“I have a confession to make.” His whisper against my ear saturates my senses and renders me immobile. Keir’s hand travels between my thighs, brushing against my sensitive core from outside my lace panties.
“What is it, Keir? What’s your confession?”
His teeth nip my earlobe, and the elevator door dings and parts. “I hoped I would run into you tonight.”
My swollen lips tingle as he drags me by the wrist to the familiar door of the Hightower corporate apartment.
“What do you mean?” I ask, my words breathless.
He scans his fob against the lock, pushing the door open. The place is fully illuminated.
“I may know more about you than I’ve let on,” he says, kicking the door closed behind us. Keir’s fingers work to drag the zipper down my back, but I step away. His perfect mouth pulls into a haughty smirk. Keir makes arrogant look as sexy as it’s ever going to look. “I know who you are, Camille. I’ve heard of you many times, and let’s just say you have a reputation for being . . . the best.”
His words sink into me. He isn’t John. Then again, my intuition tried to tell me that all night, I just didn’t want to listen.
“How do you have access to this apartment?” I swallow the hard lump in my throat.
Keir laughs and flicks the light switch until the place is dark and the city night twinkles from the picture window behind him.
“What kind of question is that?” His gaze lands on my shaking hands, and he takes them in his. “And why are you trembling, Camille?”
All these random puzzle pieces belong to the same puzzle, but none of them fit together. The way John came into my life and disappeared without explanation. The missing journal. Bancroft writing me off. And now Keir Montgomery picking me up in a bar and taking me back to the very same place where John claimed I’d be safe.
Nothing about this is random coincidence.
And the key fob.
If John were truly done with me, he’d have asked for it back.
“I should go.” I pull away from him and hurry toward the door.
His handsome face sours as he follows. “Camille . . . ”
I’m done. I’m done with John. I’m done with this job and this city.
“I can’t sleep with you, Keir.” I grip the doorknob and feel him behind me. The heat of his breath down my spine is a wordless protest.
His hands rest on the curve of my hips before gripping the zipper. He pulls the metal slider up the chain before gathering my hair in his hands. He guides my ear to his mouth, and I shudder when the warmth of his lips meets the side of my neck.
“How much do I have to pay you?” he growls. “You’re a hooker, and I want to fuck you. What’s the going rate these days?”
Never before has the truth hurt with such blinding intensity. My eyes burn with the threat of tears, and I’m grateful he can’t see my face in its weakened state.
“You can’t afford me.” My jaw clenches.
“Everybody has a price.”
“I’m not for sale,” I say. “Not anymore.”
His hand slides down my hip, snaking around to my front where he pulls at the hem of my dress.
“God, you’re so fucking wet right now.” His fingertips press against the outside of my panties. “It’d be a shame to let that go to waste, especially when you were just seconds from giving it away for free.”
“Please let me go.” I steady my words so he can’t hear the quaver in my voice. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
His free hand snakes up my other side, caressing the underside of my breast and pulling me back against him. What a foolish woman I am, believing for one moment that Keir Montgomery picked me out of a bar because I was especially worthy of a night with him.
“We’re cut from the same cloth, you and me,” he says. “We know how to make someone feel like they’re the only person in the room. We know all the right moves, all the right things to say. People are naturally drawn to us. Not everyone can be as charismatic and alluring as we are, Camille. We see things in others that no one else does. It’s our fucking superpower.”
His breath drags down my bare back, followed by a biting kiss.
“Sex with me would be explosive, and you know it,” he says. “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to spend a night with your equal? To fuck someone truly worthy of this exquisite little pussy you’re packing?”
I already have.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I huff.
“I speak the truth.”
“For the first time tonight.”
“When I pulled you aside earlier,” he says, spreading my thighs apart before dragging a cupped palm across my ass. “What did you think I wanted with you? What’d you think would happen when you left with me?”
I pull in a deep breath, clenching my thighs back together. “You reminded me of someone I know. I thought maybe you were . . .”
My ridiculous thought fails to finish itself.
He laughs. “Who else would I be? I gave you my name. I never once said I was anyone else, did I?”
Nope.
I hate that he has a point.
His fist tightens around my hair, giving it a good tug before letting me go.
“Anyway, I’m bored with . . . this.” Keir backs away, and I release a harbored breath. “You can go now, whore.”
I don’t recall leaving the apartment, riding the elevator down, or bursting out the front door, but before I know it, my heels are clicking down the pavement at near-jogging speed, and a man runs after me.
A stoplight at the corner holds me up as I scan the area for a Metro sign. I should have enough left on my Metro card to get home from here.
Heavy footsteps tromp in the distance, growing nearer with each second.
“Ma’am, stop,” a man’s voice says, slightly breathless. I turn to see one of Keir’s agents coming toward me, his hand in his pocket. “This is for you.”
He pulls out my phone and then glances around before presenting a plain white envelope stuffed with cash. He offers no explanation. He doesn’t need to. I know what this money buys, and that would be my silence.
“I don’t want it.” I wave it off as the crosswalk signal turns white and a thirty-second countdown begins.
The agent’s mouth takes the shape of a frown. He won’t be satisfied unless I take the bribe.
“Fine.” I yank Keir’s dirty money from the man’s hand, shove it in my bag, and trot across the street. If I didn’t take it, I’m sure he’d pull as many strings as it took to ensure my silence was scared into me.
As soon as I spot a Metro sign, I pull out my phone to text Araminta. She’s probably wondering where the hell I ran off to, despite the fact that she regularly pulls this stunt with me.
I linger outside the Metro station and try my best to peck out a quick text with shaky fingers, but before I get a chance to press the send button, a blocked call comes through.
“Camille.” John’s voice comes through on the other end when I answer. “Where are you right now?”
TWENTY
“John”
“I thought you were done with me.” Camille’s words snap like a broken elastic. She’s angry with me but I know better. The root of all anger is hurt. “You disappeared without any kind of explanation. I had no way of contacting you. What was I supposed to think?”
Her voice quavers until it fades away. The sound of a traffic symphony plays in the distance.
“Where are you?” I ask, kicking off my shoes as I crawl into my bed. Although I have no intention of making Keir’s lifestyle a habit anytime soon, it did feel good to have a couple of drinks. I haven’t felt this relaxed in ages, and perhaps it’s the reason I was able to break down and call her tonight. “We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” She exhales into the receiver. “I’m thinking it’s best we go our separate ways from here.”
I huff. “Is this because you hadn’t heard fro
m me in a few days? Or because you’re fucking Bancroft again?”
“Excuse me?” Her words are slow, drawn out. “I would never sleep with him again, and I resent your accusation.”
“Then why did you meet with him last week?”
“You’re having me followed now?” Her incredulous laugh fills my ear. “Nice, John. Nice.”
“So you admit you’re still involved with him.”
“Not. At. All.” A horn honks in the background. “I met with him to ask him to leave me alone, to stop following me.”
“And what did he say?”
“It’s none of your business, John. Bancroft is my business, and I handled it. And I do not appreciate being tailed. I’m one of the most private and trustworthy people this city will ever know, and if you’re too paranoid to believe that, then we have no business associating.”
“My apologies.”
I’m met with silence, deservedly so.
“Let me make it up to you,” I say. “I’m not ready for this to be over yet. Are you?”
“John . . .”
“Camille.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
I refuse to give her words any merit. She’s upset with me and her emotions are running high. She doesn’t mean any of this.
“Let’s meet at the apartment. We can talk there,” I say. “I’d like to offer my apology in person so you know it’s sincere. I shouldn’t have doubted you. We need to get back on track.”
“Fine,” she says after a lengthy pause. “You get me for one hour, and I’m not going to the Hightower.”
I laugh as if her statement is a joke because it makes no sense. “What do you mean?”
“Pick a hotel,” she says. “Not the Melrose. Some place public. Text me the room number, and I’ll get there when I get there.”
“You don’t sound like yourself tonight.”
“Interesting observation from a man who knows very little about me.”
“I know plenty.”
“And still, you’ve barely scratched the surface.”
I know.
I listen to the steady drag of a long breath on her end.
“I’ll see you soon, Camille.”
***
I wait on the end of a tufted sofa in the presidential suite of the Hotel Mirabelle in Georgetown, checking the time far too often.
The click of the lock is followed by the sweeping gush the door makes as it swings open. In my haste to get here, I neglected to bring a blindfold, but the room is still plenty dark.
Camille struts toward me with intrepid strides, her hands fixed on her hips and a clutch under her arm. From what I can tell, she’s dressed for a night on the town, which would explain the traffic noise an hour earlier.
For a moment, I wonder if she went out because of me in an attempt to forget the sting of rejection she probably felt. Women do that, I’ve noticed. They fish for attention when they’re feeling low. Just the thought of another man hitting on Camille tonight brings a strain to my neck that travels to my jaw.
I rise, taking her hands in mine. The urge to crush her sweet lips with a punishing kiss overcomes me, but something prevents me from following through. Cradling her cheek, I lift her face and inhale what I fully anticipate to be the intoxicating gardenia scent of her perfume.
But instead she smells like a man.
I release her and step away, leaning down to swipe what’s left of my bourbon from a nearby end table.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she says.
“Don’t let the door hit you.” I take a swig, letting the liquor burn on my tongue before I swallow. I’m sure if this goddamned hotel room wasn’t so dark, I’d be seeing scarlet.
I listen for the shuffling sound of her heels against the carpet, but it never comes.
“Why aren’t you leaving?” I spit my bourbon-flavored words in her general direction.
“You brought me here to talk,” she says. “I’m just surprised you’re letting me walk away so easily.”
“I generally find conversations with frauds to be an enormous waste of my time.”
“Frauds?” She sniffs. “I didn’t come all the way here for you to insult me.”
“And I didn’t bring you all the way here for you to insult my intelligence.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You smell like another man.” I turn to face her, my eyes following the black outline of her body as she steps toward me. The second I open my mouth to elaborate, the quick sting of her palm floods my left cheek.
No one has ever slapped me before.
“Lucky strike,” I say, placing my hand across the pulsing warmth. It’s a miracle her hand found my face in the dark.
“You don’t get to label me a fraud.” Her words ring clear. “Everything about you is deceptive, John. I’m the genuine one. You know my name. You’ve seen my face. I’m not pretending to be someone I’m not. And yes, I kissed another man tonight. I let him touch me. I closed my eyes and convinced myself that he was you, and then I let him tell me everything I wanted to hear because I was feeling lower than I’ve ever felt before. But I’m not going to sit here blaming you. I’ll take full responsibility for my idiotic lapse in judgment. And I’ll own up to the fact that for one pathetic night I gave two shits about whether or not I’m good enough to be with a man who won’t even show me his face.”
I pull in a ragged breath.
“You are good enough for me, Camille.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, her footsteps shuffling away. “I’m done with whatever the hell this is anyway. I never should’ve agreed to it in the first place. I’m not sure what made me think I could trust a man who only fucks me in the dark.” She laughs. “God, I’m the biggest fucking moron. That’s what I get for only seeing zeroes.”
My offer of one million dollars had nothing to do with the blindfold or the darkness. It was to ensure she couldn’t say no, and that any other man’s offer would pale in comparison to mine.
“But before I go,” she says, “I need you to answer one question.”
“You can ask, but I can’t promise I’ll answer.” I bring my bourbon to my lips and take another swig.
“What’s your relation to Keir Montgomery?”
Her question slams into me, and I almost choke on my drink.
“I know you’re connected to him,” she says.
“And what makes you think that?”
“Because I met him tonight,” she says. “And he took me to the Hightower.”
Cherry heat blankets my ears as my jaw locks at its hinges.
That goddamn son of a bitch.
“Did you fuck him?” I ask a question I never dreamed I’d have to ask her.
“God, no. Absolutely not.”
Relief comes when I hear the disgust in her voice.
“You’re Ronan, aren’t you?” she asks. “You’re his brother.”
TWENTY-ONE
Camille
I find my answer in his hesitation, but now I need to confirm it. I move away from the door, my gaze scanning the room in search of the outline of a lamp. I never agreed to the darkness, I only did as I was told because he was paying me. Now that this is over, all bets are off.
My palm slides up the metal rod of a small desk lamp, searching for the switch at the top.
“What are you doing?” His question comes half a second too late.
One little click, and “John” officially has an identity . . .
And it’s undeniable.
Ronan Montgomery stands before me, an empty crystal tumbler in his left hand and a concerned expression on his handsome, chiseled face. He’s every bit as beautiful as he looks in the media, and I’m every bit as paralyzed as I was earlier under the trance of his asshole younger brother.
“Well.” My throat constricts as he holds my gaze captive, and I back myself toward a nearby sofa, collapsing on the rolled arm. The room spins, and my muscles grow weak. This
is must be what it feels like when shit gets real.
“Now do you see why I tried to protect you? You’ll be forever linked to me the rest of your life, whether you like it or not. And anyone looking to damage the Montgomery name is going to use you to do so. Congratulations, Camille. You’ve officially made yourself a pawn.”
My arms fold across my chest, but I can’t stop staring at this gorgeous creature across from me.
“I wish you’d have been up front with me from the start,” I say. “It would’ve been nice to know what I was getting myself into.”
“Why do you think I hid my face? My precaution may have been extreme, Camille, but it was necessary,” he says. “Besides, you’d have said no had I been up front from the beginning.”
“You don’t know that.”
“So you’d have said yes?” His perfect, dark brows lift as he awaits my response, and my gaze falls to his impeccably talented mouth.
“I’m not sure.” I glance away for a second, crossing my legs. “Probably not.”
“My point exactly.”
When I look at him again, I realize he hasn’t taken his eyes off me yet, and I can’t help but feel as if I’m meeting him for the first time all over again. In a way I am.
My mind wanders to all the naughty things this Adonis has done to me in recent weeks.
“Why would someone like you pay over eighty grand a week for sex?” I ask.
“Someone like me?” He huffs, raking his hand along his rugged jawline. “I believe you just answered your own question.”
“You could have anyone.”
“Maybe I don’t want just anyone.” He clears his throat. “It’s hard enough to find no-strings-attached sex, let alone with a woman who won’t go running her mouth to the media the second they name her price.”
“So you limit yourself to anonymous sex because you’re paranoid someone, someday is going to sell you out?”
“My entire adult life has been nothing but strategic side-stepping, avoiding black marks on my record, walking a straight line, and ensuring that five or ten years from now, when I run for office, there won’t be a single speck of dirt contaminating my past.” He hasn’t moved from his spot. “You understand how being linked to an escort would have implications for me, don’t you? For yourself as well.”
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