DARK PARADISE - A Political Romantic Suspense (9 page)

Camille

Three. Long. Deep. Breaths.

I’d give anything for a drink
of water right now. A freshly poured glass of still water rests right before
me, but I can’t reach for it. My hands are trembling, and I’ll be damned if I
let Trey Bancroft see me shaking like a leaf.

“I’m glad you called, Camille.”
He’s calm and even-keeled, one of his greatest strengths. In the face of
scandals and high-pressure political storms, he’s always had the uncanny
ability to remain perfectly intact and come out unscathed. “I’ve missed you.”

“This isn’t about
us
. Let me make that clear.” I want my
journal back, and my gut tells me he has it. He’s the only man in this city who
knows where I live, and the only person I know who is ballsy enough to help
himself to my apartment if the opportunity arose. Perhaps he was searching for
something else and found more than he bargained for. It’s the only thing that
makes sense.

He smiles his arrogant smile,
like I’m just some political pundit he needs to butter up in order to fall into
their good graces. Trey oozes confidence, and I can’t say that I blame him.
He’s a man who rarely swings and misses, a man who knows how to get what he
wants.

Screw it. I’m taking a drink.

I don’t think he’s looking at
my hands anyway. He hasn’t taken his eyes off my breasts since he walked in here,
despite the fact that they’re one hundred percent covered in a cable-knit
cardigan fit for a schoolmarm. I made sure when I dressed for this evening that
nothing about my ensemble remotely whispered sexy.

“Then what is this about?” he
asks, wearing a smile as fake as his dyed brown hair. Trey wears his forties
well, but not without some assistance. An avid runner with an eye for style, he’s
an attractive man with a charismatic way about him. People are drawn to his
magnetic charm and easy personality.

But he’s also a liar and a
cheat.

There’s no easy way to ask, so
I lay it on the table without any kind of preface. “Were you in my apartment
this weekend?”

He scoffs, nearly choking on
the wine he just sipped a second earlier.

“Excuse me?” He laughs. “Why
would I have been at your apartment?”

“Something of mine is missing,”
I say.

“Like what?”

“Don’t play games with me,
Trey. You are the only person in this city who knows my address.”

And the only man in this city
who’s ever set foot in there . . .

“Did you ask
Araminta
?” Trey suggests. His eyes roll as if this
conversation bores him.

“Don’t worry who I have and
haven’t asked.” I lean forward, narrowing my gaze. “I’m asking
you
, Trey.”

“I haven’t seen, nor heard from,
nor spoken to you in months, Camille, and this is what I get? An accusation of
theft? I knew we left off in a bad place, but I expected a little more class
from you.” He sips his wine like he’s some dignified diplomat.

“Really? You want to talk about
the way things ended?” In my mind, I’m standing right now, yanking that
pretentious, hundred-dollar glass of red wine from his hand and dousing his
pristine white shirt in it. “How’s your wife, Trey? And the kids? How’s the
baby, Trey? Is she walking yet?”

His face reddens as his eyes
scan our surroundings for any prying patrons.

“Keep your voice down!” Trey’s
whisper borders along the lines of a shout.

“Why’s that? Wouldn’t want your
dirty little secret getting out?”

We both lean back in our
chairs, refusing to make eye contact for a moment. He seethes from his side. I
huff from mine.

Clearly, coming here tonight
was a bad idea, but I had to ask. And I wanted to personally remind him to
leave me the hell alone. I figured coming to a very busy restaurant in a very
public place would keep the meeting from feeling intimate.

“If I go down, I’m taking you
right along with me, sweetheart.” He cocks a smile that makes me want to punch
him.

I’d met Trey just before last
Christmas. He’d heard about me through another senator, as they all seemed to
do, and I accepted him as a client after learning of his emotionally abusive, alcoholic
wife and how she’d abandoned their marriage yet refused to initiate a divorce.
He claimed to be fresh off of filing a legal separation when we had our first
date, and the first week into our arrangement, this handsome senator cried in
my arms about how much he missed the tender touch of a lover. He claimed to be
a man simply in search of a woman who enjoyed physical intimacy as much as he
did. Months passed, and I found myself breaking all of my own rules. He swept
me up with the sweet nothings he’d whisper into my ear when he’d stay the
night, and he sealed the deal with sweeping romantic gestures that made me
forget I was just somebody’s prized whore.

No one had ever done those
things for me. And none of these men had ever taken the time to get to know me
the way Trey did. He knew my favorite music, my favorite stores and
restaurants. He was the first man I’d ever so much as mentioned to my mother.

We were planning a trip to
Tennessee last summer when the letter arrived in the mail.

It was postmarked in DC and the
return address was blank. I’d almost thrown it away because it looked like
disguised junk mail, the kind with no identifying information so that you’re
forced to open it to see what’s inside.

Only when I opened this letter,
I saw a family photo. Trey Bancroft sat next to his beautiful, smiling wife,
Tippy, who cradled a pudgy-faced baby. A black lab and two blonde girls in pigtails
and matching rompers sat in front.

My heart knocked erratically in
my chest as I studied that photo, searching for some kind of clue. It could’ve
been taken a year or two ago for all I knew.

And then I saw it. The pink and
yellow paisley tie around his neck. The one I bought for him during a weekend
getaway in Cape May not two months prior. He jokingly said it was the most ugly
thing he’d ever seen, and I told him if he loved me, he’d wear it sometime.

I dropped the photo in that
moment, my hands flying to my mouth in case the stir of bile in my stomach
decided to rise. The picture fluttered to the ground, landing upside down when
it hit the floor.

And that’s when I saw the
writing on the back.

END IT OR EVERYONE WILL KNOW.

“This was a mistake.” I rise
from the table. I should’ve known better than to expect a liar to give me a
straight answer.

“Where are you going? We
haven’t even ordered yet.”

My jaw slacks. “This wasn’t a
date, Trey.”

He stares ahead, his expression
hardening. If it weren’t for whoever the hell was stalking us back then, I’d
probably be staring across the table into his eyes right now like some idiotic
escort who fell in love with her client.

“And stop following me. Do we
really need to go down that road again?” I say to him. “I know you followed me
the other day.”

His handsome face wrinkles, and
his head shakes. “No idea what you’re talking about, Camille.”

“The Melrose, Trey. Someone saw
you there.”

He leans in, his eyes lifting
to mine. “I have just as much skin in the game as you do, sweetheart. The last
thing I want is to be seen in a hotel with my ex whore.”

His words sting worse than I
expected them to, but I hold my head high. I may be a whore, but I’m the
classiest whore this city has ever seen. And besides, it’s just his bruised ego
talking. Deep down, that man is still head over heels in love with
his whore
.

“Now,” he says. “Tell me, why
would I have followed you to a hotel?”

“Because you still want to be
with me,” I say in a rushed whisper, annoyed to have to state the obvious. Why
else would he have dropped everything to meet me tonight?

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He
scoffs, but he has to be lying. I can hear the uncertainty in his voice
disguised as arrogance. “Don’t think for one moment that you’re not disposable
to any of the men who pay for
your
. . .
services
.”

“You loved me, Trey.” I keep my
voice down. “And for a tiny sliver of this past year, I almost thought I loved
you too.”

His eyes roll and his square
jaw
relaxes
as he smirks. “I could never love someone
like you, Camille. I thought it was all part of the game. We were just a couple
of professionals doing what we do best: pretending to be people we’re not.”

I blink away tears that
threaten to blur my vision. It’s been years since anyone’s made me cry, and
here I am, letting an asshole like Senator Bancroft get right beneath my skin
and vaporize every ounce of strength I have.

“Nobody who hires you is ever
going to love you,” he adds. “It’s like leasing a car. It’s yours for a while,
and it’s shiny and new and fun, and then you give it back as soon as you’re
done with it.”

“Beautiful analogy. Wow.
Lovely. Thank you.”

I don’t know this man, the one
who cried in my arms and sent me flowers every single week for months, the one
who placed his hand on my belly not six months ago and asked if I’d ever
consider having a baby with him someday, the one who said he couldn’t imagine
his future without me in it.

Whether he lied then or he’s
lying now, it all hurts the same.

A crushing, suffocating
sensation fills my chest. His words make me nauseous. I’ve spent the better
part of the last five years learning to read people, and you spend enough time
around politicians that you tend to grow desensitized to their bullshit.

But I thought it was different
with Trey.

I pull in a breath and refuse
to let myself sink any deeper. I’m more upset with myself for believing him.
It’s not his fault. It’s mine. I knew better. There’s a reason
Araminta
and I have rules, and I threw them all out the
window after a few sweet words and tender nights with this con artist.

Never again.

“Thank you, Trey.” I hook the
strap of my bag around my shoulder.

“For what?”

“For a most enlightening
evening. Now go home to your wife and kids.”

“John”

“You’re only a prisoner in your
own mind.” My brother sprays his signature cologne under his clean-shaven jaw
before recapping it.

I’m slouched in a leather
armchair in the oversized master suite of his apartment, a half-empty bourbon
in my left hand.

“Easy for you to say.” I take a
sip, then another to finish.

“Come out with us just once.
You can’t spend the rest of your life locked up like some prince in an ivory
tower.” He turns to face me, slicking his palm down the lapel of his suit
jacket. “One time. Come with us. Find a hot piece of ass. Take her home. Fuck
the living shit out of her. And deal with the consequences later.”

“This is coming from the man
who’s never met a consequence he couldn’t pay to go away.”

“Everyone has a price.”

I’m well aware.

“Come on,” he says. “You look
like you could use a drink and a fuck. I swear to God, it fixes all of life’s
ailments. And I don’t mean for you to call up Camille.”

I spent months trying to find
out who Camille was, and then after a single conversation with my brother, he
tracked her down with a single phone call to a friend of his who happened to
know her roommate.

“Go find some shit-faced coed
in a pushup bra with fuck-me heels and give her a night she’ll never forget,”
he says. “Unless she’s too hung over to remember the next day, which is usually
the case, but that’s her problem.”

The idea of fucking anyone who
isn’t Camille doesn’t appeal to me.

“What? Why the face?” he stares
down his nose at me. “No one else is good enough for you?”

“Not really,” I say, “if I’m
being honest.”

“Oh, God. Please tell me you’re
not in love with someone.”

“Absolutely not.” I don’t know
her yet, and it’s not my intention to fall in love. This isn’t about love. This
is about everything
but
love—the
sweet intoxication, the physical intimacy,
the
give
and take. What I have with Camille is supposed to extract all the good things
that come from loving someone and leave the bad. When it’s all said and done,
neither one of us should be walking away with battle wounds. “Love is for the
weak.”

I remind myself of that each
and every day, and especially after spying on her little dinner with Bancroft.
I saw red. Then everything went black. I spent the rest of that evening
ruminating until I remembered what this was about: nothing more than an opulent
fantasy.

I haven’t called her in days.
Every so often a burning, jealous sensation creeps into my veins. A few more
days, and I’ll have given myself more than enough time to cool down. I’ll meet
with Camille, and I’ll remind her that her body and her time belong to me. And
then I’ll ask her point blank if she’s still fucking the senator.

“Smart man.” He adjusts his tie
in his mirror before checking his face from every angle. “Are you coming out
with us tonight or not? My car’s downstairs, and I’m leaving, so . . .”

I rise, undecided. Glancing at
my watch, I realize I have no commitments tonight.

“Just come for one drink. Maybe
two,” he says. “We’re going all over tonight, so if at any point you want to
bail, I promise I won’t try to stop you.”

It’s been years since I truly
enjoyed myself, and if I weren’t still livid with Camille, I’d be with her tonight,
enjoying myself the best way I know how.

“I’m telling you, once you stop
caring what everyone else thinks, your entire life changes.” He peers at his
reflection yet another time, finger combing some hair into place. “Let me get
you drunk so that you can make some bad decisions tonight.”

I groan. “Fine, I’ll come. But
only for a little while.”