The Gilded Cuff

by Smith, Lauren

  “You really are worried,” he observed, his face softening.

  “Yes.” Relief coursed through her and her shoulders dropped as the tension eased. He would listen to her, and they’d stay, safe from whatever her instincts were screaming was going to happen.

  “We have to go, just for a little while. I promised Mother. Hans will be with us. Everything will be fine. I promise you.”

  “No! Emery please!” She tugged on the lapels of his black coat.

  “You can stay here, if you’re too upset. Hans will be glad to stay behind and keep an eye on you.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Are you crazy? With that assassin running loose? He doesn’t want me. He wants you. Hans has to stay with you.” She still held the edges of his coat and she rubbed her fingers absently on the expensive material as she hoped in vain he’d change his mind.

  His sigh gave her just a flicker of hope before his words killed it. “Then come with me, Sophie. We’ll stay half an hour and come straight home. Scout’s honor.”

  She managed a weak smile. “You were a boy scout?”

  “Eagle scout.” He grinned.

  “Of course,” she muttered, but she felt a little better. Even though her entire body still seized at the thought of heading into certain danger, she knew she wouldn’t talk him out of it and she had to trust him.

  Her shoulders slumped and she dropped her hands from his chest. There would be no winning this argument. She let Emery escort her to the Mercedes and help her into the backseat. They both slid across the black leather. Hans got into the front passenger seat next to the driver and rattled off directions. Sophie tucked herself into Emery’s side and tried to banish the worry from her mind. She knew she would fail. The devil was out there. He was coming for them. She had to be ready.

  Chapter 19

  IT HAS BEEN TWENTY YEARS SINCE THE INFAMOUS LOCKWOOD KIDNAPPING. EMERY LOCKWOOD IS NOW PRESIDENT OF LOCKWOOD INDUSTRIES, THE COMPANY HIS FATHER ELLIOT AND HIS UNCLE RAND CREATED MANY YEARS AGO. DESPITE THE NUMEROUS SOCIAL FUNCTIONS ELLIOT AND MIRANDA ATTEND, EMERY HAS REMAINED RECLUSIVE, KEEPING WELL OUT OF THE PUBLIC EYE.

  —New York Times, January 7, 2010

  Emery’s parents’ mansion was packed. Expensive foreign cars lined the mile-long walk from the gate to the house, and valets in tailored suits bustled about the arriving guests. Japanese lanterns lit the grounds. A big brass band filled the air with old school jazz inside the ballroom. Everywhere people danced and laughed. The shimmer of jewels and expensive costumes made the room sparkle and shine. He wanted to enjoy the occasion. He hadn’t come to a costume party since he was a boy. But his heart wasn’t in it tonight.

  He glanced across the ballroom to where Sophie was. Her ashen cheeks and haunted eyes wounded him just as much as her silence toward him all evening. She seemed to have withdrawn into herself, silencing her only guardian against whatever had upset her before they left his home. Her face was pale, almost sheet white, and she kept nibbling her lower lip in anxiety. Something had set her to this mood and had disrupted the sweet, sensual creature he’d made love to only an hour before. She’d been so wonderful then, teasing him as they’d dressed. The moment between them had been charged with electricity he’d never felt before with a woman. She soothed him, teased him, and lit a fire in his blood at the same time. She was everything he could want or need in a woman…in a wife.

  The realization hit him like an avalanche, knocking him sideways. Christ. He cared about her. No…He loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. His own thoughts shocked him. As a child he’d never imagined sharing his life with anyone except his brother, but now he couldn’t imagine another moment without Sophie. Of course it was too soon to talk about that sort of thing with her. She was bright and independent. Hell, she might not want to get caught in a long term relationship with him. She had her entire life ahead of her, and he’d spent most of his hiding in the shadows. But he couldn’t let her go, not this one. She was everything to him.

  After losing Fenn, he’d lost his sense of direction, like a painter losing his sight. Losing his other half had torn him apart, unmade him, until he was nothing but a speck of dust in the creator’s mind. Without Fenn, there was no Emery, but Sophie had restored him to the ranks of the living when he hadn’t even realized he’d been dead. She’d breathed life into him. She’d taught him to love, to laugh, to trust his heart again.

  A sudden need to see her, to touch her, filled him at that moment. He scanned the crowd, finding her dancing with his father, the worried expression still lingering on her features. Her head was cocked at a small angle as she listened to whatever it was that his father was saying and she laughed. A pretty blush stained her cheeks, the sparkle of life temporarily restored.

  “I hope you plan to keep her, Emery. She’s a special girl.” His mother’s voice made him start. He turned to find her standing there smiling up at him. He opened his arms and she hugged him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. It was getting easier and easier to let his mother through his crumbling guarded walls. Maybe someday they could be as close as they’d once been before…He didn’t want to think about the past. He wanted to look forward. Fenn was his past. Sophie was his future.

  “I want to keep her, Mother. I do. I will make her mine.”

  “A woman wants to know when she’s loved, Emery. That one doesn’t want money or jewels. She wants your heart. Can you give her that?” Miranda asked. The tragedy of losing Fenn had left a stark melancholy in her eyes that broke his heart, and that old guilt still ate away at him deep inside.

  “Mother, I need to tell you about Fenn. What happened that night…?” His voice broke. She shushed him.

  “I know what happened. You got separated…and he didn’t make it. Your father and I don’t blame you. Emery, I miss Fenn with every breath I take, but I am so thankful you survived. So thankful.” Tears filled her eyes and she brushed her hand over his cheek. The motherly stroke made the awful ache in his chest deepen.

  “Look at us,” his mother chided. “This is a time for happiness. Now go steal that girl of yours back before your father woos her away from you.” His mother smiled, eyes still bright with tears. She patted his arm and turned away to speak to her other guests. He started to walk forward when someone bumped into him.

  “Emery! So you decided to come after all.” His cousin Brant, dressed in black pants and a black shirt, slid his black mask off his face.

  “Yeah, I figured I should.” Emery didn’t want to stop and chat, but it seemed Brant did.

  “And your lovely little conquest? Where is she? Don’t tell me the bloom’s off that particular rose so soon.” Brant’s tone was teasing, but his eyes were anything but. The hardness there gave Emery momentary pause.

  “She’s here.” He didn’t elaborate. For whatever reason, Brant wanted to throw him off and he wouldn’t allow his cousin to play mind games.

  “Ahh…still taken with her? Well…have a lovely night, cousin.” Brant slid his mask back down over his face and vanished into the crowd of bodies.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. He would have ignored it but he never put his phone on vibrate. He slid a hand into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He frowned. It was not his phone. His was gone. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and something pitched south in his stomach.

  The caller ID read unknown. “What the hell?” He answered it. “Who is this?” he growled.

  An all too familiar voice came through the line. “Hello Emery,” Antonio D’Angelo said.

  “You piece of shit—” he started.

  “Now, now, Emery. Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

  “You burned down my stables, you killed my brother, you beat up my friend, and you tried to blow me to hell. I don’t think you’re running for friend of the year.”

  Antonio laughed, pleasure evident in the sound, and it made Emery’s blood boil.

  “Always so mouthy. I had such a delight in beating it out of you. But I do hat
e to correct you. As much as I wish I killed Fenn, I did not.”

  “What?” Emery’s answer was a breathless gasp. His brain seemed to fill with a steady fog.

  “Need I say it again? I was not there the night you escaped. My men were, but not me. I discovered your brother wasn’t dead only a few days ago. I’m surprised your little reporter hasn’t told you. She knows Fenn is alive. She and that hacker friend of yours have been keeping secrets from you, it seems.”

  Emery’s heart stuttered to a rigid stop. The noise of the room faded to a distant buzz, his head cloudy with confusion.

  Sophie. Sophie had been hiding this from him, something that meant everything to him. She wouldn’t, couldn’t keep that secret from him. It was another of D’Angelo’s games.

  “You’re lying.”

  D’Angelo laughed. “You don’t have to trust me, Emery. I can prove it to you. She wants the story of a lifetime and she kept the news of Fenn being alive to herself because she wants the glory of the story. She got your hacker to play along, for a price of course…They’re too close, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps they were lovers before you met her. She knew so easily where to find you at the club. I bet she and Cody have been planning this for months.”

  Emery gripped the phone so hard the plastic cracked.

  “Try not to look so surprised, Emery.”

  Surprised? How the hell did Antonio…Emery spun around, eyes searching the crowd. He had to be here, watching him. There were too many people and the lighting was too dim for him to get a clear view.

  “She was happy to fuck you for the story, for the money, but now she’s spreading her favors out. Just like a woman.”

  Lies. Had it all been nothing but insidious lies?

  “I’m hanging up,” he growled.

  “I’m sending you a video file. I’d suggest you watch it.”

  The phone went dead.

  A second later the e-mail icon popped up. He tapped the e-mail and the file started to upload. He pressed play and watched.

  It was a video taken from when Cody was in the hospital. D’Angelo must have planted a small button-hole camera in the room somehow. The thought filled him with cold dread. The man had been in Cody’s room, close enough to finish off his friend. The video showed Cody and Sophie alone in the room, talking. He couldn’t read their lips, but the body language was clear, furtive glances, shifty eyes, and then Cody slipped something small—looked like a pocket knife—into Sophie’s hand. She hastily tucked it into her pocket as Emery entered the hospital room.

  There was no way to be sure what Cody and Sophie had talked about, but the visual evidence was damning.

  The blood in his veins was cold as ice as he replayed the video two more times. Emery felt as though someone had punched a fist in his chest and had wrapped cruel fingers around his heart, squeezing painfully. She had betrayed him. He’d given her his worst memories, told her the darkest secret in his soul, and she was using it against him and working with his friend—a young man he’d rescued and treated like a younger brother. The joy and elation of knowing Fenn might still be alive was soured by the manner in which he’d learned the truth…He couldn’t trust her. He dropped the phone to the floor and smashed it beneath his boot. If Sophie wanted to play games, he would play.

  Cold rage suffused him with an incredible sense of self-control. He walked across the ballroom floor, his heart turning to stone with every step. He reached Sophie and his father.

  “May I cut in?” His frozen smile gave his father pause. His father glanced at Sophie, one brow raised in question.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Lockwood,” Sophie assured him. His father stepped back and Emery slid into his place without missing a step. He captured her hand in his, and placed his other hand on her lower back, pulling her tight into his body. Sophie’s eyes lit with sudden sensual hunger, a look he recognized instantly. Emotions whipped through him sharply. He’d never see that look again after tonight and it was tainted by knowing Sophie had secret motives with regard to him. His sadness was drowned in a rush of fury and yet he still wanted to sink into her body and find heaven. It was a cruel joke that the one woman he made love to, which felt like coming home, was the one woman that had betrayed him.

  “Emery?” Such a sweet, innocent sounding voice. Damn, she was a hell of an actress.

  He tightened his grip on her lower back as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

  “Care to go somewhere private?”

  “Why?” she whispered back.

  He nipped her ear and pressed his erection against her belly. Sophie’s lips parted on a soft, shivery sigh.

  “You lead, I’ll follow,” she promised, eyes half closed as she linked her arm in his. A blush lit her cheeks as he led her from the dance floor. He had a perfect place in mind for what he needed to do. One last time, he’d pretend she was the woman he’d given his world to. One more night, then he’d cast her out and move on.

  * * *

  Sophie had that awful sense of doom. It filled her to the brim like smoke curling up from a deadly spell from a witch’s cauldron. Yet Emery was distracting her with his endless passion. She couldn’t refuse him, never wanted to refuse him. He’d made her feel more alive, more herself, than she’d ever been in her entire life. Emery pulled her into a room just off the ballroom. There was a large mahogany desk and a couple of leather armchairs. Behind the desk floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with hundreds of books bearing gilded spines.

  The click of the lock in the door had her spinning around. He leaned back against the door, arms crossed. He wasn’t smiling, not with his eyes, even though his lips curved upward.

  “Sit on the edge of the desk, spread your legs wide for me.” The command was smooth and erotic but the stark flash of violent pain in his eyes confused her.

  “Do it, or I’ll redden that ass of yours with my hand,” he warned.

  Sophie lit up inside with a powerful stab of arousal and backed up to the desk. She stood on tiptoe and eased back on the desk, raising her eyes to his as she spread her legs. His gaze dropped and she knew he was remembering that she wore nothing underneath her dress.

  Emery shoved away from the door and stalked over to her. She leaned back instinctively as he invaded her space. He caught the nape of her neck with one hand, squeezing slightly, the pressure a command the stay still. He tugged her hair and she tilted her chin back, exposing her throat. The first caress of his lips under her jaw was more an echo of a kiss given centuries ago. Her skin tingled and whispered with the faint sensation. Every single cell of her being focused on the contact, the brush of lips, a graze of teeth on her throat, the hot tip of his tongue tasting her.

  The climax in her womb began to build—slow, faint at first, brought on by the feathering kisses and slight sting of her scalp where he fisted her hair. His other palm touched her knee, tracing patterns with warm fingertips before it slid along the outside of her thigh, pushing her glittering dress up until she was bare to her hip. She wanted his lips on her mouth, to feel the emotions he let pour from his mouth to hers each time they came together. But he didn’t kiss her.

  He pressed her down until she lay on her back on the desk, then he pushed her dress up to her waist and grabbed her hips. The sudden jerk that dragged her bottom to the end of the desk stole the breath from her body. Animal ferocity filled his every touch as he lifted her legs, curling her calves around his slim, powerful hips. The muscles of his ass were tight and she pressed against him, urging him closer. She shuddered with longing when he unbuckled his belt and undid the first button. His eyes lifted to hers, holding her captive as he unzipped his pants and freed himself.

  There were a thousand things she should have said at that moment, when she saw the flicker of angry shadows in his eyes, but he didn’t give her a chance to think. His hands went to his neck, loosening the burnished gold tie he wore. Working one finger in the knot, he slid it loose and reached for her hands. Using the tie, he bound her wrists together and pulled
them above her head. He made some movement with his hand above her head, and although she couldn’t see what he was doing, she guessed he’d done something to the desk’s edge because her wrists were pulled tight and the tie was secured to something she couldn’t see.

  The cold glint in his eyes had her heart skipping wildly. What had changed since they’d arrived at the party? This was not the Emery she’d come to know; this was the Emery she’d first met that night in the club, the one full of fire and anger and defensiveness. All of his barriers were back, his fortress sealed against her once more. The progress she’d made in getting inside his walls had been unraveled.

  “Don’t move,” he growled.

  She was helpless…Her knees clamped together.

  “Keep your legs open.”

  With a deep breath she forced herself to calm down and she let her knees fall apart, but she couldn’t stop them from trembling. He leaned over and placed a fingertip on her lips. Then he trailed it down to the rising and falling of her breasts. She watched that finger as he gave the dress a gentle tug and freed her breasts one at a time. Her breath quickened and her nipples pearled. Emery circled one peak, eyes dark as though fascinated by the sight of her aroused body. His brow furrowed slightly as he concentrated on her other breast, cupping it, kneading it until both breasts were swollen and heavy. She arched her back, pressing herself into his touch.

  Sophie wanted to ignore the warning her heart gave her in that moment, when their eyes met again and she saw the darkness gathering in him like some violent storm on the horizon. But the ability to think rationally evaporated as Emery bent his head and took one of her nipples in his mouth. She moaned as he sucked hard on the sensitive tip, laving the tip with his tongue before biting it.

  “Ooh!” She couldn’t contain the sound of pleasure/pain as it rippled through her. He moved to the other nipple and bit down on it while he slid his hand down between her thighs. One of his fingers dipped into her hot channel and her hips shot up, trying to push him deeper. His finger retreated instantly and she whimpered at the loss.