Even the cool air of the hallway can’t match the natural heat radiating from the man pressing into me. Maybe that’s why I don’t realize just how much is exposed by him undoing my dress. I might as well be in nothing but my bra and underwear.
I feel his hand on my bare skin, slipping into the side of the dress and circling around to my back. At this point, the dress doesn’t even fit that description since it covers so little.
This is indecent.
We’re not even in the safety and privacy of my suite. Granted, there are very few other suites on this floor, but it doesn’t change the fact that anyone could see us—see me, being that I’m the only one who is indecent.
And yet, my lips don’t break away to protest what we’re doing.
It’s just that his hand is so large and sure in how it presses into my lower back. His arm is so strong and muscular as it holds me against him. His lips are so demanding, yet giving.
And his growing bulge, pressing into my bare stomach—
I pull my mouth away, blinking as I come to my senses. My hands come up to push Magnus away.
At first, he doesn’t budge, only gripping me tighter. Then, he seems to do a complete one-eighty as he easily takes two steps back.
I quickly pull my dress together, trying to haphazardly put it back the way it was. Why do they make these dresses so damn hard to configure? My fingers are still trembling too much to be that agile, so I do what I can.
“Get, not take,” Magnus says with a grin.
My mouth itches to utter some snappy retort, but I know that would only amuse him.
No time like the present to use my trump card to end tonight’s little game.
“Who is Fabian?”
His gaze doesn’t so much as waver. If he’s surprised I snuck a peek at his phone back on the boat, he doesn’t show it. In fact, nothing about his reaction—or lack thereof, gives any indication that I’ve thrown him off with my question. There’s even a tinge of admiration in his eyes as they finally meet mine.
“Goodnight, Sloane. I’ll be by tomorrow to get started, but feel free to sleep in.”
I watch him turn and walk down the hallway back to the elevator. Once he’s at a safe enough distance, I quickly pull out my key card and tap it to open the door.
Once inside, I fall back against it and exhale one long slow breath.
Day one complete. Only thirty-nine more to go.
I should be thrilled with what Magnus has offered. It plays right into what I was hoping for all along, in a roundabout way. As his attorney, it would only make sense to probe him for the insider information that the man in New York wants, then be done with this whole endeavor for good.
Back to my life at Douglas & Foster, hopefully as partner this time next year. Something about the thought doesn’t have me as excited as it should, which is odd. Partnership is everything I wanted, everything I’ve worked hard for.
So why does it suddenly have me feeling so disillusioned?
Chapter Nineteen
Magnus
Smart woman.
I had no intention of trying to fuck her, as she probably suspected. After all, there are still thirty-nine more days to go.
There’s something to be said for enjoying the hunt.
Pushing people’s limits, getting them outside of their comfort zones, putting them in tight spots—however you want to put it, it’s the best way to learn their true nature. Ripped of any facade or pretense, stripped down to their base emotions and reactions, that’s when you discover all you need to know. That’s when you learn in what form their instinct for survival takes shape.
And Sloane’s modus operandi seems to be the art of surprise.
I had an inkling of it back at the bar when she ordered and paid for the wine. And now the question about Fabian. It was enough to get me to end the charade.
Put to good use, she could be quite lethal. Like a Venus flytrap, luring unsuspecting men in, only to surprise them with one quick twist of fate.
I was hardly surprised by her mentioning Fabian. Frankly, I would have thought lesser of her if she hadn’t taken a peek at my phone when I got the message about him back on the boat. That doesn’t mean I had any desire to spend the evening satisfying her curiosity about the man and who he was to me.
Down in the large lobby, I only briefly take a moment to admire the majesty of it. I purchased the hotel from the original owner, who was in the midst of near financial ruin.
Once I had it, I knew I had to add a casino, despite the strict, exclusive hold the Société des Bains de Mer had on any future gambling establishments in Monte Carlo. The company has exclusive casino rights in Monaco and wasn’t exactly inclined to allow an upstart to intrude. It took longer than expected—and an agreement to allow them to incorporate La Mer into their hotel group—but my usual carrot and stick tactics paid off.
Pressuring them to allow my hotel a casino license will eventually pay for itself, at least in terms of retribution. There is a certain poetic irony in getting the same casinos that had once banned my grandfather to now allow me entrance to their exclusive club in order to create my own casino. All the better to avenge Aloin LaCour’s reputation.
Once I’m on the private elevator that will take me to my office in the hotel, I push my grandfather to the back of my thoughts. I have far more important matters at hand.
Mainly, Sloane Alexander.
Once in my office, I make a quick call to my attorney to handle the business of “officially” hiring Sloane. The offices of Douglas & Foster will be staying active later than usual tonight, but they’ll no doubt find it worth it.
Then, I make a call to Jacques.
“Monsieur Reinhardt, he says,” as though expecting my call.
“I had an interesting conversation today, a conversation that revealed quite a bit about Sloane Alexander.”
“Yes, sir, I’ve continued digging and learned quite a bit as well.”
“And you didn’t think to call?”
“I had it under good authority that you were…occupied until now.”
“In the future, if you have important information to impart, please feel free to ignore any regard to proper etiquette,” I say in a low, but very dangerous voice.
“Yes, sir.”
“I certainly hope you didn’t ignore my earlier request in favor of focusing on Sloane?”
“No, sir. I’ve been looking into Giorgio Conti as well. I am able to handle multiple requests at once.”
I sense a tiny bit of impudence there, but I let it slide only due to my impatience.
“Start with him.”
There’s only the briefest pause, which tells me that perhaps the information about Sloane might be more pressing.
“Age twenty-nine, he’s the youngest son of Gennaro and Isabella Conti. The family owns a fashion house headquartered in Milan. There are two older brothers, Pietro, married, and Angelo, unmarried. Giorgio is head of marketing for the company.”
“I can get the biography in an email. Are there any red flags?”
“He was engaged once before but broke it off. The ex-fiancée eloped with a professional polo player.”
I try to dig into that for red flags and come up empty.
“And Sloane?”
He rattles off the same information that the Pirate told me, which I find irritating enough to cut him short.
“Again, next time, send me a message right away. I don’t care if you have it on ‘good authority’ that I’m in the midst of a threeway with the prince and princess of Monaco.”
Sometimes vulgarity is needed to get the fucking point across.
I’m not above the sort of self-reflection that tells me I’m lashing out in this way because of the Pirate somehow finding out all of this before I did. I pride myself on always being one step ahead of everyone else.
“I want everything you have on Sloane’s brother. Everything.”
“Yes, I figured you’d want to shift the focus to him aft
er learning about his indirect ties to Gabriel through Linus Caldwell. But this is where it gets interesting.”
“How so?”
“Linus Caldwell was found dead three hours ago from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.”
Chapter Twenty
Sloane
I won’t be sleeping in.
It’s going to be rather hard to do when I probably won’t get much sleep in the first place. Despite the stomach full of food and wine, I’m wired with excitement.
Because of Magnus.
Or rather, my phone.
I was in the shower when the call came. Still wrapped in my towel, I audibly groaned when I saw the notification that I had a voicemail from Jamie Reaves. Then I played it:
“Sloane, this is Jamie. We received a rather interesting request from Magnus Reinhardt? Apparently, he’d like to retain the services of the firm based on your recommendation. Do you know anything about this? He wasn’t clear on what exactly he’d like us to work with him on, not that it matters of course. The amount he wired was certainly enough to…well, just call me when you get this.” There’s a pause as he no doubt checks the time difference. “I assume you’re probably asleep now…in Monte Carlo.” He makes damn sure his tone expresses his continued disapproval on the choice of locales I chose to escape to “with inconveniently short notice.” “I expect a call first thing when you get this message.”
Naturally, I won’t be calling back tonight. I’m more than happy to have him assume I’m asleep. Let the bastard twist in the wind for a while.
I feel giddy at the tiny act of rebellion, and against a senior partner to boot. The old Sloane would have called right away if only to give him the absurd idea that I never slept. Every little bit helps—or so I’ve always assumed.
Now, I wonder if being so accommodating has been a hindrance to my career advancement.
Instead, I call the closest thing I have to a friend at the firm, Whitney Howard. She’s the only other black female associate in our department. We’re about as different as night and day, even when it comes to coloring. I’m more of a coffee—black, while she has a good dose of cream in the mix, and probably something a bit wild and wickedly fun like brandy or amaretto.
True to form, she starts in right away.
“Girl, I’ve never seen someone jump so fast out of the frying pan and into the fire, only to have her ass delivered right back to the fridge on a silver platter. What are you doing over there in Monte Carlo, and where the hell do I sign up?” she laughs. “You got all these silly boys in suits running around like puppies with their tails wagging.”
Usually, her casually uncensored manner and somewhat blasé attitude toward firm life leave me, at best, bewildered, at worst, a bit judgmental. I suspect she never even wanted to make partner! All the more so now that she’s pregnant and married to some man she met in Iceland of all places.
If it wasn’t for all the pro bono work she does with refugees, I’m sure Douglas & Foster would have dismissed her by now. Then again, for some reason, Jamie seems terrified of her. Perhaps because she doesn’t kowtow to his every demand. That alone gets her a point in her favor from me.
“So, what exactly happened?” I ask.
“You don’t know?” she replies in surprise, then continues without my prodding. “Spencer came bustling out of his office, dipping in and out of all the senior partners’ offices. Then he came to me, you know, because being black and female, I obviously knew what you were up to via the special telepathic connection we all have. Speaking of which, what are you up to? Was that what this trip was about? How the hell did you even get a meeting with the man? Is he as sexy as fuck as he looks in all those photos of him?”
I leave that one alone.
“So you don’t know exactly what…services Magnus Reinhardt stated he needed?”
“The only thing I know is that he dropped ten-million dollars as a retainer and said he’d only work directly with you.”
I feel my heart nearly explode with pride—the bad kind, the in-your-face, and kiss-my-black-ass kind. Also, the kind I have absolutely no right to claim. I did nothing to earn this other than raise the suspicions of a dangerous foe.
It isn’t a retainer Magnus has sent Douglas & Foster; it’s a purchase. I feel like one of those daughters in centuries past who were nothing more than chattel, moving out of their parents’ house where they were worked to death and right to their husband’s, where they suffered perhaps a worse fate.
“Wait a second, did you say ten-million dollars?” I ask, suddenly realizing the importance of that amount. It’s the same amount Linus and Theo stole.
“According to the rumor mill,” Whitney continues. “Oh, and whoever it was that set this up said he needed you to stay out there for at least forty days. Hello, sis! Monte Carlo for over a month? Even if it is for work, I ain’t mad at ya.”
If only she knew.
“Thanks, Whitney.”
“No, thank you, Sloane. Just watching Jaimie’s head nearly explode has been worth it.” She laughs, and it’s enough to perk me up just a bit.
“I guess I’ll see you in forty days,” I say.
“That sounds decidedly Catholic. Don’t abstain too much, Sloane.” She laughs again.
I’m reminded why I’ve only been tentatively friendly with her. The image she presents at the firm certainly isn’t the most strait-laced and professional, which is what Douglas & Foster likes to practically slap you in the face with. In fact, I’m pretty sure one of the reasons Jamie has been so persnickety about my being partner is because he can’t help but associate me with her.
Now, I’m rethinking all of that. Perhaps I should look into reconsidering my relationship with Whitney Howard. I have a feeling she’d make a better ally than most people at the firm. I have a feeling I actually like her better than most people at the firm.
Rather than absorb myself with work as I normally would, I pull up my e-reader app on my phone and dive into the latest Stephen King book I’ve been filling tiny breaks with since forever. For once, I can get through a chapter without the guilt that usually has me switching right back to the latest brief, or contract, or memo, or case file.
It feels sinful.
It feels heavenly.
The only thing eventually stopping me is the sleep that overtakes me.
* * *
My eyes blink open at the sun that filters in through the bedroom. I realize that I’ve left my curtains open and beyond the window is an expanse of various shades of blue, from the sky to the sea.
I smile groggily at the pretty picture it presents, especially framed by such luxurious surroundings.
It quickly fades when I remember what my circumstances are. I sigh and sit up. My instinct is to call Jamie as he instructed. I check the time and find that it’s still only eight o’clock in the morning here. A wicked grin appears as I consider calling him despite the time difference. Heaven knows he’s never been shy about sending me emails and messages at one in the morning for things that needed taking care of “first thing!”
But the last thing I want to do is ruin the start of the day by hearing his grating voice.
Magnus said I could sleep in, but I’m not tired. Still, I’ll interpret that to mean that my morning is mine.
When I took a shower last night, I couldn’t help but note the huge spa tub next to it. Baths have been a luxury that I haven’t dared indulged in. When have I ever had the time to be that decadent?
No time like the present.
I laugh as I throw off the covers and slink to the bathroom. There’s an entire basket of bath supplies from gel eye masks to scented bath oils: almond, peppermint, lavender, sandalwood… I settle on lavender and start the water, pouring some in. I add bath bubbles and smile as I watch the white peaks begin to swell.
The large upstairs bathroom fills with the floral aroma, and I feel myself relax instantly. Why not set the mood? I pad out to the bedroom and grab my phone, pulling up a playlist t
hat seems fitting.
I sink into the full tub to the tune of “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” by Roy Ayers. The scented oil coats my skin, and I run my hands along my legs, enjoying how silky smooth it feels. I grab the eye mask and put it on, closing my eyes to settle back against the back of the tub and completely relax.
“Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak comes on and my mood shifts. My fingers, coated with oil, slide down my inner thigh until I find just the right spot, remembering what happened last night in the hallway.
I shouldn’t be thinking about Magnus this way.
But here I am…
I go to work, taking my time with it. I laugh as I realize even this one act that should be all my own is usually dictated by Douglas & Foster time, giving new definition to the word “quickie.” Now, I can go at my own pace, letting the swirling water help me along.
I wonder what the Shark’s fingers are like. I wonder what his tongue is like. I wonder what his dick—
The first orgasm comes fast and hard, forcing my body into a rigid arch only to fall back into the water, a shivering mess. I can almost hear the echo of my loud moan still reverberating around the massive bathroom.
But why stop there?
I keep at it, allowing myself a few repeats, even as Chris Isaak transitions into “Doin’ It” by LL Cool J. What can I say? I’m a sucker for old school tunes.
With my body completely satisfied, I linger for a while until my fingers turn to prunes—a sure sign I’ve been wasting time.
I drain the tub and grab a soft, fluffy towel to dry off. It feels like I’m surrounded by a cloud of luxurious cotton. With the oil still coating my skin, I simply wrap the large towel around me rather than get dressed right away.
Why hurry the day along?
I pass through the bedroom and make my way downstairs, wondering what the morning view is like from the balcony in nothing but a towel.
So sinfully deviant.
Good grief, this city is already rubbing off on me.
The Monte Carlo Shark: An International Legacies Romance Page 10