Exposure_A Stone Billionaire Series Novel Read online

  It's more of a yacht, I decide.

  I stand beside Corban in the sand, taking in the sight, wondering if I want to get on a boat with him, as vulnerable as I am.

  “Compliments of the hotel,” the man smiles. “Mr. & Mrs. Winthrop.”

  I smile adoringly at my new husband for show, and Corban wraps an arm around me, “Thank you.”

  I have no choice but to get into the dingy because I don't want to create a problem.

  The gorgeous boat is more substantial than I anticipated. It’s silver in color, glimmering in the sunlight. A plush space immediately greets me to lay on in the back with a little seating area.

  Inside is a small living room and dining room.

  I am sure that below decks there are probably bedrooms and a kitchen. One could probably live on this boat.

  When I return up top we’ve moved away from shore as Corban steers the boat.

  We’re alone.

  I didn’t plan on being alone with him.

  “What is this!” I demand.

  “It's Noah’s,” He explains. “I don't buy toys like this.”

  “You set me up!” I demand an explanation, but that's it.

  “I did. But I figured, if I get you alone, at least the two of us can talk, you can scream at me if you like,” He smirks.

  “Ugh,” All I can manage is a strangled sound coming from my mouth.

  I am Determined to work on my tan as I drop my bag in what I assume is one of the guest bedrooms. Then I slather my body in lotion before analyzing the black bikini, which brings out the color in my skin.

  I'm not as pale as I was, and my burn from the previous day has turned into a tan.

  I decide to ignore him, laying with my body on full display in the front of the boat, on padding so plush I could fall asleep.

  The sun is hot, but the sea spray and wind make it a perfect day.

  A day especially for reading as I flip through the worn-out copy of Romeo and Juliet, worn by time. It's underlined, and there are notes in the margins, and I'm so engrossed I don't notice the boat has stopped and Corban is standing over me.

  “What is that?” as he takes a seat beside me.

  A massive sigh escapes my lips.

  “It's Romeo and Juliet,” I flash him the cover.

  “Whoa that looks old,” He says.

  “It’s from 1960,” I reply dryly.

  I flip open the front cover to show him. “It was printed in 1959, though. When I was in a Catholic high school, I loved the story so much, that the nun who was teaching it to me, Sister Joan, gave me her copy from when she was a girl.”

  “You went to Catholic school?” he seems shocked.

  I've already revealed too much, and I shut down, flipping through the book again.

  “Yeah, I did,” I mutter.

  “Come on,” Corban urges, putting a hand on my arm.

  “Yeah, I went to Catholic school for about, one semester before the foster family I was staying with decided I was too much trouble and I ended up with another family. No big deal,” I answer.

  “Foster family?” he raises an eyebrow.

  I never like this part of telling the story, though he's probably the only person I've ever told, other than Victoire, whose charity I could never bear to accept.

  “Yeah. My parents died when I was about six, no extended family, my grandmother had died the year before, so I ended up in the foster system, got tossed around a lot. When I was young most families don't keep you longer than a year, and then as I got older a lot of the families only kept me for the money,” I admit.

  “That must've been hard,” Corban’s voice is sympathetic.

  “It was what it was. I started working because I knew I didn't have a real family, and then I got stuck in my last home at sixteen. She wouldn't get rid of me because she would just make me sign over my pay checks, take care of the other kids, and use me,” I continue.

  I was just lucky she wasn’t abusive, and she only ever screamed.

  “And you couldn't get out? What about social services?” Corban asks.

  “As far as they were concerned, I was the problem. So, I convinced my boss to pay me cash, did odd jobs for the guy at the bank next door. That’s how I got a safety deposit box under the table. He'd give me some cash here and there too. The later I came home, the more she'd have to drink, the more I could skim off the cash I got. I'd stick money in the safety deposit box. That's how I saved to get out when I was eighteen, and social services couldn't do anything anymore,” I explain in quiet voice.

  “That's pretty convoluted,” Corban sounds worried.

  “It was,” I remember how much planning and convincing it took.

  I was a street kid.

  “I was so close to just selling drugs to get out faster, but my adoptive parents would've been so disappointed. I can still see their faces sometimes. I kept them in mind, I came up with plan after plan, and she always found the money, but I knew there was somewhere she couldn't look.” I continue.

  When I look up at him, I see how worried his face is, the crease lines I'm not used to and I feel like I'm going to start sobbing.

  Revealing this part of myself to someone?

  It's hard.

  Harder than anything I've ever done.

  Not even Isa or Victoire know the extent to which I've told him.

  Isa only knows I had a hard time.

  Vic knows I was in the foster system, and it was difficult.

  “I was numb when I started with Isa,” The words just come from my mouth, and I can't stop them. “That's why it was so easy in the beginning, and then it was a job I was good at, and with no marketable skills, having barely graduated high school, I just kept doing it.”

  “You know I'd never judge you for that,” Corban tells me honestly.

  His honesty is refreshing and heart breaking, because I want nothing more than to suck every single word right back in.

  I didn't want him to know this part of me, didn't want him to know Ava, this Ava that's spent half her life heartbroken over the family she lost and the family that she's missing.

  I can feel those sobs, those heartbroken sobs over all those years of anguish.

  I make it a point to never cry in front of men because I don't need someone else's comfort to get over this.

  When I try to stand and try to walk away instead I find myself sobbing into Corban's chest, wrapped up in his arms.

  I try to fight him and instead fail, with my balled-up fists curled against him because it's so much easier to cry into someone, to let him hold me.

  I am stronger than this, but for the moment I realize I don't need to be.

  I let him hold me right now, in this position, so vulnerable, like a small child.

  It is the hardest thing I've ever done, especially with a man I barely know, and I don't even know how to grasp what's going on in my head now.

  I realize this is probably what falling in love feels like, giving a piece of yourself to someone, unwillingly, without knowing you're doing so.

  “When my dad died,” his voice is strong. “I thought the worst had happened, but we got through it, my mother and I got through it. I can't imagine losing someone so important, at such a young age, and having no one to help you through that,” He whispers.

  Biting my hand, an automatic reaction to stop the baby sobs from coming, hurts, but keeps me from reacting to his sentiment.

  “Ava, I'm so sorry that happened to you,” He whispers.

  I had no idea that his father had died, maybe I knew, perhaps it was somewhere in an article, but hearing it from his mouth is different.

  When I look up at him, with those sad eyes, I find myself saying something I never thought I would say.

  “We've got each other you know, I'm sorry about your dad.” My words jumble as I finish the sentence, voice breaking as I start to cry again.

  This time those big baby sobs I was trying to avoid, erupt out of my mouth, but Corban holds my face, lettin
g me cry until my sobs settle into hiccups, and we're both silent.

  I want to kick myself for opening to him like that, but I just couldn't stop the words from coming.

  I want to accuse him of being just as vulnerable as I was.

  He makes dinner, and I lay down to take a nap, emotionally exhausted.

  I can't stop playing in my mind scenarios for how this might play out.

  The truth is I feel connected to him, unlike anyone I've ever met in my life.

  The other truth is that he paid me to pretend to be his fiancée, and we got married on a whim.

  He has not indicated in the slightest, that he wants to be married to me.

  I'm not saying that I want him to beg me to stay his wife, but some sort of indication would be nice.

  I really need to know where he stands, and I can’t just ask him.

  I am not the girl who begs a man for commitment.

  I’ve always been stronger than that.

  It would help if the shower sex scene weren't replaying in my head.

  The most intense sex of my life.

  The kind of sex where you think about it over, and over again that tops your list.

  Sex that I had, up until then, heard about but honestly never experienced.

  Everyone has that list, of the top five or however many experiences that they never forget.

  Corban has blown away anyone before him; anyone and everyone I've slept with, dated or seen.

  This makes for trouble.

  While I may be his legal wife, and we may have an emotional connection, none of this feels real to me.

  None of this feels like it's going to last, because it all boils down to one thing: I am being paid to be here, and none of that can be wiped off the table with a simple phone call, because all of this started with that, a simple phone call, to get him out of a mess he created.

  I am the solution to that mess.

  Now I am a problem.

  This brings me to my next question: do I tell him that I just want out?

  I can't do that.

  I can't just leave because then Isa would just demand that I stay, and I can't explain to her that I accidentally married my client, that would never go over well.

  She may laugh me out of her office or shoot me.

  I'm sure she's got a gun in that massive oak desk of hers.

  So nowhere. I go nowhere from here. I can't fall in love with Corban. I can't be with him. I can't have a normal life as Ava anymore, and I certainly can't even pretend to be Bexley, because that part of me?

  The girl who could emotionlessly sleep with men and pretend to give the girlfriend experience?

  The girl who could charm her way in and out of any situation?

  She's long gone.

  It makes me sad because then I wouldn't be sitting here wondering how to get out.

  “I'm in way over my head,” I whisper to myself.

  Chapter 6: Corban

  May 5, 2017

  Making Ava dinner is no simple task. It's easiest to go for my usual no fail, seafood pasta with garlic butter sauce that usually devastates any other pasta dish you've had in your life.

  It's easy if you do everything right and take your time.

  I'm taking my time, like I'm trying to take my time with Ava, trying to get to know her, and trying not to hopelessly fall for her but I feel like maybe that idea has gone to all hell.

  My father is a touchy subject, and when he died a few years back, we weren't ready.

  He had cancer and another six months to live, but then suddenly he was gone, of a brain aneurysm, of all things.

  I couldn't imagine suddenly losing both of my parents with no family, and Ava's life just brought me back to that moment.

  I was sitting in my office, working away like nothing was wrong, and I got a phone call, then my world just fell apart, everything went to shit.

  Of course, we got through it.

  But Ava?

  She's probably the strongest woman I’ve ever met.

  And she's so together all the time I just can't imagine how she does it, I can't believe how she's made it this far.

  I vow to myself, to do everything I can to protect her, no matter how this goes down, she's my priority.

  I sprinkle the last of the parsley on top of two dishes, bringing them into the dining room on the upper deck just as Ava comes inside.

  “That looks amazing, what is that?” her eyes widen.

  “Linguini with a butter garlic sauce, shrimp, scallops, some clams. You'll love it. It's my specialty,” I smirk then open the specially selected bottle of wine. “This usually goes better with white wine, but white gives me migraines, so red it is. I can open a bottle of white if you prefer.”

  “No same for me,” Ava smiles at me, looking down at the plate in front of her. “This is like restaurant quality food.”

  “Yes,” I narrow my eyes at her. “Why are you surprised? I said I could cook.”

  “Yes, but, men often exaggerate the fact that they can cook,” Ava jokes.

  “Well,” I kiss just under her ear and watch her shiver at my touch. “I wasn't exaggerating; I can cook.”

  “Don't be too nice; I could get used to this,” She bites her lip.

  “Wait until you try it,” I smirk, “You'll fall in love with me instantly, and then you'll never want to leave this boat.”

  The truth is, I feel like I wouldn't mind being married to this woman.

  I never pictured myself to be the marrying sort of man, I never wanted to settle down.

  My father always said that when I found a woman worth marrying, I would know.

  Evidently, I was wasted when I realized this fact.

  Now that we're sitting here, and Ava is devouring my food without caring about how dainty an eater she is, I'm beginning to realize that she's the type of woman I need in my life.

  She’s not the kind of women I've been dating all along.

  Ava pauses inhaling her food to take a sip of her wine. Actually, she drinks half the glass as I laugh a little.

  “What? It's good.” She smiles.

  She truly looks happy.

  “No, no, I like it. Most women you know take their time. You inhale,” I laugh.

  “Hey, where I grew up if you didn't eat fast, you weren't eating anything at all,” She laughs. “No, really this is incredible. It's simple, but, fantastic, you can taste the garlic, and the seafood, and the pasta, nothing is overpowered, it’s good, all the flavors. Do I sound stuck up?”

  “No,” I shake my head. “That's what I want to hear. Keep complimenting my food. You don't compliment my dick nearly as much, but complimenting my food is just as good.”

  “Well, I've only seen it once,” She shoots back.

  There is a delicious grin on those lips and it takes super human strength to not sweep everything off the table with one arm and slam her against it.

  “What are you thinking about then?” my question comes out as I lower my voice.

  I lean forward to rub a drop of wine off her lower lip seductively, effectively leaving Ava breathless as she puts her fork down, biting her lip in a way that makes me wonder why I haven't bent her over the table already.

  “Get up,” I order her swiftly.

  “Corban,” her tone is a warning, but she obeys the command anyway.

  She presses her lips together, and I know she has the same need for me, the same urge that I have for her at this very moment.

  “Come here,” I take both her hands, pulling her towards the back of the boat, outside to the rail, where the most incredible sunset momentarily distracts both us.

  Then I'm not looking at the sunset.

  I'm looking at the woman in front of me.

  In a little silk black dress on the sexiest curves I've ever seen, on a woman, with thin little straps. The dress is begging to be taken off, I can tell just by the way it sits high on her toned thighs that it wants to rise higher, so my hands obey exactly what I want them to d
o as her elegant hands rest gently on the rail.

  “What are you doing?” she whispers, slight panic in her voice, like we're in public.

  “There's no one around,” I reason, even though we are in public, anchor dropped in practically the middle of the ocean.

  The weather is perfect, and I see no reason to stop what I'm doing.

  Ava's hands tighten on the rail as my hands slide the dress higher up on her thighs, her head resting on my shoulder, and I know she isn't going to stop me.

  “Is that a yes?” I whisper.

  She bites her lip and nods slowly.

  When both those things happen, I slide one hand into the lace thong she's got underneath her dress, making sure to raise the skirt unreasonably high on her thighs before sliding my finger between her legs, to feel her moist clit.

  I aim to make her gasp and moan, and that's precisely what she does.

  She bites her lip as she whines against my touch and grips the rail so tightly that her knuckles turn white, as I rub the tip of my finger slowly against her clit.

  I drive her wild.

  “Corban…” Ava moans.

  “Am I driving you crazy?” my breath is in her ear and I tug on her lobe.

  My hand teases the strap of her dress down and I pull at it a little further.

  “Yes,” Ava moans.

  I speed up a little, and her hips buck towards my hand, so I slide my finger in a little, then continue rubbing her clit, only slow again.

  “Did you want something?” I ask.

  “Yes,” She moans again.

  My hand pulls her dress down, allowing me to cup one of her breasts, toying with the nipple.

  Her sudden gasp at the exposure to the air makes her even more desperate for me.

  “Please Corban!” Ava begs, “I want you!”

  That's when I turn her around, I press her against the rail of the boat to claim her lips.

  She infects my brain with those delicious lips as she backs me against the stern lounging pad and pulls my shirt over my head. She rips off my belt.

  Me? I don't waste time. I rip the dress over her head in seconds, and her thong is pulled down around her ankles, before I've thrown her down against the plush padding, as she pushes my pants down with her feet, not wasting a second, then I kick them off, and everything is gone.