Masked Page 26

Yeah. He’d summoned me. And, like a breathless backstage groupie, I’d dropped everything and come. Why? He was my hemlock. He could be nothing else.

  I was even more pissed now. At him. At me. At the thoughts that wouldn’t leave me alone now, all in answer to one tormenting question.

  If Killian Stone kissed like that, what could he do to the rest of my body?

  No. That kind of thinking was dangerous. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up as if the air conditioner just kicked on at full power.

  It had been a while since I’d been with a man. At least like…that.

  Okay, it had been a long while.

  For the last three years, career had come before all else. After the disaster I simply called the Nick Years, Dad had fought hard to help rebuild my spirit, including the doors he’d finagled open for me. Wasting those opportunities in favor of relationships wasn’t an option. My focus had paid off, leading to a coveted position at Asher and Associates PR, where I’d quickly advanced to the elite field team for Andrea Asher herself. The six of us, including Andrea and her daughter, Margaux, were called corporate America’s PR dream team. We were brought in when the blemishes were too big and horrid for in-house specialists, hired on a project-by-project basis for our thoroughness and objectivity. That also meant the assignments were intense, ruthless, and very temporary.

  The gig at Stone Global was exactly such a job. And things were going well. Better than well. People were cooperating. The press was moving on to new prey. The job was actually ahead of schedule, and thank God for that. Soon, I’d be back in my rightful place at the home office in San Diego and what had just happened in Killian Stone’s penthouse would remain no more than a blip in my memory. A very secret blip.

  I shook my head in defiance. What was wrong with having lived a little? At twenty-six, I was due for at least one heart-stopping kiss with a man who looked like dark sin, was built like a navy SEAL, and kissed like a fantasy. Sweet God, what a fantasy.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I muttered. “You didn’t break any rules…technically. He consented. And you sure as hell consented. So you’re—”

  Having an argument with yourself in the middle of a hallway in the Lincoln Park 2550 building, waiting on the world’s slowest damn elevator.

  I leaned on the Call button again.

  While still trying to talk myself out of pouncing on Killian’s buzzer too. Or perhaps back into it. If I could concoct an excuse to ring his doorbell before the elevator arrived…

  No. This is dangerous, remember? He’s dangerous. You know all the sordid reasons why, his and yours.

  Maybe I could just say I accidentally left my purse inside.

  And that’ll fly…how? One glance down at my oversize Michael Kors clutch had me cursing the fashion-trend gods, along with their penchant for large handbags.

  I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes and hoping for a lightbulb. I was bombarded with Killian’s smell instead. Armani Code. The cologne was still strong in my head, its rich bergamot and lemon mingling with the spice of his shampoo and the Scotch on his breath, like he’d scent-marked me through the intimacy of our skin…

  My fingers roamed to my cheek, tracing the abrasion where he’d rubbed me with his stubble. My head fell back at the impact of the recollection.

  In an instant, my mind conjured an image of him again, standing in front of me. Commanding. Looming. Hot…and hard. I felt his breath on my face again as he yanked me close. The press of his wool pants against my legs. The metallic scrape of his cufflinks on the wood of his desk as he shoved everything away to make room for our bodies. Then the wild throb of my heart as he tangled his hands in my hair, lifted my face toward his, and…

  Yes.

  The memory was so vivid, so good. I used the flat of my palm on my face now, thinking I could save the magic if I covered it. Protecting it from the outside world. Our perfect, shared moment in the middle of all this chaos.

  Whoa.

  “Get a grip.” I dropped my hand along with the furious whisper. It was one kiss. Incredible, yes, but I guaranteed he wasn’t still thinking about it like this. Behind that majestic door, Killian Stone moved again in his world, already focused on the next of his hundred priorities, none of them bearing my name. And he expected me to get back to mine, cushioning his company from that big, bad outside world I’d just been brooding over. You’ve been hired to help clean up the Stone family’s mess, not add to it.

  The elevator finally dinged.

  At the same time, Killian’s condo door opened behind me.

  I locked a smile on my face, trying to look like I had been patiently waiting for the elevator the entire time.

  “Miss Montgomery?”

  Not Killian. I didn’t know whether to curse or laugh.

  “Yes?” I managed a Girl Scout-sweet reply.

  A kind face was waiting when I turned around. The man wore such a warm expression I was tempted to call him Fred. Not Alfred. Just Fred. The man was too handsome for a full Alfred.

  Fred handed me a small ivory envelope and then stepped over into the elevator. He held the doors open while I got into the car with him. We rode in silence down to the lobby. I squirmed while Fred smiled as if it were Saturday in the park. Did he know what his boss had just done with me?

  I winced toward the wall. Technically, Killian was my boss right now too.

  Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone.

  He can never be “Killian” again.

  The sooner you remember that, the better.

  I was dying to open that little envelope but carefully slipped it into my queen-size clutch for when I was alone again in the cab on my way back to the hotel.

  “I’ll call the car round for you.” Like his employer, Fred made it obvious the subject wasn’t up for debate, so I forced a smile and followed him across the gleaming lobby to the building’s front awning. In less than a minute, the black town car with the Stone Global logo on its doors appeared. I climbed in, all the while yearning for the anonymity of a city cab instead.

  Chicago was a great city, but the traffic was insane, even as evening officially blended into nighttime. Nevertheless, Killian’s building was swiftly swallowed by the lush trees of the neighborhood. I was on my way back to the hotel. Back to real life—and all the dangers that waited if anyone on the team ever learned where I’d just been.

  For just a few more seconds, I yearned to remember the fantasy instead. Perhaps the treasure in my purse would help.

  I pulled it out, running reverent fingers over it again. Nothing was written on the outside. Killian—Mr. Stone—had simply expected it would be delivered straight to me.

  The elegant handwriting inside, dedicated to just one sentence, dried out my throat upon impact.

  I must see you again.

  He left no signature. No phone number. Not even an email address. But the strangest part about it all? I wasn’t surprised. He was Killian Jamison Stone. And he kissed like that. Things—and people—came to him, not the other way around.

  But did I have the strength to be one of those people, knowing I’d never see him again after three months?

  Chapter 1

  Killian

  March, one month earlier…

  “Have a seat.”

  I tried to be diplomatic about it. Trey’s stoned eyes and clammy skin were evidence enough of how he’d tried to self-medicate the nightmare away last night. But this mess—his mess—wasn’t going away anytime soon. I’d closed the shades, blocking out the panoramic view of the river and skyline, to force him to see it. All ten monitors on my office wall blared the headlines from the major news carrier websites.

  Stone’s At It Again—Times Two

  Throwing Stones? Looks Like He Did

  Stones, Sex, and Politics—They Really Do Mix

  Senators’ Daughters? He’ll Take Two, Please—At Once

  Oh, Trey! Come and Play the Washington Way!

  The titles progressed in creativity from t
here.

  Trey didn’t sit. Instead, while taking a surly trip to the sideboard, he snarled, “Turn that crap off.”

  I parked my ass against my desk and braced my legs. “Not happening.”

  “Where the hell’s all your booze?”

  “Forget it. Also not happening.”

  “All you have here is coffee.”

  “Because it’s nine in the morning.” I glanced at the monitors again and clenched my jaw. A blonde and a brunette this time. One of them was still in her school uniform. The other had waved hello to eighteen just last week. Yes, that was our single ray of hope. At least one of the girls was “legal.”

  “I hate coffee.”

  “Drink it. You’re going to need it.”

  “I’ll gack.”

  “Good. It’ll save me the money from having your stomach pumped.”

  Trey hurled the coffee mug, thankfully still empty, past my head and into one of the monitors. “You know what? Fuck you, Killian!”

  The hatred he flung from those bright eyes, now visible through a tangle of hair, hadn’t changed since we were kids. Neither had the stake of sorrow it drove into my gut. But unlike then, I wasn’t willing to share my Lego for a chance at his love. Because since then, I’d learned it wouldn’t make a difference. How’d the ditty go? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I could work with that.

  “Sorry,” I drawled, “you’re not my type, brother. Besides, I’d have thought you were a little weary of fucking by now.”

  “Nice,” Trey sneered. “I see the asshole factor of this office is seeping into you with no problem.”

  “Probably true. But right now, my ‘asshole factor’ is keeping your ass from being nicknamed gerbil bitch by prisoner two-fifty-six before dinner tonight. So sit.”

  Watching the color drain from his pretty-boy cheeks was an odd relief. Maybe the dumb shit had started to comprehend how much trouble he was really in. He finally dropped into one of the room’s new conference chairs. The white leather didn’t do anything for his pallor.

  Against my better instincts, I gave in to a moment of sympathy and sat across from him. Sympathy? That proved it—I had to be five kinds of fucked up. His trip down Idiot Avenue was costing market share for Stone Global by the minute. My lunch with the Melbourne investors, carefully orchestrated for the wow factor of the sitting at the chef’s table at Alinea, would have an appetizer course of paparazzi flashbulbs. My real workday would end long after midnight.

  But the way Trey’s hands shook, dragging through his hair, ripped my goddamn gut out.

  “So how long is this shit gonna take? I’ve got plans for Mardi Gras, Kil. I’m supposed to leave tomorrow.”

  So much for compassion. I surged to my feet. “You know the term jailbait, Trey? They call it that for a reason. You slept with a pair of senators’ daughters.”

  “No.” The protest was as snide as the Mardi Gras hall pass request. “I slept with one senator’s daughter. The legal one.”

  “So she brought her friend along for fun?”

  “Ashley’s a curious kid! She wanted to watch.”

  “In her bra and school skirt? With the movie option going on her phone?”

  “Her sweater made her hot. And she wanted to capture everything as a memento.”

  I gave in to pinching the bridge of my nose. It wasn’t a move I indulged in often, knowing Trey and Lance loathed its similarity to Father’s signature stress pose, but right now I prayed it made Trey’s goddamn eyes bleed.

  “Memento,” I repeated. “You really believed that?”

  Mirth gleamed in my brother’s eyes. “You want the real answer or the one we’re gonna fork over to the PR department?”

  I almost gave in to the urge to laugh. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  “Come on, Kil. Of course I do. Hell, I get Christmas cards every year from the team down in PR. With the bonuses they make because of me, they’re buying cars for their kids and taking vacations to Bora Bora.”

  “Better tell them to research economy models and a few days in a forest yurt.”

  “Huh?”

  I leveled my stare, hard and unyielding, across the room. “You haven’t just spilled the milk this time, Trey. This is a world-class oil slick, meaning things are going to get stickier before they get better.” I stopped there. He didn’t have to be told the entire story. Not yet, at least. I still had trouble believing it myself. Despite Senator Wooten’s enraged call for a press conference later today, no doubt designed to paint Trey as a predatory pervert, could “little” Emily Wooten have actually been acting with the full green light from her father? I’d turned down the housing development deal from Wooten’s cronies over a year ago. It had looked like beneficial low-cost housing on the outside, but the structures wouldn’t have lasted through their first exposure to a brutal Chicago winter.

  It was very possible that Wooten had done his homework and unearthed the weakness in Stone Global’s massive hull. And now we had an oil slick.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Trey demanded.

  I folded my arms and stated, “No in-house PR. Industrial-sized slicks require big guns for cleanup. Andrea Asher is on her way from California, and she’s bringing her best team with her.” I checked my watch. “We have five hours until they arrive. Great timing. They’ll get here just before Wooten gets up on his soapbox.”

  “Fucking great.” Trey looked like a man on his way to the gallows again. “Should I order beer and corn nuts?”

  “No beer,” I snapped.

  “Cold fish.”

  I rose and crossed to the door that led to my private bathroom. “Sounds like a perfect temperature for your shower. Wash your hair and shave too. Then get some goddamn sleep. I’ve had Britta pull out the sofa bed in the anteroom for you.”

  Trey closed the door on me with a furious whomp. Again, nothing I wasn’t used to. The filthier pieces of our family dynamic took up a lot of space under our rug. It was simply my job to carry a very big broom. The task had always been manageable, but I was smart enough to know when to ask for help. I was also smart enough to seek the best, and that meant Asher and Associates. Though it was the first time I’d used the woman’s number, I wasn’t saving the digits to speed dial. This effort would be massive and expensive, and I expected this PR dream team to put the fear of God into Trey at the same time they commanded his reputation to rise up, be healed, and walk from the grave. After they performed that small miracle, we could all live happily ever after on our respective sides of the country.

  And as long as they didn’t discover the darkest, dirtiest secrets under the family rug, we’d all get along fine.

  Chapter 2

  Claire

  “You’re going down.” I threw the taunt at Chad as we deplaned. Sure, we were teammates, but that didn’t mean a little good-natured competition wasn’t in order. Besides, traditions were sacred, and this one had sprung to life on one of our trips over a year ago. Points were assigned for varying degrees of horror experienced during our coach-class flights—a game we used to smile through the pain. Or acknowledge our masochistic sides. There was a difference, right?

  The answer could wait. I finally had the drop on Mr. Chad Lerner, my geek-cute yet all-too-cocky teammate. I was sure of it this time.

  “No damn way.” Chad laughed and readjusted his new Kliik eyeglasses as we strolled the jet way to the terminal. “Did you see the nightmare I was stuck with? You’re delusional to think you’re winning this one, little girl.”

  From several feet behind us, Michael joined his laugh with Chad’s. He knew why we teased each other, though he’d been so far back in the plane, we didn’t know if he was still in today’s running. I glanced to where his head of thick gold waves appeared over the sea of other passengers. From this distance, the guy could be mistaken for Ryan Reynolds, especially when the top half of his handsome face became animated by a gloating waggle of brows.

  I volleyed with a deep pout.
“Damn.” The guy racked up automatic points for being stuck in the last five rows of the plane. Throw in a screaming kid or a gossipy seatmate and he’d have this sewn up, at least for today. Our final teammate, Talia Perizkova, was scheduled to join us in a few days, after wrapping up a job for the firm down in New Orleans.

  Our little competition never included the other two members of the team because they always sat in first class while we were herded to coach with the other cattle. Andrea was the owner of the leading PR fix-it firm in the nation, so she never sat in coach. Neither did her princess-zilla daughter, Margaux.

  Okay, maybe the princess-zilla thing was overkill. Margaux had been my classmate at USD, even my pseudo-roomie for a couple of months, and I remembered a few people who’d strained to see her softer side despite the friendship-through-intimidation routine that’d served her well through life. I’d personally given up on the quest halfway through sophomore year, especially after the events of senior year, but that had been three years ago. Maybe it was time to give her a fresh chance.

  Or maybe it wasn’t.

  We passed the plane’s flight crew as we entered the terminal. The attendant who’d been serving the first-class cabin wore a tear-stricken gaze, gripping a wine glass rimmed with Margaux’s signature berry lip stain.

  While giving the girl a sympathetic smile, I prayed Margaux had limited herself to one glass of wine before accompanying her mother to one of the most important meetings in Asher and Associates’ history.

  There was no sign of Andrea and Margaux at baggage claim. They were likely outside already, watching as Stone Global’s driver loaded their bags into the company’s limo. That meant Michael, Chad and I would have to postpone a final points tally while hurrying through baggage claim and then hustling our asses to the curb.

  Watching the carousel vomit luggage was strangely calming. The thunks of the pieces as they touched down were predictable and steady, the last of life’s elements I could count on for the next few months. We were headed into a public relations DEFCON One situation. Trey Stone was a monumental embarrassment to his family’s company. Before the plane tickets had been purchased for Chicago, we’d all agreed this newest fiasco was likely a scrape on the surface of what the playboy was capable of. Experience had shown us how the drill went in situations like these. They usually turned worse before they got better.