only doing me a favor by renting it at the price of peanut if I consider the market value. I only hope Adrian isn't involved in this settlement because I want no more charity from him. In fact, I wish I could return every single dollar he used on me.
But I can't. No, I won't. I've earned it fair and square through my broken heart and I'm here to give him the taste of his own medicine.
Still, I wish this is just between Camilla and me. Having Adrian Castle interfere in every step I take makes me equally the gold-digger Richard's mom said I am. Not that I care about her opinion of me or anyone else's for that matter. After all, no one knows my story better than I do.
"Have you made up your mind?" I hear Camila's voice as she clatters through the sturdy metal staircase elevated toward the upper floor.
She's been on the phone for a while now, and I'm sure it was with Adrian.
Throwing one more glance at the kitchen, I finally say, "I love it. But where will you live if you're renting the whole second floor?"
The click of high heels pauses when she reaches the rough wooden floor, two or three feet away from me. "Well, I'm not the kind to stay at home for even a week, and I think it's a waste letting the place remain vacant. I'll keep the room downstairs and you take the second floor just as we agreed. I don't cook... like at all... so the kitchen is all yours and so are every other part of the apartment, the library included."
"In other words, you don't want to live alone and you thought we could help you with that?" I probe, my head tilted slightly in her direction as I fold my arms loosely against my chest.
Isla is on the window-installed bench, lost in the view of the famous Central Park like a bird watcher in the country field.
Camilla breaks into laughter, her little secret no longer a secret. She's striding over as she says, "Yeah, you got me. I've been living alone for two years now and I'm fed up. I had a feeling we could get along as seasonal roomies, and there's no one else I'd trust with my place other than you. I was gonna sell it but I changed my mind."
My nostrils flare as I take a lungful of air, my lips pressed tightly together. I can't begin to imagine her life as a lone wolf, no matter how worldly and well-traveled she seems to be. I'm curious to know if she has any family after the gruesome stuff she shared with me about herself in Upstate New York before things went bizarre at Adrian's birthday party.
But that's a topic for another time, I decide. Right now I have more pressing matters that need my attention.
"Fine, I'll sign the contract once you have it ready," I give in, and her deep brown eyes, if not black, glow brightly with glee. "I hope you won't regret your decision once you experience what it's like to have Isla and another stubborn teenager named Jake around here. Don't say I didn't warn you." I let my arms fall off my chest and run five fingers through my hair.
I glance at Isla for a simple reference.
Laughing, Camilla says, "Nah, Isla is a bae. I'm not sure about the teenager one, but it's not like I'm gonna babysit him." She shrugs as though the idea amuses her sense of challenge. At last, she adds, "I know we'll get along fine, and I'm looking forward to living with all of you, even if it'll be once or twice a month. As you know, I'm always flying around like a bird."
Now that's an exciting life despite the sadness laying between the lines. Strangely it makes me think of my Adrian. And it's hilarious that I still consider him mine even after he threw me away again and again. Am I stupid or crazy? Maybe both. So, yes, he is mine, and I won't let anyone change that because I feel like I'm his, too, despite everything.
If it's sickness, then we should suffer together. Me and him.
"Do you have any plans this evening?" I ask Camilla over some pastries and mango juice she serves us on the kitchen counter upon Isla's cries of hunger.
Gingerly, Camilla sets the box down on the white granite top and slides a glass toward me afterward. "Not really," she says, taking the rim of her glass toward her nude lips, the same color as her long nails on the same fingers laced around the glass.
She's too feminine to be lonely. I wonder if she's dating anyone after her grotesque relationship with Falcon that haunts my thoughts when I think of the life she'd led before being Adrian's P.A. There's so much I want to ask and know about her.
And maybe I will in time.
"Well, do you know where Francesca lives? The old blonde who happens to be Adrian's old friend or whatever." I sip my juice slowly, and the cold sensation refreshes my throat like a touch of rain in the warm desert sand.
A small frown draws Camilla's eyebrows together. She pulls a barstool to sit next to me. A robotic voice rumbles about bravo and magnificent with so weird sounds as Isla keeps playing Candy Crush on my phone while scraping the soft pastry from the plate, oblivious of us.
"Yes, I know where Francesca lives," Camilla replies, her gaze full of questions. "Why do you ask?"
I put my glass down and pull in a breath. I set my hands on the countertop, interlocking my fingers together as though I'm cooking for a lie, which I know I'm not.
"I need her home address," I say flatly.
Startled, Camilla drops her head to one side and squints her eyes at me questioningly. "Does this have to do with Adrian? I don't understand why you'd want that woman's home address."
"Yeah, it's about Adrian. He's meeting her tonight, and I don't like the sound of it," I confess.
"And so you want to stalk him?"
Stalk? No, it's more than that. I'm gonna give her hell if she dares to spread her legs for him or do anything of a similar pattern. No, I won't allow her or any other bitch to claim stakes of him under my watch.
Seeing my silence, Camilla concludes her theory right. She laughs a bit, and it's like I'm nothing she thought I am, given how indifferent I was back in Las Vegas when she asked if there was anything I needed to know about Adrian's current endeavors.
"If I give you her address, Adrian will know it's me. It's gonna be ugly for me," Camilla states, and I see her point.
"Well, it's okay. You don't have to tell me if it may compromise his trust in you. I still have a few hours left, so I'll find a way," I state while dropping off the barstool, ready to start dealing with that shit as soon as possible.
I see conflict in Camilla's eyes as I take the last puff of my juice, with a lot going on in my mind. I may be new in this city, but there must be a way to find Adrian's whereabouts, even if I'll have to track his phone number like a creep.
"Sheer and Latex. 7th Avenue, Midtown Manhattan," Camilla says quietly, and I had a feeling she would. "That's the name and address of the BDSM club they would meet at if it's with Francesca. I'm not sure why they're meeting, but Adrian wouldn't go to her house. He just never does that to her or any other woman."
The information stirs me a great deal. My breath hitches in a new fashion that I can't explain.
"7th Avenue Midtown Manhattan, that's the location?" I ask again for clarity, my right-hand fingers laced around the bottom of my glass.
"Yeah. Just ring an Uber and it'll drop you straight there."
I nod with a ghost of a smile and mutter, "Thank you."
"You're welcome. But please let Isla stay here if you're going there this evening. You can get the rest of your stuff tomorrow and move in," Camilla suggests, and she's a life savior.
I was mentally beating myself on how I'd leave Isla alone in the hotel room this evening, even if there's a babysitting service nowadays.
I wouldn't be comfortable having a stranger with her while I do my unhealthy bidding somewhere I've never been
And I'm happy that Isla loves it here already.
The sun is overhead when we finally leave her gorgeous loft.
"Just know Adrian won't like it at all you if you go up there," says Camilla as she steps on the gas once we're all buckled into her red Chevy that I now remember as Adrian's.
So many memories of our last shopping together in Manhattan and his dry marriage proposal flood back. What if I said yes? Would we still be together now? A stab of regret washes over me, and I wish I said yes.
"Well, that's the point," I answer Camila's remark. "Doing things he won't like is the whole concept. Pissing him off is what I'm gonna do for as long as I'm here." I hang my head low against the window, thinking of the few hours to come that gonna be quite eventful.
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A/N: Who's ready to party tonight? Haha get your gears ready, ladies, 'cause we're coming for you, Adrian Castle! Or is it Francesca we're after? I'm super confused here.