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Harlow had been Addison’s assigned big sister in the sorority house when Addison first pledged, and she still seemed to feel the need to take care of her.
As Harlow’s best friend, Nora was filling in that overprotective gap since Harlow had gone off to Europe. It was hard for Addison to feel close to people. It always had been, with her father’s presence in her life looming so large, his expectations so daunting she had a tendency to hold people at a distance.
Harlow was the person she’d been closest to at school, and when she’d graduated two years earlier, Addison had felt alone again. Even more so since she left the country.
It had only been six months since Harlow left, and it felt like a lifetime since they’d all stood around, toasting her success. Now she doubted Harlow was feeling so triumphant. She had to wonder if her friend felt it was all tainted since the revelation about Jason. Harlow had always been involved in human rights volunteer groups at school, and over the last year, her focus had been turned to human trafficking, and how she could use her law degree to combat it. All a bit too close to Jason’s poison of choice.
That made her want to avoid Nora and Harlow even more. She was embarrassed. That she was connected to Jason. That she cared about Jason. That part of her grieved him.
But, as so few people seemed to care, unless they shared the same last name she did, she supposed she should try and placate Nora with an “I’m fine” text.
It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to hide. For the next decade. Maybe right here in Logan’s hotel. Possibly forever. So she could find a way to be Addison Treffen again. Rather than Addison Treffen, the daughter of the man who victimized countless women, and who was shot in front of her by a sniper. And the girl who then huddled in the bathroom until the police came, and even then had to be essentially forced out of the corner she’d wedged herself into.
Maybe if she hid under the covers long enough, she would find out she’d been sleeping the whole time. That it was all just a dream. Stranger things had happened, surely.
Maybe she would wake up and find out that her father wasn’t evil. Distant, yes. But not a pimp. Not dead.
She stopped, reaching up to touch one of the ornate gold light fixtures, the metal burning the tip of her finger. She hissed and pulled her hand back. The heat seeping into her fingertips didn’t lie. She was awake.
This was reality.
Her head started to thud, the floor feeling unsteady against her feet.
She looked back at her escort, who was standing a few paces behind her, his face shrouded in shadow, light casting a spray of brightness over his broad chest and shoulders, his neat black tie. Then he stepped forward, the light bursting over his face, sharp cheekbones, blue eyes and his lips…
They were still wicked. As if they belonged to a playboy he’d been. But his eyes…they were cold. The chill reaching in and making her shiver deep inside.
She didn’t know what to do with that. She wouldn’t know what to do with that on a normal day, and today was not a normal day.
“So…I don’t know where I’m going.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. A smile attempt. She’d seen him do it a couple of times now, and each instance rang false. “End of the hall.”
“Okay, thank you.” She turned away from him and continued walking, stopping at the ornate black door at the very end of the corridor.
“You can program the door with your own code,” he said. “It can be whatever you like. You can do it all from your phone. Now, I can override it, but I probably won’t,” he added, reaching past her and entering in number on the keypad quickly.
“You probably won’t?”
“Never say never.” The light on the door handle turned green, and then he stood back, as if waiting for her move.
“You really could say never to invading my privacy,” she said.
“With the way my life has gone so far, I never discount anything. Now go in. Or go home.”
“Is this my out?” she asked, her throat dry.
His lips curved upward again, and this time, there was no mistaking—at all—that this wasn’t a smile in the way other people meant them. This was predatory. Deadly. Once again, she had the strange feeling she’d gone from the frying pan into the fire.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.
“No,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady.
He moved away from her then, his gaze steady on hers. “Interesting.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, keeping her tone steady. “Interesting.”
“Just what it means. Interesting.”
“Well, then.”
She reached past him and pushed the door open. The room was…well, as expected, she supposed, but unexpected in a way that she never could have anticipated either. A giant four-poster bed with black, wooden columns that nearly touched the ceiling took up most of the space in the room.
There was a desk in the corner, fashioned like an ornate writing desk, but obviously equipped for modern conveniences. In the opposite corner was a large wingback chair and a little table. Probably intended to be eaten at. Or not. Perhaps the person this room was designed to accommodate was supposed to eat out with friends or family.
But not her. Because her family had their own issues, her friends—such as they were—were gone. And if she dined out, it would just be Addison and the paparazzi.
“I only meant I will be interested to see if that changes,” he said, still in the doorway. He hadn’t crossed the threshold. “I have plenty of time to frighten you.”
The air in her lungs contracted, making it difficult to breathe.
He almost sounded as though he wanted to scare her. And the really strange thing was…not even that scared her. She was…numb. Numb except for that strange bit of something she felt when she looked at him.
“Could I have a few moments?” she asked. She needed time alone. Needed some time to try and orient herself to her surroundings. To her life.
“If you need to. But I expect to see you again in a couple of hours.”
“As you wish,” she said, unsurprised when the movie reference failed to make him smile.
He turned away from her, his broad back filling the door frame, before he closed the door behind him without giving her another glance.
She walked over to her bag, like a robot completing motions it had been programmed to do. She opened it and took out her computer, going to the wingback chair and setting the laptop on the small table, situating herself so that she was in a rather uncomfortable, rigid position.
She typed in her password and opened her email, waiting for the client to wake up and connect to her inbox. No new messages. Well, that sounded about right.
She thought back to all the people she’d known over the years. To cocktail parties and luncheons and teas. She did well in those venues. She always knew what to say, knew how to keep inoffensive conversation flowing.
But outside of those settings? She didn’t know those people. They didn’t know her. Were they in her position, a liability to the ease of a dinner party, she doubted she would be in touch either.
Because dealing with serious issues required a depth that none of her relationships seemed to have. She was aware of a lot of people, and a lot people were aware of her. She wasn’t certain if anyone knew her. If she really knew anyone.
Especially after discovering her father had a secret life…she wasn’t sure she knew anyone at all.
The closest thing to friends she still had were Nora and Harlow. And that meant there could be no more contact avoidance.
She took her phone out of her pocket, typing in a quick text.
Things are OK. Austin got me an internship with Black Properties, so I’ll be busy. Don’t worry.
She also felt as if her insides were imploding, but she didn’t want to tell anyone that. Because there was no place for that. It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t what people wanted to hear.
If there was one thing she’d been trained in, it was the fine art of talking about what people wanted to talk about.
Pain was not one of those things.
A message pinged back a couple of seconds later.
Great news! Hey, have you heard from Harlow at all lately? She’s not answering texts.
No. But I haven’t tried in a while.
K. If you hear from her let me know?
Sure.
Addison put her phone down and frowned before pulling up a new email message. She typed in Harlow’s name.
Hey, sorry to bug you. I know you’ve been working hard. And I really hope things haven’t been shaken up too much, given…recent events. But Nora and I are getting concerned, so please touch base?
—A
She closed her computer and let the silence in the room settle over her. It felt thick. Oppressive. She was used to a large house full of staff and movement. A sorority house full of talking and laughter.
For a hotel, the Black Book was strangely quiet. At least on this floor.
She felt like throwing herself on the bed and crying. Wailing. Filling the silence. But some voice, her mother’s, her father’s maybe, whispered in her ear and said ladies in Chanel skirts didn’t thrown themselves around.
Not that she felt much like a lady. She felt like a wraith. And she imagined they were genderless. Or, at the very least, that they didn’t have to care about what anyone thought about the way they lay down.
Still, she sat in the chair, her posture so rigid her neck ached. Her eyes ached too.
She was arid. Her eyes were dry. Her brain was dry. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t feel. Not anything other than this stale, crackling burning that pervaded her entire body and left her feel like that patchwork dirt you saw in desert climates.
She just felt fuzzy and disconnected.
She suddenly noticed a little white card, folded like a tent on the edge of the table. She reached out and picked it up, reading the embossed lettering on the front.
Welcome to Black Book. Download the Black Book app to create your unique pass code.
She pulled up the app store on her phone and searched for Black Book, finding the app with an insignia matching the little white card and loading it.
Then she opened it. It pulled up a white screen with black script and four blank boxes that were, she imagined, for numbers.
She entered in the digits for her mother’s birthday, and it accepted them. Then she closed the app and set her phone on the table, trying to decide if she should leave it on. She decided to switch it off. To give herself some time to be alone. To be inaccessible. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. It wasn’t good hostess behavior, that was for sure.
But she wasn’t hosting anything. And no one was inviting her.
And Jason was dead. So why not break a few of his rules? At least one.
She just needed a couple of hours. And she then had to at least go pretend she was living. For Austin. For her mother.
She stood from the chair and walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge, fingers curled around the edge of the mattress.
Maybe if she faked it long enough, she would start to feel as if it was for her.
Chapter Three
Her hotel phone ringing woke her up from her nap, which had been about as effective as knocking herself out with blunt trauma. Her head hurt, and she was still tired.
She reached across her pillow and picked up the receiver, drawing it up to her ear.
“Addison?”
She grimaced internally and realized that was probably not the response you wanted to have when you heard your boyfriend’s voice on the other end of the line.
But then, something had changed since she last spoke with him. Or a lot of somethings. And he’d just left her to deal on her own. And even weirder than that, she hadn’t been upset at him, because she’d never expected him to stand with her. She’d expected to stand on her own. To stand strong. The way her father had taught her.
“Eddie,” she said, “how’s Bermuda?”
“I’m back at Columbia. Why was your phone off? Do you know how hard I had to work to track you down?” An apology hovered on the tip of her tongue, and she held it back. Which was the second good socialite rule she’d broken in only a few hours.
But there was no one here to see.
She took a breath. “Oh, well, that’s…I’m not. I moved out of the sorority house.”
“I heard. I wasn’t overly pleased with how you were treated.”
She couldn’t tell by the completely unaffected monotone of his voice. But didn’t say so. “I’m fine. Austin made arrangements for me.”
She was not fine. But she couldn’t say that. Not even to the man she’d been dating for nearly two years. The man whose lips had touched hers, and whose hands had been….well, frankly, on parts of her body no other man had touched. He hadn’t taken her to bed, but they’d explored certain…things. All over her clothes, of course. All that considered, she would have thought they’d reached a certain level of intimacy.
His actions right now seemed to indicate she was wrong about that.
“Well, I’m pleased to hear that,” he said, his voice stilted.
They sounded like strangers talking to each other. Or an old married couple who’d reached a certain level of indifference. And since they were neither, it was a bit of a disturbing revelation.
“Yes,” she said.
Why was this hard? What was she supposed to say?
“Listen, Addison.” Oh well, he appeared to have something to say. “I know the timing is poor. For both my vacation and for this, but it can’t be helped.”
She knew what was coming then. Before he even said the rest. But she didn’t interrupt; she just let him keep talking.
“I don’t think this is working between us.”
“Right,” she said, unable to say much else, not because she was hurt—but because there was no diplomatic response.
