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Chapter One
I hate my father.
I shifted in the leather armchair, a scowl ready to go when he finally remembered that I existed.
The scowl hardened when the leggy blonde let out a bubble gum flavored giggle. My father responded with a laugh of his own, one of his full belly ones that I’d never heard at home. It was the sound of complete, unabashed happiness...and I was sixteen, not six—I didn’t miss the undercurrent of lust in that sound. But just in case it wasn’t obvious that he was flirting with some chick, he reached for the folder in her clutches and brushed his fingertips across her knuckles. It made her cheeks match her red pencil skirt.
My scowl was forgotten, a sickening thought flitting through my head. Abroad, thousands of miles from my mother, my father was balls out, in your face, Billionaire Playboy of the Year. After Aunt Al got tired of his bullshit, he hosted parties filled with scantily clad women and ear splitting music that would bring the cops knocking, but it was only a matter of time before they were laughing and joking with the one and only Carlton Whitmore. But like some switch had been flipped, snatched from some wild dream and dumped back into a boring reality, we’d board the jet and my father would make sure I understood what happened in Europe stayed in Europe. At home he was quiet and withdrawn, a far cry from the boisterous life of the party, the smooth dude that made all the women stare at him with a look that made me jealous. None of that charm existed at home. And even at the office, he seemed detached around other women. But not today. Today, he seemed uncomfortably close to grabbing some blonde’s ass with me sitting twenty feet away.
Was he going to divorce Mom? Was he finally ready to admit that they made each other miserable?
When the blonde leaned in to whisper something in his ear, I balled my fists and cleared my throat loud enough for the entire floor to hear it.
She stepped back and flashed me a charming, flat smile. “Your father is an incredible boss.”
I didn’t return the smile. “I bet he is.”
That got his full attention. He stood to every inch of his 6 foot, 3 inches frame and dismissed the blonde without saying a word. You’d think an alarm went off with the way her stilettos booked it from the room.
When we were alone, my father cleared his own throat, pulling a smile out of his ass. “She’s quite something, eh?”
I just glared back at him. “I’m sure she and Mom would get along great.”
That wiped the smile off his face. For the briefest moment, the iron wall of indifference was gone. The look I saw wasn’t anger or bullshit charm he flung at women like an ape throwing feces. It was resignation. I knew that look well because it was one I’d worn every day since I realized my parents were too busy doing their own dance to give a flying fuck what I was doing. Maybe my dad and I had something in common.
I still hated him.
“Let me tell you something, Jacob.” He adjusted the knot of his tie like he was adjusting a noose. “I could tell you that Misty-”
“Of course her name is Misty,” I huffed. “Is that with a y or an I?”
“Is just friendly,” he continued, ignoring the interruption. “But you’re not a child. Hell, in less than two years, you’ll be a man.”
I almost butted in that I was a man in every way except legally, but I was too stunned by the fact that he knew how old I was in the first place.
He perched on the edge of his desk, crossing his arms against his broad chest. “As a man, it’s important to acknowledge certain truths. Whether you wear a suit or a uniform, run a Fortune 500 company or dig ditches, you have urges. Urges that can’t be denied.”
“Is this the birds and the bees talk?” I cringed. “You’re a little late.”
“Of course I am,” he beamed. “You’re a Whitmore.”
The pride reeked from him like an old woman who coated herself in cheap perfume. When he realized we weren’t sharing some sort of moment, he launched from his desk. I planted my feet and went rigid as stone. He wasn’t going to do something ridiculous like hug me, was he?
I breathed a sigh of relief when he walked toward the door.
“Join me.”
I rose to my feet and followed him to the bank of windows that opened to the main floor. I was waiting for some spiel about hard work and legacy, but he was silent.
“What do you see?” he said finally.
I peered out at the same scene. Women were bustling around with folders and coffee, many hunched in front of computers. “People working?”
“Not people,” he corrected. “Women.”
I glanced over at him, confused. “Okay. And?”
“Women were created to be looked at. Lusted after. Desired.” He rotated his wedding band. “Evolution, society, whatever, may drive us to settle down, start a family, chase the elusive ‘American dream’, but at the end of the day, a man will always crave that warm place between some woman’s thighs.”
******
I was going to kill someone.
I stalked through the entrance of the building, finding no comfort in the fact that my name was over the door. Reminding myself how far Whitmore and Creighton had come with me at the helm was usually a jolt to my system, clearing out any doubt that crept past my defenses. I could lock eyes with any board member, detractor, or obstacle in my way and find the fight I had to channel when I took the reins at 21. And in the years since, I hadn’t met an obstacle, or client, that I couldn’t handle.
Rachel Laraby was proving to be an exception to the rule.
It wasn’t enough that she seemed to sabotage every second chance her fans gave her; the tabloids were consistently filled with her latest bender or booze-fueled gaffe. And to add insult to injury (and remind me of the perils of letting my cock take the wheel), she had turned a strictly sexual arrangement between us into a romance that I didn’t sign up for.
It had been months since I realized the colossal error I made and she still called me incessantly. She insisted upon talking about a ‘special someone’ in her interviews. Luckily, the media could care less about the mystery man that put the sparkle in her eye and more about getting to the root of why she seemed incapable of avoiding scandal.
I’d hoped to send Claudia or Missy to Venice to ensure she stayed out of trouble during her press junket, but I feared I’d have to break my rule and take care of it personally. When I ended things with someone, that was it. Per our contract, we never had contact again.
I never should have slept with her, I thought despondently.
My father’s face, leering and intoxicated, sprang into my head. I could practically smell the sea and feel the warm Venice air on my skin while we stood on the balcony of the villa all those years ago. We looked down upon the vast, lush estate, though I knew his attention was on the pool that was filled to the brim with scantily clad women.
He’d clapped me on the shoulder, his words slurred. “The body wants what the-”
BAM!
Some woman was in the way and I slammed into her. I was tempted to voice my agitation, but I was already late and I needed to nail down the Italy trip. I continued on my way, making a mental note to take the garage and private elevator from now on.
“Excuse you!”
The words were like a lightning bolt, electrifying me on the spot. No one spoke to me that way...and it should have been enough to unleash an anger of my own. The anger that had been eating at me since I realized I wouldn’t be closing the book on Rachel Laraby after all.
But her voice, this feeling – it was something else.
This was the look on a submissive’s face when she saw the equipment in my play room; eyes rounding with surprise, terror going down like a rock when she swallowed. This was the hiss of leather slicing though the air; the beautiful sound it made when it licked flesh. The authority in her voice was a mirror to the dominance in my own when I was in that secret place. A place of pain, surrender and bliss.
