by Barker, Kira
To the left, the even smaller road leading up to the country club branched off, and a last bout of speed had me pull into it ahead of him. My tires hit gravel in the maneuver, spewing it across Darren’s windshield, making me wince. The beautiful car really didn’t deserve that treatment.
Grinning like a madwoman, I forced myself to slow down as I approached the open gate, then came to a stop in front of the valet booth. Allowing myself a brief exhale to steady my breath, I grabbed my purse and slid out of the seat, a little winded but otherwise feeling perfectly put together. I allowed myself only a passing glance at the car rolling to a halt right at my rear fender, before I smiled at the valet—a boy barely old enough to shave—and handed him the keys, a hundred-dollar bill folded underneath. “Take good care of my girl,” I purred at him, then stalked up the stone steps to the entrance of the adjacent building, leaving him staring after me—while Darren had to cool his heels as there was only one valet present. A glance over my shoulder let me know that yes, he had recognized me, and his eyes were still following me. Meanwhile, Daliah had to get her own door, a fact that she protested loudly, which went completely unnoticed.
I took my time strutting into the foyer, giving my tail a chance to almost catch up to me by the time I reached the reception area. I’d called ahead, and a harassed member from the club committee was waiting for me there—if I had to guess the woman I had been on the phone with just days ago. She was quick to ooh and ahh over me, wishing me welcome and all around being very fussy about expressing how pleased they were to have me as a member. Of course, that forced her to completely ignore Daliah—as only a plus one, and that of a longtime member, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone. But seeing the sour look on her face deepen was like balm on my soul. I also caught the look Darren sent me—faintly amused, but definitely holding a “do you really need to do this?” quality to it that I pointedly ignored. Before I let the woman bustle me away to give me a tour, I winked at him, which made his smile widen just a hint.
Ah, this was so going to be worth it.
I barely listened to the woman chattering away, but instead scanned the faces of the people we met. It was early still, but what I figured were regulars were already around, enjoying tea or coffee with their conversations—not that much outdoor activities going on this time of year. I recognized a few, and I was sure that they were, in turn, informing the ignorant ones about who I was. Not that my appearance here actually made much of a splash, seeing as I was dressed according to the demure standards and not hanging on anyone’s arm, but I was noticed—and that was the point.
I only tortured the woman to put up with me until we were approaching the always-open bar, where I thanked her profoundly again for so speedily accepting me as a new member—making the fake smile on her face look even more pained—before I sent her scurrying back to where she had come from. As I approached the bar, I saw the bartender glance after her with a bemused look on his face, but it held not a thread of sympathy.
“Scotch on the rocks,” I told him with a bright smile. “And don’t skimp on the good stuff.” After that drive, I needed a stiff drink, and as I had intentions to remain here until I had to leave for Brigitte’s, I might as well go all in.
“Wouldn’t dare, Mrs…?” he offered, already getting the ice ready.
“Miss,” I corrected, letting my smile widen seductively—just because. A girl needs to keep her edge sharp, right? “And Penelope will do. I’m not big on formalities.”
“Very well, Penelope,” he acknowledged as he handed me the drink, perched on a small napkin. His eyes skipped from my face to focus on something behind me, making me immediately assume a still relaxed but less slouchy position. “Looks like you’re the hot new commodity here.”
A few people came to mind who that could have been applied to, but I was still surprised when it was Ray Moss who slid onto the bar stool to my right. Not exactly a pleasant surprise, but realistically, it had been only a matter of time for him to make a move on me.
“The usual, Peter,” Ray told the bartender—who was already reaching for the vermouth, I noticed—before he turned that sleazy smile of his at me. “Wish I could say the same to you, Penelope, but my wife tartly informed me that this won’t sit well with her. And who in their right mind would antagonize my wife?”
I let all the warmth seep out of my answering smile, not bothering with offering the sneer he actually deserved. Ray really wasn’t worth it, even if I wished I could suppress the urge of having to clean myself repeatedly just sitting next to him.
“You’re blacklisted,” I told him, not without glee.
“Oh, you wound me,” he said, frowning theatrically, but already that inane grin was breaking through again. Accepting his drink from the bartender, he snorted, and went on talking to him. “Who would have thought that whores can be so picky sometimes? Don’t you think that speaks of bad work ethics?”
I had to work hard not to gnash my teeth, but the bartender seemed completely nonplussed about that revelation—if it even was one. I didn’t hold it above that hag from the committee to have made sure that their entire staff was primed.
The bartender underlined his general laissez-faire attitude by not even blinking an eyelash.
“It does sound like standards to me,” he replied, making me snort behind my glass.
Ray didn’t bother glaring at him, just continued to beam that jovial grin at me. “What exactly did my wife and you talk about? And don’t even bother denying that you swept by her office on Friday.”
Ah, so he wasn’t just around to annoy me.
“None of your concern,” I told him, trying to shut down any further need of his to harass me—as if that was even possible.
“But it is my concern if it concerns me,” Ray offered.
“It doesn’t,” I assured him. He opened his mouth to contradict me, but I spoke right over his beginning protest. “Don’t think that what happened between you and me has any impact on anything. But, back then, if I had had a say about who gets kicked off the client roster, your name would have been struck from the books faster than you can ooze your charm all over the unlucky recipient of it. Now that I am in charge, I don’t see why I should subject any of my girls to that. I think your wife approves, but that wasn’t the reason she asked me to drop by.” Pausing, I smiled, then added, “You’re by far not important enough to either of us to warrant calling for a meeting.”
It was cruel of me to underline that fact he was well aware of, but I had no qualms when it came to Ray. As expected, my barb had no effect on him.
“So you’re not going to tell me?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Swiveling around in his chair, he surveilled the room, his eyes snagging to the two people who had just entered—Darren, with Daliah practically plastered to his side where she continued to talk to him, becoming increasingly uncomfortable from what it looked like. For a moment I was afraid he would steer her right here, but instead he held out a chair for her, yet didn’t take a seat himself. Bending down, he either just kissed her on the cheek or whispered something in her ear, but before she could reply, he walked away—and the last thing he looked at before he left the room was me.
“So she’s paying you for getting rid of the girl,” Ray said from much closer than I was strictly comfortable with. I must have gotten a little lost in my observation. Turning back to him, I did my best to regard him levelly.
“As I said—“
“Yes, yes, you keep your secrets,” he interrupted me with. “Don’t bother denying it. I have eyes. I see how you look at poor, sweet Daliah. Girl doesn’t stand a chance, obviously.”
I raised my brows at that. “If I were to pretend that you’re right, what makes you say that?”
Ray’s smile turned belligerent now. “Oh, come on. We both know that he is still as obsessed with you as you are obsessed with him. Don’t bother denying that, either. Back at that party, when I warned you about that other girl, I though
t you still had some sense left. I stand corrected. But ignoring that, I doubt there’s anything in this entire world that Darren would let come between the two of you, and that girl there? Absolutely no competition.”
Back when we’d first met, it would have been easy to ignore his insinuations—obvious as they were—but all the stress in my life had apparently shortened my fuse considerably. I was answering before I could even consider censoring myself.
“Then why does he continue to fuck that little slut? He knows that he can have me. He just has to ask.” Or act, really, as last week had proven.
Ray’s dazzling smile made me a little sick, but really, of all the people I could blab to, he was probably the least important one.
“Oh, but therein might lie the problem,” he offered. “Darren Hunter does not ask for anything. I’m not even sure he really gives chase. What he does is take.” He added a dramatic pause here. “But of course you know that, probably better than any other woman alive. So why do you continue to play these stupid games when it’s so blatantly obvious that they won’t yield the results you seek?”
I hated having to admit that I’d underestimated someone, and it wasn’t the first time that Ray had pulled a stunt like that. I had to remind myself that there was a good reason for why I still regarded him as a likely ally in my plotting and planning rather than an adversary.
“I might have ulterior motives,” I offered, hoping that I wasn’t dooming myself with that admission.
“Like what?” he scoffed, rolling his eyes at me. “You actually need to humiliate her before you take him back? I hadn’t figured you as so damn petty, Penelope. Is it because of all the humiliation you had to suffer before you finally got what you thought you really wanted? Don’t worry—I won’t go easy on her. And she doesn’t have the benefit of being a pro like you.”
Finishing his drink, he left the glass on the bar with a generous tip, not even bothering to aim another grin at me. I remained where I was, watching him make his way across the room, nodding to Daliah in passing. She pretended to ignore him, but I saw her stiffen.
Had Ray just been teasing me? Or told me, quite succinctly, that Darren was still playing the same old games that he had played with me? I really didn’t like the second option, but for many, mostly altruistic, reasons. It might be Agent Smith’s goal to get Daliah out before she could become collateral damage. But if Darren was doing his thing, the days where she could annoy me were numbered—likely quite literally, if I considered her bitching after the elevator ride, and her clinginess now. Then again, it had been awfully easy for Ray to get to me because he’d just had to set things up with my madam. Daliah wasn’t an escort, so screwing her would be much, much harder—unless, of course, she just let him, and I was sure that would earn her an injection before she could even wipe away Ray’s disgusting cum. Seeing her sitting there, pretending that she wasn’t feeling lonely and like an outcast even though she didn’t have the moral outrage front against her made me realize that, yes, I could just stand by and watch. Whatever compassion had been in me had been snuffed out over the course of the last year.
But did I want her to suffer that fate?
Of course not. I hadn’t forgotten what Darren had told me, down in his basement. That one fundamental requirement that all the dolls—me included—had fulfilled to set in motion the nightmare that had ended so many lives. He’d loved them. Every single one of them. And Darren actually loving Daliah—even if it was the kind of love no woman ever wanted—was not something I was going to just watch happen, idly standing by.
Whether he’d wanted to or not, Ray had just set me a deadline to make my next move.
Chapter 9
Finding out where Darren had disappeared to proved easier than I’d anticipated—and not just because I’d been part of his weekly routine for months. It only took me tracking down three servers to find out that the esteemed Mr. Hunter was playing pool with his usual golf crowd. I’d never bothered to find out who exactly was part of that club—also because Darren had made it clear from the first day that it was none of my business—and while I was tempted to go snooping now, I refrained from it. While I wasn’t exactly afraid that he’d drag me out behind the pool house and strangle me if I pissed him off, any plans I had rooted in making him realize how much he missed me—not how much I’d annoyed him. In retrospect, his need for privacy had, of course, taken on an entirely new meaning, but that wasn’t something I could dwell on now.
Rather than head straight for the corridor outside of the room he was in so I could wait there and accost him, I swung by the ladies’ room first. As exhilarating as my drive up here might have been—for both of us, it had seemed from the way his eyes had been raking my body—it had done a number on my hair and makeup, and both needed to be fixed now. Just a few touches—except for evenings out, Darren had never approved of heavy camouflage. While I applied a last coat of lipstick, I wondered if I should have gone with something that was less likely to leave stains, should our encounter end like the one at Alison’s office.
My thoughts were rudely interrupted by the door swinging inward behind me. A year ago I would have ignored that, but I immediately tensed at the sound and had to check in the mirror—which was a good thing, as this way I missed not a moment of how Daliah came stomping in, her eyes fixed on me.
Allowing myself a small smile, I closed the tube of lipstick with a loud snap before I put it away in my purse, all the while feeling her stewing behind me like a hot furnace. Oh, but she clearly meant business, our Little Miss Prissy Pants.
“I’d stop doing that,” I advised as I blotted my forehead, not bothering with powder.
“Excuse me?” Daliah ground out, sounding just a little perplexed that I’d started talking first. Git.
“Frowning like that,” I answered. “Will just wreck havoc on your skin. Once the last of that baby fat melts away, you’ll get crow’s feet like nobody’s business.”
She was perfectly bristling with indignation, and my comment threw her for a loop. “Did you just call me fat?”
Sighing to myself, I couldn’t help but wonder how Darren, of all people, put up with her. Focusing on his more obvious faults had made me forget about the little things about him that had always nagged on my confidence, but now they were all rushing back.
“I called you cute, if anything. Young. Too young to pretend like you’re not,” I offered.
She was still huffing and puffing behind my shoulder, and glancing back was slowly getting tedious, so I turned around to face her, using my clutch to still my hands. She didn’t glance down at my right hand, although I was sure that she was absolutely burning to. Instead her eyes fixed on mine, as if her venomous glare would make me scurry back to whatever hole I had come from.
“You don’t get to call me anything. Whore.”
There wasn’t even a hint of the old, familiar ache coming up inside of me. That entire stunt with Darren had really left me jaded. It was easy to give her a dazzling smile now that didn’t even feel forced.
“‘Madam’ would be the appropriate term now as I no longer fuck clients for money,” I corrected her. “But I know, it’s hard not to get confused.”
Contempt was clearly the only thing she had for me, and my little jab there went by virtually unnoticed.
“I don’t fucking care,” she said, sounding just a little satisfied of descending to what she obviously thought of my level. “You will stop trying to seduce my fiancé, you fucking slut.”
It obviously upset her that I continued to smile pleasantly at her, so there was no reason for me to stop. I still added a hint of derision to my tone as I replied.
“Or what? You’ll run back out there and scream for everybody to hear that I’m a prostitute? Don’t delude yourself into thinking that they don’t know.”
“I can go to the cops. What you do is illegal,” she huffed.
Folding my arms under my chest, I let her see exactly how much that threat bothered me.
Her eyes narrowed to the point where she was squinting at me. “I know what you did in that elevator.”
It was impossible not to laugh at her, which of course didn’t help much.
“Oh, sweetie, you still got so much to learn,” I drawled, cocking my head to the side. “Darren doesn’t have to pay me to fuck me.”
By then, she was white in the face with red blotches appearing all over her cheeks—a rather unbecoming look. If she’d been anyone else, I might have felt sympathy for her plight, but she wasn’t, so I didn’t.
“I hate you,” she ground out, looking like a wet, hissing cat, really. I couldn’t help but feel for her frustration, and it was probably that which made me switch course.
“I understand that you think you need to attack me, but I’m not the problem here,” I offered. “No whore has ever actively needed to pursue a john. If he was the kind of guy who’d stay faithful to you, I’d never stand a chance.”
“That’s not true,” Dahlia hissed, but it sounded more defeated than aggressive.
“You know that it is,” I pointed out the truth. “He might have been a serial monogamist in the past, but then again, what do any of us know about his past? You’re the first woman he never felt the need to hide from the world. Isn’t it strangely fitting that you’re the first he’s two-timing?” The blotches on her cheeks turned a deeper red, but I wasn’t finished yet, stepping closer so she couldn’t avoid looking into my eyes. “Darren Hunter is not a good guy. If you have trouble dealing with what he does and how it makes you feel all of, what, four months into your relationship? Then you should maybe consider ending things before he can do actual damage to you.”
