Page 60 of Wicked Temptation

Samson couldn’t deny it. Nick was right, but fuck, he wouldn’t admit it, not until he gave Lisbeth a chance to explain. He was dying to hear how she’d spin this story.

“Or did you forget how far off the deep end you dropped after you kicked her to the curb?” Nick shook his head. “We gotta have our heads on straight now more than ever.”

“I got it all under control,” Samson spat out the words fast and harshly, but the more he thought about it, the less innocent Lisbeth appeared. Maybe she was even in on the drug bust, tipping off her father-in-law that neither he nor Nick would be at the club. They’d both learned long ago not to believe in coincidences, and he couldn’t deny that after the meetings with Monroe and Lisbeth, everything fell to shit.

In a way, it all made sense. What was that saying about vengeful women? Maybe using her influential in-laws was Lisbeth’s way of giving him a final “fuck you.” The more he thought about it, the more pissed off he became because there was no fuckin’ way she couldn’t know what was going on with Monroe or her husband-to-be.

20

Lisbeth startled awake as a loud pounding infiltrated her restless sleep. She lay in bed, perfectly still, listening to the silence while her heart thumped wildly in her chest. A random car passed outside, a plane overhead on its way to McCarran Airport. She tapped her phone, and the time lit up four a.m., almost dawn, although her room remained in complete darkness thanks to blackout curtains.

After plumping her pillow, she forced herself to relax into the sheets. She’d just convinced herself the noise was a product of her relentless dreams when more banging erupted, followed by the jiggling of a doorknob. Someone was clearly at her front door, but who and why at this time?

She threw her legs over the bed, grabbed her phone off the bedside table, pulled on a silk robe she kept at the end of her bed, and padded through the living room, stopping at the front door.

She punched 9-1-1 into her phone just in case, then yelled, “Who’s there?”

“Lisbeth? It’s me.” The familiar rasp filtered through the metal door.

“Samson?”

“Yeah, open up.”

A million thoughts flew through her mind and stopped at—what would he be doing here at four in the morning?

She cracked open the door; he pushed his way in and then looked her over. Samson’s eyes narrowed, and his back was rigid with tension. This was not a friendly visit.

“We need to talk.” He dropped his large frame onto her couch, cradled his head in his hands, then scrubbed at his face. When he looked up, Lisbeth noticed the exhaustion rimming his eyes.

“You do realize it’s four o’clock in the morning.” Honestly, she thought he still would’ve been enjoying the favors of his stripper friend from Ecstasy.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Maybe not to you, but getting woken up from a dead sleep to someone banging on my door isn’t my idea of a great start to the day.”

Samson’s lips twitched, his expression hardened, then he pointed to the couch. “Sit,” he barked the word like an order.

She cinched her robe tighter around her waist and sat down, putting a good three feet between them. “What’s going on, and why are you here?”

“I think those are the questions I should be asking you?” The edgy, growling anger in his voice made her lean back.

“I live here. You woke me up, remember.”

Samson sprang off the couch, then spun around, his bulk and overall size dwarfing her, and for the first time, she feared him. “I mean, here in Vegas, showing up at Wicked, making sure I saw you, then acting like you wanted our business. It was all a fuckin’ con job—admit it.”

Lisbeth blinked once and then twice, trying to make sense of his words. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you conning me, acting all innocent when you were really setting Nick and me up all along.”

Lisbeth stood and put her palms out in front of her. “I think you should leave now.”

“Ahh, no, I’m not goin’ anywhere till you come clean and tell me about your little scheme.”

Lisbeth swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, which contained anger, frustration, and a bit of fear. He thought she did something to him when, in fact, the exact opposite was true.

“My scheme? I think you’re the one playing games. Just like always.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

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