Emery dropped her hands to the elevator floor, beating out an uneven rhythm on the same statuario that lined the mansion she’d grown up in. The mansion full of people who’d ruined my family.
The beat dragged out, rapid and loud in the confined space.
Tap.
Tap. Tap.
Tap.
“Stop,” I demanded, hating her ability to fill the room with her presence.
She didn’t. If anything, her fingers fluttered faster, brushing against a cracker wrapper I’d discarded on the floor.
Tap. Tap.
Crinkle.
Tap.
“Stop.”
Louder.
As if she had one compliant bone in her body that didn’t bend at anyone but Virginia’s will.
Her tapping persisted.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Crinkle.
Tap. Tap.
The elevator felt smaller, like the walls sucked in her direction, pushing me with them. Our breaths fogged the little container—hers heavier than mine. Her chest heaved to the point where her breasts hit her chin after a sharp exhale.
Her lips moved fast, quick mutters I could barely make out.
Tacenda.
Moira.
Koi no yokan.
I’d either heard her wrong, or she’d made up the words. You never knew with Emery. Her palms pawed at the floor, pushing her body further into the corner opposite of me. She stared blindly at me, unable to adjust to the dark as she blinked rapid blinks.
A smile curved my lips. I watched her fall apart, accompanied only by blackness. No mother to tell her what to do. No daddy to run to. No Reed to serve as a conduit of bravery. Meanwhile, I looked like the poster child for Xanax, calm and uncaring as I pulled out my phone and continued to crush candy.
Ding.
Ding.
A game played by children, yet my success brought me pleasure.
“I hope his battery dies, and he suffers with me,” she muttered, probably to herself, but I wasn’t deaf.
My attention clung to her side of the elevator, enraptured by the little differences becoming clearer with each second. Anxiety, mostly. The same quirky Emery, packaged differently and stamped with extra baggage.
Good. How does it feel to live a fucked-up life, Princess? Welcome to the club.
I paid the ninety-nine cents for five more lives after I used my last one and turned the volume all the way up until the crushed wrappers and pinging drowned out her insanity. The distinct sound of a zipper unzipping halted my fingers above a coconut wheel. I waited to see where she’d take this.
Her hands worked at the corset of her dress until it loosened, and she heaved out another exhale. She bent both knees, rested a forearm on each one, and leaned her head between her legs.
The first dry heave elicited an eye roll from me.
The second one had me pulling up my Spotify app.
The third one pierced my ears until my fingers ran marathons across the keyboard.
The fourth one came, and I pressed play on “Shut Up” by Black Eyed Peas.
One second.
Two.
Three.
“Turn that shit off!” Her voice bounced off the walls, an unbridled shout. Her anger formed tsunami waves in the elevator, lashing at me. “I swear, I will smash your phone against your head unless you turn that shit off!”
Following orders had never been a strong suit of mine.
I let it play, “shut up” repeating over and over again. She shot up from her crouch and pushed me, putting all her weight into the effort. A kitten who’d mistaken herself for a tiger.
My phone clattered to the floor between us, but I planted my feet, not budging an inch, even when her tiny fingers flexed against the hard ridges of my pecs and her tits delivered her rapid heartbeats onto my abs.
They fluttered like hummingbird wings across my skin, sending goosebumps up and down my arms. Her scent repelled and lured me. I leaned forward when I should have leaned back.
I wanted to fuck with her.
I wanted to fuck her.
I couldn’t do one, so I settled for the other.
Stepping into her touch, I reveled in the sound of her breath catching as I whispered against her ear, my lips touching the delicate curve, “Faking a panic attack is not cute attention-seeking behavior.”
Pulling back, my body hit the wall and my hip brushed against her pinched waist at the movement, conjuring a breathy gasp.
So fragile.
So delicious.
So wrong.
“Word of advice,” I drawled. Slow. The speed you’d use on someone just learning English. “If that’s how you sound after sex, I suggest cardio.”
The words made me as much of a liar as the Winthrops.
Her hands still sat on my chest, clenched around the shirt fabric, breaths coming out in quick pants.
She sounded like sex.
Reeked of sex.
Moved like sex.
The last thought I needed was of Emery and cardio with the memory of her riding me branded on my brain.
Tiny nails grazed my pecs. Her hips rolled forward, unaware my eyes had adjusted to the dark half an hour ago as she sought something I’d never willingly give her. She had to steal it from me. Rob me.
A little thief.
Like her father.
Like me.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
That’s okay, little Tiger.
I hate you, too.
And if she ever asked for forgiveness, I’d throw her pleas back in her face and ruin her life for sport.
Her family killed my father. It might as well have been tattooed onto my flesh, because I would never forget it. I would never forgive it.
I pressed a pointer finger to her forehead and pushed until she took the hint and stepped back with the attitude of an unfed dog. “You don’t know me, sweetheart.”
She laughed, lazy, psychotic, maddening. It was the kind of ceaseless laughter that didn’t have a beginning or an end. Just noise.
Raucous.
Unhinged.
Worthy of a horror movie soundtrack.
She’d lost it.
Emery Winthrop had finally lost it.
But crazy had always fueled her blood. She sought adrenaline highs like a junky, climbed trees and fell down without blinking an eye, snuck into beds, proudly wore her emotions on t-shirts, and defended herself fiercely.
She reminded me of a cornered predator, ready to lash out, desperate to differentiate herself from the Virginia 2.0 her mother demanded her to be.
It made her wild.
Reckless.
Foolish.
So, so foolish.
“I know your type.” She swiped at my finger, swatting it to the side. Her dress bowed forward, unzipped, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Not just rich but wealthy.”
The word spat out like a curse. She edged herself onto me. Not edging herself onto me—edging herself onto my phone. She drove her heel into the screen and twisted until it cracked, a kaleidoscope of reds, greens, and blues that did nothing but light up the Converse she wore beneath her floor-length gown.
“Handsome.” Another word she’d turned into a curse. “Over-privileged. You think you’re better than everyone else, that you can do whatever you please and get away with it. You disgust me.”
It wasn’t lost on me that her description suited her dad. I didn’t tell her this, though, because doing so would reveal my identity. I unveiled a saccharine smile she couldn’t see and laughed. Loud. In her face. Spearmint caressing her skin.
She could enjoy her pretty, perfect world—her emails from Gideon and the fat sum that sat in a trust fund under her name—a little while longer. Soon enough, everything she owned would be mine.
Her hopes.
Her dreams.
Her future in the palm of my hands.
I was hard at the idea of revenge.
Beneath us, my phone sputtered out.
Dead.
Another casualty to the Winthrop name.
Anger stained her voice. I let her revel in it. My pulse thrummed at the realization I might have lost my final photos of Dad on there. Dad’s birthday party. Ma had packed a picnic because it was all she could afford, but it was the last time I’d smiled. Really smiled.
My fingers itched to snatch my phone and fix it, but I couldn’t do anything while stuck here.
“Do you have a last name, Emery?” I enunciated her name, taking pleasure in the way her body stilled.
Her bravado vanished.
She backed away from me. “Who’s asking?”
“A concerned guest, who’d like to report an ill-mannered employee,” I lied.
She nestled herself in the corner, relieving me of the vodka scent. Of her. “Don’t bother. I’m with the catering staff, and we’re gone after the night.”
The puzzle clicked into place. The name tag. The rail-thin frame. Prescott Hotels hired models to serve at every event. Usually, ones who hadn’t made a name for themselves and needed money.
Emery needed money like I needed a bigger dick. Any more would be excessive.
Silence spread until her legs twitched, tapping on the floor again.
“Claustrophobic?” I could have hidden the amusement in my voice. I didn’t.
“Not really. Just bad in confined spaces.”
“That is literally claustrophobia.”
She also hadn’t had it when I’d known her. I took pleasure in her baggage, tangible evidence justice existed after all. Not in the court systems. Guilt and evidence lived separate lives, rarely meeting one another.
Hence, her baggage delighted me.
An appetizer for the main course to come.
“I know what claustrophobia is,” she snapped. “I don’t have it.” She sat in her corner, legs straight out. They brushed against my shoes until she jerked them back to her chest like she’d been stung.
I allowed silence to settle between us. Sitting, I palmed my broken phone and felt around the edges. Definitely smashed, tiny little pieces of shattered glass digging across my palms.
Hopefully, it only required a new screen.
An hour later, Emery caved, shaking her head, probably to stop herself from falling asleep. “What’s your name?”
“We’re not doing this.” My clipped tone spoke of finality, unyielding to her pathetic probe.
“Doing what? Introducing ourselves?”
“Talking.”
“You are such a piece of work.” She pulled at her dress, adjusting the top around her, and I imagined she’d at least become somewhat used to the darkness by now, but it was still too dim to capture my face. “No wonder you hired an escort as your date.”
“What I do with my money and whom I do with my time are none of your business, Emery.” I enunciated each syllable of her name, taunting her.
I know who you are. Do you know who I am?
She edged forward, closer to me, her voice sounding like she was a hundred percent awake now. “You people are all alike.” The words came in pants. She seethed at me, and I realized my first assessment had been right—she needed cardio.
“You people?” I humored, because there was nothing better to do while stuck in a box than watching Emery Winthrop lose her shit.
“Rich people.” She drew it out, like it disgusted her. “People like Nash Prescott. People like you.”
I almost snorted at the irony.
Instead, I scoffed, like the idea was laughable. And it was. Had she ever looked in a mirror?
“Tread carefully,” I taunted. “You don’t know me.”
“Or what?”
Or you’ll look like a fool.
Too late.
“You’re reckless,” I observed, ignoring her question.
She’d inched closer since picking this new fight with me. Always picking fights, this one. “Reckless is hiring an escort, then getting an S.T.D.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t fuck them. Even when their legs are spread, fingers dipped knuckles-deep inside their soaking wet pussies, begging me to make them come, I don’t.”
I hired escorts because I worked in a world that required dates for corporate events, and I had neither the time nor inclination to fend off Eastridge housewife wannabes, who saw me as nothing more than a golden ticket to a privileged life.
A sharp inhale met my words, but she recovered quickly, never one to back down. “You leave women unsatisfied. Fits the profile.”
“Of?”
“Rich men whose only claim to fame is their net worth. I’ve met hundreds of men like you. They have no skills to call their own, other than the money in their bank accounts. And when their money is gone, what’s left of you? A man who can’t satisfy a woman he paid to satisfy.”
“For starters, you’re objectifying these women. Such solidarity,” I mocked. “Secondly, the escorts are simply a means to an end. They’re dates, not fucks, and I compensate them well for their time.”
Her biting laugh turned into a sharp cry. Her hand met the crown of her head. For a second, I allowed guilt to swallow me, because maybe she hadn’t been as drunk as I’d thought she was. Maybe she was actually hurt.
I’d never been nice. Ma said I grew up hating the world because I saw what it was rather than what it could be. But… I’d also never been the asshole to see someone hurt without offering a hand.
Dad would have been pissed if he were here. The knowledge settled inside me, carving ugly marks into my chest, but I didn’t rectify it. I looked up at the ceiling, careful to move my eyes and not my head, knowing Emery could probably see me by now but not very well.
What do you expect me to do, Dad?
I could picture him in front of me, the clearest I’d ever seen him since he’d died. His heavy brows pulled together, crow’s feet rimming the edges of his eyes. The tan came from all those years working in the sun, forgoing sunblock because there was nothing like warmth on naked skin.
He opened his mouth, I edged forward to latch onto his words, and when they neared fruition, Emery spoke, breaking the spell, “I’m not objectifying those women or even judging them for how they earn their money. That’s their situation. Their business.”
Of course, you’re not judging. How could you when your family earned its money through theft?
I became irrationally angry. She could never have known that was the closest I’d felt to Dad since he had died, but still—I hated her more than I ever had in that moment. Even more than I had when she hadn’t shown up for Dad’s funeral, for the man who used to call her his third child.
I curled my fist to the point of white knuckles. My fingers dug into my palms, the pain distracting me from the gaping hole in my chest.
From the fact that, sometimes, I could remember Dad so clearly, and other times, I struggled to recall where on his forehead his mole sat.
From the fact that no matter how hard I fucking tried, I couldn’t hate Emery.
Not all the way, anyway.
Not with the same careless freedom I possessed when hating the rest of the world.
I bit my tongue.
Emery continued, so oblivious, I could have died from disbelief, “But if you’re judging me for being panicked while trapped in this tiny metal box with a jackass, I’m judging you for hiring escorts in the first place and leaving them unsatisfied.” She inched closer and taunted, “Performance anxiety?”
“Never been the type,” I bit out.
“Prove it.”
“What are we? Five? Are you going to dare me next?” I wouldn’t put it past her. Dares were currency for thrill-seekers like her.
The elevator shook. She latched on to my shoulder, her hands flying forward so fast, I knew it was instinct. The lights flickered on, a quick blink like a camera flash. Moments later, the light reintroduced her features to me.
She opened her eyes, blinking rapidly, taking a few seconds to get used to the brightness before she focused two different-colored eyes on me. Realization blossomed across her face until her fingers unlatched from my shoulders.
Déjà vu punched my chest hard.
Emery wore the same deer-in-headlights expression she had four years ago when I’d switched on the lights, and she realized I wasn’t Reed. I watched, unmoving. She stumbled backward, her jaw nearly unhinging from its socket.
The spread of wrappers almost tripped her.
“Easy, Tiger.”
I could tell that was the right thing to say because she narrowed two hate-filled eyes at me, the gray one stormier than the blue. When the elevator doors opened behind her on a random level, she grabbed the clutch I’d pilfered and stumbled out.
My fingers jabbed the button for the penthouse floor before I realized I’d never asked her why the hell she’d taken a catering gig when she didn’t need the money.
