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The Fidelity World

Description

Welcome to The Fidelity World, where love and lust make for strange bedfellows. Explore the Costello family's underworld dealings, the enterprises of the Demetri family, or tackle the old-world money and politics of the Montagues and Fitzgeralds. Whether you're an Infidelity Corporation client or employee, a family member or a friend, these engaging storylines have something for everyone. Get ready to enter a world where entrapment, love, betrayal, cunning, and deception abound, where you decide whose relationship is an agreement, and who will experience true fidelity.

Captivate

By Stacey Lynn

Special Thanks To:

Editing: Ellie McLove at Love N. Books

Proofreading: Virginia Tesi Carey

Cover Design: Shanoff Formats and Cover Design

Chapter One

Claudia

The fall from grace wasn’t as swift and gentle as it sounded. It was plummeting through a dark tunnel, being slammed against the sides until you were spit out, splattered on the pavement, and left picking pebbles and dirt out of scraped open knees and scratched up palms.

And once you landed, two choices were available: Lie down, give up, and wait until something else comes along to finish you off.

Or two, the decision I made: Pick yourself up, bandage up the scars and scrapes and wait for the bruises to heal, and move on.

Overdramatic?

No way in hell.

In my case, I chose to run instead of casually move on.

I was the daughter of the infamous Judge Keith Townsend. Born and raised in designer shoes, private boarding schools, and bottomless bank accounts, I was set for life. I wanted for nothing and had everything handed to me.

That all changed when it was revealed my father was involved with, as the least of his crimes, illegally backdating a marriage certificate on behalf of Alton Fitzgerald, a man whose empire crumbled before his eyes. My life of privilege came to an abrupt halt.

If I listened hard enough, I could still hear the screeching tires of my life colliding into a cement wall.

Or perhaps it was the echo of the bullets that rang out when my father couldn’t live after the scorn and he not only took his own life, but my mother’s first.

Two months after their funeral, I dug the last remaining pebble out of my now forever bruised and damaged palms and headed for New York, leaving Savannah in my rearview mirror.

What I hadn’t expected was that my Aunt Karen would have an apartment and a job lined up for me before I stepped foot off the train at Grand Central Station.

Instead of taking me to her own apartment on the Upper East Side, she had her driver take us to the Upper West Side, handed me a set of keys outside Apartment 1212, a beautiful, old building with ornate architecture and slightly crumbling brick, but included a doorman, and said, “Welcome to your new home. Information on your new job is on your kitchen table. I’ll let you rest and we’ll get together tomorrow for dinner.”

After brushing both my cheeks with air kisses, she waltzed away, leaving me staring after her.

I wasn’t offended. Karen was my mom’s sister and I hadn’t seen Karen since I was five. She and my mom never really got along and certainly weren’t close.

In the last month since I’d been working for her, I also learned she wasn’t trying to be rude. She’s just really, really busy with her career. I didn’t think I’d seen the woman smile yet. Nothing but a mere tip of her lips to show her pleasure.

Which explained why she was close to fifty years old and didn’t have a single wrinkle.

She was beautiful and blunt, always dressed in a tailored suit and skirt combination. She was more than intimidating.

She was actually slightly terrifying and I rued the day I made a mistake at my job as her temporary assistant while her other one was out on maternity leave.

She’d needed someone for three months, and I needed a job before I could find something permanent.

It was the perfect solution and I was grateful. Until I realized how much the employees who were paired with Infidelity’s exclusive clients made, how much their lives changed, and then I started wondering, “Could I do it, too?”

Which was what brought me to Karen’s office, sitting in front of her.

“This wasn’t why I hired you,” Karen said. She peered at me with a neutral expression.

“I know that. But I’m interested, and I want to know if it’s a possibility.”

Her head tipped to the side minutely. “Why?”

Why? It was the thousand-dollar question. Or the two-hundred-and-forty thousand dollar question. Every employee made twenty grand a month, plus living expenses and incidentals. Essentially, I was asking my Aunt Karen to turn me into a paid whore, despite her insistence over the last month that Infidelity didn’t sell sex, they sold companionship. But since my trust fund was currently tied up in a fiasco I didn’t care to try to unravel, this was my best option for long-term stability.

In a rare moment of emotional vulnerability, I blinked away tears already forming in my eyes. “Because I have nothing else to offer, Karen. I have a worthless degree and only a temporary job. I need to do something, and we both know I’m not qualified for much.”

“When I agreed to let you move here, and help you get on your feet, this isn’t what I expected, or planned.”

“I know.” Rolling back my shoulders, I straightened my spine and clasped my hands in my lap. “But I also have the background and lifestyle to make you, and Infidelity proud.”

God. Was I selling my selling myself for this? Everything I said was true, yet it still tasted like sludge in my stomach.

Sure, I had the upbringing to be a pretty piece of arm candy and the intellect to handle any appropriate conversations with some of the richest men in the country, but I wasn’t naive. I was also offering to sell my body.

A body that’d been essentially untouched.

Now, what did it matter? What did any of it matter? I needed money, and no one was going to take care of myself except for me.

Karen picked up a pen and tapped it on her desktop. “Take your lunch break. Give me time to consider this.”

“That’s all I ask.”

I gave her a brief nod and stopped at my desk to grab my purse before heading to the elevator. The entire time, I tried to push down the butterflies raging war in my stomach. I offered to sell myself, knowing it could potentially mean my body as well, and I never passed second base in high school or college. But what else was I supposed to do? My degree in British Literature wasn’t worth much. I wasn’t expected to get a B.S. or a Ph.D., I was expected to get an MRS., produce heirs, the same as any other respected, wealthy woman in Savannah’s elite society was supposed to do.

I wasn’t a virgin for lack of desire or high morals, mostly it was because I grew up always too worried about disappointing my parents. There were a lot of expectations, but there was also love.

At least, I’d always thought so.

That all blew apart the day my father blew his brains out.

I’d grown up thinking I had everything, more than what money could buy. I’d had a mom and dad who gave a shit about me. Parents who spent time with me, which was much more than I could say for several of the friends I grew up with. Their parents were too concerned about who was traveling where and working where and who they were wearing to care about helping kids with their homework, watching their dance recitals, or going on family vacations where families actually spent time together.

Mine were different. At least, I’d thought they were. Now, except for Karen, who I barely knew, I had no one.

What else was I supposed to do?

The familiar, and hated, rush of emotions hit me as I descended in the elevator, only to jolt me out of the memories slashing against my brain as the doors opened in the lobby.

The doors dinged and I stepped off them as soon as they opened, staring at my phone when suddenly, I walked right into a large mountain of muscle.

“Oh!” My phone went flying and I bounced back, and fell flat on my backside.

“Oh, shit.” I heard and looked up.

And found myself staring directly at Liam Allistor. His handsome face, his sexy as sin smile, his heart-stopping black eyes and panty-melting muscled body on display, even if it was hidden underneath his skintight Johnny Cash T-shirt.

Hot damn. He was a thousand times sexier in person than he was on stage, and I’d seen him perform there plenty.

Chapter Two

Liam

Staring at my reflection in the mirrored door of the elevator, I cringed. In the time span of six months, my life had gone from rock bottom to hellfire. I didn’t even know someone could sink as far as I’d been buried.

And the woman who currently held my balls in a grip so tight it was just this side of too painful to be pleasurable, was standing next to me, scowling at her cell phone.

Figuratively. Not literally. Anne Marker wouldn’t get anywhere near my nuts. Not only was she married to Don Marker, owner and CEO of Marker Entertainment, she was also old enough to be my mother.

She was also the best music agent in the business. She took scrubs like me, found in dirt hole bars plugging away at their dreams and sleeping in our rusted-out Buicks all over Los Angeles, and shot us to the top before the ink was dry on our first contracts.

“I still can't believe you’re forcing me to do this.” In the mirror, my lips curved into a sneer. Where was the damn elevator? The sooner I got this shit over with, the sooner I could get drunk.

Anne didn’t spare me a glance as her fingers violently flew across her cell phone’s keyboard. “Suck it up, buttercup.”

At six-foot-two and a solid muscle mass of two hundred and twenty pounds, no one would dare to call me a buttercup.

I would let Anne get away with murdering my childhood dog if she thought it'd help me out of this mess. At least, I would if Sparky was still alive.

Also, Anne didn’t give a shit. I was the top musician in the country, topping charts and carrying off more awards and trophies from awards shows than I had room for. Anne's only job was to save my ass and bring me out of the seventh layer of hell.

You'd think after some woman accused me of rape, and then withdrew her allegation once there was absolutely no evidence found to support her claim, would have been enough to save me. But apparently, people who didn’t know me from Jesus and who only read what they saw in grocery store checkout aisles didn’t fully believe rock stars like me didn’t go around sticking their dicks in unwilling women.

Please. I got enough pussy offered I didn’t have to take what wasn't mine to have. I wouldn’t even consider it without millions in my bank account.

“This still sounds ridiculous. A woman for a year? The thought makes my balls want to shrivel and die.”

Anne tucked her phone into her purse. “Grow up. You know the game.”

Media. PR. Social media. Public image. I only wanted to make good music and blast it through a microphone into a screaming stadium of thousands.

Anne was right, though. I was sounding like a spoiled, rich prick and I was neither of those things. My mama taught me better. And besides, I’d been successful enough without having to play the media game. After five years of being constantly in the public eye, I was due for a scandal.

“You sure this is the right thing, though?”  When Anne first mentioned Infidelity to me, I balked. The whole concept was crazy shady. What would the press do if they found out I hired an exclusive, highly paid escort to pretend to be my girlfriend just to wipe away the rumors of me being a rapist?

Fuck. I pulled my hands down my face. How in the hell did my life turn into this?

The bell dinged right as Anne's foreboding words echoed the ring in my ears.

“Buttercup, this is the only thing that can save you now.”

The bitch of it is, she was right.

“Let’s just get this over with.” As soon as the doors slid open, I stepped into the doorway and was immediately met with a tiny, lithe brunette rushing right into my chest before I could bring my hands up to stop her.

“Oh, shit,” I grunted from the impact and reached for her, but her phone went flying and she was on her ass, sprawled out in front of me before I could grab her.

Damn. A glance at the lobby told me no one noticed. I quickly squatted to help her up. If anyone saw me, a woman at my feet, knees spread wide from her fall, it’d be on tabloid covers in hours.

“Are you okay?” I asked, holding out my hand.

She glanced up, eyes on my hands and as if she recognized me from my knuckle tattoos alone. Her eyes widened, skin paled, and mouth opened.

She dragged her gaze up my arm until our gazes met. Holy fuck she was beautiful.

I almost fell to my own ass from the impact of her beauty. Rich, chocolate eyes, framed by long, brushed to the side bangs and held back with a clip. Hair almost as dark as her eyes. I had a full view of her alabaster skin as if it’d been untouched from the sun for her entire lifetime.

I could never resist a pretty face staring at me in awe. It was part of the thrill of being famous, part of the ego from being a man. We liked being appreciated and didn’t care if it was about our looks.

“Can I help you up?” I asked, unable to stop a smirk stretching my lips.

God, she was fucking hot. My dick took notice. She placed her hand in mine and I pulled her to her feet, my jeans growing uncomfortably tight.

Damn it.

“Thank you, Mr. Allistor,” she said.

Something about her tone made my smile fall. “And you are?”

Like I’d asked her to divulge state secrets, her awed expression went blank. She bent down, grabbed her phone, and tossed it into her purse without looking at me. “None of your business.”

She brushed her hair off the shoulder of her deep gray, short-sleeved dress, and straightened.

A chase. I liked it more than I should.

Next to me, Anne cleared her throat revealing her impatience. But fuck her. Fuck Infidelity and all it implied. I wanted this one.

“I’d like it to be.”

She looked at me then, eyes narrowed and shook her head. In the most beautiful, soft and silky Southern drawl, she said, “I apologize for bumping into you Mr. Allistor—”

“Liam,” I all but snapped. I hated being called Mr. Anything. Fucking hell, I was twenty-eight, not fifty. Society demanded it but I didn’t care for societal expectations any more than I cared for being wrongly accused of rape.

Based on the expression this girl was now shooting me, she’d obviously heard.

“Liam, then.” She nodded once. God, she was completely unruffled by me, and I still felt knocked on my ass. “I apologize for running into you, I should have been paying attention.”

“It was my fault,” I said, stepping closer. “And you deserve an apology from me. Let me take you to lunch.”

“We have a meeting, Liam.” Anne clipped her words with a vicious hint to them. I knew better than to ignore it, but fuck. This woman.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the woman. She was still standing there, not looking at me, but over my shoulder. But I was the asshole standing in her way, essentially blocking her from going anywhere. “Tell me your name. I’ll call you when I’m done with my meeting. I’ll buy you a drink as an apology.”

“No, thank you.” She stepped to the side and stared straight ahead.

Irritation spiked in my veins. I’d bet my millions that a year ago, she’d react differently to me. Goddamn I was screwed.

“Have a good meeting, and my apologies, again.” She scurried away, not looking at me, and my eyes stayed glued to the sway of her small but rounded ass until she turned the corner.

Anne’s fingers wrapped around my wrist and she yanked me into the elevator.

“Focus, Liam.”

“Oh, I’m focused,” I grumbled, adjusting myself and earning a roll of the eye from Anne.

“You’re an idiot,” Anne said.

I felt like one so I didn’t argue. As the doors closed and the elevator lifted, I tried to put that woman out of my mind.

I’d probably never see her again, not in a city the size of New York. And since I didn’t have her name, there was no way to get in contact with her, but fuck if I didn’t want to. She was sexy. A bit sassy. Absolutely perfect.

The idea of some classy woman like her—my assumption based on the way she was dressed—already having judged me for something I didn’t fucking do in the first place made my blood boil.

I at least wanted to set her straight.

“Forget about her, Liam.”

“Done,” I lied. Anne was right. If I needed to set up a new image, some chick off the street —or sprawled on a marble floor—wasn’t the way to go.

The image of her though, brown, wavy hair just below her shoulders, pulled back, and those eyes, the thick long lashes I knew weren’t fake came to mind and I adjusted my hard dick, growling at myself in the mirror.

“Fuck my life,” I muttered.

Anne snorted. “No thanks.”

***

“Mr. Allistor,” Karen Flores held out her hand to me as soon as Anne and I stepped off the elevator. “So lovely to meet you and have you here at Infidelity. Please, come inside, and have a seat in my office while we talk.”

“Liam, please. And thank you for meeting me,” I said, lying through my teeth and shaking her hand. While Anne and Karen said their hellos and Karen gestured for us to follow her into her office, my gaze caught on something on the receptionist’s desk and my steps stalled.

The brunette.

One simple picture frame sat on the receptionist’s desk. It was of the brunette wrapped in the arms of two adults. They were on a beach and holy shit I hadn’t been wrong earlier. She was wearing a bright, yellow and white striped one-piece suit, cut outs revealing the sides of her waist. Her hair blew in the wind behind her, and her smile almost blinded me.

Gorgeous.

“Liam?”

Anne’s voice grabbed my attention. I swung around to see both women in the doorway to Karen’s office.

“Yeah?”

She arched her perfectly manicured black brows into sharp points. “Meeting. Coming?”

I glanced back at the photo and tapped the top of the empty desk once. “Oh yeah, I’m ready.”

“Okay,” Karen said, once she was settled behind her desk and Anne and I were sitting in two chairs on the opposite side.

I decided to spare her the spiel and sell me on Infidelity. I was in. All in.

“If Anne wants me to do this, I want her.” I pointed my thumb in the direction outside her office.

Karen flinched and then frowned. “I’m sorry. Excuse me?”

“Her. The woman who works at that desk. If I have to do this shit for a year, I want that woman.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Allistor—”

“Liam.”

From Anne’s chair, the heat of her glare was searing. If she could set me on fire with her eyes alone, I’d already be a pile of ash.

It was rare I was this difficult, but this was also my life they were fucking with, and damn it, I should be able to decide something about this next year of ridiculousness.

“I’m sorry, Liam. Claudia is my assistant, she’s not an employee available for clients. So, if you don’t mind, let’s get started and I’ll explain what Infidelity can do for you.”

And now I had a name. Claudia. I rolled it around on my lips silently. A bit exotic, a bit classic, a bit sassy. It fit her perfectly.

I sat in my seat like the good little boy Karen and Anne expected me to be and pretended to listen. For the next hour, Karen gave the entire spiel of her company. We were only referred by former clients and the only reason Anne knew of the place was much to my jaw-dropping shock, she’d once been an employee. That was how she met her husband, Don.

“You fucking serious?” I said, unable to hide my surprise. “You did this?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that Infidelity is the best choice for you here, Liam. You just never listen.”

Not true. I listened all the time. To my manager and my band and my songwriter and hell…all I did some days was listen to other people telling me how to live my life.

“I’m sure I would have remembered you telling me you met your husband ten years ago because he paid you twenty grand a month.”

Her shoulders rose and fell with a heave. The only sign she usually gave she was at her limit of patience with me. “And it’s not something I can talk about or would. It was none of your business until now, and…I couldn’t. Like you will do, all employees and clients sign a nondisclosure, limiting how much knowledge we can give until we know someone who can benefit from Infidelity’s prestigious services.”

Other than my own parents’ marriage, I’d never seen anyone make such a perfectly matched couple until I met Anne and Don. Realizing this was how she met him, gave me hope this could work.

For a year. That’s all this was. One very expensive publicity stunt.

“Fine,” I said, turning back to Karen. “I can buy into this. So what happens next?”

She grinned and opened a tablet, tapped a few buttons and slid the screen across her desk. In front of me was what looked like a basic questionnaire, until I realized it was twenty-three pages long.

“Holy shit.”

“At Infidelity, we’re thorough. We match you with a client based on preferences we think will be most successful. So while you complete this, I’ll go grab everyone some water, or a drink of something else if you’d prefer?”

I waved her off. I didn’t need anything and I wasn’t filling this out.

“Fill it out,” Anne said once Karen left the room. “They’ll do a good job, I promise you. They’ll choose someone who won’t care about your status or who you are, and someone who can easily fit into your lifestyle, Liam. I wouldn’t steer you wrong about this.”

Her bottom line was as much at stake in this as was my career. Not for the first time, irritation exploded inside me, making my skin tight and the roots of my hair burn on my scalp.

“I don’t even get a choice in who I’m shackled with?”

She had to be kidding. Somehow, they’d glossed over this important piece of information.

“Like we said, Liam…”

“No.” I slashed my hand through the air and shoved the tablet aside. “I will not have my life, my girlfriend, dictated to me. I get why this, in general, is a good idea, but I’m not having some stranger thrust into my life and I’m just expected to trust her.”

“The nondisclosure—”

I tugged at my hair and all but shouted, “I don’t give a fuck about the NDA. I didn’t even do anything wrong, Anne, and this is bullshit. If you want me to do this, then I get to choose. And I choose Claudia.”

And why did I fucking care? Why was I so hung up on some pretty girl who crashed into me and looked like she hated me the next second?

Because she didn’t fawn. She was stubborn. She refused me her name. Maybe I was fascinated because she was new and different. Maybe her glossy shine would wear off and she’d end up being just like every other woman I’d been with.

I didn’t care. I wanted something, and damn it, I should be able to get it. One damn thing. I had a life constantly being dictated to me, but no one was going to tell me who I could, or who I could not fucking date for crying out loud. I was paying enough money to be able to have a say.

“Karen said she’s not an employee.”

Anne’s tone turned patronizing. She spoke calmly and slowly, lowering her voice like my mom used to do when I was on the verge of trouble.

I glared at her. “Then do your fucking job and talk her into it.”

The door to the office opened and Karen walked in with three bottles of water and paused. Her gaze darted back and forth between Anne and me. “Everything okay?”

I pushed off the chair and stood. “I need to use the restroom.” Glaring at Anne, I repeated. “Do your damn job.”

Chapter Three

Claudia

My sushi settled in my stomach like rotten fish. Nothing could have made it taste good that day as I wandered the streets, taking as long as possible to return to my desk.

Goodness. I’d slammed into Liam Allistor for crying out loud. If I had been a teenager when he hit the scene, I would have wanted to cover my walls in posters of him—shirtless and on stage. Not that my mom would have ever allowed it and I was too old to do it now. All that ink drove me crazy. He had a body that belonged inside a fighting ring and somehow, he stroked and strummed a guitar and wiggled his hips on stage like he’d been gifted with the gracefulness of a dancer.

It was the tattoos on his knuckles that first gave him away. I knew from a magazine spread he’d done about a year ago that he’d gotten Love Loud inked in all caps on the knuckles of both his hands. At the time, he’d been attached to some B-List actress and the ink spawned rumors of an upcoming engagement. Two weeks later, she was gone and the rumor mill spread to something else more exciting.

If I could have ever met a musician or any celebrity and run the risk of fangirling like a lunatic, Liam Allistor would be the one I’d do it for. Instead, I’d run into him like a complete, embarrassing idiot.

How humiliating. First I spent the morning trying to essentially sell my virginity to my Aunt Karen and then I landed on my ass in front of an incredibly sexy rockstar.

My day officially sucked.

Back at my desk, I tossed my purse on the top and turned, intent on using the restroom before getting back to work, when Karen’s voice rang through the intercom on my desk. It was brusque and demanding, just like always.

“Claudia. My office. Now.”

Oh-kay.

I made my way to her office, not bothering to knock before opening the door.

As soon as I was seated in a chair opposite Karen’s desk, she slid a file folder in my direction. “It seems I don’t have much choice in your wishes anymore. I need you to fill out the questionnaire on the tablet. Here are the times for your medical and psychological evaluations scheduled for this afternoon, and here is the contract you need to sign.”

My world spun and the sushi threatened to make a return appearance.

I stared at her, my mouth hanging open as my skin turned to ice. “Excuse me?”

“This is your contract.” She tapped the closed file with a red painted fingernail. “Claudia?”

Three papers. Sign my life away. I asked for this not even two hours ago.

My pulse hit skyrocket levels as I scanned the contract. I’d seen dozens of them in the last month. I knew what it said.

Still, despite my approaching Karen earlier, everything was moving too fast. It was supposed to take up to months for Infidelity to find the perfect companions. Contracts weren’t signed until then.

“Why so quickly?” I asked, tapping my pen on the contract.

Karen’s expression was neutral. Typical of her. “I can’t tell you why.”

“But this means you have someone already lined up for me. Who?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, either.”

My blood raged through my system, flaring everything with the sudden onslaught of fear. Something wasn’t right. “Karen—”

She shook her head once. The quick whip of her hair was an effective slash to silence me.

I was floundering, grappling for a lifeline, something to explain the sudden shift in what had occurred since my lunch hour.

“You know the rules, Claudia.”

“But—”

“And you chose them. You came to me for this.” She was right, but I hadn’t expected everything to happen so quickly. Her voice softened and she continued, “Go do the evaluations. Leave the contract on your desk. When you’re done, if you still want to move forward, sight it and return it. But I will need your answer today.”

Something wasn’t right. We were so far outside standard protocol, but all she said was true. I’d gone to her for this and despite my nerves, I didn’t have another option. Besides, Karen’s secrets were as deep as the ocean and she was a vault. If she didn’t want to share, I couldn’t pry them out of her.

“Okay,” I mumbled, pushing the contract into a neat pile. “I’ll let you know in a few hours.”

I stood and headed toward my desk outside her office. When I reached her doorway, she called my name and I turned back, losing my breath.

Karen was curvier and older than my mom. She didn’t smile as much, but occasionally, in moments like then, their similarities were a punch to my chest.

“What, Karen?”

“If I felt this client was unsafe for you, I wouldn’t suggest it.”

I gave her a nod and closed her door behind me. Then, after a trip to the restroom, I gathered my purse and left to take care of all the evaluations.

Three hours later, after being poked and prodded, both physically and mentally, I was back in Karen’s office.

Less uncertain; more determined.

My job with Karen was temporary. My life was in upheaval. This decision gave me a year and financial freedom afterward to figure out what to do with my life.

She glanced at me once, pen poised over the contract to sign her name next to mine. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. What do I need to do now?”

She slid my file to the side and handed me a folded sheet of paper. “Be there tomorrow by ten o’clock in the morning. All your clothes will be provided for you. Bring nothing except a small bag of essentials.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. I suggest you finish up for the day and take off. I’m assuming you’ll want some time at home to get things settled.”

I hadn’t had a home in months. My apartment was barely furnished, not at all decorated. I had nothing to do before leaving, but was I ready?

This was insane.

Still, I gave my thanks to Karen, took the paper, and did what I was told.

I should get used to it, for the next year, my life would be determined by someone else.

I prayed the guy she was giving me to would be patient when it came to sex—and understanding when he realized he’d just bought a virgin.

Chapter Four

Liam

I moved back to the windows in my living room in Greenwich Village overlooking Washington Square Park.

I bought the four-story townhome because one, I had the money to buy whatever I wanted, and two, because Greenwich Village was the only part of New York City I could stand for more than an hour. You’d think being in Los Angeles and touring for the last several years would have me used to the constant crowds and people and traffic. Holy fuck the traffic in L.A. sucked. I liked the feel of the NYU Campus and the view of the park outside my window. It made everything feel less cramped and uptight like so much of New York always seemed to be. Plus, both my entrances had gates to keep out the crazies who occasionally followed me home.

I lived in a fortress in New York City, and I was getting so damn tired of all of it.

The longer I was on the road, the less I could remember about home. Small town life was simpler in Carlton, Kansas, which was almost an hour outside Kansas City. It moved slower, people were quieter, children were happier.

At least that was how I remembered it. Based on how my sister and her family, and my mom still talked about life there, it hadn’t changed a bit. Sure, a new strip center occasionally went up. Urban sprawl crept into the edges of town and new developments were constantly being built. Commuters to Kansas City were willing to drive the hour in order to give their families a safe place to live.

I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Instead of heading to the University of Kansas like the majority of my graduating class, I packed up my eight-year-old Buick, a hand-me-down from my mom, and hit the road for Los Angeles.

And I’d made it. I fucking made it. I worked my ass off, spent half my life sleeping on busses, my only friends being the backup band and roadies and my opening acts. Some of them were pains in the ass. Some were pretty cool. Few of them I actually trusted.

Which is exactly how I found myself in this fucked up mess to begin with. A mark on my record I doubted would ever be erased.

I knew it. Anne knew it. So why she was trying so hard when I was always going to be the guy accused of raping a twenty-year-old Yale college student was beyond me.

Fuck that chick and the roadie she bribed to allow her access on my bus where she then took photos to be able to confirm we had met.

We had. For about twenty-two seconds before I grabbed her arm and yanked her off my bus. Touching her alone caused enough damage, and maybe I’d gripped her harder than necessary, or maybe she’d paid someone else to leave bruises on her arm. Those marks that had been splashed all over the paper, despite my team’s efforts to keep them suppressed raised enough questions.

But I didn’t rape her. Only assholes with egos the size of Texas and dicks the size of Rhode Island were that despicable.

Now I was staring out the window of my living room, pausing between the laps I was pacing around my home, waiting for some damn brunette to give me her answer through the intake coordinator at the most expensive brothel I’d ever heard of.

What was it about this woman? This Claudia, that kept getting to me?

I shouldn’t have been fascinated with her. Besides her perky tits and tight ass, I was still thinking about the firm set of her jaw when I asked her name. I was still grinning at her refusal to give it to me, despite her obvious recognition of me.

Yeah. It was all of that. If I had to show a cleaned up version of myself, I wanted it with someone who wouldn’t fawn at my feet.

I wanted someone who could hold her own, be just as stubborn as me to ensure that when a year was up, we went our separate ways.

It’d been eight hours since I demanded an answer. And I was getting pissed. I hadn’t expected the brunette to jump at the chance to spend a year with me, but putting it off this long was ticking me off.

I’d made it clear she was who I wanted, and I’d walk if it didn’t happen.

Anne and that Karen woman should have been busting their asses to get me what I wanted.

If only I could figure out why I was so damn insistent on it.

Anne was at the New York office and I was trying to work on new music. Nothing was working to get me focused. None of my usual calming tricks or relaxation techniques helped.

Hell, I’d even done yoga, which was always my last resort. My limbs were loose, but my head was a jumbled fucking mess.

Something needed to give.

I needed my answer, and I needed it to be yes.

I paced another lap around my living room, flicking my guitar pick between my thumb and middle finger. I had a tune in my head, but it was too soon to fully hear it. It was how songs came to me, in pieces and chunks, never linear, and somehow I was able to smooth them together until a song was formed. This new tune was a mess, even for me. All I heard was the bass line, a constant thumping in my head and the ring of certain chords, but there was nothing I heard yet that gave me the hint of a melody or the flow.

I wouldn’t get it put together until I cleared some of the mess in my head.

And more than needing an answer from that damn woman, I needed to work on a new album.

Ticket sales plummeting and a tour being canceled last year demanded I come back out on fire and on top. If not, there were dozens more musicians just like me, fighting to take my spot. One failed album after my disastrous year and I’d be saying sayonara to my homes in L.A. and New York and my vacation home on Anguilla. I’d be back in a Midwest city, living off my royalties for the rest of my life.

No way was that fucking happening. As much as I sometimes missed Kansas and my family, there was more I wanted to accomplish.

My phone rang on the coffee table and I picked it up, sliding my thumb across the screen and putting it to my ear as soon as I saw Anne’s name.

“What’d she say?” I demanded, not bothering to say hello. Anne wouldn’t be offended. She never said hello to me.

“Yes. She’ll be on the plane tomorrow.”

I suddenly wanted it to leave immediately. Fuck. Why did I give her a day to change her mind?

Why was I doing this in the first place? I hated the idea, loved the idea of the woman.

I flicked the pick toward my guitar set up against my leather corner chair where I typically sat to write and headed toward the kitchen. There, I popped open a bottle of beer and took a heavy chug while Anne sighed and went quiet.

“You need this.”

I swallowed the beer and set it down on the counter. I turned to my view. The sway of the trees, the bustling of NYU students carrying backpacks and rushing to classes did shit to calm me.

Which gave me a new idea. I wasn’t taking Claudia to L.A. anymore.

“What I need is to write a damn platinum selling album. That’s what I need, Anne. The rest is publicity bullshit and I’m tired of my damn chain being yanked every time I take a step. I’m changing plans. Claudia and I are going to Anguilla.”

“Disappearing for months is the worst thing you can do. Makes you look like you are guilty or ashamed. Besides, you’re supposed to start recording your next album. Here. I’ve just spent the afternoon securing your recording time and letting your band know.”

“Or maybe it means I need a goddamn break,” I snapped, “and they can use one, too.”

Jesus. She didn’t get it. And she never would. She had no idea what it felt like, the looks I got, the curious stares and judgment in people’s eyes ever since the news first broke. I’d been convicted in a court of public opinion before I was charged with anything. My parents spent months defending me to their friends, my sister the same at the elementary school where she worked.

All of it was bullshit and I was more than tired of the constant need to spin.

A month or two out in Anguilla was just what I did need.

I hung up the phone and tossed it onto the counter. Anne wouldn’t hold it against me, she hung up on me plenty.

Splaying my hands out on the cold, grey and white striped marble, I straightened my arms and dropped my head.

Fuck this. I needed to get my head on straight and it wasn’t going to happen amongst the crush of people and the constant noise and lingering stares when I was recognized.

A month on Anguilla. It was the best idea I’d had in six months. I picked up the phone and made the call, changing the flight plans.

Chapter Five

Claudia

“Why the change?” I asked Karen, hustling out the door of my apartment in just enough time to get me to the address in Greenwich Village. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know. But the client called me last night and told me to have you meet him at the airport instead. You have your passport?”

“God,” I sighed. “Yes, Karen. I have my passport.” She’d already texted me before I picked up the phone. It spiked suspicion and I called her back immediately. “Why do I need it? You shipping me off to a foreign land?”

My laugh sounded brittle to my own ears, and she didn’t return my humor.

Which meant she was.

“Karen—”

“You’ll be fine. Everything will be okay. Just stick to the rules of the contract and you’ll be safe, Claudia.”

Her tone had softened, similar enough to my own mother’s voice that tears pricked my eyes. I wouldn’t cry. I’d done it enough over the last few months.

“Okay, then.”

“Keep in touch, please.”

Back to business. Although this sounded more familiar than professional and the idea Karen actually cared about me made fighting tears harder. “Okay, Karen.”

“See you soon. Be good.” She clicked the phone before I could confirm I was always the good girl.

Reaching the taxi, I gave him the address of the small private airstrip I’d been instructed to arrive at and settled back in the ripped and cracked leather seats.

Maybe leaving New York wouldn’t be such a bad thing for me. Heading out of the country would give me even more anonymity and make me harder to find.

My hands clutched the door handle in the back seat as the taxi driver zipped and whipped through traffic, blaring his horn. It could have been his reckless driving that made me feel like I was going to throw up but mostly it was the uncertainty. Despite my efforts to close my eyes and take calming breaths, I was still strung tight when he pulled through the gates and came to a stop right outside a small hangar and an even smaller airplane.

And then my breath lodged in my throat and all the tension curled in my stomach.

Holy freaking crap.

I knew the man at the bottom of the stairs. I’d just smashed into his muscled and hot chest not even twenty-four hours ago.

When I ran into him yesterday it hadn’t even occurred to me he was Karen’s next appointment. Clients were confidential and not known to me until they arrived in her office.

As Liam walked to the taxi and handed the driver a wad of rolled up cash, I was certain I was going to throw up as soon as I exited the vehicle.

“You made it,” he said, opening the door for me and holding out a hand.

I didn’t take it. No way was he going to feel how nervous he made me.

Liam Allistor. Rock God. Accused of rape. Accusations withdrawn for reasons unknown to me or the public.

“How are you, Claudia?” He smirked when he said my name, pleased he’d discovered it when I refused to give it to him yesterday.

What game was he playing?

“Hello, Mr. Allistor.” My hands stayed clasped together in front of me.

“Liam, please. I hate being Mr. Anything.”

Ironic. Since he’d been named Mr. Sexy. Mr. Bachelor of the Year. Mr. Scumbag.

“Okay.”

I could barely breathe in his presence. It wasn’t fear. It was some strange combination of lust and nerves taking over my body, fighting for dominance. Liam Allistor was built like a linebacker with moves like a stripper. Everything about him oozed sensual promise and wicked lust. Even in front of me, wearing faded jeans and a simple T-shirt, my gaze was drawn to his body—the curve of his firm chest, the width of his biceps. Ink scrolled from his arms to his knuckles. His black hair was almost shining in the bright sun. Eyes covered by sunglasses, I couldn’t see his startling blue eyes, but they were there.

Probably winking at me. It seemed the kind of thing a man like him would do.

Wink at a girl and she’d drop her panties and spread her legs.

Oh God. I was going to have to spread my legs for Liam Allistor.

What had I gotten myself into?

As if he noticed my sudden fear, he stepped toward me, resting his hand on my lower back.

“Thank you for agreeing to this,” he said, ushering me up the narrow steps and onto the plane. “I was pleased you said yes.”

Before I could find my proper, Southern filter, I blurted, “I didn’t know it was you. And this is a mistake.”

Karen was wrong. This was not safe for me. Or wise. This was absolutely the worst decision ever.

This was worse than bad.

“I rarely make mistakes, and I’m certain this isn’t one of them.”

I could barely concentrate on his words. His voice alone sent shivers through parts of me I didn’t know existed. With his warm breath at my neck, too many questions slammed into me.

Would he screw me here? Steal my virginity with a wicked grin and callused, sure fingers?

I wasn’t ready. Not nearly ready for any of this.

“Mr. Allistor,” I started but he stopped me, moving me deeper into the plane until we were at the back.

“I told you to call me Liam.”

I squeezed my eyes closed and heaved a breath. “Liam,” I said, opening my eyes. “There are things you don’t know and I’m not sharing, but trust me, you don’t want me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, and dear Lord his voice was beautiful. Thick and raspy, it rumbled over me like the breeze. “I do want you.” His hand cupped my cheek. I stared at him. Oh my God, what was happening? “And I just paid a hefty fee to have you.”

My heart thudded to my feet so quickly I was sure it was audible. What a jerk. An arrogant jerk and I wasn’t stupid. I knew exactly why he was in front of me, buying the first girl who didn’t look like a tramp or a groupie.

Liam Allistor, hotshot music star fell, lost his respectability. If there was one person in the world whose fall from the top was bumpier than mine, it was his.

Not that I necessarily believed everything he was accused of, but I’d seen poorer men than him get off on charges simply because they had a fat wallet. He had millions to brush his problems away.  I wasn’t naïve enough anymore to believe that didn’t happen.

“Of course you did.” I stepped to the side of him and turned, forcing his hand to fall from my cheek.

I had to forget how beautiful he was, how incredibly sexy he was. Regardless of his body and his voice, Karen was now on my shit list. This had to be the worst pairing Infidelity had done.

“How did you get me?” I asked.

“I asked for you.”

My back was still turned to him but even he couldn’t miss the sudden jolt of my body.

“What?” I spun on my heels. This wasn’t me. I was calm, cool, collected. I wasn’t being proper or well-mannered.

“I saw you. I wanted you. I got you.”

“Oh my gosh, you’re an asshole.” I never swore! Two minutes in front of him and he was turning me into trash. This was crazy.

Bad. Horrible.

His hands slid into the pockets of his faded, ripped, and perfectly fitted jeans. Darn him. Why did he have to be such a large jerk and so sexy at the same time? His gray shirt fit him almost better than the Johnny Cash shirt yesterday. And yeah, I remembered the shirt.

I’d remember this one, too. I knew it.

Goodness, he made it hard to think clearly. “I want to cancel our contract.”

“Can’t. What’s done is done. So I say since you’re stuck with me, how about we have a seat and enjoy ourselves.”

“Does that really work on women?”

He swiped a hand across his chin and then grinned disarmingly. “Pretty sure the only women who have come to where we’re going is my mom and sister, and yeah…me whisking them away always works on them.”

Huh. “And he has jokes.”

“Come on, Claudia. I’ve been thinking about you all day. Have a seat. I understand this is a shock, but you don’t need to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. But me being with you is going to be a disaster.”

“Thanks for the confidence, I won’t screw it up.” He stepped to my side and took a seat on a cream, leather couch, tossing his sunglasses to the side. His ice blue eyes burned into my skin. “Had a pretty girl in my arms yesterday and I wanted to see her more. I might be an asshole, but I’m not nearly the asshole you seem to think I am.”

He grabbed his guitar, dismissing me and at the same time making me feel like the biggest, judgmental jerk on the planet.

On shaky heels, I trailed after him.

He was right. The contract was specific and I already knew what Karen would say. “Sorry, not sorry. You made your choice.”

I was stuck, with a sexy, sexy man. I moved to New York to become anonymous, to be able to walk the streets so I wouldn’t have my name whispered behind my back or be constantly pointed at. My dad’s face had appeared on more than one national news channel and in more than one business magazine and newspaper. The last person I thought I’d be attached to in any way, shape, or form was a man whose baggage was louder and worse than mine.

I was going to end up on the front pages all over again, and then the sexiest man in the world would despise me for ruining everything I knew he was trying to fix.

I fell into a chair across from him. It faced the front of the plane and I wouldn’t have to look at him as he sprawled on the couch. “Where are we going?”

“To my private, secluded home on Anguilla.”

My head snapped toward him. Hands clutching his guitar, knees spread wide, even the way he sat was sexy. And the way he said secluded.

Like he really meant to say, “I’m taking you to my exotic island home so I can get you naked and fuck you until you can’t walk.”

For a second, I thought about saying yes.

“Okay,” I croaked. I looked out the window, wringing my hands together. I couldn’t even look at him.

I’d never been so terrified in my life and it wasn’t because I was with the man next to me, it was because I’d have to sleep with the man next to me.

Infidelity might not say they sell sex, but if part of the contract I’d read was promising a monogamous relationship, I doubted he’d go without for a full year.

I was stuck. The taxi had left, there wasn’t another car in sight, and as I counted to ten to try to quell my bubbling emotions, the stairs outside were pulled away and the plane began moving.

I was doing this. I was going to be with Liam for a year, and there wasn’t a darn thing I could about it now.

***

I was flying over the Caribbean Sea, bright teal waters beneath us, and I was a wreck.

We were sitting in a private plane, no one else on board besides the pilot and one stewardess. He was still stretched out on the couch, guitar strap strung over his shoulder, the guitar seated on his lap. Headphones were in his ears and occasionally he thumped the body of the guitar with the heel of his hand and scribbled something else down on a paper notebook in front of him.

He’d grunt. He’d scowl. He’d hum a tune I knew someday would be magical.

But what he didn’t do, for the entire flight after the plane took off, was say a single word to me.

Katie, the single flight attendant who introduced herself to us as soon as we’d boarded the plane, stepped out of her small galley and smiled. “We’ll be landing soon. Is there anything else I can get for either of you?”

Her gaze flicked to Liam and back to me.

“No, thank you. I think he’s fine as well.”

“Oh, he is.” Realizing how unprofessional her statement was, she corrected herself. “Oh. I’m so sorry.” A faint pink colored the apples of her cheeks.

“I understand,” I said, trying to make her feel at ease. “I have the same problem myself.”

“With what?” his deep raspy voice asked. Liam slid into the chair across the table from me and settled his elbows on the edge. “Thinking I’m fine before you can stop yourself?”

Behind him, Katie disappeared into the galley.

I settled back into my seat. If he thought for one second he could ignore me for an entire flight from New York, turn on his charm and I’d drop my panties, he was dead wrong.

Crossing my arms, I did everything I could to ignore my fluttering pulse as his gaze dropped to my chest and lifted slowly. “You’ve ignored me all day.”

“Do you care?”

“I didn’t. I’m pointing out that it’s rude.”

“I’m rarely accused of being polite.”

He stared at me, watching me with an intensity I’d never experienced. I wanted to ask him why he ignored me the whole flight even though I shouldn’t care. He hadn’t been rude. Just quiet.

Why had it bothered me so much? I didn’t care to think about it. The man was famous, drool-worthy, had a panty-dropping smile and I’d been to a concert of his where women literally threw their underwear on stage at his feet.

I hadn’t just given myself to him, I’d sold myself to him.

I shouldn’t care if he ignored me. In fact, the more he ignored me, the easier this year would go, especially considering I had no idea what he wanted from me.

I doubted it was for scintillating conversation and my engaging personality. I was rarely funny, never inappropriate, and born and bred to be proper at all times.

It wasn’t like I had anything to offer him besides my body.

“You haven’t mentioned what you want from me for this year.”

He shrugged, ran a hand through his hair. “To be honest, I hadn’t figured that out yet. Do you know why I went to Infidelity?”

“I have my assumptions.”

He huffed then, a sound that was anything but warm, bordering on icy. “Yeah, well, if you assumed it has anything to do with some twenty-year-old bitch, you’d be right.”

My nose scrunched before I could help it. Men who called women bitches typically weren’t worthy of much.

“What? Did I offend your sensible upbringing by calling her what she is?”

“No.”

“And yet you don’t like me calling some woman you don’t even know a bitch. Do you know what she tried to do to me?”

His voice pierced through the air, sharp as a sword and stole my breath. I recalled what Karen said to me the day before, so assured in her promise I was safe with him.

His rage certainly seemed genuine.

“I’ve read all about your situation.”

“Then you know why I needed some prissy little perfect girl to clean up my reputation. Show the world I’m not the man they’re now thinking I am.” He waved his arms out, gesturing I assumed, to his statement about the world.

For a moment, I considered asking him if he did do it, but I held it back. For now, I’d trust Karen.

I had issues with other things he said. “I’m not prissy, and I’m not perfect.”

“Sweetheart, you couldn’t be more perfect if you tried. And,” he said, leaning forward, almost across the table so he could lower his voice, “I think what I want from you is becoming clear.”

I cleared my throat. “What’s that?”

“Whatever I want. Whenever I want. I did just spend an awful lot of money to make you mine, after all.”

My stomach rolled and it had nothing to do with the dip of the plane as we began our descent.

“Lovely,” I sneered.

His smirk was evil. I wanted to slap it off his face and pull him to me and kiss it off. “It will be.”

Chapter Six

Claudia

After arriving at the airport, we were whisked, if you could call it that, from the small airport toward his house in a jeep so old and small I thought it’d fall apart by the time we arrived wherever we were going. It lacked doors and a roof, only providing a roll bar across the top.

Comforting.

The roads were bumpy and could likely bounce me off the edge. I clung to the small metal bar next to my seat on the bench.

Liam took the whole thing in stride. Although he was most likely used to it.

“How often do you come here?” I asked him, as we bumped down the dirt road. Palm trees lined the road with the sprinkling mix of wild chickens wandering aimlessly.

A part of me was terrified, well outside my comfort zone.

The other part of me, the part that always wanted to travel to exotic places and away from the enclosures of five-star resorts, loved every thrilling minute.

“Not as often as I’d like,” Liam said. “Mostly during the holidays. My parents always wanted to travel to the Caribbean and could never afford it. So I fly them all down here at least once a year for vacation.” His look turned wistful as we rolled up to his gated house. “My sister, Sophie, and her kids love being here.”

His sweetness as he talked about his sister pulled me toward him. I could almost forget the salacious way he’d said “Whatever I want, whenever I want” on the plane.

Almost, not quite.

No. That was permanently etched into my brain and while he’d gone back to silent on the trip to his place until I decided, screw it.

He wanted something from me? I’d play the role. Why? Because I could.

If he thought I was some prissy little perfect princess who owed him, I’d be that for him.

I’d never been the seductress before, too concerned about my family’s reputation to consider marring it by ending up in jail or having some sex tape made of me by frat boys in college.

I’d spent my entire life living up to someone else’s expectations and demands. What was one more year?

Then I remembered what he’d said on the plane and heat crept to my cheeks, spreading to my chest. I blamed the sun.

Not the fact that he implied he’d take sex from me whenever he wanted because he could, which completely contradicted him implying he was innocent of raping a woman.

But if that’s what he wanted, I’d give it to him. Because why the hell not? I had nothing to lose. Not anymore.

As he unloaded our bags from the jeep and tipped the cab driver, I waited by the gate and followed him inside.

The courtyard was stunning. Palm trees and exotic bushes draped the paved, pebbled walkway led to a vibrant burnt orange door. The house, from what I could see, was all white stucco with pops of the orange on shutters around the windows.

“I had a service open up the house yesterday and air it out, clean it, and stock the fridge with food,” he said as he unlocked the door. “It should have everything you need, but if there’s something missing, let me know.”

“Okay—” I pulled to an abrupt stop. My mouth dropped so wide open I was surprised it didn’t hit the floor as soon as we stepped in. “Holy crap.”

His house was more stunning on the inside than out. White tiled floors, bright furniture. I barely saw any of it and was immediately pulled to the back of the house. Sweeping views of the ocean, the beach. An infinity pool that seemed to fall directly into the ocean from where I stood. A hot tub off to one corner and even a small Tiki-style bar were on one end.

“I’m going to need more swimsuits,” I whispered, pressing a hand to the glass window. “Wow. How do you ever manage to leave this place?”

A chuckle vibrated behind me. “Paradise? Eh. It’s nothing special.”

His voice was full of teasing and I turned to him, not realizing he’d walked up right next to me. I bumped him with my arm and stepped back. “So. What now?”

So much for seductive.

So close to me, Liam made it hard to speak. Or think rationally. My gosh, the guy was tall. Built. On his knuckles, I caught sight of the word Love.

I gawked at all of it, all of him, not realizing he was letting me.

He was just so beautiful. Large. How someone with his frame could make holding a guitar and crowing into a microphone seem so graceful was only a minuscule amount of his talent.

I watched an arm raise, moving as if in slow motion, perhaps I was just drunk on his ink and muscles and that minimal scent of him that wafted into the air and thrilled my senses. I jumped as his hand settled on my hip and my gaze darted to his.

“If you want to eye fuck the rest of my ink, all you have to do is ask.” His lips pulled into that smirk he’d given me on the plane.

Slap him. Kiss him.

My brain and my body didn’t know what to do with myself when he looked at me like that. Plus, he was touching me. He hadn’t done that before. A thrumming heat from where his hand settled on my wrinkled linen shorts spread to places untouched.

I squeezed my eyes closed and shook my head. “No. Thank you.”

He laughed darkly. Richly. Good grief, he should come with a warning: Spontaneous combustion possible within twenty feet.

“Claudia.” My name off his lips was clipped and serious. The heat on my lower half made my movements slow, but I opened my eyes and stared at him. Gone was the playfulness. Seriousness took its place. “I’m not that guy. The guy in the papers. I didn’t touch that girl.”

“I believe you,” I rasped. And I realized I did.

“Good.” With a nod. He dropped his hand from my hip and stepped back. “Now, how about I give you the grand tour, then we can get some dinner and go for a swim?”

Chapter Seven

Liam

This damn woman. My dick was hard from her perusal, but as much as I wanted to press my hands to her cheeks and seal my lips to hers, taking what I wanted—what I’d paid for, damn it—I wasn’t that guy.

I would never be that guy.

Despite her attitude, her sweet fucking southern accent told me she’d lived a pretty privileged life herself. I had a feeling she wasn’t that girl.

Something about her whispered innocence and reverence, neither of which I’d ever had my hands on.

She believed me, too. Instantly. It might have been the first time I could remember someone looking at me, only belief and sincerity shining in their eyes, not a hint of doubt.

I wanted her. I wanted her sweet smile on me, the darkness that loomed in her rich brown eyes. I wanted to know what made her laugh, what made her sad, and then I wanted to be the guy that would never do any of the things that would bring tears to her eyes.

Which was beginning to make me a pussy. I spent most of the hours on the plane ignoring her so I didn’t throw her on the floor or the couch, and claim her like some caveman. That DNA must have been ingrained in me though, like the first men of time, because it was all I’d thought about since watching her ass sway away from me only yesterday.

I’d finesse this. With her proper manners and class, she wasn’t the kind of girl you threw against a wall and slammed your dick into before you even kissed her properly.

Not that I couldn’t do those things to her, I had paid for them after all. Which made me a dick for even bringing it up…twice. But that’s what she did to me. I could write a song for her, but talk to her? She left me tongue-tied.

The mere thought of fucking her just because I’d paid for the privilege made my stomach clench. My mama taught me better than that, and so did my dad.

No. I wiped my hands together and shoved them through my hair. I’d take my time. Seduce her.

Make it good for her until she was as twisted up in me as I was becoming by her.

“Let’s go look at the bedrooms and you can choose which one you want to stay in.”

“I’m not sleeping with you?”

She lobbed me that opening perfectly. For once, I chose not to take it. “No.” Her lips pressed together and for a minute I thought she was disappointed. The fuck? Had I read her wrong? “Unless you want to. Trust me, I won’t turn you down if you decide to climb on in with me.”

Her eyes slid to me and that glare was back, making me grin and feel like a dick all at once.

“I’ll take my own room.”

“Okay, then.”

I took her upstairs, knowing exactly which room she’d like. With the way she was drawn to the pool and the view, barely sparing my living room or kitchen a glance, there was only one room that had a view and private balcony comparable to mine.

It was also where Sophie stayed when she and her family came here.

Which meant I wouldn’t be screwing her in a room where my sister and her husband had probably done it multiple times—not that I wanted to think about that, either.

“Your house is so beautiful,” Claudia said, eyes drinking everything in as we made our way to the stairway. “Did you decorate it?”

“Ah, no.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Sophie did, actually.”

“Does she do this for a living or something? She did everything perfectly.”

“Fourth grade teacher, but I’ll tell her you approve. She spent three times more than the budget I gave her and took twice as long.”

She smiled. It was faint but it still stole my breath. “Typical woman.”

“And she’s got jokes,” I replied, mimicking what she’d said to me earlier.

Cheeks turning pink, she looked away. “I don’t. Not usually.”

Interesting. I’d delve into why that embarrassed her more later.

I reached the door at the end of the hall, opposite the side of the house of mine and waited for her. “Sophie and Kevin usually stay in this room. I thought you’d like it the most. It’s got a helluva view. Almost as good as mine.”

I opened the door and walked in, holding it open for Claudia to follow in behind me. Her reaction didn’t disappoint. As soon as she stepped into the room her breath caught and her eyes went wide.

“Goodness,” she whispered, moving straight toward her private balcony. “I just don’t know how you could ever leave a home like this and return to L.A.”  She whipped her head around. “You do live in L.A. Right?”

I’d been touring for almost three straight years. I owned three different houses but didn’t consider any of them home. My tour bus was more of a home than any of my houses. I hadn’t lived in any long enough to really make it mine which was why I usually gave that job to Sophie during her summer breaks from school.

“L.A. and New York,” I confirmed.

“Which do you like more?”

Neither. Some days, I really fucking missed the slowness of Kansas.

“I spend most of my time in L.A.”

She smiled sweetly, lips pressed together. A hint of little lines deepened at the edges of her eyes. “That’s not really an answer.”

I shrugged and slid my hands into my jeans. “It’s the best I can give. Where are you from?”

“Georgia.” She said it abruptly and turned back to the window, opening the latch on the sliding glass door and stepped outside.

Oh-kay. What the hell was that?

Funny how she’d drill me for answers when I had a Wikipedia page full of information yet she didn’t talk about herself.

But it was another hint at who she was—or who she was hiding from—because this girl was definitely hiding from someone, even if it was herself.

Chapter Eight

Claudia

I despise talking about myself. I hated it before when everyone I was around already knew anything and everything about me. And I hated it more now that there was a truckload full of trash Liam could find out about me with a whip of his fingers on a keyboard.

I curled my hands around the white metal railing and squeezed my eyes closed. I needed to tell him.

It was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

Infidelity had a PR team that could disperse information regarding their more famous couples slowly and cautiously, or they could rip it off like a Band-Aid. When it came time, Liam and I needed to come out to the world on our terms, not the paparazzi.

Between his public relations people and Infidelity’s, there had to be a way to get out who he was connected to without causing a further shitstorm for us.

Because for some damn reason, I actually liked the mega superstar. When he wasn’t acting like a jerk, insinuating he could take my body whenever he wanted, and when he wasn’t ignoring me, he sounded like he had his shit together.

Lucky man.

I’d been lost long before I was alone.

Pushing and pulling against the railing, I moved in a semi-push up motion and tipped my head back. The sun soaked into my skin, heating me instantly while the breeze provided enough cool air I wasn’t a sweaty, humid mess.

In the distance, birds chirped and the waves swooshed as they curled into the beach. Even with my eyes closed, I could picture the scene in front of me. Large, exotic plants and palm trees. Teal waters and white-capped waves rolling and brushing against white sandy beaches.

If there was a word to describe how beautiful Liam’s house was, I didn’t know it. And I was a Lit major. Words were my thing.

The gentle swoosh of the glass door echoed behind me and footsteps followed. Of course he’d follow me.

“Where in Georgia are you from?”

I laughed softly and forced my eyes open. Yep, the view was as beautiful. Exotic, romantic…so relaxing I wanted to settle into the wicker chaise lounge and never leave.

“Savannah,” I all but whispered. “Why?”

His shadow fell over my arms and then he was next to me at the railing. Arms crossed over his chest, I was inches from his arm. From him. From his ink that made me want to slide my tongue all over it.

Hot damn. The man was too magnetic for safety.

“Is it wrong to want to get to know the woman I’m spending the next year with?”

A muscle jumped in his jaw and his eyes were narrowed, focused on the sea.

He had a point. “No.”

His arms loosened, and he placed them on the railing, matching my stance. Our hands brushed against each other and he didn’t move to separate them. A current swam beneath my flesh where we touched. From my pinkie finger up my forearm to where the heat of his skin barely grazing mine disappeared under his T-shirt.

“What do you want to know?” I asked.

“For starters,” he turned to me and grinned. That mouth-watering grin I’d seen plastered on magazine covers all over the world for the last several years. “I think I should know your name.”

“It’s Claudia.” Two black brows arched, lines rippled on his forehead and I cringed.

“Is it that hard?”

Yeah, it was that hard.  “Townsend,” I bit out, grinding my teeth together.

“Is there something I need to know?” he asked, turning to face me. One of his hands flew to his hips and the other gripped the railing. LOUD popped on his whitening fingers from his grip.

“No.” The lie was bitter on my tongue and burned my throat, but I did it anyway. My heart tripped as I stared at those letters on his hand, wanting nothing more than to trace them with my fingertip. He had an entire family he loved, it was obvious in the way he spoke of them, and I was a girl who had nothing.

I’d ruin him, and I’d go to hell for it. But I could pretend for a while to be someone else, anyone else. I’d tell him at some point.

His hand on the railing loosened and then he was holding it out to me, like an offering. I turned, took his hand in mine and forced my eyes up.

I was met with seeing beautiful and calculating ice blue eyes that sent shocks of heat straight to me. “Well then, Claudia Townsend.” One side of his lips lifted into a devastatingly beautiful grin. “Liam Allistor. Nice to meet you.”

I couldn’t pull my eyes off his lips. His mouth. The way one of his teeth was slightly crooked, bent over a front tooth in the tiniest but cutest imperfection. And God. His jaw, his nose, his deep-set icy eyes that refused to look away from me.

I was a goner, at least for his body and his beauty.

“Nice to meet you, Liam.” I tripped over the words, my cheeks flushing with heat that had nothing to do with the Caribbean sun shining down on us.

No, it was pure lust and attraction kicking my butt.

He dropped my hand before I was prepared and I swayed toward him before I caught myself.

He noticed though and his gaze fell to my own mouth. It took everything I had not to swipe my tongue along my bottom lip, not to try to pull him toward me.

Good Lord, what was happening to me?

I shivered and pulled away, looked to the ocean but the bright blue on the ocean waters were nothing compared to the chilling blue in Liam’s eyes.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured. He was too close, too far away. Would I ever get off this roller coaster he’d buckled me into without warning and so quickly? I wasn’t prepared. I already knew I wouldn’t want to exit the ride.

And I’d already told my first lie.

It wouldn’t be my last.

“Perfect, polished, stunningly gorgeous.” He listed my attributes like I’d required them. I hadn’t, but I still took them. Tucked them away to a safe place. I’d replay them later with his raspy voice in my mind I could feel moving closer to me.

I shook off the haze of lust. “Liam.”

“But you’re sad. Or lost or hiding. And trust me, sweetheart, I’m going to find out what it is and why, and I won’t rest until I do.”

I jumped at the threat. Turned to him and my hands curled into fists. It didn’t matter how he saw so much, I had to do a better job of hiding it. “What?”

His hand was on my cheek, fingertips brushing a chunk of my hair back and tucking it behind my ear. Adoringly. He watched his own movements and looked at me. Raked my skin with his eyes again and I felt it like he had me in his arms.

“I’m not an idiot, Claudia. You don’t want to tell me something, don’t tell me. But don’t lie to me. I fucking hate it.”

He waited a beat. Or two. My heart slammed into my ribs with a force that had to be audible. I could do nothing but stare at him.

Then he dropped his hand from mine and stepped back, rubbing the back of his neck, like he did so often. Nervous tick, maybe? I didn’t care.

I so cared.

He turned and pulled open the door to the bedroom with more force than necessary. “I’ll give you time to get settled. There’s a closet and dresser full of clothes for you. Help yourself and I’ll get food ready.”

Then he was gone, leaving me alone.

“Crap,” I whispered into the humid air and turned back to the ocean. “You made a mess of that, Claudia.”

The view had no answer for me. No vocal advice to give me as I stared at the waters, them seeming less beautiful when all I could see was the disappointment in Liam’s eyes.

What did it matter? He was paying me. I was playing a part. There weren’t emotions involved in this.

I couldn’t let there be.

“Stay focused,” I murmured. “And then be free to do whatever the heck you want.”

I nodded once. As far as pep talks went, it sucked, but it was all I had. I left the view of the ocean and returned to my room. I’d dressed in linen shorts for the trip and they were now wrinkly from the airplane ride. I wanted a quick shower, a change of clothes, and a few moments to pull myself together.

Then I’d head down to the kitchen and tell the truth. Coming from me would be better than hearing it from someone else.

Chapter Nine

Liam

After I left Claudia’s room, I went to mine at the end of the hall and shut my door. There, I walked out to my balcony and inhaled the rich, salty air. Damn, I loved it here. It didn’t have anything I needed, like my band or my instruments besides a couple guitars and a piano in a small music room. I couldn’t record an album or plan a tour from this place, but Claudia was right.

It was always hell to leave and head back to the real world.

Whatever. I had bigger issues to deal with and that was currently figuring out what the beautiful, little liar was hiding from me.

Shitty liar she was. It was one word but her voice still trembled when she spoke it. I spent my life around greedy bastards who wanted nothing more than to take, take, take. I recognized a liar from a mile away.

I hated liars and I hated surprises. Both of which typically had the ability to bite me in the ass.

I’d had enough surprises in the last year. I didn’t want to put up with more.

Debating what to do—call her on it and demand the truth or figure it out on my own, I kicked off my shoes and pushed down my shorts. Pulling off my shirt, I tossed it to the floor with the rest of my crap.

I’d pick it up later. I had a housekeeper, but she only came once a week when I was here. I was adult enough to clean up my own shit.

Naked, I turned on the shower that was exposed to the outside with a thick wall of window and stepped in. When I bought the place, I imagined paparazzi sitting in a boat off the shore and snapping photos of me with a long-range lens but it hadn’t happened in five years, so I quit worrying about it. In the early morning, when I was typically in the shower, the sun shone in such a way it was impossible to see through the glass anyway.

Blowing out a breath, I braced my hands on the wall and let the jets do their job, pounding against my shoulders and let the water run down my back. The last twenty-four hours had been stressful, but that wasn’t what had me tied into knots.

It was her.

I couldn’t get her out of my head and I rarely thought of a woman in any more than passing interest. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t fucked her yet.

And just like that, my dick hardened, balls throbbed.

“Shit,” I grunted, and ignored my physical reaction to Claudia and her round, tight ass. Her luscious tits that would fit in my palms perfectly. Her trim waist. Wide brown eyes and that creamy skin. I couldn’t stop wondering if she’d taste as delicious and sweet as she looked.

Grabbing the shampoo, I tossed a large amount into my hands and then scrubbed my black hair. It was shaggy and I needed a cut, and it didn’t matter that I was focusing on my hair, or taking the damn shower and cleaning up, my dick was still hard, still thinking of Claudia.

“Fuck it,” I muttered. It wasn’t the first time I’d jacked off to her and I was certain it wouldn’t be the last.

I wrapped my hand around my length and gripped myself firmly, the soap from my body made the slide and tug easy. Dropping my head, the water sluiced down my back and I wrapped my fingers around my head before sliding back down to my base.

I took it slowly, groaning in pleasure at the thought of how tight she’d be. How long it would take me to get in there.

I continued working myself, long and hard pulls, short and quick movements until my hips were thrusting against my closed fist.

My climax came quickly, mere minutes after I started. It coiled in my spine and radiated down to my balls. They pulled tight and I threw my head back, opening my eyes, and right as I came, I saw her…

Claudia.

On the patio a floor below, white short dress billowing out around her thighs, her hair blowing in the breeze.

But her eyes, those pretty, fucking beautiful brown eyes were on me. Cheeks pinkened, her lips were parted.

I couldn’t help myself. I stared at her, even while my orgasm left me, but my heart was pounding ferociously against my chest. She continued watching me, her gaze on my hand, not my face. My cock turned sensitive, and I shuddered beneath the warm water every time I wrapped my fingers around the tip but hell if I was stopping.

Because she was watching me jack off to thoughts of her and she didn’t realize I could see her.

Until she did. Her eyes jumped to mine and she turned quickly, scampering past the patio and down to the beach where she disappeared on the steps.

I quickly turned off the shower, toweled off, and threw on a pair of board shorts and slid into a pair of leather thong sandals.

Then I hurried after her.

Because she’d just told me what I’d been hoping—

I would have her…and it wouldn’t take as long as I originally thought.

Chapter Ten

Claudia

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

I rushed down the wooden stairs to the sea, burning like I’d been set on fire.

Everything inside me screamed at me to turn back, to go to him.

I couldn’t. No way in God’s green Earth was I going back to face Liam, not after he’d just totally caught me watching him get himself off.

My cheeks were hot, my whole body was. The shame and embarrassment of being caught watching him—heck watching him in the first place was embarrassing and shameful.

At first, when I’d stepped out onto the patio, I had gone looking for him, assuming he’d be in the kitchen. But when he wasn’t there, I walked outside to get a better view of the pool and the ocean. The last thing I’d expected to see when I turned around was the shadow of his body in the shower encased behind a glass wall but fully visible to me. Cloudy from water drops from the shower, I could still make out the darkened ink on his arms and when that arm began moving, my feet had cemented themselves to the patio, my eyes frozen on his body.

His hand. Moving. Jerking. Head bowed. Hips thrusting.

It’d taken me approximately two seconds to realize what he was doing. I was so lost in rapture watching him I hadn’t even realized he was watching me.

God, he was beautiful. Muscled everywhere, and I’d just seen most of them moving.

But I shouldn’t have watched.

You also shouldn’t have liked it so much.

Worse, he’d caught me. And just like I did in Savannah when caught and embarrassed, I did the first thing I could think of.

I ran.

On the beach, I continued running from his home, along the shore, my bare feet burned from the hot, white sand until I walked closer to where sea washed to shore. With my feet sinking into wet sand, I slowed to a walk and kept moving.

I wouldn’t go far. But I couldn’t stay and I couldn’t sit there waiting for him.

Oh God. How humiliating. I dropped my face into my hands and then pushed my hands back, gathering my hair into a fist at my neck. Barely long enough to pull into a ponytail I hadn’t even considered putting it up when I left the house.

My swimsuit cover dress continued flying up to my thighs and hips but I had the most conservative bikini on I could find beneath it.

And conservative was a stretch. A few triangles and strings in a navy and pink striped pattern, it barely covered my breasts yet everything in the closet was my size.

I’d been shocked before I remembered having to give my measurements to Karen.

It figured a man like Liam would have minions able to purchase an entire wardrobe for me and deliver it to the Caribbean in a day’s time.

God.

How was I going to face him again? Perhaps now I could tell him the truth. He’d be pissed, we could part ways, and he could find a new girl to sweeten up his public image. It certainly wasn’t going to be me.

I was going to sully him further.

Keeping my eyes on the teal, crystal-clear waters, I stayed on the edge of the shore, kicking the water and letting my feet sink into the mud.

It didn’t matter what I did, how much time I wasted. My thoughts continued drifting to Liam.

His body. His hand sliding. The bend of his arm that couldn’t disguise what he was doing. All that ink on his arms. His chest…and a completely bare back.

Closing my eyes, I huffed out a deep breath. I’d apologize. I’d get through the embarrassment, probably the teasing he’d dish out, and we’d move on.

By tomorrow, I should be on a plane back to New York, back at Karen’s assistant desk, and this whole ridiculous idea would be over.

Or you could stay and let that delicious man take you places you’ve only dreamed of.

“Or I could be an idiot and talk to myself,” I muttered to the water.

I wanted it. Wanted him. Wanted someone to relieve me of my V-status, but did I want it with a man who’d been with an untold number of women?

No.

Yes.

I could lie to myself but my body was showing how much it disagreed.

As I’d watched him, my physical response had been as obvious as what he was doing. My core had throbbed, clenched with excitement. My skin flushed. I could blame the embarrassment on the hot sensation singeing my blood.

Embarrassment and shame didn’t explain why my nipples were still hard. Still tingling.

Darn it.

Heaving another breath, I turned, intent on heading back to his house, to the difficult conversation awaiting me, and stopped short.

He was there.

Sitting on the bottom wood step that led to his patio and his beautiful house, the perfect mixture of beauty and Caribbean. A little bit Spanish-styled, a whole lot of perfect. I’d miss it.

I told myself I wouldn’t miss the man sitting on his ass, legs spread wide and bent. Feet buried in the hot sand and his forearms on his knees, hands dangling between them.

His gaze on me, even though his eyes were hidden beneath mirrored sunglasses, he had his head turned in my direction, watching me take slow, painful steps back toward him.

Good grief. What was I supposed to say to him? I like your shower? Great view?

If I was sassier, raised in a way that allowed me to speak my mind and not hide everything behind the perfect facade, I probably could.

“You hungry? I have prawns marinating and the rest of dinner prepared.”

He cooked. And heaven help me, but the idea of seeing him in a kitchen or working a grill was sexy.

I eyed him suspiciously.

“You’re not going to give me a hard time?”

A smirk twisted his lips and he rubbed his hands together. Oh God, the entendre.

“Do you want me to give you a hard time?”

I flushed from my roots to my toes. Shaking his head, his mop of thick black hair swished back and forth.

“No.” 

“I think I’ll give you a pass. You look either ready to flee or puke.”

“I’m not going to puke.”

Two brows rose above his frames. “But you are going to flee?”

It was now or never. Before whatever this was went any further, he had the right to know. “Why don’t we continue this inside?”

I stayed still under his silent inspection. I couldn’t see his eyes. But feel them? They touched every part of my exposed skin and some hidden ones.

“We’ll see.” Swinging out his arm, he gestured for me to lead the way. I stepped toward the stairs but he stopped me when I placed a hand on the railing. “I was trying to let it go. Planned on it.”

Oh…I felt that ‘but’ coming before he spoke it.

“But I gotta tell you, sweetheart. I really fuckin’ like that you saw me doing what I was doing earlier, especially since I was thinking of you while I was doing it.”

I gasped. I’d been mid-step as he spoke and I missed the step completely, wobbling as I gained my firm footing.

Who was I kidding? I wasn’t on firm anything. I was sinking.

In Liam.

I refused to show it.

Behind me, a soft chuckle fell over me, and I straightened my shoulders and spine.

“We need to talk.”

“Sure. As long as you realize for the next year you’re mine and nothing you’ll say will change that, I’m all for talking.”

I headed up the stairs, pretending I couldn’t feel his eyes glued to my backside the entire way.

Chapter Eleven

Liam

She pulled to a quick stop as soon as she reached the sliding doors that opened into the dining area and kitchen.

Slowly, her eyes wandered around the large space. She didn’t have to look at me or say anything to show her shock at the spread I had laid out after my shower. As soon as I stepped out, I planned on going to her, taking her.

Then I remembered my plan to seduce her. Win her. Tempt her. The victory after a hard-fought long game was always sweeter than a quick claiming, anyway. Still didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy watching her blush as I brought it up, though.

So, yeah, I was starting with dinner. I wasn’t just hungry, I had an unexplainable urge to prove to her I wasn’t some jackass rock star.

Despite the fame and the money and the multiple houses and all the amazing shit, sometimes just shitty shit, that came with my life, I was still just a guy raised in Kansas with decent fucking morals. I just happened to have a killer voice, hard work ethic, and a body that I worked hard to drive the ladies wild.

So, I’d let her run. She couldn’t go far and I’d bide my time. While waiting, I’d prepared the prawns that I’d throw on the grill soon. Then I made a Caesar salad, chopped up a bowl of fruit, and drizzled asparagus with garlic and coconut oil.

Next to all of it, sitting in a silver bucket filled with ice was a bottle of white wine.

“I’m impressed,” she said quietly, stepping up to the kitchen island. “And your island here is larger than my entire kitchen in New York.”

“Everything’s small in New York besides the city itself and the size of people’s egos and dreams.”

She shot me a look. I took off my sunglasses and shrugged. It was true. Most big cities felt that way to me.

“True,” she mumbled and turned back to the food. “Did you prepare this all yourself?”

I reached for the wine and glasses and grinned.

“What?”

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who gives very few answers.” Based on her flinch, I’d scored a direct hit. I filled the glasses with wine and set one in front of her. “You wanted to talk?”

Her thin fingers, nails painted the lightest pink color imaginable traced the edge of the wine glass before she took a sip. “I do.”

She faced me then, eyes raking over my face, my ink. Every time she stared at me, I felt it in my balls, especially when she always ended up gazing at the letters on my knuckles like she wanted to kiss each and every one.

I let her look. I was proud of my ink, and I liked the attention. She was the only one embarrassed whenever she realized what she was doing, but to me, she was playing right into my hand.

Shaking her head, the lust in her eyes cleared and she took another sip of wine. Before she set it on the counter, she said, “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Who I am, where I come from. There’s a lot you don’t know and I don’t think Karen told you. I’m enjoying my day here, but you might change your mind when I tell you that I’m probably the last person alive who can help you with your image you’re trying to fix.”

What the hell? My jaw tightened and I took a sip of my own glass of wine before moving to the fridge and grabbing the bowl of prawns. “I need food in me for this, don’t I?”

“Probably.”

“Then grab the food. Once we’re settled on the dining table outside, you can tell me what you think will shock the shit out of me so much that I’ll send home the woman I want in my bed.”

I winked, watched her blush spread to her throat and her hand reached up as if to stop the spread of heat.

What the fuck ever. She could have killed a man for all I knew and I wouldn’t give a shit.

I also knew the contract with Infidelity was ironclad. The only way out was through physical abuse for her and since I wasn’t going to lay a hand on Claudia in any way she didn’t enjoy, it wasn’t an issue.

Whatever the perfectly mannered beauty thought she could tell me wouldn’t matter. It would just make more work for not only my PR team, but Infidelity’s.

Giving her another moment, I took the wine bucket and prawns outside and flipped on the grill. While the grill heated, I slid the prawns onto skewers, paying attention as she hauled out the rest of the food.

Instead of sitting at the table and waiting until I was done, she stepped up next to me. “I’ve never used a grill before.”

“What?” I asked, a bark of laughter escaping me. “Seriously?” Hell, I’d started grilling with my dad every summer by the time I was twelve.

“Yeah. I had a chef that made all my meals.” Her voice went soft and her eyes looked to the horizon. I could tell she’d grown up with money. Something about the way she carried herself, the way while she was impressed and complimentary about my house, she wasn’t overly blown away either by the size of it or the private plane I’d chartered. This girl grew up in a life not that different to my current one. I settled in, continuing to fill the skewers and waited for her to keep talking about her life when she stilled me with a hand on mine.

“What?”

She grinned, lips twitched and for the first time since I’d seen her, uncertainty flared in her eyes. “Will you teach me?”

“To grill?”

“Yeah. And whatever you’re doing with the shrimp.”

“Prawns,” I corrected. “They’re larger and different.”

“And more delicious, I know.”

Her soft, warm hand was still on mine. The urge to wrap her hand in mine, entwine our fingers together and yank her against my chest hit me hard and fast like a right hook to the jaw. I focused.

End goal. Long game.

“All right then.” Turning off the grill, I started everything over so she could see how I lit the gas flames and then stopped and allowed her to do it.

As it re-warmed, we worked together, filling the remaining skewers. Claudia laughed and giggled as the seafood slipped through her fingers more than once. Turning to me, brown eyes wide and lit up like the fourth of July, she wiggled her fingers in front of my face. “My hands are messy.”

“You sound like it’s never happened before.”

She shrugged and wiped them on a towel. “I don’t think I was ever allowed to get dirty when I was younger.” A frown yanked her brows together and whatever was bothering her, she shook it off. “I’m not sure, despite how much money I had growing up, I really had all that much of a life, to be honest.”

Her gaze roamed the landscaping along the side of the patio and pool. I nudged her with my hip. “Here. Lay them on the grill like this. Seafood grills fast, only a few minutes on each side so you have to watch it.”

The thankful grin she gave me that I wasn’t pushing her or asking her more than she was willing to share, sent heat straight to my chest.

“You can finish up. I’ll refill our wine and bring out the plates and silverware.”

She walked away from me, doing what she said and when the dinner was done, I joined her at the table.

I gave her silence while we ate, accepted her compliments like a puppy wanted treats, and basically, acted like a lovesick moron.

But I was quickly learning. Beneath the girl hiding or running, there was another one…desperately dying to break free.

And I was going to be the man to bring it out in her.

***

Dinner was done and our wine was refilled. I’d given her time to gather her thoughts but I was done waiting. Whatever she needed to tell me, she needed to get on with it. The sun was starting to set and after a long day of travel, not to mention cooking, I needed some damn sleep. I also needed to get working on the songs I’d started on the plane ride down.

“So. You going to keep me in suspense much longer?”

Setting down her glass of wine, Claudia reached for the iPad I had on the table. It’d been used to play music but with a few clicks and swipes, the music was gone and she was looking something up. “It’s easier for me if you read it.”

Interest piqued, I leaned forward and set down my glass of wine.

“You’re constantly on covers of People Magazine and on TMZ and other shows and gossip rags,” she said while tapping and swiping, “but I don’t think you’ve been on Newsweek or The New York Journal.”

“No. Can’t say I have, sweetheart.”

She glanced at me, wide brown eyes now narrowed and sad. “Well, I have.”

“Why?” I attempted to tease. “Were you involved in some foreign espionage or something?”

“Not me,” she mumbled. “But it wouldn’t surprise me at this point. Here.”

She turned the iPad screen toward me and the first thing I saw was Claudia. Front and center on the screen, dressed in a fitted black dress that stopped just at her knees. She had on a black, wide-brimmed hat, eyes covered with large sunglasses. Her hair had been curled and bounced right on her shoulders, lips painted a deep, dark red. She held one single white rose in her fingers as well as a white handkerchief. Dressed like that, lips pressed into a frown, she was almost the startling image of a young, Jackie O.

“What the hell?” I asked as I read the headline.

Daughter of Georgia Supreme Court Judge Attends Funeral of Family’s Murder-Suicide.

And below the thick bold letters was a smaller, but still bold tagline.

Judge Keith Townsend and his wife, Sheila Townsend, were laid to rest today. Townsend took his life after murdering his own wife. Investigators believe the murder-suicide is connected to Judge Townsend’s relationship with Alton Fitzgerald and crimes both of have been accused of in recent months.

My ribs tightened around my heart, making breathing difficult. Holy fucking shit.

Across the table, Claudia had become a statue. Spine straight, lips pressed so tightly together they almost disappeared. Her gaze was on the iPad in my hands and even when I set it down, she didn’t turn away from it.

“Alton Fitzgerald is part of the Montague dynasty in Savannah. They essentially ran the city, the state, hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Alton thought he could run the country for as powerful as he was. He was also connected, and one of the men connected to him was my father.”

“The judge?” I asked but it was unnecessary. The image of Claudia on the screen was now burned into my mind’s eye forever.

“As Alton’s dynasty began crumbling, multiple crimes he’d had covered up over the last decade were revealed. At the center of many of them, my father was implicated.”

Her quivering chin was the only emotional glimpse this was killing her to tell me. Fucking Christ. I’d known she was hiding something, but nothing could have prepared me for this.

“Three months ago, my father sent me to the spa. Said I should have a day off to relax because he knew how much the stress of our life disintegrating had been on me.” She laughed sadly, wiped beneath her eyes even though she hadn’t shed a single tear. “I came home to our house surrounded by police cars and ambulances and a fire truck.” Dark, swirling chocolate eyes settled on me, and a chill doused my spine. “He’d called them after he shot my mother, before he took his own life. I learned later he even told the dispatcher he didn’t want me to be the one to find them.”

“The fuck?”

It was all I could say. There were no sympathies I could give this woman in front of me. Nothing I could say to take away the gut-wrenching pain she was dealing with, had been living with.

She shook her head and looked away, despair in her eyes but still the perfect posture, like she was afraid of being weak.

I scanned the article, learning everything I could in the silence that followed, and then I clicked on another dozen of them, scanning those.

Her father had shot her mother and killed himself because, from what sources said, neither wanted to continue living under the scorn and shame Judge Townsend had brought to his family. What a fucking dick.

Her proper manners and the way she carried herself started making sense. Claudia Townsend had been raised in wealth and prestige. She’d been raised to be perfect, a socialite among some of the wealthiest citizens of Savannah. Hell, if the courts hadn’t seized most of her father’s wealth, she wouldn’t have had to worry about working a day in her life again.

But they did seize her family’s wealth, most of it, anyway.

And she did have to work.

“This why you came to Infidelity?”

“No.” She shook her head again. Her laugh a little less sad and the smile on her lips remained a moment before she turned back to me and sipped her wine. “I came to New York to get away from the gossip and the scandal and wanted to blend in with millions. Plus,” she shrugged, “Karen is my mom’s sister. And my last remaining relative.”

“Karen is your aunt?”

“Her assistant is out on maternity leave so she offered me the temporary job there until I could get settled. Paid for my apartment for a year and furnished it.”

Which explained why when I was dealing with all the contractual bullshit, the living expenses had been drastically less than I’d considered they would be.

“So why are you here, then?” She didn’t need the money. Not twenty grand a month. She certainly didn’t seem all that impressed with my lifestyle. My body, maybe, but not my life.

Her tongue swiped her lips and my gaze stayed focused on hers while she rolled them together. I could practically see her debating what to tell me when she turned, pressed her palms to the glass tabletop.

“Because I needed the money to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. Because I had the perfect upbringing to be on some wealthy man’s arm for a year. And because I wanted to experience life outside the life of country clubs and societal expectations of me.”

That was part of the truth. Not all of it. “What else?” I pressed.

Her pause told me what I needed to know. What she wasn’t telling me was the crux of what she was looking for. What she wanted.

As her cheekbones turned a raspberry shade of red, I never, in a million years expected her answer to be what she said.

“Because I wanted to do something stupid and get rid of my virginity and I figured this was the safest way to do it.”

Chapter Twelve

Claudia

He gaped at me.

I’d done it. I’d completely thrown myself at his mercy and at his feet. Heck, I’d practically thrown myself at his cock, and all he could do was gape at me. I already knew the outcome of this.

There was no way he’d be willing to risk going public with me. Not after he spent several minutes reading what my life and my family had become. It was easier to show him than tell him. There was no way I could speak the words without breaking down and that wouldn’t happen.

“You…What? I’m sorry…can you repeat that?”

His shock was almost humorous. I didn’t smile. “In my life, my sole purpose of being raised was to become a wife and a mother. I wasn’t allowed to have a career after college but was forced into volunteering for a variety of organizations. Some of them were actually important to me,” I said. Some had been. Some like domestic abuse and rape crisis centers would still receive my money if I could no longer give them my time. I had enjoyed those nights when I knew the dirty money of the rich was going to help others who envied us but would despise us if they knew the truth.

And now they did…and no one envied me.

I was okay with that loss.

His tongue was pressed against his teeth and he continued to shake his head. Like rattling his brain could make any of that make sense if he tried. The harder he worked the more confusing it all became. I waved a hand in the air to try to dismiss the importance of everything.

“It doesn’t really matter, though. You’re in this position based on a scandal. And I should have told you, ensured Karen told you before you ever demanded I be your employee.” He all but snarled at the world, but I was getting used to thinking of myself like that. He’d bought me. I’d give him me. In a year…whatever…it didn’t matter anymore. “Had I known it was you that wanted to hire me so quickly, I wouldn’t have agreed. But Karen assured me I wouldn’t be unsafe—”

“You won’t be.” He hit the button on the iPad and blanked the screen, shoving it out of his way with more force than necessary. “And I don’t give a shit about your family. Marker Entertainment has the best PR team in the country, even if they haven’t proven it lately with me. And I know of Infidelity’s team. We’ll figure it out because there’s no way in hell you’re leaving. Not after that bombshell you just dropped in my lap, sweetheart.”

He was thinking with his dick. Not entirely unexpected, just disappointing.

“It does matter. If you let me stay here, someone finds us and it gets leaked, you’re not on the verge of being ruined, you’ll be destroyed. Your purpose with Infidelity was supposed to save your reputation. Not set it off like a bomb. Think about this, Liam.”

“Oh. I’m thinking about everything you’ve said to me.”

I all but rolled my eyes and filled my wine glass. Taking a sip larger than proper, I then pushed off my chair and paced to the grill.

He’d taught me to cook. It was simple. Not even a full lesson, but it’d been fun. I grew up with chauffeurs and housekeepers and chefs and nannies. I hadn’t had to fold my own laundry or wash my own clothes or dishes until I went to college, and even then, I usually took it home and let someone else handle it. I was useless, really.

No one had really taught me much in life other than how to be perfect and mannerly and poised.

My hand brushed over the front of the grill. “You don’t mean that.”

The heat of his front hit me swift and hard, like I’d thrown the flames on the grill on high. “I do mean that.” He was behind me. Chest brushing my back. Hands on the outside of mine on the grill. He’d caged me in before I knew he was coming and I didn’t even want to push him away. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean, so learn that lesson first, Claudia. Second, everything you’ve told me tonight explains why Anne phoned me last night having a shit fit about my plans to bring you here.”

“What?” I spun so quickly, wine sloshed over the rim of the glass. Then I realized my mistake. I was now facing Liam. Chest to chest. My eyes jumped to his. “You knew?”

“No.” He brushed a hand through his hair and his grin was disarming as he shrugged. “Ignored her call. I didn’t feel like listening to her bitch, but I can guarantee you that right now, she’s working her ass off to uncover anything related to you or your family, and she’ll have a plan of action the next time I speak to her.”

“Impossible. There’s not a good way.”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

My mouth snapped shut. Opened. Closed again. I had nothing left to say. And he wasn’t asking me to leave. Not yet.

Lifting a hand, his finger settled at my ear and he took a chunk of my hair in his fingertips. “See the thing is, I’m pretty used to getting what I want, and before you even told me that delicious morsel of information about you, I’ve already decided I was going to have you. But now I know, my plan was right.” His gaze shifted to me. I was stunned. Silent. Molten lava was bubbling all over my lower stomach, making me hot and shivery at the same time.

“What plan?”

“My plan to seduce you. To move slowly. Trust me, everything you give me in return will be reward enough for your company.”

“What?” I cleared my throat. God, it was dry and he was so close I couldn’t bring my wineglass between us. “What are you going to do?”

He drifted closer. His chest brushed against mine. Something else of his brushed against my stomach. My breath caught and I couldn’t move away from him. He smelled like coconut and aloe, the sweet hint of wine on his breath as he dipped his mouth toward me. He skated his lips over my cheek, to the corner of my mouth, back to my ear. “Whatever I want. Whenever I want. I’m going to tease the hell out of you, drive you crazy with need until you decide I’ve earned the right to be the first man to sink inside of what I already know will be the hottest, tightest, and sweetest pussy on the whole damn planet. I won’t take that until you offer it, but make no mistake, at some point before we leave this island, you’ll give yourself to me.”

My knees wobbled. My breath stalled. My heart pounded like the opening race at the Kentucky Derby. Everything shook inside me. He’d created a volcano with words alone and I already knew he was right.

Someday, everything he made me feel was going to erupt.

I just hoped like hell he didn’t throw it into the trash once the flames were ash.

Chapter Thirteen

Liam

Two weeks later

Claudia was shimmying her tight little ass to the ear-piercing drawls of country music when I walked into the kitchen.

In the last two weeks, we’d talked. A lot. I’d taken my time, my palms callused, not from playing my guitar and writing new music, but because of the number of times I jacked off every day to thoughts of when she’d give herself to me. We laughed, we swam in the ocean, and ate lunch on the beach. We played basketball in the pool, went out to eat in the small local town. I’d taken her out on a fishing tour where she smoked my ass in bringing in a small shark. I was loving every damn thing I was learning about Claudia.

But her taste in music was shit.

“For the love of God,” I groaned, pressing my finger and thumb into my eye sockets. “Can’t we keep the squawking off until I’ve had coffee? Or better yet,” I snapped my fingers, “all the time?”

She turned to me from her place at the counter where she was dicing cantaloupe and muskmelon and smirked. “Sam Hunt does not squawk. He’s swoony.”

I shook my head and stole a chunk of cantaloupe on my way to the coffeepot. “Swoony my ass. I know men who are worth swooning over.”

She laughed. Probably because I was saying things like ‘swoon.’

“Yeah? Who?”

I’d done exactly as I promised her I would two weeks ago. I touched Claudia when I was close to her. When I walked by her, I’d often drag a finger against the small of her back. Tiny touches, gentle ones that always let her know that not only was I thinking of her, but I wanted to sink my dick deep inside her. In two weeks, my fascination with her hadn’t changed a damn bit.

I did the same thing now. With my full cup of coffee, I set it down next to her on the counter and moved in until my chest was pressed against her shoulder. With one fingertip, I trailed a path down the alabaster cream of her throat. We’d spent hours every day in the sun and she barely had a tan. I had a newfound appreciation for sunscreen and the wide-brimmed hats she wore to keep her face and shoulders sunspot free.

“Come on, sweetheart. You have to know other men who are more swoon-worthy than Sam Hank.”

“Hunt,” she corrected with a scowl. I knew Sam. I was just fucking with her because I liked her irritated little looks. “And no. I’m not sure I know a man who’s sexier than him.”

She turned back to her task of cutting up fruit, but I wasn’t deterred. She trembled when I touched her flesh and her lips parted. Eyes went hazy.

“Liar,” I whispered. I was close enough to brush my lips against her ear. Her cheek. It wouldn’t be the first time I did it, but I liked teasing her. I went closer, lips brushing along her ear and her jaw. “You know another man sexier than Sam. Admit it. A rock star, perhaps? Someone who plays the electric guitar, who has tattoos you can never stop staring at?”

She shuddered. My dick hardened. I couldn’t wait until she made those sounds and movements beneath me. On top of me. Below me on her hands and her knees with her eyes blindfolded and her wrists tied to my headboard.

She was turning me into a kinky fucker, but I had nothing but fantasies, and I’d fucking fantasized everything and then some.

“You’re right. Ed Sheeran is pretty hot, too.”

I slammed a hand to my chest and barked out a laugh. “You’re killing me, Claudia. Ed? That ginger? Over me?”

Her own shoulders shook with laughter and she popped another chunk of cantaloupe into her mouth. The juice ran down her fingers and I couldn’t look away. All that sweetness. The juice, her fingers, her lips.

I stepped back and adjusted myself, groaning. “Fuck, sweetheart. What are you doing to me?”

For once, she truly looked innocent. “What?”

I shook my head and scooped a healthy amount of fruit into a bowl for me and grabbed a fork.

In two weeks, we’d somehow settled into some sort of domestic routine I never knew I’d enjoy until I had it.

I woke up early and worked out. Went to my small studio room and worked on music. At some point while I was scribbling lyrics and playing the guitar and keyboard, Claudia woke up. She usually went for a swim in the pool and by the time I took a break from work, she was preparing breakfast for us.

The first time she’d done it, I told her she didn’t have to.

She ignored me and kept doing it so I stopped scolding her. She needed something to do to feel like she was “earning her keep.”

I had to stop myself a dozen times for telling her that contract or not, I was keeping her.

She captivated me. From her classiness to her silliness, every time we explored a part of the island or sat on the beach— talking, because I couldn’t fuck her—she continued pulling me toward her with words and laughter.

Two weeks and unlike any other person in my life, parents and Sophie included, she hadn’t yet annoyed the shit out of me.

“So, are we doing anything today?” she asked, forcing my gaze from my breakfast to her lips. God, I loved her mouth. Her top lip had two perfect points on it, a fuller bottom lip. She hadn’t worn a lot of makeup since we’d been here and she was flawless with pink lips that made me wonder what her nipples looked like when I’d finally get to suck on them.

I groaned and shook my head. “Haven’t thought of anything.”

“Do you have to work?”

“Finished a song earlier. It’ll sound like shit until I get with the band to figure out the accompaniment, though. It’s pretty rough.”

“Can I hear it?”

My brows popped up and my fork full of melon froze halfway to my mouth. In two weeks, she’d never asked to hear my music. I didn’t flaunt it. Perhaps she tried to leave me alone while I did my thing. But I was still beginning to wonder if she even liked my music considering all she blasted was country crap.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Of course. Now?”

Indecision twisted her lips and she looked out the windows behind me. “Or whenever. When will you see the band again?”

“Do you mean when are we headed back to New York?” Anne was on my ass to get back to town and make a damn song that will go platinum, but the longer I was on Anguilla, the more I was appreciating the break from stress and people and noise and deadlines. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about it.”

“But we will go back? Or will we go to L.A.?”

“What’s with the sudden need to have an itinerary?”

She flinched and shook her head. Dumping a few uneaten pieces of fruit into the garbage bin, she then loaded everything into the dishwasher.

“Claudia? What is it?”

“It just feels like I’m hiding. I’ve liked it here, don’t get me wrong,” she said quickly, jerking her head to me. I could see the stress around her eyes, the tightness of her shoulders. “I like being here. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to fall, so to speak. I guess until I know how bad the fallout is going to be, I can’t really relax.”

“So, what? You want to head back? Rip it off like a Band-Aid?” We’d talked about it. Did we leak our relationship slowly? Did we come out as friends first, despite the fact we’d almost always be together? Or did we just act like the couple we were supposed to be—the one I was paying her to be. Fuck, I hated that damn contract.

Despite the way she leaned into me, despite how I knew she was attracted to me physically, and maybe even liked me, I wanted more from her. I wanted something real and with the damn contract hanging around my throat like a noose, I’d never know if she was being genuine or playing me.

“I don’t know, Liam.” Her shoulders fell. Hands mindlessly twisting a rag, I watched her as she stared out the windows over the kitchen sink. She was six feet away from me, but a million miles at the same time.

I couldn’t stand seeing her like that. Since the night we talked about her dad, I’d done everything I could to keep sadness and grief from creeping into her eyes. Pushing off my chair, I walked around the island until I was behind her. My hands settled on the counter just outside her hips. Even though I knew she could see my reflection in the window behind her, she didn’t move. Didn’t react at all to my presence.

And that just wouldn’t do.

I brushed her hair off her shoulder, holding it with one hand so the shorter strands didn’t fall back to her neck.

“What do you want, Claudia?” I leaned forward, my nose at the skin of her neck. I inhaled her sweet scent. She’d started using coconut flavored body wash when we arrived and it was delicious. I’d never be able to look at a coconut again without getting hard. She enraptured me, and I was a man on the edge.

Two weeks of fighting the pull against her and I was exhausted from the constant strain of withholding.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked again, my lips were at her shoulder, bared with only thin straps of a tank top I knew covered her strapless swimsuit. God, she was tempting.

Delicious and mine, even if it was only on paper.

“I don’t know.” She gasped a bit, her voice catching as I did what I’d been fighting against. Tasting her, truly tasting her in any meaningful way. My lips pressed against her shoulder and my tongue flicked her flesh. Salty and sweet, there would never be another taste that compared to this woman. Small and petite, I had to bend down to taste her. Her body was lithe and lean, gentle muscles popped on the backs of her arms as she braced herself. She spent an hour swimming every morning and she’d been in great shape before she arrived. Now, only after being here a short time, there was more definition all over her athletic frame.

My dick urged me forward, to press myself against her backside, to pull her hips back and push her cut off shorts to her feet, followed by the bottoms of her bikini.

“I know what I want to do to you,” I murmured. I was pushing harder than I had yet. But the thought of us leaving here before she gave herself to me? Wasn’t going to happen. “I know what I want to do with you.”

My hand at her hair fell. Strands of her brown hair fell into my face and I closed my eyes and shook off the tickling sensation. My other hand skimmed down her arm until it was over her hands. Curling our fingers together, I held her hand tightly beneath mine. My other was still white-knuckling the counter, fighting the urge to dig into her hips. To spin her around. To lift her and step between her spread thighs before bending to taste her in that same area.

She hadn’t responded, but her body trembled, back straightened as if she was having difficulty fighting against the onslaught of what was happening between us. What would happen between us.

What she’d ask to happen between us.

“What’s holding you back, sweetheart? And what can I do to prove to you how good this could be between us?”

“Liam.”

Her voice rolled my name on a tortured groan, pulled from her like she hadn’t wanted to say it. In the window reflection, I could see her lids had fallen. Pink colored her cheeks and her pulse rapidly beat against the sensitive skin behind her ear. I touched her everywhere I could reach with my lips. Inhaled her scent, the feel of her, the tiny little set of two matching moles she had just beneath her hair at her nape, the only marking I’d seen on her body anywhere. I catalogued every inch of her shoulders and neck, fighting the control, losing it.

“I’ll do anything you want. Just say the word.”

I licked the lobe of her ear, nipped it with my teeth before pressing against her. I was so damn hard I could pound through cement. My abs tightened with the force of not thrusting forward. My stomach ached with the need to move, my ass sore from trying to stay still. She was so damn succulent. Sweet and beautiful and relaxed and way better than anyone I had ever been with before. I was totally outshooting my range with Claudia, despite the millions I had. It wasn’t about money, it was about character and she beat every person I knew.

“Stop, please,” she whispered. Her hand beneath mine flexed. “I can’t. I can’t do this with you.”

“Sure you can,” I said. “I’ll even teach you, and I promise you. I’ll be very patient with you.”

Chapter Fourteen

Claudia

Every time Liam brushed his hands along any part of my body, he pulled a string, unraveling me from the inside out. He was always so perfect in his intent and desire along with his control. We hadn’t done anything overtly sexual up until now but he still proved the kind of lover he would be.

Focused. Determined. Patient yet unyielding.

I desired nothing more than to turn around and place my palms on his cheeks, to tug him down toward me and feel our lips brush against each other.

But was it real? Or was it because I was the only woman around?

We shared a lot over the last couple weeks. He acted like he cared. He held my hand when we walked along the beach. He opened doors and waited until I was seated when we ate dinner on the patio until he took his own seat. This was a man who was raised with manners and morals that eclipsed even possibly mine. Yet he was also a performer. He knew how to work a crowd until every woman, man, and sometimes child in attendance was hypnotized by not only his body and his moves but his voice, the way he pulled his lyrics from deep in his gut as if he believed, wholeheartedly, through his soul every single one of them.

He worked a crowd like a king, and he had drawn me into his web.

Standing in front of him now, my breath rioting inside my chest, I played all the scenarios in my head, the visuals I’d thought of late at night when my hands drifted beneath the waistband of my underwear.

I was having a difficult time coming up with reasons inside myself to deny him.

“Liam,” I said, more like a moan being tugged from my throat than a word. I shook my head and it fell forward, baring my neck to him where he did mind-numbingly beautiful things with his lips and his tongue.

“You have these two, tiny little moles, right here,” he murmured, his lips pressing around the marks I knew were there. “They’re enticing. The only part of your beautiful body that isn’t so perfectly pure.”

“I have more,” I gasped as his teeth joined his tongue and he teased the tendons on the side of my neck.

“God, don’t tell me that. I want to find them. Taste them. Suck them.”

Oh Lord. My nipples were painful, hardened peaks beneath my bikini and tank top. They ached to be massaged. Pressure was building everywhere inside me, fanning outward. I arched against him, craving him without realizing I’d done so until I felt his arousal at the small of my back.

“Fuck, sweetheart. You’re killing me.”

I was wearing down. Aroused. More turned on than I could remember being. I’d dated boys. Kissed them and fooled around. My virginity was what I clung to, to push them away, because none of them, not a single boy or college man I’d been with had driven me achingly mad like the man currently behind me.

The man who wasn’t really mine.

The thought chilled me and I shivered.

I wanted Liam Allistor. I wanted his laughs and his touches and his kisses.

I wanted his heart. I wanted whatever we were building to be real.

Unexpectedly, I’d begun seeing past the facade and the rock star persona I assumed he carried with him at all times. In the last two weeks, we’d laughed about his sister. His demon-spawned nephew as Liam called him, though his real name was Kevin Junior after his father. He talked about his niece, Ella Belle, who wanted nothing more than at the age of six to be in a library with the Beast from her favorite movie.

He told me about life growing up outside Kansas City where homes were sprawled on acres and they caused hell in cornfields with bonfires and kegs in the summers.

His life wasn’t so different than mine, just without the loaded expectation to be perfect.

Now, he was simply a man. A beautiful, breath-stopping magnificent man who made it clear he wanted me. At least my body.

But every time I came close to giving in, to allowing him to do all the wonderful things he promised, I remembered that this wasn’t real.

I was a warm, attractive body at his disposal and regardless of how many times I tried, I couldn’t move past the idea that if I gave my body to him, I was no better than a street-walking prostitute, selling my body to pay the bills, even if I had told him that was one of my intentions in begging Karen to take me on as an Infidelity in the first place.

My morals were too strong to be tossed away for a caseload of Benjamin Franklins. Imagine that, my father who did anything for a sick and depraved man in order to earn those Franklins, raised a daughter who still had the ability not to be led around by them.

“Liam, please. Stop.”

He must have sensed the desperation in my voice because the weight of him at my back vanished. Cool air replaced the heat from his chest currently covered in a gray T-shirt with Fender in bright yellow scrawled across the front.

I turned, holding myself up at the counter with my hands curled around the edges of cool, gray marble. When the sun hit it just right, it sparkled like it contained a hint of glitter and something about knowing his sister somehow added glitter to the design of an otherwise masculine and comfortable home always made me grin.

It didn’t now. Now, my heart sank to my knees as Liam backed away from me. His hands tugged at his hair and his head was tipped back, revealing a hint of his black hair above his waistband. And his arousal was clearly evident. Large and bulky at the top of his thigh.

I could barely look away. I stared at the refrigerator behind him and blinked harshly, mentally cooling myself.

“I’m sorry,” I choked.

His expression pained, his lips twisted as he turned and tugged at what I knew was him adjusting himself. “Just give me a minute.” He all but growled the words and my heart sank further. I had been leading him on, knowing every single time he touched me I didn’t know if I could go further.

Yet I hadn’t been honest with him about why. If I were him, I’d be all scowling and growly too, just like he was.

But perhaps there was something I could do to ease his pain, at least the one I’d physically brought on.

I walked toward him, knees trembling and thighs shaking. My nipples were still hard and my fingertips tingled at what I was about to do.

I stopped behind him and slid my hand up the length of his back, to his shoulder and back down to his hip. He shivered and jolted at my unexpected touch and his head turned to look at me over his shoulder. “I told you to give me a minute, Claudia.”

Not sweetheart or princess, the two nicknames he’d donned me with the last couple of weeks.

“I was wondering if I could help you.” My voice shook and my fingertips buzzed like live wires were growing from my nail beds. A thick lump grew in my throat as his brows arched high on his head and then narrowed.

He shook his head. “No.”

“I want to,” I said, already running my hand at his hip toward his stomach.

His hand clasped over mine when I reached the string of his board shorts, tightening my fist beneath his until my knuckles ached. “What the fuck are you doing?”

For two weeks, he’d been nothing but honest. For two weeks, I’d lied to him. It felt shitty. The least I could have done was spurned his advances but I didn’t because I just liked them—and him—so darn much.

My forehead fell to his back, his shoulder too high to take the fall and I shrugged. Tears were already pooling in my eyes because everything was crashing down on me. Life. Him. Desire. Morals. Ethics. Lust for a man who knew how to touch me, multiple times every day, to bring me to this boiling point where I might not have been offering myself to him, but offering to help him instead.

“I’m helping you,” I whispered, straggled words torn from my throat. “I want to.”

I wiggled my hand beneath his. The scratch of his callused palms and fingertips scraped against the back of my hand. And never in my life would I think that would send shivers up my arm to my chest.

“Fucking hell. Why?”

I spilled the truth before I could stop myself. “Because I’m scared of you touching me, but I want to touch you.”

He tightened like I’d slammed him into a wall. Yanking my hand off his, he twisted and grasped me by the shoulders. “Scared?” Ice blue eyes were narrowed, shooting fire and disgust in that way and I realized what I said.

“Not of you. God, no, I’m not scared like that.”

He threw his hands to his sides, dragging my gaze to his erection, still jammed inside loose fitting shorts and God, it looked beautiful.

Is this what he felt like? The unstoppable desire to have his hands on all my hidden places. Every time I fell asleep I still envisioned seeing him in the shower, and dreams would pull me under until sometimes he was standing inches front of me, like he was now, wearing nothing but a thick leather cuff on his wrist and a hand over his dick as he stroked himself in front of me.

And other times the dreams morphed to the day he saw me staring at him and instead of finishing, watching me watch him, he yanked me into the shower with him uncaring and clueless about getting the cover-up I was wearing wet, and he dropped to his knees, threw my legs over his shoulders while pushing me against the glass walls and placed his mouth exactly where I was currently soaking wet.

“Crap on a cracker.” I pressed my palms to my cheeks. Was I that hot? Maybe I had a fever. Maybe I was becoming delirious. It would explain so much.

“I would give you a million dollars to know what just flashed through your mind while you were staring at my dick like you could already taste it.”

I huffed, shook my head and tried to move but he reached out and grabbed me.

“God, we’ve made a mess of today.”

“No mess made, yet.” His voice carried that teasing tilt, the one he used when he read something sexual in my innocent words. “But there’s still time.”

I laughed. He did that to me. Pulled me out of my head and into the present where it was just us and lust and attraction. But was it enough? In the solace of a private beach and a fancy home on a secluded island, maybe. But back home? In the real world?

“What are you scared of?” he asked. Liam tugged me to him slowly, giving me time to pull away but I went with him, stepping until my chest brushed against his and I was tilting my head back and looking at him.

So beautiful. Chiseled and strong and a few lines that showed not his age, but the stress he carried with him. I reached up and brushed my thumb across a visible line on his forehead.

“You,” I whispered. I wet my dry lips with my tongue and started over. “Every time you touch me, it scares me. It makes me want to…” Good grief. Prim and proper princess couldn’t even say it to him. Not with his lips lifting at the corners of his mouth. Eyes twinkling.

“Want to, what…fuck?”

He stepped forward. I was still pressed against his chest and then I was sandwiched between him and the island.

“No. Not fuck.” I squeezed my eyes closed, visions returning I didn’t want. Not then. But they couldn’t be stopped. “You know what I meant, Liam.”

“I know. But you’re sexy as hell when you blush.”

“You’re horrible.”

“I’m not.” And he sounded like he meant it. Like he was so certain of the man he was and it only left me more befuddled, because who in the hell was I without the Townsend name and privilege?

“I know you’re not. You’re a good guy.”

“Geez. Call me nice, next. That might make my dick finally go soft.”

“You’re…” I glanced down. Couldn’t be helped. And yep. He was still hard. I looked over his shoulder. “Wow.”

“That’s more like it. So tell me why you’re scared. I’ve got nothing to do today besides hold you right here until you start talking.”

He would do it, too. Last week, I refused to choose which movie to watch. He wanted action. I wanted romance. Typical. Instead, he sat on the couch, remote pointed at the massive television in his theater room, but his gaze didn’t leave me. It took ten minutes until I cracked and named something. Felt like a millennium. If anything, he was stubborn to his very sexy and built core.

Blowing out a breath, I tried to erase all my thoughts, all my fears. But I wanted him to see them. To see what a mess I was. Who knew, maybe he’d run so far me cashing in my V-Card wouldn’t be an option.

“Every time you touch me, I want you. But when I think of giving in, I think of you paying. And then I just feel….icky.”

His chest froze when I mentioned paying and didn’t relax when I was done.

Slowly, his head fell to mine. His lips at the top of my head, his nose brushed against my hair and his hand still holding my arm swept to my back.

He was hugging me. Cuddling me even though we were on our feet, and he stood there, saying nothing, just our heartbeats, mine pounding in my ear echoed his I felt against his chest. And at my stomach…his cock hardened.

I pushed my hand between us and his breath went ragged as I cupped him. Felt him for the first time, and even behind clothing, I could feel him twitch in my grasp. He turned his head, his cheek against the top of my head and he groaned. “Claudia.”

“I want to do this.” I ran my hand against him. He was thick. Long. It pulsed in my hand again and as Liam groaned again, power surged inside of me.

This man had a stable of women he could use to get off whenever he wanted. I was certain of it. Last year, he was listed on Forbes’s Top 10 Highest Paid Entertainers. He made more millions in a year than I’d see in a lifetime. He had groupies and fan sites and millions of followers on social media accounts. I knew that because I was one of them.

I was just me, messed up and broken, and hiding so many important things. Yet I was doing this to him.

“Please,” I whispered, my voice shaking out the plea.

His hand tangled in my hair, gripping it fiercely, but he said nothing except trembled as I held him firmly in my hand, stroking.

I took his silence as acquiescence and slid my hand to the ties at his waist, tugging the string slowly and giving him time to pull away but he didn’t. Instead, his breath skated across my skin, his head tilting until his lips were at my ear.

“Fucking hell.”

I grinned against his chest, kissing his covered skin.

His shorts untied, he let go of me just enough to shove his shorts to the floor and I saw him. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from the vision of his hard, thick— and holy hell—really long cock as it stood between us.

My hand wrapped around him, feeling the hot, pulsing weight in my hand and I shivered.

“You’re going to have to move that hand, sweetheart, or I’m going to come just from you staring at me.”

I wanted to see into his eyes, watch the tightness in his features of his face as I slowly began pleasuring him, but my gaze stayed fix on my hand as I moved it slowly toward the tip, sliding my fingers around the ridge of his head, the tip as pre-cum leaked from him and onto my fingers.

He was so beautiful. I wanted to yank off his T-shirt so I could watch his stomach tighten, explore the hair on his chest, and kiss his ink, embed the taste of him into my brain.

“You’re perfect,” I said, “And you feel so good.”

I stroked and pulled, teasing light touches and harder, intentional ones, keeping him off-balance with my rhythm while he groaned. He rocked into my hold and his hand in my hair gripped me fiercely.

“Claudia,” he groaned, sending vibrations from my ear to spine, and further south. I was wet. Hot. Flushed and a bit sweaty but I couldn’t stop myself from doing this. It felt too good. It felt too right. “Let me touch you.”

My movement on him faltered and I closed my eyes at the thought. The vision. In his kitchen. Exotic island. Touching each other before we’d cleaned up from breakfast.

I nodded my head faintly, too speechless to answer. His hand pressed between us, to my inner thigh, beneath the hem of my cut-off sweats that barely covered my ass and then he was there. Two thick, callused fingers pushed into my bikini from beneath, rubbing against me through my fabric.

“I can feel how wet you are.”

“You can take them off,” I gasped as he hit the right place.

“I get you naked and my dick won’t be in your hand anymore. It’ll be inside you.”

I was an idiot for my outburst earlier. I should have taken him. Should have let him do all the things he wanted to teach me. Patiently.

I didn’t want patient and kind and gentle. With him throbbing in my hand, pre-cum leaking and his balls pulling tight, he was already close.

I was closer. My hips jerked against him, and his hand on my hair moved to my ass, holding me tightly against him while I fought the overwhelming sensation.

“Shit, sweetheart,” he grunted as I slid my hand down his length to his tip. He swelled beneath my touch. Our breaths went erratic. Both of our chests were heaving and every time he brushed against my clit, tiny, needy sounds escaped my throat. I stared at the vision. Two arms, tangled together, hands moving. Hips rocking.

Giving myself to him fully would be the things fantasies were made of. I pictured it, him sliding his thickness into me for the first time. Taking me. I lost the hold. My climax hit me hard and fast and right as I began to come, he followed me. Spurts of creamy liquid fell into my hands, hit my stomach, my shirt, and my shorts. I forced my eyes to stay open, watching everything as he continued his flicking, pressing, pushing against me and I collapsed against him, shivering from the onslaught and the suddenness of it all.

I was wrong before.

Liam touching me didn’t scare me.

Liam Allistor terrified the hell out of me and everything he made me feel. But it didn’t matter what we said here or for the next year. He would never be fully mine.

I was already promised to another, and I still knew that at some point, he was coming to collect.

Chapter Fifteen

Liam

Good freaking Christ. My breath trembled and my knees were shaking so hard when she finally let me go, I stumbled backward almost tripping over my shorts pooled at my feet.

That had to have been the hottest thing I’d ever seen. Or ever done. Getting someone off like Claudia, pure and so damn perfect, made my dick still hard even after she jacked me so hard I thought my balls might explode.

I yanked up my shorts, grunting as I caught the waistband over my dick and pulled my hands down my face.

“Fucking hell, Claudia. What was that?”

She gaped at me, hands still covered in my cum, shirt and shorts wet, and still flushed from the orgasm I gave her. All at once, like I hadn’t just had the orgasm of my damn life, she turned and washed her hands at the kitchen sink.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“Shouldn’t have made me come so hard I thought I was going to die? Yeah,” I laughed. I was fucking laughing. She’d pulled my brain through my dick and I couldn’t see straight. Much less think clearly. “Yeah, that was a bad thing. Definitely.”

She wiped her hands on a towel and peered at me, uncertain. “You’re teasing me.”

God. This girl. Had she never been teased? Or given a fucking compliment?

“Yeah. I’m teasing you. That was so damn hot I’m still shaking.” I held out my hands to prove it to her but didn’t stop walking closer. I hadn’t made out with a girl, fingered her through her clothes since I was fifteen years old and Mary Baker took me into the woods during a summer bonfire and dared me to kiss her. We dated for six months and she was my first. It wasn’t fucking pretty. It was sloppy and over too damn quick, but I’d learn enough in the few months before it took us to go all the way on how to make sure a girl got off before I did.

I’d mastered it since, but sliding my fingers against Claudia’s silky and hot slit had almost been my undoing.

My palms went to her cheeks and without thinking, without hesitation, I yanked her to me until I was pressing my lips against hers. She was ramrod straight, stunned by my move, but quickly relaxed, melted into me. Her hands splayed at my hips, drifted to my back, up and beneath my shirt and then we were moving, heads tilting and tongues sliding and gasping and moaning into each other’s mouths.

And it was insane, this feeling I had for this woman I barely knew but thought of whenever she disappeared from my sight. There was something about Claudia that brought out protective instincts I hadn’t had since Sophie was fucking raped at her first keg party in college, when she called me battered and abused and bleeding from her lip and her cheek when some assholes with small dicks had punched her before tearing off her underwear and assaulted the hell out of her.

I was only sixteen, barely old enough to drive when she’d called me, freaking out. I’d hauled my ass to Lawrence, took her to the police station and then as soon as she’d told me where she was partying, I stormed out of there and proceeded to rain down my own brand of justice before cops showed up, arrested us all, and let me off with a warning and ten hours of community service.

Why did I get off so easily? Because every fucking officer knew they’d do the same damn thing if it was their daughter or their sister or any fucking girl they’d ever said hello to.

Claudia evoked that same damn anger and jealousy and the thought she’d touched other men made me want to slide my tongue so far into her mouth my taste would be branded on her permanently.

Fuck the contract. This girl was so far beyond three pieces of paper and a signed name on a dotted line to me.

I slowed the kiss, keeping my dick away from her where I knew she’d feel how hard I still was. Or again. I had no damn idea but I couldn’t push this farther.

Not yet.

Pressing my forehead to hers, I maintained my hold on her cheeks. Our breathing was harsh, panted, the only sound in the room and it wrapped me in warmth. My hips stung from where she clung to me and I wanted her to press harder. Dig her nails into my hips and ass and back and leave marks on me.

Because I sure as hell planned on marking her. Everywhere.

Fuck. I hadn’t even sunk inside of her and I was already claiming her. Fucking or not, contract or not, this woman was mine.

I didn’t give a shit what the paps said. What happened after we left. I was debating getting on a flight home and getting the shitstorm and gossip over with so we could move on when she pulled back.

Her lips twitched, fighting a grin and she made a face. “I should go get cleaned up.”

My cum had already dried on her shirt and her shorts but who could blame her.

“All right.” I kissed her nose. The corner of her upturned lips. The pink hue on her cheek and her eyebrow. “Come to my studio when you’re done. I want to play something for you.”

“Okay,” she whispered softly.

“Also, before you walk away and re-think everything that happened here this morning, I want you to know I don’t regret a single second of it. Best damn morning and breakfast of my life, Claudia, and I’m not shitting you. You okay with everything?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, nibbled on her bottom lip and grinned. “I don’t regret it either.”

“Good.” I kissed her again and stepped back. Hands on my hips, I kept my eyes glued to her until she moved around me, left the kitchen and disappeared around a corner at the top of the stairs.

Once she was gone, I cleaned myself up in the downstairs bathroom and headed to the music room.

I was playing at the keyboard when she arrived, chords and melody that made no sense and weren’t necessarily a song, but sitting on the bench, keys beneath my hand was almost as calming as having the strings beneath my fingers. Music had been bled into me, my mom a local bar country singer. On my eighth birthday, she handed me my first guitar and sat with me for hours, teaching me how to play basic chords and spin them into music.

She was talented, and never too hurried to listen to me play or teach me something new. She might have quit her bar gig when Sophie was born, choosing instead to only teach music at the high school and be home with us at nights, shuffling us wherever we needed to go, but she had more talent in her fingers and in her soul than I held in mine.

“Come here.” I gestured to the bench and scooted down so Claudia had room to sit next to me.

“You’re not playing from sheet music.”

“Nah.” I shook my head, ran a hand through my hair. She made me so damn nervous. Excited. It was hard to stay still around her. “I don’t play off sheet music.”

“Never?” Two brows arched as she gaped at me. “You just make it up?”

I pressed a basic E chord and messed around for a second, fingers playing nothing but the keys of chords and a pointless rhythm. Her eyes bounced from mine to my hands, to the keys and my bare foot on the pedal beneath. “Mom taught me on the guitar with chords, but I picked up the piano later the same way. Can I trust you not to spill my deep, dark, secret?”

She gave me a look and grinned. “Yeah? What is it?”

“I can’t read music for the life of me.”

“What? But you write your own songs.” Her brow furrowed and she pressed a high C note. The shrill highness contrasted with the deep notes from my left hand. “Don’t you?”

“Most. Not all.” Like some musicians and entertainers, I wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed I had songwriters. I did what I could but when albums were due and you were touring thirty-five cities in forty-one days, it didn’t leave a lot of time to create something new. My band and I were too concerned about getting sleep and not losing our voices.

I flattened a scrap of paper I’d wrote on earlier that morning. Later, I’d fix it and adjust the lyrics but for now, it was filled with scratches of words with letters above some of them, showing the chords.

“This is how I write.”

She scowled at it, ran her fingers atop the folding and already bent paper. “It looks like a mess.”

“It is. It won’t be when it’s done.”

“Does it have a title?”

I dropped one hand from the keyboard and slid my hand to her back. I’d touched her frequently in the last couple of weeks but after this morning, it meant more. Every curve of her back, every bump along her spine burned the tips of my fingers until I was at her nape, guiding her toward me.

“Captivated by You,” I whispered the title, still a working one, and the label could scrap it but I’d fight tooth and nail for them not to change a damn thing I had so far, and would until it was perfect. Her eyes widened, pupils dilated as I continued pulling her closer until our lips brushed. “For you.”

“Me?”

I nodded. “You, sweetheart.”

“Wow,” fell from her lips like a breath and her eyes flickered to the paper before returning to mine. I was still holding her close, wanting her exactly where she was because damn it, she just fit.

I pressed my lips against hers again, mumbling an affirmative, but needing to taste her more than I needed to speak. Opening my mouth, I flicked my tongue along her lips and jumped as my phone startled me, ringing on top of the keyboard.

“Ignore it,” I groaned, already knowing it was Anne by the ringtone.

Fucking hell. It was like she knew I was finally getting somewhere. With my music and my girl, thinking I had exactly everything I wanted in my life, right there, in my arms and in front of me, of course that was when Anne would call. Cock-blocker extraordinaire.

The phone stopped, only to start the obnoxious ringtone all over again, a series of alarm bells. I’d chosen the most annoying tone for Anne because while she rocked at her job and I respected her a hundred and twenty percent, she still bugged the crap out of me.

If she knew, she’d probably cut off my balls.

“I should get this. It’s Anne,” I said, dropping my hand from Claudia and reaching for my phone by wrapping it around her. As I answered the phone, she settled into me, hand dropping to my thigh.

“You have crappy timing, Anne.”

“And you currently have a shitty life,” she snapped. “Someone’s been digging and they’ve uncovered your first arrest.”

“What the hell?”

“You heard me. TMZ released a report twenty minutes ago about your arrest when you were younger.”

“I was a teenager,” I barked. “That shit was expunged and erased or whatever the hell is supposed to happen when I turned eighteen.”

“Not permanently. You’re going to have to answer for this, Liam. Immediately.”

I gritted my teeth. Claudia, sensing my anger, pushed away from me and I climbed off the bench, tugging on my hair and staring at the tiled floor. Fucking hell. “Do they say why I was arrested?”

Shit, shit, shit. Sophie would have a heart attack if her ordeal were brought forward. I’d paid millions to get her trial and the imprisonment of the men who hurt her buried. They were out of jail now, because asshole college students only got minimum sentences for beating and raping teenage girls because the system was fucked.

But now, so was I.

“Just assault so far.” Anne’s voice softened uncharacteristically. “But you might want to call Sophie because if they’re digging, I don’t doubt it will come up.”

“Who?” I clipped. “Who’s searching?”

“We’re working on it. But you need to get here. I can schedule you off the island tonight.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Liam—”

“First thing tomorrow, Anne. I’ll be on it. But I want one more day here.”

Not that I saw the point. Claudia was across the room, arms crossed protectively over her stomach. She was worrying her bottom lip and watching me like she really was afraid I’d hurt her.

Fuck.

“Fine,” Anne sighed. “Tomorrow morning. I’ll text you details. And prepare Claudia. Between this and her own family drama, shit will hit the fan once you get back.”

“I’m not coming back to New York,” I said, not removing my eyes from Claudia. She’d gone pale as a ghost. “We’re going to Kansas.”

I hung up before Anne could argue. I understood why I needed to get back, but I’d be stopping at home first. Sophie and I needed to talk, and like we’d done so many times before, I already knew what she’d say. She’d beg and plead for me to keep it hidden and while the last thing I wanted to do was throw her back into that hell that took years to climb out of, I’d also always wanted her to tell her story. I wanted her to help others. I wanted her to move beyond it so it didn’t always cling to her. I wanted her to take back her power.

It also, sure as hell would have helped me out when charges were flung in my direction.

“So,” I said, sliding my hands to my hips. “How do you feel about visiting my family?”

Chapter Sixteen

Claudia

“Kansas? Why?”

My pretend, perfect little world was crumbling. The fantasy life I’d pictured for myself in Anguilla was being chipped away and I could practically see the end in sight. It was going to be a disaster. I could feel it, the thick sludge of my past and my life mixed with whatever Liam was about to tell me was about to rock all of it so hard it wouldn’t register on a Richter scale.

“Something’s come out. Something you need to know and I need to get home to talk to my family before reporters show up there.”

I was still stuck on the paper, the scribbles I could barely make out, and I was definitely still thinking of the way Liam kissed me as he admitted he’d written a song. For me.

Goodness. I fanned myself and dropped my hand to my side. “What happened? Is it about us?”

“No.” He shook his head and unlocked his phone. “Me and my past coming back to kick me in the ass again. I gotta call my sister.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” He snapped it so harshly I flinched. “Fuck,” he groaned, scrubbing his hand down his face in his typical stressed out move. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be an ass. Maybe you should spend some time packing up. I’ll explain everything once I get off the phone with Sophie, okay?”

It wasn’t. Nothing was going to be okay. Whatever had happened between us earlier today had vanished and in its place was a cold, furious man I didn’t know. The bulk of his frame made him intimidating on his own and as he stepped toward me, hand out reaching to settle on my neck like I knew he enjoyed. I flinched.

“I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I know.” He could. He had the power to destroy me and it had nothing to do with his bulk or his power. The pain Liam dished out would be an arrow shot straight to my soul.

“I really gotta handle this. Can you give me awhile to get my head on straight?”

“Sure,” I whispered. He left the room and was barely out of the doorway when his voice filtered back to where I still stood.

“Sophie? Yeah…TMZ…shit. You already read it? What does it say?”

His voice disappeared, but the mention of TMZ didn’t. If he was making headlines, I needed to know what they said.

I left the studio room, unable to find him but figuring he was in his room. I went to the kitchen and grabbed my phone. My steps faltered as I turned to head to outside.

It wasn’t that long ago when I’d stood in this spot, touching him. Wanting him. I’d do it all over again, except more if ever given the chance again. Not because he was Liam Allistor.

But because he was a man with a damn good heart, protective of his sister and his family with whatever was flying around. That alone made him the best man I ever knew. No one else would have stopped what they were doing for any woman in my family, especially me.

I took a seat on a patio chair, tucking my summer dress skirt under my thighs so it didn’t blow up and expose me in the breeze and typed in TMZ’s website.

And there, on the front page, was a photo of Liam’s arrest he mentioned on the phone.

Four men.

Arrested.

Assault.

Community Service.

He’d gotten off with a slap on the wrist and a handful of hours serving the public when he was sixteen.

Why? How did he have that pull when he was just a kid?

And what in the heck did it have to do with his sister?

I wouldn’t get answers from a gossip column so I moved on, checked the news, national and Savannah local because it was habit and because I was curious. With no mention of anyone I knew, I moved to my messages.

I deleted all three without bothering to listen when I recognized the Savannah area code. It was either an old friend who had turned on me and needed more gossip fuel for her popularity race or Harrison. I had nothing to say to any of them.

Tossing my phone on the chair, I pushed to my feet and headed down to the beach. I’d walked this stretch every day, sometimes twice when Liam was at my side. We held hands, swung them in the air like the carefree children we weren’t and I never was, and we’d spent hours talking about our families. Our lives. How he was discovered in a rundown bar in East Hollywood because the person who was supposed to be there didn’t show. He’d stepped out behind the bar where he’d been slinging drinks and played a few tunes. He’d lived in L.A. for years already by that point, but that night was his.

Anne Marker walked in. Approached him. Signed him. The rest was history.

It wasn’t anything I couldn’t find and hadn’t read online, but hearing his own words, seeing the way he’d blush when I teased him about his fame. Or how his grip would always tighten to the point of pain when he talked about Sophie and his demon spawn of a nephew.

All those tiny little gestures were mine, given freely by a man I hadn’t had yet but was desperately beginning to crave with every ounce of my being.

***

He never came for me. Through lunch and all afternoon. I tried not to let it bother me. After returning from the beach, I looked for him only to hear murmured voices behind his locked bedroom door so I left him to it. I checked several times throughout the afternoon, and every time I went to his room and lifted his door to knock, his shushed voice drifted toward me.

I walked away every time.

When he was ready to talk, I was ready to listen.

But after I packed and ate dinner alone, coming down to the kitchen to a mess of plates telling me he’d eaten in the time it took me to pack, I figured he was avoiding me.

And I didn’t like it. I had given him his space, I’d done what he asked by packing and giving him time, but if he was taking me into a storm, I had every right to at least arm myself with an umbrella to dodge the bullets.

Walking to his bedroom, I stayed quiet, ears perked and listened for the sound of his voice but when it didn’t happen, I knocked on his door.

Footsteps sounded and then the door opened.

Liam was there. Towel around his waist, water trailed down the center of his chest before separating and falling over ridges on his stomach.

“Hey,” I said, staring at a string of musical notes on the side of his ribs.

I can’t read music for shit. Mom taught me to play by chords. Then by ear.

He’d said that to me…and inked something he couldn’t read on his side.

“Do you want to come in or keep staring at me?”

“Yes,” I whispered, smiling. Heaven help me, but he was so beautiful. His frame and width and strength in the palm of his hands should have intimidated me. All I saw was how gentle his finger had been against me this morning. I fought a delicious trill of excitement that bubbled at my center.

“She’s got jokes.” My grin widened and he reached for my wrist, pulling me to him and shutting the door behind me. “I’ve been an ass today. How pissed are you?”

“Are you apologizing?”

“I would if you stopped staring at me like I was a piece of meat.”

“But you’re so pretty…”

He’d stolen my filter. The fact I was blaming him for me losing my self-control proved how muddled he made me.

Beneath his towel, he was already growing a bulge. Unable to hide it because he was large, as I’d learned that morning, I didn’t truly think he was complaining.

I kept staring. I wanted answers and the apology was nice, but crap on a cracker, I really liked his body. I lifted my hand and trailed a water drop down his chest until it disappeared beneath the towel at his waist.

His hand gripped mine, stopping mine. “Pretty? That’s like calling a guy nice.”

I lifted my gaze. “I like nice guys.” Despite the grin on his face, his eyes were red, like he’d either been rubbing them all day or heaven forbid, crying. I couldn’t picture it. But there wasn’t amusement in his face even if he was hard and teasing me. “How are you?”

“Fucking tired. And I still have to pack.”

Right. My purpose for bugging him.

“Can you tell me what’s going to happen? Or where we’re going? Or why?”

“You haven’t searched online yet?”

“Yeah.” My fingers played with the hem of my shirt at the admission. It hadn’t been wrong. Obviously something was going on, but the extent it was my business was uncertain. “I saw the TMZ article.”

“Fucking vultures,” he groaned and stepped back, waving me in and gesturing toward the balcony. “Go have a seat outside and gimme a minute to put clothes on. I’ll meet you out there.”

And miss the view of him dropping his towel and letting me see everything? He must have been distracted if he wasn’t even goading me into watching him. A tiny twitch of his lips told me my hesitation and thoughts were being broadcasted like a neon billboard in Times Square.

I scurried out to the balcony like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar and waited for him in a chair, lounging back, and letting the salty air ripple over my skin for perhaps the last time. The sun was still setting and neon oranges and pinks lit up the sky. Bright palms rustled in the wind and the taste of salt landed on my lips.

I wasn’t ready to leave. I wasn’t prepared to be thrown into the limelight next to Liam with whatever disaster was occurring stateside.

I’d been hiding for more than one reason but as soon as photos of me surfaced, I’d have a lot more to answer to than just my father or relationship with Liam.

Harrison would find me and insist on having me explain why I not only took off from him without an explanation, but why I’d run…two weeks before our wedding.

Shit.

“I brought you some water.”

Liam’s sudden presence made me jump. “Oh. Hey.”

“Scare you?” He gave me a strange look, handed me bottled water, and slid into another lounge chair.

“No. I was just thinking.”

Feet propped up on the end, knees bent; he’d only taken enough time to throw on a pair of shorts instead of the towel. My view of his body was the same and I couldn’t stop comparing it to the one man I should have been staring at, the man I should have married.

But how do you get married after you find your life was a lie? How do you give yourself to someone when your reputation was disgraced, and you learned you had to spend forever with a man who was no better than the rest of them?

Where Harrison was long and lean, hours spent playing tennis and golfing his own form of workouts, he was always polished. Like a plastic Ken Doll. His aspirations had been to follow in my father’s footsteps and while he promised me that my father and family’s ruination wouldn’t change anything between us, that he didn’t care, I couldn’t trust him. In the wake of the news of Alton Fitzgerald’s dealings, and my own father’s scandals, Harrison hadn’t only remained polished and perfect as he posed for cameras, taking the opportunity to be our family spokesman and then mine, he’d never once seem surprised by any of it.

Instead, he’d remained unruffled, perfectly composed…like he’d been waiting for the day instead of shocked to his core by it.

Then there became the sudden digs at me, “When you’re my wife, you’ll…” like I was about to commit my life to being nothing more than a child and errand girl, someone to be bossed around and sweetly do what I was told and it all ate at me.

It wasn’t what I’d ever wanted for myself, it’s what I’d been groomed to become and all of it, in one horrific night after another nightmare, collapsed on my shoulders so harshly I couldn’t breathe. It was in the midst of the panic I barely remembered calling Karen, already on my way to the airport with a few bags hurriedly packed, but there was no way I was returning to Savannah once I stepped on that plane.

That didn’t mean I didn’t at some point owe Harrison an explanation…or at least a return phone call.

Especially considering he was a lawyer, and his firm, and he and his dad were the trustees of the only trust fund I had. My financial future, literally, rested in his hands. At least it did before Liam and Infidelity came along.

“So….” I started, untwisting the top of the water. “How’s it going?”

He laughed lightly, that soft and raspy voice of his filling the air. “Been better. You scared of me after reading about my arrest?”

“It said you were just a teenager.”

He chugged the water and swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “Doesn’t matter. I’d kick those assholes’ asses any day of the week regardless of how old I was.”

I stared at him, twisting on my lounger to get a better view of him while he waited for me. That wasn’t exactly…comforting.

He turned to me, lifted his feet off the lounger and placed them on the deck. Knees spread wide, his hands dangled between them, one holding the water. “My sister doesn’t want anyone to know. She’s fought for years to get out from all of this, but I swear, right now, she doesn’t want anyone to know even though the truth is closer to coming out now more than ever.”

“Okay.” Ominous didn’t describe the cloud of heaviness that fell over us.

“She was at some college party her freshman year. Went out with some friends, got ditched, found a guy.” The plastic bottle in his hands cracked from his tight grip. “He found a few more friends and they hauled her off to one of their apartments.”

“No.” My fingers covered my mouth.

His jaw clenched and he stared at the ocean, turning his head. The bottle in his hands, forgotten, became crushed plastic. Water dribbled down his hands onto the deck but he didn’t notice. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, the muscles popping from his anger so many years later.

“Short story, she called me, told me where she was and I got her help, took her to the police station and then I went back. Fuckers were sitting around, drinking more beer, higher than a kite.” His gaze snapped to mine. All the fury rolling through him, this could have happened yesterday not over a decade ago. “I’d kill them still if I could. Instead I beat the shit out of them, all of them, until the neighbors heard the noises and called the cops.”

“And you were arrested.”

“Got off because what man wouldn’t do the same damn thing for his sister, or mother, or daughter? Judge gave me a warning and community service and when I hit eighteen, the record was supposed to be expunged.”

“What happened to Sophie?”

“Trial. They were guilty. They’re also fucking out now and this is the first time all of it’s surfaced since I hit it big. But with the rape accusation last year…”

His voice drifted. Had I had any doubt before on the kind of man he was, he would have evaporated it with his vengeance on the innocent and abused. There was no way, this man, who would defend his sister so viciously against her attackers would ever turn around and become them. “Never expected her, never fucking wanted her to, but if this could have come out, if she could have said something earlier, it could have changed shit for me. But I’d do anything to protect her, and now, it’s coming. I can fucking feel it snowballing out of my hands or Anne’s.”

“I’m sorry.”

His jaw snapped shut. “Spent all day talking to her, warning her. Every time this shit gets brought up it’s hard for her. She spent years in therapy, moved on, but it’s always there. She knows it, I know it, her husband fucking deals with it every day and he’s protective of her. My arrest being leaked will only lead to the reason why and the snowball…” He shook his head and pushed off the chair. Moving to the railing, he gripped it in his hands like he wanted to tear it from the bolts.

Who could blame him? I wanted to do it, too. “Kevin’s pissed off. She’s scared. And I’m fucking helpless to do anything to stop it.”

I went to him and wrapped my hands around his stomach before thinking of what I was doing. He was just a man who needed comfort. My cheek pressed against his shoulder blade and I held him tightly. He was so large, my hands barely reached the front, and every muscle in his body was coiled to exploding and popping levels.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered against him. His back was hard as steel, hot and I could feel his blood pumping beneath my cheek. “I’m sorry it happened to her, to you. I’m so sorry. You’re a good man, Liam Allistor.”

He made a choking sound, shook his head, but was otherwise silent.

I held him until the sun set, until the light from his bedroom was the only thing illuminating our figures. I held him until his shoulders finally drooped, his limbs relaxed and he covered my hands with one of his at his stomach.

It was that touch, the beautiful, soft and tender touch that made me close my eyes. I moved my head, kissing away the tension in his spine, his shoulder blades. The expanse of his back. Once I started I couldn’t be pulled away from him. He tasted like body wash and sweat from stress. He tasted like real good, honest hardworking man who fought for what was his and earned the right to call it so.

Not like so many men I knew who made their success with backdoor, hidden deals and conniving.

Liam Allistor was unlike any other man I’d ever known and I ached with wanting to show him how much that meant to me.

In every way.

My kisses continued until his breath left him in short, little pants that showed his pleasure. Beneath my lips, his skin warmed. Goose bumps popped where my fingers brushed his lower abdomen, above his waistband and we stayed there in the silence, my coming to him. Comforting him.

Hiding so much of me, I still wanted to give him all I could.

“Liam,” I whispered, my hand moving south of his waistband.

“Don’t.” He stopped me with his palm before I reached him. “Not tonight. Too fucking strung tight and pissed to be gentle with you.” I went to yank my hand away. Rejection stung, even if I understood. The thought of him being anything but gentle though sent a quiver of excitement I couldn’t resist thinking about. “But I want you to stay with me tonight. Next to me. Let me hold you.”

“Of course.” He was paying me. I’d do anything. But in that moment, it wasn’t about the payment. It was about a man needing comfort, asking for it unashamedly. Like everything else I would give to him, that was something he didn’t need to ask for. “Of course I’ll stay with you.”

Chapter Seventeen

Liam

She was beautiful. I held her all night long, my dick hard as stone. More than once I’d woken up with my dick pressed into Claudia’s backside in my bed where I’d brought her after she just let me be on the deck last night. She’d come into my room with no hesitation, only going to hers to brush her teeth and dress in pajamas.

I’d decided then I was going to kill the personal shopper I’d hired to buy Claudia’s wardrobe. Dressed in a silk nightgown that barely skimmed beneath her ass, pale pink and innocent, the cups of her breasts were barely hidden by an even lighter sheer lace along with the hem at the bottom.

I’d ignored her, but my dick hadn’t. My mouth had watered for a taste of her and it took all my self-control not to thrust my hips, my dick against her ass when I settled her against me.

“I could help you,” she’d whispered, and her hand had drifted back to my thigh.

I’d growled at her to go to sleep. And I was a fucking idiot. Rejecting her advances and her touches made me a prick but it was for my own survival.

And hers. All day I dealt with Sophie and Anne. Our PR was working overtime to stop the spread of the story but it was pointless. I was once again being dragged through mud for not doing shit except for the right damn thing.

Fuck Hollywood and their craze to turn anything into a headline.

But now, with the sun just making its appearance lighting the sky outside, I could see all of her soft and gentle curves. Her dark lashes fanned on her closed lids. The tiny opening in her lips, where little puffs of breath occasionally escaped.

I propped myself up on one elbow, cheek in my hand, and with my other hand, I drew a line from her shoulder to her arm. I traced the outline of fingers she had curled and resting on her stomach.

Her shoulder length hair was pressed into the pillow beneath her, over her cheek where she was slightly turned toward me. I brushed it back.

We needed to wake up and get moving. We only had a few hours to get to the plane and return to hell and shitstorms and damnation and accusations I was so tired of trying to explain.

She shifted and her eyes fluttered open. Small, lazy chocolate pools appeared and then she blinked slowly. “Morning.”

“Morning.” I’d smile but there wasn’t much to be happy about other than this hottie in my bed. “We should get moving.”

I stayed still, continued running a fingertip over her arm, across her cheek to her nose. Back to her ear and down the length of her neck. She shivered beneath my touch, and her soft pink lips lifted into a grin. “You’re not moving.”

“I don’t want to.”

God if that was the truth.

“I don’t blame you.” My finger ran over her collarbone and her eyes drifted shut.

On a sigh, she whispered, “I love the way you touch me.”

Fuck it to hell in a hand basket. This girl.

I gritted out a smile even though my hard-as-steel cock had me biting back a groan. “I like touching you. You’re so soft everywhere.”

“You’re not. You’re all muscle and strength and scary scowls and glares.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…” She turned, rose up to an elbow mirroring me and pressed her palm to my cheek. I leaned into it because damn I liked her touch—her gentle manner and her openness. “But you’re not so scary. You have honor. Something I haven’t seen in many men I’ve grown up with.”

The last thing I wanted in my head was men she knew. Probably all preppy little pricks who dressed in khaki shorts and pink polo tops with gelled back hair and entitlement that told them they could do whatever they wanted to any girl they wanted.

Much like the four men who had gang-raped my sister.

I swore and fell back onto the bed and shoved the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. Thinking of Sophie was the last damn thing I wanted to be thinking of with Claudia in my bed.

“What is it?” she asked, following me. She shifted closer and her hand landed on my chest. I wrapped a hand around her back, mine falling to her ass and, fuck.

My cock was trying to punch through my boxer briefs.

A puff of breath fell from her lips to my chest at the contact and she shifted.

Jesus. She rocked her center against my thigh like my hand on her ass was all the warm-up she needed.

“Liam,” she whispered. Eyes slightly wide, for a moment I wondered if it was fear. When she rocked against me, hot and slick, I knew it wasn’t.

It was desire flaring in her fearful little eyes, like she’d never known such pleasure of dry-humping until she got herself off.

I hadn’t done that since I was a teenager but hell if my cock didn’t jump at the idea.

My hand on her ass held her firmly against me, and I shifted, bending my leg until it was at the right angle.

“Liam.”

“You want to use me to get yourself off, go right ahead, sweetheart.”

Magenta stained cheeks and wide brown eyes stared at me. I grinned and pulled her closer. “God, I want to be inside you. I said we’d wait, though.”

“I want it,” she gasped. Her clit ground against my thigh. “I want it with you.”

“Soon.”

“Now,” she practically mewled.

And well…fuck it. Who was I to tell her no again? “Claudia—”

“Please, Liam.” She looked at me with needy, hungry eyes. Hell if I could say no again. “Before we leave the island.”

“Yesterday you were afraid.” Why was I still talking?

“I’m not. Not of you.” She was still grinding. Her wet clit sliding along my thigh. Fuck that was hot. “Not of this.”

“Fuck,” I groaned as her hand on my chest slid down to my junk. It jumped in her hand and she pushed down my boxers.

“You’re making it hard to say no,” I rasped. My forehead pressed against hers. I inhaled the coconut scent of her and lost it.

I’d never taken someone unclaimed, so pure. So damn trusting in me it made my chest hurt.

I’d make it good for her. “Lay back,” I said, pushing her and rolling until I was between her knees, my cock against her bare pussy.

Fucking hell, where was her underwear?

Her hands slid up my arms, hips still arching for contact. Groans filled the room as I nudged the tip of my cock with her slick heat and my arms began shaking from holding back.

“Don’t,” she whispered, lifting her head and brushing her lips against mine. “Don’t hold back.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I can handle it.”

I couldn’t. I never wanted to hurt her. Moving down her body, I kissed her everywhere. The curves of her breasts. Her stomach. I played with her nipples and sucked them into my mouth until she mewled and gasped, fingers digging into my hair. And when she was arching her hips, mindlessly searching for something to fill her. I moved further down.

“God, so fucking pink and wet,” I groaned, peppering her inner thighs with kisses. She smelled divine. Like woman and sex and good God, I couldn’t wait.

I stopped trying. I licked her slit, smiling as her fingers clawed at my hair.

“Oh,” she gasped. “That’s…that’s nice.”

I laughed. Sex was getting off and fucking. Not laughter and teasing. I liked this much better. And I proved it to her. I tasted her, sliding my tongue over her clit, my finger taking over when I dipped my tongue inside her heat. I needed her wet and relaxed so I could make it good for her, but her first orgasm of the day would be with my dick.

Her thighs trembled and her gasps came closer, more hoarse. I continued my assault on her clit until she started quivering and then I pulled back. With quick, nimble fingers, I reached into the nightstand and tore open a condom. I rolled it down my dick while still playing with her clit, teasing her with my finger, and then I was at her entrance.

“Sure?” I stopped to ask. At least I was still a gentleman. “I can stop.”

Please say no.

She shook her head wildly from side to side, her hands sliding down my head to my shoulders and my waist. “Please.”

“Keep begging, sweetheart. I like that.”

My cock was at her entrance and I pushed in slowly.

She gasped at the initial intrusion and I stilled. “You okay?”

Her face had twisted into a grimace, but she nodded. “It’s okay.”

“Hurts?”

“Just a little.” Her hands pulled on my hips. “More.”

Fuck. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to be the man who would never hurt her, but holding back was killing me.

“Liam,” she groaned, arching into me.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed further into her, felt resistance from her tight, and oh so hot walls clenching around me.

“Fucking hell,” I groaned. “You’re so damn tight.”

Glorious. There wasn’t a better feeling in the world. I moved in slowly, knowing once she adjusted, everything would get better for her. She hugged my dick like a vise and as much as I wanted to close my eyes and surrender to the sensation, I watched her. I pushed my hand between us and leaned back so I could rub her clit. Slowly, I worked my way inside. There wasn’t the barrier I always heard about but it didn’t matter. It felt like it took hours to sink into her, pulling out, pushing in. My shoulders were shaking from restraint, but I didn’t give a shit about my pleasure, just hers.

Always hers.

Fuck. I was falling. Hard, fast, it didn’t even matter because as I began moving inside of her slowly, Claudia’s face, her rapture and pleasure was the only damn thing that mattered.

“Fuck you feel good, sweetheart.”

“Faster,” she gasped. Mewls of pleasure escaped her lips and I covered them, kissing her while I did what she commanded.

I was too captivated to argue. Too enthralled with her body and the trust she was placing in me to do anything except give her everything she asked for.

And when she finally came, crying out my name and digging her pretty little fingernails into my ass, I followed right behind her, groaning out my pleasure in the crook of her neck.

If I were still the churchgoing man my mom raised me to be, I’d bust out in a Hallelujah chorus the likes of which my Southern Baptist church had never heard before.

“You okay?” I asked once I caught my breath and hers had settled some. “I didn’t mean to get rough at the end.”

Her cheeks were flushed, both of us were peppered with sweat. I pushed hair off the side of her face and kissed her neck, her jaw, moving to her lips.

“I’m good. That was…wow…that was incredible.”

I wanted to stay inside of her all day. I wanted to fuck her more. Make love to her. Take her wild and take her slow. Restrain her and let her have her way with me.

I wanted to teach her everything I knew.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t. So I rested with her as long as I could, carefully pulling out of her. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll come clean you up.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.” I headed to the bathroom and removed the condom. Two dark lines of blood streaked down the side.

Fuck. Why did that make me hard?

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked when I returned to her with a warm, wet cloth in my hand. I’d made her bleed. I wanted to beat my chest and cover her in kisses.

She turned a lazy smile my way, sated and maybe slightly embarrassed as I began wiping her.

“I’m good, I promise. Thank you for making my first time good for me.”

I tossed the cloth to the floor and climbed on top of her, rolling us so she was on top of me. My hand slid to the back of her head and I held her in place.

She didn’t have to thank me for that. I wanted to make everything good for her.

“Always.” I pulled her close and sealed our mouths together. We kissed languidly, slowly. We kissed like we had all the time in the world, but I didn’t push it further.

We didn’t have the time now, but I’d have her again later.

Now that she’d given herself to me, I wanted to take everything.

***

“What in the hell?”

That was me scowling at Claudia. Hands plastered on my hips, I was still trying to shake off the memory of how she came hours ago, how her tight, so goddamn tight, cunt grabbed my dick making it almost impossible to slide into her.

But that was hours ago, and now the plane had just landed in Kansas City and we had to get moving.

“I just don’t think I should go to Kansas with you. Not to your family.”

“Why the fuck not?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Because media will be there, and you know it. I’m just not ready…” Her voice drifted.

I didn’t give a crap. I’d had her this morning and I was going to have her again tonight. Even if she was sore, there were other things I could teach her. No way in hell was she going back to New York like she’d just suggested. Where she could hide.

And maybe run from me.

“It’ll be fine.”

She started shaking her head and I dropped my hands, moving to her and gripping her waist. “Do you trust me?”

“What? Of course I do.”

“Then you’re coming. Told you we could do some of this at your pace but this isn’t one of them. And since I decided that, trust me to take care of the rest.”

“It’s not that, Liam.”

“Then what is it?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Worried her lip between her teeth and looked out the plane’s small windows. Not at me. She wasn’t even touching me even though I was holding her. A chill pricked the back of my neck.

It pissed me off. I didn’t have time for more bullshit, at least not today. “You’re coming with me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“And I don’t care. You’re mine, you do what I say.”

Jesus. If she’d slapped me I wouldn’t have been shocked.

Instead, she stepped out of my reach, smoothed her hair down and blinked.

And fucking disappeared. Had her body vanished, that wouldn’t have surprised me either. In the span of mere seconds, I saw a part of Claudia I hadn’t seen before.

Cool. Reserved. Fucking proper with a capital Pissed The Hell Off Ice Queen look.

I hated it.

“Claudia—” How many times was I going to apologize to her? Fucking hell.

She lifted a hand and dropped it, clasping her hands together at her front. She was so damn closed off, not even tears were in her eyes from the sting of my pain.

I messed up. I just didn’t have the time to apologize and fix it. A text as soon as we landed from my mom told me there were already reporters outside her house. Which wasn’t where we were going.

Because I wasn’t actually the asshole I was currently sounding like.

“Is there anything else you’d like me to do for you, sir?”

Sweet sugary voice, laced with poison. I wasn’t going near that tongue for fear of a deadly bite.

“No. Just get in the car.” I swiped my small bag off the floor and turned, almost running down the stairs like a pussy just to get away from the ice cold daggers in her narrowed, angry and hurt eyes. But fuck.

One damn day without drama. Was it too much to ask for?

I wasn’t a complete prick. I stopped at the bottom of the small staircase until Claudia met me there and with my hand on her lower back, that she neither flinched from or leaned into like was custom for her, guided her toward a waiting black Lincoln sedan.

And once we were seated inside, the car pulling out of the tarmac, I shivered.

I might as well as have been in Antarctica for the physical burst of coolness that filled the back seat.

Chapter Eighteen

Claudia

Go to your room, Claudia.

Go to this college, Claudia.

Play the violin, Claudia.

Dance better, Claudia.

Major in this, Claudia.

Wear this, Claudia.

Marry this man, Claudia.

People will believe whatever I tell them to Claudia, and if you behave appropriately, I’ll let them believe the best.

When you’re my wife, you’ll do as you’re told, Claudia.

ARGH. Enough. I’d had absolutely enough of especially, the men in my life, although my mother had her faults and commands too, acting as if just because I was at their side, meant I wasn’t capable of thinking for myself or doing anything I wanted.

This morning had been incredible. Mind-blowing. All the fumbling that girls talked about in high school and the first couple years of college while they were cashing in their V-Cards like an ATM was going to run out of money and they had to get it taken care of before there were no more dicks left in the world, had been embarrassing to listen to. It had also left me in no hurry to jump on the bandwagon for one of the many reasons being, not a single one of them had enjoyed that moment.

But Liam? After he’d taken his time with me, sure movements, control, assurances and making it not just good for me but the best it could possibly be had actually left me thankful that I’d stayed away from bumbling idiots and waited for someone who cared about me.

Of course that caring came with a leash and collar he thought he could parade around and force to heel at his beck and call.

Arrogant, stubborn man.

I was overreacting, I knew that. Even as I held the facade, which I was planning on doing to avoid letting him see my pain and anguish, as well as my regret, I already knew I’d lashed out at Liam, not from the decision to be bitchy as soon as he took my virginity, but from fear.

What would Harrison do if he saw me, not just with a celebrity, but at his family’s home in Kansas? There were too many choices and none of them good. He was more stubborn than the antsy man next to me.

I had to come clean before Liam found out, before Harrison pushed everything and showed up like I knew he had the power to do.

It wasn’t the time, and who knew when it would become a good time. I stayed silent, stewing in my own regret and letting Liam cling to his anger.

It hadn’t been the time to put my foot down, I’d intended to talk to him about it on the plane. Instead, once we’d boarded, he’d whisked me off to the couch and played with me, bringing me to orgasm and we dry humped on the couch like teenagers and all words had fled my throat besides prayers and moans, giggles and whispers, pleas of more and please. We’d made out for hours, ate, napped and made out some more unable to keep our hands off each other.

We’d just gotten ourselves refreshed and fixed up when the plane landed and I’d freaked as soon as I saw the Town Car idling for us.

“We’ll be at the hotel in ten minutes,” Liam said and handed me a plastic bag I hadn’t noticed on the seat next to him. “Put this on.”

I took the bag from him, making sure our fingers didn’t touch and peeked in. “A wig?”

“Not so blonde you’ll look trashy but with that and sunglasses, you won’t be recognized.”

Something warm fluttered in my heart and I squeezed the bag closed. “Thank you. That was very kind.”

He nodded and glared out the window, running his hands down his strong, massive thighs. He was nervous and I’d pissed him off.

What a time for me to throw a tantrum.

Still, the reminder he owned me made me not feel too horrible. He didn’t need to continue throwing it in my face.

I debated for several moments whether I was brave enough to step out in public or wherever we were going and not have a disguise and decided against it. Opening the bag, I slid out the wig, flopped it around in my hands until I came across a section of bangs. The hair was lighter. Caramel with streaky blonde highlights. It was pretty. Felt real.

Which was sort of gross, but whatever.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and smoothed down my top before sliding the wig on. It took several moments of adjusting it in the small rearview mirror in front of us for it to look only slightly crooked. With more time, clips for my hair, I could do better and when it was on, I slid on my sunglasses. Black, round plastic frames covered my eyes and face all the way to the faux-bangs of the wig.

I was definitely unrecognizable.

Nerves settled somewhat, making me feel like a bigger idiot. He’d told me to trust him and at the first sign of fear, I hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My fingers curled in fists and he grunted, not turning to acknowledge me in the least.

We zipped through city streets, what I assumed was Kansas City and soon we were in the country, or suburbs based on the housing divisions we flew past. They were all cookie cutter homes, bland paint colors, white fences and sprinkled in between were fields of hay and corn, red and white barns with horses and cows.

Every mile further from the city, Liam tensed.

Every mile closer to his family’s I began wondering if he’d even heard my apology.

Worse, if he cared.

***

“Why are we here?” I asked, the first thing said in the car since my apology. I’d expected a two-story suburban home, white shutters, gray vinyl siding and a lot of land with perhaps cornfields edging along the back yard.

Instead, we had pulled up to a covered valet parking area of what had to be the best hotel in town. A circular drive with a water fountain in front, the place was sparkling and much nicer than anything I’d thought a small-town would offer. The entrance sign on the way in had declared it Carlton’s Golf Resort and Spa.

“Friend of mine owns it. He’ll make sure his security will keep reporters away if anyone texts I’m here.”

“Right.” Gosh, I really was a shmuck. “Liam.”

He was already out the door before I finished his name. Apparently my apology fell on deaf or ignoring ears but his coolness still stung.

Less than twelve hours before, I’d let him inside me. Stupid me for thinking a gift, as cliché as the word was, would mean something to a man like Liam.

But he had done everything he said he would, the least of which was make sure our identities were protected.

I tugged my wig to the right, fixing the part, and slid out of the door Liam held open for me.

Once outside, his hand immediately clamped around mine. The warmth and strength in his grip was comforting but I pulled away.

“Don’t,” he all but groaned. “It’s been a shitty day. And there’s too much shit for me to deal with right now. Just…let me hold your fucking hand, Claudia.”

I squeezed him back, useless of words. He stole them with his scowls and growls but it was the broken, wrecked sound in his voice that pulled me close. I sidled closer to him, our arms brushing as we walked into the lobby.

We were immediately met with a behemoth of a man, black perfectly fitted suit, silver-wired eyeglass frames on the bridge of a straight nose. Wide, rough jaw and eyes that almost smiled as wide as his mouth when he saw us.

“Fucking punk,” the man shouted and pulled Liam into one of those odd shoulder-back slap type hugs. With my hand still in Liam’s, I was jerked back and forth until the giant settled Liam back from him. “How the hell are you?”

“Good. Shitty. Whatever. Thanks for helping us on short notice.”

“Fuck you, loser. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be in jail for ditching MacNatty’s old Ford into the river. I owe you one.”

They shared a laugh, a memory of years ago, I assumed.

“Still. Thanks. And let’s keep teen hijinks on the down low for a while, right.”

“Anything you need, superstar.”

As if he just realized there was a woman standing next to Liam, the man turned his gaze down to me and I swore. Everything inside me faltered. Flickered to life. He was just…wowzers. And I felt that pull. Like I bet all the women in town did, too.

Good grief, I didn’t know they made men like this. Must have been all that Midwestern homegrown beef and corn.

I almost snickered at the thought, barely managing to keep myself composed.

“Who is this?” the man asked.

“Sorry.” Liam glanced down at me and nodded his head. “Claudia, this is Jordan Marx. He’s an old friend of mine from back in school.”

“I got that.” I grinned and held out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

His hand slid into mine.

“My pleasure,” he said and grinned at Liam, still holding my hand. “You always get the pretty ones.”

“Like hell. You’ve had your fair share.” Liam growled. “And are you gonna let my girl’s hand go?”

I hadn’t even realized he was still holding me, but at Liam’s question, Jordan’s hand slid from mine, smirking at Liam before his expression went serious.

“I talked to all the staff. Told everyone that if they leaked you were here, I’d find them and bury ‘em in pop’s farm field. You have the top floor. There are two rooms up there. I put some security men outside the elevator and the room next to yours is empty in case you need to bring your family here. Anything else you need from me?”

“A bottle of scotch?” Liam asked, running his hand through his hair. “Fuck. Never mind. I need to stay clear headed. How bad has it been?”

Jordan shrugged, sliding his hand into his pant’s pockets. “Drove by your parents’ place and there were a few cars there, but it’s not as bad as it used to be.”

When he was accused of rape. The heaviness of the moment hit my shoulders as the two men continued talking. I felt smaller by the minute, not because I was being ignored, but because I hadn’t trusted him. He’d planned everything and even in the lobby of the hotel while the two check-in clerks were trying hard to look professional, they were still stealing peeks.

But who could blame them? Both men were incredibly sexy, one polished and refined even though he spoke like he hadn’t always been, and the other was known to women all over the world.

Their low, rumbling laughs caught my attention and I turned back to Jordan and Liam. Both had carefree grins and booming laughs that had their shoulders shaking. I’d missed something, but it didn’t matter. I could watch Liam laugh all day long for the rest of my life, and never need to hear a spoken word.

Beautiful.

He caught me staring at him and tugged on my hand. “Sorry. We should get to our room, huh.”

“Whatever you want to do.”

“I’ll let you get settled. Don’t forget,” Jordan said, “you need anything, just call.”

“Got it, thanks again.” Liam smacked his shoulder and I said my goodbyes to Jordan, barely able to peel my eyes off him as we walked to the elevators. “Sorry about that,” Liam said to me once we were inside the lift. “Didn’t mean to ignore you, sometimes it’s just nice to shoot the shit with people who knew me before.”

He’d needed that. In the reflection of the elevator, all the tightness and stress had melted away, leaving the guy I’d known the last two weeks.

“I didn’t mind. It’s nice to see you normal.”

“Normal?”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “I mean, other than Anguilla, I’ve only seen you on stage and in interviews. You were different with him. Relaxed.”

“That’s because this is home.” He pushed his hands through his hair and tilted his head back. Shaking off whatever thought he had, he slid his hands to his hips, still grinning. “Jesus, I needed that. Laughs with a friend who doesn’t give a shit about my album or my money. People here are good people. Straight shooters. You do them good and they give it back tenfold.”

“Like when you help someone after they ditch a truck in the river?”

“What a bunch of punks we were then.” I was curious about the story but didn’t need to know. The worst thing I’d done in high school was sneaking a bottle of my mom’s pinot to a graduation party. I’d had two glasses and tripped on someone’s patio, breaking my high-heel shoe. Lame.

The elevator doors dinged and opened and even if I’d wanted him to tell me more about his high school antics which were assuredly worse and crazier than mine, but I bet a heck of a lot more fun, too, he guided me off the lift and to the door almost immediately to the right.

We were met with two men. Brawny and bald, both of them were wearing dark blue jeans and tight-fitted black shirts.

“David and Dustin,” one of the men said, gesturing toward the second guy I assumed was Dustin. “Jordan hired us for your stay. Don’t worry, sir. Ma’am,” he nodded toward me. “No one will get past us.”

My eyes widened with every moment he spoke until I was sure they were going to pop right onto the carpeted floor beneath my feet.

Goodness. I’d need to be careful about the meat I ate while I was there.

“Thanks,” Liam said. “Appreciate it.”

He didn’t introduce us, but I figured it didn’t matter. They were there to protect him, and it was business. They stepped to the side of the door and Liam waved a key. Once the door clicked, he pushed it open and held it for me while I entered.

The room was simple but modern. Nothing overly fancy, but it still had the new-room, updated feel to it. We were in a suite and off to the side, was a doorway to a bedroom. I caught a glimpse of one large, enormous king bed covered in white, fluffy bed covers and more pillows than necessary. The furniture in the living room where we’d entered was black leather, streamlined and matched the black and silver furniture.

Modern. Everything was sleek-lined, but still warm, with toss pillows and black-and-white urban photographs on the wall. It felt more like a masculine apartment than a hotel suite.

“This place is nice,” I said, walking further into the room. At some point, our bags had been delivered and they were both placed on the floor next to the bed in the other room.

“Decent. Jordan’s a smart guy.”

“He owns this hotel?”

“Yeah. Over the last decade, urban sprawl has made this town more of a suburb than an outlying rural town. Jordan came back after a blown out knee ended his baseball career and wanted nothing to do with taking over his parents’ farm. Instead, he saw a need, hoped he could make it work and sank most of his money into this place.”

“He played baseball?” He looked more like a football player.

“Yeah. Three years with the Colorado Rockies. Freak motorcycle accident in the off-season and he couldn’t recover fast enough. Spent a year on the disabled list and then his contract wasn’t renewed. When he didn’t get picked up by any teams he wanted to play for, he quit.”

“Wow. That’s…” Insane. Crazy. “Too bad.”

“I think he’s done okay for himself. Can we please stop talking about him? I didn’t like the way he touched you.”

It was only then I noticed the bite in his words, the tightness in his jaw, and the way he kept shoving his hands through his hair.

“Jealous?” I asked, walking up to him. He’d dropped my hand in the elevator and I was hesitant of being rejected.

“No.” He scoffed.

“Really?” I stepped in front of him, trailed a finger down his shirt, the center of his abs and around his waistband hidden beneath his shirt. “You sound like it.”

He grunted, but his hands fell to my waist. His anger had disappeared while he talked to Jordan but it was slowly climbing back up his spine, returning to his features.

I placed my hand on his chest. “I’m really sorry about earlier on the plane, Liam. I just freaked out.” I flicked the ends of my wig that was starting to itch my scalp. “I should have trusted you.”

“Forgiven,” he grunted. His eyes roamed my face, the bangs of the wig before meeting my eyes.

“That easy? That quickly?” I’d been a complete snot. I’d only been thinking of myself and that wasn’t right.

His fingers pressed into my hips. “I know you’re still hiding something from me. I can see it in your eyes. But I figure you start trusting me more, I’ll earn those secrets.” Darn. He saw me too well. “And today’s been shit, all of it, except this morning. So if you really want to make it up to me, earn forgiveness even though it’s been given, why don’t you drop to your knees and put your pretty pink lips around my cock.”

Heat poured down my spine like I’d been set on fire. I couldn’t stop my shiver. Rude, but he must have known I wanted it.

“Liam.”

“Or not. I can slide into your pussy again, or make you come like I did on the plane and I’ll take your forgiveness in you screaming my name.”

There were so many things wrong with what he was saying. There were bigger issues to deal with. Fires to put out.

Mine was currently most important. And his, because as he spoke, my gaze dropped to his groin and his cock had tented his shorts.

I did the only thing I could think of doing that would make him feel better.

I dropped to my knees.

Chapter Nineteen

Liam

We were a tangled mess of discarded clothes and naked limbs on the rough carpeting of the suite’s floor. I’d barely caught my breath when Claudia rested her head on my chest.

Her hands traced the ink on my chest and fell to my rib.

They tightened on instinct, but I let her run her soft, smooth fingertip over the string of composed music.

I hadn’t been entirely serious when I suggested she suck my dick to earn forgiveness. I’d expected her sass or a roll of her eyes, or maybe a questioning glance of “How do I do that?” knowing her inexperience. Instead, she’d taken out my cock and wrapped her lips around the tip needing very little instruction in how I liked it.

Then, I’d dropped to the floor and returned the favor, spreading her out on her back and pushing her legs wide apart, tasting her with my tongue and mouth until her thighs trembled in my firm grip and her pussy clenched around my tongue.

She was delicious. She was also so damn sexy and smart and clean and good, I wanted to call Karen immediately and buy out her contract.

I didn’t want those pieces of paper between us anymore. I didn’t want anything between us.

Not a rubber when I fucked her again.

Not whatever she still hid from me.

I’d deal with both later after I fixed the most recent bullshit threatening to stonewall my career.

“What’s this song for?” she asked, soft warm lips pressed against my chest.

I covered her hand with mine. Beneath my palm, I could feel her blood pumping in the tiny veins at the back of her hand. My heart pounded against her palm on my ribs. “You can’t laugh.”

Only my band and Sophie knew what that ink meant. The band because they could read music and weren’t idiots. Sophie because she had a matching one scrawled across the back of her shoulder blade.

“It’s ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow,’” I said.

She made a sound and pressed her lips together but she couldn’t hide her laughter. Her shoulders shook and I grinned against the top of her head.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Got it the night Sophie’s trial ended. We got skunk drunk, cried, felt relief, mourned. And for some damn reason I still can’t remember why because we were so damn wasted, I pulled out my guitar and played the song. I suspect it was because it was always her favorite movie growing up.”

“Liam—”

God, I loved the way she whispered my name.  Especially like now when I surprised her. Her breath fluttered across my chest and I had to bite back a groan from getting hard. I couldn’t fuck her again. Not yet. Even I knew she needed time after this morning and the plane and what we just did.

“I’m pretty sure the only way we were able to get inked that night as drunk as we were was because I paid that tattoo artist over two thousand dollars.”

“Sometimes it pays to be famous, huh?”

“It’s not all bad.” Some of it was pretty fucking great. Most of it was. It was just in these moments, the rare flashes of normalcy I had that made me question whether the rest was all worth it. My stomach rumbled and I groaned, pushing us so we were sitting. “We should eat and rest. Tomorrow’s going to be hell.”

“What do you plan on doing?”

“Anne wanted me to do a press conference. It won’t take people long to figure out who I beat the crap out of and what happened to them. But I need Sophie’s permission before I tell her story and she’s not willing to give it.”

“Are you mad?”

“No.” I pulled my knees up, feet planted on the floor. “Just pissed I can’t shake any of this bullshit.”

I jumped to my feet and pulled her with me. “Come on. Take a bath and I’ll order food. Then we sleep. Tomorrow we deal.”

***

I rolled over as soon as I woke up and reached for Claudia, only to find the sheets next to me cool and empty.

Damn. Morning wood had me wanting to slide her legs apart and sink deep into her so she could stretch her tight pussy around me.

Peering open my eyes, I scanned the bedroom. The door to the bathroom was open and dark which meant the only place left for her to be was the living room. With the hum of the air-conditioner blasting, I couldn’t hear a single thing.

But that didn’t stop reality from crashing down on me. I pressed the heel of my palms into my closed eyes and groaned. “Damn it. Where is she?”

Throwing off the covers, I jumped out of bed, shaking off the cool fucking air. My hair was a mess, my dick was hard, but all I could think of was where the hell Claudia was.

“What the hell?” I said when I reached the small living room. She wasn’t anywhere to be found.

I did another scan of the space. Her suitcase was right next to the closet where she’d put it yesterday, clothes thrown everywhere. Her purse sat next to it, contents scattered all over the floor. It looked like she’d left in a hurry, but I’d known her for two weeks now. Claudia was a bit messy.

At least she hadn’t run. As much as she didn’t want to be here yesterday even if she did apologize, I still didn’t know why and that pissed me off. I was an open book to her, spilling things that would make her a multi-millionaire if it weren’t for the NDA she signed and hopefully, that she wouldn’t want to anyway.

But it wouldn’t be the first time a woman fucked me over, and while I wanted to trust her, it still wasn’t easy.

“Shut up, asshole,” I muttered to myself. I was buck-naked but I didn’t throw anything on while I went to the small kitchenette and made myself some coffee. I popped in a Chocolate Pecan coffee pod and while it was brewing, I used the bathroom and relieved myself. It barely made a dent in my hard cock but I ignored it while I brushed my teeth and threw on a pair of boxer briefs.

Claudia couldn’t have gone far, not with security outside our doors. If she left the hotel, I’d know it.

I was just about to step outside and talk to the security muscle twins when the door opened and Claudia walked in.

“Where the hell were you?” I barked and rubbed my face. “Sorry. I’m an ass. I was worried.”

“Well,” she said, skirting into the door. She’d thrown on a summer dress from the island. Peachy or salmon, it barely covered her breasts with thin straps at the shoulders. The length was appropriate enough, but still, all I thought about was the taste of what was between her thighs. “I know you’re useless and grumpy before you have coffee and since I woke up early, I thought I’d be nice and get you stuff better than what we had here. I saw a Starbuck’s in the lobby when we got here last night.”

She held out the drink carrier and arched her brows.

“Next time leave a note,” I grumbled and chose a cup.

Surprising me, she leaned and kissed my cheek.

“Good morning, grumpy pants.”

Smiling, she pulled away and turned. My hand landed on her ass in a loud smack and when she jumped, squealing from the sting, I smiled at her over the rim of the coffee cup. “Good morning, Claudia. How’d you sleep? You sore at all?”

My favorite magenta color rimmed her cheeks. “A bit. And well, thank you.”

We drank our coffee, sipping it slowly. Damn it was hot but tasty. And as we both woke up from the caffeine infusion, the reality of my day settled on me.

“I should shower and call home and Anne. I’m sure I’ve missed a dozen calls from her.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Move in with me. The thought hit with such sudden force it shocked me. I’d known her all of weeks. Clearly, my dick was excited about the thought of consistent pussy available. “Just be you,” I found myself saying instead. “That’s all I need.”

Based on the softening smile and the way her eyes went heavy, it was exactly the right thing to say.

Chapter Twenty

Claudia

I was officially more nervous than I had been in my entire life. More nervous than when FBI Agents showed up at my parents’ house, seizing it and arresting my father. More nervous than when I sat through a meeting with my father’s lawyer, Harrison’s dad, Edward, telling me everything I’d had, everything I’d thought was true had been either a lie or blatantly false and other than a trust fund, I was inheriting nothing. More nervous than when Edward had spelled out how indebted my father was to him, and how to make it up to him, my dad had promised Edward I’d marry his son.

All of it was taken from me and given to the estate that would pay bills my parents had wracked up in trying to keep up with the Joneses and Fitzgeralds and Montagues of Savannah when we were nothing more than a simple, middle-class Smith.

I hadn’t been honest with Liam when I told him I went to get coffee earlier. Obviously, I had. I had needed an excuse to leave the room and not be followed, but what I really did was returned one of Harrison’s phone calls.

Then I called Karen for help.

“Quit fidgeting,” Liam said, curling his hands on my shoulders. He’d stepped up behind me in the mirror and our gazes met in our reflection.

“I can’t help it. Your whole family is coming.”

He draped his hands to my stomach. “And they’ll like you, but I can also say that with what’s about to happen, they’ll barely notice you.”

My hands went to his. “Is Sophie sure she wants to do this? Is okay with you doing it?”

“We’ll get ahead of the information, the information will be public, and no one will have anything to hold over my head anymore.” He kissed my temple, lips lingering and his breath skating over my skin, heating me and doing delicious things to my lower stomach. “Then we can handle your crap and it’s all in our rearview.”

“Speaking of, I talked to Karen.”

I’d checked my phone while Liam had been in the shower, except to see a blank screen but to my surprise, I’d had three messages. Two from Karen. One from Harrison.

I skipped Harrison’s message and listened to Karen’s.

“What’d she call for?”

The lie tasted like sour milk as it bubbled up and out of my throat. “She just heard we’d left Anguilla. Wanted to talk to me about when we need to start worrying about paparazzi and us, restoring your image.”

“You said?”

“That I’d talk to you.”

His chest heaved and fell against my back and he dipped his head, settling it on my shoulder. “I think,” he murmured, turning his head and brushing his lips over my throat. “That it won’t really matter once today’s press conference is done. No one will care about me in a week or two so if you want, we can hunker down here, or wherever you want to go, and wait until someone else has an affair or a DUI or overdoses and then we’ll be fine.”

“Fine. Yeah, it will be.”

It wouldn’t. I had loose ends to tie up first, but two hours ago, Liam had told me that Sophie had decided she wanted to come clean and tell the press her story. She felt like Liam has had to hide it enough and with the assault charges, along with lingering suspicions of him raping a fan, she thought if she stood up and explained what happened to her and how he defended her, the public would instantly see him as a hero instead of a villain.

I was still doubtful. People who followed gossip rags were animals and slightly unhinged in their comments, willing to spew the vilest things without knowing any information.

But Anne had agreed it was the best way to spin everything, and in the end, it would make needing me unnecessary.

So would he keep me? The contract said he had to, but maybe he’d dump his monthly twenty-grand into my account and be on his way. Not that I cared about the money.

I cared about him. Last night, when he’d held me in bed and I woke up the same way, I realized how deeply I was falling in love with him. Liam Allistor had become my everything and even when he was angry or rude, he’d still taught me he was always looking out for me, protecting me.

I’d never had it and I wasn’t ready to let it go. Even though in four hours, I’d be hopping on a plane and he would be too busy at his press conference to know I’d left. I’d send him a text before my plane took off so he didn’t worry too much.

But would he miss me?

“You’re quiet. And still fidgeting.” To prove it, he took my hands that had been digging at my nails and held them in the mirror. “What’s got you so worked up besides meeting my parents and family?”

“Nothing. Just worried for you.”

He examined me and I saw the exact moment he realized I was still lying. Still hiding. But God, seeing Sophie be brave, letting her past out in the public, made me want to do the same. It was just…my past was something I’d rather handle myself.

And I would.

Soon.

“Okay, then.” He dropped his hands from my waist and stepped back, only disappointment swirling in his rich blue eyes.

I looked away, unable to hide the pain I knew would be reflected in mine.

“They’ll be here any minute. How about we go next door and wait for them so we can finalize everything?”

“Sure. I just need to grab my purse.”

“I’ll be next door.”

He left without saying another word, without a kiss or a smile. Soon, he’d understand everything, but until then, I wanted to be completely free of my past life, so I could come to him with nothing between us.

No contract. No ex-fiancé’s who refused to go away. No shame.

Just me.

I hoped like hell it would be enough for him.

***

Sophie stood in the middle of a makeshift stage in one of the hotel’s conference rooms with Liam on one side of her and Kevin on the other. Both of the men’s eyes were narrowed, gazes flickering around the room as if they were trying to spot trouble.

I didn’t blame them.

Their parents were in the background, silent supporters and wearing looks of grief like Sophie’s ordeal had just happened yesterday, and not a decade ago. All of them wore the stress visible on their faces. And outside of Kevin, who obviously wasn’t related. They all looked like a family. A close one. When I met Liam’s mom, she embraced me in a hug, pressed her hands to my cheeks and smile. “Well, aren’t you just a sweet little thing. It’s lovely to meet you.”

Her husband had ushered her away and pulled me in for a bear hug. “Nice to meet you. Liam’s told us a lot about you.”

Sophie and Kevin followed, Kevin with a firm handshake, Sophie hesitant. Her eyes were rimmed red and swollen, showing she hadn’t slept much and had cried a lot.

The way Kevin didn’t take his arm from her lower back or her shoulder, rubbing her back constantly with support was endearing.

These people were so good.

I liked them instantly.

But then we were ushered downstairs where Jordan had been busy all morning setting up a press conference in one of the meeting rooms. I was whisked away by Dustin and David, not knowing who was who, and I was standing at the back of the room, watching with a sea of reporters.

I wasn’t wearing my wig. No one there would recognize me, and when I’d tossed it on the bed before Liam had become so disappointed in me, I’d told him I wouldn’t need it. His pride in me evaporated when I lied. But I’d make it up to him. I’d die doing it.

From my view in the back, dressed in a simple black dress, surrounded by the security behemoths, I looked like a nobody. I could have been confused with a hotel server if I threw on a white apron they wore tied around their waists as they refilled water glasses and prepared coffee mugs.

But then it started. The conference, blinding flashes of light as Liam’s family took the stage and stole my breath with how absolutely handsome they were. And as Anne began speaking, somehow flying a redeye from New York to Kansas City to meet us there, she took over. And it was when Sophie began her story that an alert chimed on my phone.

“Excuse me,” I whispered to Dustin or David. “I have a phone call. I’ll step outside.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No,” I pressed my hand to his bicep. “I’ll be okay. And people knowing who I am doesn’t matter anymore.”

He frowned, and I’d obviously made no sense, but I did. At least to me. “The boss said to say close.”

“I’ll be three feet away with only a door between us,” I lied. My pulse started wildly bucking at my wrists and up my arms. My whole plan depended on me getting away from them. I hadn’t realized in the morning when I talked to Karen that they’d be with me. “You can even leave it open and I’ll scream if I need you. Liam’s security is more important anyway.”

That must have made sense because although reluctantly, he nodded and turned toward the stage. “Door open.”

“Promise.”

In a flash, I zipped through a side door, knowing every eye, including Liam’s, would be riveted to Sophie and the way she so bravely, wobbling chin and teary eyes and all, stood in front of dozens of gossip magazines and recounted the night of her brutal rape.

I didn’t need to stop by the reception desk. Instead, I hurried outside and slid into the airport taxi I’d scheduled earlier after talking to Karen.

“Claudia Townsend?” the man asked, barely sparing me a glance. “Do you have any bags?”

“Nope. Just Me. And yes, I’m her.”

He took off, and at the last moment, I glanced through the back window as we turned around the circular fountain.

No one had followed me. No one was chasing me.

And even though it was what I wanted, I couldn’t help the ache in my chest or the tears that burned in my eyes, wondering if there would ever be, anyone who would do that for me.

Chapter Twenty-One

Liam

“What do you mean she’s gone?” I paced Jordan’s office, the already small room closing in on me. “Check the cameras again.”

“I already did.” Jordan was sitting in his chair, so relaxed and calm, I wanted to punch him.

It wouldn’t be the first time we came to blows over a girl. We went way back. I had been in more scrappy fights with Jordan since the first time in fourth grade when Brooklyn Sarato kissed him at a pool party after she’d kissed me a few minutes earlier.

The tiny little slut.

Clicking sounds on the computer pulled me to a stop and I waited. Hands shoved in my hair, I had to look a mess. I didn’t give a shit.

“Hopped in a taxi about forty-minutes ago. Headed toward the airport,” he said dryly. “Just like I told you five minutes ago. That’s all we have.”

“Fuck.” I knew all this. Nothing new had changed. I’d already called Anne and left a message with Karen at Infidelity demanding they find her. I probably shouldn’t have thrown my phone into the wall and shattered it before I got their answers.

Now I was stuck, and the only thing I could do was watch the security feeds where Claudia slipped out of the conference room right as Sophie took the stage. Claudia’s phone in her hand, she glanced at it once before heading straight toward the front doors.

She had planned this. While kissing me this morning and fidgeting, she hadn’t been nervous to meet my family or the press conference. She’d lied directly to my face.

Once I found her, I’d shake the lies out of her.

She’d run. She’d done it.

And I had no fucking clue why.

Why would she do this?

“Do you want a drink to calm down before your head pops off?”

I glared at Jordan. “Shut up. I’m missing something. And yeah…I want a damn drink.”

He pulled out a bottle of scotch and grabbed a tumbler from a buffet table behind him. A few clinks of ice cubes from the ice bucket, the slosh of scotch.

I could already taste it on my tongue before he handed it to me.

The burn didn’t settle me. I was a bomb ready to detonate.

Jordan leaned back in his chair, elbows on the armrests, hands rested on his stomach. “You like her.”

I took another swallow of my drink. “Obviously. What’s your point?”

“No point. It’s amusing is all.”

If I threw the glass at his head, would he duck fast enough? The man had stellar reflexes and skills on a baseball field. As if he knew the direction my thoughts had taken, he pushed away from his desk, smart-ass smirk on his mouth and tipped his head to the side.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged. I gripped my glass tighter. Probably as tight as the fist gripping my heart and squeezing until it hurt to breathe. “I’m just trying to figure out how you can care about this girl so much in only a few weeks from what you’ve told me, and yet, she’s still smart enough to run from your ass.”

“I swear to God, Jordan.” Screw the thinking about, I raised the glass like I was going to chuck it at him.

The asshole laughed. “Come on. Settle the fuck down. She went to the airport, Allistor, not the moon. Give it an hour or two and then follow her.”

God. I hadn’t even considered it. I’d been too wrapped up in worrying and anger and betrayal and why did I feel so strongly about a girl I only met weeks ago?

Because you’re falling for her, asshole.

Yeah, that was probably true. I wiped a hand across my mouth and tossed back the rest of my drink.

“Thanks for the drink.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll wait for my dad to get back with my phone and then head to the airport.”

When I’d thrown my phone, my dad had instantly jumped into action. Personally, I think he needed something to do to get his mind off Sophie and everything in the press conference. They were proud of all I’d accomplished but hated being thrust in front of cameras occasionally. Especially with this drama.

But there was nothing else to do here. The public opinion would flood social media and gossip sites and television shows if they weren’t slammed already, but I’d long since quit following them. There had barely been a dry eye in the house when my sister shared her story. Just like she’d done on the witness stand at her own trial, she recounted the events of the night of her rape with utter, disgusting clarity, and it was only then I realized how much this had cost her. Almost a decade later and she still remembered every moment of hell in vivid color. Several of the reporters had tears running down their cheeks while they held their microphones.

Afterward, I’d pulled Sophie into my arms, hugging her in front of everyone. Not for the photo op, not because there were reporters shouting questions at me trying to get more info I wouldn’t give them, but because she was my damn big sister, and she was the bravest woman I’ve met.

Unlike the little minx who skipped out.

“Not sure the airport’s the best place for you to be unless you take Dustin and David with you.”

“Yeah. Because they’re good at security.”

We’d already talked to them. I still wanted to punch Dustin when he said what had happened. I’d have tried it too if I thought I had a shot but even at my size, the man had an extra fifty pounds on me. Plus there were two of them.

I’d still barely restrained myself.

“Just wait,” Jordan said, his heavy sigh telling me how tired he was of my bitching. I’d been in his office for too damn long. “Anne will call. Or Claudia’s aunt will. You can’t just show up at Kansas City Airport and not expect a mob.”

I had to do something, though. I’d left out how I knew Karen when I was talking about Claudia. Thankfully my filter had kicked in. All my family and Jordan knew was that we met through a business associate. Karen.

I swiped my hands down the thighs of my jeans. They were hot, sweaty. And trembling.

Shit. I had to get a grip. I was probably panicking for no good reason.

Claudia would call me. She had to. Even if I hated the contract as much as her, I still technically owned her.

Fuck that contract. It was probably why she ran.

Damn it. A year with a woman to restore my social image and somehow, my sister had done it for me, and I was falling in love with a woman in a matter of weeks.

“I’ll head to my room. If Anne or Karen call before I get my new phone, send the call up to me.”

“You sure? You look like you could still use another drink.”

“Fuck off, Marx.”

I left his office with his laughter still ringing out behind me.

“Hey,” he shouted at me when I was already through his door. “Don’t be a stranger, Allistor. Some of us still remember you being a scrawny pain in our ass and we miss you.”

Damn. Good people. Easy people. Friends I’d had for life.

“I’ll keep in touch, Marx.”

We shared grins and I headed to the elevators. I was just pushing the button to call the one that would take me to the top floor when my dad rushed into the hotel lobby.

“Liam!” he shouted. For a man just over fifty, he was still in impeccable shape. I’d blame all the farm work he did with our cattle and goats, but he’d installed a full weight room in one corner of a spare barn when I was in high school. He still woke up before five in the morning every day and worked out. “I have your phone. And once it was set up, texts messages came through. Thought you’d want to see them immediately.”

I took the sleek, silver phone out of his hand and typed in my code.

My knees buckled and I closed my eyes before I read the text again.

“Thank Christ,” I muttered, rubbing my hand on my chest.

“If your mom was here, I’d tell you to watch your language, young man.”

For the first time all morning, I barked a laugh. “Good thing she’s not. Shit,” I sighed.

I read Claudia’s text again.

Went home. See you soon. C

Five words. It was enough. Whether the See you soon was a promise, or she knew I’d come after her didn’t matter.

I’d see her soon.

“You look more relieved now than I have maybe every seen you,” my dad said. “You like her.”

What was with everyone pointing that out today?

I gave him the same response I gave Jordan. “Obviously.”

I pulled up Anne’s number. Thank God for being able to move all your phone information over when you were a complete dumbass. “Son,” my dad said, his hand rested on my forearm.

He might have been thirty years older than me, but he was almost as big, maybe stronger. He had the chance to workout more than I did and he’d been using his body physically his entire life. “Look at me.”

And when Chuck Allistor spoke, I listened. “What?”

“Hold on to her. If you care about her as much as I think you do, do whatever it takes to keep her. And whatever you’ve done to send her running, apologize as fast as you can.”

“What makes you think I’ve done anything wrong?”

My dad grinned devilishly. “Doesn’t matter if you have or you haven’t. Been married to your mom for over thirty years and the one thing I’m sure to know is when she’s pissed, apologize. Then tell her she’s pretty. It works every time.”

He gave me a wink and I fought the urge to vomit. I didn’t even want to know what that wink implied. They were my parents for crying out loud.

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll keep it in mind.”

I pulled him in for a hug and slapped him on the back. “You sure you don’t need anything from me here? I can stay until the frenzy leaves.”

“Nah. Kevin took Sophie up to Lawrence for the weekend. He says they’ll hang out in a hotel there with the boys and come back Monday. Thought it’d do her some good to have a weekend relaxing at a spa.”

“Good man.”

“Both my boys are.”

“Thanks, Dad. Tell Mom I love her and I’ll call you soon.”

“Leaving so soon? Don’t you have to pack?”

“I’ll get it taken care of.” I waved my phone in the air. “Besides, I’ve got apologizing to do.”

I didn’t. I hadn’t done anything except start falling in love with her, but if she needed me to, I’d tell Claudia whatever she wanted to hear just so I could be assured she’d be spending the night exactly how we started the day.

Together.

I dialed Anne’s phone number and when she answered, skipped the pleasantries.

“Anne,” I said, “she’s in Savannah. Get me a ticket.”

“I’ll do you one better,” she said smugly. “I’ve already got a chartered plane waiting for you at the private airstrip outside Lawrence. Leaves in one hour and takes forty minutes to get to. It’s a direct flight and it should get there shortly after Sophie’s.”

Yes.

“Thank you.” I stopped suddenly and stared at the floor. I had some damn great people in my life. Anne might have been my agent but she was also my savior.

Especially today.

“Thanks, Anne,” I said again. “Have I told you lately how important you are to me and how much I appreciate you?”

“Not necessary. Just get your shit settled so you can go back to making me money.”

She hung up. I stared at the phone and laughed. Maybe I should have told her she was pretty, too.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Claudia

My family home looked exactly like it always did as I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. I’d only been gone for a few months, but I expected it to look different. Feel different.

I certainly did.

But other than some stale, warm air from the air conditioner being on but turned higher than normal, everything was exactly how I’d left it.

Family photos, ones starting the year I was born and continuing until the most recent summer were framed and hung all over the hallway that led from the front door straight back to the kitchen.

I tossed my purse and keys onto the kitchen island and looked around.

All of this would have to go. When I’d left for New York, I had figured I’d sell this place, but I couldn’t prepare myself to do it before I moved. It hurt too much.

Now, it was just stuff. The pain would fade. The anger at my dad would eventually subside. And my mom? She’d always be my mom. Gentle, caring. A little stuck-up and a big pain in my ass for the way she cared too much about other people and their opinions, but I was over all of it.

My phone vibrated in my purse, but I already knew who it was.

When Harrison had answered my phone call after I reached the airport earlier, I’d expected him to be cold and callous, the two things I always used to describe him. My dad might have been a liar, but he’d at least treated me with a lot of love. A lot of laughter. His expectations had been fierce, but he freely doled out hugs and approval.

Harrison, on the other hand, grew up in a family where nothing was good enough. He wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps come hell or high water. And my father was so indebted to his dad…that he’d promised Harrison me as a present.

Per the rules my father and Edward Williamson, Harrison’s dad, had discussed and decided on when I was only seventeen years old, Harrison and I were supposed to be married by the time I was twenty-five. That was still a year away, but since my parents died, Harrison didn’t see the need to wait any longer.

I hadn’t even known of the agreement until my parents’ death.

At first, I was in such shock I considered it only because I tried to hope my parents had believed it was best for me. But then I continued seeing the man Harrison really was beneath his stylish suits and perfectly groomed hair and slick smile.

Which was why I left for New York. Because screw them all. My parents had drilled into me the importance of propriety and class and living better than then the rest, remaining pure because it was important.

They’d never once said part of the agreement with the Williamsons was that their daughter be a virgin…because that was what Harrison wanted.

I hadn’t known of any of it until I sat in Edward’s office as we discussed my trust fund and losing my house.

He’d been shocked. Figuring my parents would have let me known all along.

Instead, I’d been angry. A few weeks later, I was on a plane.

Despite sending him the same two-word text that said, “We’re over,” repeatedly, he still insisted there were things to discuss. Things that would make me change my mind.

He was dead wrong.

But knowing he was coming to my family’s home, we’d be the last people inside this place before it went up for auction and everything picked apart piece by piece, filled me with a bravery I never knew I had until I saw Sophie earlier this morning.

She’d been through a living hell much worse than mine.

If she could be brave, fight through her past, I could do the same.

A flash of a black car through the stained glass windows around my front door flashed in my eye and I smoothed down the black dress I’d been wearing all day. My face felt greasy from recycled airplane air and my hair was oily and flat. The dress was wrinkly beyond all saving, and I’d kicked off my shoes.

Harrison had never seen me look such a mess and I couldn’t summon the energy to care.

I waited for him in the living room, which had a direct view to the front door. Cocky and arrogant and condescending as hell, Harrison walked right in like he owned the place. I hadn’t bothered locking the door since I’d told him to meet me here.

“Hello, Claudia.” Harrison wasn’t unattractive. Blond hair slick and nicely trimmed, he carried himself with the ease and arrogance of a boy who hadn’t had to work for much but had everything.

It didn’t hit me how much I’d changed since my parents’ deaths until I realized I used to be that same way.

I hated him even more.

“Harrison.”

“You know a man doesn’t enjoy it when his fiancée runs out on him days before their wedding.” His grin was slimy. Arrogant mixed with evil intent.

I stepped back but he continued coming closer.

“I’m not your fiancée anymore. I believe I made that clear.”

“You’ll change your mind.”

From behind his back, he pulled a stack of folded papers out and held them toward me. “Read this.”

Taking it would mean getting closer to him, within arm’s reach. He was tall and a man. He could probably grab me if he wanted to but I wasn’t about to make it easier for him.

“There’s nothing you have I could possibly want.”

His brown eyes flashed in anger and he shook the papers. “No? You’re not even curious?”

A part of me was. The stupid part that still hoped my dad hadn’t broken half a dozen laws before holding a gun to my mom’s head. The stupid part that still hoped good would come out of this.

The naive, disappearing part of me that still went to bed at night, crying, hoping like hell all of the last several months had been a horrific nightmare.

I hadn’t had those dreams since I stepped foot on Anguilla. Meeting Liam changed more than one thing about me.

And I knew it was partly because of him I finally grew a spine.

Still, I’d come for closure. To make it clear to Harrison he could shove my trust fund he managed up his ass. There was no way in hell I’d ever marry him. I’d never be his side-piece. I’d never step foot into another ball or gala on his arm even if women eventually ceased their gossiping. They’d shown me too much of who they were, who I used to be, and who I never wanted to be again.

“What is it?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of me. If he wanted me to know, he could read it out loud.

Instead, he came closer. Each slow step of his gave me the sensation of being a baby lion surrounded by a pack of hyenas.

Turning the paperwork toward me, he shook it out. All at once, in dark, large bold letters the words Real Estate Deed glared back at me, and beneath the words, my address.

“I don’t understand.” It was up for auction. All of it. The auction was set for two weeks.

“It’s mine,” he said. “Ours, actually. As trustee of your trust fund, I’m able to disperse funds into investments I deem worthy.”

“And you used it for this house?” I shook my head. This was too much. “Why?”

“Because it will be ours.”

“Haven’t you been listening?” I said, my voice rising and going trill. The man was delusional. This was what he thought it’d take for him to buy me? I never should have returned.

At once, I missed Liam and the way he’d protected and cared for me once we reached Kansas City. He was a man.

This weasel in front of me wouldn’t understand the definition if I spoke in small, simple words.

“I won’t marry you, Harrison. And I don’t give a crap about this place. You think I’d want to live here after my father and mother died in here? Are you insane?”

“No,” he growled, lips curling like a predator about to attack. I’d seen the same look in rabid dogs on television and I stepped back, closer to the kitchen. “I’m not insane. I own you, Claudia. Down to the very last dollar to your name and the remaining shreds of your reputation. And we will live here, in one of the best homes in Savannah. Together.”

I laughed. My God. I’d been so stupid. So absolutely ridiculously dumb to think I could come back here and have a civil conversation with this man so he would leave me alone.

Pressing my hands to my cheeks, I tried to cool myself. Then I moved farther into the kitchen.

If he did go ballistic, I wanted to have my hand on something sharp.

“Harrison, listen. This is absurd. I’m not the girl you buy with money and owning.” And oh, the irony of that statement. I didn’t think of Liam. I’d finish this, get out, and go find him. Explain everything. “You don’t even care about me. The very fact you think you can buy me with this house I don’t want anything to do with, proves it.”

He didn’t look confused, but his anger deepened. Cheeks turning hot, they clashed with his light purple polo and gray sports coat. In my old life, I would have found him attractive.

That was before Liam.

“You little bitch,” he growled.

I laughed. Good grief.  “I don’t even need the money anymore.” I hoped I didn’t, anyway. But at least I had the security of Infidelity. And Karen. She’d proven able to care for me.

“Listen here,” he said again and tossed the paperwork on the counter. He lunged at me and before I could jump out of his way, his hand was around my throat and he shoved me into the refrigerator. The steel metal was cold at my back and I fought a shiver, clawing helplessly at his hands.

His hand pressed in, his body followed. An arrogant psychopath surrounded me, but I refused to give up. “I can’t breathe,” I gasped and dug my fingers into his forearms.

“You were promised to me. Your father. My father. It’s a signed contract. I take your house, I take your money, and I can fucking destroy you, Claudia, you little cunt.”

Oh shit. I hadn’t even considered. Another lawsuit for a broken contract, this one selling his daughter? My father’s crap would resurface all over again.

“I don’t care. Do it, you pig. Then everyone will know how pathetic you are.” I spit the words out, gasping for breath. His hand at my throat shoved me harder into the fridge. My head hit it and I shook off the pain. Black spots speckled my vision but I focused on the area between his eyes. “You wouldn’t sue. Then everyone would know you couldn’t find your own woman to fuck, you had to buy one like a cheap prostitute.”

Again. The irony, but if that’s what I’d become with Infidelity, I certainly wasn’t cheap.

The idea almost made me laugh. Good grief. The lack of air supply was killing me. Literally.

“Then I’ll take what I want from you until you see sense.”

His free hand dropped between us and he shoved up my black dress. I kicked and flailed. For being on the thinner side, he was strong.

“Don’t.” I thrashed against him and he slapped my thigh. The stinging pain made me cry out and he was able to wedge his hand beneath my dress.

Between my thighs.

My God. Was this what Sophie felt like? So helpless? I could barely breathe, much less fight. The black spots grew larger until unbidden tears swam in my eyes.

“Fuck you.” I spit at him and he didn’t seem to notice. His dark brown eyes. Evil and wicked glared at me, lips twisted in victory.

“I plan to. Tell me, my little cunt, Claudia. Did you keep yourself pure for your husband to be? Or are you now a worthless whore?”

“Neither,” another voice said and if I could have, I would have sighed with relief. “She’s not a whore, but I’ve had her pussy wrapped so tight around my dick it’s the most amazing sensation in the world.”

My eyes flashed to our side and I cried. “Liam.”

My God. He was here. Tendons and veins I had never seen before bulged at the side of his neck.

“Take your fucking hands off her, before I break them.”

He’d do it, too. But he couldn’t. Not after this morning. Not after I’d already scoured gossip sites on the plane ride. People were loving him. All of them.

“Don’t,” I gasped. Harrison’s hold went tighter and he tugged me toward him. It freed his hand from between my thighs but he spun us so my back was to his chest.

“Yeah? Who the fuck are you? You get all that ink in prison?”

Liam flashed me a shocked look, as if someone had the audacity not to know who he was. Then they went to concerned. Back to white hot rage. It all happened in a moment but relief was still replacing fear.

He’d take care of me. I knew he would.

“Doesn’t fucking matter who I am,” he said, prowling closer. This was the kind of predator I liked. Evil only against evil.

I tried to call out to him, to plea for him to be careful, but my lids were drooping. It was hard to breathe, harder to stay on my feet.

I forced myself to focus. On Liam. His fists. The word LOVE inked and popped in his knuckles.

LOVE.

I could stay strong for him.

His size was no comparison to Harrison. His arm was beginning to tremble, either weakening from choking me for so long or from fear.

“Get the fuck out of our house,” he said. “And if I find out you did fuck my fiancée, I’ll kill you.”

“Fiancée?” Liam asked. Pain lashed his features before he stepped closer.

“No,” I gasped.

“Shut the fuck up, cunt,” Harrison snapped. He jerked me against me and I cried out from the pain. Goddamn, he was strong.

“Seems the woman disagrees,” Liam said. He stalked closer. Almost touching distance to me. His gaze scanned the room before returning to Harrison and he smirked. “But I gotta tell you, when my fingers were in her pussy and then my mouth tasted her, the only thing she was screaming was my name.”

“Fucker,” Harrison growled. Liam was drawing him into a rage. I could sense it as his limbs trembled.

For a brief moment, his hold on me loosened. I jerked against him, shoving him into the kitchen counter.

It was enough to make him stumble as his back slammed against the granite.

“Fuck!” He yanked me, but it didn’t matter.

Liam grabbed one of my hands and pulled me toward him then past him. I stumbled, arms flying to gain balance but I crashed to my knees.

“Liam!” I shouted as I turned to look back. His fist was raised, blood already on his knuckles. He was bent over Harrison.

He punched him and blood flew into the air. From Harrison, from Liam, I couldn’t tell.

I got up and ran to him, pulling him back, grasping for his shirt. “Stop. Please. You can’t.”

He threw his arm down once more and the sickening crunch of bone on bone breaking echoed in the air.

“Damn it!” he shouted. “Fuck him.”

“I know. Please.” I tugged on his shirt and he stepped back.

Harrison fell to the floor, crumbling into a pile. Blood was smeared all over his listless expression. He was out. His nose nastily crooked.

I couldn’t find it inside myself to care, except that he looked gross.

“Liam,” I gasped. My throat stung. My voice was scratchy. I still could barely breathe or talk, but then strong arms were around me, lifting me.

Liam cradled me, carried me to a couch and held me.

“Holy shit. Are you okay? I’m so sorry, sweetheart. So damn sorry.”

“You’re here.” I clung to him. My face shoved into his shoulder I couldn’t find my grip. Couldn’t burrow close enough.

“Shhh. Rest your voice. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

He held me tightly to him.

“We need to get out of here.”

“We will. Rest. Calm down. Take as much time as you need. When you’re ready, we’ll go.”

I did as I was told, for once not caring about being bossed around.

I trusted Liam. He’d saved me. As I closed my eyes, the last thought I remembered thinking, before sleep and adrenaline crash took me down was how much I loved him.

How much I never wanted to leave him.

“I don’t want you to leave me ever again, either,” he whispered, lips at my ear.

I shivered from his voice, his touch, his comfort. And then I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Liam

I held her in my arms, unable to take my eyes off the man I’d beaten the shit out of who was now unconscious on her floor. He was too much like the assholes who had raped Sophie. Arrogant, egotistical. I was willing to bet small-dicked as well. And just like those assholes, the one on her kitchen floor had gone down way, way too damn easy.

At least if he fought back I could have expelled a decent amount of rage and fury that had laced my blood as soon as I heard her cry out in pain when I’d stepped into her house. I’d needed the fight. Needed the battle. Instead, I still had too much adrenaline racing through my system, a woman passed out and shivering in my arms, and a prick on the floor I wanted to crush with my boot.

I closed my eyes and released a deep, long and shaky breath. The asshole on the floor didn’t matter.

All that mattered was Claudia. It hadn’t taken long to find her home address and since that was what her text had said, I’d come straight here with a car Anne had waiting for me at the private airstrip.

I’d barely made it. If I would have been five minutes…two minutes…thirty seconds later…

I ground my teeth together and slammed the door on that thought.

Claudia was safe. Sleeping. Her throat would be bruised because that fucker had gripped her hard, but she hadn’t been violated.

I needed to get out there. Her weight settled into my lap and her fingers curled into my shirt.

She’d told me she loved me.

I couldn’t even process it. Doubt she realized she said it out loud.

Yet, the asshole who had tried choking her to death said he was her fiancé.

We had a lot of talk about. Another mess to clean up.

I had questions but the answers didn’t matter. She was mine. She would always be mine. After seeing what I’d walked in on, no way in hell was she ever leaving me again.

Fuck that.

I stood, fixing my hold on Claudia but she didn’t stir. She needed the sleep and I needed her to see a doctor. First things first, we needed to get home.

Wherever the hell that was, it didn’t matter. We’d pick a place and make it ours together.

Scanning the kitchen to see if Claudia left anything she’d need, I swiped up the papers scattered on the island. Real Estate Deed jumped out at me, but I tossed them on Claudia’s lap as I held her in my arms and moved toward the door.

After I had her settled in the front seat, papers folded in her lap, I went back inside and grabbed her keys, purse, and shoes. She wouldn’t need any of that shit again, but I didn’t want evidence we were there. Eventually, that dick was going to wake up and I wanted to be in the air again.

She stirred in the passenger seat when I was minutes from the airstrip I’d left just over an hour ago. Felt like days. The entire car ride, I’d kept glancing at her, concern bubbling beneath the surface of my skin.

I drove one-handed, one hand on the wheel, one on her thigh, brushing her warm and soft skin, hoping to rouse her.

As she opened her eyes as I slowed to a stop at a light that would take us to the private airport, they immediately flew wide and her hand clasped to her throat.

“Don’t talk,” I said, my hand on her thigh tightening as she grimaced. “You’ll be sore. Just rest until I can get you some water.”

“Okay,” she croaked.

The light turned green and I turned, struggling to peel my eyes off her or the way her eyes filled with tears.

She was still rubbing her neck as I pulled to a stop near the hangar and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the plane was still there. Anne had thought of everything earlier, securing me not only a private jet but paying for my use for the next two days, not knowing when I’d be able to get out of Savannah.

It’d take hours to file a new flight plan, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get her on the plane, in the bed, and hold her until she stopped crying and shivering.

“Liam,” she groaned as another sob hit her and she fell forward.

I yanked off our seat belts and pulled her into my arms as close as I could get to her with the console between us. “Shhh…you’re safe.”

“You saved me,” she cried. She shoved her forehead into the crook of my neck and clung to me like she couldn’t breathe without me suffused to her.

I would never complain.

“I was so scared. And he…he…”

“He didn’t do what he wanted.” I tightened my hold on her and pressed my lips to her temple. “I will never let anyone hurt you. Ever. And when you’re ready, we’ll get on this plane, fly to wherever you want to go, and we’ll stay there for as long as you want.”

She trembled in my hold, sniffling and crying. Even her cries sounded like her throat was scratchy and with every sound she made, I fought the overwhelming desire to go back and fucking murder the bastard I hoped was still passed out on that kitchen floor.

I definitely broke his nose. Maybe his cheekbone.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

As soon as Claudia and I could talk, and I found out who he was, I’d destroy him.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m okay and you saved me.”

If she wasn’t still crying, my chest would have swelled with pride. I hadn’t done anything different than be a decent man, but I liked she thought of me as her savior.

I’d do my damnedest to live up to it.

“Ready to get on the plane?” I asked.

She nodded against my shoulder and pulled back.

When her face was inches from mine, I swiped away her tears with my thumbs, cupping her cheeks in my palms. Then, I leaned forward, slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away from me, but she didn’t. I brushed my lips across hers once, then twice. “I’ll always save you, Claudia.”

She huffed out a hoarse laugh and nodded. “I know.”

Flashing me a timid smile, I brushed away the few remaining, drying tears on her cheeks and dropped my hands from her face.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She climbed out of her seat and I met her at the front of the car. Lifting her hand to her forehead, she scanned the horizon, turning in a slow circle. I gave her time for whatever she was thinking and when she turned back to me, her hand fell and reached for mine.

I took it and squeezed. “I never want to come back here. Ever again. There’s nothing left for me.”

The Real Estate Deed told me that might not be true, but I’d wait for her to talk about it. The prick might not have violated her, but he still assaulted her and terrified her. I knew from what Sophie went through I had to wait until her to want to talk about it.

And none of it would happen until she could speak without sounding like she’d had her throat shredded.

***

I was on the couch on the airplane, guitar in my lap, my notebook and pen next to me. After we boarded, Claudia told me she wanted to go back to New York, so we were thousands of feet in the air, soaring along the East Coast and words were finally flowing.

My reputation was being restored. My sister had stood up and taken all of her power back, something she thanked me for, actually thanked me for when she clung to me on the stage what felt like a lifetime ago but was just more than twelve hours ago.

And in the bed at the back of the plane, Claudia was sleeping after I had her drink water. I lay with her and held her until she drifted back to sleep and while I didn’t want to tear myself away from her, lyrics and melodies spun in my mind, forcing me out of the bed.

“Captivated By You” was now officially done.

It was my best work yet.

Perhaps that’s what happened when a man realized he’d fallen in love, side-swiped by a beautiful brunette.

Words continued to come, even while I kept one eye on the door to the bedroom, anticipating her waking at any moment.

We hadn’t been able to get in the air until after nine o’clock and we’d only been in the air for a couple hours. But two plane rides in one day, the stress, the assault…all of it was taking a toll.

I was exhausted, but lyrics continued to invade my brain, making sleep impossible.

I dipped my head, strumming my guitar with my head down when I felt Claudia’s presence before her bare feet appeared in my view.

“Hey,” I said, lifting my head. I swung my guitar to the side and pulled her into my lap. “How’d you sleep?”

She had a bottled water in one hand and she took another drink before answering. “Better. My throat hurts, but not as much.”

“Good.” I had to bite back a growl but as she settled against me and sighed, the anger was easier to push aside.

We were silent for several moments. By the tension in her shoulders even as she rested against me, I knew Claudia was struggling with her thoughts and most likely her memories, so I comforted her by running my hand up and down her back. She was still wearing the same black dress she’d worn that morning at the press conference, but I didn’t have clothes for her to change into. I knew all she’d want was to get out of it, wash off the day and the reminders of that asshole, and most likely, burn it.

“I never liked him,” she said. Her voice was so hesitant, I tensed for what was coming. “Harrison, I mean.”

“But you were going to marry him?” I still couldn’t erase the way he’d called her his fiancée. The way his face twisted as he called her a cunt. Goddamn it. Why didn’t I kill him when I had the chance?

“Sort of. I considered it, but mostly my dad was indebted to Harrison’s dad, Edward. Big time. Harrison and Edward are both lawyers and are also the trustees of my trust fund. When I was still a teenager, my dad made a deal with Edward that I would marry Harrison some day. I didn’t know until after my parents were dead.”

My arms tightened around her. “Did you want to marry him?”

She turned to me and I found I couldn’t look at her. I kept my gaze focused on the windows across from us, where all I could see was the black sky. Her palm pressed to my cheek and pulled me to look at her. “It was what my parents wanted, Liam. For awhile, I tried to like him, but slowly I realized I couldn’t stand him.” Tears filled her eyes and she took a deep breath, her chin trembling as she tried to continue. “I thought if my dad had wanted him for me, he’d be a good man.”

“Fuck,” I whispered and pulled her against me. “You don’t have to keep explaining, just know that I’m going to destroy him.”

“I just want to stop thinking about him,” she cried.

“You will. I’ll make sure of it.” I gave her a couple moments to let it all out before asking, “What was the Real Estate Deed stuff about? I grabbed the paperwork when we left.”

“I don’t even really know,” she said, shaking her head. “He controls my trust and said he’d used the funds to buy the house for us before it went up for auction like it was supposed to. When I told him I didn’t want it, that was when he got angry, and…”

“Stop,” I whispered. “Say no more.”

I’d seen it. I didn’t want to hear about it. That could wait. I just wanted her next to me. I gripped her in my arms and rose to my feet.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you to the bed. I want to hold you and be next to you when I tell you I love you.”

Her head jerked. “What?”

I kissed her lips quickly, kicking open the door to the bedroom at the same time. “You heard me,” I said. We reached the bed and I climbed onto the mattress on my knees, setting her down gently. I followed, rolling to my side next to her as she curled into me. “I knew it before you took off this morning, and if I hadn’t known it then, I would have definitely known it when I walked into your house and saw him with you. No one will ever hurt you again, Claudia, not while I’m in your life, which I plan on being for a long time.”

“You love me?” Her hand brushed against my cheek. I turned and kissed her palm before she slid her hand down my neck, to my arm and traced the ink on my knuckles. I watched every fascinating, gentle brush of her hand on mine.

I’d memorize the feel of her. Her scent. The way she laughed and brushed her hair out of her eyes. I’d memorize every damn thing about Claudia Townsend.

“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s fast, it’s early. I get all of that. But I want you to know that when we get back to New York, the first thing I’m doing is calling your aunt and getting that contract torn up. I want nothing in between us. No more secrets. Nothing that can keep us from each other.”

She shook her head. “She won’t let you. They’re strict and would never allow it.”

“Then we live like it’s not between us and when our time is up, we keep living like it never was between us.”

She tipped her head back. Sweet, chocolate eyes met my gaze. I’d owe Anne a helluva lot for forcing me to go to Infidelity with her.

She hadn’t just saved my career. She’d given me everything I wanted out of life.

This woman. In my arms. My bed. My homes. On my tour bus. I’d take Claudia with me wherever she wanted to go, whenever she wanted it. She’d had enough pain for a lifetime and I’d see to it she feared no more.

“You’re a very good man, Liam Allistor,” she teased, lips lifting into a grin. She’d said it before. It meant more now. “I love you, too, you know. I don’t care who you are or what you do or about your money. I just love everything about the man you are.”

She’d already told me. Hearing it while she was fully awake and alert meant an infinite amount more.

“Good.” I brushed my lips against hers. I wanted to take more. Give her more. Give her everything. But like I had to do before, I’d wait. Tonight wasn’t the night, not after her day. Not after Harrison. My dick, slow to get the message I was trying to send it still hardened, but I pulled away from her kiss and settled her against my chest. “We’ll figure everything out, Claudia. And everything will be smooth sailing from here on out.”

It was a promise I’d die trying to keep.

Because Claudia Townsend was a woman worth dying for. I might not have known her long, I certainly didn’t know everything about her, but that didn’t matter. My dad had always told me that the heart wanted what the heart wanted and you were a fool to fight it.

I might have been arrogant, bossy sometimes with a loose hold on my temper. I was also rarely patient.

But damn it, I was definitely no fool, either.

“I love you,” I told her again, kissing the top of her head. “I always will. I promise.”

She leaned up, pushing off my chest and grinned. The first true grin I’d seen from her in days and fuck, it did things to me. “I promise to love you too. Always.”

We sealed our promise with a kiss, thirty thousand feet in the air, flying toward our future. We continued kissing, relishing the moment and the quiet and the past that would soon be far behind us until we landed in New York, and our forever began.

Epilogue

10 months later

Claudia

My man. Liam Allistor. Rock God. Sex God. No longer Bachelor of the Year on any magazine covers because everyone in the world knew that even if we weren’t married or even engaged, he was taken.

He made it clear in every moment of our private life together and he had since he’d whisked me away from Savannah almost a year ago. As soon as we arrived, together, we’d shredded our Infidelity contract. Since he couldn’t buy it out, every month we wrote a donation to a different domestic violence shelter or a rape crisis center, all over the country. Then we began living as if it never existed in the first place. It wasn’t difficult. Our love was real. Our relationship was real.

I didn’t return to school and I didn’t get a job because Liam declared he wanted me to go on his next tour with him, which we were currently in the middle of. But it didn’t matter that I didn’t provide financially to our relationship, we were on equal footing with absolutely everything.

He made the fact he was off the market even clearer in every moment of his public life. It didn’t matter if he was on stage or on television promoting his album and his tour that most were saying was his best one yet.

It didn’t matter if he was doing a radio interview or we were caught walking the streets of New York or Los Angeles hand-in-hand by paparazzo.

We were together. No one doubted it.

It took weeks for the media attention after Sophie’s speech at the media conference to die down, but once it did and life settled for Liam and me as we continued to get to know each other and fall more in love every day, he was no longer regarded with suspicion, but adoration. My father’s life was re-displayed on the news, but this time it reached gossip sites and blogs.

I quit looking at them, and then I quit caring. People could say whatever they wanted about my father or me.

As for me and my past in Savannah, I didn’t know how and I never once asked, but approximately one month after we were living in New York at his place in Greenwich Village, a package arrived in the mail for me.

In it, was the contract my father had signed with Edward and in bright red letters stamped across the front of it was the word VOID.

I’d collapsed to my knees and cried. I had wanted to ignore and forget everything, but somehow, some way, Liam took care of it, making sure no one, neither Harrison nor his dad, paid retribution for either the agreement between Edward and my father, or for Liam beating the crap out of Harrison.

It’d thrown me into a tailspin, memories flying into my mind so hard and fast I called the only person I could think of who would understand. At Sophie’s urging once I told her what happened, I began seeing a therapist. My experience and that horrific day with Harrison hadn’t been as traumatic as hers had been, but it had taken me a full two months to open myself physically to Liam again.

I’d despised the fact every time we tried to move past kissing, I clammed up.

He kissed me and hugged me and waited until the moment I was sure we could move forward without that between us.

Now, I couldn’t get enough of him. I never wanted to get enough of him. Every day we learned things about each other that made us alternate between laughing so hard I cried, or so irritated I could spit nails. He hated when I left clothes on the floor and dishes in the sink. It drove me crazy the way he squeezed our toothpaste from the middle of the tube, crinkling it together.

None of that mattered. We’d been through real issues and we continued facing them together.

And tonight, all of it was coming to fruition as I met Liam backstage after he’d just accepted the award for Best Album of the Year.  It accompanied his award for Best Song of the Year that he’d accepted earlier for “Captivated By You”…the song he’d written for me in Anguilla that I never ended up hearing until he’d recorded it.

I cried every time it came on the radio.

I spied him across the crowded room backstage at the awards show and politely pushed my way toward him.

As soon as he saw me, he thanked the reporter he was talking to and pulled me into his arms, lifting me off my feet. “Your speech was beautiful. You absolutely nailed it, and I’m so proud of you!”

I hugged him fiercely, kissing him appropriately for the moment but filled with passion.

He stole my breath. He provided me solace and safety. We traveled constantly. We were rarely at one of his homes. But it didn’t matter where we were or where we were going. Being at Liam’s side gave me the life I always wanted. One filled with true, complete, unconditional love and acceptance. And it wasn’t just with Liam, but his family and Karen as well.

She had long since replaced me as her temporary assistant but we got together for dinner at least once a month. The more we got to know each other, the more she reminded me of my mom. It took awhile to push past her professionalism and aloof demeanor, but I loved her almost as much as I loved Liam and his family who had treated me like their daughter since shortly after we returned to New York.

“I couldn’t have done any of this without you,” he whispered in my ear and set me back on my feet. “Let’s hope this next performance goes as smoothly, shall we?”

“What?” I was smiling at him so hard my cheeks hurt. He wasn’t making sense. “What do you mean?”

Liam gestured to the reporters behind him and flashed me a sly grin. “I have something for you.”

What was he getting at? Earlier tonight, he’d draped a string of diamonds around my throat as I was getting dressed and I raised my hand to finger them. “You’ve already given me everything I could possibly want.”

That had nothing to do with the diamonds. Everything to do with him.

“I’m glad you think that, sweetheart, but there’s one more thing I think you need.”

At the strange declaration, he dropped to his knee in front of me.

My hands flew to my mouth and I gasped.  “Liam—”

He ignored me and reached up, taking one of my hands in his—my left hand—and pulled it toward him, kissing it before smiling at me.

“I love you, Claudia. Love you to the depths of my marrow and the bottom of my soul. There is not a single thing about you, the beautiful woman you are, that escapes my notice on any single given moment. Marry me. Will you?”

He was doing this. He was really doing this. I blinked rapidly, flashes from the crowd around us momentarily blinding me and I almost missed it as he reached into his tuxedo and pulled out a small black box.

“Marry me,” he repeated as tears built in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. He popped open the box and blood drained from my face so quickly I was afraid I’d fall over. The ring was massive.

It also matched, exactly, the center stone on the necklace he’d given me earlier.

“Liam—”

I was too stunned to say anything but his name.

“What do you say, sweetheart. Be mine?”

He glanced around the room and I followed. Everyone was staring at us. Red little lights blinked on video cameras. Microphones were pointed in our direction. Camera flashes continued to light up the room.

I looked back down at him and found my voice. “Don’t you know?” My voice trembled as I spoke. “I’ve been yours since the first island trip. And it has nothing to do with my signing a name to a contract, but because I gave myself to you and since that day, you’ve always treasured it.”

“Damn straight. Are you going to answer me?” he asked, eyes flitting to cameras recording once more. “Because I feel like an asshole down here, waiting for you with reporters recording.”

I laughed and then nodded. “You idiot,” I whispered, lovingly teasing him. “Of course I’ll marry you. Yes. Absolutely yes.”

He stood and swept me into his arms. Our mouths fused together and cheers of joy echoed all over the room.

I didn’t care what one single person thought in that room besides the man kissing the life out of me.

The entire world watched our moves almost every day.

But we only saw each other. And he’d be the only person I ever saw, every day, for the rest of my life.

Acknowledgements

First, thank you so much to Aleatha Romig for writing an incredible series. I adored your Infidelity Series as a reader, and being able to join in writing inside your world was a huge honor! Extra thanks to Nicole Kuhn for managing everything for this Kindle World and your promotion.

To Shannon and Hilary and Tonya, thank you for being such amazing women, friends, betas, and designers. I love our shenanigans and especially for Shannon…I love your patience with my non-stop changes for this cover. But just like always, you totally nailed it.

Ellie and Virginia, thanks again for fitting me into your busy schedules. I love you both and so glad we were finally able to work together. You’re amazing ladies to have on my team.

As always, thank you the MOST to my readers and bloggers who unendlessly promote the books we all love so much. Thank you for your emails, your messages, and your support. Most of all, thank you for loving my words.

About The Author

Stacey Lynn talks to herself. Constantly. Her family teases her relentlessly for constantly having conversations with herself. It was only natural for her to begin penning those crazy conversations onto paper and begin writing books. When she’s not writing, she’s enjoying her life in the Midwest with her husband and four children.

To learn more about her books, you can find her here:

Website: www.staceylynnbooks.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/staceylynnbooks

Twitter: @staceylynnbooks

Instagram: @staceylynn.author

Other Books by Stacey Lynn

The Luminous Series

Dominate Me

Crave Me

Long For Me

Standalones

Dirty Player

Remembering Us

Don’t Lie To Me

The Fireside Series

His to Love

 His to Protect

His to Cherish

His to Seduce

Just One Series

Just One Song

Just One Week

Just One Regret

Just One Moment

The Nordic Lords Series

Point of Return

Point of Redemption

Point of Freedom

Point of Surrender