Chapter 8 Chapter 4 (ii)
FAE
He wasn’t just sexy. He was hot, I reminded myself as if I had to. All the girls on campus drooled over him. He used to find panties in his locker when he was still there. Carl’s female cousins all had big, fat crushes on him. His pictures on IG posted by his family’s publicist always got thousands of reactions. He was in the top ten of the list of most eligible and gorgeous bachelors for three years straight since he became CEO and a public persona as a result, even though he wasn’t an actor or model.
Even Sarah wanted him, was so excited when I told her I could introduce her to him, way back.
But Jigo didn’t even pay her any attention.
He treated her with contempt, deliberately didn’t look at her while she talked to him. When she tried getting really friendly the way Sarah could get friendly after a buzz, he stepped back as if he smelled something bad, and then left.
Sarah had been a little drunk because she was nervous about meeting him. She really liked him. I didn’t know why he snubbed her like that because everyone was drunk one way or another at a frat party and she wasn’t even badly drunk yet.
It had been painful to watch. He was so snooty. Sarah told me later that he must have heard how poor she was. His family was extremely rich.
But I didn’t think so. In all the years I knew him, I’d never seen him act intolerant of anyone out of his circle of friends—who definitely were from the richest of families. I also happen to know he frequently worked with other volunteers on his grandmother’s charity projects for the indigent, and it started when he was really young. Carl also sometimes went when they became friends. Many of us volunteer, including me and my other friends, since school days, which we maintained up to this day.
“I remember that you didn’t like her,” I told him, as if we were continuing an existing conversation. He sat there and watched me, worried. His eyes had stayed with me since he dropped me on the couch, as if he didn’t know what to do with me suddenly now that I was here. “You’re only a snob when you don’t like people,” I clearly enunciated, proud of it. I could talk clearly if I was careful and slow.
He sighed, then shrugged his shoulders as if quietly telling me I could think what I wanted. That he didn’t care about that.
But his entire focus was on me, as if he wasn’t interested in anything at that moment but me. He even frowned slightly, as if what I said about Sarah wasn’t relevant at all. A nuisance.
Those eyes... his voice... the familiarity with the way he had acted around me since he approached me at the bar.
Whatever could I think of?
Sex.
Heat.
I closed my eyes because his molten gaze burned me. Why was he staring at me like that? Why me? He could hook up with any of the beautiful female guests downstairs. Women stumbled over each other to get his attention. They said he never had a girlfriend, but beautiful girls on campus gossiped about how good he was as a kisser, or how good he was in bed, so obviously he’d given some of them his willing attention. I could imagine this continued in business school up to now because, honestly, Jigo just got hotter and hotter over the years.
Quiet but barbed. Canny. Just like what Daddy warned me about when I was thirteen, when we used to visit Lola Leah’s house and Jigo would be his usual, lanky, lurking self.
Trouble.
But he liked me.
I thought he liked me as a person. He had always been kind to me. Never been a snob. Too many times, he had nodded to me appreciatively when I dressed well. If others would say I really looked good, would actually smile. A big smile, which was rare for him. And, well, I was one of his grandmother’s favorite debutantes and his best friend’s foster sister. I was accepted.
But here I was now in his suite... just the two of us. And I had his undivided attention. I was a virgin, but not naïve enough to admit it was only this way because I was saving myself for Carl. I wasn’t really sure how strongly I was going to resist in the face of this man’s attention, now that I think of it. What if he had liked me like that? I had suitors who had pursued me but I didn’t want them. Now that I thought about it, I’d always placed this man in a higher regard but not higher than Carl. Carl, who didn’t want me.
I wanted to cry. Again.
He and Sarah had flown away to their honeymoon, and tonight they would have sex on a marriage bed.
Sarah would sleep and wake up in Carl’s arms—one of my fervent dreams forever lost to me.
I couldn’t think of Carl in Sarah’s arms right now. It hurt so badly.
So instead of Carl’s name, it was Jigo’s name that I cried out for as I closed my eyes, trying to brace myself...
And he was there, next to me, taking me into his arms. I now knew why he just stared... waited.
Because he knew I was about to explode.
And I sobbed, loud and gut-wrenching, within the steady support of his quiet arms.