by Holly Hart
“I can’t…” Charlie groans. “I’m the charity’s patron. I can’t just screw you in the bathroom.”
I lean forward, bringing my lips right up close to Charlie’s ear.
“Who said anything about screwing me?” I whisper. My tongue darts out and licks Charlie’s earlobe. He jerks backward, and fixes me with a shocked stare.
“Penny –”
I stand up and straighten my dress, acting like I didn’t say anything at all. My mind is filled with images of the same dress, hiked up against Charlie’s thighs as he pushes into me against a bathroom stall.
I back away. There is no way I’m losing my virginity in a public restroom, that’s for sure. Still, for the first time in my life, the thought fills me with excitement. What’s happening to me?
“I’m just going to wash my hands,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I dance through the ballroom. The dinner tables aren’t packed tight, but dozens of waiters swarm the room – some carrying champagne on silver trays, others desserts on little plates. I try to get out of their way, but instead they back away from me, looking down at the floor as I pass. It feels weird – like I’m the Queen of England.
I dart out of the ballroom, hurry down a short corridor, and push into the women’s bathroom. I don’t need the toilet – I just need to splash a little water on my face. I need to cool down. Sitting right next to Charlie all meal was bad enough.
His aftershave has tortured me all night – and so have the little touches whenever he leaned over to refill my plate, or top up my glass. I’m not an idiot. I know they weren’t accidental.
Yet until I ran off my mouth just now, I could have dismissed all that. Whatever weird little attraction Charlie and I have, it was bubbling under the surface until I basically propositioned him with public sex…
The water feels like ice against my face, but it’s exactly what I need. I pat myself dry, and then head back out into the fray.
But the hallway’s not empty. I walk straight into a man’s body. And not just any man: Landon Winchester, Charlie’s mortal enemy.
“Penny,” he smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s got a predator’s cunning expression on his face. “Imagine meeting you here. What a surprise…”
“Imagine,” I reply flatly. “I don’t believe for a second that it’s a surprise.”
“No, really: I’ve got a surprise planned – all for you. I think you’re going to like it,” Landon says.
A lascivious sneer creeps across his face. He must be doing it on purpose. I can’t believe anyone could act as evil as he does without meaning it. I bet he practices in front of the mirror…
I take a step back. “I don’t want anything from you,” I say.
He smirks. “No? But I haven’t even told you what it is.”
I try to sidestep the creepy billionaire, as he steps in front of me to block my path. “Now where do you think you’re going, Penny?” he says. He licks his lips, and I shiver.
“Anywhere,” I reply. “I don’t care, as long as it’s far away from you.”
Landon takes a step forward. “But you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” I growl. “Enough to know that you’re not the kind of man I want to spend any time around.”
He takes another step. Only a couple of feet separate us now.
A heated blush paints my cheeks. I’m all kinds of vulnerable right now, but there’s no way I’m letting Landon know he’s getting to me. I’ve dealt with men on the streets who tried to rape me. Landon Winchester doesn’t scare me, not really.
Still – one thought haunts my mind. What if I scream and nobody comes to help? Landon’s a staple of New York society. It’s hardly a secret that the rich get away with their crimes. He could do anything to me right now, and if people found out, would they even care?
“I know things too, Penny,” Landon says. He reaches forward and brushes a stray tendril of hair from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear.
“I told you, Landon,” I growl. I bat his hand away. He’s got cold, clammy skin. “I don’t care what you know. What you think you know.”
A wolfish grin spreads across his face. “Oh, I think you will,” he says. “Have it your way, Penny.”
He licks his lips, and his eyes dance from my toes to my rack. Charlie only did this a couple of hours ago, yet this feels completely different. When Charlie did it, I felt like I was a fine piece of art being appreciated. With Landon, it’s more like he’s sizing up his next meal.
“Think what you want,” I say. “Just keep it to yourself.”
I attempt to push past his tall frame. He takes a step towards me, making me press my ass up against his crotch in order to squeeze in between him and the wall. I’m sure I feel the outline of his cock through the thin silk of my cocktail dress. It sickens me.
“You’re an animal,” I spit.
Landon smiles as though I have complimented him. “Thank you,” he says. “I try.”
“That’s not –,” I start, appalled by his total lack of understanding that I was insulting him. Then I stop.
I know Landon’s game. He’s doing exactly what he did to Charlie earlier: trying to wind him up, trying to push his buttons. Now he’s doing it to me. When he sees weakness – or what he thinks is weakness – he exploits it. I can’t let him.
“Go fuck yourself, Winchester,” I hiss.
Landon just stands there, ignoring my comment. I don’t know what I expected, but that reaction wasn’t it. Landon Winchester doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who takes assaults on his pride lightly. As I leave, his eyes burn with icy anger that crackles against my back.
I shiver.
I just hope I haven’t provoked an enemy; especially not one as powerful as the CEO of Wincorp.
As I disappear around the corner, heading down the hallway that leads back to the main ballroom, I hear Landon speak. It’s barely more than a whisper. At first, I don’t know if I’ve heard him right. But then I realize that I have.
“That, my dear, is the goal…”
The comment makes me sick.
Still, I wander back into the ballroom, holding the shimmering silk at my waist. When I’m wearing something this beautiful, it’s hard to stay angry for long. The silk is so soft it feels like my entire body is being layered with sweet, gentle kisses.
If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine it’s Charlie.
The man himself is still sitting where I left him: pride of place at the top table, an empty chair beside him. He looks slightly tense, but the expression softens as he sees me slipping through the dinner tables.
Something changes in Charlie’s mood as he watches me walk through the crowd. I see his gaze shift to something behind me. I peek over my shoulder, and see Landon striding cockily out of the hallway. He stops, pauses, and stares directly at Charlie – just long enough to adjust his fly – then he winks and carries on.
Asshole.
“Is everything okay?” Charlie asks me urgently. “He didn’t do anything to you, did –”
“Nothing,” I assured him, touched by his concern. “He’s just a creep, that’s all.”
“Are you sure?” Charlie says, grinding his teeth. His enmity with Landon Winchester couldn’t be more obvious if he scrawled it on a fifty-foot billboard. “I’ll have him thrown out, just give me the word.”
I close my eyes, picturing the scene. All I am is Charlie Thorne’s fake real wife, and yet I somehow now have the power to get people thrown out of fancy balls. I open them again, and smile at Charlie’s worried face. The husband might be a fake, but the concern is most definitely real.
“Trust me it’s…”
The band stops playing as I open my mouth. A startled rattle of conversation dances across the room. A spotlight sweeps across the crowd, and slows, slows, until it comes to a halt on Charlie and me.
“… fine.”
Chapter Nine
Charlie
I reach for Penn
y’s hand underneath the table.
I do it without thinking. I freeze for a second, ignoring the spotlight lighting us up, ignoring the whole fucking crowd around us. In that moment, all I care about is whether Penny is going to push me away.
My heartbeat – each single, solitary beat – seems to stretch out into a lifetime.
Boom, thud.
Boom, thud.
Boom, thud.
Penny squeezes my hand back.
I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. The world returns to motion and life.
I hear the clinking of champagne glasses, the slightly-too-loud cackle of a woman who’s had a bit too much to drink.
I see a hundred bored-looking gray-haired men staring up at me, and another hundred platinum blondes with Botoxed lips, looking at their paycheck. It wouldn’t surprise me if half the women in this room have had a client die on them, mid-thrust.
Until this very moment, I didn’t realize that – no matter how fake this thing is between Penny and me – she’s still by far the most real woman in this room.
“Charlie,” Penny whispers. “What’s going on?”
I wish I could give her an answer, but in all truth, I don’t know. What I do know is that someone’s ass is on the line. I give the Children’s Fund tens of millions of dollars every year, and I ask for only one thing in return: complete, absolute, and utter, discretion. They had to wrestle with me to get me to this damn ball at all.
I don’t care whose idea it was to stick this fucking spotlight on me, but I’m going to see they regret it.
“Just sit tight,” I reply through gritted teeth. I smile at the crowd, because it seems like the thing to do. “I’ll get this sorted out.”
I reluctantly release Penny’s fingers. Without the touch of her skin, my hand feels cold. I half-stand in order to begin my search for whatever idiot is responsible for this mess.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the master of ceremonies announces. “Please put your hands together for Charles Thorne, tonight’s generous patron!”
A smattering of applause fills the room. I wouldn’t call it warm. I know the men in here: each and every one. They don’t give a fuck about charity, not like I do. They are just here to get their picture in the paper, another tax write off to send to the IRS, and of course a pair of pumped up lips around their cock.
I wave away the applause. It’s not fake modesty, it’s the real deal.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the portly announcer says. “As you all know, some very generous people have donated fantastic prizes for tonight’s charity auction.”
I sit back down. There’s no way I can interrupt this without making a scene. As long as the spotlight’s the biggest problem I have to deal with tonight, then I guess I can handle it: just this once.
A murmur of excitement fills the room. Charity auctions aren’t about charity: not really. In my experience, they are about competition. They’re about showing off. They’re about showing who’s got more “fuck you money” than the guy sitting next to you.
I don’t get involved. It’s not my style. I just donate the prizes: every single one; a week’s stay on my Monaco-based super yacht; a private trip on my 737. For these people, it’s about status. Nothing says status like a private plane. It doesn’t matter who owns it…
“Before we begin, I’ve just been informed,” the announcer says, while I’m lost in my own little world, “that a particularly generous individual has thrown another prize into the pot.”
The man looks up and grins into the crowd. “Gentlemen, this one’s for you. I think you’ll agree it’s a real peach.”
Penny leans back in her chair and reaches for my hand again. It’s a calm, unhurried movement. She’s loose and relaxed.
I wish I could say I feel the same way. I’ve got an overdeveloped sense of personal preservation. Some have called me paranoid, and in truth, they aren’t far from the mark. The prickling feeling that I’m getting in my belly tells me that something ain’t right.
The portly announcer stretches out his arm, palm up: and points it at me! I grimace. I feel like a car wreck is unfolding in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“Once more, let us thank our generous patron, Charles Thorne, ladies and gentlemen!”
There’s more applause.
This time it’s longer, more sustained. The atmosphere in the room has changed. This ballroom is full of predators – sharks. They can sense blood in the water as easily as breathing: my fucking blood. I chew my lip, trying to figure out what to do.
“… and his beautiful new wife, Penny.”
She looks at me with nerves in her eyes. I paste a fake smile onto my face to please the crowd, and turn to my wife.
“It’ll be okay,” I say. “I promise.”
I speak too soon.
“We’re going to kick off our third annual Charity Auction with the grand prize…” The announcer pauses, leaning forward. It’s like he thinks he’s on Dancing with the Stars, or something, and speaking to the whole of the United States.
He winks at the crowd. “Drumroll please… I’m just kidding. Tonight’s grand prize is – and you’ll have to believe me on this one – a weekend away with Mr. Thorne’s gorgeous young wife, Penny.”
You could hear a fucking pin drop.
“Charlie,” Penny says urgently. “What the hell’s happening? You didn’t –?”
“Of course I didn’t,” I growl. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, or who did this –”
I see Penny’s head drop imperceptibly. “I think I do,” she whispers.
“What are you talking about?”
She points into the crowd. “Landon,” she says. “He said he had a surprise for me. I thought he was just being an asshole, but –”
A surge of blinding rage shoots through me. In that moment, all I want to do is jump from the top table and put my hands around Landon’s throat. I’d do it, too, if Penny wasn’t holding tight to me: holding on like she’s terrified; holding on like she wants to be anywhere else in the world but here.
“Oh, he’s an asshole, all right,” I say grimly. “It’ll be fine, Penny. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
I search the sea of fascinated faces for Landon. It doesn’t take long to find him. The sleazy prick’s the one with the shit-eating grin on his face, reclining in his chair like he thinks he’s a Roman Emperor.
“No, Charlie,” Penny says. “I think I do.”
My head flicks to face her. “What are you talking about?”
“Look,” she says, surreptitiously squinting at the crowd. Her eyebrows tent in the middle. It’s so cute it makes my heart smile, even now, when I’m boiling up with anger. “There’s nothing you can do. If you back out now, it’ll look like you’re stealing money from the hands of dying children.”
Shit, she’s right.
“So what are you saying?” I ask. We don’t have long to talk. An excited buzz fills the room, blocking the plump announcer’s attempts to regain control, but the reprieve won’t last long.
“I’ll do it,” she says. “It’s just a weekend, Charlie.” She leans in close so that no one else can hear. “Plus, it’s not like we are really married…”
I don’t know why, but that, it hurts me the way I wouldn’t have anticipated even a couple of hours earlier. I felt something different about Penny tonight. We acted like a couple: walked like a couple; talked like a couple. I know what we have is a fake relationship, but it feels anything but.
“Okay, let’s do the auction,” I say. “But Penny?” I get her attention.
She glances up at me, face pale and tense with nervousness. “Yes?”
“I’m going to win.”
At that precise moment, the announcer brings the champagne glass to the microphone and taps it with the backside of a knife. A squeal of static bursts out of the PA system, and silences the room. “Let’s get started.”
The ro
om is deadly quiet.
Every single eye is focused on Penny and me. If we were trying to lay low, this is just about the worst development I could have anticipated. I don’t know how I’m going to fuck Landon’s life up for this – but fucking his life up is absolutely on the menu.
For some reason, this particular ruse makes me even angrier than Landon’s attempts to steal my company. That stuff I can rationalize away – it’s just business. But, if Penny is just a deal, a trip, a way to keep Tilly out of the hands of the foster system –
– then why am I so pissed off?
“Penny my dear,” the announcer says. “If you’ll come down here to the dance floor so that everyone can see you?”
Right then, I know that Landon’s slipped this prick a bribe. There’s no way some fat man would dare risk his job parading my wife like a piece of meat if he didn’t have some skin in the game. I add him to my shit list.
I half-stand, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but Penny tugs me back. Damn, she’s only been in this life forty-eight hours, and she’s playing the game like a pro.
“I’m fine, Charlie,” she whispers. “I can handle myself.” She stands up, waves, and twirls for the crowd.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I say out of the side of my mouth.
“Why?”
I jerk my head toward the crowd. “You just made all these assholes with two thousand dollar hookers imagine what you’ll look like naked.”
Penny’s face drains of what little color it had. “Naked?” She whispers. “But I’m not going to –”
“It doesn’t matter if you’ll actually sleep with them,” I say. “It just matters that they think you will… maybe they’ve decided we’re swingers, or something. Maybe they think I get off on selling my wife. It doesn’t matter. They are going to be like dogs on the hunt now. You just raised your price by a million dollars.”
It’s a cliché, but in this case it’s bang on the money. Penny’s jaw drops. She stumbles over her tongue: “… a million dollars?”
