Chapter One
Xavier
I don’t answer the call.
It’s a Manhattan area code that’s not in my contact list. Only certain people are allowed to have my private number.
The phone buzzes again, insistent, like a mosquito’s whine. No doubt a bottom-feeder reporter sniffing around, or some junior analyst looking to make a name for themselves by catching me off guard. They want a quote, a slip, a single word they can twist for a headline that writes itself.
I let it ring.
Confirming they’ve reached me is more than they deserve.
If Celeste—the PR sorceress I’m selling my soul to—knew that someone got even this close, she’d flay them alive before breakfast. She’d call it a loose thread, and Celeste doesn’t leave threads.
I slide the phone into my pocket as the elevator glides to a stop at the penthouse of the Sterling Uptown’s crown jewel: a fortress of glass, marble, and secrets that don’t leave when you sign the check.
Since reporters have set up an encampment outside my gated community, this has become my sanctuary. Doesn’t matter that they can’t get in. The neighbors don’t like having their movements watched, and neither do I.
When the doors slide open with a gentle chime, I enter my temporary residence.
By my standards, I’m home early. I have the night off from obligatory smiles and the narrative Celeste has been spinning.
Here there are no cameras, no one shouting questions, demanding to know if the Lockhart family really trusts me with their precious legacy. And thankfully there’s no Celeste at my elbow, murmuring the script I’ll never stick to.
It’s just me.
Treasured silence.
What I want now is a bed big enough to drown in and a bottle of Bonds whiskey that’s older than my worst enemies.
As I walk, I roll my shoulders that are tight from hours of pretending to be a man I’m not. I’m so deep in my head; I almost miss it.
The scent.
Not the usual tang of cleaning supplies and freshly laundered bedding.
Instead, it’s softer. Warmer.
Feminine.
The fuck?
On guard, eyes narrowed, I walk through the opulent rooms.
Then I stop dead.
There’s a woman in my bed.
For one perfect, razor-edged second, I think: This is a setup. A test.
The media already calls me the predator king—the man who devours interns, rivals, and enemies alike. So this? A girl tucked up in my sheets like an unopened gift?
Celeste’s voice flickers through my skull, low and cold: “They’ll bait you if they can’t bury you, Blackwell. Keep your dick in your pants.”
Careful, my motions tightly controlled, I move forward.
She’s curled on her side with a hand tucked under her cheek. Her lips are parted, and her breathing is slow and deep. A shoe dangles from one foot.
