Our driver weaves around traffic, jolting to avoid the countless cabs cutting him off. It’s a sea of honking horns and red lights here. I don’t know how anyone drives in this city.
“So, what’s she like?”
“Who, Margo? She’s nice.” His gaze drifts out the window.
“And this boyfriend of hers?”
“Never met him.”
“How long have you known her for?”
“What’s with all the questions?” He turns to look at me. “Are you still worried that there’s something going on?”
“No.” Maybe.
He gives me a flat look, like he can read my mind. But his hand settles in the crack between my legs, his thumb grazing over my smooth skin. “You have nothing to worry about, I promise. This is strictly business.”
“Going out to clubs is for business?”
“Sometimes it is. Tonight it’s for fun. We have become friends, too.”
It’s odd to hear Henry discuss friends. One might think he has none. But apparently he does. Gorgeous French supermodel friends.
“Relax. You’ll like her.” His lip twitches in the hint of a smile. “And I think she’ll like you.”
~ ~ ~
“Abigail! It is nice to meet you, finally,” she croons, the greeting so pleasant on her French tongue. She rounds the dining table, her willowy, delicate body swaying seductively with each step, her cream-colored dress flowing with her movements. It’s such a contrast to her poker-straight hair, the color of ravens’ wings and somehow glossy even in the dim candlelit restaurant. It frames her angular face in a shoulder-length bob so beautifully.
I thought my legs looked long but I was only fooling myself. She stands a good five inches taller than me and all I see are legs and perky breasts.
She grasps my shoulders and leans in to air kiss my left cheek, before swinging her head to the other side to do the same with the right. Her hair smells delicious. She steps back, her sharp green eyes studying my face closely.
The warm, friendly greeting is so unexpected, I find myself at a loss for words.
She makes it sounds like she’s been waiting to meet me.
When did Henry tell her about me?
Finally, I manage a “hello.” Because I’m smooth like that.
“Henry. Two nights in a row. This is a treat.” She does the air kiss with him too, though he matches it with the grace of a sophisticated man who knows how to deal with the French.
He steps away and she smiles adoringly up at him.
Like she wants him.
Stop it, Abbi. Don’t be jealous.
It’s hard not to be, even more so now that I’m standing in front of her. I don’t know much about her, except for what I read in that hour between me seeing the picture and Henry responding to my text message. She’s twenty-five years old and comes from what might be considered French royalty; her father’s ancestors were kings and queens. She began modeling at fourteen and walked every major catwalk the world has, several times over. Now she graces Times Square billboards and bus shelters, storefronts and magazine covers.
She’s perfect, and exotic, and glamorous.
She would fit well on Henry’s arm, much more so than me.
Stop it, Abbi. Henry is with you.
“This is Joel. Joel, Henry and Abigail.”
The way she says Henry’s name, dropping the H altogether, is so charming. And I don’t even care that she’s using my full name; it sounds glamorous rolling off her tongue.
Her boyfriend, Joel, a tall, handsome, blond man with dimples and a mischievous glint in his eyes, stands to first shake Henry’s hand and then plant a soft kiss on my cheek, his spicy cologne tickling my nostrils, his equally appealing French accent caressing my eardrums. I’d put him in his late twenties, likely.
“Have you eaten here before, Abigail?” she asks, ushering me to the stately wing chair directly beside her. Everything about this restaurant is elaborate—from the candelabras hanging above, to the damask wallpaper, to the waiters serving champagne in tuxedos. I’m not sure I even want to see what the plates cost.
“I’ve never been to New York City,” I admit.
“What?” Her beautiful eyes widen in exaggerated shock as she suddenly rambles off a string of French words. “Joel, help me convince Henry to make sure his Abigail sees everything there is to see here. I don’t think he appreciates this city as he should.”
His Abigail.
Henry was wrong, I don’t like her.
I freaking love Margo Lauren.
~ ~ ~
Margo makes a cute, playful sound as she pats her perfectly flat belly through her dress. “Well, it is official. I have eaten and drank too much here, as usual. I need to go and work it off.”
I glance at my phone. It’s midnight. We’ve been eating food I can’t pronounce and drinking red wine that I adore for three hours. The time passed quickly, with Margo telling funny stories about runway catastrophes, and Joel, a photographer with pieces now hanging in art museums all over the world, sharing horror stories of the horrendous models he’s had to deal with in his career.
Henry glances back to grab the waiter’s attention. He comes running and Henry hands him his card.
“No, Henry! You picked up last night as well,” Margo admonishes, reaching across the table to place her hand over his. It’s such an intimate move and directly in front of me. I glance to Joel. He must have noticed, but he doesn’t seem in the least bit fazed by it.
I really need to calm down. She’s done nothing overt to make me suspect that she’s after him.
Henry rambles something in French—because, yes, I just found out that Henry is fluent in French from his years in boarding school, along with German and Spanish—and she squeezes his hand tight before pulling away.
“Fine. But when you come to my chateau for a visit, it will be my treat.” She turns to me. “You will come too, Abigail. Oui?”
“Uh… oui?” I steal a glance Henry’s way to see him studying Margo carefully.
He spouts off something else to her in French. I can’t read his tone, but it doesn’t sound all that relaxed.
Margo merely shrugs, and then winks at me.
What was that about?
I need to learn French.
Joel taps the table with his hands. “We are ready?”
Margo eases out of her chair with the grace of a feline. I wonder if all models move like that, or just Margo. It’s impossible not to appreciate her as she and Joel walk ahead of us, leading us out of the restaurant, her back naked, her slender but curvy hips swaying with each step, the material hugging her round ass just snugly enough that I find myself picturing what it looks like bare. Something I don’t think I’ve ever done before. She has this appeal to her that I can’t quite figure out.
“You’re attracted to her.”
I startle at Henry’s words, low and against my ear. “No, I’m not!”
He chuckles. “Don’t be embarrassed by it. She has a draw to her that very few can ignore, even entirely straight women. Which, by the way, are few and far between.”
“So you are attracted to her?”
His hand settles on my lower back, his fingers hot against my bare skin as they push under the material of my dress, his pinky toying with the very top of my ass crack. “I want you.”
I stretch to my tiptoes to plant a quick kiss on his jaw. But I can’t completely shake the conversation. “Has she hit on you?”
He hesitates, as if to choose his words carefully. “Margo is an intensely sexual person. She’s hitting on you, even when she’s not.”
I frown, trying to understand what he means by that. I’m still trying to figure it out as we climb into a waiting black SUV.
~ ~ ~
“What’s this place called?” I yell over the music. My eyes struggle to adjust to the lighting. It’s dimmer than the restaurant we just left, but the darkness is broken up by strobes and other flashing spotlights over the dance floor.
Henry doesn’t answer—or maybe he does and I can’t hear him. His arm hangs loose but protectively around my back as we make our way deeper into the club, past the throng of dancers, the heavy bass music pounding in my chest and in my throat.
Margo flashes a smile at the bouncer guarding the staircase and he lifts the rope, allowing us up the stairs and to the second floor, where a woman in a black leather bra and the shortest black shorts I’ve ever seen greets Margo with the two-cheek-kiss thing and tells her that her room is ready. She leads us down a hallway to a small private room overlooking the dance floor through a floor-to-ceiling window. The room is just large enough for a round table and the four leather chairs surrounding it.
Margo sighs. “There. That’s much better. I can hear myself think!”
The music is still booming, vibrating through my body, but it’s muffled now. We don’t have to yell to talk.
I wander over to the window to watch the crowd of people gyrate to the music. It’s a mess of scantily clad women and tangled limbs and swaying hips, some dancing in their own worlds, others in groups of three to four, pressed tight against each other, their drinks sloshing this way and that as they laugh and grind. I’m assuming a lot of them are drunk.
I sense someone sidling up behind me a second before hands deftly slip under the sides of my dress to fill with my bare breasts.
“Henry!” My face burns as I grab his hands and yank them away. I look up to find him grinning.
“It’s a one-way.”
“What?”
“The window,” Henry says, tapping on the glass. “We can see them, but they can’t see us.”
I allow myself a chance to breathe, though my heart’s still racing. “That’s not funny! You should have warned me. And besides….” I give him a knowing glare, then nod toward Margo and Joel, busy pouring drinks behind us.
“Trust me, they don’t care.” He leans down to treat my mouth to those full lips of his, his finger covertly dipping into my top to skate across my nipple. “I’m sorry, don’t be mad.”
I roll my eyes, but smile. Like I could ever be mad at him for touching me.
“Vodka or tequila!” Margo calls out. “Abigail, you choose.” Behind us, she’s lining up four shot glasses.
“My vote is neither. I’ve seen her drunk before and I don’t think I want to be carrying her home.” He softens his words with a playful slap across my ass, his hand lingering afterward.
“You are a frigid old woman tonight, Henry!” Margo teases, earning Joel’s laughter. “Pick one!”
“Tequila, I guess?”
Henry shakes his head. He sits, pulling me into his lap, murmuring, “You’re going to regret this.”
She winks at me as she hands me my glass, her fingertips dancing over mine. “Bottoms up!”
I manage to get the shot down under Henry’s watchful eye, my face twisting in disgust. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, especially after you two shared three bottles of wine.”
“No we didn’t,” I deny, though I’m pretty sure we did because I’m feeling pretty damn relaxed right now.
“I paid the five-hundred-dollar-a-bottle bill, so I think I’d know.”
My mouth drops open. The menu didn’t even have prices listed on it, so I have no idea what that dinner might have cost.
“Here, have one more. It will taste better.” Margo shoves another shot into my hand, watching expectantly.
I pour it back. And cringe. “You lied.” If nothing, it might be worse. Though, I can already feel the burn coursing through my body, warming me from the inside.
Henry chuckles, cracking open a bottle of water. “Drink this or you’ll be puking tonight, and I can think of other reasons for holding your hair.”
Margo and Joel have turned their attention to the dance floor, their backs to us, so I take the opportunity to lean in and nuzzle my nose against Henry’s ear. “Like what?” I whisper, letting my teeth graze against his lobe.
“You don’t want to start this here, Abbi, trust me.” He hands me the water with a look of warning. “Drink it.”
I settle against his chest, my body relaxed from the wine and shots of tequila and humming from the music, and I drink my water as I watch Joel and Margo spy on the crowd below. My eyes are on Margo especially, her hips rolling to the music, her fingertips toying with the hem of her dress as if she might lift it off at any moment, her legs apart in an almost suggestive way. God, she’s even more seductive when she dances. That’s what it is, she oozes seductiveness. I’m sitting here on Henry’s lap, mesmerized, wondering what she’d look like naked.
At some point in the song, Joel shifts behind her and starts dancing with her, his hips grinding against her like the people below are doing.
“We should get going,” Henry whispers in my ear, chasing it with a lingering kiss against my neck, his hand smoothing over my thigh in a slow draw, back and forth. It’s an automatic move, my need to turn and meet his lips with mine. I think the alcohol and music and the touches he’s stolen all night—his very presence, really—have finally come to a head because suddenly I can’t wait to get home.
“Okay.”
I turn back in time to see Joel slip Margo’s dress up over her hips.
She’s not even wearing panties.
My mouth drops open as she pulls the top of her dress down, exposing her full breasts. She rests her hands on the metal bar that runs across the length of the window in front of her, adjusting her stance to spread her legs.
“Oh my God. Are they going to—”
With his back to us, Joel fumbles with his belt buckle, unzipping his pants. They loosen around his hips as he positions himself behind her. She cries out as he thrusts into her.
They’re going to fuck right in front of us, overlooking the busy club.
I turn to look Henry. “We should definitely go.”
He doesn’t seem to hear me, his eyes—hooded and heated—locked on them, skating over Margo’s naked flesh, his hand tightening around my hip.
He may have said that he doesn’t want her, but I can feel the bulge growing in his pants, straining against the material.
Margo murmurs something in French and Joel turns her around to face us. Settling her ass on the metal bar, she hikes her legs. He slides back into her.
“Henry…,” she purrs, her seductive eyes locked on his as she says something to him in French, a “please” slipping through her lips with a slight moan at the end.
He doesn’t respond but he doesn’t break eye contact with her—her eyes, her breasts, where Joel is joined with her—his jaw tensing. His entire body tensing, his fingers tightening on me almost to the point of pain.
I feel like I’m not even here.
And suddenly I don’t want to be here, to watch them eye fuck each other.
I climb off Henry’s lap, a sharp ball swelling in my throat as I grab my purse and head for the door.
“Abigail…,” he calls out in that low, warning tone of his.
“I’ll meet you outside when you’re done,” I snap, throwing the door open. The hall sways a little as I rush along it. Or I sway, which is more likely the case, the tequila hitting me hard.
I get all the way to the stairs before a hand seizes my elbow. “Where are you going?” He actually has the nerve to sound angry with me.
“Figured I’d give you two some privacy.” I tug my arm away and begin taking the steps down.
Too fast in these heels, when I’m more drunk than I first thought. How’d that happen so fast?
My ankle folds, followed by my knee buckling. My body crumples forward.
Henry is somehow suddenly there, his arm roping around my waist, his shoulder stopping me from tumbling. He swiftly carries me down the rest of the way.
“Put me down! I can walk.”
“You broke your heel,” he mutters, moving through the crowd.
In seconds he’s sliding me into the back of an SUV. “Next time I tell you to stop drinking, please listen.”
“You’re not even going to apologize?”
The severe glare I get in return makes me second-guess myself and my anger for a moment. “For what?” He says it so coolly.
“For lying to me.”
His jaw tenses. “Even a gay man would be attracted to her, Abbi. You’re drunk and acting ridiculous. Stop talking right now, before you say something you’re going to regret.”
“You want to fuck her, admit it!” I hiss. I should be embarrassed, having this conversation in front of the driver, but whether it’s my emotions or the alcohol—probably both—I can’t control the words spewing from my mouth.
A condescending smirk twists his lips.
The realization is like a punch to my stomach. “You already have.” Of course he has.
He doesn’t deny it.
I’m so stupid.
We’re silent until the driver pulls up to the front of the building. I jump out and start rushing for the front door, desperate to get away from him. I get all of ten steps before I’m off the ground and in Henry’s arms again. It’s not nearly as romantic as the time he carried me from the dock to my cabin. This time I just want to get away from him. “Put me down!”
“You’re not walking into my building drunk and in bare feet. Have more class than that, Abigail.”
“Because Margo fucking her boyfriend in front of you is so classy,” I snap.
His stony blue eyes dart to the security guards manning the door. “Good night, gentlemen.” He doesn’t set me down until we’re in his private elevator. It’s a smooth ride up and yet I’m still feeling queasy, my nerves shot. “How could you lie to me and bring me out with her tonight?”
“I’ve never lied.”
I let out a small scream of frustration as the elevator doors open. I barrel through his foyer, bumping into the table on my way. “Whatever.”
“I’ve never lied!” Henry yells. It’s so rare to hear him raise his voice. Normally his words are ice, his tone cutting. But to hear him yell…
I freeze at the bottom of the stairs.
“You never asked.”
“Bullshit, I didn’t! You told me this was just a business relationship.”
“It is.”
“Do you sleep with every woman you have a business relationship with? Hell, do you sleep with every woman you meet? Because it’s sure starting to feel like it!”
“Watch it, Abbi,” he growls.
Oh God, I don’t feel good. The room is starting to spin. “Why didn’t you tell me? When you don’t tell me these things, it makes me think you’re hiding something.”
“Because it happened a year ago. And you didn’t ask if I fucked her in the past. If you had, I would have told you. You asked if there is something going on between us and there isn’t.”
Somehow he’s turning this on me, like it’s my fault he wasn’t forthright. “So you slept with her, she clearly still wants to sleep with you—don’t deny it!” I yell when he opens his mouth. “And now you’re partnering with her for this hotel. How am I supposed to just deal with that?”
He levels me with a gaze. “The same way I’m dealing with you still talking to the grounds crew guy you fucked. Who is still employed by me, along with the guy you did everything with but fuck, because I promised you I wouldn’t fire their asses even though I really want to.”
That reminder takes a bit of the hot air from my argument. “I was completely honest. I told you exactly what happened with Ronan and Connor. You could at least have done the same.”
“You want to know exactly what happened?” He begins stalking toward me in that intimidating way of his. “Okay, Abbi. Twelve months ago I met Margo and she made her proposal about the place in France. I flew out to see it. I watched her and her boyfriend at the time fuck. Then she asked me to join them, so I did.” He stops just in front of me, his massive body hovering over me. “I’ve had my dick in her mouth and in her ass. Is that specific enough? Do you want more details?”
I bolt for the bathroom just in time, the vomit sailing up my throat.
