Page 48 of Spooked

She’d spent five years in college. Had she locked herself in a dorm room the whole time? Brax had spent his college years sampling every concoction imaginable. Mint choc chip, butter pecan, and passion fruit sorbet all in one bowl? You bet. And when he’d finished with the ice cream, he’d moved on to the drinks menu. Sex on the Beach, Porn Star Martini, Slippery Nipple, Screaming Orgasm. But he’d never tried a virgin cocktail before.

A situation he very much wanted to rectify.

He might even have told her that if she hadn’t spoken first.

“What’s your favourite flavour?” she asked.

Choices, choices, so many choices. Smooth caramel, perhaps? He loved to watch a woman writhe languidly underneath him, filthy words dripping from her lips. Or wild berries? Outdoor sex had always been enjoyable. The moon, the stars, the added risk that they could be caught. Of course, that had all ended on his honeymoon with Carissa. While on safari in Kenya, he’d persuaded her to climb up onto the roof of the minibus for a little nighttime entertainment, and it turned out that their audience was a lion. They’d been stuck up there for hours. Brax lay back to enjoy the view, but Carissa had spent the night complaining. That she was cold, that she was bored, that his cum was running down her leg. After that, she’d become a bedroom-only woman.

Would Meera be the adventurous type?

Would she take risks?

Right now, it was a risk for Brax just to have a private conversation with a woman.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked that. What was I thinking?”

She covered her face with a hand, but Brax gently lifted it away. And no, he didn’t let go as quickly as he should have.

“What’s my favourite? I’m a gentleman. My partner gets to choose.”

CHAPTER19

THE ASSISTANT

Although Meera was a year younger than me, and I used to wear my hair much longer, we looked so similar that people at college had called us twins. Evenwehad gotten suspicious, but a DNA test revealed the truth. We weren’t related, not even distantly; we were just doppelgangers. Think I’m joking? One day when I wore my hair in a bun, Meera’s ex-boyfriend had snuck up and kissed me full on the mouth before he realised his mistake. The kiss was followed by red faces, a thousand apologies, and a promise never to speak of the incident again. And we didn’t. Meera and I borrowed each other’s clothes, laughed off the “seeing double” comments, and became the best of friends.

Plus there was the cross-race effect. I’d studied it briefly during psych classes. It had been scientifically proven that people recognised faces within their own racial group more easily. People of one ethnicity found it harder to notice subtle variations in skin tone, in lip size, in brow strength when it came to those with a different heritage, as well as being slower to recognise and interpret emotions. The phenomenon was also linked to implicit racial bias.

And I intended to use it to my advantage.

When we got to the airport, I made sure I picked a security line staffed by white people, and as predicted, they glanced at me, glanced at Meera’s US driver’s licence, made me remove half of my clothing and poked suspiciously through my carry-on, then waved me past.

To where Mr. Vale was waiting.

He was a gentleman, he said.

He was a liar.

My new boss was a wolf in a French-blue made-to-measure suit.

And I was Little Red Riding Hood, just waiting to be eaten.

But at least it would be a pleasurable death.

His hand touched mine as he took my bag without asking, and I felt the same rush of warmth I’d experienced in the car. He, of course, was totally unaffected. In return, he passed me his black Amex card.

“You have forty minutes to shop. I need to make some calls.”

“What do you want me to purchase?”

“You’re not shopping for me, Meera. You’re shopping for yourself.”

He strode off before I could ask for clarification on what exactly he expected me to buy. Toiletries? A snack? He’d told me not to worry about packing, but I’d left my “running away” bag in my trunk last night, so I had most of what I needed. But I could do with an extra bottle of shampoo, and we’d both skipped breakfast. I found a drugstore, then picked up bottled water and pastries in case we got delayed at the gate. Still fifteen minutes left, and I had no idea where Mr. Vale had gone, so I settled in to window-shop the row of boutiques. Once, I’d have been inside, buying those sparkly Louboutins or the gorgeous red Valentino purse with the gold studs, but now I was reduced to browsing. And in truth, I preferred it this way. All the designer accessories in the world couldn’t have made me happy in Massachusetts. In LA, I was still constantly on edge, waiting for my new life to fall apart, but at least I wasn’t so miserable anymore.

“You have five minutes left.”

I jumped out of my skin.

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