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Dark hair. Whiskey eyes. A face so exquisitely chiseled it could’ve been sculpted by Michelangelo himself. Christian Harper. CEO of an elite security company, owner of the Mirage, the building where I lived, and quite possibly the most beautiful, most dangerous man I’d ever met.
“Get in the car, Stella.”
My parents would probably love Christian. On paper, he was as perfect as they came. Rich. Good-looking. Well-mannered.
It was a little suspicious, but he was friends with my other friend Bridget’s husband, which made accepting his offer easier.
Not only for helping himself to my liquor but for his less than amusing show in the lobby. I didn’t like people touching what was mine. “Lighten that scowl, Harper.” Dante took a lazy sip of his drink. “Otherwise, it’ll freeze that way, and women won’t like your face as much anymore.”
If Stella was my weakness, Vivian was his.
But I was pretty sure the right person wouldn’t result from a ruse to get more social media followers and further my career.
I was too busy thinking about whiskey eyes and black suits.
Hers was pin straight, but she’d had to learn how to care for my specific hair texture when I was young, and she’d become an unofficial expert over the years.
Maura had taken care of me when I didn’t have anyone else to lean on. It was time I did the same for her. She was worth the sacrifices.
Christian Harper was just a man.
Not a king, even if he was richer than one, and not a god, even if he looked like one.
He paused at the fuzzy purple unicorn propped against my couch pillows. Amusement filled his eyes. “Cute.” “Cute?” I tried not to sound too insulted. “Mr. Unicorn isn’t cute. He’s beautiful.”
“Try it on. See if it fits.” Christian leaned against the wall, his eyes glowing with soft satisfaction. “I’ll be here.”
With a simple look, Christian lit me up from the inside out. “Perfect.” Reverence weighed his soft assessment. Perfect. No matter how hard I tried, I had never been perfect, nor would I ever be.
No wonder his name was Christian. He had a major god complex.
“Good.” Awareness flushed through me at the hint of possessiveness in his voice. A stray strand of hair slipped from my updo and wisped around my face. I’d been so thrown off by Christian’s early arrival I’d forgotten to set it with more hairspray. Luckily, it was one of those styles that looked better the messier it was, but a strange current kept my lips sealed and my body taut when Christian lifted his hand to tuck the stray hair behind my ear. The movement was languorous, his touch whisper-light, but my nipples peaked at the soft graze of his skin against my cheek. Hard, sensitive, begging
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“You ready?” Christian asked as the driver opened the back door. I tucked my phone into my purse. Ten seconds and my notifications were already blowing up, but I would deal with them later. I had a gala to attend. I took his hand and pasted on a smile. Cool, calm, collected. “Absolutely.” It was showtime.
Green eyes. Green dress. Symbolic of life and nature. Green. Apparently it was my new favorite fucking color.
I hated the hold she had on me, but still, I couldn’t stop looking at her. A turn of my head in the car ride over. A last-minute flight to a far-flung country to keep myself away. Scattered weeks and months when I’d thrown myself into work to forget her. No matter what I did, something always drew me back—the gentle lilt of her voice, the scent of fresh florals and greenery.
It wasn’t love. But it was maddening. Stella’s gaze slid over to meet mine. A soft exhale parted her lips at whatever she saw on my face, and the urge to push her against the wall, fist her hair, and coax her mouth open until I claimed it completely ignited in my chest.
“Fuck the dress.” It’d cost nearly ten thousand dollars, but I couldn’t summon two shits about what happened to it. If I had my way, I would tear it off her myself. A hot, heady awareness replaced my panic. No one else was in the hallway, and Stella’s scent—fresh, subtle, but damn intoxicating—clouded my head. The memory of her in the car, staring at me with those big green eyes and parted lips, her hard nipples all but begging me to take them in my mouth and taste how sweet they were, flashed through my mind. Not unlike the way she was staring at me now, only this time, defiance sharpened the
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“Is that all you want?” “Not even close.” A tiny shiver rippled through her at the roughness of my reply. “Because you don’t want to go through the trouble of finding another regular companion for events.” “Because I don’t want to be jailed for murder if anyone touches a hair on your head.” A grim smile touched my lips when her eyes widened.
After all, I’d always been good at lying to myself.
“I can tell just by his hand that he’s hot.”
Ava’s face lit up. “I bet he’s hot,” she said. “You can tell by the watch.” “That’s what I said!” Jules beamed. “Great minds think alike.”
“Wow,” Ava finally said. “That’s…wow.” “Is sex part of the deal? If it’s not, it should be. Christian looks like he would be a beast in bed.” As expected, Jules was the first to get over her shock and jump straight to the dirty part. “No offense, but you could use a little lovin’ in your life. As much as we adore you, there are some things we can’t provide.”
Some photos were worth a thousand words. This photo said only one. Mine.
“Uh, well…” Kage ran a sheepish hand over the back of his neck. “We looked her up during lunch.” Christ. Every employee at Harper Security was ex-military or ex-CIA, yet they gossiped like high schoolers. “She’s hot.” Kage sank into the chair opposite mine. “Somehow, I’m not surprised your girlfriend looks like a goddamned supermodel. It’s the charmed life of a billionaire CEO,” he added dryly.
I should’ve known he would get snippy about the Stella situation. He was fully whipped by his wife, and she was protective of Stella.
“Your diversion tactics leave something to be desired, so it’s not my brain that’s clouded,” Alex said. “Maybe Stella will be the one who’ll crack your I don’t believe in love shell. It’s always the unexpected ones.” I’d never heard him say so many words in such a short time. My amusement deepened. “Maybe, but doubtful.”
She thought her rent at the Mirage was low? That was nothing compared to how she lived rent-free in my fucking head.
Stella may appear sweet and gentle, but she was more dangerous to me than any weapon or rival.
“Christian.” The familiarity of the soft plea tugged the haze away from my eyes until all I could see was green. Huge, lush green eyes, framed by inky lashes and acrid with panic. Fuck.
One second, I thought he would kiss me. The next, he was kicking me out of his apartment. The man flipped hot and cold more often than a broken faucet.
Christian didn’t say a word as I sobbed out my frustration on his chest. He just held me until my tears dried enough for mortification to seep into the void left behind by my expelled emotions.
Christian Harper didn’t have social media; CP612 did.
That’s my girl.
“When was the last time you left your apartment? You’re wilting.” My mouth parted in shock at the utter rudeness of his comment. “I am not wilting. I am merely…hibernating.”
After a minute of tortured indecision, I walked to my private bathroom and turned on the bathtub faucets. I silently cursed the universe as I opened an unused bottle of bubble bath I didn’t even remember buying and slowly poured it into the water. You really know how to fuck a guy over. I didn’t know how the hell I ended up drawing a bath for someone else like a damn nineteenth-century attendant, but at least there were no witnesses to my indignity. If anyone saw me like this, I would never live it down.
“Christian. I don’t…” Her small voice shot an arrow straight through my ribs. “I don’t want to be alone right now.” Goddammit. My hand curled around the doorknob until the metal seared into my flesh. “What are you suggesting?” My voice pitched low with a warning she didn’t heed.
“Can you stay with me?” Embarrassment colored her request. “Just for tonight.”
She reached for her shampoo, but I stopped her before she made contact. “I’ll do it.” Instead of arguing like I’d expected, Stella remained quiet until I pulled the bench to the edge of the tub and uncapped her shampoo. “Your suit will get wet,” she murmured. I didn’t spare my custom Brioni a glance. “I’ll survive.”
The irony of me cleaning Stella wasn’t lost on me. She was the purest soul I knew, and I was neck-deep in blood. The angel and the sinner. Two oppositional forces with nothing binding us except a sheet of paper and the unquenchable need in my soul. I didn’t deserve to touch her, but I wanted her too much to care.
“Good. I wasn’t sure what you were in the mood for, so I had Nina make a bit of everything,” he said, his tone gruff. Warmth flickered to life in my chest. I gave him a shy smile, touched by the gesture even though he wasn’t the one who’d cooked the food. A faint hint of pink colored his cheekbones. Was he…blushing?
I wanted to unravel every thread that made her her and lay them all bare so I could examine them. Figure out what it was about this woman in particular that entranced me when there were thousands who were objectively just as beautiful and who desired me more.
“Yes.” The soft exhale of her reply brushed my skin and tugged low on my groin. She was so close. I could end the game now, bend her to my will and stoke the embers of attraction between us until they ignited into flames. Give her a taste of what she could have if she succumbed to the inevitability of us. Everything. “Good.” I dipped my head, and in a subtle, almost unconscious movement, my lips touched hers. Two seconds. One syllable. An electric instant that scorched every inch of my skin. Somewhere in the distance, a sheaf of papers fluttered to the floor. I inhaled Stella’s soft gasp like
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I sipped my lemon water and snuck a peek at Christian. He was working on his laptop, his brow furrowed with concentration. His jacket lay on the seat next to him, and he’d pushed his shirtsleeves up to reveal his watch and tanned, muscular forearms. How had I not realized how sexy forearms were until now?
I stared at where his Patek Philippe glinted against his bronzed skin. Jules was right. There was something about men wearing watches… “Something on your mind?” Christian didn’t look up from his computer.
I was too unsettled by the knowledge that Christian Harper had been about to kiss me again…and that I’d desperately wanted him to.
