My Double Life: Wild and Wicked (5 page)

Sort of like me putting a stupid white feather on my desk and hoping against hope that Trey wouldn’t see it. But who would have thought he’d show up at Sphere today, asking for
me
of all people?

He stopped beside my desk, so close to the feather, he could almost touch it. I tried to maintain eye contact and not give away the clue to Natalie Night’s real identity. But it was impossible not to look at the elephant in the room.

Nervous sweat broke out along my forehead, and although my hair covered it, I wondered if my cheeks were also bright red. Just thinking about it made me flush more.

“I see.” His fingers grazed my desk, resting lightly beside a photo of my home after I fixed it up. “Perhaps you could tell me how to secure the information better in the future? I’d like to get rid of all traces of any business plans.”

His beautiful, dark eyes met mine, and I got lost for a minute. Trey was unbelievably handsome. He had shades of the whole Latin-lover thing going on, but he also had a warm attentiveness about him that would flatter any woman. Geesh, to him I was just a random research accountant who had come in contact with his world and he was making me feel like the center of his undivided attention. It was a heady thing.

“Courtney?” he prompted.

“Um.” I tried to stop thinking about the washboard abs Fawn promised he had, but I’d been secretly eyeing his midsection, looking for traces of those muscles in the gap of his unbuttoned jacket. “I’m not really the best person to advise someone on digital security.”

“I’m sure you know enough that you wouldn’t make the same mistakes I have.” He didn’t seem dissuaded in the least.

And then it happened.

Trey looked down at my desk. His eyes landed on the feather.

I’m pretty sure an audible gasp escaped my lips because he looked over to me abruptly.

“I-in that case—” I stammered at first, so I rushed my speech to put the words out there before I could bungle them more. “I’d be happy to give you some tips on safeguarding your information online. I’ll send you my notes at the end of the day.”

He still stared at the feather. Oh, crap.

I stood, hoping it would signal the end of the meeting so we could go our own ways. Instead, he picked up the sleek white quill and gave me a long look.

My heart raced. I was dead if he recognized me. Memories of twining myself around the pole last night came roaring back in vivid detail. I’d danced for him. No one else. How on earth could I expect him
not
to know it was me?

“Courtney.” His attention returned to the feather. He smoothed the soft fibers between his thumb and forefinger, a slow, deliberate touch.

Intended to taunt me with a dangerous knowledge he could now hang over my head?

Or was that careful masculine attention designed to remind me how seductively persuasive he could be? I didn’t know whether to be scared or...excited. Right then, I was caught in a frenzied place somewhere in the middle. I couldn’t catch my breath. My mouth went so dry that speaking was no longer an option.

“Mmm?” I stuffed my hands in my blazer pockets before I made a mad grab for him.

“Would you consider meeting with me privately?”

I looked around my office, all too aware of the closed door.

“I mean,” he clarified, “would you be able to meet with me outside of Sphere?”

“I’m not a client rep. Actually, I don’t usually meet with clients.” The suspense was killing me. If he knew my secret alias, why didn’t he just say so? Why not simply run to my boss and put me out of my misery?

“Then I appreciate you seeing
me
outside of work.” He waved the feather, almost like it was a teeter-totter, between two fingers. Then he set it down. “Thank you.”

Was he thanking me for seeing him last night at the club? Or was he assuming I would agree to the meeting he’d just requested?

His expression gave away nothing.

But no matter that there was a fifty percent chance he’d recognized me and could blackmail me forever, he was still the most compelling man I’d ever laid eyes on. Furthermore, he’d noticed me yesterday, even before I dressed up in showgirl clothes to take Natalie’s place at Backstage. I couldn’t forget the way he’d invited me into the conference room, his eyes gazing into mine as if I was an attractive woman and not just a Sphere employee.

“I suppose I could find time during a lunch break.” I would keep this professional. Expense the company. There was nothing in my contract that said I couldn’t bring in new business. If anything, there were financial incentives to do just that.

“Today?” he prompted. “I’ve got several things I’d like to discuss with you.”

Such as?
I wanted to shout, my nerves stretched to the breaking point. But if what he wanted to say was in any way related to last night’s moonlighting, it would be better to meet outside the office. Maybe I could convince him to keep my secret.

If nothing else, I could indulge in the heated attraction I missed out on the night before when I gave him the slip. It only seemed fair to have that chance back if I was going to lose my job for the sake of one mistake.

“I’ve got a lunch meeting in-house today.” I had to step closer to him in order to peer down at the weekly calendar open on my desktop. “How about tomorrow?”

I felt incredibly aware of him standing next to me, a little closer than was strictly professional. My thighs shifted beneath my skirt in an effort to quell the sudden heat, but that only intensified the feeling.

“How about tonight?” he pressed, lowering his voice so that he spoke in close proximity to my ear.

A sweet shiver swept through me. It was all I could do not to close my eyes and tilt my head back to grant him full domain over my neck. Shoulder. Anything else he wanted.

“A lunch meeting would probably be more appropriate.” I sounded like a prude, but I clung to the hope that he didn’t recognize me. That my guilty conscience played tricks on me and saw danger where there wasn’t any.

He nodded but still didn’t step back. The feather remained on the desk in the narrow space between us.

“If you insist. Can I pick you up at noon tomorrow?”

Bad idea. This would only lead to trouble. Yet just like the previous night, I found I couldn’t refuse him.

“S-sure.” I swallowed hard. “I hope I have enough to offer to make it worth your while.”

It was the sentiment of an insecure woman and one that I shouldn’t have spoken aloud. I knew better than to undercut myself.

“More than enough.” He smiled like the big, bad wolf might have done after polishing off grandma. “See you then, Courtney.”

He turned on the heel of one polished leather loafer and I thought I might be able to take a deep breath again. But he paused by my bookshelves to pick up the silver-framed photo that I’d noticed him eyeing from across the room earlier.

It was that picture taken at our receptionist’s bachelorette party last year—the party that had first introduced me to pole dancing. I wondered why he wanted a closer look.

He set it down and departed before I could ask. When I took another peek at it, however, I got a damned good idea.

The dancing pole wasn’t all that obvious in the background since it could be mistaken for a ceiling support or the base of a tall floor lamp. Yet there could be no mistaking the logo on the back wall of the dance studio. If you looked close enough, you could see the name Naughty by Night painted on the brick.

My heart lodged in my throat as I wondered what he thought when he’d looked at that.

Did he know my secret?

5

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
, Trey wandered across the grounds of the Spanish-style villa where he’d spent his childhood whenever one of his parents wasn’t carting him around Europe or New York for their careers. He had a question for his father, so he’d come to the source. Not that he was looking forward to their meeting.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Trey’s father greeted him outside the converted art studio on the back lot of the elder Fraser’s expansive Malibu beach property.

A big, robust man in his seventies, Thomas Fraser II had a grizzled beard and a shock of thick white hair that currently stood up in all directions. Behind him, sculptures in clay and marble in various stages of creation crowded the tile floor. In addition to being a famous producer, the older man was a sculptor in his spare time. Personally, Trey had always thought his father might have ADD, since he could never sit still for more than a minute at a time and he always needed something new to hold his attention. He was a creative genius in a lot of ways, but his follow-through sucked. Trey had hoped when they first went into business together that their opposing styles could balance each other out. He had overlooked the fact that his father also liked to have his own way at all times.

“Hello to you, too.” Trey stepped past his father into the open-air ground floor of the studio, where a long panel of windows slid aside to allow in breezes off the Pacific. When he was a kid, the art studio had been the pool house. “And believe me, I wouldn’t be here if I thought you’d give me a straight answer over the phone.”

Better to see his father’s face in person. That way he could distinguish fact from fiction when he questioned him about his latest deal. Trey wouldn’t have risked a confrontation if he didn’t need the truth. Courtney’s research had given him a lot to think about.

“Bah,” his father grumbled, turning his back on Trey to wash his hands in a utility sink against one wall. “As if you’re entitled to straight answers. What right do you have to question me about my business anyway?”

“Who said it was a business concern, Pop?”

Trey ran his hand along the graceful lines of an unfinished marble horse. The piece was a favorite of Trey’s, originally intended as a tribute to his mother, but that romantic notion was quashed when his dad took up with someone else. Trey’s actress mom hadn’t spent much time with her three sons when they were young, but she had taken them to the Tuscan countryside every summer to stay with their maternal grandparents, a welcome respite from their self-involved father. Damien and Lucien, his younger brothers, had moved out of the L.A. area as soon as they turned eighteen, ready to put some space between themselves and their overbearing dad.

“Since when do you have any concerns but work-related ones?” His dad yanked a linen towel off a rack and gave him a sharp look as he dried his hands.

Trey wandered over to a sculpture of a woman’s torso, the high, taut breasts directly at the viewer’s eye level, thanks to a raised pedestal. The arched spine and flared hips made him think of Courtney.

And Natalie. “Since I learned I need to watch my back twice as much when I do business with family.”

“Nonsense.” His father made a dismissive gesture. “Your problem is that you haven’t had a personal life since Heather. That’s why you’re too intense. A man needs a woman.”

Trey refused to discuss his romantic entanglement with the only woman he’d ever fallen hard for. A woman who been more romanced by the idea of being married to a Fraser than the reality of loving Trey.

His dad might be a pain in the ass, but he had personal magnetism to spare. The old man’s shoes were damn big to fill and Trey sometimes wished he hadn’t put himself in the same arena as his father.

“You certainly haven’t deprived yourself of women,” Trey observed lightly, anxious to get off the subject.

Ignoring the comment, Thomas walked to a bar off to one side of the room and took out a heavy crystal decanter.

“Drink?” he asked, filling a glass with amber liquid.

With his father, there was no telling if it was the best Scotch or a new dandelion wine recipe he’d whipped up in the same damn utility sink where he washed his stone-cutting tools. His father liked to think of himself as a Renaissance man, but his skills as a vintner were sketchy at best.

“No.” Trey moved toward a tall chair near a pub table in the middle of the room and took a seat. “This isn’t a social call.”

He needed to see his father’s expression when he asked him about the film rights he’d obtained to a story suspiciously similar to the one Trey had tried to make while working for his dad’s company. He needed to understand the guy’s intentions. Sure, his dad had always been ridiculously competitive, especially with Trey. But would he really make a film just to spite his son? Trey felt as if he was missing something and he hoped that this face-to-face time would help him figure out why his father had moved to a new level of aggression in the ongoing family war for Hollywood fame.

Couldn’t his father see it was Trey’s turn for recognition? Trey’s time to shine?

“I’ve noticed you haven’t been social since I shut down your last film.” Thomas strolled around the studio, drink in hand, eyes roving over his creations. He stopped now and again to brush stone dust off one or trace a groove along a clay model.

Fighting to hang on to his patience, Trey reminded himself he was here to get answers, and that he couldn’t let his father distract him with their twisted personal relationship. That was how Trey had gotten talked into joining his dad’s film company in the first place—misplaced sentimentality and the hope that they could work together as adults even if they’d had a contentious relationship in his youth.

Bad idea.

“With good reason.” Trey took out his cell phone and scrolled through the entertainment news items. “But I think you owe me a heads-up if you’re going to try to muscle out the picture you wouldn’t let me make.” He read aloud, “‘Fraser Films options
Quiet Places,
a Vietnam war book about an unlikely friendship between American POWs.’”

“So?” His dad took a long drink, not even looking at him.

“I’ve got a fantastic, gut-wrenching screenplay about POWs during the Korean war. You know that.”

“Yours has an Aussie POW. My project is more firmly American.”

“Right. Good point.” Trey switched off his phone and stood. He’d gotten as much of an answer as he needed. His father wasn’t committed to the film as much as he was committed to pissing off Trey. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t make the movie. But so far the story hadn’t excited him on an artistic level. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

His father said nothing. Trey was almost to the door when he heard him clear his throat. Shake the ice cubes in his glass.

“I heard you’ve been keeping late hours on the town.” He said it casually, as if it was a simple observation.

Trey turned around. He needed to get the hell out of his old man’s house, but he waited for the other shoe to drop. No doubt his father had a reason for bringing up the only late night Trey had enjoyed in a long time.

“Disappointed I didn’t invite you?” He kept his tone light, but tension knotted the muscles across his shoulders.

“I’m concerned, Trey.” He set his empty glass on the pub table before picking up a small pick and approaching a clay figure of a lion’s face. “You’ve got some underage clients in that new talent agency of yours. I’m not sure it sends a good message to the parents of young actresses when their manager is patronizing dance clubs with his clients.”

“I’d be surprised if anyone thought anything of it.” Los Angeles wasn’t some Heartland small town where an agent might be viewed as a seedy character.

“Trust me. All it takes is one well-placed article to turn that into a scandal.” He took the pick to the lines of clay fur around the noble creature’s face. “You’d hate to lose your young clients. They’re the future of any good agency.”

“End scene.” Trey used his hands to pantomime snapping shut a slate. “Great take, Dad. Too bad the cameras weren’t rolling.”

“I try to help you, Trey,” his father argued. “I only push you so you achieve more success. Don’t you see? It’s a father’s role.”

Trey couldn’t think of many fathers who took the role so seriously, but he wouldn’t go down that road again. He’d found out what he needed to know.

“Okay, Dad. Thanks.” Shaking his head, he walked out of the studio and across the lawn to his car, ticked off that he’d made the drive all the way out Pacific Coast Highway just to be treated to more games.

At least he had figured out his father’s next move. Thomas was still trying to maneuver Trey like a chess piece in a game that he’d never wanted to play.

Good thing the next item on his appointment list was lunch with Courtney Masterson. The seemingly shy research accountant had been full of all kinds of interesting surprises the last time they met.

For the last twenty-four hours, he’d been thinking about her a lot. That white feather on her desk had sparked his imagination and made him wonder about how she spent her time when she left the office. It was a crazy idea that Courtney would have anything to do with Natalie Night. But the picture of her inside the dance studio had definitely spurred the thought.

Chances were that Courtney had only gone to the studio for a bachelorette party. Naughty by Night advertised events like that often enough in local media outlets. Yet Courtney shared a few key traits with Natalie, including the rare ability to turn him inside out with just a look. So, even though a connection between the women was highly unlikely, Trey’s fantasies were having a field day with the idea.

Besides, returning to Backstage would be dangerous for him if there was any chance his father would sink so low as to go gunning for his reputation. To be safe, Trey would keep his fantasies to himself.

Or better yet, he’d keep them between him and Courtney.

* * *

T
EN
TIMES
I’
D
PICKED
up the phone to cancel the date. Er, lunch meeting. Ten times.

But when I heard the receptionist, Star, clicking down the hall in her heels, I still hadn’t made the call that would end this madness. Now there was no turning back.

“Courtney?” Star tapped lightly on the open door, her red hair piled high like a school teacher from another era.

There was something very proper about Star with her retro hairdo and her china teacup, which she carried around the office from nine to five. But appearances were deceiving because she was the same colleague who chose to have her bachelorette party at Naughty by Night. I had her to thank—or blame—for turning me into a featured attraction at the local gentlemen’s club.

“Yes?” I stood, ready to bolt from my office for this lunch appointment even though I had removed any incriminating evidence of my Backstage adventure. Or even my dancing.

“Pendleton wanted me to give you this.” She handed me a fat folder from the boss. The file had the name of a well-known Silicon Valley company typed on the tab.

“A new account for me to research?” I took the folder from her and laid it on my desk, all the while realizing I was extremely let down that she wasn’t here to announce Trey’s arrival.

“Not only that.” Star smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. “He asked me to tell you that he’d really like you to consider taking the lead on this one.”

“Me?” My heartbeat faltered a little. “He knows I’m a behind-the-scenes person.”

Pendleton had been there for my interview with the company. He knew better than most how awful my public speaking skills could be. Still, having client contact could increase my paycheck if I ever felt ready to tackle it.

“Maybe he’s noticed you’re not as shy as you used to be.” Star straightened the chain of the vintage looking cameo necklace that she wore. “And, by the way, Trey Fraser is waiting for you out front.”

An undignified yelp of alarm escaped me.

“Why didn’t you say so?” I hissed at her, grabbing my purse and checking my teeth in a mirror tucked inside a bookshelf.

“You’re fun to surprise,” she admitted, walking with me as I hurried down the hall.

“So you can see me trip and maybe even stutter?” Everyone in my office had heard the glitch in my speech at one time or another. But I had to admit, they’d all been very cool about it. And, except for the occasional clueless summer intern, everyone was very patient with me if I got into trouble with my words.

It was mortifying to have people try to finish my sentences for me.

“No.” From behind me, Star tucked a tag back into the neckline of my shirt. “Because you’re way more animated than most people on staff here.”

“That’s a new way to put it,” I grumbled, even though I realized what she meant. There were some people in accounting who you’d swear didn’t even have a pulse.

“Go get him, Courtney,” Star whispered in my ear as I opened the door into the reception area. “And don’t worry if you don’t come back after lunch. I can always cover for you.”

The words rang in my ears as I snagged my first view of Trey. A gorgeous, breathtaking view. I still couldn’t believe I’d had a chance with him the other night. And I really, really couldn’t believe that I’d ignored it and gone home.

I had to stop letting old insecurities run my life.

“Hi,” I said lamely, halting in the middle of the foyer.

Animated? I couldn’t think of a single word to say to the man. He wore jeans and a faded red T-shirt, but his shoes were killer. Distressed leather loafers—sort of Italian gigolo meets American cowboy. He looked delicious.

“You ready?” He grinned and I wondered what he had in mind for lunch.

Probably not nearly as much fun as what I was imagining right now. Besides, I had dressed in a boring khaki skirt that hung to my knees and a white T-shirt that I’d bought in the men’s department. I’ve always figured that with the right jewelry, a man’s shirt could make a fashion statement. Although the statement I was making now was probably something like—
I’ve given up!
I guess I was trying hard
not
to dress for seduction since that’s all I had on my mind.