“I came with Anderson, can you give me a lift?” Cruz asked her frustratedly as they got outside.“I’m not going your way.”“You didn’t even ask where I’m going. When we first got here your mom said you bought a condo downtown on Cordova. I moved into my place in Coal Harbor a few weeks back. The bit of renos I needed done are complete now. You said you were going home to do laundry, so I presume we’re heading in the same direction.”“You said you needed to leave because your tech guy said there was an emergency.”“I need my laptop which is back at my place. I can go from there once I get home. Come on. Save me from having to call a rideshare. Please?”She’d never heard the word from his lips before and decided it would be torture for him to squish his big frame into her tiny car.“Fine.” She clicked her key fob and almost laughed as he was forced to crunch himself into the small sedan. She didn’t drive very often, and the car spent more time in the parking bay assigned to her in the c
Wednesday morning Presley was sitting at a cute little table for two overlooking the beach, listening to the surf pound the shore and the laughs of people enjoying the sunshine. Nice was turning out to be everything she dreamed it would be and more. When her editor told her to book time off and recharge herself after back-to-back novels, she’d initially balked but then when the countdown to her flight to France and this beautiful resort in Nice drew to a close, her excitement ramped up. Now, she was grateful her friends and family pushed her to follow the editor’s direction.She picked at a piece of a croissant and sipped her coffee, content in the first relaxing day she’d spent in months. Her book release was set. The initial pre-ordered copies would be available online for ordering on Friday with the new cover. The mass orders which would go to the bookstores would start being filled after. Her hopes for the book were for it to surpass the others she’d written.Her phone rang on the
He was exhausted. His head was pounding. He’d been eating antacids like candies since he’d realized Presley skipped town on him. His PR team were losing their minds because another story popped up this morning with a trending tweet questioning his use of steroids. His legal advisors wanted to sue her, but his father and her father were old friends and not to mention she was Odin’s younger sister. Legal action was not going to happen.He needed her to get back and fix this shit. He sent her another text asking if she would at the very least release a joint statement. He already knew it was going to bounce back as blocked. He’d been blocked since Tuesday and when he’d texted her from his assistant’s cell, she’d blocked it as well. She’d been gone four days. It was Friday now, and she was in the wind.Cruz needed caffeine and he left his office in search of something stronger than what his admin assistant made for him out of the instant coffee machine.“Sir?”“You brought me a coffee yes
Sitting on her lounger at the beach, Presley was ready to scream with frustration. The blowhard man who’d followed her from breakfast down to the beach wouldn’t give it up.His name was Algernon. He wore a tiny banana hammock under his protruding gut. He was bald and bragged how he didn’t have hair anywhere on his body at all, wiggling his eyebrows in what Presley was certain he meant to be suggestive. The thought was confirmed when he said no hair meant she wouldn’t be picking it out from her teeth when they became closer during the vacation.She’d tried to ignore him, putting her earbuds in and picking up a book she’d brought to read but now he boldly removed the earbud from her ear and was asking her if she wanted to get out of the heat and get into the water with him.“We could swim deep, and I could get very deep.”A woman traveling alone needed to be careful. Setting a man off was dangerous, especially one who was staying directly across the hall from her. She gave a benign smil
Coming out of the water, she felt Cruz’s eyes on her and she wanted to smack him. Why wouldn’t he go away? He was sitting on the end of her lounge chair, his hands clasped loosely between his knees watching her intently.Grabbing her towel, she patted herself dry and then wrapped up in her beach cover up. Without saying a word to him she began packing up her belongings.“Ladybird, we need to talk.”She maintained her silence and when all of her things were packed into her oversized beach bag and her slides were slipped onto her feet she began walking the short distance back to the hotel. He walked behind her, silently, as if waiting for her to blow up.In the elevator she was contemplating all the ways she was going to murder him. Narnurs the intergalactic cop was going to get a sequel. He and his two dicks were going to die a tragic death and the female love interest in the story was going to find a man with three penises and maybe a vagina too. Maybe the funeral process on Narnurs’
Presley considered never in a million years did she ever consider her vacation was going to be ruined by Cruz Hawley. She’d made her escape free and clear, and her father sold her out.She was sitting in small swinging chair in the garden area of the resort licking her wounds and preparing to call her father. After throwing the coffee mug which was the closest thing to her fingers at Cruz’s face, he’d barely ducked away from it, and it bounced off his chest to shatter at his feet. A large shard impaled the top of his foot and gave her the escape she needed.She felt a miniscule amount of regret for making him bleed but she remembered the time he broke her arm as a kid and pushed it away. Now she was kicking her toe off the rocks of the quiet area and trying to get her thoughts in order.She called her father’s cell phone and waited for him to pick it up. After the third ring he answered, and his voice told her he was dreading whatever it was she was going to say.“Hi P.”“How could yo
“Hey Mom.”“Did you tell your father he’s not your father anymore?”“Did he tell you he called me a horrible human being for using Cruz Hawley’s likeness on my book?”“No.” the tone of her mother’s voice told her that her father was in shit when she got hold of him.“He scolded me saying I went too far. Cruz has bullied and abused me my entire life. I did the thing the at the restaurant. He demanded I make restitution in the way of dating him on four dates. I negotiated him agreeing to do the cover. I showed him the photo I was going to use, Mom. He approved it. I agreed to four dates to fix his image with the company because of the restaurant thing and I got to use his photo. He agreed. He signed off. It’s not my fault he chose not to read up at all on what my book was, who my audience is or to even ask proper questions.”“You make a compelling argument,” her mother laughed.“Dad gave him my itinerary, Mom. Dad actually gave him my full itinerary and the name I’m traveling under. Cru
His words should have been a catalyst to her coming to her senses. They should have been an icy dousing of frigid water along her sun scorched skin. Yet as he peeled her cover-up over her head and tossed it onto the tiny bench behind them, she already yanking at the strings of his shorts. When her bikini top followed the cover-up, her hands was already wrapped around his long length stroking him up and down.“It’s only one but it should do the trick,” he grunted right before his mouth claimed hers.His fingers yanked the strings of her bottoms, and they fell to the floor. He wasted no time stroking his fingers through folds. He ripped his mouth from hers, “too short.”“I’m not too short,” she wanted to kick him in the shins but then he lifted her, pinned her to the wall and sucked her left nipple deep into his mouth, the roughness of his tongue sending a shocking burst of pleasure straight to her navel. “Can’t reach,” she tried to get his meaty cock back in her
Presley stood outside the room where Odin was being detained for a long time simply staring at the door. Cruz, Anderson and Belkin stood with her, saying nothing but supporting her quietly with their presence.“I don’t know if I can do this.”“You’ve confronted him many times over the years, Ladybird,” Cruz said quietly as he rested his hand on her shoulder. “Hell, you confronted him twice in France. There isn’t much more he can tell you today he’s not already told you.”“Did he say anything when you picked him up?”“Nothing. He’s been silent. Not a word.” Belkin shook his head. “We made sure his medical treatment continued until he was brought here. There was a physician and two nurses and a physiatrist who worked with him in the ship’s medical bay. He’s still got a long way to go after the damage Liborio caused to him however he’s in pretty damn good physical condition compared to when you last saw him. He’s breathing on his own now.”“How can I hate and love someone so much at the
Entering the holding cell where Estrella was being detained was meant to prepare Presley for being strong when she entered Odin’s space. It was Rami and Belkin’s idea. She wasn’t prepared though to see Belkin in the room as well and the difference in the man in front of her compared to the one she knew very well was causing her footsteps to falter.He was what the movies portrayed the evil villain in a psychological thriller would look like. In her opinion this man, this version of Belkin in front of her, if she’d met him before the one who rescued her, she would have been pissing in her boots. He was scarier than Liborio ever was to her. It was clear Estrella was feeling the same way, despite her earlier introduction to him on the ship. The playful yet angry man from the day Presley was rescued was nothing like the one here.“Good morning,” Presley nodded at him. “Belkin, I see you and the Mechanic have made yourselves comfortable and my guest quite uncomfortable.” Presley pulled a c
Three weeks later, Presley was sitting in her office at the casino while Sloane and Halima were staring out the massive wall of windows behind her back looking down at the city.“This is a dope office.” Halima said. “No wonder you took it over right from day one. It’s stunning up here.”“I feel like the world’s biggest imposter. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Last night I was asked to authorize a fifty-million-dollar bankroll for some prince from Europe and all I could think was who has this kind of money to throw on a poker game.”“Did you authorize it?”“Yes and the idiot lost thirty million dollars. According to Belkin, he’ll probably come back tonight to try to recoup it.”The door to her office burst open and Mina came storming in, her face flushed bright red, and she leaned over Presley’s desk huffing angrily, “your brother is a nightmare.”“My brother, Rami or the biological monstrosity?”“Rami!” she was stomping her feet furiously. “The other one isn’t your brother. DNA d
Entering Cruz’s condo at the end of her day, Presley was struggling with the emotions she was feeling.It shouldn’t hurt.After all this time, years since her relationship with the person she knew as Noah, Shae as they preferred now to be known, was over, she should not be feeling the sting of their betrayal as much as it was. It hurt. It hurt so much to know the person she’d once loved could be intimate with someone else while they’d been together. The fact it was her own brother was causing the ache to turn into a weird agonizing pain.It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.When they were together, Presley admitted she’d always been insecure. Always knowing it was their mother who pushed them together, something Shae always joked about, she’d always questioned the devotion as being real. Now, she was convinced it wasn’t and to know her love was one-sided felt like a punch to the stomach.For her part, in hindsight, she knew Shae wasn’t the one for her but to cheat on her with her own b
Wandering through the casino she now owned, Presley was trying to get a feel for the way people gravitated to the flash and noise of the scene.She couldn’t understand it at all. Perhaps because she’d never felt a desperate need to make ends meet or to find a quick way to make cash, the appeal to throw money into a machine in hopes of a jackpot never appealed to her. There was more than one person sitting at the slot machines who were greasy-haired and reeking of desperation. It reminded her she was better off than most for the entirety of her life. Now, though, she was far wealthier than any of these people at the machines would dream of being even if they hit it right and won a jackpot.She didn’t deserve any of it.She was taking it though. Presley lifted her chin defiantly. If for no other reason than to thumb her nose at the man who thought he’d be able to convince her to be his wife and steal her life from her, she was taking what she knew he never intended to hand over so soon.
“Where are you?” Belkin’s voice was gruff in her ear.“I’m on my way to talk to my editor. I told you. I’d come to you when I was done my meeting.” Presley was as gruff back to Belkin.“I will meet you there. I have an update for you.”“It can’t wait until I meet you at the holding cells in the casino?”“No.”“Good grief,” she muttered when the phone went dead. She looked to her driver who was watching her in the rearview mirror and shrugged. “Do you think I’ll ever get used to dealing with cranky mob bosses?”“You are one of them now, Miss.” Her driver grinned at her.“Fair.” She nodded her agreement and then turned her attention back to looking out the window. She missed being able to walk everywhere and to have anonymity and freedom to come and go as she pleased. What was only a thirty-minute walk from her home to her editor’s main office, was now impossible to navigate on foot because she needed to travel with guards, paparazzi were chasing her since Liborio’s death was announced
Sitting at the dining room table in Cruz’s condo overlooking Coal Harbour the next morning, Presley wondered why she was clinging to her teeny, tiny, little apartment so much. The view from here was incredible. In other rooms of the condo, you could see Stanley Park and from the balcony you could see beyond the ferry terminals. It was stunning from a location perspective. Add in the fact it was a four-bedroom condo, tons of wide-open space, warm and inviting and Cruz’s bed was a king-sized bed, and she could probably fit her entire apartment in his bedroom alone, well she was almost dreading going back to her miniscule hole in the wall.She took another bite of her sandwich while Cruz was in his home gym, another perk of his condo despite the building having an entire gym of it’s own, she listened to the clanging of metal. According to Cruz, the shared gym didn’t have weights which were heavy enough for what he usually lifted. The grunting sounds as he began lifting whatever he’d put
“I can’t stop scratching,” Presley muttered as they loaded into the waiting SUV to go home. “I’ve never had lice, but I think maybe I have them now. Did your guys get the shampoo?”“Stop saying lice,” Cruz hissed at her as he scratched the top of his head.“It’s what they are!” She peered at him carefully, “I can’t help but think of how you hugged your assistant while she was crying.”“You cannot be jealous.”“No! I’m not jealous. I mean Ramona kept their heads pretty tight together. Then you hugged the poor girl while she came apart, and rightly so,” she glared at him, “but your heads were close and if one of those things crawled from Ramona to her and it crawled to you, you might have lice.” She paused. “I hope she is okay.”“She is going to be fine. Her husband was meeting her at the clinic and I already arranged for a psychologist to meet her there and to do a debrief with her to make sure she gets some help for what she went through today. I also gave her paid leave and told her
“That might have been the hottest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”She snickered at Cruz’s comment when they were back in the SUV.“Where to next, boss?” Cruz waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed.“You were supposed to go to work today and you didn’t. You should probably get something done for your own business.”He gave a sigh, “yes. I know but this was fun.” He made a face, “I also am not quite ready to let you leave me.”“What if I hung out in your office? Is there anything happening there which is top-secret or confidential? Can I hang out on the sofa?” She’d been to his office earlier in the week and there was a giant plush suede sofa he confessed to having for naps when he needed a break.“I would love this.”“Can we swing by my place, grab my laptop, and outline book? I’m feeling really inspired after this morning and I want to jot dot some ideas and maybe begin the framework of my next story.”“Definitely.”It didn’t take long before they were back at Cruz’s office and she w