by Bromberg, K.
PRAISE FOR K. BROMBERG
“K. Bromberg always delivers intelligently written, emotionally intense, sensual romance . . .”
—USA Today
“K. Bromberg makes you believe in the power of true love.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Audrey Carlan
“A poignant and hauntingly beautiful story of survival, second chances, and the healing power of love. An absolute must-read.”
—New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting
“A home run! The Player is riveting, sexy, and pulsing with energy. And I can’t wait for The Catch!”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Blakely
“An irresistibly hot romance that stays with you long after you finish the book.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout
“Bromberg is a master at turning up the heat!”
—New York Times bestselling author Katy Evans
“Supercharged heat and full of heart. Bromberg aces it from the first page to the last.”
—New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott
“Captivating, emotional, and sizzling hot!”
—New York Times bestselling author S. C. Stephens
ALSO BY K. BROMBERG
Driven
Fueled
Crashed
Raced
Aced
Slow Burn
Sweet Ache
Hard Beat
Down Shift
UnRaveled
Sweet Cheeks
Sweet Rivalry
The Player
The Catch
Cuffed
Combust
Worth the Risk
Control
Faking It
Resist
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2019 by JKB Publishing, LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542002844
ISBN-10: 1542002842
Cover design by Letitia Hasser
Cover photography by Wander Aguiar Photography
To Kandace:
Thank you for teaching us to look for rainbows in the storm and for stars in the darkness. You are loved and missed by so many.
CONTENTS
START READING
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.
—Rumi
PROLOGUE
Ryker
Woman, you’re beginning to make me want to define things I never imagined before.
My words ghost through my mind right along with the look on Vaughn’s face when I said them—cheeks flushed from the sex we’d just enjoyed, lips swollen from my inability to ever get enough of her, and eyes full of the same shitstorm of emotions swirling inside me.
Definitions.
Labels.
Designations.
Whatever you fucking call it, I’d give every last one right now if I could kick all the guests out of the party so I could enjoy Vaughn all over again. But not a quickie against the dresser like we just had . . . no. This time I want to take my time with her. Get drunk on every goddamn inch of her. Lose myself in her—to her—in a way I’ve never allowed myself to before.
I’m a selfish bastard who doesn’t want to share.
With a shake of my head and a resignation that I was wrong inviting the Hamptons lookie-loos here, I open my humidor and pull out a carton of Cuban cigars to bring out to the guys.
“You have something I want, Lockhart.”
I don’t respond. I don’t turn his way. I don’t ask him what the fuck he’s doing here at my party, let alone in the pool house, when I should have figured he’d show. Instead, I close the door on the cabinet, set down the Cubans, and casually push the button on the screen of my cell before placing it facedown on the bar top in front of me.
With a measured sip of my drink, I turn and eye Carter Preston over the rim of my highball glass. “Good to see you too, Senator.”
“I figured you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by. The whole town’s abuzz about Ryker Lockhart and how serious it must be with the woman he’s brought here for the weekend.”
“Since when do you believe bullshit rumors?” I ask, trying to feel him out and his unexpected and unwelcome presence.
“Since I’ve seen the woman here with my own two eyes.” He raises his brows and just stares as a slow smirk curls up one side of his mouth. Without asking, he reaches out and takes a cigar from the box, lifting it with a quirk of his brow to ask if he can. Not thrilled with giving him one, I nod and wait for him to lead this conversation. “You haven’t returned my calls.”
I think of the two voice mails he’s left these past few days requesting a private moment and how I blew them off. “As you can see, I’ve been busy.”
“I thought it was all rumors?”
“What did you need, Carter?” I completely disregard his question.
“Like I said, I’m here because you have something I want.”
“I’m sorry; my caseload is full,” I say and take a seat on the barstool beside me.
“Hmm.” He savors the sip he takes and chuckles as if he doesn’t believe me. “I’ll get what I want, one way or another.”
“I’m honored you want me to represent you in your divorce,” I say, trying to head this off at the pass, “but it’s just not feasible right now. I’ve g
ot a backlog that—”
“You’re really going to pass up having the future vice president of the United States as part of your clientele? You know my name would have new clients—high-dollar clients—lighting up that phone of yours.”
“Putting the cart before the horse now, are we?”
“The nomination is just a matter of time. I make sure the bills get passed that need to be passed for the party’s benefit. I make sure the ones that need to die, die.” He shrugs and takes a few steps away. “Who doesn’t get off on having that kind of power?”
“Power is often subjective.” I have no fucking clue where he’s going with this, but screw him and his ego trip.
“Easy to say when it comes from a man who hasn’t felt its high.” He shakes his head. “I could help you with that, you know. Take you under my wing. Let you help me with a thing or two and really put that law degree of yours to use.”
“I’m good, thanks.” Asshole.
“Come on, Lockhart. Live a little.”
“I live plenty.”
“There’s a lot of money to be made.”
“I’ve got money.”
He laughs, his head down, his hands clasped around his glass, and he just stares at it for a beat before looking up at me with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that tells me here’s his one-two punch. Here’s the reason he wanted to see me.
What do you want, Carter?
“Is that why you’re not taking me on as a client? Because you’ve got money already?” He takes a step closer to me. “Or is it because you’re representing my wife and now you’ve got my money?” Another smile that holds no amusement. “Two million dollars of it, in fact.”
I stumble over how to respond. Over what to say. Over how to justify. Christ. Talk about being blindsided. “She came to me before you did.”
A tense silence fills the room. Sounds from the poolside activities filter in through the open windows but feel out of place in our silent standoff.
His arms are crossed now. His shoulder is leaning against the wall. His eyes are locked and loaded with an emotion I can’t decipher. Fury? Admiration? Disbelief? Nothing about it makes sense to me.
“And yet the check was written and cashed after I approached you about representation.”
“We were in negotiations.”
“I guess so long as one of us gets you.” His snort of a chuckle resonates through the space, and the sarcasm in it contradicts his words. “Too bad now I’ll have to find another attorney who will rip you to shreds.” Satisfaction blankets his expression.
Call it a hunch, call it a gut instinct, but there’s something else going on here. Something else I can’t put my finger on that has to do with so much more than my representing his wife, Bianca.
“I’m sure we’ll be able to figure things out without anyone being ripped to shreds.”
His laugh is rich and even, and in a matter of seconds it goes from reverberating off the walls of the small space to silent. “What? No Roxanne?”
His comment about the relationship I had with a married woman is like whiplash to my brain, the implied threat behind it even more so, but I try to hide it with a knowing chuckle. “Roxanne?”
“Ah, come on, Lockhart. Chuck was running his mouth at The Club again. Everyone knows you were fucking her.”
Goddamn Chuck.
“That was over before it began.”
Carter runs the length of his unlit Cuban cigar beneath his nose and inhales its rich scent. “That’s not exactly how the rumor mill is spinning it. She was at your place not too long ago.”
“In the lobby, but no farther.” How the hell does he know this?
“I have eyes everywhere, my friend,” he says, answering my unspoken question and loving every moment of my reaction.
“Then your eyes should know she was begging and I was walking the other way.” The questions is, Did his eyes see Vaughn there too? Did they see us go into the bathroom where we argued and then she left alone?
“Could you imagine if it got out that you were sleeping with your client’s wife? Representing a man who thinks you have his best interests in mind when in reality you’re betraying his trust? Your word is everything in this business, isn’t it?”
There goes the warning shot over the bow. The man is known for toying with his prey before he goes in for the kill.
“Your point, Senator?”
“You want to explain to me why I see a high-dollar madam here? Why I’ve seen you with her before?”
I fight every immediate reaction I have. The What the fuck are you talking about? The What do you mean there is a high-dollar madam here? All of them, because he just made the connection that Vee is Vaughn, and what the hell am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to play this other than to act like it’s no big deal when he’s staring at me, wanting a reaction?
I refuse to give him the fight he’s looking for.
“What’s it to you?”
“I believe paying for sex is illegal, Counselor.” His scoff fills the small room and drowns out the sounds of my guests outside.
“Says a man who has no problem breaking the law himself,” I say to neutralize his thinly veiled threat and to let him know I’ve heard the rumors about his dealings. About lobbyists and greased palms. About him using an escort service and paying for sex himself.
Something’s off, though. He’s on edge beneath the designer threads and practiced politician’s smile, regardless of how relaxed he pretends to be.
Bianca’s words from our conversation earlier this week ghost through my mind. My husband is struggling right now. It’s difficult for a man who’s always in control to feel that he’s losing it when it comes to me. I think of her tight smile and the unforgiving look in her eyes. I will take so much pleasure in being the one to prove to him that he can never have control over me again. Find out whatever you can on him—the women he cheats on me with, the bribes he takes, the hookers he pays—and I want you to use every single one of them to win me more. But be warned, once he knows you’re a threat to him and his endgame, he’ll do whatever it takes to bury you. Morality isn’t exactly his strong suit.
“Sometimes a man has to do what he has to do.” Carter’s unabashed shrug is followed by the flash of a smile. “Especially when it comes to getting the upper hand.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Hasn’t your practice had some troubling incidents as of late?” He walks toward the bar and selects a bottle of Jameson off the shelf without asking. The neck clinks as it touches his glass when he helps himself to more. “In addition to Roxanne, of course.”
My mind scrambles to figure out what he’s referring to but draws a blank.
“Is this you pretending to have some bogus upper hand on me?” I ask through a laugh. I don’t care who the fuck he is—vice president or senator or a goddamn errand boy, he’s full of crap.
His laugh reverberates around the room. “Nah, we’re just two guys shooting the shit here. Sharing stories. Trading favors. Looking out for one another.”
That’s how he wants to play this? Ask to see me, confront me over Bianca, then Vaughn, threaten me, and now act like we’re buddies?
Keep it casual, Ryk. The less you say, the better, until you figure out what it is that he’s after. Because he is after something.
“Is that so?”
“You tell me. Is it?”
“You said you wanted something from me,” I reiterate in this verbal game of cat and mouse, sick of the chase. “Care to tell me what that is so I can get back to my guests?”
“Are you going to answer my question?” he asks with a lift of his chin to the party beyond. “What’s she doing here?”
“Who?”
It’s his turn to respond with a laugh that tells me I know exactly who he’s talking about. “The woman who needs to know her threats are empty against my influence.” He levels me with a look that only he can. Arrogant. Privileged. Entitled.
He wants
Vaughn.
Fucking Vaughn.
“Vaughn.” He fights a smile as he studies me for a reaction.
A reaction I refuse to give him.
“Vaughn?”
“Power, Ryker.” He takes the cigar cutter off the counter, lops off the end before lighting it, and takes a long draw. His eyes close as he appears to relish the taste, and when he finally exhales, he meets my eyes. “It all comes back to that, now doesn’t it?”
“And like I said, power is subjective.” Where the fuck are you going with this, Carter?
“Are you her keeper? Are you the one pulling her strings?”
“I’m not following you. Wouldn’t it be easier if you just came out and asked what you wanted to ask?”
His smile is anything but sincere when he grants it. His eyes hard, his shoulders tense. “The woman has many things I want. Many.”
“And?”
“And she should be careful.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Come on, you son of a bitch. Tell me what it is you want here. Why the threat? “Why are you telling me any of this?”
“Because it seems she’s playing you just as much as she’s playing me. Have you wondered what dirt she has on you? Have you figured out how she plans to bring you down should you cross her?”
“I’m not worried about that.” I narrow my eyes and wonder what the fuck Vaughn has on him that has him so worried.
“You should be.”
I don’t say a word but rather run my own cigar under my nose and inhale its scent to buy time and to give him the impression I’m not worried in the least. For all he knows, Vaughn is here on the clock.
“Come on, Lockhart.” His chuckle scrapes over my nerves. “Don’t tell me I need to school you on how to manage your playthings.”
I look at him as the lighter flickers at the end of my cigar, and I suck in quick puffs to light it.
“I wasn’t aware I needed to manage them.”
“When they could ruin you with their dirt . . . you have no choice. You see, with sex comes a sort of power. With power comes fear. It’s so easy to make a woman bend to your will when you have both of those combined—power plus fear.”
“Mmm.” I don’t trust myself to say anything else.
“What I’m getting at is Vaughn needs to be fucked into submission.” He takes another long draw on the stogie but keeps his eyes on me, waiting for a reaction. And fuck yes, his words make my fists tense and my blood boil, but I know better than to give him what he wants.