Catching Sin, page 10
But after I returned from my morning at the spa and my lunch in their restaurant, he sat me down in his office to reiterate his set of rules. It’s adorable, really, since he’s the one who continues to break them. We decided I didn’t have to fetch him coffee unless I was getting some for myself. I would start making all travel arrangements, take notes in meetings he attended, field calls and emails. That kind of stuff. Stuff he hadn’t really let me do all week. He explained that this would be like a trial period for us. If things went well, and we had a good working chemistry, then we’d expand my responsibilities, and eventually my salary.
I nearly drooled a puddle on his floor at that.
The next day went by in a blur. Maddox took me on a tour of each of the three resorts on the Strip. It’s been all work since. Like real professional work without the naughty office banter that fuels my nightly fantasies. I think I’ve officially read too many romance novels because I swear, I have this whole role-play thing going on in my head and I might have crossed some of that over into my regular day with him.
Oops.
But today there was none of that.
For all the good that chat yesterday did, he hasn’t let me do much around the office today. I’m mostly the office bitch, to put it politely. The one helping the other assistants with their menial tasks like picking up dry-cleaning, making coffee, picking out ties to match hankies, waiting on hold, making copies, and perfecting the art of saying, “I’m sorry, Mister Sinclair is not available right now, but I’m happy to take a message for you.”
I didn’t go to his meetings with him. I didn’t weed through his emails. I didn’t even make his travel arrangements. I haven’t pushed it. I’m still too new at this game. Still learning as I go, and I figure he’ll give me more responsibility once I prove myself capable to him.
I text back and forth with Justin on my ride home. We don’t talk all that much on the phone—he’s a teenager and texting is easier—but deep down, I know it’s because we both understand the power of the spoken word when there are potential ears. He’s doing well, studying for midterms, and claims that everything is straight on his end. It’s a relief. It gives me the sense that maybe things are turning a corner for the better with my life. And it’s with this calm, satisfied heart that I enter my apartment, and scream out in terror when the lamp beside my sofa clicks on.
“Christ,” I yell, grabbing my chest and leaning back on shaky legs against my now-closed door.
“Nope. But close.”
I roll my eyes at him and he actually chuckles for once. “What are you doing here?” I snap, not caring if he doesn’t like my tone. Taking a breath, I try to steady my beleaguered heart.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t come to see you?”
No. I assumed he’d come to me at some point. I just didn’t think he’d be in my locked apartment waiting for me.
“How was your first week at Turner Hotels?”
“Fantastic,” I deadpan. A smile spreads across Anthony Conti’s face. He pats the seat next to him on the sofa, but I shake my head at him. “No. You don’t get to play nice with me. You fired me.”
“I saved you. I always save you.”
I fold my arms across my chest and take a small step away from the door. He can’t actually think I’m buying that. He pats that space again and I reluctantly cross the room, sitting beside him but leaving a large dividing space between us on the small, worn sofa. I want to draw my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. I want to curl up into the smallest possible ball. I don’t like being so visible to him. So exposed. He reads me like an open picture book, and no amount of backtalk or sneering hides my thoughts.
“Come here.”
I don’t move, and I know this will anger him, but tough shit. It’s good for him when I don’t instantly comply. Keeps him human. Keeps him from believing he truly is the master of the universe and that my position in life is to comply to his every will and demand. His head whips in my direction and he points to the spot directly beside his legs. He’s not the sort of man that reaches over and picks you up to move you. He does it with silent force and terrifying threats. Though I’m tempted to see just how far I can push him and what he’ll do if I really rile him up, I move to that spot.
“I don’t like to be made to wait, Isabel. Don’t do it again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see Maddox Sinclair took you shopping. How gallant of him.”
“Why did you do it? Why did you fire me?” I tilt my head to catch his eye, and he smiles down on me with so much love that it jilts me the way it always does. His devotion disgusts me and thrills me and makes me hate myself just a bit more because I know what that love is.
“Because when you were sixteen and I first took you as my own, the club was an easy place to hide you. An easy place I could keep an eye on you. Then you started dancing.” The word hisses from his lips with disgust, his expression following suit, but I still haven’t found regret for dancing. Minus the naked part and lusting men, I actually like the act. “You took off your clothes for strangers, and I cannot have strangers looking at what’s meant to be only for me. This last time was the final straw.”
“So now what?” I’m waiting for the punchline. For the sick end of the joke that tells me why he’s here. Why I’ve suddenly found myself with a job at Turner Hotels. How Maddox Sinclair came to be in my life and came to offer me a job the same night I was fired.
Life is never that coincidental.
“You set this job up with Maddox.” It’s not a question. I know it’s the truth, but part of me is hoping he’ll tell me I’m wrong. That Maddox really could be a good guy and isn’t in bed with Conti and that somehow the stars aligned, and he found me at my moment of need and came to my rescue.
“Maddox Sinclair owed me a debt. A large debt. I cashed in on it.”
My eyes close before I can stop the action. It hurts even when I know it shouldn’t. I figured it was something like that, though the notion of Maddox being indebted to Conti feels infinitely worse than him simply asking him to hire me and Maddox saying yes. Maddox doesn’t want me there. Maddox doesn’t need me there. He was just trying to pay off a debt and got stuck with the dumb, desperate stripper who didn’t know better. All that talk about how I’m the girl he’ll give up everything to save was a lie. All those lunches and spa treatments and easy, sexy banter that never failed at making my panties wet and my heart race were an act. I’d even go so far as to bet that this was in the works that day at the grocery store.
He’s played me from the get-go.
There are no heroes in my world.
No white knights slaying my dragons.
The only person I can count on is me. I’ve known that all along, but every now and then I forget. Or maybe just get waylaid with hope and loneliness.
“I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I am pleased,” I lie. I’d rather be stripping and waitressing, because at least that was honest.
“Is Maddox not good to you?”
I shift my weight, trying to distance myself from him, but his arm wraps around my shoulder, grasping it and holding me firmly in place with a hard squeeze. A warning. “Answer me, Isabel.”
“He’s fine. I hardly know the guy. I could have gotten a regular job doing anything else. Why did you call in this debt he owed you over a stupid job?”
“Because there is nothing stupid about it. You’re the executive assistant to the Chief Operating Officer of Turner Hotels. You see, I cannot get to Jake Turner. Not really, anyway. But Maddox Sinclair . . . I can get to him. He owed me, and I intend to cash in fully. You”—he taps the tip of my nose—“my beautiful Isabel, are going to help me do that.”
Ah. And here it comes.
“How am I going to do that?” I bite out after he fails to follow that up.
“I want non-public information on Turner Hotels. Anything and everything. That’s why I put you there. My little temptress, I have no doubt he’s already eating out of your palm.”
I turn to ice as a foreboding chill runs up my spine. Anthony Conti is a deliberate man and nothing he does is ever free. There’s always a price. And I’ve just become the sacrificial lamb.
“How on earth do you expect me to get you that sort of information on Turner Hotels?” I’m trying for incredulous. I’m trying to come across as an annoyed and sarcastic and belligerent teenager. I come nowhere close to meeting my mark.
“You’ll do it because you have to, Isabel. I expect you to get me everything you possibly can on Jake Turner and Maddox Sinclair. On the way their operation works. On the way it all works. The rest is for me to handle.”
Translation, for me not to know about. That’s a blessing, at least.
I shake my head, my eyes burning with tears I don’t dare shed. Goddamn him! Goddamn him for doing this to me. For being such a sick, greedy bastard that his billions aren’t enough. For trying to blackmail me.
“I won’t do it. I can’t do it. Find someone else to do your evil bidding.”
He smirks and my heart sinks. “You can, and you will. You have no choice in the matter. You might as well accept that now.”
I shake my head back and forth. “Why Turner?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“I’m still saying no.”
“Then Justin loses everything. His overpriced education. Connecticut. His fake guardian. He’s what, fifteen now?” He tilts his head and I want to punch his face. “Three years from being a legal adult. He’ll become a ward of the State of Nevada. Bounce from foster home to foster home. Is that what you want for him?”
I knew he was going to say that before I even asked. “I’m nineteen, and thanks to you, I now have a real job. I can petition the State for guardianship of him. He’s my brother. They’ll say yes, and I can move to a good school district with my new salary.”
Conti laughs. He actually fucking laughs. I never realized the man was capable of that. I hate the world. I hate this evil, ugly, corrupt world. And I want to kill the man sitting beside me for embodying all it represents.
I fly off the couch, distancing myself from him before I do something stupid like strangle him with my bare hands. I back up toward the kitchen. My apartment isn’t big. There isn’t much room to move, but the kitchen gives me the best advantage. He also stands up, so tall and portentously handsome. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. If he weren’t the personification of the devil, a girl could almost be attracted to him.
He tracks my movements, knowing I want to kill him and confident that I won’t try. “You believe any judge in my town will grant you guardianship of your brother? How will you explain what happened to you after you turned sixteen? What you’ve been doing for employment all these years? How your brother has been getting by with a fictitious guardian? It certainly won’t link back to me. I know you’re smarter than to try and make it.” He takes a step in my direction. “I’m sure the public schools around here are just as good as the private boarding school he’s in. The foster home he’ll be forced to live in with strangers just as nice as his dorm with his friends.”
More of those stupid, insipid tears I refuse to let fall well up in my eyes, obscuring my vision. He has me right where he needs me. Stuck between blind hatred and a hard spot. Blackmail. The man is an artist with it. It’s not the first time he’s had me in this position. It’s just never been so deplorable in the past.
“I hate you,” I seethe, slashing my arm out in front of me. “I don’t want to be part of your messed up world. I never did. I won’t be a player in your sick game.”
“You don’t hate me, Isabel. Your love for me is as unconditional as my love for you. You’re just angry because I’m forcing you to do something you feel is morally objectionable. But you’ll get over it. Everyone does.” His eyes soften, so sure of everything he’s saying. His smile curls his lips up and he stares at me like that love he just spoke of is actually something real. Something tangible. The very thing he knows I’ve been searching for my entire life. “You’re the only one who can do this. Help me, my sweet, darling girl. It will all be worth it in the end. Soon enough, it will be you and me, and all this troubling business will be behind you.”
I shake my head, my hands shooting out protectively in front of me. I don’t want him to come any closer. Love him? He must be high. I want to kill him and leave his body out on the Strip for all to see. I want to run away and never look back. And I would. If it were just about me, I would do both of those things.
“Maddox doesn’t trust me. He certainly doesn’t want me. My access to everything is limited, he told me so himself. I’m on a trial period. He doesn’t even let me book his travel arrangements.”
Conti’s smile grows as he advances on me. Why don’t I have sharp knives? I don’t. I have fucking butter knives and only two of those. I have nothing.
He’s right about Justin. I can’t take guardianship of him. The courts will never grant it. He has them all in his twisted pocket. And then Justin will end up in foster care. I won’t do that to him. He’s the only light there is in this darkness. He’s in one of the best schools in the country. Far away from here.
Away from Conti.
“I saw the way Maddox looked at you that night in the club after you danced. I watched the way he looked at you, spoke to you, in the champagne room last Friday night.”
“He won’t touch me. He told me so. His interest was forced and is now completely gone. We’re one hundred percent professional and he hasn’t so much as strayed an inch from that.”
He tilts his head to the side, offering me a sardonic grin. His large, looming body now stands before me, pressing my back into the sharp edge of the laminate counter. There is no warmth emanating from him. No life in his black eyes. “Come now, Isabel. Don’t play coy. You’re more than aware of the power your beauty wields over weak-minded men like Maddox Sinclair. He won’t touch you, because I forbade him, but he doesn’t have to for you to get what I need. Your power lies in the temptation, not the capture.”
“Don’t make me do this,” I whisper, so dejected I hardly have the will to breathe.
“Do this for me, my darling girl, and I will pay for Justin’s entire education. All four years of high school. Anywhere in the world he wants to go for college and medical school, I will make sure he does.”
I narrow my eyes, my heart thundering. “Until you hold that over my head.”
He stares intently into me, reaching up to cup my face. I’m trembling, I realize. I’m so tired of feeling weak. Of being scared and alone. I want to be strong, to take charge, but the moment I feel like I’m starting to, the rug gets swept out from beneath my feet.
“I love you, Isabel.”
I want to die.
“And I need your trust.”
I hate you.
“Your respect.”
You’ll never have it.
“You’re nineteen now. No longer a girl, but not quite a woman yet.”
Understatement of the century.
“Do you know how old I am?”
“No.” I swallow so hard it’s audible. He loves this. This power. This control.
“I’m thirty-nine. Twenty years your senior. You are still too young. There is still too much I need to do before you can truly be mine. But soon, our wait to be together will be over. That’s what I’m trying to do. For us,” he emphasizes that like it’s a selling feature. “So you’ll never have to worry. So Justin will never have to worry.”
Fuck you, you bastard.
“Do this for me,” he urges. “For Justin.”
I swallow and shake my head, feeling the blackness creep into my soul. I have to do this for Justin. He deserves a world that’s clean and filled with potential and hope. I have no choice.
“Keep your eyes and ears open. Get Maddox to increase your security clearance. Make him trust you. Wrap him around your finger. I want pictures, confidential documents, tablets, flash drives, audio, everything you can get from the security towers and anything else you can think of.” He brushes his thumbs up and down my cheeks.
My heart sinks and my stomach roils. I wish I had a comeback. A brushoff. A real, solid way to say no and make it stick.
“If you do this for me, if you help me get what I need, I will give you the money to pay for Justin’s education yourself. I’ll make sure you become his legal guardian within the year. Do this, and I’ll never hold anything over your head again.”
Oh god. Please, don’t do this to me.
“I need more time. To think. To figure everything out for myself.”
“I’ll give you more time because that will serve as an advantage to me now. But I won’t give you forever to decide, Isabel.” He leans in and kisses my face. My cheeks. My temple. Never my lips. Not yet, anyway. He has plans for that. “Have a good night, Starshine.” He smiles as he uses the nickname Maddox gave me. A reminder that he’s everywhere, watching everything. “Keep your mouth shut and your eyes in the game. I’d hate for you to lose more than you already have.” The ultimate threat. “I know you’ll make the right choice. You always do.”
Then he leaves me, shutting the door and allowing me to fall apart in peace. What the hell am I going to do now?
Twelve
ISABEL
* * *
I didn’t sleep for most of the weekend. For a while after Conti left, I sat on the kitchen floor. Eventually, I found my way to my bed, but I couldn’t close my eyes. I stared up at the water-stained ceiling and thought, mentally researching every angle. That’s pretty much how I spent Friday night through Sunday night. I didn’t go out. I didn’t speak to anyone. I ate Ramen noodles and buttered pasta and felt like the poor-girl cliché as I did, but I couldn’t force myself to go out and buy groceries.
