by Juniper Bell
He held me at arms' length. "I'm not falling for this. I know what you're doing."
"What?" I was so bewildered by his hot-and-cold behavior, the shock of seeing him again, the high from earlier. It was all too much.
"Why'd she do it? Why, Lauren? Why?" Anger rippled through his voice.
"What are you talking about?"
"Bliss. Your mother. And you. Why'd you mess with my family? Where is Bliss right now?"
I ordered my legs to stop trembling. My lips were still tingling from his kiss, but I ignored my physical reaction.
"I think you should go," I told him. I clenched my hands to hide the trembling. But he saw. The way his gaze consumed me, I knew he saw everything. The blood surging into my cheeks, my swollen nipples, my scared-rabbit pulse.
"I'm going. For now," he said. "But I intend to finish what I started. And I'm not talking about this." He brushed his thumb across my lips.
I didn't want to ask, but I had to. "What then?"
"I intend to ruin Bliss the way she ruined us."
3
Rye
I don't even remember how I got out of that building. My lips still burned from the taste of Lauren's. My blood sizzled. My cock wanted to bust out of my jeans.
As soon as I laid eyes on her in that ballroom, I'd wanted her. And then, once we were alone in that hallway, I'd totally lost control. We'd made out just feet away from her fiancé and half the suits in Washington. What the hell was wrong with me? I was there for revenge, not anything physical. And I could have gone a lot further than a kiss, but I'd finally come to my senses.
But beyond that hot kiss, another moment stood out. Her quick look of surprise when I asked her why Bliss had done it. She tried to hide her reaction, because that's what Lauren always did. I still remembered the time I pretended to read her diary. She acted as cool as if it was the Yellow Pages. Lauren hid her real self as much as she possibly could. I knew that about her. But there was always that one moment before she managed to school her expression when the truth peeked out.
The truth, as I read it in Lauren's quicksilver reaction, was that she genuinely didn't know why I accused her of ruining our lives.
That intrigued me.
And no matter how much her disdainful manner got under my skin, I couldn't shake the memory of that skinny, long-legged girl who used to hide behind her mom. This was Lauren. She'd lived in my home for ten months. That wasn't long enough to make her any kind of "sister." But it was long enough for me to feel vaguely protective of her.
Like the time some asshole from her school texted her a dick pic. Sent a twelve-year-old girl a dick pic. I went ballistic on him and texted him back all kinds of shit. Threatened to call the cops. Blocked his number from Lauren's phone and told her if he so much as looked at her in the hall, to call me at school and I'd come home. Usually I just made her pink, but that time she was bright red.
Okay, so maybe even back then there'd been a little something between me and Lauren. Nothing compared to what had just happened, obviously.
Outside the Smithsonian, I hailed a cab and had the driver take me to the Colonial Inn, which advertised itself as a "boutique hotel" in the heart of the nation's capital. The fuck if I cared. I wanted a bed and a shower. Someplace where I could jerk off before my cock exploded. I checked in, fully aware that I was the only guest in the lobby with an olive-drab duffel over my shoulder.
The theme here was quiet luxury. Plush carpet, copper wall sconces, tomato-red Chinese lanterns filling a porcelain vase at the concierge desk.
"How long will you be staying, Mr. McAllister?" The Asian girl behind the counter was perfection in her navy blazer and perky smile.
"I'm not sure. Can I take it night by night?"
"Of course. You're lucky, this is our slow time. The cherry blossom season has ended and Congress isn't in session."
"I'm not here for the cherries."
That sounded a little dirty, but she didn't seem to notice. "They don't make cherries. It's the blossoms people come to see."
"Right. Thanks for the clarification." As if I cared about cherries or blossoms. I was here for one purpose. I'd located one half of the Blakewell duo, so I was halfway there.
Off to the side, I spied an expensive-looking bar filled with expensive-looking customers. I caught the subtle clink of silverware against crystal, or maybe it was someone's gold bullion clinking against their ruby necklace. The sound of money. The sound I grew up with.
On my way to the elevator, I paused outside the bar. A single malt Scotch would sure hit the spot. In an alternate universe, in which the McAllisters hadn't left Chicago, I might know those people in there. I might have gone to college with some, or business school. My father would be in the thick of it, making friends out of strangers.
But as I scanned the crowd, I felt a sudden homesickness for Houston. We had our share of suits, too, but they were mostly worn with cowboy boots. When you walked into the Tex Mex Grill, you didn't see ties and cufflinks. You saw denim shirts with the sleeves rolled up. You saw girls with their shirts tied under their boobs, long legs and short shorts.
Shrugging off the idea of a bar full of strangers, I headed for my suite.
Showered, sexually self-satisfied, and dressed in loose cotton sweats, I strolled to the little balcony that overlooked the monuments of Washington. They looked much better at night, all lit up. During the day, everything seemed kind of monolithic. But at night you could breathe in the muggy city air and smell the power. Town cars patrolled the streets like sharks. What kind of sordid deals were being concocted in those back seats?
What was Lauren doing right now? Maybe she was going down on her fiancé in one of those town cars.
Right away I got hard again, as if I hadn't just come all over the Colonial's shower stall. There was something about Lauren that really got me stirred up. Maybe it was all the contradictions. Her full lips promised passion, but her wary posture said "hands off." I couldn't believe what a stunning woman she'd grown into. Her face was truly, objectively beautiful, but unreadable. She kept such a tight rein on her facial expressions. Nothing snuck past her control. Except the quicksilver changes flashing in those knock-you-off-your-feet eyes.
How much time had I spent with her that evening? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? I had no idea, but it was long enough to leave her image imprinted on my vision like a tattoo. Obsession had never made sense to me. If someone doesn't want you, move on. For the first time in my life, I understood it. I wanted to see Lauren again. Needed to see her again.
Except that my mission was revenge against her mother.
I leaned my elbows on the railing and sipped from the little bottle of Scotch I'd snagged from the mini-bar. Maybe I'd change my tune and come on all friendly. Take her to dinner under the guise of being a former stepbrother. Ask to meet her future husband. Keep her on edge about what kind of trouble I would make for Bliss.
My gut clenched at the thought of Brian Clayton. I hadn't gotten much of an impression of him at the party. He and Lauren seemed cozy, but she'd looked a little bored. Before she spotted me, her attention kept wandering this way and that. He hadn't seemed to notice. He'd been chatting with the waiter. He didn't look like a bad guy, but the thought of his hands on Lauren's body made me sick. Did she go liquid when he touched her the way she had with me?
Fuck. I drained the Scotch. I wasn't here to obsess over Lauren Blakewell Gallatin Clayton Whatever. I was here to … I didn't know what I was here for. The Scotch had made the whole plan kind of fuzzy. Or maybe it had been fuzzy to start with. It was about Lauren … and Bliss … and revenge …
Bliss.
Just like that, all my determination came charging back. Bliss had to pay for what she'd done. Where was she? How did she live with herself after betraying my father and causing his death? Bliss would pay. No matter how much I wanted Lauren.
4
Lauren
When I got home that night, I cornered Bliss while she was taking off h
er makeup. Our condo had an entire room devoted to Bliss's wardrobe and cosmetic supplies. A vanity with a ruthlessly accurate mirror held prime position.
According to Bliss, a girl's best friend wasn't diamonds, but an honest mirror. She possessed many bits of wisdom along those lines. I used to think about collecting them into a book. "A Con Woman's Guide to Style."
I myself had a rocky relationship with mirrors. Bliss had spent so many hours with me in front of a mirror, teaching me the basics. How to hold my head. How to smile. How to apply eye liner. How to gain attention. How to hide.
I'd rather stare at a book than a mirror any time.
I brought her an herbal tea just how she liked it—with lemon and no sugar. Bliss never ate dairy or sugar. She preferred low-calorie vices like money and men.
She accepted the mug with a vague smile and waved me to a little cushioned footstool nearby. Taking off her makeup was a nightly ritual that was often the only time we spoke to each other. Since the moment I turned eighteen and learned she wasn't my real mother, since the moment we made our deal, I'd kept our communication strictly business. Right now, my business was to get some facts out of Bliss.
Rye had surprised me. Not just with his kiss, but with his accusations. Clearly he blamed Bliss and me for something, and knowing Bliss, maybe he was right. I wanted to find out what really happened back in Chicago.
Prying the truth from Bliss might be mission impossible, but I had to try.
"Something happened tonight," I told her as she drew a cotton pad soaked with makeup removed across her left eye.
"Problem with the family?"
"The Claytons? No, no. Everything's fine with the job." At least I hoped it was, though Brian had been pissed that I left him alone for so long. "But there might be trouble coming."
"Really." With her hand poised above her eyelashes, she gave me a hard look. She was still a knockout, but a few wrinkles were daring to appear on her skin. "You'd better explain."
"Someone came to the fund-raiser last night, someone I hadn't seen in a long time. He threatened to "ruin" you. I don't know what he intends, but it would help if I had more information."
Put the job first. That was my strategy. Bliss was all about the money. I'd known that even before she told me she wasn't my real mother.
"However I can help, let me know, darling. You're doing a fabulous job so far." She smiled sweetly and turned her attention to the mirror.
"The man at the party was Rye McAllister."
Bliss froze for a microsecond. "Man?" She drew the word out mockingly. "Rye's just a kid."
"Believe me, he's no kid. He looks …" I picked up one of her tubes of lipstick and fiddled with it. "Well, he's all grown up, let's just put it that way. He's definitely not someone to dismiss." That broken nose, that hard body. Those astute eyes that seemed to penetrate right through me. No, he wasn't someone to dismiss. Or even forget for two minutes. Honestly, it felt as if he'd been exclusively dominating my thoughts ever since he appeared at the Smithsonian.
"Who wants to dismiss him? Let's invite him to dinner." Behind the lovely grass-green surface of Bliss's gaze, I saw calculations that would put a supercomputer to shame.
"That's really not a good idea. He seems to think you did something to his family. To Mr. McAllister. He wants some kind of revenge."
She spread cold cream on her face, then began the slow process of wiping it off. "Revenge for what? Ian broke my heart when he kicked us out."
The idea of Bliss being broken-hearted was a little hard to swallow. I remembered a few tears, but they probably weren't real. I'd learned that very little about Bliss was real. "He didn't specify, but he looked angry."
"Well, you'll just have to deal with him, honey." She rose to her feet and patted my cheek. "We can't allow anything to get in the way of the Clayton job. I know how much this one—especially this one—means to you."
"I have to deal with him?" I scrambled to my feet. "You're the one he's after."
"Darling, I don't have time to waste on a sulky boy. If you want me to keep up my end of our bargain, you'll make sure he's no threat. Understood?"
The bargain. Damn her. The bargain was everything to me and Bliss knew it. I wanted out of this life. Desperately. But Bliss had the trump card in our relationship--a videotape of me during one of our planning sessions. On the tape, I calmly laid out the details of my masquerade as the girlfriend of a bank manager. That bank had been robbed of millions of dollars and the feds were still looking for the perpetrators. My role in the job was small, and I didn’t know who had hired us. But that wasn’t what it looked like on that tape.
Bliss had two things that I wanted: that tape, and the truth about my real parents. She'd promised to give me both after this last job. If I messed it up, I'd be back to zero. . If anything went wrong here in DC, she’d cancel our deal and I'd be doomed to more time acting the lovesick arm candy.
I couldn't let that happen.
"You should have no trouble with the McAllister boy. A spoiled kid like him is a cakewalk. Keep your eyes on the prize and it will all work out."
She brushed past me in a cloud of stale Guerlain perfume. But I wasn't ready to let it go so easily. I still felt the Rye's silvery gaze and hot touch. Something wasn't right and I needed to know what I was dealing with.
"Just look me in the eye, Bliss, and tell me what really happened with the McAllisters. I can't go into this thing blind."
"You'll be fine. I need to get to sleep now. I have a breakfast meeting with the senator. I have some fabulous ideas about how to leverage your engagement and boost his poll numbers. Seriously, I'm shocked that I never thought to become a political consultant earlier in life. These political types are so out-of-touch, they don't know what the people want to see." A breezy wink came next. I knew that wink. It meant trouble.
"What are you talking about? What do you think people want to see?"
"Why, sex, what else? I'm thinking you, on a yacht in that black bikini. Brian kissing you somewhere intimate. Not too intimate, of course. The shoulder, perhaps. Or the knee, if it's bent. The tummy might be taking it too far, and the toes are a little too fetishistic. Yes, a loving moment between two attractive adults who are engaged to be married, that's absolutely perfect."
She clapped her hands together and twirled past me. I was too shell-shocked at the idea of Brian kissing my bare stomach to say a word. Would he be able to keep a straight face?
"Expect to see me in high demand after this job is over, darling. Genius like this can not go unrecognized. Of course you'll be gone by then, doing God knows what. Something tedious with refugee children, that's all I remember. It's so boring it keeps slipping from my mind."
And she was gone, her light footsteps tripping down the hall to her bedroom.
I hadn't gotten a single answer. And yet, I had. Add up all the tiny pauses and micro-hesitations, the things she didn't say, the way she counterpunched to throw me off balance—black bikini? Yacht?—and I knew that Rye was right to be angry. Bliss was hiding something.
I thought about the joint stashed in my nightstand. It would feel so good to take the edge off right now.
No. I'd been using weed as a crutch for too long. I needed to keep my focus. I needed a plan.
And I needed, on some deep physical level that shocked me, to see Rye again. To have him touch me. Kiss me. Make me feel alive again.
5
Rye
I spent the next day on the phone, tending to business back home and reaching out to an old friend from Chicago who now lived in DC. I'd known Levi Drake at Bellview Prep, where he was an outcast by choice. He hated the private school scene. Too brainy for the bullshit, too focused. Too bi-racial. And yet he was the only one I'd trusted enough to stay in touch with after we left.
Levi worked at a local TV news station and was interested to hear that I had a connection with "America's answer to Kate Middleton." But I didn't want to make any moves before I'd at least seen Bliss. He helped m
e track down an address for Lauren and Mavis Gallatin. Mavis? Where did she come up with her names?
I ate a quick dinner in the bar downstairs and had just returned when a soft knock sounded on my door.
It was Lauren.
She looked different. Her uptight party clothes from the night before were gone. She wore a teal scoop-necked shirt and white jeans. Her hair fell loose down her back. Everything about her looked softer and more vulnerable.
Which sent my alarm bells ringing. Lauren had an agenda, and she'd dressed to support it. Whatever it was. I squinted at her, hoping to figure out what she was up to.
"Can I come in?" she finally asked. Her tone was wary. I couldn't detect any other evil intent. Still, I kept that threshold between us.
"What are you doing here? How did you know where I was staying?"
"I have my sources." Those beautiful, full lips curved into the tiniest hint of a smile.
I just bet she did. "What are you, a hooker?"
Yeah, it was a crappy thing to say. But she was getting under my skin with her softness and that fresh-washed glow. How dare she look like some kind of innocent when I knew what she was?
She didn't even react. When it came to guarding her emotions, Lauren was a pro. "No, I'm not a hooker. Are you an asshole?"
"Without a doubt."
"Are you going to let me in or should I send you an email outlining my proposal?"
"You have a proposal?"
"Yes. Sort of." For the first time, her poise slipped. "Maybe more of a negotiation."
"So you're a businesswoman. That explains a lot."
Finally, she snapped. "Are you going to fucking let me in or not, Rye?"
Laughing, I stood back. I propped the door open while she sailed into the room like a princess. I half expected an entourage to follow her in. I closed the door behind her. A fresh scent tickled my nose—a little spicy, a little citrusy. Rare, as if you could only experience it if you caught Lauren Blakewell after a shower.
