by Holly Hart
Her eyes are far away. “Yeah, I suppose I must be, mustn’t I?”
“You know what, Cassie? Here’s the only advice I can give you: don’t sell yourself short. If you think fifteen million is the right number for you, that’s great. But don’t limit yourself.”
Those soulful eyes lock onto mine again, and I can see the deep uncertainty there. She makes me think of an acrobat who’s flipping and flying from one trapeze to the next, high above the crowd, with no net below her.
One slip, one momentary lapse in concentration, and she’ll plummet.
I never realized just what this whole thing must have done to her. The stress has to feel like being pulled apart on some medieval torture machine.
“Cassie, you’re the smartest person I know.”
She looks down at the table.
“I don’t feel very smart right now,” she says softly.
“That’s nerves talking. I went through the same thing when I sold Black Sword. I really only had a prototype. No market share, no goodwill list. Hell, I barely had any clients even test it out beforehand. There wasn’t time.
“What I did have was an unshakeable faith that what I’d built was valuable. Very valuable. And when the negotiations began, I went in with high expectations. I wouldn’t settle for anything less than what I wanted.”
“It obviously worked,” she says. “But you’re talking about international cyber-security software. I’m talking about ice cream.”
“There’s more to it than that, and you know it. Patty’s doesn’t sell treats; you sell happiness, however fleeting, and people will pay a premium for that. Why do you think Americans have spent billions on decaf non-fat lattes every year for the past two decades?”
She looks puzzled.
“Because at least we know that part of our day is guaranteed to be good?”
“Exactly. Tricialicious is going to be a bigger success than you can imagine. So when you set your sights on the payout, set them high.”
“How high?” she asks. Her eyes are wide, childlike.
“As high as you want them to be. You’re smart, you’ve got capital, you’ve got a great partner in Tricia. Everything is on your side in this.”
I reach out and take her hand in mine. In some ways, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Part of me wishes I could just give her the key right here and now. I can’t. I’ve got to let Cassie find her way back to me. And it hurts more than anything I’ve ever done.
“Especially me.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
37. CASSANDRA
The faith I see in Carson’s eyes makes me want to cry.
He’s telling me all the wonderful things he sees in me, but he’s wrong. I’m a fraud. I’m not a businesswoman, I’m a spy.
And I’m not even that anymore. Now, I’m just the quarry in a stupid chase.
“I wish I could believe you,” I say, squeezing his hand. “But I feel like I’m drowning. I’ve bitten off so much more than I can chew, and I worry that it’s going to choke me.”
He squeezes back. If only he knew what I’ve done. Would he be disgusted with me? Outraged? Or worse yet – disappointed? I don’t know if I’d be able to live through hearing that.
“You’re not just smart,” he says. “You’re capable. A mover and a shaker. A fucking job creator. You make things happen.”
“You barely know me,” I say. “The real me. The woman I’ve become.”
My raw emotions are closer to the surface than they’ve ever been. All my training is telling me not to do this, to cut this off and run from here as fast as my feet can take me.
Fuck my training.
“I’m not that girl you remember, Carson. Things happened to me after my family moved away. I’m not the same person I was before prom night.”
He leans closer so that our eyes are only inches apart.
“I know more than you think,” he whispers. “I know you can think on your feet. I know you can handle yourself in ways most people couldn’t even imagine. I know you’ve got steel inside you.”
He always knows the right thing to say. But how? We’ve barely spent any time together since we met again a few weeks ago. He doesn’t know my past; as far as he knows, I’m a consultant in supply chain management. Jesus, why is he interested in me? Could the Company have picked a more boring profession?
“You mentioned prom night,” he says. “I know now that something extraordinary must have happened to your family that day. And I’m so sorry I ever believed you’d disappear without contacting me if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
I can’t think of anything to say, so I stay quiet. I just want to feel the warmth of his hands in mine.
“In a way, I think that day shaped who we are now. If you hadn’t left, I’d probably still be screwing around in a lab somewhere, trying to figure out why the world didn’t recognize my genius.”
I chuckle. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Don’t,” he says. “I was smart, sure, but I wasn’t motivated to do anything other than not be my old man.”
I can understand that. For years, everything I did was to make my father happy.
“But look at you now,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “And look at you. Actually, don’t bother. I can look at you enough for the both of us.”
I need to stop this. If I don’t run right now, bad things are going to happen. Things I can’t take back.
“Carson,” I say, but he stops with me with a raised finger.
“Hear that?”
The piano player has been playing Gershwin the entire time we’ve been here – there’s that situational awareness again, can’t turn it off – but now there’s just a single low note being played over and over.
That’s not the piano in the bar.
Now the beat of a drum and a guitar lick join in.
I’m not a perfect perrr-sonnn….
Is that…?
Carson pulls me up with him and leads me toward the dance floor.
“You…” I husk. “How did you…?”
He grins. “I texted the manager while you were powdering your nose at Piccolo. Or whatever it is that girls do.” He winks at me. “See – I’m still a nerd, really.”
We reach the floor and suddenly I’m clutching him so tight I fear I might break him. I float in his arms like a dandelion seed in the breeze, oblivious to everything around me. Twin tears escape the corners of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks.
We sway back and forth as “The Reason” tells its hypnotic story of hurt and redemption, of heartache and forgiveness. The touch of Carson’s hand on my bare back sends an explosion of sensations up my spine and down my belly, into the junction of my thighs.
Carson’s lips find my throat, but this time I don’t think of chaperones seeing us. All I can focus on is the warmth of his breath, the electric touch of his tongue. The here. The now. The forever.
This moment is so right. I’ve been waiting for it since I was a girl, dreaming about it. It couldn’t be more perfect. In the arms of the man of my dreams, the only man in the world who truly knows me.
Except everything he knows about me is a lie. And I can’t follow through with this. Not just for my sake, but for his. I’m holding a ticking time bomb, and Carson can’t be anywhere near when it goes off.
I place my hands on his shoulders and push, separating us.
“Stop,” I pant. “I can’t…”
He smiles. “Let me guess: you’re going to pull a Cinderella on me again.”
“I have to. I can’t do this, I’m sorry. Not right now.”
“Yes,” he says, pulling me back in. His eyes lock with mine. “Right now.”
“You don’t understand,” I plead.
“But I do,” he says. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”
I shake my head and steel myself to move. I position my right arm under his left; all it will take is for me to cock my elbow and trap him in an arm lock. Afte
r that, just a quick shifting of my weight and he’ll go flying over my hip and land on his back on the floor, I don’t care how strong he is. I’ll step out of my heels and bolt barefoot for the exit.
I move in to apply pressure when his right hand suddenly reaches into his pants pocket and pulls something out. Something small and narrow.
Rational thought disappears as my training takes over. My pupils dilate, taking in more light to process the sensory input. My strategy changes instantly to deal with the possible weapon in his hand.
I move my right arm so that it’s over his left instead of under. Then I bend my elbow and drive my hand upwards past his armpit, locking his arm in place. I jam my right knee into the back of his, bending the joint and forcing that leg to the floor.
Now he’s down on one knee, looking up at me with shock on his face and something in his hand. I realize suddenly that anyone looking at us would think he was proposing.
“Cassie,” he grunts. I let go of his arm and he takes a deep breath.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss.
How did this all go so wrong so fast? Things are spiraling out of control!
“I was trying to give you this,” he pants.
He opens his right hand and the light over the dance floor reflects off the polished brass of a skeleton key.
Embossed in script on the key’s handle is the word Regent.
No. It can’t be.
It can’t be.
Carter smiles up at me.
“Consider yourself caught,” he whispers. “The Chase is over.”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
38. CARSON
The look on Cassie’s face is worth every moment of heartache over the past twelve years and then some.
Her hand closes over the key quick as a snake as she glances around the room. The she pulls me up from the floor and into her arms. She’s amazingly strong.
I see her throat working, but no words are coming out.
“Let’s go someplace more private,” I whisper.
My hand finds her back and I lead her off the floor toward our table. I drop a few hundreds next to our unfinished drinks and we’re on our way to the Regent’s lobby.
“What…” she stammers. “How did…?”
“I figured it out this morning,” I say, barely able to contain myself.
Every part of me wants to run to the top of the Empire State Building and shout “I won the Chase! I won Cassandra Vincent!”
On the outside, this manifests itself as a shit-eating grin. And a stiffness under my slacks.
The lobby is empty except for us and the night auditor, a handsome woman in a dark pantsuit. Cassie and I stand in front of the elevator, arm in arm, watching the ornate silver arrow over the door count the floors as it lowers itself down to us. It seems to take the better part of an eon.
The muted “ding” announces its arrival and the accordion doors slide open.
“Hang on just one fucking minute,” she says, grabbing my arm as I try to step inside the elevator.
Oh, shit.
Her eyes are blazing. She pushes me into the elevator and the doors close behind us.
“You’re telling me that you’re a competitor in the Chase?”
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
“Yes?” I offer weakly.
“And you figured out that I was the quarry?”
“Uh-huh. This morning.”
“That’s why I kept running into you everywhere I went? You were following the information on the quarry?”
I feel like I’m being interrogated by the team on The Shield. The walls of the elevator feel like they’re closing in on me. How did this all go so wrong so quickly?
“Yeah,” I say. “I should have figured it out sooner, but I obviously had a blind spot where you were concerned. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”
Her eyes narrow.
“So how did you figure it out?”
“I was talking to Tricia. She told me you were… inexperienced. Everything else just fell into place after that.”
She’s silent for several long moments. My stomach is buzzing with nerves. Everything was so incredible on the dance floor. And now this.
Finally, she looks up at me again.
“Do you mean to tell me you have so much fucking money that you dropped millions of dollars to chase a woman just so you could sleep with her?”
“Well,” I say. “It’s a little more complicated than that. But yeah, I guess that’s the elevator pitch version.”
I grin, throwing chance to the wind. “Get it? Elevator pitch?”
She looks down at the key in her hand, then back up at me.
“Surprise,” I say weakly, waving my hands like a third-rate talent show host.
Before I can react, her hand flashes out and grabs the back of my neck. I brace myself for a body slam or something equally unpleasant. And honestly, she has every right to be pissed. I screwed up. Bad.
Instead, she pulls me into her, locking her mouth on mine and squeezing her body against me with a force that I can barely believe.
Her tongue snakes around mine as her hands slide up into my hair. My own glide down the plum fabric of her dress and grip her buttocks, driving our pelvises together.
“I ought to kill you,” she gasps.
“Later,” I groan, clamping my lips on her neck and stabbing the button for the third floor.
Chapter Seventy
39. CASSANDRA
My chest heaves as Carson fumbles the old key into the lock with one hand. The other grips my hair and locks me in place on top of his open mouth.
Our weight is against the door when it finally swings open, sending us crashing into the suite. My ass rams into the corner of an antique bureau, knocking it back several inches on the dark mahogany floor.
The room is lit with a single lamp on the nightstand next to a four-poster canopy bed. Carson effortlessly lifts me off the floor and tosses me on top of it. It’s so soft, I feel like I’m landing on a cloud.
He tears off his tux jacket and hurls it in the general direction of the door. I reach up and help him with his bow tie, sliding it off in a single tug. He props himself on top of me on the bed with his left hand and undoes the top button of his shirt with the other.
I finish with the rest of the buttons, laying bare that sculpted torso. The shirt joins his jacket on the other side of the room. All of this is so new to me, and yet with Carson it feels like I’ve done it a thousand times.
Suddenly I’m compelled to just squeeze his pectoral muscles. They’re so solid, so smooth. My hands explore the rest of him, running down the xylophone of his ribs to his abdominals. I count the lumps under my fingers: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Now that my hands are in the neighborhood, they might as well take care of these pesky suspenders. Two quick squeezes on the silver clips and they going flying backwards. Then my hand reaches for the clasp of his pants.
Carson’s mouth disengages from mine with a wet smacking noise. He fixes me with his gaze.
“What’s the matter?” I breathe.
“Are you ready for this?” he asks, his chest heaving. “I only want to do this if it’s what you want.”
I grab him and press my body against his bare chest, feeling the unyielding softness there.
“I’ve never wanted anything like I want this,” I whisper in his ear.
That may very well be the truest thing I’ve ever said in my life.
As if on cue, his pants hit the floor and puddle around his ankles. He kicks them off and stands there a moment, wearing nothing but his boxers and a pair of long black socks.
I try to stop it, but the giggle escapes me.
“Oh baby,” I purr. “You are so sexy.”
He holds up a finger.
“Hang onto that thought.”
In two seconds the socks are flying across the room like a pair of blackbirds on the wing.
That’s when I see t
he massive tent under his boxers, and I gasp.
He reaches under me and lifts me from the bed, turning so that he’s sitting on the bed and I’m standing in front of him.
“I’ve waited for this my whole adult life,” he says, his eyes wide.
“Then I better not keep you waiting a second longer,” I say, reaching behind me and sliding the zipper down the $14,000 plum dress until the slider hits the spot where my back meets the cleft of my ass.
I shiver and the dress falls to the floor, exposing me to Carson’s greedy gaze. He looks me up and down, every curve, every freckle, every single flaw, laid bare in front of him.
In spite of myself, I bite my lip. I’ve never wanted anyone’s approval so badly.
His mouth drops open.
“You’re perfect,” he growls.
I reach forward and pull his face to my breasts. He kisses them gently, stroking the undersides with both hands. My whole body trembles at his touch as he runs his fingertips along the sides, then glides around to the hollow of my back.
As he does, I close my eyes and drop my head back. The warmth of his mouth as it closes over my pale pink nipple is delicious. They’ve both been bullet-hard since we entered the elevator, begging for this attention. And truly, I’ve been running on a low ebb of desire ever since Carson stumbled back into my life.
He alternates between my breasts, kissing one gently while massaging the other. He starts out slowly, gently, then changes to scraping the edges of his front teeth up and down them. The sensation is so powerful, so delightful, that I almost lose my balance. After long moments of this, he wraps his tongue around the nub again and applies pressure, sending a flood into the slit under my panties.
Without thinking, I reach down between his legs and reach through the fly of his boxers to the hardness within. It’s so hot to the touch, like a branding iron wrapped in silk.
“Unhhh,” he groans against my breasts. My heart soars. I’m so glad I’m making him feel as good as he’s making me feel.
Well, maybe not quite that good. But I can try.
Carson stands and his shorts drop to the floor, leaving him totally nude in front of me for the first time in our lives. It’s like looking at Michelangelo’s David in the low light of the bedside lamp. Every perfect curve, every angle, delineated by shadow.
