“Boss?” I assumed it was Eliza calling through the door. The voice matched the woman from earlier.
“Not now,” Connor barked.
I didn’t know when the switch happened, but he was Connor now, not Striker.
She banged on the door again.
I opened it. “If you don’t leave my husband alone, I’m going to cut a bitch.”
Call me crazy, but her eyes appeared to dilate. I didn’t have time to analyze that and shut the door in her face. A smile spread across my face when I noticed Connor’s amused expression.
“Cut a bitch?” he said.
I shrugged.
“Not really a threat to a… her. But points for effort.” He winked.
I wasn’t exactly sure what he’d been about to say, but I loved him more for editing himself. He’d been about to out whatever fetish she had. I could guess, but he’d stopped.
There was another knock. This time he moved quickly and opened the door, blocking my view. It wasn’t Eliza—I heard a man’s voice. When Connor closed the door, he handed me my things from the locker including the dress.
“Put it on and the jacket and let’s go,” he said.
I did and when we walked out in the hall, I spotted the fire alarm and reached for it. Connor caught my hand, and I lifted my shoulders. “A distraction,” I said.
“I have it covered,” he said and pulled me through the back hall until we hit an exit. I had vague memories of him taking me this way the last time I was here.
At his bike, he secured a helmet on my head. It was his, because he didn’t put one on. I understood the need for the jacket when we took off. Even though the temperatures were mild, at high speed, I was cold. My legs were mostly covered by my boots. Good thing.
We ended up in the garage of a familiar building.
“Why here?” I asked as we dashed toward the elevator.
“After the club, they’ll go to my Manhattan condo. It will take them a while to tie this place to me.”
He seemed to have all the answers, and I didn’t doubt them. When we made it inside the Soho penthouse, I had a brief moment of nostalgia. I was confused when we didn’t go right toward the bedroom though. We went left but didn’t stop at the living room. Instead, he took us inside the pantry and closed the door. I looked back and missed whatever he did that made the wall to the right move and reveal stairs. I would have never known this was here.
“Wow,” I said, mouth ajar.
“A panic room designed by the former owner.” He pulled me through, hit a button, and the door closed. Even from this side, it was hard to see there was an exit. The door opened from ceiling to floor. “If they come, they won’t find us.” Then he pointed at a button I hadn’t noticed. “If you need out, press this. The door will close automatically if the outside button isn’t pressed within sixty seconds.”
I didn’t know how to react when I saw the place. It was filled with paintings.
“You did all this?” It was a stupid question, but what should you say when you walked into the mind of a genius?
“Over the years.”
I stopped in front of several paintings. “These are me.”
I didn’t need an answer. I recognized the places, the settings. Even the window he’d fucked me against. My face was full of bliss with the New York city skyline in the background.
“I’ve never shown anyone my paintings until you.”
“I guess that means you’re in love with me too.” He froze and I smiled, a very brave one. “It’s okay. I was only teasing.”
“Why did you tell me about the arrest?”
We stood feet apart, me fiddling with my fingers, him waiting for an answer.
“Because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t alert a criminal. I warned an innocent,” I said, chin up. Internally I warred. I wanted to go to him, but there was much to be said.
“Your brother?” he asked.
“I could cover the fact he told me by arguing you’d only left to take care of me. As your wife, you knew I was spent from our time on stage and needed to go home. Everyone saw and it’s the truth.”
He angled his head picking up on only one part of what I said. “You didn’t sign the annulment.” It was a statement.
“I didn’t,” I said and gave him my back. I’d endured his non-return of my use of the word love, but if I saw disappointment that I hadn’t freed him from marriage, I wasn’t sure I could handle that.
He spun me around. “I need you to sign it.”
I pulled back. “I guess that clears things up.”
“It’s not what you think. Matt’s right. I’m tied up with bad people.” When I widened my eyes, he amended his statement. “For the right reasons. But my contact has gone dark. I’ve worked too hard. I have to go to the gathering.”
“An auction of people.”
He didn’t answer, and I looked away.
“I have to make some things right,” he said. “I won’t allow you to be dragged under by what I must do.”
“We can call my brother,” I said.
“I’ve tried.”
“Let me.” I took out my phone and called, but the phone went to a non-personal voicemail.
“Kalen said he’d been using a temporary phone.”
He’d mentioned being at a phone store, and I hadn’t recognized the phone number he’d used. “I’ll call the FBI then.”
“And what? Get him in more trouble?”
“I can’t let you go to jail,” I said, choking out that last word.
Then he was there with his arms around me. “I’m not innocent. If I go to jail, it will be for the things I did and didn’t do.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look up Lonnie Brooks. I didn’t save him, and I could have. He was the brave one. He’s the one who spoke out in a suicide letter.”
“That’s not your fault,” I said, clinging when he tried to pull away.
“You weren’t there.”
I cradled his face. “I know that you told. You weren’t silent. The problem was you weren’t heard. And even if you hadn’t spoken up, it still wouldn’t be your fault.”
His kiss was welcome, and he apparently needed it as much as I did. Words became touch. Emotions were sensations. Clothing wasn’t wanted. I pulled off my dress and he didn’t wait for me to unsnap my bodysuit. He tore through the lace and lifted me up only to lay us down on a drop cloth, while undoing his jeans.
“One day I’m going to paint you with my come.” He growled out the words like a hungry bear.
“I dare you to do it now.”
There wasn’t softness in our coupling. He pushed in with a punishing thrust I welcomed. I wanted to feel his pain and absorb it. I wanted to offer him absolution and a way to forgive himself. I’d be his vessel if that was what it took. But I knew scars that deep didn’t heal so easily.
Every time with him, fast or slow, I came. This time was no different. When the aftershocks stilled, he pulled out and came all over me like paint strokes. It was warm, and I drew circles around my nipples as he lay panting next to me.
“Will you paint this?” I asked.
“Probably—in my head at least.”
“You’re going to get through this.”
He took my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I will, even if I have to without you.”
“I’m not signing it,” I protested.
“You did agree to twenty-four hours, right?”
I knew where he was going and I didn’t like it. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Yes or no. Are you going to back out on your word?”
“Connor?”
“I’m Connor now?”
“I can’t introduce my husband to my parents as Striker. I mean, I could, but they would grill you a million years to find out why you would use that kind of name.” I laughed to myself.
“Well, I won’t be your husband because you will sign that paper. That’s part of the bet you agreed to.”
“Fine, I will,” I grumbled.
“Good girl,” he said and got to his feet.
“Where are you going?”
“To get something to clean you up, and I need to check your bottom.”
My bottom felt fine. He was halfway across the room when I muttered, “I kind of want to leave it, since that’s all I’ll have left.”
His hearing was excellent. “You’ll have my heart.”
I couldn’t breathe for a second. He hadn’t said he loved me, but damn if that wasn’t close enough. I closed my eyes and let him clean me. I turned over, and he ruled me okay.
“It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would,” I admitted.
“I didn’t use a bullwhip, as it was your first time.”
“Something else we should talk about,” I said.
“What’s that?” he asked, sounding amused.
“Eliza. I know all about your Hip-Pussy-Ass rules, so I just have one question.” I held in a laugh as he laughed at me. “Is she still your therapist? Because I’m not okay with that.”
“No.” He quickly sobered. “I met her in college. She was working on her doctorate and worked in the counselor’s office. She was easy to talk to. I opened up and shared a little of what my problem was.”
“What’s that? Never mind, go on.”
“I wasn’t able to have normal sex with a woman. I hated to be touched. She showed me a way to test the waters to see if controlling the situation would help. It did.”
I frowned but said, “I guess I have to be nice to her next time. But you know she wants you back.”
“I know. She hasn’t been my therapist since I let her talk me into crossing that line. That was a mistake. I’ve told her it was never happening again.”
“Good boy,” I said with a wink and loved listening to the chuckle coming through his chest. That and his heartbeat as I tucked into his side and curled next to him.
“How did you get into painting?” I asked.
“I’m not sure when it started, maybe when I picked up my first crayon,” he mused. “Over time I felt compelled to get the images out of my head. Drawing them was the best way.”
I tried not to picture the things he could have drawn from his past. “Do you sketch too?” I asked, as all I’d seen were paintings.
“I do. A lot actually.” I had a lot of questions, but he beat me to the punch. “What about you? What made you study art?”
I was surprised, I didn’t get this question a lot from the guys I’d dated. Hans had never asked. “A trip to the Louvre. I remember seeing the Mona Lisa as a child and thinking, is that it? It’s such a small painting considering it’s big reputation.”
“And that’s what made you love art?”
“Not exactly. I wasn’t impressed with Van Gogh either. I think my exact words to my parents when I saw A Starry Night in New York was a fifth grader could have done it. I think I was in the sixth grade at the time.” He laughed. “No, my love for art began with Michelangelo when I saw his sculpture of David in Florence. Now that was something. I mean in the 1400s he made that enormous sculpture with such detail using tools far more basic than we have today. I was in awe.”
“Do you prefer sculptures?” he asked.
“I love all art in all its mediums. But he’s my favorite artist, besides you,” I teased. “There is a legend he liked to draw people he didn’t like into his paintings as devils and such.” I laughed. “But I can appreciate abstract art as well. Especially those pieces that make you stare at them as if looking for shapes in the clouds as you look at the sky. I love your art too. I think it should be in a museum.” That wasn’t an exaggeration for his ego.
“I don’t know about that.”
“You were going to let me sell your art. Is that any different?”
“It’s deeply personal,” he said.
I could see that given his reaction at my show. “Is that why you bought all your art back from me?” I asked.
“I thought I could part with it. But when I saw Hans trying to buy that painting of you, I knew I couldn’t.”
“Would you consider a showing? None of it for sale, but just for people to see.”
“I don’t know,” he said, disappointing me, but I let it go.
He’d given me a gift tonight by showing me what no one else had seen. I wouldn’t push him. Though I might nudge him later. “Can I ask you what inspires your art?”
He was quiet for a moment. “At first it was something to do, and the more I did it the better I got. Then teachers would comment when they saw my doodles and tell me I was good. Then I challenged myself. Could I make something beautiful in the ugly world I lived in?”
I hated to interrupt, but I spoke before I could stop myself. “You do a lot of landscapes.”
“Everything on the outside of the school was good. I would stare out of the windows and want to be there. Free.”
I could feel the burn of tears in the back of my eyes and held them back. I was glad for the darkness so he wouldn’t see.
“You also paint people,” I said, softly. But those people in his paintings didn’t face the viewer.
“You can learn a lot about a person in their quiet moments. When they don’t know you’re watching.”
There was truth in that. I’d caught him gazing out the window a few times and there had been a longing in his expression.
“You painted me,” I said. There had been one portrait of my face. Through his eyes, I felt beautiful.
With his fingertip, he drew lines down my arm. I wasn’t sure if he knew that he was doing it.
“You are the most beautiful thing that’s ever been in my life. You’re hope to me… That maybe this messed up world isn’t as ugly as it seems.”
I was at a loss for words, choking back a sob.
“You’ve given me hope,” I began, managing not to cry. “You’ve made me believe that not all men are bad.”
“I’m not good,” he whispered.
“You are.”
He pulled me closer in his arms. I clutched him tightly. We were silent—both thinking about the future, I imagined. I couldn’t envision one without him. Eventually we fell asleep. I woke warm, but not from his arms. He’d draped a blanket over me.
“Connor,” I called. The silence roared and my heart sank. I got to my feet. “Striker?”
I ran down the stairs I had no idea what time the auction was, but my chaotic thoughts had my head spinning. I missed the button three times because of blurred vision before the door clicked open, and I ran out of the pantry like a mad woman. The sky was bright, but the apartment was empty.
When I went back to the pantry, the door to the upstairs hideaway was closed because I’d forgotten his warning about the other button. I pushed everything I could find, and the door didn’t open. Tired and frustrated because my clothes, purse, and phone were up there, I headed to the bedroom. I’d moved out a while ago, but I hoped to find the clothes he’d left there at least.
The sole item in the closet was the robe I’d worn a lot when I stayed here. I quickly put it on then checked the drawers of the furniture. In a bottom drawer, way in the back, was a bunched-up shirt. It was wrinkled and speckled with paint. Still, I put it on after I took off the robe. The shirt fell midthigh, covering my lady bits. I put the robe back on, knowing what I had to do.
There wasn’t a landline. My only option was to go downstairs and talk to the doorman. That would be awkward.
It was. The man didn’t believe I’d locked myself out of the apartment. Specifically, because I couldn’t give the name of the owner. I didn’t want to say Connor King—because I knew not many people knew who he was—but he hadn’t recognized the names Striker or Mr. Black.
“Come on. I didn’t just wander off the street. You saw me get off the elevator. Just let me use your phone,” I begged.
“You could have snuck in the garage. Without a passcode, the elevator opens to the lobby.”
I put my head on
the counter, frustrated, until it hit me. “Google me. Use your computer and search for Lizzy Monroe. My gallery has a website tied to me.”
Reluctantly, he did as I asked.
When he glanced at me then back at his screen, I said, “See? It’s me. I’m not a homeless person. I really was locked out and my host went out for breakfast.” It could be true. I had no idea where he’d gone this early. “If you’d just let me use the phone…” I pointed at the landline sitting next to him.
“Fine. No international calls.”
I rolled my eyes as he picked up the phone and set it facing me on the counter. I dialed Bailey.
Once she realized it was me, she said, “How’d it go?”
I tried to whisper, but with nothing to mute my words, the doorman heard every one. “I need you to pick me up at Connor’s. I locked myself out.”
She giggled, but I didn’t. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“He left early this morning and I don’t know when he’ll be back. My purse and phone are in there.”
“Okay. I’m coming.”
“Can you call Griffin to meet us at your place? And bring flip-flops.”
“Oh-kay.” She enunciated the word as though she couldn’t imagine why. “I’m sure you’ll explain?”
“I will.”
The doorman gave me the side-eye after I ended the call—probably because my phone conversation didn’t quite match the story I’d given him.
I loved New York, but I waited until Bailey got out of the SUV and came inside with the flip-flops before I followed her out.
I waved at the doorman as I left. “Thanks.”
He didn’t respond.
Once we were in the car, Bailey faced me. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
This time, I gave her a little more detail, but still kept Connor’s secrets. “I need to find my brother and stop Connor from getting arrested.”
Twenty-Three
Connor
My peace had been made before I got here. I’d spent time with my dad and made all the necessary arrangements if things went south. Whether I went to jail or died, it was covered. My only regret was Lizzy. I didn’t think I’d be so lucky to find someone like her again.
Kingdom Fall: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (Kingdom Come Book 2) Page 15