Power Play: A Romance Collection

by Lauren Landish

  Not when she’s destroying my every belief in her right before my very eyes.

  I stand, walking to the front silently, my feet barely whispering on the carpet. Reaching into my pocket, I message my driver. 3 min.

  “Emma?” I say from the darkness when her back is turned, and she can’t see me in the glare of the stage lights.

  She jumps, whirling. “Shit, you scared me!”

  I step further into the light, and she looks around as confusion scrunches her brows. “What are you doing here?”

  “Spying on you,” I tell her honestly, wanting to throw the truth at her like a knife. “You’re good. Really good.”

  Her smile almost returns instinctively at the compliment, but then it registers that perhaps I hadn’t intended it as one. “Why do I get the feeling you think that’s a bad thing?”

  “Come,” I say simply, though I expect her to argue. Instead, she nods and hooks a thumb toward the side of the stage.

  “Let me grab my bag.”

  Her agreeableness is suspect. I think everything she does will be suspect from here on out.

  But she does disappear backstage and then reappear a moment later with a normal-sized bag slung over one shoulder.

  “Where to?” she asks, trying not to smile but still managing to give off the impression that she’s happy about this. But can I trust what my gut’s telling me about her reaction?

  I turn, leaving the theater and heading to the curb outside. She follows like a trained dog, or like the submissive girlfriend she’s been playing, I think with a sneer. I hate that something so new and unexpectedly delightful to me has been sullied by her repeated lies and omissions.

  Did she enjoy it too, or was that part of the act?

  My gut roils, remembering our night together. If anything, I’m pretty sure she didn’t fake her orgasms . . . although who says you can’t enjoy your work?

  I hold the car door open for her, not because I’m a gentleman but so I can shove her inside if she tries to make a run for it.

  The ride to my house is quiet, and I stare out the window, thinking.

  She looks at me the whole way, saying nothing, but her eyes full of questions. Questions I’m not going to answer here.

  Grant opens the door when we arrive, his face as inscrutable as ever. “Welcome home, Mr. Stone. Would you and your guest like anything?”

  I shake my head. “No, thanks. We’ll be fine.”

  “Very well,” he says, but I can tell he’s evaluating Emma as he walks away.

  He’s protective, precise, but also eminently professional. He won’t say anything unless he’s certain he should.

  In this case, I almost wish he’d give me advice.

  Sometimes, he sees something others don’t because he’s so unobtrusive, people forget he’s there.

  It’s quite a skill, quite an asset, and though they taught us something similar in the military for recon, Grant is on a whole different level.

  I walk upstairs to my office, testing my theory that Emma will simply follow along behind me wherever I go. Nikolai’s laughing comment comes back to me . . . woof, woof.

  It should disgust me still, but mostly, it just makes me sad as she does indeed trail along behind me.

  When I close the door, she startles but steadies herself. “Okay, so you’ve got me here. Now what? More yelling, more cold shoulder, more anger? Whatcha got?”

  It’s the first bit of spunk she’s shown since revealing her whole deal . . . and to be honest, I like it. It feels more real, more like her.

  But I wonder if it’s simply the character skin she’s slipped into. Inside, I’m desperate to know the truth, but she’s not the only one who can hide their real face behind a professional mask. And I know how to be the commanding asshole without even thinking about it.

  “Sit,” I command, the dog joke only in my head as I gesture to the chair in front of my desk. I intentionally go around to the other side, taking my place in this little scene.

  The power is decidedly with me, as it always is in this room, until she took it away last time with her bomb drop. But I’m taking it back, and if she’s slipping into character, then so am I.

  And I’m a mean fucker in a slick suit, accustomed to giving orders, to playing smart, to spit-shining a piece of shit into something people will desire and sell their souls to own. Even if I’m in a T-shirt and jeans.

  And she’s . . . her.

  There’s no way she’s getting one over on me. Not today, not ever. I let the mantle of control fall back onto my shoulders, the weight comfortable and familiar.

  “You were excellent today,” I begin, sitting down. “Your talents are magnificent.”

  A soft lob served up on a silver platter.

  “Thank you. It’s a great play, one of my favorites. Well, that’s probably because it’s my first big break. But I’m guessing that’s not what this is about? We need to talk.”

  Understatement of the century, and a reminder that Emma isn’t a dumbass. I appreciate that.

  “We do.” I wait, using the time-tested method of a pregnant pause to see if she’ll jump in to fill the silence.

  I hold back the victorious smirk when she does, and she looks down, her face falling as well.

  “I’m so sorry, Nathan. I really am,” she says, rubbing her arms. “But I agreed to do what I did for my sister thinking it wasn’t going to be this.”

  She swings a finger from her chest to me, then huffs humorlessly. “I thought I was just going to come to the party, report back on what I saw, and that would be that. I doubted I was going to hear shit. I mean, it was a party. I was certain I’d never see you again. Then it all got crazy with Nikolai.”

  “That’s what you were doing when you fell behind the tree,” I add, nodding slowly. “Listening.”

  She nods. “I had to take the chance and figured I could play it off. Most men see a woman in a dress like I had on and lose about a dozen points off their IQ.”

  She’s right. Most men do. Hell, I did, I think self-deprecatingly. “And did you report back to your sister, Claire?”

  I throw her name in on purpose, but she misses the significance.

  She nods again. “I did. I told her about the party, about you and Nikolai. She told me I couldn’t go to the dinner, but I said I was going.”

  “Why?” I ask, needing to hear her justifications and excuses. For what reason, I’m not able to say clearly.

  “I said it was because of Anna, to do what was right because whoever hurt her needs to pay. But the truth is—”

  I cut off her explanation with a wry laugh. “Truth? Aren’t you afraid the very word will burn on your lying tongue?”

  I see the anger and pain glittering in the corners of her eyes, but she swallows the barb down.

  “The truth is that I wanted to see you. I couldn’t reconcile this monster Claire was talking about with the man I met. You were powerful, and yes, a little scary . . . but no monster. You risked things to keep me safe, and I felt something in return. So I agreed to meet with you to prep and to have dinner. I know it’s all a tangled web, but I swear, the setup was fake, but the rest . . . it’s real. That night was real.”

  I clear my throat and watch her look at me with so much hurt and hope that I can’t help but let her have it. “I want to believe you. God help me for being stupid and gullible, but I want to. But I can’t. Not yet, at least,” I say, hooking her with false hopes. At least I hope they’re false, but I’m honestly not sure.

  “So I’m going to test you, and you’re going to go along with it, or I’ll have my answer.”

  It’s a dark promise, one of death and destruction or salvation and hope. And for one of the few times in my life since I put down the combat boots and picked up the wingtips, I’ve given her total freedom. It’s completely in the palm of her hand to do with as she chooses.

  Every cell in my body knows the answer already. She will falter. People always do.

  There’s no reason
for someone like her to be involved in a world as dark as mine. It’s not like I’m the sort of man who can give her the security and safety she obviously deserves and desires, even if she thinks differently.

  And though she’s here, she will eventually leave, run screaming for the safety of her comfortable life where a dangerous night is closing the club down at two AM and a big deal is coupons on candles at her favorite store.

  She lives in a world of silk ease, even if she is slightly rebelling. I live in a world of billion-dollar deals wrapped with deadly coercion and topped off by shiny gilded bows of luxury.

  We couldn’t be more different.

  “Test me how?” Nervousness makes her voice waver, but I can see that her body is rattled in a different way. Something inside her wants to be tested . . . maybe the same thing that made an eighteen-year-old me go into the military and then later into other pursuits.

  “You’re going to ride this deal with Nikolai out with me. And keep telling your sister and the FBI exactly what I want them to know, nothing more and nothing less,” I order. “More importantly, you’re going to tell me everything they know about me and my family. I want it all.”

  “Like a double agent?” she ventures as if this is some James Bond movie.

  I nod, letting her have her little bit of wordplay as a shield. It’ll help, and I’ll make sure she’s fully aware before I truly test her strength. “Yes. I’ll admit to feeling a bit dirty about using you this way, but I suppose it’s only fair since you were using me first.”

  The jab hits home just like I knew it would.

  “If you’re going to use me, at least tell me why you really want access to the caves,” she replies, bitterness tinging her response. “I know it has nothing to do with your dad, and maybe I could help.”

  “Help? I think you’re doing more than enough,” I tell her dismissively.

  “The Carajas National Park in Brazil mainly falls in the state of Pará. There is a cave system there, where a civilization thrived more than 8000 years ago. Unfortunately, they didn’t leave much of a written record behind. What I know of that area, most of the land is being destroyed by mining before exploration can be done. It’s a potential archaeological loss and infrastructure disaster.”

  She rattles off the facts like she’s reading from a textbook, and I clap sarcastically. “Is that supposed to impress me? You are a research assistant, correct? So a Wikipedia page summary is weak at best, useless at worst.”

  She glowers, standing up and planting her palms on my desk as she looms over the desk. “I’m not stupid, and I can help if you’ll let me. Or is your plan to continue this adversarial bickering until you decide one way or another? Newsflash, bucko. I did some shady shit, as I’m well aware, but I’m trying to make up for it because for some reason, I like you.”

  She lets her words hang on the air for a minute, then continues. “Hell, I take it back. Maybe I am stupid as fuck because you’re making me feel like I shouldn’t even try here. I’m telling you everything, even the stuff that could get me killed, get my sister fired, and make you hate me. I’m taking all of this and rolling it up into one mega-burrito of suckage, and you’re sitting over there tossing out insults like this is a carnival ring toss game. How about this? You tell me how we fix this?”

  Her fire is beautifully painful as she drives a sharp nail into the stack of folders in front of me. Ironically, the one she’s gouging with the tip of her pink nail is the one most relevant. I’m about to do something really fucking stupid, but I want to see just how far she’ll go and how much she knows.

  This test is do or die, maybe for us both.

  I open the file, turning it around to face her. “What do you see?”

  She looks down, her eyes quickly flittering over the paper. “A map. Brazil, Pará state, Carajas National Park.”

  “What else?”

  She studies for a moment. “The dots here represent various caves, from what I remember, although closer north is where they’ve found significant pieces, ceramic vessels and amethyst and quartz tools showing habitation by indigenous groups.”

  I lift an eyebrow. Now she’s showing me a bit more of her skill. “Go on.”

  “If I were to guess, it’s likely there are discoveries literally in each and every one of these caves, some more impactful, some less, but I’d bet, and so would every real archeologist, that we could learn a ton about this civilization. But we can’t get in.”

  “Oh, but I can.” I let that sink in and see the moment she mentally connects the dots about my negotiations with Nikolai.

  “What are you after? I’d assume a gemstone because of your company, but it’s more likely that the area would contain artistic artifacts—figurines, drawings, remnants of vessels. Not exactly a pink diamond.”

  “Tell me about the people there,” I say, ignoring her question and pointing at the map. “Not the Brazilians. The indigenous tribes.”

  She launches into another blast of information, and I’m honestly a little surprised by her knowledge.

  I certainly didn’t think her stupid, but this is not your average dinner conversation trivia. Her book smarts information is vast, varied, and maybe even as useful as she’d claimed.

  “New assignment, or additional, I suppose. I want you to research the cave system, the peoples, the possible findings in the area, everything you can get your hands on. Quietly, also known as ‘don’t tell your sister.’ Think you can handle that?”

  She sighs heavily, then comes around to sit on my desk. Her ass is on top of the map we were just studying, and it amuses me because it is the last bit of my father’s ill-conceived, ill-fated legacy.

  The heat coming from her warms me, though I somehow didn’t realize just how cold I’d gotten during our discussion.

  It’s like she’s pulling all the warmth in the room, but as she smiles at me, the edges more than a little sad, she gives it back full force.

  “I will do it . . . all of it. Play along as Kitty for Nikolai, tell my sister things as long as it doesn’t affect her career or safety, tell you what they know as long it doesn’t impact Claire, and research whatever you need me to. But what I need you to realize is that I’m doing this because I feel something between us. Maybe if I do these things for you, you’ll finally see that and truly accept it.”

  She bends and lays a soft kiss on my lips, and it’s almost as if I can taste the truth in her, like a sour candy, the first bite of the coating puckering and painful like her lies but underneath, the pure sugary goodness of what I hope, pray, and dream is real.

  Chapter 19

  Carly

  My phone rings, and for no good reason, my heart jumps into my throat with hope that it’s Kyle.

  But it can’t be Kyle. He doesn’t even have my phone number.

  I mean, he could get ahold of me through Strega if he was so inclined. She’s one of half a dozen people I’ve given it to.

  But since he hasn’t, yeah, there’s that one step back. But I’m still proud of the two steps forward because I get the feeling he’s never admitted his pain to anyone before. But he’s said it twice now . . . to me.

  I still wonder who Anna was to him.

  Scratch that—who she is to him, because she’s obviously still alive and well in his heart. And speaking of alive, I wonder how she died. Because he’s carrying around an elephant’s share of guilt.

  Somehow, even though I saw him the first time nearly kill a man in a back alley, he doesn’t strike me as violent. Maybe he uses violence, but I don’t see him hurting someone for real, especially not a woman.

  So wrapping back around, who is she, what does she mean to Kyle, and what happened to her? Just your usual everyday questions about the guy you’re obsessing about, right? Not.

  But I pick up the phone, even though it’s not Kyle with the answers to my nosy questions.

  “Hey, girl!” I tell Emma by way of greeting.

  “Hey yourself! T-minus one week. You ready for some NYC a
nd me?”

  “You, always. NYC, I could do without, mostly. What’ve you got planned for us?”

  “Mani-pedis, of course, lunch, and late-night gabfests over pizza. But there’s a big gala while you’re here too, so we can go to that,” Emma says excitedly.

  “Gala? I don’t know. I don’t want to risk running into my parents.”

  I feel like such a shit for saying that, but it’s the truth. I’m still in avoidance mode, though it’s starting to feel more like stasis than a big change.

  I just don’t need their drama in my life. I’m happier on my own without them.

  But I can almost hear Emma shaking her head. “No parents, I promise. It’s a Broadway celebration-type thing, nothing they’d be interested in anyway. Plus, I’m hoping I’ll have a date.”

  Parents forgotten, I go into greedy girlfriend mode, demanding information. “Okay, now shit just got interesting. Who’s the guy?”

  But she’s clammed up all of a sudden, even though she’s the one who brought up the mystery guy. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated means he has a wife and kids, right?” I ask, aghast. “You’re better than that! Don’t you dare be a side bitch, bitch!”

  Her laughter takes me back to high school sleepovers, when we’d lie in the dark and talk all night. “He’s not married and I’m not a side piece. We just didn’t get off on the right foot and it’s hard to right the train when it’s barely dangling on the track.”

  “Ew, barely dangling is not a word you should use to describe any man you’re interested in. Ever.”

  “What about you?” she says defensively, changing the subject while telling me a few things . . . including that ‘barely’ hardly applies to Mr. Mystery’s dangle. “Anybody dangling on your track?”

  Her voice is all innuendo, and again, I wrinkle my nose.

  “You said you didn’t really want to talk about mystery men. Well, me neither. I’m hung up on a guy who pretty much wishes I’d just leave him alone, but he needs me.”

  “Of course, he does. Everyone needs a bit of Carly in their life. Me especially!” We laugh and then Emma says quietly, “Do we sound like schmucks or what? Both of us chasing after guys when they should be chasing us. Pitiful.”