Along for the Ride

His mouth twitched. “You might like to reconsider that ... I was thinking of sending some of our snaps to your father.” He caught the glance of annoyance and surprise she could not withhold, and smiled. “I thought so. We can’t have the reputation of the prestigious Montgomery household destroyed by your lewd behavior, can we?”

He took her arm and led her to a small Turkish coffee house set behind the market stalls. They sat into a secluded booth. He ordered for her without asking what she wanted. She wasn’t surprised.

“I don’t intend to come back to you, Richard, no matter what you decide to do with those pathetic photographs.”

She was pretty sure he was bluffing. After all, sending the photos out would merely ensure she never saw him again. It was a ridiculous attempt at getting her back. What sort of basis for a relationship did he imagine this line of behavior was? Richard liked his women to be less intelligent than he was and treated them accordingly. She had long since begun to wonder what she ever saw in him.

Aside from that, part of her was focused on the uncanny coincidence between her situation and that of Zoë Mac. Zoë, a leggy blonde with the most famous media pout in the last decade, had much more to lose, for sure. But she felt Zoë’s secrets would be a whole lot safer with Jason than hers were with this creep. The bottom line was motivation, and Richard wanted her back. Georgie was easily intelligent enough to see through his bluff.

He took a wad of photographs from his pocket and began to look through them, dropping them onto the table as he commented on them. Georgie drank her coffee, maintaining an aloof expression as she watched the images of her own body flash down in front of her. If he was hoping to arouse her, she wasn’t going to allow it to happen. Well, not this time.

“I particularly like this one, Georgie. You look so ... innocent.”

He gave a nasty laugh as he held the picture up in front of her face. She was sitting in a chair, legs apart, her breasts crushed together by her arms as she reached down to pleasure herself with a large molded black vibrator in front of the camera. The crude black object looked unreasonably large against the tender folds of her glistening sex, but boy, had it ever felt good when she had ridden it.

Georgie mentally counted to ten, trying not to get hot. It was very hard not to. She looked at him. That helped. He was well gone on this. His pupils were dilated, and a bead of sweat clung to his upper lip.

An idea began to suggest itself to her. She smiled.

“Yes, it is a good photograph. You know a good image when you see it, don’t you, Richard?”

She winked at him and was gratified to see the look of achievement that spread across his face. He thought he had convinced her.

“Tell me, what do you like about it?” She leaned closer to him, her legs shifting under the table.

“Your abandonment. You can’t help yourself, can you, when you’re like that?” He was practically grinning.

She had to control the urge to laugh in his face. Her heart was beating very fast. She reminded herself where the door was and gauged the distance.

“No, I can’t help myself.” She slid her leg between his, beneath the table. She lowered her hand to close over his knee.

“Oh, my little dark angel is coming home to me.” His eyes glinted at her, his legs parting to let her feel her way along his thighs.

She pushed them wide with her hand and then jerked right back in her seat, her foot rising to land sharply in his crotch.

His face altered quickly into an expression of pure horror, his eyes wide and his mouth falling open. His outraged cry of pain filled the coffee house, but Georgie was already on her feet. She grabbed her bag, the flowers, and as many of the Polaroid shots as she could snatch up before he recovered, and tore out the door, her coffee cup crashing to the floor as she went.

On the other side of the city, Jason stormed down the stairs and out of the swing doors onto Fleet Street, cursing the newspaper industry, wishing he’d never seen or heard of the gossip gutter press. A raging tirade was going through his head while he paced the streets with a face like thunder, not even sure where he was headed.

As soon as he’d got to work, he found his mailbox had been loaded with messages from Greg, Joel Elliot, and other “insiders” quizzing for info about the alleged photos of Zoë Mac he had taken. He’d had to tell switchboard to refuse calls to his extension, and even Dave had heard there was something juicy about Zoë circulating on the press grapevine -- news that he didn’t hesitate to share with Jason, of course.

When the two meatheads stepped out onto the pavement in front of him and blocked his path, Jason didn’t need any evidence to tell him they were hounds on the scent. He could see it written all over their faces.

“Get out of my way.”

“We’ve got a message from Joel Elliot. He wants the photos, and he’ll pay well, very well.” The man flashed open a notebook with a figure written on it and held it up in front of Jason face, glancing around as if he expected to be pounced on at any moment by a rival paparazzi.

The second man moved to one side and leaned up against nearby railings, as if attempting to give their conversation a more relaxed appearance to passersby.

The numbers on the page came into focus, and Jason’s eyebrows shot up. Christ, he was in even bigger trouble than he thought.

“Interesting amount, huh?” The meathead gave a hungry smile. “He wants to work with you, but he says you didn’t reply to his email offer, so we’re here to make sure you know how serious he is.” The threat in his voice was not lost on Jason.

“I’m not interested, and you can tell him to keep his damn nose out of it.” He let his volume slide up, gratified when passing heads turned.

“I bet you’ve got those photos on you right now.” The meathead turned to his sidekick. “Don’t you agree, Charlie? We could just take them off him.”

Charlie gave a brief nod, eyeing Jason’s pockets while he lolled against the iron railings.