Having Her: Lies We Tell, Book 2 (5 page)

Yeah, she was going to get the stupid costume. And she’d send him photos of herself in it. She wasn’t going to let him win this. No freaking way.

Kara lifted a shoulder. “Suit yourself,” she said, as if she didn’t give a damn.

Then she turned on her heel and went back up the path.

Chapter Three

Vin’s phone vibrated silently in the pocket of his suit jacket. The meeting he was having with the bank was important—he was trying to negotiate some extra finances for the Fox Chase business expansion he had in mind—but he was also expecting a call from the hospital psychiatrist about Lillian. And that too was important. There had been talk of releasing her early and he wasn’t happy about it.

Luckily the manger handling the Fox Chase account was female, which was very handy since most women could be charmed into granting him his way.

He gave her a smile. “Sorry, do you mind if I answer a call? It’s important.”

The woman, predictably enough, melted. “Certainly, Mr. Fox. I’ll give you some privacy.”

As soon as she’d left the meeting room, Vin stopped smiling and whipped out his phone.

It wasn’t a call. It was yet another text from Kara, with yet another NZ-Con photo attached.

She’d been sending him photos all bloody day and no amount of ignoring them or curt responses telling her to cease and desist had gotten her to stop. Mostly they seemed to be of various different men, or her actually standing with various different men. Men in all sorts of different costumes, looking stupid or weird or sometimes just downright dangerous.

Seemed like all she’d done at the Con was take pictures of men and/or herself.

Vin leaned back in his chair, holding his phone. He wasn’t going to look. No, he wasn’t.

You are. You can’t stop yourself.

And sure enough he found himself going through all the pictures to the one she’d sent him a couple of days ago. The one that had come after she’d flounced off his building site in a huff.

The one of her in a tiny metal bikini. With a slave collar and chain around her neck.

He’d always preferred tough women. Women with hard bodies and harder personalities. Who weren’t vulnerable either physically or emotionally. Women who could take care of themselves.

So he had no idea why the sight of Kara in her slave costume should cause him to catch his breath. Make his cock hard. Because she wasn’t tough in any way, shape or form.

She was soft. All over. Generous breasts barely contained by the metal cups of her bikini. Wide hips. Gently curved stomach. Rounded thighs. And all of it on show.

She’d had to have someone take the photograph because she stood far enough away from the camera to have gotten a really good shot of her whole body. In one hand she held the chain that attached to the collar, the other hand on one hip. The look on her face was a masterpiece of challenge and sexy submission all rolled into one, and even though the glasses she still wore should have blown the whole outfit, they didn’t.

They made her look vulnerable and sweet, and yet strong at the same time.

Jesus, why could he
not
stop looking at that picture?

Irritated with himself, he swiped at the screen, scrolling back to the one she’d just sent him. Her on her knees, her arms wrapped around Darth Vader’s legs while he held her chain. He didn’t know much about the
Star Wars
canon but he did know that Darth Vader should not be looking at his daughter in that way. The whole image was disturbing on so many levels.

The text said,
What about him? He’s an accountant called Darren. You approve?

Shit no. He did not approve. But replying to the text would only enter into the game she was playing and he wasn’t going to do that.

His phone vibrated again. Yet another text.

You don’t like Darren? BTW, my virginal hymen is still intact. In case you were worried.

Vin cursed and put down the phone. He had better things to be doing than reading stupid texts from Kara. This meeting with the bank for one. Talking to the psychiatrist about his mother for another.

Since when have you done something for yourself?

The thought came out of nowhere, making him scowl. How was that in any way relevant? Doing this stuff for his business and making sure his mother was looked after
were
things he did for himself. His business, because this was what he’d been working toward for just about ever and making sure Lillian was okay, so he didn’t have to worry about Ellie.

And anyway, what did Kara have to do with doing something for himself?

Vin turned off the screen without replying to Kara’s text and put his phone back in his pocket.

He’d just ignore her. With any luck she’d give up and go away.

However, a few hours later, his meeting with the bank over and after yet more assurances from the hospital that they were going to keep Lillian in, he got another text from Kara.

Clearly giving up was not something the damn woman was capable of.

He didn’t want to look and spent a good half hour determined not to, busying himself with taking his temper out on some subcontractors who hadn’t done their job properly. And yet as early evening began to set in, he couldn’t help himself. Something just made him reach into the pocket of his trousers and grab the phone.

This time the photo was of her with a number of other Princess Leias, all in slave costumes.
Look
, the accompanying text read,
I’m not alone. We’re all out to get laid.

Kara was lying on the ground in front of a crowd of Leias, right in the center, her blue hair and glasses making her stand out from the rest of the women. That and her body. She wasn’t lean or long like some of them, but there was something indescribably sensual about the way she lay there, head propped on one elbow, her soft breasts pressing against the cups of the bikini.

Oh she was beautiful. She really was.

“Hey, Vin?”

Vin turned the screen off and just about threw the thing on his desk. “What?”

Hunter was at his office door. “I’m taking a couple of the boys out for drinks. You want to come?”

“No.” He leaned back in his chair, shoving one hand through his hair. Tried to ignore the tight feeling in his groin. “I’m not in the mood.”

Hunter shrugged. “Okay. You heard from Ellie?”

Vin schooled his expression. “Yeah. She said she and Kara were going to have drinks at the convention center tonight.”

A shadow crossed Hunter’s face. “All right. Let me know if they need a lift home or anything.”

“I’ll give them a lift if they need it.” He’d be in town anyway since he’d now started building his new house out at Piha, one of Auckland’s surf beaches. To save money he’d decided to sleep at the office since it was far cheaper than renting anywhere.

Hunter paused, his hand on the door. “Yeah, well, let me know if you change your mind. I’ll be in town till late.”

As Vin nodded, his phone vibrated again. He cursed, reaching for it as Hunter left.

Bloody Kara again. This time she had a drink in one hand, her arm around the waist of some weirdo with odd hair and some seriously strange looking armor.
What about him?

Jesus, she was pushing it. Seriously pushing it.

He tossed the phone back down on the desk and tried to busy himself with some more work. When that palled, he found himself pulling out the application forms for the architecture degree he’d spent the better part of fourteen years having to put off.

Yeah, that was something for himself too, wasn’t it? Pursuing the dream he’d had ever since his father had told him to draw him a house when he was seven years old. A house their family could live in together.

Before the prick had decided having a mad woman for a wife was too hard. Before he’d fucked off leaving fifteen-year-old Vin in charge of an eight-year-old girl and a mother who thought her own daughter was the devil’s child and had to die.

No one knew about Lillian’s voices. The ones that told her Ellie had to be killed. Not Hunter. And most especially not Ellie herself. No one except Vin and her psychiatrist. No one else needed to know.

Vin stared at the forms. Yeah, he’d been putting it off because he simply didn’t have the time or the mental energy to be able to focus on study. But once Ellie had left the country, was safely in Tokyo and out of the way of their mother’s madness, then perhaps he could manage.

His phone buzzed yet again and he wanted to throw it at the wall but he didn’t, picking it up instead and checking the screen.

A picture of some guy dressed up like Spock from
Star Trek
, complete with rubber-looking ears. The man was tall and grinning down at the camera. Or no, not the camera. His gaze went below the camera, to about where Kara’s breasts would be.

What about Spock?
I’m definitely thinking Spock.

Vin bit off a curse. He was sick and tired of this game. Obviously she wasn’t going to give up and if he left off replying to her maybe she’d even start sending him pictures of her and her suitor in compromising positions.

That thought made him angry. Very bloody angry.

The woman was insane. And irritating. And had no sense at all.

And the hard-on in his trousers whenever he thought of her in that wretched costume wasn’t going to go away any time soon either.

Vin cursed again and typed out a short and sweet text.

Stop it.

She replied almost instantly.
You don’t approve?

No. I don’t.

Why? Got someone else in mind?

He bared his teeth at the screen.
Yeah. I do. Meet me at the pool bar near the convention center and I’ll tell you who.

There was a small pause.
When?

Fifteen minutes.

He didn’t know quite what he was going to do with her once he got to the bar. Tell her to quit texting him pictures, to quit wearing that revealing costume, to stop picking weirdos for her first time, to stop being so damn, sexy for a start.

You do know what you want to do with her.

Vin ignored his libido.

No. He was quite definitely
not
going to do that.

Kara dodged the crowds as she left the convention center’s bar, feeling bad about leaving Ellie alone. She felt bad about leaving full stop, but knowing Hunter was coming to get her friend helped.

Hiding the fact she was going to meet Vin didn’t.

Then again explaining to Ellie that she’d been sending the pictures Ellie had been taking of her, including the ones containing various potential suitors, to Vin all night, for reasons she couldn’t have explained even to herself, would also have been a little difficult. Ellie probably wouldn’t have cared but Kara felt awkward about it all the same.

Plenty of time to tell her friend later though. When whatever was going to happen with Vin had happened.

A small burst of excitement went through her as she went down the main set of stairs and out through the entrance into the brightly lit city beyond. An excitement she couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel.

I’ll tell you who…

God, did he truly have someone in mind for her or was he teasing her in return for the whole day she’d spent teasing him? Perhaps she’d get to the bar to find no one there.

Kara pulled the long duster-style black coat she wore tighter around her as she stepped out onto the pavement, concealing her costume.

No, that wasn’t Vin’s style. He was a straight-up kind of guy not a game-player. He was probably meeting her so he could give her another lecture, then he’d take her home. Like a child.

Kara began walking in the direction of the pool bar. Man, if all he was going to do was give her a talking to then she’d be forced to take more serious action. Like drop the coat and do a sexy dance in the middle of the bar. Not that she knew any sexy dances, but she was sure she could improvise. That would probably embarrass the crap out of him.

The pool bar itself was dimly lit, a bit shabby and full of the usual Saturday late-night crowds, an odd cross-section of people ranging from students and business types to a group of old guys and what looked like a hen party.

As Kara scanned around the pool tables looking for Vin, she soon discovered why the hen party was making rather a lot of noise. There was a tall guy playing the table next to theirs, causing them do a lot of whispering, pointing and giggling.

No wonder. It was Vin. And his tall, lean figure in low-slung jeans and a black T-shirt was enough to make anyone stare.

Kara wound her way slowly through the tables, unable to take her eyes off him as he lined up a shot, one muscled, tanned arm out, his cue held firmly between long fingers. The severe beauty of his features was shadowed by the overhead lighting as he focused on the ball, but the light picked up the sheen of copper in his dark hair, the only other similarity he had with Ellie.

The sheer physical magnetism he possessed held her and the entire hen party at the next table absolutely hypnotized as he drew back his arm to take the shot. The white hit a green ball which then bounced off the side of the table and hit a red with unerring accuracy. The red shot straight into one of the pockets.