DARK PARADISE - A Political Romantic Suspense (14 page)

Camille

I yank a toothbrush from the
basket of complimentary toiletries sitting on the marble counter of the en
suite bath.

The woman staring back at me in
the mirror is weak and barely recognizable, and I cringe when I look her up and
down.

I
never
let my guard down.

My cheeks flush, burning hot
when I think about what just happened. I want to erase the last half hour from
my life. He must think I’m completely insane, but to be fair, I think he’s
insane for wanting to keep me around, so that makes us equally insane.

I let the robe fall to the
floor and twist the knob on the shower until steam fogs up the room. I say a
silent prayer for clarity and direction. I have no idea who I’m praying to, but
as long as someone hears it, that’s good enough for me.

***

I finger comb my damp hair into
a messy topknot. Stepping out of the bedroom in last night’s dress, I find Ronan
in the same place I left him.

“Feel better?” He stands,
folding a newspaper and dropping it on the chair behind him. His white dress
shirt is untucked, and the first two buttons at the top are undone. If the
circumstances were any different, I might not be able to keep myself from running
my fingers through his mussed, coffee-brown hair.

“Yes.” My heartbeat pulses with
each step that brings him closer to me.

“And have you decided?” He
stands before me now, his heat radiating into me. My eyes are caught in his
curious stare, unable to look away. “I still want you, Camille. I didn’t track
you down for the better part of a year just to let you go this easily.”

“It’s not you,” I say. “I don’t
even want to be in this city anymore. I need a fresh start.”

Ronan smirks. “You know what
used to help me when I needed to get away?”

“What?”

“Calling you. Meeting up with
you. You’re my escape,” he says. “When I’m with you, in the dark, I don’t think
about anything else, because for one hour of my ridiculous life, I’m not
me
.”

I nibble my bottom lip, staring
at the peek of creamy tan skin from behind his white shirt.

“So what’ll it be?” He takes my
hands in his, lifting them to his lips and depositing a tender kiss. “Ten more
weeks of paradise, or a lifetime of asking yourself if you made the right
decision by walking away?”

“You make it sound like walking
away would be a bad thing.”

“That’s because it would be,
Camille. It would haunt you the rest of your life,” he says.

It’s tempting to spend the rest
of my life knowing that for three months, I belonged to the most eligible
bachelor in the free world: a privilege most women could only dream of.

“Give me one more week with
you,” he says. “And if you still want to leave, I won’t try to stop you.”

His hand cradles my cheek, and
I almost wish he’d kiss me so I could remember how it feels to be weightless.

“I’m going to Iowa for a few
days next week,” Ronan says. “We’re soft launching my father’s reelection
campaign, and I’m required to make an appearance. Come with me. It’ll get you
out of here for a little while, let you clear your head.”

 
“How exactly would that work? Me going
with you?”

“I’m flying with my family,” he
says. “You could fly commercial, and I’ll put you up in a hotel in downtown Des
Moines. We’ll meet at night, when the rest of that quiet little city sleeps.”

I stare off to the side.

“You said you wanted to get out
of town,” he reminds me.

“Fine. One week.” I release a surrendered
sigh. “We’ll see how Iowa goes.”

He kisses my forehead,
lingering for a minute before pulling back, and I watch his chest rise as he
pulls my clean scent into his lungs. My hands are frozen at my sides, but my
fingers yearn to play with his hair and trace the bends and angles of his
perfect face the way I did in the dark.

“Promise me something,
Camille,” his voice resonates from deep within his chest.

“I don’t believe in promises,”
I say. “I only believe in someone’s good word, and mine has always been good.”

His hand cups my chin as his
stare pierces mine. “You know who I am now, but I still need this to be dark.
Don’t tell a soul about us. You don’t know what someone might do with that
information.”

“Ronan.” I sigh. “The item that
was stolen from my apartment last week. It was a journal.”

His face hardens.

“I keep records of all of my
meetings. Every client. Every dinner and hotel reservation. Every detail of
what we do. It’s all there.” My brows angle inward. “And this particular stolen
journal was my most recent.”

“How many of these do you
have?”

“Several. But your name isn’t
in any,” I add, as if that makes the situation any less dire. “Obviously.”

“Who else have you told about
these journals?”

“You’re the only one.”

“Good. Keep it that way.” His
nostrils flare, and the space above his jaws hollows. “Trust no one, Camille.”

“So what do we do?” My stomach
sickens when I think about someone out there paging through my personal
accounts of the way “John” commanded my body with his tongue or fucked me in
six different positions in the master suite of the Hightower apartment.

“Your roommate,
Araminta
,” he says.

“What about her?”

“Is it possible she went
snooping through your things while you were gone and came across it?”

I shake my head to vehemently
oppose his suggestion. “She would never.”

“And how do you know for sure?”

“She doesn’t know I keep
records, and believe me, she’s more wrapped up in her own life to even care
about anyone else’s.”

“For now, you need to stay on guard.
Tell her nothing, do you understand?”

I nod.

“I don’t want you to worry too
much about this until we know more.” His hands circle my waist. “Whoever has it
hasn’t done anything with it. Yet. My guess is that they’ll wait until it’s
really valuable and try to use it for extortion.”

“I’m so sorry, Ronan.”

“You said there are others?”

“Right. But they’re hidden. I’m
the only one who knows where they are.”

“If this one doesn’t have my
name written in it, I’m not that worried about it. There’s nothing they can say
or do that I won’t be able to deny.” His gaze narrows. “But what bothers me is
the fact that someone entered your apartment without you knowing. How are you
even sleeping at night?”

“
Pfft
. With 9-1-1 on speed dial
and a lock on my door.”

“I don’t want you staying there
anymore.”

I laugh. “I can’t do that to
Araminta
. Really. I have pepper spray, and there’s this
program I can download on my laptop that records a video when it senses
movement. Whoever took that journal, they can keep it. There’s nothing else of
mine they could possibly use to extort anyone, and obviously they didn’t want
to physically harm me because they came by when I was out of town. I got a
little freaked out at first when I thought it was Bancroft, but now that he’s
out of the picture, I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re a brave woman,
Camille.” His blue eyes soften as he runs the pad of his thumb across my hip.
“I’m going to have Oliver get us a couple of disposable phones. I want you to
be able to contact me at any hour, for any reason.”

“All right.”

“And no more journaling,” he
adds. “Everything that goes on between us stays between us. Nothing goes on
paper. Nothing is discussed.”

“Understood.”

“Meet me tomorrow evening at
the Hightower.” It’s a subtle way of saying goodbye. “I’ll have a courier
deliver your new phone in the morning, and I’ll text you a time.”

My chest tightens. “I’d rather
avoid the Hightower if we could. Last night wasn’t the most pleasant
experience.”

Ronan’s chin tucks and his
shoulders widen as he breathes deeply. “Yes, about that.”

“I don’t want to talk about
it.” I shut down the conversation, partially because I’m not in the mood to
relive that moment, but mostly because I blame myself. I’m the idiot who
climbed into the back of
Keir
Montgomery’s limo and
let him put his hands all over me like some floozy bimbo desperate to fuck him.
“It was a mistake, and I’d prefer to forget it happened.”

His jaw tenses. “My brother very
much knows about
us
, and he knows who
you are. Does that change anything?”

My hand covers my mouth. “That
fucking prick.”

Ronan lifts a palm. “I don’t
want to know the details, Camille. Just tell me if he hurt you so I can handle
this.”

I huff, my arms folding tight
against my body as I stare at the carpet. I allow myself to be weak, to wallow
in that pain for just a moment before pulling myself together. With a cleansing
breath and my spine zipped straight, I say, “He had a few choice words when he
realized I wasn’t going to sleep with him. They stung at the time, and now I’m
over them.”

Ronan’s head tilts, his eyes
wincing like he doesn’t quite believe me.

“Why would your brother want to
sleep with a woman he knows is already involved with you?” I ask.

His sapphire eyes roll. “
Keir
wants everything I have, and he’s been that way our
whole lives. He’s competitive and entitled, and I’m sorry you had the grave
misfortune of bumping into him last night.”

He lifts my chin until our eyes
lock again.

“If he hurts you, I’ll hurt him.
You should know that,” he says. “But I’ll make sure he never bothers you
again.”

“Do you think he sought me out
last night?”

 
“Keir’s too lazy. He’s an opportunist.” Ronan
scoffs. “I was with him for part of last night, but I went home early when I
couldn’t take another minute with his obnoxious entourage.”

I sigh, waving my hand in the
air. “Okay, enough about your brother.”

“Agreed.”

I pull away and scan the living
room of the suite for my clutch. Ronan walks behind me, his hand on the small
of my back. Even after everything that’s transpired, he still treats me like a
proper lady. I kind of love that about him.

We linger by the door, and I
catch the graze of his tongue across his bottom lip.

It feels silly standing here
wishing he’d just kiss me, so I force the ridiculous notion out of my head.
There’s no good reason for him to kiss me right now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
I give him a bitten smile and flit my fingers in the air as I wave. Walking
away, the weight of his stare is undeniable.

***

“Do you have any idea how
worried I was about you last night?”
Araminta
paces
the spot in front of our kitchen island, laying into me before I have a chance
to kick off my heels.

“I know, I know.” I drop my
keys on the counter. “Last night was completely insane for a hundred thousand
different reasons, and to top it all off, my phone died at some point, so I
couldn’t text you and let you know I was safe.”

“Did you leave with
Keir
?” she asks.

I groan. “Yes, and let me tell
you, he is, hands down, the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.”

Her pretty mouth hangs like
I’ve committed treason. “You take that back, Camille Buchanan.”

She giggles, shaking her head
as she flashes an envious smile.

“The fact that you got him to
leave with you is . . . beyond . . . ” she says. “I want to know everything. Is
he a good kisser? What kinds of things did he say? Is his cock every bit as
beautiful as I’ve imagined it to be?”

I exhale, wishing I could tell
her everything and then some, but I’m not about to throw away my good word for
the sake of a little shock value.

“Yes, he’s a good kisser.” I’ll
give her that much. “But as soon as we were alone, he got really rude and
aggressive. It was weird, Minty. I got myself out of there before it went too
far.”

“Aggressive like how?”

I pinch my lips, shrugging. “I
don’t know.”

“Like physically violent?”

“No, no, no.”

“Or like a man who’s really
excited that he’s about to get some so he can’t keep his grubby paws to
himself?” She cocks a half smirk.

“Right. Like that.”

“
Psh
.”
Araminta
slaps a hand on her hip. “My God, Camille,
can you blame him for getting
pissy
with you? You
left with him. He thought he was going to get some ass.”

If only it were that simple.

“Why such a prude all of a
sudden?” She laughs, shaking her head and strutting to the other side of the
kitchen to grab a water.