The Fidelity World_Scorched Read online

He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Turn it over to his partners. That should take care of his career. And eventually the loyalty of his family.”

  “And Beatrice?” Sebastian asked.

  “I’ll protect her,” Micah said.

  “I like her. Don’t blow it,” Sebastian said.

  “She’s too good for me,” Micah said.

  “Probably true—look, I feel it prudent to warn you what can go wrong in this,” Sebastian said with a weary sigh, one of the rare outward indications of his feelings.

  “I’d expect nothing less from you,” Micah said.

  “You know Bellini will have a dossier on Addington’s wife…on Beatrice as well,” Sebastian said.

  His gut clenched. “Yes.”

  “If you out Addington, Bellini is likely going to think Addington wasn’t careful and will make sure he pays for it,” Sebastian pointed out.

  Micah narrowed his eyes and smiled. “Even better.”

  “But he’ll start with the ones he holds dear. He’ll start with Beatrice,” Sebastian said quietly.

  He whirled away from the window and paced. “Not if his daughter turns against him beforehand, causing a rift. Beatrice is only a weapon if Addington cares about her.”

  “Maybe, but you’re going to have to make sure the divide between them is huge. It needs to be a messy spectacle with lots of witnesses if you’re going to make it work. How will Beatrice feel about that?” Sebastian asked.

  The front door opened, and Beatrice slipped inside. Her shoulders slumped as she closed the door softly and swiped at her cheeks.

  “I have a feeling that might not be a problem. Look, I’m going to have to call you back,” Micah said.

  “Sure. Micah? One more thing…this spectacle, if you make it happen, I expect to know when and where so I can have a team in place. Just in case,” Sebastian said.

  “Who’s the boss here?”

  “When it comes to keeping you out of harm’s way? I am,” Sebastian pointed out.

  Micah clicked off the phone, his focus on Beatrice.

  She stood there, her forehead pressed to the door, her shoulders shaking.

  “Beatrice?” he said quietly as he stepped up behind her. He slid his palms over her shoulders and then along the side of her neck. “What is it?”

  “I looked for evidence of what my father is. And I found it,” she whispered.

  “What can I do?”

  She turned to him then, her tear-stained cheeks pale and blotchy. “The Infidelity contract. I want to do it.”

  He searched her face. As much as he still wanted that, he wanted to make sure she did it for her, not just him. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and blew out a breath. “I can’t take another dime from them. The money I have will run out soon. Yes, I’m sure.”

  He tipped up her chin and kissed one cheek, then the other, tasting the saltiness of her tears, his muscles tensing at the knowledge that they were the result of her father breaking her heart. “It means you’ll be bound to me, Beatrice. You were adamant about not running from their support to mine.”

  “And I’m not,” she said, the blood beginning to flow back into her pale cheeks. “I’m choosing to take a job. The fact that I like you is one of the perks.”

  He smoothed her blond waves away from her face and searched her eyes for the truth to her words. Now that he was so close to getting everything he wanted, he wondered if it was the right thing. But he was enough of a bastard that he’d follow through. “I’ll have Sebastian make the arrangements. There will be an interview. You’ll be paid five thousand dollars for that alone. Infidelity has to approve it. If they do, I’ll get you an apartment—”

  She blinked up at him and shook her head. “I won’t stay here?”

  He smiled and nudged her chin. “Of course, you’re welcome to stay here, but what if you feel trapped and need your own space?”

  “I won’t,” she said with a firm shake of her head.

  He took a step back and rubbed at his chin. “I’m leasing a place. It can sit empty for all I care, but I won’t have you feeling trapped in the same prison like your parents did,” he said, settling his hands to his hips.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Will you tell me what happened?”

  She bowed her head and massaged her forehead. “It’s humiliating.”

  He took her hands in his and kissed the knuckles of first one and then the other. “I can understand that. A certain someone demanded that I share a few humiliations of my own.”

  She tipped her forehead against his chest. “So when do you want to pop open a vein?”

  “Five minutes. In the tub,” he said, kissing her forehead before letting her go and heading for the bathroom.

  ***

  He squeezed the bath sponge and watched the soapy water run rivulets down her porcelain skin.

  “Hmmmm,” she hummed, stretching out over him. She lay tucked between his legs, leaning back against him, her high, regal breasts tipped up, the water lapping against her dusky nipples.

  “No more stalling. What happened today?” he asked, dragging his fingertips over the slippery skin of her arm.

  She reached for the glass of wine he’d filled for her and took a huge sip. “My father, in his infinite wisdom, hid the evidence of his debauchery in the arts and crafts box I kept in the corner of his office as a child.”

  Micah blew out a careful breath, his muscles flexing as the urge to wrap his hands around Addington’s throat consumed him. “Go on,” he said, not trusting himself to say more.

  “There’s not much more to say. Pictures of him in compromising positions with slutty women, and all of it tucked in an envelope right next to my homemade confetti. That’s how little he cares about me.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to expose him for what he is. My mom will divorce him, and he can go off and do whatever the hell he wants,” she said, waving her glass in the air.

  “What if your mother doesn’t leave?”

  “She will.”

  “You can’t know for sure. I’ve seen people like them time and time again. The wife overlooks the husband’s indiscretions because she’d been taught to do so.”

  “She has to,” Beatrice whispered before drinking down the rest of the wine in the glass. “Okay, it’s your turn,” she said, sitting up and rolling over onto her stomach across him.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist, anchoring her to him, waiting for what she had in store. “One question.”

  “What is your history with street fighting?”

  “You sure that’s the question you want to ask?”

  “Yes. It’s enough. For now,” she said, running her fingers through his hair.

  “It’s the first thing I did that earned me real cash. Not just enough to live paycheck to paycheck,” he said with a shrug.

  She raised a brow and waited for him to go on.

  “Not enough details for you, right?”

  “Not even close,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “There are underground street fighting organizations here in the city. They follow a lot of the same parameters as boxing with weight classes. For someone who can take pain, there’s a lot of money to be had.”

  She ran her index finger down the side of his cheek. “And you can take pain?”

  “It’s one of my strengths,” he murmured as he turned his head to suck her finger into his mouth.

  “And they just let you out when you were ready to be done?” she asked, her gaze focused on his lips and the swirl of his tongue over her skin.

  “No. There’s only one way out.”

  “And that is?”

  “Death.”

  She sucked in a breath and pushed herself up onto her knees. “So how—”

  “By proving myself more lethal than they were,” he said quietly, studying her face, waiting for revulsion to twist her features.

  “But you s
aid you never—”

  “I said I never murdered anyone. It wasn’t murder. It was ruled self-defense,” he said, waiting for her to bolt. And why wouldn’t she. A man like him had no business with a woman like her.

  Not that he’d let that stop him.

  She steepled her fingers and tapped them against her lips. “I don’t know what to think.”

  He pushed himself up and took her hands in his. “I’m the same man I’ve been since that night at The Sliver.”

  “Do you have a criminal record?” she asked.

  “Not technically, no. I was acquitted,” he said, letting her go.

  She dropped her hands to her thighs, and the sight of her there, like a goddess kneeling before him, bare and open, but with all the control over him, over them, made him want things he’d never entertained. Things a man like him could only dream, but never count on.

  A family of his own.

  And if he ever managed to have it all, he’d never be so callous as to waste it the way Addington had.

  “I feel like I’m trapped between dangerous worlds. I don’t know how to feel about that,” she said quietly.

  He leaned back and rested his arms on the edge of the tub. “When I told King I wanted out, he led me to believe he’d honor that request. Then he sent four men after me. It was kill or be killed. I did what I had to in order to survive. I would again if I had to.”

  “Do you miss it? That life?” She bit her lip and flinched as though afraid of the answer.

  “How could I with you kneeling before me like this,” he said, gliding his knuckles over the curve of her breast and down to her soft stomach. “I hated it. I loathed who I became. I couldn’t trust anyone. I was angry all the time, and exhausted from having to constantly watch over my back.”

  “I think you still watch over your back,” she said, lifting her knee and nestling it by his hip.

  “I do, but now I can afford to pay others to give me a reprieve,” he said, smiling up at her as her other knee landed on the other side so she straddled him.

  “Sebastian?”

  “Amongst others, yes,” Micah said, kissing the skin on the underside of her chin. His cock throbbed and jumped against the slick heart of her hovering over him.

  She gasped when the head of his cock grazed her clit.

  Smiling down at him, she rose up, then lowered herself onto him.

  “Are we done talking?” he asked, hoping like hell they were.

  “I’ve had enough of our sad stories for now,” she said, rolling her hips, setting a rhythm destined to drive them both mad.

  “Thank God,” he said with a grunt as he clasped her hips and urged her to go faster, to ride him harder.

  Her breasts bounced before him, the stiff peaks just inches away from his mouth as he held onto her, submersing himself in all the sensations they created together.

  Water slapped against the side of the tub.

  Her fingers curled over the edge, her head falling back as whimpers of pleasure slipped from her pink lips.

  Reaching between them, he circled that bundle of nerves at the heart of her with his thumb, over and over, until her whimpers turned to groans, and the groans turned to screams.

  He sucked her stiff peak into his mouth, rolling the tight bud around with his tongue. She shivered in his arm and then her inner muscles locked on him, milking him, her screams echoing in the tiled room, while he smiled against her breast, her nipple clasped between his teeth.

  Chapter 5

  Beatrice clenched her hands in her lap, afraid they’d shake if she didn’t. Micah hadn’t said anything more about the interview process with Infidelity and she didn’t ask, but she figured for a payout of five thousand dollars, it didn’t involve the standard questions.

  The sleek, glass lobby with Infidelity emblazoned on the wall in gold behind the reception desk screamed of luxury and success. Upon seeing it, Beatrice regretted the things she’d said about being reduced to a paid call girl.

  The more her life unraveled, the more license she gave herself to say brash things she’d ordinarily never even dream of whispering, let alone saying in such a bold declaration.

  And the more time she spent with Micah, a man who encouraged her to say her piece, the more frequent those comments became.

  “Ms. Addington?”

  “Yes?” Beatrice replied to the middle-aged woman with a kind smile.

  “I’m Karen Flores. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, reaching out a slim, well-manicured hand to Beatrice in greeting.

  “Thank you for making time on such short notice,” Beatrice said, taking her hand.

  Karen offered a kind smile. “Think nothing of it. Why don’t we go to my office where we can speak privately,” she said, taking a step toward the private elevator behind the reception desk. She slid an electronic card along the sensor, opening the doors.

  Feeling a bit like she had just been privy to some top secret inner sanctum, Beatrice laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I’m born to a wealthy family, but in the past couple weeks, I’ve seen more high-tech security than ever before.”

  “I’m sure it seems a bit much, but I’m sure you understand, with the nature of our company and the information we store for both clients and staff, it’s imperative that we implement several layers of protection.”

  Beatrice nodded and clenched her purse strap. “Oh, absolutely. I’m just feeling like I’ve discovered this alternate universe that until now only existed in movies. It’s a bit surreal.”

  The car glided to a stop, and the doors slid open. “Of course. If you’ll follow me.”

  The elevator spilled out into a spacious office with a wall of windows that looked out onto the financial district. Men and women in business suits rushed to their offices and out from the heavy, dark clouds building in the sky, just waiting to unload on the city.

  “It’s beautiful,” Beatrice said, meaning the words and hoping they’d smooth things over if Beatrice had insulted her.

  “Thank you.” Karen gestured to the plush chairs on the opposite side of her desk. “Please, take a seat. Can I get you anything? Water, soda, coffee, or tea.”

  “Oh, no, thank you,” Beatrice said, sure that if she were to put anything into her stomach, even the smallest sip of water, it would revolt. Despite the loathing she felt toward her father, both her mother and father would be mortified to find out she’d been here, that she had essentially sold herself in her desperation to get away from them.

  And maybe it wasn’t so much her father that she cared about. But her mother would be blindsided by all of this, just as Beatrice intended to blindside them at the party Saturday night.

  Karen folded her hands and leaned toward Beatrice. “Okay, then, let’s get started. First, I must say this arrangement is highly unorthodox and were it not for Mr. Alessi’s willingness to make such a generous donation on behalf of Infidelity to Safe Haven, we wouldn’t entertain the idea of it in the slightest,” Karen said, sitting with her back straight as if presenting the ultimate in professionalism could erase the stain of bending the rules.

  “He agreed to that?” Beatrice said, pride welling up inside.

  “He did. Half a million dollars had been wired to them in our name not thirty minutes after Mr. Perry called.” Karen nodded with a grateful smile. “I’m impressed.”

  Half a million dollars? Beatrice gulped. “So am I.”

  Karen smiled. “He didn’t tell you the amount, did he?”

  Beatrice crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt. “No, he didn’t.”

  “And that makes me trust him even more. So let’s get down to business. There are details you need to know going in. The arrangements are for a year. We don’t deviate from that. After a year, as long as both parties agree, and after passing a few more interviews, the client is offered the opportunity to renew. Should the client end employee wish to carry on without Infidelity’s involvement, there is a buyout option.”

&n
bsp; Beatrice nodded. “I understand.”

  Karen clicked on her mouse and typed in a few things before clicking once again. “Now, you’ll be required to submit to a medical exam and a psychiatric exam, but I have a feeling you will pass both with flying colors. You strike me as a refined, educated woman who understands the nuances when dealing with the wealthy and famous. You’re exactly the kind of woman we look for her at Infidelity.”

  Now that got her attention. “There are others like me here?”

  “Absolutely. You’d be amazed at how many of our employees are from affluent families. Not that you’d ever know they were involved in these arrangements since we have a strict policy against divulging such information,” Karen said.

  “But why?” Beatrice asked.

  Karen let out a laugh. “I appreciate your candor. Think of it this way, why are you here? Many of them don’t want to be a bargaining chip between families. If they’re in a committed arrangement through us, they aren’t tempted to cave to the pressure of a union to satisfy their parents. I’m sure you understand that.”

  Beatrice massaged her temple and the dull ache that had started there. “I’m feeling a bit naïve here. I can’t believe it never occurred to me, but there’s a certain brilliance about the whole thing.”

  “That’s okay. Your lack of knowledge in this respect means we’re doing our job well. And that’s essential for the safety and security of our employees and clients. Now, I’d like to dive right in to your expectations for this arrangement such as your needs, limits, living arrangements, all the way through to the domestic side of the deal,” Karen said before taking a sip from her mug.

  “You map all of that out? Really?”

  Karen nodded. “We do, although, in this situation it really should be simple. I’m told you and Micah have been cohabitating for a bit and if you don’t match up after the interviews, the deal through Infidelity is null and void. Infidelity can’t lay their reputation on the line for a match that doesn’t suit. I hope you understand.”

  “I do,” Beatrice murmured, a bit thrilled and terrified to see how they matched up. The whole thing was like going to some high-tech matchmaker, but in this case, they could come back and tell you that a relationship you’d already started to build would likely tumble down like a house of cards.