“Right on time.” Trent’s gaze roamed my body, like the slimy journey of a slug.
Shuddering, I held up the watch and snapped, “You’re welcome.”
His fingers lingered on mine before he pocketed it in his gray slacks. “Was there a message?”
I stepped back to put space between us. “Time’s up.”
His smile didn’t move, but his eyes flickered.
My shoulders itched to curl forward, to protect my core from the insidious aura that clung to him, but I held my back as relaxed as possible. “What happens on October twenty-seventh?”
Hands in his pockets, he glanced at his overpriced loafers and returned to my face. “On October twenty-seventh, McDonald’s will sell six million hamburgers and increase the global fat scale by another basis point. And statistics say the population will improve with the deaths of twenty-five more gang-bangers. And who knows? Maybe that will be the day an earthquake wipes out some third-world country no one gives a shit about.”
Jesus. My fingers clenched at my sides. “You’re disgusting.”
“Lighten up, Kaci.” He shifted further into the office and gestured inside. “Come in. We were just getting started.”
Right. A meeting. Probably with my mother. Actually, I was feeling spunky enough today to enjoy her presence. I’d chosen her least favorite dress—tight around the chest, flirty at the knees—because fuck her. She wouldn’t know her poor little celibate daughter was highly sexed this morning. But I’d love to shove my well-loved glow in her face and watch the Botox harden with envy.
With that energizing thought, I followed him in and turned the corner.
And everything froze. My feet, my breath, my heart.
The last person I expected to see glared at me from across the room. Wide shoulders encased in a black suit. A strong neck that didn’t belong in a thin tie. And beneath the white shirt, I knew there was an eight-pack of polished, hairless abs.
My stomach dropped, and my lungs slammed together.
Hands behind his back, legs in a wide stance, Logan stood behind Trent’s desk like he owned it. His face was cleanly shaven, but a shadow darkened his features. A dissonance of unreadable emotions furrowed his brow and shaped his jaw into a cinder block.
My mind raced through all the possible reasons he was here. Did I forget my driver’s license? Did he search me out because he decided to stay? Or was this all a coincidence and he was just as surprised to see me?
He didn’t look surprised.
My blood began a slow trickle downward, chilling everything between my face and my feet.
Trent shut the door behind me, locking the three of us in, and slipped in beside Logan behind the desk.
Logan seemed disinclined to step back or shift his stance in any way. They were the same height, but Logan’s surly bearing dwarfed the man beside him.
“This is Logan Flynt.” Trent lowered into the chair, his eyes calculating. “But you already knew that.”
Sweat formed on the back of my neck. What did he want? What had he told Trent? Maybe not everything, which meant I needed to measure my response no matter how desperately I burned to attack him, to scream and demand answers.
I caught him looking at me, his eyes creased with tension and something else, something I hadn’t seen last night. Whatever it was, it explained nothing and hinted at everything.
Pushing that to the back of my awareness, I softened my face into what I hoped was a cordial expression. “Logan.”
His lips formed an angry line, and his eyes turned to golden glass.
Not good. I cleared my throat and said to Trent, “We met at The Watch last night.” Damn that quiver in my voice.
Trent leaned forward, his fingers clicking over the keyboard on the desk. “You did more than meet.”
The plasma screen on the wall beside me blinked on. My heart raced, and a sick swirl of nausea curdled in my gut.
I glanced at Logan. The sudden rigidness in his body shoved my thundering pulse past my ears.
The mouse pointer wiggled on the big screen as Trent maximized a video window and clicked play. I knew it was coming before I saw it. I felt it like fire on my skin and ice in my veins, right before it burned into my eyes.
The horrifying aftermath of my decisions, magnified on fifty-five inches of hi-def resolution, played out across the screen. My body bent over a bed. My mouth gaping in ecstasy. A blurry-faced man standing behind me. His cock ramming like there was no tomorrow.
The betrayal stabbed a jolt of pain through my chest and tunneled through the emptiness there, stretching it wider, deeper, hollowing me out. I let it spread through my body, absorbing its soundless devastation, like the video on the wall.
All of it captured with various camera angles. Cameras that had been set up in advance. Premeditated. Everything about last night had been planned.