The Lover's Game (20 page)

What are the odds?

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***E
nd of Episode 2***

The Lover’s

Promise

Coming October, 2014

N
ever miss a release. Use the chance to request Jett’s POV or get a sneak peek, teasers, or win amazing prizes, such as an e-reader of your choice, gift cards, and ARCs by signing up to my newsletter.

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T
he Lover’s Promise (No Exceptions Book 3) sneak peek

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C
hapter 1

Calm down.

Calm the fuck down.

There was nothing to fear, because I had done nothing wrong. It had been Gina’s idea to visit the club, not mine. All I had to do was answer the detective’s questions and then I was free to leave.

Countless thoughts raced through my head but only one registered: Gina was dead. Killed. Who would have done it? And for a handbag? Even as I asked myself those questions, I knew a mugging wasn’t the answer. While people stole handbags, they didn’t necessarily cut the victim’s throat in the process, which was why the detective was here—to unravel the mystery and get to the bottom of things. Like me, he probably suspected foul play and while I hoped he’d find the killer, I also hoped that, just because Thalia and I happed to be the last people who saw Gina alive, we wouldn’t end up as persons of interest.

“Jenna?” Grayson’s voice drew me back to reality. “You’re the first. The detective would like to ask you a few questions now.”

Oh, shit.

The icy knot in my stomach intensified, growing as big as an iceberg under the water’s surface. Why did I have to go first when I didn’t want to? He’d only pour all his energy into grilling me, and I had no answers, no clues, nothing to help out in any way.

Basically, I was doomed to look like I was guilty.

“Great. I’ll be happy to help,” I said weakly and shot Grayson a confident smile, avoiding the detective’s intense stare. To be honest, I had no idea if he remembered our brief encounters at the hotel, but I could feel his gaze burning a hole in my head. When I finally dared look up, I realized his eyes not only rested on me, but there was also a flicker of recognition clearly written on his face. I froze in horror.

This is what happens when you stare at a guy you don’t know, Stewart. You come across as a complete creep.

Back then, I had probably looked like a guilty mess to him. I swallowed down the lump in my throat, and tried to behave as innocently as possible.

“Detective, you’re welcome to use my office,” Grayson said, oblivious to my frayed nerves.

“Thank you. It won’t take long,” the man said while his stare remained glued to me.

Please, don’t leave me alone with him.

I felt like a lamb scheduled to be slaughtered. My skin began to itch from the strain of trying to act casual. I had done nothing wrong, and yet his intense glance made me feely guilty. Talk about unfair. Talk about the crappiest day of my life. The crappiest of all crappy days.

The detective turned on his heels and motioned me to follow him, and so I did, unsure what would happen next. To the daunting sound of impending doom, we walked into Grayson’s office. I was like that woman in white, ready to be sacrificed to King Kong and could almost hear the proverbial drums beating in the background. I felt completely paralyzed with fear. With my heart pounding hard against my chest, I took a seat and waited for the detective to do the same.

He didn’t sit down, which was probably a ruse to infuse respect into a suspect. He wasn’t even
that
tall, so under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have intimidated me. But there was nothing normal about today.

I peered around me, considering getting out of Grayson’s office by faking fainting. I had always wanted to do that, and figured that was the perfect moment, if only to avoid the probing questions and mistrust that would follow. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then closed my eyes for a moment, envisioning the scene. Just too bad I wasn’t cut out for acting. In my head, I promised myself that I’d sign up for some much-needed acting classes. That is, if I ever made it out of here and saved up enough money.

The detective turned the knob and closed the door behind him.

Now, we were alone.

Just he and I—behind a closed door.

Dum. Dum Dum.

No, make that doom. Doom—as the imaginary drums continued to pound in my head.

My whole body began to shake slightly as he slid into Grayson’s seat and pulled out a notepad from his pocket. The whole situation felt surreal, like I was starring in a horror movie. I almost expected him to retrieve a string of rope and tie up my wrists to the chair, maybe even switch on a neon lamp, or hang me upside down to torture me into giving him the answers he wanted.

Only, I had no answers.

Let the witch hunt begin.

Sighing, I crossed my arms over my chest, ready to face whatever the detective would throw at me.

He glanced around the room and his eyes came to rest on the model pictures on the wall. Grayson’s glory. The gems he’d shaped into diamonds—as he liked to proclaim. Every one of his models was up there; everyone but me. It wasn’t that much of a surprise, given that I was new and had yet to book a job. A short silence ensued, during which Detective Barrow assessed me, his right hand stroking his neck in a strange manner. I twitched uncomfortably in my chair and crossed my legs, waiting, assessing him back.

“So, Mr. Grayson told me you joined two days ago. Is that correct?” he started eventually.

“Yes.” I nodded, staring at him blankly and gradually relaxed, happy that he didn’t ask about the hotel. Maybe he didn’t remember me after all. Maybe it was just a normal investigation and his frown came as a part of the job description, meaning it had nothing to do with me personally.

“All right.” He smiled politely and opened his notepad. “Let’s start with the last time you saw Gina alive and we’ll take it from there. You mentioned you went out?”

It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement. I had mentioned no such thing to him.

I nodded. “After Grayson offered me a trial period to see whether I was cut out for the job, Thalia invited me and Gina for a drink at the La Rue Bar. We had a few drinks, then Gina suggested we visit the Hush Hush bar, and we had some more drinks there.”

God, why did it sound like I was a complete party girl when it couldn’t be further from the truth?

The detective nodded and scribbled a few words on his notepad without looking up. “What happened after?”

“Gina tried to hook me up with a guy.”
Cringe.
I didn’t need to hear the detective’s thoughts; I could
read
them from his expression and they weren’t pretty. I brushed my hair out of my face and continued. “I started to feel sick so a guy brought me home. And that was the last time I saw her.”

I recounted the same story I had told Thalia: That a stranger drove me home, and then left. “Thalia said she had one last drink with Gina after I left. What happened after that, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”

“The man who drove you home—” He stopped scribbling and looked up from his pad, his eyes the color of brown parchment assessing me. “—what did you say his name was?”

“I don’t remember,” I lied. “I was too drunk.”

The detective pressed his lips in a tight line. The way he was drumming his fingers on the table made me nervous, so I looked away, mentally counting the seconds until I could get the hell out.

“Did anything strange happen yesterday? Such as a fight, not necessarily between you and the victim?” I shook my head and he continued, “Can you think of anyone who might have held a grudge against her?”

A new spasm of nerves coursed through me.

“No, of course not.” I brushed my hair out of my face as I considered my words carefully. “I only just met her so didn’t know her particularly well, but it seemed Gina is...was friendly with all the girls here. I think everyone liked her.”

“How was the relationship between Gina and Thalia?”

I paused taken aback by the strange question. “Good, I guess. I think they were good friends. Like I said, I only met them both recently.”

“If anything unusual happened, no matter how trivial you think it might be, I need you to tell me. It’s the little things that often carry enough weight to break a case. Do you understand?” He stared at me. “They’re often relevant.”

His tone worried me.

“I wish I could be of more help, but I don’t remember much, except that Gina brought us drinks,” I said carefully. “We got drunk. We had fun. And the next thing I knew a guy drove me home.”

Even though I omitted quite a bit, I stuck to the truth. My mind had been a blurry mess. Yesterday’s events seemed so far away, they almost resembled a dream. The only thing I remembered was the way Jett had broken my fall, and the fake name he had given me, but I couldn’t share that with the detective. For some inexplicable reason, I couldn’t tell anyone about the Jett incident. It was like my brain wanted to lock that episode away forever.

When I finally finished my recounting, the detective opened a folder on the table. “Maybe these pictures will jolt your memory.” Slowly, he began to sort through countless sheets of paper and pictures.

“Did Gina wear this make up when you last saw her?” He slid over the first picture and I shrank back in shock.

It was a headshot of Gina. For a second, it looked like she was sleeping, until I registered that her eyes were slightly open, and a dried trail of blood marked her chin. There was no doubt the picture had been taken after her death and the discovery of her body. The rest of her body from the neck wasn’t on the picture. If there were, I knew I would have needed therapy for the next few years.

“What do you mean?” I asked slowly. Her face and lips were so pale they almost had a blue shimmer to them. I had never seen a corpse in real life, not even when my father and my sister died.

The detective pointed his finger to her left cheek. “Did she have the two spots on her face?”

I narrowed my eyes in concentration and finally grasped the meaning of his words. There were two dots on her cheek—like two little moles or freckles. Come to think of it, they didn’t really stand out. They had been painted onto the skin in a fashionable but such a realistic way, that it wasn’t glaringly obvious that they weren’t real.

“No, “ I said and shook my head. “Not as far as I remember.”

He nodded, as if my answer confirmed his suspicion, and handed me the second picture.

“Do you recognize this man?” he asked.

I looked from the detective to the picture, and my heart froze.

Holy mother of grace.

That couldn’t be possible. I blinked several times as an array of emotions washed over me.

Staring back at me was Jett’s face.

End of sample

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T
o those, who want to learn more about Brooke’s past and the story behind the Lucazzone estate, I welcome you to read the prequel of No Exceptions:

T
here are so many things I want to say at the end of a book, but in the end it all comes down to six words:

THANK YOU for reading my books!

Writing this book was a dream come true as was fleshing out the characters that haunted me even in my deepest dreams, urging me to tell their story.

I hope you were entertained and enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you can take out some time, please leave a review on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, iTunes, or Goodreads, or simply write me. And please call me Jessica. I noticed a lot of readers start with “hello,” and I get why. You’re not sure if you should call me J. or J.C. Let me settle this for you. Call me by my first name. And when you write, please know I always write back.

I look forward to hearing from you! I’m forever grateful and hope you will enjoy my next release.

J.C. Reed

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First and foremost, thank you, Shannon Wolfman, for being the best friend and critique partner any author can have. You have never let me down. Never. Not one single time. Even if I’m close to giving up, deleting chapters and killing off characters, you’re the one who pushes me to get going, reminding me that every story has to be told. Thank you for forcing me to sit down and write those hot scenes and then pointing out all the weird things I wrote when my brain decided to switch off for a while.

I won’t forget the laughs we shared or the fact that you always go above and beyond the call of duty and friendship. You’re fucking amazing. If there was an award, it would go to you for being the best friend ever.