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I slide a finger into the box of condoms and pull a foil square out. Miss Anonymous takes it from my fingers, lifting it to her lips and tearing the top off. I watch with a racing heart as she pushes my boxers down, just low enough to release my cock, then her hand is cupping my length, her fingertips brushing my tip, delighting in the drop of cum she finds there.
‘I’m so glad your reputation isn’t exaggerated,’ she teases, sliding the condom over me and easing it down my length. My breath hisses out of me as she snaps it at the base, then squeezes me in her palm, my cock jerking against her hand, my whole body standing to attention.
‘I’ve had enough. Reading about you on that idiot gossip blog, seeing you with a different woman every goddamned night. If you’d married Saffron you’d have three kids by now.’
Everyone seems to have forgotten Saffy left me—for a firefighter from Bristol, as it turns out.
‘If you’re not married by the time you’re thirty then you can forget about becoming Lord Rothsmore. You can forget about the whole damned thing.’
It has been distinctly tempting to tell him to go to hell with his bloody title and inheritance. As if I give a damn.
Except I do. I care about my mother, and I care about my father, I even care about the legacy into which I’ve been born. But more than that, I’m becoming a little bored of this lifestyle. What started off as rebellion has become an unbreakable habit and it’s all just a bit too easy.
Miss Anonymous is right. My reputation precedes me. Women fall at my feet, doors open because of my name and the title I’m due to hold.
I’m ready for a challenge. I’m ready for something different and unexpected.
I’ve decided I’ll go home soon—before I turn thirty—and show my parents that, heirs or not, I am someone they can be proud of. I am someone who can think with more than his dick.
But for now, for tonight, I’m going to enjoy being the man my reputation has made me.
‘Exactly how long has it been?’ I prompt as I find her lips, tangling my tongue with hers, pushing her head back, so she falls flat against the mattress once more.
Her eyes, expressive and somehow familiar, swirl with uncertainty and then they zip closed a little, hiding herself from me. ‘A while.’
‘A month?’
She laughs, a skittish sound. ‘Longer.’
‘Six weeks?’
She shakes her head.
‘Jesus. Two months?’
Pink spreads across her décolletage. ‘A bit more.’
I frown, hating the thought of that, and hating it for her—because she’s so sensual, so responsive, so completely driven by desire. I can’t imagine how she could go even a night without sex, let alone months.
I nudge her thighs apart with my knees, and push my tip to her entrance, running my fingers over the bright pink of her wig. ‘Let’s see what we can do about that, huh?’
She nods, no smile on her lips, but I feel her anticipation and I recognise it because it one hundred per cent matches my own. Her breath is held; the room is quiet except for the incessant ticking of the clock against the wall. Outside, Sydney sparkles, beautiful, old, subtropical.
My hands press against the bed on either side of her and I watch as I slide inside her, slowly at first, but her muscles are so freaking tight that I lose my control for a second. Instinct takes over and I thrust deep inside her, grunting as I drop my head and kiss her hard, mimicking the thrust of my body, the tease of our flesh, the taste of her.
She lifts her hips, rolling them, and I have to fight to stop myself from going faster and harder and losing this.
This is sublime.
‘Fuck me,’ she whispers, her hands in my hair, driving through it urgently, and I grind my teeth together and do what we both want, thrusting into her hard, quickly, until she’s moaning over and over and then she’s pushing at my chest, trying to roll me over.
She’s not strong enough but I flip anyway, turning onto my back and dragging her with me, so I get to look up and see her full, round breasts moving with every thrust, as she lifts up and down my length, taking me deep inside her.
She moves fast, running her hands over her own body, and I am totally transfixed by the sight of this, of her. She is stunning, fascinating, wanton, sexy. She is everything in that moment.
I dig my fingers into her hips, holding her down low on my shaft, and then I buck, taking control once more, driving into her until her cries are louder and hoarser and she’s falling apart again, and I’m so close to coming, but I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.
I hold on, I keep myself on edge, steadying myself with monumental discipline and effort, and then I push up to sitting so I can run my tongue over her delightful breasts once more, chasing circles around her nipples, teasing her flesh, sucking her deep into my mouth and teasing her until her hips are jerking frantically and I can feel how close she is.
But so am I and I don’t want it to end. Yet.
I hold her still, pressing a light kiss to her lips before rolling us once more, so I’m on top, staring down at her eyes, running my gaze over the mask and trying to imagine what she looks like beneath it.
I make do with tracing the outline of her mouth with my tongue and she whimpers beneath me. I run my tongue lower, over the divot in her chin then lower to her décolletage, and the valley between her breasts, and then I push my cock deeper inside her, thrilling in the power of this possession, in how well we fit together, in how maddeningly mind-blowing this is.
It has to be the anonymity and the sheer directness of this. While I never take a woman to bed who wants more than one night, there’s still a bit of dancing around to do. Dinner, flirtation, conversation. This, boiling down an encounter to the truth of sex, is rare.
And I like it. I could become addicted to the idea of walking into a private room and finding a gorgeous woman dressed in lingerie waiting for me to drive her wild.
Yeah, this is fucking near perfect.
She cries my name and it drags me back to the present, back to what we’re doing. The clock is ticking across the room and it matches my internal chronometer, the one that’s telling me it’s time to go home and face the music, to pick up the mantle my father wishes to pass on.
It’s time to stop enjoying nights like this, time to stop fucking around and settle down.
But for now, for this night, I have a beautiful woman in my arms, I’m buried deep inside her and I am going to enjoy the rush of power as I drown in pleasure. There is only this, right now.
I watch him from across the crowded party. The wig and mask have been disposed of. I’m myself again: Imogen Carmichael, founder of The Billionaires’ Club, founder of the Chance charity—strait-laced, professional, no-nonsense. I’m the woman everyone wants to talk to and I only have eyes for him.
He looks the same as always. Disastrously handsome, confident, cocky, hot, and, now that I’ve felt his body up close to mine, I can’t look at him without feeling a rush of desire, a slick of heat between my legs.
He’s talking to Minette Gray, the daughter of a Mexican mining magnate who’s launched a successful Hollywood career for herself. She’s stunning, with a mane of long, silky black hair and skin like crushed onyx, eyes that glisten and bright red lipstick. I look at them and for a second I’m transfixed by what a striking pair they make. In the background, beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lights of Sydney sparkle like something out of a movie. I shift my gaze to them, refusing to acknowledge the sharp stab of jealousy that hits me out of nowhere.
Nicholas Rothsmore is a Player with a capital ‘P’. Isn’t that why I chose him to be my very casual, very temporary lover?
I needed someone who’d be good in bed, discreet and wouldn’t particularly care about my ‘no questions asked’ demand for hot, anonymous sex.
Check, check, check.
Her laugh reaches me across the room and I jerk my eyes back to them on autopilot. He’s leaning closer, whispering in her ear.
Shit.
I spin away, pushing down the unwelcome sense of possessiveness that steals through me, focussing on business. That’s what I’m good at. It’s who I am.
My eyes skate across the room. There are Hollywood A-listers, Grammy-Award-winning singers and musicians, Tony-Award-winning stage actors, royalty, sultans, billionaires, media tycoons. Anyone who’s anyone is here, and a tingle of pride shimmies through me because this is all because of me—and all for Abbey.
I think of my best friend, as I often do, of the way she died, the pain she felt, and I square my shoulders. I might have sacrificed a personal life but it’s been worth it.
Nicholas Rothsmore was fun, but that’s over now.
I pull my phone from my clutch and load up The Billionaires’ Club app that runs the forums. Miss Anonymous has a profile with a picture of a stiletto—I have a predilection for heels. She’s served her purpose now. I’m done with Miss Anonymous, done with the future Lord Rothsmore.
I click into the brief bio and scroll to the bottom, where a red button invites me to ‘delete profile’.
I click and she’s gone. Miss Anonymous has had her fun and now it’s time to get on with my life.
If cities were animals, New York would be a gazelle. Fast, nimble, elegant, stunning. I stare down at this adopted city of mine, contemplating the first solo Saturday night I’ve had in…for ever.
It’s been a week since Sydney, and I’ve been flat out closing the Hewitson merger, but that’s done now. Usually, I mark my business triumphs with the kind of partying that would make my grandparents roll over in their graves.
Champagne, women, music.
I frown, surveying the empty penthouse. Only the kitchen lights are on, so it looks somehow more cavernous than normal.
I won.
This deal has been in the works for three years. Three years of meetings, negotiations, hard slog and now it’s with the lawyers and I can relax. And celebrate.
Out of nowhere, I close my eyes and remember what I was doing this time last week. I remember her pale body splayed against the dark sheets of the Intimate Rooms in the Sydney base of The Billionaires’ Club and my body is tighter than granite, aching, not just for sex but for her.
Miss Anonymous.
I was right that not knowing her name was part of the appeal, but now the not knowing is driving me crazy. Because I want to see her again.
I want to fuck her again.
A smile lifts my lips, because I don’t just want to fuck her, I want to have her every which way until she’s incoherent with pleasure.
In one month, I turn thirty and England beckons. Lord Rothsmore awaits. In one month, I’ll become the man my parents want me to be—or something more like him, anyway. But for the next four weeks I’m still a free agent, and I know just how I want to spend it.
Determination fires my step. I stride indoors, the temperature change marked. My cell phone is across the room. I lift it, loading up the app and selecting our private message conversation.
Except it’s no longer a conversation with an exchange of words. My comments remain but hers are gone. Italics proclaim These messages have been deleted.
I hadn’t expected that. Why?
Okay, that’s weird. But it doesn’t change how I feel and what I want.
‘Fancy round two, Miss Anonymous?’
I figure her American accent makes it likely she lives here in the States. I can get my helicopter to my jet and travel anywhere. The minute I think it, I realise how desperate I am to see her again.
Even though I’ve spent the last five years fucking my way around the world, I freely admit last weekend was the best sex I’ve ever had. There was something so illicit and hot about it.
Her mask, her hair, her body…
I groan into the night air, looking back at the screen.
Message undeliverable
What?
With a frown, I click out of our message chat and surf to her profile instead. It doesn’t come up when I type ‘Miss Anonymous’. Adrenalin shifts in my gut.
I go to the list of members using the app and scroll through it slowly, my eyes looking for the stiletto she used as a profile picture. Which makes me think of the sky-high shoes she wore as I ran my hands over her clit, feeling her pulsing beneath me as she exploded with pleasure, and I’m so close to coming at just that memory.
I have to find her.
But where the hell is she?
She can’t have left the club. It’s not like that. The entry process is gruelling and elaborate. No one signs up and leaves.
So?
Her profile might have been anonymous but it must have been created by a legitimate member of the club. Even the online avatars are vetted. So who the hell is she? And where did she go?
CHAPTER THREE (#u54e04f05-4aaf-5d30-9c2a-0fa81b274696)
‘IMOGEN? THERE’S A Mr Rothsmore here to see you.’
Oh, my God. In the midst of studying the floor plans for a new school Chance will be funding in a couple of years, I jump so hard I bang my knee against the edge of my desk. Pain radiates through me. I ignore it, scrambling for the receiver of my desk phone.
‘What did you say?’ My voice comes out completely different.
‘A Mr Nicholas Rothsmore,’ says my loyal assistant—a woman to whom I offered a job after we met in a shelter for battered women that Chance was involved in supporting; she speaks slowly, as if I might have misunderstood. ‘He has a membership enquiry.’
Oh, my God.
‘I’m in the middle of something,’ I demur, wincing, because The Billionaires’ Club is founded on three tenets: exclusivity, privacy and exceptional customer service. My door is always open to members. ‘I only have a few minutes.’
‘I’ll send him in.’ She disconnects the call and I stand up quickly, my mind spinning. I have about ten seconds to get my thoughts in order.
I’m wearing a cream suit made up of a pencil skirt and a fitted blazer, with a lemon-yellow silk camisole beneath. No bra and my traitorous nipples are already straining against the soft fabric in anticipation of the fact he’s about to be here in my office, my sanctuary. I look around quickly for anything that could give me away.
I’ve had a manicure since the ball—the nails that were bright pink are now a muted beige. I took great care that night to remove any identifying jewellery. My lips were painted bright red whereas now they bear just a hint of gloss, and my long hair tumbles in waves over one shoulder. I pull on it and then remember my eyes…that he remarked on.
Crapola.
I swing around behind my desk and grab my handbag, lifting my oversized Jackie O–style black sunglasses out and pushing them onto my face right as Emily opens the door.
‘Mr Rothsmore,’ she announces, a slightly bemused look crossing her face as she sees me in my disguise.
My voice! Oh, crap. He’s heard me talk. No, he’s heard me scream, over and over. Argh!
‘Thank you, Emily.’ I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, just outside St Louis, so the southern drawl isn’t much of a stretch.
Her bemusement increases. ‘Would you like anything to drink?’ she prompts.
