by Geneva Lee
“I’ll always find you,” I vow before covering her sex with my mouth. I continue my assault with long, slow strokes and nips to her clit until her legs begin to shake. She unspools on my tongue, flooding my tongue with the sweet taste of her arousal. I devour her until her mutinous thighs clamp tightly around my head.
I push to my feet, finding her eyes bright, despite her shaky limbs. I grab her shirt—my shirt—and pull her to me. There’s no resistance as I lift her and carry her up the stairs. We make it to the top before I can’t wait a moment longer. Pressing her against the wall, I kiss her slowly, grinding against the cradle of her hips. The arms coiled around my neck tighten with each teasing circle.
“Pants,” she gasps out the one-word command.
I brace her carefully and reach to unfasten the jeans I’ve thrown on. She shoves at them with the heel of her feet. They fall to the floor, and I step out of them with deliberation as she unwraps one hand from my neck. It finds my cock, stroking it until I take over and angle it at her entrance. I nudge inside her, but Clara pushes her hips so impatiently, I nearly lose my hold on her. Smashing her against the wall, I sheath myself in her fully. She meets every thrust, taking me deeper and harder with each one.
“It will always be like this,” I murmur, burying my face against her neck. Her cunt clamps down hard like she’s locking away this promise, and I spill inside her. Then I carry her to bed to make more promises.
Cold realization wakes me. The bed is empty. No note. Warm sheets. I strain, hoping to hear her in the bathroom, but somehow knowing I won’t. A million memories flood through me but only two words.
“One night.”
I’d been too stupid to hear them clearly yesterday, too blinded by the words I couldn’t bring myself to say, to translate what she was really saying then:
Goodbye.
I’m out of bed in one bound, grabbing a pair of jeans I’d left on the stairwell as we made our way up from the kitchen after midnight. I push against the memory, not wanting to stain the happiness I’d felt then with the truth I face now. I’d been foolish enough to think her smiles and laughter, her breathy moans and kisses, meant more than farewell.
Had she even felt what I was trying to show her, or was she too busy saying goodbye?
The kitchen is across from the stairs, and as I move down them, I see a pad of paper resting on the counter—and her key. I nearly collapse.
One night.
Why did I think it would be enough?
Before I crash down the last few steps, I regain my footing and make it safely to the hall. Clara stands at the door, dressed with her back to me. I refuse to feel the hope that tries to spark inside me. Instead, I set my shoulders and drop the jeans still in my hand.
“This is it?” I ask.
She whirls around me, her eyes widening slightly to find me there. They rake down me. Naked. Vulnerable. An offering like the one she made yesterday. One I’d taken.
She hesitates, and I let myself believe she’d take my offer, too. Until she lifts her hand in warning. “I’m sorry.”
No.
No.
No.
The word screams in my head, but I lock it up.
“Clara.” Her name tastes bitter on my lips and sweet. It’s possibility. It’s plea. I fill my next with all the words I can’t say and pray she hears them. “Please.”
Her eyes close, and an eternity passes before she delivers the final blow. “I can’t be your secret.”
Gone. It’s the only word that processes as she steps out the door and runs, just like I told her to do in the beginning. It’s such a small word for the crushing weight of nothing it carries. It’s different than the country somehow. There’s a finality that threatens to drag me into that nothing and imprison me.
And then my eyes spot a single red rose, dropped on the stoop yesterday, still in bloom despite abandonment. An omen. A sign. I grab the jeans and pull them on as I race toward the door after her. This isn’t over. It never will be. We never will be.
Because even in the darkness, I can see her. I only see her—and I always will.
New to the Royals? Alexander and Clara’s story continues in Conquer Me.
But don’t miss Command Me, book one told through Clara’s eyes.
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And now a sneak peek of Blacklist the first in a captivating new series where enemies become lovers, and lovers become rivals…
Rain splatters the succession of black Mercedes-Benzes and Bentleys arriving at the cemetery. Everyone in attendance pulled their most somber sedans out of the garage this morning. There are no flashy red coupes or ostentatious sport utility vehicles today. Rich people know how to put on a show, and today is all about show. But despite the dark clothes and the umbrellas, not a single tear rolls down a single face as attendees climb out of their cars and make their way toward his grave site. The rain cares more than anyone present, myself included.
A woman stumbles, her heel catching in the mud, and my arm shoots out to break her fall. She glances up, murmuring thanks. Everything is gray around us—the sky, the rain, the headstones. Even her copper hair looks almost silver in the clouded light. The world is a hundred muted shades of nothing, except her eyes. They are bright glittering emeralds against the day’s gloom. Even after five years, I’d know them anywhere. A lot has changed. I’ve changed. Maybe she has, too. But those eyes are the same.
Nothing registers on her face as she turns to accept the hand of her companion. He leads her to the front of the crowd, where she belongs. With them.
I skipped the service and the viewing. I’m not here to pay my respects. I came to see him put in the ground. I came to smell the dirt as it hits his coffin and seals the fate of the MacLaine family. Business can be attended to later. I want the pleasure of watching a man fade to nothing but a legacy—a legacy I intend to destroy. But that’s not the real reason I’m here. It’s a perk that I made it back to town in time for the funeral.
A priest says a few words. The rain continues to fall. When the ceremonial dirt hits the coffin, I’m watching the redhead. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t look away. I guess she didn’t change after all.
Adair MacLaine.
The only woman I’ve ever loved.
That bitch? She’s the real reason I came back
An hour later, I pull into the paved, circular drive of Windfall, the MacLaine family estate, and hand the keys of my Aston Martin to a parking attendant. Judging by the slight bulge protruding from the left side of his cheap blazer, he’s doubling as security. He scopes out the Vanquish appreciatively before his eyes skim over my Italian wool suit, pausing at the Breitling on my wrist and sweeping to the black Berlutis on my feet. Nodding toward the house, he steps to the side. It seems the only identification they’re checking is material status.
That’s a mistake.
Mourners are distracted. Some by grief. Some by a preoccupation with social responsibility. The MacLaines suffer from the latter.
People hosting a funeral have blind spots. Ever wanted to see inside someone’s house? A funeral is a perfect opportunity. Thieves, paparazzi, and assassins all know it’s an in. Need to get to a high value target? Kill someone close, but easier to reach, and wait for their funeral.
Not that I killed Angus MacLaine. Even though I would have liked to. I’m guessing I’m not the only one.
The former senator had no shortage of enemies. Some he’d made on his own. Others he had inherited along with the family newspaper empire. For every legitimate bit of journalism he had, he owned ten tabloids. His television networks ran more propaganda than an army recruitment office.
But it wasn’t his business practices that made me hate him—although they didn’t help his case. It’s that he was a soulless son of a bitch. Maybe he’d had a heart at some point, but he sold it for a fortune that amassed five billion dollars. Then he’d gone to Washington to protect it at all costs, like his father before him. That was then. This is now. And I’m the devil come to collect.
A smile crooks across my face as I survey the kingdom I’m about to take. The MacLaine estate sprawls as far as I can see in every direction. Thirty years ago, Angus MacLaine built it for a couple million dollars. Today it’s worth ten times that, and yesterday I bought the lien on it. I read once in an interview that he wanted his family home to recall the glory of the Old South without all the baggage of the past. I assume he meant slavery and the Civil War. It was just like a MacLaine to believe he could simply erase a problem. The architect had managed the feat, creating an estate that occupies fifty acres in Valmont, Tennessee—the most prestigious enclave outside Nashville. Stone columns rise from the veranda to support a second story porch that runs the length of the main house’s front. Unlike traditional antebellum homes, the house extends to wings on each side. The east wing houses the family bedrooms and private areas—places I was once not allowed to enter. The west wing is comprised of a solarium that empties into the grounds. Those are completely blocked by the behemoth white mansion, but I know it won’t have changed. Past the outdoor kitchen waits a swimming pool, tiled in Venetian glass. His and hers pool houses offer a much needed, if entirely bullshit, air of propriety. Then there’s the tennis court, and, if you walk far enough, stables that shelter the family horses.
I don’t give a fuck about the house, though. Or its tennis court. Or its swimming pool. I’m not here for the modern art coveted by collectors throughout the world. I’ll sell all of it, eventually. Just not yet. That’s the difference between reciprocity and revenge. Reciprocity evens the score. Revenge, when done correctly, is slow, like lovemaking. It lingers. It builds. It lacquers pain, coat by coat, until you crack.
I’m in the business of vengeance.
The inside of Windfall is more extravagant. MacLaine was unfamiliar with the concept of too much. Most American homes could be parked on the marble floor inside the foyer. The ground floor boasts all the standard rooms—the dining room, a sitting room, the kitchen—and then some: a ballroom, the staff kitchen, the breakfast room, a gentlemen’s parlor, and God knows what else. I stare for a moment at the split staircase that curves toward the upper rooms, remembering the first time I set foot in this hellhole. Adjusting my tie, I swallow the thought into the pit I use for past memories.
MacLaine would be pleased at the turnout, even if half the people here despised the bastard. People you’d recognize from Forbes magazine covers or television, if anyone still watches it, mill throughout the ground floor. It’s a sea of black, groups moving in surges from one empty conversation to the next as easily as they run through the canapés.
A man near the bar glances in my direction, his face blanching paper-white. I’ve been recognized. Not that he’ll tell anyone who I am. Then he’d have to admit that he knew me—that he knows what I do. I move past him without a second glance. He won’t be any trouble—and I have bigger prey to hunt.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” an older gentleman says when I pause in the dining room.
I know who he is, but I feign ignorance. He wouldn’t appreciate it if I told him we were acquainted. Not Mr. Moneybags who paid to have the barrier to his takeover of his largest competitor permanently removed last year. No, he wouldn’t want me to tell him that we’ve worked together distantly. Not in such a public gathering of self-proclaimed people of importance. Instead, I shake his hand, locking my grip firmly. Statement enough.
“Sterling.” I’m not listening when he introduces himself. My thoughts are elsewhere in this house, memories warring with desire as I wait for her to make an appearance.
“What do you do?” he asks.
“Asset management.” I snag toast with caviar off a passing tray and pop it into my mouth.
“What firm? My man is retiring…” he continues on and I resist the urge to walk away. Death can’t stop networking. Not with people like this.
“I’m a private contractor.”
He waits for more information—maybe a business card. I don’t offer any. So like a good member of the greatest generation he fills the void between us with mindless market chatter. I nod enough to look like I’m listening—and then I feel it—feel her—approaching. The room is electric, humming with the undercurrent of static building toward a strike—and the inevitable crash.
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About the Author
GENEVA LEE is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of over a dozen novels, including the Royals Saga which has sold two million copies worldwide. She lives in Washington state with her husband and three children, and she co-owns Away With Words Bookshop with her sister.
Geneva is married to her high school sweetheart. He's always the first person to read her books. Sometimes, he reads as she writes them. Last year, they were surprised by finding out Geneva was pregnant with their third child. They welcomed a beautiful baby girl in 2020.
When she isn't working or writing, Geneva likes to read, bake ridiculous cakes, and watch television. She loves to travel and is always anxious to go on a new adventure.