by Amelia Wilde
“How have you been, man?”
Christian holds the guy at arm’s length and looks him up and down. “Great, Matthews. Great. Where the hell have you been all this time?”
“L.A.,” Matthews says, his deep voice rumbling above the chatter of the crowd. “I’m only in town for a month or so—overseeing some new ventures, if you know what I mean.”
Christian obviously does know what he means, because he gives Matthews a sage nod.
“Elijah Pierce. What a damn crazy coincidence to run into you here.” My heart stops, but this Matthews guy barrels on. “I’d have thought you’d be some high-class professor by now, or maybe own your own building on campus.” Then he pauses and glances around. “Is Chris here anywhere? You guys still go everywhere together, or did he move on?”
Christian’s face is white as a ghost, his smile frozen. The corner of his lip jerks and the smile drops away.
Matthews sees it.
“Shit, man. What’d I say?”
Christian sucks in a breath, tries to force another smile onto his face, and almost succeeds. “I hate to have to tell you this, but Eli—he died about ten years ago.”
“Oh, fuck,” Matthews says, then cups his hands over his mouth. “I’m so sorry. You guys look—you guys looked so damn identical.” His face flames red. “I had no idea. That must have happened after—”
Christian holds both hands up, waving Matthews’ embarrassment away. “Way after you left Dalton.”
Matthews is still shaking his head, a hand over his head. “That’s terrible. I don’t know what to say, Chris.”
Christian reaches out and pats his buddy’s shoulder in a show of empathy, a genuine smile now back on his face. “No way for you to know, buddy. Listen—give me your number, and we’ll meet up again before you leave for L.A. I want to hear all about whatever it is you’re wasting your time on over there.”
Matthews laughs, his relief palpable, and the two men exchange numbers.
The instant Matthews has receded back into the crowd, Christian spins on his heel to face me, his face wretched with pain.
“That’s enough for now.”
“Yes,” I say gently. “Enough.”
“Let’s go back to my penthouse.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Christian
I can’t fucking believe what just happened.
Who the hell would have expected to run into a guy like Greg Matthews at a fundraiser for New York City afterschool shit? Not me. I haven’t seen him since the beginning of high school, when his father moved their entire family overseas to start a multinational corporation. He was gone well before my brother died.
On top of that, I can’t believe how much this is affecting me.
Hearing those words come out of his mouth has put me into a tailspin, and the fancy food and cocktails served so generously at the beginning of the fundraiser churn in my stomach.
I turn back to face Quinn. She is standing stock-still, her facial expression and posture conveying sympathy.
“That’s enough for now.”
She can clearly sense how this is non-negotiable because she agrees with me in a soothing tone. “Yes. Enough.”
I haven’t planned anything for the evening. This week has been packed to the fucking gills, and it’s been easier just to meet her at her place where there’s not a minefield of my personal items to distract us. I told Quinn at the Cottage that I would take her to my penthouse whenever she wanted, but she hasn’t brought it up since we came back to the city.
And I’ve been lying awake at night, trying to figure out what I’m going to do.
I have to tell her.
Now it’s clearer than ever that I have to tell her.
But how?
How do I open my mouth and reveal this kind of secret to a woman who’s had enough lying, cheating behavior to last a lifetime?
Even when I stay at Carolyn’s, my arms wrapped snuggly around Quinn, feeling her chest rise and fall peacefully against my side as she breathes, it takes hours for me to fall asleep. As soon as my head hits the pillow, my heart rate skyrockets, beating so hard against my rib cage that I’m surprised it doesn’t wake her.
Her words ring in my ears.
I’m fucking over liars.
That’s me.
A liar.
If not actively, then at least by omission, which isn’t any better.
Now this thing with Matthews.
I feel like I’m being driven into a trap, the escape route narrowing and narrowing until it’s going to take some kind of bodily sacrifice to get through to the other side.
All of these thoughts rage in my mind as Louis makes the drive from SoHo to Midtown. Quinn sits silently by my side, holding my hand tightly in hers, and I can’t think of a single thing to say. If I open my mouth right now, I might blurt out the awful truth that I’ve been carrying around with me for ten years.
And now—now is not the right time.
Louis pulls up to the curb and hops out, coming around to open Quinn’s door. She shades her eyes with her hand and looks up at the building, a skyscraper owned by Pierce Industries.
Calm the fuck down, Pierce.
I give myself just long enough to take in a deep breath and then I climb out to stand beside her.
“You’re all the way up at the top?”
“You’ve got that right.”
I lead her into the building, giving the doorman a nod as we go by.
“Mr. Pierce,” he says, nodding back.
“Phillip.”
Across from the main bank of elevators is a single shaft that goes one place and one place only: my penthouse. I take the access card out of my breast pocket, where I put it every goddamn morning, and swipe it through the reader.
“Highly exclusive,” Quinn says as we step inside, and I rub the small of her back. She’s trying to lighten the mood. I have to let her.
“Only the best,” I say lightly, as the car whisks us up, up, up.
When I open the door to the penthouse, Quinn steps inside, her eyes wide and alert. I can tell she’s excited, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. I wouldn’t admit it either, given the scene she just witnessed, and the heavy silence that followed us all the way back to the building.
The entryway opens up into a massive living area with a wall of windows looking out over the city. As the evening turns to night, and the lights of the buildings start flickering on, it’s a breathtaking view.
“Wow,” Quinn whispers, walking across to the bank of windows.
“That’s not all there is.”
I show her the kitchen, the library, the exercise room, and the two guest suites.
“Do you have a chef here, too?”
“I’m thinking of hiring one. Up until recently, I just ate at the Swan when I was in the city. I do have a housekeeper, but this place is smaller than the Cottage—she’s only here three days a week.”
“Smaller? Not by much,” Quinn says, as she follows me down the hall to the master suite.
I open the door to reveal a massive king-sized bed, made up with dark sheets and covered by a comforter that looks like it’s made out of spun silver.
“Where the action happens,” I say, gesturing toward the bed, and Quinn laughs, the sound setting my heart at ease.
“This isn’t the only room, is it?” Quinn says.
I roll my eyes. “Of course not.”
We walk together, first through the master bedroom, which is easily the size of Quinn’s entire room in Carolyn’s apartment. Then I take her back across the room and down another hallway, off of which is a den and an office. These rooms are where I spend my time when I’m not at the Swan. I’ve been here more often recently, missing the hell out of Quinn.
As I watch her run her hands over the books on the shelves in the den, tilting her head to look at the titles, the reality of what I’ve done—and what it will do to her—tightens around my neck like icy fingers.
Will sh
e ever come here once she knows?
I’ll give myself the night with her.
Then I’m going to tell her.
The thing with Matthews—it’s thrown my dilemma into stark relief.
I’m fucking over liars.
I just need one more night.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Quinn
Christian thrusts into me with total abandon like it’s his last night on earth—hard, fast, strong, and deep.
I had been looking at the book collection in his den—and damn, does he have an impressive collection—when I became aware the conversation had stopped. Turning, I dropped my hand.
The words I’d planned to say flew right out of my mind when I saw the look in his eyes.
There was pain there, like he was fighting off something sharp and cruel in his head, but obscuring it was a pure, masculine need. His muscles tensed underneath his jacket. His jaw worked. Then came the smoldering smile that sent electric jolts of lust in a wave from my nipples to the hallowed space between my legs.
I didn’t need words to know what to do next.
I crossed the room, pulled him toward me, and kissed him hard enough to shake the pain loose from where it was stabbing through his heart.
He responded instantly, wrapping his powerful arms around my waist and pulling me in tight, so close to his body that my feet almost left the ground.
It wasn’t far from the den to the bed and once he’d carried me there, we attacked each other’s clothes until they were all piled in a rumpled heap on the floor.
He pushed me down onto my back on the bed and I arched up to meet him, locking my arms around his neck, kissing him even deeper, and then I shoved my weight upward and sideways, turning us over by sheer force of will.
I straddled him, bucking against his hardness, already slick, the wetness coating his skin.
“Jesus,” he said on an exhale, the heat of the word catching in the hollow of my shoulder.
I took that as a sign to press into him more forcefully, striking a rhythm, drawing my wetness over his shaft again and again until I felt his muscles clenching underneath me, his hips rising to meet mine with more intensity. Then, in one smooth movement, I lined myself up over his cock and drove my hips down toward his, taking him all in.
When our bodies slammed together, he heaved a guttural sound from behind clenched teeth that was half relief, half desperation. It unlocked something in me, pushing me over the edge to wildness, and I worked against him with a fury I had never before experienced in my life.
It took him by surprise. I could tell by the sharp breath he drew in, but it only took him seconds to parallel my pace and intensity, taking in everything I had to give him, hands pressed tightly on my hips to pull me down onto him even harder than I could manage by myself.
Next thing I know, he’s lifting me away from him, turning me, so that I’m on hands and knees, my palms pressed into the million-thread-count comforter beneath me. Christian positions himself behind me, lines the head of his cock up with my opening, and stops. I’m panting breathlessly.
It’s a cruel tease.
I buck my hips backward against him, trying to get him to sink inside me, but he resists. His hands are clenched on my hips, gripping tightly and steadily, like he wants to be in control.
I can give him that.
I press my breasts down against the comforter and arch my back, head down, ass up, hands clenching the comforter. “Fuck me.” I know he wants to hear it as much as I want to say it.
“Beg.”
His voice is hard, uncompromising, and the tone sends a new gush of wetness between my legs.
“Please!” I urge. “Please.”
He remains still for three more heartbeats and I clutch the comforter in my fists, willing myself to stay down, to stay still, because I can feel through his touch that he is loving this. Something about that man’s mistake at the fundraiser made him feel out of control—that much is clear—and though I can’t read his mind, I’d bet my life savings that this is exactly the remedy he needs.
Is that all this is? says the little voice in my head, but it’s struck down by the rest of my body, which is dying to have him inside me again.
This is who he is, the one behind all the barriers put up in public, behind all the social constrictions, behind closed doors.
With me and me alone.
It’s a great fucking deal, if he would just—
At that moment he crashes into me with such a powerful thrust that it takes my breath away, crushes my chest into the bed, makes my pussy clench around Christian’s steely hardness. I’m moments away from climax, and I squeeze my eyes shut, gasp in a breath, and feel my body respond to him, going higher, higher, higher until I’m careening over, crying out into the mattress. Moments later I hear Christian’s answering roar as he pins me back against him and comes hard, his hips spasming even as he stays buried deep inside me.
We’re frozen in that position for a heartbeat, then two, and then he pulls out and falls forward onto the bed, maneuvering up to the pillows while he turns me over onto my side with one hand, his arm wrapped around my waist.
He doesn’t say anything.
It’s not long before his breathing steadies and slows.
I lay there next to him, feeling his chest rise and fall. The room darkens as the sun sets behind the buildings. My mind is too hyped up to sleep, too caught up in the electrifying encounter we just had.
When I can’t stand it any longer, I gently disengage his arm from my waist and slip out of bed. I don’t want to put on my outfit from the office—a sleeveless dress and a short-sleeved blazer—but I don’t have any other clothes with me, so my first stop is Christian’s walk-in closet. In one of the lower drawers, I find a pair of lounge pants and a plain t-shirt that smell like him. I throw it on, luxuriating in the softness of the cloth.
I don’t want to look at my phone in the dark room and risk waking him up, so I pad down the hall to his den, with its bookshelves and leather furniture. There’s a certain armchair I’m dying to sink into.
There’s a small table lamp in the corner that gives the room a really pleasing glow. I shut the door closed behind me. The armchair, tucked in the corner and surrounded by shelves full of first editions and other of Christian’s favorites, is both plushly soft and supportive. I curl up in it, tucking my legs underneath me in a comfortable and relaxing position, and sigh. Pure satisfaction.
I’m about to unlock the screen of my phone when something on a nearby shelf catches my eye. It’s a journal like the other ones I saw at the Cottage—exactly the same, but it’s all by itself.
I bite my lip. I shouldn’t snoop. Absolutely not. And if I do, I’ll feel compelled to admit it to him later.
It’s probably just an archive of teenage angst in written form.
I pull the journal down from the shelf and start to flip through it.
There are pages and pages of neat handwriting, so neat that it actually makes me want to put it back. This kind of writing doesn’t seem like it would be something the party animal Christian that I know would write, and suddenly I’m struck by my actions, and what a fucking terrible invasion of privacy this is.
I turn the journal over in my hands to close it, but my nail catches on the back cover, revealing the very last page.
There, scratched in a panicked scrawl, the writing appearing so different from that which has been written throughout the rest of the book, are words that make my heart thud with anxious fear.
WHAT HAVE I DONE
I HAVE TO BE HIM
FOREVER
FOREVER
FOREVER
My stomach lurches and churns as my mind spins into overdrive. This is some kind of joke, right? Or some kind of teenage outburst? The hairs prickling up on the back of my neck tell me I’m wrong. This is something I was never supposed to see. Something nobody was ever supposed to see.
I’m flashing back, reflecting and piecing together one memor
y after the other, of all the things I’ve seen Christian do since we met on that rainy day on the sidewalk. Then I remember the way he froze up when I asked about memorials during our very first meeting. The way it pissed him off when I said he was like a different person at the Bowery Mission. The way his face went white as a ghost when that man, Matthews, called him by his brother’s name.
His brother’s name.
Elijah.
Then the final piece clicks into place, and I clap my own hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
Christian’s tattoo.
My eyes lingered on it that afternoon at the Cottage, tracing the lines, trying to make sense of each of the sections.
Carolyn’s voice haunts my thoughts. They got matching tattoos the same week that he died.
In one of those sections of the tattoos, between the silhouettes of various predatory animals, is an intricate design. If you look at it for long enough, it resolves into a letter.
But the letter on Christian’s chest isn’t a C.
It’s an E.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Christian
When I wake up, I instinctively reach for Quinn.
The spot in the bed next to me is empty.
Groggily, I sit up and rub at my eyes. What that hell? What time is it? Did I really pass out that hard after we had sex?
The only light evident in the room is the ambient glow of New York City’s lights. It’s late.
Did she leave?
I stretch my arms over my head, working out the kinks, then throw my legs over the side of the bed.
Now that my eyes have adjusted, I can see that there’s some light escaping from the door to the den, and a smile plays across my face. She’s probably in there with her head tilted to the side, reading all the book titles. Just picturing it makes my chest warm. Quinn doesn’t talk about books much, but the respectful way she touches them tells me that when the mood strikes her, she loves to find a good one and disappear inside its pages.
First things first. I move quickly to the walk-in closet and pull a fresh pair of boxers and a t-shirt from a drawer, sliding them up and on, tugging the shirt over my head. I’m sure we’ll be going back to bed shortly, but just in case Quinn isn’t in the mood for more sex—