“I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I won’t give in. We have so much shit to wade through, first of which is your relationship with Marlo.”
He spins me around and cups my face. “I’ve never had sex with her.”
Trust. Broken.
I grip his muscled forearm. “I want to see the video footage from last night.”
“My laptop’s in the car.” He grabs my hand and leads me up the stairs.
My thoughts lump together in a jumbled mess as I follow Trace out of the basement. Maybe he didn’t fuck Marlo. Maybe my feelings for him haven’t been completely demolished. But that doesn’t make him any less of a manipulative bastard.
At the top of the stairs, he closes the door and fidgets with the padlock. “Why did you keep this locked?”
“It leads somewhere that no longer exists.”
He rests his lips against the top of my head for a silent moment. Then his hand catches mine and leads me away.
In the kitchen, he turns on the coffee maker and rummages through my cabinets while making a phone call.
“I’ll do this.” I nudge him to the side and grab the coffee beans.
“Yes,” he says into the phone and walks to the fridge. “Miss Angelo and I won’t be back to work until Friday. Make the appropriate arrangements.”
What? Friday is…four days away. I whirl around, glaring at his back as he digs out packages of eggs and bacon.
“Send someone to Miss Angelo’s house with an overnight bag for the week.” He turns and gives me an uncomfortable smile. “Jeans and t-shirts.”
I lean against the counter and fold my arms. “What are you doing?”
“That’ll be all.” He stares at the floor for a second and pulls in a breath. “Marlo, wait.” His hand goes to the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about last night. I used you. It was wrong and—” He closes his eyes, listening for several seconds. “Understood.”
He disconnects the call and meets my waiting gaze. “Marlo turned in her two-weeks after you left last night.”
I don’t blame her for quitting and can’t help but feel selfish relief. “She could sue you for sexual harassment.”
“She took the severance package, which required her to sign a release that frees me from potential lawsuits.”
“Lucky you.”
I drum my fingers on the counter as unease chews holes inside me. I’m not comfortable with his treatment of her. Maybe I should let it go, but that’s not my style.
“You think it’s okay to treat women like that?” I straighten my spine, meeting his glare head-on. “I mean, she worked for you, and you told her to masturbate for you in some disgusting game that had nothing to do with her. That’s not okay.”
He slides his hands in his pockets, stares at the floor, and releases a breath. “Marlo isn’t what she seems.”
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t just want to hook up.” He looks up at me, his eyebrows gathering. “She’s infatuated with me to the point of delusion. I came home and found her, not once but three times, naked on the couch in my living room.”
“What? When?”
“It started around the time I hired you. I removed her security access and fired her.”
“Then why was she still working for you?”
“She brought in a team of lawyers, threatening sexual harassment—of which she had absolutely no grounds.”
“With all your money, you couldn’t fight that?”
“I could.” He scratches his jaw. “But I chose to teach her a lesson.”
“By watching her masturbate?”
“By waiting for the right moment to record her touching herself willfully, consensually, in my bedroom.”
Oh. “You showed her the video footage?”
“Yes, right after you left. She didn’t hesitate to drop her threats against me and take the severance.” He narrows his eyes. “I told you I’m a vindictive son of a bitch.”
He could’ve sued her for trespassing in his penthouse…naked. He could’ve destroyed her career, her livelihood. Instead, he apologized for using her and paid her to quit.
He calls himself vindictive, but his actions hint at compassion. In a depraved, fucked up way. But still, it’s compassion, and it warms me from the inside out.
I blow out of breath. “What’s with the overnight bag?”
“We’re stuck in a toxic cycle, and I’m committed to resolving that.”
“It can’t be fixed in four days.”
“I know that, but I’m not leaving your side. I assume you’d rather be anywhere but the penthouse. We can spend the week here. Or in Hawaii, Paris, Australia…”
He’s lost his ever-loving mind.
I prepare the coffee, forcing myself to think about this logically. I don’t know if I should spend the day with him, let alone a week on the other side of the world. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“We’ll stay here then.” Stepping behind me, he touches his brow to the back of my head. “I won’t leave you, Danni. Ever.”
My heart latches onto those words while my brain screams, Lies, lies, lies.
He grips my hip and pulls my backside tight against him. “You’re not quitting the casino.”
The command in his tone raises my hackles, but there’s no sense in denying it.
“I’ll stay,” I say. “Until you fuck up again.”
“I won’t.” He steps back. “Where are your light bulbs?”
I point toward the hall. “Closet. Why?”
“I’ll be right back.”
As I pour our coffees and start the bacon, the front door opens and shuts. I angle toward the kitchen window and watch Trace stride next door to Virginia’s house, carrying a light bulb.
I smile, thinking about how much hell she’s going to give him. If he wants to win her over, he’ll have to do a lot more than change her lights. But it’s a good start.
If he wants to win me over, well… He can start by proving he’s worth the risk. He needs to convince me to think of him in terms of regardless and in spite of and anyway. Because right now, he’s a huge fucking if.
He returns as I start cracking eggs in the bacon grease.
“How did it go?” I ask.
“She’s a stubborn woman.”
“That bad, huh?” I laugh.
“I have bruises on my legs from that damn cane.” He grabs the spatula from my hand and sets his open laptop on the counter. “The video is loaded. Just push play.”
As he finishes the eggs, I climb onto the counter and move the device to my lap. The video begins when he and Marlo enter his bedroom. There’s no audio, but I sense the awkwardness between them. He doesn’t look at her, his mouth moving and finger pointing absently at the couch where I found them. On screen, Marlo touches her throat, tracking his pacing steps with infatuation in her eyes.
“Jesus.” My mouth dries. “She really wanted you.”
The spatula in his hand pauses. “The attraction wasn’t mutual.”
Maybe not, but it’s still painful to see him move behind her on the video, to watch her lift her skirt and touch herself for him. He doesn’t look down, his attention flicking between his watch and the door. His slacks are lowered, but his underwear stays on. With her face buried in the cushion and her hand working between her legs, she doesn’t seem to notice he didn’t take his cock out.
Thirty seconds into the recording, I walk in. He doesn’t grip her hips until that exact moment.