I was still reeling as I made my way through the club. I wanted to run, to get away from this place – and Jace – as quickly as I could. Not because I thought I was going to cry, but because the combination of anger and embarrassment coursing through me made me want to hit something or someone, and I doubted giving Jace Randall a black eye would do anything positive for my career.

I considered throwing my mask onto the bar as I passed, but I didn't want to run the risk of someone I knew spotting me and asking awkward questions. No matter how much I enjoyed sex with Jace, or how much I'd learned about my own sexual desires during those two encounters, I didn't want anything to remind me of what happened. Maybe I'd explore this part of my sexuality again at some point in the future, but for right now, I planned to stay as far away from men as possible.

In fact, I was going to spend the weekend finishing up everything in my article except the critique of the art itself. Once that was done, I'd forget about Jace until next month when I'd see his show. Since I'd have everything else done, I wouldn't even need to talk to him that night.

And that would be for the best.

This was the first time – and would be the last – that I compromised my journalistic integrity. If I ever found myself attracted to a subject again, I'd have this moment to remind me just what a horrible idea that was.

The mask came off as soon as I'd moved a few yards from Gilded Cage, so all I got from the cab driver was an appreciative look. I stared out the window as the city went by, trying not to think about anything, especially not the fact that I wasn't wearing any underwear because Jace had literally torn them off of me. My pussy and nipples were throbbing from the attention he'd paid them, my skin still tingling from his touch. Every cell in my body was screaming for me to go back and beg him to take me again.

"No way in hell," I muttered. I'd pushed down my pride once to sleep with him in the hopes that maybe he'd want more than a couple anonymous encounters. I wasn't fool enough to make that mistake twice.

By the time I reached my apartment, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was take a hot shower and go to bed. Fortunately, Everett was still out, so I was able to settle into my bed before he got home. Sleep wasn't so easy in coming, especially after I heard Everett and Cal trying to be quiet as they went to Everett's room. The intimate hushed laughter made my heart twist painfully, and I swore to myself that I was going to focus on work from now on. No more hot, kinky sex with masked strangers.

That seemed like the sort of promise I should be able to keep.

* * *

"Motherfucking bastard," I muttered as I pushed back from the table and ran my hands through my hair.

"Anyone I know?" Everett asked as he strolled out of his room. The smug smile on his face told me he'd had a far better night than the one I'd just experienced.

"Just a bit of writer's block." I wasn't completely lying. I was having a hell of a time putting my thoughts into words. Well, words that would be appropriate for public consumption anyway.

"Did you finish your interviews?" he asked as he rummaged through the fridge looking for who knew what. "Maybe you need to get to know your subject better."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him he knew damn well that I knew my subject intimately, but I bit it back. One, it wasn't entirely true. I had sex with Jace, but I wasn't so sure that actually counted as being intimate. And two, I didn't feel like listening to him tell me this was a conflict of interest.

Fortunately, Everett continued without seeming to notice my internal conflict. "Don't you always say that only using one source of information doesn't let you portray things in a truly unbiased light? I mean, I know you're mostly writing about the art, but shouldn't you see if what he's told you matches up with other sources?"

I sighed. He had a point. If I was going to treat Jace like I would any other subject, I needed to be just as skeptical about the truth of what he'd told me. Which meant I needed to dig deeper than I'd gone before, particularly about the parts of Jace's life I thought he glossed over.

"Thanks," I said as I got up to pour myself another cup of coffee. I was going to need massive amounts of caffeine to do this right.

When I started doing some backstory on Jace before I met him, I hadn't been surprised that there wasn't much to find. He tended to keep to the shadows, never making any sort of splash that wasn't related to his work. He wasn't a controversial artist, or one that made the news for getting into trouble. He was insanely wealthy, but stayed out of the limelight there as well. No drawing attention to himself with either entitled or overly philanthropic behavior.

There'd been very little about his relationship with his parents, but his father had been a very private person as well. After hearing Jace's story about how he'd fallen in love with art, I knew there had to be more that wasn't being said. Everything was simply too vague.

So I started to dig.

Online sources. Reaching out to contacts. Sorting fact from fiction and speculation until, by Sunday evening, I had a bit clearer picture of Jace's childhood. As far as I could tell, his mother was still alive. It wasn't her death that had prompted Jace to be sent to live with Benjamin Gooding, and it hadn't been Mr. Gooding's pursuit of custody either. From what I could tell, Gooding hadn't even known about Jace's existence for nearly a decade.

A decade filled with police reports of domestic violence between Veronica Randall and various boyfriends, never anything enough to warrant taking her son away though. Not until he was ten years-old, and she left him for an undetermined amount of time. The child services report stated that it could have been anywhere from five to seven weeks before someone noticed. Jace had been put in a group home for three weeks before his mother had returned.

I could find no record of her trying to regain custody of him. By all accounts, she simply showed up one day with Benjamin Gooding, announced that he was Jace's father, and then left again.

The thought of a mother doing that to her child made my blood boil. It didn't matter that Gooding had taken care of Jace from that point on. I was glad that he had, but I couldn't imagine treating any child like that, let alone my own.

And despite my own anger toward Jace for how he'd behaved, I found myself wondering just how much all of that had left its mark. If perhaps the walls he'd constructed to keep himself safe as a child were the same ones he'd put up to push me away. I knew it was dangerous thinking like that, and that I'd probably end up getting hurt even more deeply than I already was, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking that maybe he just needed someone to fight for him instead of walking away.