Page 34 of Borden 3

I sipped my champagne, learning to laugh at the jokes some of the ladies made. No matter how well I eased into conversation, I always felt like a fish out of water. I was Emma. Full stop. They had names like Aquafina and Kimberly but pronounced Kimberlay. Sometimes they talked about shit I wanted to roll my eyes about. Like now.

“I warned Evonica not to hire such a young nanny. She caught Gregoray in the pool house with her,” Furella mused, her voice low, like she were a spy passing along top secret information. “He alleges nothing happened, but Evonica said the help had crocodile eyes.”

“Good help is hard to find,” Julianada responded back, sipping her drink with her pinky in the air. “I would do it myself but, well, you know how difficult it is to be a woman and running my own business in this economy.”

I was pretty sure she sold mineral water that she claimed was from a secret waterfall in the Amazon.

“What about you, Emma?” Furella asked.

I smiled pleasantly while my soul died. “Hmm?”

“Don’t you have a nightclub you run all on your own?”

I shook my head. “I’m just the bookkeeper.” When they just stared at me, I added with a bigger smile, “I’m really good at it.”

“Charming,” Furella said, wrinkling her nose.

The old Emma would have asked her if she was named after a fur coat. Instead, I said, “It is.”

They smiled back and then continued to rip apart Evonica’s nanny.

I felt his presence behind me, closing in on me. His scent hit me first, and I paused, my smiling turning genuine as his possessive hand wrapped around my waist. He dropped his head. I felt his lips press against my bare shoulder. A gentle kiss. A promise of what was to come later.

“You look so beautiful, it hurts,” he whispered in my ear. His voice sent shivers down my spine. “I can’t wait to taste you, alleycat. I’m going to drown in that pussy tonight.”

I craned my head up to meet his blue gaze. “Now, now, Borden, lower your voice before we hear the pearl clutchers gasping.”

His lips spread into a dangerous smile. “When have I ever minded?”

Never.

“Help,” I whispered now. “I don’t think I can take anymore of this conversation.”

“You don’t want to know what shade of lipgloss will charm an ivory trader?”

“Tempting, but no.”

His lips flinched as he attempted to bury his amusement. He looked over at the women. “Excuse me, ladies, but I’m going to borrow my wife now.”

We left them, and my shoulders sagged in relief. I whispered, “Thanks. How much longer do we have to be here for?”

Borden began to lead me up the stairs. “Not long, Doll. I have one more conversation I need to make with Thatcher.”

Why was that name familiar? Probably another folder Borden had made me fetch for him before a brutal fuck. I opened my mouth to question him—

“The view from your high tower must be nice, Mrs Borden,” a voice cut through the air behind us. “To look down at us while you’re all the way up there, I never thought I’d see the day.”

A strange feeling came over me. The voice was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Borden paused too, turning around first. I followed, my heart doing strange things as I looked down the few steps at a large figure.

He was tall, broad, with blond shaggy hair and piercing green eyes. There was a large jagged scar running down his face in a diagonal line, starting from under his right eye and ending below the left side of his lips.

Our eyes met.

My pulse pounded.

His lips turned up.

I nearly fainted.

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