Text Appeal

by Lexi Ryan

  “Listen, about last night—”

  She shook her head. “You don’t owe me any explanation.” Each word that came from her mouth lifted a weight from her shoulders. “You’re right. I turned you down when you proposed. I think—”

  He crossed the space between them and put a finger to her lips, silencing her. His skin was cold, clammy, a striking contrast to Charlie’s heat. “What you saw last night…I was ending a flirtation. I wanted to start fresh.” He smiled. “With you.”

  She stepped back and his hand dropped between them. “I don’t want that anymore,” she whispered.

  Chaz frowned. “I don’t expect you to know what you want, not after last night.” He took her hand, toyed with her fingers. “Remember when we used to talk about the future? What it would be like to be married? To make a home?”

  She closed her eyes against the warmth the idea brought her. How could she be but minutes out of Charlie’s bed and stand here wanting what another man offered? But was it Chaz that appealed to her or the idea of having her own family?

  “Remember when we used to talk about being each other’s family?” He tipped her chin up and she looked into his eyes. “About making babies?”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to stop the tears that threatened to fill her eyes. She wanted all those things. But she no longer wanted them with Chaz.

  You want them with Charlie, a little voice whispered in her mind. Not only was that ridiculous—they’d only spent a single night together—it was impossible. Charlie couldn’t give her that life. He was the kind of man who had to be summoned to lay claim to his own children.

  Riley opened her mouth, still not sure what to say. This time Chaz stopped her with his mouth, brushing it softly against hers.

  She didn’t kiss him back but didn’t stop him either. His kisses had never lit her on fire, but they’d always been comforting. Now, even that was gone.

  He pulled away and smiled. “Go to dinner with me tonight?”

  “Tonight’s dance class.”

  “So skip it.” He squeezed her fingertips. “For me.”

  “You can come by the apartment tomorrow evening,” she said, her own words muffling the warning bells at the back of her mind. Regardless of where this went, they needed to talk. She needed to give him his ring back. To end things officially.

  “It’s a deal.” He gave her a soft smile and tapped her temple with his index finger. “Just don’t ruin things by analyzing everything between now and then.”

  She sighed. “Chaz, you just told me not to think.”

  He cocked his head and studied her for a beat. “You’re changing, Riley.” And with that he left her office.

  Riley didn’t waste any time before sitting at her desk and getting to work. Maybe she was changing, but she wasn’t sure it was so bad. She’d had wine in the middle of the week. Not bad. She’d danced with a notorious bad boy in the middle of the Eiffel Tower Restaurant. The media lash back had been unwanted but not terrible. She’d been so brazen as to have sex in an elevator.

  Her hands froze on her keyboard. The elevator.

  Grand Escape had excellent security, including cameras and surveillance in every elevator. Which meant that last night when Charlie had taken her up against the elevator wall, they’d had an audience.

  She pressed in intercom and waited for her father’s response.

  “Yes?”

  She licked her lips nervously. “Daddy, I need to run out for a minute. Can I pick you up a latte while I’m gone?”

  “Sure, that’d be great.” He paused for a beat. “Riley, is everything okay? Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “No.” She worried her lip between her teeth. “Everything’s just fine, Daddy.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You’re here.”

  Charlie dropped his arms and backed away from the heavy bag at the sound of the kid’s voice. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I said I would be.”

  Derrick narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have a reputation for being the most reliable guy.”

  “Do you believe everything you hear on the idiot box?”

  Derrick grinned and a dimple appeared. The sight of it almost knocked Charlie over.

  “Here,” Charlie said, moving to hold the bag. “I need a break. You go first today.”

  For fifteen minutes, they didn’t speak. The only sounds that filled the room were the thumps of the kid’s fists against the bag and his low grunts when he hit hard.

  When Derrick came off the bag, he bent over, hands on thighs, breathing hard. “I know why you were so pissed yesterday.”

  “You do, huh?”

  Derrick looked up and grinned. “I was right. It was a woman. That sucks that she’s marrying someone else.”

  Charlie threw a couple punches at the bag before tossing a glance at the kid. “What do you know about it?”

  He shrugged. “Just what was in the paper this morning.”

  Charlie froze in mid-punch, thinking of the missing elevator footage. He swung around. “What was in the paper?” Fuck. He hadn’t even looked at the paper this morning.

  “Whoa!” The kid lifted his hands, showing his palms. “Don’t hurt the messenger.”

  Charlie took a step forward. “Just tell me what you saw.”

  “Just an article about that hotel heiress. There was a picture of her fiancé down on one knee and another of you kissing her.” Derrick narrowed his eyes. “You’re really hung up on her, aren’t you?”

  Charlie pulled a hand through his hair, closing his eyes for a minute as his heart painfully resumed its beating. “You could say that,” he said, swallowing.

  “Did you take my advice? Did you tell her how you feel?” His innocent eyes looked hopeful.

  Charlie wished he could tell him life really was that simple. That if you had the balls to confess your feelings to the girl who was way out of your league, then you got to keep her. “She’s not going to marry him,” he grumbled.

  The kid grinned. “Then the paper got it wrong? She picked you?”

  His mind filled with the image of Riley’s face when she saw the subpoena—hurt, stricken, like he’d taken a ball bat to her hopes and dreams. “I don’t think she’s picked anyone. I’m not exactly the kind of guy her father would approve of.”

  The kid grinned. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of guy who needed his approval.”

  Charlie couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re pretty smart, kid.”

  The smile fell from Derrick’s face and he broke eye contact. “If things work out between you and the hotel heiress, would you move back to Vegas?”

  Charlie frowned. What did the kid want from him? “I haven’t gotten that far yet,” he confessed.

  The kid nodded but stepped forward to hit on the bag rather than look at Charlie. “Must be pretty cool to live in LA, huh? You’re lucky your mom let you leave.”

  Charlie hadn’t given her the choice, but he’d been too young and dumb to care that he was breaking his mother’s heart when he dropped out of school to head to LA. Charlie’s phone beeped from his gym bag, saving him from responding. He squatted to pull his cell from his bag, and found a message from Riley. We need to talk. Can you come to my office?

  Usually when women said those words after a night of sex, Charlie wanted to run in the other direction. Getting them from Riley just made him smile.

  “That from her?” Derrick asked, hovering over Charlie’s shoulder.

  “Yeah. It is.”

  He turned and the kid was grinning. “Well, don’t leave her hanging, man.”

  Charlie returned the smile. “You’re all right, kid.” He hitched his gym bag over his shoulder and was two steps to the door before Derrick stopped him.

  “You gonna be here tomorrow?”

  Charlie froze. He’d never had a father to teach him how to do this. He’d never learned what it meant to be a dad. He turned back to Derrick. “I’ll be playing poker with some frie
nds in here on Sunday.”

  The kid’s face fell. “Oh. Okay.”

  “Why don’t you come?”

  He grinned. “You’ll teach me?”

  “You don’t know how to play Texas Hold ’Em?”

  “I know how to play. I want you to teach me how to win.”

  Charlie grinned. “I can do that.” Hell, but he could really like this kid.

  ***

  “How did you do it?”

  Riley paced her office, arms wrapped around herself. Everyone had cleared out for the day, and Riley had waited here until Charlie arrived. She had no idea how he would have convinced someone to erase that footage. When she’d gone down to the surveillance room, she’d done so knowing that even she wouldn’t have been able to talk her surveillance officers into erasing it. Grand Escape took security very seriously. Gaps in footage meant a pink slip for whoever had access to the server.

  “How did I do what?” he asked.

  She forced her feet to still and put her hands on her hips. “How did you erase the footage from the elevator? No one has access to those servers and my father’s staff is beyond reproach.” She swallowed, not wanting to say the rest. “And if anyone did let you tamper with the footage…he needs to be let go.”

  Charlie raised a brow, and Riley put her palm out to stop him. “Listen, I’m the last person who wants there to be evidence of our…mistake…but I have the security of Grand Escape to consider.”

  “I agree.”

  Her shoulders sagged, though she wasn’t sure why that meant so much to her.

  “I would have told you what I know this morning, but you seemed a little…”

  She winced. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “While you were sleeping, I remembered our mistake, as you call it.” His icy blue eyes burned into hers. “And for the record, the only part that was a mistake was the location.”

  Riley swallowed. She wasn’t sure she agreed, but even now she felt that draw to him. Sexually speaking, the man had the gravitational pull of the sun.

  “When I went down to the surveillance room, I was able to talk one of the guys into seeing the footage. It was three in the morning and a new shift had just come on. They were as shocked as I was to see the footage was gone.”

  She blinked and staggered back. “What?”

  “All that is on the server is you and me walking onto the elevator. Then there’s a fifteen minute gap and we’re walking out.”

  Riley knew from experience that if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. “How could that be?”

  Charlie ran a hand through his dark hair. “Hell if I know.”

  “Charlie, if you’re trying to protect someone, stop. I know you wouldn’t want whoever helped you to lose their job, but I need to—”

  “I’m telling the truth, Riley.” His words were soft but this frustration seeped through.

  Her mind spun through possibilities but nothing stuck.

  “Do you think one of your guys could have alerted your father to what he’d seen?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe trying to protect you?”

  Riley closed her eyes. Her stomach pitched at the possibility of her father being pulled out of bed to see that footage. He would have taken care of it. She didn’t doubt it. “That’s the most logical explanation.” And it explained why he’d been so awkward with her this morning.

  Charlie pulled her into his arms and Riley let him. Sure, he was the kind of man who made a girl do something stupid like have elevator sex. He was the kind of man who might have children he didn’t even know about. He was the kind of man she needed to stay far away from, but right now his heat comforted her in a way she desperately needed.

  She looked up at him and focused on his mouth. God, that mouth had done things to her last night—wicked, delicious things. She’d told herself she was done with him. Playing with Charlie Singleton was playing with fire, and she couldn’t afford any more scars.

  But he was here now and she couldn’t deny herself one more taste of him.

  “We should talk about the papers you saw this morning,” he said softly.

  She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and made a decision. “No. We shouldn’t.”

  “Riley—”

  She put up a hand. “Charlie, you don’t owe me any explanation. This—” She wanted to tell him their relationship wasn’t like that, but it was too embarrassing to admit out loud that she had considered—even for a moment—the possibility of something real, something long-term and exclusive with a man like Charlie.

  She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Instead, she decided to explain with her mouth. She lifted onto her toes and pressed her lips against his, hoping he would understand.

  He pulled away for a moment, studying her through dark, thick lashes. Then he lowered his mouth to hers, his touch soft, his movements tentative. She plunged her hands into his hair and his kiss grew stronger, bolder, more demanding. It was a messy kiss. Tongues slid against each other, teeth nipped at lips, hands grasped for bare flesh.

  They both came away breathing heavily.

  He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I have to go,”

  “Where—” She stopped herself. He didn’t need to report his whereabouts to her.

  He answered anyway. “To the surveillance room. The crew should be on now that was on shift during our…elevator ride.”

  She nodded. “Right. I’ll go with you.”

  “No. There’s a chance that your face isn’t clear on the tapes. Until we know otherwise, I’m keeping you out of this.”

  She opened her mouth to protest and then thought it through. He was right. A sex tape of Charlie and a random woman wouldn’t be news…not unless they knew it was her. “Okay. Send me a text and let me know what you find out.”

  Charlie smirked. “As if I’d pass up an opportunity to engage those fingers.”

  ***

  Martin Griminski was the second shift surveillance crew chief, and Charlie didn’t have to say a word to get conference with the man. He came out of the surveillance room, his round belly shaking with silent chuckles. In a red shirt that strained at the buttons, the man looked a little like Santa Claus but with a shorter beard.

  “If it isn’t The Devil,” he said, smacking Charlie on between the shoulder blades. “I heard you visited third shift boys last night, and I think I know why.”

  Charlie felt his cheeks heat despite himself. He was far from modest, but this was too much. “What happened to the footage?” he asked, forcing himself to move past his embarrassment.

  Griminski glanced into the control room a final time before closing the door. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

  Charlie followed as Griminski led him out of Grand Escape and to a coffee shop a few doors down.

  They were seated at a table before Griminski spoke again. “I’ve worked for Quinton Carter for a lot of years.”

  Charlie sighed. “Listen, if you’re trying to establish what a lucky bastard I am that you’re talking to me at all, I already know. You don’t have to prove it.”

  Griminski chuckled. “We both know that Carter’s concern in this has little to do with the fact that he’s my boss.”

  Charlie winced. Riley’s face had shown on the recording then.

  “Did you know that Mr. Carter had another daughter?”

  Charlie raised a brow. “Riley has a sister?”

  Griminski lifted his palms. “Sure, if you want to look at it that way, but they weren’t raised together. His other daughter was, oh, about twenty, twenty-two years older than Riley. In fact, she was dead before Carter ever adopted Riley.”

  “Dead?”

  Griminski nodded. “Murdered.”

  “Jesus. I had no idea.”

  “Yeah, well, it was only a news item at the time because of who her father was. She was trouble, that girl. Ran with the wrong crowds, was mixed up in drugs and the sex industry. Sounds bad to say it, but those of us who knew how
she lived weren’t surprised. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Carter must have been torn up.” Charlie shook his head. “I don’t mean to sound like an ass, but I’m not following. What does this have to do with the missing video footage?”

  “I worked for Carter back when his daughter Chelsea was running around. He couldn’t control her, and after trying only pushed her further away—he did what he could for damage control. And where did he have more control than his own casino?

  “The rule was, if we had footage of his daughter doing something morally, legally, or ethically…questionable, the footage was pulled from the rest of the tapes and given to Carter.”

  “So this procedure continued when Riley came along?”

  Griminski shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t really know. It’s never been an issue. Riley isn’t the free spirit her sister was. But when I saw her get on that elevator with you, I figured better to follow the old procedure and let the old man know I had the footage if he wanted it. I burned the DVD and deleted the footage from the hard drive.”

  “So her father has it now?”

  Griminski looked at his watch. “Nope, I left him a voicemail and am still waiting to hear back.”

  “I don’t suppose I could talk you into handing it over to me? I have a checking account that can be pretty convincing.”

  “And risk my neck when Carter finds out there’s unaccounted for missing footage from last night? Hell, no. Dude, don’t worry. I’ll let him know the gist of the contents and he won’t have anything to do with it.”

  Charlie let out a hard breath. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. “Thanks for your time, man. I know you didn’t have to.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t, but I figure we owe you for the way you helped us catch that woman last night. You really didn’t know her?”