“Just like that,” I say, staring down at her.
“Isn’t the rule that I get paid first?” she teases.
“But I have yet to take you for a test drive.”
She leans up on her elbows and coughs out a laugh. “Excuse me?”
I grin as I swirl the spoon in what is pure liquid now. “Just sit back and let me take wanton advantage of your body, Edie.”
“It better be worth the wear and tear,” she says, arching one eyebrow and falling back to the bed.
“I’m willing to bet it will increase the overall value,” I reply, one side of my mouth hitched up. “Now, take off that shirt.”
She slowly undoes the buttons, a smile on her face. The way her body looks, slithering across the bedspread as she works her way out of it, has me getting hard.
Years of high jumps in the gym pay off as I leap onto the bed in a standing position. I fall to kneel over her, one knee on either side.
“Now for my masterpiece,” I say, bringing the spoon out to drizzle the liquid over her stomach. It quivers underneath the first drop, already making me salivate. From there, I use up most of what’s left, creating a work of art across her skin that would put Jackson Pollock to shame.
Everywhere but above the neck, obviously. I’ve been with enough women to know what kind of death sentence that would be for me.
“I hope you know how much this bra and underwear cost,” she says with a warning look. “Because you’re paying to replace them.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time Edie. I will personally escort you to Agent Provocateur myself.”
She laughs, causing the liquid drizzle to shift and bring my attention right back to her body.
“It seems a shame to let such a vision go to waste. Stay right there while I go get my phone. Instagram is going to love this.”
“Bryce! Don’t you dare!” She shouts, almost sitting up.
I laugh and lean in closer to her. I take both hands and spread her arms out on either side, holding her in place.
“Relax,” I say, my eyes penetrating her. “I’ll just use my tongue to remember it by instead.”
And I do just that. My mouth and tongue enjoy a feast fit for a king trailing along Edie’s skin to the rhythm of her moans and laughter. Along the way, I lose my pants and she loses her bra and underwear.
By the time I’m done, we’re both a sticky, sweet mess, but too horny to give a damn. Taking a quick detour into condom-land, we fall back into a tangle of bodies across the ruined bedspread.
I end up on top—naturally—and sink into her, releasing the last bit of tension built up inside of me. It would be impossible not to, the way she feels surrounding my dick. I lean down, taking advantage of Edie’s arched back, sucking one breast into my mouth. The lingering taste of ice cream makes me dizzy with hunger and I thrust my hips faster. My tongue swirls around the hardened nipple until Ben and Jerry are nothing more than a distant memory.
“Bryce,” Edie moans, causing a growl to form in my throat.
I rise up, forcing my hips in at a deeper angle until I sense the tell-tale signs of her approaching climax. Heavier breathing. Hands gripping my forearms. Thighs clenched around my waist.
I time it perfectly so we release at the same time, holding on until there’s nothing left.
When she goes limp underneath me, I fall to the side and bring her into my body.
“I’m still sticky,” she protests, though I hear the smile in her voice.
“And still sweet.”
She giggles next to me. “I guess that means a shower.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sold. The five dollars is yours.”
She rewards me with a soft punch.
Rather than act on her suggestion of a much-needed shower, we lie there.
“There’s no way I’m going to sleep like this, even in your bed.”
“Yes, we definitely need to take a shower.”
“So…we should probably get up.”
“Yeah.”
“Or…we could talk?”
I stare at the ceiling, not answering.
Edie is tactful enough to give me a moment.
“I’m going to try and talk to Mom tomorrow. This needs to end.”
Edie rises up and leans on one arm to stare at me. “How about tonight we just forget about it? Let’s go take a shower and I return the favor. Let’s see what sort of masterpiece I create on your body with soap and water,” she adds with a grin.
I shift my head to stare up at her, realizing I completely love this woman. But now isn’t the time to say it. When this is all settled, I’ll fly her off to someplace where bikinis are the daily uniform and shower her with it all day long. Then all night long.
“Only if you promise to use your tongue as well,” I say with a grin.
She wrinkles her nose, then laughs when I pull her into a bear hug and carry her off to the bathroom. By now, she has a shower cap in residence, something that I’m slowly becoming turned on by. Especially when the rest of her is perfectly exposed.
Edie was right, tonight I’ll forget about it.
Tomorrow, the Wilmington family shit hits the fan.
Chapter Forty
Bryce
Mom was happily surprised when I suggested lunch, which now causes a small boulder of guilt to rest in my stomach as I sit at the bar of the restaurant nursing a drink while I await her arrival.
I’m not the only one to notice when she finally walks through the door. Despite being almost sixty, she’s still a very attractive woman. Her hair is professionally dyed so it resembles the same lush, dark fullness of her youth. Years of facials, spa treatments, healthy living, and the ease that comes from a life of money have kept her skin blemish-free and almost flawless. Her figure is judiciously maintained just as it always has been. High school has nothing on the peer pressure of Upper East Side matrons.
She catches me at the bar and an instant smile comes to her face, making it light up. If she’s attractive now, I can only imagine what a stunner she was back in the eighties.
Dad is not only an asshole, but a blind one.
Her smile fades into a thin line of disapproval when she notes the drink in my hand as she approaches.
“It’s noon, Mother,” I say with a lazy smile. “I’m pretty sure that’s the official start time for civilized society.”
When she finds out the topic of today’s conversation she’ll no doubt want something stronger than I have in my hand.
“And just what would you know about civilized society, Bryce?” she teases with a wry smile.
“You always did know me too well,” I say with a wicked grin. I tilt my drink toward the dining area. “Shall we?”
When we’re finally seated I stare at her, trying to picture the alternate version of this woman who now wears a silk scarf, charmingly knotted above a cashmere sweater—complete with a broach. It’s all so quaint and dignified. The idea of her hopped up on cocaine and drunkenly partying just doesn’t fit. She never orders anything stronger than a San Pelligrino when we have lunch. Which is exactly what she orders once the waiter appears.
“I’ll have the same,” I say, pushing my half-finished drink to the side to save for later. I want my wits about me as I lure the truth out of her, then persuade her to work her magic on Dad to change his mind.
When the waiter disappears, she sighs softly and gives me a sympathetic look. “I suppose I know what this is about.”
That one throws me for a loop. “You do?”
“Well yes, Bryce,” she chides with a knowing smile. “Do you honestly think your own mother doesn’t take an interest in the industry you’ve chosen? You and Pierce may be grown men but that doesn’t mean I don’t still care about my boys.”
Ah, shit.
She’s obviously talking about Conniver and not Cheval Blanc or Dad. I reach out for my dismissed drink and take a long sip.
“I know the Conniver business is supposed to be a secret, but how under w
raps can it be if half of Manhattan already knows? I’m sure it’s nothing, Bryce. Just the usual corporate nonsense. Once they realize how great your magazine is, they’ll have to keep you on board.”
“Actually, Dad’s bought my magazine, Mom,” I say, deciding to get to the point.
The blink in surprise she returns tells me she knows nothing about his particular “corporate nonsense.”
Her hand comes up to play with the broach stuck in her scarf. “Perhaps he’s just warding off the worst? Despite what he may say, I do know he was impressed by you deciding to venture off onto your own. That’s something even he never accomplished, taking over his father’s business and all.” She gives me an encouraging smile, but I see the seed of doubt behind her dark eyes. Even she can’t possibly put that much faith in the man.
“Warding off the worst? More like hedging his bets.”
“How do you mean?”
The waiter comes back with our drinks before I can respond, and we take a moment to look over the menu and quickly order while he’s here. When he’s gone, she considers me with a wrinkle of worry in her brow.
“What did you mean hedging his bets? You know I don’t know anything about these investment terms, Bryce. We didn’t all go to business school.”
“I mean, he’s offering to keep my magazine intact if I go to work with him. Or, I could continue on as editor-in-chief of Ideal Gentlemen and…” I pause, making sure to study Mom’s face, “if I do, he’ll dissolve Contempo Woman, the other magazine he’s purchased.”
Mom stares at me for a long moment, her face unreadable. When my gaze doesn’t waiver, she’s the first to break, her hand coming back up to fiddle with her broach again as she averts her gaze.
“Why on earth would you care about that magazine, Bryce?” She says with an embarrassed laugh. She takes a long sip of her sparkling water, but I see her eyes scan the room, probably looking for our waiter to order something stronger as I predicted.
“Because I’m in love with the woman who works as editor-in-chief of that magazine,” I say in a blunt manner.
She coughs, her water going down the wrong tube. Still, she manages to give me a wide-eyed look of shock.
“Edie Hartman, Mom,” I say in a dry tone, “not her mother.”
“Well, I should hope not her mother,” she says in an indignant tone, finally recovering if only from sheer outrage.
Time to tread carefully.
“I got the impression that this was personal for Dad. Any reason in the world why he should care about that magazine?”
Mom sits up straighter and narrows her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re implying, Bryce.”
“I’m not implying anything,” I say neutrally, even though I very much am implying something. “I just want to know why he’s using my fucking magazine as leverage.”
“Watch your language, Bryce.”
“Sorry mother,” I say in a droll voice. “My gosh darned magazine.”
“You can save the smart-ass schtick as well.”
I know I’m on thin ice when she starts with the Yiddish, something no blue-blooded WASP would ever resort to.
She takes a sip of her water, as calm as anything now. “If you’re asking me to talk to your father, I will. But I don’t know what you expect to come of it. You know how he is when he has his mind set on something and he’s wanted you to work for the firm since before you were even born. I don’t see it as such a bad thing. It will one day be yours and Pierce’s after all. Not everyone is so fortunate. And like you said, the magazine will still be there.”
“I don’t want to work for Wilmington Financial. I want my magazine without Dad’s meddling.”
“Then talk to him like a man,” she says in her most maternally challenging voice.
“I have talked to him like a man. That’s when he made clear his intentions. Or should I say, he blackmailed me. He knows Edie and I are together.” I note how quickly she grabs her drink at that. “And he damn well used it against me.”
“You know how ruthless your father is, Bryce. Having grown up with him, I’d think you would have known this by now.”
It’s obvious that she wants this topic over and done with. If my going to work for Dad puts an end to the dangerous path I’m heading toward, all the better as far as she’s concerned.
I breathe a laugh through my nose as I study her. “Oh, I have learned. I’ve learned quite a bit. Most notably how two can play that game. Now that I have my own bit of leverage.”
“What do you mean?” she asks cautiously.
“I mean, he named the company Cheval Blanc, for starters.” Once again, I study her just to see her reaction. I know my mom is fluent in French. And right now, her face is looking pretty “blanc.”
“I see you get the reference. Lickety Split? Honestly, I couldn’t figure out why he’d name the corporation after a horse of yours. As you said, you don’t really involve yourself in these matters. So it had to be something to do with you as well as Contempo Woman, or maybe just Cassandra LeFleur.”
“Just stop right there, Bryce,” she says in a sharp voice, the same one she used when I was a kid. “Whatever it is you think you’ve put together, you’re wrong.”
I want to throw up my hands now. “Just come out and admit that Dad had an affair with Cassandra, Mom! Or at least did something with her at this infamous party that, funnily enough, no one who was there is willing to talk about. Why the hell are you protecting him after all this time, especially when he’s using it to manipulate your own son?”
“Bryce,” she says, closing her eyes. “Whatever may or may not have happened at that party is old business. Certainly not something any of us want drudged up again.” She opens her eyes and I can see the plea in them. “You may not think highly of your father but trust me, he didn’t cheat on me. What he’s done, what he’s doing, it’s to protect all of us. Please, just…let it go.”
I stare at her feeling deflated. “I can’t let it go, Mom. Not when he’s involving Edie in this. You love Dad. I love her. She doesn’t deserve to suffer over this secret you all are hiding from us.”
Mom looks at me agape after this confession, but I can see the new conflict in her eyes. “I’ll talk to your father. Tell him to let go of this nonsense for the sake of us all.”
“Do that, Mom, because otherwise, I have no choice but to keep digging for the truth. It’s the only card I have left.”
Chapter Forty-One
Edie
“My father wants to have dinner with us. Tonight.”
I hold the phone to my ear and stare at the glass walls of my office in surprise.
Bryce called earlier to tell me how his lunch with his mother went—about as productive as mine with my mother.
When I saw it was him calling again, several hours after that, I was surprised.
But I certainly wasn’t expecting this.
“Your father wants to have dinner with us—both of us—tonight?”
“Yeah. Obviously, I struck a nerve with Mom today. I knew she was upset. Enough to move the mountain that is Dad into acting.”
“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
“With Dad, I always put my money on bad. But, hopefully, we’ll at least get some answers. It may even give us a chance to let him and everyone else know that whatever it is, it has nothing to do with us and we should be left out of it.”
“Will that actually work?” I ask in a cynical tone. I only know as much about the man as Bryce has told me, but that doesn’t inspire hope.
“I doubt it,” he says with a bitter laugh. “Still, we might as well go and see what the latest hammer to fall is.”
“Right,” I say, feeling something drop in the pit of my stomach.
“So, eight o’clock it is. Some place I’ve never heard of, I’m sure for privacy’s sake.”
“Is he expecting an outburst?” I say with an incredulous laugh.
“Probably just paranoia. Maybe we’ll finally learn th
e truth?”
“Maybe.”
A lie.
Whatever this is tonight, I agree with Bryce. It’s probably not good news.
Bryce and I have arrived together. I’m wearing my little black dress—the one Bryce suggested was more fitting for a wedding at a cemetery.
Which makes it perfect for this dinner.
The place Bryce’s father picked is so well hidden, I barely catch the name of the place written on a gold plaque next to a single door.
The Hendrix Club.
“Obviously some Thai-Nigerian fusion restaurant,” Bryce jokes in an attempt at humor when he sees the name. But even he doesn’t crack a smile.
I take hold of his arm before he can press the small button beneath the plaque. There’s a deliberately placed camera above it, no doubt to ward off any undesirables.
“We don’t have to do this. He might tell us things we don’t want to know.”
“I know I don’t want to go work for him. Especially after all of this. I also know I don’t want you to lose your magazine. And I definitely don’t want to lose you. If dinner with him helps ward off all those things—no matter what we learn—then it’s worth it. The question is, do you want to do this?”
I nod, uncertain but willing to see this through for Bryce’s sake. I feel like a side character in all this madness. Bryce is the main player.
“Let’s do it,” I say, pressing the button myself.
It’s answered almost immediately via intercom.
“Miss Hartman? Mr. Wilmington? Please come in.”
Bryce and I glance at each other, eyebrows raised.
So it’s that kind of place. The kind that is so exclusive, they learn both the names and appearances of anyone invited to dine.
This is an entirely new level of wealth.
After opening the door that’s suddenly unlocked, we’re escorted through a long hall with decor that can only be described as hushed. Rich dark carpet. Dark wood lining the walls and the closed doors we pass. Intimate lighting. I feel like I’m being led to an initiation ceremony for some secret society.
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