Page 70 of Such a Good Girl

KAYLEE

As if watching the sun setting over New York City from the inside of West’s private plane wasn’t luxurious enough, a limo picked us up at the airport as soon as we landed. It carried us into Manhattan and straight into an underground parking garage.

West ushered us into a private elevator that took us to the seventy-third floor of one of the city’s tallest skyscrapers. The doors opened up right into his penthouse.

I could hardly believe my eyes. Everything was glass and chrome, the only color found on the expensive abstract art that lined the walls.

“Is that a Basquiat?” I asked, incredulously. I’d taken an art class in college and was pretty sure I’d seen this before.

“Yeah, I bought it from Cardi B. She didn’t want to let it go, so I had to bribe her a little.”

“Cardi B has to have more money than God. What could you possibly use to bribe her with?”

He blushed and shook his head, winking. “Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”

“Damn,” I laughed, my imagination running wild. When I concluded that it could have easily been sexual favors, I pushed it to the back of my head. I wasn’t so naive to think that West would only have sex with me now, but I didn’t need to be imagining him having sex with anyone else. Especially not with Madonna, for fuck’s sake.

I turned to the rest of the penthouse, trying to look everywhere at once, but the view was the star of the show. Beyond the sunken living room, an entire glass wall of doors opened up to a large terrace that looked out over the city. The Empire State Building towered in the distance, and the early evening lights of the city sparkled below us. I walked out onto it, finding more color in the flowers and plants that filled the space.

“This place is stunning,” I said to West, as he followed me out.

“Yeah, I love it, I don’t get to visit enough,” he said, snaking his arms around my waist.

“It just sits empty while you’re in Los Angeles?”

“Everleigh uses it, sometimes.” His voice was low in my ear as we gazed out at the city together. “I can’t wait to show you the city, Kaylee. I was so happy when you called to tell me you’d join me.”

“Thank you, West,” I said, turning around towards him. He kissed me and I almost swooned — standing on a penthouse terrace in Manhattan surrounded by flowers and kissing a movie star like it was the most natural thing in the world was not something I ever expected I’d do.

I had debated whether I should come here at all. His invitation had surprised me completely. Seeing the victims’ faces on the storyboard in his cabinet had thrown me off. They were a stark contrast to the visions of them I had in my head — strangled and bloody, with bruised necks and bulging eyes, the paint on their faces smeared hideously with streaks of blood.

Seeing their glamorous headshots had left me reeling. It was a harsh reminder of what I was doing here in the first place. Those women were once vibrantly alive, and I was determined to find out who’d killed them.

But that storyboard, and the underground temple, had also thrown doubt on my certainty that the club wasn’t involved in their murders. I just didn’t know now. I desperately didn’t want to believe it.

Just because he had those photos and knew them, didn’t mean West had killed them. But also, just because he had said he was with the other girls at the photoshoot doesn’t mean he didn’t do it, either.

Hoskins had been on my ass even more than usual lately, blowing up my phone when I wouldn’t give him more information. We’d video chatted yesterday, and he’d laid into me, threatening to come right into the club and expose me to everyone if I didn’t come up with something soon.

I knew he’d do it, too. He was that much of a prick.

My part of the investigation was only one piece. I knew Hoskins and the others were following additional leads. If I didn’t step up soon, I’d be out. The thought of not being near West is what led me to say yes to this trip.

I told Hoskins I was going away to try to get closer to West, and for him to get off my ass, because it would only be for a few days. I’d have something soon. He didn’t take too kindly to that, and I knew the next time I talked to him would not be pleasant. Not that it ever was, of course. He was the most unpleasant person in my life. A necessary evil, unfortunately.

In the meantime, I was in New York with West, of all people. I planned on enjoying every single minute of it — in between finding the right timing to pry more information from him. I was convinced I could multi-task and balance work with play, even if it was hopelessly tangled together.

“Let’s go to bed,” West said in my ear. “It’s late. I have an early meeting tomorrow at six. But after that, I’m yours all day.”

“You’re mine?” I asked, raising a brow. My heart skipped a beat at his words. I knew what he meant, of course, and it was hardly that he was ‘mine’, but it sure sounded nice.

He kissed my forehead and inhaled deeply. “Kaylee, to be quite honest with you, that doesn’t sound bad at all.”

“I was teasing,” I insisted, mortified that he took my joke seriously.

“I know you were,” he said, his eyes looking right through me. “But I wasn’t.”

I bit my lip, staring up at him in awe. How could this man like me so much? He could have any woman in the world, and while I knew I wasn’t a bad catch, he was still a fucking movie star.

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