by Amelia Wilde
Jess claps her hands when she sees Alec waving to her from the second tier of tables. It’s full of our friends, plus a couple other faces that seem familiar. Jax Hunter is there with his wife, Catherine—he leans down to whisper something in her ear, and her cheeks flush pink. On her other side is Chris—Eli, I tell myself sternly, Eli—with Quinn at his side, her hand wrapped around his bicep. My chest starts burning, but then we’re at the table, Eli has stood up and is coming around to kiss both of my cheeks, and I’m swept up in the conversation of the moment. Jess sits down beside me, Alec is next to her, and I accept the first glass of champagne that comes my way as all of my friends talk over one another.
But there seems to be another conversation happening. Am I making it up? All over the room, people are whispering to each other, nodding—a couple here, a couple there.
Am I so desperate for a juicy rumor that I’m seeing and hearing things?
I lean back in my seat. Two tables away, a woman with bright red hair shields her face with her hand and says something to a blonde next to her, then nods, again. “Yes!” I hear her say, her voice blending into the cacophony of chatter reverberating around the rest of the room.
“How are sales at your boutique?” Eli says, sliding into the empty seat to my left, causing me to startle at the closeness of his voice.
“I had one good client right at the end of the day,” I say, nodding my head toward Jessica.
Eli grins. “She cares about fashion now?”
“She’s done well for herself.” Nobody else at the table is paying the slightest bit of attention to us. Quinn has a tuxedoed waiter by the arm and is having an involved conversation about something, and everyone else is laughing at a joke Jax is in the middle of telling. “What do you know, E?”
“About what?” Eli’s blue eyes sparkle. Since things have settled down, he’s found a happy medium—he’s still the life of the party, but not quite so intense.
I flick my eyes around the room. “Are you going to tell me that everyone at the Swan tonight is whispering about something different?”
He follows my gaze, then gives me a wide smile. “You’re making things up.”
I slap his bicep. “Tell me.”
“They’re talking about….” He leans in close, like he’s about to divulge a state secret. “Ace Kingsley.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t screw with me.”
“I’m not.” Eli’s face is all sincerity. “You don’t know who that is?”
“Ace Kingsley?” It sounds like the name of some fake rich person in a made-for-TV movie? “No.”
“He was two years ahead of us in school.”
“You are making that up.”
Eli laughs. “I’m not. You really don’t remember Aaron Kingsley? He started going by Ace after he graduated.”
A vague memory starts filtering back to me—a tall, skinny guy with blue eyes and blonde hair, like Christian’s, but he was less outgoing, less confident.
“What about him?”
“He’s back in the city.”
The way he says it makes the hair on the back of my neck prick up, but I can’t put my finger on why.
“And there’s some speculation that—”
“Eli!” Jess calls over to me. “Tell Alec about that thing we used to do in school.”
Eli winks at me. “You sure he’s ready for that?”
I turn toward Jess, ready to play my part in the story, but my mind has Ace Kingsley in its claws, and it won’t let go.
Rumors swirl around me, but I can’t get at them.
Not yet.
Chapter 4
Ace
By Monday evening, I’m regretting my insistence on solitude—and I still can’t make a single damn decision about what I want to do.
With myself. With my life.
I’ve dismissed the butler who has been assigned to wait on the occupants of this room, but the man can’t stay away—he delivers every single room service tray I order and asks if there’s anything else I need. Never once do I catch him rolling his eyes.
I would be if I was faced with someone this pathetic.
I’ve spent time in every room of the penthouse, wasting time either staring out at the skyline or watching shitty action movies on every TV I can find.
My patience with myself is starting to wear thin.
The extra day I’ve so generously granted myself crawls by.
I can’t stay here forever.
The elevator door opens to reveal Noah. He enters, his hands in his pockets.
“How’re you doing, boss?”
“Fucking great, as you can see.” I’m picking at the remains of a perfectly done steak that was delivered under a gleaming silver cloche. “How’s the penthouse?”
“The sidewalk in front of it is pretty crowded.”
“Jesus. Is it that big of a thing?”
Noah cuts his eyes to the side. It is that big of a thing, what happened with Elisa, but if everyone would just shut the fuck up about it, then….
I let out a heavy sigh.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Back tomorrow, then?”
I nod to him and cut another piece off the steak.
“This whole thing is—” I’m interrupted by the soft sound of the elevator door closing behind Noah. “Of course.”
I drop the fork down onto the plate with a clatter and lean back on the couch, grab the remote, start flicking through the available movies. I’ve seen everything I ever wanted to see, and then some.
I can’t stay in here for fucking ever, although part of me is perfectly willing to just sink into this unbelievably opulent sofa and never emerge in public again.
You’re being a pussy.
The voice in my head isn’t wrong, but my chest clenches anyway. Elisa never would have let me wallow in here like some kind of guilty recluse. She would have dragged me out, probably to somewhere like Central Park, by the middle of Saturday morning.
But she’s never going to do that. She’s dead.
The thought is still so sharp, so harsh, that it’s hard for me to breathe.
My phone buzzes on the cushion next to me and I snatch it up, all the tension going out of my shoulders. A distraction. Any distraction.
The text message reads, Ace Kingsley???
I don’t recognize the number. I pause with my thumbs over the keyboard on the screen. I should just ignore it. It’s probably someone from the press. But I’m so damn bored, so damn frustrated with feeling like this, that I type out a reply and hit send before I can change my mind.
Yeah. Who’s this?
Elijah Pierce.
Who could forget Eli Pierce? He and his brother Christian threw the best parties at boarding school. How the hell did he get my number?
I remember you. Are you in the city?
I’m always in the city. Come out with us on Friday.
He hasn’t changed much.
I start to toss the phone back to the cushion, to ignore Eli Pierce and his pushy invitation, but I don’t.
What’s the worst that can happen if I go out?
Another text comes in.
We go to a club called The Purple Swan. Heard of it?
Elisa and I were going to get a membership to the Swan when we came back to the city one day, but we never got the chance.
Yeah. Who’s we?
You remember Jess Reeves? Carolyn Banks?
Dark hair, both of them, and they were always in orbit around the Pierce boys. Married now, I think. Safe. Out of the picture.
Another message.
Jess is married to an actual prince—king now, I guess. They’re in town, and there are parties. Come out with us.
I don’t know why the hell Eli Pierce would text me out of the blue, years after we last talked—was it college? I can’t remember—and invite me to a party, but maybe I don’t care.
With the movie paused, the silence of the
penthouse is so deafening that it presses against my eardrums. My jaw tightens just thinking of how much more life there would be here if Elisa was with me. If she was still in the world. If the rest of my life wasn’t going to be consumed with vicious lies and speculations about what happened between us in Italy.
Damn it, Ace, you cannot let that take over the rest of your life.
I have to face the outside world someday, or else—or else what’s the alternative? That I rot in this penthouse? That I finally go back to the penthouse on the Upper East Side and rot there instead, a billionaire hermit who reduces all those years of working out in the gym turn to flab?
What the fuck is the point of my life then?
Does it even really matter if Eli Pierce has some kind of agenda? I doubt that he does, although my last impression of him is probably 10 years old at this point. And the Swan—an exclusive place like that, with membership fees so high they’d make a normal man’s eyes bleed, isn’t going to be swarming with paparazzi. Whispers, maybe. Photographers, no. They’ll have security to keep them on the outside.
The elevator door opens, admitting the butler, who’s wheeling in another tray. I stare at him for a second. Right. Dessert.
My life cannot be reduced to room service, even if it’s the best, most lavish room service New York City has to offer.
At the same time, I don’t want to seem like I’m fucking desperate. Even if it’s the truth.
I could probably make it.
Be there at 9.
My escape from this gold-lined prison is set in motion.
Chapter 5
Carolyn
The minute I step into the lobby of the Swan on Friday night—after another week at the boutique, surreptitiously checking in on Rainflower Blue in between choosing some new winter items and chatting with Natalie—Jess comes flying up to me, hooking her arm through mine and chatting a mile a minute as she leads me to the same table we were seated at last week.
“You’re finally here! I’ve been waiting for you to get here—Alec got here before me, so he’s already at the table….”
I nod at all the right times, but my focus is really on the room—on the rumors circulating about.
There’s been a little buzz on the site about Ace Kingsley, but everybody’s being pretty cagey about the reason for all the excitement. It can’t be that he’s rich. Every site member is ultra-wealthy or wealthy by association—I know, because I leak information about it very, very carefully. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff on sites like these.
I checked my ad revenue before I left to come to the Swan, and not for the first time my stomach tightened. Most days, I don’t have any qualms about profiting off of my acquaintances’ gossip. In fact, it’s practically a public service. I do my best to prove or disprove the heaviest and juiciest rumors using my admin account, username Magnolia.
I do it so other women don’t have to suffer, wondering, like I did—and I only touch the rumors that matter.
It’s a fine line, obviously. There’s almost never 100 percent proof of someone’s guilt or innocence when it comes to cheating or other harmful activities, which is the kind of rumor that sets my alarm bells off…and brings in visitors to the site faster than you can say boo.
There’s a strange intensity to the energy in the Swan’s main dining room tonight, even more vocal, more pronounced than last Friday. Heads are turning, trying to be discreet and failing, and I follow their eyes….
Directly to the table we’re heading towards.
He’s sitting next to Eli Pierce.
My stomach drops straight into my toes, and my nerves light up on fire at the sight of him.
Broad shoulders sheathed in a perfectly tailored suit; gray eyes that cut across the space separating us, locking on mine; a chin that could cut diamonds. He leans to the left, eyes never once leaving mine, and my eyes trace the line of the muscled arms hidden beneath the fabric of his dark suit.
The sound of the chatter, of silverware clinking against plates, of the band, fades out like I’m underwater.
My breath catches in my throat.
Holy shit.
Who is this man, and what do I have to do to go home with him?
It’s been too long since I last enjoyed myself with a man, and I want this one. Him. Who is he? Who is he?
The noise of the room crashes in again like thunder, and I blink once, twice, finally focusing on Eli’s face. “…remember Ace Kingsley, Carolyn? This other lovely lady is Alec’s wife, Queen Jessica.”
Jess laughs. “You don’t have to call me that in this company.” She slips gracefully into an empty seat. “It’s been a long time, Ace. How were things for you after school?”
“Mostly good. Some shit.” He shrugs, but his eyes are still latched on me. He hasn’t looked at Jess once. Then his face breaks into a smile that makes the space between my legs pulse with heated desire. “It’s a life.”
Jess nods sagely, then looks over her shoulder at me. “You don’t have to stand on my account, Carrie.”
I give her a light slap on the shoulder, then sit down in the empty seat to her left.
Something in my chest is quaking, trembling. I want to reach across the table and run a finger down the sharp lines of Ace’s jaw. I want to unbutton every button on his jacket and strip it off, then repeat the process with his shirt until there’s no fabric left between us. Even fully clothed, he’s sporting a killer body.
Get a grip, Carolyn. The waiter comes by to fill my water glass, and I raise it to my lips, sipping slowly. I tear my eyes away from Ace as Eli starts a conversation with Jess about signing autographs and how many pictures she has to take every day with the babies of Saintland. The words go in one ear and out the other, muted by the buzzing in my mind.
What’s the story with Ace Kingsley? I’m dying to know, and it’s not all because of Rainflower Blue.
No wonder every woman in the room is sneaking looks over her shoulder at our table. He radiates confidence and sex, and I want it.
I flick my eyes back to him for a split second—and those piercing grays are still watching me, though his hand is wrapped absently around a glass of champagne.
There’s an empty seat to his right, and a battle rages in my mind.
If I find out tonight what the big story is, then I’m going to profit off of him—there’s no question about that. If my site is where the discussion happens then at least I have some measure of control. I could protect him—though he doesn’t look like the kind of man who needs protecting—or I could protect other unnamed innocents who might want to know that he’s back on the prowl in New York City.
My stomach turns over.
What the hell is wrong with you?
Why is this desire for him sweeping over me like a tidal wave? Why is it making it hard to think, much less decide anything?
I straighten my back.
No. I’m not going to be the kind of woman who sits back like a timid little mouse and doesn’t take what she wants.
I’m going to go after it, consequences be damned—at least this time.
In the middle of a joke Eli’s telling, I stand up, walk the few steps around the table, and sit down in the empty seat next to Ace. I unfold the napkin from its signature swan shape and drop it into my lap. Then I lean in toward him.
“So, Ace, formerly Aaron, tell me all your secrets.”
Chapter 6
Ace
Carolyn Banks is not the gawky, quiet girl I vaguely remember from school, mostly an accessory to Christian and Eli, laughing along with Jess—who, it turns out, actually is a queen of some European country. The security in this place must be tripled tonight.
But I can’t think about that. The moment I see Carolyn, I can’t think about anything else.
She’s in something elegant and red, the fabric softly reflecting the candlelight in the room, and her dark hair is swept back in a style that highlights the pristine structure of her face, her huge dark eyes, th
e full lips that I instantly want molded to mine.
I can’t take my eyes off her.
She’s the opposite of Elisa in every way.
Elisa was tall and willowy and had a Nordic kind of beauty, all blonde hair and blue eyes and legs that went on for days. Her voice was light, like the champagne I’m toying with right now.
I’m focused so hard on the vision in red in front of me that I almost don’t hear what Jess says to me. I catch on at the last second, responding just a beat too late.
“Mostly good. Some shit.” I shrug like some kind of smug bastard, my heart pounding in my chest. My instinct—be charming, asshole—kicks in with a roar, and I don’t hide the smile that comes on its heels. “It’s a life.”
I don’t know what the fuck is happening to me right now.
When I left the Four Seasons to come here my stomach was a lead weight in the middle of my torso, my legs were heavy with the loss of Elisa, all my earlier optimism sucked right out of me the moment my shoes hit the sidewalk.
But now, seeing Carolyn….
Shit.
What the hell do I do?
I want her. I want to peel the red dress away from her skin and kiss the curve of her shoulder where it joins her neck. There’s something electric in the air between us, and she doesn’t turn her eyes away from me.
Then Jess says something to her and she sits down, her eyes still on mine. Every movement of hers seems precise, deliberate, so unlike the way Elisa flitted from place to place, never staying long.
That should have been a warning.
When the waiter leans down in front of her to fill her water glass, Carolyn looks away with great effort, finally settling on Eli, who begins an animated conversation with Jess—something about autographs and babies, I have no fucking clue. The words swirl around me, meaningless, blending in with the crowd noise that consumes the room, utterly pointless because I can’t take my eyes off Carolyn’s face.
She steals another look at me, and her eyes narrow, just slightly, and she presses her lips together, dark eyes glittering in the light from the candle centerpiece.
