by Maisey Yates
Did Treffen?
* * *
Four days after he’d invited Chelsea to the circus, Alex went to meet Austin and Hunter at a bar. Hunter had left him a message, saying he had someone for them to meet. Someone who could help them bring down Treffen, apparently, although Alex had no idea who that could be.
Austin was sitting at a private table, scrolling through messages on his phone, as Alex entered the bar.
“So who exactly does Hunter want us to meet?” Alex asked as he sat across from Austin.
Austin shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone important, apparently.” He glanced up from his phone. “How are things going with Chelsea Maxwell?”
“Fine.”
“Can you give me a little more detail?”
Alex ordered a whisky and tried to keep his voice even. He knew Austin wanted results, just like he did. “She’s on board. She just needs evidence.”
“What about the photos of Sarah?”
Alex gritted his teeth. He really didn’t want to show those photos to Chelsea, or anyone. “I’m talking about a primary source. Someone who can back up what Katy has said—”
“Katy’s word isn’t enough?”
Alex held up a hand. “Easy, Austin. I know you two are playing happy families now, but we’ve got to be professional about this. Careful. The last thing any of us need is a lawsuit, and any charges against your father dismissed.”
Austin relaxed slightly and nodded. “I know. And we’re more than playing, Alex,” he added, his mouth quirking in a smile. “I love her.”
Alex just about kept from rolling his eyes. “I know. I’m happy for you.”
“Here’s Hunter.”
He turned to see Hunter walk in with an elegant, professional-looking brunette. Her cool, glossy exterior reminded him a bit of Chelsea. She came forward, shaking hands with both of them. “Alex, Austin. I’m Zoe Brook.”
“The PR queen of New York,” Alex said, and wondered why Hunter was bringing the woman who was meant to rehabilitate his reputation. What did Zoe Brook have to do with Treffen?
Austin seemed to be wondering the same thing. “What are we doing here? If you’ll excuse my impatience.”
“Zoe,” Hunter said, and Alex felt a jolt at the look he saw in Hunter’s eyes as he gazed at Zoe. He looked like she could do no wrong. Like he...loved her.
Which made him, absurdly, think of Chelsea. Yet Chelsea was the very last person he’d think about when it came to love. He might have asked her on a date, might want to explore this surprising intensity between them, but it wasn’t love. It wasn’t even a relationship. It was sex—and the circus.
Alex still couldn’t untangle how much of how he acted toward Chelsea was motivated by his plan to get her on his side against Treffen and how much just was. She fascinated him. She made him laugh with her hard-ass attitude and whip-smart wisecracks. And she’d quite literally rocked his world when she’d taken him to bed.
But beyond that...
“Your father is a pimp,” Zoe told Austin, who stiffened even though they all knew that sordid truth. She turned to encompass both of them with her steely gaze. “Hunter assures me that he was never one of the many johns that Jason pandered to and then blackmailed.” Her eyes narrowed. “What about you two?”
Alex felt a sudden jolt of recognition. Zoe, he could tell, was speaking from experience. Just like Sarah. He found it almost incredible to believe this woman had been one of Jason’s victims, but he also saw the weary, embittered experience in her eyes. Here was his primary source...the source Chelsea needed.
“You need to tell this story, Zoe,” he said, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. “The call girls. The blackmail of all the clients. The world needs to know the truth about him.”
“I agree,” Zoe answered coolly. “But I can’t do that.”
Frustration bit deep. “You must know that first-person witness, victim testimony—”
“I was his victim for too long,” Zoe answered flatly. “I won’t do that again.”
So he’d been right. She’d been one of the call girls, just like Sarah. She was exactly what he needed. What Chelsea needed. “I understand where you’re coming from,” he said carefully.
“Do you think so?” She sounded amused, as if they were at a garden party and he’d just shared an anecdote.
“I wish I could impress upon you—” Alex began, and Hunter slashed his hand through the air.
“Enough.” Hunter’s voice was implacable, and Alex knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with either Hunter or Zoe tonight. But he had a source. If he could convince Zoe...he could convince Chelsea.
He could bring down Treffen.
For now he nodded, pretended to accept Hunter’s defense of the woman he clearly cared about.
“Why don’t we talk strategy?” Zoe said, sounding as calm and composed as always. Alex nodded again. Fine. They could brainstorm about how to get Treffen out of his law firm, but it didn’t solve his problem.
For that, he knew now, he needed Zoe. He just had to wait for the right moment to convince her to cooperate.
He was still thinking about Zoe—and Chelsea—later that night as he let himself into his converted warehouse apartment on the Hudson River. Moonlight streamed through the windows and he stood in front of a series of photographs Sarah had taken over the years; she’d been an amateur photographer with a real, raw talent.
It wasn’t until after her death that he’d seen how the subject material had become darker and grimmer. In college she’d snapped photos of children and dogs, cherry blossoms in Boston Common. A few years later the photos had become more contemplative, candids of people alone, hunched over a cup of coffee or wandering through Central Park. And the final photos before her death had caught moments of pain and even anguish: a child crying in the park, a homeless woman huddled on the street, her scarred arms tight around her knees.
Alex hadn’t really noticed; the truth was he’d barely looked at her photographs at all, until after her death.
But looking at them now—he’d blown up and framed some of her better photographs and hung them in his apartment—he felt as if she’d been trying to send a message, even a subconscious one.
Just like these people, I’m trapped and lonely and afraid. Help me.
Alex closed his eyes against the rush of emotion he’d never wanted to feel. He could help her now. He could make her death right in the only way left to him: by ruining Treffen.
And Chelsea would help him accomplish that. She had to...no matter what the cost to her, or him...or them.
Chapter Eight
What did she wear to the circus? Her usual safe wardrobe of pencil skirts and crisp blouses was hardly appropriate, but Chelsea didn’t do casual, at least not outside the privacy of her own apartment.
With the shades drawn and the door bolted she might put on her one pair of scruffy pajamas, but only if she was feeling particularly low. Even when she was alone she kept herself coiffed; it felt like armor. She had a pair of gray satin men’s pajamas that were elegant enough to wear to a cocktail party.
But she couldn’t wear them to the circus.
She finally decided on a pair of skinny jeans, a cashmere turtleneck in cherry red and a pair of knee-high chocolate leather boots. It was an outfit a stylist had pulled together for her for an appearance she’d made in Central Park last autumn, for the charity that supported abused kids. She hadn’t worn it since.
She swept her hair up into a loose ponytail and kept her makeup low-key: eyeliner, bronzer, a little blush, a little lip gloss. Just the basics.
Hard to believe she’d once used enough face paint to rival a clown, sprayed her hair to hell and squeezed herself into cheap, too-tight business suits of pink polyester. She’d been a different person then. She hadn’t even been a person; she’d been a shell, empty inside, the walking dead.
And you’re still empty inside. You just dress it up a little bit better.
She pushed the thoug
ht away, but it still lingered there, like a cloud on the horizon of her mind, threatening to darken her whole day and ruin her evening with Alex.
She’d been going back and forth about this date all week. Three times she’d picked up her phone to text Alex and cancel it, the coward’s way out. But she hadn’t, because in the end she wanted to go too much. Wanted to see him, flirt, have fun.
When had she last had fun really, and not just acted like she was?
When had she last been happy?
Forget the penthouse apartment, the high-flying career, the money and the fame and the all-out success. She wasn’t happy, and she hadn’t been for a long time.
The realization wasn’t even a surprise, but it was still aggravating. She’d worked so hard and long, sacrificed so much, for this? For this loneliness and emptiness and fear?
Well at least for tonight she’d choose happiness. She’d choose Alex and flirting and clowns and to hell with everything else.
The phone from the lobby rang, and a few minutes later Alex was in her apartment. Dressed in faded jeans and a button-down shirt with a gray T-shirt underneath, his hair a little mussed and his jaw glinting with a sexy five o’clock shadow, he quite literally took her breath away. Stripped her bare, and he hadn’t even touched her. Hadn’t even said hello.
“Hello, Chelsea.”
And there it was, the husky, knowing murmur that brought a flush to her face and a flare of heat firing her insides.
“Hello.” She cleared her throat, hating that she felt nervous. Hating that Alex knew, at least if his slow smile was anything to go by.
She reached for her coat, a bright red Puffa jacket that she’d bought to go with the whole ensemble. Chelsea Maxwell Does Casual.
“I like the red,” Alex said as she stabbed at the buttons for the elevator. “Makes a change from all the black and white.”
She eyed him sideways. “I wear the occasional gray item, thank you very much. And once in a while a very pale pink.”
“A soothing palette of colors,” Alex assured her. The elevator doors opened and they both stepped inside. “But I prefer the red.”
Chelsea didn’t answer and they didn’t speak until they were out in the street, the air still breath-stealingly cold, and sharp enough to sting her face.
She glanced at the double-decker bus double-parked outside her building. “Seriously?”
“It’s totally awesome,” Alex answered cheerfully. “You wouldn’t believe what it looks like inside.”
“A tricked out bus?”
“Come and see.”
He put his hand on the small of her back as he led her toward the bus; it felt weirdly normal. This was what healthy, emotionally well-adjusted people did all the time. They dated. They joked around. They touched each other. She’d never done any of it—it was sex or nothing for her, and she’d been under the impression that Alex was the same.
But tonight was going to be different.
“Goodness,” she murmured as she stepped onto the bus. The seats had been taken out and replaced with sofas in screamingly vivid shades of red and purple, and the spiral stairs leading to the top level had been painted in a fluorescent tie-dye pattern.
She watched as Alex poured two glasses of champagne from the bottle chilling in a bucket, and accepted one after only a brief pause. She didn’t normally drink, but tonight she felt like relaxing her rigid rules just a little bit, for just a little while.
And then will you go back to the woman you were? Is that what you want? One night of being someone else, of being loose and free and maybe even happy, and then back to icy, in-control Chelsea Maxwell?
She raised her glass. “Cheers,” she said, and took a long swallow.
Alex clinked his glass with hers. “To a fantastic, one-of-a-kind evening,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs.”
As she started up the stairs to the open deck, Alex’s hand on her lower back once again, Chelsea wondered just what he’d meant by one-of-a-kind. Not to be repeated? No promises? She should have felt reassured, not this worrying flicker of disappointment.
Alex had told her he was asking her for a single date, no more. He’d explained this wasn’t his usual MO. I’m not done. Which implied, Chelsea realized, that he would be done one day, perhaps one day soon. Perhaps tonight.
Not exactly words to set a girl’s heart to fluttering, but then she wasn’t looking for fairy-tale flutters, anyway.
Was she?
No, of course not. Just like Alex, she wasn’t done, even if she’d told herself she wanted to be. And just like Alex, she would be finished with this—him—one day. One day soon.
As they emerged onto the open top level of the bus, the cold air hit them with a rush. The bus was travelling slowly, but the wind still made Chelsea’s cheeks sting.
“Probably better in summer,” Alex murmured as he guided her to the railing. “But I couldn’t wait.”
“Manhattan is beautiful no matter what the season,” Chelsea answered lightly, “but we will freeze our asses off.”
They’d crossed the park and were now driving down Fifth Avenue, the upscale boutiques sparkling with lights. Chelsea leaned her elbows on the railing and took a sip of champagne.
“I’ve never seen the city from the top of a double-decker bus.”
“You never did the tourist thing, hopped on one of those Big Apple buses?”
“Nope.”
“I bet you haven’t been up the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building either,” Alex said, and she shook her head. He shook his head right back at her, all mock sorrow that made her want to smile. “Top of the Rock? Ellis Island?”
“No and no.”
“Times Square?”
“I try to avoid it.”
“I bet you’ve done the classy stuff. The MoMA, the Met.”
“Only for parties.” Actually, that wasn’t true. When she’d first moved to New York, broke and with her scars still red and raw, she’d spent a lot of time in the Met’s Chinese Garden. It had been an oasis of calm order in the seething chaos of the city, of her life. She still went there sometimes, when she needed to steady herself.
“I see I have a mission,” Alex said. He leaned his arms on the railing next to her, his shoulder gently nudging hers. “Show you the tourist’s version of New York.”
“And doesn’t that sound appealing.” Although funnily enough, it did. Taking in all the silly sights with Alex. Laughing, teasing, joking around. Things she never did, but suddenly wanted to...with him. “Have you done all the touristy things?” she asked. “It seems like most New Yorkers haven’t.”
“I did a school trip to the Statue of Liberty as a kid.”
“That hardly counts.”
“Why not? I did it. Climbed all those stairs.”
“With all your big talk I thought you were hitting Ellis Island every other weekend.”
“Maybe I will, now that I’ve got a reason.” He’d turned to look at her and as Chelsea gazed back the moment felt suspended, separate from the city rushing coldly by, from everything but the magnetic connection of their joined gazes.
She looked away first.
“So,” she said, keeping her tone light, ignoring that moment, “have you ever left the city? Lived somewhere else?”
“Four years in Boston for college, but that’s it.”
“That’s right. Harvard.”
“Yep.”
“With Treffen’s son.”
“Yes.”
“How did Treffen’s son find out about him? Assuming, of course, that there was something to find out?”
“You still doubt me?”
“Not exactly.” She gazed at him frankly. “I don’t know what to think, Alex. It’s a lot to take in. To believe. And honestly, I’d rather not believe it.”
“I can understand that.”
“So? How did he find out?”
Alex straightened, stared out at Fifth Avenue as the Empire State Building loomed over them lit up lik
e a roman candle against a starless city sky. “A sister of one of the victims came forward.” His hands tightened on the bus railing briefly. “I know we have to talk about Treffen,” he said slowly. “And I get that you need proof. I might even have it for you, shortly. But tonight—let’s have tonight just be about this. Let’s just enjoy the circus.”
Her heart somersaulted in her chest, painful and amazing at the same time. “You really have a thing about the circus, huh?”
He smiled crookedly. “I never went as a kid.”
And somehow that admission made her heart ache and yearn. For what, she didn’t know. Wasn’t ready to consider. “Okay,” she said quietly. “No more talk about Treffen tonight.”
He smiled and then turned to look back out at the glittering night. “So, you’re from Alabama. Did you grow up on one of those big old Southern plantations?”
Not even close, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “I had a far more average childhood.”
“A happy upbringing in the South,” Alex answered, and it took Chelsea a moment to realize he was quoting from her bland and entirely fictitious bio.
“I heard you talk about your dad on one of your shows,” Alex said. “I was a little jealous, I have to admit. He sounds like a great guy.”
Chelsea froze. Occasionally she referenced her fake past on her show; it was unavoidable when stars asked questions and in any case it was good for ratings. She’d made up a father for herself, a man who had taken her to football games and carried her on her shoulders. She had a mom too who worked part-time as a lawyer but had stayed at home and done the whole baking cookies thing when the kids were little.
Occasionally reporters had tried to dig, to find her fake family, and a couple of times they’d tried to create scandal, running headlines about how she was estranged from her beloved parents. Which, she supposed, was sort of the truth.
“I didn’t think you really watched my show,” she said after a moment, when her brain finally started functioning again.
Alex shrugged. “I watched a couple of episodes online.”
“And why were you jealous?”
“My dad was never in the picture. I don’t even know who he was.” Alex looked away, and Chelsea had the sense he’d said more than he wished to. Emotion burned in her chest and words clogged in her throat, because she wanted to tell him she knew how he felt, but of course she couldn’t.