The Escape

by Alice Ward

  Her eyes widened, and she leaned forward to get a better look. “Oh, my god! Where?”

  I swatted her back. “Chill,” I shushed her, though I sounded anything but chill. “I don’t want him seeing me.”

  “Why not? You’re not Miss Mousy Mouse,” she said, tugging on my blonde ponytail, then bobbing her head back and forth to see him among the suits. He’d moved behind a pillar, where I’d lost track of him. I noticed there didn’t seem to be a trace of Bernadette or any other woman, which made me happy. This was just another boring business dinner, not a social thing. “You’re hot shit. He won’t recognize you like this.”

  I didn’t worry about him recognizing me as Violet. No, Kiera was right. Even though I worried ceaselessly about being recognized as Violet, I knew that the disguise was too good, and I looked nothing like her. But the only thing separating me from Cassandra was the tiny golden mask still tucked in my handbag.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell Kiera that. “I know, but—”

  Our dinners came, and I was forced to deal with the waiter while Cameron was being escorted to the private rooms in the back. He’d be in there for at least the next few hours, during which I could make my escape. I heaved a sigh of relief. That was a close one. Too close.

  We finished our dinners, ordered two more cocktails apiece, shared a piece of coconut cream pie, and I even managed to carry on some semblance of a normal conversation despite inwardly losing my shit. Was this what undercover agents had to go through all the time? Were they constantly worrying about getting tangled in the web of lies they wove or did it come naturally to them? Because this didn’t feel natural at all. In fact, it was exhausting. By the time the check came, I had the beginnings of a massive headache.

  But as much as I’d like to say my mind was consumed only with thoughts of the job, it wasn’t true. No, I’d managed to think of Cameron, sitting in the next room, about a thousand times. Who was he talking to? What was he eating? How did he like his steak? Was he discussing the fate of the state while thinking of me? And on and on.

  When we finished splitting the tab, we headed out to the lobby. The crowd had thinned, and only a couple of people were still waiting for tables. Kiera gave me a giant, warm hug, and said, “Where are you parked?”

  “On Sansom and Sixteenth,” I told her, fishing in my Michael Kors purse for my keys.

  “Oh, me too!” She beamed at me. “Let’s walk together. But first, let me use the little girl’s room. It’s a long ride back to Radnor. I might not make it.”

  I nodded as she ran away. I stood by the hostess desk, holding on to my keys and my container of leftovers, as the door to the men’s room slipped open.

  And who should be standing there but Cameron.

  I couldn’t control my reaction. I gasped and quickly turned away, hoping he’d just go back to his meeting, but I could almost feel the heat of his gaze burning a hole into my back.

  He’s seen me.

  Not only that, but my quick movement pulled on the chain down below and the clamp pinched my clit.

  I was frozen in place, grasping my foil-wrapped container of leftovers, and pretending to be very interested in the photograph of the Philadelphia skyline at night that was on the wall while trying not to rub my thighs together.

  I felt the footsteps sweeping up to me. Him, in those expensive dress shoes that barely made a sound.

  I should’ve run. I should’ve pushed open the door and escaped. But that wasn’t possible where Cameron was concerned. Now, I only wanted to run to him.

  Before he said a word, I looked down and saw my Michael Kors purse. He’d seen that purse. I’d taken it to the club both times, and he’d taken it from my shoulder. I knew men weren’t interested in such things, but Cameron was observant, and a snob for things of status since he’d caught on to my imitation pearls right away. He wouldn’t let that slide.

  “Hello, there.”

  Holding my breath, I turned, ready to deny everything.

  He was standing so close to me, and that desire was in his eyes. It was enough to set me on fire. That desire had a way of making my insides completely fall apart. My hands tightened on my keys. I nearly dropped my leftovers. My knees buckled.

  My resolve broke.

  “Cassandra?” he said, his eyes fastened on mine. He didn’t appraise me, didn’t shift his glance to my body. His eyes stayed locked on my own. The connection was palpable.

  Dreamily, I opened my mouth to say yes, to confess, to be claimed as his.

  And then the women’s room door opened, and Kiera walked out. Her eyes widened at once. Here I was, talking to her father’s mortal enemy, ready to confess everything.

  I blinked into reality. What the hell was I doing? I shook my head slowly. “Excuse me?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You are Cassandra, are you not?”

  I managed a small, confused laugh. “No. I’m sorry.”

  Kiera barreled in, all guns blazing. She laced an arm through mine and said, “I’m sorry. She doesn’t talk to douches,” and led me out into the night.

  As the door swung closed, we stood on the sidewalk in the humid late spring air. I just stood there, breathing hard. That hadn’t really happened, had it? Kiera pumped her fist in victory. “Did you see his face?” she asked excitedly. “I can’t believe I just called him a douche to his face!”

  She was so proud of herself, I didn’t know if she saw the small breakdown I was having. “Do you think…” I couldn’t process what this meant. It was all so confusing, but it felt like my house of cards had just faced a stiff wind. “Do you think he recognized you?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What? Why?”

  “As Owen Blakely’s daughter.” I swallowed. All blood had drained from my face, and I was suddenly freezing, despite the warm night. “If he knows I know you, and puts the pieces together—”

  That I am Cassandra and also know his sworn enemy’s daughter...

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said before I could have a heart attack on the sidewalk. “You know how Daddy likes to keep me out of the spotlight.”

  “Right,” I said, still not sure.

  “What was with him, though?” she wondered. “Why did he call you Cassandra? I thought you said your name was Violet.”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  She shook her head, her nose wrinkling in clear distaste. “Just like a douche like him. He probably has so many girlfriends he can’t keep any of them straight. I bet he treats them like garbage.”

  “Yes. Probably.” I sucked in a breath of air, still trying to quell the goose bumps. It wasn’t so much seeing him there that had made my skin flare. It was the way he’d looked at me. So much desire, mirroring my own. If I’d revealed myself as Cassandra, I doubted we could’ve lasted ten minutes without getting into it. He’d have had to pull me into a nearby dark alley, and I would’ve welcomed it, welcomed his hands on my body, any way I could get them. The thought made additional goosebumps appear.

  She hugged me again once we got across the street to the parking garage. “Take care, Cassandra,” she said with a teasing lilt.

  I stiffened at the thought of all these worlds crashing together.

  I didn’t go home right away. No, I waited another hour for him to leave the restaurant. I only saw him for five minutes of time, while he shook hands with the other men and stepped into his limousine. But as I was driving home, as much as I knew I was in trouble, falling too deep to ever recover, I felt like somehow it was worth it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Cameron

  “I agree,” I said halfheartedly. “It makes perfect sense.”

  The woman in front of me could have been asking for me to parade around Independence Hall in the nude and I wouldn’t have cared. A journalist for Philadelphia Woman magazine, she’d been calling me for an interview for months. At first, I’d been apprehensive, as I didn’t have the greatest record on women’s issues. But I’d relaxed the moment I saw her. She was middle-ag
ed, perhaps late forties, but doing her best not to look it. Her white-blonde hair was teased atop her head, her makeup thick in the creases of her forehead, and she smelled like a perfume factory. She looked, in a word, flammable.

  But the reason I relaxed was because she chattered like an old grandmother, singsonging everything she said. She’d spent five minutes digging in the bottom of her oversized purse for a pen until I’d finally lent her one. Then, blushing, she told me that she didn’t do interviews very often, and she hoped she didn’t “screw this one up too bad.”

  “You don’t say,” I’d said, barely looking at her.

  She sat at the very edge of the chair in front of my desk and smiled as she wrote something down in her notebook. When she’d pitched the story, she’d done it under the guise of “letting the female population of the city know about the man behind the three-piece suit.” She’d said that most of her readership was curious and that to them, I was somewhat of a sex symbol — a la JFK. I knew when I was being buttered up, so I relented once I had the time on my schedule.

  We’d started out talking about my favorite Philadelphia restaurant, Butcher and Singer, then moved on to my favorite libation, Macallan 25 or a dry martini. I figured there’d be a few more mindless questions, like my favorite color and my favorite ice-cream flavor, and I could look forward to a fluffy little write-up, far from Pulitzer-worthy, a few months from now. “So, you don’t mind?”

  I smiled at her, thinking of Cassandra. It had been two days, but those two days had only solidified something in my mind: It was her, at the Grille. She’d been standing right in front of me, close enough to touch, to take. Mask off, her face was even more gorgeous than I’d imagined. Her features were sculptured and poetic like a fine Italianate sculpture, her eyes even bigger and bluer than I’d expected. I’d gotten a raging hard-on the second I’d seen her standing there, as if my body had recognized her even before my mind had.

  And she’d denied.

  “Of course not,” I said, nodding dumbly at the woman as she continued to scribble. “You go right ahead.”

  Well, of course Cassandra had denied. But there was no doubt she’d recognized me. I could see it from the way her eyes widened with recognition, the way her pale cheeks had pinked. She’d been with her friend, and she wasn’t Cassandra to her friend. No, she might have been a good girl with an admittedly dull life, perhaps a kindergarten teacher or a nurse, and like me, she’d wanted to escape it. Maybe she still lived with her parents, or a dozen cats, or a boyfriend who didn’t give her the attention she needed. Obviously, Cassandra’s little friend had no idea what kind of double life she led. I could only imagine what she would say if she’d seen Cassandra wearing clamps on her tits and clit, bouncing with abandon on my cock in an upstairs room of a sex club only a few days earlier.

  Cassandra.

  God, fuck. Cassandra. Gorgeous, wild Cassandra, who I’d be seeing at midnight. Yes, as placid as her normal life had been, she’d gotten the bug, like me. Now, she couldn’t keep away. I’d been counting down the moments. I lifted my jacket sleeve and checked my Rolex. Now, it was down to less than four hours, and I could practically taste her.

  But when I saw her at the Grille, I’d realized something. It had nothing to do with the moans of ecstasy echoing through the halls, or the smell of sex. Nothing to do with the abundant sex toys and condoms and lube. Nothing to do with the clamps or vibrators. It turned out, all of those tools that were needed to get that rise before Cassandra seemed worse than cheap. Worse than unnecessary. Almost… an annoying distraction.

  I just wanted her.

  Naked, and on me.

  One more time.

  Though even then, I didn’t think I could stop with just one more time. I’d already constructed a plan of what we’d do together tonight, and in the past few days, it’d solidified. No more masks. Nothing between us. I’d let her choose how she wanted to be fucked, and I’d do it again and again until I’d gotten my fill of her. I’d stay there with her until I’d fucked her right out of my head.

  Then, maybe I’d be able to put this obsession — and yes, with the number of times I’d thought about her, it had crossed the line into obsession — behind me. Then maybe I’d be able to do what was expected of me. Propose to damn Bernadette or someone equally well qualified in the role as my wife.

  The woman across the desk was staring at me like I had snails oozing out of my ears. “I can quote you on that?”

  Annoyed by the thought of my family obligations, I frowned at the woman. Had I given the wrong answer to my favorite television sitcom? “I’m sorry. What are we talking about now?”

  She crossed her arms, and that mild, grandmotherly smile slid right off her face. “That you’re pro-life with absolutely no exceptions?”

  I straightened. How had we ventured straight into this topic, the double-edged sword from hell? Five minutes earlier, we’d been discussing the relatively warm weather we’d been having for May.

  “Because there are only two options on the table, I intend to vote along pro-life lines, ma’am,” I said, still tenting my fingers.

  She frowned at me. I could just see the vote of the entire readership of Philadelphia Woman magazine frittering through my fingers.

  “Look,” I said, reaching over, and arranging the paperweight on my desk. “I know what you may think. But I am for women’s rights.”

  She almost snorted in disbelief. “How?”

  I cleared my throat. “Because women are humans, and I’m for the rights of all humans, actually. Who is it for me to decide when a life becomes important? Conception? Birth? When a person is old enough to vote? In my opinion, all life is precious, and you can’t possibly be in favor of abortion in any form if you do not take into account the rights of the unborn child. If I vote anything other than pro-life, I’m not doing all I can to protect the lives of the children. There’s a reason children are so often abused, neglected, maltreated, and why criminals commute lesser sentences for killing a child. Maybe it’s because we don’t value life enough from the very beginning.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “But what about women’s rights?”

  “Thus, the reason why sometimes you need to just follow your heart with these things,” I explained. “You cannot say my voting pro-life means I hate women, anymore than you can say voting pro-choice means my opponent hates children.”

  She scribbled something down in her notebook. “And what do you have to say to those people who’ve alleged you’re accepting illegal donations?”

  I blinked. The woman had clearly done her homework. I shrugged. “I have nothing to hide. I run my campaign openly. There are no secrets here.”

  She snorted. “There certainly were secrets in your father’s office as vice president.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, tenting my fingers again. “But I’m not my father.”

  “Well, let’s hope not. Thank you,” she said curtly. I couldn’t believe it. The woman was a ringer, like fucking Columbo. She came off as friendly and dumb, waiting until her victims put their guard down, and then she pounced. All of her sweetness had gone right out the window. She stood up, maybe to go retrieve it.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said half-heartedly, but she’d slammed the door to my office before the words were fully out.

  When I was alone again, I exhaled. Then I breathed in and out, wiping my tired face, the rough stubble on my cheeks, trying to figure out how I’d allowed myself to be cornered. That woman would undoubtedly run a slam piece, insulting everything from my policies to my necktie, and my father would likely be furious. He’d always told me to stay away from the media, and only go with “safe” choices on the “approved” list. Philadelphia Woman hadn’t been on the approved list, but they’d seemed so small, so harmless.

  I cursed myself, thinking of what my father would probably tell me. They all come across as harmless until they’ve got you by the balls.

  I finished slogging through the rest of the day,
then went back to my house to shower and shave. Despite the fact that I’d soon be bathing in the sweat and stench of the closely packed bodies at the club, I felt like I was going on a first date with a debutante. I selected my suit and dressed carefully, and by the time George arrived to pick me up, I was as excited as a kid in a candy store. Packing my Guy Fawkes mask in the oversized inside pocket of my jacket, I sipped my Macallan and drummed my fingers on the armrest as I watched the lights of Philadelphia disappear behind me.

  “Same place as before?” George asked when we’d cleared the bridge.

  “Yes please,” I said, noting his expression in the rearview mirror never changed. He had to have known I was up to no good in a rundown neighborhood like this, but he never asked questions. He simply pulled to the corner by the drugstore.

  “Have a good night,” he said to me as I opened the door.

  I plan to, I thought as I jogged across the street toward the club.

  Both times, I’d met Cassandra in a rose-colored room at the left of the doorway. It was filled with hi-hat tables and a large bar made of tufted black leather. Like all the other rooms, it was hazy and dark. By the time I arrived, the festivities were well under way. A naked woman was lying on the bar, wriggling as a man squirted hot oil over her.

  That may have gotten me aroused before. But right now, my cock was trained on the sight of one woman only.

  It jumped when I spotted her a moment later, standing in the doorway. She looked phenomenal, wearing a tight white sweater and a plaid schoolgirl skirt that bared her long legs. When I met her here the first time, she’d been nervous, uptight. Now was an entirely new woman, loose, wild, and incredibly sexy. Her pin-straight blonde hair was loose and falling in her face as she laughed, and she carelessly tossed it back over her shoulder as she demurely sipped her soda.

  I frowned when I saw who she was laughing with.

  A short, wiry prick in a tight white t-shirt and jeans with a Joker mask. From the way he was leaning toward her, touching her bare shoulder, he was clearly into her — what sane human wouldn’t be?