DARK PARADISE - A Political Romantic Suspense (4 page)

Camille

“This is too depressing.”
Araminta
reaches for the remote to shut off the TV. The
White House has interrupted our programming to bring us a special message from
the POTUS himself.

“No, no.” I take it from her.
“We have to stay up on this. Being able to discuss foreign policy and the state
of the union is what separates us from the herd.”

President Harris Montgomery
gives an update on a recent bombing in the Middle East. They all blend together
anymore, each one seeming to be worse than the one before.

I listen intently as he
commands the airwaves, his forehead wrinkled and his lips turned down at the
corners as he maintains composure. He seems annoyed, and his speech feels
heartfelt this time, not written.

Araminta
pulls
in a shocked breath. “Twelve hundred civilians lost their lives.”

“Montgomery wants us to go to
war,” I say as he rambles on.

“Did he say that? I must have
missed it.”

“You can tell,” I say. “He’s
leaning that way. He’s hinting. There’s always more in what they don’t say than
what they do.”

She rises, shaking her head and
strutting to the kitchen. “I can’t listen to this anymore. You’re going to have
to give me the Cliffs Notes.”

Araminta
pulls
a pre-packaged, perfectly portioned meal from the fridge and heats it in the
microwave. Two minutes later, she picks through it with a fork as she floats
back down into her chair.

Her eyes squint at the TV.

“What are you doing?” I laugh.

“I’m looking for his sons,” she
says between bites. “I’d rather stare at those fine specimens than listen to
this sad little spiel.”

“They are beautiful.” I sigh.
For the longest time I thought they were twins. Everything about them almost matches,
from their lush, dark hair to their sapphire eyes. “Equally so.”

“Oh, come on. One’s definitely
hotter than the other, at least by a hair.” She sweeps her blonde waves over
one shoulder, eyes wide. “
Keir
has that mischievous
glint in his eye, like he’s full of secrets and ridiculously intelligent.”

“But Ronan has that ultra-confident
look about him. I bet he’s sex-on-fire in the bedroom,” I say. “I don’t think I
could pick if I had to.”

“I’d give up this game for a
chance with one of them. I’d retire
so
hard.” She giggles.

I join her in her quest to find
them in the background. They’re always there, suited up and wearing stoic
expressions as their father speaks. Their haircuts usually match, though
they’re parted on opposite sides. One is left-handed. Both men exude darkness
and mystery as if it’s coded in their DNA.

“Ronan and
Keir
. . .” She exhales. “And there you are, my princes. I would give it all up for
you, and I wouldn’t even be picky either. Either one of you will do, really.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen
you so smitten.”

Araminta
grins.
“I’d make a great First Lady, wouldn’t I? I was practically bred for this shit.
Daddy Dearest would be so proud.”

She walks to the TV, placing a French
manicured finger on the upper corner where the blue-eyed, raven-haired,
future-leaders-of-the-free-world stand side by side with stick-straight posture
and hands clasped in front of their narrow hips.

“I bet you were good at
Where’s Waldo
when you were a kid,” I
say.

“What’s that?” She turns toward
me, her question sincere. Sometimes I forget that she grew up as one of eight
Randalls
in an estate fit for a king in the Connecticut
countryside. Raised by a team of nannies and forced to adhere to a schedule
filled with riding, tennis, and French lessons, I doubt
Araminta
had time for
Where’s Waldo
. “Is that
a Tennessee thing?”

“Never mind.”

She takes her seat again, eyes
glued. The camera pans the faces of the well-dressed men and women who stand
behind the president, and then it lingers on his sons for a solid thirty
seconds.

Araminta
fans
herself. “Just looking at them gets me all revved up.”

“You and every other red-blooded,
American woman.” I smirk. “Or, rather, blue-blooded.”

“I wish they’d smile. They
never fucking smile.”

“Would you if you were them?
Living your life under a magnifying glass all the time? Every move you make one
hundred percent public?”

“If I were a Montgomery, I’d
never
stop
smiling,
dahhhling
. That
name opens doors.
Moves mountains
. It’s only one of
the most powerful bloodlines on the planet. The entire world is at their
fingertips. I mean, sure, I grew up a Randall, for Christ’s sake, but the
Montgomerys
are leagues above us. Tell me that isn’t
something to smile about.”

“Oh, look.” I rise up, pointing
at the screen.
Keir
just flashed a two-second smile
at someone to his left. “Did you see? He has dimples.”

“Here we go.” Minty rolls her
eyes and fights a smirk.

“Did I tell you my John has
dimples? He let me feel them last night.”

“Maybe your John is
Keir
Montgomery?”

“Doubtful. A man like him doesn’t
pay for sex.”

She shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t
need to. Some guys just get off on that. Kinky sons of bitches.”

“I’m going to pretend my John
is
Keir
from now on.” I settle into my seat and close
my eyes, imagining it was Keir’s lips on my body and Keir’s fingers between my
thighs last night. My chest flutters, and my lips inch up. “From now on, I’m
fucking
Keir
Montgomery.”

In my head.

“God, you know how dangerous
that would be? To be involved with one of them? There’d be a price on your head
so high. Ugh. I wouldn’t go anywhere alone. I guarantee you, someone somewhere
would jump at the chance to set one of them up in some kind of political
scandal. A dead escort tied to the Montgomery name?”
Araminta
shudders before smiling. “But hey, it’d be one way to guarantee that no one
would ever forget your name.”

“John”

“What’s it like to know you can
fuck any woman who walks into this bar and have zero repercussions the next
day?” I spin an empty tumbler between my thumb and middle finger as Oliver
D’Orsay checks out a group of women standing around a high top table ten feet
from us. The brunette in the red dress has been eye-fucking him since we got
here.

“Fucking incredible.” He grips
his water glass. He’s shopping. He has that gleam in his eye. He combs his
fingers through his styled blond hair. “I want
her
tonight. The one in the red with the fuck-me tits hanging out.
They don’t make ‘
em
like that around here.”

There’s a reason DC is known as
the Hollywood-for-the-ugly. The overwhelming majority of women in the area are
too bookish, waifish, nerdy, or socially awkward. The physically desirable ones
are busy yachting in the Maldives or summering in the Hamptons, and women like
those tend to be
too
cultured,
too
moneyed. Most of the ones in my
family’s circle fall into the latter category.

“She’s not from around here,” I
say.

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s fifty degrees out
and her dress barely covers her ass. My money’s on Arizona. She doesn’t own any
cool weather clothes. Maybe Minnesota. They’re immune to the cold. I hear they
wear shorts in January.”

“Or she just wanted to look
hot?” He takes a sip. “Ever think that maybe people aren’t as complicated as
you make them out to be?”

My jaw flexes. “Never.
Everyone’s complicated. Show me someone who isn’t, and I’ll show you a liar.”

“Even Camille?” he asks. Oliver
is my number one. He’s my driver, my assigned Secret Service agent, and the
closest thing I have to a best friend. There isn’t anything about me he doesn’t
know.

“Especially Camille.”

Oliver’s lips twitch. If she
were any other woman, I imagine he’d be prodding me for the down and dirty
details. But he knows better with this one. He knows how hard I searched for
her and how much work it took to free her from Senator Bancroft’s tight grip. He
saw my preoccupation with the mysterious beauty grow into an inexplicable
fixation, and he stood by like the loyal bastard he is as the obsession
consumed me.

“It’s too bad you couldn’t take
her on a real date,” he says. “Show her off. A girl like Camille needs to be
paraded around.”

Why, so someone else can spot
her? So the poacher can get poached?

“She’s not a fucking show pony,
Oliver.”

I glance at the girls to our
right. They point and smile, mess with their hair, fidget with their drinks.
Their beauty is instantly overshadowed by their insecurities and they fade into
the background.

“I think they’ve figured out
who you are,” Oliver says.

It never fails, and it makes no
difference that we’re in one of the darkest, hole-in-the-wall bars in the city.

The girls whisper in each
other’s ears and flash me flirty smiles as if they share a goddamned brain.

“All right.” I throw a cash tip
on the table. “Give the brunette your number and take me home.”

Camille

I’m breathless, sprawled across
the bed at the Melrose as my body floats back to earth. Three times in less
than a week. I’m not sure what I ever did to get so lucky, but I won’t
complain.

The bed shifts, and
John–or
Keir
Montgomery in my mind–moves
to my side. I miss his warmth already, his grounding weight. The way he
worships and devours me makes me feel sexy, worthy of receiving the kinds of
pleasure I’ve only ever given.

I reach for his face, tracing
the outline with my fingertips. I take a detour to his mouth, grazing his soft
lips until I can picture their shape, and then I move on to his cheek.

“Smile,” I say. “I want to feel
your dimples again.”

He sighs, giving in to my silly
demand.

“Thank you,
John
.”

The bed shifts once more. I
stay silent, listening as he moves around the room, makes his way to the
bathroom, and then returns a minute later.

“Leaving?” I ask.

I find my answer in his
hesitation. He never stays.

“I’ve been trying to figure out
where we would’ve met before,” I say, sensually drawing my knees into my chest
as I sit up. I’m not sure where to look or where he’s standing, so I face
forward when I speak.

“Surely you have better ways to
spend your time.”

“You shouldn’t have challenged
me,” I tease. “If you stuck around more, you might know me better, and then
you’d know I can’t resist a good mystery. The more complex, the better.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m a card-carrying member of
Mensa,” I say. “How else do you think I got a full-ride scholarship to
Georgetown? But you probably already knew that since you did your research on
me.”

I hear him snicker, and I mentally
pat myself on the back for getting him to laugh.

“I’m sure there are plenty of
things I don’t know about you,” he says.

“For some reason, I don’t
believe you.”

The clink of his belt is
followed by the metallic tug of a zipper. Just a few more minutes of sitting
here with my blindfold, and as soon as I hear the thud of the hotel door, it’ll
be time to put myself back together and head home.

The scuffing of his shoes
against densely piled carpet grows nearer until his scent fills my lungs. His
steady hand caresses the side of my face, his thumb under my jaw. In an
instant, his mouth is on mine.

John–or
Keir
–kisses me goodbye. None of the other men have
ever done that. It’s a kind gesture and completely unnecessary. While I have
him, I run my fingers through his hair, my nails grazing his scalp. His hair is
thick and soft as mink, probably freshly cut. He’s a man who cares about his
appearance. I trace his jaw once more and then run my finger along his cheek in
search of a dimple.

“You and those dimples.” I detect
a reserved smile in his voice, but he pulls my hand from his face before I get
a chance to feel the indentations.

“I keep wondering...” My voice
is a low whisper.

“Excuse me?”

“Any time I’ve seen a man with
dimples this week,” I say, “I keep wondering if he’s you. And I keep wondering
if I’d know you if I saw you.”

“Probably not,” he says.

“You’ve got to be in the public
eye,” I say.

“That would be a logical
deduction.”

“You have your own security
guard.” I wrap my arms around my knees and trail my palms down my shins.

“As many do in this city.”

“You’re a very important
person, whoever you are.”

His lips press into my
forehead. “Don’t think about it too much. The less you know about me, the
better off you are.”

One
million dollars, one million dollars, one million dollars . . .

It’s my new mantra, and it
drowns out every hint of a gut check that renders me nauseous when I think
about the absurdity of this situation. It was exciting at first. Daring. I told
myself it’d be a nice break from the norm, and
Araminta
guaranteed me it’d be easy money.

I pull in a slow breath and
exhale in an attempt to release the worries swirling my head.

“What is it?” he asks. “You’re
frowning.”

“Nothing.” I force a smile.

“Camille.”

“Seriously, don’t worry about
it.” I wave him off. “You have a good night, okay, John? I’ll wait to hear from
you again.”

It’s all I’ve done this
week–sit around and wait for my phone to ring. He calls from a blocked
number. I don’t have his.

“Goodnight, Camille.”

When he leaves, I pull my
blindfold away and fix my hair, tiptoeing to the curtained window to glance at
the hotel guests leaving the front entrance. Men come, men go. Story of my life,
really. Rain beads on the outside of the window, and my breath fogs up the
glass until the view below distorts.

I pick up my dress from the
floor and stop when I see a little blue Tiffany’s box sitting on the foot of
the bed, wrapped with a white bow.

A gift.

My heart catches in my throat.
The sight of a Tiffany’s box used to send an instant smile to my lips. It’s
hardly original, and I’m well aware that plenty of men shop there.

But so did Trey.

It was kind of our thing.

I sold everything he gave me
after things got ugly and we went our separate ways.

My stomach churns, and the room
spins. I tell myself it’s just a gift. Pure coincidence.

Pulling on the white ribbon, I
let it fall to the floor before cracking the box.

Pearl earrings.

I’m bathed in relief. Trey only
ever bought me white diamonds.

I slip them on and check them
in the mirror, making a mental note to wear them next time. I’ll wear them
tomorrow, too. Just because they’re pretty.

After I dress, I take a moment
to text
Araminta
to let her know I’m on my way home.