“Jesus,” Christopher says, baring his teeth to Sutton in a sign of frustration. “How dare you make this a competition? How dare you use her to get to me?”
The words find their mark inside my heart, sharp and poisoned. I don’t want to be a ball that men throw around for sport. A toy to be put aside when they get bored of me.
Where there had been victory, now there is only menace. How does Sutton manage to exude feelings without moving a muscle? His energy shimmers around him, thick in the air. And now he’s pissed. “How dare you imply that’s the only reason a man would want her?”
All the heat that had been burning through my body leaks into the walls and warms the floors. None of it’s left inside my body. I’m cold. “Is this a game to you?”
I don’t even know who I’m asking. Probably Sutton. I already know what Christopher wants from me, and it’s to save me from myself. Not exactly a flattering sentiment, but a familiar one.
Sutton turns to me, his jaw hard. “He’s going to tell you I’m a bastard.” He cups my face, running his thumb along my lower lip. The same thumb that he used to touch my arousal on his lip. His head bends low so only I can hear what he says. “And he’s right about that. Because a better man would leave you to him. I want you for myself.” His mouth claims mine in a kiss that my body responds to even while my mind is confused. He explores me with sensual leisure, standing between Christopher and myself. There’s no doubt what my body wants when I look up at him with my lips parted and my eyelids heavy.
That’s how Sutton leaves me, leaning against the wall, my limbs weak and my mind hazy from wanting him—from wanting what he was going to do before Christopher interrupted us. I could lay you down on the bed and tie you there, so you couldn’t get off. You’d keep trying all night, this gorgeous body fucking the air, desperate for relief. I could watch you all night. It’s strange that he can make even torture a thing that I long for—that fact seems important. Momentous. Something about man and woman and the ways we break, but I can’t think about anything but the throb between my legs. And the hard look in Christopher’s eyes.
My purse must have fallen to the floor at some point. The cards are scattered across the worn carpet. And there is the hotel key card, the one I couldn’t find before.
Christopher is the one who bends to pick it up, gathering the rest of the contents in a broad sweep of his strong hands. He doesn’t bother handing the purse back to me, which is just as well since I don’t think I could hold anything. Instead he uses the key card to open the door, and holds it open for me.
How strange, that it should feel like a betrayal for me to be with another man when Christopher has rejected me for so long. And strange that he should still be bent on being the white knight.
My mind is too muddled to solve this, so I let him usher me inside. Let him pour me a drink of water from the minibar. Let him sit me down in a chair while he stands in front of me like some kind of strict professor, his eyes intense and a muscle in his jaw ticking.
I know I should be thinking about the trust fund and hospital bills, but all I can hear is Sutton’s voice saying, You’d fuck yourself against the bedpost all night long, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Wouldn’t be enough.
I’m used to the way Christopher distracts me, the way I can’t seem to stop thinking about him even though I shouldn’t. I’m less used to the way I can’t seem to stop thinking about Sutton. What are these men doing to me? Despite all their differences, they fit together as business partners. Both of them are ruthless and so complex they’re going to drive me insane.
“I know you hate me,” Christopher says, and I don’t bother to correct him. I’m not sure I could find the words. I hate you so much you consume me. And now there’s Sutton, doing the same thing. What will be left of me? “And I deserve that.”
“So you’re going to let me pay the hospital?”
He gives me a severe look. “I’m being completely honest when I say that Sutton isn’t good for you. Women love him and he loves them back… for about a week. Maybe two.”
“Then this shouldn’t be a problem for very long,” I say, even though my insides squeeze at the thought of being pushed aside. It almost seems worth it, to experience the wild power of Sutton, even knowing that heartbreak is on the horizon.
“You should stay away from him. Go back to New York.”
“Does ordering people around work well for you? Because I really want to do the opposite of whatever you say.” I would have done the opposite anyway, but now I want to make a point.
He runs a hand over his face. “I’m trying to look out for you. Sutton uses people.”
“You went into business with him.”
Christopher holds the bedpost, a carved wooden bulb that makes me think of dirty things. Maybe I’ll always look at bedposts differently now. “That’s exactly why I went into business with him. Because I’m going to succeed no matter what. No matter what some society thinks about my plans.”
I shake my head, remembering when I saw him in his cabin on the yacht, head bent over his textbook late at night. He’s always been driven. And clueless. “You really do need me.”
“I don’t need anyone.”
The words ring in the silence that follows, an explanation of what came before and foretelling of what happens next. It’s the heart of this man, his determination not to need anyone. Even the people who love him. That’s what I felt for him, once. It took me years to admit it to myself, the reason why I could never get serious with a boy after him.
“Well,” I say softly. “Regardless of whether you need me, here I am. I’m going to do the job Sutton’s given me, and then you’re going to pay for that butterfly garden.”
A notch between dark eyebrows. “Tell me why.”
“That was the deal,” I say, deliberately avoiding the question. It’s easier to deal with Christopher when he’s purely hypothetical. Harder when I place the issue in front of him. He becomes flesh and blood. Vulnerable. Fallible. I don’t want him to be wrong, because I’d hate him. I don’t want him to be right, because I’d have to stop hating him. And that would mean facing what he means to me, which should be nothing at all.
He growls. “You know what I mean. Why do you need to pay for a damn butterfly garden when she’s in remission?”
“You must have been keeping tabs on her to know so much.”
“Apparently they left something out.”
His bluntness makes me laugh, though nothing is funny right now. “There’s a pretty high chance that it will come back, and then we’d have to do it all again. The radiation… God, it nearly killed her on its own. She won’t do it again. She already said so.”
He stares for a moment. “She’ll change her mind.”
My stomach clenches, because that’s what I want. “Contrary to what you think, people don’t work like machines that do whatever you program them to do.”
“She’ll change her mind if it’s the only way.”
“You don’t know her,” I say sharply. “And you sure as hell don’t care about her, so don’t pretend to me. But there is another way. There’s an experimental treatment. A study that’s already full, but they’re going to make an exception.”
He makes a rough sound. “Oh, that’s rich. Trading the chance to live for a new goddamn butterfly garden. Very noble of them.”
“That’s the way the world works. The only reason they even made me the offer is because they knew I could afford it. Or at least they thought I could.”
Christopher turns away, looking out at the dark window. It’s too reflective, showing his silhouette and my shoulders at the forefront of the city. “I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t change anything, though. Does it?” He’s still not going to let the trust fund pay for the butterfly garden. It has nothing to do with money.
Everything to do with control.
He swings back to face me, at least doing me the courtesy of looking into my eyes when
he shakes his head. “No. I can see why that made you grateful to Sutton, the offer he made, but he’s doing this for our project. Or to get under your dress.”
It doesn’t even occur to Christopher that he’s basically calling me a prostitute, suggesting that the only reason I let Sutton touch me is out of gratitude for a job. There’s no anger in me, because even though Daddy made me messed up about men and money, he also helped me understand them.
“What I do with Sutton is my own business,” I say, before adding, “You made sure of that when you pushed me away after the will reading.”
His throat works. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”
That makes me smile, bittersweet. There’s an old thread in my chest, worn and threadbare, one I could have sworn was broken years ago. Trust for the man named Christopher Bardot, that thread. It tugs in this moment, somehow still there. “Oh sure, you should have. Your goal was to make sure no part of that stupid crush survived, and it worked.”
“I do… care about you,” he says in the most awkward declaration ever.
And then I have to stand up, because I’m not the woman who’s going to take orders from this man. He would have to work a hell of a lot harder than that. It makes me angry to hear these things I would have swooned over four years ago. Where was he, then? It’s too late now. I’m older and wiser. And a hell of a lot more guarded. “As a sister?”
He shakes his head, eyes glittering. “Never.”
“As a friend?”
There’s an unsteady laugh. “You were more of a friend than I deserved.”
There’s too much of the old Christopher in those words. Too much of the boy who looked up at the Medusa painting with awe for me to breathe easy. It makes me want to push him away.
“If you wanted to have sex with me,” I say, running a finger down his white collar. “You only had to ask. When I was on the yacht. Or in front of that Medusa painting. I would have done it, Christopher. Don’t you know that? I would have done anything you asked.”
“Hell,” he says, tight and broken.
“I think you did know, but you walked away.”
He looks furious. And despairing. “It was never simple between us.”
“So don’t you dare show up now and tell me who I can touch. If I want to let him press me up against the wall, if he gets down on his knees and puts his mouth on me until everyone on this floor knows what we’re doing, that’s my business. You had your chance.”
My body heats at the words, at the remembered pleasure of Sutton’s mouth on my sex. Christopher looks down at me, as if he can feel the heat emanating from between my legs. His expression turns stark, as if he’s in pain. That’s only fair, because I’m in pain too.
“You deserve better than that,” Christopher says, but there’s no way to pretend he’s talking about Sutton. He’s talking about himself and we both know it.
“He gives me what I want, which is something you might try next time you like a girl.”
“It wasn’t that,” he says, harsh again.
“No?” I step forward and place a hand on his chest, feeling the way his heart beats strong and fast. He may want to be unaffected by me, but he isn’t. I tilt my face up toward him. “You didn’t imagine me naked in the cabin later?”
He sucks in a breath. “You were too young then.”
My words come out as a whisper. “What about now? Will you do what Sutton said—imagine me in this dress when you go home after this?”
“It’s not fucking decent,” he says, even though the silk covers every part of me. It’s a perfectly respectable dress, when it’s not hitched up around my waist.
“You can thank Sutton for this,” I say, because it’s true. He’s the only reason I lean forward and place my lips against Christopher’s, touching them in some terrible attempt to show him what he gave up, to prove to myself that I don’t care about either of them.
Christopher sucks in a breath. For a second I think he’s going to pull away. He stiffens and grasps my hair with his fist. Easy enough for him to stop the kiss. Instead he dips my head back and deepens it, exploring my mouth with his teeth, his tongue. Opening me wider until I whimper. Pulling me close until I can feel how hard he is beneath his slacks.
His other hand fists in the gauze of my dress, and I realize he’s holding me with both hands clenched—one in my hair and one in my clothes. I don’t know whether he’s doing it so he doesn’t have to touch me or because it’s a way to control me without bruising me. He uses both hands to tug me closer; I’m pressed so tightly I can’t imagine getting away.
Where Sutton had been raw sensuality and playfulness, Christopher is pure determination. He kisses me like he’s a conquering army, like I’m made of gold he has to grasp—or lose forever.
I push away from him with a pained cry, because I want to stay in his arms. I want to let Christopher take me to bed and show me how much he can conquer, his way made slick by my arousal for another man. “You should go.”
He pants, his pupils large and dark. “Let me stay. I want to taste you.”
The words are like a cold splash of water on top of my head. Taste me, like Sutton did in the hallway. Taste me after Sutton challenged him that way. Am I only a competition between two business partners, who probably compete over more than women?
This is exactly what I always wanted, having Christopher beg for a night with me. Exactly what I always dreamed, but I can’t trust it. Not when I wanted him to find out about this. Maybe not by walking into the hallway, but I knew he’d eventually find out I kissed Sutton.
Some female part of me knew exactly what I was doing, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself. Now it’s worked, and it’s a hollow victory. Like giving him a love potion and then preening when he falls for me. It isn’t real. None of this is real.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I manage to say. “Bright and early. We can work like people who need money and not from a trust fund. Like people who didn’t almost have sex the night before.”
He flinches, which is what I wanted. For him to feel as cold as I do. “Harper.”
“No,” I cry, losing my tenuous grip on composure. “You had your chance with me. Now you don’t want me to be with someone else?”
“It’s not about that,” he says, but he’s a liar. Like the man on the plane with a secret girlfriend in New York all those years ago. And like Daddy.
That’s what men know how to do: make money and lie to women.
“Get out,” I say, turning away. I’m not even angry with Christopher. I’m mad at myself for letting him in the room. For letting Sutton walk me here. For trusting them even when I don’t have any reason to. Because that’s something women are good at: loving men we shouldn’t.
Chapter Eight
WAKE-UP CALL
I open my eyes and stare at the chandelier lit by sunrise, wondering where the hell I am and why I’m awake. Then the hotel room phone rings again. Briefly I fantasize about throwing it across the room. Or maybe attempting to flush it down the toilet.
Instead I answer with a sleepy, “Hello.”
“Mademoiselle St. Claire, this is your requested wake-up call,” says a voice in lightly accented French. It makes me wonder if L’Etoile hired him only for that accent. They do love ambiance. “At six o’clock. Would you like us to send breakfast?”
“Coffee,” I manage to croak before letting the receiver roll out of my hand. It hangs over the side of the bed, because I’m too exhausted to pick it up.
In my defense I’ve been a college student and an artist for the past few years. Being Instagram famous doesn’t exactly require waking up early. I know without asking that the men will be awake early, regardless of what happened last night, and I’m determined to pull my weight, to actually earn the money they’re damn well going to pay me.
I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, where a spray of hot water finally lures me into consciousness. While I’m inside, I hear the room service knocking.
<
br /> “Coffee,” I tell the shower wall, and it echoes the word back at me, sounding relieved.
I’m in my towel when I open the door.
Sutton looks ridiculously fresh and awake at this ungodly hour, his suit crisp across his broad shoulders, narrow at the waist. His only saving grace is the cup of coffee he holds, the white lid and green stirrer keeping the heat and steam inside. It’s not from the hotel, this one.
“Bless you,” I tell him fervently, taking the coffee and backing up.
He steps inside with a grin, with absolutely zero shame in his blue eyes as he takes in the tops of my breasts above the towel. “A very good morning.”
My body responds as if he just stood up after kneeling at my feet, his hands on my thighs, his mouth on my clit. Sparks between my legs. Heat in my breasts. My nipples turning hard against thick cotton. “How did you know I’d be awake?”
“I was hoping to find you still in bed,” he admits. “I would have joined you.”
“You’re only a few minutes late for that.”
It’s a struggle to take the little green stirrer out without letting the towel drop, but naturally he doesn’t help me whatsoever. He’s not quite a gentleman.
Not when it means he can see my skin covered in droplets.
“There’s always tomorrow,” he says. “I was going to drive you over to the library, so you can see what’s there before I show you the plans.”
The coffee burns down my throat, the perfect blend of sharp and sweet. “If you bring me coffee like this, you can take me anywhere you want.”
A knock comes at the door. “Room service.”
Sutton gives my body one last look, his blue eyes tinged with regret. “You should probably get dressed. I’ll get the door.”
It’s with a sense of disappointment that I retreat to the walk-in closet, quickly dropping the towel and sorting through the clothes that are in my luggage. It would be nice to have a power suit or something equally professional, but instead I’ll have to settle for a flowing sage green skirt and a white T-shirt that says, You should see my active bitch face.
Love Triangle: Six Books of Torn Desire Page 34
