DARK PARADISE - A Political Romantic Suspense (8 page)

“John”

“Did I not make myself
abundantly clear yesterday?” The tension in my jaw is painful as Lydia
Darlington stands outside my apartment door Sunday afternoon, a cardboard box
in her arms. “Why are you here?”

“Things were a little rough
yesterday morning. We couldn’t really talk.” She bites her lip, staring up at
me with puppy dog eyes. It may have worked in the past, when I was a lovesick
moron, but not anymore. “Can I come in? I promise I won’t take much of your
time.”

“No.”

She takes a step forward and
freezes. “I wanted to give you some things.”

I take the box from her arm,
and her hands smooth the front of her blouse. She’s dressed to the nines, with
full hair and makeup, her outfit strategically coordinated to show off her best
assets: long legs, perky tits, and an hourglass shape. If she weren’t so busy
being a blue blood, she could easily slap on angel wings and walk a runway in a
lace bustier.

“Bye, Lydia.”

I attempt to shut the door in
her face, but she slaps her palm across the wood and presses against it.

“Wait,” she says.

“No.”

Upon first glance, the box in
my arms appears to contain an assortment of mementos. An old tie she gifted me
that once belonged to an actor from the 1930s. A leather-strapped watch I
thought I lost years ago. Movie ticket stubs. A postcard I sent to her from
Sudan when I accompanied my father to Africa for the first time. Framed
pictures of the two of us throughout the years, starting from the summer we
first met at seventeen. A stack of love letters bound together with a red
rubber band.

I chuckle. This is all comical
to me. To think,
I
once wrote love
letters.
Me
.

I know Lydia, and this is nothing
but another manipulative stall tactic of hers.

“What am I supposed to do with
all of this?” I shove the box back toward her.

“These are all the things that
remind me of you. Things I was keeping around for our future children and
grandchildren.” Her voice floats higher, gentler, as if she’s trying to be
sweet. “If you don’t want to be with me again, then I don’t want this clutter
taking up space in my closet.”

“Right. We wouldn’t want your
Birkin
bag feeling displaced.”

“Come on.” She pouts, her brows
narrowing. “I’m trying to be sincere.”

“No, you’re trying to
manipulate me. And I’m telling you right now, it’s not working.”

“Let me be real with you for a
moment,” she says.

“First time for everything.”

“What do you see when you look
at me?” Her green eyes soften, examining mine. “Do you see a desperate woman
who’s trying everything she can to get back in the good graces of her lost
love? Because that’s what I am. It’s all that I am.”

“I see a girl who was given the
keys to a very exclusive kingdom and threw them away, and she now has the
audacity to demand another set.”

“You were my first love.” She
sighs, reaching out to place her hand on my chest. “Like it or not, I’m always
going to be pulled to you. And deny it all you want, you’re always going to be
pulled to me. Why don’t we stop playing around and make it real this time? Get
married. Settle down. Stop playing games.”

“I’d sooner spend my life alone
than live it with you as my wife.” I glance down at her shoes, which are crossing
the threshold to my apartment. “Now, if you’ll please step back. I know how you
are about scuffs on calfskin.”

Her expression reddens,
contrasting against her ice blonde mane. “You don’t want to be with me? Fine.
I’ll promise you one thing. I’m going to destroy every bit of happiness you
find. I’ll personally see to it.”

“You’re pathetic, now go.” I
push the door, causing her to jump backward.

Camille

A blocked number calls my phone
the second I collapse on my apartment bed Sunday evening.

“You’re not wasting any time,
are you?” I say when I answer. “Just got home.”

“Good,” he says. “Meet me at
the apartment in an hour.”

“Give me two,” I say. Traveling
makes me feel dirty. I want to shower and freshen up, and I want to do my hair
for him, even if it’ll be all kinds
of
messed up by
the time he’s done with me.

“Fine. See you in two.”

He hangs up, never giving me much
to work with. Just once, I’d like to take a tiny little peek behind that
curtain and see what I’m dealing with. Then again, curiosity almost always
kills the cat.

Before I forget, I pull out my
phone and Google
Vivacorp
one more time. I checked it
the night I left the apartment last week, but came up with nothing beyond some
weird website that claimed it was registered to
Vivacorp
,
LLC. Not a single name or address was attached to this company, and I wonder if
it’s some kind of pass-through entity. I suppose it would make sense. John
wouldn’t take me somewhere that might be traced back to him with a simple
Internet search of the address.

I strip off my travel clothes
and step into a hot shower. By the time I’m done, I’m shaved, polished, and
moisturized, and my skin is butter-soft beneath my fingertips. I bought a new
lotion from some boutique back in Oakdale over the weekend that claims to be
some kind of miracle product, and if John’s going to worship every square inch
of my body, it may as well be soft as silk.

Midway through blow-drying my
hair, I remember the journal. I switch the dryer off and run to my room to lift
up my mattress.

There’s nothing.

I blink, rubbing my eyes as if
this is all a hallucination. It has to be. No one knows about this.

I lift my mattress higher,
summoning some kind of superhero strength I never knew I had until now. Still
nothing. The mattress falls with one big
whoosh
,
and I climb across my bed to scan the perimeter, thinking maybe it had fallen
between the bed and the wall.

Nothing.

This can’t be happening.

I’m sucking in hair, but I
still can’t breathe. Glancing around my room, I see nothing out of the
ordinary. Nothing is remotely out of place. It certainly doesn’t appear that
someone came into our apartment over the weekend and ransacked the place. Even
my laptop is resting on my desk, connected to the charger exactly the way I
left it Friday.

Araminta
doesn’t know about my journal, and even if she did, she wouldn’t want it.
Secrets can be deadly, she always says. And at times, we’ve vowed never to
share too much with one another just to be safe.

I fly out of my room like I’m
looking for a ticking time bomb that could detonate at any minute. Our place is
spotless, everything in its place. Nothing out of the ordinary. I pull sofa
cushions and check behind throw pillows. I even enter
Araminta’s
room, which I’ve never done without her permission unless it was to retrieve a
borrowed dress.

Nothing.

“John”

My fingers knot in her hair,
and I bring her mouth to mine. I’ve waited all weekend for this moment. Camille
Buchanan is the only escape I have, and I treasure our meetings more than I
could ever explain to anyone. Nothing else exists when I’m with her, and within
the confines of these four walls, I’m not inflicted with Montgomery burdens.
I’m just a man like any other, the kind of life I could only ever dream up in
some sort of frivolous fantasy.

She kisses me back, but her
hands aren’t searching my body and her breath isn’t labored. Camille goes
through the motions, but her mind is elsewhere.

I stop.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing.” Her mouth searches
blindly for mine, but I pull away.

“Don’t lie to me, Camille.”

Her lips purse, and she sinks
back on her bent knees in the center of the mattress. Her palms lie flat across
her thighs, and her lower back is arched. I get the feeling she’s attempting to
keep her composure for the sake of what we came here for tonight.

“Something’s bothering you. I
can see it,” I say.

“Just kiss me, John. Please?”

“Not until you tell me what’s
going on.” A million scenarios rake my mind.

Camille’s chin dips, and she
exhales slowly. “Someone took something of mine while I was out of town this
weekend.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did they take?”

“I . . . I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” My hands clench, and
a large part of me
feels
entitled to this information.

“I don’t know if I can trust
you.”

“You can.”

She huffs, adding a
tension-breaking smile as she tugs her blindfold into a better position. “How
can I trust a man who won’t let me look into his eyes?”

She has a point.

“Because you have no other
choice.” I offer my counterpoint. “Now, Camille, tell me what was taken from
you so that I can help you get it back.”

“Let me take off the blindfold.
I want to see you.”

I take her wrists in case she
gets any funny ideas. “It’s not a good idea.”

I stare at the beautiful girl I
saw at a ball not quite a year ago, the one I was dying to have for myself. The
one I selfishly stole so I could create my own little paradise. And I’m well
aware that I’ve given her no reason to trust me. Every word that leaves my
mouth in her presence is filtered as to not give her as much as a single clue
as to who I am.

Ripping off the blindfold would
make it all for naught.

“This item that was stolen,” I
say. “It wasn’t a piece of jewelry or something like that, was it?”

“No,” she says.

“Was it a computer? A flash drive?”

“John.” She sighs.

It’s blacker than midnight
outside, and the room darkening blinds lie behind room darkening curtains. I
can hardly make out Camille’s face in here, but I see the edges and outlines
when she moves. Even in the dark, she’s recognizable to me. Then again, I’ve
studied her face enough that my mind fills in the blanks.

I’m not sure she’d be able to
recognize me.

Her fingertips reach toward my
face, running the length of my jaw and stopping at my mouth. She leans in,
taking it upon herself to steal a kiss.

“Let me see you.” She sighs,
her lips pressed on mine. “Let me see the man who makes my body lose control.”

I taste her lips—sweet
mint and perfection. In the short time Camille has belonged exclusively to me,
I’ve made her body mine. I’ve mastered her hot buttons and reveled in the way
her body responds to all the places my mouth wants to travel.

But the one thing I never
anticipated, the one thing impeding us from taking our torrid little affair to
the next level . . . is an emotional connection. And it’s the one thing we can
never have.

The first time I looked into
her eyes, I didn’t know her name. And I didn’t know that one passing glance
from a stranger could make a man feel everything he could possibly feel all at
once.

Entertaining that possibility
could be dangerous for the both of us.

“Come on,” she whispers,
lifting my fingers to her blindfold. “Let me see you.”

I need to know what was taken
from her.

With one swift tug, I lift her
blindfold. Camille blinks in the dark, the whites of her eyes coming into
focus. She runs a pinky below her bottom lashes and smiles.

“Wow,” she says.

My heart stops, and for a
moment I second-guess my decision on the off-chance she can see more of me than
I initially assumed.

Her fingers find my hair in the
dark, and she combs it across with nails raking against my scalp. I swallow the
hard ball in my throat when her palms drag down the sides of my face and along
my jaw.

“You’re just as handsome as I
thought you’d be,” she says.

My heart hammers.

“I mean, I can’t really see you
that well.” Her voice is a half-whispered smile. “But I can tell.”

Our eyes meet in the dark.

“Why’s an attractive man like
you paying for sex anyway?”

I can’t answer her question. I
can’t explain to her how exhilarating it feels to find a way to have something
I’ve been told my entire life is off limits. And I sure as hell can’t tell her
the last thing the son of the POTUS needs is to be caught red-handed with a
woman known in powerful circles as one of the most sought-after, highly paid
escorts.

“It’s complicated.” I circle
her waist and rise up on my knees before pressing her against me. My hand
travels between her thighs, slicking a finger along her wet seam before pushing
it inside her. She moans, burying her head into my shoulder.

Camille kisses my neck, her
hand pressed against my opposite cheek, as my fingers probe and curl inside
her. With hips circling and bucking, her kisses grow anxious, impatient. She’s
wetter than ever, her body more relaxed than in recent times.

Lifting her head, she faces me
again, kissing me with a smiling mouth.

“Why are you so happy all of a
sudden?” I ask.

“Because.” She kisses me again.
“It’s not every day someone like you comes along.”

I take her lower lip between my
teeth, my fingers pulsing in and out of her.

“Someone like me?”

“Attentive. Talented.
Attractive . . . at least from what I can tell,” she teases. “You’re the
trifecta, John. And for the next hour, I’m the luckiest woman in the world.”

“Enough flattery.” I smirk,
gathering her hair at the nape of her neck and biting kisses into her soft
flesh. Everything about her is on point tonight—her sweet scent, her
buttery skin,
her
eagerness.

But I can’t have her staring
into my eyes all night or studying my face until the murky image is forever
engrained in her memory.

“On all fours,” I command.

Camille twists her body slowly,
taking her time before striking a sexy pose. Her thighs spread as her ass backs
up to my hips, and her lower back dips. Dark hair falls down her back and
shoulders and squirms with tantalizing impatience.

I reach for the rubber packet
next to me. It tears with one pull across my teeth, and a second later, I’m
sheathed and pressed against her soft entrance. Gripping her hips, I pull her
against me and enter her in one thrust.

Camille moans, dropping to her
elbows and keeping her perfect cherry ass positioned against me. I drive into
her over and over again, the sound of skin slapping skin filling the spaces
between her soft sighs. I reach for her breasts, cupping and kneading them as I
pound her from behind.

Everything about her is
malleable putty, warm and pliant and desperately eager to please and be
pleased.

Her fists clench around
gathered fabric as she holds steady, and her cheek flattens against a pillow. I
know that when her eyes squeeze, she’s fighting the release she knows is
coming, staving it off just a while longer.

We could go all night like
this. And maybe one of these times we will. But not tonight.

Her body trembles, quivering
and tightening as she calls out a string of nonsensical madness. A slow buildup
from the base of my cock spreads to the tip, until I release inside of her.
Five hard thrusts and
I’m
spent.

She flips to face me as soon as
I pull out. Crawling on all fours, she works her way toward me, climbing into
my lap with her thighs hooked around my hips. Before I have a chance to say
anything, she kisses me again. With eyes closed, I feel the shape of her full
lips as they edge up at the corners.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her
mouth centimeters from mine. Camille holds my head between her hands and stares
at me from up close. “I really wish I could see your face in the light. I bet
it’s even more beautiful than I could possibly imagine.”

I can’t help but wonder where
her fixation on my exterior stems from, but I prevent myself from inquiring. I
imagine the last several years have been spent keeping the company of older,
less virile men who’ve let their looks fade in favor of prioritizing their
political agendas.

“Beauty is on the inside,” I
tell her.

“Not always.” She sighs.

“So do you trust me now,
Camille? Now that you’ve seen me?”

Her shoulders fall forward, and
our eyes meet again. “I don’t know, John. I mean, I want to. But I’m looking
into your eyes right now, and I couldn’t even tell you what color they are. I
can see you, but I can’t. I don’t even think I could pick you out of a lineup
if I had to.”

“You have to tell me.” My teeth
grind. “What was taken from you?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just not ready.”

“Then at least tell me if it’s
tied to me in some way.”

“How could it be, when I don’t
even know your name? The color of your eyes?”

“Then you should have no
problem telling me what it is.”

Camille scrambles, pulling away
until she’s off the bed and searching the dark floor of the bedroom for her
dress.

“I have to go,” she says. “I’m
sorry.”

***

“Park here,” I instruct Oliver
the next evening. After Camille fled the apartment last night, she hasn’t
answered my calls, so I’m personally seeing to it that she’s all right.

Oliver pulls in front of her
building and feeds an already running meter. I’m not sure how long we’ll be
here, but I’m willing to sit here for hours if it means seeing for myself that
she’s okay.

An hour passes.

Then another.

My stomach grumbles as we
approach evening, but I ignore it.

“It’s been three hours,” Oliver
complains from the front. “Should we call it a day?”

“Let me try her again,” I say.
“And my answer is no. We’ll sit here all night if we have to.”

Thirty seconds later, she still
won’t answer.

The spinning door to her
building releases a handful of residents a minute later, one of which is
Camille.

“There she is,” I mutter.

“Huh. So she was home this
whole time,” Oliver says.

We watch idly as she hails a
cab. Thank God she’s not taking the Metro, or we’d have had no way to tail her.

“See where she’s going.”

We follow the taxi about twenty
blocks until we reach a remote neighborhood just outside the metro area. The
cab deposits her at the front of a cozy restaurant, and we park a few spots
back.

“So what now?” Oliver asks.
“You want me to go in?”

“Absolutely not,” I spit. If
she sees Oliver, she’ll know I followed her here. “Let me think.”

I lean against the black
leather, my fingers strumming against my mouth as I attempt to determine how
best to proceed.

But in an instant, everything
changes. I watch Camille check in at the hostess stand, which tells me she’s
meeting someone and they’ve likely made reservations. But it’s all I can do not
to lose it when I see
him
walk in.

Trey fucking Bancroft.

“Go,” I seethe. “Get the hell
out of here. I’ve seen enough.”