“Get away from me, you sick little bastard,” I spit at him, keeping my voice low. Then it hits me. He must have done something to Landon. That’s the only explanation for Landon’s absence. “Where the hell is he?”
He doesn’t even ask who. He smiles coldly. “I’ve ordered filet mignon for you, medium rare. That’s your favorite, right? Stay in your seat and act happy, or I’ll have Landon gutted.”
My insides turn to liquid with terror, but the waiter walks up to take our wine order and I have to sit there with a frozen smile plastered on my face and nod politely as he speaks. “You hate me,” I say after the waiter leaves. “Why do you want to have dinner with me?”
“Why the hell not? We never had a real date. Because, you know, you fucked me over and ruined my life. So you owe me this. Sit here and pretend you’re enjoying it. You know, like you do with Landon.”
That evil bastard!
What follows is the meal from hell. He sits there acting like a lover, pouring wine for me. He feeds me bites of his scallops gratin. He talks to me about some client that his company just landed. He reaches over and strokes my hand. The whole time, I see malice glittering in his eyes.
I’m crazed with worry. I beg and beg, but he refuses to say a word about Landon. The filet mignon is tender and melts in my mouth, but it tastes like ashes.
Is Landon bleeding to death? How much pain is he in right now?
People are staring at us with envy—just like when we were back in high school together. Look at them, so pretty, so in love. Finally we’re done with dinner, but Bastien orders dessert for us both.
I shake my head, scowling at him. “I can’t eat anything else. I’ll throw up.”
He smiles sweetly at me and takes my hand in his, stroking it with his thumb. “Won’t that be embarrassing for you.”
My face flushes red. “I get it,” I snap. “You’re making me feel the way you felt back when you were fifteen. You’ve made me feel humiliated and miserable, you’ve made everyone close to me look at me with disgust. Enough, Bastien. I’ve said I’m sorry over and over, and I am. But this obsession with me is going to destroy you, and you have to let it go.”
“Destroy me?” He looks at me quizzically. “Oh, Camille, I’ve never been happier.” I try to pull my hand away, but he holds it fast.
“Let’s talk about how much you loved it when I ate your pussy, baby. You were so turned on. God, that made you hot. And I loved doing it to you. You taste like honey. Did you know that?”
The waiter is walking by, and I know he heard what Bastien just said. I’m mortified, but my body is responding to the caress of his words. Wetness seeps between my folds, and a flush of arousal spreads from my head to my toes.
“God, your legs were spread so wide when they walked in on us. You’re such a little slut.”
Just thinking about it makes me want to melt into the floor. I tug desperately on my wrist, and Bastien’s fingers sink into my flesh so hard that hot tears of pain spring to my eyes. “I can find you help,” I say desperately. “This hatred is a burden. It’s hurting you, I know it is. Please let me help you.”
He releases my wrist and pulls his cell phone from his pocket. He shows me the screen.
It’s Landon, lying in a hospital bed. Somehow, there’s a video feed in the hospital room. Landon has two black eyes and his mouth is swollen and bleeding. His nose is splinted and his hair is matted to his head. My horrified gaze sweeps his body. One hand is bandaged and resting on his stomach.
“I’m afraid he got mugged in his parking garage today.”
Oh my God. Landon. Poor Landon.
My dinner rises in my stomach. “You piece of shit!” I hardly ever swear, but the word spills easily from my lips. “Tell me what hospital he’s in.” I start to stand up.
Bastien grabs my wrist again. “His day is about to get a whole lot worse. You’re going to text him and tell him you’re calling off the wedding because you’ve been fucking another man. Tell him that you’re sick of faking it with him and you finally found a man who really satisfies you.”
I go ice-cold, shuddering even though the restaurant is so warm it’s stuffy. “I won’t.”
“I’ve got one of my people in the room with him. If you don’t text him right now, I will have her inject a substance into Landon that will burn like acid, and he’ll die in slow, sniveling agony. Pull your phone out now. Five, four, three…”
With shaking hands, I rip the phone from my pocketbook, and I let Bastien dictate what I’m going to text to Landon.
Then he makes me watch the cell phone as Landon gets the text and starts to cry. My heart is tearing itself into pieces. I’ve destroyed my fiancé. I’ve ruined him.
Landon lies there and sobs like a baby, making wailing noises, and a beautiful brunette nurse walks over and pats him and says comforting things. He cries harder, his shoulders shaking. At one point she looks at the hidden camera and winks and sticks out her tongue.
Bastien’s employee and possible assassin.
These people aren’t human. They’re evil on a subatomic level.
I’ve never felt such misery. Landon is a loving, faithful, decent man who trusted me and wanted nothing more than to make me happy. I hate Bastien so much, I think I could actually murder him. I sit in my seat, shaking, long after Bastien’s left. When I look in my pocketbook, I see he’s stolen my wallet. He’s smooth as hell; I didn’t notice that he’d done it.
Of course, he sticks me with the bill. And of course he ordered the most expensive wine in the restaurant, so the bill is six hundred dollars. Fortunately, this morning I pawned a pair of diamond earrings that Landon gave me, and I put the money on a prepaid Visa and stuffed the Visa in my sock just in case, along with my new temporary driver’s license. Otherwise, after emotionally destroying my fiancé, I’d be spending the night in a jail cell. I would have literally nobody to call to help me. The realization devastates me.
I’m all alone in the world now.
When I leave the restaurant, I am hollowed out and filled with hate and determination.
He shouldn’t have made me hurt Landon like that. He has pushed me too far. Bastien’s brilliant and obsessive, yes, but I’m no slouch. I defied my mother and put myself through college and graduated with a 4.0. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve, and now I’m going to use all of them.
Bastien
I’m in the VIP room of Dark Desires, bored as hell by Brandy, the brunette who’s kneeling between my legs, licking my balls and trying to get me hard.
She’s the naughty nurse who was hovering over Landon’s bed two days ago, and she’s desperately attracted to me. She is actually a real nurse, but she’d sacrifice all that, give up her life and her job, if I just said the word.
It’ll never happen. I am enjoying messing with her head, though, just to pass the time; I made her have sex with Simon and three other guys on stage last night, then called her a slut and made her cry. Her tears don’t touch me the way Camille’s do.
Simon walks in the door, and I flick him an annoyed glance. He’s not the least put off by the fact that I’m getting my dick sucked. I shove Brandy away from me, and she kneels there, head bowed submissively, waiting for my orders.
“You’ll never guess who’s at the front door demanding to speak to you,” he says. “Camille.” He knows a little about my campaign of terror against her, but he doesn’t know the full extent of it.
How did she even find me here? Simon’s name is on the lease, not mine. Then again, she did know that I stayed friends with Simon and Antoine after high school. If she googled my name, she’d have come up with my appearance at that security expo in London, with Simon and Antoine right next to me, so she could have searched for any information involving all three of us.
So she’s come here today to…what? Beg? Bribe? Threaten?
My cock hardens in anticipation.
I pull Brandy off me. “Hold on, baby,” I say, and she nods eagerly.
“
Send her in,” I say to Simon.
When Camille stalks into the room, I move Brandy’s head back into position.
“Just a minute,” I say to Camille with a nasty grin. Her face goes pale and her lips thin as she presses them together. I remember how jealous she used to be. I lean back and spread my legs wide. Brandy takes my cock in her mouth and sucks it desperately—and I’m still not all the way hard. Fuck. This is embarrassing.
I close my eyes and picture Camille. In my mind, we’re on the stage out front and Camille is naked and there are dozens of people watching. She’s crying as she sucks me off, tears dripping onto the floor, and the perfume of her arousal drifts up to my nostrils and…
Finally, sweet release. I come into Brandy’s mouth, shouting with pleasure.
Then Brandy opens her eyes and looks up at me. “Who’s Camille?” she says, looking hurt, and I see the look on Camille’s face—a smug, nasty look—and I realize I just shouted Camille’s name when I came.
I lash out and slap Brandy so hard she bursts into tears and falls backward onto her ass. She scrambles to her feet, her mascara running in black rivers down her face.
Camille stalks across the room toward me. As she passes Brandy, she suddenly swings and punches Brandy in the face so hard she breaks her perfect little nose. Blood spurts from Brandy’s nostrils, and Brandy shrieks in pain.
“That’s for threatening Landon,” Camille yells, and spits in her face. “Go near him again and I will find you and kill you.”
Oh hell no. Nobody attacks my employees like that, on my home turf, and walks away with all their parts. I leap to my feet, ready to beat Camille unconscious. She pulls a small silver tape recorder from her pocket and holds it up in front of her like it’s a cross and I’m a vampire.
“I talked to your sister today.”
Rage explodes inside me.
Brandy tries to stumble toward me, wailing and clutching her lopsided, bleeding nose, and I shove her so hard that she staggers. “Get the hell out of here,” I snarl, in the voice I use when I’m about to kill someone. She turns and runs from the room, hands over her face, sobbing.
I don’t like the look of triumph on Camille’s face, so I’m going to beat it right off her. She doesn’t get to feel good. She doesn’t deserve any wins at all, ever.
I lunge at Camille, but she leaps back out of my reach.
“You are going to leave me and my mother and Landon and my friends alone for good,” she snaps at me, holding up the recorder. She presses a button.
“Emilie?” It’s Camille’s voice. “I am not going to stop calling. I really need to talk to your parents about Bastien. He’s out of control.”
Then I hear Emilie’s voice. “Leave my brother the hell alone. I told you not to call here again. I am going to come to America and cut your throat, you bitch. And then I’ll destroy your mother, and then I’ll hire someone to ass-rape your fiancé. Oh yes, I know about Landon. I saw your wedding announcement, you putrid little whore.”
“Emilie?” Camille’s recorded voice says. “I really don’t think you should speak to me like that.”
“Why not? Who’s going to stop me, putain? I ruined you once, and I will take great pleasure in doing it again.”
“I am. I just recorded this conversation. What do you think your parents are going to say when they hear it? Your husband? Your children?”
Emilie shouts with rage and screeches more threats at Camille. She’s always had a fiery temper—and Camille knows it, and she’s playing my sister like a fiddle. Camille taunts her, and my sister’s threats grow ever more vulgar and strident. Finally, Emilie hangs up.
“You shouldn’t mess with a therapist,” Camille snaps at me. “We know how to push people’s buttons. For instance, you and your sister—you’re each other’s buttons.”
I grab the recorder from Camille, throw it to the ground, and stomp on it. She just laughs.
She laughs.
She shakes her head. “How stupid do you think I am? I have multiple copies of this recording stored in safe places. I have to check in on a regular basis, with several people, and if I don’t, that recording gets released everywhere. Both in the U.S. and France.”
I grab her by the arms, squeezing hard. “You’re going to tell me where every copy of that recording is and who’s helping you, right now, or I’m going to fuck you with a butcher knife,” I snarl.
She looks at me, trembling a little, but her gaze never drops. “I anticipated your threats. If I don’t go make a phone call in the next ten minutes, then that tape goes public.”
“I can make you talk in five minutes.” I tighten my hands until she winces in pain.
“I doubt it. But I also have a way to poison myself. If you torture me, I’ll kill myself, and the tape will be released. How will the police react when I either turn up dead or vanish? I implicate both you and your sister on that tape. I talk about every single thing you did to me. I know your family’s as rich as hell, and they’ll probably be able to lawyer their way out of a conviction, but the stain will stick to them forever. A family as rich as yours? The press will eat it up. That’s a lot of bad publicity. It won’t just hurt your siblings…it will hurt their children.”
Fuck. She’s got me— for now, until I can figure out a way around this. My family can’t handle any publicity at all. The truth could come out about my parents, my mother could go to prison, and the Franklins might end up getting dragged into this mess. They would not take kindly to that.
As furious as I am with my mother and father for their betrayal, I don’t want to see them destroyed. I’m not sure if that’s because I still have a scrap or two of feeling left for them or if it’s just self-interest, but if they go down and the Franklins are exposed, I will die from the GPS capsule in my body and Emilie and her family will be murdered. I am still fond of Emilie.
I stare at Camille, calculating. Where would she hide the poison? She’s wearing a lot of jewelry. Necklace, earrings, rings? Something in her teeth?
“Tick tock, time’s a-wasting,” she says coolly. “I estimate you’ve got about eight minutes left, but it could be less.”
I grab her by the throat and squeeze.
“You don’t mess with my family,” I rage at her. “I will fucking kill you.”
“You messed with my family. You hurt Landon because you’re jealous of him, you bastard.” She’s trembling all over, but she won’t back down.
I slap her across the face, because it’s true, and because the weakness that’s still inside me sickens me. She knows me better than I want her to, knows what effect she has on me. She’s just accelerated her date with death. But for now I have to let her go, so I grab her by the arm and push her out of the room and through the club. Simon looks at me, his head tilted in question, but I just reply with a furious shake of my head.
I march her past men whipping women at restraint stations, naked women making out in cages that dangle a few feet from the floor, women fucking men up the ass with enormous strap-on dildoes. Squeals of pain, throaty cries of ecstasy, and thwacks of leather hitting flesh ring through the air.
I’m fighting not to twist her arm until it snaps. “You have no idea what you’ve unleashed, but you’re going to find out, and it’s going to hurt.”
She just looks at me with contempt. “You told me you’re going to ruin my life and then torture and murder me. You were seconds away from killing Landon. You’ve run out of threats, you sick bastard. Stay away from me, and I will leave your family alone. You’ve already hurt me deeply. You’ve destroyed my relationship and my reputation and cost me my job.” She does a sarcastic clap. “Congratulations! You’ve had your revenge. Time to move on, unless you’re so obsessed with me that you can’t let go, in which case, destroying me won’t help you. I’ll be gone and the obsession will still be there.”
“Nice psychoanalysis, you little bitch. I could get more insight from the back of a cereal box.” How dare she crawl inside my head and claim to kn
ow me? I’m on fire with rage. When I get those recordings back, I’m going to use knives on her. Knives and fire. I’m going to be intimately acquainted with every nerve cell in her body.
When we reach the front door, she steps out into the late afternoon sunlight and moves out of my arm’s reach.
“Now I want fifty thousand dollars, cash,” she snaps.
“Are you insane, you crazy bitch?” I shout. “Do not push me any further!”
“You stole money from me and sabotaged my car and cost me my job. I need the money, and you owe it to me. I think you’ve got about five minutes left.”
“I don’t have that much money lying around.” I’m lying.
“Too bad for your family, then.” She turns to walk away.
“Wait!” I shout at her.
I call Simon over and bark orders at him. He runs for the safe, and he’s back within minutes with a bag of cash that I don’t even have time to count. Camille’s standing about ten feet away, and there’s a cab waiting with its motor running.
“Throw it!” she yells, so I do.
She catches the bag. Then she looks back at me, and the expression on her face melts into something I never expected.
Love. And pity.
Her beautiful, shining eyes have softened and she’s looking at me the way she used to. Anyone who didn’t know us would think we were lovers, soul mates, and for just a moment I’m speechless. Caught in her trap. I’m basking in the warmth of her gaze, and I never want it to stop. I’m cold all the time inside, and she’s my only sunshine. She always has been.
“I meant what I said about finding you help, Bastien. I don’t want to see you suffering. If there’s anything I can do to help you, tell me.”
I shake myself. We’re not in Lyon anymore. Lyon is gone forever. We’re in the present, in a life that she turned dark and ugly with her poisonous lies. “You messed with the wrong guy, Camille. You’ve just condemned everyone you love to death because you didn’t want to take the punishment you earned.”
That works. Because I know her well enough to know what her buttons are—her friends, the people she cares about. The light fades from her eyes and is replaced by bitter resolve. “You’d better hope that nobody I care about gets so much as a papercut, Bastien. And I’m not even done with you. By the way, I noticed something funny about your family when I started researching them, Bastien. They’re very secretive, and they seem to have appeared in France out of nowhere, right around the time your sister was born. What are they trying to hide?”
Camille, Claimed Page 14
