BOARDROOM ENEMIES BEDROOM LOVERS

Chapter 4: The Gala and The Mistake

I went to the Gala to destroy Roman Castellan. I left it in his bed, and some nights I still do not know which version of myself walked out those doors.

I wasn't supposed to attend the Castellan Charity Gala at all; my firm senior partners had insisted, and all my efforts to decline were in vain. By the time I’d finished arguing myself out of a dozen excuses on the phone, a car was already waiting outside my house.

I wore black, Amor, not attraction; oh, that was the story I told myself while I zipped it up. The ballroom glittered with the particular kind of expensive that makes ordinary rooms look apologetic by comparison: diamonds and champagne towers.

And across the room, unmistakable even in a crowd of thousands, Roman in a tuxedo that fits him like a second skin, Genevieve Marsh on his arm, blonde, polished the kind of beauty that came with a family crest attached.

I looked away before he could catch me looking. Miss Vance, a hand landed on my waist lower than any stranger’s hand had a right to be. I turned to find Desmond Kavangh Meridian’s CFO swaying slightly, breath sour with scotch. Let's dance.

Get off me!

Or what? His grip tightened, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. A hand closed around Desmond’s wrist and twisted, fast and precise until he gasped and stumbled back.

Do not touch her, Roman said. His voice was quiet; it was also the most dangerous thing I heard all night. Desmond fled into the crowd without another word. Roman turned to me. Are you alright?

I’m fine, dance with me.

This isn't a date, Roman. No, his mouth curved faintly and humorless; it's survival.

He pulled me onto the floor before I could argue further, one hand setting to the small of my back proper and correct and entirely too warm through the fabric of my dress; his eyes, though, weren't proper at all.

Why are you here? I whispered, the same reason as you.

Lair.

He drew me closer than the steps strictly required, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him, close enough to smell the cedar. What are you doing? I breathed.

What? I have wanted to do for thirty days. His voice had dropped to a low meant only for me.

Roman… he kissed me.

It wasn't gentle; it was hard, desperate like a man who had been holding his breath for a month and had finally let it out. And God help me, I kissed him back, and every rational thought I owned scattered across that ballroom floor like a champagne glass.

The elevator dinged somewhere behind us, and we broke apart, both of us breathing like we had run a mile, my lipstick certainly ruined, his composure cracked clean through for the first time since I met him.

Come with me, he said. Where?

Somewhere private.

I glanced around the ballroom at the cameras mounted discreetly along the walls, at the guests who definitely noticed, and at every reason I should have said no. I took his hand instead.

The elevator doors had barely closed before he pushed me against the mirrored wall and kissed me again, deeper this time, his hands sliding into my hair like he had been waiting his whole life for permission. By the time we got to his penthouse, he kicked the door shut behind us.

Rules, he murmured against my throat, voice wrecked, no feelings, no strings attached just tonight. Just tonight, I agreed, and then his mouth was on mine again, and there wasn’t room for anything in my head again.

I woke to silk sheets and an empty bed. A note sat folded on the nightstand, his handwriting sharp and slanted. Rule #1 broken. Do not make me regret this R…

My phone showed forty-one missed calls. The video was already online. A bank notification blinked at the top of my screen, two million dollars deposited into my account sometime before dawn from an account I didn't recognize.

A news alert: my name in a headline for the first time in my life for all the wrong reasons.

SCANDAL: LAWYER SLEPT HER WAY TO SETTLEMENT.

I stared at the screen until my eyes burned, and somewhere underneath the fear, a small part of me remembered exactly how his mouth had felt against mine and wondered if I regretted it half as much as I should have.

I sat on the edge of Roman Castellan’s bed and watched my entire life come apart in real time, and somewhere around the panic, a small cold voice reminded me that someone out there had planned every single second of it.

Who could that be, I wondered.