My heart hammers hard in my chest, and my pulse pounds across my body as fast as a race car competing in the Grand Prix.
Knight’s lips pressed to my mouth, with his tongue tangled with mine, sends currents of pleasure sweeping through me.
I try to remember this is supposed to be fake. But it feels real, probably because we’ve kissed before.
That shouldn’t mean anything. Knight is the last man on this side of the universe I should allow myself to feel such aching desire for.
Everything about us is too ugly, and I hate him for being such a bastard about Sunset Cove.
I came here tonight ready for war. But this kiss, this very real kiss, has stalled my mind. And Knight …
He makes me forget I’m standing on a crowded floor.
He makes me forget I’m supposed to hate him.
He makes me forget everything as effortlessly as he did the first night we kissed.
Then, in the split of a second, Knight stops kissing me and pulls away, his expression an unreadable mask. It’s the kind of face a judge would pull to sentence a man to death without losing his composure, and you’d always be left wondering how he truly felt.
It reminds me that we’re still enemies and I mustn’t lose sight of my goals.
But there’s something else I just figured out.
Attraction. It’s my opening, my foot in the door, my opportunity.
No matter what has happened, I can’t deny that I’m attracted to him, and he is to me.
I can use that.
It’s the wild card between us and the thing I’m sure Persephone used to get Hades to meet her halfway. I don’t even need as much as that. I just need an ounce of compassion.
A flash of a camera snaps our tension-filled stare.
It was someone taking pictures from the corner of the room. The press.
It’s begun.
I expect that picture to be in some newspaper tomorrow like all the others that will be taken before the night is out.
“Oh, my goodness, she is absolutely gorgeous,” says an elderly woman floating toward us. Although she’s thin, she reminds me of the fairy godmother in Cinderella. She comes right up to me and takes both my hands. “I’m Etta, Knight’s grandmother. I’ve simply been dying to meet you.”
“It’s great to meet you too. I’m Aurora.”
“Like Sleeping Beauty. I love it.” A gleam of interest flashes in her pale eyes.
I give her a little smile. She seems really nice. Glamorous grandmother nice.
I knew I’d be meeting Knight’s family tonight, but I kind of expected them to have horns on their heads.
“My mother had a thing for fairytales,” I explain with awe.
“Well, she made a good call. My dear, you are just as lovely as your name.”
“Thank you.”
She gives my hands a squeeze before releasing them, then looks from me to Knight with glowing excitement.
A man I recognize from Google as Knight’s grandfather comes up next.
“Hi, I’m Bradford Grayson, Knight’s grandfather.” His tone is businesslike, as if he’s in a boardroom meeting.
“Good to meet you.”
“And you.” He puts out his hand for me to shake, and I do, but I don’t miss the look of wonder he gives Knight.
Something tells me it’s because of that kiss, and I wonder just how much he knows about us. I get the feeling he knows a lot. Or everything.
He exudes the kind of authority that demands that no secrets are hidden from him.
“I must introduce you to everyone.” Knight’s grandmother takes my hand again, and before I can say anything, I’m led away.
I look back at Knight, who is already looking at me.
He said nothing after that kiss. Not to me and not to his grandparents. And still, his face remains the same.
I’m taken to meet Knight’s grandmother’s friends, who fuss over me, my dress, and my ring. I meet more people than I’ve probably met in the last five years, and that’s saying something given that I went away for college and worked in two states.
I get invites to dinners, fundraisers here at the Astoria, and other venues I’d never be invited to in this lifetime. My personal favorite is an invite to a poodle fashion show put together by a new designer. Apparently, I’m lucky to get an invitation because it’s an early viewing specifically arranged for the celebs who will be attending New York Fashion Week.
The time comes for Knight’s grandfather to make his toast. When Knight finds me and slips an arm around my waist, I know the announcement about us is going to be made.
I was right.
Knight’s grandfather thanks everyone for coming out tonight, proceeds to make a speech about his wife that sounds like vows of undying love, then he makes the announcement, declaring how proud he is that his eldest grandson has just gotten engaged.
That’s when things really take off and it’s like the party is more about us. The press swarm us with their congratulations and questions. Knight and I are asked everything from how we met to how he popped the question. Someone cheekily even asks if the Princess of Monaco would be invited to the wedding, seeing as how she was Knight’s date for the yacht party.
As fake as we are, I am happy when Knight answers that she wouldn’t be in attendance, then he makes the journalist apologize to me for being disrespectful and messy.
Said journalist is then shown the door.
The night wears on, and more pictures are taken with more kisses that feel far too real. I play the game, play the fiancée, play with fate.
Soon, the night ends. I survive my first official day on the job, but something sinister becomes quite obvious to me.
Of all the people I met tonight, Knight’s father wasn’t one of them. Neither was his half-brother Bastian, nor his stepmother, Sloane. But they were all there. I saw them.
At one point, when I was talking to Knight and Jericho, I looked right at them, wondering if they were going to come over. They were talking to other people, so I thought that might be why they didn’t at the time, but they made no attempt at any other times.
I couldn’t have been more surprised, and it was extremely obvious that they weren’t anything called close. I also noticed his father was like that with Jericho, too, and seemed to favor Bastian.
To me, Knight’s grandfather acted more like a father than his father did. I don’t know his mother, as she lives in France, but I noticed how his grandmother took on the role of mother too.
It made me wonder what happened between them. I couldn’t imagine not being close to my father or speaking to him when he’s right there in a room with me.
The goal for tonight was to get to a place where I could speak to Knight about Sunset Cove, but as the night ends and we bid goodbye to everyone, the questions about him and his family fill my mind.
Both matters, however, slip away when we slide into the fog of tension in the back of the Maybach, and Ryan starts the journey home.
Now that Knight and I are practically alone, it feels weird. We just spent hours pretending to be a couple engaged and in love.
Going back to the people we were before is harder than I expected.
It’s harder to un-believe that we didn’t belong to each other every time we kissed, and we’re just a contract.
The tension thickens the further we drive away. But it’s not the angsty tension we had before. There’s an undertone of something sinful and sexual.
I know Knight feels it too, because he keeps stealing glances at me. At one point, out the corner of my eye, I catch him staring at my bare thigh where the dress splits.
I purposely don’t move because I want to see how long he will do it. He stares, and stares, and stares, until Ryan drives over a little bump in the road. That is the only time Knight looks away.
We continue the journey in silence, but it’s loud, almost deafening.
I can’t even think straight, and when I do, I keep remembering all the sinful things he said to me tonight and other nights, and the way he kissed me.
Finally, we look at each other and a moment of unspoken words fill the space between us. I wish I knew what he is thinking.
As if to show me, he leans forward, as if to kiss me again. I’m stunned at myself when I stay there, waiting for the kiss to come.
But it doesn’t. The moment is interrupted when the car pulls to a stop and Ryan announces that we’re home.
Knight gets out first. I follow, suddenly realizing the night is over.
He’ll leave and go back to his cave, then I’ll have to wait until tomorrow or whenever I next see him to recreate this moment of truce to negotiate the renovation plans for Sunset Cove. Right now feels like the perfect opening, so I have to take it.
“Knight.” I rush up to him before he reaches the stairs, but he keeps going.
“It’s bedtime, Goddess.”
We walk inside, into the bright hallway, and he continues walking away from me. Not in the direction of his room, but his office.
“Knight.” I say his name with more force. He stops this time.
When he turns to look at me, and I take in the smoldering fire burning within his eyes, I freeze, knowing exactly why he’s trying to get away from me.
It’s that thing. That thing that made him almost kiss me again when no one was watching.
For a moment, we feel like a couple on a first date who have through-the-roof chemistry, and it’s gotten to the point of the night where they’re supposed to say goodbye. Except they don’t want to, but they know they’ll end up in bed if they spend another minute with each other. That’s never happened to me, but I’ve written about it.
“Good night, Aurora.” This is one of the few times he’s said my name, and it’s with a clipped edge, a final warning that I need to stop pursuing him. Except I can’t.
“I need to talk to you about—”
“No.” His voice is filled with the same finality as before, but for a different reason this time, alerting me to the fact that he’s fully aware of what I want to talk about.
Of course, he would be aware. That was to be expected.
“You haven’t even allowed me to finish telling you what I want to talk about, and you’re saying no?” My gaze remains riveted to his as if attached by nails.
“You want to talk about the renovation plans for Sunset Cove, and that’s not up for discussion.”
Fury roars in my ears at his stubbornness. “Why the hell not? Why won’t you even hear me out?”
“Because there’s a reason I’m so good at my job. I don’t need to hear what you have to say about your mother’s plans to know it’s not going to be something I’m interested in.”
Arrogant pig. I want to call him that, but I hold my tongue. My God, do I hold my tongue.
“That’s a little egotistical, don’t you think?”
“Yes. You’re talking to me as if we just met. I’m all about ego. It is what it is. You don’t have to like it, or me.” His voice drops at the same time his eyes do to my breasts, and he makes no attempt to hide that he’s checking me out right in front of me.
Raw arousal awakens in my core again, but I shove it away and will myself to focus. I can’t allow my brain to turn to soup every time he looks at me like that. I have to get my damn act together.
Ignoring his comment, I decide to say what I need to say whether he wants to hear it or not. Just like an actress at an audition who’s just been rejected, but she keeps going anyway, hoping her judges will change their minds. “Sunset Cove was created in the forties. That’s when it became famous and attracted people from everywhere. My mother wanted to revive that era and bring back all the things everyone loved. I think it’s a fantastic idea.”
The whole forties idea is the kind of unique selling point that should spark excitement and interest. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love the forties. But from the distasteful look on Knight’s face, it seems as if I’ve just met the first person to prove me wrong.
“Jesus, no.” He wrinkles his nose, furrows his brows, and glares back at me as if I just spat on his Armani suit. “The forties were left in the forties for a reason. We won’t be doing that.”
My God, he actually hates the idea.
No. Hate is too meager a word. It’s more like he despises it.
“Won’t you even look at my mother’s designs? I get that you’re good at what you do, but my mother was extremely talented. She had this dream of owning her own hotel. When she got Sunset Cove, she—”
“Stop, Aurora. Just stop.”
“But—”
“No. We’re done here.”
He turns and continues down the hallway. I watch him go, feeling like a failure all over again.
I can’t believe he won’t give me a chance. Not even an ounce of a chance when he’s taken so much from me.
No. I can’t just give up or have him dismiss me for the night like I’m a petulant child. We’re not done yet. I’m not done.
Gathering my courage, I rush after him.
He knows I’m behind him, but he keeps walking. I follow him right into the office, slipping through the door when he enters before he closes it.
“You don’t give up, do you?” He grits his teeth, shakes his head, and walks to the humidor on the coffee table to grab a cigar.
“Not on this, no. It’s important to me.” I steel my spine and imbue my voice with all the passion I feel for Sunset Cove. “Knight ,you have taken everything from me.”
“When last I checked, I saved your father from a fate worse than death.” He shrugs out of his jacket and lights up the cigar. “I’m not sure you realize what being bankrupt means, or owing serious money to people you can’t write off.”
“I understand, and I’m fulfilling my part of the contract, but that is all for my father. Not me.” I bring my hands to my chest. “You have left me with ten percent of the one thing I own. Sunset Cove is the last piece of my mother. You knew I was going to renovate it, and you undercut me. Can’t you have the decency to look at my mom’s designs?”
He narrows his eyes and sits in front of his computer as if getting ready to work. “I already told you how I feel.”
“Is there really nothing I can do?”
“No.” He looks away and focuses on the computer screen, dismissing me from his sight.
I swallow past the Texas-sized lump clogging my throat and rummage through my mind for something more to help me.
Something I can do to prove to Knight that Mom’s ideas are the best for Sunset Cove. I can imagine him modernizing everything and ruining the nostalgia and heart of the place. Some things are best preserved, and you aren’t supposed to change them.
Knight starts tapping away on his keyboard with his cigar slinked to the side of his mouth.
“I’ll do anything,” I mutter in a reverent-careful voice.
My offer gets his attention. His fingers still on the keyboard, and a sinful look that should warn me away enters his eyes. I imagine that’s how the devil would look if you offered yourself to him.
“Anything?” He inclines his head.
“Yes.” Although I feel like I’m about to sign a contract without knowing what I’ve agreed to, I have to try.
He pulls on his cigar and releases a waft of smoke that surrounds him in a sexy fog. The sight reminds me of one of those neo-noir posters of classic Hollywood films like Casablanca, or maybe with Knight, it would more be like The Godfather.
He glances across the room and scans the area. Then it’s as if an idea comes to him, and when he looks back at me, his eyes are alive with malice.
“Okay.” Malevolence snakes through his voice, slithering through every syllable.
I don’t care about the chills rushing across my body with the warning not to do this. I feel hope. I got him to say okay.
“You will?”
“Yeah, I’ll look over the designs and consider them with my own plans for the renovations. But, you need to beat me at a game of chess.”
He glances at the wooden chessboard in the corner of the room. I do the same, noting how the pieces suddenly look real.
I hate chess, and it was so long ago that I played the game, I can barely remember the rules.
But I’ll do it. I’ll play if that’s what I need to do.
“What happens if you win?” I ask.
I don’t like the smile that spreads across his face. It would make Jack Nicholson’s in The Shining look like your regular mailman.
“You already said it, Mon Cherie.” He leans forward, resting his elbow on the table. “If I win, you do anything I want.”
I press my lips together, knowing I’m heading into trouble here, but what choice do I have? I can walk away or do this.
“Still want to play?” He searches my eyes.
“Yes.” While I nod with determination, I pray to whoever will listen that I’ll beat him.
