Final Call (The Call #2) (27 page)

It isn’t irrational to
believe that one of the girls I worked with for the last couple of
years would have broken the story.

After all, I got the
fairytale. All bullshit aside, I was the top girl. I met the guy. I
won his heart. I left the business.

I did what they want,
however unintentionally.

And now that could
destroy everything.

I wipe my face with a
towel and take the elevator up to Aaron’s apartment. Our apartment.
I really have to get used to saying that—which is a problem when
I’m not used to sharing.

I run the shower and
grab my cell from the kitchen side, ignoring the blinking message
icon, and call Monique.

“Pick up, pick up, pick
up,” I mutter.

“I have,” she responds.
“This better be good.”

“I hope you mean
good-important and not good-good.”

“Nope. I was hoping for
a marriage announcement or the like.”

I snort. “About as far
from it as I can get, Mon. Listen, we have a problem.”

“What the fuck
now?”

“One of your girls sold
me out.”

Silence. Nothing but
her heavy, controlled breathing. Until… “What the fucking hell do
you mean? Sold you out?”

I reel off the whole
story, ending with my realization of just moments ago. She hisses
out a string of angry words, none of which are remotely
understandable, and I hear a door slam behind her.

“Let me check the
appointments from four and five weeks ago. There has to be
something out of the ordinary. I’ll get back to you in half an
hour.” She hangs up, and I drop my phone on the sofa.

I strip off my clothes
and step into the shower. The water beats away the tension in my
shoulders the way the treadmill sweated it out. The only thing this
can’t solve is my annoyance.

No, it’s not annoyance.
It’s anger. One that’s only set to increase when I find out who
turned my shit inside out and sold it.

I don’t doubt Naomi
paid for the information. Which means it would have been one of the
lowest-earning girls on Monique’s books. One of the most jealous,
desperate ones. One of the ones who needed the money the most.

Which means…

“Shit!” I rinse the
conditioner from my hair and grab a towel, my wet hair dripping
down my back. Then I shut off the shower.

My cell rings as I run
into the front room. “Monique, it was—”

“Lori. She had a random
two-hour long client who paid a lot of money for her time around
the time you called to cancel Aaron’s payments.”

“Just before Naomi came
to see me. Fuck! What’s her address?”

“3A Juniper
Avenue.”

“Wow. Thanks. I didn’t
think you’d actually give it to me.”

A knock sounds at the
door.

“My girl or not, she
doesn’t fuck with you. Call me later when you know for sure. If she
sold you out, she’s out on her fucking ass.”

“Gotcha. Bye.” I hang
up for the second time and look through the peephole in the door.
“Tyler! Perfect timing.”

“It is?”

“Yes. Grab a coffee.” I
shut the door behind him. “Or tea. Whatever the hell you want. I
need to get ready. Then you can take me somewhere.”

He raises his eyebrows,
a welcome glint of amusement reflecting throughout his expression.
“I can, can I?”

“You can and you will.”
I point at him, walking backward.

“You’ve been taking
lessons on ordering people about from my cousin,” he calls through
the apartment.

I smile. It seems that
way. Well, that’s something that will come in handy in the next
half hour.

I change quickly and
blast my hair through with the hairdryer. When it’s damp, I braid
it to the side so it hangs over my shoulder. A flick of mascara and
I’m ready to go. Ready to go and do what I’m going to refer to as
“doing an Aaron.”

“Let’s go.” I open the
front door.

“But I just made
tea.”

“Fuck your tea. I’ll
make you ten cups later. Move it, Ty.”

He sighs and puts the
mug down, leading me out of the apartment and into the elevator.
“You know what, Dayton? You’re lucky you’re Aaron’s girlfriend. The
last woman to boss me about this way found herself bent over my
fucking car.”

“Nice,” I say
dryly.

Tyler opens the door of
his rental car and I get in. “Where are we going?” he asks.

“3A Juniper
Avenue.”

“Hang on. Oh, yes. Got
it. I know exactly where I’m going.”

I hit him in the arm.
“I’ll direct you. Now let’s go.”

“Where are we going,
exactly?”

“Right. Now left.
That’s it.”

“Day.”

“I know who sold me
out.”

“Ah.”

***

The elevator in Lori’s
apartment block is broken, so I climb the stairs, thanking myself
for putting on flats instead of my usual heels. I’m not thanking
the seven flights of stairs, I admit.

I bang on the door and
fidget while I wait for her to answer. I knock again, and I hear
her call, “One minute!”

I take a deep breath,
trying to rein in the annoyance running rife through me. Screaming
at her won’t do any good.

She opens the door and
her eyes widen when she sees me. “Dayton. What a surprise.”

“I’d imagine it is. Can
I come in?”

“I don’t—”

“Thanks.” I squeeze
past her and look around her apartment. You wouldn’t look at this
place and believe she was the lowest earner on Monique’s books.
“Nice place.”

“Thanks.” She closes
the door softly.

“How much did you have
to sell me out for to pay for it?”

Lori draws in a sharp
breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t treat me like
I’m stupid, Lori.” I turn to her, my hands on my hips, and pierce
her with my gaze. She freezes. “I know for a fact you told Naomi
everything about me.”

She says nothing, but
she pulls her gaze from mine and looks at the floor.

“I’ll take your silence
as an admission. Why would you do that, Lori? Why the fuck would
you go and break the unwritten rule we all lived by? We weren’t
friends, but we weren’t enemies either.”

“You had everything.”
She looks at me again, her eyes harder than a moment ago. “You had
fucking everything. The big clients. The biggest cut for Monique at
the end of the week. You coasted through life without as much as a
damn pimple on your chin.”

“And that’s a reason to
sell my life story to my boyfriend’s jealous, manipulative ex-wife,
right? So she can blackmail me into paying her the money she didn’t
get from their divorce?” I raise my eyebrows, and her face whitens.
“Oh, she didn’t tell you that. I didn’t think she would have.”

“Fuck. I-I didn’t know.
I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your
apology, Lori. You’ve fucked everything—for yourself as well. Did
you think you wouldn’t be found out? What do you really stand to
gain from this?”

“I was in debt. She
offered me enough to pay it all off and then some.”

I don’t have it in me
to feel bad. I just can’t feel an ounce of sympathy or pity for
her.

“I hope it was worth
it, and I hope you truly thought through what you were doing. You
haven’t just put my identity and Stone Advertising at risk. You’ve
put your own life and Monique’s business at risk, too. It wouldn’t
take much to link me back to Monique.”

“Naomi said that
wouldn’t happen.”

“Naomi is a lying
bitch, Lori. She can’t control what happens when she sells the
story, what digging journalists do. And she has, by the way, sold
the story, and now I’m trying to do damage control. Aaron has one
hundred other things he needs to be doing, but because you decided
I was worth a few thousand dollars, he’s busting his ass trying to
make this right. I hope you’re proud of yourself. You can expect a
call from Monique later tonight.”

“Wait, what?”

I open her front door.
“Do you honestly think she’ll keep you on her books after this?
You’ve put every single one of us at risk of exposure, and in some
cases, you’ve put us in genuine danger. Angry wives are ruthless,
as evidenced by the woman who put us here.”

She pales even further.
“Fuck. I didn’t think,” she whispers.

“Evidently fucking
not.” I step through the door then pause and look over my shoulder.
“And, Lori?”

“Yeah?”

“If this story breaks,
if my whole life is splashed over the pages of some sleazy tabloid,
you can bet your damn life I’ll be slapping a lawsuit on your
ass.”

Her eyes widen.

“And as much as you
know about my life, I probably know a lot more about yours. If I go
down, I’m sure as hell taking you with me.”

Chapter
Twenty-Three

I push the door to
Aaron’s office open and look around it. He’s leaning forward on the
desk, one hand in his hair, a phone to his ear.

“Every one, yes. Make
it clear that, if they print it, we’ll be coming down on them with
the force of a fucking avalanche… Yes… Thank you, Alexander. Email
them over tonight and I’ll take a look. Then we’ll send them out…
Perfect. Goodnight.”

He puts the phone down
and sighs heavily. He spins in the chair and slowly runs his eyes
up my bare legs to the hem of his shirt skimming my thighs. After
taking the rest of me in, they find my eyes. There’s none of the
expected heat in them.

Just love.

“Come here,” he
mutters, holding his arms out.

I cross the room and
curl onto his lap, resting my head on his shoulder. His arms go
around me securely, holding me against him, and he buries his face
alongside mine.

“That didn’t sound
good,” I whisper.

“There are several
other presses who have the story. Naomi sold it to both paper and
digital outlets, hoping we’d miss one. I believe she planned to
have you exposed regardless of her receiving the money.”

I shiver. “What are you
sending to them?”

“Lawsuits,” he mumbles
into my neck, sweeping his lips across my skin. “They’re being
warned of what will be handed to them if they publish the story.
Alexander Carlisle Jr. is the best lawyer in Seattle. He’ll fuck
them so hard they won’t have a choice but to not run it.”

“Alexander
Carlisle?”

Why does that sound
familiar?

“Do you know him?”

I sit up and bite my
lip. I know I do… But where? How? I gasp. “Oh shit.”

This could get awkward
very quickly.

“Day?”

“I can’t believe I
didn’t make the connection before. Um.” I laugh nervously. “Do you
remember that night you were outside my house? When you pinned me
to the door and kissed the shit out of me?”

His lips twitch. “How
can I forget?”

“Yes. Well. I had been
to work that night, but I couldn’t do the job.”

“Why do I get the
feeling I know where this is going?”

“He was hosting a
function and your parents were there. I recognized your mom before
I entered and apologized.” I smile sheepishly. “This is slightly
awkward.”

Aaron stares at me for
a long moment. “Amusing is what I’m thinking. More the fact
Alexander had to hire someone to accompany him to his own
function.”

“Oh yes. Imagine that.
Having to hire someone to be your date.”

He grins and slides a
hand up my back to cup my head and pull it forward. “Well, I’m very
glad I hired you first. Otherwise, I may have had to kill him for
you.”

“Protecting me, right?”
I murmur against his lips.

“No. That’s me being a
selfish bastard. Haven’t you noticed? I’m ruthless when it comes to
something that belongs to me.”

“I’m a thing now, am I,
Mr. Stone?” I stand and look down at him.

“Not
a
thing,
no. You’re my thing.”

I fight my smile. “You
really know how to romance a woman, you know that?”

“Romance, seduce. Is
there a difference between the two?” He smirks. “You’ve never said
so.”

“I made dinner. It’s
probably cold by now though.”

“You cooked in my shirt
and you didn’t tell me?” He stands and grabs me. He tugs me into
his body. My breasts squash against the hardness of his chest, and
I feel his erection press into my hip.

“You were on the phone,
remember? Besides, I wasn’t aware I was required to tell you.”

“From now on, any time
you wear my shirt, cooking or otherwise, you’re required to tell
me. Especially if you’re naked beneath it, which seems to be your
new uniform.”

“Is that an ironclad
requirement?”

“Set in fucking stone.”
He smiles at his own words, kisses me softly, and drags me into the
kitchen. “What did you cook me?”

“The usual. Food.
Ouch!” I clap my hand over my butt cheek. “What was that for?”

“Your sass,” he grins.
“That and I happen to enjoy smacking your ass.”

I’ve gathered
that.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I made steak.”

“You cooked me
steak?”

“No, I cooked it for
the security guys. Of course I cooked it for you.”

“She wears my shirt and
she cooks me steak. Are you a dream?”

I laugh and put the
plates in the oven to heat them through. “You’re a lucky bastard,
Aaron Stone.”

He looks at me for a
long moment, his lips slowly curving to one side, and reaches out
for me. He runs his thumb along my jaw and leans down, his hot
breath covering my lips.

“More than you know,
Dayton Black. More than you know.”

***

“I’ve changed my mind.”
I slide in opposite Tyler in the coffee shop. “I don’t think I want
to model.”

He raises his eyebrows.
“Really? You’re a natural.”

I shrug a shoulder. “I
don’t know. I don’t think it’s for me. I’m not really comfortable
in front of a camera, you know?”

And I’m not. The more
I’ve thought about it, the more certain I am that I’m not model
material. My age goes against me for one thing, and I’m done
showing my body for money.