The women are silent as we’re served the first course. Hardly anyone touches the starter of foie gras, elaborately dressed with poached apple in a fig reduction. Not even the scrape of silver against china echoes through the vast space.
I chew slowly, surveying the eleven, perfectly poised women from the head of the table. All are determined to avoid eye contact, as they pretend to nibble their salads and numb their nerves with wine.
“So...” I start, drawing their reluctant eyes. “When was the last time any of you masturbated?”
A symphony of coughs and gasps coax my mouth into a satisfied grin. This group should be fun.
“Excuse me?” one sneers, after downing her red wine. A server moves to grace her with a refill of velvety courage, knowing she’ll need it.
“Did I stutter? Or do you not know what it means to masturbate?”
“What? I know what...” she cringes, flustered, and shakes her head in embarrassment. “... masturbating is. Why do you feel the need to ask such crude, inappropriate questions?”
I examine the striking redhead still glaring at me, her cherry lips tight with irritation. Her too large, almost animated, eyes narrow in abhorrence, burning right through me with unspoken judgment. Even with her face twisted into a scowl, she’s stunning. Not overly done up or glamorous. She’s old Hollywood beautiful, yet there’s something fresh and simple about her.
I frown, because that type of beauty is too much for this place. Yet, it’s not enough for the world that she lives in.
Allison Elliot-Carr. Daughter of Richard Elliot, owner and CEO of one of the largest investment banks in the world. Her husband, Evan Carr, is a trust fund baby from an influential, political family, and her father’s golden boy. He’s also a pretty boy, philandering bastard with no qualms about fucking anything in Manolos from Miami to Manhattan. Of course, that tidbit of information is not publicized. It’s my job to know these things. To get inside their heads. To expose their darkest secrets and make them confront them with unrelenting honesty.
Allison purses her lips and shakes her head, her mouth curling into a sardonic smile. “You like this, don’t you? Humiliating us? Making us feel flawed and defective? As if we are the cause of our less-than-perfect marriages? We’re responsible for the way the tabloids rip us to shreds? You don’t know me. You don’t know any of us. Yet, you think you can help us? Please. I call bullshit.”
I set down my silverware and dab my mouth with a linen napkin before giving her a knowing smirk. “Bullshit?”
“Yeah, complete bullshit. I mean, who the hell do you think you are?”
A smile slowly spreads my lips. I imagine licking my chops as a lion would before devouring a graceful, delicate gazelle. “I am Justice Drake,” I state smugly without apology. It’s a promise and an omen, gift-wrapped in two little words.
“Well, Justice Drake... you, my friend, are a bullshit artist. You know nothing about our situations. There’s no magic, cure-all remedy for our marriages. But you wouldn’t know that because you don’t know a damn thing about us. You’re not a part of our world. Hell, you probably do your research on Page Six or TMZ.” With a wave of thoroughbred arrogance, she settles back into her chair and sips her red wine, her blue, doe eyes trained on my impassive guise.
Mimicking her actions, I ease back into my own seat and steeple my fingers in front of my chin, elbows propped on the arms of the high-back chair. A beat passes as my gaze delves into hers, unearthing traces of pain, embarrassment and anger– feelings she’s been taught to hide in the face of the public. Still, no amount of MAC or Maybelline can mask the undeniable hell etched into her ivory skin.
“Allison Elliot-Carr, wife of Evan Winston Carr and daughter to Richard and Melinda Elliot. Graduated from Columbia with a degree in Business and Finance in 2009, though your true passion is Philanthropy, and you spend your free time working with various charities and non-profits. You pledged Kappa Delta Nu sophomore year, where you met Evan, a senior, legacy member and president of your brother fraternity. You were exclusive to Evan throughout college, and during Christmas of 2008, he proposed in front of both your families at your parents’ winter estate in Aspen. You were wed the following summer in New York City and honeymooned in the Caribbean. You hate spiders, scary movies and think sweater vests should be outlawed. You can’t function without Starbucks, have a borderline unhealthy addiction to Friends reruns, and you eat ice cream daily. Mint Chocolate Chip is your current drug of choice, I believe. And according to the tabloids, your husband is sleeping with your best friend, and charming the panties off half of the Upper East Side. Plus you two haven’t fucked in months. But that’s just a little something I didn’t pick up from Page Six.” I lift an amused brow and lean forward, taking in her horrified expression. “Shall I go on?”
The deafening silence swells and becomes uncomfortably dense, painfully pressing into my temples and crushing my skull, serving as penance for my questionable conscience’s failure to intervene. Allison’s eyes mist with tears, transforming into an endless blue ocean of hurt. I don’t care. I shouldn’t care.
“Well,” she croaks, her mouth dry and her wine glass empty. “Congratulations, asshole. You know how to navigate Wikipedia.” And as graceful as the elegant gazelle she was bred to be, she slides her chair back and stands, head held high, and glides out of the room.
I go back to enjoying my meal while the rest of the table stares vacantly at the space that once briefly housed Allison’s retreating back. One down, only 10 more to go. She isn’t the first, and she won’t be the last.
“Make her stay,” a meek voice barely whispers. Lorinda. The prim and proper housewife who’s more concerned with being dignified than where her husband puts his dick.
“Why should I?”
“Because she needs you. We all need you.” Several heads nod in agreement around the table. “Maybe her more than anyone else.”
More nods. Even a few co-signing murmurs.
I exhale a resigning breath, knowing exactly what I’m about to do, though it goes against every the principle I’ve learned to live by for the past six years.
Never get emotionally vested in a client.
Never pressure or persuade them; it has to be their choice.
And never, ever apologize for my unconventional technique, as cruel or brash as it may seem.
The door to her suite is slightly ajar, but I knock anyway, letting it creak open to reveal her petite frame. “What do you want?” she snaps, refusing to look up from the suitcase she’s furiously stuffing with clothes.
I step inside, not bothering to wait for an invitation, and close the door. “Going somewhere?”
“Home. This was a mistake.”
“That’s funny. I never pegged you for a quitter.”
“Really?” she asks sardonically, casting an angry glare through thick, wet lashes. “Because you know everything about me, right? You know my entire life story. Height, weight, social security number... hell, do you have my gynecologist on speed dial?”
“Don’t be absurd,” I smirk with a wave of my hand. “You know there’s no way in hell I could ever learn a woman’s true weight.”
Allison raises her gaze from her Louis Vuitton luggage and shakes her head, dismissing me and my dry attempt at humor. But before she can turn away, the tiniest hint of a smile reveals itself at the corner of her mouth.
I move closer, close enough to smell the Chanel dabbed behind her ears. “Mrs. Carr, it is my job to make your business my business. In order to best serve my clients, full disclosure is key. There is no room for dirty little secrets here. We’ve all got them, and trust me, yours pale in comparison to most. And, believe it or not, no one in that dining room is here to judge your situation. They’re all too worried about their own reasons for being here.
“With that said, I apologize if you felt my brand of honesty was too potent for you. It was callous of me. Still, that’s no reason to throw in the towel. Not when we’ve hardly scratched t
he surface.”
She barks out a forged laugh and looks away towards the window. A sea of glittering stars dot the blackened sky, lighting a path toward a full moon. The paleness of night floods the room, bathing her fair complexion in the color of diamonds and sorrow.
“You said I was exclusive,” she says just above a whisper, her voice distant yet infectious enough to echo in my head.
“Excuse me?”
She turns to me, eyes painted in angst. “You said I was exclusive to him in college. Not we. As if I was faithful while he was not.”
She isn’t angry, or surprised, or even embarrassed. She’s stuck somewhere between jaded and indifferent. In perpetual limbo, writhing in the space between being hurt beyond words and too fed up to give a fuck anymore.
She needs to give a fuck. I need her to give a fuck if I’m going to help her save her marriage.
“I’m aware, Mrs. Carr. And so are you.”
Allison smiles the kind of smile that’s meant to be a grimace. The kind contorted by deep-seated hurt and shame. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you? That since I knew what kind of man he was from the start, yet married him anyway, I deserve this?”
“It’s not my job to think that, Mrs. Carr.”
“Right,” she smirks. “Just your job to point out what we’re doing wrong in the bedroom.” I open my mouth to object but she raises a palm to stop me. “I get it, you know. We all signed up for this. We all knew what we were getting into. That doesn’t make it any less humiliating.”
I look at her– really look at her– and my head swirls with inner turmoil. Of course, she’s beautiful– they all are– but Allison is absolutely flawless. She wears very little makeup, and her face is unmarred by the telltale signs of plastic surgery or injections. Tiny, tan freckles dot her slender nose, giving her an almost innocent, youthful appeal. The fact that she hasn’t tried to hide a little piece of herself that society would deem blemished, intrigues me. Shit, it makes her kind of badass. Such a small act of rebellion, yet such a monumental Fuck You to a world that celebrates narcissism and bullshit images.
Allison’s fiery halo of red hair falls to her shoulders in deep waves. It’s full and healthy, but not overly styled with product and extensions. It’s... her. Simple. Classic. Perfection.
“What are you looking at?” she asks, her voice laced with a mixture of annoyance and amusement.
“You.” The word is out of my mouth before a lie can even begin to stifle the truth. Shit.
“Why?” Less annoyance, more amusement.
“You have freckles.”
She twists her mouth to one side and raises a cynical brow. “That I do. Would you like to count my moles? I may be able to scrounge up some scars for you too.”
“No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just... you didn’t get laser surgery or bleach them. You don’t even try to hide them.”
“Look, I know that I’m less than perfect, but you don’t have to be an ass-”
Just as she turns away from me, her face flushed with anger, I clutch her elbow. Our heated gazes collide before sliding down to her arm, where my hand is grasping her soft, ivory skin. I pull away before the act is misconstrued as inappropriate as my traitorous thoughts.
“I like it.”
Can’t. Stop. The. Word. Vomit.
I’m a lot of things– crass, stubborn, brutally honest, egotistical– but one thing I am not, is careless. I know my boundaries, and I never cross them. In a business where lines can be easily blurred, those boundaries are outlined in black Sharpie, traced in gasoline, then set the fuck on fire, ensuring that no one even gets close enough to inhale the fumes of temptation.
Yet, here I am, touching, tempting, testing the limits. Begging to get burned by an angel with a halo of fire.
“My apologies, Mrs. Carr,” I straighten, my defiant hands balled into tight fists at my sides. “I assure you-”
“You like it?”
I meet her eyes, which are as big and bright as the moon, casting an ethereal glow across her face. This close, much closer than deemed innocent, I see they’re not quite blue, as I’d initially thought. Flecks of green and gold illuminate the irises, and I find myself getting lost in the liquid depths, wondering what secrets lie beneath. What past pain is hidden behind those long, auburn-hued lashes.
Yes, I like it. Much more than a narcissistic asshole like me should.
Liking these women isn’t what made me the man I am today. It isn’t what built my solid reputation. I’m not known for my bleeding heart of gold or sugarcoated tongue. What I am known for is results. And that’s all Allison—or anyone else, for that matter—will get from me, and not a damn thing more.
I’m facing the entrance to her suite by the time I realize I’ve abandoned her, leaving her mouth agape and her question unanswered. I imagine those blue-green eyes narrowed in confusion at my erratic behavior, but force myself not to look. There’s nothing to see there that I haven’t seen already. Just another poor, little, rich girl.
“Class is in session at 10 am. Don’t be late.” My gaze stays fixed on the dark, cherry wood door, dying to break free. The walls are closing in, suffocating me, demanding I turn around and face my cowardice. That I confront my weakness, currently bubbling up like bile as I pass the threshold of her suite—away from those enigmatic eyes and the temptation to play connect-the-dots with those freckles, in hopes of uncovering more of her beautifully blemished skin.
Day-fucking-One. I’m so screwed.
The Devil's Contract Page 23
