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I consciously stop myself from addingas your dateand press send. If everything goes well, Leo Brummer will be the first notch on my bedpost come Monday. I just need to not blow it now.

My heart lurches as I wait, my gaze on the time displayed on the texts. One minute. Two.

Shit. Fuck. Have I alerted him to my pathetic feelings? My body goes from happy and relaxed to frozen and tense in seconds. I shut my eyes in mortification, then hear a ping of another text. I’m almost too scared to look down, but I do.

I read his text and my heart bursts with celestial joy.

Sure. Remind me tonight to organize a car service to pick you up on Friday. Catchya later!

I typeAwesomeand immediately delete it. Only lame people say that these days. I think of something cool but classy to say. I remember a British detective show with a cute lead that I saw a while back, and I let my fingers to go work.

Jolly good!

He might think it strange. Or he might smile. Either way, I’m going to Leo Brummer’s party, where I have every intention of fulfilling my wildest fantasy of making him my first lover.

As I sit in the Californian sunshine, happy as a clam in love, little do I know that come Monday I will wake up in hospital, battered, bruised, and with no recollection of who I am, or that I’ll be carrying a secret shame that will change my life forever.

14

MASON

I wait for her in the shadows, parked across from her hotel in a spot where the glitzy lights don’t reach. I grimly count the seconds till she walks through the double doors.

The past twenty-four hours have been hell, knowing that she has a hold on me I can’t shake very easily. Knowing the more I let that connection remain, the more inclined I’ll be to punish her for it. Not that she isn’t getting punished anyway. It’s why I deliberately stayed away from the yacht today. I don’t think I can stand to be in the same space as her without throwing her over my shoulder, or preferably onto the floor, and fucking the shit out of her.

That’s how bad she’s got me.

My hands shake and my cock throbs as I watch the door. I’ve arrived early because I can’t abide my own company for another second. I’ve never done well with inactivity. Idle hands bring too many temptations, too many chances to be pulled back into the razor-sharp jaws of the past.

Of what I lost.

Of the spiral of hell that became my life in the months after losing Toby.

His name shudders down my spine, and I grit my teeth as pain rattles long and hard through my rigid bones. I don’t fight the pain. I welcome it. It’s a part of my life I never intend to let go. Letting go means forgetting. And I’ll never forget what I did.

Never forget.

Never forgive.

I sit through another half a dozen shudders and try to pull myself together. Being this close to the edge isn’t a great idea.

Keely Benson is a sexy contradiction that intrigues and infuriates me. But she also needs handling with care, and it won’t do to scare her away before I get the chance to have my way with her. I can’t afford to let her see me like this. Not yet, anyway.

Despite her agreeing to give herself to me, part of her remains wary. And while a side of me thinks her prudent for that wariness, I’m unwilling to let it stand in the way of what I want.

I switch gears and wonder if she’ll turn up dressed the way I asked. I mull over the various ways I’ll punish her if she doesn’t. My dick jerks and my fist unclenches to cup the bulge in my pants. I breathe deep and allow anticipation to wash over me.

She emerges from the hotel at that moment and pauses on the sidewalk.

Pleasure flickers into a flame when I see she’s obeyed my instructions.

Her head swings back and forth over the row of sports cars arriving at the hotel. It’s a busy Friday evening in Monaco, particularly around the streets near Casino Square.

I watch her for another minute before I gun the powerful engine of the Ducati and exit the side street. The throaty engine draws her attention, and her gaze stays on me as I roll up to a stop beside her.

She takes in the black, powerful bike. “Okay, I get the request for pants and the hair now,” she says.

My gaze travels over the hair she’s tied back into a long silky rope as per my instructions, the cream top and jacket, black pants and knee-high boots that make her legs look fucking amazing.