Clasping her wet glove in front of her belly, she cleared her throat. “Hello, Mr. Beaudelaire. Do you happen to know when Ms. Gibson will return?”
He jammed his hands into his pockets and raised his shoulders ever so slightly. “That, I can’t say. There was an issue with the matchmaking rings that were going to be assigned to guests at check-in. Many went missing, and I believe Ms. Gibson was in the process of sourcing a last-minute substitution.”
Shit
. That fucking roulette wheel in her head stopped and the ball landed on another embarrassing memory. Her stomach lurched and bile filled her mouth. She shifted her weight and drew a cooling breath through her mouth.
Oh, God.
“Uh, the rings… That’s part of what I wanted to talk to her about.”
“Sourcing substitutions?”
“No. The actual rings.”
Spit it out and get it over with.
She might as well get her walking papers straight from the top. “I took them. They’re probably in the landfill by now. I’m sorry.”
She remembered now. She’d been pissed and done a petty, childish thing, and her throat tightened at the thought. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she pressed her nails into her right palm and welcomed the pain. She wasn’t going to cry. Burke women
never
cried. They tended to fall apart in other ways.
The ensuing silence had a thick, choking quality about it. The same sort she knew from church. She always felt that heaviness when she turned up for mass on Sunday morning after being very wicked on Saturday night. Apparently, the wrath of God was a silent thing.
Mr. Beaudelaire straightened up from the doorway and pulled his hands from his pockets. His expression was inscrutable, but his pale eyes seemed to bore right through her.
She’d never been more thankful she’d skipped a meal than that moment, because if she’d had lunch, she would have lost it.
Mercifully, he pulled his stare away and locked it on something over her shoulder. She didn’t dare look back. It was probably Ms. Gibson arriving to deliver Giselle’s deathblow.
“Mr. Fletcher,” Mr. Beaudelaire said. There was an unusual lilt to his voice—a
mirth
, even—that hinted at a relationship that was more than superficial.
Odd
.
Now Giselle did turn and saw Max standing at the end of the hallway. His mask was pushed up to the top of his black hair and he held his arms crossed over his chest.
“How are you doing, Henri?”
“Splendid. Were you able to get your usual room?”
Max shook his head. “I didn’t book a room. I should only be on the list as a day guest.”
“Can’t spend the night?”
“I could, but I didn’t actually come for Winterball. I came to see Miss Burke. You see, I can’t get her to answer her goddamned phone.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered, and wished the floor would open up and swallow her. She was already at three strikes with the afternoon’s shenanigans, and fraternization with guests was an absolute no-no. It didn’t matter that she and Max had known each other since they were fourteen. They weren’t allowed a relationship of any sort at The Den.
She shot Max that ball-withering glare again.
He rolled his eyes at her and made the short walk down the hall.
“It would seem Ms. Burke has a slight performance issue we need to work out,” Mr. Beaudelaire said.
Rich people put such a special ring on their bullshit.
Giselle turned to face him. “I want to pay for the damages. Look, there’s more I need to tell you. Can we go into your office? Where it’s private?”
“Of course. You should know, however, that very little goes on here that Mr. Fletcher doesn’t know about. He conducts many of our more sensitive background checks.”
Giselle gaped, and faced her sometimes-lover again. “You never told me that.”
He shrugged. “Cloak-and-dagger shit, like you always say. Don’t act like you don’t have secrets.”
“Nothing like that.”
“Bullshit.”
She growled, loosened the fist she’d balled her hands into, and turned yet again to the man in charge. “Maybe I should just write you a resignation letter telling you everything I did.” She cringed. “What I remember of it, anyway.”
“What do you mean
what you remember of it
?” Mr. Beaudelaire gestured to his office door.
Giselle walked through it and took one of the seats in front his fine wood desk. At the sound of the door closing, she looked up only to see Max had followed Mr. Beaudelaire in.
Go the fuck away.
He perched on the arm of the neighboring chair.
She groaned softly.
Mr. Beaudelaire sank into his leather chair and tamped some papers into a neat pile. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Ms. Burke?”
Oh, God.
She rolled her gaze up the ceiling and chewed the inside of her lip. The beginning.
When was that?
After a moment, she shrugged. Didn’t matter. “I’m going to make a long story as short as possible. Since Max is here I can’t lie and say he doesn’t have anything to do with it, because he does. I didn’t want to be here for another Den event if Max would be attending.”
“And why is that?”
“Yeah, why is that, G?” Max put his elbow on his knee and propped his chin atop his fist.
Asshole
.
Her teeth grated. “Max and I have a really complicated relationship.”
“It’s hardly a relationship,” Max said. “You keep reminding me of just how much it isn’t a relationship. What’d you call it?” He tapped his chin pensively. “Friends with benefits? Fuck buddies?”
“Shut up. I’m gonna get fired, and I want to go out with at least a little bit of dignity.” And she would have liked to do it without divulging her personal business to the King of Kink Henri Beaudelaire himself.
Max put his hands up. “Go on, then.”
She wanted to grab him by the neck and shake him, but somehow resisted.
She cleared her throat. “I requested the time off so I wouldn’t be here for Winterball, but the request was rejected.”
“Who rejected the request?”
“Ms. Gibson. She said it’s her policy not to put new hires on the floor during Den events and we would have been short-staffed in my department.”
“Not just her policy, but mine. You didn’t believe that reason had merit?”
Way to put your foot in it
. She swallowed again. Her throat was even tighter now that she’d started laying it all out. An odd feeling for a woman who’d never been afraid of straight talk. “Yes, I don’t question the merit behind the rule, but I think the reason I requested off had merit, too.”
“Explain.”
That was the hard part. Sighing, she ran her gloved hand over her ponytail and stared at the large, framed photograph behind Mr. Beaudelaire. It was him, many years younger than his current forty-something, with an older man he bore a slight resemblance to. Possibly his uncle. He’d been at the helm before the younger Mr. Beaudelaire took over.
“Mr. Beaudelaire, this isn’t easy for me to say.”
Especially not with Max in the room.
Mr. Beaudelaire made a
let’s have it
gesture.
She took a deep breath and looked down at her lap. Her right knee pistoned up and down, and she pressed both hands against it. “Have you…ever been in love with someone you couldn’t have but couldn’t get away from?”
Her voice caught at the end, and she grimaced. If she were any more pathetic her grandmamma would probably crawl out of her burial vault, shamble across town, and smack some sense into her.
She risked a glance up in time to see Mr. Beaudelaire’s expression transition from its usual blank to a pained one. She was staring astounded at his parted lips when Max put himself between her gaze and Mr. Beaudelaire’s desk. “In love with me?” His voice dripped with incredulity, and forehead furrowed, but then—as if a revelation had suddenly been bestowed on him—his eyes darkened with anger. “You do mean
me
, right, G? Or are you fucking someone else?”
She had one mind not to answer.
How dare he act all possessive when he’s probably had his dick in half the kink-inclined women in the parish?
She crossed her legs, squared her shoulders, and lifted her hand to study her cuticles. No way was she going to let him spin her out of control again.
“Yes, Max, I’m talking about you. Congratulations. I love you.” She buffed her nails against her shirt. “Although, on days like today, I wish I could turn it off.”
Three Strikes
is available for purchase now
.
Holley Trent is a Carolina girl gone west. Raised in rural coastal North Carolina, she’s a lady with Southern sensibilities, but in 2011 her adventurous spirit drove her to Colorado for new experiences. She lives on the Front Range with her husband, two kids, and two cats.
She writes snarky contemporary and paranormal romances ranging from sensual to erotic that are usually set in her home state. Her humor is sometimes subtle, often ribald, and regularly inappropriate. If any of her stories seem overly serious at first glance–keep reading.
She’s a winner of the inaugural CIM-RWA Abalone Award (for
My Nora
) and a three-time Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence finalist (
My Nora
,
Calculated Exposure
, and
A Demon in Waiting
).
A Demon in Waiting
was a RomCon Readers’ Crown finalist in 2014.
For Holley’s complete backlist, including titles from Musa Publishing, Crimson Romance, and Lyrical Press/Kensington please visit her website at
http://www.holleytrent.com
.
Want to chat about
Two Strikes
or another Holley Trent title? Catch her online on Twitter where she tweets under the handle
@holleytrent
or fan her
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Copyright 2013 Holley Trent
Excerpt
Three Strikes
copyright 2014 Holley Trent.
Two Strikes
is a work of complete fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictional or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Photography credit
©Saverio M
Dollar Photo Club
WARNING: this story contains adult situations including sex and strong language. It is not intended for consumption by minors (age of majority as specified by your territory of residence).