DARK PARADISE - A Political Romantic Suspense (12 page)

His voice reverberates from his
chest to mine, a low hum laced with wicked desire. The driver opens the
passenger door and offers his hand. Two agents step out of a black SUV that
must have been following us the whole way here.

Keir’s words play on a loop in
my mind.
“I think you know exactly who I
am.”

He could be saying what I think
he’s saying . . .

Or he could be stating the
obvious; that he’s
Keir
Montgomery.

He leads me by the hand through
the front door, the security guard nodding us through, and by the time we find
the elevator, he jerks me in, slams the close button, and brushes me up against
the far wall.

With Keir’s hands in my hair, I
can’t think straight, nor do I want to. Lust dizzies and consumes me, clouding
out my busy thoughts, if only temporarily.

“I have a confession to make.”
His whisper against my ear saturates my senses and renders me immobile. Keir’s
hand travels between my thighs, brushing against my sensitive core from outside
my lace panties.

“What is it,
Keir
? What’s your confession?”

His teeth nip my earlobe, and
the elevator door dings and parts. “I hoped I would run into you tonight.”

My swollen lips tingle as he
drags me by the wrist to the familiar door of the Hightower corporate
apartment.

“What do you mean?” I ask, my
words breathless.

He scans his fob against the
lock, pushing the door open. The place is fully illuminated.

“I may know more about you than
I’ve let on,” he says, kicking the door closed behind us. Keir’s fingers work
to drag the zipper down my back, but I step away. His perfect mouth pulls into
a haughty smirk.
Keir
makes arrogant look as sexy as
it’s ever going to look. “I know who you are, Camille. I’ve heard of you many
times, and let’s just say you have a reputation for being . . . the
best
.”

His words sink into me. He
isn’t John. Then again, my intuition tried to tell me that all night, I just
didn’t want to listen.

“How do you have access to this
apartment?” I swallow the hard lump in my throat.

Keir
laughs
and flicks the light switch until the place is dark and the city night twinkles
from the picture window behind him.

“What kind of question is
that?” His gaze lands on my shaking hands, and he takes them in his. “And why
are you trembling, Camille?”

All these random puzzle pieces belong
to the same puzzle, but none of them fit together. The way John came into my
life and disappeared without explanation. The missing journal. Bancroft writing
me off. And now
Keir
Montgomery picking me up in a
bar and taking me back to the very same place where John claimed I’d be safe.

Nothing about this is random
coincidence.

And the key fob.

If John were truly done with
me, he’d have asked for it back.

“I should go.” I pull away from
him and hurry toward the door.

His handsome face sours as he
follows. “Camille . . . ”

I’m done. I’m done with John.
I’m done with this job and this city.

“I can’t sleep with you,
Keir
.” I grip the doorknob and feel him behind me. The heat
of his breath down my spine is a wordless protest.

His hands rest on the curve of
my hips before gripping the zipper. He pulls the metal slider up the chain
before gathering my hair in his hands. He guides my ear to his mouth, and I
shudder when the warmth of his lips meets the side of my neck.

“How much do I have to pay you?”
he growls. “You’re a hooker, and I want to fuck you. What’s the going rate
these days?”

Never before has the truth hurt
with such blinding intensity. My eyes burn with the threat of tears, and I’m
grateful he can’t see my face in its weakened state.

“You can’t afford me.” My jaw
clenches.

“Everybody has a price.”

“I’m not for sale,” I say. “Not
anymore.”

His hand slides down my hip,
snaking around to my front where he pulls at the hem of my dress.

“God, you’re so fucking wet
right now.” His fingertips press against the outside of my panties. “It’d be a
shame to let that go to waste, especially when you were just seconds from
giving it away for free.”

“Please let me go.” I steady my
words so he can’t hear the quaver in my voice. “I don’t want to be here
anymore.”

His free hand snakes up my
other side, caressing the underside of my breast and pulling me back against
him. What a foolish woman I am, believing for one moment that
Keir
Montgomery picked me out of a bar because I was
especially worthy of a night with him.

“We’re cut from the same cloth,
you and me,” he says. “We know how to make someone feel like they’re the only
person in the room. We know all the right moves, all the right things to say.
People are naturally drawn to us. Not everyone can be as charismatic and
alluring as we are, Camille. We see things in others that no one else does.
It’s our fucking superpower.”

His breath drags down my bare
back, followed by a biting kiss.

“Sex with me would be
explosive, and you know it,” he says. “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would
be like to spend a night with your equal? To fuck someone truly worthy of this
exquisite little pussy you’re packing?”

I already have.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I
huff.

“I speak the truth.”

“For the first time tonight.”

“When I pulled you aside
earlier,” he says, spreading my thighs apart before dragging a cupped palm
across my ass. “What did you think I wanted with you? What’d you think would
happen when you left with me?”

I pull in a deep breath,
clenching my thighs back together. “You reminded me of someone I know. I
thought maybe you were . . .”

 
My ridiculous thought fails to finish
itself.

He laughs. “Who else would I
be? I gave you my name. I never once said I was anyone else, did I?”

Nope.

I hate that he has a point.

His fist tightens around my
hair, giving it a good tug before letting me go.

“Anyway, I’m bored with . . .
this
.”
Keir
backs away, and I release a harbored breath. “You can go now,
whore
.”

I don’t recall leaving the
apartment, riding the elevator down, or bursting out the front door, but before
I know it, my heels are clicking down the pavement at near-jogging speed, and a
man runs after me.

A stoplight at the corner holds
me up as I scan the area for a Metro sign. I should have enough left on my
Metro card to get home from here.

Heavy footsteps tromp in the
distance, growing nearer with each second.

“Ma’am, stop,” a man’s voice
says, slightly breathless. I turn to see one of Keir’s agents coming toward me,
his hand in his pocket. “This is for you.”

He pulls out my phone and then
glances around before presenting a plain white envelope stuffed with cash. He offers
no explanation. He doesn’t need to. I know what this money buys, and that would
be my silence.

“I don’t want it.” I wave it
off as the crosswalk signal turns white and a thirty-second countdown begins.

The agent’s mouth takes the
shape of a frown. He won’t be satisfied unless I take the bribe.

“Fine.” I yank Keir’s dirty
money from the man’s hand, shove it in my bag, and trot across the street. If I
didn’t take it, I’m sure he’d pull as many strings as it took to ensure my
silence was scared into me.

 
As soon as I spot a Metro sign, I pull
out my phone to text
Araminta
. She’s probably
wondering where the hell I ran off to, despite the fact that she regularly
pulls this stunt with me.

I linger outside the Metro
station and try my best to peck out a quick text with shaky fingers, but before
I get a chance to press the send button, a blocked call comes through.

“Camille.” John’s voice comes
through on the other end when I answer. “Where are you right now?”

“John”

“I thought you were done with
me.” Camille’s words snap like a broken elastic. She’s angry with me but I know
better. The root of all anger is hurt. “You disappeared without any kind of
explanation. I had no way of contacting you. What was I supposed to think?”

Her voice quavers until it
fades away. The sound of a traffic symphony plays in the distance.

“Where are you?” I ask, kicking
off my shoes as I crawl into my bed. Although I have no intention of making
Keir’s lifestyle a habit anytime soon, it did feel good to have a couple of drinks.
I haven’t felt this relaxed in ages, and perhaps it’s the reason I was able to
break down and call her tonight. “We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.”
She exhales into the receiver. “I’m thinking it’s best we go our separate ways
from here.”

I huff. “Is this because you
hadn’t heard from me in a few days? Or because you’re fucking Bancroft again?”

“Excuse me?” Her words are
slow, drawn out. “I would never sleep with him again, and I resent your
accusation.”

“Then why did you meet with him
last week?”

“You’re having me followed
now?” Her incredulous laugh fills my ear. “Nice, John. Nice.”

“So you admit you’re still
involved with him.”

“Not. At. All.” A horn honks in
the background. “I met with him to ask him to leave me alone, to stop following
me.”

“And what did he say?”

“It’s none of your business,
John. Bancroft is
my
business, and I
handled it. And I do
not
appreciate
being tailed. I’m one of the most private and trustworthy people this city will
ever know, and if you’re too paranoid to believe that, then we have no business
associating.”

“My apologies.”

I’m met with silence,
deservedly so.

“Let me make it up to you,” I
say. “I’m not ready for this to be over yet. Are you?”

“John . . .”

“Camille.”

“I don’t want to do this
anymore.”

I refuse to give her words any merit.
She’s upset with me and her emotions are running high. She doesn’t mean any of
this.

“Let’s meet at the apartment.
We can talk there,” I say. “I’d like to offer my apology in person so you know
it’s sincere. I shouldn’t have doubted you. We need to get back on track.”

“Fine,” she says after a lengthy
pause. “You get me for one hour, and I’m
not
going to the Hightower.”

I laugh as if her statement is
a joke because it makes no sense. “What do you mean?”

“Pick a hotel,” she says. “Not
the Melrose. Some place public. Text me the room number, and I’ll get there
when I get there.”

“You don’t sound like yourself
tonight.”

“Interesting observation from a
man who knows very little about me.”

“I know plenty.”

“And still, you’ve barely
scratched the surface.”

I know.

I listen to the steady drag of
a long breath on her end.

“I’ll see you soon, Camille.”

***

I wait on the end of a tufted
sofa in the presidential suite of the Hotel Mirabelle in Georgetown, checking
the time far too often.

The click of the lock is
followed by the sweeping gush the door makes as it swings open. In my haste to
get here, I neglected to bring a blindfold, but the room is still plenty dark.

Camille struts toward me with
intrepid strides, her hands fixed on her hips and a clutch under her arm. From
what I can tell, she’s dressed for a night on the town, which would explain the
traffic noise an hour earlier.

For a moment, I wonder if she
went out because of me in an attempt to forget the sting of rejection she probably
felt. Women do that, I’ve noticed. They fish for attention when they’re feeling
low. Just the thought of another man hitting on Camille tonight brings a strain
to my neck that travels to my jaw.

I rise, taking her hands in
mine. The urge to crush her sweet lips with a punishing kiss overcomes me, but
something prevents me from following through. Cradling her cheek, I lift her
face and inhale what I fully anticipate to be the intoxicating gardenia scent
of her perfume.

But instead she smells like a
man.

I release her and step away, leaning
down to swipe what’s left of my bourbon from a nearby end table.

“I don’t want to do this
anymore,” she says.

“Don’t let the door hit you.” I
take a swig, letting the liquor burn on my tongue before I swallow. I’m sure if
this goddamned hotel room wasn’t so dark, I’d be seeing scarlet.

I listen for the shuffling
sound of her heels against the carpet, but it never comes.

“Why aren’t you leaving?” I spit
my bourbon-flavored words in her general direction.

“You brought me here to talk,”
she says. “I’m just surprised you’re letting me walk away so easily.”

“I generally find conversations
with frauds to be an enormous waste of my time.”

“Frauds?” She sniffs. “I didn’t
come all the way here for you to insult me.”

“And I didn’t bring
you
all the way here for you to insult
my intelligence.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You smell like another man.” I
turn to face her, my eyes following the black outline of her body as she steps
toward me. The second I open my mouth to elaborate, the quick sting of her palm
floods my left cheek.

No one has
ever
slapped me before.

“Lucky strike,” I say, placing
my hand across the pulsing warmth. It’s a miracle her hand found my face in the
dark.

“
You
don’t get to label
me
a fraud.” Her words ring clear. “Everything about you is deceptive, John. I’m
the genuine one. You know my name. You’ve seen my face. I’m not pretending to
be someone I’m not. And yes, I kissed another man tonight. I let him touch me. I
closed my eyes and convinced myself that he was you, and then I let him tell me
everything I wanted to hear because I was feeling lower than I’ve ever felt
before. But I’m not going to sit here blaming you. I’ll take full
responsibility for my idiotic lapse in judgment. And I’ll own up to the fact
that for one pathetic night I gave two shits about whether or not I’m good
enough to be with a man who won’t even show me his face.”

I pull in a ragged breath.

“You
are
good enough for me, Camille.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says,
her footsteps shuffling away. “I’m done with whatever the hell this is anyway.
I never should’ve agreed to it in the first place. I’m not sure what made me
think I could trust a man who only fucks me in the dark.” She laughs. “God, I’m
the biggest fucking moron. That’s what I get for only seeing zeroes.”

My offer of one million dollars
had nothing to do with the blindfold or the darkness. It was to ensure she
couldn’t say no, and that any other man’s offer would pale in comparison to
mine.

“But before I go,” she says, “I
need you to answer one question.”

“You can ask, but I can’t
promise I’ll answer.” I bring my bourbon to my lips and take another swig.

“What’s your relation to
Keir
Montgomery?”

Her question slams into me, and
I almost choke on my drink.

“I know you’re connected to
him,” she says.

“And what makes you think
that?”

“Because I met him tonight,”
she says. “And he took me to the Hightower.”

Cherry heat blankets my ears as
my jaw locks at its hinges.

That goddamn son of a bitch.

“Did you fuck him?” I ask a
question I never dreamed I’d have to ask her.

“God, no. Absolutely not.”

Relief comes when I hear the
disgust in her voice.

“You’re Ronan, aren’t you?” she
asks. “You’re his brother.”