Bait: A dark erotic thriller (Hunter & Prey Book 2) (13 page)

I shook my head. “No.”

Swiveling around in his chair, he surveilled the room, his eyes snagging to the two people who had just entered—Darren, with Daliah practically plastered to his side where she continued to talk to him, becoming increasingly uncomfortable from what it looked like. For a moment I was afraid he would steer her right here, but instead he held out a chair for her, yet didn’t take a seat himself. Bending down, he either just kissed her on the cheek or whispered something in her ear, but before she could reply, he walked away—and the last thing he looked at before he left the room was me.

“So she’s paying you for getting rid of the girl,” Ray said from much closer than I was strictly comfortable with. I must have gotten a little lost in my observation. Turning back to him, I did my best to regard him levelly.

“As I said—“

“Yes, yes, you keep your secrets,” he interrupted me with. “Don’t bother denying it. I have eyes. I see how you look at poor, sweet Daliah. Girl doesn’t stand a chance, obviously.”

I raised my brows at that. “If I were to pretend that you’re right, what makes you say that?”

Ray’s smile turned belligerent now. “Oh, come on. We both know that he is still as obsessed with you as you are obsessed with him. Don’t bother denying that, either. Back at that party, when I warned you about that other girl, I thought you still had some sense left. I stand corrected. But ignoring that, I doubt there’s anything in this entire world that Darren would let come between the two of you, and that girl there? Absolutely no competition.”

Back when we’d first met, it would have been easy to ignore his insinuations—obvious as they were—but all the stress in my life had apparently shortened my fuse considerably. I was answering before I could even consider censoring myself.

“Then why does he continue to fuck that little slut? He knows that he can have me. He just has to ask.” Or act, really, as last week had proven.

Ray’s dazzling smile made me a little sick, but really, of all the people I could blab to, he was probably the least important one.

“Oh, but therein might lie the problem,” he offered. “Darren Hunter does not ask for anything. I’m not even sure he really gives chase. What he does is take.” He added a dramatic pause here. “But of course you know that, probably better than any other woman alive. So why do you continue to play these stupid games when it’s so blatantly obvious that they won’t yield the results you seek?”

I hated having to admit that I’d underestimated someone, and it wasn’t the first time that Ray had pulled a stunt like that. I had to remind myself that there was a good reason for why I still regarded him as a likely ally in my plotting and planning rather than an adversary.

“I might have ulterior motives,” I offered, hoping that I wasn’t dooming myself with that admission.

“Like what?” he scoffed, rolling his eyes at me. “You actually need to humiliate her before you take him back? I hadn’t figured you as so damn petty, Penelope. Is it because of all the humiliation you had to suffer before you finally got what you thought you really wanted? Don’t worry—I won’t go easy on her. And she doesn’t have the benefit of being a pro like you.”

Finishing his drink, he left the glass on the bar with a generous tip, not even bothering to aim another grin at me. I remained where I was, watching him make his way across the room, nodding to Daliah in passing. She pretended to ignore him, but I saw her stiffen.

Had Ray just been teasing me? Or told me, quite succinctly, that Darren was still playing the same old games that he had played with me? I really didn’t like the second option, but for many, mostly altruistic, reasons. It might be Agent Smith’s goal to get Daliah out before she could become collateral damage. But if Darren was doing his thing, the days where she could annoy me were numbered—likely quite literally, if I considered her bitching after the elevator ride, and her clinginess now. Then again, it had been awfully easy for Ray to get to me because he’d just had to set things up with my madam. Daliah wasn’t an escort, so screwing her would be much, much harder—unless, of course, she just let him, and I was sure that would earn her an injection before she could even wipe away Ray’s disgusting cum. Seeing her sitting there, pretending that she wasn’t feeling lonely and like an outcast even though she didn’t have the moral outrage front against her made me realize that, yes, I could just stand by and watch. Whatever compassion had been in me had been snuffed out over the course of the last year.

But did I want her to suffer that fate?

Of course not. I hadn’t forgotten what Darren had told me, down in his basement. That one fundamental requirement that all the dolls—me included—had fulfilled to set in motion the nightmare that had ended so many lives. He’d loved them. Every single one of them. And Darren actually loving Daliah—even if it was the kind of love no woman ever wanted—was not something I was going to just watch happen, idly standing by.

Whether he’d wanted to or not, Ray had just set me a deadline to make my next move.

Finding out where Darren had disappeared to proved easier than I’d anticipated—and not just because I’d been part of his weekly routine for months. It only took me tracking down three servers to find out that the esteemed Mr. Hunter was playing pool with his usual golf crowd. I’d never bothered to find out who exactly was part of that club—also because Darren had made it clear from the first day that it was none of my business—and while I was tempted to go snooping now, I refrained from it. While I wasn’t exactly afraid that he’d drag me out behind the pool house and strangle me if I pissed him off, any plans I had rooted in making him realize how much he missed me—not how much I’d annoyed him. In retrospect, his need for privacy had, of course, taken on an entirely new meaning, but that wasn’t something I could dwell on now.

Rather than head straight for the corridor outside of the room he was in so I could wait there and accost him, I swung by the ladies’ room first. As exhilarating as my drive up here might have been—for both of us, it had seemed from the way his eyes had been raking my body—it had done a number on my hair and makeup, and both needed to be fixed now. Just a few touches—except for evenings out, Darren had never approved of heavy camouflage. While I applied a last coat of lipstick, I wondered if I should have gone with something that was less likely to leave stains, should our encounter end like the one at Alison’s office.

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by the door swinging inward behind me. A year ago I would have ignored that, but I immediately tensed at the sound and had to check in the mirror—which was a good thing, as this way I missed not a moment of how Daliah came stomping in, her eyes fixed on me.

Allowing myself a small smile, I closed the tube of lipstick with a loud snap before I put it away in my purse, all the while feeling her stewing behind me like a hot furnace. Oh, but she clearly meant business, our Little Miss Prissy Pants.

“I’d stop doing that,” I advised as I blotted my forehead, not bothering with powder.

“Excuse me?” Daliah ground out, sounding just a little perplexed that I’d started talking first. Git.

“Frowning like that,” I answered. “Will just wreck havoc on your skin. Once the last of that baby fat melts away, you’ll get crow’s feet like nobody’s business.”

She was perfectly bristling with indignation, and my comment threw her for a loop. “Did you just call me fat?”

Sighing to myself, I couldn’t help but wonder how Darren, of all people, put up with her. Focusing on his more obvious faults had made me forget about the little things about him that had always nagged on my confidence, but now they were all rushing back.

“I called you cute, if anything. Young. Too young to pretend like you’re not,” I offered.

She was still huffing and puffing behind my shoulder, and glancing back was slowly getting tedious, so I turned around to face her, using my clutch to still my hands. She didn’t glance down at my right hand, although I was sure that she was absolutely burning to. Instead her eyes fixed on mine, as if her venomous glare would make me scurry back to whatever hole I had come from.

“You don’t get to call me anything. Whore.”

There wasn’t even a hint of the old, familiar ache coming up inside of me. That entire stunt with Darren had really left me jaded. It was easy to give her a dazzling smile now that didn’t even feel forced.

“‘Madam’ would be the appropriate term now as I no longer fuck clients for money,” I corrected her. “But I know, it’s hard not to get confused.”

Contempt was clearly the only thing she had for me, and my little jab there went by virtually unnoticed.

“I don’t fucking care,” she said, sounding just a little satisfied of descending to what she obviously thought of my level. “You will stop trying to seduce my fiancé, you fucking slut.”

It obviously upset her that I continued to smile pleasantly at her, so there was no reason for me to stop. I still added a hint of derision to my tone as I replied.

“Or what? You’ll run back out there and scream for everybody to hear that I’m a prostitute? Don’t delude yourself into thinking that they don’t know.”

“I can go to the cops. What you do is illegal,” she huffed.

Folding my arms under my chest, I let her see exactly how much that threat bothered me.

“Where’s your evidence? Did you catch me accepting money from a client? Hearsay doesn’t hold up in court.”

Her eyes narrowed to the point where she was squinting at me. “I know what you did in that elevator.”

It was impossible not to laugh at her, which of course didn’t help much.

“Oh, sweetie, you still got so much to learn,” I drawled, cocking my head to the side. “Darren doesn’t have to pay me to fuck me.”

By then, she was white in the face with red blotches appearing all over her cheeks—a rather unbecoming look. If she’d been anyone else, I might have felt sympathy for her plight, but she wasn’t, so I didn’t.

“I hate you,” she ground out, looking like a wet, hissing cat, really. I couldn’t help but feel for her frustration, and it was probably that which made me switch course.

“I understand that you think you need to attack me, but I’m not the problem here,” I offered. “No whore has ever actively needed to pursue a john. If he was the kind of guy who’d stay faithful to you, I’d never stand a chance.”

“That’s not true,” Dahlia hissed, but it sounded more defeated than aggressive.

“You know that it is,” I pointed out the truth. “He might have been a serial monogamist in the past, but then again, what do any of us know about his past? You’re the first woman he never felt the need to hide from the world. Isn’t it strangely fitting that you’re the first he’s two-timing?” The blotches on her cheeks turned a deeper red, but I wasn’t finished yet, stepping closer so she couldn’t avoid looking into my eyes. “Darren Hunter is not a good guy. If you have trouble dealing with what he does and how it makes you feel all of, what, four months into your relationship? Then you should maybe consider ending things before he can do actual damage to you.”

She exhaled loudly, but what I’d just told her hadn’t sunken in yet.

“If it wasn’t for you—“

“Then it would be some other girl,” I said, interrupting her. “That man has a habit of fucking whores. Do you really think that you will reform him? Either you learn to deal with it, or you quit. I, personally, wouldn’t let any man treat me like that.”

Before she could come up with a reply, I turned around and left, deciding that it was the merciful thing to do. Had I just ruined her day? Likely. I hadn’t done it for her benefit, not really, but I hadn’t exactly lied. If that helped her get away, all the better. The fact that she wasn’t coming after me told me that the seed of doubt had taken root—and that would hopefully save her life in the long run.

Now what did it say about me that, rather than take my own advice, I was off to go after the bastard I’d just warned her away from?

I found the room the staff had indicated without problems. Just in time, it seemed, as the door opened before I could even peek inside. Two men exited that I didn’t know. A third got a warm smile and a husky, “Senator,” from me, which was pointedly ignored, but with shifty eyes. Before the door could swing shut, I ducked inside, finding Darren shaking hands with a last man who exited, pointedly not staring at my cleavage.

Darren’s eyes fastened on me as soon as the other man’s back was turned to him, the intensity in them making me wet instantly. So much for that. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a pool table, studying me.

“Nice car,” he finally said, the hint of a smile gracing his lips.

Sauntering over to him but making sure that I remained out of range, I shrugged.

“I really wanted the 2009er one, but had to settle for this instead. I love how she purrs underneath me.”

I got a smirk for that. “As I love making you purr.”

Briefly I wondered if I should follow up on that—there were worse places to have sex than on a pool table—but my brief run-in with Daliah had put quite the damper on my libido. In fact, the insinuation made me mad rather than horny, and I didn’t try to hide my misgivings.

“Same as you love making her purr? I will never understand what you see in that girl.”

Darren’s returning smile made me even more livid. “The fact alone that she irks you more than makes up for any of her many shortcomings,” he professed.

“Does she know you talk about her like that?” I huffed. “Of course she doesn’t. She’s too stupid to see that she’s barely more than a plaything for you.”

He considered that, making me feel actually awful for her. “I guess you could do away with the ‘more,’” he replied.

Grunting, I crossed my arms over my chest, mimicking his position, but with more defiance to my stance. I hated seeing him so at ease. So relaxed. That it likely hailed from my obvious anger didn’t make it better.

“How does that even work with your philosophy?” I asked, not bothering with toning down my annoyance.

“My philosophy?” he said, teasing me.