by Amelia Wilde
“Jax, tone it down—she has to keep her panties on in the club.”
“Lying doesn’t look good on you, Chris.”
We’re all laughing when the waiter comes with the first round of cocktails. Christian has picked the perfect women to spend the evening with.
I only have one complaint.
Neither of them are Cate.
By the end of the night, I’m tipsy from I don’t know how many drinks. The five-star chefs at the Swan sent plates to our table all night, and as the hours passed they got more inventive. Vivian and Charlotte called it quits long before Chris and I did, and now the food is sitting heavily in my stomach. I hate that feeling, hate how it’s a direct result of my own lack of self-control.
She’s getting to me.
We’re heading out the exit of the club, a small door on a less-traveled side street.
The relatively private exit is one of the selling points for the club’s clientele, so the last thing I expect is the flash of cameras in my face the moment we step onto the sidewalk.
“What the fuck?” I say angrily, shielding my eyes with my hands. Why the hell would the few remaining paparazzi in the city be interested in a dinner party on a Thursday night? There are far more interesting people to follow around than me.
One glance at Vivian tells me exactly why they’re here.
She doesn’t bother to look surprised. She just tightens her grip on my elbow and holds her head high so they can get a clear shot of her face.
Christian shoots me a look over her head that tells me he didn’t know about this shit, and I believe him.
Vivian, for all her witty jokes, wanted more time in the gossip spotlight.
I’m not going to give her much.
Keeping my face completely blank, I head for the car and step in, Vivian following close behind me. Peter closes the door and comes around the car at a jog. He’s behind the wheel in a matter of seconds.
Once Vivian sees my face, the smile drops from hers.
“What’s your address?” I ask bluntly.
She rattles it off.
“Take us there, Peter. We’re just dropping off.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cate
Jax kissed me so hard, with so much pent-up need, that he bruised my lip. I can’t help testing it with my teeth every few minutes for the rest of the evening.
He left me standing in his office, my panties ruined from his attentions, and I stayed there, fingertips against my bottom lip, for longer than I should have.
If you’re not here tomorrow, I’ll consider our agreement void.
It sounded so serious, the way he said it. But I can’t pretend any more. It’s true; we didn’t sit down and sign some kind of contract. He asked, and I accepted. So far he’s kept up his end of the deal.
I’m the one who hasn’t.
Why? Why?
Because of your job, I tell myself as rationally as I can. Because of your career. Because there are things in life you need to work to avoid.
That’s not even an argument.
I drop my head into my hands.
It’s a month. It’s only a month. And at some point, I’m going to have to let something else into my life other than work.
I do need this. I do need him.
I’m not going to waste another minute denying myself the raw pleasure of him. That’s all I’m ever going to get from Jax. He’s made that clear, over and over, and as a grown woman it’s unattractive to be so indecisive, so timid about taking what I want.
It shouldn’t be this hard, given how the demands of my job have sharpened my usual drive into a cutting point and made it simple for me to power through any work situation, handle any so-called emergency in the office.
I’ve made up my mind. Tomorrow, I’m going to start taking advantage of the time I have left with Jax. Give myself to him, completely, and leave my feelings out of it.
Tomorrow, I’ll be on time.
At my session with Carl I’m on fire.
I tossed and turned the night away, my heart thundering like a jackhammer on speed. I’ve never wanted to wish my life away, but I wish I could just get through this day, get to 5:00, get to Jax, and set everything straight.
Thank God Carl agreed to meet me on a Friday, after I missed Wednesday and Thursday.
“Jesus, Cate,” he says as we step off the mats, sweat running down his face. “What’s gotten into you? Did somebody piss you off yesterday at work?”
“In a way,” I say. That person was me. I’ve had enough of being so weak-willed, and I’m done with it.
I might have slightly overdone it during the workout, however, because my heart rate takes much longer than normal to come down. The edges of my vision seem blurred—pressurized, almost—but I’m determined to blink it away.
In the car on the way back to my apartment, I scan through my email.
Nothing there. I answered a lot of messages in my energetic frenzy last night, so the morning should be relatively peaceful. Knock on wood.
On a whim, I open up one of the many social media apps on my phone. I used to be pretty active with posting and sharing photos, but work takes up so much of my mind now that I hardly look at the feeds.
I’m scrolling through a sea of baby pictures and engagement announcements when I see it.
It’s some kind of ad, judging by the “sponsored” tag at the top of the little box, but it must be an ad for a gossip site, because there’s a splashy, obnoxious headline beneath the picture.
It’s a picture of Jax.
He has his hand raised in front of his eyes, but the photog got a lucky angle, because his face is clearly visible. He’s looking down into the face of a woman with gorgeous red hair and a killer body, and she’s looking up at him, her eyes full of charm and focus.
I check the date.
So that’s where he went last night, after he left me.
My body feels numb.
It’s a ridiculous reaction. The agreement Jax and I have is explicit when it comes to the fact that there will be no relationship.
Stabbing my thumb against the screen of the phone, I back out of the app and stare out the window at the empty early-morning sidewalks instead.
This woman will have no effect on our deal. Not if I can help it.
One minute before 5:00, I take measured steps down the hall to Jax’s office, slip inside, and stand next to the opaque inner doors that separate us.
His voice seeps through the crack in the door—a phone call? I turn to leave, to give him his privacy, but something keeps me in my spot. He’s not trying to be quiet.
“Mom, it’s all right. This is where—”
A pause.
“He’s gone, Mom.”
Another pause.
“He’s not gone, he’s just…unavailable. No, I don’t know when he’ll be back. You can’t—you have to stay there. It’s the safest place for you.”
Several long moments.
“All right. All right. I’ll be there to visit soon, but he can’t come with me. I’m sorry. Yes. Chocolate. I love you, too.”
I wait, standing perfectly still, for at least a minute, then knock.
A few second pass before I hear his voice. “Come in.”
He remains seated as I approach his desk, his blue eyes locked on my face.
This is the moment.
I spent most of today planning out what I’m going to do, what I’m going to say. Instead of hovering in front of the desk, waiting for his instructions, I step around to the side, a few feet from his chair.
His eyes don’t betray even a hint of confusion.
I lower myself to my knees on the floor and look up at him, my breaths fast and unsteady. It’s like looking into the sun, but I force myself.
“Mr. Hunter,” I begin, my voice clear and strong, “I’ve made my decision, and—”
“Stop.” He holds up a hand, cutting me off.
“But I—”
“This arrange
ment is over, Ms. Schaffer.”
My cheeks go hot as the pit of my stomach freezes.
He can’t mean it.
He doesn’t mean it.
I can see it on his face, the way his muscles tense around his mouth, like he’s trying to keep his stony expression in place.
I’m open-mouthed, silent.
“It’s a risk for you professionally…and it’s not something I can continue.”
“But—”
“It’s over.”
My knees are shaky, weak, as I rise to my feet. “But why?”
He pushes himself to standing, his fingers spread wide on the desk in front of him. “I can’t continue it. Neither can you. It’s over.”
I bite my lip, my chin quivering in spite of the herculean effort I’m putting in to keep the tears from spilling down my face. My shoulders tighten, burning. I needed the release he was going to give me, but I craved his closeness, his touch, even more.
He says something too quietly to hear.
“What?”
“Go. Go back to work. Just go.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jax
It doesn’t take fifteen minutes for me to realize that I’ve just fucked up royally.
What clues me in is the raw, throbbing pain that settles in my chest when Cate walks out the door, her back perfectly straight, her chin up, her breathing even. The only thing that gives away her devastation is a single tear that clings to the edge of her eyelashes. A younger version of myself would have found something cynical to say about it, something biting, something caustic—women, and all their emotions—but I feel gutted, and I shouldn’t.
It was just supposed to be sex. Orgasms. Never this. Never this hook-line-and-sinker feeling that blooms outward from my gut. She wasn’t supposed to have such power over me.
But she does. She does.
The look in her eyes when she walked in told me that she saw the pictures from last night. I don’t know how she could have missed them. It was New York City news on one of the internet’s biggest gossip sites, and those fuckers run ads on every social media feed in the nation. She had to have known, had to have seen it. It was online before Peter parked the car outside of my building.
She knew, and she came anyway.
She bent her earth-shattering legs and got down on her knees, ready to beg for another chance at our deal.
That’s when I knew.
I couldn’t go through with it.
The phone call with my mother had been hard enough. She had worked herself up into an uncontrollable agitation, and the nursing home staff’s last resort is to get me on the phone.
I fucking hate it.
I hate hearing her voice, so confused, filled with so much pain. I hate having to explain to her that my piece of shit father can’t come pick her up, won’t be visiting, can’t come to the phone. I’ve long since given up trying to explain that he’s in prison, for god’s sake, for stealing other people’s money like a common thief. My mother doesn’t remember.
Alzheimer’s has ravaged her brain, chewed it up and spit it out.
It’s goddamn terrible to say it, but things are better when she’s not aware enough to know that she’s not at home, that my father isn’t with her, that I grew up and left home a decade ago.
For me, anyway. I’m not sure that things will ever be better for her.
So when I looked at Cate kneeling on the floor, all I could think was that this is wrong.
No woman who just wanted sex, just wanted my money, would do what she was doing. Not with that look in her eyes. Not after the pictures she had to have seen. Cate is nothing like Vivian. If she was, she would have thrown herself at me the moment she found out who I was.
There’s something wild and sexual between us, and neither of us can deny it…but underneath it all there’s a current of something deeper than that, and it pisses me off that I can’t explain it. Can’t control it.
What the hell is it? The way she looks? The way she’s so confident in the office, but has moments of such breathtaking vulnerability? The way she never flinches when Sarzó hands down another list of things for her to do?
The way she’s breaking from the pressure, but doesn’t realize it?
The way she folds so fucking gracefully?
I don’t know.
All I know is that I’ve been kidding myself. I need so much more from her than a few thirty-minute sessions. If I have to spend the rest of my life without her, I…
My mind recoils from the thought of being pinned down, trapped under the influence of a woman who might turn on me. Can I afford to be blinded by love?
What the fuck are you thinking, Hunter?
If I could scream out loud without attracting attention, I would.
Going to the window, I run my fingers through my hair and force myself to take five long, deep breaths.
Control yourself.
Think through this logically, carefully.
Set the emotions aside.
The only problem is that I can’t set my emotions aside. They’ve embedded themselves so deep that I can’t get away from them.
All I can do is hold them at arm’s length.
When I do, all I can see is how real they are.
How the hold Cate has on me will never break.
Fuck.
I know it’s true. I know it is. I know this a kind of raw aching love that already has its claws fixed so deep into my life that I will never get free. I am just like my mother, who loved my father so completely that even though her mind has deserted her, she still wants him. For her, he is still the charming, handsome devil she married all those years ago.
I’m out by the street before I realize I’ve called Peter to bring the car around. I open the door and fall heavily into the seat as soon as he pulls to a stop.
“Where to, sir?” he says over his shoulder.
I stare straight ahead.
“Drive, Peter. Just drive.”
While he circles the city streets, making careful turns and doubling back, again and again, my mind turns over and over. What do I do? What do I do?
Find her. Take her. Have her.
It’s the only answer that makes sense.
Energy surges through me and I snap forward, Cate’s address on my lips.
“As fast as you can, Peter. As fast as you can.”
The heat hangs thickly over the city while Peter does his best to navigate the Friday night traffic. Now that I’ve made up my mind, it seems unbearable to wait for other cars to stop and go, to make ill-advised turns, to be in my fucking way.
Finally, finally Peter pulls up into an illegal spot in front of Cate’s building. I scramble out of the car, stopping only to straighten my shirt, which is wrinkled from sitting slumped in the car.
The doorman behind the desk sits up when I come in, rushing for the elevators.
“Sir? Sir.”
I don’t have time for this shit.
The heels of my shoes drag on the ground as I abruptly change course. His eyes widen and he reaches for something near his waistband, but I pull my hand out of my pocket and hold it out to him.
“I swear, I just need to see my girlfriend. Catherine Schaffer. I’m not going to do anything crazy,” I say in my calmest voice, smiling broadly at him.
He takes the $500 I press into his hand.
“If you’re not down in ten minutes, you have her call me,” he says in a deadly serious tone, looking me straight in the eye.
“I will.”
Another long moment passes, and then he gives me a sharp nod.
The elevator deposits me on Cate’s floor. There are four apartments, and it’s only when I’m standing in the hallway that I realize I don’t have her apartment number. I can’t call down to the desk and ask, because that guy already thinks I’m a fucking psycho. It would be highly inconvenient to waste time right now dealing with the police.
So I choose a door.
Knock gently but firm
ly.
A guy about my size answers, a beer in his hand, his work shirt untucked. This is a nice building and he looks like he has some money, but he’s obviously not happy to see me.
“Sorry to bother you,” I say, keeping my face neutral. “I’m here to see Catherine Schaffer. Do you know which apartment is hers?”
He raises the beer and points down the hall—last one on the right.
“Thanks.”
He closes the door without a word.
Outside Cate’s door, I take a deep breath and force myself to hold it for a moment before I let it out. Energy zings all the way from my spine to my fingertips.
It’s now or never.
I raise my hand and knock three times on the door.
True to form, Cate opens it only a moment after I finish knocking.
She’s wearing a loose pair of linen pants and a white tank that hugs the curves of her breasts, and her eyes are red and puffy. When she sees me, she presses her lips into a thin line—but she can’t stop the flicker of hope from showing on her face.
All of the words I’d practiced fly out of my mind.
“Cate,” I say, and even to me it sounds agonized, begging, pleading.
She looks into my eyes for one crystal second and then launches herself forward, fisting my shirt and yanking me inside. It’s a glorious, violent movement and we crash into each other, our lips fitting together so hard and fast that I know this was goddamn meant to be.
Cate’s the one pulling and I let her, tasting her deeply as she moves us back into her apartment, back to her simple, classy living room setup, an armchair and a sofa, and then, when we reach the coffee table, she does something that takes my breath away.
She pulls her face away from mine, her grip still locked on my collar, and looks at me, her hazel eyes burning into my soul. Through gritted teeth, she gives me a simple command: “Punish me.”
My cock throbs painfully at her words and as soon as they’re out of her mouth I’m in action, tearing her clothes from her body, manhandling her breasts, her waist, covering her mouth with kisses that have only one message: she is mine.