But I didn’t take it personally.
Maybe in time…he would feel better.
3
Cleo
“I should go.”
“No.” Jake moved back on top of me, sprinkling kisses from my neck to my stomach, giving me his hot breaths that made my nipples pebble at his touch. “Baby, sleep over. Come on, I don’t have to go into the office tomorrow.” He pressed his heavy body on top of mine, his hands scooping mine above my head.
I looked into his handsome face, the man who seduced me and erased all my logic. “You know I can’t.”
“Please.” He kissed one corner of my mouth then the other. “Please…”
I almost gave in, but I knew I couldn’t. I shouldn’t be here in the first place, shouldn’t have let him kiss me months ago, shouldn’t have slept with him.
Not when he was one of my clients.
It was a rule I shouldn’t have broken, and if anyone ever found out about it, no one would trust me again. I’d lose all credibility. All my female clients wouldn’t want me anywhere near their husbands and boyfriends because they couldn’t trust me. I’d probably lose my job too. “No.” I finally fought his restraint and sat up, my feet on the floor. “Jake, I like you…a lot. But this has totally gotten out of hand—”
His hand cupped my face, and he smothered me with kisses, silencing me with a touch I couldn’t resist.
And I caved—again.
The front door opened and closed, and then a female voice called out in the penthouse. “Surprise!”
I pulled back, my eyes wide because I was buck naked on his bed, having no idea who had just entered his penthouse—with keys.
But my shock was no match for his.
He looked like he was going to be sick.
“Who is that?” I whispered. Maybe she had the wrong penthouse…hopefully.
His skin turned pale as he reached down and quickly grabbed all my clothes. “Hide!”
“Who is that?” I repeated, speaking under my breath.
He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the closet. “Just stay here—”
“Jake!”
He dropped my clothes on the floor then shut the door behind him, leaving me in the dark. He must have done it just in time because he spoke. “Hey, baby. What a nice surprise.”
Baby?
What the fuck?
“Why are you naked?” she asked. “Hot and sweaty?”
What the hell was he going to say to that?
“Come on, baby,” he said. “I’m a man…you know what we do.”
“Well, I hope you were thinking about your wife.”
I covered my mouth with both of my hands to silence the gasp that wanted to come out.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.
How did I not know he was married?
How had he hidden this from me for so long?
How had she never been to the penthouse before now?
“Let’s celebrate,” Jake said. “Let’s go out to dinner. There’s a new steakhouse that just opened on Madison.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” she said. “But how about we finish you off first?”
Oh my god.
Jake hesitated for a moment. “You must be starving after your flight—”
“Starving for that dick, maybe.” Footsteps sounded, and then their kisses were audible.
I was still in the closet, my clothes bunched in my hands, listening to the man I’d been seeing for months have sex with another woman.
His fucking wife.
I stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hallway.
My phone kept vibrating with text messages from Jake.
Cleo, talk to me.
Let me explain.
Come on.
I turned the phone on silent then rang the doorbell for 32C.
There was a long wait, at least three minutes, before he finally unlocked the door and left it open. He headed back inside without greeting me.
I invited myself inside and stared at him as he walked away, seeing the muscles of his back shift and move through his t-shirt. I came inside and shut the door behind me. “Good afternoon, Mr. Hamilton.”
He moved to the dining table where his laptop sat, along with a stack of papers. He was in his sweatpants and a t-shirt, wearing all black, his usual color choice. He slouched in the chair, leaned forward over the table, and stared at his computer.
When I’d emailed him and asked to swing by, he didn’t respond to me. It took at least three emails before he gave me the time of day, and that was probably just to get me to go away.
I carried the mail to the table and laid everything out in piles. “I picked up your mail. I’ve organized it into stacks so you can go through it at your leisure.”
He continued to stare at his computer.
“I can also pay your bills for you, if you’d like.”
He lifted his gaze and looked at me, his dark eyes hostile like always. “No.” He dropped his gaze back to the computer.
Sometimes it was hard to be sympathetic when he was so cold.
I sat at the table with him and set my notepad down with a pen. “Mr. Hamilton, I thought it would be good to take some time to discuss your needs. I’ve been doing this a long time, and our team can provide a lot of services that will make your life more convenient.” I got my pen ready and stared at him, the laptop in between us.
His eyes followed the words he read in his email, as if I wasn’t even there.
Now I wondered if he was just a jackass. “Mr. Hamilton?”
He shut his laptop as if he knew he was being rude, picking up on the displeased tone of my voice. “I can pay my own bills like a grown-ass man.” When he gave me that terrifying gaze, I missed the laptop as a buffer.
Some of my clients were difficult by nature, others were sweet as candy, but he seemed to fall into an entirely different category. He didn’t think I knew my face from my ass, that I was no asset to him at all, and he was too burned-out to give anyone the time of day. “Alright, but how about your dry cleaning? I can do that for you and place it exactly where you like.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, his gaze so still, so unflinching that it was as if he hadn’t heard what I said. Then he abruptly rose from his chair and walked down the hallway.
I followed him.
He entered his master bedroom, a beautiful room with a gorgeous view of the park, and stepped into his closet. “Dry cleaning goes in here.” He kicked the dirty laundry basket aside. “New stuff goes here.” He grabbed his clothes on the hangers and pushed them to the right, leaving a noticeable space in the closet. “Don’t remove the plastic so I know it’s the dry cleaning.”
I jotted down the notes. “Anything else?”
“I want a personal shopper.” With his arms straight by his sides, his tanned skintight over his muscled arms, he walked out of his closet and into his bedroom.
I noticed his bed was unmade. “Would you like me to have housekeeping tidy up your home every day after you leave for work?”
“No.” He headed down the hallway and entered his office, a spacious room with a black desk.
I followed behind him. “A weekly cleaning, then?”
“Thursdays. I leave for work early.”
I jotted it down.
He grabbed a stack of papers. “This needs to be mailed. Priority.” Then he grabbed another manila envelope. “This needs to go to my lawyer. Hand-delivered.” He watched me coldly as I took it. “Do you understand?”
I had to bite back my retort. “Yes.” I took the package. “I’ll get the details from Jeremiah.”
“I also need a new accountant here in the city—”
“I’ll get you the best.”
He stared at me like he didn’t believe me at all.
“I know everyone, Mr. Hamilton.”
His stare lingered before he walked away, returning to the hallway and then the dining room.
I noticed he did
n’t have any pictures—of anyone.
“I need a personal trainer. Someone who doesn’t talk much.”
Yeah, I figured that out on my own. “Alright.” I followed him behind him and watched him sit in the dining chair.
“What else can you do?” He asked the question like I was a circus dog that could do tricks for treats.
I sat across from him. “Anything.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, sinking into the chair with his eyebrows slightly furrowed.
“Anything,” I repeated. “There’s nothing you could ask me to do that a client hasn’t already asked me. I can have any personal chef you want make you meals. I can have your vehicles taken in for maintenance and returned. I can schedule helicopter landings on the roof of the building for pickup and drop-off. I can have a contractor here in five minutes to fix any issues in your home. I can have Chinese food delivered at three a.m. I can do anything you want. I suggest you utilize me, because you’re paying for it anyway.” Their payments covered my services—my fee was mandatory—and he was paying a lot of money to have me cater to him. “I can organize parties, charity events, uniformed drivers. I can even have private escorts delivered to your room with no one knowing.”
His eyes narrowed slightly at the comment.
“I will never discuss anything you tell me, or anything you do, with another client or human being.” I placed the signed NDA on the table, along with a release that took away all my rights to sue him if I ever got hurt on his property. “And this NDA means a lot, because if I ever violated it, you have the power to take away my job…and all the assets I’ve accumulated.” I was paid well to do my job, but I was no billionaire. I made enough to be comfortable in the city, but I wouldn’t describe myself as rich.
He didn’t glance at the paperwork.
“Give me a chance to be an asset to you, Mr. Hamilton. Because I can make your life a lot easier.”
He shook his head slightly, as if he disagreed with what I said but wouldn’t verbalize it.
“A lot of the clients in the building have me do more personal things, organizing their finances, filing paperwork—”
“I don’t need those services.”
I didn’t take it personally. “I can deliver groceries whenever you need them, but most of our clients do a weekly delivery, usually repeats of their favorite items. Did you like the things I picked out?”
He shrugged.
How did this guy run a business when he was so aloof?
“If you give me a list, I can get you anything you want.”
“Fine.”
“Weekly delivery?”
“Thursdays. And if you need to deliver anything else, come on Thursday.”
Because that was the day he definitely wasn’t home—and he didn’t want to see me. “Alright.” I wrote that down.
He continued to stare me down, as if he couldn’t wait for this conversation to be over.
I had no idea why I lingered, why I continued to hope for more when he was nothing but a dick. If I hadn’t known he was recently divorced, I might not pity him. Maybe I also had a soft spot for him because he was young and attractive—and he was too young to be this bitter. “I’m also here to talk…if you need someone.”
That was clearly the wrong thing to say, because his eyes narrowed in offense, as if I’d just slapped him across the face, as if I’d made an insult I could never take back. His arms tightened slightly, a quiet breath escaping his lips that was filled with anger. “You can go.” He straightened in the chair and opened his laptop, returning to work like I wasn’t there at all.
I rose to my feet and gathered the paperwork on the table.
He didn’t look at me when he spoke. “I will call to make sure you followed directions. So, don’t fuck with me.”
I was okay with difficult people, but I didn’t appreciate the harsh disrespect when I’d been nothing but polite to him. “Mr. Hamilton.” I waited for him to look at me.
He scrolled through his email.
“I’m here to assist you. I’m here to make your life easier. This job isn’t just a paycheck to me. I care about my clients. I care about making their lives easier. Just because they’re rich doesn’t mean they need less help, in fact, usually more. They have more to protect, more to lose.”
He turned back to me.
“I know you don’t know me, you don’t trust me. That’s fine. But I expect you to respect me—as I respect you.” I kept my voice controlled, kept all the emotion out of the words so the situation wouldn’t escalate. But I needed to hold my own, to demand basic respect if he wouldn’t give it to me.
He held my gaze for a few seconds, his body absolutely still. Then he gave a slight nod in understanding.
That was the most I would get from him—so I took it.
I sat in the office on the ground floor, going through all the emails that constantly piled up anytime I was away from my desk.
Matt came into the office and fell into the padded chair, releasing a breath like he’d been running around all day. He grabbed his iced coffee and took a drink, looking down the hallway between the elevators to the front door. “Need me to do anything?”
“Always. But take a break.”
He relaxed farther into the chair, his fingers interlocking behind his head. “Ooh, yeah.” He crossed his ankles and relaxed. He had short dirty-blond hair, scruff along his jaw, and he was easy on the eyes, which made our clients like him more. “Do you ever wonder if we get paid enough for this?”
“All the time.” I kept reading through emails.
“When I went to deliver groceries to Cougar Cathy, she actually slipped me a couple hundreds and asked me to put away the groceries shirtless.”
I chuckled. “Did you?”
“We never say no to clients, right?” he said as he looked straight ahead.
I gave him a horrified expression. “Matt—”
“Kidding.” He rolled his eyes. “Come on, I know the rules. And I know you’ll find out if I break them.”
Guilt washed over me—hard.
“I don’t mind sleeping with an older lady, but…I’m not really into it.”
“She has no shame, does she?”
He shrugged. “Just used to getting whatever she wants.”
My phone lit up with a text message from Jake. I need tape. Can you bring it to me?
He’d been trying to get me into his penthouse for a private conversation for a week now. His wife must have left. It was inevitable, because I couldn’t keep sending the rest of the staff all the time. It would be obvious I was avoiding him. But I continued to avoid him. “Jake in 17A needs tape.”
He rolled his eyes and went to the office in the back to grab an extra. “Billionaires can’t buy their own tape now?” He took another sip of his iced coffee before he walked to the elevators and disappeared.
My eyes watched him disappear, and that was when I noticed Deacon Hamilton step out of the back seat of his Mercedes, slip the driver a tip without looking at him, and then enter the building.
He was in a suit—for the first time.
It was charcoal gray, altered to fit his broad shoulders, powerful chest, and long legs perfectly. He looked great in simple jeans, but he looked totally different in designer clothing. He still wore that displeased look on his face, as if he would never crack a smile as long as he lived.
I watched him from my seat, ignoring the email I was supposed to be writing. He was a handsome man, despite his constant anger, and I wondered how someone so good-looking could be so cold, have no zest for life.
He looked down at his phone as he walked past the elevator.
Right toward me.
I quickly looked down at my computer, pretending to be working and not staring.
When he arrived at my desk, he started to bark orders without even greeting me with a hello. “I need clubs for tomorrow, a tee time at 11:15, and I need a membership to the Manhattan Country Club.”
I g
rabbed my notepad. “What kind of clubs—”
“The best.” He turned around and walked off.
I was still shocked by the way he talked to me, like he had no idea how to speak to another human being.
Anna emerged from the back, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched him walk away. She squinted. “He’s such an ass…but he has such a nice ass.”
“His ass will never be nice enough…”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “A lot of women wouldn’t mind an asshole if he was hot and rich.”
Maybe that was why he got divorced, because there wasn’t enough money and good sex in the world to make her stay. He said he didn’t love her, never did, so she was probably a trophy wife, a prized animal he liked to keep in a cage. I stopped feeling bad for him when I realized these terrible things had happened to him…because he was the one making these terrible things happen.
“The flower arrangements the florist made this week were beautiful.” Barbara stood beside me in the elevator, her little dog cradled in her arm. “Those lilies have held up so well.”
“I’m glad you like them. They really are beautiful.”
She was a socialite, the wife of a powerful investment banker, so she spent her time at yoga and planning the next party. “Maybe we should have those at the baby shower instead. A nice springtime flair.”
“Great idea. I’ll take care of it.” I eyed the elevator when it came to a stop, realizing we were at the seventeenth floor.
Oh no.
The doors opened, and there was Jake.
Standing in a black suit, one hand in his pocket, not wearing a wedding ring.
Fucking asshole.
His eyes settled on me, not giving any reaction at all, and he stepped into the elevator and joined us.
He stood right beside me, several inches taller, his cologne the same scent I remembered.
Barbara didn’t notice anything and kept talking. “I was also thinking…” The elevator stopped again on the tenth floor. “I’m gonna stop by Cassandra’s apartment and give her a kiss.”
Oh no.
Barbara walked out.
He Lost His Soul Page 2