The Perfect Illusion

by Winter Renshaw

  “You’re doubting us already?” His jaw sets. “Timing’s a little off, don’t you think? We’re partners now. I thought we were in it for the long haul.”

  “We are,” I say. “Professionally.”

  “You still think I’m going to hurt you.” His accusation stings more than he knows.

  “I don’t think you’ll hurt me.” Truth: ninety-nine point nine percent of me doesn’t think he’ll hurt me. “I just feel certain things don’t need to be rushed.”

  “We’re together seven days a week. You stay over most nights of the week. We practically live together now. Why not make it official?”

  His eyes search mine, and his fingers dig into my flesh just enough to tell me he’s not going anywhere. I know Xavier. When he wants something, he won’t let up about it, and right now, he wants me.

  “You really want me to live with you?”

  “Absolutely.” He scratches the back of his neck, exhaling loudly. “You find that difficult to believe?”

  The words that might properly convey the way I feel escape me, and maybe that’s because I’m not sure how I feel. It’s a cocktail of every emotion on the spectrum, high and low, good and bad.

  “I love you, Magnolia Grantham.” His jaw tightens. “Two years without speaking couldn’t change that. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here, loving you, fighting for us, and convincing you that every word coming out of my mouth is genuine. It wasn’t enough to be your best friend, and I’m not even sure it’s enough to be your boyfriend.”

  My heart sputters before quickening. It pounds so hard, I’m sure he can hear it.

  “I intend to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says. “But for now, you’re moving in with me, because that’s where you belong. With me.”

  He isn’t asking.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Fox. But fine. I accept your offer. My lease is up the end of next month. I’ll move in then.”

  “A forty-five day close.”

  The tension in the room dissipates. Xavier’s the only person in the world I can be silly with and still command respect from during professional situations.

  “I’ve got appointments all afternoon.” He kisses my forehead before reaching across the desk for his phone and keys.

  “See you tonight then. Your place?”

  “Our place.”

  THE END

  Arrogant Playboy

  Copyright

  COPYRIGHT 2015 WINTER RENSHAW

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  COVER DESIGN: Louisa Maggio, LM Creations

  EDITING: J.J. Mayflower

  PROOFREADING: Janice Owen and Carey Sullivan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or, if an actual place, are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Description

  PLAYBOY. Noun. A moneyed man who spends his time enjoying himself, especially one who acts irresponsibly or is sexually promiscuous. Synonyms: ladies man, philanderer, womanizer. See Also: Beckham King.

  BECKHAM KING. Noun. Synonyms: None.

  Vanity wrapped in arrogance and tied with a wicked-intentioned bow.

  Obnoxiously attractive.

  Wildly talented in the sack.

  Everything a girl could want in a one-night stand.

  Don’t ask him to commit.

  Don’t expect a phone call.

  You only get one night.

  And God forbid you’re the one girl deemed worthy of a reprise…

  Because you won’t stand a chance.

  When an arrogant playboy’s mind is set, there’s abso-f*cking-lutely no changing it.

  Chapter 1

  BECKHAM

  I’m spent, balls deep inside an auburn beauty with shapely runner’s legs that wrap around my hips and pin us together.

  Our bodies meld.

  Each rise and fall of her chest brings the peaks of her budded nipples against my chest. The glowing beauty’s forearm rests across her eyes, and her swollen lips relax into an exhausted, exuberant smile.

  I love that smile.

  I live for that smile.

  Not on her but on every woman I spend the night with.

  Fucking women is a pass/fail endeavor and that smile tells me I made the grade.

  The promise of warm sunlight fills the space around us. My sleepless night will catch up with me around three o’clock this afternoon, but she was so fucking worth it. I don’t move, opting to reside inside her a moment longer, both of us basking in our respective euphoric states a few more seconds.

  Her arm goes limp, falling to the pillow behind her head, and our eyes meet for the first time since we stumbled over each other in a drunken rush to dive headfirst between the sheets of my king-sized bed.

  And this is where it gets awkward.

  This is where she’s supposed to sigh and give me that far off gaze, the one that makes me think she believes something amazing just happened between us. This is where she flashes a smile and grabs the sheet and covers up and combs her hair out of her face like she’s all of a sudden self-conscious around me.

  They all do it. It’s like they’re reading off some kind of twenty-five-year-old single girl script.

  First they’re sexy, bold, and brazen.

  Then they’re cute, coy, and bashful.

  Bait and switch. Every fucking time.

  At least I know how it works now. I’m not some twenty-one year old, fuck-anything-with-a-vagina pencil dick who falls for it anymore.

  One step ahead of them now.

  After this radiant vixen plays modest church mouse for a while, she’s going to say she had fun and if I ever want to hang out again – hang out code for screwing her until neither one of us can walk straight – to give her a call.

  That’ll be my cue to say something like, “Absolutely!” or “Hell yeah.” A little something to put a pep in her step during her imminent walk of shame.

  The auburn girl below, whose name escapes me at the moment, flashes a two-second smile.

  Here we go.

  Three…

  Two…

  One…

  “You can get off me now.” Her hands press against my biceps, and her post-orgasmic smile fades. “We’re done here, right?”

  Wait, what?

  I strategically maneuver myself out of her, making sure the condom is still intact, and move to the side. The girl doesn’t grab a sheet or slip into shy-mode. She tiptoes to the bathroom, her peach-shaped ass swaying, and comes out a few minutes later, brushing her teeth with her finger and apparently some borrowed toothpaste.

  She leans over, spitting into the sink, the long muscles down the side of her leg flexing as she rises on her toes. When she emerges, she snaps a black elastic between her fingers.

  “Found a hair tie in your bathroom,” she says, pointing to her hair as she finger-combs it into a messy pile on top of her head. Her breasts lift, round and proud. She has no shame – not that she needs any. She’s her own brand of gorgeous, and she owns it. There’s not an ounce of insecurity anywhere on this woman.

  The sunlight climbing over the cityscape outside my penthouse starts to fill the shadowy room, bathing her in warmth and illuminating every curve.

  “You just going to stand there with your mouth hanging? Be a lamb and find my bra, will you?”

  I climb off the bed, stepping into my crumpled boxers
and digging through the mess of clothes on the floor until I pull out a black bra with see-through lace cups and some clear, plastic strap across the back.

  I hand it over, a half-smirk on my face.

  She takes it from me and slips the straps over her creamy shoulders before adjusting it into place and securing the back. I grab her dress from last night, the tight black number with the low back that initially caught my eye, and hold it out for her.

  “Thanks.” She steps into it, pulling it up and over her curves. Her eyelids are rimmed with smudged black makeup but it’s quickly overridden by a confident glimmer in her round eyes. The girl glances around the room. “What time is it?”

  “Six.” I eye the blue-numbered alarm clock over her shoulder before getting up to grab some mouthwash. “Quarter after actually.”

  “Perfect.”

  I follow her out my bedroom, down the hall, and toward the foyer where her heels rest on their sides in front of my private elevator. This girl’s in such a hurry that I almost feel used.

  Almost.

  Maybe it’s karma for all those times I’ve gone home with a woman and dashed out before the sun came up.

  She spins on her heels, checking out her reflection in a wall-hung mirror, licking her finger, and wiping a streak of black mascara under her eye.

  “So…” I feel the need to fill the silence with something, but nothing comes to mind because my brain is too busy trying to figure out the anomaly standing before me.

  This girl has game. She may even have more game than me.

  Her gaze darts around the room, scanning the marble buffet table and elaborate floral arrangement and zipping across the chessboard tile. Most women fawn and ooh and aah over my foyer but not her. She couldn’t care less.

  “What are you looking for?” I ask.

  “My bag.”

  She breezes past me, her heels clicking against the marble tile, and heads into my kitchen. I scratch my temple.

  Did I take her in the kitchen last night?

  A smile crawls across my lips as faded fragments of our evening return to my memory.

  Oh, yeah. I took her in the kitchen last night. And the dining room. And the balcony.

  “Stop,” she says, returning with a black satin clutch under her left arm.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Stop gloating.”

  Who is this woman?

  My palm rakes my five o’clock shadow. This girl with the dark, fiery hair is something else. I bite my tongue, biding my time before she steps on the elevator. At least I’m spared the whole awkward exchange where I pretend like I fully intend on tapping that ass again in the near future.

  “Ugh.” She rifles through her unfastened clutch. “Where’s my phone? Why isn’t it in here?”

  This woman wants nothing more than to leave my place, and the universe wants nothing more than for her to stay. I’m caught somewhere in between, still standing here in my silk boxers, mildly entertained but mostly confused.

  “So. Thanks for last night.” I widen my stance and fold my arms across my bare chest, refusing to let myself cringe. I never fucking do this.

  I’m not that guy. I’m not the lame ass who goes from sex-on-fire to grateful chump as soon as morning comes.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  She glances up from the shallow depths of her bag and rolls her eyes. “Did you seriously just thank me for fucking you?”

  We fucked not once, not twice, not even three times. Four times.

  “I appreciate a girl who can go the distance. Rare to meet someone who can keep up with me.”

  She bites away a grin. Pretty sure she’s fucking laughing at me.

  “Something funny…” My mind goes blank as I rack it in search of her name.

  Odette? No.

  Tessa? Nope.

  Olivia…

  “You don’t remember my name, do you?” Her full lips pull wide, showcasing a mouthful of perfect, white teeth. Her entire face lights, followed by an incredulous chuckle. “Classy.”

  “We had a lot to drink.” Everything happened so goddamned fast.

  “Yours is Beckham,” she says. “Like the soccer player. Beckham King. Truth be told, that’s all I know about you. I picked you because you were hot. I came home with you because I felt sorry for you.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I cup my chin, cocking my head. “You felt sorry for me?”

  She lifts a single shoulder.

  Odessa. That’s it.

  “Odessa,” I say, fighting the smug twitch in my mouth. “Odessa Russo.”

  I halfway remember her bragging about her Greek-Italian heritage, and I fully recall appreciating her Greek ass and the exotic Italian angles of her pretty face.

  “Oh, wow.” Odessa’s brows lift, her lips puckering as she sarcastically accepts defeat.

  “You came home with me because you felt sorry for me?” I refuse to let it go.

  “Yep.”

  Green. Her eyes are a radiant green. Lit from the inside. Hypnotic.

  “I watched you hit on about four or five women before I had to come in and save the day.”

  She’s lying. She’s got to be lying. I have a three strike rule, and I’ve yet to need to enforce it.

  I love sex.

  Correction: I love casual sex.

  Carefree, uninhibited, never-see-you-again sex.

  It’s what I do. It’s the way it has to be.

  Page Six stopped calling me one of New York’s most eligible bachelors years ago after a failed engagement with a pedigreed hotel heiress, and they quickly rebranded me as an arrogant playboy. But I don’t mind. It’s who I am, and I make no apologies for it.

  I’m the guy women fantasize about changing; the one they dream about falling hopelessly in love with.

  The only thing I’m hopelessly in love with is my life – exactly the way it is. It hasn’t always been this way, but I’ll be damned if I ever go back.

  “Help me find my phone,” she orders, striding into my living room. I stand back as she slips her hand between the cushions of my overstuffed leather sofa.

  Did we fuck there last night too?

  She retrieves a white phone, inspecting it like there’s a chance it belongs to a former conquest.

  “Ugh. Battery’s dead.” She stuffs it in her clutch and snaps the little bag shut.

  Guess there’ll be no exchanging of numbers.

  Woe is me.

  Our eyes lock, and Odessa tugs the hem of her dress into place though it’s barely long enough to hit the middle of her long thighs.

  “All right, then.” She walks past me, grazing my shoulder, and heads for the elevator, hips swaying with the subtle bounces in her steps. Her fingertips reach back, smoothing loose auburn tendrils that have fallen around her nape.

  My eyes trace down her back until it finds the dip just above her perfect ass and those hips I’d held onto all night.

  I don’t do repeats. I don’t do booty calls or the whole fuck-buddy thing. I’m a one and done kind of man, but damn, if this sexy little spitfire doesn’t make me want a reprise.

  Odessa presses the call button on the elevator and the doors part. She steps inside, our eyes meeting one last time.

  This is it.

  Once those doors close, I’ll never see her again.

  Which is exactly the way it’s supposed to be…

  I suck in a quick breath. “Wait.”

  I never chase after women. I send them packing with a post-orgasmic glow and sometimes an awkward, morning-after hug. The second they close I’m never going to see this woman again. Any other time I’d be perfectly okay with that. But I can’t let her walk out of my place lugging every ounce of power from this entire exchange.

  It’s not the way it’s supposed to go, and I can’t allow it.

  Her brows arch, and the right corner of her fuckable pink lips pull up. I can’t let her leave with the upper hand. I can’t be left in the dust like some pathetic pity fuck.


  The doors ding and slide, but I stop them, climbing onto the elevator next to her.

  “What are you doing?” She backs herself into a corner, literally.

  The only way to reset the power balance is to get her to want me. I need her to leave this place thinking she’d just had the best sex of her entire life, and I want her to silently plead for more with those glossy emerald eyes of hers.

  And after that?

  I want her calling me every night for a week, begging to come over if only so I get the satisfaction of telling her “no.”

  I reach for her, sliding my palm against her jaw and cupping my fingers around her soft neck before lowering my mouth to hers. Without saying a word, I steal a tender kiss. My free hand hooks the curve above her hip, and her body melts against me for the few, short seconds my mouth claims hers.

  That’s how it’s done.

  Kiss them until they’re weak in the knees.

  I pull away like some sensual Casanova and cock a satisfied smile.

  Her wild green eyes soften for a millisecond before her brows twist.

  “Why did you do that?” she asks.

  I step back, two steps actually, and run the side of my finger against the warmth of my lower lip. Her spearmint taste settles on my tongue.

  “Enjoy the rest of your day, Odessa.” I step off the elevator, wicked gratification sinking into my bones, and send her off with a signature ambiguous nod.

  Only the last thing I see in the moments before the door slams shut is her middle finger pointed straight up.

  I slam the call button over and over. I need the elevator to stop now, but the clunk-clunk and whoosh tells me it’s too late.

  I scramble to my room, tugging on last night’s slacks and pulling a white button-down over my tight shoulders as I make a mad dash for the emergency stairway. I’m not sure if I can beat her to the ground level, but I’m sure as hell going to try.

  Two steps at a time, the whole way down. Ten flights. I’m glazed in a coat of sweat by the time I get to the bottom and my shirt clings, but I catch the backside view of her as she slips past the doorman and heads west down twenty-sixth street.