by Anne Calhoun
“What I would like,” he said, still detached, still hot, “is to see how the whole ensemble looks with the corset.”
The temperature in the room shot up a couple degrees, or at least in the portion of the room the three of them currently occupied. Simone straightened, rolling from her knees to the balls of her feet, then rising. The delicate gauze of the robe brushed against the sensitive skin of her forearm, raising goose bumps, but it was the way Ryan watched the two of them together that sent a delicate shiver across the nape of her neck.
“Of course, sir,” she said quietly.
“It’s Ryan.”
She gave him a flustered nod and hurried from the workroom back to the showroom, where she selected the matching corset in two sizes, then trotted back into the workroom. Jade and Ryan hadn’t moved. When Simone reached her side, Jade fixed her gaze on Ryan’s reflection in the mirror, then reached for the kimono-style tie at her waist, languidly pulled the trailing end free so that the robe gaped open, then shrugged once. The fabric whispered from her shoulders to pool at her feet, leaving her in nothing but the satin panties and her heels.
They made for an erotic triptych in the mirror: Simone in her black pencil skirt and black heels, a silk Pucci tank top in wild shades of red and blue and orange, with her red hair coiled to lay over one shoulder; Jade, statuesque and nearly naked, her nipples peaking in the cool air; Ryan behind them, out of reach but in total control of the situation. The slow nod he gave Simone to indicate she should secure the corset around Jade’s torso once again reminded Simone of the absolute power possessed by men with money.
Simone had fitted clothes to hundreds and hundreds of women at fashion shows and private fittings, the design process by which a new collection was created. She was comfortable with bodies in all shapes, sizes, and colors. It simply wasn’t erotic. It was work.
And yet, with Ryan watching, it was unbelievably erotic.
The corset fastened in the back with a series of hooks and eyes. Simone stretched it around the front of Jade’s torso; Jade’s hands held the corset to her abdomen while Simone fastened each hook and eye running from between her shoulder blades to the base of her spine. Her hair whispered over her shoulder as she bent her head, but Simone didn’t miss the glance she flicked the mirror. The corset didn’t cover her breasts. It didn’t even provide support. It was intended only to emphasize the curve of a woman’s waist, and to draw attention to what was left uncovered both above and below.
Ryan hadn’t moved, but the hints of a flush stood high in his cheekbones as he studied his mistress, his gaze moving slowly from her lips to her throat to her bare breasts, the corset, the expanse of skin between the end of the corset and the top edge of the silk panties, then down the length of her legs to her feet in heels. Jade’s breath came in short, quick inhales and exhales, although Simone couldn’t tell whether this was from Ryan’s gaze on her body, or the constricted breathing from the corset.
“What do you think?”
The question was directed at her, not Jade. Her mouth had gone dry, so Simone swallowed, then said, “The corset fits perfectly, sir.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Flat. A tone that said Don’t play games with me.
Simone stretched out her finger and ran the tip down the line of hooks and eyes mirroring Jade’s spine until her finger came to rest between the dimples on either side of Jade’s tailbone. “She’s exquisite.”
“She certainly is.” A small smile danced around Ryan’s mouth as he spoke, and Simone couldn’t help feeling that, against her will, she had been drawn into something she’d intended to avoid.
“Help her put the robe back on.”
Simone crouched, gathered the fabric in her hands, and slid it over Jade’s waiting arms. Without being told, she stood between Jade and the mirror and fastened the robe at her waist. Whether from long experience as a fashion model or the submissive undertones simmering in the room, Jade made no move to help her. When the belt was arranged to suit her, Simone stepped aside to give Ryan a clear view.
“Definitely keep the heels.”
To Simone’s experienced eye, there never really had been any question of whether or not to keep the heels. Even without the corset the outfit simply wasn’t one to be worn barefoot. Bare feet were for the soft cottons of her sleep T line, for wrapping up in a fluffy chenille robe and sitting in a chaise on the deck of a house in the Hamptons, sipping coffee and watching the sunrise.
The image bloomed in her mind the way the sun would burnish the ocean in a dozen different shades of orange and pink and yellow. She could smell the coffee, feel the chenille against her naked skin, a hard chest at her back and strong arms wrapped around her.
Ryan’s arms.
She looked at him. He looked at her, and while she didn’t know what he was thinking about, she would bet her LLC that he wasn’t imagining a romantic interlude with her at a beach house. An unfamiliar sensation bloomed alongside the slow, heated arousal she was fighting to keep hidden. The sensation was regret, but not the regret of decisions made, but the longing for something she’d denied herself. The odds of Ryan marrying or making a life with Jade were slim to none, but they were better than the odds of her having even a single weekend with him.
Ryan stood, and with two slow steps stood next to Simone. He tugged free the robe’s intricate knot, revealing Jade’s peaked nipples and flat belly. “Show me how to tie it.”
Simone couldn’t breathe. Working from muscle memory she demonstrated the folds and knots. Ryan opened the robe one last time, then tied it perfectly on the first try. He looked at her, ostensibly for confirmation, but the heat in his eyes turned a simple check-in for understanding into something she wasn’t supposed to share with him.
She took a step back, then nodded. She would provide Ryan a service, and keep him firmly in the client category. Ryan’s real business, the thing he took seriously, wasn’t standing in front of him. It was in the spreadsheets and the analyst calls and derivatives and loopholes and margins. Her business was merely his pleasure and she would do well to remember that.
“I believe the showroom manager has your clothes collected for you, Madame,” she said.
“Go get dressed,” Ryan said to Jade.
“We’re going to lunch, right?” Jade threw over her shoulder as she sailed toward the door.
Ryan’s expression didn’t change, but Simone saw the muscle leap in his jaw. “Yes, we’re going to lunch.” The door closed behind Jade, and he turned his heavy-lidded gaze on Simone. “When can you have the alterations finished?”
“That depends on how quickly you need them, sir.”
“I’d like to have them by close of business tomorrow. I will, of course, pay for the rush order.”
Simone mentally reviewed her production schedule. If she pulled Estelle off the collection she was putting together to pitch to Barney’s, the alterations would be done perfectly the first time. “Of course, sir. I’ll put my best seamstress to work on it first thing in the morning.”
He shook his head “No. I want you to do it.”
Simone felt her eyebrows lift at the imperious command. “It is impossible—” she began.
He cut her off. “It’s you, or I cancel the order.”
Her hackles lifted all along her shoulders as she straightened them. One of Ryan’s blond eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. Simone drew in a breath, battened down her redheaded temper, and said, “Of course, sir.”
“Bill me whatever,” he said carelessly as he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew the Bluetooth earpiece.
“I will bill you what is customary and appropriate for rush alterations,” she said, drawing her not-inconsiderable dignity around her.
That wry smile lifted one corner of his mouth again. “Then I’ll just have to tip you something outrageous and inappropriate,” he said, low and smooth.
After the door closed behind them, the entire room seemed to settle its ruffled feathers. Simone collected the outfit from the Silver Room, where it was draped neatly over the back of the chaise. If nothing else, Jade took care of the things that belonged to her. At the counter, Lorrie began to sort through the tangled mass of lingerie left in Jade’s wake, hanging bras on silk hangers, sorting the panties by size and style before folding them neatly. “Did you recognize her?” she asked.
“She walked for Dolce and Gabbana and Calvin Klein at Fashion Week. Did you recognize him?”
“Oh yes,” Lorrie said. “From the New York Times style section, Page Six of the Post, a few celebrity blogs. He’s a high-up at MacCarren.”
Simone thanked her lucky stars that she kept her temper under control. MacCarren was one of the oldest, most respected names in financial services, an exclusive, tightly held wealth management firm. While her family’s powerful corporation, Demarchelier House, had loyal clients, that connection was no guarantee of success. She had ten months in business, a reputation for her impetuous temper, and she’d worked what connections she could already. A man like Ryan Hamilton had connections to people who could not only afford her designs, but also valued the quality and the craftsmanship. He dated the kind of women who worshipped fashion, and better yet, endlessly crowed over their finds on social media. He would bring the right women to her showroom, clients who could make or break her season. Therefore, despite his heated looks and his charisma, nothing would come of the connection. She would make the necessary alterations. He would send someone to pick them up. She wouldn’t see him again until Jade or another woman like her decided it was time for something new.
Twisting her hair into a coil, she tucked it over one shoulder, collected the items to be altered, then went to claim a station in the workroom. She ripped the seams of the robe, detached the lace, pinned everything to Jade’s measurements, then took her needle and thread to a stool by the floor to ceiling windows to make the alterations. The summer sunlight was a hot, physical touch on her nape and shoulder, and not even the pleasure she took in her work could stave off the combination of regret and desire simmering low in her belly.
Chapter Two
Ryan Hamilton looked around the conference table populated by men and women in suits, badges pinned to their lapels or belts. Laptops were open and connected to the secure Wi-Fi network. Legal pads sat next to the laptops, and people made notes as the meeting progressed. At the front of the room a man stood in front of a projection screen, giving a presentation about high value targets.
It looked like a typical business meeting. It could be happening at any one of thousands of companies or multinational corporations around the five boroughs. It could even be happening at MacCarren, the firm Ryan had called home since he graduated from the Wharton School of Business a decade earlier. Not even the late hour, after eight in the evening, disqualified this meeting from the realm of normal.
What launched it into the realm of unbelievable was the fact that every individual in the room except for Ryan wore a badge that identified them as agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But not Ryan. Ryan wore a temporary badge labeled VISITOR, which was being polite. His correct title was “whistleblower.” Which was also being polite.
He was a rat, pure and simple. No matter how often he told himself he was doing the right thing, he knew he was a rat. There were laws governing the running of investment houses and banks: federal laws, state laws, local laws. MacCarren hired lawyers, well-paid, well-educated lawyers, to navigate those laws. Then there were the unwritten laws governing the conduct of employees within those corporations. Rule number one: make as much money as you can, as fast as you can. If the SEC catches you doing something wrong, take the fine and deal with moral and ethical questions not at all.
There was no rule number two.
If you did decide you couldn’t stomach the world of hedge funds, derivatives, and investment banks, the right thing to do was to quit and take a job somewhere else. There was the right thing to do, and then there was the rat thing to do. Ryan had chosen the rat thing.
A few weeks ago, when he’d accidentally stumbled upon rarely used accounts and followed the money into offshore accounts and the sure knowledge that Don and Charles, the father and son team leading MacCarren, were running a massive Ponzi scheme behind the scenes, he’d taken an early lunch, hailed a cab, and gone to the federal building in downtown Manhattan where he’d asked to see an agent working on white-collar crime. Daniel Logan, the agent he’d sat down with that day, now sat directly to his right, with another agent Daniel worked with seated to Ryan’s left. Ryan had labeled him the Jock; based on the way the Jock looked at him, he’d classified Ryan as the kind of skinny math geek he used to torment in the hallways. Ryan was pretty sure they were both dead-on.
Technically speaking, Daniel was his handler, checking in with Ryan every twenty-four to thirty-six hours, arranging meetings, and generally making sure that Ryan didn’t bolt for a country with no extradition treaty. Ryan had no intention of bolting, and anyway, he turned over his passport at the beginning of this process. Besides, when he started something, he finished it, even if finishing this would end him.
The agent at the front of the room was droning on about time lines, indictments, subpoenas. Ryan zoned out, thinking about something that he’d started at Irresistible. Not with Jade. That was over before it began, although she didn’t know it. No, he was thinking about Simone.
He wanted her. It was as simple as that, and back before he learned what he didn’t want to know, back before he developed a conscience that was very inconvenient on Wall Street, he would’ve gone after her. He would have had her every way he could.
But now, he refused to drag anyone into the morass of legal and financial battles that would be his life after the FBI, SEC, and God only knew who else raided MacCarren. After years, literally years, of dating with no purpose in mind other than finding a pretty woman who would entertain him for a few days, maybe a few weeks, it was very inconvenient to finally run across a woman whose red hair, blue eyes, and cinnamon-on-cream freckles sparked a chest-deep ache he’d never felt before.
Any idiot could tell that Simone’s purpose in life wasn’t about getting rich quick or being a flash in the pan. The attention to detail in the clothes she made, their beauty and craftsmanship, the way she focused on fitting Jade, told him everything he needed to know about Simone. Unfortunately what it told him was that she wouldn’t truck with notoriety, shame, and scandal. His casual offer to bill him an astronomical amount for the alterations fell on proud, deaf ears, which was why he’d resorted to having a bike messenger both deliver the payment and pick up the lingerie. He’d been more focused on what Simone thought of his tip than on Jade.
She wouldn’t like it, but while his stomach twisted at the thought of her reaction, he didn’t regret it. Maybe the slow flare in his gut was the incipient ulcer. The plan called for him to continue working at MacCarren, while getting confessions from the leaders in the scheme. When it came to trading millions or billions of dollars in a split second, he had nerves of steel, but the collateral damage from this particular trade of integrity for confessions of guilt would lead to bankruptcy and prison sentences, destroyed reputations, and shattered dreams. His nerves were a goddamn mess.
He shook two antacid tablets out of the container he carried with him at all times, and popped them in his mouth.
His eyes on the speaker, Daniel Logan leaned over. “How’s your stomach?”
Ryan liked that
about Daniel, his directness, the way that he went to the heart of an issue, and all in a low rumble of a voice that said it wouldn’t matter if he was trapping a daddy longlegs to release into the wild or defusing a nuclear bomb—he had this.
“How do you think my stomach is?” Ryan said under his breath. “How come you’re so calm?”
“I spent six years with the NYPD in the Bronx and met my wife on a ledge in a stiff breeze. Not much fazes me.”
Sure Logan was yanking his chain, Ryan stared at him. Logan’s expression didn’t change. “A ledge?” he asked, incredulous.
“Twenty-two stories over Park Avenue,” Daniel said. “Try not to give yourself a bleeding ulcer before this is over. We’re just getting to the good stuff.”
Daniel’s definition of “the good stuff” was very different from Ryan’s. The plan was simple: Ryan would use the social whirlwind of the New York summer season as a cover to get specifics about the scheme. He would claim that he’d figured it out, and he wanted in. There were massive amounts of money to be made, and no one would doubt that Ryan, with his lifestyle, both needed more money and lacked the moral compass to go to the FBI or the SEC. Hubris and greed. That’s what this was all about, and everyone knew Ryan had both in spades.
That’s who he had become. A decade on Wall Street and not a shred of his soul left. He looked out the window at the sky, where the summer solstice sun was finally setting, wreathed in clouds the same shade of red as Simone’s hair. A snippet of song floated into his head: It’s a long way down back to the place where we started.
He should be paying attention, because this wasn’t going to be easy. MacCarren didn’t save internal emails or instant message conversations, and the offices were routinely swept for recording devices. The success of the operation depended on his ability to get the people in charge to admit to the scheme either in writing or out loud while he wore a wire. In writing wasn’t going to happen, so he had to get close to the two men in charge, and get them talking. Daniel Logan had very politely informed him he would prefer evidence that stood up in court. It was pretty clear that the FBI would prefer not to come off looking like boneheads.