by Naomi West
“A little creamer,” he answered. “So what does your business do?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Pierce shrugged, still feeling lost like he was missing some huge piece of the puzzle that was incredibly obvious.
Felice’s pretty brows knitted together in confusion. “I own Steel Dom Couture; we’re a high-end fashion shoppe in the Valley. I — ” She paused for a long time, looking a little embarrassed. “My mother and my siblings and I, we have a reality show, à la the Kardashians. It’s about us rich kids being silly and not knowing how the world works and our various projects. We have such good ratings that I thought … Well, it doesn’t matter. You don’t know us, but you don’t seem like the type to watch reality TV anyway.”
For a second, Pierce just stared at her. “You’re serious?”
Felice just shrugged in response before grabbing her car keys off of the counter. “If anyone drops by, don’t answer the door. Just sit here and, like, watch TV or something. The remotes are all by the TV somewhere. I think Paula left them in the basket where they belong.”
“Paula?”
“Can you do anything but ask questions?” Felice laughed. “Paula is my maid that comes every other day. She was in yesterday and shouldn’t be here today. But if she stops by, just ignore her. I’ll be back in an hour.”
And Felice was out the door before he could say another word. Sighing, Pierce went to sit on the solid white couch. It was more comfortable than it looked; he sunk into the embrace of the couch like it was a beanbag chair. Grunting in unexpected pleasure, he picked up a few of the remotes from the basket and pondered over their uses.
Seven remotes in total filled the basket, each of them nearly identical from the others. But after a few minutes of experimenting, he realized two things: apparently rich people used remotes for everything, including ceiling fans and blinds, and that Felice’s TV setup was stupidly complex.
The TV finally came on with a bit of prodding; he found the TV remote, which was separate from the surround sound remote and the cable remote, and settled back to flip channels.
After flipping past a cooking show and some shopping channels, Pierce finally found a news station. They were reporting on a vehicle found in the desert, smoldering, and had yet to identify the owner. He laughed out loud at that, remembering watching Felice’s beautiful body walking away from the flaming wreckage like a heroine from an action movie. He could feel his cock harden at that memory; there was certainly something about her that made Felice impossible to ignore.
He flipped away from the news, finding Felice’s face on the TV. Entranced, Pierce studied the sexy figure of his hostess on the TV. On the screen, she wore more makeup and acted dumber, but she was still Felice. All of that carefully controlled attitude was there as she helped to set up mannequins in the front windows of her store, much to the chagrin of someone standing behind her. The moment she was off the screen, he flipped it back to the news, wondering if the national news would be streaming soon.
“And in other news, from Boston. And murder suspect on the run. Last seen riding a motorcycle, this man —” Pierce’s face flashed across the television screen, and he winced. “He was seen leaving the scene of a murder. If you see this man, know that he is both armed and dangerous; do not engage, but call 911 immediately.”
Pierce felt ill suddenly, and flipped the channel to a sports network. He needed to get out of this house as soon as Felice came back with his money. The moment he had that twelve thousand in his paws, he would be able to head to San Diego with a clear conscious. He’d managed without robbing the stunning lady who had been so kind to lend him a room. Then he would find a non-extradition country to run to and never look back.
Then I can finally get away from my past and change my life. Start over. Clean this time. Pierce laid down across the couch, stretching out across the amazingly comfortable cushions. Starting over sounded like a great idea. This time, he could do it differently, better. Maybe make up for all those years of doing things on the wrong side of the law.
He meant just to close his eyes for a second, but instead he ended drifting off to sleep, dreaming of tropical beaches and a new name.
# # #
Felice
“Well, Ms. Domiano, we thank you very much for banking with us, as always.” The banker got up from his seat with a smile on his face, pushing his round, Harry Potter glasses back up on his nose with an unconscious motion. His ill-fitting suit was clearly off the rack, but the man didn’t seem to mind all that extra fabric around his middle and the too-short pant legs.
Felice made a face, which she quickly turned into a winning smile. “You are a doll. I’ll take the $12,000 in whatever denominations you have, but I need a few ones and twenties in the mix if you don’t mind.” Felice batted her lashes, and not a single question was raised. The banker just did it.
“The upside of everyone thinking you’re bad with money: the bankers don’t ask what you’re going to do with it. They just assume you’re going to do something stupid.” She almost laughed. She supposed she was doing something stupid with it. This much for a few dirty photos.
Shrugging, Felice turned her attention back to her photo. After much thought, she decided to go with one of the shots where Pierce was holding her up and she was arching her back. If she hadn’t been there herself, she would have sworn this was a photo of two people actually having sex. After a few moments of touching up the photo on her phone and cropping the faces out, Felice decided it was perfect.
“OMG, check out the hot dude I met last night!” she typed out carefully after mulling over the exact wording. It was perfect. And before she could question her decision, she attached the photo she’d cleaned up to the text, then sent it “accidentally” to Clay’s phone number. Feeling smug, Felice daydreamed and waited for a reply. “He’ll probably beg for me back right away, selfish jerk.”
So busy was she daydreaming about what she was going to do with all of that money her brother would owe her, she completely missed it when the news station on the bank’s TV above her head ran a story featuring Pierce’s pretty face.
Instead, she dreamed of watching Clay crawl back to her, his face all twisted up in horror as he realized that Felice had no intention of taking him back. The thought was tinged with just a touch of guilt at trying to make her ex feel bad, but she managed to convince herself she was in the right. A little. Maybe.
He cheated on me; he deserves a little hurt, too. Doesn’t he?
The teller returned, handing her an unmarked envelope. With a quick glance inside, Felice shook the banker’s hand. “Thank you for your help,” she said, a smile on her face.
The desert was, as deserts usually are, hot and dry, even in the fall. The sun was shining down on the hard-packed earth. The cacti looked full of water and brilliant, with greens and little white blooms on them. Felice didn’t spend much time out in the desert, but she loved it. It wasn’t brilliantly green like the family beach house on the east coast, but it did have its own strange kind of charm.
Humming some pop tune, Felice checked her phone as she got into her car, turning the A/C up to arctic as she slid into the driver’s seat. She loved her cars, but this one, her white and gold Porsche 911, was her favorite. It was fast and handled like a German vehicle was supposed to. And she looked absolutely fabulous in it.
There were three texts from Clay, and she pushed to open them immediately. She couldn't wait to see his response.
The moment she read them, her face fell, and the guilt that had been blooming in her chest turned to full-on depression in seconds.
“Wow, this is low even for you, Felice. This is sad.”
“I can’t believe how trashy you are. How did I not see it before?”
“You’re a classless whore; I’m glad we’re no longer together.”
Felice stared down at the screen of her phone, shaking with a combination of tears and anger. A feeling of lost, hopeless betrayal joined the
mix, which was odd. Hadn’t Clay already betrayed her? She shouldn’t have expected anything less from him, in fact.
“Well, I’m not going to give up.” She pondered over the texts for a second, then sent a quick reply text. “Oh, gross, wrong person.”
Then she blocked his number, ensuring that whatever messages he sent after this wouldn’t show up as “read” on his screen. She would unblock him later, but for now, she needed him to know how little he meant to her. How little his opinion meant. If he believed that she was already completely over him, it would help to bring him around to her again.
“I may need to find a way to get Pierce to stick around a little longer.” She frowned, her heart feeling uncertain and a little unstable. But she took a deep breath, wiped away her tears and thought up a new plan. It looked like it was going to take more than a naughty photo to make Clay want her again. Luckily, she wasn’t out of ideas yet.
Chapter Six
Pierce
Pierce snooped around the house, his fingers running over the pieces of expensive furnishings. Although he was pretty sure that Felice would be coming back soon to give him the money she had promised, he still had this uncontrollable urge to check the house for valuables. It was like the pull of other people’s wealth was nearly unstoppable; it filled every inch of his veins with the desire to steal, to stuff any of these expensive things in his pockets and run off with them.
“But you won’t need it; Felice will bring you the money back. No problem.” His palms started to sweat a little at the thought of just grabbing something on his way out. Something small, a souvenir. Something she wouldn’t miss. Not until he was long gone.
His prowling brought him into her bedroom, searching the room for a jewelry box or safe or something that might have held any pricey jewelry or other heirlooms.
Other than a few spare pieces of clothing tossed about, her room was just as clean as the rest of the house. Everything in here was white and silver, all of the surfaces glittering and dustless. Her comforter looked like it was made out of some sort of solid white animal. The sheets were in complete disarray, as if she tossed and turned in her sleep as much as Pierce hadn’t. “Perhaps she really missed that prick that cheated on her, though I can’t imagine she’ll be lonely for much long with a body like that.”
Pierce was on his way to the dresser when he noticed something lacy on the floor. He glanced down at it, his body instantly reacting to the sight. This was the lingerie she was wearing last night. While we took those pictures. He could remember every detail of that fifteen minutes she’d been in his room with him, rutting up against him like a porn star. He’d found himself painfully aroused after her photo session finished up.
“She is one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen,” he thought, wistfully, his eyes locked on the silky underthings still gripped between his fingers.
“I wonder what it would like to have her, if only just once.” He imagined that, unlike most selfish and pretty women, this one enjoyed sex, enjoyed watching her partners have just as much fun as she did. Felice seemed like the type of person who was willing to experiment, too. “She’d be a lot of fun to tie to those silver bedposts.”
Before his thoughts got so dark and dirty that he did something foolish, Pierce heard a sound from downstairs that sounded like doors slamming.
Two female voices argued back and forth, one loud and demanding, the other quieter and reserved, but still managing to sound mad. They continued to argue as Pierce slipped out of Felice’s room and to the stairs, hoping the two women didn’t realize where he was coming from. He didn’t have a ready excuse for being in Felice’s bedroom, and he didn’t think he’d be able to lie smoothly enough to get through an interrogation about it. Best to keep relations as good with Felice as possible until he was well out of the States.
Jogging down the stairs, Pierce came face to face with two pairs of twin, shining emerald eyes, both alight with anger. Felice was standing across the kitchen from the bottom of the stairs, her arms crossed over her perfect breasts. She was pouting, her bottom lip pushed out from her mouth like a child not getting her way in a candy store. Pierce blinked, eyes sliding between her and the other woman who could have been a carbon copy of Felice from 20 years in the future.
Eyes flicking between them, Pierce slid closer to Felice. He crossed his arms in a protective sort of stance as the two women studied him. Felice looked away from him, her face twisting with some sort of emotion he couldn’t describe. She didn’t look happy. The older woman, most likely Felice’s mother, was wearing a wickedly happy expression that Pierce didn’t like the look of at all.
“I am Felice’s mother, Dolores Domiano,” the blonde woman said, her voice tinted with a slightly Hispanic-sounding accent. Well, this was near enough to the border that the accent would be pretty normal. But not normally found on the tongues of natural blondes with green eyes. “I have a proposition for you, my boy. One I think you’ll have a tough time turning down.”
Digging in her purse, Dolores pulled all the cash she could find out of the nooks and crannies, piling every bill she found onto the kitchen table between them. After a few seconds of staring at the stack of money she’d made, she frowned at it. “About five thousand bucks there. More on the way if you agree, boy.”
“Agree to what?” Pierce asked, standing up a little straighter. “These people throw around money like they have no idea what it’s worth.”
“You will play bodyguard and boyfriend to my daughter here,” she pointed a manicured nail at Felice, running her tongue over her Botox-swollen lips. “Once you make that idiot boyfriend of hers jealous enough to come crawling back on his hands and knees, you’ll be paid in full to disappear. Leaving my daughter with Clay.”
It was pretty obvious that Felice was used to Dolores controlling every aspect of her life. She didn’t even turn to look at him when Pierce tried to catch her eye.
After a second, Pierce cleared his throat. “Is this what you want, Felice?”
Blinking surprise, Felice looked at him, her face pale as a ghost under her tan. Then she shrugged, her face impassive.
Dolores started talking figures, the numbers steadily getting higher if he was successful. “You’ll end up a wealthy man by the end, if you do your job right.”
Without looking back at Felice, Pierce stared at the money on the counter, trying to figure out how he could stay with a public figure like Felice and still keep the low profile he’d need to not end up in jail for the rest of his life.
“And there’s the other thing,” a part of him whispered from the depths of his soul. “That Clay asshole doesn’t deserve to lick Felice’s boots.” Knowing this whole idea to be a mistake, Pierce stared down the matron of the Domiano household, trying to figure out a way to get out of this.
# # #
Felice
Felice, already feeling deflated, had the rest of her hopes dashed when she pulled up to her house to see her mother’s car in the driveway. She pulled the Porsche into the garage, bracing herself for the unavoidable fight that was about to happen.
Felice’s mother looked much like Felice plus twenty years. “Or like I will if I marry someone I hate and become bitter and controlling.”
Like if Felice married Clay. She winced at that thought.
“Oh crap, I don't want to end up like my mom.”
“So let me get this straight,” Dolores Domiano, the matron of house Domiano and one of the most controlling people in the world, said without even a greeting. “You find the wealthiest, best-looking, most camera-ready, and most stable boys in the state to date, and then you dumped him for fucking Jenn? Are you an idiot, girl? Of course he’s going to sleep around; that’s what rich men do.”
Felice sighed, taking her coffee and the packet with Pierce’s money out of her car. She didn’t bother interrupting; once Dolores got started, nothing would shut her up until she was done ranting.
“His little cheating doesn’t undo his great c
areer or how good he would be on the show. And don’t you dare roll your eyes at me, Kitten. You know you won’t find anyone better than he is for you.”
“I already have,” Felice said calmly, turning away from her mother.
Dolores paused in her speech, sputtering. Felice found a little joy in her flabbergasted expression. Her mom wasn’t used to be interrupted, and Felice had just contradicted her and interrupted with three little words. Dolores looked unhappy, then livid. “Don’t you walk away from me; I’m not done speaking to you!”
Taking a deep breath, Felice turned back to her mother. “Could we not fight on the front lawn, hmm?”
“Who is this other guy?”
“Pierce. He’s an aspiring actor.”
Dolores laughed right in her face, making Felice want to run away. But she forced her feet to hold still and take it, not letting Dolores know how much her laughter was making Felice crazy. “You need Clay back for the next season of the show. He’s going to be a big part of next season! Beside, this fake boyfriend you have is probably not even a real person, is he? You’re going to need more than a rumor to make your man jealous enough to want you back.”
