by Amber Bardan
Once again what was I doing? I needed him. Hadn’t even managed to get a last name from him. What was wrong with me? I peered around the corner at the lobby doors. Emma warned me about this. That there was a chance my reproductive system would eventually turn on me. Sex brain. Or as I fondly referred to it—horny-stupid.
The door flew open.
The massive length of him emerged. I sank my back to the wall. My heart hadn’t slowed down, not for a second. My lips were still bruised. Desire still rained a plague of tingles in my fun area. I could fix this entire issue. Take care of both sex-brain and exposé at once. I just had to step out of hiding and call his name...
I looked around the corner. A black car pulled up at the curb. My throat thickened.
Nope, couldn’t. Duplicitous sex wasn’t going to be the thing to haul my ass out of celibacy. Haithem strode to the car.
I held my breath.
He couldn’t just get in the car and disappear. I’d never get my story. I’d never see him again. Fate gave me a last chance with Haithem in that elevator. There wouldn’t be another. As I knew so well, fate could be cruel like that.
Haithem opened the rear passenger door. The ruthless beat in my ears turned pounding. I looked up at the orange-pink sky between office towers. I needed to get home. Soon. He slipped into the car. I raced to a cab at the corner.
Last chances were final.
Haithem
“YOU MUST SEE THIS,” Karim called from the office next to my cabin. I joined him by the windows, took the binoculars he offered and peered outside. He indicated to the building across from us.
A flash of movement streaked beside the wall towards the corner.
The muscles in my arms coiled like a snake. My heart went hard. Head clear. Throat dry.
We’d been found.
Dread formed a crust around me. A crust of memories made up of blood and fear and loss.
Then I saw it—that same white blouse draping her lushness, the patch of sunlight turning a mass of hair from chestnut to red. The same hair I’d had my hands buried in not a half an hour ago.
Her.
Angelina was here. Why the hell was she here? My stomach clutched around a lump in my abdomen.
“It seems your chance meetings today were no coincidence.”
I adjusted the focus and the sight of her sharpened. The burn deepened. “Perhaps she’s desperate to see me again.”
Angelina stepped out from the edge of the building and her head dropped back. White fabric rippled at her sides and her breasts. Her hand moved to shield her eyes to the glare of dusk.
I didn’t see her eyes, yet I saw them so clearly. The way her lashes had beat over captivating green irises. The way that beat quickened when her gaze set on mine.
Real.
She was real. What happened in the elevator was real. Her hair had been baby soft. The scent of shampoo clinging to her, clean and sweet. I tasted her breath in my mouth. The strain of need tightened my cock. How natural that was. For an instant I’d been myself.
When had I last?
“I’ve never known you to be naive.”
The accusation barreled through my thoughts.
My chin snapped toward Karim. “Look at her. That is the single worst spying I’ve ever seen.”
The one thing we could count on was that anyone sent for us would be the best. The best and the worst. Hair whipped across her face and she tore it from her mouth, spitting.
“That is not a professional.” I handed Karim the binoculars.
We had intimate knowledge of professionals. If my past had taught me anything it was that you never see the devils until they’re breathing down your neck, their gun wedged to your ribs.
“You remember the Russian girl?”
Or in the case of Natalya, until they were riding you like a carnival attraction, pulling a razor from beneath their underwire.
“She was different.”
“I warned you off her too, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“You booked her.”
Karim lifted the binoculars, but his neck flushed. “And I tried to send her away when my suspicions piqued.”
He had indeed.
By that time I’d already seen her. The first chance I’d had for “recreation” in the longest months of my life, and she’d been five-eleven with legs for miles.
The rules should’ve protected us.
Escorts only.
Never the same agency.
Turned out there was no such thing as safe.
“Just like they pique now.” He peered at the girl on the wharf.
“Maybe she’s hunting adventure. You saw the way she watched me in the café. Then the way she kissed me in the elevator. She’s probably spoiled and bored.”
“She spies, Haithem.” Karim stepped out from the window. “She followed us here.”
I strode to the desk, opening my laptop. “There’s one way to find out.”
“What are you doing?”
I pounded the keys. Karim would resist my decision. He wasn’t one for risks. Except, my life was already a gamble. If I had one bet to place, I’d place it on my own instincts. Right then that instinct bored deep, hooked an idea, wouldn’t be shaken. “I’m going to find out who this girl is. Then we will make ourselves a new friend.”
The binoculars in his hand fell to his side.
He spun around. “You can’t intend—”
“I do. We have weeks of waiting ahead of us.” Weeks where I’d lose my mind. Perhaps I already had. But something shifted under my skin—need—excitement. “If I am right and all she wants is adventure, then she’ll have her adventure.” My lungs filled deeper than they had in years. “If you’re right, if she’s here to spy, I’ll show her a wealthy brat. Prove there’s nothing to see here.”
Those ideas wrapped together nicely.
Win, win.
My favorite way for a thing to be.
Karim moved to stand on the other side of the desk. “If I’m right then you’re inviting the snake into the nest.”
“If you are right, then someone already knows we’ve been here. This would be the chance to extract information. You should be happy, Karim.”
I belted out an email as we spoke. Usually, I preferred more information to feed my partner, Avner. But there was a lot he could do with only a name.
If Angelina Morrison is really her name.
“I’m not.”
I hit Send. Done. Too late. A smile crept into the side of my cheek. Another new thing that seemed to be happening today. “You know what they say about where to keep enemies...”
“We bury them, don’t we?”
I slammed the lid closed, but I couldn’t slam shut my head. Or the images there. Nor the haze of terror and regret.
“What if I’m right and she finds something?”
I shoved away the laptop. Tried not to look outside. Not to think about the girl there. But mostly, I tried not to think about that sliver of glee that had nothing to do with danger and everything to do with desire.
I wanted this game.
“Then I’ll do what has to be done.”
FOUR
THE VERY LAST dying rays of a low-hanging sun cast a faint halo on the roof of Emma’s Barina by the time I arrived in my driveway. With everything that happened this afternoon, I’d forgotten there was a party we’d committed to tonight. I bypassed the front door, going directly to the back entrance closest to my room. Even in the cab I barely made it back before zero hour—the time at which those who worry get shitty. The hum of voices filtered from the closed door across the hall. I groaned. My bag suddenly felt twice as heavy. I slipped it from my shoulder. Seriously, it was my own fault for being late.
&nb
sp; And what had I achieved besides adding “he lives on a superyacht” to the list of reasons why today had to be a product of my fractured mental state.
I pushed open my bedroom door. “Hi, Mum.”
My mother glanced up from my single bed, where she sat next to Emma.
“Nice of you to show up,” Emma said, giving me a slow smile.
“How did the interview go?” Mum stood. “Did they love your article?”
“They said my writing was great.” I tried to muster a smile and leaned against the door frame. “But they’d like me to try something more...commercial.”
Definitely not entitled how-to-stalk-mysterious-hot-men.
Her hands dropped to her sides. “You’re not going to write one of those trashy—”
“Mum.”
Emma smirked, and pressed her fist to her mouth.
“Fine.” My mother held up a palm. “But you know how your father feels about—”
“Mum.”
“Fine, but next time, call us to pick you up if it’s getting dark. You’re lucky Dad’s not here.”
Heat spread across my neck into my cheeks.
Emma made a slight coughing sound. Oh, she no doubt found this hilarious. She’d call it adorable.
“I caught a cab.” For the love of god, this would go on until I was thirty, possibly fifty.
“A cab?” Her jaw went slack. “Honey, for Pete’s sake, don’t tell your father.”
I kept my eyes straight in my head. Managed to keep them from rolling back like the teenager they were determined to think of me as. It didn’t matter. Soon I’d have my own job. My own place. My own life. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“Sorry, love.” She placed a hand on my arm. “You know how he feels about protecting you—after everything...”
Emma’s hand slipped from her face, her complexion blanching.
A sharp drop slammed down my middle—cleaving me in two.
I’m never getting out of here.
“Dad and I thought it might be time for you to start driving the Mustang. It’d be safer for you to get around.”
“Notachance,” I said, so quickly that it came out as one word.
Her green eyes, so like my own, widened. I felt mine do the same. I might be the dutiful daughter my parents needed me to be, but it’d been a long time since they’d pushed me to do something I didn’t want to. There were some things that duty and guilt wouldn’t budge, and not wanting to drive that Mustang was one of them.
We stared at each other, both knowing the other’s stubbornness, both knowing we could stand there all night. My heart raced. I’d spent my life longing to be seen by my parents, but now that I stood at the center of their goddamn universe, I just wanted to slip back into the shade of invisibility. I wanted to push back against their affection, tell them it wasn’t fair. They should have given me their attention from the beginning. It shouldn’t have taken disaster to make it happen. But it wasn’t their fault, not really, and at some point, I’d have to forgive them... At some point, I’d need to find a way to forgive myself.
“Fair enough. You can speak about how you intend to get around, like an adult, with your father in the morning.” Mum brushed past me, her perfume a pungent, musky bouquet, reminding me of when I was a child and used to sit on her knee. Reminding me that if I didn’t find a way out, I’d always remain folded and squeezed into this place where I just didn’t fit anymore.
She turned back to me. “Be home before midnight, girls.”
* * *
I MAY HAVE lost the desire to party, but Emma’s enthusiasm rubbed off onto me, and made trying on the outfits in my closet somewhat of an adventure. It made me forgive her for cozying up to my mother before the ambush. Not that I could begrudge Emma loving my mother when I was blessed enough to have one, and she wasn’t.
We settled on a dark blue dress with pleating at the bust, and ruching at the waist. For herself, Emma pulled a tiny, floaty pink dress from her bag, which went beautifully with her platinum locks and baby blues.
“Guess what I did after work?” she whispered with a sly smile.
Emma worked at her favorite clothing store, the kind of store only genetically blessed people such as herself shopped at, while finishing university. She’d studied science, and as much as she hid her intelligence, her smarts were dazzling—just not quite as dazzling as her lack of inhibitions.
“What?”
“You remember Luke from the party last Saturday?”
I nodded and rummaged through my jewelry box for earrings.
“Well, he stopped by at work, and we went to his place for a bit...”
“And?” I asked. For a smart girl, her decisions regarding men were rarely sensible. Not that I could make much claim to sensible today, either.
“And—” she made a gesture with her fist toward her cheek “—it was fun.”
“Oh, lovely visual—classy.” I shook my head at her in the mirror and laughed. I knew why she did that. She wanted to get me talking about sex. Hopefully doing the sex. That would probably be healthier than what I had going on now.
She flopped down on my bed. “I was going to let him do me doggy, but I had to come here and get ready.”
“Really?” I dropped my earring, shock not quite winning out over the morbid fascination that came with vicarious living.
Emma’s tinkling laugh filled my room. “No, I’m messing with you. I promise I do have principles. Well, some principles.” She grinned broadly. “I’d have totally made him buy me dinner before letting him give it to me doggy.”
I tossed a pillow at her from my bed, hitting her square on. She dissolved into hysterics. I couldn’t help joining in. This was why I loved Emma. She could make me feel the way we did when we were sixteen—before things changed. I finished with my earrings and tried on the shiny blue heels Emma insisted would make my vertically challenged legs look awesome.
They did.
“Thanks, Emma.”
I caught her eye in the mirror, and my humor faded. A wash of concern filled me. I knew how it was with girls like us. Girls with a gaping emptiness inside that demanded to be filled. With food, drugs, or—as in Emma’s case—cock.
Not me, though. I nursed my hollowness. I starved it, molded myself around the gnawing pain of it. Maybe I was just a nasty little masochist, or maybe I knew this emptiness was bottomless, and attempting to fill it would kill me.
“You know I love you?” I didn’t say the rest.
Come to me, not them.
Emma’s gaze dropped from the mirror. I watched the top of her blond head. “I know...”
I turned and placed my hands on her shoulders. We both knew what it meant to crave distraction. “I don’t want you to get hurt... Is everything okay at home with your dad?”
Emma tossed back her head and blinked heavily, looking up at the ceiling. “We really need to get a place together. Now I’m finished Uni, I’ll get a better job soon. It’d be good for both of us, you know.” Emma looked back to me. “I need it, and you need to get out of your parents’ house. You’ll never be able to move on here.”
“I want to.” I swallowed, a thickness coating my tongue at the reminder of that-of-which-I-shall-not-speak. “I’m just not sure I’ll actually be able to.”
“Maybe it’s time to start living your own life, and stop asking permission?”
I exhaled heavily, my cheeks puffing out. “Wait and see if I get this job, then we’ll talk about it.”
She gave me her every-tooth smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Emma stepped closer. We wrapped our arms around each other in a brief hug and then pulled apart.
“I love you, ho-bag,” I said, then flinched at my choice of words, considering what I’d been up to.
“I saw that. What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.” I spoke too fast.
“Quit holding out on me. I tell you everything—spill.”
There was no negotiating with Emma when there was gossip to be had.
“I kind of met someone today—had an encounter—or something.”
“I said spill, babe.” She gave me her eager-and-undivided-attention face.
No use fighting it. I knew that look. So I told her the whole sordid story as we got ready. Most of it anyway.
* * *
THIS IS WHY I hate parties.
For one thing, they were generally populated with asshats and sleaze buckets. And hadn’t I hit the jackpot with Chris, the guy who came up and draped his arm around me in a move that proved he was both asshat and sleaze bucket rolled into one. His arm clipped me to his side, and he used his superior height to look down the front of my dress.
The only thing stopping me from putting my elbow to his midsection was the group of people surrounding us. Watching eyes had power over me, made me feel kind of like a marionette—moving stiffly to choreographed movements, doing and saying what they thought I should do and say. Instead I shot him a look that should have had him backing away slowly.
How had I let Chris catch me alone?
We’d kissed once, two months earlier, and that one time had been enough for me. I couldn’t have made myself clearer in that regard. “Stay the hell away from me” seemed pretty direct, to me—impossible to misconstrue. He’d called me “pretty for a chubby girl,” and I just don’t take my kisses served with a side of insults.
The fact I’d lost a few kilos might make me feel a little more confident, but if it made me more “palatable” to him, he could kiss my hot-then-still-hot-now ass. I pulled away and muttered something about going to the bathroom. Pushing through the throng of people, I searched for somewhere, anywhere to hide. I found sanctuary in the kitchen’s walk-in pantry. I tugged at the hem of my dress and lowered myself onto a box of tinned tomatoes.
How long did Emma plan to stay? Luke had come, so she’d probably want to hang around longer than I could stomach. I leaned back and rested my head on the wall, then smiled. It didn’t matter anymore what Chris or anyone else thought. I’d seen the way Haithem looked at me, I’d felt the way he touched me. A heavy sensation flowed down my chest. Why had I run? The most spectacular man I’d ever met wanted me, and I ran after he’d kissed me in a way that fried my panties right off. Just because he was a little, well—intense? I should’ve gone after him, article or no article. Should’ve taken the chance to take things further.
