The guy’s wife was the daughter of Patricia Forte, whom I’d voted for twice. One somber-looking dude in the studio argued with a woman who looked more like a naughty librarian than a journalist, if that was what she was supposed to be. He said Spencer Christmas could’ve beat Patricia Forte. She said Spencer Christmas was smart to drop out of the race this weekend because he hadn’t stood for anything other than being a billionaire who knew how to give away money.
I rubbed the side of my face. Has another weekend gone by without me realizing it? I closed my eyes and remembered that it was Tuesday.
“Talk about money, she still has an ongoing corruption case—campaign finance fraud.”
My eyes grew wide. Wow, I didn’t know that.
“That has been proven false, Byron. I can’t believe of all people, you were never willing to test this guy.”
“I have tested him. Sure, he’s a Washington outsider, but what his foundation has done for victims of his father’s crimes speaks for itself. Plus, he’s young. Every senator has to start somewhere, or else they would’ve been in Congress for too long. Kind of like Forte.”
She grunted as if he’d just slapped her in the face then started using her fingers to count down. “He’s never held an office in his life. He’s a playboy.”
“That’s not fair,” Byron said. “The guy’s faithfully married.”
“Listen,” the somber guy, who was clearly the referee, said. “This is an example of how polarizing this contest was and still is. None of us thought Forte would go down without a fight, but she pulled out. Mike Black is our new frontrunner. Does he have the juice to go all the way?”
I turned the channel when the woman groaned and rolled her eyes. That entire situation was giving me a headache. Instead, I stopped on a show about ancient apothecary. I couldn’t believe my luck. I got comfortable on the big mustard-colored suede sectional sofa.
Then the doorbell chimed.
“Damn it,” I said, springing to my feet.
I pressed pause on the remote control, and the video stopped. I pumped my fist. “Yes.” I wouldn’t miss any of the program.
“Dr. Ross,” came a voice over the PA system. “I have a delivery for you from Jake.”
When I opened the door, a man wearing a suit and carrying a large white box came inside and said he had been told to take the box to the bedroom, and I was not to open it. He made me promise I would not look inside.
I raised my right hand. “I will not.”
The guy smiled. “I’ll impart your answer to Dr. Sparrow.”
Of course, I cheesed like a Cheshire cat as I closed the door behind me. It felt sexy to know that he would be relaying my answer to Jake.
Once it was just the box and me in the penthouse, I jogged to the bedroom and stared at it. Jake had said that we were going out to bang my mistress that night. Did he buy me a dress? Of course he had. All my party clothes were at my apartment. I so very much wanted to see what he’d picked out. I wondered if he could figure out my taste. I wasn’t the sort of woman who sat my sexuality on the table for all the men to sniff around. I liked elegance—sophistication mixed with contemporary style. For instance, I would wear a low-back cocktail dress with one spaghetti-strap. Jake couldn’t know that about me with the little time we’d spent together. We would have to spend more time in each other’s lives. He would have to become my boyfriend.
I counted the days in my head. Wow, we had known each other for sixteen days.
Chapter Eighteen
Penina Ross
I had so much anxiety that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d never been away from the hospital for that long, so I didn’t know if my angst was from that or being so curious to find out what was in that box. I had to do something and get moving. But I didn’t want to run the risk of running into someone I knew by going back to my apartment and getting my workout clothes. I was pretty sure the luxury building had a phenomenal gym. I needed to take a one hour walk on a treadmill or something. Then I remembered that I suspected Jake’s friend might be a woman since I’d seen dresses in the closet, and she had to have other clothes in some of the drawers, including workout gear.
I searched through a credenza with a beautiful wood pattern in the front and scored. Yoga pants, a T-shirt, and a few bikinis were inside.
I was pretty sure Jake wouldn’t mind if I wore them. We both knew how important even the lowest-impact exercise was for the body. Plus, he had encouraged me to make myself at home more than once.
If I were at home and twiddling my thumbs on an afternoon when my brain was used to being in surgery or consults or troubleshooting the best way to get at a clot or a tumor, I would go to Bellies to see who I could run into and strike up a conversation. But I couldn’t do that because I was supposed to be monitoring myself for symptoms of the flu. Another thing I would do was read what was new in Neuro Journal Today, which usually took me away for hours at a time. But I was too excited about the dress box and my tryst with Dr. Jake Sparrow to concentrate on reading. Therefore, I chose to exercise.
I put on the woman’s clothes, which fit me a little snugly. The person they belonged to had to be at least fifteen to twenty pounds lighter than me. Next, I called the front desk to ask on which floor I would find the gym. They told me to take the elevator down two floors and put my finger on the door pad, and I should be granted entrance. I followed the directions precisely, and soon I was on the treadmill at the beginning of a brisk walk.
The gym was empty, which was sort of a letdown. It would’ve been nice to start a conversation with someone who lived in the building and figure out if they knew anything about the owners of the penthouse. Regardless, I was thirty minutes into my exercise, and my breathing was good, and my legs were strong. At the one-hour mark, I’d walked over three and a half miles. My feet were hurting because I had on the wrong shoes, but my lungs felt reinvigorated.
I took my shoes off and hobbled all the way back to the elevator, thinking that I’d messed up. Jake wanted to take me out that night. I would never be able to comfortably wear a pair of heels.
“Heels!” I gasped as I entered the elevator to return to the penthouse. I had no shoes to wear with that dress.
But then I calmed myself again. I was certain Jake had all the bases covered.
I took a long bath post-workout. That time, as I soaked in the warm water, I had no thoughts weighing me down. Also, my feet felt a lot better. I promised to never exercise in the wrong shoes again. But the walk had worked. I was in a total restful state when the doorbell rang.
“Damn it,” I whispered, head still resting on the lip of the tub without moving an inch. I was considering waiting it out until they went away.
“Dr. Ross, we’re here to prepare you for the evening,” a woman said through the PA.
Excitement made me get out of the tub as fast as I could. I had to be careful, though. Water was dangerous. One slip, and whatever Jake had planned for us would be over.
I dried myself with a bath towel, slid on a robe and slippers, and shuffled to the door.
The team who arrived at my door proved just how much of a fashionista or glamour girl I wasn’t. I liked my face to look dewy and fresh whenever I dressed up to go out and have a good time. That meant a little red, plum, or pink lipstick, mascara, light eyeliner, and a sweep of blush over translucent power. It always seemed to get the job done. However, two makeup artists, a hairdresser, and a stylist made me look unrecognizable within two hours.
I studied my reflection in the standing mirror. My dress was a long silver slip gown that caressed my curves like an erotic kiss. According to Desiree, the stylist, the straps of my dress were made of pure diamonds, and so were the stones on my strappy sandals. Vivian, the hairdresser, had managed to whip my usually wayward hair into an array of big and loose cascading ringlets. I wore an exquisite cat mask, which covered half my face. It was ornately encrusted with gold, pearls, and diamonds. The thing must’ve cost more money than I could
fathom ever making in a lifetime. Purchasing the penthouse for a friend then having so much disposable cash to woo me in a major way, Jake must’ve had a huge bank account.
After all the loose ends were tied, the crew bowed out of the apartment and said they would send someone back the next day to collect the goods. When I took it all off, I was to lay each item carefully across the chair in Jake’s room. I said goodbye to them, and just like that, I was alone in the apartment, dressed like a wealthy, sexy, and pampered cat.
“What next?” I muttered.
Right on cue, the house phone rang, and I carefully padded over to answer it.
“Take the elevator to P-1. I’m waiting for you,” Jake said then hung up before I could ask him where we were going.
What was happening was so far out of the ordinary that I had to take a moment to keep myself from panicking. “One step at a time, Pen,” I whispered.
My heart raced a mile a minute when I stepped into the elevator. Nerves made me light-headed as I pressed the P-1 button.
On the way down, I studied myself in the gold-paneled walls. I looked as if I belonged in one of those commercials for a chichi hotel in Las Vegas, suggesting I was on my way out to indulge in an activity that was naughty, furtive, and out of this world.
The doors slid open, and a few steps away sat a sleek black limousine with tinted windows. The back door opened, and Jake stepped out of the back seat. My eyes grew wide, and I inhaled sharply. He wore a black suit that made him look like a sexy James Bond and a soft black cotton shirt beneath the jacket. He also had on a golden mask encrusted with onyx and diamonds and fashioned in the shape of a wolf. His appearance was just as expensive as mine was.
Finally, we were face-to-face. After trailing the back of his fingers down the side of my face, Jake curled an arm around my waist and drew me against his hard body.
“There are no words to describe how you look.” His voice was fueled by passion.
Jake ran his hands down my bare shoulders as his lips gently pressed against mine. Our tongues connected, brushing delicately. The way we were making out sent my head floating to the sky.
“The cat and the wolf,” I whispered when we moved our lips apart to take a breath.
Jake chuckled then kissed me again. Something told me that we would be doing a lot of smooching throughout the evening.
A window separated the back seat of the limo from the front, so it felt as if Jake and I were in our own universe. It had been a while since I’d ventured off to admire the mansions in the Garden District of New Orleans. I used to visit the neighborhood often when I was an intern. There used to be days I couldn’t fall asleep after my shift ended to save my life. Exams, surgical procedures, and material from the day’s symposium cluttered my mind. Walking through that neighborhood helped me battle my insomnia. I would stop in front of my favorite properties and stare at the decorative wrought iron gates, the barrier between me and the lush lawns, manicured trees, and white stone mansions with their colossal columns and wrap-around balconies. Even though many of the French colonial manors were being remodeled, I could still envision a lady of the house resting on a red velvet chaise lounge in the cool of the day, full of pampered self-absorption.
That was why it felt so odd that two neurosurgeons who considered discussing surgical techniques foreplay were in a limousine and dressed for a party rooted in fifteenth-century Italy. I had to convince myself that swallowing a bite of Medici family lavishness and Southern extravagance wasn’t too ridiculous.
“This is a lot,” I whispered.
He dipped his tongue into my mouth and kissed me again. Then Jake’s teeth delicately captured my lower lip as he slid his tongue across it. “You deserve more,” he replied breathlessly.
I wondered why he thought so as I gently sucked my bottom lip into my mouth to taste him.
“You’re frowning,” he said, his brow furrowed.
“It’s just…” I sighed. I didn’t want to overthink it or be a Debbie Downer.
“You don’t believe you deserve more?” he asked.
“No more than anyone else,” I replied, happy to get that off my chest.
“To me, you deserve the world,” he said, gazing into my eyes.
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “You speak like a man with a lot of money. Are you a man with a lot of money, Jake Sparrow?”
He chortled as he smirked. “I spend where I find it necessary.”
Oh, that was smooth. And the fact that I was so captivated by his gaze made me not want to call him on it.
I asked him how his surgeries had gone, and he said that they went well. He’d almost lost a patient, but the person on his operating table fought like hell to stay with us. But any conversation about work couldn’t last long on such a night. I put a hand on his strong chest, and his lips found mine.
I wanted to know if he was as aroused as I was, so I let my hand slide down his abs and gently caress his dick. Damn, he was as solid as a steel pipe.
Something flashed in his eyes as I shifted my hand up and down his shaft. He took in a deep breath through his nostrils before putting his hand on top of mine.
“Later, baby. I don’t want to cut our night short.” His voice was made thick by lust.
I wiggled my eyebrows, peering at him suggestively. “I’m always game for turning the car around and spending the rest of the evening in bed with you.”
He shook his head. “I want to dance with you tonight,” he said then kissed me softly. “Even though…” He took a gentle breath. “That offer is so fucking hard to refuse. I’ve been thinking about you all day long. And whenever I look at you, my neurons tell my body that I must have you. That’s never happened to me before.”
“Have you ever been in love?” I had never been in love, yet I felt the same way he did.
His brow pulled into an intense frown. “Once.”
I gulped, instantly feeling a pinch of jealousy. It was silly, but I felt it regardless. “With whom?”
“A woman who was in love with my brother.”
I tried to control the way my eyes wanted to dance. He had just revealed something personal to me, and I didn’t want him to realize it and go back to being overly secretive. Instead, I smiled flirtatiously. “Then I’m the second woman your neurons have reacted to.”
“No,” he said immediately. “I didn’t feel the same for her. My love for her was not sexual or romantic. It was born from…”
I hung on to his every word, but it seemed as if he was struggling to continue whatever he was thinking.
“Born from?” I asked, gently encouraging him to speak what was on his mind.
The limousine came to a stop.
“Born from nothing good,” he finally said.
“Did your brother care that you were in love with her?”
He sniffed. “No, he didn’t. He didn’t love her, so he wouldn’t have cared.” Jake shifted abruptly in his seat. “We should go inside.”
With that one statement, the heaviness dissolved out of the air. I broke eye contact to turn and see what was behind me. A traditional Southern colonial mansion sat behind the lush lawn and trees, which canopied over a sidewalk that had warm orange lights running along each side of it. A restless feeling raced through me. I wanted to stay in the car and get to the bottom of Jake’s neurons and learn more about his brother and his ex-girlfriend. But I also wanted to discover what was inside that mansion.
“This place looks seductive. That’s for sure,” I whispered.
As soon as I turned to face Jake, his mouth covered mine. He kissed me so fervently that he guided my back down onto the seat. Then I felt a jolt as our masks collided.
“Fuck,” Jake said, rubbing his mask at the spot that covered his forehead. “Are you okay?”
I chuckled. “I’m fine. But we should do either-or—make out until we can’t stop ourselves from going to the next step”—I wiggled my brows—“or go inside and discover what kind of excitement a
waits us.” Both options would’ve been equally pleasurable.
“Let’s go,” Jake said then helped me into a sitting position. Without pause, he got out of the limo and opened my door.
Taking his hand, I squinted at the unlit windows of the sprawling mansion. “Are we the only ones here?”
Jake winked. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
We walked side by side up the path. My nerves made me hold his hand tightly, and he let go of it to put his arm around me. I loved that he did that. The gesture made me feel safe and secure, even though I was still shaking a little as we ventured up the steps that led to the grand porch.
Jake let go of me to lift the lid over a keypad pasted against the stucco.
“Is this your mansion?” I asked.
Jake put his arm around me again. “No,” he said as he pushed the door open.
I pressed a hand against my jumpy heart as we stepped into a large, dimly lit vestibule that ran from one end of the manor to the other. I wrinkled my nose because I could smell fresh plaster and paint. About two feet ahead of us was another door.
“This almost feels like Alice in Wonderland,” I remarked.
Jake smirked as he pressed his balled fist against the wood. “Are you ready?”
My smile was pensive.
“Relax, beautiful. This is all fun,” he said.
I nodded stiffly.
Then he knocked three times, and the door opened by itself.
Chapter Nineteen
Penina Ross
It was thrilling. Jake, countless others, and I were in a grand ballroom. The hardwood floors were suitable for dancing under all the glittering chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. The atmosphere was still dim, only decorated by sconces casting warm light. Masked men and women danced, drank, and had lively interactions with each other. So much stimulation was in the atmosphere that my brain couldn’t focus on one thing at a time. A brass band was positioned on a platform. Each member wore a black-tie suit and a mask that resembled that of the main character from The Phantom of the Opera.
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