I was the odd man out at the party. I was the new girl. The stranger. Okay, so maybe some of the other girls had been new as well. I hadn’t had a chance to look them up yet. I’d been a little busy with the guys. But their records were easily backed up. Mine wasn’t. They’d figure out it was me in a heartbeat.
And if they did… Goodbye, career.
Tossing and turning for what felt like hours didn’t help my mood when I was rudely awakened by my phone. I grabbed at it and hit the talk button without even looking at the screen.
“Hello?” I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. It was 7 a.m. I could totally be angry about being woken up.
“López. I hope I didn’t wake you.” It was Paul, speaking in the tone of someone who knew they’d woken you up, but didn’t care.
“Paul.” I sat up. Crap. I hoped he wasn’t calling to check in on my story. I’d only just told him about it yesterday. He couldn’t possibly expect me to be finished already. “How can I help you?”
This was why I’d been tossing and turning all night. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. If I didn’t go forward with the story, Paul would find some way to punish me. He might even fire me. I’d promised him something big and I would have delivered nothing. But if I went ahead, Liam and Jason and the others would find a way to make me pay.
Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“I know you’ve got this other thing you’re working on,” he said, “but I need you to get down to the Ingram Hotel for me tomorrow afternoon.”
Ingram. I knew that name. I scrambled out of bed and started pulling out the pictures and papers from underneath the bed.
“When?” I asked. “And why?”
“It’s the luxury hotel that’s opening up downtown. There’s a little ceremony and a meet-and-greet cocktail thing.”
I knew what sort of gathering he meant. I’d been forced to go to plenty of those over the past year or so. The press got to ask a few questions, and it was all very boring and rote. It was all about rich people feeling good and patting themselves on the back.
“You want me to cover it?” I asked, already knowing the answer. I could feel the headache setting in already. I’d have to take time away from my investigation to go and deal with this. Honestly, why have so much fanfare over something so mundane?
“Yes. There’s a party afterwards hosted by the developers, I want you to get a quote from each of them.”
“I can do that.” Hopefully it wouldn’t take up a lot of my time. It wasn’t like I could easily say no to my editor.
“Great. It’s tomorrow afternoon. I’m sending you an email with the details. You’ll need your press pass.”
“Yes, sir.” Someday, that man was going to ask me to jump and I was going to respond with, “How high?” It was a depressing thought.
“Excellent. Shouldn’t be too long of a story. I’ll expect it by tomorrow evening.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
I think the number one thing I was looking forward to when I no longer worked for that paper was no longer having to deal with Paul. Of course, I’d never get to move on if I didn’t have a great story that would get other papers interested in me. I went back to going through the documents I’d hidden under the bed yesterday.
Yes, there it was! The paper on Cody and Cameron. They were the owners of Ingram International. A group of luxury hotels… I’d speculated that was why they were in Santa Barbara. I guess I’d been right.
This could be the thing that I needed. Going to talk to the twins, I’d be getting the scoop for my boss, but I also might be able to get more information for my story. Two birds with one stone and all that.
I dressed quickly. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I still wasn’t sure I’d be able to print anything, but there was no harm in continuing my investigation while I made that decision. Besides, I could pass off any questions I asked as just being for the opening night article.
And if I wore a fit and flare dress in soft dusky pink that I knew I looked especially good in. Well, that was just to get the right kind of attention. It wasn’t because I could still remember the way it had felt trapped between Cody and Cameron’s solid, thrusting bodies…
I wasn’t a good liar, even to myself.
All attraction to the twins aside, however, this felt like the sign from the universe that I needed. I would continue my investigation, for now.
Chapter 12
Liam
I felt like an idiot.
The thing was I was never the kind of guy to moon over a girl. I’d had a steady stream of girlfriends through high school and college, where I’d had one girlfriend per semester, plus God knew how many flings over the summers. They were all good relationships. Light, easy, fun. I never agonized for hours over how to ask them out, or wondered whether they noticed me. I didn’t spend my time daydreaming about them. I certainly never waxed poetic.
Not that I was waxing poetic now or anything. But it was kind of concerning how much I was thinking about Gabi.
I’d had all kinds of beautiful women in my time. After a while, it sort of became routine. Yes, that model was gorgeous, as was that actress, as was that one tennis player. But eventually, it all just stopped making an impact.
So why was Gabi still lingering in my mind?
I would catch myself distracted by her in board meetings, or when I was sitting at home trying to relax. For once in my life I was regretting being a workaholic. Sure, it had gotten me to where I was, but it also meant I never had time to go out and meet anyone.
That was a big part of why the parties had started. Now it was frustrating me because I couldn’t go and find someone to distract me from Gabi.
I suppose that I really could have, if I’d been desperate, but it had been two days since the party. Not a whole lot of time. If I went out of my way to go to a bar or something and pick a girl up, after only two days… Well, that sounded kind of pathetic. A guy’s so distracted by this one girl that only two days after meeting her, he goes to find someone else to take her off his mind?
Yeah, no. I wasn’t that far gone, or so I told myself.
It was probably just the fact that I knew she was lying about how she’d gotten onto the yacht and about who she was. Jason had called me the moment he’d pulled away from her apartment building and told me he’d gotten nothing new from her.
“I could,” he’d said, “if you give me enough time to get more intense with her. There’ll come a point where she’ll enter a subspace and I can ask her whatever I want and she’ll be honest with me. But getting her to that point would require an intense scene and she’s definitely into bondage, a little spanking, a bit of temperature play, but any more than that? It’ll take a lot of time to work her up to it.”
Time was something that we didn’t have. If Gabi was spying on us for some reason, then we needed to act fast.
I’d done my best to ignore the side bit of information that Jason had given me: Gabi was a bit kinky. You had to be, to play with Jason. I think the most vanilla he ever got was one time during a party in college. He’d been so eager for it that he and the girl had just done it in the dorm kitchen. But I knew that whenever he could, he liked to take his time and bring at the very least some kind of basic restraint.
So yeah, I figured Gabi had to be a little kinky to get it on with Jason. But the things he’d said… She’d been into bondage, and spanking. It was far too easy to picture her tied down to my bed, moaning while I teased her. Or writhing on my lap as I spanked her.
I wasn’t heavily into anything, but you couldn’t be friends with Jason and not hear about his exploits. Every once in a while, the mood would strike me and I’d want to do some of the things he’d talk about, like tying a girl up.
I shook myself clear of my thoughts. I was at work, for crying out loud. I was supposed to be focusing on the future of my company, not imagining fucking a tied-up girl I’d
met once.
The images that conjured up, though…
Clearing my throat, I redirected my focus back to what Gabi had been doing on the boat. If she’d held firm through Jason’s playful torture, that meant she was pretty tough. It would take a lot to get her to open up to me. But maybe I didn’t need her to open up? Maybe I could find out the answers I needed just by doing a little research.
I double-checked my watch. I had plenty of time before my next meeting and I wasn’t too bogged down with work. I had time.
The easiest place to start was checking social networks. I scoured the Santa Barbara area for anyone who went by the name of Gabi. I found a whole lot of women, and even a few men, but not the person I was looking for.
Then I realized—Gabi was probably a nickname.
I tried again, this time looking for Gabriella or Gabrielle. That took me a while. There were a fair few of them in the area, and it seemed that a lot of them were the same Gabis I’d gone through before. But after some searching, I found her.
Gabrielle López.
She was tagged in a few posts on a friend’s social media pages. It looked like this friend was more active on social-media than Gabrielle. Most of her stuff was publicly viewable, she had a lot of photos of herself, that kind of thing. The friend looked familiar, actually, although I couldn’t quite place her. Red hair, great curves… I hadn’t slept with her—I would have remembered that—but I knew I’d spoken to her at one point.
I couldn’t get access to Gabrielle’s social media pages without following her or friending her or whatnot. That was out of the question.
I kept skimming, and spotted that her friend had tagged her in something: a photo of Gabrielle in front of a newly opened local restaurant.
I read the paragraph typed below the photo.
Got the fabulous @GabrielleLópez an exclusive dining experience for her article! Come check out Santa Barbara’s hottest new restaurant. Executive chef none other than my pal @TobyHotchkins. Read Gabrielle’s article about it in your papers this weekend!
The paper. Of course. Maybe she was just a food critic, but I suspected that Miss Gabrielle López was more than that.
I started checking the staff listings for local papers. It couldn’t be for any big publication—if she was working for, say, the Los Angeles Times, there was no way she’d be covering a small restaurant opening in Santa Barbara. We were just close enough to LA that you got the occasional celebrity sighting, but honestly, we were sleepy compared to that city. Nobody was going to send a reporter from a big paper to cover a something like that.
It was a good thing, I told myself. If she was sent up here to write an article about my parties for a big paper, we’d have been more screwed than I’d thought.
A local paper—that meant that somebody local might have accidentally let something slip. Maybe had a few too many drinks, or maybe Gabrielle herself had caught them on a lie and weaseled the truth out of them. Either way, it meant we had hope. We could still stifle this thing before it ruined all of our reputations.
The first few papers didn’t have anyone under the name of Gabrielle López, nor any version of that name. I was starting to worry that she wrote under a pen name. It wouldn’t be impossible for me to find her if she did, but it would be a lot more difficult.
The fourth paper though, they had her. Gabrielle López was listed as one of their regular reporters, predominantly for the lifestyle section. Reading through the names of the articles that she’d written, I realized that by “lifestyle,” this paper meant everything from restaurants and nightclubs to celebrity sightings and important social gatherings.
She’d probably be covering the hotel thing the twins had going on this afternoon. Maybe I should call them up…?
No. That would be pointless. I could easily quash anything that it tried to print about me and the parties. Jason and the rest of us were safe. A small publication like that? It had a lot more to lose than to gain by exposing us. We’d make their lives a living hell. It wasn’t like this was a political scandal or a matter of public interest. We weren’t doing anything illegal. Everyone who was there wanted to be there and could choose to not be there at any time.
If this was a matter of a truly important story, then sure, a local newspaper might hold firm. But I knew that whatever scandal they thought they had on their hands, it wasn’t worth the storm I’d be raining down on them. The possible benefits of printing such a story weren’t worth the effort I’d make them go through.
Not to mention I was pretty certain that between Jason and me—and let’s be honest, the twins—Gabrielle was undoubtedly far too busy reaping the benefits of such a party to bother exposing us. If I knew Cody and Cameron, then they could hardly pass up an opportunity to get what they’d missed out on at the party. The moment they saw Gabi at the little opening this afternoon, they’d pounce.
Even if her original reason for sneaking onto the yacht was to expose us, I knew for a fact that she’d enjoyed her time there. She wouldn’t want to jeopardize her future attendance by making the parties public knowledge.
I’d seen her out on the dance floor that night, getting all but fucked by Jason and then Cody and Cameron before she’d walked over to me. It had gotten me hard just watching her fall apart in their arms, seeing how she’d steadily become more desperate. She’d been practically orgasming out there.
I took a drink of water and adjusted myself. God, just imagining her was getting me unbelievably turned on. I’d thought that I’d become bored with the women around me. It looked like Gabrielle had proven me wrong.
There wouldn’t be any harm in my seeing her again, would there? After all, I had to make sure that her memories of that night outweighed her desire to publish any story.
Plus, I had to admit, I was genuinely curious about her. That was unusual. Normally I just slept with a woman and moved on; even my girlfriends from high school and college hadn’t been especially deep relationships.
I normally wouldn’t care any more about Gabi, or Gabrielle, even if she was writing about us. But I was curious. I wanted to get to know her better. And with her writing a possible article about us, well, it was only in my best interest to take her out to a nice dinner and woo her a little, wasn’t it?
Chapter 13
Gabrielle
I wore the dress that I’d picked out yesterday. It was a fun, 1950s-style dress and I thought I looked good in it. I kept trying to tell myself that this was all going to be business. I was only going to do this article for Paul and to get more information for my investigation.
But I couldn’t help remembering the way it had felt on the dance floor. Two sets of hands roaming over me. Riding that meaty thigh almost to the point of orgasm while my ass ground back against a hard cock. My thighs clenched and I got a little wet just thinking about it. Cody and Cameron had made me come so hard I’d screamed.
I shoved such thoughts out of the way. I was already on thin ice, as Jason had proved. I couldn’t risk the twins spotting me. If they saw I was there as a reporter, there was no telling what kind of shit would go down.
Maybe if I just stayed in the back, a part of the crowd, it would all be fine? They wouldn’t necessarily see me. There would be so many other people clamoring for their attention. I could just melt into the background, make my notes, and be done.
I did my hair up to look a little more professional. On the one hand, I wanted my fellow reporters to take me seriously; on the other, I wanted to look innocent enough in case I ran into Cody or Cameron.
The newest Ingram Hotel was right near the water, of course. The gorgeous beaches were the reason people lived up in Santa Barbara. I parked about a block away and walked the rest of the way past the waterfront properties up to the hotel.
It was a beautiful building, I had to admit. It looked like they were going with an ocean theme, but subtly. Something about the construction of the building, its shape, suggested frozen water, like a wave caught midway through and prese
rved.
Once I was inside, I could see that the ocean theme continued. There were lots of lovely blues and greens, and it took me a moment to realize that the pattern on the wallpaper was meant to imitate the softly waving strands of kelp that were often found in the California waters.
All in all, it was beautiful. Definitely more expensive than anything I could have afforded to stay in if I was traveling. But it was nice to admire and take it all in.
I started scribbling my first impressions down on my notepad. Some of my colleagues liked to joke that I was old-fashioned and that was why I used a pocket-sized notebook. The truth was that I just hated typing on my phone, always had. I was horrible at texting. It just felt like my fingers were too big and clumsy and I couldn’t text as fast as I wanted to. Writing in a notebook meant I never had to retype a word tons of times.
Don’t even get me started on autocorrect.
After jotting down what the hotel looked like inside and out, I followed the crowd toward the ballroom. There was food laid out and what looked like the entire upper crust of Santa Barbara all mingling together, sipping champagne. I took a moment to center myself.
This wasn’t about meeting hot guys. This was about getting information.
There was some kind of podium set up at the far end, probably so that the Ingram twins could give a speech. I decided to stay away from that area. Instead, I mingled with the folks near the buffet.
Waiters were passing by, handing out champagne and other drinks and offering hors d’oeuvres. I slid in next to a group of women and snagged some food, trying to blend in. I had my press pass on, and I saw that I wasn’t the only one, but I’d learned in my time that people were more willing to talk to me when they didn’t realize I was a reporter. Especially when it came to celebrities and rich people.
Power Play - A MFMMM Reverse Harem Billionaire Romance (You Can't Resist a Bad Boy Book 6) Page 10