▪️ Emily ▪️ "Of course. I expected nothing less.” Emily spoke to her empty office as she paced and checked her watch. Eight thirty in the morning and no Ace. But should she really be surprised? She hadn’t believed Ace when he’d stated he’d be at the office early. Still, Emily couldn’t help the little sting of disappointment. “At least try and make an effort.” Her phone dinged with a text. Can you let me in? I don’t have the key. Emily strode to the front of their offices, where Ace stood shifting from foot to foot. “So much for getting in early,” Emily said after unlocking the doors. “I stayed up late studying the client list, and after the little sleep I had the previous night, I guess it all caught up with me.” Ace breezed past her, and Emily held the door open as Kass, their receptionist, exited the elevator on their floor. “Good morning, Kass.” She’d save his choice words for Ace for when they were in the safety of her office. Never los
▪️ Emily ▪️ A faint smile rested on his lips. “Supremely confident” and “arrogant as hell” were the words most coworkers used to describe Simone, and while Emily agreed, she also had to admit the man was a damn hard worker. Simone made it a point to become personally familiar with the clients in a way Emily never could, which made for a good working relationship between them. It was why Emily chose him as her second. Jude let Simone lead when it came to personal interactions, while he handled the numbers end. Pretending nonchalance, Emily raised a brow. “Oh? What did you hear?” “Aside from the food being delicious, somehow Liam's brother ended up with a job here? How’d he manage that? I thought he was a fuckup, a party boy.” Emily winced at the harsh words. “First of all, he’s a man, not a boy—he’s around your age. And I wouldn’t say he’s a fuckup. After working at a luxury resort, he became Taylor Croft's personal assistant. I’m sure you’ve heard of he
▪️Ace▪️ Having Amber to talk to about working for Emily took Ace's stress level down a few notches. She was able to give him a little more insight into Emily, both as a person and a boss. “Don’t let her growl put you off,” Amber said when Ace sat across from her. “Emily is the sweetest, but she’s got this hard outer shell she hides under.” “So what you’re telling me is she’s a tortoise. Or, considering who we’re talking about, more likely a hermit crab.” Amber's laughter rang out, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t laugh, but oh my God, that’s the funniest thing.” She pointed her finger at him. “You’re going to knock her off her feet. I think the two of you will be perfect together. She needs someone like you.” Ace recalled the heavy thickness of her breasts, the fullness and fought his body’s rising excitement. God knew, she’d needed him that night. The slide of all that fullness as he trusted in and out of her as they ta
“Nice to meet you. Is your opinion of his physical attributes based on personal or professional knowledge?” Ace asked archly. “Both. Come to my office, and I’ll clue you in.” Susan placed a hand on his shoulder. “I have to check and see if Emily needs me.” Ace had no intention of getting caught gossiping about coworkers, and when he noticed Emily watching him from across the room, his face growing hard, Ace gave Susan an apologetic smile. “I can’t right now. We can talk later.” “No problem. We can have dinner if you want. Have a chance to get to know each other.” Susan came on strong and fast, and Ace debated accepting the invitation, but then decided, why the hell not? His friends from high school and college had all moved away or had families of their own. He had no plans other than to sit and stare at the lookbook and avoid his parents’ questions. Dinner with a good-looking woman who was also a coworker certainly sounded better than that.
▪️ Emily ▪️ When Emily thought it was going to be a long month with Ace working for her, she’d imagined it would be because Ace would fuck up as he usually did, and Emily would spend most of her time cleaning up her best friend’s brother’s mistakes. She’d already anticipated sitting down with Liam upon his return from the honeymoon with a list of reasons at the ready as to why Ace had to be let go. Damn, she hated being wrong. Already on Ace's first day, he’d shown himself to be a hard worker who didn’t hesitate to contribute to any discussion without needing to make it all about him and helped Emily without having to be asked. Emily could see he wanted to prove he was capable, but what she appreciated more was how quickly and seamlessly he blended into Emily's team. Ace had many bad qualities, but with his sunny disposition and confidence, he’d never had trouble making friends or fitting in. Unlike Emily, everyone liked Ac
▪️ Emily ▪️ Ruth, about to take a sip, halted with her drink in midair and peered at her through her glasses. “Stop BS-ing me. You’re too young to sit home every night. Unless you want to join me and the girls for sewing night again.” She hooted with laughter and slapped the table with her hand. One time Emily got stuck late at the office, and when she arrived with groceries, she found herself caught by Ruth's crew. Five sets of interested eyes gleamed as they surrounded her like a capturing army homing in on their prey and interrogated her about her personal life. Emily only escaped after promising to take the numbers of Vera's great-nephew and Della’s grandson, but she drew the line at Lola's hairdresser. Se’d never called any of the men. “God help me,” Emily muttered and finished her Scotch. Gazing longingly at the bottle, she decided to hell with it and poured another, albeit more judicious, glass. “This is New York City. The mecca fo
▪️Ace▪️ God, he was bored. So bored. Ace had agreed to the dinner with Susan, figuring it would be a good way to ease into the new job. She’d seemed like a fun, cool girl, and what better way to find out about The Company and its people than from someone working there, especially off-hours and after a few drinks? Maybe Susan would even have some insight into Emily.Inside the sushi restaurant on Mercer Street, they sat jammed together, knees touching. It was where you went to see and be seen, not for the quality of the food. Not Ace's type of place, but he went along with it because the thought of going home and sitting in his bedroom, eating sushi again, was enough to make him agree to almost anything. And at first all was light and fun. They had a few beers and shared some vegetable. He enjoyed the casual flirting and even took some pictures and posted them on Instagram, tagging the restaurant and The Company. The publicity couldn’t hurt, and he want
▪️Ace▪️ “Bonjour,” Ace answered. “Comment allez-vous?” “Yeah, yeah, same to you. How’s it going with Emily? You aren’t calling to ask me to come home and bail you out of jail because you killed her, are you?” Liam snickered, and he heard Olivia yelling in the background, “Not funny.” Ace scowled, wishing they were on video so he could give him the finger. “Aren’t you the comedian? No, idiot. I’m working with her and Simon on the Mojo account, and between Simone being a son of a bitch and resenting me, and Emily poking me at every turn, it’s been hard.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t have a friendly face or someone on my side.” “Emily's not against you, Ace. He doesn’t want you to fail, simply because if you do, then so does The Company. And Simone can teach you everything you’ll need to know. He can be arrogant, but don’t let that get to you.” “Great. That’s inspiring. Not. How’s Olivia?” Talking about Emily depressed him, and Ace
“Hey now,” Cole protested. “He offered me money and the apartment.” “Like you were going to take it. How long was he with you? Did he know you at all?” “We were kind of in the middle of an argument at the time.” “Right. But it’s been over a week.” It had. And Cole had told herself she wasn’t hoping for anything. Except she must have been. Because now she felt silly.Ellery kicked the tree moodily. “Stop feeling sorry for him. I expect he’s feeling sorry enough for himself. Or Lancaster’s found him a new whipping girl.” “Don’t.” “Sorry.” “Did you really come all the way to Kinlochbervie to say ‘I told you so’?” “No.” She pulled her hood up and disappeared into its shadows. “I came to ask if you want to live with me.”Cole nearly fell off the swing. “Live with you?”“Yeah. Thought I should move out. Do some shit with my life or something.” “What sort of shit did you have in mind?”She kicked the tree again. And then, apparently finding
Everything hurt. The hours seemed like wild horses. Dawn broke around Cole. She spent most of the day on the sofa, crying herself out of tears, watching the sky turn tauntingly through shades of silver and gold. She tried to be brave, to be strong, to be less pathetically embarrassing. But her inner Scarlett O’Hara was AWOL—tomorrow being another day seemed like scant consolation. And while she sometimes tormented herself with idle fantasies of Aiden coming back, of sweeping her into his arms, full of sorrow and declarations of eternal devotion, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t sure she could ever bear pain like this again. Later… later… later… Her phone bleeped. And, like a fool, she scrabbled for it, wrecked with hope and fear and hope. It was Harper: “I MOVED MY FOOT!!!!!” **** She slept and didn’t sleep, and the hours sped and sluggished by. And finally, she rang home. Hazel picked up. “What’s wrong?” she said before Cole even had a chance to speak.
Cole swayed exhaustedly where she knelt. “Well, I'm not. And I don't How many times is you going to ignore me telling you that I love you? Because I do. I really do. And you can think all these awful things about yourself if you must. But nothing—nothing, do you hear me—will make me believe them.” “You can’t love me. You don’t know me.” “You mean, because I didn’t know about this? That’s only because you lied to me about it.” He paced restlessly, up and down that pristine room. This lost creature in Aiden Crux's skin. “I didn’t lie.” “I asked you outright. In Kinlochbervie.” “No. You asked if someone had hurt me. And they haven’t.” “Oh fucking hell.” She rubbed her hands against her burning eyes. “I could have hurt you. Don’t you realize how completely fucked it feels looking back at all the times I’ve pushed you on sex stuff with no clue about what happened to you?” “Well,” he drawled, “I did warn you that I’m a cruel
Cole glanced up. “I'm not. I mean, it wasn’t fun. But I trusts you. With the worst of me, as well as the best, and all the squishy ambiguous bits in between.” “Thank you,” he said, unexpectedly grave. “I hope to always honor that trust.” “As I will for you.” He didn’t respond. “So, y’know”—Cole nudged him gently—“your turn.” It took a long time, but he did eventually speak. The words coming slowly and painfully, like razor blades from his lips. “If I tell you, you’ll know what Eleanor said about me is right. That I’m sick and twisted and I ruin everything that’s good.” “She only said that because she was angry.” He shook his head. “No, she said it because it’s true. You see, she learned who she was when she was fourteen years old.” “What happened when—wait. When your father died?” “After that. When she seduced his business partner. His best friend.” Cole genuinely had no idea what to say. To
Cole pulled off a truly Ellery-worthy eye roll. “One cigarette a month is hardly going to kill him,” she said. “Is that what he told you? And you believed him?” Natasha asked. Now that she thought about it… he did tend to reach for his cigarettes once they’d sexed. And he’d smoked after dinner. And during Star Wars. And just now in the gCole. Oh fuck. Fuuuuuck.Natasha shook her head at her. “You poor, sweet girl. You don’t know him at all, do you?” “I… I’m in love with him,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I can see why you’d believe that. Aiden can be quite dazzling when he chooses. But you don’t understand anything about who he is. Or the damage you’re doing to him.” She tried to reply, to protest, to defend herself. Defend him. Defend them. But she had nothing. Aiden had de-clawed her with his secrets. Left her powerless and alone. “You deserve better,” Natasha went on softly. “He’s using you like his cigarettes. You
“I love it when you hurt me. I love everything you do. And everything you are,” Cole said. And that was when Aiden turned and drew her into his mouth. It was the teeniest bit awkward—he even nicked her slightly with the edge of his teeth, suggesting maybe he didn’t do this all that often. He certainly hadn’t with her before. Not that she’d minded. He made her come just fine. But…wow. He could have been actively terrible and she wouldn’t have cared: Aiden Crux was sucking her pussy. No teasing. Only his tongue sliding tight round her, his mouth soft and hot and perfect.Ohfuckohfuckohfuck. She was…Aiden was… Cole turned her head into her shoulder in an effort to muffle her noises. Which were at least as loud as when he’d been torturing her nipples, and probably even less dignified. Pain was one thing. She could take pain. But she was pleasure’s bitch. Hone
His fingers closed around her through her dress and squeezed until she bucked and moaned. Some of the anguish faded from her face, the tight lines of her brow and mouth yielding to desire, and something tender she might have called hope. “Don’t move,” he whispered, as he stepped away. “Okay.” Her heart thumped as eagerly as a puppy’s tail. She loved the anticipation that came with his commands. And she loved pleasing him. Of course, her nose started itching almost immediately. But she was determined and ignored it and held still as he had told her to. Aiden circled the pillar, leaving her standing there like Andromeda. Well, Andromeda if she had a massive erection. Then he drew her hands behind her and she felt the cool brush of silk against her skin.It encircled her wrists. Pulled taut. Oh my God. His bowtie. He was bondaging her with his own bowtie. She made a noise of surprise and exciteme
He didn’t quite flinch but he got that look: the closed down, I am a million miles away from you look I knew all too well. “I’ll leave you to enjoy it.” And, with that, he…went away. Again. Cole bit down on a gasp of frustration. She wanted to kick him in the shins. He couldn’t just fix what was probably years of hurt and misunderstanding with a single, and very small, gesture. Also, the fucker had barely spent five minutes with her. But she pushed all that aside and turned her very best and sparkliest smile on Ellery. “So what happens next? Do we all die of the plague?” Ellery sneered at the room. “Mm, here’s hoping.” “Wow, that’s the last time I RSVP to an invitation from you.” “I don’t mean it.” She sighed and with the air of a small child being forced to eat Brussels sprouts added, “Thank you for coming.” “I didn’t know you played the violin.” Ellery shrugged. “I’m brilliant. When I’m not rusty.” “
“What do you look for?” Cole asked. “The thing nobody else sees,” He replied, propping his hip casually against a piece of furniture she didn’t have a name for—something ornate and impressive, probably a credenza or vitrine or whatever. “Society photography comes down to one very simple principle. Anyone can take pictures of Kate Middleton and Lady Gaga. The trick is getting a picture of Kate Middleton with Lady Gaga.” “And have you?” “Not yet. But she’s a long way from dead, and hopefully so are they.” Cole laughed. In a strange way, the woman reminded her a little bit of Aiden. The same conviction, the same merciless drive, although focused and expressed very differently. She guessed it was becoming pretty apparent she had a type.But mainly Cole was grateful. Now, when she looked across the room, she met smiles. Flashes of recognition in other people’s eyes. She knew faces and names. She could have joined some of the conversations. Instead of drifting around pathetically. Stil