Sexual Persuasion (20 page)

“But you’ve made love to women?”

“I’ve already told you that. I’ve never had problems attracting women, or men, if that had been my leaning. Women have come on to me despite my reputation, or maybe because of it. Could be they considered me a challenge. Who knows? I don’t find that type of woman interesting. But like everything in my life, that one time, that one relationship, is part of who I am. I won’t apologize for it. It wasn’t a mistake. I took part of my own free will. No one forced me into it.” He called the waiter and ordered a scotch. “I can’t change the past, Charlotte, nor would I if I could.”

“Why weren’t you up front with me?”

“I said right from the beginning that you’d have to decide about me for yourself by the way I treat you and how we are together. The one thing I’m sure of, here and now, is that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. Man or woman.”

“I see. I’m not surprised. I assumed something like that, only I thought it might have been with Max, and I thought there’d be more than one man.”

“Never Max. Gianni was the only one. It’s been over for seventeen years. He’s in the area, but we’ve seen each other one time, accidentally at the symphony.”

“I appreciate your telling me.”

“I debated whether to share that part of my life, but we both knew it was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. I promised to tell you, and this seemed as good a time as any. I didn’t want to put it off any longer. If I’d told you at the beginning, we wouldn’t have arrived at this place.”

“Probably not.”
She leaned back in her chair, looking thoughtful and mildly relaxed. “Were you in love with him?”

“I won’t diminish the relationship by saying I wasn’t, because I was. And I’m falling in love with you. This is the second time in seventeen years, in my entire life, really, that I’ve felt that way about a person.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“I hope the same place we’ve been going. Circumstances escalated our relationship. We’ve come a long way in a few days, but I can’t make promises. I could say all the things you want to hear, but that’s not how I do things. Marriage is a promise, yet there’s a fifty percent divorce rate. Spouses cheat on each other; famous people turn to hookers and waitresses to get their rocks off. They promise fidelity. They lie. I won’t lie and say things as if they were sound bites. I want you. You turned me on the minute I saw you at the museum. That happened once before, with Gianni, and never since. The decision is yours. You know where I stand.”

“I want you too. I tried not to, but the attraction was too strong, and I
like
you. I can’t love anyone without liking them. I was drawn to Jack sexually, but I never thought he was a good guy. Verbalizing that makes me wonder why he had such a hold on me.”

“And that brings us to Jack.”

“You want me to call him. This better be good.”

“You doubted Jack gave me all the pictures of you.”

“Yes. That would be so like Jack.”

“I think you’re right. I also think Jack has pictures and videos of people who’ve
stayed at his hotel over the years. He has video equipment in the rooms.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. I have a man there now, setting up the supposed meeting with me and Jack. The meeting he’s planning to record to show you I’m gay.”

“Why would he think you’re going to meet him?”

“Because I told him I would.”

Charlotte
stared at him, her mouth a perfect O. “You told―”

“But I have a little surprise for him. What I need you to do is distract him so he doesn’t see what I have going on in the adjoining suite.”

“What will this accomplish?”

“This is one part I’d rather not tell you in advance. If anything goes wrong, I don’t want you to be any more of an accomplice than what I’m asking you to do. You can claim ignorance.”

“That means you’re going to do something illegal. I thought you didn’t do illegal things.”

He took a long swig of the scotch. “Not usually. This is an exception. If my people succeed, we’ll find out if you’re right and he has more pictures of you, plus a stash of material Jack plans on using to blackmail himself out of Max’s debt. The material is personal and could destroy the reputations of a lot of people who don’t deserve it. Now that’s all I’m going to tell you. If you decide to do this, I’ll tell you the rest, and if you decide against it, no hard feelings.”

“I’ll do it. But I want to be in on the rest of it. After what Jack did to me, seeing him get his comeuppance will do me a world of good.”

“I’m trying to protect you.”

“Don’t. I’m a big fan of revenge. I want in.”

Alex debated. He really didn’t want her involved, but he understood why she wanted to be. “Okay, but you have to follow instructions. Other people are involved. Much depends on timing, and there are risks.”

Charlotte scraped her zabaglione dish and sipped her wine. Her gaze centered on Alex as she drank. “What do you want me to do?”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay. Call him from your cell. Ask him to meet you at”―he checked his watch―“eight thirty in the Regent bar. Say you’ve been thinking things over and want to talk.”

“What if he wants to take me to one of the rooms? He will, you know.”

“No, he won’t. He has an appointment at ten, upstairs.”

“Who’s he meeting?”

“He thinks he’s meeting me.”

“Is he?”

“Hmm, not exactly.”

Charlotte grinned. “This is diabolical. Without knowing the facts, I think I love it.”

“Give Jack time to get to his room before you come up so he doesn’t see you.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

* * * * *

Charlotte saw Jack as soon as she entered the Regent’s bar. He’d commandeered a corner table. A bottle of expensive red wine sat in the middle with two crystal goblets. No common bar glasses for Jack. Charlotte snickered mentally.
Jerk!

He got up and slithered toward her with all the charm of a cobra. His eyes focused on her chest. She wore the tightest sweater she could find with no bra, stood up
straight, and took extra bouncy steps, jiggling her boobs for all they were worth. Spittle formed at the corner of Jack’s mouth. His lizard tongue darted out, and he licked it away. The man was nothing if not predictable.

“This is a surprise,” he said with his eyes on her protruding nipples.
“A pleasant one, for sure.”

“Nice to see you too, Jack, although I never thought I’d hear myself say that.”

“You’ve come to your senses, I see.”

“Not sure. I wanted to give myself every advantage.”

“So you’ve figured out Andros is gay, huh? What happened? Couldn’t he get it up?”

“I don’t kiss and tell. Let’s say he, um, had trouble. Got me thinking, what if Jack was right?”

“I’m right, babe, and I’ll prove it to you tomorrow morning.”

“Why not now?”

“I’ll show you when I have the evidence in my hand.”

Charlotte
thought the only evidence in Jack’s hand would be his own sore, blistered dick. Now she had to entertain the creep for another hour and a half. “So tell me how stupid you were to throw me over for your stripper friend. And make me believe you.” Groveling over that should be worth two hours, at least, and she only needed an hour and a half.

“I was stupid. You were the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Too bad you didn’t know it at the time. Funny thing is that I might have done everything you wanted if you’d given me the chance, although the rig you clamped on my breasts might have gone too far. You could have taken it slower, eased me into heavier S and M.”

“You were never receptive.”

“I never liked the anal equipment, but I’m willing to give it a try. I let you cuff me, didn’t I? Some other stuff too. But no, you had to drug me.”

“Like I said, babe, I was drunk. I’m truly sorry. I’ve got a handle on things now.
Too much going on for me to be out of control.” He checked his watch.

“What’s the matter? Got a date?”

“No, a business appointment. It’s important too. I have to leave in an hour or so. But I’ll make it up to you. We’ll take it slow. Whatever you want to do.”

“As long as you understand the boundaries.”

“I do. Just the thought of playing with your tits again is getting me hard.”

And the thought of you playing with my tits again is making me sick.
“Give me a day or two to think it over.”

“No longer.
Now that you’re in my head again, the big head, I don’t think I could wait more than that.”

Big head, my foot.
It’s all about the little head with you, Jack.
She could wait forever. But now she couldn’t wait to meet Alex on the fourth floor. She had a strong feeling she’d enjoy every minute of whatever he had planned.

Let the Games Begin

Alex held his breath when he arrived at the Regent and walked through the lobby. He scurried by the bar to the elevator, got off at the top floor, and hustled down the hall to the room adjoining the Presidential Suite. Tom Scruggs had specified the room when he checked in under another name. He’d been there all afternoon wiring his equipment. Accessing locked doors to check the other suites on the floor was Tom’s specialty.

“You were right. This guy’s committed all kinds of crimes according to
Massachusetts law. And if he’s planning to use the videos or audio to blackmail his subjects and he’s caught, he’d better prepare to spend a long time in prison. ’Course, I’m doing the same thing, so who am I to say? I’ll be in the next cell.”

“With me,” Alex said, his conscience tweaking, especially now that he’d put
Charlotte in jeopardy. Why did he agree to let her come up to the room? Well, he did, and he couldn’t stop her now. “So how does this work?”

“You were right. The setup I’m about to show you is duplicated in every room on this floor. See this area?” He pointed to a speck in the middle of the painting. “It’s actually a small opening, aimed at the bed.
Watch.”

Tom slipped a lock pick into a key slot on the bottom strip of molding on the framed painting over the dresser. “Artwork is usually bolted to the wall, so no one would consider this strange.” He carefully pulled back the painting, similar to how
someone might open a concealed safe. Carved out between the adjoining walls was a space big enough to hold a small DVD recorder and a camera held in place by a brace that swung into place over the hole of the painting in the other room. “There’s the camera.”

Alex looked inside to see the setup. “Jesus. How the hell did he do this?”

“He paid a lot of money to a very good, discreet carpenter, and even more to the tech guy,” Tom said. He pointed to the rest of the equipment. “This DVD model can be activated either by motion or a timer. There’s sound too. Don’t want to miss any important business info. Davidson set the timer to start the minute it picked up motion, which would be when he gets into the Presidential Suite.”

Alex studied the setup. “I wonder how long Jack’s had this system in place and whether he ever used what he recorded.”

“Why have it if you’re not going to use it?”

“He must check to see
who’s going to be in which room, and if he thinks he has a patsy, all he has to do is open the painting, adjust the camera to whichever room, and set the timer on the recorder.”

“Right.
He can pick up the disk whenever. He even has a setup in his personal suite. I assume what he films there is for his own amusement.”

“Devious bastard,” Alex said.

“I’ve spliced into his feed, which will start the minute Davidson’s camera activates. I’ve set mini cameras in different positions in the room and bathroom, so we can watch what he does on the split screens before anything happens. They’re all activated by motion, so if he switches rooms, like if he goes to the bathroom, we can watch on the monitor. If he leaves the room before we do, I’ll collect them. If not, I’ll get them tomorrow.”

Tom turned to Alex. “Whoever wired it was a pro,
and I can name two or three guys in the city with the know-how. But if you can suffer me tooting my own horn, it took a pro to rewire it so we could get a feed and still not clue Davidson in to what’s going on. He’d have to examine the equipment to find my setup, but I don’t see why he would. He thinks it’s all working like it has since whatever genius put this in place.”

Alex kept his voice low. “You did a great job. What about the other thing?”

“My hire’s downstairs. I’ve never known her to fail to open a locked door. The safe might be tricky, but she’s as good as they come.”

“A woman?”

“One of the best. Learned it from her daddy. She’s better than him, though, ’cause he’s in prison. She’s never been caught, so I’d hate for it to happen on one of my jobs.”

“Very cool.
Let’s hope the material is here and not at his house or bank safe. I’m not up for breaking into either of those.”