Not anymore.
It’s on the tail edge of that thought that I see movement beside him. There’s someone with him. A woman.
A very beautiful woman.
Who looks scared shitless for some reason. What am I thinking? She’s with Bryce. Of course she’s scared.
“And this is?” I ask Bryce, but don’t look away from her.
Her eyes widen in surprise and when she swallows hard, I can see her fluttering pulse.
Bryce always surrounded himself with beautiful girls, but this one seems different. She’s not throwing herself at him. She doesn’t seem dazzled by his looks and charm. In fact, she looks like she doesn’t want to be here at all. Smart girl.
So why is she?
Bryce’s arm slips around her waist. “This lovely creature is my new personal assistant, Miss Calliope Cruise. Isn’t she just a vision?” Bryce pulls back and stares at her with a look of pure adoration on his face.
I narrow my eyes.
Meanwhile the woman just looks confused for a moment but then she pastes on a smile. This is obviously some sort of show. I can only guess that I’m meant to be the audience?
Why? What the hell kind of game is Bryce trying to run on me this time? And why after all these years? Does he know I’ve been investigating him, is that it? I hired the best of the best and they’ve assured me he’s not onto them.
“Not only that,” Bryce turns back to me, “but Callie’s pursuing a degree in advanced robotics from Stanford.”
Callie seems to struggle to catch up to the program until her whole body jerks with surprise. A quick glance shows Bryce’s hand rising from her backside. Did he really just slap her ass?
But like a good little puppet, she starts gushing on command: “And I can’t thank Mr. Gentry enough for giving me the real-world experience of working at such an amazing company. I’m learning so many things by getting to see the inner workings of how he develops and grooms new ideas through each stage of production.”
“Ah, yes,” I respond, not bothering to hide my cynicism. “Bryce always was good at taking other people’s ideas and pretending they were his own.”
I don’t miss the tick in Bryce’s jaw at the jab.
“Why don’t we sit so we can enjoy this delicious lunch I took the liberty of ordering for us?” Bryce holds out his arms to indicate the table.
I stare at him. I want so badly to punch him in his smug face and then get the fuck out of here. But then I glance back at the woman. How is she twisted up in this? I’m not sure I’d feel right just leaving her here with him. Sure, she’s still got a pasted-on smile, but I didn’t miss the way she flinched when Bryce pinched or slapped her butt earlier.
Bryce destroys everything he touches. This woman, whoever she is, still has plenty of life left in her eyes. He hasn’t broken her yet.
Yet.
Goddammit.
I don’t play games. It’s not my style, it never was. It’s why I couldn’t see what Bryce was until it was too late.
Time to get what information I can and then get the hell out of here.
This woman isn’t my problem.
“Drop the shit, Bryce. You said over the phone you’re finally willing to discuss negotiation on the CQ-9 patent. You’ve never had any use for it and have held it all these years just to spite me. So why on earth would you change your mind now?”
Bryce sits and again waves to the chairs at the table. I note Callie glancing toward the door one last time, like she too is thinking about bolting.
Would it make it better or worse if I told her to run and never look back?
She takes a deep breath and then sits down at the table.
Double goddammit.
I take my seat as well.
“What if I told you I wanted to let bygones be bygones and allow the past to stay where it belongs?” Bryce says. “In the past.”
I stare at him like he’s fucking insane. “I’d say I know you better than that.”
Bryce laughs, a big bellowing laugh from his stomach. He shakes his finger at me. “See? Now that’s the kind of honesty I miss! Everyone around me these days just tells me what I want to hear. Yes men. Yes, Mr. Gentry,” he mocks in an obsequious voice, “of course, Mr. Gentry, whatever you please.” He shakes his head. “Fucking ludicrous.”
Bryce sits up in his chair, the humor replaced by earnestness. “I miss you, Jackson. I miss the machines we used to build, the concepts we dreamed up when we put these two brains together.” He gestures back and forth between our heads.
This bastard is setting my teeth on edge. I scoff and again have to fight the impulse to get up and leave because I can’t stand a second more of this bullshit when he hurries to continue. “Have lunch with us. Listen to what I have to say. No matter what, you walk out of here with your father’s patent. Give me an hour of your time.”
I breathe out and try to hold my temper. Is this just more bullshit? Would he actually give up Dad’s patent? What’s the catch? There’s always a catch with him. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Bryce holds up his hands. “I’m a different man from the boy you used to know. Get to know the new me.”
I roll my neck to try to loosen the stiffness. It’s a lost cause. I look around. The private room we’re in is large, but still too damn small. I hate to breathe the same air as him.
Callie takes a sip of her water in the silence. Her arm is long and elegant as she sets the glass down. Her tongue peeks out to catch a drop of water on her lip. Then her cheeks redden as if she feels my gaze on her.
Who is this woman? Where did she come from? Who is she to Bryce?
“So, Jackson,” Bryce asks, “how’re things with you? How’s the company? And Miranda?” His voice is cajoling, like one might sound when ribbing a friend. “Still enjoying fucking my former fiancée?”
My fists tighten underneath the table. Callie chokes on her water and the waitress opens the door, appetizers in hand.
Yes, this is much more the Bryce I remember. My hands relax as I look placidly at my nemesis. I can feel Callie’s gaze ping-ponging between the two of us.
She’s the only unknown entity at the table. Probably precisely why Bryce brought her. He always did like keeping his opponents off kilter.
The waitress sets down a basket of buttered garlic bread and other appetizers. If she notices the tension in the room, she doesn’t show it.
Callie, on the other hand, fidgets and gestures toward the platter. “Appetizer anyone?”
I finally shift my eyes toward her fully.
She really is startlingly pretty. Beautiful even. Large eyes. Lush lips. Big breasts that are impossible to miss. She manages to pull off innocent and seductive at the same time. Like she doesn’t quite realize her allure.
Maybe it’s all an act.
Maybe Bryce found someone equally as manipulative as he is to bring along for whatever charade this is.
Then again, it’s far more like him to surround himself with people he can use. Not fellow masters of his art.
Her cheeks pinken again under my long perusal.
“Of course.” I finally say and begin to load one of the small plates with appetizers. Crab cakes and antipasti.
I’ve let my attention be distracted by the beautiful woman sitting to my right for too long. Maybe that alone is why Bryce brought her along. Like a magician, I’ll be distracted by the lovely assistant and not be thinking clearly enough to recognize his machinations for what they are?
I’d hope I’m old enough not to be that sidetracked by a pretty face.
I pick up the conversation again and make bullshit small talk about my company for a minute. The barest minimum for civility’s sake. More than Bryce deserves. “As for Miranda…” Ah, Miranda. I allow a smile. We were a good thing while we lasted. But that ran its course long ago. “I thought you’d heard through the grapevine that we’ve tired of each other.”
There’s just the slightest tick in Bryce’s coolly-al
oof expression. It’s gratifying, I can’t lie.
Bryce smirks. “Couldn’t keep the faithless bitch in line either, huh?”
I feel Callie stiffen beside me and if I were willing to give Bryce anything, my body would be tensing similarly.
Miranda and I met because the tech world runs in small circles. She’s in hardware. It’s only by very strategic and intentional preparation by my personal assistant that I haven’t seen Bryce face to face before today. Everyone knows I refuse to be in the same room as him or attend the same parties or events. Miranda had naturally heard the gossip and sought me out because of it, about a year after she and Bryce split. She told me stories that curled my stomach. While never out and out abusive, from the way she told it, Bryce was a cruel lover. I needed no convincing to know it was true.
She was the one who introduced me to club life, actually. She’d gotten addicted to the pain, you see. Bryce was the one who’d taught her to crave it.
True Doms at the club helped her see there could be control in submission. Sanity. It was a gift she imparted to me at a time when I sorely lacking it. Even though Miranda and I eventually parted, I’ll owe her forever for that.
And to hear Bryce now speak so disrespectfully of her… it’s difficult, but I keep my tone neutral. “Our parting was by mutual agreement after we both enjoyed ourselves, that was all. Maybe if you’d known how to treat a lady, she wouldn’t have gone seeking fulfillment elsewhere.”
Bryce laughs amiably. He can come off charismatic and personable when he wants to. If you look at him straight on, you’d see nothing of the sociopath lying underneath. I’ve learned to recognize it—just barely, that slight shimmer his eyes. That edge and manic shine that first came out when the policemen’s backs were turned as they dragged me out of my dorm room in handcuffs all those years ago. The sly satisfaction of destroying a life.
Callie doesn’t see it.
She relaxes and reaches for a crab cake.
And then all of the sudden her body stiffens again and her eyes shoot to the tablecloth. Where Bryce’s hand has also disappeared underneath the fabric’s edge.
Her eyes jerk back to her plate and Bryce’s arm moves in her direction.
It’s so obvious what he’s doing but my head still wants to deny it.
Not even Bryce would—
He’s not really going to—
“Well,” Bryce says amiably, “good for you and Miranda. I’m glad you both became so enlightened. And yes, I have seen that CubeThink’s stock was on the rise lately. In fact, that’s why I wanted to ask you for this meeting. In the past, we’ve had such… How shall I put it—” Bryce pauses, and Callie squirms in her chair as Bryce’s hand moves ever so slightly.
“—fruitful collaborations,” he finishes with a smile.
He is. The fucker is fingering her right in front of me.
And her? Is she being forced or is she into this kind of thing?
God knows I’ve seen all kinds of kinks play out at the club and I’m not one to judge. But what the fuck? What’s going on here?
“Collaborations?” I echo.
I look at Callie. Her eyes are wide and stunned when she glances up and sees me watching her. I glance back at Bryce. “Is that what we’re calling it when you steal things that are mine and then market them as your own? But then, you always did like putting your mark on things.”
I look back down at his forearm, the muscles flexing rhythmically underneath his suitcoat. Whereas Callie’s cheeks were flush before, all the blood seems to drain out of them as her eyes flick toward me and then down at her plate where she determinately stares at her food.
No, not stares. Glares.
She looks furious.
And in the next second, her mouth drops open just the tiniest bit. Her fingers clench around her fork.
I have no idea what she thinks about what Bryce is doing to her—if she wanted it or not, if this was some sick game they prearranged—but she’s certainly getting off on it now.
She swallows hard and blinks her eyes, but it’s like she has a hard time focusing.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a look of such raw, lost, pleasure on a woman’s face.
I date, sure, but when I’m out socially, it seems impossible for women to forget who I am. How much money I have.
And at the club, most of the submissives are, well…too submissive. I’m not looking for a total power exchange. God, that’s too much responsibility. I have enough of that at work.
I just want a place to exercise my needs and then leave it behind. But every time I play with a submissive it’s like they’re performing, trying out for the role of permanent slave. It never feels truly authentic.
It’s the same with women I date, except they want the part of Mrs. Vale.
No thank you.
But this woman I’ve just met, I suspect without meaning to, is giving me a glimpse into her most vulnerable self—the one we usually keep hidden away, tucked under the covers in the dark.
When the waitress pushes open the door holding a huge tray of food, Callie’s eyes flash up in relief. Like it will mean some kind of reprieve.
Which confuses me all the more.
Does she want Bryce to stop?
Because God knows I’ll rip the fucker’s hand off if she gives the slightest indication that—
But her mouth only drops open again before she shuts it and then bites on her bottom lip, her large bosom arching ever so slightly forward against the table.
Godfuckingdammit.
My cock hardens in my pants.
This gorgeous woman is coming apart not a foot and a half away from me. I’d have to be made of steel not to respond to her.
But then I look over at the puppeteer behind this whole shit show. He smiles at the waitress like nothing at all is the matter and I feel hatred swell red hot inside my chest.
Is this what he brought me here for?
To mock me with this… this, this, live porn show? Why after a decade call me up just for this? What the hell is this supposed to be?
The waitress moves the appetizers out of the way and sets down the main course, pasta with a white sauce, mushrooms, what look like scallops, other herbs and a fancy garnish in the middle.
“Would you like some fresh mozzarella?” the waitress asks, holding a shredder and a block of cheese over Callie’s pasta.
Callie’s mouth opens and closes as her eyes dance back and forth between me and the waitress.
“Um, I— I—” she stutters, squirming in her chair like she’s trying to get away from Bryce’s hand. He slides a little awkwardly to the side, making it more than obvious to me and the waitress what he’s doing. The waitress takes a step back from the table after glancing down and clearly noting what’s happening.
“No,” Callie chokes out and then her back stiffens like she was just jolted through with pleasure. “I’m good.” The last words come out as a high-pitched squeak. Little beads of sweat dot her brow.
Bryce starts talking some bullshit about the robotics industry in Silicon Valley as he rolls pasta on his fork. Somehow he manages it one handed. He eats lazily, like his other hand isn’t so obviously occupied. I barely listen. I’m too focused on Callie, though I only look directly at her every so often.
Because what if this isn’t about me at all? Oh, I’ve no doubt Bryce wanted to fuck with me. But I get the feeling that this is also about screwing with Callie’s head more than mine.
She looks alternately freaked out, turned on, humiliated, and completely bowled over by pleasure.
In other words, she doesn’t look like she knows what the hell is going on either.
Bryce’s playing her too.
He’s running another one of his games.
And I of all people know just how far his cruelty can go. Just how damaging the fallout can be.
What the hell is going to happen to this woman?
So gorgeous, fresh and young and vulnerable.
Bryce’
s going to eat her alive.
She picks at her food, then takes a long drink of water. I’m watching only from my periphery, but I note every movement. So I see when she glances nervously over at me.
Our eyes lock for a moment, then she looks quickly away.
What does she think of me?
I probably didn’t make a good first impression. Large and dour and imposing. Bryce is the charming one. I feel my mouth settle in a tight line.
Which no doubt makes me only look more approachable. Dumb ass. But it’s not as if the situation calls for smiling.
Callie’s breath gets shallow again and she takes another swallow of water.
Maybe I’m reading into things that aren’t there and this is all perfectly normal between her and Bryce.
She’s obviously into this enough to be getting off. She wriggles in her chair again and looks briefly toward the ceiling. Praying?
“That’s not the way I remember it, you know,” Bryce’s voice interrupts my thoughts, his tone changing on a dime from polite bullshit to cutting.
I look over at him, my attention diverted from Callie for the first time in fifteen minutes of him droning on while we all ate. “The way I remember it,” he continues, “we were best when we shared things.” He arches an eyebrow and it seems like there’s some innuendo to his words.
To my side, Callie readjusts herself in her chair, licks her lips, and swallows hard. I want to stare at her.
Actually, I want to yank her away from Bryce, ask her what the hell she’s doing with him in the first place, bend her over my lap and after I’ve turned her ass pink, order her to finish herself off while I watch. That’s what I really want to fucking do.
Instead, internally, I make myself winter.
Snow. Ice. Freeze. Nothingness. Bryce seems like he might finally be getting down to the point for this whole charade. Let’s see where all this has been leading up to.
I scoff, picking up the bait he’s laid down. “And yet when we supposedly shared, you were the one who always came off with all the,” I narrow my eyes, “prizes in the end.”
“I want to collaborate with you again,” Bryce says. “I’m developing a new drone that I’d like you to take a look at. I’ll have legal draw up papers so everything’s clear up front. Any patents developed would have clear fifty-fifty ownership. But out of it could come knowledge and business relationships that would benefit both of us in the long term.”
Cut So Deep: Break So Soft Duet Page 30