The Counterpart (Gold Hill #2)

Prologue

Estella Grant trailed one hand languidly along the table, her eyes fixed on the most dangerous of the three men in the room.

She knew what they all saw as she prowled toward them.

Sex spilled in the sway of her hips, the parting of her bright red lips, the indiscriminate hunger in her gaze.

All three unconsciously straightened their spines as she closed in on the men.

One, her husband; the second, her lover; the third, a dead man.

“Hello, darling.” She kept her eyes on her husband, voice dripping with desire.

It was so easy when you knew how: a little bit breathless, a little bit lower, just a hint of what was almost a moan.

She wet her lips with her tongue, felt everyone’s eyes on her like a caress.

She didn’t even glance at her lover; that would be suicide.

“Hey babe, what you got for me?” Her husband slid his hand around her waist and tugged her in hard.

Possessive. Her pelvis, firm against his thigh.

She caught, out of the corner of her eye, her lover’s feet shifting.

She barely faltered — you’d only see the flinch if you were paying careful attention — and she didn’t take her eyes off her spouse for a heartbeat.

She slipped her hand into her handbag and pulled out her phone.

“Just this,” she said. She held the phone up and pressed a button.

A man’s voice spilled out, all bravado and beer-soaked.

I can take you right to him. He’ll never see it coming.

Estella took advantage of the bombshell to sneak one ferociously fast glance at her lover, willing him to be the man she so badly wanted him to be.

Everything happened fast. Adam Grant, her brother-in-law, lunged forward in a desperate bid for the door.

He’d barely made it three steps before the shots rang out, two, in quick succession.

Estella flinched; she couldn’t help it. She was a human being, despite all the news reports.

Adam flung himself forward, crashing violently to the floor, hands up to protect his head.

Another shot rang out and he twitched before going still, eyes open, his face turned away as though to save himself from the sight of his own brother murdering him.

“Oh jesus,” said her lover — Simon Hartmann — her husband’s lawyer. “I can’t be here, I can’t— Oh fuck!”

“You always come through for me, baby,” said her husband, Mike Grant, head of the family business. He jerked her chin up and kissed her, hard. No tongue of course.

She pulled back.

“You know I do.” She one-upped him, licking his neck, drunk with bloodlust and power, while Adam bled out on the floor before them.

“End scene,” said the voice. Eloise stepped out from Estella’s skin, the dirty warehouse disappearing from behind her eyes, nothing but a bland hotel conference room and the stench of desperation.

The casting team were all leaning back in their seats, looking thoughtful.

Eloise couldn’t breathe. The casting director didn’t even spare them a glance.

Instead he stepped toward her and offered her his hand.

“Congratulations,” he said as he grasped her sweating palm. “You’ve got the part.”