Chapter Seven
I was going to kill someone.
I stalked through the entrance of the building, finding no comfort in the fact that my name was over the door. Reminding myself how far Whitmore and Creighton had come with me at the helm was usually a jolt to my system, clearing out any doubt that crept past my defenses. I could lock eyes with any board member, detractor, or obstacle in my way and find the fight I had to channel when I took the reins at 21. And in the years since, I hadn’t met an obstacle, or client, that I couldn’t handle.
Rachel Laraby was proving to be the exception to the rule.
It wasn’t enough that she seemed to sabotage every second chance her fans gave her; the tabloids were consistently filled with her latest bender or booze fueled gaffe. And to add insult to injury (and remind me of the perils of letting my cock take the wheel), she had turned a strictly sexual arrangement between us into a romance that I didn’t sign up for.
It had been months since I realized the error I made and she still called me incessantly. She insisted upon talking about a ‘special someone’ in her interviews. Luckily, the media could care less about the mystery man that put the sparkle in her eye, and more about getting to the root of why she seemed incapable of avoiding scandal.
I’d hoped to send Claudia or Missy to Venice to ensure she stayed out of trouble during her press junket, but I feared I’d have to break my rule. When I ended things with someone, that was it. Per our contract, we never had contact again.
I never should have slept with her, I thought despondently.
My father’s face, leering and intoxicated, sprang into my head. I could practically smell the sea and feel the warm Venice air on my skin while we stood on the balcony of the villa all those years ago. We looked down upon the vast, lush estate, though I knew his attention was on the pool—it was filled to the brim with scantily clad women.
He’d clapped me on the shoulder, his words slurred. “The body wants what the-”
BAM!
Some woman was in the way and I was tempted to snap at her, but I was already late and I needed to nail down the Italy trip. I continued on my way, making a mental note to take the garage and private elevator from now on.
“Excuse you!”
The words were like a lightning bolt, electrifying me on the spot.
No one spoke to me that way...and it should have been enough to unleash an anger of my own. The anger that had been eating at me since I realized I wouldn’t be closing the book on Rachel Laraby after all.
But her voice, this feeling—it was something else.
This was the look on a sub’s face when she saw my equipment; eyes rounding in surprise, terror going down like a rock when she swallowed. This was the hiss of leather slicing through the air; the beautiful sound it made when it licked flesh. The authority in her voice was a mirror to the dominance in my own when I was in that secret place. A place of pain, surrender, and bliss.
I hadn’t even seen her face, this bold woman who spoke to me like I was any man on the street...and I wanted her.
I turned slowly, the anticipation gripping me tight. Hardening a part of me to stone. When I met her gaze, the other part of me that was used to be being as callous as rock, my heart, did the most bizarre thing.
It jerked to my throat.
She was beautiful.
I started with her eyes, deep brown and widening with surprise when she realized who I was. The curve of her nose, the thick suppleness of her lips as she tried to back track when I moved closer...
I’d used the word beautiful before to describe women that had graced the covers of magazines, glittered in the society pages and lit up movie screens. But their beauty was flat and predictable, just like the glossy pages they frequented. This woman had a glow that came from inside and streamed from her like the sun.
I wanted to bask in it. I wanted to know her.
*
“I don’t know you at all.”
Leila spat
I was going to kill someone.
I stalked through the entrance of the building, finding no comfort in the fact that my name was over the door. Reminding myself how far Whitmore and Creighton had come with me at the helm was usually a jolt to my system, clearing out any doubt that crept past my defenses. I could lock eyes with any board member, detractor, or obstacle in my way and find the fight I had to channel when I took the reins at 21. And in the years since, I hadn’t met an obstacle, or client, that I couldn’t handle.
Rachel Laraby was proving to be the exception to the rule.
It wasn’t enough that she seemed to sabotage every second chance her fans gave her; the tabloids were consistently filled with her latest bender or booze fueled gaffe. And to add insult to injury (and remind me of the perils of letting my cock take the wheel), she had turned a strictly sexual arrangement between us into a romance that I didn’t sign up for.
It had been months since I realized the error I made and she still called me incessantly. She insisted upon talking about a ‘special someone’ in her interviews. Luckily, the media could care less about the mystery man that put the sparkle in her eye, and more about getting to the root of why she seemed incapable of avoiding scandal.
I’d hoped to send Claudia or Missy to Venice to ensure she stayed out of trouble during her press junket, but I feared I’d have to break my rule. When I ended things with someone, that was it. Per our contract, we never had contact again.
I never should have slept with her, I thought despondently.
My father’s face, leering and intoxicated, sprang into my head. I could practically smell the sea and feel the warm Venice air on my skin while we stood on the balcony of the villa all those years ago. We looked down upon the vast, lush estate, though I knew his attention was on the pool—it was filled to the brim with scantily clad women.
He’d clapped me on the shoulder, his words slurred. “The body wants what the-”
BAM!
Some woman was in the way and I was tempted to snap at her, but I was already late and I needed to nail down the Italy trip. I continued on my way, making a mental note to take the garage and private elevator from now on.
“Excuse you!”
The words were like a lightning bolt, electrifying me on the spot.
No one spoke to me that way...and it should have been enough to unleash an anger of my own. The anger that had been eating at me since I realized I wouldn’t be closing the book on Rachel Laraby after all.
But her voice, this feeling—it was something else.
This was the look on a sub’s face when she saw my equipment; eyes rounding in surprise, terror going down like a rock when she swallowed. This was the hiss of leather slicing through the air; the beautiful sound it made when it licked flesh. The authority in her voice was a mirror to the dominance in my own when I was in that secret place. A place of pain, surrender, and bliss.
I hadn’t even seen her face, this bold woman who spoke to me like I was any man on the street...and I wanted her.
I turned slowly, the anticipation gripping me tight. Hardening a part of me to stone. When I met her gaze, the other part of me that was used to be being as callous as rock, my heart, did the most bizarre thing.
It jerked to my throat.
She was beautiful.
I started with her eyes, deep brown and widening with surprise when she realized who I was. The curve of her nose, the thick suppleness of her lips as she tried to back track when I moved closer...
I’d used the word beautiful before to describe women that had graced the covers of magazines, glittered in the society pages and lit up movie screens. But their beauty was flat and predictable, just like the glossy pages they frequented. This woman had a glow that came from inside and streamed from her like the sun.
I wanted to bask in it. I wanted to know her.
*
“I don’t know you at all.”
Leila spat
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