Play My Game (Stark Trilogy 3.3)

Carmela has been silent through our conversation, but now she passes me her phone. It’s open to an email showing the same image, but her message is different. $200,000 by 10 p.m. PST on Feb. 13 or it goes public at dawn on Valentine’s Day. And all the others, too. Wiring instructions to follow. Like my email, this was supposedly sent from Damien.

“I got the same email,” Damien says. “It came from you. Nikki Fairchild Stark.”

“Fuck,” I say, then drag my fingers through my hair. “What does he mean by ‘the others’?”

“More pictures, presumably,” Damien says, and his tone is so calm and so even that I know he is very close to losing it.

“Our blackmailer did not send them.” Carmela finally speaks, her accent almost musical despite the horrific circumstances. “But I imagine they are …”

“More graphic.” My hand reaches for Damien’s. “Yeah. I get that.” I glance between the two of them. “So what now?”

“Now, I go.” Carmela eyes Damien. “You will let me know what you decide?”

“I will.”

With a nod, Carmela moves to a table by the window and picks up her purse, then swings it over her shoulder as if she’s here in the apartment for nothing more than an afternoon coffee. “Nikki, would you mind walking me down?”

Beside me, I feel Damien tense, but he makes no objection.

I hesitate, then step away from Damien and toward Carmela, a woman I’d never thought I would have an ounce of sympathy for.

Damien’s fingers linger on mine as I leave, and before the elevator doors close, I look back and meet his eyes. I see the storm brewing, and I almost tell Carmela that I cannot leave him. Not now.

But then he nods, and the doors shut, and I clutch hard to the handrail as the elevator starts its descent.

For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then she turns to me. “We did not know. That there were cameras, I mean. Even then—even when he was with me—he never would have done that if he had known he was being filmed.”

“I know.” What I don’t know is why she is being so conciliatory. I draw a breath. “What did you mean? When you said Damien would let you know what he decides? Don’t you have a say?”

“I leave it to Damien to decide what to do. Whether to pay or whether to let the pictures be released.”

I simply stare at her. “And you’re okay with that? With just letting him choose what happens to a pretty goddamn intimate photograph of you?”

“I cannot lie,” she says, her voice as hard as stone. “I was upset when I got the email. I do not like being used. And I would happily strangle the fucker who has put us in this position. But, yes, I will let Damien decide.”

“Why?”

She lifts one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I am not ashamed of my encounters with Damien. We were both single. And we both look quite nice, yes? Under different circumstances, that image could practically be an art print.”

Her words are matter-of-fact, but I hear the hard edge of reason and anger underpinning them.

The elevator arrives at the lobby. Before the door opens, though, I press the stop button, then use my card key to deactivate the alarm before it can start to squall. It’s a handy trick I learned from Damien, who has stopped this elevator on several occasions when we just couldn’t wait to get up to the apartment.

When Carmela realizes that we’re staying in this plush box until our conversation is over, she exhales loudly, then continues. “The truth is that I’ve posed nude before. And while you don’t seem the type who would know it, there’s a sex tape of me that has made the rounds. A bastard of a manager I screwed back in the day.” She waves a hand as if wafting away smoke. “These photos are tame by comparison.”

“You didn’t seem to think so when I arrived.”

Her smile is thin. “Just because they are tame does not mean that I’m not angry.”

I nod. That much, I understand. “And Damien?”

“He has always been careful. Private. But why ask me? You know Damien Stark better than I do.”

I tilt my head, surprised that she would admit as much.

She sighs. “Look, I know that I was a bitch in Munich. What can I say? I like him. And I very much liked to fuck him.”

My hand tightens around the rail. “If this is supposed to be a friendly conversation—”

“My point is that things have changed. He’s married now. I don’t screw around with married men.” She shoots me a wry smile. “And we both know Damien wouldn’t be interested anyway. Not now. Not since he’s with you.”

I nod. And while I’m not sure that I’ve gone from completely detesting her to genuinely liking her, I will at least grudgingly concede that she’s not a total bitch.

“The thing is,” she continues, “despite his penchant for privacy, under other circumstances, Damien might say fuck it and let the picture out. Why not? He looks damn hot. And it’s no secret that he used to screw around. More important, we both know that Damien’s not the kind of man who bends over and takes it in the ass when someone threatens him.”

“No. He’s not. So what’s changed?”

She looks at me as if I’m an idiot. “You, of course. These pictures get out, and you’ll be drawn through the muck, too. And he’s so damned in love with you that the thought of that just about kills him.”

My heart squeezes with her words, because they’re true, and I know it well. What surprises me is that Carmela sees it, too.

“Don’t look so shocked,” she says, as if reading my mind. “You have cast a spell over him, and the whole world knows it.”

Since I’m not sure what to say to that, I just smile and flip the switch on the elevator, allowing the door to open.

She pauses on the threshold. “You know, under different circumstances, you and I might have been friends.”

And although I never would have believed it before, in that moment, I think she might be right.

It’s an interesting detente, and I’m amused when her parting gesture is an air kiss.

Then I place my card key against the pad and let the elevator whisk me away, knowing full well the storm that awaits me upstairs.

Chapter 5

Damien is there the moment the elevator doors open, and before I even have time to draw a breath, he has taken my hand and pulled me out. I gasp, only to cry out again a moment later when he slams me against the foyer wall, stretching my arms above my head as his mouth finds mine and his body presses hard against me.