An Unexpected Debt – Chapter 27

“You don’t need to get up,” I say, leaning over the bed and gliding a kiss over Saif’s lips. “I’m going to meet Takemo for breakfast.”

I’m up and dressed, despite the hours of sex and late-night talking. I’m a little foggy-headed and tired, but I’ll pull through with breakfast and a liter of coffee.

Saif rolls over, and I want to run my hands down his back to his ass to…

Oh no. I stand up, inhale, and step away before it’s too late to stop myself.

“I’ll come down in an hour or two to kibitz and watch you play.” He yawns and then perks up. “Oh, wait. I have something for you.”

He slips out of bed and pulls on a pair of briefs. He searches the floor for his pants, remembers that they’re in the bathroom, and returns with a small jewelry box.

“Here. I tried to give this to you on the ship, but we got interrupted. I know you wear gold.”

He smiles as he watches me open the box. Inside is a delicate gold chain necklace with a gold elephant charm. Oh, elephants! I love elephants. They’re like mystical creatures to me. I’ve never seen one in real life, but someday I hope to.

“I love it,” I say, pulling the necklace out. “Will you?” I hold it up, and he clasps it behind my neck.

“This was one of my ideas. All the good luck charms from Old Earth. An elephant with his trunk up beckons in good luck.” He leans down and kisses my neck. “I figured you could use all the luck in the universe,” he murmurs against my skin.

I press the elephant charm to my chest and hope for excellent hands today. Please. I don’t want to be beholden to Takemo for an entire year.

“Thank you,” I say, reaching back to run my fingers through his crazy hair. I sigh and step away.

His smile is devious, but he stays where he is. “After the tournament is over, you’re coming with me to meet my family again.”

I’ve met his sister and father briefly, but that happened a long time ago, at the end of a far-school camping trip. And I was like fourteen at the time. I’m a very different woman now.

Meeting the family is something I’ve never done. Hell, I rarely even know if the guy I’m bagging has a family.

Marcelo was right. My days of sleeping with whomever I want are over.

Looking at Saif, I suppose I don’t mind.

“Okay,” I say, keeping my voice light and easy, though my stomach is in knots. They will not be happy about my financial situation. I’m not even sure if I’ll last longer than an hour under their scrutiny. But I won’t back down from this challenge. I’m going to face things head-on from now on.

I slip out of the room before I can second guess my entire life.

I tip over my wristlet and signal for Ai. “Hello, Captain, and good morning.”

I look both ways before heading to the elevator. No signs of Dominic.

“Ai, I need you to keep tabs on my family for me. I’d like daily reports of what everyone is doing and where they are. I especially want to know if Dominic is anywhere near me ever.” The elevator opens, and it’s empty, so I step in.

“Sure thing, Captain. Let me set up those jobs right now. Just a moment, please.”

I wait as the elevator descends to the ground floor. It’s only a few levels, so the doors open quickly. Once again, I make sure the coast is clear before I walk out.

“Captain, Dominic is within the same hotel as you. He’s in a room on the sixth floor.”

“Really?” I meander through the main lobby to the restaurant where I said I would meet Takemo. “Who’s paying for it?”

“Hotel records indicate the room is being billed to your mother’s credit account. We have access to that account.”

I shouldn’t.

But I will.

“Cancel the charges and report them for fraud. Then lock his ID out of the account for three days.”

Ai pauses. “Done.”

“And Ai? I want to shift our focus from Takemo to Dominic. Think of every way that we can make his life miserable.”

“You’ve got it, Captain.”

I’m about to step into the restaurant when Ai pings me.

“Oh, Captain? Takemo Diaz might be a little grumpy today. I messed up his dinner order last night, had maintenance visit his room around two in the morning, and he got a cold shower about an hour ago.”

I burst into a laugh as I spot him across the room at a table. He’s cutting his waffles with angry swipes and jabs each bite with his fork.

I lower my voice. “Yeah, we can leave him alone for now.”

Slipping into the chair across from him, I order up a stack of pancakes and a side of bacon, plus a bottomless cup of coffee. The coffee appears within a heartbeat.

“I had a rough night,” Takemo says around a mouthful. “How was yours? Did maintenance visit you too in the wee hours?”

He pauses to sip his juice.

“No. My night was quite enjoyable,” I say, and my smile proves it.

He narrows his eyes. “I hope you slept. One of us needs to be on top of their game.”

“I’m fine.” I finger the elephant charm and slide it side to side on the chain. Takemo’s eyes follow it left and right.

“A new good luck charm?” he asks, wiping his mouth with the napkin.

“Yeah. A gift from Saif.” I love it. It’s just thoughtful enough to reveal what’s to come in our relationship.

Now, if only I knew more about the other men I’ll meet along the way. Where is Kalvin? And is Takemo a part of my life in the future? What about that mystery man who sat at the table in my prescient dreams?

“When we were in school, I remember Saif dating the smartest girl in his class,” he says, slicing his waffles again. “She graduated valedictorian, and she’s now a part of some think tank on Sonoma. You… You don’t seem like his type.”

I blink at him a few times, not taking the bait. The general rumor around the universe is that I’m an air-headed princess who likes booze and sleeping with men… so I guess it’s not so far-fetched that my mother believes this as well.

Sigh. I wish I had squashed those rumors well before now. But how do you prove you’re smart and capable when people believe you’re a cheater, anyway?

You can’t. It’s an impossible task.

Takemo sighs. “Saif is too good for you. I don’t know what he sees in you.”

Maybe Takemo won’t be a member of my network because I’ll kill him first.

I smile. “Neither do I, but that’s not stopping him.” I lay my napkin on my lap. “Enough with the insults already. You don’t care for me. I get that. Hell, maybe you wish I never existed.” I lean forward. “You are not the first person to think so. Stop acting like you’re special.”

A waiter approaches our table with my breakfast, so I lean back and smile at him as he places the plate in front of me. I thank him before I pick up my fork and knife, say a brief prayer, and dig in.

Takemo is quiet through most of our meal. I eat and pay him no mind.

—-

We lose several hands in the last few rounds of the day, and it’s all Takemo’s fault.

What the ever-loving fuck is going on? I told him I wouldn’t agree to his little bet if he was going to throw the matches. Is he just mad at me now?

He’s making decisions the opposite of what we agreed upon, and his bidding has been erratic all day. I wish I could talk to him, but it’s forbidden. So I try my hardest to salvage those hands, but I make no progress. Tension rises at the table as our opponents chip away at our lead like a sculptor working on his lifelong masterpiece. A point here. Two points there. My stomach clenches as each hand gets more frustrating than the last.

What a waste of my time and patience.

Patience is not something I have a lot of, and now it’s all gone.

When the end of play finally, blessedly comes, I shake hands with the people who beat us, bow to the recorder, and stalk out of the room to the service hallway. This area is quiet since the catering kitchen is closed for the event. Pacing up and down the hall, I go through the match points in my head and calculate our place on the leaderboard. We took a hit, but I think we’re going to be okay.

“Do you want to tell me what happened in there today?” Takemo asks, charging at me. “I thought we were on the same page.”

“So did I. And yet, I bid and played based on your bids like we agreed to,” I say, pushing the words out through my grinding teeth. “And you played like none of that mattered. Did you think I was just going to forget our agreements? That I was too stupid to remember the detailed bidding strategies we laid out before we started playing?”

He places his hand on his heart. “Are you saying that I fucked this up?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

His eyes narrow. “There’s no way you can prove that. You haven’t been playing to win.”

“Excuse me?” My whole face must be on fire because it’s hotter than hell. “Do I need to go over each hand in detail for you? I have them all memorized.”

He pops backwards. “You do?”

I step forward and poke him in the chest. “I do. Every hand I have ever played of any game ever! I have them all memorized. I can detail every hand I played with the dads years ago. They thought they could push around a fifteen-year-old homebody girl with nothing better to do, but that’s not something I’m going to let you get away with.”

When he says nothing more, I lose it.

“What the fuck, Takemo? You give me such a hard time about playing to win, and you’re in there throwing hands? Look, there’s a time and place for everything. It’s match points,” I say, slapping the back of my hand into my other, “and we can afford to sometimes lose in order to gain, but that’s not what happened in there today.”

He’s still silent, staring at me, so I wait, my anger rising, and rising, and rising.

“Jesus,” he says, shaking his head. “You really are smart.”

His tone is so disbelieving that my anger overflows, and I whip out and smack him across the face. The moment slows down, like some crazy kung-fu movie I used to watch with Dad. Takemo’s head cranks to the side, and his eyes close. Ow. My hand stings, and my eyes fill with tears, but I don’t regret it. Not one bit. Takemo’s slowly turning head gets burned into my vision, and my brain locks onto his hand, cradling his red hot cheek.

“Skylar.” Saif’s voice from behind knocks me out of my trance. I turn and look at him, and I drop my head. Shit. Tears roll down my face.

“I’m sorry,” Takemo says, right as I’m about to open my mouth and say the same. “I’ve been spying on you for months, years now, actually.”

The heat of my anger bottoms out, and a chill ratchets up through my spine.

“Your mother came to me for the loan, and I knew it was going to be a problem without you onboard. No sane person sells their business out from under a competent first daughter. But she told me you were untrustworthy. That all you did was drink and fly and fuck.”

I gasp as if someone has slapped me and close my eyes.

This is what Mom thought of me, well before now.

Takemo is wrong. I’m not smart. I am so fucking stupid.

“She said that you showed no signs of being competent enough to take on the family business. She had one of her men with her, Dominic. He backed up everything.”

He pulls his hand away from his face, and I swallow hard, looking at the red patch under his stubble.

“I was too cocky, and I said yes right away. I knew what was going on with your cousin and that it would be easy money. But I started to feel guilty that you weren’t aware of the deal. So I followed you on the duonet for a while, thinking I’d run into you and tell you about the loan myself. You were making top marks in flight school, studying all the time. The teachers there kept saying how good of a student you were.”

Blood leaves my head and sinks to my feet. Who did he talk to? Oh my God, this has been going on for years, and I had no idea.

“That didn’t sit right with me. If you were that good at flight school, you would be great at running your family business. I researched all your school records and test scores, and I immediately regretted it. If you were so smart, why didn’t your family know? I figured you must have cheated your way to those scores, and I hated you for it. I never had to cheat to win. But then you started going to my love hotels, and I saw how sad and vulnerable you were, and —”

“Stop!” I yell at him. “Stop!” The sound echoes off the hallway, and my throat rips in two. I cough and wipe the tears from my face. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

He pulls his lips together in a fierce line.

“How…?” I start, but I don’t even know what question to ask.

How could he do this? How could he ruin my life and not care? How did this happen to me?

“All bets are off,” I say instead, swiping my hand through the air. “And I’m not playing another hand with you.” I stab my finger at the ground. “I am done.”

Turning on my heel, I run past Saif.

“I’m sorry! I was wrong!” Takemo calls out behind me.

I keep my head low through the lobby and up the stairs. Saif follows me to my room, though I don’t look back or acknowledge him even once. I’m ready to push him away, tell him to save himself and leave me be, when he wraps his arms around me.

“Just cry, Sky. Let it out.” He rocks me from side to side. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

I cry into his chest until there’s nothing left.