by Maisey Yates
Something hollow moved over his face then, but when Zoe blinked, it was gone, and he looked the way she assumed he always did. Vaguely challenging. Mocking. Arrogant and lazy, as if she’d only imagined he could be anything else, though she hadn’t the slightest idea why she seemed to want to do that.
“Doesn’t it?” she asked, but she was losing her grip on this conversation the more he watched her, as if she was edible and he was suddenly famished.
“It only makes me widely read.” He shrugged. “The more sacred cows you’re aware of, I find, the more fun it is to tip them over. One after the next.”
“And by ‘widely read,’ I assume you mean, what? Playboy magazine? I hate to break this to you, but I don’t think anyone’s likely to believe you’re in it for the articles.”
“I’m more of a doer than a reader, I’ll admit.” His expression shifted into dark amusement. “Want a demonstration?”
There was a crackle of something then, a kind of sharp, hot pang of awareness, and Zoe reminded herself that she wasn’t here to banter with this man. She had a very specific agenda. A plan, and he was nothing more than the perfect tool to execute it. There was no room for anything else. It didn’t matter that he was significantly more clever and far less drunk than she’d anticipated.
And besides, she knew exactly what he was. She knew what he’d done. Why was that so difficult to keep in mind now that she was this close to him?
“Do you imagine that I’ll be so easily seduced?” she asked, trying to keep her voice more arch than accusatory. “Is that how it normally works for you? You roll out a halfhearted sexual innuendo and they fling themselves at your feet?”
“I hadn’t imagined anything of the kind,” he said, and he was laughing at her, if only with those unnervingly clear eyes. “But I am now.”
“You’re not my type,” she said, sharp and smooth. “I prefer brains over brawn, for a start.”
“I beg your pardon.” But he wasn’t even remotely offended, she saw. If anything, he looked genuinely amused. It made his gorgeous face lighten, made those eyes of his very nearly shine. “I went to Harvard.”
“As did almost every single relative and ancestor you have, stretching back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s.” She kept her voice dry. “It’s somewhat less impressive to be a legacy times twenty. It would only be noteworthy if you didn’t go to Harvard.”
“I didn’t merely get into Harvard,” he pointed out, that gleam in his gaze never fading. If anything, it intensified, as if he really was imagining her at his feet, spread out before him like—she stopped herself right there. “I also graduated. That’s harder, even for someone with so much Crimson in his bloodstream.” He grinned. “Brains and brawn.”
Zoe shrugged. “I also don’t like sports. Especially football. Pointless and brutal little war games dressed up in silly costumes and pretending to be important.” She smiled. Sweetly. “No offense, of course. Just my opinion.”
“I pride myself on never taking offense at the unsolicited opinions of strangers,” Hunter said.
He shifted in his seat again, moving his strong legs beneath the table, making Zoe aware of how close they were sitting. How intimate it really was to be practically cuddled up in a private booth with this man. This terrible man. It took everything she had not to jerk back to a safe distance—but then, this was the game. This was what she had to do to win it. And she would win it.
“I was fired from the war games,” he confided after a moment. “If that helps.”
“And I don’t really like WASP-y Sons of the Revolution, either,” she said almost sadly. “With blood so blue it practically weeps, who still think the world is their own, personal fiefdom. It’s a strange character flaw of mine, I’m sure.”
That made him grin. “Given the research you’ve clearly done, you must know that I’m the black sheep of my WASP-y, Sons and Daughters of the Revolution family. They sigh heavily whenever they see me, which isn’t very often. I’m terribly scandalous.”
“Or maybe it’s just you, Mr. Grant. I can’t say I particularly like you.”
“And yet here you are,” Hunter said, something about that tone making it clear she’d be a fool to underestimate him, though he still grinned with every appearance of pretty-boy ease. “Giving me your sales pitch in a strip club at ten-thirty on a Tuesday morning. Do you know who does things like that, Ms. Brook?” There was something about her name in his mouth, that famously dissipated mouth, that worked inside her, making her feel looser than she should, as if he could melt all the ice and iron within her that easily. She told herself she was horrified at the thought. “Fans and stalkers.”
“I promise you, I’m neither.”
“Then why on earth would you take on the Herculean task of attempting to restore my good name?” He laughed. “It can’t be done.”
“I have my reasons. All you have to do is benefit from them.”
“Let me guess. The goodness of your heart?”
“I don’t have a heart, Mr. Grant. I have a plan. You figure prominently in it, that’s all.”
That intensity that spiked the air around him tightened then, like an implacable fist. And then he smiled, sending a shot of something silken and ominous down the length of her spine. It occurred to her that she didn’t understand this man at all. That her research hadn’t prepared her for this, whatever this was. For him.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said in a velvet whisper, the way another man might talk of sex and desire, and it shivered inside Zoe like a touch, “but I’m committed to my downward spiral, and that leaves no room for anything else. Certainly not a mysterious woman and her ‘plan.’”
He rose to his feet then, in a kind of powerfully sinuous way that reminded her that he’d made his living for most of his life with that steel-hewn body of his. She didn’t know why that made her throat go dry, but it did. It bordered on painful.
What was happening to her?
“Feel free to stay and enjoy the show,” he said, smirking down at her. “The dancers here are very talented. Don’t forget to tip.”
Then he started to move past her, headed for the door, dismissing her that easily.
“Wait.”
Zoe rose and reached out for him as she spoke, but he saw her and shifted, throwing out one of his remarkable hands—widely held to be miracles in their own right, or so she’d read—to clasp hers in midair. As if they’d choreographed it.
And sensation poured into her, a white, wild heat, turning her to stone where she stood. Turning her body against her. She felt that simple touch like a hammer. It coursed through her, and before she could think better of it, before she could think, she jerked her startled gaze from their hands to his face—
And everything sizzled. Bright. Hot. Painful.
Impossible.
Hunter’s gaze narrowed. Turned dark.
Hungry.
It took every single bit of hard-won pride and determination Zoe had not to rip her hand out from his much bigger one, to reclaim it, to shut off this insane thing that lit her up in the worst possible places, from the hollow of her belly to the secret places below. Behind her knees. The curve of her neck. The suddenly taut and aching crests of her breasts, thankfully hidden behind the thick wool of her dress.
But she didn’t kid herself. He knew.
And she hated that she could react like this to a man like him. That her body didn’t seem to care what she knew about him. That she’d learned nothing from all these long, hard years. That she simply burned.
“I prefer not to be manhandled, thank you,” she said, her voice even and precise, as cold as the winter winds in the concrete canyons of the city outside this club, and he would never know what that cost her. “Particularly by strange men renowned for their long years of compulsive promiscuity and generally loutish behavior.”
He dropped his hand, but there was still that new light in his eyes, intense and certain, focused on her as if he saw all the thi
ngs she’d hidden, her secrets and her scars. As if he knew she wore a mask. As if he could see it—and therefore, her—when no one else ever had.
That shook her, hard, but she fought to keep it from her face. Her eyes. Her rigid body that wanted things she’d never wanted, that she didn’t know how to want.
“I’m renowned for other things, too,” he pointed out, almost gently.
And she’d read about that, of course. His supposed sexual prowess. And she hated the fact that she could imagine it, too vividly now. Insistent. As if she was like other women, and could yearn—
Enough.
Zoe made a small noise that was too scornful to be laughter.
“Rich, bored men are remarkably predictable, Mr. Grant. I can assure you, I’ve seen every possible permutation of human perversity, and what has to be almost every last ‘dungeon’ on the island of Manhattan. Whips, chains, spanking benches, it’s all so tiresome.” She smiled, big and fake. “And though I’m sure your particular kinks are fascinating, I’ll just take your word for it.”
He laughed then, abruptly. And she didn’t understand why she imagined she heard something there in that sound, something more and deeper than the tawdry, tedious legend of Hunter Grant, professional asshole. Something that suggested he was more than that when she knew, firsthand, that he wasn’t.
He was the key to her revenge. That was all he was. And nothing else mattered. She wouldn’t let it.
“There’s only one way you’re going to learn about my particular kinks,” Hunter was saying, his voice shifting into something smoother, darker, connecting directly to that thing still too bright and too dangerous inside her, making her painfully aware that it was her own hunger. An impossible, alarming hunger for the very things she refused to let herself want. That she didn’t want. He waited until she was looking at him again. “But you’ll have to ask nicely.”
She told herself she felt nothing then. No lick of fire. No kick of need.
Nothing, damn it. Not for a man like this.
“There is absolutely no chance of that ever happening.” Her voice was flat. Cold.
He shook his head, though his blue eyes gleamed, and it was still like a shower of sparks inside her—and would terrify her, she was sure, if she let herself think about it.
“If you say so, Ms. Brook.” But he smiled, confident and sure despite that darkness she sensed in him. Or maybe because of it. “Yet I find I’m suddenly much more interested in your...services.”
It was time to remember who she was, who she’d become. What she’d been through. She wasn’t sure why being near this man made her forget. She arched a brow.
“I don’t ask nicely, Mr. Grant. I’m the one who’s asked. And honestly? I prefer to be begged.” She smiled then, the way he had. “You can start on your knees.”
This time, he really did laugh, and yet he still didn’t look anything but hungry as he regarded her from far too close, like some kind of ravenous wolf. Zoe couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like this. Daring, off-balance. Something other than in complete and total control.
When she knew perfectly well she would die before she’d let that happen. Never, ever again.
“I don’t need any PR,” he said, very softly, as if it was an endearment. “If that’s really what you’re offering.”
She didn’t know why she couldn’t seem to pull in a full breath, why her eyes felt too bright, why the way he was looking at her then made her feel as if she was turned inside out. Exposed and vulnerable. How was that possible?
“It is.”
“That’s too bad.” He was so big and entirely too beautiful, and she’d never been aware of another man the way she was of him—of every single part of him, especially that heated way he looked down at her. “Because if you wanted to see for yourself what the fuss was all about? Regarding my particular, predictable rich-man kinks? That, I could probably do.”
It wasn’t the first time a man had propositioned her. But it was the first time she’d felt a burst of flame lick over her when he did, and she was terribly afraid he knew that, too. That he felt the same slap of heat.
She couldn’t let that happen, it was impossible, so she shoved it aside.
“Is that caveman code for ‘sleep with me so I can put you back in your proper place?’” she asked, cool and challenging and back on familiar ground, because she knew this routine. She could handle this. Jason Treffen had taught her well, one painful lesson at a time. “Because you should know before you try, dragging me off by my hair somewhere won’t end the way you think it will. I can promise you that.”
Hunter looked intrigued and his head canted slightly to one side, but that wolfish regard of his never wavered—bright and hot and knowing. Reaching much too far inside her, deep into her bones, like an ache.
It was that last part that made her wonder exactly how much control she was clinging to, after all.
“I don’t want to drag you off somewhere by your hair and have my way with you, Ms. Brook.”
The smile on her lips turned mocking, but she was more concerned with the sudden long, slow thump of her heart and the heavy, wet heat low in her belly. “Because you’re not that kind of guy?”
There was something more than predatory in his eyes then, hard and hot, a dark knowing in the curve of his mouth that connected with that deep drumroll inside her, making it her pulse, her breath, her worst fear come true.
“I’m absolutely that kind of guy. But I told you. You have to ask me nicely.”
He smiled, as if he was the one in control. And she couldn’t allow it.
“No,” she said, furious that it came out like a whisper, thin and uncertain. His smile deepened for a moment, like a promise.
“Your loss,” he murmured, and that aching fire swelled inside her, nearly bursting.
And then he laughed again, dismissing her that easily, and turned to go. Again. For good this time, she understood, and she couldn’t let that happen.
Zoe had no choice.
“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Grant.” She didn’t know why that dryness in her mouth seemed to translate into something like trembling everywhere else, when she’d known before she’d approached him that it would probably come to this. She waited until he looked back at her, and pretended the blue gleam of his eyes didn’t get to her at all, with all that weary amusement, as if he could see right through her when she knew—she knew—he couldn’t. That no one could. She made herself smile. “I know about Sarah.”
Chapter Two
Sarah.
That name seemed to echo through the club, drowning out the music, slamming everything else straight out of his head. It seared through Hunter’s whole body like a lightning strike, only much darker. Much worse. Much more damaging.
He should have known.
If he hadn’t been so thrown by the appearance of Zoe Brook—like a jolt of caffeine, dressed in slick dark colors that only emphasized the powerful punch of her smoky, blue-gray eyes and lips painted a dusky shade of red—he would have seen this coming, surely. She was wearing too many too-expensive clothes, for starters, which meant she wasn’t flashing any skin. She hadn’t thrown herself at him in lieu of a greeting. There was absolutely no reason at all she should get to him, much less make an entire club filled with far more conventionally beautiful and accessible women simply...fade.
And yet she’d been the only thing he could see, from the moment she’d locked eyes with him.
But women like Zoe didn’t approach him at all these days, much less in places like this. They didn’t seek him out. They thought they knew all they needed to know about him, and he went out of his way to confirm their low opinions. They condemned him from nice, safe distances, way up high on their moral high grounds, and he liked it that way. He didn’t want to be near anyone he could ruin, not ever again.
He should have known.
Sarah was still the noose around his neck, all these years later. Forever. Deservedly—and he’d been kiddin
g himself, thinking that he could avoid it now that he was back in New York. Imagining he could ignore the terrible truth. Blowing off his old friends’ attempts to finally do something about what had happened to her, a decade too late.
“I beg your pardon?” He hardly sounded like himself, whoever the hell that was.
Zoe’s smile affected him more than was healthy. Far more than was wise. “You heard me.”
“Yes. But I don’t think I know what you mean.”
Her smile deepened, and he felt thrust off-balance. Angry and needy instead of his preferred state of numbness. Something like lost—and it was that last he found unforgivable. He’d accepted that he was the worst kind of man a decade ago. He’d proved it every day since, hadn’t he? Why couldn’t that be the end of it?
But it never was.
“Oh, I think you do,” Zoe was saying almost cheerfully. “But you can pretend otherwise, if you like. I won’t think less of you. I doubt that’s even possible. Either way, I’ll expect you at my office tomorrow morning at ten.”
“Your expectations are destined to end in disappointment.”
“I hope not.” Her perfectly wicked brows rose, and he didn’t know what was the matter with him, that she could threaten him and he wanted her anyway. “I’m very good at getting what I want, Mr. Grant. You don’t want to test me.”
“Are you blackmailing me, Ms. Brook?”
Her smoke-colored eyes filled with a gleaming sort of triumph, making her look nearly beautiful in the club’s dark light. But Hunter had made beautiful women his life’s work, and Zoe Brook didn’t fit the bill. She was too sharp, too edgy. Her full lips were too quick to a smirk and her cool, blue-gray gaze was far too direct and intelligent. Her dark hair was thick and inky, her figure trim and smooth beneath clothes that murmured of her success in elegant lines, but she wasn’t anything as palatable as pretty. He liked softness and sweetness. Obliging whispers, melting glances. She was too...much.
And that was without knowing that when he touched her, he caught fire.
“That would suggest that there’s something about your ex-girlfriend that could be used to blackmail you,” she said after a moment of consideration. Her mouth twitched. “Are you saying there is?”