Risky Love_Dark Romance

by Vivian Ward

  A giggle escapes her lips and then we fall silent again as we lie curled up together, staring into each other’s eyes. I’m almost asleep when her eyes pop open and she begins speaking. “Colton, can I ask you a question?”

  “Always,” I mumble, half asleep.

  “Those other girls—the ones before me—did you, I mean did they,” her voice trails off for a second. “Do what we did tonight?”

  Surprised, I open my weary eyes and see those beautiful chocolate stars staring up at me. “Some of them but the ones who did, they were different.”

  The twinkle in her eye dims as her face falls. “Then why? Why did you do that with them? I mean, if they were different. What does that mean?”

  I consider her question and carefully think of my response. “Because they were sluts, Ally. They didn’t mean anything to me but I was able to use them for something that I wanted. At the end of the day, we both benefited from a mutual agreement. They were in it for the perks. I was in it for different reasons.” Most of the time they were heavily compensated. Fur coats, diamond earrings, gold bracelets, expensive hotel rooms. They all expected something. Nothing was ever free and no matter who it was or how much I spent, it always was about the money.

  She thinks about this for a moment while chewing her lip. I know there’s more so I patiently wait as we keep looking into each other’s eyes. I’ve never met anyone near as beautiful as her. I never envisioned myself as a family man but I could see the two of us possibly getting married and maybe having a kid or two. She’d have to quit her job. I wouldn’t want a nanny to raise my child like I was when I grew up.

  “Did you and Brooke….?”

  Her question surprises me but I should’ve seen it coming. She’s jealous of Brooke and has hated her since she saw her at the club. I should’ve known that she’s been curious about our relationship. “Sometimes,” I say. “But let me assure you that Brooke was never anything more than a contract to me. There was definitely an exchange. She was my arm candy and sex toy and in exchange, I sent her on paid vacations, bought her expensive clothes and she had a credit card that she was allowed to use.” Ally’s eyes shoot up to mine with a look of fear and anger. “No,” I laugh, holding my hand up. “She no longer has that credit card. I had it cancelled the day after you and I had sex on the desk in my office.”

  “How come you didn’t do it before that?” she asks.

  “I didn’t know if you’d ever come around. You have no idea how badly I wanted you, Ally. No idea. Every time I fucked, every time I jacked off, every time I came, all I could envision was your face. Those little chocolate stars of yours stared at me every time I imagined you. They were a gift and a curse at the same time. They were all I wanted, yet they haunted me. All I could see was your warm smile, those beautiful lips, those little chocolate stars, and your gorgeous hair.”

  It feels strange, yet right lying next to Ally as I tell her how I feel. It’s not something I’ve done in a very long time but I like it. I like having her here, I like her by my side, and I like that I feel as though I’ve found my other half. She completes me.

  A slow grin tugs at her lips before she kisses my chin. “Good night, Colton,” she says.

  “Good night, Princess.”

  Chapter 10

  Ally

  With time ticking against us, I decide to call Darcy to find out what’s going on at The Gateway Times. I don’t know how long it’ll take for Mark and his team to do whatever it is they need to do but I can’t just keep sitting around waiting for the story to go live. It’s going to drive me out of my mind.

  “The Gateway Times, this is Darcy,” she answers her phone after I dial her extension.

  “Darcy, it’s Ally.”

  A sarcastic giggle carries over the phone line. “Well if it isn’t Gretta’s little bullshit writer! How’s it going? You must be bored to tears writing those lame articles about festivals, parades, carnivals and whatever other wild goose chase she sends you on.”

  Deep, calm breaths I remind myself. I know the calmer I remain, the better chance I have of obtaining information from her. She likes to spill her guts about any and everything she can. I think that’s one of the reasons why she makes a great journalist: she doesn’t shut up. The only downfall to that is that she also sounds like she has diarrhea of the mouth.

  “Actually, I’m working on a project of my own,” I lie. I’m not going to let her think that I’m sitting around here bored even though it’s the truth. “But I have a question for you, two of them actually.”

  “Hang on,” she says, and it sounds like she’s stretching. “Okay, I’ve got my feet propped up and am comfortable now. Go ahead and shoot!”

  She has no idea how bad I want to pull that trigger. Biting my tongue, I give a fake laugh which damn near kills me because I hate pretending to like someone when I don’t and I really don’t like Darcy. I never have and I know I never will. “Well, it’s been a while since we’ve hung out. How are things going with you? Are you and, um, Greg still together?”

  She laughs and then goes dead quiet. “Look, I know we used to be friends and all, Ally, but that’s back before you went awol.” Her tone is so serious that she reminds me of one of those psycho killers. You know the kind, they laugh one minute and the next they’ve got a butcher knife shoved into your neck. “I guess you could say we’re good. I mean, I will be getting the job of my dreams and you’ll be….,” her voice fades away. “Well, you’ll be like Rapunzel locked away in your little castle where you won’t break a nail.”

  Ugh! She makes me so mad! I really want to reach through the phone and choke her ass, and not how Colton chokes me. I want to hurt her. “Ha!” I fake another laugh; though, my tone is much friendlier than hers. “Nice, but it’s not what you think here at all, Darcy. I work every day.”

  “Right,” she laughs. “Good one! I bet you work real hard writing those little pieces that Gretta gives you. We both know you’re too good for that stuff, so what does it take you? A day to write something that you get a week to work on? What do you do with all that free time, Ally? Go shopping? Go catch a movie?”

  Ok, now she’s really struck a chord with me. If we can dig up enough dirt, I want to make sure she’s buried double deep. “You’re funny. If you must know, I do get my writing done fairly quickly and then I spend the rest of my time helping Colton run his business.” It’s a lie but she doesn’t know that and she’ll never find out because it’s none of her business what I do all day. “Anyway,” I say, cradling the phone with my shoulder as I reach for my coffee. “Speaking of writing, have you talked to Greg about that article?”

  “What article?” she asks in a sugary sweet voice.

  It takes everything I have not to growl at her. Talking to her is becoming so painful that I’d rather go have a root canal done. “The one that I wrote. The one that you found on my computer when you took over my desk.”

  “Oh, that article. Right, right. Yeah, we did have a conversation about it.”

  A few seconds of silence pass. “And?” I ask.

  “Ally,” she giggles. “You’re not supposed to talk about conversations that happen behind closed doors. You of all people should know that—or maybe you don’t since you were dumb enough to not only write it but leave it behind for others to find. Let’s face it,” she sighs. “You took my career from simple to easy as fuck.”

  “How so?” I ask. I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about but I’m sure she’s more than willing to fill me in.

  “Come on, Ally,” she whines. “You already know that I was sleeping with the boss so I had it easy and got some perks out of it but then you handed me the golden key to not only my career but also his. When The Gateway Times exposes that sex maniac you’re with, you two are going to be up a creek with no paddle because he’s not going to have all that money anymore and you will still be pushing around stupid side articles, courtesy of Gretta’s goofy ideas.”

  Most of what she’s saying makes
sense but there’s something else she’s not telling me. She knows more than she’s leading on and I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Screw Colton’s PI and his guys. There’s no way they can get the inside scoop on this the way I can. By the sounds of it, it doesn’t seem like Darcy—or Greg— have told anyone about the story which makes me wonder why. What are their plans with it and how are they going to use it to benefit them more than they already are? There’s a whole lot of math being done but nothing is adding up, so I decide to keep pressing her for more information.

  “What golden key? What are you talking about, Darcy? And what do you mean ‘courtesy of Gretta,’ I don’t understand.”

  “It won’t be long now so I guess I can go ahead and fill you in,” she sneers. “It’s not like you can do much anyway. The ratings are down for The Gateway Times and it’s on the verge of being sold unless something drastic happens and it regains some of the traction that it’s lost. Greg’s been waiting for the right story to come through to save the place and here you’ve been sitting on it all along. Not only did you just save his job—well, you saved somebody’s job because he’ll be getting a promotion and when he does, he’s leaving his wife for me—but you also saved my job and everyone who’s below me. Greg says he’ll make me head of the editorial department so not only will I get to put whatever I want in the paper, I’ll have control to run things how I want to run them. My name will be attached to everything.”

  Oh my god. It all makes so much sense now. I knew the paper wasn’t doing well because Greg refuses to put anything online so we’ve lost a lot of readers. Everyone has switched to digital news—everyone except Greg. Damn, and what perfect timing this all is for him, too. I don’t care who you are or how you read the paper, people will buy a copy of something like this to have in print. But I still wonder what she means about the whole Gretta comment.

  “Wow,” I say, stunned. “And why did you mention Gretta again? How does she fit into all of this?”

  “Oh! Before you left this little gem behind, Greg had given her the task of assigning you meaningless articles while I worked on special projects and did my research about the Catholic church. Everyone loves local gossip where kids and priests are involved, right? But now I won’t have to worry about any of that stuff because of you.” She pauses for a minute. “And don’t worry, Ally. If you really need some extra money once this is all out in the open so you can take care of you and your man, I’ll let you keep writing those articles—since you’re used to them and all.”

  She’s kidding, right? She is fucking nuts if she thinks I’m going to allow any of this to happen. “How nice of you,” I say sarcastically. “So when are you guys moving forward with the story?”

  She sighs. “Why? It doesn’t really concern you, now does it?”

  “Actually, it does, Darcy. I wrote that story and I want my name attached to it. I don’t care how you do it but I want some of the credit for that piece since I did all of the work.” I need to try to get her to include me so I know what they’re doing and when they’re doing it so we can be one step ahead of them to prevent all of this from going public.

  “I can’t do that, Ally. This is an awfully big piece and nobody will believe that you—little miss parade and carnival writer—had anything to do with it.”

  “You have to include me, Darcy,” I insist. “You have to! I did all the work on that. You could put me on it as a co-writer.”

  I can practically hear her rolling her eyes over the phone. “And why would I do that?” she says.

  I have to give her a good reason and I better do it fast. “Look Darcy, I know that I’m sort of at your mercy here but I can prove that I wrote part of that story.” It’s another lie but she has no idea and since I’ve never given her a reason not to trust me before, she seems to be believing everything I’m telling her. I never lie and she knows that.

  “How’s that?” she asks, clicking her tongue as though I’m annoying her.

  “I originally wrote part of it at home and I have the first half of that story saved to a USB drive. Everything is time and date stamped, and it will show that it was at the time when I was working at the club and I have all of my pay stubs to prove it.”

  I’m shocked at how good I am at this lying thing but I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect Colton. She considers my words for a moment before she finally replies. “Let me talk to Greg first. I’ll have an answer for you by tomorrow at lunch. Meet me at Sweet Sensations around noon.”

  Good, that’s all the time I’ll need. “Perfect,” I say. “I’ll talk to you then.” I quickly disconnect the call to phone Colton right away.

  Chapter 11

  Colton

  My God, she’s a fucking genius. Beauty and brains, it doesn’t get any better than that.

  I can’t believe that she took matters into her own hands but I’m glad she did. She may have just saved both of our asses and Im thoroughly impressed with her techniques. It took some balls to do what she did and she did it better than Mark and his men. They were planning on trailing Greg and Darcy to get some pictures of them together to blackmail him with but maybe that won’t be necessary anymore.

  “You’ve outdone yourself,” I say to Ally. “But I can’t let you go meet her. What if she’s setting you up? I don’t trust any of those people.”

  She puffs out her bottom lip and folds her arms across her chest. “Colton, we can’t keep waiting for your PI to do whatever he plans on doing. We have to start taking action now. You don’t realize how much trouble the paper’s in. I’m surprised the story isn’t already published!”

  I’ve never seen her so persistent or adamant about anything in our entire relationship. “Let me talk to Mark and see what he says or what he’s found out. Okay?”

  “Colton,” she walks over to me and gets in my face. “We are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Don’t let it blow us up, baby! If that old man says he’s no closer to—,”.

  “Enough,” I put my hand on her shoulder. “That’s enough. There’s no point in getting worked up over something we don’t know yet. For all we know, he might have a lead on something. Let me just make a call real quick and then we can decide what to do next.”

  She doesn’t like what I have to say but I don’t care. I can’t let her go someplace where she might be getting setup or allow them to use her to their benefit. She glares at me before she finally pushes her chair away from my desk, the legs screech across the hardwood floor. Without another word, she stalks out of my study. She can be pissed all she wants if it means keeping her safe.

  I pick up my cell phone and call Mark. It’s been two days since I last talked to him so I’m curious what he has to say anyway. He picks up on the third ring.

  “Colton,” he answers. “I was going to call you this evening.”

  “Yeah? Have you got any leads?” I ask as I pour myself another drink. Linda could sense the stress at dinner tonight and before she left, she set me up with a drink tray in my office.

  “Sort of,” he says. His words sound shaky like he doesn’t have good news. I sit up straight in my chair. “My men have been trailing Greg and his mistress, Darcy, and we know what they’re up to but it’s not pretty.”

  I gulp my shot before I offer him a chance to tell me what he knows. “Spill it,” I say.

  “We found out that there’s a company trying to buy The Gateway Times. Their sales have been in the toilet for the six and a half years, and there’s a publications company who’s been acquiring failing news outlets and turning them into huge successes. My men tell me that Greg’s intentions are to present your story to them and use it as a bargaining tool to maintain his position within the company—while advancing, of course—and secure a better position for his lovely affair partner.”

  “Ally only knew half of it then,” I mumble. “Damn.”

  “What do you mean?” Mark asks.

  “She called her old colleague today and learned that they were doing something w
ith the story but we had no idea that they were at risk of being purchased. Ally didn’t think you’d be able to get all of this information and insisted that they put her name on the article or attach it somehow so that she could stay one step ahead of them. Now they’re supposed to meet for lunch tomorrow. I’m not liking the sound of this one bit,” I say, clenching my jaw.

  “Hmm. It might not be a bad idea, Colton. You should let her go on this little lunch date.”

  “What? Are you crazy? I can’t let her go. What if they’re setting her up somehow? These are people who can’t be trusted. What if they pull some stunt to ruin her career?”

  “You’re right, they can’t be trusted, so we have her wear a wire when they meet tomorrow. My men can put a mic on her and we can listen in on the conversation while we record it. This way if they pull a stunt, we’ve got everything on tape. My guys can wait around the corner in a van so that if anything happens, she’ll have protection.”

  I think about what he’s saying and while I know he’s right, it makes me nervous. I don’t want them doing anything that would jeopardize Ally. It’s too risky.

  “All right and you’re sure she’ll be OK?“ I ask Mark.

  “She’ll be fine. We’ll keep an eye on her and if anything goes bad my men will go and get her out.“

  I know he’s probably right and I have nothing to worry about but I’m scared that Ally is putting herself in a dangerous position.

  “OK, I’ll take your word for it but if anything goes wrong I’m holding you personally responsible for her well-being. I’ll text you the details of their meeting after I find out where they are.”

  With that I hang up and go to find Ally. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear the news but I’m worried that I making a big mistake.