My Double Life: Wild and Wicked

by Joanne Rock

  The jabbing pain in my chest must have shown on my face because she frowned.

  “Did I read that whole situation wrong?” Star peered over her shoulder at the door and then glanced at her watch. The office didn’t officially open its doors for another ten minutes, and my client wouldn’t arrive for an hour after that. “I thought when you didn’t come back to work after the lunch you shared with him...”

  Remembering that lunch in the rain and the sprint back to his SUV, I had to smile. Going home with Trey had been...life-changing. I’d been crazy about him even then, because he’d seen through my Natalie disguise and still wanted to be with the real me. The sound of the coffeepot on the side table chiming that it was ready brought me back to reality. My magical dream was over. I was just Courtney again.

  It was hard to rejoice at being a better woman when it came with a price tag of a loneliness so heavy it felt like it would suffocate me.

  “We, uh...” I cleared my throat, emotion thick in my voice. “He and I were just a temporary thing.”

  “Oh, honey.” Star squeezed my wrist, comforting and reassuring as her bracelets jangled against the wood surface. “He sure doesn’t strike me as a guy who does ‘temporary.’ His name hasn’t been linked with anyone in the tabloids in years.”

  I wasn’t sure if I felt touched to think he had very discriminating taste, or if I should be offended that I was the only woman he’d given a short-term option for dating. I hugged my arms around my waist and half wished I hadn’t given him that ultimatum in the aftermath of an emotional evening.

  At the time, it had seemed the right thing to do. The only thing to do. He needed to fix his relationship with his father. And I guess I wanted to be the one to give him that nudge. He’d done so much to help me, after all. Maybe deep down inside I thought I’d been helping him. But now that I was alone and miserable without Trey?

  I had to wonder if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.

  A commotion outside the conference room doors caught our attention and we rose to see what was going on.

  “If you want my business, you’ll open your doors now,” a heavy masculine voice with a hint of an accent drifted through the door, the tone imperious and demanding.

  I straightened. I knew that voice. It had argued with me in front of fifty black-tie gala attendees. Star pulled open the door to see what was going on out in reception with me close on her heels.

  Our office intern, Claudia, was busy trying to placate Thomas Fraser II. He stood in the waiting area wearing an expensive suit and surrounded by an entourage of five others—three men and two women. All were dressed for business and toting briefcases, iPads or both.

  Dread made my stomach sink. Was he here to reveal my secret to the whole office? Pendleton hadn’t fired me, but I had told him my dancing gig would remain secret.

  “C-can I help you, Mr. Fraser?” I stepped forward to intervene since our office intern looked outmatched and Star hadn’t moved to greet them.

  “Only if you can get top management out here to handle my concerns.” He slapped a broad hand on the reception desk, the force making a decorative basket of lemons become momentarily airborne. “I’ve got business to transfer, but only if I can get it taken care of this morning.”

  Star jumped into action. “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

  But my boss was already on the scene, the news of a surprise High Net Worth client having traveled through the office fast. Pendleton told Star to hold his calls and to reschedule the appointment I was supposed to have in an hour since he’d need the conference room for Mr. Fraser. He then ushered the entourage into the meeting space.

  Confused, suspicious and still worried I would somehow be unmasked by Trey’s father, I stepped back to let the group pass.

  And Thomas Fraser—that stern, cranky patriarch of the Fraser family who’d given Trey such a hard time—actually winked at me.

  I might have thought I’d dreamed it, but Star glanced at me, her eyebrows raised in question. Of course, I had no clue what was going on. When the reception area was cleared of everyone but Star and me, with all the higher-ups in the meeting and Claudia tasked to make a run for more refreshments, the front door opened again.

  Trey walked in.

  Gorgeously rumpled, in a suit that looked like he’d slept in it, Trey paused in the middle of the reception area, his dark eyes wandering over me. Was it my imagination, or were there shadows under those eyes?

  If this had been a Hollywood moment, the camera would have moved in for a close-up of his face the way my eyes did now. A golden glow would suddenly shine all around him through a trick of backlighting, and the audience would sigh collectively. Just like my heart sighed at the sight of him.

  But this wasn’t Hollywood.

  I hadn’t realized I said the words out loud until Trey looked around him.

  “Is that a problem? Because we’re only a few blocks to the southeast of Hollywood.”

  “Er. No.” At the heat I felt rising in my face, I realized that all my new confidence wouldn’t keep me from getting embarrassed. Especially in front of this man who still meant so much to me even if he hadn’t been willing to make a break from the past and confront his father. “Your dad’s party is in the conference room.”

  I pointed to the closed door, though I suspected he remembered where the room was. Star had been hovering near my elbow, but she used that moment to dart toward the back offices, muttering something about needing to see someone.

  Leaving us alone.

  “I know where Dad is.” Trey stepped closer and I noticed he definitely didn’t look as polished as usual. One side of his shirt collar was tucked into his jacket, while the other rested on the lapel. His hair stood at crazy angles like he’d run his hands through it too many times. But seeing him disheveled didn’t do a damn thing to detract from his good looks.

  I missed him so badly I hurt everywhere.

  “You’re welcome to join him,” I assured him, my words stiff. “They only went in a minute ago.”

  “I know.” Trey paced the reception area, checking out the artwork on the walls, in no apparent hurry. Coming closer to me all the time. “He was really proud of his mission. It was his idea for a distraction.”

  Mission? Distraction?

  “Excuse me?” I watched him straighten a photograph of our office in London and then stop a few feet in front of me.

  “I told my dad that I needed to get you back. And he plotted a scheme to empty your office of everyone but you so we could have some time to talk.”

  I was afraid my ears weren’t working. Had he just said he needed to get me back?

  “Your dad knows how to command a crowd, that’s for sure.” I tried to envision Trey and his father having a conversation where they weren’t arguing. Where they were on the same side.

  Could Trey have made some kind of family truce after all? I tingled inside, remembering that this was all I’d really asked him for. To step out of the shadow of the feud with his dad.

  Could he have actually done just that? A spark of hope flared against the dark loneliness I’d been battling.

  “I’ve realized the Fraser men are formidable when they want something.” He toyed with the lemons on Star’s desk, his hand close to my shoulder now. “Stubborn and hardheaded, someone once told me.”

  I thought about that hand touching me and couldn’t take my eyes off it.

  “I call it like I see it,” I insisted, needing to stick to my guns even though my hunger for him welled up inside me like an endless ache. “I’m not going to sell myself short anymore, Trey. You helped me realize that I deserved more than what I was getting out of life. And now I can’t settle for less. Especially not from you.”

  “I admire that.” He stood toe-to-toe with me now, the supreme test for my willpower. “You forced me to really think about what I was doing and how I was sabotaging my future by choosing to be at odds with my father all the time.”

  Inhaling, I cou
ld smell his aftershave and memories of us tangled together flooded my senses.

  “You...want to fix things with your dad?” Surprise and hope sparked inside me. I hadn’t expected this after how fiercely he’d argued with his father. How emphatically he’d told me they’d butted heads all their lives...And given Trey was here alone with me, maybe he wanted to fix something else...

  Us.

  My stomach fluttered with nerves at the possibility.

  “I don’t know that we can ever completely repair our relationship,” he admitted. “But we’re going to try to find ways to join forces from a business perspective and see if we can iron out some problems that way.”

  “Honestly?” He’d done what I’d asked? Confronted his father after months of working against him? “You guys are...” I looked back and forth between the conference room and Trey. “...working together on this? He’s really helping you so you can talk to me alone right now?”

  “He set up his entrance as carefully as if he was staging a scene in a film.” Trey grinned. “I never thought I would enjoy his company so much, but when we’re in agreement...he’s not so bad.”

  I was finally starting to get it. Trey hadn’t just talked to his father about working together again in film. He’d had some kind of heart-to-heart that involved me. And, amazingly, the elder Fraser must have supported the decision for Trey to come talk to me today or he wouldn’t have staged that big commotion this morning.

  Wow.

  “I think your dad is hiding a big heart under the manipulation and bluster.”

  “I’m starting to get that impression too.” He shook his head. “I’m disappointed that it took me a lifetime to figure it out.”

  “I’m glad for you.” I didn’t want to assume anything about Trey’s motives in this meeting with me. But then again, I really, really hoped that he was here to show me more than the fact he’d mended a rift with his dad.

  “I’m glad for you.” Trey caught my hand in his and lifted it, folding my fingers down against his palm in a gesture that warmed me to my toes. “Because if it wasn’t for you, I would still be hitting my head against a wall, not understanding why my dad kept pushing and testing me all the time.”

  The heat of his hand sent ribbons of pleasure right through my bloodstream to my heart.

  “More importantly,” he continued, picking up my other hand too, “you cared about me enough to give me the push I needed to see things in a new light.”

  Had I done that? With his dark, hypnotic gaze probing mine, I couldn’t quite remember how it had all unfolded. My hip hit the edge of Star’s desk and I realized my knees weren’t working. Thankfully, Trey caught my waist with one arm, his other hand still holding mine.

  “I was feeling awfully sure of myself that night,” I said finally. “You’d helped me to face the world and see myself in a new way. I guess I figured I’d return the favor.”

  “So now that we know you’re strong and confident while I’m hardheaded and stubborn...” His mouth neared mine, his voice lowered for my ears alone. “What do we do next?”

  “Um. I’m not sure.” I watched his lips, tracking their movement, wanting to feel them pressed to mine. “Make love. Fall in love. Something like that.”

  My heartbeat sped. Raced. Clamored.

  “But not necessarily in that order,” he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek. “I’ve already fallen for you, Courtney.”

  I blinked through the sensual haze to meet his eyes and found a clarity and sincerity that made me feel light as air and more hopeful for the future than I’d ever been. I started to tremble everywhere.

  “Th-that’s—” I slid a hand over my lips, not because I was embarrassed of my stutter but because he had the power to make me such an emotional, happy mess. “That’s excellent news. Because I’m pretty crazy about you too, Trey Fraser.”

  He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the fingers in that debonair way that made my heart flutter. I loved it. Loved him. But I still had a little bit of the showgirl lurking inside me, so I wrapped both arms around his neck and kissed him for all I was worth.

  Right in the middle of the office foyer. Not caring who saw.

  He looked a little dazed by the time I was done. I felt like the luckiest woman on earth.

  “How long do you think your father is going to keep everyone distracted?” I asked, heart beating fast.

  “My dad is a larger than life guy. He does everything to the extreme...” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I’d say we have until lunch, at least.”

  It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet.

  “How tinted are the windows on your vehicle?” I asked, a long-standing fantasy coming to mind.

  He raised an eyebrow. I didn’t feel the slightest bit embarrassed. I felt pretty full of myself. Full of love. And very ready to show it.

  “I’ve always regretted that I didn’t go out to your SUV with you that first night when you asked me to meet you behind Backstage,” I confided. “In fact, I’ve been daydreaming about what might have happened between us if I had met you there.”

  “Never let it be said I don’t fulfill your fantasies.” Trey was already halfway out the door, one strong arm steering me with him.

  I tilted my head into his shoulder, contented, excited and wildly in love all at once. My double life might have come to an end, but the most thrilling part was about to begin...

  * * * * *

  Joanne Rock

  Wild and Wicked

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Excerpt

  1

  “KYRA!” JESSE CHANDLER shouted to his business partner as he strode into the barn housing the offices of Crooked Branch Horse Farms. He juggled purchases from the tack shop until he reached a sawhorse table where he could set them down. “I’ve got all the leather you wanted. Saddles and bridles, riding gloves and a dominatrix outfit—oh, wait. That last one wasn’t a business purchase.”

  He sorted through the new supplies in the converted old building Kyra used strictly for storage and office space. The horses Kyra bred and trained lived in much more modern quarters behind this barn.

  Removing price tags and testing the leather of the new stock, Jesse waited for his best friend and colleague to appear. He’d never made her blush in over ten years of trying, but hope sprang eternal. No matter that Kyra Stafford was the one woman in Citrus County he’d never hit on, he still loved to make her laugh.

  “Perfect,” came a feminine purr from over his left shoulder—far closer than he’d anticipated. “I think you need an assertive woman to keep you in line, Jesse Chandler.”

  For about two seconds, he reacted to the sultry promise he must have imagined behind the words.

  Awareness fired through him, heated his insides despite the breeze drifting in the wide-open barn doors. The Gulf of Mexico rested a mere thousand acres away to border the northwest corner of the state-of-the-art Florida horse farm and training facility. Surely the gentle wind off the water should have helped him keep cool in February.

  But then Kyra stepped around him to stand by his side and look over the new tack, her long blond hair grazing his arm. Smart, sensible Kyra Stafford who had never flirted with him for so much as five seconds.

  What the hell was the matter with him?

  Shaking off an absurd sense of attraction he’d never felt for his best friend before, Jesse attributed the Twilight Zone moment to too many nights alone. He definitely needed to remedy that situation this weekend.

  “Funny, I don’t see any dominatrix garb here.” Kyra glanced up at him with her br
ight blue eyes. Innocent blue eyes, damn it. And smiled. “Be careful what you wish for, Jesse.”

  From any other woman, Jesse would have pegged that remark for blatant enticement. But he was obviously going through major sensual deprivation if he was hearing come-ons in Kyra’s speech.

  Hell yeah, he’d be more careful.

  Clearing his throat, he decided maybe they were just both getting too old for the game of trying to make Kyra blush. “Guess I left the spiked collar at the store.” He started hanging bridles on the wall, determined to make tracks between him and this ill-advised conversation. “That’s okay. I don’t go for the hard-core type anyway.”

  “Seems like you’re not going for any type lately,” Kyra observed, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she leaned a blue-jean-clad hip into the sawhorse table. At twenty-four, she looked sort of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Bonanza—a petite blonde in dusty cowboy boots with enough determination and drive to move mountains, or, more often, stubborn horses. “Is southern Florida’s most notorious bad boy finally mellowing?”

  Allowing a saddle created for one of their new ponies to slide back to the plywood with a thunk, Jesse turned to face the woman who knew him best. The woman whose question mirrored his own recent fear.

  “You know I couldn’t mellow if I tried.” Not that he would try. He was too content with bachelorhood, even though his last girlfriend was sticking to him like glue despite his best efforts to move on. He needed to show Greta he wasn’t the forever-after—or even a three-date—kind of guy.

  “Why? Because there’d be ten women lined up in Victoria’s Secret lingerie and armed with apple pies if they knew you were thinking about settling down?”

  She tried on a pair of fawn-colored riding gloves and stared at her hand encased in suede.