VELVET TRAP: A Dark Romance Thriller

POV: Sloane She is not supposed to be here. The silk choker was tightening around her throat. Even though Sloane found her fingers inches from her throat, a subconscious gesture of protection, before she corrected herself and released the necklace given to her. Don't touch anything. He notices everything. That was the warning given to her by the woman who dressed her. She dropped her hand. Muted jazz leaked through the walls. The soft clinking of crystal, like tiny bells, overshadowed every misdeed that had ever occurred in the room. Sloane's fare for transportation had consumed her last twenty dollars. The dress wasn't hers. The lipstick, too, had been lent to her. None of that would ever be significant if she could walk out with fifty thousand dollars. "Miss Mercer?" The attendant's smile was professional. Yet Empty. "He's waiting." "How long has he been here?" "Long enough." The woman turned. Didn't wait. "Follow me." The hallway was dark. Bergamot underneath something sharper. And which caused the hairs on Sloane's arms to stand. Four identical black doors. The stewardess paused at the fourth one. Knocked twice. "Everything you need is inside." "What if I simply need one that is not available?" "Then you shouldn't have come." The woman's smile didn't shift. "But you did." "Because I don't have any other choice. "Everyone says that." The attendant c****d her head. Studied her. "Most of them are lying." "I'm not." "We'll see." The door opened. Darker inside. Warmer. One leather armchair with its back to the door. The creak of it is shifting. Someone sitting. Someone who already knew that she was there." "Close the door." His voice came from the dark. Low. Controlled. The kind of voice you wouldn't expect to hear again. She hesitated. Anyway, the door clicked shut behind her by someone on the other side. Someone she hadn't seen. Her pulse pounded against the choker. "You're nervous." Sloane lifted her chin. "Cautious." "Smart." A pause. And the creak of leather once more, then he stirred. "But not cautious enough." "What do you mean?" "You came alone." "I was told to." "And you obeyed." Something moved in his voice. Amusement, maybe. "That's your first mistake." He stood. Stepped into the candlelight. Tall. Dark suit. Gray eyes that saw too much. "You're not a professional." She held his gaze. "Does it matter?" "It does." He moved closer. Not fast. Just steady. The kind of movement that did not require speed. "Most of the ladies who come here know what they are coming for. You don't." "Perhaps I pick things up fast." "Maybe." His head tilted to some extent. "Or maybe you're desperate. Those are kind of independent things." He circled her. Cedar and smoke. The expensive kind. "You're going to stand still while I take a look at you. Don't turn." "Why not?" She kept her eyes forward. Felt him move behind her. His voice dropped lower. Closer. "Professionals know how to hide. Breathing. Micro-expressions. Pupil dilation." A pause. "You don't hide anything." He touched the inside of her wrist with his finger. Clinical. Impersonal. She jerked away. The touch had been ice cold. But where it did, heat bloomed. Involuntary. He smiled. She noticed it in the reflection of a crystal decanter across the room. "There it is." "There's what?" "The truth." He took a step toward her to get in front of her. Close enough that she threw her head back, without intending to. "You can lie with your mouth. Most people do. They get good at it." His hand was near her face. Didn't touch. "And yet your body doesn't know how." "I don't know what you're saying." Her breath caught. Gave her up before she could protest. "Yes, you do." His thumb traced to her jawline. She should have pulled back. But she didn't. "Your pulse is racing." His other hand is located on her wrist. Pressed lightly. Her blood roared in her ears. Loud. Embarrassing. "Here." Then her throat. As the silk choker moved under his finger, she momentarily lost track of the source of the pressure, questioning if it was his touch or the involuntary swallow within her mouth. "And here." Then lower. Over her heart. Palm flat. Heated through the gauzy fabric of her dress. "And here?" The room became quiet, save for the candles and faint playback of jazz on the far side of the walls. "That's fear," he said. "No." "And something else." His eyes darkened. Gray turning to storm. "Do you know what I think it is?" "No." "Liar." "I didn't come in here to be analyzed." Stronger than she felt. "Then why did you come?" "Money." "Honestly?" He stepped closer. Too close. It filled her lungs, cedar smoke that she could taste in the back of her throat. "But incomplete." "I don't..." she stopped. The words evaporated somewhere between her throat and her mouth. "You need money. That's true." His touch moved from her heart down to her waist. Rested there. Heavy. Deliberate. "But you also need something more." "Like what?" "Do you think desperation is a stranger to me?" Soft. Almost kind. Almost. "I've built a career on it." "What do you do?" "I read people." "That's not a job." "It is when you are good enough." He stepped back just to gaze upon her. "And I'm very good at it." "At what?" "At the point where you know what people need just so when they haven't yet realized it. He skimmed his thumb over her lower lip. Slow. Deliberate. She touched the callus on the pad of his thumb. A detail she should not have noticed. "At giving them what they want for what I want." "And what do you want?" His smile was slow. Dangerous. "From you?" "Yes." "Everything." Sloane wanted to take a step back. Her spine hit the wall. "I don't hand everything out to strangers. "We won't be strangers for long. "You don't know me." "Don't be too sure?" He moved to the side of the table. Filled two glasses with amber liquid. Extended one toward her. She didn't take it. "What do you know about me?" His smile widened. He set her glass down. "Your name isn't Miss Mercer." Her fingers went stiff. All of them at the same time. "The ID you used to get through the security." Taking a sip from his glass, he followed her lead. "Fake. Decent quality. But fake." "How did you...?" "I'm not going to turn you in." He set the glass down. "I'm going to ask you a question. And you're going to tell me the truth." "Why would I?" "If you don't, well, then I'll be able to tell." His eyes held hers. Steady. "And you're not going to like what I'll do with the information." She believed him. "What's the question?" "Why are you really here?" "I told you. Money." "That's what you need. Not why you're here." He moved toward her. His finger ran down her backbone. She shivered. "You could've sold yourself cheaper. Easier. Somewhere that didn't ask questions." "And?" "You came here." He stopped in front of her. "The place where someone might legitimately catch sight of you." "You're overthinking it." "Am I?" he tilted his head. "Tell me I'm wrong. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't walk in here with your mind set on someone who wouldn't look at you the way everyone else does." She held his gaze. Didn't answer. "That's what I thought." "You know nothing about me." "I know your name is Miss Mercer." One step. "I know you snuck a fake ID through security." Another step. "I know you're not twenty-five." An inch from her face, he paused. "And I know you're running from something." How in the hell do you know my real name?" His eyes darkened. Gray turning to smoke. "Because the second you walked in, it became my business to know everything about you." He leaned a little closer. Lips brushed her ear. The heat of his breath against the shell made something clench low in her belly. "And now, Sloane Mercer..." Her real name. The sound of it in his mouth. She had never heard it sound like that. Like something worth knowing. "You're going to explain why." "Why what?" Barely walking. "Why are you really here?" "I told you..." "The truth, Sloane." His hand cupped her face. Made her look at him. Not the version she'd whisper to herself to fall asleep at night. "The truth of why you walked into a place like this wearing a dress you can't afford and with a name that isn't your own." She tried to look away. He wouldn't let her. "Tell me." Quietly. "Or I'll work it out myself. And I promise you..." His voice dropped. Something cold slid down her spine, following the heat that had been left behind everywhere else. "You won't like my methods." The room felt smaller. Hotter. She couldn't breathe with the choker. Around him. About the truth pressing against the inside of her chest, wanting to get out. "My father," she whispered. The words tasted like ash. "What about him?" "He's in prison." "For?" "And you also need money for lawyers." "For investigators. For appeals. For..." Her voice cracked. The choker felt tighter. "For whatever can get him out before he rots in there." Then. "How much do you need?" "Fifty thousand." She waited for him to laugh. To tell her she was insane. To clarify that no one just walked up and gave $1 million to anyone for, well... "That's all?" Her lungs seized. "I know it's a lot, but..." "It's nothing." He pulled out his phone. The screen lit his face. Sharp angles. His eyes were cold, and they didn't compare to the warmth in his voice when he'd said nothing. His thumbs flicked the screen. "Done." "What?" " I just wired fifty thousand dollars into an account with your name on it." He didn't look up. Casual. Like he'd just ordered coffee. "Check your email." "I don't understand." "You will." He pocketed his phone. Finally met her eyes. "The money is yours. No strings. Go hire your investigators." She stared. None of this made sense. Men like that didn't just throw money at things. They traded. Negotiated. Took. "Why would you?" "Because I knew I wanted to see your face when you found out tonight you didn't have to sell yourself." His smile was sharp. Blade-edge sharp. "And, because you owe me now more than just your body. "What?" His eyes held hers. Gray. Cold. She calculated like a mathematician trying to solve an equation in which she was the only variable. "Your curiosity." She didn't move. Couldn't. Her feet were glued to the floor despite the door being only a step away. Open. Escape within reach. "What does that mean?" "It means you'll come back." "I won't." "You will." He stepped closer. One last time. Near enough that she felt the warmth coming off him, meticulous and steady as an oven. "Because you'll go the rest of your life asking yourself why I gave you that money." His finger traced to her jaw. Slow. Drawing the whores of it as if he were committing it to memory. "Thinking, What do I want from you?" Lower. Down her throat, tracing the silk choker like a roadmap. "Thinking about what would have happened if you had stuck around." His mouth hovered near hers. Not touching. Not quite. His ear near hers was so electric. Alive! Like in the pause between one lightning storm and another. "And when she can't take it anymore..." His words caressed her cheeks as his breath fanned her lips. When the curiosity becomes unbearable, when every other explanation has been exhausted..." He paused. Let the silence stretch. Let her end up leaning in before she even knows it. Then whispered: "You'll come back. Not for the money." His eyes darkened. Something shifted in them. A glimpse of what could be mistaken for hunger barely kept at bay. "For the man who could've taken you but didn't." Her heart thudded against the silk. "And I'll be waiting." END OF CHAPTER 1