Fatal Beauty (2 page)

Chapter 2

Wallace Bryce Talbert was dead. She stood next to him, and
distantly, she was aware of the blood spilling out, spreading to seep around
her toes, sinking into the crack of her feet.

They had hardwood floors. She could mop. She should mop. Except it
was a crime scene. You didn’t just mop up a crime scene. There were procedures
to follow and—her stomach heaves suddenly, and she whirls, her foot sliding in the
spreading blood as she scrambles for the trash bin. She’s still in the dress
she wore to their engagement party, her hair half down, makeup smudged.

Hair falls in the trashcan, and she gags as vomit catches in it.

She straightens slowly and makes a face. Wonderful. There was now
a dead body on the floor and vomit in her hair. The night was
definitely on a downward spiral.

There is a sharp knock on the front door, but Charlie doesn't move
to answer.

She shouldn't have called Ella, but it happened before she could
think, while Wallace was still gasping, his eyes shocked and angry while she
fumbled for her phone and stood over him.

"Charlie?"

The voice breaks the cocoon of distance, and she draws in a
shuddering breath.

"Oh holy fuck." EJ breathes the curse like a prayer
and stumbles across the room to grab Charlie, yanking her around. Her eyes and
hands are frantic as she looks over the other woman, and a
hysterical giggle works
it's
way up Charlie's throat and bubbles over.

EJ goes still and watchful, her sharp blue eyes locked onto
Charlie's. "Charlie, I need you to focus on me. Tell me what
happened."

The words snap her laughter off and Charlie shudders, a full
body spasm that makes EJ's hands on her shoulders tighten for a heartbeat.

"He hit me. Again. I had too, EJ."

Ella stills, and from the ground, Charlie stares at her, eyes
almost pleading.

Charlotte Brooks. Who has never in her life pled for
anything.

Ella expels a slow breath. "Get up, honey."

For a moment, she hesitates and Ella nods at the blood.
"We're going to get you cleaned up. And then we'll talk about Tre. But you
have to start by getting off the ground."

EJ waits, patient, and it occurs to Charlie that she's here. In
yoga pants and tousled hair and slept in makeup, she's here.

And Tre is still dead. So fucking dead.

She pukes again, and EJ hisses a curse as the vomit splatters
across the hardwood.

She's covered in vomit and blood and there's a dead fucking body
on her floor. "Shouldn't have called you," Charlie mumbles.

EJ sighs and reaches down grabbing Charlie under the arm. She
pulls her out of the blood and across the living room, shoving her into the
lavender-accented guest bath.

“Little late to worry about it, Charlie. Now come on.”

Charlie stands in a corner, quiet and too still, watching as EJ
turns on the shower. She turns back, and her gaze is sympathetic but
unflinching.

“Get in.”

“We need to call the police,” Charlie whispers.

“First, you get in.”

EJ makes a quiet noise when Charlie doesn’t move, and stalks
across the bathroom. She reaches around her and tugs the zipper, and the
gorgeous designer dress covered in blood and puke falls to the ground.

EJ gasps. Charlie’s hand are moving, fluttering over her bare
belly, and hips, but there’s no way to hide. Not this.

She’s wearing a strapless peach bra and matching panties, and
bruises.

So many fucking bruises.

“Charlie?” EJ whispers, green eyes searching the other woman’s.

Charlie shakes her head, hiding behind a veil of dirty hair, and
EJ clenches her teeth. Nods once. The bathroom is filling with steam. “Get in.
Take as long as you need.”

Charlie listens. Maybe she is too tired to do anything else. But
she strips off the bra and panties, avoiding her friend’s furious eyes and
steps into the shower.

The water runs red with the blood coming off her, and there,
hidden by the shower curtain and the water, she finally cries, shoulders
shaking in silent sobs as EJ scoops up the discarded clothing and slips out.

*

She can’t quite grasp how things got so fucked up so quickly. Not
Tre being dead—she expected that in a vague sort of way. Tre had lived with the
kind of pompous arrogance that always ended badly. The only surprising thing
about his death was how fucking stupid Charlie had been about it.

The fucked up bits of the evening started with the unexpected
phone call, took a pit stop in Charlie’s breakdown in the living room, and
ended in the bathroom with a wash of bruises.

She stands away from the blood and for a long time, all she can do
is stare at Tre.

Wallace Bryce Talbert the Third had grown up in Savannah, and
often summered in Charleston with his wealthy, socially powerful grandmother.
He’d caught Charlie’s eye the summer she graduated high school before
Vandy
whisked her away.

It had been a hard and fast fall for both of them, all anyone
talked of that summer. When, after a year of college, Tre moved to Charleston
full time, no one had been particularly surprised.

And despite his good looks and easy smiles, EJ had never been able
to trust him. She tried, the few time she was forced into associating with
him—but it was always stilted and cool. Even now that she was with Charlie two
or three time a week, the aversion to Tre hadn’t abated. If anything, it was
stronger.

But she had never imagined this.

Never imagined he would hurt Charlie.

It makes the next decision almost easy.

When Charlie finally emerges from the bathroom, EJ is pleased—and
more relieved than she cares to admit—to see that she’s dressed in black yoga
pants and a silky tank top. Her blonde hair is water dark and secured at the
back of her neck. Even with the makeup scrubbed off her face she looks
gorgeous.

“What happened?” she asks, her voice going a little shrill.

EJ hooks her hair behind her ear and sits back on her heels.

“Cleaning up the evidence.”

Charlie stares and EJ goes back to mopping up the blood. “No one
is going to believe you. This was Tre, and you just celebrated, very
publically, your engagement to him. Everyone knows about how you fell in love
and everyone has been watching you for years. That perfect picture you built?
It won’t vanish because he’s dead and you’re beat the hell up. You know it and
I know it.”

“He was an abusive, controlling asshole,” Charlie snarls.

“Which I totally get. But we need to be smart about this. Because
those bruises are the last way he gets to hurt you—you aren’t going to prison
for murder.”

Charlie stares at her for a moment, and EJ crouches on the floor
next to the blood, her hands pink from the water she’s rinsed the sponge in.

“Fine,” Charlie says softly. Quietly. “What do we do now?”

Chapter 3

She’s sitting on her couch when EJ’s phone rings. The ground is shiny
clean again, but she can see exactly where he had been sprawled. When Tre went
down, it was in an ungraceful crumple that had his arms and legs splayed out in
an undignified mess. When she first stared down at him, before the blood
started to spread and she realized he was dead, there had been an insane desire
to giggle.

But the slow spread of scarlet, deepening to rusty red, killed
that desire and replaced it with cold panic.

She can’t quit seeing Tre crumple.

“Charlie, you with me?” EJ says.

She blinks, the stress and the long night pulling her toward
sleep. “Charlie,” EJ calls again, her voice the sound of a whip.

“Shut up,” she says, her voice slurring.

EJ gives a quiet laugh. She murmurs something too low for Charlie
to hear.

A soft tap on the front door startles Charlie back into the
moment. She comes almost off the couch, her body tense, and EJ shifts.

“It’s ok. I called him.” She says.

Fear slithers down Charlie’s spine, but she’s silent as EJ goes
and opens the door.

Anthony Jacob is a tall, slender man with dark nut-brown skin,
closely trimmed black hair and cold eyes. He’s handsome, and as he steps into
her living room, surveying it with those dispassionate eyes, Charlie has to
suppress a shiver. Because he is also terrifying.

A blank slate waiting to dispense judgment. She’s only met Jacobs
once before, about a month after Charlie caught EJ selling blow at the
Burningtree
. They’d met at a strip club Jacobs owned, and
Charlie had expected something dirty and disgusting. Low, tacky lighting and
desperate women dancing for lonely men.

She had been stunned by the sleek, clean club, the music pounding
as gorgeous girls writhed and men who reminded her too much of Tre eyed them
and talked about playing with fortunes.

Jacobs had been one of those captains of industry, and his gaze
had been chillingly amused, but when he saw EJ stalking through his club,
Charlie trailing behind her, it had gone still and predatory.

She’d been scared then, but having him here—this was infinitely
worse.

*

EJ is acutely aware of Charlie and how very vulnerable she looks
sitting on the couch. Tre is sprawled on the floor and Charlie looks like a
strong wind will blow her over, and Anthony Jacobs stands too still at her
shoulder, observing.

Calling him may have been a mistake. And when he is involved,
mistakes aren't small things easily forgotten. They change everything, a
fucking earthquake rearranging life.

But there are few people she can call and say,
I need to move a body.

Both are in this room.

He doesn't say anything for a long moment, observing the dead body
and the shivering young woman. With an almost inaudible sigh, he steps over the
body and to the bar. EJ watches while he pours three shots and takes two,
thrusting one at Charlie. She catches it with the muscle memory of taking
brusquely offered glasses a thousand times, and sips it with the same kind of
distant awareness.

"Ella, a word." He says. When Jacobs speaks, it's like
sex, all decedent naughty shit that went straight to her cunt and rubbed it in
the most delicious and demanding way. Before him, she would never have said a
voice could sound like sex and orgasms.

She ignores the rush of desire and follows Jacobs out of the
living room, into the study that was Tre's home office.

The door clicks shut behind her and Jacobs explodes into motion,
yanking her into him and spinning, pinning her against Tre's oversized desk.
She can feel his dick digging into her hip, and his fingertips digging into her
throat as he pushes her down.

For some, sex is all about attraction. A hot body and a good set
of tits can win over anyone. It took Ella about five seconds, a lifetime ago,
to realize that for Jacobs, power was the only turn-on--and right now, she had
handed him the best kind of foreplay. The power over her life--and Charlie's.
The only thing that really surprised her was that he wasn't fucking her. Yet.

His lips find hers and there is no pretense that it is anything
but a battle of wills, a clash of power and the undeniable pull between them. His
tongue fucks into her mouth and she shudders, hating that she's on the verge of
climax, just from the press of his body and skillful thrust of his tongue.
She's wet, all creamy heat and he hasn't even slid those clever fingers between
her legs. She arches against him, a silent plea and he pulls back, nipping her
lower lip as he does. Stares down at her with eyes that glitter and gleam.
Amused.

The bastard is fucking amused.

"Tell me what you want." He orders, adjusting his still
hard dick and stepping away.

Her cheeks burning, she drags herself off the desk and affects a
cool facade to match his own.

What does she want?

"Make it go away, Jacobs. I want her free of this shit, with
no blow back on either of us. Tre didn't deserve her and he needs to vanish,
and let her starting putting her life back together."

His head tilts as he examines EJ. She doesn't flinch.

She's never flinched. Maybe that's why he can't resist her.

His finger comes up and snags a lock of midnight black hair. Curls
it around his finger. When he tugs, it's hard enough that any other girl would
whimper.

She just stares at him, not giving an inch.

He smiles and releases her. He doesn't need an inch.

"If you do this--nothing will be the same. You
understand?"

Fear flickers in those lovely cool eyes and then she smirks. And
he nods. "Fine. Get Charlie."

EJ's breath rushes from her and her shoulders sag just a little
with relief. He hides his smile and reaches out, catching her arm in a vise
grip as he murmurs, "I will fuck you tonight, Ella."

Swallowing her whimper and the urge to rub her thighs together,
she rips free of him and slips out of the study to the sound of his erotic
laugh.

"Charlie?"

Charlie blinks at her slowly and she drops to her knees next to the
couch. Shakes her friend's knee. "Jacobs is going to help us," she
says clearly.

Charlie blinks again and Jacobs produces another shot of scotch.
"This is what we're going to do."