The Agreement (An Indecent Proposal)
Page 17
My mind began to reel at the possibility. Before I knew what came over me, I retraced my steps to the living room and stopped in the doorway. My gaze fell on the painting above the coffee table.
It wasn’t blue, per se.
However, the sky and the blue clothes of a pale woman were prevalent enough to catch my attention. Could it be it?
I dashed for it, for some reason afraid that Chase might catch me if I didn’t hurry, but there was no movement, no one to stop me.
I stopped right in front of it. Above the painting, the inscription read ‘The Sacrifice of Polyxena.’
But it wasn’t the painting or the title that persuaded me to pull open the drawer. I just had to know, even though I expected to find nothing.
The drawer was stuck halfway so I tugged harder, without much success.
I squeezed my arm inside to check the back, and my fingertips brushed something coarse.
The folder was there.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
A rush of excitement flooded me but stopped abruptly, replaced by guilt. I clapped my hand in front of the mouth, thinking.
What are you doing, Laurie?
Technically, we were married, but Chase and I hadn’t defined our relationship status just yet. Whatever Chase was doing was his business, and yet, somewhere, somehow deep down, I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of trouble he was in. Maybe I could help him. I shouldn’t have listened to the guy on the phone because now I was curious.
Shit.
I should never have picked up the phone in the first place.
Shouldn’t even have touched it.
But I did, and now what?
Guilt gnawed at me for wanting to find out everything about Chase.
I took a deep breath. “It’s not your business,” I repeated over and over again, like a mantra. “It’s not your business.”
It wasn’t.
It really wasn’t.
Of course, I’d never look.
“What kind of person would I be?” I grimaced and turned my back on the painting.
Exert self-control, Laurie. You can do it.
The trouble was I had the feeling that whatever that folder contained, Chase would probably not tell me, and I wasn’t the sort of person who could easily forget the call. Now that I had found the folder, I couldn’t move on without looking.
No one would ever hide something, unless they didn’t want you to stumble upon it.
I pulled out the brown folder.
It looked plain and harmless. Maybe it was a message from Clint.
My stepfather had been psycho enough to warn us. Maybe he had tried to scare Chase, and Chase being Chase didn’t want to worry me.
My fingers traced the contours of the coarse paper, fighting with my self. In the end I decided to peer inside.
You’d better be right about Clint—because anything else was a violation of Chase’s privacy.
My hands shook as I opened the folder, frowning ever so lightly when I noticed how heavy it was. The first thing that stood out was that most of the papers were stapled together, and how used they looked—as if someone had worked with them for a long time.
I read the sticky note attached to the first page where someone had written a message in hurried cursive:
Kade,
You said this was urgent. Have a look and tell me what you want me to do, then return this.
My brows knit in confusion.
Kade?
I knew no one by that name, and Chase had never mentioned him. Maybe someone dropped off the envelope by mistake because that Kade person wasn’t staying in our suite.
I should have pushed the papers back inside the folder and returned it to its place, but for some reason I didn’t.
After another peek behind me, I began flicking through the papers. There were thirty at least, and two photos of me. One was a headshot and the other seemed to have been taken through a window of a public place I recognized as the coffee shop around the block from where I sometimes grabbed a cup on my way out. Somewhere at the back of my mind alarm bells went off.
“What the hell,” I muttered staring at my own face.
I could feel the onset of panic and helplessness.
Was Clint harassing Chase?
That would be so much like him.
I began to read through the pages in the hope of finding a reasonable explanation.
When I reached the third page, my heart stopped in my chest, and cold sweat coated my back. It was a printout of a forwarded email application to LiveInvent Designs and the personal assistant’s invitation to come in for an interview with the exact time and date he’d expect me.
It was the day I got stuck in an elevator.
It was the day the floor collapsed; the day I met Mystery Guy.
Somewhere in the distant back of my mind, Chase’s voice echoed:
You don’t look okay. Do you want to take the stairs?
You’re hyperventilating, Laurie.
Breathe, Laurie. You need to breathe.
And just recently:
Being afraid of a lift or of darkness is just human.
A shaky breath escaped my trembling lips as realization slowly dawned on me.
I had never told Chase about my fear of darkness. I was pretty sure about that.
It was as if he somehow knew that I was afraid of all tight places, especially those devoid of light. His voice had seemed familiar, but I could never quite place it.
It was as if he had been inside that building with me, experiencing that dreadful day.
Maybe he had been.
For the past three months, I had been obsessed with him—the man who had saved my life. I had scanned newspapers, but found no clues, no missing person reports—nothing to indicate he had ever existed, or that he might be missed. It turned out I never had to look very far. Turned out he had been right beside me for a while.
Sure I had noticed some similarities, but with each passing day, the shock, the fear, the trauma, my memories became a blurry mess with just that one kiss vivid in my mind.
I had no idea what to make of the folder in my hands.
Could it still be a big, fat coincidence?
Are you for real?
Obviously, I could ask Chase if he was Mystery Guy but even if I wanted to, that wasn’t an option. Not when I sensed he’d be lying.
I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to calm the nausea rising in my stomach.
Something was wrong. Very wrong. I could feel it in my bones.
I knew that feeling. It was the same one I had felt before my mother’s mental breakdown.
That same dark energy was here, beckoning to me to get to the truth of the matter, while pushing me away at the same.
Don’t go there.
Keep on the blindfold.
Stay in the dark.
Opening my eyes, I took a deep breath and released it slowly when I noticed that one sheet of paper had slipped out. I lifted it off the floor and began to read. Even though it was only a four-line paragraph printout, my world stopped spinning.
Not interested in her life story. Just send over the details of her will and a copy of her bank statements as well as an estimate how much the estate’s worth.
Sincerely,
Kade Wright
My eyes stopped at the last two words.
Kade Wright.
Not Chase.
Kade.
What the fuck?
“Son of a bitch.”
The bottom of my stomach dropped, and I sank down to the floor in shock, my fingers gripping the folder so tightly I feared I might just tear it in half. A soft cry escaped my lips, and a tear rolled down my cheek, followed by another, and another, until they formed a steady stream. I wiped at them angrily, suddenly understanding why Chase once said:
Give me just one night so I can forget you.
He had never wanted to help me. Never intended to stay with me.
It had been a ploy.
It was all about Waterfront Shore.
He wanted my mother’s money.
When I entrusted Mystery Guy with my secrets, I assumed they’d be buried forever. Chase had seemed familiar right from the beginning, but it never occurred to me that he might be the guy from the elevator. Worse than that, Chase harbored secrets of his own.
He wasn’t just the keeper of my secrets; he was hiding his own from me. What I thought had been goodwill on his part didn’t sound so random after all.
Suddenly, my worst fears began to take shape and morph into one scary conclusion. I had been targeted. It had all been a carefully executed plan. Or maybe it all started harmless enough but as soon as he discovered who I was, he used all the information he had on me to stage a meeting. That had to be the case, because I couldn’t possibly imagine someone would be responsible for a whole floor crashing to get my trust. Only, I never considered the possibility that I might fall in love with him.
A soft sob escaped my throat.
The pain I felt in my heart was ripping. It went through every layer of my skin, tearing, splitting—burning everything in its wake.
It was all a lie, Laurie. The whole ‘I’m into you’ was.
And I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid as to sleep with him. That I had broken the one major promise I had made to myself and trusted him enough to open up my heart and body.
Damn Chase. Or whatever his name was.
Damn me for falling and trusting when my past should have taught me better than that.
And damn me for being so utterly, irrevocably stupid as to fall in love with a man like him.
The previous night had been the calm before the storm. Now the storm was raging, surging through me, cutting my heart like a knife and splitting it into two. If I could have ripped out my heart to make it stop bleeding, I would have taken the knife and plunged it deep into me.
Who was this guy?
Because Chase didn’t exist.
Did I ever really know him? Probably not, because it all boiled down to one fact: Chase’s name was Kade and this whole marriage thing was a big sham based on a false identity and probably lots of other lies. When I had agreed to marry him it didn’t say in the brochure that he was a lying bastard.
The suspicion had been there all along, growing in my heart the moment the seed of doubt was planted, but the knowledge didn’t make it hurt any less.
Whatever Chase’s reasons were, I had been deceived. Lied to.
And now I had to get away—from him, from it all, from everything—before he woke up.
I had to escape to some place where no one could find me; where no one would witness my shame at being so stupid.
Years ago I had promised myself I’d stop running, but running was the one thing that kept saving me.
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I stormed for my room, not even closing the door as I grabbed clean underwear, a pair of jeans and a shirt from the closet and changed into them, barely paying attention to the stunning wedding gown I had worn the day before.
The day I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
The day I had gifted my trust and body to the one guy who most certainly didn’t deserve it.
Another small cry escaped my lips as I closed my eyes, wishing for once that I had never taken that phone call. If I hadn’t found the folder, I would still be in my blissful state, and we’d have a good time.
Ignoring the rest of my stuff, I stashed my cell phone and passport into my handbag, ready to leave the country—far, far away from him.
Before I stepped out, I glanced back at the note I left on the table along with my wedding ring and the folder:
You’re a liar, Kade, and I hope you’ll rot in hell.
Somewhere behind me, a door opened. I knew it was Chase, his perfect half naked body emerging in search of me.
His voice carried over. “Laurie?”
With tears streaming down my face, I closed the door quietly, then started to run. I had probably never run faster in my life.
Meeting Chase had been too good to be true.
Chase had been nothing but wishful thinking.
It had been too easy, and I had been too naïve to see it.
Chase had been so unbelievably good in pretending. His concern for me had been touching that it was believably easy for me to fall for his lies. Now I was getting hit by the truth in the worst possible way and paying the price.
But I wasn’t going to let him shatter me; I wasn’t going to let anyone keep me from getting my mother’s letters. Not when I had worked so hard to get them.
“Where do you want to go?” the driver asked impatiently.
I stared at him in shock, unsure to do or say.
“To the airport, please,” I whispered eventually, wrapping my arms around my waist as I realized I didn’t even have a jacket.
Then I’d make sure to leave for a place where I wouldn’t need one.
Seven days.
That’s how long I’d have to stay married to him to get them—the one thing that meant the most to me.
He had hurt me, but I’d do whatever I could to move on. Fly away. If I got away real fast, real far, I had every hope, every faith that I could outrun both Chase Wright and the pain lodged deep in my heart.
I might have let a guy, thief that he was, get under my skin and steal my trust, but at least I still had my old life. I had me. I had a best friend. That surely counted for something.
Soon, I’d also have my mother’s letters. I’d uncover her secrets.
With or without Chase, or Kade, or whoever he was.
The End…for now
Laurie and Chase’s story continue in the sexy last installment of the An Indecent Proposal trilogy
BAD BOY
(An Indecent Proposal Book 3) by J.C. Reed & Jackie Steele
The last book in the An Indecent Proposal trilogy will release Feb. 23rd, 2016. BAD BOY can be pre-ordered now.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jackie S. Steele has lived most of her life in New England. She’s never read a book she didn't like. Her love for books began when she stumbled upon her mother's secret dash of Harlequin books, and couldn't stop reading until she had finished them all. Today she still loves curling up with a good book, sipping coffee, and taking long walks on the beach.
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http://www.jackiesteeleauthor.com/
J.C. Reed is the multiple New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of the Surrender Your Love trilogy and No Exceptions series. She writes steamy contemporary fiction with a touch of mystery. When she's not typing away on her keyboard, forgetting the world around her, she dreams of returning to the beautiful mountains of Wyoming. You can also find her chatting on Facebook with her readers or spending time with her three children.
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BOOKS BY J.C. REED:
SURRENDER YOUR LOVE
CONQUER YOUR LOVE
TREASURE YOUR LOVE
THE LOVER’S SECRET
THE LOVER’S GAME
THE LOVER’S PROMISE
THE LOVER’S SURRENDER
THAT GUY – An Indecent Proposal novella
AN INDECENT PROPOSAL: THE INTERVIEW
AN INDECENT PROPOSAL: THE AGREEMENT
AN INDECENT PROPOSAL: BAD BOY…coming Feb. 23rd, 2016
BOOKS BY JACKIE STEELE:
AN INDECENT PROPOSAL: THE INTERVIEW
AN INDECENT PROPOSAL: THE AGREEMENT
AN INDECENT PROPOSAL: BAD BOY…coming Feb. 23rd, 2016
Table of Contents
TITLE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
EPILOGUE
COMING SOON
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
OTHER BOOKS