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They led the way upstairs, and within two minutes of my yes, we stood in an opulent bedroom. The door closed, and my courage nearly vanished. Three masked men stood between me and the exit.

The lean one broke the silence with a step and a whisper. “If you want to leave, leave.”

“I don’t know what I want.” It was the most honest I’d been with myself in years.

“Then allow us to show you what we want.” The one with silver in his hair reached behind me and removed my mask. “We want you.”

They surrounded me with heat and desire, their bodies languid and dangerous as they undressed me and then themselves. Except for their masks. Every nerve came to life all at once when they put their hands on me, and I lost the ability to think about anything except the next touch, the next quick inhale, and then, the pleasure that built with such intensity I thought my entire body might combust.

They took their time with me. Took turns with me. I’d never experienced anything like it, and by the time the third man entered me, his thick cock stretching me to my limit, I was sure I’d found paradise.

I expected them to kick me out as soon as they finished. Instead, the tallest one grabbed the blanket from the floor and drew it up over all of us, tucking me in and draping his arm over my hip. I’d never felt more wanted, more desirable, than the moment he kissed my temple and told me to go to sleep.

I woke with a jolt, my legs tangled in expensive sheets and the smell of sex thick in the air. Mortification burned hotter than anything that had happened between us. I’d had sex with three men. Three men who knew what they were doing and had left me completely satisfied for the first time in my life.

But it was over. One night. That’s what we’d agreed to, and I didn’t want to be there when they woke up in the morning. I slipped from the bed, found my gown, and dressed with shaking hands. The mask sat on the bedside table, and I picked it up and pressed it to my chest before putting it back. It was a silly, romantic notion that they wanted anything to remember me by, but I wouldn’t be here to see them laugh about it and throw the mask away, so I allowed myself the fantasy of imagining them mourning my absence.

I stopped at the door and looked back, committing the sight of the three of them to memory. For some crazy reason, I didn’t want to leave. But I had to. Once they realized they’d been duped and I wasn’t the woman they’d been talking to, all trust would be gone and they’d want nothing to do with me.

Better for everyone if I left like this.

1

ANIKA

The first sign my night was about to go to hell was the man who walked into my bakery three minutes before closing and asked if the lemon tarts were fresh.

They sat under a glass dome with a handwritten card that read “made this morning”, but years of customer service had trained me not to point at signs because people would simply keep asking.

I smiled instead and opted for playful. “Fresh enough I’ll be offended if you don’t like them.”

He didn’t smile. That should have been sign number two. “I’ll take one.” He looked to be pushing forty and was built like someone who spent more time lifting weights than eating pastries, but who was I to judge when I depended on people’s sweet tooth to make a living.

But the shaved head and black coat too heavy for early September gave me pause, especially when his gaze skimmed past me to the kitchen door, then the hallway leading to my office.

A warning prickled across my scalp as I slid the tart into a box. “Anything else?”

“No.” He laid a twenty on the counter for a six-dollar tart and walked out without waiting for change.

I stayed behind the counter, watching through the front windows until he crossed the street and disappeared between two parked SUVs. “Not creepy at all.”

My phone buzzed beside the register, my daughter’s name flashing on the screen with a photo of Nora wearing a paper crown and enough purple frosting around her mouth to suggest she’d face-planted in a cake.

I answered on video, eyebrows going up when I caught sight of her face in real time. “Please tell me you ate dinner before whatever happened to your face.”

Her four-year-old grin filled the screen. “Miss Helen made peas.”

“That’s not an answer, Nora.” I tried to scold, but the sight of her grin melted my heart. She’d always been my weakness. My baby girl. Good from the day I found out I was pregnant, she never gave me a moment of trouble.

“I ate seven.” She bounced up and down, twirling so her chestnut curls spun around her face. She had my hair, but her personality was all her own.

From somewhere behind her, my elderly neighbor called out, “She ate three.”

Nora gasped like she’d been betrayed by her best friend. “Miss Helen!”

I laughed and leaned against the counter. “Three peas? Someone should alert the newspapers.”

“And chicken.” Nora shoved her face closer to the phone. “And Auntie called.”