by Virna DePaul
Deena ran a hand over the back of the couch, as if the taut leather needed additional smoothing. “How long do you think we can get away with our little act this time?”
“Until someone smart gets one step ahead of us.”
“That may have already happened. Any news on the Gawker post?”
Branden shrugged irritably. “It’s anonymous. They claim to be a news blog and they’ll protect their sources. At this time, there’s no reason to think it’s anything but tabloid fodder. Still, I wish I knew who took that photo of Cara.”
“Do you.” The needling remark wasn’t a question. Deena rose and paced the austerely furnished room. “It would be so nice to not be noticed at all.”
Branden’s distant gaze didn’t seem to see the graceful form of the woman who passed in front of him several times. “But I was. And you may be next.”
She turned and faced him squarely. “I don’t think so. Not by anyone other than Cara, at least. She’s not dumb. She’s caught on to my iciness and ‘back off’ attitude where you’re concerned. Something I wouldn’t have to do if you’d kept your hands to yourself.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Cara seems to have captivated the enemy. One that seems to have various connections. Have you seen the second post?”
“No.” There was a second post? Cara wouldn’t like it. And neither did he. He’d tried to play it cool in order to reassure her, but he’d been pissed by the online publication of that photo. What they’d shared had been intimate. Private. It didn’t matter that he was often depicted in the media with beautiful women; that had never bothered him before. This was different.
He hated the idea of anyone witnessing his time with Cara, if that was what had happened, even though only a suggestive outside shot of her alone had been published.
“Actually, it’s a link. On a different site. From the time stamp and various comments made, it’s been online for hours. Click on it and you go somewhere else that might surprise you. Maybe not. After all, you were there.”
Something in the meaningful lift of her eyebrow got him up and in front of his computer again. He pulled up the website and clicked on the link. “Jesus. Oh no. That never happened.”
“But there it is,” Deena replied softly. “In living color. You and Cara.”
—
A muffled ringing made Cara frown. It was just past eight o’clock and she was home for once, knitting to reduce stress, rather than slaving away at the office, generating even more stress. But where was her phone? Her armchair liked an occasional smartphone snack. She slid her hand between the upholstered back and the seat cushion. The trick was to extract it before it stopped ringing. She answered with a distracted hello, not looking at the number.
“Yo. It’s me.”
“Hello, Iris.”
“Whatcha doing?”
“Contemplating my uncertain future.”
“That calls for a stiff drink. I assume someone at work saw that photo.”
“Not that I know of. No one stopped by my office.” She left out the conversation with Branden for now, not up for Iris’s analysis of how weird that had been. “No one called to chat.”
“Keep your head down.”
“I’m trying to.”
“So I guess you don’t want to go out.”
“No thanks. I’d rather knit.” Cara lifted a tangled pile of yarn from her lap and made clicking noises with the needles.
“Nice sound effect,” Iris said. “Are you working on that scarf you started a year ago?”
“Yeah, I just wish it looked more like a scarf and less like a dish scrubber.”
“Take a hint from the universe. Use it to scrub dishes,” Iris suggested.
“Won’t work. It’s four feet long. Besides, it’s really soft.”
“I know someone you could donate it to.”
“No one would want this, Iris.”
“The laundry room cat doesn’t like the sock box anymore.”
Cara, who dropped off all her clothes at the dry cleaner’s, had spent many peaceful afternoons with Iris in her Brooklyn building’s laundry room, watching the suds slosh and the dryers spin while they talked and plugged coins into the machines. Each lone sock was deposited in a cardboard box in the hopes of being reunited with its mate, which never seemed to happen. The calico cat, a stray, had wandered into the building since Cara had last been there and found kitty heaven on earth in the warm, windowless room below street level and the overflowing box.
“Why not?”
“She seems to be pregnant. I think she’s looking for a new nest.”
“Sure, Socks can have this creation. I’m glad to have a reason to finish this thing.”
There was a pause. “When you do, could you make another one?” Iris asked.
“Why? Oh. You’re going to take a kitten.”
“Two, actually, so they can keep each other company.”
For a moment, Cara imagined having a cat waiting for her when she came home. It would be nice to cuddle with something warm-blooded for a change, but her building didn’t allow pets. “I wish I could take one,” she said.
“Yeah. We figure there will be between four and six.”
“We?”
“Me and the new guy upstairs.”
“I can hear you blushing, Iris. Louder than thunder.” And that was quite unusual for her friend. Iris got around, but a guy who could rattle her with kittens involved was a rare breed.
“Drop dead. I mean that in a good way.”
“Is he a new love interest?”
“Sheesh. He moved in last week, Cara.” Another pause. “But he is cute.”
Cara smiled, liking the idea of a cute guy bringing some happiness to her friend’s life. “Keep me posted.”
“I will, I promise. So what’s going on with you and your new boss?”
Cara said nothing, just kept knitting.
Iris inhaled with dramatic suddenness. “Wait. Did he see the photo?”
“I showed it to him.” Cara found herself unable to lie. She waited for a reply. “Iris? You still there?”
“Just picking myself up off the floor. Oh my God. What did he say?”
“He didn’t think it was anything to worry about. He didn’t seem to care at all.”
Iris pondered that. “Well, then you’re in the clear.”
“I’m not 100 percent sure about that. Anyway, he thinks Gawker will drop it and he advised me to ignore it. Just for my own peace of mind, I’m keeping an eye on that website. They took the post down. And that one photo.”
“That one? You mean there are others?”
“Oh, God, I hope not.”
Iris cleared her throat. “Just between you and me, did anything else happen at that party?”
“No. I got kissed by a master kisser. After that, I got my ass home. End of story.”
“I want to believe that. I really do. Mind if I check Gawker again?”
“Go ahead. I’m coming up on a purl.”
Faintly, she heard a keyboard being tapped, the rhythm almost identical to her knitting needles. Friends forever, clickety-click.
“They dropped the item. Completely. Nowhere to be found.”
“Good.”
“Maybe not. I wonder why.”
Iris tended to be a worrywart, for all her freewheeling ways. But then again, she knew how sites like Gawker operated and Cara didn’t.
“Keep purling. I’m looking elsewhere.”
A minute or more passed.
“Cara. Oh my God. Are you sitting down?”
“Yes. Why?” Her heart sank. Just her luck. There had to be a second post that was somehow more incriminating than the first.
“I think you’re going to need that drink. I’m coming over.”
Chapter Eight
“So I found this on HotnSaucey. Besides all the heavy breathing clips they post, it’s a fucking minefield of escort ads,” Iris said, setting aside her untouched gin and tonic and taking a
bite of the bulging tuna sandwich Cara had made for her.
“You could have sent me the link.” Cara was glad, though, that Iris had insisted on coming over. Whatever the latest revelation was, she didn’t want to face it alone.
“No way. HotnSaucey is loaded with viruses and malware.” Iris tapped at the keyboard of an ancient laptop, frowning at the flickering screen. “C’mon, start already. There’s a reason I call it the craptop.”
“Is it broken?” Cara almost hoped so. She raised her glass and gulped down a large mouthful, then sputtered. Apparently she’d gone too light on the tonic, too heavy on the gin.
“Let’s just say it sort of works. But basically it’s a piece of junk. My former roommate left it behind on purpose when she moved out.” The screen suddenly glowed blue and stopped flickering. “Hey, we’re in business. This thing does come in handy. I wouldn’t risk my new laptop on a site like HotnSaucey. You ready?”
Cara swallowed another mouthful of icy gin and wiped her mouth, dreading what was about to appear on the screen. “Yeah.” She shivered as she set the cold drink down and forced herself to look.
“There you go. That’s definitely Branden, though he looks younger.”
He certainly did. He was also half naked. He and the woman with him were both stripped to the waist. They weren’t in a room, exactly. More like a space with blank walls. He faced the lens—when he wasn’t looking at the other participant. All Cara could see of her was her back. Yellow hair that had been styled to scary straightness swung over her shoulders.
“That could be you.”
“It’s not,” Cara said quickly.
“I mean,” Iris replied as if she were choosing her words very carefully, “that could be you if people wanted to think so. Like, if you were walking away from them.”
“Good to know. I don’t have a thing to worry about, right?”
Iris didn’t answer.
“Right?”
“I know that’s not you and—well, if anyone else thinks it is, just laugh it off. Besides, you would never do a sex tape.”
Iris was loyal as the day was long and that was true enough. But nothing she said changed the fact that it was Branden they were looking at. Cara drank in the sight of golden muscle broadening his chest and tapering to taut abs. The beginnings of the sexy lines that defined his groin on both sides of his torso were visible as he slid his hands down over smooth skin into what Cara assumed were the good parts.
The video had stopped. “Is that all?”
“The clip was a free download. I didn’t buy the complete tape because that would have involved sending my credit card information to some weird little country where they laugh at the law and the joke’s on you.”
The video began again, at the beginning. This time Cara studied his face. Was he enjoying himself? He only glanced at the woman, who stayed in the same spot, not approaching or touching him. But that hot gleam in his dark eyes was familiar, and so was the teasing, sensual half smile.
The memory of having seen both close up at high intensity nagged at her. Forget it, she told herself. Don’t flatter yourself. You just happened to be lolling around on his long black couch and he found you, not on purpose. Good thing you got out when you did.
Men as hot and as rich as Branden Duke didn’t sleep alone unless they wanted to—or had tired themselves out with a harem for hire. He had probably paid for exactly what he wanted in this goddamn video. Thanks to her own unwillingness to give her credit card information, Cara would be spared seeing how far Branden could go. Although she secretly wanted to find out.
“Okay. Here’s what I think,” Iris began. “And I do have some media experience.”
Branden’s strong hands were sliding toward his groin again. Cara noticed this time that he was looking at the woman’s face, as if he wanted to watch her watching him. As if he wanted her to watch him.
“Uh-huh.”
In another few seconds, her rational mind gave in to the sensations her real body was experiencing. Heat. Lust. Sexual instinct that won out over intellect. She wanted that man more than anything. Desperately wanted to be that woman. And damn whoever was playing both of them for being so incredibly, wickedly good at the game.
Iris cleared her throat. She used the touchpad to pause the video.
Cara trembled, on the verge of giving in to a nameless fear that rose within her. She stared at the frozen image, stunned and silent, unable to fight the feeling that someone had looked right through her, ransacked her mind, and hijacked her private fantasies about Branden Duke. She could have been made of glass. About to shatter, when it got right down to it.
Iris picked up a pencil to point at the screen. “That’s professional lighting. No harsh shadows, no glare reflections.”
“So?”
“Branden didn’t film this.”
“Duh. He’s got his hands full.”
Iris snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. But this is definitely not a set-the-timer-and-hump amateur production.”
“If you say so.” Cara couldn’t take her eyes off her big, strong, bare-chested boss.
Iris gestured with the pencil. “And note how she stays at the edge of the shot.”
“She’s teasing him.”
“Exactly. It’s like she’s there to liven him up, get a reaction, make him less nervous—take your pick.”
Cara mostly noted how turned on he seemed. In a healthy way. Like he wasn’t acting. Just naturally aroused. Maybe the teasing woman was the pro and he was— She didn’t think for a second that he, not to be judgmental, used to be…an escort or something.
He had to be acting.
“Okay. No need for another go,” Cara said. “Eat.”
“Mmm. Good tuna,” Iris mumbled through another bite. “I just wanted to make sure you saw it before you got slammed with rude questions at work.”
“Nobody mentioned the Gawker thing and it’s gone now.” But this video was a lot more titillating, and it had been up on the Web for hours. Despite her hopes to the contrary, it was very possible someone could have seen it.
Iris chewed thoughtfully. “I bet Branden had something to do with that.”
“Maybe. Could be I just didn’t hear the comments. The best thing about having your own office is shutting the door.” But with this new video? If people were making comments, she’d probably be able to hear the sneers and snickers no matter where she tried to hide.
“I never had an office, so I wouldn’t know,” Iris said. “But maybe I will in my next incarnation. Yours is nice.”
She raised her chin and straightened her shoulders. Even as dread and fear chased through her, she knew she had to pull herself together. Someone was messing with her. With her career. And she wasn’t going down without a fight. “And I plan to be there for the next year at least.”
“I know. So we have to stay on this. Because the more I look at her, the more I think that she”—Iris pointed at the screen—“could be mistaken for you, if people were so inclined.”
As crazy as it was, part of her wished the woman on the video was her. Whoever the unknown woman was, Cara envied her, which was totally irrational but sort of understandable. Silent for several moments, Cara studied Branden’s gloriously masculine nudity while the tape stayed on pause.
Iris used the pink eraser to point to the woman with him. “Now that I’ve seen it several times—”
“Just because you want to help me, right?”
“Of course.” Iris seemed almost offended. “Pay attention. Important observation coming up. Notice how her back is always to the camera?”
“Give her time. It’s a clip. Not even a minute long.”
“Granted. Still, potential buyers of porny product want the woman going ooh, ahh, give it to me, big boy, and all the rest of that phony moaning. But Branden is like, um, the star of this.”
“Your point? And would you please put down the pencil? I feel like I’m in a seminar.”
Iris set the pe
ncil on the coffee table and picked up her drink, taking a big swallow and coughing a little. “Is this all gin?”
“Except for the ice and a too stingy dash of tonic water, yes. Would you like a lime wedge?”
“No. My point, Cara, is that this probably isn’t a sex tape per se.”
Cara looked at Branden’s silken skin and rippling muscles and back at Iris. “Then what is it?”
“Could be a screen test.”
“For porn? Are you telling me that the great and powerful Branden Duke, our new CEO, was once so broke that he— Oh no. That’s not possible.”
“Anything is possible.” Iris hemmed and hawed a little. “But it’s not necessarily porn porn. I mean, it could be soft core, which isn’t so bad.”
“I refuse to believe it.”
“You don’t have to. And I’m just guessing. It could also be a commercial.”
“For what? Condoms?” Cara found it possible to believe that much. She stared at the golden stud on the screen as the image dwindled to a dot and then went black. Fucking screen saver had to kick in just when she was memorizing every visible inch of his glorious body.
Iris gave her a pitying look that irked the hell out of Cara. “Hey, I know guys who’ve done way worse things for money than X-rated movies. New York is an expensive city.”
“And Branden Duke practically owns it. He’s a financial titan.”
“Self-made,” Iris reminded her. “He didn’t inherit his fortune.”
“Apparently not.”
“Besides that, you found out practically nothing about his past before his meteoric rise to the top, correct?”
“Meteoric rise? I don’t remember using that phrase.”
“Well, whatever. No one seemed to be holding a gun to his head in that tape. He probably did it for a hundred bucks, paid the electricity bill, and that was that.”
“Play it again,” Cara suggested. “I missed the part where it looks like he’s thinking about his electricity bill.”
“Okay. In a sec. Sandwich, come to Mama.” Iris took another bite.
“He could be on HotnSaucey right now watching it himself,” Cara mused. “Probably wondering who found it and why they sold it. And whether they’re gunning for him or me.”
