Slay

by Laurelin Paige

If I weren’t so distracted, I might have discovered something counter to my usual M.O. I might have discovered it was just as satisfying to put a smile on someone’s face as it was to take it away. Might have discovered it was just as delicious to give as it was to take. To build dreams as it was to tear them apart.

  But Blanche’s tears of elation were background noise to the tune buzzing at the forefront of my mind—a driving melody of fascination. A hum of intrigue I hadn’t felt in years that had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with the man we’d spent the last half hour talking about.

  Ten

  I didn’t usually have to find the game that belonged with the person.

  While I didn’t experiment in the way Hudson did, his methods had informed the way I played. Schemes presented themselves by the nature of the characters we came across. Like science, the schemes began with a question, not a subject. Here’s a pair of newlyweds—would they throw away love for the right distraction?

  Here’s a man who desperately wants recognition—what would he give to receive it?

  Here’s a woman recovering from an obsessive personality disorder—what would it take to make her relapse?

  The experiments were never conducted out of spite. I’d never had to look for the question hidden in a subject’s past.

  Which was what made Edward Fasbender a different animal. There wasn’t an obvious game about him. There was only my resentment. Only my malice. Only my complete dedication to throwing him off balance the way he’d thrown me.

  And so I had to dig to find the question. I had to search to find the game.

  While lunch with Blanche Martin hadn’t been entirely productive, she had given me several leads, and I spent the next few weeks following them, splitting my attention along various paths, hoping that at least one would take me to a scenario that posed an evident ploy.

  The easiest trail was the International Media Innovators’ Banquet, but it was the one I hated using most for a number of reasons. First, it wasn’t a promising lead. Edward was a host, and that meant he’d be present for the banquet, but what would be scandalous about that? What game was there to play there?

  Second, it was a lead that would require my presence. I’d found no potential drama through my research of the event. The attendees to be honored were not remarkable beyond the works that had precipitated the invitation. There was a question of why Edward would choose to be involved in such a benevolent affair, but the answer seemed glaring—he was likely sincerely interested in innovations in a field he loved. For me to discover anything more about the event, I’d have to attend in person.

  That led to the third reason I was reluctant to pursue this avenue—I’d have to find a way to get invited. It wasn’t really a big dilemma, considering my father was also in the media world, and I was sure he could get me there if I wanted, or connect me with the person who could.

  That meant that I’d have to involve my father, which was the fourth reason this was not a good plan.

  It was the final reason that gave me the most pause—attending the event would mean seeing Edward. It would mean being in his world, on his turf. He was always formidable, always a man who could knock me off my feet, always a man who stole the breath right from my lungs, and if I chose to walk into his event, I’d be going in more vulnerable than ever.

  Strangely, the prospect of seeing Edward again was also the reason I didn’t cross the banquet off my list entirely. There was no denying I was drawn to him. Or drawn to the power he held over me, anyway. I wanted to dissect it. I wanted to open it up and tear it apart and analyze the whys and hows of his control.

  Maybe Hudson had made me into a scientist after all.

  The other leads were more vague but also held the most potential. His relationship with women and his sister, Camilla. The death of his parents. His divorce. His sex habits.

  All but the last required straightforward investigation. It took time, yes, lots of time, and I was thankful that I only had the one client and no current games in the works so I could devote my energy to the project. It was a task that I would normally find monotonous—there was a reason I’d stayed with Hudson’s method of choosing subjects rather than employing this new tactic.

  Surprisingly, though, I found researching Edward compelling. I realized fairly quickly that he was an onion. Every detail that I discovered, each layer that I peeled away from the story behind the man led to another equally complex and fascinated layer, none of them ever providing any answers, just more questions. One question in particular came up over and over, at each new finding—why? Why did he do what he did? Why, why, why?

  It appeared he was indeed close to his sister, who he’d taken custody of after he’d aged out of the foster care system himself, but then he’d also taken care of her more recently, when her husband had died leaving her a pregnant widow. She’d moved in with her brother then, and, as far as I could tell, she and her toddler son still lived with him. Why? Why not set her up in her own place? He had enough money for that.

  His marriage brought a similar question. His ex-wife Marion had indeed left him for another man, but despite the fact, even though the courts removed any obligation of alimony, he’d given her a settlement of an undisclosed amount as part of the divorce proceedings. Why? Did she have something over him? Was there more to the story? Was he just...nice? That certainly didn’t lend credence to the idea that he might despise women.

  His parents’ deaths were also intriguing, his father’s life having ended in suicide when Edward was only thirteen. Why? What would drive a man—a parent of two—to kill himself?

  This particular why, however, was one I was able to dismiss after further digging. The same year, Edward’s mother had a battle with cancer. His father sold his business, perhaps to focus on his wife’s health, but ended up losing her. With his company and his childhood sweetheart gone, he must have seen little reason to keep on living.

  That had to do damage to a kid—losing both parents in such a short timeframe, one of them having left by choice. There were definitely wounds there to exploit, but I couldn’t see the best ways to use them.

  Rather, I didn’t want to see them. That begged its own question of why, one I hadn’t tried to answer.

  Discovering about his sexual proclivities was the trickiest lead to follow. I couldn’t just use Google to find what I wanted to know, though I tried in every peripheral way I could imagine. I looked for sex clubs in London that were near his home and near his office. Looked for connections between him and the owners of more prestigious clubs. I found lots of names, lots of possibilities, but nothing definitive.

  Once I discovered how long Edward had been in the States—three months already—I started searching for a club he might be visiting locally. Surely he’d be seeking out entertainment while in New York. But there were too many in the city and, short of hiring a detective to follow him, no way to tell if he’d visited any of them.

  I put up feelers where I could, joined sex forums, and made several different profiles hoping to bait him out or attract someone who might tell me where to find a man who fit his description. Without knowing what he was into specifically, though, it was hard to actually describe him.

  I looked very closely at Marion, his wife, inspected her pictures for bruises, searched for reports of domestic abuse, hunted for gossip about the reasons for her affair. Everything seemed to show they’d had a model marriage, even after an apparent shotgun wedding. If Edward had practiced kink with his wife, it hadn’t been a destructive element to their relationship.

  Although, she had left him in the end.

  Lots of people got divorced. Lots of spouses cheated. Lots of people got left behind.

  Still, I couldn’t help asking why.

  A week before the banquet, I had nothing, despite the numerous hooks I had out in the ocean. Defeated, I called my father.

  “Why do you want to go to that dreary old thing?” he asked. I knew he would. I’d prepared for this. />
  “Daddy, I want to go for you, of course.”

  “For me?”

  I took a deep breath and reminded myself that sticking to as much of the truth as I could was always the safest lie to tell. “Remember that Accelecom guy? The one you said was a devil? Ever since he tried to use me to get close to you, I’ve been wondering what I could do to turn the tables on him. Then I found out he was hosting this banquet. He’s the keynote speaker, even! There’s a good chance he’s going to talk about some of his own innovative strategies, and, since there’s no press allowed, and since Werner Media isn’t a participating corporation, I thought, wouldn’t it be a great idea to have someone on the inside to hear what he has to say?”

  I bit my lip as I waited for his reply.

  “Oh, honey, that’s not something you need to be concerned about.” But he was intrigued, and he proved it, entertaining the idea with his next question. “I do know someone who could probably arrange for you to help with the banquet setup. Maybe you could stick around in the background afterward…”

  Within the hour I was officially on the committee overseeing the table decorations. I was still high with the victory when Renee walked in carrying a canvas wrapped in brown paper.

  “Is that the art for the master bedroom?” We’d been waiting for a piece to show up for my client’s penthouse design.

  “Actually, it’s another piece from Blanche Martin. She had one more in the collection, it appears.”

  “Huh.” I’d already received the first paintings, and, while I hadn’t yet bothered to destroy the garden swing piece, I hadn’t opened it either. They were currently all stacked in the corner of my office.

  Without prompting, Renee tore off the packaging of the latest canvas, revealing another landscape, still a garden or sorts, but this one was less traditional. The flowers pictured grew wild intermingled with long grass; the only sign of human touch was the carefully pruned cobblestone path that ran through it, disappearing into the distance.

  “That’s nice,” Renee said, then, before I had time to really study it, she turned toward me, blocking my view of the painting behind her. “Also, I have something to tell you.”

  “All right.” I closed my laptop and gave her my full attention, my curiosity piqued from her hesitant tone.

  “I’m giving you notice. I’ll work through the end of this project, through the end of the summer, but then I’m...I’m…” She stumbled over the next part. “Then I’m going to do something else,” she said finally.

  “What? Why? Are you unhappy here?” Granted, I wasn’t the most generous employer, but I wasn’t terrible.

  “I’m not exactly unhappy,” she said, seemingly careful about her choice of words. “But I’m not exactly happy, either. It’s just not fun anymore. It used to be, back in the beginning. I don’t know what’s changed. Me, probably. Whatever it is, I need to do something different now.”

  I could tell her what had changed—me. I’d started my business when I still had passion, when I analyzed personalities in order to design matching decor rather than to find weaknesses to exploit.

  It had been fun, I remembered now. Where had all that joy gone?

  “I’m sorry,” Renee said, sincerely. Followed by other words, necessary words, niceties exchanged by both of us before she went back to her desk, leaving me alone.

  In a daze, I stared at the painting long after she’d gone, studying the stones that meandered so prominently in the foreground of the wild garden before dissolving into nothing in the background. There weren’t any people in the image, but it was clear to me it was a piece about leaving. Someone had walked that path, someone had followed to the only place it led—away.

  I had something in common with Blanche Martin after all. She knew, like Edward Fasbender knew, like I knew, that eventually everyone leaves.

  Eleven

  Though the Innovators’ Banquet was on Edward’s turf, I did have one advantage—I’d come prepared.

  I’d planned the conversations I meant to have with him, practicing various reactions in the mirror. I’d dressed provocatively, choosing a red midi dress with cleavage, rather than my usual more conservative attire. I’d worn my hair down, instead of up-knotted.

  I’d dressed for Edward.

  It was counterintuitive, catering to his wishes in order to get the upper hand, but it was all that I had. It was enough to give me a confident air. I walked around the South Salon of the Mandarin Oriental, supervising the setup, like I belonged there. Like I owned the place. With all the authority of a goddess. The fierceness of a dragon.

  Bustling around in heels was always risky, however, no matter how well comported I was, and once again my shoes became my downfall. Literally.

  It was my fault for being meticulous. I’d noticed the water in one of the decorative bouquets was low, and, having no water can available, I’d carried the large glass vase to the restroom outside the salon. After filling it to the appropriate level, I’d set off toward the banquet room in such a hurry that I slipped on the marbled floor, dropping the floral arrangement to the floor with a loud crash.

  It was there, with me on my hands and knees, cleaning up broken glass, surrounded by calla lilies and long-stem roses, that Edward found me.

  “Shit,” I mumbled when I realized he was the owner of the Italian leather shoes standing in front of me. Since it was also the same moment I sliced my palm with a sharp fragment of glass, I was easily able to pretend the cursing had been for the blood dripping from my fresh wound.

  “You seem to have trouble with walking,” he said, bending down to the ground, where I was firmly pressing two fingers over the bleeding cut. “Let me see it.”

  “I’m fine,” I said with a scowl, pissed off that, after all my attempts at preparation, this was how our encounter would take place.

  “Let me see it.”

  His tone was emphatic and forceful without his voice raising in the least, a tone that said I do not like repeating myself and you’d best do as I say or else.

  I was more than mildly curious about what that or else would entail, but I was also so caught up in his command that I held out my hand immediately, without a second thought.

  “This isn’t too bad. Probably won’t even need a bandage after a minute or two.” He traced the cut with a single finger, collecting the droplets along the path.

  Mesmerized, I watched as he brought the tip to his mouth and sucked the blood clean. He seemed to suck the air from the room at the same time because all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe.

  I still hadn’t caught my breath when another, thinner, trail of blood formed on my palm, and this time, without any warning, he brought my palm to his mouth and licked the wound clean.

  I felt that lick down low, along the lips of my pussy. Felt it on my buzzing clit, as though his face was buried between my thighs instead of inches from my own.

  I peered up, and his cerulean eyes trapped mine, and I wondered if a deer, frozen in a lion’s sightline, was as sure that its hunter could hear its thudding heart as I was sure that my hunter could hear mine.

  I opened my mouth to say something, I wasn’t sure what, but whatever I’d planned, it wasn’t what came out. “You grew a beard.” I’d only just noticed the new facial hair that clung to his chin and above his lip, in exactly the pattern I’d suggested he adopt.

  Had he done that for me? He had to have. There was no other option, and something about that knowledge, knowing that he’d changed something about himself for me, made me heady and weak. Manipulative, though the move might be, because surely it was meant to...to do something to me. Why else would he do it?

  It was every bit as sexy as I’d imagined. Sexier. Before he’d been suave and sophisticated. Now, he was also rugged and dangerous.

  He’s always been dangerous, I reminded myself, just as he blew a fine mist of air across my cut.

  “Ow!” I yanked my hand away, then, the spell now broken, raised up to my feet.

  Edwar
d stayed crouched, the lower position doing nothing to steal his power. “Did it sting?” he asked, the corner of his lip curling up in a cruel grin.

  “Yes, it stung,” I retorted, annoyed. And aroused.

  Annoyed at being aroused.

  With a huff, I spun back toward the bathroom I’d come from, intending to clean my hand before returning for the mess on the floor.

  Also intending to get some space from the man who somehow always managed to steal my wits.

  Except, before the door could shut all the way behind me, it swung open again, and Edward strode in after me.

  “You’re a predator,” I said, meeting his eyes in the mirror above the sink. They were like magnets for my own, drawing my gaze toward them and locking them in place at every opportunity.

  “Your hand was bleeding. I was being a conscientious host.”

  I’d meant he was a predator for following me into the women’s restroom, but he’d obviously thought I was referring to what he’d done in the hall. With his tongue. On my skin.

  Yes, he’d been a predator then too. And I’d been willing prey.

  Stupid, willing prey.

  I didn’t know what to say. I had no words. All that planning, and I was dumbstruck.

  So I didn’t say anything. I simply turned my focus to my hand and let my hatred seethe silently in his direction.

  If he was attuned to it, as he was attuned to everything, he didn’t let on.

  Or he liked it. That was a possibility too.

  With seemingly no intention to leave, he leaned his hip against the counter and watched as I ran the faucet over my palm, the water mixing with the blood, making it look like my cut was gushing when, in fact, it was nearly stopped, just as he’d suggested it would soon.

  His accuracy about this was like salt on, well, on my fresh wound. Like the sting of his breath across my palm.

  I shivered, unable to help myself.

  And now I wasn’t just annoyed, I was pissed. At myself. At him, too, but mostly myself.