Freefall (The Indigo Lounge Series, #5) (22 page)

“Moriarty.”

“Dorian. I’ve delivered your guest to you. That means you owe me one for making me play nursemaid.”

What the fuck? I start to hold up my hand in an
hey, I’m right here
gesture, but a look passes between the two men that freezes my hand mid-air.

“I already paid you back what I owe you.” Leo’s voice is a touch defensive and a lot pissed off.

Moriarty shrugs. “You want to stop paying, don’t keep wracking up the tabs. As long as you keep slipping, I’ll keep collecting.”

My radar is most definitely tweaked, and I watch Leo’s face twist in anger. His jaw clenches as Moriarty stares him down for a full minute before Leo lowers his gaze.

“East wing. One hour.” He glances at me, then back at Leo before he disappears into the crowd.

Leo grabs my hand and walks me away from the center of the room.

“What was that about?” I ask the moment we’re seated at a table away from the noise.

“Nothing.” He plucks a stickered drink that looks like the skin-peeling vodka I’d just spat out and downs it in one go without flinching.

“Oh come on, Leo. That’s was most definitely
not
nothing.”

“Fine, it’s none of your business!” he snarls.

I suck in a hurt breath. “Whoa, no need to go all Wolverine on my ass.”

He stares at with me with those impossibly gorgeous blue eyes for a full minute before he glances away with a grimace. “What the fuck are you doing here, Keely?”

My body jerks in shock as if he’s thrown a bucket of cold water over me. “Umm...you invited me, remember?”

He grips the back of his neck and continues to avoid my gaze. “I...shit, I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking,” he mutters under his breath.

Now my whole body feels like a giant polar ice cap. “Wow. Okay. Excuse me for thinking we were friends and that we could spend some together.” I surge to my feet and dart away from the table.

Tears sting hard and fast. I blink, then bump into a body. Someone curses, but all I want to do is to get the fuck away before the humiliation tsunami bearing down on me sucks me under.

“Wait! K—shit, I don’t even know your codename. Hey, wait!” Leo grabs my arm.

“Let go of me!”

He pushes up close behind me and leans into me. “I can’t,” he whispers. There’s a peculiar note in his voice that triggers a touch of disconcertion, but my humiliation stops me from processing it.

“What does that mean? Of course you can. You just tell your brain to tell your fingers to work. It really is quite simple.”

“You don’t understand, Keely,” he whispers, his voice darker and more ominous than before.

I turn and glare, wishing I could hate him as hard I ought to, but one look in his eyes and I’m done for. Even now, after he’s sent me back to that cave of rejects I thought I’d finally emerged from, I can’t walk away. Especially not when I spot a dark suffering in his eyes that triggers a well of sympathy in me.

“What’s going on?” I ask softly.

He glances around at the guests swirling around us and shakes his head. “Not here.”

When Leo Brummer slides his fingers through mine and walks me through an archway to a smaller, quieter room, I’m ready to forgive him anything. 

On the way, I spot a few girls glancing my way with naked envy in their eyes and I barely stop myself from openly gloating. The evening may have had a bumpy start, but it’s just taken a turn for the awesome.

We skirt a dimly-lit dance floor to a seat—a love seat, no less—and Leo hands me a drink. I glance at it warily, and he smiles. “Don’t worry, it’s mineral water. “See,” he shows me sticker. “Aqua sticker stands for water.”

I return his smile and take the drink. I down half of it—making sure not to let go of Leo’s hand—before I put it down.

He’s still wearing that broken, slightly desperate expression and I squeeze his hand. “For someone throwing the party your friends have been talking about for weeks, you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”

His mouth turns down and he shrugs. “These fucks are not my friends. I don’t know half of the people here. But they could be, if I wanted them to be. I can have everybody in the whole fucking world be my friend if I want them to be.” He doesn’t sound happy about that observation. In fact, he sounds downright jaded. I can’t imagine someone as rich and famous and drop-dead gorgeous as him being jaded about anything. He’s the type of guy who
could
have the world at his feet if he chooses.

I look around the room and frown. “Then why are they here?”

“This is Hollywood. I don’t need to have friends to throw a party.”

“That makes no sense to me.”

He stares at me with a mixture of sadness and resignation. “You’re sweet, Keely. So fucking sweet.”

I don’t do my ferret-on-coal dance because he says that like it pains him to say it. I feel like I need to besmirch that observation, so he’s not so pained. “I’m not that sweet. Not all the time anyway.”

One corner of his sexy mouth lifts in pseudo-smile. “Oh yeah? Tell me something bad and dirty you’ve done.”

I search frantically for something clever. “Well there was this one time when I slashed—”

“
Color Code Caramel. You’re up
.”

“Shit!” I slap my hand over the earpiece and rip it out before the loud voice shatters my eardrums. “What the hell was that?”

Leo slowly rises to his feet, takes out his earpiece too. He pockets it and tugs me to my feet. “It means it’s time to head to the east wing.”

The image of the TV bimbo walking to her doom flares in my brain again. But this is Leo Brummer. The man of my dirty, dirty dreams.

What’s the worst that could happen?

I follow him through another underground archway and down an even longer corridor. It occurs to me that I could get lost in this underground mansion and no one would find me for years.

The stupid thought sends a shiver down my spine, but I concentrate on Leo’s warm hand clutching mine.

We reach a set of double doors and he keys in a long code I have no hope of remembering. He reaches for the door, but then pauses. He glances at me and his mouth opens as if he’s about to say something. He shakes his head and pushes the door open.

The first thing I hear is a scream.

The first thing I see is a naked girl, tied up with white rope on a chair under the harsh spotlight in the middle of the room.

The first thing I smell is the cold, acrid stench of my own fear, right before the bimbo reaches through the TV and slaps me hard across the face.

mason

“E
xcuse me, sir?”

I tense at the hesitant voice behind me because I know what the crew member is going to say.

“Yes?” I force the word out.

“She refused to accept it again, sir.”

I sigh. Burned bridges were aptly named for a reason. It was why I’d taken steps to ensure mine was well and truly burned when I’d left Keely alone in my house with nothing but a
Dear John
note penned with a dash of senseless cruelty. At the time, I’d no doubt whatsoever that I was doing the right thing. The specially crafted gift was the full stop that should’ve punctuated our brief, hyper-charged association.

By her not accepting it, things feel unfinished.

I grimace at the barefaced lie I’m force-feeding myself. It feels unfinished because I’m suspended in a limbo of my own making. By sticking around, and not heading straight to the airport once my setup on the yacht was done, the hooks I’d ripped from what remained of my tattered life are finding me again, like parasitic magnets seeking freshly mangled iron.

“What exactly did she say? Repeat it, word for word,” I demand as I stare unblinking at a far distant shoreline receding in the darkness.

I hear an uncomfortable shuffle, but I care very little of the crew member’s sensibilities. I grip the railing and stare into the dark, churning waters that trail the
IL Indulgence
. All I care about is finding a balm to this insane gnawing in my stomach. Even if it’s through second-hand words that’ll no doubt attempt to put me in my place.

“Are you sure, sir?”

I remain silent.

“Umm...she said, umm...” he clears his throat. “‘
Tell that motherfucking fucker to take his motherfucking parting gift and shove it up his motherfucking ass. And if he tries one more fucking time to return it, I’ll personally make sure the chef serves him arsenic in his next fucking meal, so I can fucking watch him die a miserable fucking death
.’
”

Laughter barks out of my chest. I turn around and lean against the railing. Daniel, the guard and crew member assigned to me, is standing in my master suite’s living room with the black box in his hand and a chagrined look on his face.

“Right. I guess after six attempts in three days, I should take the hint, huh?”

He looks embarrassed for me and shuffles some more. “I guess...”

I nod, despite feeling the twist of the knife. “Thanks, you can leave it on the table,” I say.

He hurries to place the box on the console table near the cabin door, then pauses. “Same time tomorrow, sir?”

I shake my head. “No. I think it’s time for a more...personal approach.”

He nods eagerly, even though he looks puzzled. “Okay. Well, if you need anything else, sir, just let me know.”

He hurries out and my gaze swings to the box Keely left behind four days ago when I’d all but kicked her out of my house in Monte Carlo. I’d burned the note after discovering it on the floor the next day, even as I’d reeled at that tinge of guilt still feel for the coat of nastiness I’d glazed the note with.

That lingering guilt alone should make me rethink this doomed path. That and the fact that I’d woken up in a cold sweat next to another human being for the first time in almost six years, and then proceeded to open myself up to the lethal cocktail of rage and grief.

I should be making a swift and decisive retreat.

Because if those reasons aren’t enough, as of yesterday, there’s Cassie. And my mother. Gluttons for my brand of punishment. Or architects of their own special strain of Stockholm Syndrome. A fucked-up type of delusion, which makes them think that letting me—and all the vileness that inhabits my soul—get close enough to them will somehow heal all of us.

It doesn’t matter how many times or how many ways I demonstrate my singular lack of care for what they think, they always come back for more.

My gaze lingers over the black box as my mind focusses on the one woman who’s holding fast to her decision not to come back for more.

I finger my phone with the full knowledge that I should accept her decision. But I know I’m going to ignore the warning flashing in my brain. I draw it from my pocket.

Subject: My Gift

Got your message. Shame on you. It’s not polite to refuse a gift.

—Mason

I goad because I’m certain it’s the only way I’ll get a response. Her reply pops into my text box a few minutes later. 

Subject: Re: My Gift

It is when it’s from a self-confessed asshole. Especially one who refused to see me when I returned to the boat on Monday. I got your message loud and clear.
 
So here’s
my
gift to you—Fuck off.

—Keely

PS - Happy to arrange for the message to be delivered in sign language for the seventh and (hopefully) final time, if words and their meaning elude you.

I lean back against the railing, consider my answer, before I reply.

Subject: Re: Re: My Gift

Full disclosure: I wasn’t in a good place on Monday. Accept my gift, and I’ll consider accepting yours. I’m heavily into sign language.

—Mason

I hit send, knowing I’m exploiting that vein of compassion I’d glimpsed in her tough armor back in my kitchen. She may fight it, but ultimately, Keely Benson is a curious and compassionate creature. I stare at my screen until her message pops up.

Subject: Re: Re: Re: My Gift

Full disclosure: I shouldn’t have stayed. Being horny made me greedy. But you were still gone when I woke up. For both our sakes, stay gone.

—Keely

Thoughts of Cassie and my mother recede as the challenge of how quickly I can dominate this situation heats up my blood.

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: My Gift

I can’t. We’re on the same yacht. Besides...you’re different. Also,   greedy works for me. Let me make it up to you.

—Mason

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My Gift

We’ve managed to avoid one another for four days. If you ask me, we’re doing brilliantly. Also, in what way am I different? (Not that I care, of course)

—Keely

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My Gift

In all the ways that shouldn’t matter, but do. In all the ways that matter, but shouldn’t.

—M

PS - Happy to repeat that in Pig Latin. I hear that turns you on.

She doesn’t reply for almost five minutes, and I wonder if she’s still annoyed at my overhearing her say that to Bethany back in Montauk. When she eventually replies, my eyes narrow at her answer.

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My Gift

It doesn’t. I have to go. Goodbye.

—K

I let her go for a minute. Five minutes. Ten. My fingers tremble as I ponder the abruptness of the last text and fight against the screaming instinct that urges me to let this be.

My soul craves the calm wildness of Roraima. My gaping heart howls with the rage of loss that has never dimmed. I’m a walking razor blade. The odds of her not being hacked to pieces just by being around me are ludicrously low. I already know she’s caught a glimpse of the seething mess beneath. She caught a glimpse, and I responded by kicking her out of my bed and my house.

Logic dictates I should let her go before I risk turning her into another Cassie. But no. Keely will never be a Cassie. She’s her own unique brand of titanium-plated strength and kitten-soft weakness. Both are lethal in their own way. Both shimmer with a mesmeric compulsion that keeps me tethered to this time and place.

So I choose to fuck logic in the ass.