by Paige North
And with that he walks out, our odd afterglow thudding to an end.
I sit on the floor, baffled, my body still wishing he were here with every lonely heartbeat. One of the stockings he used to bind me is draped over my wrist, and I pull it tight, as if testing it. The pressure makes me close my eyes as I remember the heights Cage took me to.
But right here, right now? This is a low.
Did he basically just toss me aside because he’s still angry with me about being too much of a girlfriend in the art gallery?
Talk about intimacy issues. What exactly is this man’s deal?
It has to have something to do with those shadows I always see in him, the past he never talks about. But who am I to fault him for that when I won’t even talk about my own awful past?
When I finally clean up and go to bed, it’s another sleepless night. I have to wonder how many of those I’m going to have before I finish this job, pay my debts, wipe away all my secrets, and finally get back to the Karini I used to know.
If she even exists anymore.
I’m rubbing my eyes with one hand and holding my phone with the other as I come out of my room in the morning. My hair is a rat’s nest, and I’ve pulled a flowing robe over the nightie I put on after the fierce sexual bout with Cage last night. There’s a pleasant ache between my legs, but I look like I’ve been ridden hard and put away wet—which I almost was except for my crashing orgasm.
But why do I care what I look like? Cage said he was going in to work early again, so I don’t give a turd about appearances. Truthfully, I don’t know how much he’d even care as long as I continue to put out the goods for him and show up at that dinner with Mr. Vasiliev tomorrow night, ready to rock that business deal.
As I walk down the long hallway to the kitchen, there’s a delicious bacon-and-egg aroma in the air. Cage probably called in his personal chef to cook me breakfast—no doubt he’ll be regimenting every calorie, my every move until tomorrow night’s big event.
I almost dread tonight’s dress rehearsal, because I wonder what I’ll inadvertently do to screw that up. Then again, if a screw up gets me the kind of earth-shattering sex last night did…
Sick, Karini, I think as I round the corner into the state-of-the-art kitchen. You’re one warped kitty, and you’d better be careful. Think about what happened the last time you were a wild girl…
As a shiver wracks me, I get ready to greet Daphne. Then I stop short, because the chef isn’t in the kitchen.
Cage is there, sliding a plate of food in front of an empty seat at the sun-dappled table by the window. He doesn’t have on his suit jacket or tie, but he looks like a boss, wearing his perfect white button down that’s tucked into his belted, creased gray trousers. His Italian leather shoes are shined, his cufflinks gleaming, his brown hair combed back.
As he looks up to find me, those shadows darken his penetrating eyes, but then he steps back from the table, his gaze clearing as if everything is cool and he never left me hanging last night.
“Karini,” he says, greeting me.
Formal. Distant.
Folks, meet Cage Bryant.
And guess what? I look like a tornado picked me up and spit me out right here in front of him. Great!
But he doesn’t seem to mind that I haven’t put myself together yet, so I stop minding so much myself.
“Good morning.” I nod toward the plate, which has three loaded pieces of toast on it. Nearby there’s a porcelain pot and what I take to be a steaming cup of tea, plus a smaller plate of pineapple and grapes. “Did you cook for me?”
“I had some extra time this morning.”
That means yes, and it’s as if a burner has been turned on in my chest, suffusing me with warmth.
“Avocado toast, three ways,” he says. “One with a poached egg, one with bacon, one with an heirloom tomato.”
I’m confused all over again. Is this the same Cage who acted as if I didn’t exist after he owned my body last night? Is this the one who was supremely uncomfortable when I showed him affection at the art gallery?
Tentatively, I go to take a seat at the marble table and set my phone on my lap, never removing my gaze from him. He stays standing, almost as if he can’t bring himself to give in to this moment entirely.
I realize this just might be his version of an apology. Wow, he sure works in mysterious ways.
“Aren’t you going to stay a while?” I ask. “Eat with me?”
“I’m due at the office.”
I smile a little, unable to resist a bit of teasing. “What were you going to do if I was still asleep when you left? Surely you weren’t just going to leave this masterpiece here to get cold.”
He reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out his phone.
“You were going to text me?” I ask.
When he bites back a smile, I’m not sure whether he’s teasing me right back. Who knows with this enigmatic man?
Just when I think things have gone back to normal between us—whatever normal is—the clouds return to his blue gaze. He slides the phone back into his pocket.
“In addition to the links I’ll be texting you today,” he says, “I’d like you to think about some things Igor will inevitably ask you during dinner tomorrow night.”
He’s not demanding it. Interesting.
“I’ll keep my eye out for your text.” Then I take a bite of the bacon and avocado toast and... Oh my god, this man knows what I like, and not just with sex. This toast is sex.
He continues. “In addition to his asking about how the two of us met—”
“Which you’ll handle,” I say with a full mouth.
“You should be prepared to answer him when he asks you what you want out of life. When I first met him, he was curious about that, and he grilled me about my ambitions and plans for an hour.”
“It’ll be easy to answer. I know exactly what I want.” I grin. “More toast.”
He’s lifting his eyebrow at me, and okay, so I’ve gone too far with the kidding. He’s hiding his stress pretty well, but I don’t want to push him by being too flip.
After I swallow the food, I say, “I’m really not that complicated with my ambitions. First, I want to graduate from college with a 3.8 GPA after my next semester. I also want a steady, stable job as an accountant for a place that—here’s the irony—treats its employees like more than a number. And I want…”
Cage is watching me closely. “Go on.”
A blush takes me over. “I want to find a man who’ll love me and have a family with me.”
As silence descends once again, I push a piece of toast to another spot on my plate.
“Well,” Cage says, “Igor will be happy to hear all of that.”
But how about you? I want to ask. What do you want besides this business deal with Igor and a life screwing one woman after the other?
I look up at Cage to see if I can read an answer in his expression, but he’s already turned his back on me, moving toward the kitchen’s island, clearing a pan and spatula from the counter and taking them to the sink.
“Someday,” he says without emotion, “you’re going to find that man, Karini, and he’s going to be a lucky bastard.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me with that as well as everything he didn’t say.
That man sure as hell won’t be Cage Bryant.
I shouldn’t be surprised, and I force myself to go back to eating. There’s no use paying attention to the way my heart is cracking, because there wasn’t ever supposed to be anything between Cage and me anyway.
I just wish it didn’t feel as if there is something growing and taking root, at least with me.
I’m drinking my tea and staring out the window at the view of Central Park when I hear my phone ding with a text.
Is it Cage? Is there something else he wanted to say to me that he couldn’t say before?
My pulse bounces, and I put down my cup. Then I realize that maybe he’s only texting me those links so I can sta
rt studying for the Vasiliev dinner. Whatever the case, I have to see now.
When I access the text, my stomach roils.
When the fuck is the next payment coming?
I drop the phone and fold my arms over my stomach, feeling my world turn upside down, spinning in a sickening, inevitable direction.
Chapter 15
After I send a rushed text to Liam telling him to hold on, that I’ll have the rest of the money soon, I pray that he’ll cool down.
All I can do is hope…
The rest of the day, I try my hardest to concentrate on the homework Cage sends me—links about Russian liquor and food, culture, and Brighton Beach, where Igor Vasiliev mostly hangs out when he’s in New York. There’s a huge Russian presence there, and that’s where Cage and I will be going tomorrow night for dinner at a restaurant run by one of Vasiliev’s friends.
Cage also sends a link to a picture of us in front of the art gallery last night. It made the gossip columns, and I can’t quite bring myself to wonder how my family and friends will handle the news if they should see it.
Truthfully, nothing can shut out that last text from Liam. The more I think about it, the more I can’t hide from the fact that he wants his money now, and I don’t know how much longer he’s going to keep my secret. The best thing I can do is kick ass at girlfriend practice tonight so I’ll do well at tomorrow’s dinner. Then Cage will let me go, I’ll send the money, and this will be over.
My heart constricts at never seeing Cage again, but I know it’s for the best.
Isn’t it?
I calm my nerves by sneaking into his study and pouring myself some brandy from the crystal decanter. The liquor is strong, but I swallow it down. The burn relaxes me, and by the time he gets home, I’m on steadier ground.
I’m already in my cocktail dress for tonight’s dry run. The Carolina Herrera color-blocked sleeveless creation has a full A-line skirt and a sweet, innocent high, frilled collar. I’ve put on enough cosmetics to look good, but not enough to draw negative attention. We’ll see what the makeup artist does with me tomorrow.
When Cage walks into my bedroom, he’s ready to go, dressed in an immaculate charcoal suit with his hair combed back. The moment he sees me at the vanity table, his gaze lights up, and it’s not in the usual lustful way.
“Hi,” I say, smiling at him. Somehow, he’s enough to take my mind off Liam. He always is.
A small smile overtakes his mouth, tilting it. “Hi.”
This greeting is different from most of the ones we’ve had before. Usually he’s demanding, reminding me that I’m the escort and he’s the boss, but there’s something more intimate about this hello.
I think he realizes it, too, because his gaze shutters.
“Almost ready?” he asks.
“I just have to tidy my hair.”
I have a bamboo brush that I’m about to run through my straight, shiny locks. I used the high-end grapefruit-scented shampoo, conditioner, and mousse in my bathroom, and my hair is thick and smooth. Cage saunters over to me before I start, and he takes the brush from my hand.
He touches my light brown strands, and I close my eyes, dizzy. I open them again at the feel of the brush running over my scalp and through my hair.
It’s as if thick cream is flowing through my veins, sweet and warm. In the mirror, my eyes are bright, my cheeks flushed.
“How was work?” I ask.
He gives me another stroke with the brush. God help me, but I’m purring between my legs.
“Everyone’s preparing the paperwork for the Vasiliev deal,” he says. “I want it ready to go.”
“You’ll close the deal.”
“We’ll close the deal.”
He sounds so assured that he almost fools me, because his shoulders have gone tense. He doesn’t quite believe that I can pull this girlfriend thing off, does he?
“I’ve been studying all day, Cage,” I say. “I’m going to nail this.”
He resumes brushing my hair, and I move with every stroke. It’s almost a sexual thing, but not quite. I feel closer to him now than most times, especially last night, after he banged me and left me without a word.
“Out of curiosity,” I say, “what are you going to tell Mr. Vasiliev after you close the deal and I’m not around anymore?”
Cage’s tone is businesslike as he tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “As luck would have it, your mother will soon need you to go home to take care of her during an illness. Igor will respect that we have to spend some time apart, but the distance between us will prove too much. Half a country away, you’ll rethink our relationship, thus breaking my heart and keeping me away from women for a long time.”
My stomach curdles. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
He sets the brush on the surface of the table, and I try not to feel badly that he seems not to care about us “breaking up,” even if it’s a fake breakup.
I meet his gaze in the mirror. “From now on, you’re going to have to keep your wild dating life real low-profile in order to keep his business. Can you manage that?”
Cage doesn’t say anything. He only keeps looking at me in the mirror until overwhelming heat consumes me.
Then he steps away from me, completely out of the reflection.
“Let’s go, Karini. Just enjoy tonight’s wining and dining and romancing.”
I guess I’m not going to get an answer about his future with other women. Still, it’s as if he’s making last night’s strange behavior up to me, just as he did this morning when he cooked me breakfast.
I’ll take what I can get.
He leaves the room, and I stand from the vanity table seat. He has no idea he’s taking my heart with him.
So what will I do when this arrangement is over? Cry? Wallow in what could’ve been with a billionaire who has no idea how to connect with me except sexually? Yes, I’ll have the money I need, but just thinking about being away from him hurts…
My phone dings where I left it on the bed, and I freeze, dreading who might be texting me.
I inch over to it to see that my worst fear has come true.
Time is running out.
Panicked, I shut my phone off and take it with me as I run out of the room to catch up to Cage.
Cage takes me to Columbus Circle where there’s a small, red-shaded tasting room that specializes in Russian vodkas. He’s bought the place out for the night, and we sit at the dark-wooded bar by ourselves, the sole customers.
The air is cool in here, contrasting with the summer night outside. Cage orders and then I listen raptly as our server explains in a thick accent about how vodka is distilled and the different ingredients it’s distilled from, and then we taste the smooth liquor.
It goes down like silk.
We have plates of foie gras and caviar as appetizers, then Chicken Kiev for an entree. Oddly, no matter how much I drink tonight, nothing gets me even buzzed. It might be because the latest text from Liam has upset my system, and I’m so desperate to do well with this “girlfriend” thing that nothing is going to stop me—not even with Liam hanging over me.
Even so, when my nerves fail me and I spill some of the vodka I’m having with dinner on the bar, Cage frowns at tonight’s first faux pas.
I quickly use my napkin to clean it. “Sorry. I swear, the alcohol isn’t a factor in my clumsiness.”
Our server, who has left us to dine alone, comes by and cleans the mess without a fuss.
When he leaves, Cage looks as if he’s wondering if there’s time to contact a charm school so I can take some emergency classes there.
I touch his arm. “Mr. Vasiliev isn’t going to disapprove if I spill a little vodka.”
“It’s not that. You seem extra…jumpy tonight. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen with—”
“Our dinner tomorrow. I know, Cage. I know how much this means to you.”
It seems that he has to pull hi
mself out of this dark place that my one little mistake has put him in. The stress is weighing on him so heavily that it almost has him in a vise.
I try to distract him. “So we can guess what Mr. Vasiliev is going to ask me during dinner. What do you think he’s going to question you about, besides how we met and all that?”
“I told you that he already grilled me about my ambitions and plans early on.”
I trace my finger down my vodka tumbler. “Okay. But anybody who reads a business article about you can get those answers. How about, you know, your hopes and dreams? Those are different from ambitions and plans.”
He stays silent.
I try again. “If Mr. Vasiliev were to engage me in conversation about those topics, I’d need to know what you’ve told him. A girlfriend would be up on those kinds of things, don’t you think?”
I’m balancing on a wire here. On one side is the Cage I’m dying to know more about—the one who seems so close to revealing more about himself to me sometimes. On the other is the Cage who might shut down immediately if I push too much.
He finally answers. “You want to know about my hopes and dreams? All right. I hope to always have enough money to buy my security. And I dream of never having to answer questions like these ever again.”
All right. That last part wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, but at least he gave me something.
“You’re happy with your status quo in life then?” I ask.
“Very.”
“Then…” Oh my god, I’m about to say something I’ll regret, but I can’t stop now. “If you were so happy with how you ran your dating life with all those temporary women, why did you decide to keep me around?”
Mistake. Big mistake. He freezes right before my eyes, black ice, impossible to get a grip on, as hard as stone.
“Well then,” he says, gesturing to someone near the exit. “That should do it for the night.”
Something tells me that my huge mistake during this rehearsal wasn’t in drinking too much booze or inspecting some cool salt- and peppershakers on a dinner table. I challenged Cage’s boundaries of intimacy again, just not in a physical way this time.