Show and Tell

by Jasmine Haynes

  “It’s not like that.”

  Trinity put the tip of her index finger on Harper’s knee. “Doesn’t it bother you that she’s letting another man touch her?”

  Harper shrugged. “He’s old. He can’t get it up anyway.”

  So that made it fine with him? “Doesn’t it bother you that she didn’t care that I wasn’t old and you had sex with me?”

  His Adam’s apple slid slowly up and down.

  “I wish I could feel sorry for you, but I can’t.” She wondered, though, if she could forgive him. Yet in the next moment, the answer seemed so obvious. The person she needed to forgive was herself. Harper wasn’t the only one who told lies. She’d been lying to herself all along. “I didn’t marry you for the right reasons, Harper. I’m as guilty of making mistakes.” She flashed him a look. “Yours are a lot worse than mine, but I screwed up, too.” She wasn’t going to learn a damn thing from this if she didn’t at least face that.

  She’d been searching for the elusive things that Faith had found—unconditional love and acceptance. Maybe she hadn’t found it because she truly wasn’t able to give it in return. She wasn’t sure she could give it even to Scott.

  “Harper, we did a quickie marriage in Nevada. Why don’t we agree to a quickie divorce there, too? Then we both walk away with what we had before we started.”

  She could walk away with what she’d had, but she couldn’t ever be the same person. It was time to move back into the master bedroom and stop letting it haunt her. She’d made a mistake. Now she had to forgive herself and move on.

  “That’s fine with me, Trinity.” Harper stuck out his hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

  It was the oddest thing to seal a divorce agreement with a handshake. Yet, by letting go of the anger, she felt as if she’d finally done something right.

  THE Saturday evening dinner party Herman Green hosted was in celebration of the new contract between Millennium and Green Industries. Scott swirled the ice cubes in his glass and observed the gathering in Herman’s living room.

  All business in an office atmosphere, Connor Kingston now played the fawning husband over his very pregnant wife as she sat on the elegantly appointed gold brocade couch. It was like tearing open an envelope to find something altogether unexpected on the inside.

  All the major players from Monday’s contract signing were in attendance, including Rudd, his wife, and Grace. Jarvis Castle had arrived late. The soon-to-be-retiring chairman of Castle Heavy Mining, he was also Kingston’s father-in-law, and he doted on his daughter, Faith. He handed her a crystal flute filled with sparkling cider.

  Faith Kingston was a pretty woman, not so much the cut of her face, but her smile, the loving look when she gazed at her father, and most especially the heat in her eyes when she held Kingston’s hand to her belly as the baby kicked. More than awe at the tiny life growing inside her, it was something profound she shared with her child’s father. It was their baby, their love, them all the way.

  Katy hadn’t wanted to have sex with him when she was pregnant. Between Kingston and his wife, Scott figured they couldn’t get enough of each other even at eight months.

  For the first time, he wondered if he’d ever had that kind of passion with Katy. He remembered attributing passion to youth and newness, something you grew out of without intending to. Perhaps he’d never truly known it in the first place.

  Until Jezebel.

  In a black evening dress, pearls at her throat, she made an entrance through the double living room doors. Her stiletto heels sank in the expensive patterned carpet, and the flare of the dress’s skirt showcased her legs. Rounding the glass table central to the large room, she kissed her father’s cheek. He introduced her to Rudd and his wife. Glad-handing, smiling, she didn’t even turn in Scott’s direction.

  He hadn’t seen her since Tuesday morning, and she’d had a logical excuse every time. The beginnings of their relationship had been spent trying to get her to reveal who she was. Now he’d simply switched from one goal to another, revealing their secret affair to the world. He had the feeling he’d use up every ounce of energy he possessed trying to get her to love him in return.

  “She’s a bit showy, isn’t she?” Grace had chosen a flowered dress, one that was too short and too tight for the event.

  He felt mean-spirited making the comparison to Trinity, who couldn’t wear anything too tight or too short for his desires. He wanted to run his fingers beneath the flared dress to see if she wore thigh highs or pantyhose.

  “She’s Herman Green’s daughter, so I’m sure that’s expected.” He hoped the comment came across as innocuous.

  While Trinity was beautiful, she was more than a face and body. She had layers he wanted to peel away: exhibitionist, voyeur, and a bit of a submissive, yet she liked her control. One minute she could be sassy and snarky, the next, she was apologizing for omitting the truth about her divorce. Gorgeous, she was still insecure. He’d seen that as she’d stripped down for him in his living room. She’d needed his approval. She hadn’t figured out she already had it.

  Grace sipped her mimosa. “I’ll bet she’s a cold fish.”

  Moving just his eyes, he glanced at her, but she focused solely on Trinity. That was an odd comment. He’d never heard Grace remark on anything so personal, but then he’d never attended a dinner party with her either.

  And Grace was wrong. In his few weeks with Trinity, he’d discovered a level of kinky desire he didn’t know he had. And she met every challenge head-on. There wasn’t a thing cold about her. She’d damn near cried with pleasure when he spanked her and went crazy when he fed her pussy the vibrator. It had been so fucking hot, he’d never go back to vanilla sex. He’d never go back to sex with anyone but her.

  The woman made him feel vital, aware, on edge. She kept his skin jumping, his thoughts whirling. Yet his gut had started to grumble that she was avoiding him.

  Not that he’d mention his thoughts to his controller. “Grace, I simply don’t know what to say to that.”

  She saluted him with her glass. “Sorry, I was thinking out loud.” Then she tipped her champagne toward Herman Green. “Oh, look, here they come, it’s our turn.” She leaned in slightly to Scott’s shoulder. “Watch out, she’s giving you the eye.”

  Backing off enough to look down at Grace, he stared for a moment. Could it be possible she was jealous? She’d come off a bad divorce and was trying to rebuild her fragile ego, so yeah, it was a possibility. He didn’t want to see Grace as a woman, but he couldn’t help it when she made comments like that.

  Thus he could understand why she was envious of a gorgeous woman younger by more than fifteen years. What he didn’t understand was why she suddenly felt like sharing her inner thoughts with him.

  Herman Green grabbed his arm, and the moment for pondering Grace was over.

  “Here you are, Scott, I wanted to introduce you to my daughter, Trinity.”

  She held out her hand. “So nice to meet you, Scott. I didn’t catch the last name.”

  Despite her high heels, he found her finely petite. “Sinclair. And it’s so nice to finally meet you.”

  Her hand in his warmed, sparked. He held seconds longer than appropriate, until she tugged away.

  “And this is my associate, Grace Bunnell.”

  Trinity smiled. “Nice to meet you.” Scott could swear there was a moment when she winced as if Grace squeezed too hard.

  He’d never been aware of women’s rivalries before. He would have been completely fascinated if he could take his eyes off his mystery woman for longer than a second.

  She left him, moved on, threw herself down on the sofa beside Faith Kingston and hugged her so hard the woman could have popped right then. Another facet of the Trinity diamond.

  Yeah, she’d brought him back to life. Now, no other woman would do. Before the night was out, he’d show her no other man would ever do for her.

  DINNER was interminable. With Scott’s gaze on her, Trinity could do nothing
more than move the salmon around her plate. The chilled wine, served in Daddy’s best crystal glasses, tasted sour. He’d added the two leaves to the dining table, allowing spacious elbow room, yet Trinity had gotten Faith to switch spots with Scott under the guise of allowing the men to talk business. Now that she’d told her father Harper had agreed to a no-contest quickie divorce, he’d played matchmaker, seating her next to Scott. Trinity, however, didn’t fall for it.

  Things had been great the whole week. Scott called every night, and they’d done all manner of naughty phone things. But he was going to blow their cover with the way he kept staring at her. Daddy and everyone else would figure out something was up—pun intended—between them.

  “He is h-o-t hot for you,” Faith whispered beneath laughter from Daddy’s end of the table.

  See! Even Faith noticed Scott’s focus.

  Her father was talking with Grace, Scott’s controller. His controller, as Grace managed to say several times in conversation before Daddy’s majordomo called everyone in for dinner. Had the woman been trying to intimate there was something more than professional between her and Scott? There couldn’t be.

  Trinity cringed at her own jealousy. Where once she was envious of what Faith had with Connor, now she was suspicious of Scott’s business relationships. Here was another reason she needed to keep everything with Scott separate from her real life. “Connor’s talking about you again,” she tried deflecting Faith, “that’s why he and Mr. Sinclair are looking over here.” She was afraid, however, her friend would see right through the lie.

  “Mr. Sinclair?”

  He laughed at something Connor said, and Trinity’s tummy turned over. His sexy voice touched her inside, like a stroke straight down from her breasts to her pussy.

  “I don’t know him well enough to call him by his first name.” She knew him oh so well. She wondered why she didn’t tell Faith about it. Of course, she couldn’t talk here, but another time over mochas and a shared bear claw? Still no. She was keeping a lot from Faith. She hadn’t even told her about that talk with Harper.

  But Scott was her secret. She didn’t want any judgments about her activities. Not that Faith would judge her, but . . . she didn’t want the fear of discovery getting in the way. She wasn’t ready for outside scrutiny of their relationship.

  “He sure wants to know you. He’s got hot eyes for you.”

  She glanced at Faith and grimaced. “What are hot eyes?”

  Faith smiled, and Trinity noticed how beautiful she’d become. It was more than the baby. Connor was good for her. Trinity had made the perfect choice in getting them together.

  “Hot eyes means he’s doing deliciously nasty things to you in his mind.”

  Trinity pulled back and frowned at her very best friend in the whole world. Faith didn’t generally talk about nasty. Had Trinity given herself away? No, she found Faith staring at Connor, and there was definitely some hot eyes going on there.

  While Connor was devilishly handsome, the silver in Scott’s hair and the few lines on his face were so much more appealing.

  Or maybe it was all the things he’d done to her. They could only indulge if she kept Scott her naughty secret. Otherwise, her every action would be analyzed like a blood drop under her father’s microscope. She would lose the freedom to indulge, and that’s what she loved so much about being with Scott.

  “Stop that,” she admonished Faith. “Someone will hear.” Such as Mrs. Rudd, who sat next to Faith. They’d been ignoring her— bad socialites. Trinity brought her into the conversation with the topic of Nordstrom’s half-yearly sale.

  She didn’t give a fig about Nordstrom’s half-yearly sale, no matter how big it was. All she cared about was making sure Daddy didn’t notice Scott’s “hot” eyes.

  “ASSORTED liqueurs in the living room,” her father called out jovially, bringing dessert and coffee to an end. With all his laughter tonight, he did seem like his old self.

  “Save me a seat on the sofa,” Trinity murmured to Faith. “I’m hitting the powder room.” If she sat next to Faith, Scott couldn’t corner her, something she was afraid he’d try to do.

  Climbing the wide spiral staircase, she returned to the upstairs bathroom she’d used to get ready. She’d left all her makeup there. The main bath was at the end, past the long row of Green ancestors. She sometimes wondered if her grandfather had purchased all the paintings at the same time and palmed them off as relatives. They seemed to be of a similar artistic style, yet not one of them looked like a Green. Then again, Grandpa had been pretentious, claiming his family came over on the Mayflower when she knew darn well he was a greengrocer in England before World War I. Heh, greengrocer, get it?

  She fixed her lipstick first. The door opened, and Trinity startled, leaving a light smudge about her mouth.

  Scott leaned back against the wood.

  “What are you doing in here?” She knew exactly what he’d do, and her heart ratta-tat-tatted against her breast.

  “I have to take a leak.” His hand went to his zipper.

  “You can’t go to the bathroom while I’m here.” She never shared the bathroom with a man. Even Harper closed the door.

  “Then I guess I’m going to have to fuck you instead.”

  Her blood thrumming, she turned back to her reflection, leaning over the counter to concentrate on her lipstick. “You’re very crude.” God, she’d started to adore crude.

  She also loved it when a man said, I want you now, fuck everything else. There was such power in that. She craved power. She craved him. Which is why, despite the danger of being discovered in her father’s house, she didn’t throw Scott out.

  Standing behind her, he bent at the knees to slide both hands up her dress, propping the hem on the curve of her butt.

  His breath eased through his clenched teeth. “I knew it. Thigh highs and a bare ass.” He stroked down her center to the top of one stocking, then raised his gaze to hers in the mirror. “All night you thought about me fucking you, didn’t you?”

  “No.” She’d been thinking about it for five days straight.

  “Liar,” he whispered. Curling his body over hers, he swept aside her makeup and purse, grabbed the lipstick out of her hand and tossed it, then cupped her breasts in his big palms.

  “Feel those nipples,” he whispered. “They’re fucking hard.” He pinched. She instinctively pushed back against his erection.

  “Oh yeah, baby.” He pumped lightly against her. Unzipping the back of the dress, he pushed the sleeves down her arms.

  She tried to cover herself. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to see your nipples in the mirror as I feel them.”

  “Just once.” She let the material pool on the counter.

  “As much as I want,” he murmured. Then he gazed at the reflection as he brought her nipples to full peak.

  She moaned for him because he loved her sounds. Because she couldn’t help herself.

  Gliding down her breasts to her abdomen, he held her hard against him. “Your skin is so soft.” Then he buried his face at her nape. “And the scent of your hair makes me crazy.”

  He made her crazy. Totally, completely. “You can’t do me now. Someone will hear.” Yet she’d do whatever he wanted.

  The dress bunched at her waist, he skimmed the fabric’s edge until he held both her hips and rocked against her. “They won’t hear if you don’t scream.” He bit her neck. “But you can’t help screaming, can you? You need this. You need me.”

  Oh God, yes, she did need him. The things he did to her made her forget where she was and who she was. She would always be this way, losing herself in him.