by Amelia Wilde
“John Bower.” The stately man in his sixties, with silver hair and a suit that looks personally tailored, shakes my hand with a firm grip. “And this is Miranda O’Keefe, senior partner.”
Miranda shakes my hand with a similarly strong grip and looks me up and down. Her lips curl upward with approval, and I brush away the sense that she has totally outclassed me in her red sheath dress with a smart black blazer.
We sit at the table and my chest swells with pride. This is my moment. This is the perfect firm, with the perfect people, and this room is just like the libraries I loved the most in law school. Everything about this place is lovingly maintained. I belong here.
Miranda folds her hands on the shining surface of the table, her eyes bright and hawkish. She’s the type to follow—I know it instinctively. It’s not going to be long before we bond over salads in the lunch room, and get to talking about our lives. I have a flash-forward of her telling me that she sees a lot of herself in me, and I’m destined to change things. “We’re so pleased to have you here, Ms. Leighton.”
“You can call me Bellamy.” I make sure to make eye contact with John Bower as well, even though he’s settled back in his seat and seems perfectly willing to let Miranda steer this interview.
“Bellamy.” Her smile is so wide and white, I’m nearly blinded. “Tell us a bit about yourself.”
I look her straight in the eye. This is my life, knitting itself together, all in this moment. “I’m very passionate about practicing the law,” I start out. “I knew I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a girl, and I always kept that goal in mind. I went to undergrad at NYU and attended law school at Georgetown.” I push away all of the recent nonsense about passing the bar while being called a prostitute in the media. “I’m confident I’ll be admitted to the D.C. bar shortly, and I plan to transfer to New York. I want to specialize in criminal defense. Oh, and I love to run. That’s my hobby when I can find a spare thirty minutes.” I throw that last detail in with a smile, even though I haven’t had time to run since before fall semester.
“That’s wonderful.” She gives me a pointed nod and Mr. Bower makes a noise that sounds encouraging. “Now, let’s talk details. We’d absolutely love to have you in the office once a week, maybe every other week. The optics would be wonderful for us both.”
There’s a screeching sound in the back of my mind—a record scratch. What?
“I’m sorry, I—” I smile bigger. “I don’t understand.”
Miranda glances at John, and seems to get his go-ahead to level with me. “Having someone with your name recognition at our firm could be...very beneficial to us both.”
“I agree. I’m a hard worker, and I always—”
“I’m sure, I’m sure. But what we’re looking for is someone who can give the firm a certain boost without becoming a liability.”
There it is—the word that pops my confidence like a cheap balloon.
“I’m looking for full-time engagement.” I press on. “This is the start of my career, and I want to learn as much as I can with hands-on—”
“That could be an option someday,” Miranda offers. “But in the meantime, consider coming to work as a sort of...public associate. You can shadow us on cases and hone your skills.”
“But not actually work on them?”
She frowns, apologetic. It’s a lie. “It’s a tricky balance, being in the public eye, especially when we work with such high-profile clients. There could be a perception that you’re being swayed by your connection with the current administration.”
I want to put my head on the desk and cry.
“I can assure you, that would never be the case.”
“Oh, I have no doubt. But until President Blackpool leaves office, we’d rather not take the risk.” She must see that I’m devastated, because she rushes on. “You did very well in school, Bellamy. You’re going to be a formidable asset to the firm. One day.”
Somehow, I hold it together long enough to get through a round of handshakes and promises to stay in contact. It all comes with a tacit pressure to call them back in the next few days, so I can get started.
Then I go back to Graham’s penthouse, shut myself in the second master suite, and allow myself five minutes to sulk.
So the firm wasn’t for me. It was all part of a world I can’t be part of. Not right now, anyway.
The only thing left is Graham.
31
Graham
Bellamy greets me at the door to the penthouse with two glasses of wine and a smile so fake that it’s verging on tears.
“How did it go?” Her voice is strung tight and high, and I can’t bear it.
I take the glasses from her hands and put them on the side table. “About as well as your interview.”
Her face falls, chin quivering. “How did you know about the interview?”
I wrap my arms around her and tilt her face toward mine. “You might not like the answer.”
“What’s the answer?” Bellamy curls her body into mine, the lines of her pressing against all the right places beneath my suit.
“You’re an open book to me now.” It’s almost entirely true. There are times when Bellamy is closed off, far away—like when she’s sitting across from her mother—but we’ve been together long enough. And it’s not just that—I’ve paid attention to her, even when it’s a risk.
“Damn,” she says softly, and I wonder if the word has more than one meaning. There’s a curve in her spine, a sag in her shoulders, that gives her away.
“Their loss.” I spread my hands out over her back.
I want to do so much more—slide my palms over the curve of her hips, stroke my fingers between her legs, rub one thumb across her chin and open her mouth to me—but the intimacy of holding her, of comforting her by being close—it takes my fucking breath away.
The moment builds and crests and crashes against the shore of us when Bellamy lifts her face to mine for a kiss. It’s the same kind of kiss, deep and intimate. Every movement she makes with her tongue sears against my lips in excruciating slowness. The pain of it, of not devouring her, turns into pleasure, and when she sighs against me, my tortured cock leaps against the fabric of my pants.
I’m not waiting for the bedroom.
I pull away from her and turn her around, pressing her hands up against the wall and dragging my lips down the side of her neck. The reward for this? A series of quick little gasps, her nipples rising against her shirt so that when I reach for them, they’re already standing out from her skin.
The energy of her body against the wall is tidal, irresistible, and I can’t be gentle anymore. Gentleness is going to burn me alive. Being restrained is going to be the end of me.
I yank her jeans to the floor and her panties after them, pulling her white socks off in the process. White socks. Jesus.
“Graham, please—”
I know what she’s begging for.
I stand behind her and knock her knees apart with one of mine, wrap a hand around her throat, and dip one between her legs.
She’s soaked.
Bellamy arches back as far as she can under the featherlight touch I’m using against the curve of her neck. This I can be gentle with. This I have to be gentle with. The gentleness shows my power, and holy fuck, does she respond to it.
“Beg, sweetness.”
“Please.” She gasps the word on an inhale that breaks her voice into a thousand pieces. “Please.”
“Please?” I push two fingers into her. There’s no resistance. Her ass trembles as she spreads her legs wider to let me in.
“Please take me. Take me, Graham, I need it.”
“Why do you need it?”
“Because I—” Her words are broken up by shallow breaths, and I watch a pink blush spread over her lower back. “I want to be yours. I need to be yours. You’re the only one who… who—”
I twist my fingers inside of her, the tips brushing up against a spot that makes her curl her fingers an
d toes with a low moan that shakes and shudders her body all the way up, and all the way down.
“You’re the only one who can make this go away.”
Bellamy clenches around my fingers and I take them away.
“No,” she chokes out. “No, please—”
“Oh, sweetness. Do you think I’d leave you empty for long?”
Belt. Zipper. Both of them fall away like they’re nothing, and I have my crown at her slick, needy entrance, puffy and wanting.
“Oh, thank God,” pants Bellamy.
“Thank me. Because I can’t be gentle, sweetness. I can’t take it slow.”
“Don’t.” She growls the word through gritted teeth and I thrust into her. It’s too fast, and I can feel it—she’s a fraction of a second behind me, a fraction of a second too slow in opening.
I slow down.
She shakes her head, hissing, and pushes back harder.
Fuck. She’s a spitfire. This is the same Bellamy Leighton who chased me out of her little coffee shop and fought with me over a hundred dollars. This is the Bellamy Leighton who walked out of that meeting with Brian and me and came back with her chin in the air and fire in her eyes. The girl who likes a little bit of pain with her pleasure.
I reach around to the front of her and tease her clit with my fingertips.
“Oh,” Bellamy says, tightening down around me. “Oh.” She presses her hands flat against the wall and takes a breath. “More?”
I am undone.
I give her more.
I give her everything I have, pinning her against that wall, her feet braced on the floor, her whole body shaking with the effort of taking me in, over and over.
She comes with a cry that vibrates straight through her core and pushes me over the edge, still frenzied until every last bit of desire is pumped out of me. It’s only then that I can gather her back into my arms while we both come down.
“So you—” I laugh out loud from the adrenaline rush. “You brought wine?”
“I was trying to set up a party. I got a cheese tray.”
I laugh harder. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” I kiss the unbelievable woman in my arms, and she laughs too.
“It was pretty sad. Because I’m guessing we both failed.”
“Being the president has not improved my brother’s sense of fairness. Wait.” I push her away from me and look down into her eyes. “A party?”
“A sort of anti-celebration.”
“Screw that.” I take her hand in mine. “We’re going to a real party.”
32
Bellamy
Graham is busy on his phone until the moment we pull up to the building. From outside, it looks like nothing, nowhere, even though I know what’s inside.
“Are you ready?”
I’m still buzzed from being fucked against the wall of his foyer, and from the hot water of the shower afterward, from Graham on his knees between my legs—all of it. I’m ready for anything.
“Is this going to be...different from before? We ate here, remember?”
He raises one eyebrow. “Yes, of course I remember. But we ate here alone that time.”
My heart beats faster. “We’re meeting other people?”
“Not if we never go in. Come on.”
Graham helps me out of the car, but instead of going up the main staircase, we go around to a dusky alleyway, where there’s a secondary door. Graham looks around in both directions before he punches in a code on a panel set into the wall. The door unlocks with a gentle click.
He offers his arm, and I take it. “This is all very sci-fi.”
“Extra security, in case of paparazzi.”
“Wouldn’t Jameson take care of that?” Graham’s Secret Service agents came behind us in a separate car and went into the Swan ahead of us.
“It’s not his job to cordon off every building I enter. He’s not on my brother’s detail.” Graham rolls his eyes. “We’re not eating in the small dining room tonight.”
“I’m not hungry. For anything but—”
Graham stops dead in the hall and kisses me, his tongue searching and possessive. “Me?”
“More of you. I’m hungry for more of you.”
“God damn, Bellamy. Should I get us a room?”
“This place is a hotel?”
“This is an all-inclusive membership club. Of course there are private rooms.” Graham’s eyes sparkle in the light from the sconces every few feet along the walls.
I want to take him up on it. The heat between my legs definitely wants me to take him up on it. But the mention of other people—friends?—is drawing me toward the low beat of the music at the other end of the hall. And honestly, if Graham gets me in one of those private rooms, I’m never coming out again. Not for interviews. Not for vacations. Nothing.
“Are people waiting for us?” I run my fingers under the fold of his collar and down to his tie.
He takes a breath. “Yes. But people cancel dates all the time.”
“You just organized this. Didn’t you? All the way here?”
He doesn’t bother to look sheepish. “Yes, and they’ll understand if—”
“Oh, my God, no. These are your friends. I’m betting you didn’t summon complete strangers to this club because I was having a bad day. We can’t stand them up.”
“I’d stand up the Pope for you.”
I laugh out loud. “No need.” My nerves spark with a trembling anxiety. Graham’s friends? This is real. These people will remember me. I won’t be able to erase myself from their minds if this all comes to a screeching halt.
I dismiss that thought and hold my head up high. A room full of the wealthiest people in New York City, and maybe even the world.
And me, Bellamy Leighton. Chaser of billionaires.
“One, two, three,” Graham says, and the double doors open in front of us, a uniformed staffer on either side.
It’s a massive dining room—absolutely massive. There are tiers, somehow, and a dance floor, and at one end, there is a DJ setup that’s so fantastic I can’t take it all in at once.
And the tables are full of people.
Laughing. Talking. Shouting over the music.
Everything is upscale, upper class, dripping with money, and I have a sudden moment of terror—did I change out of my jeans and sweater?
Yes. I put on this white gown, shot through with silver thread and sequins, and I fit in here.
Even if I don’t feel like it.
Graham doesn’t hesitate for an instant. He pushes through the tables, through all the chattering women in gowns that are explosions of color and men in dark tuxedoes, and goes straight for a table in the center.
The table is filled with angels.
People so beautiful that I pull on Graham’s arm. “Wait. Wait.”
We’re ten feet away. “What is it, sweetness?”
“These people—” I swallow the sudden fear that’s choking off my air supply. “They’ll know. They’ll know about me.”
He takes my chin in his hand and kisses me, right there in front of them all. There’s a whoop from the table, and then someone shouts, “It’s Blackpool! And he brought her with him!”
Graham pulls away and grins down at me. He makes eye contact with someone over my head and gives a cocky salute, then looks back into my eyes. “Belle, everybody knows about you. They can’t wait to meet you.”
Then a tuxedoed figure with dark hair and blue eyes that are sharp like the sea collides with us. “Blackpool, stop hoarding her all to yourself.”
“Shut your mouth, Hunter.”
Graham embraces the other man with a manly thump on the back, then pulls him around to face me. “This is Jax Hunter. Jax, this is my fiancée, Bellamy Leighton.”
He’s charming. He’s charming as hell. Jax Hunter is dark and handsome, with those flashing blue eyes, and he takes my hand like he’s a prince from another era. “I am so pleased to meet you,” he says. “The one woman on ea
rth who could tame Graham Blackpool.”
My cheeks go hot. “I’m not sure I’ve done that.”
Jax claps Graham on the back. “You didn’t say she was modest.” He throws a glance back at me. “He did say you were stunning. Got that right.”
Graham clears his throat. “Jax is married.”
Jax puts a hand to his chest. “I am offended that you would insinuate that I was hitting on your fiancée when my wife is sitting at that table.”
Graham laughs. “Kidding. Only kidding. This guy is so in love with his wife that it’s disgusting.”
As if on cue, the woman who must be Jax’s wife turns from her place at the table. “Husband of mine,” she calls. “Bring those beautiful creatures over here. They look like they need a drink.”
33
Graham
It takes all of five minutes for Bellamy’s shoulders to relax.
I don’t know what she was expecting out of my friends—my oldest friends—but I’d imagine it was a caricature of the wealthy. Not Jax’s restrained wit, unleashed after a few glasses of wine. Or the way Cate laughs with complete abandon and always returns to him, touching his arm, touching his face. Bellamy never could have known how whip-smart Eli could be, anchored with Quinn by his side, or how Jett Brandon is the center of every conversation but never takes his eyes off Angelica.
And there’s one surprise waiting that even I couldn’t orchestrate myself.
I don’t see it coming until Cate stands up and waves. “They made it. Jess! Usual table!”
There is so much laughter and hugging that it all blends into one. Alexander Caldwell, the royalty among us, sits down at the last two seats with his wife Jessica, who fans herself. “Security must be insane in here tonight,” she says with a laugh. “You’ve got Secret Service, don’t you?”
“Against my will.” I raise a glass, toast her, and take a sip.
Bellamy’s eyes are shining. “This is intense,” she says, so quietly she might as well be whispering it into her drink.