That I Am Worth Just A Few Things

“All you’ve got to do is tell me a few things,” I say, once Salome has made herself comfortable beside me.

“Hmm?” she asks, turning to face me on her pillow.

“You asked what it would take to keep me around forever,” I say. “I’ve come up with my price.”

“All I’ve got to do is tell you a few things? You don’t want any money?” Salome asks. “I guess Holly really was wrong about you.”

“I’m hurt,” I say, putting a hand to my chest. “You believed her for even a second?”

“No, of course not. That’s why I asked you to be my little artist,” she says, placing a hand over my bare chest. “But maybe I did wonder a bit…”

“If I ask you a couple of questions, do you promise to keep what we say a secret?” I ask.

“We’re already naked in bed with another,” Salome smiles as she squeezes my pecs. “Of course it’s going to stay a secret.”

“We’ve got nothing to hide from one another,” I say, copping a feel of her ass, and she giggles, nodding. “The staff have been telling me things. Rumours about this family. Stuff that might make me uncomfortable staying.”

“They’re such gossips,” Salome laughs. "You can’t trust anything they say. Half of it is bad rumours that Warren feeds them to keep them satisfied.”

“He leaks fake rumours to the staff?” I ask.

Completely in line with what I know about Father, but also, news to me.

“All the time,” she nods.

“So what they’ve told me about Erin, that she wasn’t just involved in some scandal sleeping with students…”

Starting with something that I know the truth of the matter of will let me gauge whether she’s actually going to be honest with me, or if she’s going to try to play some other game with me.

“Oh… well, they might be right on that one,” Salome says, frowning a bit. “What did they tell you?”


“I heard a bunch of different things from different people. One of them said that Erin was going to be jailed by the government for wiretapping or something, and so you guys pushed her away after bailing her out. Another person said that she was in contact with Markus? I don’t know what to make of it, it all sounds ridiculous, but they can’t all be wrong, right? Somebody else said that she’d slept with a student who was actually underage, and I have no idea which of them might be right,” I say, not wanting to blow my sources or tip my hand too much.

“Wow,” she says, apparently either very impressed with how wrong everything is, or how right it all is.

She pauses, as if deliberating something in her head.

“Okay, I’ll tell, but you have to swear to keep everything a secret too, okay?” she asks.

“Of course,” I say without skipping a beat.

“Okay,” she says. “Well, the thing is… one of those is a story that Warren leaked to the staff. One of them, I don’t know, they probably made up amongst themselves. And one of them’s the truth.” She shifts in her bed, looking at me very seriously. “But it’s a truth that none of them should know. So you see why this is serious?”

“There’s a reason why I said I was worried,” I agree.

She falls silent again, and then peers very carefully into my eyes, her beautiful brown irises trying their best to read mine. Her hand on my chest shifts up to my shoulder blade, then up to my neck, then brushes against my cheek.

“The story about Erin getting in touch with Markus is the real one,” she says, after pausing a moment longer. “But there’s more to it than you know.”

Is there?

“So she really got kicked out just for talking to her brother?” I ask. “That seems… cruel.”

“They were conspiring together,” she says.

“To do what?”

“We don’t know for sure,” she says. “It could be nothing. The point was that she defied Father and actually talked to Markus. Warren is big on people keeping their word.”

“He seems like that kind of person,” I say. “I only know what the media said about Markus, but I’ve known better than to bring him up while in your husband’s house.”

“A good idea,” Salome nods.

“And from what I could tell, he really ran Markus into the ground,” I say. “Took away just about everything from the kid.”

“He did,” she says, only sounding the slightest bit regretful.

“So he’s doing the same thing to Erin now?” I ask.

“Does it matter to you?”

“I wonder what will happen if he discovers what’s happened between… us.”

“Oh no,” Salome says quietly. She shakes her head. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ll make sure he never finds out.”

You could have done that for me twenty years ago, I think to myself. But I guess your little artist matters to you more than your stepson ever did, huh?

“Thank you,” I say. “But I still need to know, for my peace of mind. What’s happening to Erin?”

“She’s getting a better treatment than Markus did. But Warren is still working on her.”

“Working on her?” I ask, sounding worried.

I am worried. This could be my life on the line.

“He’s got a contact who should be able to keep Erin quiet for us,” she says. “In fact…”

I wait, silently urging her to keep talking, giving her a reassuring smile, showing her that I’m curious, but not that curious…

“In fact, I’m supposed to meet him here, in Colombia,” she says. “He’s travelling out for a conference, but in reality, I’m going to try to get him to reveal what he knows about Erin.”

“Is that why Warren let you come here?” I ask, wondering if my theatrics at the dinner table the other day meant anything at all, in the grand scheme of things.

“No. We arranged it after I decided to come. He’s supposed to meet me in two days,” she says. “But don’t worry. I’m just doing what I need to, to protect the family. Nobody will get hurt.”

“I trust you,” I say, unsure of how I really feel at the moment.

All I know is this. Ricardo is going to meet with Salome in two days. That gives me two days to work out something that will stop this entire parade from raining down on me.