TAKING A SIP OF MY coffee and stifling a yawn, I clicked to open the latest email I’d requested from the tech team, and listened as the MP3 file started to play. I was beginning to hate the importance of my position and the ruthlessness with which I had to rule—especially since my sleep quality as of late had taken a dive down the shitter.
Something about Alex called to me in a way nothing ever had. I didn’t know if it was losing my mother the way I had at such a young age, or the way John had raised me in the business, or if no one had ever had anything worth my time, but I’d lived most of my life as though I were numb. I fucked and self-fulfilled, but none of it ever felt necessary.
I could have slit the throat of any woman I was with without regret if I’d needed to for the sake of my true love, Wonderland.
And now I was losing sleep over a woman. Fantasizing, dreaming, practically feeling her body in my sheets every time I’d start to drift off.
Maybe even more than that, I fretted over her safety. I felt the need to protect her from wild, intoxicated guests at parties, an enemy of mine—even myself. No matter that the thought of doing anything to harm her churned my gut, I still struggled with the idea that I might have to.
Goddamn, I fucking hated it.
Which was exactly how I’d come to justify listening to her while she basked in the illusion of privacy—to save her from herself.
If I heard her before she did something, if she gave an indication that she might tell someone, I might be able to stop her before she did it. Because once a trespass was fully committed, the line was absolute—I’d have to remove the risk, and in turn, her.
I could hear the rustle of her cat, Deena, as she rubbed against this and that in her apartment. But otherwise, sheer silence buzzed for a full minute.
I was just about to lose my patience when the scratch of Alex’s key in the lock sounded into my apartment, followed by the creak of her door and a sharp slam as she let it fall back into the jamb.
“Did you miss me, sassy pants?” she asked her cat, two soft thumps echoing into the silence—her shoes hitting the ground, I suspected.
“Oh, hush. There’s already food in your bowl. Why do you think you need more? Because you’re a diva? Is that why?”
I shook my head and smiled as I pictured her outfit from the night before, and what she must have looked like scolding her cat in it.
“Fine. You can have food. But if I give it to you, you have to promise to let Mommy sleep in in the morning. Do you think you can do that?”
Two sharp meows rang out in response.
“Okay. But if you go back on your promise…” She paused to sigh. “Nothing will happen to you because you’re a cat and I’m willingly subject to your rule.”
I heard her scooping food and then a small tinkle as the kibble fell into Deena’s bowl.
“There,” she said. “I hope you’re satisfied.” Her voice dropped to a mumble. “At least one of us should be tonight.”
She isn’t doing anything, I told myself. She’s doing nothing more than talking to her cat.
The tight squeeze in my chest eased slightly as I heard the mic switch from the one in her main living space to the one in her bedroom.
The light patter of her steps as she disrobed and the soft whoosh of the water in her bathroom as she brushed her teeth solidified it for me. Maybe others would take more to convince, but a part deep inside of me was certain.
Alex was in Wonderland. Fully immersed and willing, she was along for the glorious ride.
Silence descended over the recording as she fell into sleep, I surmised. It was nearly four in the morning by the time she’d returned from the party, and I suspected she wouldn’t be doing much of anything but sleeping for the rest of the day.
I was just about to stop listening when I noticed the file went on for another two hours.
Why in the fuck would they send me a recording of her sleeping?
I jumped the file forward by an hour and heard nothing, so I tried again, this time only moving thirty minutes.
“Uh…oh God…mmm,” she moaned into the otherwise quiet space of her bedroom—and thanks to modern technology and a slight time delay, out into the midmorning stillness of my kitchen, catching me off guard.
“Good Christ,” I muttered. Is she touching herself?
“Yeah, oh yeah. Just like that,” she cooed, the normally delicate lilt of her voice deeper with a seductive edge.
Fucking hell. She is.
My cock started to harden, and yet, at the same time, I felt sick. I wasn’t invited to this show, certainly, but I had at least touched her, smelled her, felt her intimately.
The guys in IT who’d listened to this before me had not.
“Matt,” she groaned, her voice higher, tighter, right on the edge of climax.
Goddamn, she’s moaning my name.
I fucking loved the sound of it. But once again, and what’s more, I fucking hated the idea of other people hearing it.
I stopped the recording and backed out of it quickly, going right to my recent calls and dialing Cal, my anger building.
“Yo,” Cal answered.
“You go down to IT yourself, and you fucking wipe everything they have of Alex in her apartment. I mean all of it. If it’s not all gone, I swear to God, if one goddamn moment of her in there leaks, I’m holding you responsible.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thank fuck someone in this business knew when not to fuck with me.
I’d barely hung up when three sharp knocks rang through the thick wood of my apartment door.
None of my ire had faded by the time I made it to the door. If anything, every moment I thought about Alex touching herself while other people listened only built it.
I glanced briefly through the peephole to find Harrison March’s slightly fish-eye distorted face looking back at me.
With a quick flick of my wrist, I turned the knob and pulled open the door, stopping it by placing a hand around the edge of it at the top.
“What?”
“Wow. Something has you in a bad mood.”
Unwilling to share, I jumped straight into something that actually was his business.
“What’s going on with King? Why’s Eric in another meeting with him today?” I asked. “For some reason, he’s taken it upon himself to call last-minute meetings with our most important client. Can you explain what in the fuck is going on to me?” I didn’t know what Eric Queen was trying to pull, but my suspicions had been raised. It was why I’d recently had Cal keep an eye on his whereabouts.
Hare shrugged, nonplussed by my lack of pleasantries. I supposed he was used to it. In most situations, I wasn’t prone to wasting time on bullshit. “As far as Spade and Diamond knew, it was something about the software.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why the fuck does King need to know anything about the software? We play him, not the other way around.”
There was no need or benefit from Eric Queen meeting with King while we were trying to execute a plan that would lead to a multimillion-dollar return on our money. We had a lot on the line with this one. And despite our wealth of connections and carefully calculated networks, it was still risky as fuck. All that Charles King needed to do was focus on looking pretty for the cameras and keeping the public and his fellow politicians motivated to give him the presidential nom.
What he didn’t need was to be brought in for fucking tea parties and gossip sessions. That’s not how Wonderland, Inc. handled business, and Eric fucking knew it. Politicians could be slimy, fickle fucks, and even though the end game was to get him the nomination, the less Charles King knew, the better.
I scowled against the bitter taste the unknowns left in my mouth.
“I don’t know, boss. I might be wrong. I’m just relaying some very disjointed information.”
Aggravated, my voice turned gritty. “Yeah, Hare, I know. And that’s the fucking problem. Do I look like the kind of guy who likes his information to be disjointed?”
Goddamn. I needed to calm down before my heart exploded in my chest.
He didn’t answer my very obviously rhetorical question.
“Fucking exactly. Find out why Eric keeps meeting with him, and find out what the fuck he’s told him. The only people who should know fuck all about what we’re doing are us and the people actually coding the shit. You hear me?”
He jerked his head up, just once, his jaw hard.
Spade and Diamond, and probably fucking Bobby Hart because the three of them stuck together like glue, were going to be having a pretty uncomfortable conversation with Harrison soon. Nobody liked to look like an idiot, but Harrison March loathed it with a specific intensity.
I was no longer the only angry person in the room.