Deceptive Innocence, Part Two Page 2

  I bite my lower lip and nod.

  “I acted like everything was fine because you are a good actress, Bell. I kept thinking we would have this confrontation. I’d imagine slamming the door in your face. I thought I could turn the tables and that I could be the one to use you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe because you’re so good at acting that what we have actually feels real. And sometimes . . . sometimes I’m a person who likes to pretend.”

  I have to fight to keep my eyes from widening. I don’t want him to know that I understand exactly what he means. That I understand in a way that I can never share with him.

  “The woman you think I’m pretending to be . . . maybe it’s the woman I am. Or at least maybe it’s the woman I can be if I just keep trying.”

  His sigh is more dismissive than exacerbated. He simply doesn’t believe it. He raises his hand to my cheek, caresses it with his thumb. “Why are all the sinners so beautiful? Why can’t I fall for the angels instead of the warriors?”

  “Because angels ask you to sacrifice too much.”

  “Ah,” he says, and an impish smile plays on his lips. “And warriors know how to have fun.”

  “We do.” Slowly I rise from the coffee table and straddle his lap. I slide my fingers into his hair. “We do know how to have fun.” I lower my lips to his. I feel him respond. His hand moves to my lower back, his mouth opens for me, and he caresses my tongue with his. As I shift in his lap, pressing myself against him, I feel his desire build.

  And like that, I can see everything’s going my way. I’m back on track, and without resorting to violence. His suspicions, while merited, were misdirected, and now I’ve been able to spin the story to my liking.

  But I’m not pleased with myself.

  His hands move down to my hips, pulling me even closer as his kisses move to my chin, then my neck, and I feel his hands move between my legs, adding a tantalizing pressure to this seduction.

  I didn’t want him to see me as a gold digger. The truth is worse than that, but his accusations scrape against my skin, making me raw.

  He holds me firmly as he raises me up, then flips me over onto the couch. I’m lying on my back, my legs still wrapped around him. I feel the flicker of his tongue against the hollow of my throat, as if attempting to coax out the words I wish I could swallow.

  If he had worked out the truth, our poker game would have turned into a knife fight and Lander’s blade surely would have sunk deeper than mine. There would have been so much pain. The wounds he would have inflicted would have been debilitating.

  But then again, at least when I bleed I know I’m real. As it stands now, I’m a ghost. A fantasy composed of nothing more tangible than my imagination and his misdirected suspicions.

  I grab his hair, this time pulling him back. “I don’t want your money,” I say quietly as my grip tightens.

  He doesn’t answer, but his eyes are warm and almost patient. I let go of him and pull off my shirt. Lifting my arms above my head, I drop it over the edge of the couch.

  “What do you want, Bell?”

  I press my lips together as the truth struggles to escape:

  I want justice.

  I want revenge.

  I almost tell him my real name.

  “I want . . .” I whisper. “I want . . .”

  What? What can I say? What hateful little lie will I choose to ruin us now?

  “I want.” I breathe and then pause as I again catch that flash of mischief in his eyes, the impish curve of his mouth. It’s a challenge. An invitation for wickedness.

  And it makes me smile.

  I slide my hand down his chest, his stomach, his waist, his hips, until I can caress his erection through the rich denim fabric. I raise my eyebrows suggestively.

  He may not know what I want for my life . . .

  . . . but he knows what I want right now.

  For a moment neither one of us moves as we taste this moment, testing its potential.

  And then the gates of our passion are blown wide open with an exhilarating smash.

  I tear at his shirt, yanking it off him, and for the second time today I see buttons fly. But the last time it was purely playful. This time it’s more complicated, and more delicious.

  His teeth graze my nipples through the fabric of my bra. His hands are rough against my skin as he presses me to him.

  He knows my body so well . . . but he doesn’t know me at all.

  I bite down on his shoulder, almost breaking the skin. He rolls us over and together we tumble onto the soft area rug, into that narrow space between the coffee table and the sofa. I’m on top now, my skirt bunched around my waist as I pull off his belt, and, tugging off his pants and boxers, I tear away my panties and straddle his waist. My sex is pressed against his stomach and he reaches for me, but I slap away his hands as I take off my bra, exposing myself to him. With one hand I grab his jaw, making sure he doesn’t turn away from me.

  “Look at me now, Lander,” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion. “See who I am. Know who I am.”

  Again he reaches for me, but this time I don’t stop him. His hand caresses my breast; his fingers pinch my nipple just enough to make me jump. “I know you, Bell.”

  Bell. For the first time the sound of that name stings. What the hell had I been worried about before? Lander doesn’t know my identity. He can’t.

  I no longer have an identity.

  I raise myself up on my knees and then lower myself onto him, feeling the friction of his cock as he fills me. I ride him slowly at first, my hand on his chest, keeping him in his place as I take control.

  “This is who I am, Lander,” I say as I increase my pace. “This time it’s you who needs to see me.”

  I feel myself getting wetter, feel him growing even harder inside me as I continue to move, rotating my hips to a rhythm that I desperately want him to hear.

  In a flash he sits up, grabbing me by my waist to keep me from falling back and losing our connection. I stare into his eyes and slowly start to lean back. His hand supports the curvature of my back as I continue into a full backbend, my head resting between his legs, my hips pressed against him, my knees pushing into the soft rug, my arms stretched out, hands clinging to his ankles.

  And that’s when Lander leans forward, bringing him in so deep I can’t help but cry out. He kisses my breast as I cling to his legs, bracing myself against each thrust. The ecstasy is overwhelming. This is real, this feeling, this passion, this crazed intensity.

  This man . . . he knows my body.

  He knows how to make me feel.

  I’m trembling against him. Being with him like this shouldn’t feel this powerful. I’ve forgotten who I am. Maybe that was inevitable.

  But I shouldn’t forget who he is.

  And yet right now, he is this feeling. He’s rage and rapture, he’s tenderness and grace.

  He’s the closest I’ll ever get to love.

  My orgasm rocks through me as he pulls me back up so I sit on his lap and give way to his motion.

  And when he comes . . . I feel that too. I feel him throbbing inside me. I feel him shake as he explodes. I feel his warm breath against my skin and how desperate his hands are by the way they grasp me.

  And I wish he knew me.

  I wish we were the man and woman we pretend to be.

  I wish I didn’t have to destroy him.

  chapter two

  I don’t spend the night. I need Lander to feel the luxury and loneliness of an empty bed. The minute he gets used to me is the minute he’ll start losing interest.

  But I also leave because I need to prepare. After all, the next day will be my first working with Travis.

  When I wake up that morning I take care selecting my outfit. I end up with a charcoal suit made of a stretch wool-poly blend with a leather collar and leather patches on the elbows. It’s cold commerce with splashes of rebellion.

  Tra
vis will appreciate it.

  I smile at my reflection and snatch up my bag, ready for battle.

  But on the way out I pause to grab a Clif Bar, not for me, but for Mary. It’s a knee-jerk reaction that I don’t seem to have the strength or desire to squelch.

  On the way to the subway, I spot her sitting on the pavement, her back to a wall as she uses a stub of a colored pencil to work on her coloring book, two felt-tipped pens in her hair held in place by the thick, tight curls.

  “Hey,” I say as I reach into my purse. “Hungry?”

  Mary flashes me a yellow-toothed smile and holds out her hand. “So nice of you. My name’s Mary.”

  “So you’ve told me,” I say as I hand over the Clif Bar. “It’s your favorite, Chocolate Chip.”

  She rips open the package enthusiastically. “Chocolate Chip’s okay,” she says as she bites deep. “But Crunchy Peanut Butter’s my favorite.”

  I laugh and start to excuse myself, but then she jerks her head up and meets my eyes, staring at me with a new kind of clarity. “You look just like my daughter,” she says. “You know her?”

  “No,” I say uncertainly. Mary’s so nuts it’s hard to tell if she really does have a daughter or if she’s referring to the raccoon she befriended the other night.

  She reaches down into her shirt and pulls out a small, weather-beaten photo, holding it up for my inspection. It’s of a girl several years younger than me standing in front of a fountain in Central Park. She’s fairer than Mary but she has Mary’s reddish-brown hair and broad nose. Feature for feature, this girl and I have nothing in common, but in her expression—in the anger in her eyes—I can definitely see the resemblance between the two of us.

  “She don’t talk to me no more,” Mary says. “She says she ain’t got no mama, but I’m her mama, all right. She may not like it, but I’m her mama.”

  She looks down at the coloring book in her hands, and for the first time I look at it too. The hues that she always keeps so contained are now spilling recklessly outside the lines. Scribbles of purple, red, and gray scratch over the printed drawings of the happy family, decimating their white-picket-fence world.

  “You know what I think?” Mary asks. “I think she forgot who I am.”

  Did my mother ever think I forgot about her? Did she think I had erased her from my life?

  There are memories that I simply do not want to relive. And there are things I don’t want to acknowledge.

  For instance, the similarities between me and Mary’s daughter.

  “She remembers,” I finally say as I try to quiet my thoughts. “Every time she looks in the mirror she remembers.”

  Mary smiles up at me brightly. “That’s nice! I like that!” She bobs her head up and down as she seems to replay my words in her head. “Every time she looks in the mirror . . . Yeah, that’s real good. I’m Mary, by the way.”

  I take a deep breath and excuse myself from the scene, wondering where I can buy her a new coloring book. For reasons I refuse to examine, I feel I owe her that.

  It only took me twenty minutes to get to HGVB via subway; twenty minutes to push the unsettling encounter with Mary out of my mind. Twenty minutes to refocus on the Gables and my objective. Twenty minutes . . .

  But now I’ve been cooling my heels on the marble floors of an HGVB waiting room for a little over half an hour, growing impatient again. Men like Travis Gable always make people wait, even when they don’t have to. I know that, and I’m prepared for it, except . . .

  My eyes slide over to where the elevators are as I shift uncomfortably in my sleek black leather chair. Lander could walk through at any moment. I neglected to tell him that I’d be working with Travis, not Jessica, today. I had my reasons. But if Lander walks in, it won’t look good. He’s infatuated with me perhaps, but I now know that he’s not falling in love with me.

  I smile inwardly. It’s ridiculous that something like that would bother me. It’s only important because it means my value to him is tenuous. That being the case, I need to ensure that at the very least he sees me as a reliable informant.

  The only reason his feelings for me matter is because of how they affect my plans. That’s it. That has to be it.

  My mind travels back to last night—the drawing, the confrontation, the sex, the words of appeasement afterward. My own feelings for Lander are as mercurial as a tropical climate. One moment it’s sunny, the next stormy . . . and you never know exactly when the hurricane is going to hit.

  Of course, that’s my own fault. Years ago I used to imagine what it would be like to be with Lander in his penthouse. I imagined standing next to him at the bar. (I always knew he’d have a well-stocked, elegant little bar.) I imagined him slipping his arms around me as I reached for a traditional corkscrew, something simple with a polished wood handle that would feel smooth and right against my palm. I imagined kissing his cheek as he leered at me. I imagined that his face would be flush with drink. I imagined the crude insults he would frame as compliments while his hands roamed over me, squeezing and pinching.

  I imagined taking the corkscrew and sinking the long helix into his throat.

  I imagined the blood. The way he would clutch at his neck uselessly.

  His pain.

  Him dying.

  I haven’t played that particular game of pretend for quite some time. Those were the clumsy imaginings of a simple and resentful girl, one who indulged in gruesome fantasies rather than pursue any real course of action. Justice had seemed like too grand a concept, completely out of my reach. Back then I didn’t bother to think about what I was or wasn’t capable of.

  And I didn’t actually know what Lander was like. We had never spoken. I had stalked him online and in person. But that doesn’t tell you what it’s like to be around someone in the flesh, interacting with him. I had imagined that he would be condescending and crude, not challenging and passionate.

  Back then I had never felt the warmth of his smile.

  Back then it was all fantasy.

  Now I have a plan. And now I have the maturity to know that I can cause more pain with a kiss than I can with a blade.

  But still . . . The fantasies of killing him weren’t that long ago.

  I glance again at the elevators as people wander in and out. It’s a thin crowd; this isn’t a high-traffic floor. It’s a place for the elite. The people who step out of the elevators are dressed in a way that subtly advertises their power and success. Five-hundred-dollar ties peek out from beneath wool crepe suits. Delicate heels skinned in various reptile patterns click carefully across the marble. These are the people who get to gamble with the economies of nations. Fortunately Lander’s not among them at the moment.

  The receptionist at the front desk looks up from her computer and gives me an apologetic smile. She’s an incredibly pretty woman and very well dressed, probably around my age. She could be a model . . . or a mistress.

  I pick up a Forbes magazine from the low table, vaguely thinking about office romances and human resources departments. If HGVB does have restrictions in that area, would the rules apply to people who have the Gable last name? Probably not.

  An elevator opens again, making me jump, but he’s not there.

  Has Lander ever slept with one of the girls in this office?

  “Mr. Travis Gable will see you now,” the receptionist says, interrupting my thoughts.

  I get to my feet so fast it leaves me a little dizzy, but I don’t let it slow me down as I follow close on the heels of the receptionist, who is leading me down a hall, away from the elevators. She reaches for a door, but I beat her to the punch and swing it open myself, quickly stepping out of the hall and into the privacy of Travis’s office.

  Lander’s brother is sitting at his desk, talking on the phone, sounding important, possibly for effect. He waves me in without looking up from the papers spread out before him. The suit he’s wearing today is a little nicer than the one he wore on Friday, and his hair is combed a little more carefully.
There’s a faint hint of cologne. Whoever he’s trying to impress is no mere client.

  The receptionist hesitates only a moment before stepping out. I let out a quiet sigh of relief as I hear the door close, effectively hiding me from anyone in the hall.

  Travis also reacts to the sound, looking up from his desk for the first time. His eyes immediately focus on me, and he lets them wander over my figure.

  He’s wearing the expression I used to fantasize Lander would have right before I stabbed him with a corkscrew.

  “Dave, I gotta go. But I expect you to handle this thing quickly. Understood?” He hangs up the phone before the person on the other end could possibly have had a chance to answer. “You’re looking good, Bell,” he says. “You’ll represent me well.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gable.”

  I wait for him to offer me a seat.

  He doesn’t.

  “I have something that needs to be hand delivered to Brooklyn.”

  He reaches under his desk and pulls out a rather distinctive crocodile skin briefcase. From it he takes out a small but fat manila envelope that drops onto the desk. I hesitate for just a moment before picking it up.

  “Open it,” he instructs.

  I do, carefully peeking inside . . .

  It’s filled with money. All in twenties and hundreds.

  “Count it.”

  I flip through the bills: $40, $60, $80, $100, $200, $300 . . .

  “There’s twenty-five hundred dollars in here,” I say when I’m done.

  Travis smiles, puts the briefcase away, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Discretion will be necessary.”

  The comment makes me look up sharply from the envelope. I study his face, but it’s completely unreadable.

  Twenty-five hundred dollars. It’s not a lot of money for Travis—basically enough to buy his wife, Jessica, half a handbag. But it’s still a lot to carry around in cash.

  “Where exactly shall I deliver this?” I ask, trying to keep my voice matter-of-fact.

  He pulls out a piece of notepaper and writes down an address before sliding it over to me. “It’s an apartment building. There will be a man who answers to the nickname L.J. You’ll give him the money and he’ll give you a package to bring back here. Do not under any circumstances open the package.”