The Sinner's Bargain (Contracts & Deceptions #2) (19 page)

“Funny how things work,” Philip said beside her, making her jump.

“What do you mean?”

“Amir and Colin. Who would have ever thought they got along so well? It almost makes you wonder…” he let his words drift purposely, planting a little seed of doubt in her already confused mind.

“Makes you wonder what?” she asked, cutting her eyes to his as she took a sip of the champagne handed to her.

“If they’re conspiring, or
what
they’re conspiring.”

Philip was dead serious, which made her narrow her eyes at him. “You’re trying to fuck with my head. It won’t work.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Believe what you want. I just say what I see.”

As if feeling her presence, Colin’s attention shifted from the group of men straight to Amara. His mask dropped for just a second, but it was enough to put her at ease. Philip grabbed her elbow, and Amara broke eye contact with Colin, but not before she saw his jaw twitch.

“Come, I have some people I need to say hello to,” Philip said. Amara nodded, but the weight of Colin’s stare held her rooted in place for a moment before her feet obeyed her command to move.

Through forced conversations, Amara found it difficult to laugh when others did, and her eyes remained uneasy, continually searching the room to locate Colin and her father. When she finally spotted Colin again, he was seated, smiling, although it seemed stiff. Amara watched as Molly approached the table and draped an arm around Colin’s shoulders. Amara was trapped in a conversation about the stock market with Philip and an elderly gentleman, as she watched Colin with Molly. She scrutinized Molly’s long black dress; the way her blonde hair flowed down her back in loose waves; the way she moved with ease around the table and chatted away with everybody as if she’d known them her entire life. Molly fit in. Amara might have felt like she did, had she been there with Colin. She really might have.

Colin didn’t look at Molly as she spoke to him. He met Amara’s gaze and never broke eye contact even as Molly’s lips neared his. Amara couldn’t bear to watch what happened next; she tore her eyes away from them and back to Philip.

“Amara.” Philip’s voice seeped through her thoughts and snapped her back into conversation.

Amara smiled, but stopped when she realized he was signaling at her father. Walking toward them in uneven steps, his bowtie listing to the side and his green eyes glossed over, Amir Maloof approached his daughter with a lopsided, alcohol-induced grin. It was very uncharacteristic of the man she thought she’d known her entire life—Amara had never seen her father drunk before. Panicked, Amara reached out and clutched Philip’s forearm, pleading to get her away from him.

“Amir, interesting to see you here,” Philip said as greeting.

Amara felt the room closing in; her palms were sweaty as she watched her father approach.

“Funny seeing you here,” Amir said, directing his slurred words toward Amara.

Her eyes widened, and she blinked rapidly, looking at Philip quickly, then at the stock market guy who seemed oblivious to the tension.

“Hello, father,” she said, muttering the words under her breath. She felt ashamed to call him that, and downcast her eyes as soon as the words left her mouth. No matter what, she couldn’t bury the habits that had been engrained in her.

Amir scoffed. “You’re not my daughter,” he slurred, pointing at her. “You’re a whore.”

“Jesus, Amir,” Philip said.

“What?” Amir shouted, cutting his eyes toward him.

“This is not the place,” Philip said.

But it was too late. Stock market guy was already eyeing Amara in a new light, as well as a few others who’d paused mid-conversation to turn their attention to them. Amara wanted to crawl under a rock and hide. Embarrassed and humiliated, she glanced toward Colin’s table, hoping he wasn’t watching the spectacle. She couldn’t bear for him to watch her get embarrassed. Unfortunately, Colin’s eyes were pinned on Amara.

“Not the place,” her father continued, his voice shaking with each word. “So where is the place? The whore house you keep her in?”

“What is your problem?” Amara hissed.

“My problem… I’m not allowed in my own house. I’m not allowed near your mother because you and your disgrace of an uncle have me banned from the hospital. I’m not allowed near my own goddamn company—”

“You’re not allowed in the hospital because you only make Mom worse when you visit. You’re not allowed in your house because you’re the reason we fucking lost it!” Amara said, stepping forward until she was standing directly in front of him.

“You’re a whore!” he said, glaring back at her, his face shaking with rage. “Nothing but a whore.” As he soon as the last word left his mouth, he spit on her face. It landed directly under her left eye and began to roll down her cheek. The only thing Amara could register was the loud gasps around her and Philip’s arm thrust between them, before she slapped her father across the face with as much force as she could put behind her hand. As she wiped her cheek, he pressed his hand against the one she’d slapped and charged at her. All hell broke loose as Philip grabbed Amara around the shoulders and pulled her away as Colin darted in front of her and pushed her father backward with a force that sent him skidding on his back.

Amir laughed as he stood and shook his jacket. “You of all people are defending the whore?” he asked Colin, disbelief dripping in his voice.

Amara shrugged off Philip’s arm and lunged at her father again, pushing his chest. “I wish I would have never signed that deal. I wish I had let him put a bullet through your fucking head. I. Hate. You.” Her words were grated, said through her teeth so that only he and whoever was close enough to them could hear.

Once she felt she’d made her point, she turned and made her way through the crowd, keeping her head down as she headed in the direction they’d entered. Her tears were on the brink of falling and she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold them in much longer, but damned if she’d let anyone see them fall before she was out of sight. As she reached the double doors, a security guard blocked her way and shook his head, indicating that the doors were locked.

“You have to use the side entrance.”

“Please, I just need to get out,” she whispered brokenly.

“I’m sorry ma’am, you’ll have to use the side entrance,” he said, pointing in the other direction.

Amara sighed and began the humiliating walk in the other direction, a tear seeping out with each step she took. She couldn’t believe she’d said that to her own father. She wished death on the man that gave her life! That he wasn’t the best father under terrible circumstances was true, but this wasn’t the way she was raised—this wasn’t how her mother had taught her to behave. Amara was heartbroken. Her own father spat in her face, literally and figuratively. She heard someone shout her name, but she didn’t stop—couldn’t stop—to acknowledge them.

“Amara!”

Grabbing the bottom of her dress, she lifted and picked up the pace, shaking her head rapidly as she finally reached the doors and stepped out to a balcony. The doors hadn’t even shut completely behind her, before she drew in a deep breath and welcomed the chill of the night.

“Amara!” Colin shouted as he burst through the doors. He reached her quickly, his hand grasping her shoulder to stop her from walking. Amara stopped but didn’t turn to face him. Soft sobs broke free, her shoulders shaking until she cried openly, shamelessly.

“Hey.” His voice was soothing as he turned her body toward his and cupped her chin to tilt her face. Amara jerked away quickly, refusing to meet his gaze. “Come here.” His hand snaked around her neck and pulled her face into his warm chest as he hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

She shook her head against him, wailing now more than crying. The more he soothed, the louder she cried.

Colin’s fingers worked their way through her up-do, relieving the tension pooling there. “Oh, Mara,” he whispered, his lips against her hair. “Let me get you home.”

Home. Where was home at this point? His apartment? She sure as hell didn’t have her old place, and she couldn’t go to Westchester where she knew everything was in boxes. The only place she could even consider calling home was a fucking hospital room, because that’s where her mom was.

Amara’s shoulders shook. “I have no home. I have nothing!”

Colin held her tighter. “You have me. You have your mom. You have you. You have us, and you can have everything.”

He tucked her into his side and began to lead her down the steps. “Can you walk on your own? Do you need me to carry you?”

“I’m not drunk.”

“I never said you were.”

“What about Molly?”

He stopped walking suddenly, then took two steps down and stood in front of her so that she was forced to look at him. This time she did.

“Did you take the deal with Méchant because you thought your father would get killed? Not because of your mother’s cancer treatments?”

Tears trickled down her face as she blinked rapidly, trying to keep them at bay. “Both. They said they wouldn’t pay for my mom’s treatments if I didn’t, and I knew he was in huge trouble by that point.”

“Did Amir know that he was part of the reason you did it?”

“In the beginning, he kept telling me not to do it—to stay quiet—but then something changed. When the time came to pay up, he threw me under the bus and gave me no way out. He chose himself over his own daughter.” Her voice broke and Colin released her chin to wipe away her tears. Amara took a shaky breath before continuing, “It doesn’t matter now.” She paused. “Aren’t you tied to Molly tonight?”

His hand reached out and touched her face again, feathering over the spot she’d been spat on earlier. His thumb circled there as if it was trying to erase the memory of it. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one person I’m anchored to on any given night, including tonight, and I’m looking at her.”

Amara sniffled loudly and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “It didn’t seem that way to me.”

Colin chuckled. “Let’s go,” he said, tucking her into his side and continuing down the steps toward the rows of black cars.

“I think he drove the one I came in,” she said, pointing at a man standing beside a black sedan. She shivered when a gust of wind hit them, and Colin held her tighter. It was a dark night— starless, and seemingly moonless. “The sky is so black tonight you can’t even see the stars,” she said, tilting her head back.

“Sometimes there’s only room for one star,” Colin murmured, lowering his forehead onto hers. Amara’s heart sputtered inside her chest as his lips brushed against the side of hers. She reached around his neck and pulled him close, her tongue peeking out to lick his lips before diving into his mouth, rushed and wild. His hands framed her face and pulled her near as his tongue flicked hers with the same intensity. Soon they were clawing at each other in front of an audience of valets and limo drivers, but they didn’t spare the onlookers a glance. They needed each other more at that moment than they needed air. They kissed one another with the kind of passion that only comes once in a lifetime—if you’re lucky—and when they pulled apart, both breathing heavily, their eyes were clouded with passion.

“Let’s go home,” he growled pressing his lips against hers once more. “Let’s forget about what happened, just for tonight.”

Amara nodded and looked over his shoulder. She wondered if Philip was still in there, and what was being said. Was the person who was looking for her part of that crowd? Her heart began to leap into her turbulent stomach for an entirely different reason as she stood there.

“They’re going to take me away from here soon. I just know it,” she whispered, unable to look at him.

“How do they think they’re just going to take you away from me?” Her eyes snapped to his, taking in the dark look that clouded them.

“I think they’re expecting me to go willingly.”

“And you’re considering it.”

Amara focused on the lapels of his jacket, smoothing them out as she spoke. “If I don’t, they’ll take me back to Paris. If I do, maybe I can stay right here, close to you.”

“If you even think about doing this without telling me, I’ll tie you up and hide you in my fucking closet,” he said in a quiet tone that made her eyes snap up once more. “I’m not kidding, Amara. Fucking try it. I’ll do what I need to do to keep you here,” his nose flared as he took a breath. “We don’t even know what or who the fuck you’re dealing with!”

“We talked about this, Colin,” she said in a soft reminder, her amber eyes soft on his fiery browns that darkened with his emotion.

“I’m not telling you not to finish the job; I’m telling you that I won’t let you do this alone.” His words held finality in them.

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“We’ll make it easy,” he said pressing his lips to hers lightly.

“We have to be careful,” she said with warning.

Colin’s mouth opened to speak, but stopped to simply look at her for a long moment, his eyes drinking in her face. His longing stare made her feel like an item in the museum behind them—something to be cherished, treasured. Colin had a way of making Amara feel loved, even when he was angry with her.

His hand clasped the back of her neck and he pulled her in for a slow, sensual kiss. It vibrated through her, and she felt from the tip of her toes to the top of her head. His lips left hers just as slowly as they’d met. “No more lies,” he said, his fingers stroking her neck lovingly.

Amara merely nodded, putting her hand in his as he led her to the limo. The driver’s head snapped up from his phone as they approached.

“Mr. Batiste is waiting for you,” he said as he held the door open.

With no time to think about their options, they slid inside the car to find Philip waiting for them with his hands folded over his lap.

“What the fuck do you want?” Colin asked, as he adjusted himself in the seat beside Amara, pulling her into his side.

“For starters, I want you to get out of the car. I’ve wanted to have a chat with you one on one, but that never seems to happen. You’re either busy at the office or busy fucking my… well, Amara.”