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StarFor the next four days I don’t see Nikolai. I write, I ride, I swim, I walk the wonderful grounds and I try unsuccessfully to befriend Belyy Smert, but he steadfastly refuses all my overtures.Every day at lunchtime I go to visit my father and I chat with Rosa over the phone. Every morning and night I call Nigel and we talk. We seem to have come to a strange sort of truce. We behave more like friends. He tells me about his progress at Gamblers Anonymous and I tell him about my riding efforts. The unspoken understanding is that everything will go back to normal between us when this month is over. He must guess that things can never truly be the same, but I don’t think he realizes how different they will be. How much I’ve changed.During the night I find it hard to sleep, so I read until the early morning hours. I’ve already read two old classics and now I’m almost finished with Their Eyes Were Watching God.Time passes quickly and I keep myself busy, but inside I know I am waiting
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“H ello, Miss Minton. This is Peter Thiel.”“Hello, Mr. Thiel,” I say, too shocked that he has actually called my number. “How are you?”I clear my throat. “I’m fine.”“That’s good. Well, the auction for your series is over.” “The auction?”“Yes. There was enough interest in your book for me to hold a little mini-auction.” “Really?” I gasp.“Are you sitting down?”The first thought that crosses my mind is oh no, he received such lows sums, he’s preparing me for the bad news. I won’t be getting the £15,000 that the cat book got. Then I brighten up. What does it matter if it’s just a small sum? The main thing is I will be published!I’m not sitting down, but I just say yes so that he can get on with it.“Right. This is just for the UK and English speaking markets worldwide, but not including the US. We’ll do those separately.”I frown, not understanding where the conversation is going. I’m going to need to do some serious research. English speaking markets? What are those?“Right. Are y
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Star“H oly Mother of God!” Rosa says, her eyes as big as saucers, when I meet her in the hallway. “And he bought the house next door for his staff,” I whisper.“Now why can’t I find a man like that for me?” she says with a dramatic sigh. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”I take her to my room and she lays the zipped up clothes carrier on the bed and looks around her. “So: this is how the super-rich live.”“The weird thing is all this doesn’t attract me at all. I’ve never wanted this. I still don’t. I want a nice house, a family, and a man who loves me to death.”“Well, why can’t you have that and this?”“I think when you have this much money you think you deserve more than one woman. There’s so much choice. So many women throwing themselves at you. It must take a saint to say no.”“Oh, I don’t know. I think I can totally rock being with a billionaire. So many people to boss around. Delicious.”I laugh. “God, you’re bad enough at Christmas when you sit there with a mug of tea like a Queen
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StarI get out of the car, surprised. I can see bouncers standing outside the understated entrance of some kind of club or restaurant. It is as if someone was trying hard to be ordinary. Everything about it is drab. There is an awning but even that is the dullest green you canthink of. The name of the club is in black on gray.Ziggurat.One of the bouncers immediately leaves his position and comes towards me. It’s a beautiful warm summer evening with an occasional gentle breeze and I stand there frozen.“Good evening, Miss Minton. My name is Roman,” he says when he gets close enough to me. “Good evening, Roman. Where is Nikolai?”“Mr. Smirnov is upstairs in his office and asked if you could wait for him.”“Oh.” He makes me come here alone and now he won’t even allow me to go up to his office. Instead he wants me to sit somewhere and wait for him.“Please, come with me. You can sit and have a drink in one of our private rooms,” he says. “What is this place?”He looks at me strangely.
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Suddenly, a powerful arm grabs my arm and whirls me around. The power of it is so strong it jerks me off balance and I almost fall, but I right myself and look at him with furious eyes.“You knew he was there,” I rage breathlessly. “You set it up.” “Yes,” he admits calmly.“Why?” I cry.“There was no other way to get through to you. When it comes to him you’re blind.”I lift my hand and strike him across the face. He doesn’t move. I watch my handprint leave a white mark that fills quickly with red.We stand there staring at each other. I’m panting hard and feeling hurt and shocked while he looks down at me, his eyes expressionless, a muscle in his jaw throbbing madly.“You tricked me. How could you do that? We were supposed to celebrate my first ever success. I thought we were going to have a lovely dinner together.” My voice trembles with emotion.He closes his eyes and exhales. “I’m sorry, Star.”“If you just wanted to humiliate me why did you get me to dress up? So I could look lik
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‘‘Sit down, Smirnov,” Vasily says, nodding to the chair in front of his table.I don’t sit. There is no love lost between us. He considers me a trouble maker and I despise him. As the second in command he looks the other way while the Director presides over an institution run on brutality and cruelty.Right now, though, I feel nothing except pure fear. I watch him as he leans his heavy frame on the table and feigns emotion.‘ I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your brother died this morning.’In my soul, I already knew what he was going to say, but it doesn’t lessen the impact of his words. I feel as if I am falling into a black bottomless hole. I try to grab hold of anything I can. My head feels light. I clutch onto the table edge in front of me.‘ I’m sorry, Nikolai. He fell over the banister.”“No,” I gasp. “That’s impossible. Someone must have pushed him.” He shakes his head slowly. “He didn’t just fall. He jumped.” “That’s a fucking lie,” I snarl.“We do not condone the use of such
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STARMy heart is beating so hard and fast I have to take deep breaths to calm myself. The car comes to a stop and I quickly open the door and rush towards the club. The bouncers lift the ropes to allow me in.“Where is Nikolai?” I ask one of the stunningly beautiful girls at the reception. “In his office. Let me call him for you.”“Please don’t call him. Just take me there.”She looks at me blankly. “I’m sorry, but I have to call him first.” “All right.”She calls him. “Er … Star is here to see you.” Her eyebrows rise. “Okay. I’ll tell her.” She looks at me, embarrassed. “He doesn’t want to see you. He says go home.”“Please, just take me to his office. He doesn’t mean it. We just had an argument. I want to sort it out. Please help me,” I cry. I know I sound like some obsessed stalker but I just can’t let go. I have to make it right. I was so stupid and blind.“I can’t do that. I’ll lose my job.”“Fine. Then let me just go into the club. I need to use the toilet. Did he say I couldn’t
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Star“Can I return the dress to you now, Rosa?” I ask as soon as Rosa answers her phone.For a couple of seconds Rosa is too surprised to answer. “As in right now?” I sniff. “Yes.”Her response is immediate. “Of course. Fortunately for you I’m just vegetating in front of the TV with a tub of ice cream and a whole box of tissues.”“Thank you,” I say and hang up.When we get to Rosa’s apartment building I thank Andrei and tell him I won’t need him again. He is a true gentleman and waits until I enter the building before he gets back into the car.I get into the lift sniffing and blubbering. By the time the lift doors open I’m sobbing. Rosa opens her door and I walk into her arms. “I’ve been such a fool,” I repeat again and again.She helps me out of the dress and gives me a comfortable pair of sweats to get into. The whole time I am blubbering and sniffing and spluttering.We sit on the sofa. She pours me a humongous glass of wine. I take it and start gulping it down. “Whoa. Slow down.
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ReeseFeeling happy, ridiculously so, I put my key in the door and push it open. It’s been a week since I moved in with Drake and I’m still floating on a cloud of joy. The apartment is quiet. Drake is out visiting with his agent about a sponsorship deal for anew sneakers company. He’s glad to be back training again, even though he comes home every night exhausted. A couple of times he tried to sneak me into the locker rooms again, in the hopes of re- enacting our kinky first-time meeting, but we’ve had no luck so far. There have always been people around. Sometimes I wonder how fate works. How easily I got in and found him alone the first time, but now it’s almost impossible to find a moment when it is quiet.I dump my keys on the side table and kick off my formal shoes. I’ve just returned from an interview at one of the colleges I hope to attend in the new year. I’ve always been wary about pursuing something away from Dad and Morgan, for fear that they would need me, or that somethi
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ReeseAnother morning, another unfamiliar place for me to wake up in, but this time, the fact I’m somewhere new doesn’t throw me. In fact, it sends a shiver of joy down my back. I turn over to see Drake lying next to me, fast asleep and sprawled across the luxurious covers ofhis massive bed.It was last night that I officially moved into his apartment in the city. His place is great because it’s less than an hour’s drive from where Morgan is staying so I can be closer to her. I don’t know how much longer Morgan must stay in the hospital, but I hope she will be discharged soon. Now that we have found out her condition is treatable, I can’t wait for her to start living her life again.Drake drove down to pick up all my stuff, and we took a road trip across the country together. It’s something I will remember forever. It was like a dream. The sun was shining, and the wind was in my hair. We talked, we laughed, we ate, and when we just couldn’t keep our hands off each other anymore, we s
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DrakeT he hospital doors slide open smoothly in front of us. Reese squeezes my hand. I glance down at her, and possessive pride bubbles inside me. This is my woman and only mine. It makes me sad that she must go through this pain. Thank God, I’m here tosupport her through it. She’ll never have to deal with anything like this on her own again. “Are you ready?”“Almost,” I say, and wrapping one arm around her waist and the other in her long hair, I pull her towards me. Caught off guard, she gasps and I claim her open mouth. Her fingers come up and grasp at my shirt trying to pull me closer, closer, and closer still. Her curvy body pushes into mine, molding herself against my hardness. All the passion and fervor I feel for her comes to the fore and all I want to do is pull her into a quiet corner and fuck her so hard she screams, but I don’t. I pull back and look into her eyes. They are glazed and heavy-lidded. Her lips are red, swollen, and slightly parted, as she takes short, quick b
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ReeseWhen I open my eyes the next morning, it takes me a couple of seconds to realize where I am. I blink at the watery light streaming in through the bay windows. The chipped paint on the panes remind me.Drake. The cheap hotel.I snap upright in bed and look around, scanning the room for him, but I don’t see him. There is an indentation in the pillow, but the sheets are cold. Memories of last night come tumbling back. Drake couldn’t get enough of my body. Sinking into me again and again. Like he couldn’t get deep enough. Like a beast. Like he hadn’t fucked in years. Surely, he hasn’t run out on me in a crummy hotel in the middle of nowhere?So why do I feel this creeping sense of dread?What if everything he whispered, roared, and growled last night was a lie? A technique to get what he wanted. What if all he ever wanted from me was a night of sex so he could move on already. The sudden sense of loss and hurt is so acute it makes me feel sick to my stomach. Until I hear his voice c
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DrakeI drive fast, faster than I should in someone else’s car, faster than I’ve driven in a long time. I just want to put as much distance as possible between me and my parents’ betrayal. I trusted them completely. Fuck, they didn’t even let me believe Santa Clausexisted because it was wrong to cheat kids! They robbed me of that innocent fantasy and lied about this massive deal!My mind flashes with memories of my childhood. All kinds of images slam into my head. Everything was a lie. I try to figure out if there is some way I could have known this. If I had been more vigilant, could I have put the pieces together before now? Even raging with anger, I know I still love both my parents, and I always will, but what they did to that poor woman.Unforgivable.My heart bleeds for Morgan. All those wasted years pining for me. Carefully cutting out my pictures from newspapers and magazines, and framing them all. Making a shrine for me. Watching every game. She was pale and frail. Like she
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ReeseI''m wearing out the carpet in the living room pacing back and forth when Drake re- emerges. I can’t take my eyes off him. The look on his face is unlike anything I’ve seen on anybody before. He is so livid his eyes are practically shooting sparks. His mouth isclamped tightly with steely determination, and there’s a white ring around his mouth. Uh oh, something big is about to go down. What did we expect, though, when we invited someone as hot- headed as Drake to find out that he’s been lied to his entire life?“Do you have a car?” he asks through clenched teeth.I look at him blankly for a second. A car? Then I nod quickly. “Yes.”He marches over to me, grabs my hand, and starts dragging me along with him.“What are you doing?” I protest, even though a part of me loves the feeling of his hot flesh against mine again.“Come on. I need your help.” “To do what?” I ask.“To take me to my father.”I feel a cold sensation rush up and down my body.“I need to go over there now,” he s
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DrakeI must admit this whole thing has started to give me the creeps. I was certain that it was all a scam. Fuck, I wouldn’t even have come if I didn’t want to mark Reese as my property so damn badly.To start with I’m not good at all this emotional stuff, but worse I’m not so sure anymore that it’s a scam. My bullshit-o-meter has been waiting to spot a crack, a problem in the story so that I can unravel and bring the whole thing down around them, but so far nothing. Could these three really be that good at pretending?I straighten my shoulders. Maybe this will be it. Reese was the honey trap, the Dad is the bit player, but the woman upstairs. She’s the eye of the storm.I get to the landing and find three doors, but only one is slightly ajar. I start walking towards, but before I can even knock, a woman’s voice calls from inside the room, “Drake?”I push open the door and my eyes immediately fall on a woman in a flowery nightgown. She’s sitting up in a double bed and leaning forward
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ReeseWe both stand stock-still and listen to the noises upstairs. Someone is getting out of bed, and I’ll put money on it being Dad. Surely, they can’t have heard us? Even though Dad’s hearing is poor at best and the drugs effectively knock Morgan into such a deepsleep that it is sometimes hard to deliberately wake her up, I can’t be totally sure that they have been oblivious to everything that we’ve been up to down here. All I can hope is that Drake managed to muffle most of my noises by stuffing my panties into my mouth.I have no idea what I look like, but my face feels flushed, and my breath is still coming so fast I’m sure it must be blindingly obvious to anyone who lays eyes on me that I’ve just climaxed. Terrified that I’ll give the game away, I close my eyes and try to calm myself, but it’s hard, especially knowing that he’s right there, looking at me with more lust than I know what to do with.How am I supposed to react normally in front of my parents with a guy like this a
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DrakeI called the number that Reese left, hoping that I’d find some way to get hold of her again, but instead, I found myself talking to the lady claiming to be my real birth mother. My hackles were still up, but she was so incredibly happy to hear from me that I ended uplistening to her with a kind of detached amazement.Was it truly possible for someone to pretend that level of sweet innocence and pure joy?I guess, if you’re pulling this kind of scheme, you should go all in and pick the sweetest, kindest, most adorable little lady you can find.Obviously, I agreed to meet her. The way I figured it, I’ll walk through her door, get to the bottom of the scam, then go find Reese and finish what we started. Any screwing that happens along the way, of course, will be purely incidental.The closest airport to my hometown is a small city about an hour north of it. It is a wet, thickly fogged day, and it sets the tone for the way I feel.It’s been forever since I was back here. Usually, m
