His bedroom had wide windows on three sides and a view of the valley from all three windows. His bed sat under the largest window and the mere sight of it made Geo’s mouth run dry. The frame was impossibly sturdy, made of dark wood. It looked like an earthquake couldn’t have even made it tremble. His blankets were an imposing forest green that Geo liked. This was not a whimsical bed. And she could appreciate that.
His room had hard wood floors and connected to a beautiful bathroom with a rich-person shower with about a hundred different nozzles and a huge soaking tub off to the side. They’d almost completed clearing his room when Geo saw them.
His glasses, on the side table beside his bed. They were the pair that they hadn’t wanted his personal assistant to enter his house to find. The same pair that Geo had re-ordered off his Warby Parker app. The same pair that Geo currently had packed away in her bag back at the hotel.
They were his, she knew this. But looking down at them, she kind of felt like those were her glasses sitting on Moreau Davy’s nightstand. And it kind of killed her. Because she realized just how much she wanted that. She realized just how much she wanted her boots to be kicked off at the front door of this house. How much she wanted to watch a movie in his living room. To eat breakfast in that freaking nook. She—god—wanted to live in this house.
And not because of the fanciness or the opulence or the view. She wanted to live in this house because this was where Moreau lived.
Make it obvious, Geo.
Jesus. She had to. She couldn’t screw this up.
***
Moreau woke the next morning ridiculously early, but that was what the time change did to him every time he flew back across the country. He felt sick. He didn’t want to be in LA. He wanted to be in his room in the bunker. He wanted to pick up his phone and text Geo. He wanted…
He sighed and swung his legs out the side of his bed. It didn’t matter what he wanted. He’d better learn how to stop wanting stuff or his heart was just gonna keep letting its dumb self get broken. Over and over again.
He passed his day in the suite. He spent a few hours each with Atlas, Sequence, and Cedric. Geo and Rook, he learned, hadn’t returned to the suite until 5 am and spent a good amount of the day sleeping.
They’d also cleared his house for them all to be able to sleep there tonight. This was a huge relief to him. Just to know that his home was safe for him to be in. Live in. That even though Luca—Luke—had completely betrayed Moreau’s confidence, at least his home hadn’t been breached.
He’d spent a little bit of time wondering what Geo had thought of his house but brutally pushed those thoughts away. That was not the kind of thing he could afford to be ruminating on right now. He was trying to stop wanting things. That was his new mantra. Be happy with what you got.
And what he had was a whirlwind of a hair and makeup team that his stylist, Brandi, brought to the hotel. It was a bare bones team, because Rook had put his foot down and only cleared three people to enter the premises. But these three people had enough energy to power the space station.
Over his life, it had become normal for him to sit still while fast-talking women dusted powders and creams on his face, trimmed his facial hair, held up fabrics with swatches of color and clucked over his bitten fingernails.
The whole process was relatively painless and within two hours, he was primped, polished and buttoned into a charcoal gray three-piece suit with a midnight blue tie. He farewelled the styling team and fiddled with his tie in the mirror. He’d barely left the room of his suite the whole day. For the first time, he really let his thoughts drift to Geo. He knew that she was out in the living room. He’d heard her voice a while ago. He also knew that Brandi had brought someone to style Geo as well. They’d been given her measurements, brought a ton of dresses for her, and were going to do her hair and makeup as well. He knew he was going to have to go out there in a second and see her all dolled up.
She was going to look gorgeous. There was no way around it. She was the most physically stunning woman he’d ever seen in his life. He thought she looked gorgeous with a messy bun and too little sleep and sweatpants on. So there was no doubt that she was going to be a number one stunner all decked out for Hollywood.
It wouldn’t matter, he reminded himself. His heart would flip, he’d struggle with wanting her, but it wouldn’t matter.
It was going to be confusing, because she was going to pretend to love him tonight. But in a few days, he’d have met his commitment here, he’d have chosen a new project to start working on, and they would help him choose his West Coast security team. He’d be getting on with his life and it wouldn’t matter just how gorgeous Geo looked tonight.
It was with that thought in his head that Moreau strode out of his room, straightening the cuffs of his shirt.
The first thing he saw was everyone but Geo. Every member of Rook Securities were stunting in tuxes. Black tie bodyguards. He couldn’t help but grin at them all. Hulking, hands in pockets, tugging at their bow ties, checking their gun belts around their waists.
“You clean up well,” he told the team and they turned to look at him.
Moreau looked around. Geo wasn’t there.
“Are we ready?” he asked. But what he really meant was where’s Geo?
Rook checked something on his phone. “Sequence, bring the car around. Atlas and Cedric help me with this thing over here.” Rook pointed to the corner of the room, where there was absolutely nothing. “Moreau, will you check and see if Geo is ready?”
Ah. Rook was sending everyone away so that Moreau wouldn’t make a public fool of himself the first time he saw Geo all dolled up. It must be obvious to all of them, how badly he wanted her and how hard he was fighting himself over it.
The men drifted away from one another and Moreau strode to Geo’s door. He knocked.
“Come in,” she called and he slipped through the door, closing it behind him before looking up.
She stood at the far side of the fancy hotel room, looking at herself in a full-length mirror. She leaned toward her reflection, drawing a line along the bottom of her full lip.
“Are we ready?” she asked, turning. But then she realized that it was Moreau in her room and not a member of the team and she faltered, stilling.
He let his eyes fall across her head to toe. She didn’t wear a dress, but a midnight blue jumpsuit, the same color as his tie. The top line, over her breasts, was curved and strapless, making it seem like her chest was the only thing keeping the clothing on her body. The jumpsuit tapered severely to cinch at her waist and then curved out to accommodate her ass. The pants were slim and hemmed perfectly above her ankles. She wore high, silver heels that strapped around her ankles and showed off a deep purple pedicure. Her hair was shiny and dark and swung loose over her shoulders, styled in a curving, old-fashioned way that nearly covered one eye. She wore little makeup. A deep color at her lip and a bit of highlighter on her cheekbones but not much else. There was no jewelry. She didn’t need it.
“Goddammit,” Moreau said hoarsely, turning away from her as if it were painful to look at her. He’d expected to see her looking gorgeous and like a movie star. He didn’t expect her to still look like her. The jumpsuit had thrown him for a loop. He’d thought seeing Geo in a dress would remind him just how fake this whole thing was.
But if it were real, if Geo really were his girlfriend and they were really going to walk the red carpet together, she wouldn’t choose a dress, she’d choose pants. And she’d look this stunning while doing it.
“You all right?” she asked, approaching him with one hand out.
“Fine,” he choked out.
“It’s okay that I’m not wearing a dress, right? She said that most of the women would wear dresses but that I wouldn’t look too out of place in this.” She frowned down at it and smoothed her hands over her stomach. “She actually sewed me into this thing.”
Moreau laughed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yes. This is how th
ey do it. So that nothing will… pop out in front of the cameras.”
Geo laughed and looked down at her own chest. “Yeah. That would be quite the first impression on the paparazzi.”
First impression? Moreau stilled. That was a funny way of wording that. “What do you mean, first impression?” He couldn’t help but ask.
Geo took a deep breath, her eyes flaring like she was readying herself for some sort of battle. “Moreau…”
She took another step toward him and now there wasn’t more than six inches between them. With her high heels she was only a few inches shorter than he was. She reached out for his hand, which had fallen limply to his side, took it between both of hers. Her eyes never left his.
Those dark eyes of hers wrecked him. They were the same color as her dress, he realized. A desperately deep blue. So dark they were almost black. He had dark eyes too, but his were brown if you really looked. Geo’s were blue if you really looked. It made it seem as if she’d been hiding a secret from the world this whole time and had finally, finally let Moreau in on it. Looking down at her, he’d never seen her look more vulnerable. Her big eyes, her fancy clothes, lipstick on her lips, and words on her tongue.
“I want you to know—”
She cut off at the sharp knock on the door behind them. “We have to go,” Rook called.
Geo nodded and her expression shuttered. All the softness and vulnerability was abruptly gone. She was back into her work mode.
Moreau watched the top of her head as she skirted past him and out into the living room where she was greeted with a chorus of whistles and jokes.
She was pretending tonight. He knew this. He knew it. He clung to it. But there’d been a moment there that he hadn’t been so sure. He desperately wanted to know what she’d been about to say.
He sighed, knowing that he might never know.
He followed his security team out to the private elevator and then into the private garage where Sequence sat in the driver’s seat of their SUV.
The security team piled into the car and then Moreau and finally Geo. He wished that they were traveling in a limousine. That there was a partition he could roll up to seclude him and Geo from the rest of the team. He’d been so sure she’d been about to say something very important.
She turned to him, reading his expression.
She pulled her phone from a trusty pocket in the side of her jumpsuit.
Everything is gonna be fine, Moreau.
He read the message from her and blacked his screen. He watched the city out the window for a moment and then opened up his phone again.
What were you going to say to me just now? Before Rook interrupted.
She read his message and followed the same procedure he had. She blackened her phone, put it in her pocket, staring only out the window. A moment later she pulled it back out and started typing again.
We can talk about it tonight. Back at your house.
He studied her profile. She looked… nervous. And Savannah Georgia never looked nervous.
The next hour passed in a blur of glimmering snapshots. They pulled up at the red carpet and then Moreau was out of the car, his security flanking him. He reached back into the car and with a practiced calm, he led Geo out of the car with her hand wrapped around in his.
For once, their body language was reversed. He was in front of her, facing down the threat, in this case, the cameras. He could feel her heat, halfway behind him, her breath at his neck when she couldn’t help but shrink away from the wall of glittering camera flashes. She was silent and strong at his side through interview after interview. He was elusive with his answers, smiling at the microphones shoved in his face, and willing up every bit of charm he’d ever cultivated in his life.
He couldn’t help but replay that moment in the bedroom over and over in his mind.
Her eyes were blue.
It echoed through him.
She looked up at him with vulnerability so uncharacteristic of her. She’d been about to say something to him.
What was it? What had she been about to say?
And there she was at his side, wearing a magnetic blue jumpsuit that made him want to fall into forever, into her. She looked like deep water, endless sky.
Gorgeous women in glittering jewels pulled him aside. Men in dark suit and smiles made of money shook his hand too hard. He didn’t introduce Geo to anyone. He kept her tucked into his side, one arm around her waist. He felt a thrumming energy where he touched her. As if she were made of electricity. He felt like a lion tamer, cracking his whip at the hungry hordes of paparazzi, but he couldn’t quite tell if he was pulling from Geo’s energy or feeding her his.
There was a loop of crackling something between them. He could feel her eyes on the people around them, positioning herself, silent and badass and protecting him the same way he was protecting her.
Cameras flashed every direction they turned, it was sheer muscle memory that had him walking them in the right direction.
When they made it past the gauntlet, and they were finally headed indoors, Moreau felt as if he were walking in slow motion, leaving the ravenous organism of the paparazzi in his wake. He didn’t unhand Geo. He kept an arm around her shoulders, his other hand laced with hers.
His adrenaline was going, pumping. He was viciously aware of her bare shoulders, her hair, the lustful look of every man who’d glanced her way. He was viciously aware of having guided her through that entire mess, of her eyes on the crowd, protecting him.
His blood slicked aggressively fast through his veins as they stepped into the large atrium that led into the theater. There was champagne on trays on perfectly trained hands. Each glass sparkled like the diamonds on the necks of every woman but Geo. He wanted to fall on his knees in front of her. He wanted to shove diamonds in his own mouth and tongue kiss her. He was losing it.
Moreau saw what he was looking for, a private restroom for only the most VIP of guests. He grabbed Geo’s hand and ducked sideways, tugging her inside.
“Just a moment,” he barked to Atlas and Cedric who looked surprised at the deviation.
He slammed the bathroom door in their faces and then there was just him and Geo locked away in a bathroom with a gilded sink and a window seat with silk cushions.
He didn’t waste time. Moreau grabbed her under her knees and lifted her, pressing her back against the expensive wall paper. Her legs gripped his waist as she gasped and he rested his forehead on the wall next to her ear.
“Did you bring more lipstick?”
“What?” she gasped, obviously shocked and as overcome as he was.
“If I mess up your makeup, can you fix it?”
She made a frustrated noise. “No.”
He kissed only her neck then. It was the only choice. He wasn’t going to subject Geo to the madhouse out there and then also subject her to speculation about what he’d done to her behind closed doors in a public place.
He kissed a ruthless path from her ear to her shoulder, lingering there.
“Moreau,” she groaned. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” he moaned, thrusting his hips up into the hot cradle between her legs.
Her lips trembled and there were stars in her eyes. She looked dazed.
“I want…” she cut herself off. “I want to go fast, Davy. I want hard. I don’t want the easy way. I want—”
She was asking him for sex again? They were really back here? He knew, without a doubt, that sex with Savannah Georgia was going to completely destroy him. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to say no to this. Not with her pressed against him and blinking into cameras on red carpets. Not with her nodding when people shouted at her, asking whether or not she was his girlfriend.
He’d run races before. Events to raise money for good causes. He was in shape, but there was always a moment where he wondered whether or not he could finish the race. Where everything was just conspiring to tell him to walk. To go slow. To finish easy. And then something took ov
er within him. Some hidden burst of energy took him by the chin and said Moreau, finish this the right way.
And that’s what happened there, in the bathroom, with Geo’s ass in his hands, their security on the other side of the door. He said to himself. Moreau, why would you ever leave anything on the table. Just sprint. Just finish it. Just tell her everything you want. Ask her one more time.
“Savannah,” he said, his voice just a breath against her lips. “If you were my girlfriend, I would pin you against this wall and utterly destroy you. We would forget our names. I would make you feel like a virgin who’d never truly known sex before me.”
“Yes, god, that’s what I want.”
“To be my girlfriend?”
Her newly blue eyes searched his. “Is that what it’s like? The glitter? The fame?”
He nodded. “It’s that, but forever.”
She gasped when he thrust his hips up into the cradle of her again. She tightened and arched. “I already told you I’d do it.”
“What?” he was kissing her neck again and losing track, losing the thread.
“When you shoved me into here. I told you I’d do it.”
He pulled back, confused and shocked. “What? What do you mean?”
“Moreau!” The door trembled on its hinges with assertive knocks. “Geo!”
“We have to go,” she whispered, her breath mixing with his. “I swear we’ll talk about this. I swear. But I’m on duty, Moreau.”
He recoiled from her and let her slither down his body until those shiny heels were flat against the terracotta tile of the bathroom floor.
She was on duty.
It had to wait. He had to wait.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
This whole thing was a shitshow. She had no idea how Moreau tolerated this mess. People were hungry. Way too hungry. Circling them like sharks. She could see the need for blood in their eyes.
The cameras were begging her to make a fool of herself, to propose to Moreau, to reveal herself to be a ladder-climber, a gold digger, anything for the drama. For the views. They were asking for her name, for her story, but they were really asking for a sex tape, a tell-all interview. They were really asking her to transform herself into a window that yielded a view into Moreau Davy’s inner world.
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