Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2)

by Angel Payne

  The thought powers into my steps as Doyle falls into step beside me, seemingly from nowhere, though I know he’s just watched every second of what went down from the studio shadows. His cell is already at his ear, and he barks at the party on the other end to hold while he addresses me.

  “Legal’s been told to put everything else on hold and meet you in the conference room adjacent to your office.”

  “Good.” Still without breaking stride, I scoop a hand to the small of Ella’s back and hurry her the direction Doyle leads. Being in this building at all makes my skin fucking crawl; the sooner I can get her out of here, the better.

  We rush around a corner into a utilitarian hall, where a stage hand nods at Doyle then leads us to the freight elevator. It’s ready, open, and empty, a detail for which I send D another quick nod of gratitude. Taking the public elevators down, to the lobby continuously packed with fans of the TGN shows, would be like taking the Virgil express into hell right now. This catastrophe isn’t over, not by the furthest stretch of imagination, and I don’t allow myself a single delusion about that—or one moment’s worth of an unguarded moment. Yeah, that includes even thinking about touching Ella more than this. Even the warmth of her hand is a risk, calling to the stupid caveman inside who clamors for an embrace, a kiss, the sweet goddamn nothingness of getting lost inside her…

  Anything to help cope with the rage. The frustration. The pain. The self-recrimination.

  I’m sorry, Lily. Goddammit, I’m so sorry.

  For all the issues she was dealing with, and the ways she kept me locked out of them, Lily didn’t deserve to have her secrets exposed between commercials for dog food and fabric softener, with a tofu chef demo station waiting in the wings.

  We didn’t deserve it. Her or me—or our baby.

  He’d almost be four by now. A toddler with Transformers and Legos.

  Or she. A little princess with star wands…and Legos.

  I chuff at my stupid joke.

  Then pinch two fingers to my eyes, gritting back the hot sting behind them.

  “Fuck.” It grates out, as rusty and rough in my throat as the gears lowering us to the basement. “Fuck.” Then louder than the collision of the brakes when we arrive, finished by my swing of a punch to the iron wall.

  Ella’s quiet sob fills the ensuing silence. “Cassian…”

  “Not now, Ella.”

  The door slides open. Scott is waiting with the Jag, even his face set in stoic lines. Well, hell. I’ve never seen the kid ditch his smile, even after Hurricane Sandy took out his parents’ place.

  Christ on ice. Was every goddamn person in the country watching People and Places this morning?

  Apparently, yes.

  I am the subject of nobody’s pity.

  Yeah. Fucking great life mantra—

  Except for the day I’m the subject of everyone’s pity.

  “Cassian?”

  I flinch from Ella’s voice. Force myself free from her touch. Like either’s going to stop the nightmare from reversing itself—all the disgusting details of Lily’s death from being bled all over the tabloid media for the next week.

  I need to move. Have to move. Be free to attack this clearly.

  Be free of needing Ella so near.

  Of being weakened by it.

  My steps from the lift pound through the garage, punching hard on the cement walls. Cement. Much better than stained glass.

  One by one, the ravens freeze then die.

  Thank fuck.

  By the time I get to Doyle, I’m ready to hand them to him, laid out on the steel platter of my resolve.

  “I need to know who’s gotten access to Lily’s files at both rehab facilities and the coroner’s office. Do it quickly and quietly. They’ll know we’re coming, but are banking on the legal avenues taking a little time.”

  Doyle jogs a quick nod. “Already on it.”

  I snort. “Of course you are.”

  “Just call me Kato. Or Stud. Doesn’t matter.”

  “All right, Stud. Let’s talk about alerting Holy Oak cemetery that the media may be swarming Lily’s grave—”

  “Done.”

  “And making sure Nash Quinn is contacted—”

  “Call’s been placed. He’s been in a meeting but I told his people he needs to call you as soon as he’s out.”

  “And coordinating extra security at the manor?”

  “Next on my list.”

  I clap his shoulder. I know it’s the only thanks he ever wants besides his paycheck, but can’t help my next comment from drawling out.

  “At this rate, you’re going to get a new truck whether you like it or not.”

  “May take you up on that, if you keep insisting on borrowing it, chief.”

  Like the good Kato he is, the keys are out of his pocket and in my hand before the words are done. It’s not a move I try to hide, despite knowing the next trigger it’ll pull—shooting out a bullet who rocks a cobalt dress and come-fuck-me pumps like no Earthly creature has a right to.

  Oh, yeah. And rage. She’s rocking just a bit of that too.

  “You are taking the truck again?

  “Ella—”

  “By yourself…again?”

  Maybe more than just “a bit.”

  I pocket the keys. Brace both her shoulders in order to guide her a few feet away from Doyle and Scott. She fumes through every step, despite how I show her my deep breath in. Back out.

  My devil in a blue dress shuns the nonverbal cues. Matches my determined stance by parking her own feet at shoulder width, fists jammed at her hips.

  “Okay,” I begin carefully. “Listen—”

  “Listen?” She bursts with a bitter laugh. “Are we really right back here, Cassian? At the place where I get to scream that all I want to do is listen? To at least help?”

  “I know—”

  “Do you? Or do I need to remind you about the last time we did this, in Bryant Park—and how the evening ended with you in surgery at New York Presbyterian?”

  “I know, Ella.”

  “Apparently, you do not—because here you are, walling me off again. Walling yourself off, after that salpu dragged you through some of the most horrific memories of your past.”

  “Which she’s going to pay for.” I let my gritted teeth and rigid gaze fill in what my tight tone doesn’t. “Which is why I have to get ahead of it right now.” My grips matches the determination of hers on its way up to the sides of her neck. “That means avoiding the media three-ring as much as I can.”

  “And driving off like a damn Rambo, without asking for help or understanding from anyone.”

  She’s softer about that one. Hurt. The realization wrenches more as she lifts her hands to cover mine, and the bracelet sends speckles of light across her face—fairy dust for my fae.

  “I already know you understand.” Reverent kiss to her forehead. “Delivered with a Rambo reference, at that. There’s hope for you, woman.”

  She yanks back. No more magic dust. “Is there?”

  I give in to three seconds of a grimace. She’s right. This is everything I said I wouldn’t do—but this is also TGN treading way over the line in the name of ratings pay dirt. We came to be nice in their sand box, and they played rough and dirty. If bullies are given second chances, they’ll hit again—and no way in hell am I risking they’ll hurt Ella any more than they have.

  Enough is fucking enough.

  “I’m asking for help too,” I defend. “You did hear Doyle’s to-do list for the day?”

  Doyle cocks a dark brow but stop tapping on his cell. “I love it when you give me honey-dos, baby.”

  Ella, usually charmed by our dry smack-downs even if she doesn’t understand them, only tosses a glower at us both. Dammit. Chantal’s bombshell clearly gutted her as much as me, and I know she needs a re-hash and a long, mushy recovery session, but neither long nor mushy will take care of redrawing the boundaries for Chantal Dunne and her team.

  Determined
exhalation. A quick jerk, to pull Ella farther away with me. One minute. I need her alone and focused for just one minute.

  Ladies Room

  Perfect.

  “Cassian! What—”

  I kiss her hard enough to make it clear I want her to back against the wall. Next to her head is a framed publicity shot of all the female TGN “celebrities.” One’s an “influencer” pulled from the YouTube universe; another’s a former cheerleader who published a tell-all about her affair with a quarterback. Two more are B-list pop stars, and next to them is a perkily posed Chantal. They’re all dressed in shades of stomach medicine pink, a complement to wall tiles that have likely been here since the sixties.

  I lift her face by nudging my bandaged knuckles beneath her chin. “I’m not ‘walling you off,’ Ella. Christ,”—I shake my head, echoing her acerbic laugh—“nobody’s gone farther beyond my walls than you.” I dip in, somehow needing to penetrate her resistance now. The hurt and doubt across her face…dammit… “And believe me, there’s a to-do list for you, too…”

  I get as far as tasting her breath, containing a little mint from her toothpaste and a lot of sweetness from her natural essence, before her shove stumbles me back by a couple of stunned steps.

  “A list, hmmm?” She folds her arms. “With every task involving me naked in your bed?”

  “What’s wrong with naked and in my bed?”

  Her laugh isn’t bitter anymore. It’s a full rush of harsh and pissed. “When it is the only way you choose to see my usefulness in your life?” Her lips twist. “Then there is plenty wrong with it, Cassian.” A distinct sheen forms over the stormy darkness in her eyes—as she slides the diamonds off her wrist. “A wrong that cannot be made right with orgasms and bling.”

  As she folds my good hand around the bracelet, I fight the urge to hurl the thing—especially with that cheesy poster as a perfect target. “Is that what you think you are to me?”

  Her gaze narrows. “Ohhhh, désonnum. I did forget about the Scooby Doo Monopoly tournaments.”

  “Ella.” I don’t try to tame the brutal growl. “Dammit—”

  She stops me with two splayed fingers to my lips. “You are an amazing man, Cassian Court. Driven, dynamic, loyal, regal, beautiful, bold…a force of nature, captivating me as no other…”

  “Ella—”

  “Let me finish.” She lifts her other fingers, spreading them out, exploring the whole curve of my bottom lip. “Let me tell you…that I do love you. So much…” Her touch goes still. It feels like everything else in her body does too. “But I cannot be simply your pretty, perfect toy. I need more. I am so sorry. I need…”

  I dump the bracelet back into my pocket. Race my hand back up, gripping her by the back of her head, wrenching her face up for the smash of my furious, deep kiss. Only after I’ve tasted every tonsil in her throat do I pull back, continuing to keep her stare locked with mine.

  “I’ll give you more. I’ll give you more, I promise.”

  Her nod is steady—but her eyes, her mouth, and her fingertips aren’t. An attempt at a smile just ends up with her lip beneath her teeth, and her hand gently peeling mine away. “You…you need to get going. We can talk more later.”

  She’s as convinced of that as a prediction for raining cats and dogs.

  And I can’t do a fucking thing to change it.

  The realization drives my head back down. I grip the back of hers, forcing her forehead to meet mine once more, praying the desperate bellows of my mind can permeate the brick barriers so clearly erected inside hers now. “You’ll be there when I get home?”

  She pulls in a breath between her teeth. A smile mists the edges of her lips. “Nothing has changed. Our contract is until October.”

  She ends it by slipping her gaze to the floor and inching her body out the door, leaving me staring at antacid tiles and the world’s lamest promo poster, completely deflated of the desire to put a scratch into either.

  Nothing has changed.

  Then why do I feel as if everything has?

  TWELVE

  *

  Mishella

  “I am the damn pot who let the kettle slack.”

  Doyle, sprawled on the limo’s back-facing seat, stops tapping on his phone long enough to narrow a questioning glance. “The pot who called the kettle black?”

  I frown but do not relent my stare out the Jag’s tinted window. The New York lunch rush is early, and on this sweltering summer day, it is indeed a rush. Everyone from businessmen in full suits to tourists in sandals is scurrying through the heat, so as to be free from it sooner.

  “That certainly fits better,” I murmur. In more ways than one. The words make sense because the situation does—and I have turned myself into a vessel holding a mess of hot, sticky, heartache because of it.

  “How so?”

  I finally swing my sights back in, certain Doyle is about to begin a new phone conversation anyway. His “honey do” list must be a mile long, filled with much more interesting people than me—but the man’s phone rests on the cushion next to him, the screen dark. His eyes are twin grey pearls, lustrous but focused on me, framed by thick torrents of his chestnut hair.

  “How so…what?” I sound like an idiot. Appropriate, since I feel like one right now.

  “How does the analogy fit?” he clarifies. “Pot? Black?”

  Our progress through the traffic is paused at a stoplight. To our left is a florist’s delivery truck, emblazoned with a larger-than-life couple surrounded by dewy red roses. The man is fastening a diamond bracelet on the woman’s arm. My eyes slide shut. Creator’s damn toes.

  I open my eyes and look right, instead. The throngs on the sidewalk are spilling into the crosswalk—except for a young teenage couple, smashed against a light pole, kissing as if they’ve been granted an early visit to Nirvana.

  As if they’ve climbed atop a rock in the sea.

  Screw the Creator’s toes. I shall just take his balls.

  “By the powers.” I mutter it while rolling eyes toward the sky, a blinding blue swath high above the building tops, almost expecting that firmament to sprout random lightning bolts just to drive the universe’s point home. All right, all right, my psyche manages to grumble. I get it, I get it. Now it is my bloody turn to “share.”

  I re-set my shoulders. Banish my girl growl. Doyle deserves better attitude than a slight upgrade of disgruntled teenager.

  With the pout gone, I start in. “You know what I have always demanded of Cassian, more than anything, since the day he and I first met.”

  One side of Doyle’s mouth twitches. “Couldn’t have been witty banter and clever puns. You’d have gone for me in that case.”

  “Astute point,” I drawl.

  He angles forward, tracking us back to the subject with a forthright frown. “It’s his honesty and truth. You’ve never accepted anything less,” he states. “And for a man used to women who wanted everything but the truth, that was a stunner. A welcome one.”

  “Though someone still was not a fan of me at first.” I arch my brows to knowing points.

  “I came around.” He matches the arch and raises me by half a grin.

  “And eventually, so did he.” My first intention is to return the smile but I cannot, weighted anew by the magnitude of everything Cassian has entrusted me with—pieces of himself that not even Doyle has. the ugliness about being raised fatherless, Damon’s drug abuse and death, and the disgusting way he and Mallory lived for so many years…nobody has all the whole of that truth except for Mallory and me. I don’t want to silo the explosives anymore. Not with you. “It was not easy for him,” I rasp. “To face all of it again…for me.”

  Doyle’s head angles over, marking his contemplation of that. “I don’t imagine it was.” He braces both elbows on his knees. “He’d already processed a lot of it, I think…he just had to, in order to accomplish what he did after Lily’s death. Something like that either dissolves you or defines you—but I think that Cassian
knew, even before that, where he came from and who he was. Then when Lily was gone, he had to define where he was going, as well. Trouble is, he’s been so single-minded about it, the plan never included anyone special to share it with.”

  Tea room snort. A glance—just one—out the window. “Doyle, the man has had a whole string of ‘someone special’s.”

  “A string of someones,” he clarifies. “Not someone special. Not a real partner, worthy of seeing all that he is, accepting him for it, then walking with him through it, to become even better because of it.”

  My hands twist in my lap. Perplexity zigzags my brain. “And you think that is what…I did for him?”

  He leans back again, creaking the leather seat beneath his lanky frame again. “That’s the start of the list, lady.”

  The line feels like a standing ovation. I accept it with a grateful smile—though cannot wait for the chance to splash back into my black pot of moroseness. “Then in fairness, we must now add another important item to your ‘list’.”

  One of his brows jog. “This should be interesting.”

  “No. Just obvious.” I succumb to an oh-come-on glower. Instantly prompt, “The disaster of what just happened in that television studio? The mess I suggested we walk into?”

  “Okay, hold the phone, sister.” He slashes a finger toward the device I yank out. “Figure of speech. Put it away. You need to hear me here. Clearly.” The second I comply, his stare sharpens like a pair of throwing knives. “All that shit Chantal brought out about Lily this morning…you really think she started poking around for it just last week?”

  The knives sink in. I frown from their stunning impact. “She…she did not?”

  “Holy shit,” he mumbles. “No. Her team started digging up shit on Cassian a year ago, when he was with that Nairobian model who landed the lead in the new Star Wars movie. As far as we knew at the time, it was just basic trivia like his high school girlfriends, college clubs, his tight relationship with his mom. But there’s a good chance that the crap with Lily goes back that far too. We’ll know that soon enough.”

  The promise leads him back to somber tones, as well as the enigmatic Doyle with whom I am much more familiar—and comfortable. “The main point here is, those scum suckers have digging for a chink in Cassian’s armor for a while—long before we took that trip to Arcadia, and he even knew you existed. Whatever they found out last year, and everything since then, has been carefully stored up until the time was right.”