“We’d be honored to show your work,” Sara says. “Just to be sure that your aware. Everything we do has a charity component, but we’re going to make that worth your while.”
“Exposure is everything,” Faith says. “I’m not worried about the money.”
“Thus why I’m her attorney,” I interject. “Because I am worried about her money.”
Faith glowers at me and Sara laughs. “He’s fine, Faith. He should be worried about you. Chris would be the same way.” She refocuses on business. “I’m not sure what Chris told you, so I’ll start from scratch. The gallery officially opens in six weeks, but we’re basically letting people have VIP cards to enter a week sooner if they’re here tonight. I’d like to get your work here by then.”
“That would be incredible,” Faith says. “And Chris said you need four pieces to make that happen?”
“Yes please,” she says. “But I need to know that you’re a for-sure placement by next week. And I can talk to your agent if you wish.” She laughs and glances at Nick. “Or your attorney.”
Chris joins us at that moment, greeting everyone as he claims his seat, his hand instantly on Sara’s. “Where are we on things?”
“I was just telling her the details on the gallery,” Sara replies.
Chris flags down a waiter who is immediately by his side. “I know you know what I want.”
The waiter reaches into his apron pocket, removes a beer, and hands it to Chris. “At your service.”
“Thanks, David,” Chris says, eying Sara, who shakes her head, but accepts his replying kiss more than a little willingly.
“Beer anyone?” Chris asks, as the waiter holds two more up.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I say, accepting it, while Faith and Sara wave off the offer.
“In explanation,” Sara says, as the waiter leaves. “Chris hates wine and champagne.”
“You hate wine?” Faith asks. “But your godparents own a winery.”
“And I still ask for a beer when I’m there,” Chris replies.
In other words, he’s his own man, the way Faith wants to be her own woman, and I squeeze her hand, silently telling her there is no reason she is that winery, and not her art. She glances at our hands, the tiny gesture telling me that she hears me even before she squeezes back.
From there, the four of us start talking, and I take in this world of art that is Faith’s now, listening to the ins and outs, interested in a way I wouldn’t have been before meeting Faith. It’s not long and we’re eating cake, and Sara and Faith have hit it off so well that their heads are together, and Chris and I are left to our own devices.
“You care about her,” he says, his voice low, and the women too absorbed in talk of art to hear us anyway.
“She matters,” I say without hesitation. “Yes.” And admitting that to someone else, saying it and meaning it, tells me just how deep I am in with Faith.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees and I do the same. “Does she know about the club?”
“No,” I say, and while I have pushed this topic aside, with bigger problems to face, I can’t ignore the topic forever. “Now is not the time.”
“It’s never the time,” he says. “And telling Sara was hard on us but we had to go there to get here. And one small secret becomes bigger over time. The bigger the secret and the longer you keep it, the bigger the problem.”
The bigger the secret.
He has no fucking clue how much bigger my secrets are than that fucking sex club. There’s a hell of a lot that I have to come back from with Faith and at some point, I’ll have to decide if I spill it all, fast and hard, or in pieces.
Chris has just leaned back in his seat, when the music changes and an old seventies song, “Sara Smile,” begins to play, a soft, easy, sexy tune. Chris sets his beer on the small table in between us, and stands, walking to Sara and taking her hand. “I need to borrow my wife for a moment,” he says, but he’s not looking at us when he speaks. He’s looking at her. And she’s not looking at us, but at him.
Chris pulls her to her feet and leads her inside the gallery, the words to the song filling the air:
When I feel cold, you warm me
And when I feel I can’t go on, you come and hold me
It’s you and me forever
Sara, smile
Faith stands up and I catch her hand. “Where are you going?”
“Bathroom,” she says, but she won’t look at me.
“Faith.”
“I need a minute, Nick.”
She tugs against me and I release her but I don’t want to. I watch her walk back into the gallery and I know this woman in ways I should not yet be able to know her. Chris and Sara have this way of radiating love. You feel it. You almost believe in happily ever after. And then she suddenly feels like we’re nothing but sex and goodbye. I’m on my feet in an instant, pursuing her, following a sign to the bathroom. I spy Faith just before she is about to round a hallway and the minute she looks around that corner, she flattens on the wall, as if burned.
I’m in front of her in a few long strides, my hands on her waist. Her eyes pop open in shock and I lean around the corner to find Chris kissing Sara and it’s one hell of a kiss. Intense. Passionate. I refocus on Faith, and I cup her face. “We’re whatever we decide to be, Faith.” And I kiss her, just as passionately as Chris is kissing Sara. I kiss her my way. I kiss her and let her taste my words: We’re whatever we decide to be. And when I tear my lips from hers, I say, “Instead of a hard limit, we have a new hard rule: Possibilities, Faith. We have them. Say it.”
“New hard rule,” she whispers. “Possibilities.”
“Let’s go back and wait on them until we can say goodbye and get out of here.”
She nods. “Yes. Please.”
And with her hand in mine, I lead her toward the patio but footsteps sound behind us and Faith and I turn to find Chris and Sara returning. “You’re leaving,” Sara says, seeming to read our body language, her focus on Faith. “You have my email and phone number, right?”
“Yes,” Faith says. “And I’m excited about being a part of the gallery. Oh and happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” she says. “I actually wanted you to come here tonight to give you a gift, Faith.”
“Me?” Faith asks. “I don’t understand.”
Chris reaches into the pocket of his jeans and produces a check. “I negotiated your price for the showing last weekend, as promised, Faith. You now get twenty thousand a painting and accept no less, or I will personally come kick your ass.” He looks at me. “Twenty thousand. Don’t let her get screwed.” He hands Faith the check. “Sixty thousand. You sold three paintings.”
Faith starts to tremble and my arm goes to her waist, my hips pressed to hers. Her hand shakes as she accepts the check and looks at it. “I think…I…I’m going to cry and I don’t cry.”
“Don’t cry,” Chris says. “Celebrate.”
Faith looks up at him. “I’m going to have to hug you,” she says, taking a step toward him and then grabbing Sara instead.
Sara laughs and hugs her. “Best birthday gift ever,” she says, and when Faith releases her, she adds, “You can hug Chris, too.”
Faith laughs through tears. “No. No I…thank you, Chris. And thank you, Sara.”
Chris grabs her and hugs her, giving me a look over his shoulder that is filled with admiration I see but Faith would dismiss. “She’s talented,” Chris says. “Take care of her and her gift.”
I nod and damn, I want to take care of this woman.
We say our goodbyes and cross the gallery to exit to the street. We’re a few steps away from the door when Faith turns to me and holds up the check. “I can’t believe this just happened.”
“It didn’t just happen,” I say. “You started painting at age five.”
“I know but, it feels…I don’t know what I feel. But now the winery—”
I cup her face. “Do not make this about the winery. That is
your money. That is your first big success.”
“But Nick—”
I kiss her. “No buts. We’ll deal with the winery. This is for you. Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.”
“Good. Now. Let’s go home.”
“Your home.”
“My home,” I say. “That is far better with you in it.” I turn her toward the car, and she’s still trembling. And the depth of her emotional response affects me. Everything about Faith affects me.
Thirty minutes later, Faith and I are standing by my bed, her shoes kicked off, and she is finally coming down from her high, her body calming. “I’m completely wiped out,” she says. “I think you are going to wish I was someone else tonight.”
I cup her head and pull her to me. “What did you say?” I don’t give her time to reply. “That came from someplace I’d most likely name as Macom. I’m not him. And we are more than the sum of how many times we manage to fuck each other. And for the record. To repeat what I’ve already said. I don’t want anyone else.”
Her lashes lower. “I think that was possibly the most perfect thing you could say to me right now.”
In that moment, I remember her comment about Macom competing with her and I decide Faith thinks her success comes with punishment. A problem I need to fix. For now, I kiss her, a soft brush of lips over lips before I turn her around and unzip her dress, dragging it down her shoulders. Her bra is next. Then her hose, but I leave the panties and as much as it kills me, I hold up the blanket and urge her to climb under. She turns around and faces me, pressing herself against me. “You feel good, sweetheart, but you’ll feel better when you’re rested. Climb into bed. I’ll be right there after I make sure I’ve locked up.”
“You, Nick, are nothing I expected.”
“You, Faith, are nothing I expected.”
She kisses my cheek, a mere peck, which might be the best kiss this woman has given me and I don’t fucking have a clue why. It’s a peck, but it’s sweet. It’s emotional in some unnamed way and I like it. She climbs into bed. My bed. And damn, I like her there more now than I did this morning. She snuggles down in the blankets, and I walk to the door, where I find myself just staring at her, watching as her breathing slows, and turns even. She’s asleep. She trusts me. Damn it, I need to solve this mystery so I can tell her everything and deal with the aftermath.
I exit the bedroom and head down the stairs to my office, walking to a chair in the corner and removing a box I have shoved underneath it. Stacks of my father’s papers. I shrug out of my jacket and pull away my tie, and start going through them again. Somewhere in here is my answer. I just have to find it. Time passes. Documents are read. My eyes are blurry. Finally, I decide I have to go to bed. I’m stuffing the papers back in the box when a small book on legal ethics falls to the ground and a piece of paper pokes from the side. I grab it and open it to read: Faith Winter is the problem. She’s dangerous. Far more than her mother. She must be stopped.
I stare at that piece of paper for long minutes, and I try to make sense of it. I return the box to its spot under the chair with that piece of paper inside it. I stand and walk upstairs, standing at that doorway again and at the naked woman in my bed, wondering which one of us is now exposed. Knowing it’s time to find out.
The End... For now.
Don’t miss the conclusion to Tiger and Faith’s story in SHAMELESS! Book 2 in the WHITE LIES DUET is coming July 11, 2017! Click here to pre-order EVERYWHERE NOW!
PRE-ORDER NOW!!
And now as promised for those who pre-ordered, or bought PROVOCATIVE during release week, included FOR A LIMITED TIME is the FREE Rebecca's Lost Journals novella! ***PLEASE BE AWARE*** This will only be available for a week! After that time the bonus material will be removed if you sync your file after that time. If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to Emily at [email protected]
For those of you who have not read THE INSIDE OUT series, with Chris and Sara, you can read chapter one of book one HERE.
Remember the painting of the funeral for Rebecca that Tiger bought? Rebecca had her own story to tell and I wanted to include part of it for you here…
Rebecca’s Lost Journals are featured in the INSIDE OUT series.
A set of journals is found in a storage unit. A woman’s is life revealed. Her insecurities, dreams, love, and life.
But now, I’ve written NEW journal entries and included them as a HUGE THANK YOU for ordering your copy of PROVOCATIVE!
How It All Started…Dark passion and sweet obsession…Her journal. My fantasies. A set of journals comes to Sara McMillan by chance, when she unexpectedly inherits the key to a storage locker belonging to a woman named Rebecca. Sara can’t resist peeking at the entries inside, finding a scintillating account of Rebecca’s life, and an affair with an unnamed lover, a relationship drenched in ecstasy and wrapped in dark secrets. But when the final entry ends ominously, Sara dares to seek out Rebecca, taking a job at the art gallery where Rebecca worked, only to be inexplicably drawn to two men. Both want to possess her but only one–the dark, mysteriously sexy artist, Chris Merit, will win her heart. But where is Rebecca? And is Sara trusting the wrong man?
CONTINUE READING FOR REBECCA’S FORGOTTEN JOURNALS
June 2011
I am sitting in my apartment, in the living room on my couch, with twelve dozen roses surrounding me. I’ve written this before, you say. Why yes, I have, about five months ago, I think. And yes, he sent them again. This time they are white, not red, and this time rather than an apology, they feel like a promise. An invitation to be something other than what we have been in the past. Something more than master and submissive. Oh, I know that master and submissive is quite special to many, but to those many, it is right for them. It was never right for me. He was, though. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe it’s the heady scent of the flowers he’s made me love. Maybe it’s the heady sense of hope these flowers, delivered after a month of silence between us, have now created. Or maybe it’s the fact that the card reads: Tonight. Eight o’clock. I’ll send a car.
I admit that when I opened the card, my hand had been shaking. And I admit that when I read that card, my heart hurt. It hurt because that is the kind of note he sent me when I was his submissive.
He ordered.
I obeyed.
Now don’t get me wrong. There is something about the power and sexuality of this man that makes an order hard to resist. And safe. I am not sure why I feel safe with him when the truth is that he’s made me feel emotionally betrayed. I am sure if I go back now and read my prior entries there would be many examples of why that is the case. But the reality here is that he always, always felt safe. He felt like my protector. He felt like the other half of my soul and I was his. And I think he needed–still needs–me to heal that soul. It’s crazy, I know, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
It’s been weeks since I have written a word. Why did I go silent when this is my therapy and sanity? I visited my mother’s grave, and it opened that barely sealed wound all over again. And the nightmares. They were there every single time I went to sleep. Honestly, I didn’t want to remember what I was feeling during those weeks. I lost me for a while when I lost my mother, I think, and it was like it was happening again. It hurt. Imagine me laughing bitterly right now. I mean, does the word “hurt” even begin to define what losing a mother means? I think, even if you aren’t close to a parent, it’s like having part of your soul leave this earth. You are alone. Only I wasn’t alone because I found him. He went with me to the grave, but he wasn’t really there. It felt, like he wasn’t with me. Like he’d shut down and cut me out. I think the visit hit some nerve in him, cut him, where he was already cut as well. But he wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t let us evolve and heal together. My reaction was to shut him out the way he had me, and even though it was my choice, the result was: I lost him, too.
Him.
Funny how I never write his name.
I just call him Maste
r.
But you see, that’s where life has become complicated. When I revisited the loss of my mother, I was reminded that life is short. And I knew that I could no longer play this game of master and submissive with him. That isn’t who I am. I’m so far from submissive, it’s really comical that I ever decided to sign his contract and wear that rose-adorned ring he’d given me. I did things with him, for him, because of him, that I would never have done with, or for, anyone else. I often ask myself how I went down this path when I am not a natural submissive. I’ve actually thought a lot about this question.
I think step one was what I felt when I looked into his eyes and when I was in his presence. Like he owned the world around him. Like if he said I would feel pleasure, I’d feel it. If he said I was safe, I would be. Like he would be the escape I didn’t dare myself in any other part of my life. I found that part of being his submissive addictive. There was no room for worry or fear because he was that consuming. And then there was what I saw in his eyes when he let down his guard and often, I’m not sure he even knew that he did. The pain. The need. The tenderness. The past that torments him and makes him protect himself even from me. But I’ve earned his trust. I deserve to have that wall fall. That’s when I said, no more. Not until he gave all of himself to me.
And so, the flowers came. And the card that read like every other card. After fifteen minutes of debate, I called him. Oh God. I called him and hearing his voice again, when spoken just for me, not for anyone else, as silly as that sounds, slid through me like salve to a bleeding soul.
“Rebecca,” he’d said softly, but with that familiar command radiating through his tone.
“Hello,” I said, because I could not say master, and I could not say his name. Nothing felt right.
Provocative Page 23
