Love, Lies and Billionaires

A small part of the head popped out first, then the entire head before Maren’s eyes rested on the face.

A shiver ran down her spine and she could feel her heart skip a beat as they both stared at each other.

“Hi” the male voice rang, tearing through her ear and drawing her slowly out of her shocked state.

“Hi?” she managed to say, but it came out more like a whisper. She just could get her eyes off him as she watched the part of his hair which was still in the water float around.

“Did I scare you? You look like you just watched a clip about how you’d die.” His voice was calm.

‘I wish!’ her head screamed. Finally, she blinked away her thoughts and looked away from him. “Yeah, a little. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.” She could now hear her heartbeat in her ears.

“Well, I didn’t expect anyone to be here at all,” he said and Maren now realised and wondered how he was bent so that only his head was visible even as she tried to see the rest of his body in the clear water.

“I’m sorry, do you mean-”

“Yeah, authorised personnel only.” He said and finally stood straight, giving Maren the exclusive sight of that menacing snake tattoo. “I’m that authorised personnel”

Maren almost held her chest as she could feel the air choke her the more she stared at him.

She could not see more than half of his body, but she could see his tattoos drawn like a sleeve from his shoulder bone to wherever it went.

His wet long hair somehow managed to arrange itself and lap to the back with the ends glued to his neck.

She felt so dirty staring at him and unconsciously resisting the urge to bite her lips the more she watched drops of water somehow drip slowly down his muscular body.

“I’m sorry, I’ll leave,” she said, snapping out of her thoughts and sat up on the shallow end of the pool.

“Oh, it’s fine. You can stay if you want. It’s nice having someone around here anyway,” he replied and dove back into the water while Maren watched, obviously not wanting to go.

Not because of him, but because she really didn’t want to face those annoying assholes, and she wanted to save herself the stress of searching for Nella who was probably drunk somewhere.

Maren watched him strike different styles of swimming from where she sat and just wondered how and why he was here in the first place.

After watching for a while, she felt thirsty and not just down there but in her throat, so she got up and headed for the bottle of wine.

She uncocked it and poured herself some and when she turned around, she found him floating in the water and staring at her.

At that point, Maren became frozen, and she stood there with the glass to her lips, staring back as his grey eyes rooted her to the spot.

“Er-you want some?” She finally asked, after managing to slowly get the glass away from her lips.

“A little. I don’t drink while taking a swim,” his voice rang throughout the room and he proceeded to do a butterfly stroke before coming up again to where Maren was now back in her previous position, holding out the glass for him.

“You don’t talk much or you’re always too shocked to speak?” he asked after he took a sip of the wine and set it beside Maren.

Maren suppressed a scoff while taking a sip of the wine. “Definitely the second one. I mean, you command so much respect and fear from basically the entire city, yet you somehow manage to be in the most casual place in this city.”

Kendrick smirked, but this one felt genuine and not what he did when he wanted to mock someone. “Well, I am just a man, right? Plus, this place isn’t exactly that causal. I own half of this place”

“Do you go partnering with everyone?”

“No, just the ones who are worthy of it and, or have lots of potential”

“That how they do it in Russia?” She suddenly asked after a brief pause.

His face broke into an impressed smile. “Someone’s been doing their homework” he swam to the edge and sat down close to her.

“Why did you leave home in the first place?” She asked when he’d sat comfortably.

“Well, um, I needed to expand. I needed to be my own man, but mostly because my father was an asshole.”

“Who is your father?” She suddenly asked, talking before thinking. Kendrick turned sharply to her, his face gloomy for a second. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”

His face was suddenly back in the neutral way. “No, it’s fine. He’s dead now, though. But you did not want to know him while he was alive,” he answered.

Silence took over the room and the only sound that could be heard was the faint sound of the outside music and the laughter of people who passed by the door.

Maren, on the other hand, was mostly thinking of how not to look at the gorgeous figure sitting beside her.

“You really didn’t strike me as someone who’d sit and talk to people this way the first time we spoke.” She suddenly blurted.

He downed the little wine which was left in his glass. He chuckled and set the glass down. “It’s just something we do to command respect, you know. Like I said, no one expects one of the most famous men in this state to put on a clown mask, alright?”

Maren chuckled at the thought.

“I’m also human, and I know when to be stone faced and when to live a little. I’ve got lots of dislikes and I’ve got likes. And one of those likes is to take sit and talk and possibly swim with stunning women”

Okay, that last part made Maren’s brain stop for a moment, as she really didn’t know the right action to make at that moment, so she just stared at him as he dove into the water.

He shot out of the water again and turned to her. “Come on in. I watched to swim earlier so you can’t lie that you can’t”

“No, I think I’m fine. I think I prefer watching you,” she said with a smile.

“And where’s the fun in that? Come on,” he half begged and swam towards her. “That’s what you were here for, wasn’t it?”

“Well, mostly because I was ditched by my friend,” she answered, looking down at Kendrick who was now so close to close that her toes were only half an inch away from his chest.

“Looks like that’s a good thing from where I stand,” he said quietly. The empty room exaggerated the sexiness of his baritone.

“Yeah, I think I’m fine”

“No, you’re not.” Without warning, he pulled her by the hand into the water and because of his swiftness, she fell right into the water and he didn’t waste time to grab her.

There they stood, their faces inches away from each other. His arms were around her waist and her hand around his neck as they stared into each other’s eyes.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Slowly and somewhat unconsciously, she traced her hand down to his chest and touched his tattoo.

“How does it feel?” he whispered.

Her brows furrowed. “Familiar”