She laughs, dabbing the corners of her eyes until black streaks mark the crumpled linen in her hand.
“There’s nothing unforgettable about a woman who accepts a fucking payment plan.” Her fingers rake through her hair, combing it into a low ponytail and tugging it over her shoulder. “And I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, but I suppose you have a right to know. Your perfect little bought-and-paid-for fantasy girl is nothing but smoke and mirrors.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This is me.” She points toward her teary expression. “The girl with messy hair and a dirty face, the girl crying and losing her shit in front of the firstborn son of the President of the United States . . . this is the real Camille.”
“I think you’re having a moment.” I remain calm. Lydia used to have meltdowns that would make Camille’s little rant pale in comparison. “And I think you’re saying things because it feels good to say them. And you should keep saying them. Get it all out of your system. Because when you’re done, we can continue our discussion on how we’re going to move forward from here.”
I take a sip of coffee with a steady hand.
She laughs. “You still want me, Ronan? This? I’m the antithesis of sexy. No man would ever want this.”
Even with wild eyes and a throaty voice, I still find her completely fascinating and irresistibly fuckable.
“I think you’re afraid I’ll discard you, like the men before me, and I think you’re afraid it’s going to hurt, so you’re pushing me away before I have the chance,” I say.
Her jaw fastens as she sits tall, silently digesting my words.
“But let me assure you that you, Camille Buchanan, could never be unforgettable. Not in my world.” I place my coffee cup on a white saucer and lean into her. “And let’s not forget that this is nothing more than a business arrangement. Separate your ego from this, and I’ll do the same. You’ll walk away from this with heavy pockets, and I’ll walk away from this a very satisfied man.”
“Who do you want, then?” Her meek words trail softly across the table. “Do you still want me to be the woman you saw that night at the ball?”
“You act like there are two of you.” I laugh. “You’re one and the same, and to be honest, I find this wild-eyed version of you to be surprisingly endearing.”
It’s not every day that I get the privilege of seeing someone’s true colors.
“God, I’m so embarrassed.” She buries her face in her hands.
“Don’t be.”
Her hands slide down her face and land in a puddle in her lap. “I can’t believe you still want to continue after all of this.”
“The only thing that’s changed about our little arrangement is that you know who I am now. I don’t want the last two weeks to be for nothing, and if you leave . . . if you walk away now, then what was the point? We can salvage this—maybe even make it into something better than it was ever supposed to be.”
Her shoulders lift and fall, and our stares lock until she stands and cinches the belt around her robe.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to think about this.” Camille holds her head high, pressing her shoulders back. Amazing what a good cry and vent can do for a woman in her darkest hour.
“I’ll be here.” I lean back in my chair, crossing my legs wide and reaching for my coffee. “Waiting.”
TWENTY-THREE
Camille
I yank a toothbrush from the basket of complimentary toiletries sitting on the marble counter of the en suite bath.
The woman staring back at me in the mirror is weak and barely recognizable, and I cringe when I look her up and down.
I never let my guard down.
My cheeks flush, burning hot when I think about what just happened. I want to erase the last half hour from my life. He must think I’m completely insane, but to be fair, I think he’s insane for wanting to keep me around, so that makes us equally insane.
I let the robe fall to the floor and twist the knob on the shower until steam fogs up the room. I say a silent prayer for clarity and direction. I have no idea who I’m praying to, but as long as someone hears it, that’s good enough for me.
***
I finger comb my damp hair into a messy topknot. Stepping out of the bedroom in last night’s dress, I find Ronan in the same place I left him.
“Feel better?” He stands, folding a newspaper and dropping it on the chair behind him. His white dress shirt is untucked, and the first two buttons at the top are undone. If the circumstances were any different, I might not be able to keep myself from running my fingers through his mussed, coffee-brown hair.
“Yes.” My heartbeat pulses with each step that brings him closer to me.
“And have you decided?” He stands before me now, his heat radiating into me. My eyes are caught in his curious stare, unable to look away. “I still want you, Camille. I didn’t track you down for the better part of a year just to let you go this easily.”
“It’s not you,” I say. “I don’t even want to be in this city anymore. I need a fresh start.”
Ronan smirks. “You know what used to help me when I needed to get away?”
“What?”
“Calling you. Meeting up with you. You’re my escape,” he says. “When I’m with you, in the dark, I don’t think about anything else, because for one hour of my ridiculous life, I’m not me.”
I nibble my bottom lip, staring at the peek of creamy tan skin from behind his white shirt.
“So what’ll it be?” He takes my hands in his, lifting them to his lips and depositing a tender kiss. “Ten more weeks of paradise, or a lifetime of asking yourself if you made the right decision by walking away?”
“You make it sound like walking away would be a bad thing.”
“That’s because it would be, Camille. It would haunt you the rest of your life,” he says.
It’s tempting to spend the rest of my life knowing that for three months, I belonged to the most eligible bachelor in the free world: a privilege most women could only dream of.
“Give me one more week with you,” he says. “And if you still want to leave, I won’t try to stop you.”
His hand cradles my cheek, and I almost wish he’d kiss me so I could remember how it feels to be weightless.
“I’m going to Iowa for a few days next week,” Ronan says. “We’re soft launching my father’s reelection campaign, and I’m required to make an appearance. Come with me. It’ll get you out of here for a little while, let you clear your head.”
“How exactly would that work? Me going with you?”
“I’m flying with my family,” he says. “You could fly commercial, and I’ll put you up in a hotel in downtown Des Moines. We’ll meet at night, when the rest of that quiet little city sleeps.”
I stare off to the side.
“You said you wanted to get out of town,” he reminds me.
“Fine. One week.” I release a surrendered sigh. “We’ll see how Iowa goes.”
He kisses my forehead, lingering for a minute before pulling back, and I watch his chest rise as he pulls my clean scent into his lungs. My hands are frozen at my sides, but my fingers yearn to play with his hair and trace the bends and angles of his perfect face the way I did in the dark.
“Promise me something, Camille,” his voice resonates from deep within his chest.
“I don’t believe in promises,” I say. “I only believe in someone’s good word, and mine has always been good.”
His hand cups my chin as his stare pierces mine. “You know who I am now, but I still need this to be dark. Don’t tell a soul about us. You don’t know what someone might do with that information.”
“Ronan.” I sigh. “The item that was stolen from my apartment last week. It was a journal.”
His face hardens.
“I keep records of all of my meetings. Every client. Every dinner and hotel reservat
ion. Every detail of what we do. It’s all there.” My brows angle inward. “And this particular stolen journal was my most recent.”
“How many of these do you have?”
“Several. But your name isn’t in any,” I add, as if that makes the situation any less dire. “Obviously.”
“Who else have you told about these journals?”
“You’re the only one.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” His nostrils flare, and the space above his jaws hollows. “Trust no one, Camille.”
“So what do we do?” My stomach sickens when I think about someone out there paging through my personal accounts of the way “John” commanded my body with his tongue or fucked me in six different positions in the master suite of the Hightower apartment.
“Your roommate, Araminta,” he says.
“What about her?”
“Is it possible she went snooping through your things while you were gone and came across it?”
I shake my head to vehemently oppose his suggestion. “She would never.”
“And how do you know for sure?”
“She doesn’t know I keep records, and believe me, she’s more wrapped up in her own life to even care about anyone else’s.”
“For now, you need to stay on guard. Tell her nothing, do you understand?”
I nod.
“I don’t want you to worry too much about this until we know more.” His hands circle my waist. “Whoever has it hasn’t done anything with it. Yet. My guess is that they’ll wait until it’s really valuable and try to use it for extortion.”
“I’m so sorry, Ronan.”
“You said there are others?”
“Right. But they’re hidden. I’m the only one who knows where they are.”
“If this one doesn’t have my name written in it, I’m not that worried about it. There’s nothing they can say or do that I won’t be able to deny.” His gaze narrows. “But what bothers me is the fact that someone entered your apartment without you knowing. How are you even sleeping at night?”
“Pfft. With 9-1-1 on speed dial and a lock on my door.”
“I don’t want you staying there anymore.”
I laugh. “I can’t do that to Araminta. Really. I have pepper spray, and there’s this program I can download on my laptop that records a video when it senses movement. Whoever took that journal, they can keep it. There’s nothing else of mine they could possibly use to extort anyone, and obviously they didn’t want to physically harm me because they came by when I was out of town. I got a little freaked out at first when I thought it was Bancroft, but now that he’s out of the picture, I’m fine. Really.”
“You’re a brave woman, Camille.” His blue eyes soften as he runs the pad of his thumb across my hip. “I’m going to have Oliver get us a couple of disposable phones. I want you to be able to contact me at any hour, for any reason.”
“All right.”
“And no more journaling,” he adds. “Everything that goes on between us stays between us. Nothing goes on paper. Nothing is discussed.”
“Understood.”
“Meet me tomorrow evening at the Hightower.” It’s a subtle way of saying goodbye. “I’ll have a courier deliver your new phone in the morning, and I’ll text you a time.”
My chest tightens. “I’d rather avoid the Hightower if we could. Last night wasn’t the most pleasant experience.”
Ronan’s chin tucks and his shoulders widen as he breathes deeply. “Yes, about that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I shut down the conversation, partially because I’m not in the mood to relive that moment, but mostly because I blame myself. I’m the idiot who climbed into the back of Keir Montgomery’s limo and let him put his hands all over me like some floozy bimbo desperate to fuck him. “It was a mistake, and I’d prefer to forget it happened.”
His jaw tenses. “My brother very much knows about us, and he knows who you are. Does that change anything?”
My hand covers my mouth. “That fucking prick.”
Ronan lifts a palm. “I don’t want to know the details, Camille. Just tell me if he hurt you so I can handle this.”
I huff, my arms folding tight against my body as I stare at the carpet. I allow myself to be weak, to wallow in that pain for just a moment before pulling myself together. With a cleansing breath and my spine zipped straight, I say, “He had a few choice words when he realized I wasn’t going to sleep with him. They stung at the time, and now I’m over them.”
Ronan’s head tilts, his eyes wincing like he doesn’t quite believe me.
“Why would your brother want to sleep with a woman he knows is already involved with you?” I ask.
His sapphire eyes roll. “Keir wants everything I have, and he’s been that way our whole lives. He’s competitive and entitled, and I’m sorry you had the grave misfortune of bumping into him last night.”
He lifts my chin until our eyes lock again.
“If he hurts you, I’ll hurt him. You should know that,” he says. “But I’ll make sure he never bothers you again.”
“Do you think he sought me out last night?”
“Keir’s too lazy. He’s an opportunist.” Ronan scoffs. “I was with him for part of last night, but I went home early when I couldn’t take another minute with his obnoxious entourage.”
I sigh, waving my hand in the air. “Okay, enough about your brother.”
“Agreed.”
I pull away and scan the living room of the suite for my clutch. Ronan walks behind me, his hand on the small of my back. Even after everything that’s transpired, he still treats me like a proper lady. I kind of love that about him.
We linger by the door, and I catch the graze of his tongue across his bottom lip.
It feels silly standing here wishing he’d just kiss me, so I force the ridiculous notion out of my head. There’s no good reason for him to kiss me right now.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night.” I give him a bitten smile and flit my fingers in the air as I wave. Walking away, the weight of his stare is undeniable.
***
“Do you have any idea how worried I was about you last night?” Araminta paces the spot in front of our kitchen island, laying into me before I have a chance to kick off my heels.
“I know, I know.” I drop my keys on the counter. “Last night was completely insane for a hundred thousand different reasons, and to top it all off, my phone died at some point, so I couldn’t text you and let you know I was safe.”
“Did you leave with Keir?” she asks.
I groan. “Yes, and let me tell you, he is, hands down, the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.”
Her pretty mouth hangs like I’ve committed treason. “You take that back, Camille Buchanan.”
She giggles, shaking her head as she flashes an envious smile.
“The fact that you got him to leave with you is . . . beyond . . . ” she says. “I want to know everything. Is he a good kisser? What kinds of things did he say? Is his cock every bit as beautiful as I’ve imagined it to be?”
I exhale, wishing I could tell her everything and then some, but I’m not about to throw away my good word for the sake of a little shock value.
“Yes, he’s a good kisser.” I’ll give her that much. “But as soon as we were alone, he got really rude and aggressive. It was weird, Minty. I got myself out of there before it went too far.”
“Aggressive like how?”
I pinch my lips, shrugging. “I don’t know.”
“Like physically violent?”
“No, no, no.”
“Or like a man who’s really excited that he’s about to get some so he can’t keep his grubby paws to himself?” She cocks a half smirk.
“Right. Like that.”
“Psh.” Araminta slaps a hand on her hip. “My God, Camille, can you blame him for getting pissy with you? You left with him. He thought he was going to get some ass.”
If only it were that simple.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours.” She sighs. “Always. Anyway, it should’ve been me last night. I’d have gladly taken one for the team.”
I hope she never has to.
TWENTY-FOUR
Ronan
“What. The. Hell.” I corner Keir outside the solarium Saturday afternoon after checking out of the hotel. “Did you do last night?”
The bloodshot whites of his eyes and the telltale stench of day-old alcohol on his breath tells me he was in a bad state last night, but it’s no excuse.
“No clue what you’re talking about.” He adjusts the Windsor knot of his tie and runs a palm down his cashmere sweater. My brother’s biggest talent is the ability to dress himself to the nines, even in the throes of a head splitting hangover.
“Why, Keir?” I invade his space like I own it, backing him against a nearby wall. For the moment, we’re alone. But it won’t last long. “What the hell was going through that arrogant little brain of yours?”
His lips pull into a stupid grin and his hands fly up in protest. “She wanted me, Ronan. Maybe not at first, but the second she thought I was you, she was all over me.”
A kitchen staffer wheels a cart of food past us, and I back off my brother though my eyes still burn into his.
“You knew exactly what you were doing.” My teeth clench. “You don’t deserve her, and you’re nothing but a goddamned weasel, Keir. It’s all you’ll ever be.”
“I’d rather be a weasel than a sellout,” he snarls. “You’re a conformist. You live your life based on what John Q. Public would think, and to me that makes you nothing more than a coward, Ronan. You’re the one who doesn’t deserve Camille. Send her my way. I’ll take her out and show her a good time, not keep her locked away in some hotel room like you’re ashamed of her.”
“I’m protecting her,” I say.
Keir’s face scrunches. “Who are you trying to kid? You’re protecting yourself.”
“I don’t expect a simple-minded prick like you to understand half of what my arrangement with Camille really means.”
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